Crusades, Lion Ramant multiplayer AAR

The saturday befor this, we had a great four player game of Lion Rampant.
I brought along some of my collection and mustered four warbands.
For the westerns we had a contingent of French and German crusaders, for the saracens we got the Ayyubid Egyptians and Turks.
We used random activation with a deck of card, when each players symbol was drawn that player got the chance to activate their forces.
The scenario we played was "Defending the indefensible", the Crusaders would defend the oasis with the all important water source.
The scenario states that the defender can start with 10points at the objective, with double forces we doubled that amount of points.

 I would take the field as the French commander.

 The Saracen forces gathers for an all out attack.

 

The defenders of the waterhole.

The Crusader knights lay moves in to protect their comrades.

The Ayyubid forces moves through the the village

The defenders stay put and wish their knights could hurry up...

Turkic horsemen moves forward in dashing speed.

After a slow start both the French and the German commanders decides to move forward.

The Saracen were really pummeling our troops with arrows and our troops were taking cassualties and are pushed back. We really neaded our knights to support now.

Our brave troops are ordered to move up in position again to not the Saracen near the water.

Our knights are finaly getteing near to support. And the Saracen are forced to split its attension to the relief of our infantry.

The French knights charges into the enemy commander. I wanted to make a show of force. To make a reall dent to the enemy Ayyubids. If I could take out the commander the morale of the Egyprians would be hurt.
Even with some cassualties on my own the enemy was taking more damage and are fleeing for the might of the French...

The brave German Commander charges straight into the Saracen lines.

Unfortinutly a lucky hit fell the German commander. But even with the loss of their commander the German are victorius and the Turkic cavalry are pushed back.

But now the Germans are surrraunded on all side by archers on horseback, not the best of positions.

Meanwile the Ayyubids tries to attack the hard pressed guards of the waterhole. But they are not able to push in force and are attacking piecemeal.

The French knights are now pushing up on the Ayyubid flank...

The French knights are pushing hard. And many small units are ridden down.

The French knights continues to charge the infidels... Deus Vult...

And the Saracen are slaughtered.

The last unit of German knights finishes of the Saracen infantry and the westernes infantry holding the watersource are relieved. The enemy were now so battered that they could not muster enought force to push for the water.
It was a victory for the Crusaders, the plan to capture our troops at the waterhole had failed.

Big thanks to Johan, Sofia and Daniel for a great and exciting game.

Ayyubid dynasty vs Syrian citystate - Lion Rampant AAR

My friend Johan and I had a game of Lion Rampant set in the age of the crusades. As most of the fighting at that time was between local muslim warlords its only fitting to have my Ayyubid forces facing of Johans Syrians.

For the scenario we rolled for taxation..
Abdel Rahim Al Nasir, a Ayyubid commander was sent out to collect the taxes when Ali Derwish a Syrian warlord had intended to make a raid and collect the gathered valuables instead.

The table was set up as a small village with some houses spread over the table, the village was built around a oasis with some vegetation and some small farming fields. Six objectives was set up representing the collection of taxes.

Each force was set up at the short ages of the table.

Syrian force:
Mounted Serjeant with the warlord
2x Mounted Yeomen
2x Foot Serjeants
Archers

Egyptian force
2x Mounted Serjeants with bows, one with the commander
2x Mounted Yeomen
2x Foot Yeomen


The Syrian forces seemed surprised that the Egyptians was already at the village, they needed to act fast. Their cavalry archers was sent forward.

The Egyptians moves out, starting with some Turcoman horsearchers.

The Syrian raiding force was now at one of the centre objectives.

Egyptian forces was sent out to capture the taxes from the local market.

They were supported by Abdel Rahim Al Nasir himself with his Mamluk bodyguards.

Having collected the taxes from the market the Ayyubid forces moves backwards using the spearmen to protect them.

On my other flank I pushed forward with a unit of Turcoman horsearchers and a unit of Mamluks.

My commander was now almost alone on his flank, trading arrows with enemy horsearchers.

My Turcoman manages to scare the enemy raiding commander back when he lost some bodyguards from arrows.

I decided to move back with my commander, not wanting to engage half his army on his own. I was pursued by the enemy horsearchers.

Taking some casualties I was forced to flee back, or use a tactical movement as I would like to call it...

I managed to rally the commander.

The enemies was moving into the village.
But it was to late for them, the Egyptian Ayyubid had managed to capture most of the taxes gathered in the village and was moving to a more secure place with all the treasures.

A win for the Ayyubid.
A nice game of Lion Rampant. It really felt like ages since we last played a Crusading game and it was good to bring them to the table again.

French light infantry crusaders

I wanted a lighter infantry option for my French crusader force.
But the miniatures are rather generic painted so I can through them into about any medieval force without looking wrong.

The miniatures are a mixture but are mostly Conquest Games - Normans and Gripping Beast - Dark age warriors with some Fireforge - Sergeants heads.

This is also one of those units that have stood halfpainted since maybe Christmas so it feels good to finish them.

As I wanted a lowly standard unit I tried to keep the colours down and not highlight to bright. This will make this unit somewhat dull but will make the knight units pop even more.

 In Lion Ramant I will use three bases and use wound markers, this for ease movement.