"Lion Rampant - late to the party but a full review" Topic

I really wanted to like this…

And by golly I did!

link

It turned into a lengthy review alongside my first game, which was fun despite being very one-sided.

Enjoy!

Very good Dean;
I just ordered the rules.
Thanks;
Joe

Thanks, these rules certainly seem to be getting a positive reception from every source that I have read – well done Dan Mersey.

Thanks for the report. Looks like just the kind of fun I was hoping for. Bought the rules, haven't played.

Rules are fun, though they do not give a very challenging game. The three games I've played so far have been very one sided. The loser tends to get crushed, while the winner has very light casualties.

My only experience so far was this game:

link

I had a good run of luck (or perhaps more accurate to say my opponent had some bad luck on some confidence tests…) and it looked like it would be a slaughter in my favour.

Then in the last couple of turns I botched a few confidence tests and units routed and my opponent was right back in the game. In the end I won by a single point.

We both had fun and will be playing again, I'm a happy customer but I think Lion Rampant is an odd combination of "bucket of dice" attrition for combat results, paired up with a very unforgiving confidence test mechanic that can see strong units rout from the results of a single 2d6 roll. Because the confidence tests matter a lot, in any game of Lion Rampant luck will be a big factor. Granted, the odds of botching a confidence aren't the same for all troop types, but the possibility is always there.

I'm not sure that's actually a drawback for the level of warfare the game is meant to represent – I can see unexpected stuff happening as small groups of soldiers mis-read the situation and panic (or hold longer than they have any right to).

Now that LR's honeymoon period can, I think, fairly said to be over, perhaps it's time for some deeper analysis.

Mr Mersey pitches LR as a skirmish game; a grand skirmish game, but a skirmish game none-the-less. However, setting aside for the moment questions concerning its historicity, if we take a critical look at certain rules something doesn't appear quite right.

If our figures represent individuals, and our units truly represent small formless bands of men who (if they have the necessary special rule) require a specific action to form the one and only permitted formation, we wouldn't expect to see assumptions about training, drill, formation, and collective combat behaviour normally associated with mass battle rules built into the game's combat mechanisms. And yet, the rules assign a different combat value for attack and defence; and in one case the difference is extreme.

The combatant type that most throws into question precisely what the game is trying to represent is Fierce Foot, which has an attack value of 3+, but a defence value of only 6! This is the same value assigned to Serfs! Is Dan saying that an individual warrior, probably raised in a martial culture, well armed, trained in weapon handling, and inured to and perhaps experienced in combat, fights no better than a poorly armed, frightened, unskilled peasant – just because he didn't initiate the combat in question?

At the level of combat the game purports to represent, between unformed bands of just a few men, is there – with the obvious exception of cavalry – really any significant difference between attacking and defending? Surely on a one-to one basis an undrilled but combat-skilled warrior is a match for, or even superior to, a trained regular soldier; and that is supposedly the basis of the game, after all.

I hear you; but its purely a mechanism to get players to use their fierce foot in a hollywood "historical" way – in full on charges rather than as generically good troops you might use to hold an objective or whatever..

Is that really how celluloid hairy barbarians fight as individuals in small skirmishes, though? I think 'full on charges' are primarily derived from mass battle wargame rule 'hairy barbarian' conventions, rather than Hollywood. In Hollywood depictions of pre-gunpowder combat every troop type (with the occasional exception of missile troops)launches wild, undisciplined charges. It seems to me that LR's Fierce Foot category is just an exaggerated version of many mass battle rules' Warband (or equivalent)under a different name. And what goes for FF applies to a lesser extent to other combatant types.

It's really a question of scale: training/tactical distinctions that are sharp, clear and obvious at the mass battle level shouldn't be tangible at the skirmish scale because the collective organisational phenomena that produce them don't exist. So where troop type distinctions should be less pronounced at the level of play depicted in LR than in mass battle games, they're actually stronger.

Oh I agree with you but you would lose game flavour if you were realistic. At this scale the troops would be the pick of the leaders retinue and all would be pretty handy with any weapon they pick up. But, unless you overemphasised weapon effect or some sort of personality factor it would be a pretty bland game.

Blandness is a product of a mechanically unimaginative game. I don't think artificially eviscerating a troop type's combat prowess necessarily makes a rule set any more interesting.

To rephrase the issue,the game's default postures presume a formation, drill, and tactics level playing field: everyone operates in small formless bands, so the only genuine differences should be weapons, armour, equipment, individual weapon skill, and courage; a tribal warrior should be as skilled with his weapons as a knight is with his, and would be equally brave. In the rules armour is represented by a different stat, so if both are fighting on foot, in terms of combat values our warrior and knight should be on a roughly equal… footing.

