Hi all,
We had a small game of Lion Rampant this afternoon, and I would like to share the outcome with you fine gentlemen/women here on lead-adventure.
The scenario played was 'Sausages With Mustard', as a quick raid seemed like a good way to kick off our campaign. None of us had played the game before, but the rules had been studied and we felt reasonably ready to tackle them with sword in hand.
The story of the game was set in the wars between the margrave of Brandenburg Louis, his danish allies under King Valdemar IV 'Atterdag' and an impostor supported by the German Emperor. Niels Bugge, a jutlandic nobleman of ill repute but loyal to the Danish crown (for the time being), has taken it upon himself to lead a chevauchée into Northern Germany. Here he must put as many farmsteads to the torch as possible to deminish the supplies of the impostor margrave.
I elected to take control of herr Niels Bugge of Hald and his retinue, consisting of two units of mounted MAA (Herr Bugges personal retinue of knechts), a single unit of Foot Serjants (in the service of Valdemar Sappi the Bastard) and a small contingent of Bidowers (Friisian mercenaries hired by herr Bugge).
Opposing me was my mate Rasmus, who took control of the local garrison. Quickly marching off at the first word of the raiders reached them by messenger, they consisted of a single unit of foot MAA, two units of Foot Serjants, a single unit of Crossbowmen and two units of Bidowers (one armed with bows and the other armed with handgonnes).
We went for a cluttered, dense terrain, and therefore did not bother too much with the 3" seperation rule, opting for a shorter 1". The objectives were the farmstead at the center of the battlefield, the harvest near the wesern end and the local church(I told you Bugge was of ill repute!). Before the game, Rasmus boasted that he would see my leader killed by his hand, and I retaliated by declaring his MAA unit dead to a man before sunset.
Here is how it went...
The board was set up like so:
Despite the warnings of the messenger, the locals came out to see what the fuss was about...
...and then decided to leg it as fast as possible!
The garrison commander arrived on the scene and started deploying his men
While most of the garrison was placed near the far end table edge, a single unit of foot serjeants was rushed ahead of the rest of the force and deployed at the farmstead, quickly forming into a Schiltron to face the onrushing enemy knecths!
At the very head of the raiders rode herr Bugge, accompanied by both units of knecths. The foot serjeants were deployed to his left, while the Friisian mercenaries made their way through the corn field towards the closest objective of haystacks, ready to set them alight!
The Friisians made good time, quick on their feet through the field... however, some damned peasant had obviously been so foresighted to douse the whole lot of haystacks in water and the cursed things would not catch light!
Meanwhile the attack on the schiltron in the centre had stalled, herr Bugge being reluctant to commit his knechts to the coming fray just yet! (...I failed quite a few activation rolls on this. Getting knights to do much more than sit around on their horses and sulk is a damn sight harder than you'd think!)
While the knechts stood around and waited, the garrison commander had spped-marched to his foot serjeants side, and proceeded to issue a challenge to herr Bugge, which was duly accepted. The fight was swift and brutal, the garrison commander scoring a single hit on Bugges horse, panicking the animal and sending it gallopping off into the distance!
Wathcing as their leader was carried off into the horizon was too much for his bodyguard, and they started riding to the rear, taunting calls from the german soldiers ringing in their ears!
The wavering danes set their jaws straight and the foot serjeants lent to herr Bugge by Valdemar Sappi charged into the germans! Both units suffered two casualties, and the danes were repulsed, bloodied but ready for another go!
Meanwhile, Bugges personal unit of knechts decided that vengance had to be metered out, and made a wild dash towards the now silent, german center. They would wash away the slight to their honour with noble German blood!
After a short and brutal fight two more germans lay dead, but still the damned buggers refused to give ground!
Meanwhile the other unit of Danish knechts were trying to navigate around the fight at the farm, through the corn fields. The Friisians were still struggeling to set the haystacks alight... now under threat from the German crossbows, moving closer on the right flank.
The single remaining German foot knecth and the garrison commander was charged again by the Danish infantry, this time loosing the combat, leaving the commander running for his life!
Soon after the schiltron was hit with the force of a sledgehammer by the fresh unit of danish knechts, suffering appalling casualties, but holding their ground, buying time for the rest of the German force to move into position...
On the left flank, both units of Bidowers and the remaining serjeants had moved up to the road, and now proceeded to lay waste to the battered and bruised unit of knechts, causing them to flee. At least their honour had been satisfied!
A final charge by the remaning knechts and foot serjeants caused the schiltron to buckle and then disintegrate, despite the best effort of the wounded commander, resting behind his men.
The poor bloody infantry was caught by the vengeful danes and put to the sword soon after...
...and the germans could only watch in horror and dismay as their commander was caught and cut to pieces by the victorius Danish knechts.
The Friisian mercenaries finally got the haystack to catch fire, harrowed by the German crossbowmen they fled into the safety of the fields (or, you know, as safe as a field can get when it's on fire.)
Much to the germans dismay (soldiers and peasants alike!), the knechts managed to set the farmstead on fire as well, securing the danes another objective!
The knechts then proceeded to slaughter the German handgonners, bringing them into contact with the main force of the remaining garrison troops.
The germans turned their last efforts on bringing down the now depleted unit of danish foot serjeants, causing them to flee the battlefield. This brought the Danish raiders below half their starting value, causing them to quit the field and leave it for the germans to count the cost!
As it were, the danes won a marginal victory, having set alight two objectives and fulfilling their modest boast of death to the german MAA unit, earning them further 2 points of Glory, bringing them up to a total of 6, against the German 5 (3 for getting rid of herr Bugge and 2 for the intact church in their posession at the end of the game).
All in all a very fun game, with loads of memorable moments. Writing it down now, biased as I may be, it was a closer shave than might be gleaned from the photos here. If the Germans hadn't spend the second half of the game botching every activation roll on their units they would have been in a much better position to deal with the maraudering danish knechts. The crossbows were hardly given the chance to shoot during the entire game and suffered from the dense environment and a lack of activations.
The Bidowers on both sides performed better than expected. I really like the versatility of this unit, being faster but more vulernable to damage than normal archers. My Friisians didn't fire their bows a single time during the entire game, but they performed their duty to the letter and got away without a scratch thanks to their 'Hard to target' and 'Fleet footed' special rules.
I believe Lion Rampant just landed on my #1 place on the select list of wargames I will make a real effort to game over the next months!
I leave you with a picture of the trimphant danes, marching through the burning villages of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, on the lookout for more loot:
27 March 2012, 10:36:56 AM