Capture the Cannon! a Lion Rampant battle report

Whizzing 400 or so years back into the past following our Napoleonic excursion Steve and I convened for a game of Lion Rampant.
We decided on the second scenario wherein one side defends an objective and Steve produced a very jolly cannon for his Welsh retinue to defend. I had my later English "all elite" force led by Thomas de Kerby and was opposed by Sir Huw Gwyrdd's ragtag welsh assortment.

 Proud welshmen

 Steely English archers

Stern-faced sergeants

I began by advancing. This seemed sensible as I had to capture the cannon to win. I wanted my foot men at arms to avoid Sir Huw's similar bodyguard as Sir Huw had vowed to cut me down (and had rolled a handy skill to enable him to do just that). As Earl Thomas was rash I didn't want to be forced to charge him.

 The welsh men at arms move out

 While their archers shuffle to the left

 And their knights mostly stand around

The archers spit death at the Welsh

To my surprise Sir Huw led his men at arms to counter my sergeants. Meanwhile my archers drew a heavy toll on their opponents.

Sir Huw Gwyrdd leads the way

Unfortunately my sergeants proved no match for the Welsh elites and didn't really even whittle them down very much.

My archers drove off their Weslh rivals, but had taken too long. Stout welsh foot now took their place by the cannon.

Finally the Welsh knights found foward gear on their horses and drove into the English lines. Fortunately the archers were able to withdraw in good order and Earl Thomas was able to lead his troops into their flank.

Again to my surprise, the forces of Sir Huw came on rather than defend their war engine, though they had spare archers to take their place. The english bowmen took a heavy toll on them as they advanced and the eventual combat was an evenly matched affair. Meanwhile Earl Thomas and his men slaughtered the Welsh horse.

 Right, who's next?

 Bugger it, Huw's here

Right then, let's have it!!!

Unfortunately the delays to my advance had allowed Sir Huw to make his way toward Earl Thomas. The Welsh knight bellowed out challenge, Sir Thomas yelled his response and rose to the occasion.

Tragically Sir Huw's martial prowess was too great and Earl Thomas found himself face down in the earth.

With that Sir Huw had completed his boast, making an English win impossible and so the de Kerby force withdrew.

Right lads, discretion's the better part of whatsit...

The victorious Welsh

This was a great fun game with the action swinging this way and that. I think my force suffers a bit from "glass hammer" syndrome, it hasn't got the bodies to take much punishment.  In some situations it's a devastating force (the shooting is terrifying) but in a scenario like this I really felt the absence of mounted troops. 

I really enjoy Lion Rampant, it's simple and easy to grasp, but has enough grit to make it challenging. It's time, however to work on a different retinue I think (or expand this one).

Sir Huw's version of events can be found over on Stevo's blog

Song of Drums and Shakos with General Ballroom

Our gaming chum General Ballroom has recently been most unwell. A "routine" heart operation (Steve says it was broken) resulted in some complications that he's still recovering from. However he gets better and better each time I've seen him. So today Steve and I decided that he needed to climb back on the wargaming horse - lest whatever skill and enthusiasm he has for our hobby be lost to him forever. Having first received confirmation from Lady Ballroom that he'd be up to the job we ventured over to the Ilko Gaming Shed with an assortment of Naps and some scenery for a quick game of Peninsular Napoleonic action.
Steve has started painting up some Voltigeurs (with massive headgear) but has since been distracted by Scotsmen (he loves a man in a kilt) but fancied tying out SDS and I figured that a small 300 point a side skirmish would be over quickly enough for the tired Gen. B to cope with.

The scenario saw a French sergeant and two infantrymen defending a village where their Commanding Officer had been caught all unnecessary whilst visiting his Spanish mistress in no-mans land. A small British force was on its way to capture the French General whilst reinforcements raced to his aid.

 Dawn breaks over the peaceful hamlet of Patatas Bravas

The British began by advancing en mass from behind a small wood.