Further pontificating has lead me to conclude that, despite its claim to be a skirmish game, LR is essentially a mass battles game with all the hard stuff (formations, manoeuvreing, incremental degradation etc.) removed. I hate to use the term 'dumbed down, but…

Consider for a moment that none of the game's functions use individual figures; they're all based on the abstracted unit – with one exception: challenges (but even that mechanism is abstract and simplified, and the leader figures don't function as they would in a genuine skirmish game).

None of this need be a problem if you accept the game for what it is and enjoy it, and we've certainly found the scenarios to be balanced and tense – but it's not really a skirmish game, and oddly enough is closer in tone to many truly historical rule sets than the Hollywood inspiration the author invokes.

Inevitably, as with any successful rule set, obvious and not so obvious variants of LR are starting to pop up. One slightly tangential idea I have is a version for playing the mob stoushes, infighting and dirty tricks of contemporary Australian politics. I plan to call it 'Lyin' Rampant'.

Just got the rules. They look interesting. I was trying to justify buying yet ANOTHER period when I realized that I have a whole bag full of partly painted 15mm WotR figs. Looks like I'll get a game in sooner than I thought I would.

One of the interesting things I find with this series of Osprey rules being inexpensive, I don't mind buying them even if they have issues as they are so inexpensive. I like Dux Bellorum- and it has some kinks- as well but if it had come in hardback for $40 USD-$50 then I might not like it so much.

Henry

Don't you think perhaps you are being a little harsh on these rules and the author?

I don't have a set yet but they are on my "to buy list".

A lot of people are having a lot of fun with them and I think that can only be a positive thing.

I'm a little nervous now should you cast your eye on my sets.

Chris Parker

Did you read the positives in my assessment, Chris?

How can you make any informed comment on my comments without having at least read the rules? I've played a number of games, and my opinion hasn't changed. A game in which no function is conducted at a level any lower than the basic manoeuvre unit (apart from abstracted leader duels: a very simple mechanism driven entirely by chance that doesn't strictly require the manipulation of figures)can't reasonably claim to be a skirmish game. Each figure nominally represents one man, but as individual figures play no role beyond marking the amorphous boundary of a unit, they might equally stand in for however many you choose (at least up to the sorts of numbers you'd see in formal battles involving arrayed/drilled troops deployed in regular formations).

Two mechanisms are fundamental to LR:

1. Rolling to perform a desired action with a unit (activating), with the probability of success varying with the particular action and the – broadly defined – unit type.

2. A side's turn ending if an activation is failed.

Apparently many groups aren't even using the second mechanical pillar of the game on the grounds that it's 'unfair', thereby gutting what 'system' there is, and removing most of the game tension.

I actually have an early edition of DOB, and have always thought that your efforts to make the social hierarchy of the feudal period a central element of the game were original and admirable. In contrast, in LR any medieval flavour beyond that offered by the troop type abilities has to be introduced via the choice of scenarios, imposed narratives, and silly names, voices, and hats; that is to say, the players' own imaginations.

The author himself insists that LR is a simple game designed to allow you to do no more than push some suitably painted figures around a tabletop – and on that point we concur.

Once you've read the rules and played some games Chris, please feel free to revive this discussion.

Hi Henri

Thank you for a civil and well written reply. I have read all of your posts here a number of times and I must also confess again that I don't own a copy yet so I am not in a position to comment on your comments and I hope you realize I wasn't trying to do so.

I do intend to get a copy soon and play them out and if after that I feel I'd like to reopen the discussion with you I will but that isn't my goal here.

Be well and may your dice always roll your way.

Chris

PS TY for the compliments, it was never my intention to mention any of my games here.

Here is a youtube video on the playing of Lion Rampant.

I have cataloged a number of other ones here as well.

Chris
link

On a tangent here but why is a brand new set of rules cross posted to the "Old School Wargaming" forum? 😳

As they have definite old school sentiments in their design, and specifically cater to 80's style play. Sure they're new rules, but if the implication is that to be old school you can only use products from before 1975 then there is a massive exclusion of a lot of fine material from all over the place.

That's why I posted it there anyhow.

Not so much a skirmish set then, more a case of battles with small units. It's not good history, but the author is pretty clear about that – the objective of the game is fun with toy soldiers. We're going to use them for a Game of Thrones campaign, but they'd just be an irritation for our historical medieval games set in France, England and Scotland.