Hello,
I don't have alot of painting to show you, but I promise to have alot in a day or two.
In more exciting news I played my first game of Lion Rampant. My valiant opponents brought dwarves and elves. I brought Hussites and a made up list of Burgundians for my fellow general, who failed to show.
First off, a 4' x 6' table is not big enough for 48 points a side. I couldn't even get all my troops in the initial deployment zone. We stretched all the way to the edges and I still had troops to bring on during later activations.
We chose the first scenario, Bloodbath or something like that. Here you can see Dwarves advancing on most of my Burgundians. The Dwarfs had men-at-arms, bidowers, archers, and two expert Sergeants. The Burgundians had two expert Sergeants, two bidowers, crossbows and archers.
Elves advance towards the Hussite side (there's also some Burgundian bidowers that wouldn't fit on their side). The Elves had two expert archers, expert Sergeants, and a men-at-arms. I think he shorted himself two points. That's only 22 points.
I've since done the math expert archers are no match for crossbowmen with pavise. Even regular archers will get destroyed by regular crossbowmen in a shooting battle. Expert archers activate/shoot 71% of the time, while crossbows activate/shoot 57% of the time. Sounds like archers have an advantage, but the crossbows hit so much harder and the pavise makes them as tough as men-at-arms versus archery. 100 units of expert archers would average 35.5 hits a turn, but vs the pavise they'll only kill 9 troops. After the 57% activation rate, the 100 crossbow units would average 28.5 hits, 14 of which would be kills.
The dwarves aren't doing great at activating and the Burgundians are setting up units to support each other.
About the middle of the game, the dwarves are about to charge one of three units.
Men-at-arms are tough units, but crossbows hit hard.
The elves are continually failing activation and increasing their time in crossbow fire land.
I foolishly charge the men-at-arms and lose a unit of billmen and the Burgundian general. Luckily every unit of the human side passes morale.
Elvish Sergeants about to charge the crossbows. The pavise makes them almost as tough in battle and the elves fail, due to poor courage tests.
The dwarf men-at-arms charge my billmen I've place in rough terrain. I forgot men-at-arms were ferocious. Billmen run away and next turn dwarves wipe out a unit of bidowers. Luckily for me my archers and crossbows have about shot to death the rest of the slow moving dwarf army.
Shooting seems to win the day, at least without cavalry on the table. There's only three beat up units of pointy ears and hairy short men on the table when the shooty humans have all but three units remaining.
I don't have alot of painting to show you, but I promise to have alot in a day or two.
In more exciting news I played my first game of Lion Rampant. My valiant opponents brought dwarves and elves. I brought Hussites and a made up list of Burgundians for my fellow general, who failed to show.
First off, a 4' x 6' table is not big enough for 48 points a side. I couldn't even get all my troops in the initial deployment zone. We stretched all the way to the edges and I still had troops to bring on during later activations.
We chose the first scenario, Bloodbath or something like that. Here you can see Dwarves advancing on most of my Burgundians. The Dwarfs had men-at-arms, bidowers, archers, and two expert Sergeants. The Burgundians had two expert Sergeants, two bidowers, crossbows and archers.
I've since done the math expert archers are no match for crossbowmen with pavise. Even regular archers will get destroyed by regular crossbowmen in a shooting battle. Expert archers activate/shoot 71% of the time, while crossbows activate/shoot 57% of the time. Sounds like archers have an advantage, but the crossbows hit so much harder and the pavise makes them as tough as men-at-arms versus archery. 100 units of expert archers would average 35.5 hits a turn, but vs the pavise they'll only kill 9 troops. After the 57% activation rate, the 100 crossbow units would average 28.5 hits, 14 of which would be kills.
 |
| the Sergeants with the red thing got shot up by the archers and will leave the game on failed rallies. |
The dwarves aren't doing great at activating and the Burgundians are setting up units to support each other.
About the middle of the game, the dwarves are about to charge one of three units.
Men-at-arms are tough units, but crossbows hit hard.
The elves are continually failing activation and increasing their time in crossbow fire land.
I foolishly charge the men-at-arms and lose a unit of billmen and the Burgundian general. Luckily every unit of the human side passes morale.
Elvish Sergeants about to charge the crossbows. The pavise makes them almost as tough in battle and the elves fail, due to poor courage tests.
The dwarf men-at-arms charge my billmen I've place in rough terrain. I forgot men-at-arms were ferocious. Billmen run away and next turn dwarves wipe out a unit of bidowers. Luckily for me my archers and crossbows have about shot to death the rest of the slow moving dwarf army.
Shooting seems to win the day, at least without cavalry on the table. There's only three beat up units of pointy ears and hairy short men on the table when the shooty humans have all but three units remaining.
I think cavalry and using bidowers to screen men-at-arms will defeat a shooty army in Lion Rampant. Archers lose to crossbows. Hopefully the guys will want to play again.
I did manage to finish one guy in time for the post. He's a drummer that I've been painting since November. I keep making mistakes and repainting over the old paint. This guy has so much paint on him, you could keep him in a box of pointy rocks for years and never see bare metal.
Till next time, when I promise billmen, French cavalry, and more.
love and kisses,
Baconfat
What a fun game...I am looking forward to trying out those rules myself. Nice painting too.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you like
ReplyDeleteplayed your first LR game, James. Yeah, the 3 inch rule does reduce playing area. I don't mind reducing it to 1 inch. Thanks for enlightening me to the superiority of crossbows. Nice drummer too, BTW
Strange and beautiful, nice repor!
ReplyDeleteInteresting about the crossbows! Love that drummer!
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see a fantasy game not dominated by the rules and although I can't say I'm a big fan of fantasy game I appreciate their attraction..
ReplyDeleteJust one question, "What the heck is a bidower ?"
Bidowers is the word the author uses for light skirmishers.
DeleteI think it's suppose to encompass all the different flighty infantry types including all these with equally silly names: bayouneys, bidets, bidaut, bayouney, bidaux, and bidaut.
Interesting rules though the lack of cavalry showed in the game.
ReplyDeleteNice write up. I really like he Lion Rampant rules, only played the one game of it myself but would defo have another crack at it.
ReplyDeleteHail the Dwarves! And last figure, the drummer is wearing pigmented-armor. He looks great!
ReplyDeleteCool aar dude. Not a massive fantasy fan, but that was interesting enough. I quite like your drummer, has he enough paint to stop a musketball or grapeshot.
ReplyDeleteThe figures for Archers vs Crossbows is even worse than you make it since excess hits by Archers will generally not count for any kills. ie Archers achieving six hits counts exactly the same as four hits. So on average a single unit of Expert Archers will inflict 0.8 kills vs taking 1.5 kills from the X-bowmen (taking into account activation percentages.)
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right, I'd think an easy fix would be to change the expert upgrade to +3 points and increase their range by an inch or two. I would make cheesy pavise players like me move at least once during the game.
DeleteMy thought is to Nerf the pavise - perhaps just make it the same as an obstacle (+1 Armour). It keeps the rules simple (as the rule for obstacles already exists). Might go and ask on the Duxrampant forum.
DeleteAn interesting AAR. I'm in the process of working up a couple forces for LR and found this post quite interesting.
ReplyDelete