Wellington Triumphs Somewhere Or Other

 The Peninsular campaign hasn't been getting a lot of love in the blog recently, or indeed from your bloggist if truth be told. However, we have been plugging away by playing a game that's lasted a full four weeks, the longest that I can remember happening in the legendary wargames room of James 'Olicanalad' Roach, and I've probably been playing there for close to twenty years(*). In the interests of complete disclosure I have to say that week two of the game was dreadful, at least from the point of view of my colleague Mr Jackson and myself, because we never got to do anything. But, in the finest traditions of the band on the Titanic we played on and, if I may mix my metaphors for a moment, we rose from the dead like one of those gay vampires that Ulysses S. Grant's great-great-grandson writes about. The final two evenings were highly enjoyable, with plenty of to and fro plus the good guys won in the end. What more could one want?

Well, fewer casualties probably. I still don't understand how the campaign loss system (ⓒ J.Roach) works, but the fact that the tray is overflowing is unlikely to be a good sign.

* Refights of Sidi Rezegh always felt like they had lasted for a month, but that's not the same thing.

Altar of Freedom

 Mark and I had a little break from endless French versus Spanish in the Peninsula and tried out the 'Altar of Freedom' rules for the American Civil War, whose title comes from a letter which President Lincoln may or may not have written to a woman who may or may not have lost five sons in the conflict.

In turn, the rules may or may not be any good. The one thing I can say with certainty is that they have a bit of a learning curve and one game is not sufficient to come to a conclusion. The main gimmick is a hidden bidding system for command activation priority, but I didn't really get to explore strategies for that. There is also an extensive list of possible traits for each commander and mine ended up with strict restrictions on what he could do in the bidding phase, which was not ideal for a first game. 

I enjoyed it all nonetheless, and would be happy to play again. My main reservation would be that it seemed to be one of those games where units can start directly facing an enemy unit and manoeuvre on to a flank of said enemy in one move. That's a feature which I really don't like, but it's always possible that we weren't playing it properly. 

Was Valencia Relieved?

 Well, was it? I don't think so, but not for the first time the finer details of the campaign seem to be eluding me. More on this later.

I confidently predicted that the Spanish had advanced as far as they could and would be pushed back on the second evening of the game. Inevitably therefore, they kept moving forwards, and it was the French whose units started to rout off the table. However, the French had so much morale left and the Spanish forces were so bad - being largely raw troops who don't fire very often or very effectively (*) - that we collectively called it as draw. As no one won, the situation, I think, remains as it was and Valencia is still besieged.

The campaign rules we are using were written by James, and most enjoyable they are too. Of course, playing through them has led to the odd tweak to improve playability, but nothing especially major. One thing has become apparent though, it has proven rather difficult for either side to land much of a damaging blow on the other. So, we have decided to make the permanent losses incurred by the losing side of a battle greater. The unintended consequence of this could well be fewer battles and more manoeuvre, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing; see previous reports for evidence that I at least have been a bit gung ho in offering battle. The other change we have made is to increase the size of the hand of campaign  cards each player is allowed to hold. This may seem a bit of a technicality, but we think it may lead to forces having their supply lines threatened more frequently.

Anyway, more map moves next week.

* Basically the French rolled very well and the Spanish very badly in the set up, and the reverse happened during the game itself.

Wellington Doesn't Lose

 I'm still struggling to spend much time working at a computer screen so posts will continue to be sparse; rest assured that quality will not rise as a result. As it happens I didn't miss any wargaming whilst AWOL, as there wasn't any. But we're back baby, we're back.

When we left it in December the main British force had decided to accept battle from the combined French forces despite the likelihood of being greatly outnumbered. I may be playing the role of Wellington, but I'm not role-playing the great man. There is no way he would have stood his ground, he would have retreated back to Portugal pronto. Indeed as we eventually got to the table I rather regretted my impetuosity. However I was lucky in that one of the three forces seeking to move against me didn't turn up at all. I was lucky again when the second force seemed likely to arrive quite late in the day. At the start of the battle therefore I had superior numbers. Having found my inner Iron Duke at last I didn't attack, rather I simply skulked behind a handy ridge.

The French moved against a village I was holding, with some initial success before being thrown back out of it. The Light Division saw most of the action and in skirmish formation saw off a formed unit with such ease that it has caused us to make a small amendment to the rules to make sure it can't happen again.

That's the 95th in the wood and that's a routing French unit at the top of the table. Subsequently the bulk of the French forces did arrive and the position looked very different.

But, I won the initiative when it mattered, rolling a timely double six (*) and turning eighteen straight cards of the twenty seven in my deck before the French could say "Zut alors!". The battle was drawn with remarkably few casualties on either side.  Both sides stay in place and all depends on the turn of the next campaign cards.

