Lion Rampant rules questions

[lionofmoore]

--Apologies if this is posted in the wrong spot, moderators please throw me into the right place if I be wrong here.  Thank you!


Hello folks,

 I've been enjoying Lion Rampant games over the past few weeks with a good friend.  We have had a great time but we are a little puzzled over some aspects of the rules.

 Apologies if this has already been asked elsewhere, I looked thru the forums but I didn't quite see where else this has been asked, and my search skills are not great.

 Also my apologies if my friend and I are totally misinterpreting the rules here and are way off target.  Any help that can be provided to clarify our questions is appreciated.

 Question 1:
 Example -- Blue's Fierce Foot charges into a unit of Red's Sargents to attack them.  Red and Blue roll their appopriate dice to resolve combat, etc etc. 
 Now initiative passes to Red (after Blue fails activating a different unit), and he orders a unit of Men-At-Arms into the same fray to help out and attack Blue's Fierce Footmen.

 What do you do at this point?

 Do the Blue Fierce Foot get to fight again, against this new Red Men-At-Arms that has just joined the melee?  Both Men-At-Arms and Fierce Foot rolling their appropriate 12 dice against each other, even
 though Blue just fought with Red's Sargents in this same turn?

 Or, does Red Men-At-Arms get to make their attack and the Blue Fierce Foot have to wait until next activation (in next turn) in order to fight them back?

 Question 2:
 When you have both activated all of your units and you have two that are still in combat with each other from the previous turn, how do you continue the combat?

 Do you have to roll to active one the involved units to continue fighting and attack again?  Or do they just continue fighting each other automatically?

 If they do continue fighting automatically, how do you determine who is the Attacker or Defender?  Since each unit has a different 'Attack Value' and 'Defense Value' how do we determine which to use in this situation?

Again I apologize if I am way off target here and getting the rules very wrong.  Its possible I might be getting even the order of how things work entirely wrong. 

I appreciate any clarifications or corrections you can give me please.

 Thank you.

 And thank you Mr. Mersey for your awesome work, we have really enjoyed this game.

[Ragnar]

The simple answer is that units never remain in contact at the end of any combat.  From memory, the side that loses the most casualties retreats.  If the casualty count is equal, the attacker always retreats.

So the sequence is;
Move to contact
Resolve fight
Loser retreats
Whichever side lost casualties, roll for Courage test (it is possible that both sides flee)

Edit: Page 24 (in my PDF version) states "No units will remain in contact or within 3" of any other by the end of an Attack."

[lionofmoore]

Ragnar,

awesome, thank you so much for that clarification.  I just checked my physical copy and it is indeed explained on page 24 like you said.

I can't believe my friend and I kept overlooking that part yesterday during our game, it was absolutely vexing us.  That makes so much sense now and resolves both of my questions.

Thank you again for taking the time to answer that, very much appreciated.

[LCpl McDoom]

Ragnar beat me to the reply, and did a great job providing the page reference too 

LR are great rules with lots of potential. I missed a few aspects at first, replayed games to include those missed aspects, and it just got better and better. And later I ended up with a copy of Dragon Rampant as well. Enjoy exploring the rules more, and be happy to help if you have any more questions.
 

[Ragnar]

No worries Lionofmoore, happy to help.

And if you are, like me, the wargame butterfly, don't forget to check out all the other variants of these rules.

[Erik]

I would like to add a comment as well, as we also enjoy LR very much and use it for all our participation games or when we just want to have fun with a good homemade scenario.

One of the reasons LR works so well, in my opinion, is exactly the fact that units doent remain in contact. We also play a lot of Hail Ceasar and its always around continued combat that uncertainties occurs in this otherwise easy game.


Cheers
Erik

[lionofmoore]

I think I can see where my friend and I got messed up now. 

We had been playing a lot of 'FUBAR: Medieval' (also a fun game) before we started onto LionRampant.  Units stay in combat together in FUBAR until they disengage or flee, and we unconsciously started doing that in LR.


Ragnar,

Yeah I have been enjoying the other variants as well.  I have Dragon, and Pikemen's Lament too, but I have not had the chance to play them yet.  Rebels and Patriots looks great too, but I should finish my medieval stuff before I jump into a whole new era.

[katie]

"So the sequence is;"

Courage comes first, before the loser determination.

1. Move to contact
2. Resolve fight
3. Whichever side lost casualties, roll for Courage test (it is possible that both sides flee)
4. If they're still in contact, determine Loser, who retreats.
5. If they're still in contact, the attacker retreats.

[Ragnar]

Katie has it correct, Page 21.  Courage tests before retreating.