Hi all,
It's summer and the days are long. What better way to spend a sunny afternoon than by pushing around dollies in the living room?
Last year my mate and I had a blast with the Lion Rampant rules set in the northern part of the Holy Roman Empire, where Valdemar IV of Denmark unseated the pretender to the Brandenburger throne. This campaign season we're back to LR, but have changed the setting to the wonderful island of Gotland, Sweden, where Valdemar attempts to subdue the local branch of the Hanseatic League with a large army of professional soldiers.
The campaign which forms the basis for our four games can be found in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy#75, and was penned by Michael Leck, aka Dalauppror here on the forums and in the blogosphere. It's an excellent little article with background material, maps, OOBs and smashing pictures to boot.
The first scenario in the campaign is the Battle at Fröjel Beach, where a small party of the danish army is looking for a place to land the horses and set up camp in the island. In our game the Danes were led by Valdemar Sappi, bastard son of Valdemar IV. Opposing the danish invaders are the Gutes under the leadership of The Judge of Hejde Ting. The enraged Gutes are a mix of peasants with sharp farm implements and local militia.
The table looked like this before setup:
The Danes marched in on the eastern edge:
The danish retinue consisted by a hard core of professional German and bohemian mercenaries with experience from the wars in the baltics, supplemented with danish soldiers. In this case the meat of the army was foot sergeants and bowmen supported by scouts.
The Guts prepared themselves on the edge of the forest to the west:
The Gutes were militia, and representing them in this scenario we used fierce foot and bidower profiles for the main units and scouts.
Sounding a general advance, the Gutes march out of the forest towards the Danes, skirmishers to the front, the enraged mob of militia and peasants a little way behind them:
A short exchange of missile fire between the danish left flank and the Gute bidowers leave both sides bloody, however the danish commander is having trouble getting his archers in position, leaving the heavy infantry in the lurch:
The Gutes make their way towards the relative safety of the hills in front of the danish line of defense. As they reach the top of the hills the Danes fail to keep them at bay, the gute skirmishers having suppressed the danish scouts:
Although the Danes form into a battle line, the Gute attack pour over the hills and hit the, like a sledgehammer:
The danish line buckles to the left, but manages to hold, throwing the Gutes back. Only the scouts fare badly and is mauled by the mob:
The far right of the danish line comes under attack, and the archers are having trouble, despite the number of targets presenting themselves. Eventually the Danes throw back the Gute commander, only to find themselves beset by the next mob of angry peasants:
At last night fell on the battlefield, and both retinues withdrew to lick their wounds. It was a narrow victory for the Gutes, having routed more Danes than anyone had expected. As a prize for this win, they would get an extra unit for the next battle worth 2 points. Huzzar!
A great game for both me and Rasmus, which really showed the strenghts of the system. We would both make and fail activations throughout the game which totally altered the dynamics of the battle and kept it open to the end. Playing the Gute army as fierce foot was fun, but I lost control of them fairly quickly, with my units making up their own minds on what to charge and when!
Welcome, Guest. Please 
April 29, 2024, 08:42:58 AM
March 05, 2013, 08:11:01 PM