In an effort to get some dice thrown after a hiatus of several months, Dave and I decided to have a bash at Lion Rampant. Neither of us had played it before and I was the only one who'd read the rules (a while ago!), in addition to which it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, so the retinues would be decided by whatever figures we had available; Dave was slightly better off in this respect, being able to call upon the services of his superbly painted Company of The Rose (28mm Perry Agincourt figures), though some of these were multi-based, while The Wolf completed the mustering of his forces, while I was hamstrung by the fact I can't be trusted to actually finish painting any particular force without getting sidetracked, so would have to substitue some proxies(of varying anachronisticity) to make up numbers amongst the Claymore Castings Lowland Scots...
Dave's Company of The Rose followed the Free Company organisation in the book, so included a good balance of horse foot and missile units (albeit with bidowers made up of a random selection of handgunners, spears and musicians...)
My force was a slightly unbalanced Scots force, largely dictated by figure availability; one unit of dismounted men-at-arms backed up by 3 units of expert foot serjeants (not strictly by-the-book, but in the intrests of figure availability, historical believability and just to get on with throwing dice, we made do) made for a compact, slow and short ranged, but hard-hitting force.
One unit of expert foot serjeants made up of Perrys figures from my nascent 100 Years War project, and the men-at-arms bulked out with the reanimated corpses of Sir William Wallace, Sir Edward Bruce and Sir James Douglas...
We didn't bother recording much of an in-depth record of the battle, since it was just a run through to get a handle on the rules, just took some snaps for the sake of some pretty pictures. Note: the houses aren't finished, but still need based and some detailing; I've got another 4 buildings waiting in the wings, along with some fencing and a mercat cross, and will add sufficient "civic ammenities" such as a well, gallows, stocks, etc, to put together a fairly convincing little village.
Right form the start it all started to come apart, my General's rash charge of Dave's mounted General ended with predictable results...
However, following taking casulaties from dave's plethora of missile units, the Scots foot finally get to close the gap and wreak some vengeance, the men-at-arms and the third unit of serjeants already having been dispatched by Dave's mounted men-at-arms...
...however, all in vain as the rapidly found themselves surrounded by the superior numbers of more or less unbloooded Company of The Rose fighters. With my force at less than half strength and Dave's at almost full, with the time marching on, we decided to call it a clear win for the Company of The Rose.
Dave's mounted serjeants, who have done little in the way of warlike work (having been content to sit and watch the slaughter dished out by their betters, the men-at-arms), survey the carnage
All in all, a very enjoyable game, we picked it up quickly enough (although forgotsome bits, but considering it was a first go...), and we both look forward to further mayhem in the world of Lion Rampant.
Cheers
Iain
