Lion Rampant first game

On Thursday night I managed to get the figures I've painted down to the club for a quick game to test out the rules for this game. I didn't have tome to calculate points so we decided to just use what was available. After all it was about learning the rules and not about who wins. So I quickly organised my forces and even roped in some mounted Norman knights to proxy as a unit of mounted men at arms. I have also decided to set my games in a more fantasy setting which gives me more license on troop types and in creating a story for the games.

Our first game was about the Rebels making an attempt to kidnap the Crown Prince as he was making a tour of the country before his coronation.

Rebel - Sir Robert de Groucey
Mounted Men at arms*
Men at arms
Sergeants
Yeoman with mixed weapons
Crossbowmen

Royalists - Crown Prince William
Men at arms*
Veteran Sergeants

Royalists - Sir Henry Bodrum
Men at arms*
Sergeants
Bidowers

The battlefield

Prince William and Sir Henry have visited the local church to pray at Christs' relics when the alarm is raised when Sir Robert de Groucey has arrived at the village with a large retinue, armed and looking for a fight. Prince William and Sir Henry decide to quickly advance on the village as most of their horses and equipment is there.

Royalists advance

View from the village towards the Royalists

At this point we ignore the rule on failing an activation order to end a turn as we wanted to get both sides stuck in. As both sides closed we then reverted back to the normal sequence.

Sir Robert and retinue

Sergeants and Crossbows move into position

As both sides advanced I moved the yeoman out onto my right flank to try and inflict some casualties on the advancing enemy. My crossbowmen seemed to get bogged down in the village (probably in the local tavern) as they ended up taking no part in the game.

Yeoman advance

Sir Robert leads forward his men at arms

As my Yeoman got into position they awaited the advancing sergeants of Prince Williams' retinue. As the enemy closed I failed may activation order to fire which the Sergeants took full advantage of to crash into my line.

Yeoman in position

Approaching Royalists

Sergeants get stuck in

it was at this point that things started to go wrong for the Royalists. The foot sergeants only inflicted a single casualty and were forced to retreat with the drawn combat. On my left the Royalist sergeants attacked my own foot sergeants and were bloodily repulsed.

Clash of sergeants

Sir Henry's sergeants repulsed

In my turn I sent forward my sergeants to try and finish off Sir Henrys' men, while my Yeoman fired into the retreating sergeants of Prince William. My foot men at arms moved to the centre of the village to cover the advance of the Prince William and his men at arms.

Sir Henrys' battered sergeants retreat again

Sharpen your swords boys

To try and salvage the game Sir Henry committed his men at arms into my Yeoman and gave them a bit of a thrashing, sending the poor yeoman running and in a battered state. Meanwhile the Prince William and his men at arms clashed in the street with rebel men at arms. It was not Prince Williams day as his men were bloodily hacked down, failing their courage test the fled (double 1 rolled by John)

Take that rebels

Men at arms clash

At this time the game was up for the Royalists. Sir Robert charged his men at arms into Sir Henry, knocking him to the ground and forcing him to retreat to avoid capture, before they turned their attention onto the sergeants.

Put them to the sword

All in a very enjoyable game, if somewhat bloody. The rules seem very easy to pick up and gave a good flavour of a medieval game. John was impressed and he is normally a WW2 gamer. I have also decided to create some sort of markers to represent battered units as we had been using dice. I've got some spare weapons, shield and stuff left over from numerous plastic kits which i can arrange on some mdf bases.

Lion Rampant V

Progress has slowed slightly this week, but I put that down to work which has been very busy and left me to knackered at nights for much painting. But I still managed to finish 12 more figures for my retinues. First up is the 3 extra foot men at arms required for my Royalist retinue. The figures are the excellent Fire forge Templar infantry boxed set. I did use a shield transfer from GW to make the faction leader stand out.

Men at arms

Men at arms

Next up was the remaining 9 foot sergeants to complete a unit.As these guys are more heavily armoured than my previous sergeants I will be upgrading them to veterans for the games.

