Yet More Lion Rampant

Jamie is home from university for the Easter break and that gives me an in-house wargames opponent.  We're going to have a try of Ronin later but first Jamie had his first go at Lion Rampant.

That meant getting out the Swiss and Burgundians again.  We played scenario A - Blood Bath, which is a basic line-em-up-and-fight job.

We have enough toys for a 24 point vs 22 point skirmish at present so as the Burgundians still have a disadvantaged leader (Guy de Gadbois has the Vulnerable trait), I gave the odd two points to Jamie in the form of a unit of Italian mercenary crossbow-armed bidowers.

I started off with, counting from left to right, bidowers with handguns, two units of pikes, a unit of halberdiers (Fierce Foot), and a unit of mounted crossbowmen on my right flank.

Jamie put his mounted men at arms on his extreme left, followed by the crossbowmen (bidowers), then his longbows, his coustilliers, his Irish Kern (more Fierce Foot) and finally another unit of bidowers.

The Burgundian coustiliers advance, flanked by the Irish.  The
mounted trumpeter is for decoration only.

The Italian crossbowmen move out of the wood.

The Swiss mounted crossbows took the first casualty of the game when the Italians shot at them.  An unlucky Courage Test left them Battered (shield marker).

Add caption

I'd decided to target the Burgundian longbow-men with my pikes.  They advanced, but not fast enough for my liking.  The left hand pike block found itself in a crossfire from longbows and Irish.

At this stage the Burgundian men at arms had, as usual, not moved.  My right hand pike unit got almost to within striking distance of the longbows and then decided to stop.

Meanwhile, the left hand pikes were charged by the Burgundian light horse...

... and chased them off.

On might right however, things were looking bad.  The Burgundian men at arms finally got going and my Swiss crossbows failed to evade.

The result was inevitable with the Swiss rapidly reduced to a single figure.

The pikes finally managed to contact the enemy archers...

They inflicted heavy casualties, routing the Burgundians, but lost one man in return.  This required a test for a Lucky Strike.  Would the retinue leader be the casualty?  Of course he would!

The resulting Courage tests weren't too bad but the writing was already on the wall.  Sadly, the wheat fields were deemed to offer cover but not to be bad going.  The Burgundian men at arms rolled superbly, killing four halberdiers in one turn.

And the Irish caught the Swiss hand gunners in the open and all but wiped them out.

There was nothing left to do but to declare it a crushing Burgundian victory and a win for Jamie in his first game of Lion Rampant.

So in three games of Lion Rampant the Swiss have lost three, really quite useful, commanders.  The Burgundians have consistently managed not to lose Guy de Gadbois despite his having the Vulnerable trait!