An unexpected return to By Fire & Sword (2nd edition) (2024-09-21)

[Anatoli]

I found that in the first version the rules were very heavily in favor of the polish to the point were it became quite off putting. It was extremely har to win over a polish army with any other army. Have they fixed some of this in the second edition?

I read that fairly often, which makes me wonder a bit because I primarily played Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth in 1st ed and got my ass handed to me more often than not 
What forces did you play and or meet?

There have certainly been changes to how the game plays now, you no longer have a dozen units (some as small as 2 bases of cavalry). Instead you have 3-5 blocks on the Skirmish level and 3-7 units on the Task Force level of the game. I think that change and how army lists are now more balanced rather than historically accurate based on 17th century OoB.

I also think that the game has changed up some of the recon effects and scenario effects that come into play when you have two uneven armies clashing. In 1st edition you could basically win by having a bare bones force that received A TON of game effects that basically made your opponents life a living hell. Combined with that pretty much universally hated "river crossing scenario" (that is no longer in the game) there were a lot of circumstances that made the balancing of the game a bit off.

My personal opinion is that the Swedes were, and still are, a hard hitting force that can pick apart many opponents with their disciplined reiter units. I have not played enough games to give you a 100% accurate review on the game balancing, but I can see that the recon and scenario effects make much less impact now. The match-ups I have played so far have been Sweden-Denmark, Sweden- PLC  and PLC-Cossacks. Will try to get some games with Brandenburg vs Sweden this week.

The second edition is definitely more "gamey" in its approach to rules and gameplay than 1st edition and a lot of the national and unit based special rules have been rewritten and are imo less impactful.


PS.
The tournament in Wilanow Warsaw Poland saw the same player win multiple tournaments several years in a row with different and on paper "weak" lists, none of them PLC. He specialized on fielding tiny forces and using the terrain, recon and scenario effects in his favor. I don't think he would be able to pull off the same things here in 2ned edition due to how units and force compositions have changed radically.

[Anatoli]

Spent the week painting up the last Pike & Shot unit and a command base, painting it up specifically for the Danish army. These are some very old models from way back when (10 years). Since then sculpts have improved and become a bit "chunkier" which helps avoid brittle parts such as the musket forks that are very prone to snapping, or that just didn't cast well. This was one of the units I recently got from a friend, but this one had only been primed in white and needed painting up from scratch.

Still, at an arms length these look good when formed up in a compact unit. Next up will be a unit of Danish musketeers using some actual Danish musketeer models that I purchased some 4-5 years ago and that have not been touched until now.

I also went a bit crazy and ordered some additional units for my collection which will be very interesting to check out once they arrive. Among other things there will be more Cossacks and some  Croatian cavalry that will be used as both Polish-Lithuanian Wallachian cavalry as well as straight up Croat Cavalry for the Holy Roman Empire. It will be very interesting to see the new Cossack sculpts, and also the plastic horses that have become standard in all new unit sets (cleaning the old metal horses was always a demoralizing chore...).

[Anatoli]

Some Danish musketeers finished this afternoon. It's nice to finally get some paint on miniatures that I've had in my drawers for roughly 5 years. Painted with green uniform jackets to represent the Fyn regiment.

[Codsticker]

Those look lovely.

[Friends of General Haig]

Fabulous looking units, Anatoli 

[Dr. Zombie]

Is the second edition rulebook only for kickstarter backers? I cannot seem to find it for sale anywhere.

[Anatoli]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

@ Dr Zombie, no the full range of the 2nd edition will be available from Wargamer.pl and other retailers as soon as the fullfillment of the Kickstarter is done. I managed to get a few things as a "late pledge" when they re-opened their pledge manager for a couple of days so people could change adress etc.
Hopefully you will be able to purchase minis, books, tokens and whatever else from the new range in a near future and most definitely before the end of the year.

...

As I wrote earlier, I have a bunch of models in my collection, some were painted a very long time ago and the paintjobs on some have not aged well (painted in a dark dull color palette). So I am reworking some of those models and units, mostly adding another one or two layers of paint to make them pop. Among the recently touched up units are some old Khurasan miniatures Polish artillery and Polish-Hungarian infantry. These two unit types were not available from the start as the BF&S 1st edition range was expanding so I had to get some alternate models. I like the chunky style of Khurasan for the infantry, they paint up easily. Though Khurasan is limited to some 30 minitatures out of 600+ in my collection as all the BF&S stuff was already sold in ready to go packaged units with bases, banners etc.
 

[Anatoli]

I also managed to purchase some additional units of Cossack infantry for my Cossack army while the late-pledge was open for a couple of day. I also purchased some minor additions such as Croat cavalry (which will be used both as Croat and Wallachian cavalry), Danish Snaphanar, and Gdansk sharpshooters and a Cossack swivel gun.

It was very interesting to see the new plastic horses which became a thing about a year or two ago as Wargamer was slowly swapping out their metal horses. To be honest the metal horses while nice were a f-ing pain to clean from mould lines more often than not. I mostly like the new look of the plastic horses, it will be very interesting to see how they look painted up and compared to painted metal horses. They horse bodies seem to be slightly thicker.

I was also surprised that the spears that used to be brass (and sharp as fck!) have been swapped for plastic versions that seem to be slightly bendy to the touch, no idea if they snap if pushed to hard (time will tell).

I also have to comment on the new unit boxes (no artwork for the Kickstarter version, retail version will have artwork sleeves on the boxes). You get unit cards to play the unit inside the box in the size configurations that are possible, you also get movement trays in the size configurations that are possible which is super nice. As previously you get plastic bases for the models, spears and flags where applicable. Wargamer has been about the "complete packaged unit" since 1st edition, and with the inclusion of cards and movement trays in the 2nd edition it is very consumer friendly of them to provide everything you need in one box. Especially if you are a new player.

I made a full collection of home made unit cards, but seeing the retail version that come with the units I will reconsider actually shelling out money to get full sets for the nations that I play. Having all the special rules on the reverse side for each particular unit that you are fielding is so damn nice and saves browsing the rulebook for every detail.

[79thPA]

What a great looking collection of figures.