Lion Rampant: Find the lost noble

Bruce hosted another game of Lion Rampant. The scenario saw the troops in the foreground searching the terrain features for a lost noble (die roll for success with escalating chances). Once found, the noble had to be spirited off of the board. The other side (background) had to stop this foolishness.

The early game saw lots of moving and searching. Good activation rolls on my part and a tough terrain set up for Bruce was much appreciated. My bleeding knights kept failing their activations, though!

Eventually, the lost noble was found hiding in some trees by my crossbow unit (on left of photo above). This looks like an easy win for me as I just had to get him off the board (two moves to side or four moves to rear).

Bruce then challenged and killed my general. And this must have rattled the troops because I could not activate anything for several turns. Bruce took the opportunity to ride down my foot sergeants (jerk!).

Then the chase was on. I fell back, hoping to draw his forces onto the two units of knights that never really got going and triggering an impetuous charge. This tactic did in fact work, which was good because my crossbow unit was unable to retreat effectively.

Eventually things turned around and I managed to get both of knight units in positions where they just kept charging his pursuers and my crossbow guys got away with the noble. An ugly, ugly 7-5 win for the good guys.

We played a second game with the same units but objectives reversed. Bruce found the noble on his first try and got him of the board before my guys could even sight his units (a 5-0 win!). Overall, a fun scenario.

Strange Aeons, Look Sarge, No Charts, and The Great War

It was a busy night at the club with three games running. Dan hosted Terry and Chen in a play through of Strange Aeons 2nd Edition. I have no idea what happened in that game, other than the scenarios went quickly.

Scott hosted Craig and me in a game of The Great War. I was the British while Craig played the dastardly Hun. Victory was 6 banners and my plan was to push left to gain points through unit kills and trench occupations.

This started out okay for me. Then my hand turned into "right only" cards and Craig played like a mad-man! It was like the Harlem Globe Trotters were Mrs. Wright's Grade 2 class. There were crazy card combinations and terrifying "activate everything" turns and he was always in the bleeding trenches! It was a complete disaster for the British general staff.

This was the best I could manage in terms of an advance and I was within one turn of winning on points. Then Craig continued with his amazing card play and I was screwed. Good game, though!

Bruce hosted Wiley and Richard with some 15mm Napoleonics using Look Sarge, No Charts. The French set up on the left and had to run for the top of the picture. The British set up on the top of the photo and the right in an upside-down L.

By the time I joined the game, things were thoroughly confused. Bruce's British cavalry had been routed and Richard was attacking (from the right?) while running the majority of his troops off the board. It was quite a show!

Lions Rampant and some cultists

Bruce was back in town so I swung by Tuesday night for a quick game. Bruce hauled out some 15mm Lions Rampant and ran a scenario I hadn't played. 

The Sheriff of Nottingham had lured Robin Hood into a trap. Robin set up on the far side of the table and had to escape off either of the near corners. The Sheriff had to split his forces, with some mid-table, some on the escape baseline (foreground), and some appearing behind Robin on turn 2 (assuming they activate).

Robin came up the right side of the table, shooting the Sherrif's men to pieces! But then the Sheriff's force showed up behind and rode down a bunch of peasants.

Things got confusing after that with the Sheriff's knights accounting for most of the kills, despite being badly wounded and charging into bad terrain (OVER AND OVER AGAIN!)

In the end, we figured Robin would have gotten two units off the board, meaning a 6-2 win for the Sheriff. Notably, both the Sheriff and Robin were casualties early on in the game!

Some bad weather also meant I got some painting down. I finished dup three 28mm cultists as well as four columns (Reaper) that I picked up at Red Claw last week.

Memoir 44 at the club

I hosted a game of Memoir 44 at the club this past week. The first game saw me battle Scott. In the second game, Scott switched sides and Dan took a poke at him. The scenario was from the Memoir campaign book and was early-war.

Hannut-Merdorp was the first big tank battle (1500 tanks altogether). I pulled out some 1/7-scale figs to populate the scenario but somehow short the French a tank unit during the first game.

The figures are a mix of plastics and metals, including some of the recent Zvezda stuff and a healthy amount of Esci, Revell and Matchbox.

I use figure removal for causality tracking, leaving the biggest base on to the end.  The main German bases below are Zvezda while the single figs are Esci, I think.

The Germans attacked the French left while the French chipped away on the right. The Germans on the left made some initial gains, isolating the French units in the towns.

But then there was an armoured assault by the French and Germans were routed. Combined with a bunch of small wins on the right side of the table, the French won 6-3.

Game two saw the French at full strength and the battle started on the right side of the table. The French cleaned house here and then turned the German line for another 6-3 (I think) win.

Thanks again to Red Claw for hosting us and to Scott and Dan for playing. 

Pikeman's lament in Saskatoon

Work took me to Saskatchewan last week and offered me a chance to drop in and see my friend Tim Brown. Tim agreed to put on a game and pushed through illness to finish painting up the troops!

Scenario was attacker catches the defender sleeping in pre-dawn raid and tries to burn the buildings. I had a great set of activations on Turn 1 and everyone moved forward. Unfortunately for me, Tim's dice were amazing and all of his units woke up and deployed and he picked up some special figures.

My two mounted units then charged his rabble and beat them bloody.

The pride of Saskatoon measuring to see if he has enough room to retreat!

Another shot of my only moment of glory in the game as the first unit evaporates and the second unit is charged.

Tim responded by vaporizing one of my shooter elements (my morale dice were terrible all night).

About this point, I made my only major tactical error and tried to burn the tents before activating other units. This was a harder roll than activation and I lost initiative. I did get to study Tim's amazing plaids while he plotted my doom.

Then this happened and my dudes took a thrashing against the formed pike. I did eventually get this unit (which put me close to winning) but Tim routed other units as my morale dice continued to blow.

I think the picture below was pretty close to the end.  The formed pike unit on the left got run down and then my horse turned on Tim's command (middle of town).

I charged, took casualties, he retreated, and then I had to follow up and got slaughtered! Game over!

Thanks to Tim for a fun game of Pikeman's Lament. He mentioned a new SYW version of these rules due out for Xmas so I'm eyeing up rebasing my 1/72-scale War of 1812 figures as singletons.