The Polish Grand Hetman (the great Jeff Wasileski) arrived to review the performance of his troops at Fall In! Below the photo is a quick video showing all of the deployed troops before the start of the battle.
Last weekend we carried out a play-test of the Battle of Bila Tserkva 1651 at the Wargaming Association of Metropolitan Philadelphia. The game will be played at Fall In! at 9am next Saturday. Bila Tserkva is a town in modern day Ukraine, located about 50 miles south of Kyiv. I believe that Bila Tserkva is the Ukrainian spelling and Biala Cerkiew is Polish. In English the literal translation is White Church, which of course required me to build the white Church.
The Battle was between the forces of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Cossacks of Khmelnystsky.
In this post I will discuss the research, give the orders of battle, show the initial deployments, and discuss key features. I don’t want to discuss the play-test itself too much as I don’t want to give things away prior to Fall In!. I will do an after action report following the convention.
I have used a Polish book by Marcin Domagala titled “Biala Cerkiew 23-25 IX 1651” as the main text to research the battle. There is very little information in English on this battle, so I have spent many hours with Google Translate.
The other main information used to recreate the battle were two period pictures. I really wanted to capture the feel of the pictures while staying true to the account of the battle in the book.
The main item that I wanted to capture from this first image is the double wagon tabor camp of the Poles. This required a huge amount of work in preparing a load of wagons, but I think that it was worth it. The other item of note is the defenses of the cossacks on the right. These were old, poorly maintained defenses of the Bila Tserkva fort. I also wanted to make sure these were represented.
The second photo show the Polish checkered deployment which was typical of their battle tactics of the time. The other item of note from the photo is the mass of cossacks on the right. It was important for me to recreate both of these items. This photo required me to paint a mass of cossacks for this battle over and above the ones I already had.
The following is the order of battle that I plan to use. I make no claims as to the accuracy of this order of battle, but I feel that it gives a good representation of the forces used and makes for an interesting game:
Here are some photos of the Polish initial deployments going from right, through center to the left.
Here are some photos of the cossack initial positions:
The Battle of Bila Tserkva 1651 took place between two rivers which join behind the Cossack defenses at Bila Tserkva. These rivers are off table. Adjacent to the Ros river on the cossack left were some marshes, burial mounds and apiaries. I felt that it was important to represent these as they had a role in the battle.
Of course the Battle of Bila Tserkva (“white church”) needs a white church and other buildings.
The Polish wagon tabor is an essential element of the game and took a lot of time to build. They are two rows deep rather than the three in the period picture but that is a compromise I was prepared to make for the sake of my wallet and sanity.
The Polish wagon tabors
The final feature that I wanted to recreate was the Cossack defenses and the massed cossacks behind them. I think that I managed to achieve an accurate representation of the images.
This blog post is intended to give some of the background of the Bila Tserkva 1651 game and information on orders of battle and deployments. I feel that I have captured the spectacle that I was trying to achieve. The book and pictures of the battle really helped me design this game.
I will give details of how the battle played out in an after action report in a few weeks.
Last Saturday the Wargaming Association of Metropolitan Philadelphia ran the final play test of Trylisy 1651 for Fall In! The By Fire and Sword rules are reasonably new to us. We felt that we needed this additional game to practice and to get the balance right.
The Trylisy 1651 game differed from the last time we play tested in a few ways:
The Polish Pancerni and Winged Hussars, supported by a unit of Polish style cossacks attacked one side of the village. This attack overpowered the defenders. These cossack used pikes to defend themselves as there was no wall on that side of the village.
On each flank the units of Noble Levy attacked opposing mounted cossacks, which were small units. After some initial success, the Nobel Levy found themselves struggling to get new orders. The commanders were in the center controlling the attack on the village. The combination of distance and the insubordinate rule meant that they would need three command points to receive new orders. There just weren’t enough command points available at the time. It is the first time that I have seen the command point issue take prominent place in a game. I liked the way it worked.
As a result of the massed Polish cavalry and the lack of walls, the cossack center gradually crumbled. The only unit that really managed to hold was a unit of Register cossacks behind a wall. The lack of impetus modifier for the cavalry, and cavalry attacking infantry in defendable terrain, gave the infantry an advantage. Eventually the cavalry managed to break into the village in other areas and even the Register cossack’s position became untenable.
