MANGLED MONGOLS: A LION RAMPANT II BATREP

 

Action in progress during our Lion Rampant II game.

Greetings regular readers and accidental visitors (appreciations to the former, apologies to the latter). This is a belated battle report on a game of Lion Rampant II that we played in December. As usual, in this post you may clix pix for BIG PIX.

Ralph, our gracious host, had been hosting Lion Rampant I games and wanted to playtest Lion Rampant II ahead of running it for our club in an upcoming game night. 

Ralph is known for his excellent terrain, and this game was no exception. The scenario was set in a town somewhere in Hungary, replete with townsfolk here and there, wagons, etc, and of course his lovely collection of buildings, some scratch built. 

Unfortunately, the horizon east of town was lined with baddies (Mongols), who were having a day out, in other words, coming to and destroy the place (as Mongols do).

A close up view of the Mongol left (Byron).  Ralph's figures are as splendid as his terrain. The Mongols had two warbands, each consisting of veteran light cavalry plus heavy cavalry.  

I usually play Mongols, but for this scrum I was among the heroic defenders of the innocent townsfolk. My lot (on the left) were Hungarians consisting of one unit of insane knights (aka, elite, wild charging, cavalry), one unit of turcopoles (ie, heavy cavalry with bows), and one unit of archers. I was paired with Ralph, who had a warband of Germans consisting of a unit of crazy German knights (same as mine), one unit of brudders (heavy cav with lances), and one unit of crossbows. We started back in the town and had to come up to meet the Mongols.  One interesting aspect of this scenario was that point values were assigned to the buildings, which the Mongols were aware of and we were not. So the Mongols had to burn a certain number of buildings to equal a certain number of points. Given that different buildings had different values, they could do this several ways. As the defenders,  on the other hand, we only knew that we had to stop the Mongols and limit the damage that they inflicted. 

The Mongol khans, Mike (left) and Byron (right) open the ball. I would be matched vs Mike and Ralph's Germans would collide with Byron's lads. 

Byron's horde surges forward (top of the table), while Mike's horde hangs back. He only got one unit moving (the fellow in the center approaching the town gate) and then failed his activation, ending his turn. General Dice was not with the Mongols this day.

Nevertheless, bold as ever, in the next turn, Mike pushes on with his lead unit. As 'er ladyship looks on in horror, Mike's tape measure snakes through the town gate, forewarning the arrival of the horrid steppe warriors in the very heart of town, with only Brother Bother and his crucifix standing between them and the church, which they would soon have burning (the church, that is: Brother Bother was assumed dead, but much later found alive under the open tap of a tun of wine in the burned church's cellar, singing nonsense verses about a little goblin. People said it was a miracle...but I digress). 

Meanwhile, I got my lot moving to get into a blocking position forward of the hill to the left side of the town, taking advantage of the head start provided by Mike's lagging Mongols.  

On the other side of town, Ralph gets his Teutons moving, with his knights riding out ahead. His plan was to collide with the Mongols head on with his cavalry, giving his crossbows time to come up and set up a fire zone. 

Things on my side of the town: My turcopoles trade shots with Mike's Mongol light cavalry, getting the better of the exchange (did I mention that General Dice was not with Mike this day?). My Hungarian knights come forward and the bows get established on the hill. 

The Hungarian knights wild charge into what's left of Mike's Mongol light horse: "poof!" they go (the Mongols, that is). Then the knights careen into Mike's Monogol heavy horse, who also get plastered (did I mention that General Dice was not with Mike this day?). 

Meanwhile, in the town, after getting blasted by the crossbows, Ralph's Krauts (I mean German Knights) flattened Mike's lead Mongols who had burned the church (serves 'em right!). The knights then continued on to clobber Byron's nearest Mongol light horse--who had failed an evade roll. It was then that we discovered a rule that we were not aware of. Failing to evade meant that the Mongol light horse's armor was reduced to 1 (!): "poof!" went Byron's first unit of light horse. The German knights then dispatched Byron's other Mongol light horse (did we mention that General Dice was not with Byron, either, this day?).  Having killed two units, the German knights were down several figures, but couldn't help themselves and wild charged into Byron's one remaining unit, his Heavy cavalry--and the Krauts pushed them back, too (I won't mention General Dice again...)

...and then, they wild charged again, hitting Byron's heavy horse while it was still battered (failed to rally in time; I promised to not mention General Dice again). Good thing, too, because the German knights were now down to two figures. They would lose one more in this fight, and have only the warband leader left. But that would suffice since they had dispatched Byron's last unit, which had failed its morale and routed (General Dice...). 