Drumer Bonham keeps time

The French began to fire on the advancing redcoats but with little impact. The Frenchman behind the grey wall subsequently lost all interest in the battle and returned to his gauloises and vin rouge instead of reloading.

The first redcoat falls. But it's just a flesh wound 

Fortunately the Sergeant was made of sterner stuff and kept up a hail of fire on the British, even bouncing back to his feet and immediately reloading when taken down by a musket ball.
His closest soldat however caught an unlucky shot between the eyes and was out of the game

Gauche, driote, gauche, droite...

The French reserves finally arrived and advance rapidly on the village.

A sudden bout of accurate French musketry saw two British soldiers killed in a single round, suddenly their advance faltered and guns refused to reload.

Form up on the wall!

As the British attempted to consolidate their position behind the wall one of the newly arrived Frenchmen took aim at the British Captain and killed him with a single shot. British morale faltered and several men fled the safety of the wall. At this point the Frenchman behind the far wall finally put out his fag, picked up his musket and shot down another redcoat.

Drummer Bonham steadies the men's wavering resolve

All was not going the French way however and several attempts at ordering volley fire were met with a bewildered response from the grognards.

Le Sergeant hits the dirt again.

Finally however weight of numbers began to tell. Another musketeer was killed and the British realised the game was up. In a final act of perfidy one sneaky Frenchman circled behind a building and took aim at the young drummer boy. Fortunately his shot went wide, but at this point Sergeant Spitoon ordered the retreat - the French General had slipped through his fingers.

Drummer Bonham has a narrow escape.

This was a good fun game. The rules are simple and straightforward but with enough clever variations to keep it interesting. I'm not sure I'd want to play it every week, but it was just what we all needed I think and we'll probably revisit either the Peninsular or Waterloo in the not too distant future.

40K against the children (again)

While Mrs Tom's Toy Soldiers sweated away her Saturday on her PhD I got to entertain the boys. They decided that a game of 40K was in order.
So I dug out the recently painted scenery and my Orks whilst they assembled their forces. We were aiming for 750 points each, apparently. I've got about 500 I think, but took what I had. Despite my pointing out that 40K works best as a 1v1 game they insisted on a three way battle.
And then ganged up on me and said the game was over when I was dead.
Hmmmm.

Anyway here are a few pictures.

 Fire Dragons dismount and prepare to melt stuff

 Painting is apparently a thing other people do

 Pile on!

The Ork last stand

I'm tempted to try and paint a few more Ork boys and get the buggies painted up.

Partizan 2015

Stephen and I, accompanied by a small and sulky child, made the trip to Partizan today. I had a mental shopping list that I then forgot once I arrived. Ho hum.

We played a game of Frostgrave, which was light-hearted fun. The small boy thrashed me (apparently kids have been beating dads in all the demo games). I think Steve and I will be jumping on the Nickstarter for this one. Although I'm no big fan of Bob Naismith's sculpting style for historical miniatures - I find them too cartoonish - I think the henchmen plastics he's done fit the feel of this game very well. I also like wizard models in the main and the book looks splendid. Small boy wants to play some more, so I think a level three on the Nickstarter might be the way to go.

One thing that was noticeable about Partizan was the absence of participation games. Small boy really just wants to roll some dice and take part, but it was very demo game heavy. He loved Hammerhead (which is all participation) but was bored rigid at Partizan. I'm not saying either format is better, but the difference was noticeable and his engagement levels massively different.

We did spend some time admiring top chums James' and Scrivs' lovely Verdun game.
It looked splendid and they were having a grand time playing it. I have mixed feelings about their WW1 escapade, which I explained to James and I'll elaborate on in a future post I think.

 "Let it explode, let it exploooode"

 Huns at the trot

I purchased a couple of blisters of the Curteys resin Dark Age casualty markers - I'd wanted them since Scrivs showed me them on the way back from Salute and a book on Oppy Wood - in an attempt to reconcile my conflicts around WW1 gaming.