* Dice have replaced dominoes, but different dice to the ones that were replaced by dominoes in the first place; so far I prefer it.

The Battle of Cacares

 At least I think that's how you spell it. Whilst here has been no wargaming content on the blog for a while, there has been plenty going on in the background. Over the last three weeks we have been playing out the Battle of Cacares, or possibly the battle of a place which has a name that looks a bit like that. I trust that James will write it up fully in a blog post heavily laden with photographs, but here's a few of my thoughts with only one picture, and that one a tad arcane.

Wellington, having captured Madrid, immediately abandoned it and pressed on to confront Soult, taking advantage of a chunk of the latter's forces being holed up in Badajoz with a Spanish army camped outside.  My strategy, for it is I, is based on an assumption that the underlying purpose of the campaign is to provide us with opportunities to play with toy soldiers, and I therefore seek to bring the enemy to battle if the opportunity arises. Reading between the lines, I suspect that my fellow players feel the same way.

The first evening mostly involved manoeuvre by the Anglo-Portuguese while the French just sat there. I had been thinking for some time that the skirmisher rules were too advantageous to the British Light Division and had in a previous game adopted a particular approach aimed at exploiting what I thought was a loophole, thereby encountering much derision from the others, who didn't agree at all. I stuck with it however and committed much of the initiative which I gained from the draw of dominos to an elaborately choreographed advance by the Lights on my centre right which caused no French casualties and got us absolutely nowhere. Somewhat more was achieved by the cavalry. Most of the French cavalry was on their left, and not wanting this on the flank of my advancing infantry I sent my cavalry to see them off, which they did, ending the night poised to force the French infantry into square. On my left the only action was the playing of an event card by Mark allowing him to carry out a prebattle artillery bombardment. This made such a mess of the 3rd division that they played no further part in the game.

I had thought that the French, who started with more units on the table than the British, would attack on their right and my plan was to bring my reserves on to my extreme left and get behind them. No such attack having been forthcoming I brought the reserves on anyway at the beginning of the second evening and moved forwards. This second evening was marked by a British inability to cause any casualties in combat or indeed to throw anything worthwhile in defence either. This was despite no longer being encumbered with the by now abandoned Epictetus grand theory of how to use Napoleonic light infantry. Far from forcing the French infantry into square my cavalry was blown away by musket fire and the entire division became 'spent'. In fact the French switched their remaining cavalry unit to their left flank, with the clear - if ambitious - idea of seizing the village on the Allies baseline and gaining a cheesy victory that way. The evening ended with the British infantry with charge distance across the whole of the French defensive line.

On the third evening British luck with the dice changed and weight of numbers and, probably more importantly, the quality of their troops broke the French line close to the end of the fourth turn of the allowed five. Thankfully for the credibility of the morale system the French do-or-die cavalry raid, er, died. Permanent losses for campaign purposes were quite high, more so for the losers. The following photo makes clear the method of establishing those casualties.

OK, I admit that it doesn't make anything clear, especially to me. Still, James knows what he's doing, and he says I'm currently leading the campaign scoring track, so all is well.

Battle of Madrid, the Conclusion

 The game reached its inevitable conclusion, although it took a little bit longer than I thought it would. The French had played an event card (*) the previous week which meant that their best division could carry on after its morale was all spent, and carry on they did. Together with one of their cavalry units they caused a couple of British units on the left flank to rout. The focal point was however on the British right flank and there the Light Division advanced steadily and the day was won.

Things I would have done differently include arranging the units of the Light Division differently and possibly continuing the cavalry's move from flank to flank instead of pausing it for a while. I shall have a chance to test the first of those next week, because following another couple of turns of map moves (I think we're now half way through turn 8, but please don't rely on that) Wellington's army will now face off against Soult's.

I know everyone is interested in whatever rule changes occur. This week's related to morale losses following losing a melee. There was a certain amount of robust discussion around this as it seemed to appear from nowhere. James' justification didn't really consist of much more than saying that it was what he had written down and therefore it must be right. Fair enough, that will do me. And it is, of course, the same for both sides.

* These cards are part of the campaign structure. Personally, I'd include them in the base tabletop rules as well. I didn't like much about Soldiers of Napoleon, but I liked the event cards.