In the last play test of Trylisy 1651 the cossacks completely destroyed the Poles. The changes that I made for this game gave an advantage to the Poles which I now need to address. With a new set of rules it is sometime difficult to understand how to get the balance right. The combination of adding two units of Noble Levy and removing the walls around the village was just too much. I need to make a few modifications to get the balance right. However, I need to be careful not to go too much the other way.
I plan to make the following changes for Fall In! to even the balance:
With these small changes I think that the Trylisy 1651 scenario will be balanced. These games showed the importance of play testing before a convention, particularly with a new set of rules. Being a new set of rules to us, and probably most convention goers, I will limit the players to four. This limit will allow me to teach the rules effectively.
Over the last few weeks we have been play testing the 1651 Battle of Trylisy in 28mm using the By Fire and Sword rules.
At Historicon in 2021, I ran the 1651 Battle of Berestechko using Pike and Shotte early on the Thursday morning. This Battle took place between the 28th and 30th June, 1651. The cossacks lost the battle and retreated. Eventually the Poles and Lithuanians caught up with the cossacks at Bila Tserkva (white church) on the 24th September 1651. On the Saturday morning at Fall In! 2022 I plan to run the Battle of Bila Tserkva again using Pike and Shotte rules. This game will be reasonably large and will be for 8-10 players.
Before the engagement at Bila Tserkva, the Poles fought a small engagement against some cossack units at village Trylisy on 23rd August. The village was defended by a small garrison of about 600 cossacks. At Fall In! 2022 I also plan to run the Battle of Trylisy on the Friday. As it is a smaller engagement I plan to use the By Fire and Sword rules. As the rules are more complex and detailed, I plan to limit the number of players to four. This smaller game will allow me to tech the rules to anyone who has not played them before and wants to try them out.
At our last club games day we tried the rules for a second time. We caught most of the errors that we made during a first outing of the rules, but made a few new errors. As a result of the game I believe that we now have a good understanding of the system.
Most of the errors that we made the first time involved not understanding the cossack infantry special rules, which give them some defensive options against cavalry. As a result the cossacks got massacred. Because of this game, we overcompensated by giving the cossacks too many defenses, which made it extremely hard going for the Poles. I believe we now have a good understanding of how to achieve a balanced game.
I am hoping that I will get a few players that want to get to learn the By Fire and Sword rules sign up for the game. In my opinion it is a set of rules that really captures the flavor of the period. Due to the size of the rule book they can seem a little overwhelming. But a convention should allow people to try them out.
I plan to have a relatively small number of units. The Poles will have a unit of Winged Hussars, a unit of Pancerni, two units of Polish cossack style cavalry and two units of Noble Levy. The cossacks will have two unit of register cossacks, two unit of moloitsy and two units of mounted cossacks. Each player will have three units to control.
We should easily be able to finish the game of the Battle of Trylisy within the four hours.
For players preferring the larger game, I will be running the battle of Bila Tserkva on the Saturday with way more troops. This game will use the Pike and Shotte rules.
Historicon 2022 was held at the Marriott in downtown Lancaster PA between the 20th and 24th July. On the Saturday I ran the Battle of Ravenna, once in the morning and once late afternoon/early evening. Each battle took four hours to play.
We initially advertised the game in program for eight players. However, we managed to fit quite a few extras in and I think that we had about twelve players per session. The Battle was run with the much appreciated help of Pat, Lou and Bob from the Wargaming Association of Metropolitan Philadelphia. It takes a lot of support to keep a game of this size moving along efficiently.
The Battle of Ravenna game was run using the Pike and Shotte rules, which tend to work reasonably well in a large game in a convention setting. They give a flavor of the period and allow player unfamiliar with the rules to join in easily. To help I make easy to read unit sheets for each player – an example can be seen in the photo above.
I believe that the game had close to 1300 figures. The largest single unit was the Landsknecht pike block with 196 figures. There were also nine other pike blocks with 36 figures. These units were supported by huge amounts of Gendarmes, light cavalry, arquebusiers and artillery.
Both of the games ended in a French victory (as in real life). However, the paths to victory were very different. The first game saw the Landsknechts race out to attack the defenses, only to get repulsed after a fierce struggle. This loss left the rest of the French forces to assault the defenses which had been depleted by units moving to protect against the Landsknechts. In the second game the French players were more cautious, with the French crossbow screening the Landsknechts from the massed war carts that were a feature of the battle. In the end, it was also the French center that again managed to beat the defenses.