The town was saved, except for the burned church, and the Mongols were sent packing--this time. It was a good learning game that familiarized us with Lion Rampant II and Ralph's game night game will be all the better for it. Most of all, it was a good way to end a week on a Friday evening playing with lovely toy soldiers on a well laid table with good friends (and true to promise, I won't mention that General Dice was on our side). 

Excelsior!

THE YEAR THAT WAS: 2023 IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR

The Game Room on Dec 30, 2023; a shell, but a sound one...  

...compared to the splendid set up of in March of this year.

As is the tradition, here is a post summarizing the blogging/hobby year past. I think the two images of my game room say it all: this has been a disruptive period at Meanderer Central, to say the least, and the intermittent blogging activity is reflective of its impact on blogging.  For those who wish to really dive into the story, you can visit my very proud post of March announcing the completion of the clear out and reorganization of my hobby space. Which then I had to tear down and clear out in order to replace the skylights (which had begun leaking), Many twists and turns ensued; to make a long story short, we finally achieved closure on the project in early December of this year, and the room is now as you see it in picture #1. Mixed in with this tribulation was a rushed preparation to move house that wound up getting nixed at the last moment. These events have caused us to be in a sort of limbo, and having gone through the considerable task of clearing out and storing my entire hobby collection, I'm reluctant to unpack it and re-occupy the game room until we achieve closure on our own plans.  In the meantime, I am using the room as a project space, and do intend to run games again by making trips up to the attic to pull figures and terrain as needed. 

The disruption on the home front and the loss of my gaming space have caused much distraction, to say the least, giving the general impression of 2023 as a "lost" year, hobby wise.  However,  upon reflection, I think it was not all that bad. I  completed a major hobby project, my Joust For the Fun of It system, which I had been working on for five years. This included not only the rules and adding a content page to this blog, but putting together the knights and all the associated scenery.  I also completed another project, my Lion Rampant II references, adding a second new resource page to my blog. Although not everyone's cup of tea, I do enjoy this end of the hobby spectrum very much, but do have to remind myself to recognize these activities as valid as figures-painted and games-played  (for me, anyway). 

Looking back on the year also brought me to recognize another step forward in 2023, a return to the convention circuit and debuting my jousting game at the Mayhem convention, as well as hosting it on several occasions for our gaming club.

Looking ahead to the new year, I have started using the space again: on the table is the latest project; I'm working on a new Konnigratz Kriegspiel map in preparation for the Bloody Big Battles game I'll be running at the Mayhem 2024 convention in April.  I'll have more on this project in a future post. 

I have put my comfy chair back in  place, and am putting it to good use. Here you see the notes and scribblings for my Chocolate Box Wars (CBW) rules, which have been sidetracked for too long. I've had something of an "aha" moment in November and have been making good progress on them since. I am determined to get them done and up on this blog within this blog year.  My actual intent is to get them up by March, but for the record (and given the way that life can intervene), I think I'll just say by this time next year....

...and here is a bit of tangible evidence of work in progress beyond my scribblings and notes: several sets of print and play CBW armies.  Necessity being the mother of invention, I wanted a quick and space efficient way to playtest my system without having to unbox and pull down my miniatures. Not being happy with just symbols or colored markers, I worked up these from various and sundry sources (more details on this project will be the subject of another post). 

So, there you have it. A in brief review of 2023 and the promise of things to come in 2024.  In other words, thanks for the regulars who have continued to visit and drop a line here during this last rather down year (blogging wise); your support is very much appreciated...

...and a Happy New Year to all visitors, regular and occasional, to this space...

Excelsior!

LION RAMPANT II RESOURCES CORRECTION POSTED

 

Appropriate for December 26th here in the US, where the day after Christmas ("Boxing Day" in the Commonwealth) is associated with making way to the retailer and returning gifts for refunds and/or new ones for broken, I am posting a new set of Lion Rampant II Resources to replace the broken ones I "gifted" to the world on  19 December (mea culpa!). These new refs have also been posted on the Lion Rampant II Resource Page.   Version 4 is the current (correct) update of both the Player Reference and Unit Matrix. You'll find the version numbers in the headers-- and I changed the header colors as well for quick reference: the corrected Version 4 has gold headers, and the earlier Version 3 has dark blue. So just remember to "go for gold" in order to know which to use. As far as the difference, it is minor but significant: The Counter Charge activation number was wrong in Version 3. It should be 7+ (this is fixed in version 4 and is the only substantial change). Below are thumbnails of the corrected versions with links to downloads.  Of course, if you already have version 3, a simple pen and ink change to the countercharge numbers would also serve. 

Player Reference V4 (Click for Pdf)

Unit Matrix V4 (Click for Pdf)

Thanks to Steve Burt for catching the error and bringing it to my attention in the Dux Rampant Forum!

Excelsior!