With Finals over and sometime to paint and catch up on my hobbies. I finally had some free time to do some gaming. This weekend was a big week for gaming. In the US, Gencon, the granddaddy of gaming cons was taking place. In the UK, it was BOYL, a multi-location event. Since I could not attend either one of them, I decided to push some lead locally.
Starting Saturday, My friend and I played some Lion Rampart at Meeple Madness.
Lion Rampant is a set of rules designed for fighting historical or Hollywood battles in the medieval period from the Norman Conquest to the Hundred Years' War. This period is well suited to large skirmish gaming as played with Lion Rampant as it was a time of anarchy, feuds, robbery, and raiding. Become Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart, Gamelyn, William Wallace, Llewellyn the Last, or other legends and leaders from the colorful, dangerous medieval period.
Lion Rampant is ideal for players who wish to collect medieval miniatures without wanting to muster huge forces or spend time learning complex rules.
Gameplay is very simple, and requires the player to use units in the correct tactical way: knights are great at charging down enemies but less useful for guarding convoys, while spearmen are jacks of all trades and masters of none, and bowmen are to be feared at distance but easily cut down if you can get close enough. An army usually consists of 6-8 units comprised of 6-12 individually based figures (making it ideal for 15mm or 28mm games), and is led by a Leader, who may have some unique character traits that affect game play and provide some opportunity for role playing. The action, however, focuses very much on the small units involved in the battle rather than individual characters: each unit moves and fights independently, assuming that they follow your orders rather than just doing their own thing. Command and control is just as important on the battlefield as the power of a mounted knight.
Some army lists are provided, and guidance given for players seeking to create their own forces, but this game is not army list-heavy. The rules include a good number of scenarios, which are important to this style of gaming.
This is a fantastic medieval skirmish game that is easy to learn. It uses a point based system for building your troop roster. The beauty of the system is that everyone uses the same exact troop types.
There is a ZERO CHEDDAR system which means Power Gamers and Min-Maxers are going to hate it.
The book has a list of scenarios that you can play and that is what we did. Neither my buddy or I actually had enough medieval minutes to field an full force.
I did have a boat load of painted warhammer fantasy dwarfs (Oldhammer and newer stuff).
My friend has a bunch of undead from a number of board games he had bought. So it ended up being ...
Laird Fergus MacCracken and Clan MacCraken
(Scottish Dwarves)
Vs.
Evil Ash and the Army of Darkness
Battle #1 - Blood Bath
Basically we lined up across from each other and had at it. Technically it was a draw as by the end.
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| The Clan is ready for battle |
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| Crossbowmen and Miners |
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| Troll Slayers (Fierce Foot) and Bugman's Ranger (Bidowers) |
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| Laird's Retinue of Mea-at-Arms and Hammerers (Foot Serjeant) |
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| After the dwarves repeatedly failed several activations, the undead took the initiative and poured across the field |
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| The Standoff |
Battle #2 - Hammer and Anvil
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I won this battle thanks to my two units of Foot Serjeants who I had formed into Shillatron or Shieldwall.
