Is Lion Rampant really that good?

[NickNascati]

All,
      I keep hearing a lot about these rules. I have a good deal of respect for Daniel Mersey as a historian, but connect him mostly with the Dark Ages. Is this a D6 system? Sell me on these rules. Simple is good.

                                                                     Nick

[Dilettante Gamer]

All,
      I keep hearing a lot about these rules. I have a good deal of respect for Daniel Mersey as a historian, but connect him mostly with the Dark Ages. Is this a D6 system? Sell me on these rules. Simple is good.

                                                                     Nick

Hey Nick, I've only read the rules a couple times so I'll not opine - yet.  But it could help others if you could say a bit more about what your preferences with maybe some examples of other rule sets that meet your standard of "good".

The one thing I guess I can say that I like just from reading the rules is that they're more appropriate for truly medieval (compared with Dux Brit which I like for the scenarios and light campaign mechanics), and that it's more accessable than Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare in terms of army size and rules intricacy.  I like MW a lot, but LR will be quicker to the table in model count and quicker to play without looking up a bunch of special tables.

I'm looking forward actually playing this weekend or next.

[NickNascati]

Okay, so a bit more info?  Well I like a game that does not require hours of reading to understand.  I love The Sword and the Flame, and I've heard the rules compared to that, as well as the old Rules According to Ral.  My regular gaming partner is my son in law, who enjoys gaming, but is not a history buff.  So, something that will grab his interest as well as mine.

[Dilettante Gamer]

This could be right up your alley, then.  Particularly if 36-48 models on each side feels "right" to you.

[Arlequín]

As someone else said here, they may not be the 'holy grail', but they still hold a cup's worth of tea, or something like that. They are simple, short and straightforward. The learning curve is quite shallow too, so a read through will have you up and playing in no time.

Play is via a sort of UGO:IGO system of alternate activation, with units rolling to see if they do what you want. Once you have a unit which fails to do so, your turn ends (those who like to get to move all of their units don't like that part); so giving some thought to which units you want to move and when is important. Units are either 6 or 12 figures strong, with morale/shooting/fighting effects changing when the unit falls below half strength, so 'elites' tend to be quite effective but fragile to casualties received, while 'line' tend to rely on their numbers.

Personally I think they are good and give a good representation of low-level Medieval warfare, in most cases far better than some far more complex rule sets. I can't compare them to Saga or anything like that, as I have never played that game. For price, playability and other factors, I don't think they can be beat. Mr Mersey's done a cracking job on them, but I do wonder why nobody has done it before.

[Mad Doc Morris]

I have a good deal of respect for Daniel Mersey as a historian, but connect him mostly with the Dark Ages.

To be honest, there's only so much you can get wrong at skirmish level for any pre-gunpowder era (and possibly a fair distance into that as well). People emphasising details of equipment may disagree. But to me tactics (if any), formations (if any) and troop types stayed pretty much the same.

For the rules: They are very cheap, especially in digital format. Buy them, give them a quick read, maybe solo-play a few turns, and if you don't like them, nothing's lost really. That's also the main difference to products like SAGA. Particular mechanics like managing resources off-table (SAGA) or on-table (LR) are down to personal preference. Thus, ultimately, other people's opinion on the rules won't matter to you. But just for your interest, Dan Mersey himself has done a pretty good job at honestly explaining his goals HERE.

[maxxon]

I think it's good simple fun.

Dan's blog entry is good: It is NOT for everyone, but then again no game is. It DOES have its limits, but then again so does every other game (if I only had a dime every time someone claims their game scales to any sized battles without actually providing any scaling rules...)

The only real peeve I have about the rules is the individual basing, movement and figure removal -- it's fiddly and doesn't really add anything to the game. It would work pretty much as well with unit bases and marking hits on the base. I suspect that was there at least partly to appease the "I don't want to rebase / I don't want counters on the table" people.

[Elbows]

I have the book and it doesn't really appeal to me (I like a little more meat on my game rules normally) but I think it is an excellent starting point.  It's quite simple, which means that it is quite open to modification.

I think you could easily get away with multiple based stuff too. 

[Arlequín]

I don't see any reason why based figures, those on movement trays, sabot-type bases, or whatever you like can't be used. After all the whole unit fights and there are no formations as such, you just have to be able to remove figures or count casualties.

[vcina]

I have read the rules a few times and they read well and seem easy to pick up.  There are guys in the area who have played it and said after the first couple of turns everything flowed rather well.  Which reminds me of Sword and the Flame.  It has a low figure count to get started which is bonus.  Once I get my retinue painted, I will be able to enjoy a few games.

[Momotaro]

The eBook (Kindle) version costs £5. It's 64 pages, 24 pages of rules (and half of those are pictures), with the rest of the book covering unit types, scenarios, a loose campaign structure and sample army lists for different periods.  You'll read it in an hour or so.

1) It's a simple rules system that's fun to play.  You will have memorised the rules by the end of your first game, but those rules contain a basic but satisfying amount of detail.  All book-keeping is on the tabletop.  Units have stats for number of figures (6 or 12), ease of activation, courage and fighting.

There are about a dozen unit types, most of which have variants (like adding bow or expert troop quality).  There's a small number of special abilities, like  "Ferocious", "Schiltron", "Wild Charge", Evade".  You'll quickly see which are solid defenders, powerful attackers, hard to pin down, or mostly just plain points-filler (serfs!  Yay!).

Note that even serfs can be scary in the right circumstances...

2) There's enough detail in the rules, and difference between unit abilities, to give the game some tactical depth.

3) The game is open and simple enough that changing the rules is fun in itself, and I can see that modding LR will be a hobby in itself.  Rule interactions (things like unit size vs morale rolls) are pretty clear.

The Boardgamegeek "LR Variants" forum already has a number of new unit types, and suggestions for playing in medieval Japan, ancients battles and the Wars of the Roses.

There's no unit facing, but the same forum has simple rules from the author for adding facing in.  We played quite happily with movement trays rather than the game's "loose cloud of figures".

Because attack dice are a fixed number, there's nothing to stop you changing the size of units beyond some thoughts about how it affects unit fragility and morale rolls.  Want to play with six or eight or ten figures per unit?  No problem.

Over on the fantasy forum here, we briefly discussed how you might add in monsters, characters/heroes and a simple magic system.  There's enough in the basic rules to consider a magic system that adds or removes cover, line of sight, movement, activation, morale, damage or armour without bolting some horrible, wonky construction on top of the game.

[carlos13th]

TBH i see no reason why you couldn't use movement trays and remove causalities or just some kind of wound counter if you wanted to unit base your models for this game.

[maxxon]

TBH i see no reason why you couldn't use movement trays and remove causalities or just some kind of wound counter if you wanted to unit base your models for this game.

Yes, exactly. Having the figures invidually based adds nothing to the game.

[Dewbakuk]

Yes, exactly. Having the figures invidually based adds nothing to the game.

It doesn't detract from the game either though. Feel free to do it though, it won't affect play. I can say though that had it needed figures based in three's or six's, the I wouldn't have played it as I then can't use the figures for anything else.

[maxxon]

It doesn't detract from the game either though. Feel free to do it though, it won't affect play. I can say though that had it needed figures based in three's or six's, the I wouldn't have played it as I then can't use the figures for anything else.

I beg to differ. Having to move and measure individually based figures adds fiddlyness and slows the game down for no benefit.

All my stuff is invididually based, but I'll be using sabot trays for actually playing.