¡Hala Madrid! ...y nada más

 "I love thee as I love Madrid that we have defended and as I love all my comrades that have died. And many have died. Many. Many. Thou canst not think how many."  - Ernest Hemingway

I said last week that the Anglo-Portuguese army attacking Madrid was bigger and better than the defenders. The only hope for the French was to hope the initiative went their way and that they could see out the five turns allowed for the game before losing. In the event the opposite happened, with the Allies, for the second battle running, drawing the consistently higher dominos. At one point I drew the 2:1 domino; surely James would beat that? But no, he drew the 1:0. The very next draw I drew the double one; this time? No, he drew the 1:0 again. You can't help some people. On top of that, there were two double dominos (*), one when the French had all but succeeded in reaching the end of their deck, meaning that we only played one turn in the evening and Peter and I had been through our deck more than twice.

James will no doubt post a comprehensive post, but the evening ended with the French on the verge of losing all their army morale despite much of the British force, including their strongest infantry division and their cavalry, not having done anything at all. I give it half an hour at most next week.

* When both sides draw the same domino all used cards are shuffled back into the deck, but it doesn't count as an end of turn.

Badahoth/Badajoyce

 The latest game in the Peninsular campaign was a battle near Badajoz, brought about mainly by your bloggist neither understanding the rules nor having bothered to take any account of publicly available information about the size of the various French forces. James wrote about the first evening here, and the second evening saw it reach a conclusion.

I, in my capacity as Beresford on this occasion, attacked from the outset, not so much because I thought it was a good idea, but because in the context of the campaign I thought I should. One has to assume that all sorts of things are abstracted in the campaign mechanics, and in this case it was the reason why the British would be the aggressor against an equal force with large reinforcements arriving any moment soon. One must just assume that there was a good reason why they did. 

Anyway, much to my surprise it all ended in a draw with both sides being very low on morale and not being in a position to do much; indeed the last hour or so of playing was rather dull. Whilst the arrival of the French reinforcements was imminent (*), the British were withdrawing steadily and it was by no means clear that the new troops would be able to cause much damage before nightfall. In the end permanent casualties were fairly light on both sides, although the hospitals will be pretty full with those recovering. I left James (no Mark or Peter this week) to do the paperwork, but overall I think I came out of the affair far better than I was expecting. The main reason for that was, it seemed to me, the resilience against morale challenges which the British in particular benefit from in the rules we use.

Lots of photos were taken and James will no doubt write it up in detail in due course. When I was originally rolling up my army lists one small crumb of comfort was the inclusion of some extremely feisty heavy cavalry. They repaid this faith by destroying two units of French light cavalry and causing the Polish Lancers to think better of it and withdraw. Let's hope we see more of them during the campaign.

* Fortunately for the British and Portuguese the order in which the cards were turned up in the third turn effectively delayed their arrival for a further turn after that.

The Peninsular Campaign - where are we at?

 Over the last couple of weeks we have fought out the second battle in the Pyrenees, at Manresa. James has posted a report on the first night with plenty of photos. That evening's play was as good a game as I can remember, with what ought probably have been a walkover for the French swinging both ways, including a rather feisty counter-attack by the only two average Spanish units (all the others being poor) and featuring a cameo from the militia who, now I think about it, are even worse than poor. The second evening saw the inevitable happen though, with the French finally sweeping all before them. The battered Spanish withdrew down the coast, the winners marched into Barcelona, and James and Mark awarded themselves vast numbers of victory points including some - I kid you not - for refraining from stitching each other up.

We then moved on to the next campaign moves, which saw the end of the turn before anything much had happened. Eventually the British got a chance to move, but sadly your bloggist managed to both misunderstand the rules and misread the likely intentions of Soult. Next week will therefore see Beresford's Portuguese attacking a French force of approximately equal size with an even larger force under Soult himself poised to arrive, although thankfully quite late in the day.  Part of my misunderstanding of the rules has been deemed understandable after all and an appropriate adjustment incorporated therein. Unfortunately my misjudgement of the likely size of the French force remains and next week could be quite hard going.

The Builders Will Always Get Through

 Apologies for my absence, but I have the builders in, with all that entails. 

In my case it mainly entails going out a lot to avoid the disruption, which gives me plenty to write about, but no time to write it. When I was married and the Misses Epictetus were very young we had a large amount of work done on the former marital home, during which I sloped off to Belgium for several weeks leaving the first Mrs Epictetus to cope with the dirt and dust and the small children, all with no kitchen. Did I mention that I was divorced?

On a happier note, there has been gaming, including a welcome return to 'Jump of Burn' and WWI aerial combat.

It had been so long since we played this excellent game that I had forgotten that my British pilot had sufficient track record to qualify for an 'Ace Pilot' card (this is a good thing) and so I flew without it. However, I still successfully completed two bombing missions in the DH4 on the right of the picture above and have now advanced my status sufficiently to qualify for two 'Ace Pilot' cards next time (this is an even better thing) and you can be assured that I shall remember those. Or possibly I won't, because it's unlikely to be any time soon as next week sees the long anticipated kick-off of our Peninsular campaign.

