Battle report (By Fire and Sword) PLC vs Sweden in Wenden (East)

We played our first game in the BF&S campaign that is being run by William. My first game was Sweden attacking PLC in Wenden (east). Since the Sweden is attacking with a Task Force, the PLC needs to defend twice with its Skirmish Force and Sweden gets to deploy a Skirmish force for the first battle and a skirmish force for the second battle. (Not sure yet how he produces this second Skirmish force)

1. Army Preparation. I had a Skirmish Force of 38 points and Jeff had a Skirmish force of 35 points. So I became the Red Player and Jeff became the blue player. 

2. Table Preparation. Strangely there is very little rules on table preparation. The rules mention that players prepare the terrain together. For a skirmish level you choose 4 to 6 terrain elements. We chose two hills and two small woods and took turns placing one of each.

3. Choosing Scenario. Red player (me) indicates scenario to discard. I discarded lash of Vanguards. The Blue player (Jeff) the chooses a scenario. He chose Key Positions.

3.1. Stratagems and Random Effects. This is the difference in Force points. So Jeff had 3 to play with. He chose Favorable terms, which means red player places both objective markers on the blue side half of the table. Since the cost of this Stratagem was 3, he had none left over for Random Effects.

3.2 Objective Markers. This is just a definition of Objective Markers and Key Terrains and how to control them. Larger force within 4 inches of objective marker. If the objective marker is completely within Area Terrain or Structure it becomes key terrain and you have to control the key terrain not just be 4 inches from it. 

4. Reconnaissance Test. I had two die rolls and Jeff and one. Jeff won the die roll, so he gets to choose two effects and I get to choose one. Jeff chose Force March and Advance Deployment and I chose Successful Skirmishing. Each item on the list can be selected only once.

5. Army Deployment. Starting with red player take turns deploying Army elements.

This was the start state of our forces. Jeff is the top of the battle field. From left to right he had a small Mercenary Reiters, another small Mercenary Reiters, a small Dragon, and a Musketers Squadron. He also chose to bring a Major. My force is in the bottom of the image and from left to right is a Wallachian Cavalry, Cossack Style Cavalry, Pancerni with Spears small element (I gave them shields and Veteran) and another Cossack Style Cavalry (Medium)

Before the first turn. Jeff moved his Mercenary Reiters up one full move (Forced March) and his Musketers Squadron. (Advanced Deployment)

6. Playing the Battle. The game consists of 5 rounds.

We rolled for initiative. Jeff won the initiative and activated his commander to give and gave a rally to take off the hits that I had given. (Smart move)

I attacked with my Wallachian Cavalry on my left flank. (Note to self this was not a smart move as the Wallachian Cavalry has Skill 5 versus 6 for the Mercenary Reiters and 2 Armour versus 4. The first attack roll I had 7 die rolls versus 10. Somehow this battle ended a tie. Jeff decided to withdraw his two middle units out of charge range and I had a melee attack counter so I had move forward 7 inches.

As you can see from the image below, two units remain in combat on the left. I had excellent riders, so I could have chosen to disengage. (Need to remember this in the future)

End phase we check Army morale. No change.

The second round I won the initiative. So I attacked with my Pancerni with Spears. This caused the Mercenary Reiters to break. The other Cossack style Cavalry attacked the Dragoons. Jeff turned his Musketeer Squadron and fired in the back of the Cavalry. We forgot to hit his own unit with the misses, but I think we forgot to reroll his misses also. (As it was a Direct range attack) The left flank was won by the other Mercenary Reiters and caused my Wallachian Cavalry to withdraw. 

End Phase, Jeff goes down 1 Army moral as I control 2 of the 3 objectives and also 1 Army moral as he lost one silver unit. His Army moral is now 3. 

The third round saw the destruction of the Dragoons and the Musketeer Squadron. End phase Jeff lost another Army moral for not holding the objectives and 2 for losing units. This reduces his Army moral to 0. His force now breaks.

Overall the big difference was in the rolls. I successfully saved all my moral saves and rolled very high on the hits.

