Trying out Lion Rampant Solo

I had a goodly portion of my gaming Comitatus over Saturday for some beer and dice rolling. X-Wing and Star Wars Armada were both given a good going over by about 4-5 players per side plus we had Pasha Dan's new Franco-Thai War on the table for a test run.

I was too busy hosting to take pictures, but it was good to see the boys again. A few years back there used to be a lot of chaps around the table weekly or at least twice a month. But Keith and Brian moved down to Chatham, Scott C. moved out of town too and everyone just seems to be busier now. Especially anyone in automotive manufacturing where mandatory overtime seems to be a constant these days. So now it's weeks or months until people are free for a game. If I only get to play with my friends once a quarter I don't want to spend the session learning new rules. If I can do some solo games I can maybe teach myself the rules first, or just have some fun on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

A side benefit of playing host was forcing myself to give the Basement of Rabbits a really good cleaning and sorting out, freeing up a bunch of floor space. So with these thoughts rattling about, a cleared off table, and some binge watching of Game of Thrones, I decided to get out my feudal troops and my shiney new copy of Lion Rampant for a solo bash on Sunday.

I laid out some terrain and picked out two basic retinues featuring Count Raymond with some feudal levies versus Fulk the Bastard and his host of evil mercenaries, The Black Company.

Raymond on the right, Fulk on the left

Raymond and his knights flanked by mtd sergeants

Raymond's infantry on the right, 2 units of yoemen, foot sergeants and crossbows

Black Company foot sergeants

Fulk with his knights behind the Company cavalry (mounted sergeants)

The activation is very interesting and it took a couple of turns to get troops moving. The Black Company surged across the field, while Raymond's troops leaned on their spears.

As the Company cavalry (mounted sergeants) rushed through the village one company of Raymond's yoemen managed to form a schiltron. This really evened the odds for them and the cavalry fell back " battered".   But they rallied and came back only to succeed in impaling themselves on the yoemen's spears.

Yoemen are trembling

Doing well for themselves!

Ouch! Both hit on a 4+ and the schiltron ups the yoemen's armour to 3 so the sergeants don't kill anyone!

Meanwhile Fulk moved around the village and got within compulsory charge range of Raymond's foot sergeants. The activation rules mean that it's hard to get knights moving but once they're within range of the enemy they are keen to charge in and hard to disengage.

Foot sergeants recoil, but rally ...

... And Fulk's knights are defeated by the reformed schiltron. The next turn Raymond's crossbows wiped the rest out with a devastating volley.

Raymond's sergeants pin two companies of Black Company foot in schiltron and everyone can admire my resin hay stooks

Raymond and his knights finally get moving and charge into one unit but recoil, yoemen charge in too

The sergeants then charge in to keep the pressure on in a surprising display of good activation rolls, after this 1,2,3 punch the mercenaries routed

Raymond's mtd sergeants go after the other foot. the company sergeants recoil in a battered state. The sergeants charged in again pushing them back again, but surprisingly they kept rolling enough on their courage tests to not rout completely

End of game

I wasn't sure I would like the fixed unit sizes at first, but they seem to work. And they keep everything simple and easy to remember. Once you get onto the rules the game bangs along at a good clip and it should be pretty easy to run a big game with three or four 24 point retinues per side, making it a perfect party game.

The scenarios look amusing and I will start experimenting with the leader skills to give more flavour.