"Weekend of Lion Rampart" Topic

Spend the last weekend playing games of Lion Rampart. Here are some general impressions:

Interesting concept of activating units. You must roll a certain number or higher on 2d6 to a get a unit to do something. The difficulty varies depending on how likely a unit is to do that action. For instance crossbows are less likely to shoot then bows do to the reloading factor. As in Crossfire failure shuts down your turn (in most cases).

Your chance to hit varies in combat depending on whether you are attacking or defending – foot spears for instance are better at defending; knights at attacking. Oddly in a 1-1 game the number of attacks per unit is absract and stays full until a sudden drop when a unit reaches half strength.

More weirdly damage is cumulative; you must do a certain number of hits to get any result at all.

Other than the ingenious activation system there is no command control and units can wander off on missions of their own with not regard to the retinue leader. Thre is not way for the Retinue leader to issue a mass order.

There are no formations other then amebia so consequently no flanks rear etc. A head on charge is just as effective as a rear charge.

Leaders get a personality traits which can be quite important but is decided randomly. If your leader rolls a bad one and the other side gets a good one, this can have severe play balance implications.

We tried out several of the scenrios and found all to be good games though most were in the end decided by who got the best leader trait.

We all felt it was refreshing to play a game with an actual design rather than the typical: Side A moves rolls a bunch of d6s hoping for high numbers; Side B moves rolls a bunch of d6s hoping for high numbers. New turn. Any figure costing more than $50 USD gets a +2. (I've saved you from having to bother purchasing most games "designed" in the last 10 years).

The activation system was the games strongest aspect; the lack of formed units its weakest turning into more of an post apocalypse gang war than a battle between medieval retinues. (Shield walls and formations were used at even the lowest level and disorder was avoided, well like the plague, even amongest small groups as it often lead to swung weapons hitting as many friends as enemies.)

So if you like the basic concept of Lion but want to get more medieval and less Call of Duty here are some suggestions:
1. What you see is what you get. Just roll a number of dice fro attacks equal to your unit's current size (6 figure units count figures X2 except bidowers who still count 1:1).
2. Formed units. Any unit except bidowers on a Move Order can form. 12 figure units form in two as equal as possible ranks, base to base. 6 figure units form a single line (stirup to stirup). Unformed units count half figures (round up) when attacking/shooting (except Bidowers). Formed units can only move to their front, wheeling to change directions. Deduct 2 inches from formed foot, 3 inches from formed mounted when moving. Formed units contacted on rear or flank imdediatly become unformed. Units that Retreat from a Courage test or Battered units are always unformed.

3. Banners Advance. Provided you have created a nice banner figure and they are next to your Leader. The Leader may announce Banner's Advance! If the leader makes a successful Move Order then all units within 12" of the Banner get a Move Order (they cannot refuse the order and attempt to do something else but don't have to move – this counts as their activation).

4. Armor. To get rid of the "battleship" effect of accumulated hits. Just use the armor numbers as damage numbers. A roll higher than the armor number equals a kill (so you need to roll a 2+ to kill a serf; a 5+ to kill a knight).

5. Missile v. Mounted. To reflect the greater effect of missiles v. mounted give missile troops a +1 to Hit mounted unless the mounted have full metal barding (War of the Roses/Burgundian war era).

With these additions you should be able to get a very nice medieval skirmish battle.

Can easily be adapted to an Ice and Fire setting even without the forthcoming fantasy version.

TomT

It does not appear that you used boasts to increase the chances of your side winning or if failing in the boast losing the game. The author of the rules is quite clear this is a game to reflect small warbands that are raiding, pillaging and otherwise NOT acting as a regular armed forced. While the leadership trait can be a negative it is balanced out by the activations and a number of other factors such as using Boasts. We have played games in which one side basically came close to winning the scenario objective but failed in that side's boasts thus loosing the game. The game mechanics are simple yet have a layer of subtle complexity that is interesting and compelling. As to the command and control there is command and control of a limited amount. After all this is a skirmish not a grand battle. The leader can provide a +1 to any unit under its command when it comes to making a courage test and hopefully preventing that unit becoming "Battered." The retention of lost models shows the units are not of significant depth to hold out for a long drawn out slog. Again this is a raid not a battle. Some units have special attributes such as Wild Charge which reflects a very historical predilection for certain types of armed units to dash brazenly and sometime foolishly off to attack something not critical to winning the overall battle. It happened all the time. There are also some interesting terrain rules that allow lesser units to be able to stand better against superior ones if they place themselves in the proper position.

I think your review is based on you wanted a set of rules that would allow for mass Medieval Combat and instead you found something that is designed to be more about skirmish and yes a bit tongue and cheek. Which is the reason I like the rule system. The rules are not expensive, well produced and have great support. And of course one can easily add their own home rules and in fact the author encourages such.

Check out the DuxRampant Forum – there are a lot of ideas and rules modifications along the lines of what you have suggested – and more.

duxrampant.yuku.com

I like your formed unit rule.

To me cohesion and unit formation has always been the most important part of war (which makes it almost impossible to watch series like game of thrones, with random running around hitting random people with swords. )

Yet that happened a lot in small skirmishes the likes of which this game represents.
For larger battles I'll be looking at other games, but thee will be mine for larger skirmishes.

@Terrement: "I suspect I'll wait until there are more suggestions like yours to make it a better game before I invest in yet another set of rules."

I totally understand, but please note the rule books is $18 USD MSRP ($14 on Amazon) and the rules are very easy to learn and remember.

