Tuesday 25 November 2014

Baltic Crusade, Lion Rampant AAR

Last Thursday when I was in Stockholm I was invited to participate in a Lion Rampant game with Michael "Dalauppror" at his club.

I had bought the rules and read them but I hadn´t actually played any games with it yet. And what a great opportunity to test out the rules with one of the people that play tested it before its release.


The setting was for some Danish Baltic Crusaders in the year of our lord 1219.
I took what I had painted on mostly single bases and it just happen to turn out that I could muster a 24point host.

The Danes had seen a red and white flag fallen from the skies surly sent by a divine interference (at least that's what they say) and had laid anchor with their ships to search for this holy treasure.

The only problem was that the cursed heathens had seen it first.
- Make land fall. Deus Vult.



 The heathens had deployed some bidowers and their commander with his Men-at-arms.

More heathens are waiting in the forest until the Danes make landfall.


 The Danes have made landfall and moving inland towards the objective.

My mounted Serjeants takes the led.
 
The heathens are still waiting as does most of the Danish army to.

The bidowers managed to take one of the Danish Serjeants down but are then caught in close combat.
 
 The rest of the Danish forces moves in.

 Finally the horse archers starts to move. I guess they were waiting for the right opportunity.


I charged in on is Men-at-arms, not that I thought I could win but I think atleast I could soften them up so my other units would have it easier.

The Serjeants pull back after some casualties.

His horse archers moved a little to close for my comfort so I ordered one of my Knight units to charge them. Well technically they charged them by them self and I was standing and watching them doing it... The horse archers failed their pull-back and was caught by the Danish lances.
My leader was also forced by the Wild Charge rule to charge in.

After we both took some casualties my knights pulled back.



My crossbowmen took out the enemy leaders last bodyguard with a hail of bolts.


More heathens close in.
But it was to late. My knights charged again and took out the enemy commander.

Deus Vult, Victory.
I had managed to take out the guards holding the objective.






Game two. The Danes was consolidating their position.
They were about to pick down the flag that somehow had get stuck in the treetop. The Danish forces was just about to enter their boats again, just leaving behind some troops trying to get the flag down and a unit to protect them when the heathens counter-attacked.
We played the same scenario again but switched positions, it was now the Danish turn to defend.



The heathen army close in.




I had chosen to deploy a unit of foot Serjeants in shiltron formation and a knight unit to help them.
The knights left their positions as soon as they felt the smell of the unwashed heathens... That Wild Charge rule was not that fun when the enemy was taking cover in the forest.

But the heathen warband had the Wild Charge to, so they was forced to leave their protection of their forest and try to charge my knights.
My other forces are closing in. Again the mounted Serjeants are the first followed by my knights bearing the colours of the house of Hvide.

My knights in red and white had by now taken sever casualties as they were constantly lured into the forest and I was unable to save them. They did some casualties on the enemy but considering the cost of the knights this was not a good tradeof.

My knights charged the heathens that had ventured a little to close to them and gave them a good smacking. My mounted Serjeants did a short work of the heathen wild men that had lured my other knight unit into the forest. Not so tough in open ground against cavalry...

My crossbowmen gave the enemy bidowers some  casualties and they fled backwards.

Another unit of wild heathens was to much for my mounted serjeants and the last serjeants pull back but so did the wildmen.

In an attempt to not get caught in bad terrain I challenged the enemy commander, the challenge option can apparently can be used as a sort of lockdown to your unit that then cant be ordered this turn or forced to charge using the Wild Charge rule.
The challenge ended with no casualties and both commanders retired to their unit.
My crossbowmen closed in and in following turns my knights and his men-at-arms combated each others until enough casualties was inflicted on the heathen army and they decided it was not worth the cost and left me in the position of the battlefield.
My Danes was then able to take down the flag from the treetop and set sail again.


This was my first games of Lion Rampant and I like the rules.
They are quick and simple. They got enough different unit types and with upgrades Im sure you could really build an army to your liking of game play. The streamline unit types are easy to understand and you can easily see what different units are and see how they will behave.
The mounted units in my army was real killers but had Micheal used the terrain more I would have been in real trouble. Im particularly impressed by my mounted Sergeants and are really looking forward too build all kinds of retinues.
 

A big thanks to Michael for inviting me to his club and if you want to hear the heathens side of the story please visit http://dalauppror.blogspot.se/2014/11/battle-of-lindanar-1219-lion-rampant-aar.html

Monday 24 November 2014

Medieval Scandinavia Lion Rampant ?



Last week I went to Stockholm and I had decided to try out the Lion Rampant rules with Michale "Dalauppror" http://dalauppror.blogspot.se/.
So I scrambled what I got in my Scandinavian Medieval collection to see what I got.

It so turned out that I could muster a 24point host.
Michael and I decided that we would be playing in about the year 1219... And the search for the Dannebrog in the Baltics...

My host of Crusading Danes from the house of Hvide comprised of:
6 Mounted Men-at-arms *
6 Mounted Men-at-arms
6 Mounted Serjeants
12 Foot Serjeants
12 Crosbowmen


More about the actual game in a later post.
Thanks for the game Michael.

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Småländska skyttar

I just finished a unit of Crossbowmen.

They are a combination of Fireforge and Gripping Beast miniatures and bits and I really like the result. By combining different kits you get so much more characters out of the miniatures.
And as a side result by combining Viking bits into medieval miniatures I get that feeling of medieval Scandinavia Im after.
And nothing screams medieval Sweden more then crossbows...






 I love this combination of Norse chainmail arms on the scale armour.


I wanted to have a rather generic unit. But have chosen to have much blue on the shields and some different designs of a Lindorm (almost the same as a English Wyvern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindworm). The Lindorm seems to have been the mark of the house of Sverkers and seems to have had a special popularity in Småland (a region in Sweden) and by this my unit could count as Sverkers or as crossbowmen from Småland with out any problem. I will go into more details about the Sverkers in a later post.

Sorry for the bad pictures, the "daylight" is terrible... Lousy weather.

Friday 14 November 2014

Danish knights

I thought that Ebbe Sunesen Hvide couldn´t be alone so I have converted and painted some knights for him.

They are meant to represent knights from, or bearing the colours of the Danish Hvide family with some modifications and alterations to have a more lively unit.

I have mixed in some Griping Beast Hirdmen heads and given some of them axes to show their Norse heritage...
I was some horses short and thus I have to mix in some Perrys War of the Roses horses but I think it worked out fine. And as everything else, Perry does some nice looking horses.

Those FireForge miniatures are sure fun to put together.








And combining these with some Danish Sergeants I painted a while ago I can make up a rather nice looking unit.
It might look a bit strange with half of them in red and half of them in blue though..