Lion Rampant: Defending the Indefensible (scenario 3).

 For today's game we decided to give scenario 3, 'Defending the Indefensible' a go. Placing a small church in the table centre to be the main target of the attack we let the dice decide who would be the Attacker and who would be the Defender (who is allowed to deploy up to 10 points of troops in contact with the church as an initial defence force). 

With Ian and his Irish as the attacker, I became the defender and you can see my 10 points of troops defending the church and the Irish advancing towards it.  

Right at the top you can see my leader, Wulfgar the Slayer and his heavy infantry units rushing to help the defenders. A lucky Dice throw has awarded him the very useful 'Strong' trait (may re-roll 1 missed hit) which proved critical at least 3 times. Ian was rather less impressed with his leader, Donacha O'Leary's 'Insipid' trait which robbed him of his +1 Leadership Courage bonus. This also played quite a big part in the game. 

With one of the locals leading his mule cart to safety, Ian tried to make good use of the stream to create a defensive line. Sadly for him his two units of bow armed skirmishers often failed to activate so their shooting into my shieldwall troops was less effective than I feared. 

Anglo-Danes to the left, Irish to the right.

One of my veteran heavy infantry units of huscarls charged over the stream into Ian's leaders unit. After a couple of rounds of closely fought combat Ian's leader and his unit became battered and retreated over the hedge behind them. On his next turn when trying to rally his unit, Donacha the Insipid failed miserably and routed from the battle causing Courage tests all round on his other units. This caused chaos for the Irish and really swung the battle my way. 

Over on my far left my skirmishing bowmen managed to see off the Irish light cavalry who also became battered and eventually fled the battle as well. 

Wulfgar the Slayer took up an heroic pose on the bridge having helped see off some of the Irish.

With half of the Irish units now destroyed victory was awarded to Wulfgar and his Anglo-Danes, their church was safe. This was another fun game that could of gone either way. 

We will play again very soon.  

Back to Lion Rampant

 I have always enjoyed playing Lion Rampant and some of its spin-off variants so eagerly snapped up version 2 of the rules but then only played it once. Today was the day to put that right. Friend Ian and I have a slow grow 28mm project aiming at large battles in the Dark Ages (or Early Medieval Period for the purists out there) but Lion Rampant provides the ideal set of rules for some decent sized skirmish action whilst our armies grow. 

I opted to use some of my Anglo Danish figures whilst Ian used his Irish and it seemed to make sense to play scenario 1:Bloodbath to help teach Ian the rules (and see how well I remembered them!).  I called my Leader Wulfgar but left him to forge his own surname in battle but randomly throwing for a leader skill I threw a double 6 and got 'Great Leader' with it's very useful automatic activation rule. Ian named his leader Dermot and gained 'Rash-Wild Charge' as a Leader skill for the leaders unit. 

For 'Boasts' we decided to throw a d3 each giving me 3pts of boasts to Ian's 2. I chose..

'I shall strike the first blow 'and 'They will tremble before me' whilst Ian chose 'I shall burn their homes'.

Irish to the left, Anglo Danes to the right. 

As the Attackers Wulfgar and his men took the first turn. 

Irish deployment.

Anglo Danish deployment.

We found the required 3" gap between units rule a little restrictive on both deployment and movement but we opted to play the rules as they are for our first game. 

As the warband's advance they pause for a photo shoot with the rulebook. 

Irish light cavalry and skirmish archers try to get around the Anglo Danish flank. 

Irish chieftain Dermot advances his unit into contact with the hut to try and set it alight. 

 It took him three turns, but 2 glory points earned. 

The Irish start to adopt a defensive position.

At the top the Irish seem to be arcing around the Anglo Danes. Wulfgar had put most of his units into 'Shieldwall' anticipating the Irish 'Wild Charge'.

Irish units hiding behind the hut (with their damp matches). 

Best way to get the Irish out from behind their defences was to advance to within their Wild Charge range but in Shieldwall-note the shield marker. Shieldwall proved to be a very effective formation to adopt against the Irish warrior units.

