"By Fire & Sword - Which Armies??" Topic

Hi there,
I am normally a 20th Century gamer but I bought into the By Fire & Sword kick starter project as it looked great and I need to pick two different army skirmish sets. However I have little knowledge of the time period. Could anyone give me a overview of each faction? their playing style? best looking? etc.

All suggestions welcome.

Also did all factions fight each other at some point? For example – Swedes & Ottomans.

Thanks to all in advance.

I don't think the Swedes fought the Ottomans, but just about everybody else did at one point or other.

The Swedes did not fight the Ottomans or Cossack and only fought the Tartars when they part of a Polish or Lithuanian army.

Other than that the 6 available factions fought each other at one time or another. The soon to be released "western" factions such as the Brandenburgers, Danes & Norwegians and Habsburg Imperial troops were more limited who they fought. For example the Danes & Norwegians only fought the Swedes while the Imperials only fought Swedes & Ottomans.

link has good introductions to each of the 6 starting factions in the shape of the "know your enemy" pdf's which give a short presentation of each army complete with pictures of the troops.

Here is a good place to start your research:

link

Each of the 6 main factions from rulebook have also historical introduction online:
link

The Poles were the central nation around which all the others fought.
Generally, it was invaded by everybody and partitioned 3 times. The Muscovites being very troublesome as were the Swedes and Ottomans.

But Commonwealth wasn't partitioned in 17th century (where 'By Fire and Sword' is place) but in 18th century ;)