Lion Rampant - First Game

[guitarheroandy]

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....

[monkeylite]

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.

[Ray Earle]

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.

[tim in saskatoon]

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...).

[guitarheroandy]

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...

[Captain Blood]

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.

[Jack]

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.

[janner]

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 

[redzed]

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.

[Gibby]

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.

[Arrigo]

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.

[Dilettante Gamer]

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.

[Ray Earle]

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.

[Dilettante Gamer]

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.

[mellis1644]

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.