By Fire & Sword Demo game 27/5

David who is starting out with a Swedish army for By Fire & Sword asked if I would demo the rules for him. So I brought my Polish-Lithuanian force and then split it roughly in half, leaving out the Winged Hussars since I had in mind doing a small clash of patrols.

The idea behind this battle would be to have it take place during the Swedish invasion of Poland during the "Deluge" 1656–1658 when Sweden's king Charles X marched Swedish armies up and down the country, being so successfull that many of the nobility switched sides and joined the Swedes for a period.

So in this game we had a small patrol of "loyalist" troops (1 Pancerni, 2 cossack style cavalry and 1 dragoon company) coming across a camp of defected troops.

The traitors were made up of 2 companies of Polish-Hungarian infantry and a Falcon 3pdr artillery piece. The traitors had sent out a patrol of their own which were due to arrive at any moment. The traitor patrol was made up of 2 companies of Volunteer cavalry and 1 company of dragoons.

We also played with open/visible orders as this was a tutorial battle of the rules and tactics.

The loyalists were really out of luck, just as they had moved into the center of the table the enemy patrol returned at the end of turn 1. Arriving at one flank.

The loyalist Pancerni cavalry started their flanking around the rocks to catch the entrenched Polish-Hungarian infantry in the flank, while the loyalist Dragoons moved forward to dismount and engage the enemy in the camp on foot. Enemy artillery fired grapeshot slaying loyalist dragoons, and roundshot into the loyalist cossack style cavalry. This was followed by a hail of musket fire from the Polish-Hungarian troops which inflicted more casualties towards the loyalist dragoons.

Meanwhile the loyalist cossack style cavalry made a countercharge and clashed with the Volunteer cavalry, taking casualties from traitor dragoons firing at them from the side. Both cavalry units clashed and the loyalist forces took too many casualties and started withdrawing, the traitor cavalry at their heels. The whole area was degenerating into chaos as grapeshot forced the second loyalist cossack style cavalry company to break away, while both the loyalist Dragoons and traitor Polish-Hungarian infantry both broke from small arms fire.

The loyalist cavalry scattered and ran away, leaving only the Pancerni cavalry intact, it kept moving but the remaining loyalist Dragoons and the patrol commander were encircled and captured, which made the Pancerni cavalry break and leave the battle.

David really liked the rules, and I know from experience that you sometimes have to get to try out a set of rules to really ignite your painting motivation.