Irish light cavalry become involved in a 'stand-off' with an Anglo Danish 'shieldwall'. 

Dermot finally gets the hut alight and now decides to try and get involved in the melee which seemed to be going my way.  Dermot's elite infantry were very tough in melee but with two Irish units 'battered' in the same turn I earned my 2 glory points.

Dermot challenged Wulfgar to single combat but did not live to regret it. 

Both sides were losing units but the Anglo Danes seemed to have the upperhand. 

Over on the left wing my skirmishers tried to tease the Irish warriors into an advance but failed their evade roll, got caught in melee which they lost and had to retreat. 

At this point we finished the game with Wulfgar, now known as 'Wulfgar the Slayer' and his Anglo Danish warband victorious, but only just. 

It was great to be playing Lion Rampant again. We got a few things wrong but will correct those come the next game which will be very soon. We also think we will be much quicker working through the game next time. 

Dingly Dell back on thin ice! more Fantastic Battles in 15mm

 Needing some scenery for Ian's snowy gaming cloth I created 3 snowy hills from a chunk cut off the large piece of insulation sheet that friend Chris had given me a while ago. This was a quick and easy project, although it made a right mess in the garage! I also painted up 4 new companies ready for this weeks game, 2 companies of skirmishers, an extra company of two handed swordsmen and a weird looking daemon thing, painted blue to fit in with the Ice Elves. 

Would the new troop curse affect these guys?

Dingly Dell troops deployed on the left were it by a couple of mishaps whereas the Ice Elves had some units surging forward towards the temple. 

We decided that there was a Troll Hoard hidden within the temple so with two of my units now approaching the temple from mishaps this was quite useful. 

The armies get into shooting range but not many casualties were caused. 

On turn 2 one of my captains searched for the hoard but he was vanquished and removed from the table leaving my units out of command. Happily they were very lucky with their Impetuous actions so fared well in the melee that followed.  

My swordsmen start to get surrounded. 

The ice elf spearmen about to charge and destroy the spirits. 

(I have forgotten what Ian calls this unit). 

However, the greater number of Dingly Dell troops starts to tell and most of my units become surrounded suffering more hits than they can dish out. 

My favourite unit, the Tiger Lancers charge into the Ians mushrooms who have shield wall so I need 6's to hit, look at my dice throw in the box lid! It is rare that the Tiger Lancers lose, but they got squished today. 

At this point, a deliveryman arrived with some snow covered trees I had ordered so we put them on the table, not bad but I think I will do them up a bit. 

Back at the temple Ian sends in a character, Purple Ronnie to find the relic and emerges with a Shadowy Cloak of Stealth which he never got chance to use.  

A single company of my ice elf skirmishers are left on the left flank. They didn't last much longer and of course my rogue was lost at the same time. I was getting quite short of character figures by now. 

The Dingly Dell magic-users made excellent use of the 'summoning' spell, raising 6 new units to fight for them including this wonderful and newly painted 'Tree-Rex'! It died of course being newly painted but all this summoning left me badly outnumbered.  Ian had also used 'Prophecy' at the start of the game and again used his extra dice wisely causing me many a problem. In Dingly Dell such use of prophecy is down to Denzil of the Dell and his Sacred Tablet. 

Ice elf archers about to be destroyed, the giant slug was one of the summoned beastie's. 

It was fun working out this melee. End result was all but my WitchKing on the Wyvern died, leaving me with very few companies left. At this point, end of turn 6 both sides had lost over half of their companies and so another closely fought draw was declared. 

Once again, Fantastic Battles had given us a really great game. 

 

15mm Royalist v Roundheads using the Epic English Civil War rules.

