Tuesday, June 02, 2015

The Crusades with Lion Rampant at the Shed




Another invitation to Eric's Shed yesterday and another run out for his marvellous desert terrain.  This time we were back in the time of the Crusades.  I have wanted to play a Crusades wargame for years and the first of the Perry ranges that really tempted me was their First Crusade range.  




This nearly happened almost exactly nine years ago when Guildford Wargames club put a game together for the Society of Ancients Battle Day in June 2006.  I painted up 30 Turcoman horse archers for the recreation of Dorylaeum (1097) and also a pack of armed pilgrims (above).  Unfortunately, I had to go to Vienna at short notice so missed the game, although my troops did take the field without me.




So it was nice to actually use some of my Turcomans (above) last night in Eric's Crusades game; my second experience of playing Lion Rampant.  No doubt he will put up one of his excellent accounts of the game shortly, which I will link to from here.




So I shall confine myself to a brief look at the game from my point of view.  Eric's game preparation is always excellent; from  game specific laminated play sheets to his superb scenery and well-balanced scenarios that nearly always, as last night, lead to a close game.  Yesterday's game saw the Crusaders led by Alastair, from Guildford Wargames Club, attempting to escort a body of monks (and some monkettes) to a waiting ship on the coast.  Eric and I had two bodies of Saracens to stop him.




My force consisted of three units of Turcoman cavalry and two of foot.  I really like the Lion Rampant rules as they enable you to field enough figures to look good but not so many that you will never finish painting them!




The scenario meant that the monks couldn't be killed by bow shot but had to be defeated in melee.  My tactic was to ride for them with my horse archers but I got off to a slow start with one unit failing to activate on the first turn.  As in our previous Robin Hood game we abandoned the rule that said that if one unit fails to activate then the whole force is prevented from taking any actions.  This just leads to too much standing around doing nothing.  So we played the house rule that if a unit fails to activate then the next unit can try to activate as usual.  This leads to a much more fluid game.  




The ability of horse archers to skirmish forward, loose their arrows and then retreat (for a shooting penalty) certainly recreated the tactics of their historical counterparts and both sides' horse archers swirled about, darting forward, shooting and riding away again.


Alistair's vanguard (top right) charges towards the village while his Turcoples and crossbowmen (middle left) cause me a great deal of pain as I try to drive towards the monks (top left)


Alistair, I have to say, played a superb tactical game; sending forward a flying column to attempt to secure the village on the coast, sending a harrying rearguard back to hold up my forces while protecting his marching monks, who kept edging sideways away from the threat, with a bodyguard.  His early success started to run into trouble later but I will leave Eric to describe the whole game.




This game did, however, confirm the appeal of Lion Rampant and the fact that putting together forces for these rules is  much more achievable for a slow painter like me (Eric has painted a whole Saracen army since Christmas!).  Both Alastair and I have thoughts of painting some Wars of the Roses retinues to use with the rules too.  I must find out whether he is a Yorkist or Lancastrian so I can paint the other side!   I am still working on my Carolingian force and am also thinking about  El Cid too for this.  It has started to occur to me that I should focus my painting on forces that I can field at the Shed games!  It was nice to play another game with Alistair and thanks, as ever, to Eric for the invitation to the Shed!



15 comments:

  1. That is a lovely looking game and set up. With reference to the Wars of the Roses retinues, I don't think it really matters if you choose Lancastrian or Yorkist as they all seemed to swap sides at one point or the other.

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  2. Great looking game using a favorite set of rules. Nice to see you getting to play your troops in such a cool setting. The local crew here have also adopted house rules to allow other units to test to activate after a failure. I also agree about the relative low number of troops - I have a yet to be tested HYW English retinue with units of only 6-figures each - 24 total figures :) - one mounted MAA, two foot MMA, and one mounted Yeomen with bows.

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    1. Yes, reactivating a shaken unit does seem quite easy compared to similar rules I have seen in other sets.

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  3. Great looking game, splendid pictures!

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  4. You are becoming a regular at the shed Sir congratulations! The shed certainly looks like the cat's meow. Beautiful looking game.

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    1. Eric is a generous host and it's only twenty minutes drive away!

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  5. thank you sir for your kind comments...one of the best games I have played for a long time

    here's to the next time

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  6. Really excellent game, and not just because I won :). Great looking scenery and a challenging scenario that really came down to the wire!

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  7. Great looking game.

    I don't really understand changing a fundamental part of the rules to the game. Each side only has about 5-7 units so how long do you really have to wait for your turn to come again?

    I also note you don't bother with the 3" zone of control either. Any particular reason for this?

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    1. Well we always play multiple people on a side and the first time we had three players a side so a few bad results on one side and good results on the other led to a dull game.

      Didn't know about the 3 inch rule. I've not read them myself!

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    2. More on why we did this here: http://legatuswargamesarmies.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/robin-hood-at-shed-with-lion-rampant.html

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    3. Perhaps I can enter the fray...as Legatus has stated the games we have played are multi player games. With more units on the table there is a greater likelihood that a failed activation could have really dire consequences for the whole side.

      If a unit fails its activation it does nothing but the rest of the force can still try to activate. This is in our opinion much more realistic and faster play. Lion Rampants order mechanics are quite similar to both Warmaster and Black Powder - the big difference being that you have officers/leaders in the other two rulesets. If one officer fails to command a brigade the rest of the army can still try. In Lion Rampant it is an all or nothing approach. There is no initiative (ie automatic orders in certain circumstances).

      This has been debated on the Dux Rampant forum.

      cheers

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  8. A brilliant looking game and some fine figures on display. I bought a copy of Lion Rampant for my Kindle and am hoping to use it as an excuse to dust off my medieval figures after the next move. Your suggestion of the house rule for activation is one I shall keep in mind.

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