According to the rules from William if you lose 75% of your elements minus officers, your force is destroyed. So in the case Jeff's entire skirmish force is destroyed. Need to find out what he can use to attack with the next skirmish force.

By Fire and Sword (what we did right and wrong first game)

Jeff and I played our first By Fire and Sword second edition battle. The following are little things we got right and wrong on our first try.

Change Facing Action. (4.3.6) While turning the Unit can not enter the zone of control of an enemy. I think this was more luck than actually knowing the rule. At one point Jeff changed facing and rotated his unit 90 degrees to shoot in the back of the Cossacks. This was actual legal as he did not enter the zone of control of the Cossacks. (i.e one inch away). Just something to keep in mind.

Jeff's Musketeer Squadron was in a Defence Order so get two AP. One was used to change facing 90 degrees and the next was for shooting. This we got wrong. When shooting at units engaged in close combat, do not forget rule 6.4. A unit that is in contact with enemy Units may be target of a fire. In this case, after the Target tests for resilience and assigns disorder tokens, each unit in contact with the Target must make a moral test. The Threat level of a test is equal to the number of failures in the To Hit Roll an no other Threat modifiers are applied to it. If the Threat is 0, the moral test is not taken. 

So in this case Jeff's Dragons would have to take a moral test with the failures of the to hit roll. 

The other thing I think we got wrong was the shooting. I think we reversed the rules. Shooting at Effective range is done with the stats on the card. Shooting done at Direct range (4 inches or less) get to reroll all failures to hit.

Moral check(8.2.2) for Unit being shot at. The treat is equal to the number of disorders taken. You get a +1 if you fired at effective or direct range and the shooting Unit's primary reference point is in the side or rear zone. So in the case of Jeff's Musketeer squadron shooting at my Cossacks Style Cavalry, he would reroll his failures to hit and when the Cossacks test moral they would have a threat of all the disorders +1. I think we were adding 1 threat for being shot at. This is not a thing.

Retreat Action. (4.3.5) This we also got wrong. A unit moves backwards (REF on the back edge) within the Movement Arc. So you do not have to move straight back. Not a real big deal in our battle, but just a reminder that you do not have to move straight back.

Disengage (7.4.6) This is a must read for Units that have Excellent Riders. (So all the players playing PLC) A cavalry Unit with the open Order or Excellent Riders rule may conduct a Disengage after any close combat, after which it continues to remain in contact with the enemy (even if it did not charge and did not win the combat) However if the Unit did not win the combat then it must change the Order Token to Regroup.

So if you win the combat, the excellent rider rule allows you to disengage and keep your melee order token.

Close combat resolution. (7.4.5) If you win the combat and decide to pursue, you keep your Melee Order. If you refrain from Pursue, you can make change facing as a Free Action. Cavalry can only refrain if the commander performs an intervention for one order.

End Phase (2.4) I might be wrong here, but at end phase we were removing regroup orders. I can not find anywhere in the rules were it states this. In my opinion, if a unit has a regroup order it will remain with the regroup order until it is changed. Start Phase (2.1) states that you turn over all face up tokens. No mention of removing regroup tokens. 

Army Motivation. (11) As I was walking around I found that almost everyone was doing this one wrong. The army moral must be checked every turn at end phase or when you lose a unit. If you lose a unit and the cost was silver your Army moral goes down by 1 immediately. If the cost was Gold then it goes down 2 immediately. Starting at the second round, at the End Phase the player controls less key areas or objective Markers than the opponent -1 Army moral. This happens every round after round 2. So it is really important to contest all the objectives. At the End Phase the player has fewer Units within 12 inches of their own table edge than the opponent -1 Army Moral. So if your opponent decides to leave forces behind, make sure you match these forces.

Ammunition. You only get a limited amount of ammunition. Pistol for close combat and Ammo loads for shooting. They are not interchangeable. So unless you use a standard action to reload (4.3.1) you have none left. (i.e. after your first charge you can not use pistols again) I think I got this one wrong.

Well I think this is most of the mistakes we made.