In both games the light cavalry battle between the Jinetes and Stradiots on the French left flank was intense. In the second game the Jinetes managed to get behind the French position and attack the artillery and threaten other units.
Also in both games the heavy cavalry battles between the French Gendarmes and the Papal Knights on the French right flank was a more cautious affair than in real life. Both sides were hesitant to engage in both games.
The Ravenna city and walls and the siege works around them were just a back-drop to the game. The actual Battle of Ravenna had relatively flat terrain with only Spanish field defenses. However, I do have plans to use these city walls for a different game in the future and I bought three discounted trebuchets from the Miniature Building Authority in the dealer hall.
Overall I was happy with how the city and city walls turned out. They took a while to both plan and build.
To prevent this post becoming too long, I will now just show some pictures from the Battle of Ravenna games. In a future post I will do the orders of battle that I used.
Last year at Historicon, I did the Battle of Bicocca 1522. The Battle had quite a lot of scenery required for the action including the field defenses and the villa Bicocca with the large Italian Gardens. You can see a report on the Battle here. This year I will be doing the Battle of Ravenna. The problem that I have is that the battlefield itself is limited in terms of scenery, I want to make the table look as impressive as possible for Historicon. The Battle was fought when the Spanish and Papal troops came to relieve the city of Ravenna from siege by the French. Although the city played no part in the battle, the Ravenna city walls were a backdrop to the battle.
The solution was obvious, I needed to make the city walls of Ravenna as a backdrop to the battle. After searching the internet for a suitable kit to represent the Italian style city walls I came across the range by Tabletop World from Croatia. They are walls originally made for fantasy, but by selecting the right models from their range I was able to get a great looking wall. At first I was initially nervous about ordering from Croatia, so I placed a small order. It arrived without issue, and the company was a joy to deal with; so I then placed a larger order for the rest of the parts.
After washing the parts with soapy water, I spray primed them in black. After a couple of days I them sprayed them brown and sealed them with a coat of matte varnish. I then used a beige paint to paint the walls and then used various powders for different tones and weathering effects.
Once the base painting had been done I wanted to check the layout with some city buildings. The total area is about 2′ x 4′. I didn’t want the buildings to be taller than the city walls, so I raised the walls with 2″ of foam. This meant that only the church tower could be seen rising above the walls, similar to the woodcut.
2″ foam used to raise the walls.
I kept the foam pieces at a maximum of 24″ in length so that they would be transportable. This decision meant that I needed three foam base pieces. Once the layout had been done I then shaped the base foam using a cheap woodland scenics hot-wire foam cutter. I then painted and sealed the foam with my usual mixture of brown paint, Elmers glue and model railroad ballast.
I then needed to make sure that the base would blend with my terrain mats rather than just sit on them. So I cut and glued some terrain mat pieces to the edge of the foam.
Some terrain mat glued to the foam to blend in to the terrain mat.
This technique is the one that I used for the field defenses at Bicocca and it worked well in that case. However, it didn’t seem quite right in this situation, so I folded the terrain mat pieces underneath and glued them. It seemed to work much better.
The next stage was to blend in the terrain mat to the foam at the top, so I made up some more of my paint/elmers/ballast mixture. After shaving the fur mat on the top I proceeded to apply the mixture to blend things in.
The last stage was to add various woodland scenic flocks, grasses and bushes.
That meant that the outside was finished. For inside the city I was planning to use some cobblestone mats (from Novus designs) for the city to sit on. This still meant that I needed to finish the foam on the inside. To provide a pleasing transition I made some earth retaining walls from balsa and then weathered them.
The city is now complete for Historicon, all I have to do now is finish about 60 Landsknechts. Here are a couple more views of the Ravenna city walls and buildings.
Yesterday I did a test run of my 1512 Battle of Ravenna for Historicon. I will be running this game twice at the HMGS Historicon convention. Once on Saturday morning and once later on Saturday. It is for eight people at a time, but I can probably fit a few extras in. I was not originally planning on doing another Italian Wars game at Historicon. However, when the theme was announced as “World in Conflict: Italy” it really forced my hand.
This post is not designed to give too many details of the battle, game, or talk about the results of the play test. I will cover those topics in future posts. The aim is just to show a few photos of the test run as as a sort of advertisement for Ravenna at Historicon.
