Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Medieval Adventures => Topic started by: tim in saskatoon on October 28, 2014, 06:26:35 AM
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I've been trying to focus on Ancient subjects lately but was distracted by the arrival of Lion Rampant. Over the last week or so I quickly dusted off and touched up some older figures and painted up a few new ones so we could have a go at it.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QjDCFGldCFE/VErg24Nv1HI/AAAAAAAAYwQ/mygAXEyp4xg/s1600/Retinue0101.jpg)
The Forces available. You can find more pictures of my units on my blog:
http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2014/10/lion-rampant-retinues.html (http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2014/10/lion-rampant-retinues.html)
Then on the weekend I set up a quick game for the kids to play...
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-loKXNxkYPDo/VE8u8bJN8uI/AAAAAAAAYxo/LRX7ge2vQPc/s1600/LionRampant0101.jpg)
Set up and ready to go!
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m-upV2cdV38/VE8u-Pci8eI/AAAAAAAAYx8/rQJh9VbCIcA/s1600/LionRampant0105.jpg)
The mounted Serjeants (armed with crossbows) charge ahead, everyone else just shambles their way toward the field of battle.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1mFo4XJqWRw/VE8vBdEKslI/AAAAAAAAYyo/_FIoK6aFrMc/s1600/LionRampant0110.jpg)
The Serjeants are the first to suffer casualties - but they're steady folk and easily pass their courage tests.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lGm05y9Fn0Q/VE8vDv8Gz0I/AAAAAAAAYzA/cuQvSrlVrOM/s1600/LionRampant0112.jpg)
First Clash - Serjeants vs Serjeants...
For a complete report of the action and loads more pictures check out the post on my blog:
http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2014/10/lion-rampant-first-game.html (http://saskminigamer.blogspot.ca/2014/10/lion-rampant-first-game.html)
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Lovely work Tim.
All the best,
Helen
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Hi,
What are your feelings about the game? I bought and read it and I have a positive feeling about it. It just has a wee bit too many figures to move individually, do you feel it would work with unit bases? Is it important to be able to change the formation?
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We had our first game last night. Moving individual models at 24pts wasn't an issue, to be honest. It was useful to have the figures based individually, although trays would work, I guess.
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Moving individual models at 24pts wasn't an issue, to be honest.
24 points = six units of 12 foot = 72 individually mounted figures. Ok, less with some other configurations, but you will be hard pressed to come up with a legal force of under 30 models.
It is an issue for me. I hate fiddling about a gazillion figures, even though in this game you could theoretically get away with just measuring one (it does open avenues for rubber band ranges etc. but not by huge amount).
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Ok, so my force was 18 mounted and 24 foot, so not 72 models! Also, measuring is very fluid. We tended to measure from the key model in each unit and group the unit in a broadly similar formation around him. It worked well enough. The trouble with movement trays is differentiating when spearmen form schiltron - you'd need a marker, I suppose...
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It worked well enough. The trouble with movement trays is differentiating when spearmen form schiltron - you'd need a marker, I suppose...
I was planning to use zombie trays for most units. And it's arguable without the trays too, if one wants to argue such things.
This is not a criticism against Lion Rampant specifically -- I find pretty much all "mass skirmish" suffer from the same problems.
- The mere act of physically moving tens of individual things every turn is a chore for no real gain (IMHO). Selecting a unit, deciding where to move, measuring and moving the first guy is fun. Moving everyone else in the same unit to follow up is not.
- If every figure is diligently measured, it's double the chore.
- If not, you will soon see players stretching the interpretation to its limit.
- It slows down play by allowing, ahem, certain type of players to micromanage their formations.
But that's just my personal preference.
It just seems odd to me that Lion, having streamlined many other typically fiddly aspects (always measure closest-to-closest, everyone fights etc.) still clings to individual movement.
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We used trays. It's no problem at all. Once it was required we moved them off the trays.
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Thanks for the AAR, saskatoon-tim. I do share some of your concerns on the randomised activation and already pondering minor house ruling there. E.g. lowering the rolls for activation or an incremental bonus each turn for units not yet activated. If you come up with something yourself, please share it.
I don't see the point, though, in arguing about basing convention. The rules for movement are pretty loose anyway, and neither facing nor formation do matter, so there's nothing to exploit. If the rules were expressing a need for multi-based figures everyone would grumble "Well, well, that's not how you do skirmishes!". Lion Rampant is distinctly 'old school' in that and many other regards. But even if you take everything "as written", I may quote the following passage (p. 6):
If your collection includes multiple models on a communal base, you can still play Lion Rampant without much difficulty: just be prepared to ignore the direction the models are actually facing and think of them as a blob of troops with no flanks or rear. You’ll also need to mark casualties as they occur (small dice are a discreet way of doing so).
