Andy came over on Monday evening for a last game before he goes into the usual two months' of political campaigning. I'm pleased to say he'll enter the fray invigorated by a fine and crushing victory. We swapped sides this time with Andy taking the Burgundians and me the Swiss.
I had 10 points of troops in the centre guarding the bombard (the game's "indefensible" objective). The pikes (expert foot serjeants) formed the main strength and they were backed up by two units of bidowers; the Swiss hand gunners and the Italian mercenary crossbowmen. The latter had switched sides since the last game.
We set up the table on the assumption that the Burgundians had somehow found their way behind the Swiss lines around a besieged town. The rest of the Swiss force was coming back from beneath the walls to oppose this surprise move.
This game saw a first opportunity to use my new Swiss mounted crossbowmen. Needless to say, their first foray would not be glorious.
Below we see the Burgundian force as it sweeps past and through part of the Swiss Camp.
The game began with most of Andy's forces advancing...
Though the mounted men at arms proved reluctant to move.
The Irish kern advanced on the right flank.
While the coustilliers moved up quickly on the left and the longbowmen advanced in the centre.
The coustilliers took early casualties in the crossfire from two units of bidowers while the pikes were soon battered by the highly effective long-range shooting of the Burgundian longbowmen. As it happened we forgot to apply -1 for shooting over 12" range. The discarded heater shield beside the bombard is one of my homemade "battered" status markers.
The bidowers kept up a fierce fire...
...but to no avail. The coustilliers charged in and quickly routed the weakened, battered pikes.
On the next turn they moved into contact and Andy had won the game and 3.5 points of Glory (he gained half a point extra as his retinue was two points under-strength).
And what, I hear you ask, of the rest of the Swiss force? What indeed! I managed to roll 3 on my first pair of dice so moved no elements on turn one. On turn two I moved one unit of bidowers before rolling a second 3. After that things got moving but it was too late. None of the rest of my force got close to the action!
Despite that, I really enjoyed the game. I'm still inspired by Lion Rampant and would like to produce more terrain items to give the table a more medieval look.
4 comments:
Cracking game RC, table looks great love the camp and nice to see part of the Norwegian coast on table :-)
Cheers
Richard P
I thought Lake Hartvik needed another outing. :)
I want the camp to have a base - the area between the tent should probably be bare earth. Need to acquire some more medieval scatter items to detail it.
Another great looking game. Your enthusiasm for the rules is definitely edging me towards picking up a copy of the rules.
Cheers, Andy
Thanks, Andy.
Can I suggest you check out some of the Lion Rampant play-through videos on You Tube. They'll give you a good idea of how the rules work. that should give you a god idea of whether they are for you.
Rich
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