The test run was designed to make sure that the game is balanced, as an unbalanced game is typically not great for a convention. I also wanted to make sure that it allowed all of the players to get into combat quickly. The test run was a success with the Spanish war carts performing well and the stats for the field defenses giving a very playable game. I will make a couple of minor adjustments but nothing too serious.
The Cavalry battles on each flank were a little constrained by the space, but at Historicon I will have extra room on each flank which should make for some exciting charges.
The battle was between French forces and Spanish forces that had been sent to relieve the Siege of Ravenna. Therefore the table at Historicon will include a few buildings to represent the city of Ravenna. These will not influence the game play but should add a nice scenic touch.
The figures include many of the figures that I used last year at Historicon for the 1522 Battle of Bicocca. However, there are new figures including the 196 figure Landsknecht Pike block. This block will be one of the largest 28mm pike blocks ever put on the table at an HMGS convention.
Thanks to Lou, Pat, Walt, Bob, Steve, Scott and Eric for assisting with the play test. I hope that Ravenna at Historicon will be as fun as last year’s Battle of Bicocca.
This weekend we had our first game with the by Fire and Sword rules. The rule set is designed to use the writers range of 15mm figures. However, I have a large collection (600 figures) of Poles, Cossacks and Tatars in 28mm. I also have about 300 Ottoman figures to paint in 28mm. I wanted to see if I could use By Fire and Sword with 28mm figures.
We normally use Pike and Shotte rules for large games using my figures. For example, I ran the Battle of Berestechko at Historicon in 2021. I see the Pike and Shotte as more suited to large games with multiple players. However, I see that By Fire and Sword could be a very nice alternative for smaller scale skirmish games.
The only real changes that we made to the rules were that we doubled up all distances, including the movement and ranges. I then purchased custom bases from Litko that were double the frontage of the 15mm bases that By Fire and Sword sell. litho are excellent with custom orders.
The only real concern that I had was if my 5′ x 6′ table in my house would be large enough considering that the distances had been doubled. We played with 4 units per side – 13 Force Points for the Poles and 11 Force Points for the Cossacks. The table was sufficient for this sized game, but if I went any larger I would need a larger table at a club game’s day.
I found that the rules take some getting used to. I had prepared unit data sheets in advance, which really helped. However, we kept needing to refer to 3 or 4 tables in the main rule book and I need to make a quick reference sheet for our next game. The quick reference sheet included in the book is just too complex.
The main issues that we had were understanding some of the movement rules and understanding some of the details of using cossacks. This lack of understanding really put the cossacks at a disadvantage. We did not fully understand the rules advantage that the cossack pikes/spears had against cavalry. We also did not understand that cossack shot could fire (at a reduce effect) from the second row.
The Polish cavalry were a lot more forgiving of not understanding the rules. The Winged Hussars were dominant throughout the game, despite only being a unit of three bases.
Overall, the Poles easily won the game. Playing the game gave me many questions that I had to clarify in the rules the evening after the game. I think that we all have a better understanding of the rules now and the cossacks will be much more effective next time.
I liked the rule set, but I think that using them for small skirmish style games is the way forward for me. I just don’t see them replacing Pike and Shotte for large club games.
To conclude, there were no major issue in playing By Fire and Sword in 28mm.
This weekend was our local club’s game day. It was the first opportunity that I have had to get some of my Catalaunian Plains figures on the table. As many of you know, I am building these forces for a game at Historicon in 2023. At the moment I only have a little less than 20% of the final forces painted, but this is enough for a small game. The game was an encounter battle between the Romans and Huns (with some of their Frank allies).
The game was my first run with the Hail Caesar rule set. From my Italian Wars games I am very familiar with the Pike and Shotte rules. The rules have many of the same mechanisms, but I underestimated the amount of differences. I now realize that I need to devote some more time to studying these rules. The good thing is that we still managed a fun game for six players.
The Roman army consisted of two Legions each of two bases, two Auxiliary units of one base each, and two cavalry units each of one base. Also, there was a scorpion and a ballista.
The Roman army was overmatched by the larger Hun Army. The order of battle of the Huns consisted of 15 units of light cavalry and 3 Frank war bands with two units of supporting archers. In terms of points, the Hun army was 50% larger. To counter this points difference, the Romans were playing defense and had occupied a hill position.