So, relax. ;)
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It's not that big an issue, just use what you have.
I've plumped for multi bases in groups of six figures, but my cavalry are individually based. It's not a problem at all. :D
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Thanks for the report. I bought the Kindle version of the rules and intend to give it a go for bigger skirmishes once my opponents have caught up in terms of figures. I plan to use skirmish trays to move figs about.
Until everyone has enough figs I will be using Legends of Feudal times for small skirmishes.
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Very nice AAR!
I play-tested the rules with my Multibased Kalmar union minis and just counte the hits and removed a base when appropriate, no problem at all. In the game Dan specificly wanted pictures of singel based minis as it is a "Skirmish" game so my Baltic Crusade forces (http://dalauppror.blogspot.se/search/label/Baltic%20Crusades) was made that way and during the later games we removed the movement trays for Dan´s pictures, but only one of them made it to the final book.
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What are your feelings about the game? I bought and read it and I have a positive feeling about it. It just has a wee bit too many figures to move individually, do you feel it would work with unit bases? Is it important to be able to change the formation?
I like the game.
I don't see any reason why multi-figure bases or movement tray wouldn't work. Honestly, we didn't find it all that arduous moving the troops - though the troops didn't really do all that much moving on any give turn...
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I like them quite a lot and we use movement trays as and when it helps, but aren't bound by them.
I do need to ask Dan about the reasoning behind the three inch ruling at some point. It seems incongruous for a skirmish game. I'm sure different distances were considered during play testing and wondered what was the consequence of going for a single inch instead.
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Very nice AAR. I just purchased the rules, but I haven't had a chance to really look through them. So far everyone who has posted an AAR, seems to like the flow of the rules. Activation seems a bit odd, when you have a unit that doesn't activate in 7 turns. Thanks again for posting.
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Very nice AAR. I just purchased the rules, but I haven't had a chance to really look through them. So far everyone who has posted an AAR, seems to like the flow of the rules. Activation seems a bit odd, when you have a unit that doesn't activate in 7 turns. Thanks again for posting.
Yes, but that 7 turns probably represents no more than 20 minutes real time, as the rules are meant to simulate very small quick-fire skirmishes. Once you keep that in your head it's easier...we had about 5 turns before a single unit of knights actually activated in our first game. The foot sergeants and archers were all going for it, but not the big bad boy knights...no sirreee.... ::)
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Very nice AAR. I just purchased the rules, but I haven't had a chance to really look through them. So far everyone who has posted an AAR, seems to like the flow of the rules. Activation seems a bit odd, when you have a unit that doesn't activate in 7 turns. Thanks again for posting.
Yeah, my first game, only my 2 bidowers units managed to move at all in about the first five turns. It was a bizarre run of dice rolls, but we hung some narrative on it, and it didn't really spoil the game.
Would be annoying if that happened every week, though.
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It's fairly medieval practice to stand around waiting to see which side you're going to fight for.
I like the mechanism, it means you are rewarded for using your troops as they should be. Knights should charge about all over the place battering things, archers shoot stuff, bid owners sneak about. Yeah, occasionally you'll get some bad rolls and troops won't do what you want but that's all part of the narrative.
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I do need to ask Dan about the reasoning behind the three inch ruling at some point. It seems incongruous for a skirmish game. I'm sure different distances were considered during play testing and wondered what was the consequence of going for a single inch instead.
This is the part I found the trickiest - especially on a slightly smaller than suggested size table - keeping everyone 3" from each other and eventually gave up on keeping friendly units 3" apart and just tried to keep a clear separation between the units (which was about and inch or two...).
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We forgot the 3" thing, actually... :? Must remember to inform my opponent!! It would have affected some of the tactical choices we made, but overall, it didn't make much difference to the result...
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Yeah, my first game, only my 2 bidowers units managed to move at all in about the first five turns. It was a bizarre run of dice rolls, but we hung some narrative on it, and it didn't really spoil the game.
Would be annoying if that happened every week, though.
Ah, it sounds like my old friend the 'tiffin' card in new medieval clothes... A Lardies staple I believe.
You either love it or you hate it.
Personally, I hate it. I don't want to play a game where an entire unit of figures stands there and does nothing for the whole game (or most of it), irrespective of what is happening around them, and how those troops would react to those things happening around them (or to them) in a real battle.
Presumably you can just take that mechanism out though, and ignore that rule.
