Lion Rampant: A belated AAR

Last month, Stan and Mike came over for a game of Lion Rampant and of Frostgrave and I am finally getting around to making a post for it (Mike was much more timely with his description of the battle)

We had been considering putting on a Crusades game at Cangames with the Lion Rampant rule and this seemed like a good time to give them a try. Mike and I had both read the rules but no one had done any real prep work (like army lists or that sort of thing). We decided we would go for 12 points a side with the Crusader army divided in 2 with 2 commander (only one of which would be active on any given turn)

My force consisted of  2 mounted Serjeants with bows, 2 units of mounted yeoman and 2 units of foot yeoman. The crusaders had (I think) one unit of Knights and one of Crossbow and then a bunch of heavy foot.

My initial plan was to harass the crusader infantry with bow fire while avoiding the knights. This plan would have worked better if I had realized (or read) that the mounted yeomen also had bows.

I ended up getting caught in various melees which I lost, partly because I was outclassed but also because my rolls in combat were pretty poor -- I think I made nearly every command roll though

The battle continued in this vein, I became a bit more effective with the bows as I came to grips with the rules but the crusaders kept the upper hand.  I don't really remember any of the details so I will just present the rest of the pictures I took

In the end it was a fun game but the rules were a bit too simple and the special rules for each unit type weren't so special (in the way the "useful rules" in Hail Caesar can really help to add character to a different troop type).  We seemed to be in agreement that for smaller 2 player games, SAGA is much more fun (though more complicated) and if we were going to be playing a bigger game, Hail Caesar would have been the way to go. There are some good features to the rules and it wouldn't be too hard to make special rules for each unit without going overboard. The "boasts" were you get victory points for performing some act of daring are quite good.


I think the rules would be really good for a con, they are simple and mostly intuitive. After playing them I had some ideas of what I would like to do at Cangames but a week or so later, I was convinced that what I really wanted to do was run a Roman game (using Hail Caesar) at Cangames so that is the current plan!

We also played a game of Frostgrave which turned out really well, probably the best game of that so far but for some reason my camera was set for really long exposures and all my pictures ended up as blurs. (We are also going to run that at Cangames)

Saga: Saracens vs Milites Christi

So I had my first battle with my Saracens today facing Mike's Milites Christi

Right after setting up we realized that Mike was playing with a 6 point warband and I was playing with a 4 point warband. I then grabbed the Daylami and Naffata dogs of war units that we nearly painted and added those to my force. I just used the Daylami as a regular warband but I fielded the Naffata as a dogs of war unit and split the 4 figures evenly between the two foot warrior units. It is a very interesting unit and, I think, could be quite effective. (The Daylami are also interesting but you are only allowed one dogs of war unit and I didn't want to deal with any more special rules anyway)

We were playing a mission Mike found on the web where there are 3 treasure tokens in the centre of the table and the objective is to get as many off the table as possible. We both moved forward on the first turn and I positioned my non-bow hearthguard to distract the knights (not sure why I thought this was a useful thing to do).

The knights along with the bishop (like some strange game of chess!) charged into my hearthguard wiping them out.

On the other side of the table my hearthguard with bows were picking away at the foot knights.

After a few turns the foot warrior unit with the Naffatum and some support from the horse archer warrior had dealt with almost all the mounted knights and the bishops.

We were both able to take one treasure but neither of us could move it off the table. I think I won a marginal victory on kill points (or maybe I lost but it was fairly close).

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For the second game we just played the simple Kill the Warlord mission.

We both kept the same force (I was tempted to drop the Naffatum and try Saladin but I think his special abilities are a bit tricky to use since the help the opponent as well). Showing a complete lack of common sense I moved the warlord forward with my horse archers. Mike's crossbowmen made short work of the horse archers and he moved his warlord so that I would have to charge his warlord if I wanted to move mine.

I had no luck with the archers on the left this time. Once the units around the warlord were wiped out the enemy warlord charged him with a unit of knights in support and killed him.

Overall I like this list and its battleboard. I am not sure of the best way to use the horse archers. The Naffatum are good and I think it is worth figuring them out -- they do need at least 2 foot units to be allowed. Next time I think I will use the Daylami as a dog of war unit and have another mounted unit (taken from the Mutatawwia warband).

Now I have to change gears and make lists for the Fate of a Nation tank aces game at the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers tomorrow.

Saracen Warband and some Roman miscellany

Here are some photos of the Saracen warband as they prepare for battle this afternoon

I still have to trim the banner (it got glued on this morning) and I decided to order more decals for the shields rather than trying to paint them. I would also like to do more detail work but, to be honest,  I am not sure that will ever happen.

I am very interested in seeing how all the horse archers will work out in Saga, it certainly seems like it will be fun but it might take a while for it to be effective.

I will probably post some pictures of today's battles in the near future

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Warlord games has had dice with Roman Numerals for a while and I finally gave into temptation and ordered some when I was ordering some Bolt Action dice.

It is too bad the font doesn't look ancient but I think they are fun and not too confusing to read

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Ed has painted up the Caesar and Vercingetorix command stand for me and sent me some pictures

I feel that the shackles should have been emphasized more but I think it will look really good in person.

For the Cangames game, if the Roman player defeats a British leader they will be able to replace one of their leader stands with this. I would like to do an Alesia game at some point (though to be fair, I guess I would need a stand that shows Vercingetorix as the victor as well)

Saracen foot Warriors

Here is the first of my Saracens, a unit of foot warriors. I am reasonably pleased with how they turned out, I still need to practice 28mm faces (I painted over my attempt at eyes on these guys as they looked far too zombieish)

The decals on their shields went on really easily but then the ones for the cavalry were a huge pain, I just couldn't get the plastic coating off them. I managed to get one on and ruin 3 others. I am not sure if I should just paint the shields or order some more transfers.

As well as using these for Saga, I am planning to build up a Hail Caesar army that will manage for most Arab forces from the conquest into the crusades. Once I finish off the Saracens (who are mostly finished, I want to do some work on the hair of the guys without helmets -- and decide what to do about the shields), this project will take a back seat to my WWII 28mm stuff and the Romans I need for Cangames (and a few 15mm items I want to get done for the FOW Lorraine campaign at the club). I hope by the end of the year to have painted the 3 Islamic factions from Crescent and Cross (I have the Mutatawwi`a assembled as I had hoped to paint them over Christmas but got sick instead) and 1 box of Gripping Beast plastic and that should give a good base for the Hail Caesar army.