So it's not much "investment", in money or brain power, and the payoff is big.

If you are looking for a medieval skirmish game with 40-50 minis per side, Lion Rampant is you game.

An interesting synopsis.

On formations, unit vulnerability increases significantly in broken ground. This is to represent that troops are usually in a formation – they are already formed. Moreover, I would just note that foot sergeants can form schiltron to represent a less mobile, defensive formation.

I find the cumulative damage is an interesting alternative to GW-esque armour saves and suits the period quite well. The same goes for the overall effectiveness of a unit dropping significantly once it goes below half strength. Moving away from these would change core elements of the rules, I think.

I do like the idea of adding bannermen, I already have them in my leader's unit for aesthetic reasons.

Please do visit the LR forum as I know people there will enjoy discussing your ideas.

As an aside, when it comes to shooting, horses can take a more damage than people, i.e. they have larger areas of muscle that can absorb even multiple penetrating injuries. So making cavalry more vulnerable to shooting does not follow.

When I first read Lion Rampant I wasn't convinced it would work, but our club played a long multi-player series of games (almost as written*) to general acclaim, so I'm not inclined to change too much.

If you add the second roll for armour, you can use the 'dice per figure' but note that you are changing the odds to hit different armour types significantly. Whilst the rules as written are non-intuitive, I'd have to say that they work for me.

Re facing/formations. In a game where units may well not activate for a turn or two, it is very harsh to allow an enemy to get a benefit from a rear attack because a different (friendly) unit failed it's activation. So 'no facing' takes account of that. And you can't "move and shoot" so I interpret shooting to include a change of facing if necessary.

I quite like your 'Banners Advance' rule, however.

* I'm not a fan of "Wild Charge". So we didn't force knights to charge into rough terrain, and if they 'failed' the Wild Charge roll I allowed them to try to move (not charge) so that you couldn't guarantee pinning the enemy knights by mvoing close to them.
And in the interests of general playability, as GM I reserved the right to allow a player to attempt to move another unit if they failed two turns in a row to move any units at all.

More weirdly damage is cumulative; you must do a certain number of hits to get any result at all.

I quite like the way it works in the rules; skips unnecessary "roll to wound/roll to save" steps and the end result is about the same.

Other than the ingenious activation system there is no command control and units can wander off on missions of their own with not regard to the retinue leader. Thre is not way for the Retinue leader to issue a mass order….
…Leaders get a personality traits which can be quite important but is decided randomly. If your leader rolls a bad one and the other side gets a good one, this can have severe play balance implications.

I am not convinced that "leaders" are best represented in this system. For a system that relies in part on Hollywood for inspiration the basic leader is really just a symbolic model in a unit. All he really offers is +1 to courage rolls to units within 12"; he has no more control over the unit he is with than he does over the serfs at the other end of the table. I found it a little nonsensical that the Mounted Men At Arms my Leader was with had to roll 7+ to move towards the enemy, however the Foot Yeomen that were 36" away would happily do it on a 5+.

Other than those kind of details I think the activation system works great.

We have been playing a lot of LR and the only change we have made is we don't make friendly units stay 3" away from each other, but you do have to stay 3" away from an enemy unless you are attacking.

I do like the "Banners Advance" idea and the not making Mounted Knights "wild charge" into rough terrain ideas.

Thanks for the feedback. I suggest some of the doubters (just as a lark) try the "formed rule" I think you will like its effect (you can start the game formed by the way).

The rules do move the game away from a Hollywood feel – that was the intent but not away from the simple man to man feel. In particular I was looking for a 1:1 medeival game. But even at the lowest levels (at least in the Hundred Years War) retinues worked together and used "formations". The cumulative causlty rule made the units feel like battleships rather than bodies of men so that to I wanted to replace.

A morale bonus is not command. A commander can be hated but still keep a firm grip on his units and exercise effective command. I had missed the friends can't come within 3" of friends – and glad I did.

As to cost I found it quite reasonable and worth the investment.

Interesting basic system but I really thing the formed rules and command controls rules are essential for all but a total Hollywood version.

(Combat in the book versions of A Game of Thrones is much more reasonable than the amebia v. amebia of the TV version).

TomT

A morale bonus is not command. A commander can be hated but still keep a firm grip on his units and exercise effective command. I had missed the friends can't come within 3" of friends – and glad I did.

At first glance I felt the same way, but in play, it introduces an interesting level of complexity, which requires players to think through their deployment – sometimes a move or two out. As you suggest with regards to your formed rule – why not try it

Lion RAMPART sounds a good game.

How does it compare to that other medieval wargame, Lion RAMPANT?

Ney Ney did you mean Saga? Because I was thinking the same thing

I'm not willing to try the 3" repeler ray rule since I'm pretty sure the players don't want another odd abstraction in a 1:1 skirmish game.

Allowing troops to form makes sense; making your own troops repel friends 3" does not (If bows shoot 18" and that's 200 yards, 3" is about 25 yards.)

I'm sure in a gamey sense it makes deployment much more difficult as your own troops can't support each other. I just don't see how it helps make Lion a fun medieval skirmish game with at least a nod to reality (basically, I think, what gamers are looking for). I would be happy to drop this difficulty to get the more varied results that having a formed rule produce.

TomT

They can support one another, it just takes some thinking as they can't mob up. I think it's a shame that you won't even try it.

As an aside, you may be overthinking the ground scale. As understand it, distances were decided upon for gaming reasons rather than a set ratio.

Regards,