Herman von Gantzkopf, reiter commander

This is one of the two historical commanders that are part of the Lithuanian Winged hussar skirmish list for By Fire & Sword. Figured I would start with Gantzkopf and follow that up with some reiter bases since I already have all the Winged Hussars and everything else for that list painted up (except for the commanding officer Wincenty Gosiewski).

You would think that after having painted 200+ cavalry miniatures you would go crazy painting even more cavalry - but painting a new type of cavalry such as the reiters is a nice enough break and change of pace. I figure the rest of the reiters will have elements of red and yellow on their clothing just like the command base.

The flag itself is hand painted and based upon a historical Lithuanian reiter flag which was lost to the Russians during the battle for Vilnius in 1655. I took some artistic liberty with the border pattern though.
You can read more about the flags in the last picture on this historical blog .

By Fire & Sword demo run by Andreas

My buddy Andreas,  ran a demo of the game for his two visiting friends at the club last week. I borrowed him some of my Poles for the occasion, and also kept my distance since it's always distracting for new players to learn the game from two people at once.

I also figured it would be a good practice for Andreas who intends to run a BF&S demo up in Göteborg at the "Gubbspel" convention which takes place between August 30th and September 1st LINK . I will help him with some painted display miniatures and have already contacted Wargamer so that Andreas can get some “sample miniatures” to hand out to demo game participants. I will post more info about the Gubbspel BF&S demo in August.

In any case, I snapped some photos of the demo in between the turns of my own ongoing game. From what I gathered Andreas friends liked the game which perhaps isn't a big surprise but it's always great to add to the positive track record of these rules.

BF&S: Fight for the village AAR

Looking through the By Fire & Sword lists I had noted that you can run a skirmish force solely made up of Volunteer cavalry. This seemed like one of those bad ideas that may be fun to try out, the units of Volunteers attached to the Polish skirmish force had never really made an impact. Still the units are very cheap in points, and you get a whole lot of them, on the downside all units are "Insubordinate" and require twice the amount of command points to take orders - and you only get a single commander - not really that awesome... I used some of my cossack style cavalry proxy as Volunteer cavalry in this game, since I was a couple bases short (though I realized later that I had forgotten 6 bases of volunteers at the back end of by miniature cabinet so the ratio of real Volunteer cavalry could have been greater).

Still this is what I ran against Andreas Swedes:

Volunteer skirmish force: 5FSP
Colonel with 4 command points
18 bases of Volunteer cavalry

Andreas ran the Swedish detachment at 7FSP with:

Colonel  with 3 command points
4 bases of Mercenary Reiters
2 bases of veteran Mercenary Reiters
6 bases of New type Musketeers
1 3pdr regimental gun

I rolled for scenarios, being the defender, and came up with attack on the village as the scenario where I would perhaps have the most success.

The game would be very straight forward, the only twist was that one of my companies of Volunteers would do a flanking maneuver and arrive at turn 3 the earliest. I deployed the remaining Volunteers in two squadrons of 6 bases each and a single company acting independently.

When I say the game would be straight forward I really mean it, I had two ways of winning or at least forcing a Draw. One was to beat the squadron of 6 Reiters facing my 9 bases of Volunteers to the left, and the other possibility was to run a squadron of Volunteers around the village and take out  the musketeers and the cannon - which would earn me some points and perhaps allow to seize the village.

The Swedes were of course deployed in such a way to maximize the potential of their tiny force and cover the village and approach from the right. And indeed they did, the attempt of flanking from the right was immidietly stopped by a Swedish salvo which shocked by Volunteer squadron who withdrew disorganized and outside of my commanders command range on top of that!


On the left side of the village the cavalry from both sides clashed. The Swedish Reiters were covered by the cannon firing case shot at the in coming Polish Volunteers but which fortunately for the Poles missed its mark. The pistol salvo and skill of the Swedish Reiters alone on the other hand managed to salvage the situation and forced a draw in the combat resolution, both sides backing off from the fight to catch their breath. Both sides had lost a base of cavalry in the fight.

Another attempt at destroying the Reiters was undertaken, both the Volunteer squadron now joined by the Colonel and the independent company charged - the Reiters surprised the Poles by defending and not countercharging.Charging towards the Reiters the Volunteer company was clipped by more case shots, this time fired from the flank, something which killed a complete base. And when the Poles managed to ride up to the Swedes they were welcomed by pistol fire which too killed another base, this time from the squadron. 

The fight ended a Swedish victory, the Swedes had lost another base of cavalry, but the Poles had lost two and all the negative modifiers stacked up in such a way that the remaining base of cavalry form the Volunteer company broke off and began fleeing, the squadron was forced back disorganized, but was soon caught up by the Swedish cavalry and reduced to two bases that began fleeing as well.

Not even the arrival of the flanking Volunteers made the Swedes flinch, determined to take the village, the infantry was sent forwards, climbing over the fence they formed up just in time to get off another salvo at the disorganized Polish squadron on the right side of the village - the disorganized unit turned into a fleeing mob and the defeat was complete.

The Swedes had suffered Minor casualties, inflicted Heavy casualties on the Polish force (1 army point away from Very Heavy casualties). Taking into account the points for capturing the village the game ended 7-0 and a Swedish Strategic victory.

By Fire & Sword Kickstarter ltd edition miniatures

As part of their Kickstarter campaign Wargamer included a bunch of Kickstarter specials/limited edition miniatures which were only available through the Kickstarter. Though I suspect you will be able to win some of these in official Wargamer sponsored tournaments as that was the case with a few other miniatures over the past year during tournaments in Poland.

In any case, I thought it may be interesting to take a look at the sculpts, these are not all the one's I wanted as some haven't yet been sculpted. I hope to paint most of these up as soon as possible, but may save a few for when I start a Cossack skirmish force later this year.

First out is Stefan Czarinecki (1599-1665), a legendary Polish military commander during the period of By Fire & Sword. He fought during three major campaigns: the Khmelnitsky cossack uprising, the Swedish invasion of Charles X and the war with Russia. From what I heard the historical generals will all get their own special rules and players will be able to use them in Division level games.

Next up is Lieutenant Gantzkopf, commander of the reiters in the Lithuanian Winged hussar skirmish list. He already has his own special rules in the PDF list.

The commander of the Lithuanian Winged hussar skirmish force, Vincenty Gosiewski, also a historical character who fought against the cossacks during the Khmelnitsky uprising. He too already has his own special rules in that PDF list.

The following are miniature renditions of the Wargamer staff, these represent a Western type infantry officer, a blacksmith, a Tartar soldier carrying away a naked female captive and a cossack checking the authenticity of his gold. These are all great miniatures and can be used either as single based special counters or as part of your regular units. On the last picture there is also an Orthodox priest, which can be used with Muscovite or Cossack armies.

The Danish ensign carrying a tattared battle standard, very similar to how he was portrayed in the artwork. A very cool miniature which can replace a standard bearer on foot for any Western type infantry regiment.

A Cossack witch, there are rules for this model - the rules are just for laughs and do not impact the game. This can be a great addition to a cossack commanders retinue.

And finally there is the Winged hussar casualty marker. The rider does unfortunately not come with a horse or wings. However, if you got this miniature, chances are that you intend to use it with your Winged hussar units - in which case you should have a few sets of left over Wings from the Winged Hussar box.