After romping through Warband, getting shot in the face repeatedly by crossbowmen and dudes who can throw javelins like they’re being guided by the hand of Chuck Norris (I will write a series on that, and sorry to say, but that one will have a million times better of a title), I installed With Fire and Sword ’cause hard disk space. That’s not a valid reason? Yes.

So hello to any of you readers who may have come from my X3 articles, and welcome people who came from other places. I will be your host and nutcake, spinning tales of how I get tomahawk chopped and sometimes get a pistol whip in. I would also like to dedicate this article to reddit users lolbifrons and Fenrirr for support. I’d also like to thank Areal for pointing out that I can avoid ending the battle and going to autoresolve when you get knocked out, if only I would look at the options.

TASTE MY TOMAHAWK CHOP

I’m just going to start this at where funny stuff starts happening. Also, to give the title of this section a bit more meaning, and to make the next few paragraphs funnier in general, I suggest watching this if you haven’t

A Cossack leader (Federinko, I think) gave me a task to go kill a bandit hiding in a nearby village. I’ve done this before, should be easy enough. I should note that I am playing on normal difficulty, and quitting without saving is disabled.

Arriving at the village, I circle around the outskirts of it, until I find a nervous man. I talk to him, and go through the dialogue and whatnot.

He pulls out an axe, and I already had my gun ready, so I aim it straight at him, fire, and hit the door behind him. *facepalm*

So I circle out towards the center of the village on my horse, reload and aim the pistol once again.

He throws a tomahawk axe thing right into my face, and I insta-die, and flop off my horse. Holy flipping fuddletown, this game is already way harder than Warband.

Next, I travel back to tell the dude that I got bested by Connor here, and on the way there some Tatar bronies catch up to me near a bridge.

Now, I have around five dudes I plucked from the nearby Cossack villages, and they aren’t upgraded at all. We’re facing fourteen Tatar raiders.

I move forward onto the closest hill and order my men to lineup next to me. This is before I become intelligent enough to use the fire command options to make firing lines. The enemy is all cavalry, and they are hauling arsebiscuits towards my position.

As they cross the small canyon in front of us and make up the hill, my men start firing. Three of the Tatars leading the charge fall off their horses, and the rest of the force collides into my small militia as I flank around and unload a pistol shot into a Tatar who is attacking the side of my troops. I pull my saber out, and plow right into the side of a group of them, trying to increase the lifespan of my troops somewhat by taking out the currently offending troops on the head of their force.

Hacking away, I drop two, but by this time, my few troops I did have all got futhermucked, so I try and pull out and discharge another round into one of the raiders chasing me. I totally miss though, and as I turn around to look where I’m going, I suddenly fly off my horse and roll down the hill. GOOOOOOD off to a good start ten minutes into the game. Give me a bag of cotton candy and call me Katy Perry.

I HAS A FIRING LINE

So I’m imprisoned, and cool stuff. When I escape, I’m sorta almost near to Moscow. I gather up some more troops, and as I travel back into Cossack country and try to recruit some more guys, I get ambushed in a village.

Nothing a bit of pistol and saber can’t handle, and after a few minutes of playing hide and seek with a musketeer, I gather some supplies and recruit some volunteer troops, and leave with only a third of my health left.

I max out at 15 troops, as villages stop giving me more volunteers at this point. I’ll have to find a mercenary camp or such later, so I can get a force to deter raiders and whatnot.

I chase a band of nine looters, and attack them. Once again, I move up to the closest hill, but this time I decide to look at the firing commands. I had become aware of them during multiplayer, so I was eager to try them out, as I knew they’d be far more effective than just spray-and-pray bullstuffs.

The looters cross a river, and my guys are set up in two lines. I order them to stay in place and hold their fire, and as they organize into formation, I move to the side.

As they come out of the river, I order the first volley. A couple of their rank fall dead, and my troops quickly reload and are ready again as the enemy is entering our forest and is about to come in contact.



Another volley comes at them head on, at the range of just a few meters. With the closer distance, the line of shots is much more fatal, and as all but three looters flop to the ground, the remaining enemies break morale and panic.

I shoot one in the back with my pistol, and he ragdolls a short distance and falls dead. Me and my troops then proceed to rundown the last two looter fellows, and they saber this moment *evil rofl of doom*. Yes, I made that joke. How bout dat. I’m such a troll XD

CLEAR YOUR CHROME CACHE

Arriving back at town, I tell the guy that I got tomahawk chopped (“MEAAAAH IT WASN’T A TOMAHAWK DOG, LEARN UR WEAPONZ!” Well, it isn’t funny if I don’t say tomahawk, even if you don’t think it’s funny anyways. I gave you that video link for context, after all ;D) and ask for a special assignment. He tells me to go take money from a secret cache at *insert name I can’t properly pronounce here* and take it to *insert some more*.

At the village, I talk to the elder. He denies the existence of the cache, even after I talk to him in Latin. So, I take matters into my own hands and ride into the farm, finding nothing but farm stuff. Then I ride to the chapel, discovering that it is, indeed, a chapel.

Welp, screw that, that quest doesn’t seem to have a timer, so I’ll figure it out later, maybe I just need to be in better standing with the village or something. Tell me in the comments or the reddits.

Next, I do some delivery missions, all the while studying the prices of the goods in the nearby towns. Nothing extremely exciting happens during the delivery missions, I just fight a bunch of looters and get my Cossack marksmen to veteran level.

Come back next week for when I setup trade routes, watch Cossacks lose territory as they go to war with everyone, and speedrun an assassination mission. If you want, leave a like, and subscribe (via email) or follow (via WordPress) to know when tomahawks are back in stock.

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