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This is the part I found the trickiest - especially on a slightly smaller than suggested size table - keeping everyone 3" from each other and eventually gave up on keeping friendly units 3" apart and just tried to keep a clear separation between the units (which was about and inch or two...).
We have played a few games and found the 3" rule is important if a unit is retreating, as they can take more casualties.
However we did not use it in our 96point per side game.
We also use both movement trays and multi based units in our games.
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Ah, it sounds like my old friend the 'tiffin' card in new medieval clothes... A Lardies staple I believe.
Presumably you can just take that mechanism out though, and ignore that rule.
Failure to activate a unit ends your turn, which in 30 - 50 odd figure games isnt such an issue and I'm not convinced these are the rules for larger games. However, you could ignore the end of turn part and just fail to activate that unit.
That said, I don't find it as annoying as the Lardies tiffin card as you can choose the order in which to activate your units and if you ask them to do something they like doing then it's easier than trying to persuade them to do something they're not so keen on. So losing the end of turn thing would change the dynamic.
These rules aren't the Grail, but they will still hold a decent brew ;)
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Ah, it sounds like my old friend the 'tiffin' card in new medieval clothes... A Lardies staple I believe.
You either love it or you hate it.
Personally, I hate it. I don't want to play a game where an entire unit of figures stands there and does nothing for the whole game (or most of it), irrespective of what is happening around them, and how those troops would react to those things happening around them (or to them) in a real battle.
Presumably you can just take that mechanism out though, and ignore that rule.
you should give these rules a go, I think you'd really like them ;)
I've been using Impetus based units with no problems. just used small for casualty markers.
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Ah, it sounds like my old friend the 'tiffin' card in new medieval clothes... A Lardies staple I believe.
You either love it or you hate it.
Personally, I hate it. I don't want to play a game where an entire unit of figures stands there and does nothing for the whole game (or most of it), irrespective of what is happening around them, and how those troops would react to those things happening around them (or to them) in a real battle.
Presumably you can just take that mechanism out though, and ignore that rule.
We began to use the old "double Tiffin" to take the sting away a bit. Once the first Tiffin comes up, the tension rises but it's not all over for everyone there and then.
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Actually I like the tiffin card,
make what I am doing on the table much more in line with what it is supposed to represent. And in lion Rampant it is different, you fail to activate (as already said) initiative passes. I really do not like games where the little lead people obeys you as automata or where activation become a game unto the game (SAGA). You give orders, the little lead officer/NCO carries them or not. And i like both the TFL rules and Lion Rampant.
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Enjoying the conversation and perspectives in this thread. I just finished reading the rules last night.
What's bothering me is 12 attack dice whether the unit is actually 12 models strong or 6. And then the arbitrary decrease to 6 dice at or below half strength. Assuming I'm not missing something...
So, a full strength unit of bidowers can throw out 12 attacks but a half strength unit of expert bowmen (6 models) only 6?
Anyone have Dan's reasoning on this? My guess is simplification. Still, seems easier to correlate number of attacks to number of models and have attacks decrease at the same rate as the casualty count. Would this imbalance the game in some way?
Overall, I'm quite charmed by this ruleset on first pass.
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Yup, but the bidowers will be down to half strength after losing three models compared to the expert bowmen' six. The expert bowmen will therefore be more effective for longer.
It's the same with the foot knights, they put out a lot of punishment but are very fragile.
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Yup, but the bid owners will be down to half strength after losing three models compared to the expert bowmen' six. The expert bowmen will therefore be more effective for longer.
It's the same with the foot knights, they put out a lot of punishment but are very fragile.
Hmmm. Okay. I think I see that logic. Thanks for 'splainin it to me.
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We played our first game with 15mm with DBA/FOG style bases - using the as is figures on the multi-bases. So 3 x 4 crossbowmen bases as a unit, 2 x 3Knights etc. All other rules were the same, so the game was fun and worked well. We required to mark a couple of casualties unit until a base was removed but that's not a major pain.
This allowed reuse of FOG/DBM etc based armies and saves a heck of painting of new figs as we don't have any for the period in 28mm.
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24 points = six units of 12 foot = 72 individually mounted figures. Ok, less with some other configurations, but you will be hard pressed to come up with a legal force of under 30 models.
It is an issue for me. I hate fiddling about a gazillion figures, even though in this game you could theoretically get away with just measuring one (it does open avenues for rubber band ranges etc. but not by huge amount).
Being very new to wargaming I was building medieval figures when LR came along. Not having enough I have been playing with half size units and marking single figures with a dog token. Works fine although it looks a bit odd when the last man of the mounted maa is actually a greyhound!
I now have three retinues - all using one figure to represent two - playing solo and really enjoying myself.