A Dark Age adventure or two : Lion Rampant

Somewhere in the last few weeks we played another couple of pick up games of Lion Rampant using some of our dark age/ medieval figures. We were looking for something easy and fun to play.

The local Welsh Warlord Brendan the Bold has heard tell that his neighbour and rival Duke Stanwix is attempting to abduct a local monk carrying away with him certain important relics, Brendan has gathered his forces to stop this dreadful unchristian action

Knowing there is likely to be trouble the Duke has sent a sizeable force to accompany the monk

Including heavily armoured cross bow men who hurry forward keeping the monk under close guard.

Brendan has a secret weapon his mobile, javelin wielding light cavalry who are both mobile and annoying in their ability to skirmish/ hit and run

Brendan’s forces have set their ambush in the village, whilst the Dukes men attempt to escape with the monk along the far edge of the battlefield

The fight for the centre of the village

The thunder of hooves, the Dukes heavy knights charge onto the table

The light cavalry skirmish from in the trees

....and with effective thrown weapons they whittle down the Duke’s infantry

Taking the high ground Brendan’s men are able to lure the heavy cavalry into the trees where they can be cut down

And there is no escape , the monk is abandoned and the Duke’s remaining forces run home

This is always a tough scenario and very hard to get the objective/ monk in this case right across the battlefield, so we swopped over now Brendan’s men had kidnapped the Duke’s eldest daughter and had the same objective, this was going to be really tough ......

Infuriated by the slight the Duke has filled the village with armed men looking to get his daughter back and put Brendan’s men to the sword

A light screen of skirmish cavalry leads the advance but they are going to struggle with heavy forces in front of them, this is only going to work if the Dukes men fail some morale tests............

Oooooh that was unlucky the mounted cross bowmen have to fall back..........but they will probably rally next turn ☹️

Oooooops now that is very unlucky two failed tests of double one in a row, but now a gap has opened up in the centre of the village. The Duke smiles knowing that is likely to be the end of his bad luck 🤔

Oooooops now that really is very very bad luck and the Duke is the only person I know that can be that unlucky, literally within 2 minutes he has rolled three double ones 🤪

Well with that kind of luck it was inevitable that after a few more hard fought turns Brendan would manage to escape with the Dukes daughter, a rare victory in this scenario.

Two very fun games, great to get the dark age figures out again, Lion Rampant still provides a good game in my view although not as complex as some might like.