Wednesday 16 December 2015

1067 : Lion Rampant

More floods so I needed some light diversion which came in the form of Lion Rampant. Luckily I can field quite a few points so we were able to have 28 points of Normans vs Saxons. With a whole evening to go we had time to play two scenarios. First up the Normans (led by Ranulf le Meschin) and Saxons were fighting over the cross of Saint Cuthbert seen in the first picture.
Saxons form a slightly chaotic battle line !
This seemed like a good scenario for the  Normans with two units of mounted sargeants and the Saxons all on foot.
Disciplined and Noble Norman forces ?
Of course nothing goes to plan and the Normans decided to spend much of the first couple of turns eating garlic mushrooms and drinking cognac, stubbornly sitting on the baseline. This allowed the dirty good for nothing saxons to rush forward. By the time the Normans had finished breakfast the saxons had two glory points in the bag already !

Eating breakfast while the saxons gain glory !
Eventually Ranulf was off and the Normans began to get in the game. Cavalry charging forward to contest the cross backed up by Sargeants.

En avant !
Some early success by the Cavalry pushed the saxons back from the cross, with the second unit led by Ranulf himself moving to the right under a hail of saxon arrows. In the distance heavily armoured Norman foot knights are moving in to clear the woods.
The cross is ours.......
Having pushed the Saxons back on both sides of the cross, the Saxon Earl tried to sneek with his bodyguard through the long grass to the cross. From his mounted vantage point Ranulf saw the threat and shouted out a challenge.
Are you a man or a pig saxon dog ! etc. etc......
Despite looking shaken and slightly awkward in front of his troops the Saxon Earl stood up from the long grass, was he accepting the challenge or offering a hefty payment for his safety ?. No matter Ranulf was looking for land and conquest and he made short work of the Saxon Earl.
One less saxon dog to feed !
Always a dangerous move this left Ranulf with his unit quite exposed and the Saxon bodyguard were sure to charge in next turn to take their bloody revenge for the Earl's demise.
Oopps not terribly brave Saxons run off !
But it was not to be, a double 1! saw them fail their courage test and flee the battlefield, along with a couple of other units. So despite a shaky start the Normans had snatched victory.

Having taken control of the Earls estates and lands Ranulf then found himself in the position of carrying the spoils of war back to his lands in the South. Always a tricky scenario he and his retinue had to escort three baggage items from one corner to the other.

Normans set off 
Once again the Normans failed a couple of tests early on so were off to a slow start.The three baggage items represented by a wagon of beer and two pack horses/mules with weapons and provisions were split between the cross bowmen and one of the units of sargeants.

Ranulf encouraging his retinue to speed up 
Despite the early bad luck half of the retinue had made the centre of the table before Saxon arrows started to rain down.

But now the luck ran out and a couple of critical failed command rolls left the beer wagon isolated, the Saxons swept in butchering the unit before the Normans could react. Merde ! luckily though they started to get stuck into the beer rather than concentrating on the other baggage.

Saxons Hurscarls sweep in to get the beer.
Now it was up to the cross bowmen to push forward with the pack animals to safety as quickly as possible.

Protected by several units the mules are escorted forward
Some heroic and selfless sacrifice by the remaining Norman sargeants as they blocked the path of the oncoming Saxons enabled the unit with the baggage to force its way around the wood.
Saxons chasing down the baggage, Normans holding the line
Once free of the woods Ranulf puts spur to horse to make off with the baggage. A rare win with this scenario and two great games which despite my very biased write up were both quite close and well fought.
Ranulf leads off with the Baggage

6 comments:

  1. Fab. I do like convoy style battles, they are always close.

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    1. the advantage always seems to be with the defender when we play it

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  2. Great stuff! I need to play more Lion Rampant!

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    1. Have found it a great rule set when you just want to have a fun game and get some figures on the table.

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  3. Great looking game, with beautiful figures (love the cavalry especially...and the convoy!)...

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    1. Thanks Phil the wagon out of interest in metal from the jumble box you sometimes see at shows, the only problem is the oxen were far to small 25 mm scale so I swopped for some larger beasts.

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