The battle started with the Huns advancing quickly into arrow range. They took some early casualties from the Roman ballista, but concentrated their bow fire to quickly put it out of action. The Romans were taking casualties from the Hun bows, so decided to charge with their heavy cavalry and cataphracts. Despite overwhelming odds, these two units fought valiantly but were eventually destroyed by concentrated Hun archery.
The Huns were having success on the Roman left, on the Roman right the Franks were having trouble advancing (poor dice rolling). They were taking regular damage from the Roman scorpion. The Franks eventually got within charge range and unleashed their full fury. The Levy Pseudo Comitatenses units guarding the Roman flank quickly collapsed.
The Franks quickly destroyed the weak Roman right flank. On the Roman left flank, the Huns massed their arrows on the elite Legion and quickly routed one of the cohorts. This left the Auxilia in the center as the only viable Roman forces and they decided to retreat in good order off the table.
It was nice to get the first of the project figures on the table and it gave me a chance to try out the Hail Caesar rules with my Romans and Huns. The six players all seemed to have fun with this quick two hour game. The result was as predicted with the larger Hun force eventually overcoming the stiff Roman defenses. The Roman cavalry and the Frank war bands performed above expectations.
I probably won’t have time to paint any more Romans and Huns figures for this project until after Historicon 2022 in July as I am putting my attention to figures and scenery for the 1512 battle of Ravenna for the show.
Syvanne and MacDowall both give very different number for the troops at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. As I discussed in my last post, the numbers presented by Syvanne seem a lot more consistent with those presented by Jordanes. However, as war-gamers tend to use a ratio of figures to troops, I will go on to argue that it is not too important to resolve this issue of differing numbers to recreate the battle.
Syvanne, argues that the Hun army has about 410,000 troops and that with non-combatants this would total the 500,000 men reference by Jordanes. Syvanne breaks the army down as shown in the table below:
| Inf | Cav | Total | % | |
| Ostragoths | 40,000 | 60,000 | 100,000 | 27% |
| Huns | 110,000 | 110,000 | 24% | |
| Gepids | 50,000 | 50,000 | 12% | |
| Other | 105,000 | 45,000 | 150,000 | 37% |
| Total | 145,000 | 265,000 | 410,000 | 100% |
MacDowall has much lower numbers of troops which he breaks down as follows:
| Total | ||
| Ostragoths | 7,500 | 27% |
| Huns | 12,500 | 46% |
| Gepids and Others | 7,500 | 27% |
| Total | 27,500 | 100% |
It can be seen that both authors have the Ostragoths making up around a quarter of the troops. This is where the similarity ends. MacDowall has the Huns comprising of nearly half the army whereas Syvanne has the Huns at around quarter of the army.
Syvanne has the Roman army at just short of 400,000 troops:
| Inf | Cav | Total | % | |
| Romans | 179,000 | 34,000 | 213,000 | 55% |
| Alans | 75,000 | 75,000 | 19% | |
| Visigoths | 40,000 | 60,000 | 100,000 | 26% |
| Total | 219,000 | 169,000 | 388,000 | 100% |
MacDowall places the Roman army strength at around 30,000:
| Total | % | |
| Romans | 15,000 | 51% |
| Alans | 2,000 | 7% |
| Visigoths | 12,500 | 42% |
| Total | 29,500 | 100% |
It can be seen that both authors have the Roman contingent at around 50-55%. The main difference is that MacDowall only has a small contingent of Alans at around 7% while Syvanne has the Alans at 19%.
I am less worried about the difference in the total number of troops between the two authors than the difference in composition. Syvanne has a total number of troops for both sides together of around 800,000 whereas MacDowall has around 57,000. Irrespective of which author I believe I have set the goal of replaying the battle with about 1400-1500 figures. All that will change is my figure ratio. For Syvanne I would use 600:1 and for MacDowall I would use 40:1.
I have a personal bias for using the force composition suggested by Syvanne. The main reason is that his estimate of the total army size of the Huns more closely corresponds to the account of Jordanes that I am using for the basis of my game. The second reason is that the account of Jordanes, the Alans seem to play a more important part that the 7% composition figure that MacDowall would suggest.
In the final analysis, there is no way of knowing which order of battle is closer to that of the actual battle. As I am starting this project from scratch I have chosen to take the order of battle presented by Syvanne as my basis. Others with existing armies might plausibly chose a different force composition that allows them to use the figures that they have.
Below are the units of Romans that I have painted to so far. In the next post I will detail the list of units I will be creating for the battle.