Sergeants

Sergeants

Next up for this retinue I will have a unit of archers, once again I will be using the old plastic figures from GW which I feel fit in quite well, also picked up 30 of them for a fiver on EBay. So far 6 of these are done and I will post pictures in a later post once all finished.

So what's next, well I should be at York on Sunday and I'm hoping to pick up a couple more boxed sets, this time mounted sergeant at arms and possibly some Templar's. I will also keep my eye out for some peasants and poorly armed figures as I have decided that the fourth retinue will be based upon outlaws (Robin Hood?)

Lion Rampant (IV)

Well I seem to be in a bit of a groove building and painting figures for this game. Very surprised at my output already. Following my last post where my first retinue is nearing completion, (just need to add a mounted unit of sergeants) I thought I would crack on and complete a couple more retinues. More retinues you may ask! at the club I have often found it best to complete more than one side for a project and though some of the guys will play the game I know they will not buy figures for it as WW2 is there main area of interest. This got me thinking, in order to play some multi player games I'll need 4 retinues of between 12-16 points. Obviously my first retinue will be larger, rounding out at 24 points.. Now for one of these extra retinues I will just use my old citadel men-at-arms figures I painted last year. This just leaves 2 to do. I have already started on one, completing some bidowers and foot knights, next up is a unit of foot sergeants. As usual these figures are the excellent Fire forge [plastics which I recommend most heartily.

foot sergeants

foot sergeants

These guys bring this retinue up to 12 points and when I finish the mounted yeoman 16 points, more than good enough for club games. Now for a third retinue, I wanted these guys to be a bit different, more uniformed, possibly kings men or such like. With the left over figures from the Foot Templar boxed set I got to work. Instead of padded armour these guys are in chain mail, allowing me to upgrade the sergeants to expert. So far I have done 3 men at arms and 3 sergeants. The rest of the figures have also been built and ready for painting.

3rd retinue

3rd retinue

To bulk up this retinue I have picked up some more GW Bretonnian archers as part of a bundle. I hope to get at least 1 archer unit or possibly 2 out of them. the only thing I have missing so far is some mounted knights. I can definitely see me purchasing the mounted sergeant at arms boxed set at the York show to fulfil this role. In the mean time I dug this guy out and gave him a lick of paint. He may yet get a run out during some planned games. Odo d'Outremer, he was one of the special characters for the Bretonnian army, nice figure.

Odo d'Outremer

Odo d'Outremer

No time to get back to painting some of these guys

Lion Rampant (III)

I've been steadily making my way through the Fire-forge foot sergeants as well as some Templar foot knights to bring my retinue up to a respectable 16 points. This will allow me to add a unit of mounted knights and another unit of Bidowers. The option is to upgrade some of the units. So here are the next batch of completed figures. First up are the last 4 figures to complete my unit of crossbows, note the tent from the old GW campaign set Perilous Quest. I do have the other tents somewhere, just not sure where.

Next up is the 5 men-at-arms that I required to finish off the unit. These are all from the Templar foot knights box set. I even added a Bretonnian shield transfer to the unit leader. I now just need to come up with a suitable name/title for the leader of my retinue.

After I had finished these I decided to get all the figures out for the obligatory group photo. So far I am up to 42 figures for this retinue and have used figures mainly Fire-forge with a few Gripping Beast, Foundry and GW figures mixed in.

Now to fight this lot I have also begun to add to my second retinue. If I can get these to similar points I should be able to get a game in at the club shortly. The first fully completed unit is the Bidowers, 5 of these are the GW plastic bowmen and the sixth is from the Empire detachment set.

Now i've got to start putting some more figures together from the plastic sets. I have enough figures for 2 units of sergeants/yeoman or could build one as crossbows. After that some more foot knights and then I think I will purchase the Fire-forge mounted Sergeant at arms boxed set to add some mobility to both retinues.

Also you might want to check out this forum duxrampant supported by Dan Mersey specifically for these rules.