 We are in the happy position that between the three of us we now have more than enough 15mm English Civil War units to do some decent sized games (with plenty more units to come). Using the Warlord Epic Pike and Shotte rules we set up an encounter scenario based on one out of a magazine again. I had also devised some random event cards based on some ideas of my own and a few borrowed from other rule sets. Ian as commander of the Roundhead forces selected a card which made an opposing commander drunk with a minus on his Command level. Ian played it on Oliver Cromwell who was leading my cavalry. For us Nigel pulled a 'Bluff' card which we also placed with our cavalry in a weak attempt to 'bluff' Ian into thinking it was something more worrying...I am not sure it worked. 

Deployment, Parliament (Nigel and I) on the left, Ian's Royalists on the right. 

Oliver Cromwell getting drunk on a hill with his troopers. 

The Royalist cavalry facing their Parliamentarian foes engaged in a face off for the first 4 turns. 

Nigel soon got his foote troops lining the hedge and was getting the better of a firefight with the Royalists. 

Ian tried using 'column' to get his foote units quickly into position; sadly his poor command throws slowed him down. 

Ian's cavalry getting ready to charge.

Ian's infantry trying to move forward. 

The bottom three cavalry units are mine. Being drunk clearly inspired Oliver Cromwell  as my three units routed three of Ian's units and made the fourth unit withdraw 'shaken', (the unit with the yellow counter).  

With their cavalry wing destroyed and their infantry advance stalling before it had even begun, the Royalists conceded and a Parliamentarian victory was declared. This was another fun game and it seems like these rules are now our rules of choice for the ECW as they are fast and fun. 

 

Battle on the Ice Fields: 15mm Fantastic Battles.

 With Ian having acquired a new snow and ice themed battle/gaming mat it seemed a good idea to christian the mat with a game of Fantastic Battles using my Ice Elves in their natural element. We placed a few patches of grey felt on the snowy mat and deemed these to be ice fields. Any unit or company moving over an ice field had to throw a dice and on a '6' fell through the ice to their doom. If a unit or company opted to stay on the ice for more than one turn the chance of falling through increased by 1, so a unit staying on the ice for a second turn would fall through on a 5 or 6 and so on. I did wonder about making it easier for my Ice Elves to avoid this fate as the ice is their natural home but decided that for a one off game this would be unfair but perfect for a campaign.  

This game would also be a first battle for my new unit of Ice Wyrms (fantastic beasts, mounted, furious charge and poison). I only have two of these old DandD battlesystem Miniatures but hope to have a couple more soon. 

Other than the special rules for the ice we played a straightforward encounter battle, the theme being that Ian's Gnome and Nature army were now invading the Ice Elves homelands. The Ice Elves rush to put a force together to face the Invaders across the snow and ice of their homeland. It was 1,000 points a-side. 

Deployment, Forces of Nature on the left, Ice Elves on the right. 

The patches of felt are the ice fields which were ignored and moved around by both forces. 

I think I need to make a few ice themed pieces of scenery. 

The Ice Elves did not suffer too badly from 'Mishaps' apart from a few points of resolve lost. 

The Nature forces also got off lightly from 'Mishaps.'

In the front right of the photo Ian's giant snails with howdahs charge my elf archers to negate the effect of their missile fire. 

The giant snails win that melee. 

Elsewhere my tiger riders squish some witches who failed to evade far enough but my tiger riders are now in danger of being surrounded. Ian's wizard had summoned the giant snail right onto the tiger riders flank. The elf spearmen move up to help. 

There were some very close melee's going on. 

My mage at the rear had taken 'Haste' as his spell choice. This was an experiment for me which back fired as I failed to use it effectively. I need to think about this spell choice but it felt like points wasted. 

Ian's giant mushrooms with a defence of 6 and regeneration proved to be a very tough unit. 

As the various melee's continued quite a few of my characters were destroyed alongside the units they were fighting with. I thought that things looked bleak for my elves.

After a final and hectic round of melee on turn 5 both sides reached their breakpoint at the same time resulting in a closely fought draw. 

I always enjoy playing against Ian's Nature army as he always mixes up the traits and troop types to present me with a real challenge of who and how to fight them. This was another fun game and we both agreed that 'Fantastic Battles' always gives a great game.