Romans Rampant

A game of Lion Rampant at Matt's, but set in Roman times and modded (for rules and troop types) to give a big battle feel.

Sardine Wars

The Furness Wargamers are on the verge of starting another Campaign game. The game is based in Crusader times and on the Island of Sardinia with the waning of the Byzantinian influence on the isle. Despite the place not having much in the way of recorded Crusader history in this time period, things are being padded out to give room for some action.

Two Lions Rampant

Two games of Lion Rampant at the club as we enter training mode for the group. First game was Matt vs Jim, two novices to the rules with a number of (semi-)eager spectators.

Miniatures supplied by Dave M, who's rebased his Normans into single figures. Everybody else are still putting their plastics together.

Since it was Matt and Jim in command of the forces it was always going to be an interesting game. Victory conditions were whoever could hold the central hill for a total of 5 turns, or else defeat the opposition. Jim seized the central hill early, and Matt did not immediately respond. Preferring instead to form his footmen at arms into schiltron to protect his flanks from the enemy cavalry, while launching his own cavalry through the centre, skirting round the hill.

Jim managed to hold the hill for four turns but his force ended up breaking in the end, due to some bad morale roles.

For the second game , I got dragged into playing as nobody else would volunteer!

In this scenario I got the role of defender, trying to find an escapee in hiding from their former gaolers.

Things started badly as I failed to activate on the first term and only managed to activate a couple of units on the second. Meanwhile the attackers were advancing along the board at quite a pace being in the main light troops. Fortunately my troops finally decided to make haste and managed to check out the first and second area in quick succession. Unfortunately the escapee was in neither, and with the remaining sections in the middle of the board it was going to be a risky job to continue the search.

I decided to take a risk and advanced my cavalry units up the centre of the board this put them in direct confrontation with the enemy leader and cavalry. My leader's cavalry unit searched the central area and found our escapee, the trouble now laid in trying to get them off the board.

The big trouble with using the cavalry to pick up the escapee is the Wild Charge ability, which sort of gives the opposition a herding mechanism. Unless I could throw blockers in front of the unit, or make use of terrain to mask enemy units.

Then disaster struck my opponent, as their leader committed to a disastrous charge that greatly weakened them at little cost to myself, Although my unit with the escapee was in wild charge range of him, he was also on wild charge range of my other unit which I chose to activate first and wiped his unit out. With no one else in charge range my escapee could make their way towards safety.

The crib sheets we used, while not totally comprehensive, came in very useful, and I found them easier to use to look up activation and combat figures than the individual unit cards that Dave M provided.

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Phalanx 2016

Another year and another Saturday trip to St Helens to visit the Phalanx show, the main one in the North-West. No exhibition game from Furness Wargamers this year, but the usual suspects made their way down individually. Some of the goods purchased are displayed below.

The decision had been previously made by our group at the club to try and organise a Lion Rampant campaign, set around an unspecified area of the Mediterranean in the Crusader era. Given how disorganised we traditionally are this would be quite an achievement if successful. So there the three of us were, trying to sort out what boxes of plastics were needed.

Templar Knight Horses

From Phalanx 2016