Lion Rampant (II)

Work has continues on my first retinue for Lion Rampant. I've managed to finish off 2 extra bowmen for my unit of bidowers as well as completing enough sergeants to be able to field a unit and add the remaining 6 to the bidowers and upgrade them to yeoman with mixed weapons. I have also received my order for some Templar knights on foot and have just finished gluing the first unit together. Should be able to get some progress on these next week.

Mix of bowmen

Sergeants

Sergeants

While I was waiting for my order to arrive I've been searching through my lead mountain and have managed to find another 8 foot, a mix of men at arms and sergeants as well as 6 more bowmen. I will be using these guys to form the star of a second retinue. Speaking of this retinue I did paint up the 3 mounted squires that I have as I await their reinforcements from Blacktree.

mounted squires

mounted squires

Well, back top painting, got 4 more crossbows to do to complete the unit as well as 5 foot ment at arms. For the last unit not sure if it will be another foot or perhaps a mounted men at arms.

Lion Rampant (I)

To kick off the new project I've been busy putting together some of the plastic figures from Fire forge games that I had. At first I was just putting a  few figures together with know thought to the end result. However I have refocused on what I need to make up a couple of suitable retinues. First purchase was for a box of Templar Knights on foot that I can split between two retinues. One thing missing from the fire forge (FF) range is longbows so I had a dig around and sourced 6 old plastic Bretonnians that will serve well. As these guys mixed in I will try and source a few more from E-Bay.

As with all plastic figures you always end up with spares, so wanting a few un-armoured infantry figures I have used some Wargames Factory Ancient Germans. I did have to add some green-stuff to the necks to fit the FF heads. I also filed down some of the details on the arms to make them look like plain sleeves.

So after putting the first few figures together I decided to get some paint on them, Firstly what colour scheme would I use. I quite like a Green/White combo but decided to plumb for Blue/Yellow. I may use the Green/White for a second retinue.

The first figure is the Gripping Beast Templar knight from the Death in the snow set they did a few years ago.

Men at Arms

Men at Arms

Next up is some old Bretonnian bowmen. 2 of these were already painted and as they are to be used as Bidowers I have left them as is and just re-based. I did manage a head swap on one for extra variety.

Bidowers

Next up are 4 crossbowmen that will eventually be built up to 12. The 2 un-armoured figures on the edge of the picture are the Wargames Factory conversions that I did. Quite happy with how they turned out.

Crossbows

Lastly the first of my foot sergeants, currently 9 of them. A couple of these are also conversions which gives me the option of downgrading the unit to Yeoman if I wish.

Foot sergeants

Foot sergeants

So that's the progress so far. I have another 12 figures built and undercoated as well as 2 more Bretonnian archers that I found. Digging around in my old Bretonnian collection I came across 3 mounted yeoman without horses. I've stuck them on some spare warlord horse I had, To make them a complete unit I took advantage of the Black tree sale and purchase 3 more squires from their fantasy range. They seem to match up well and a lot cheaper than trying to find official GW figures on E-Bay. So more building and painting required and hopefully shortly I can get some games in.

The last and first

As the title suggest these are the latest figures off the painting table. First up is some Austrian hussars for my Napoleonic collection. These were the last figures I painted in 2014. The regiment is No 10. Baron Joseph Stipsics. The figures and flag are all from Warrior miniatures. These guys are just in time for Thursday nights game.

Baron Joseph Stipsics Hussars

Baron Joseph Stipsics Hussars

Next up is some additional figures I painted up to add to my 3 Brunswick regiments. These figures are by CGM and black is very quick to paint, These were the first figures completed in 2015.

Brunswick infantry

To round off my 3rd Austrian infantry brigade I completed the 41st regiment - Kottulinsky, these guys are only at 24 figures. Again these are from CGM who do produce some very nice figures. The flag is from Warflag.

41st Kottulinsky regiment

41st Kottulinsky regiment

Not bad for a couple of days work. Now I have also made a start putting together my first Lion Rampant force. Got 8 of the fire forge figures built and on the painting table. I have also roped in 6 left over Brettonian archers which will serve as a Bidower unit for now. Should get some pictures of these up in the next couple of days