"Early 17th century winged hussars" Topic

Comp being real glitchy, with a "b", so I'll get right to the point. Winged hussars, one wing vs two wing, are they contemporary, i.e. can I use them together? I know about the Towarzysz (two wings) and the Pocztowy (single wing) followers, did they all charge in together or in separate units. Judging from the Khurasan figures I have seen, the Pocztowy appear to be not as heavily armored as the Towarzysz which I assume are the gentry.
BTW, would like to know what rules you are using and your assessment of them. I will probably be using DBR ver.2.0., as they are the only rules I have. I currently reside in the wargames desert of North Central Florida, so my access to other gamers and experiences is somewhat limited. I only had experience with the old Tercio rule set, I think they were Wargames Workshop or some such, now regrettably, out-of-print. Nice simple rules but I think they were a good representative of the period. The rules also had a long list of army lists at the end which were useful.

I don't know about the wings, but if you're wanting rules written specifically for Eastern Europe then why not try By Fire and Sword, they're free in pdf form.

There was no rule that companion would have two and retainer one wing – so yeah, you can use mix of one+two+none within the same unit (as wargaming unit is usually equivalent of banner, so at least 100 men anyway). It was all up to companion in each retinue, especially as wings were expensive, so he may not provide any to retainers (as after all his purse paid for all equipment for retinue).

BillyNM, you used the magic word – - FREE!! I will look into them.

Kadrinasi, thank you for your input, I really like having units with a variety of poses and animation.

The way that hussars fought was that companions (so best soldiers, best equipped and – hopefully – best motivated) were in first rank, with retainers in second and third ranks. So depends what scale you use, if you want them to looks fairly accurate, the best armed and armoured horseman should be in front. I published few books about Polish and Lithuanian armies in 'Century of the Soldier' series, so in each one of them you can find quite a lot about this and other formations.

BTW Edition 1 of 'By Fire and Sword' was free but there's a second edition due out soon (I have the beta) so not sure if that's free of if the 1st Edn will now be harder to find. They're fairly big files so not sure if I could email them but happy to try.

If FREE rules are your thing the basic verrsion of Tercios ('Brevis Tercios') is free as a pdf online. They are TYW focussed but it would be relatively easy to create factors for Polish troop types. This is the rule-set I use my friends.

BFAS rules are also available in book form. In the US you can order them from WargamerUS.com