11/20/2015

Lion Rampant AAR

Steven and I tried out the Lion Rampant rules the other day.  They were just as I expected, excellent, easy to learn and loads of fun.  We whipped up a small battle using a scenario in the book, the Escort Mission, with a small twist.  Below is the report.

Lord Blackadder was in all kinds of trouble.  The Bishop of Bath and Wells was out making his collections for the "Black Friars" a wholly despicable lot of men who don't take kindly to people who come due on their "tithes" but can't pay.  As luck would have it, the strong men from Mrs. Miggins Pie Shoppe were on their way to collect over a 1,000 pounds in silver owed for Blackadder's peculiar tastes in "Pies".  Some of the girls still weren't right over some of the things he had them doing.  And Blackadder was stuck in the middle with barely two pennies to rub together.  Things were looking bleak until his man Baldric spoke up..."I have a cunning plan, M'lord!"  "Baldric, this had better not be another plan with a giant turnip in it!" "Well....yes and no.  I thought we could hide out in the turnip fields and jump the Bishop and his men when they are on their way to Stevingham Hall, the ancestral manor of the Blackadders. We kill the Bishop and his men, take the money he has collected, and use it to pay off Mrs. Miggins. Then we frame her boys so when the Friars come looking they will go after her instead of you."  "Baldric, that is the worst plan I have ever heard.  However, I have come up with my own.  We will wait in the wheat fields and jump the Bishop and his men when...."

The Bishop's men moving down the road to Stevingham Hall.  He had two units of sergeants and a unit of archers, the donkey with the gold was attached to a unit of sergeants.  Blackadder and his men, a unit of men-at-arms, a unit of sergeants, and a unit of Bidowers/foresters came on in a pincer move hoping to catch the Bishop on the road before he could get setup.

But the Bishop was looking for trouble and came on ready for action.  It looked like it was going to be a long day for Blackadder and Baldric. That was before the foresters moved into position and opened up on the Bishops men.  The small afterthought unit of foresters were able to do some damage to the sergeants from range and their ability to move through terrain with no difficulties made it hard for the Bishops men to drive them off.


The Bishop seeing the effectiveness of the small band of Archers decided it would be a good idea to get his bows into action, so he had them grab some cover in a small copse of woods and start raining arrows down on Blackadder and his men-at-arms.  Blackadder charged with his men straight in to the archers to try and drive them off but the storm of arrows proved too much and the cover of the forest too thick for his men. ( We learned later that we did this wrong and the men-at-arms should have ignored the cover but the young Bishop definitely benefitted from this error)

Seeing his archers successfully turn back Blackadder and crew and watching his own sergeants being slowly whittled down, the Bishop decided to drive the donkey straight up the road and make a run for the manor and use his bows and other unit of foot to keep Blackadder occupied.  Up to this point the unit of foresters had managed to stall the advance of the gold up the road hoping that Blackadder's men would be there to help but apparently the instructions given to the unit of sergeants were not clear, or they were distracted by the turnips, as they hung back for awhile trying to decide what to do.  The Bishop seeing the hesitation decided now was his chance to get those pesky foresters once and for all and charged ahead with his personal unit. 

 
 
 Alas, it was not to be, as the foresters merely fired a round at the incoming troops and then melted away into the forest.  This was all just way too much for the Bishop so he called out Blackadder and dared him to act like a man for once.  Finding no way to slink away under cover Blackadder was forced to step forward and square off with the Bishop.

 

It was a close fought duel but the Bishop never saw the knee to the groin coming and so down he went.  His men though stayed loyal and continued to press on to the manor.  By this time the rest of Blackadder's men had decided to join in the fun and had blocked the road forward. The bad news was that the Bishops archers were still in the woods and were raining down death on the men-at-arms.  The foresters had moved to the other side of their woods and were not helping anyone.  The Bishops men proved very stubborn and continued the fighting even though things looked bleak.  One can only imagine what the punishment for failure must be to drive men on so fearlessly.


Then Blackadder went down under another hail of arrows.  His last words of encouragement to his men were "Baldrick you bast....ughhhh"  It seems either these encouraging words or all that gold sitting in the road was enough to inspire the men to keep on keeping on. 

Now the Bishops men made a concentrated effort to get up the road and to the apparent safety of Stevingham Hall when the foresters reappeared and brought their own brand of firepower down on the Bishops men. 


In the end Baldric managed to grab the donkey, which he named turnip, and spent all the gold on a small turnip patch of his own. 


The End!

We managed to get through this fairly quickly and had a great time.  With its simplicity we were able to concentrate on the action and not charts.  Definitely will be a game we play again. 




1 comment:

Mallius Vane said...

Great stuff! My son and I have really enjoyed these rules, too...fast, simple and a lot of fun!