By Fire and Sword

[nikharwood]

Come on then...who saw these at Salute? Enquiring minds want to know if they're any good...

[Steve J]

I echo Nik's thoughts here. So Chris, did you buy/peruse/drool etc?

[Nosher]

Ditto Nik and Steve J.

Didn't make Salute and would like to know, although I have a sneaking suspicion that the rules were only going to be available at Salute...

[OldenBUA]

The Kickstarter project for this is still in progress, but well underway with (as of now) another 27 days to raise the required money. 5$ for a basic PDF of the rules doesn't sound to bad.

It would be good to get the opinion of people who have actually seen this in action, though.

http://kck.st/ZA2be5

[Nosher]

Mmmmm Kickstarter....

I think I'll kick this one into touch...

[Malbork]

I'm reading the Novel, With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Fire_and_Sword


My Polish colleague was amazed anyone would read it voluntarily. Apparently most Polish kids are force fed it at secondary school.

Happened to watch the film at the weekend and found it quite enjoybale in a bit of a slapstick way. Not sure it will entice me into getting the book though 

[maciek]

Happened to watch the film at the weekend and found it quite enjoybale in a bit of a slapstick way. Not sure it will entice me into getting the book though

This movie got very bad press in Poland.
Try to watch "The Deluge" by the same director to feel the real climate of Sienkiewicz's books.
   

[Malbork]

Thanks for the tip Maciek.

I'll keep an eye open forwhen the price comes down on Amazon. It' s abit eye-watering at the moment

I have the Teutonic Knights directed by Alexander Ford which I believe was adapted from Sienkiewicz's novel and that's very atmospheric, or at least seems so to me

[Nick the Lemming]

So, what are the chances of persuading Leon et al to make models of all the various factions and troop types for this, eh?

[Serotonin]

The Kickstarter project for this is still in progress, but well underway with (as of now) another 27 days to raise the required money. 5$ for a basic PDF of the rules doesn't sound to bad.

It would be good to get the opinion of people who have actually seen this in action, though.

http://kck.st/ZA2be5

Im just the man you need then!  

I got a game in at Salute with one of the authors (he trounced my Poles with his Swedes very quickly) and bought the rules, and have been very impressed. I only got to play the skirmish level (basically a supported regiment with one commander) at Salute and the core mechanics are reasonably fast play (not buckets of dice and it uses d10s which is a novelty) but nothing too unusual. The command mechanics are very good, and look even better at divisional level (multiple regiments and commanders).

Its all based around command points you dish out to units. All units (unless ambush scenario) start with 1 of 3 orders (move, charge or defend) but in future turns a commander needs to spend a command point to alter that order (with penalties for distance like warmaster- so 1 point to change a order within 20cm, 2 outside of 20 etc). Command points can also be spent to rally units, or remove wounds and a couple of other things I forget right now. You obviously dont get 100s of command points a turn, for example a basic level cossack commander might get 2 points a turn, whereas a top Swedish general might get 4. In the divisional game, not only do the regt commanders spend command points to order their units, but your C in C gives instructions to his subordinate commanders. So if your C in C gives a charge order to a colonels regiment, and your colonel decides that he wants 1 of the units in his regiment to defend rather than charge, that defence order will cost an extra command point. All the other units he gives charge orders to will only cost 1 pt a unit. Does that make sense?

I think the game would play well with 10mm figures. A stand is 40x20mm for Infantry, 40x40 for commanders and artillery and 40x30 for cavalry. At 15mm they place 3 figures on a stand. I guess if you were doing it in 10mm you could put more on for that lovely horde look we so love.

Any other questions give me a shout and I will try to answer them based on my reading of the book. It also has to be said the book is pure porn. Utter utter wargame filth. Without doubt the sexiest and heaviest wargames book in my collection. It weighs in over 2 kilos too!  I know some grognards will moan about it because it has a lot of fluff and other stuff like painting guides, terrain construction guides- they have certainly taken a leaf out of GW and Battlefront books, thats for sure. Personally I like that.

[Serotonin]

Happened to watch the film at the weekend and found it quite enjoybale in a bit of a slapstick way. Not sure it will entice me into getting the book though 

The novel is pretty good so far. Its taken me a while to get my head around the names of people and places- not being familiar with Polish or the geography of the area has made it tricky, sometimes i have to really concentrate to work out if the name they used was referring to a place or person, which is hard for me as I am a notorious skim reader. The language of the translation is a little flowery at times, but so far its been pretty exciting- a real tale of romance, derring do, honour and politics. If you have a kindle its free on the kindle store.
Its also got one of the coolest/weirdest charatcers Ive read in a while- a noble who has made a vow of chastity until he, like his grandfather before him, is able to behead 3 enemies at once in one swipe of his longsword. He spends early part of the novel surrounded by a bevy of lovelies in the princes court, crossing his legs and thinking about Thatcher, pleading with everyone to take him in to their regiment. Made me chuckle. 

[nikharwood]

Thanks for the info (on both counts...nice book download sat ready to read...)

I'm definitely getting this then - nothing like a bit of porn 

[OldenBUA]

Serotonin, thanks for the info. For now I think I'll start with the PDF rulebook. All the kickstarter options with the full rulebook include figures and also quite hefty shipping charges. My guess is that I'm better of getting the rulebook the next time I'm in Poland. And for figures, I might have other options too. 

And yes, I have seen the film a couple of times (I have it on the hard-disk recorder somewhere), but in Ukrainian, with no subtitles.  So, much is lost, but I can get the gist, and my wife can translate as well (she likes it quite a bit). And it helps that I'm somewhat familiar with the period and area. Haven't read the book, but might give it a try. 

[Ferb]

Northstar is going to be stocking the rulebook, he thinks it will cost about £30 and he thinks it will be available about the end of May.

[Serotonin]

Yeah Northstar already stock the minis so I expect the rules will be available from them. Postage on the Kickstarter is high but to be fair, the book alone weighs in more than 2kg!

[OldenBUA]

So, how many of you did buy a rulebook at Salute?

Rafal Olszewski from Wargamer.pl on May 23
We had only 150 copies of initial print. About 20 were distributed among authors, play testers and backers. 130 were sold on Salute. I expect that you will have quite nice gaming community. Regards Konrad

[GordonY]

"the book alone weighs in more than 2kg!"

Whoa!!! Nice, that way if yer dont win, you can always use it to bludgeon your opponent to death with.

Who said big rulesets were rubbish?

[Serotonin]

So, how many of you did buy a rulebook at Salute?

Me, and by my reckoning I was possibly the first buyer- first stall I got to, and left £100 lighter. 

[Steve J]

£100 lighter.

I hope that included the figures?

[Hertsblue]

Me, and by my reckoning I was possibly the first buyer- first stall I got to, and left £100 lighter. 

You shouldn't carry such a valuable lighter.