PotCXXIpouri

 My absence from the blogosphere has not been entirely due to scorchio, my broadband hasn't been working properly either. Obviously too much has happened in the Casa Epictetus during that time to include all of it in detail here. Most notably there was a visit from the blog's Luxembourg correspondent involving food and drink aplenty and an erudite conversation which ranged from Qatargate to the dynamic pricing of tickets for Springsteen's Munich concert via Piltdown Man. There has also been a variety of musical and theatre entertainment of equally varying qualities. But you're all here for the wargaming.

First up was a run out for James' new Spanish Army for the Peninsular war. Given that they were newly painted and that they were Spanish troops in the Peninsular war, they inevitably ran away. But quite a bit of luck with the dominoes meant that they hung in there for longer than anticipated and a good time was had by all. The picture above shows a Spanish cavalry unit which having unexpectedly routed their opposition in melee were then effectively destroyed by what seemed to your bloggist to be a very harsh pursuit check rule. 

Next up was the battle of Harran using To the Strongest!, the outcome of which was a defeat for the forces of Outremer, just like the original. The photo is of Bohemund, who despite being the main hope on his side never really got going. A combination of the Armenians to his left suddenly going into an uncontrolled advance - which unsurprisingly ended in disaster - and me constantly choosing the wrong order in which to activate commands, took away all his room for manoeuvre. Not that Baldwin or Tancred did any better mind you. It was a very bad day for the forces of Edessa and Antioch.

Fire and Fury

 It's election day, but counting won't take place until tomorrow afternoon, meaning it will be another 48 hours or so before I write something here along the lines that the voters of West Chevin ward don't know what they're doing. In the meantime let's have a third wargaming post in a row, possibly a record for the blog.

Mark brought round some of his ACW figures. He is inevitably in the middle of rebasing them - he is the king of rebasing - but he had completed enough for a small game. It had been probably getting on for twenty years since I had played the period and I had never played the rules used, so it was all a pleasant change. Mark opted for Brigade level Fire and Fury, and I found them easy enough to pick up. I can't vouch for how well they reflect the period, firstly because I don't know much about it and secondly because Peter and I, as Union commanders, decided that a suicidal charge across open ground was the best tactic to pursue. In fairness to us we also tried a flanking march around the woods on our left, but you can judge how successful that was by the fact that I didn't take any photos of the forces engaged in it.

I did take one of the highwater mark of our assault in the centre, but the boys in blue were driven back by the rebels' musketry and that's as close as we came to taking the objective. Despite everything, I enjoyed it. I have to caveat that by repeating that it was a small game and we started with all units having the same quality, weapons and size in order to keep things simple. But I'd be up for a larger, more complex game; once, of course, that Mark has rebased everything.

Ferrybridge

 Wargaming has been both infrequent and irregular recently, for a variety of reasons (*). However, Peter came round yesterday and we had a run through of the Ferrybridge scenario from the first Test of Resolve scenario book. It is structured in three parts - as was the original battle of course - and I had been a bit sceptical about it all hanging together. Peter had persuaded me that, au contraire, that whatever happened we would be able to construct a sensible narrative. In the event we didn't have to because, apart from Clifford surviving to see Skipton Castle again (always assuming he gets through Towton alive of course), it unfolded in a very historical manner.

I only took one photo of each phase, so no matter the level of technical quality, they're all going to be included. The first shows the Yorkist attack across the bridge after the Lancastrians have seen off the first two companies of attackers and Warwick himself has been wounded and carried to the rear.  

Notwithstanding these losses, sheer weight of number told and the second phase saw Clifford arrive to try to retake the bridge. The chap with the flag is whichever knightly commander we hurriedly pulled from the box to act as first reserve; I'm afraid I can't remember who had that honour. The defenders had regained some strength, but their diminished resources meant that they were swept away without inflicting any losses at all on Clifford's men.

The only thing in focus in this photo would appear to be the bridge, so you'll have to take my word for it that it shows Fauconberg's flanking attack, after his having crossed the Aire somewhere upstream. Given the Lancastrians being at full strength and having a sizeable complement of archers, I think we both assumed that they would easily see off the threat. But, the rules rose to the occasion and Clifford's archers ran out of arrows before doing anything of note. Fauconberg sent his own archers forwards and after suffering steady casualties that Lancastrians decided to withdraw. At that point they got the luck of the cards and were across the table and off before the Yorkists moved forwards at all. The scenario therefore ended in a draw, although Edward IV was now free to march onwards to  catch up with Queen Margaret at Towton. However, for the time being at least they won't be meeting in the annexe. We have tired of the Wars of the Roses and will move, eventually, on to something else. 

Having played them now about half a dozen times, my overall view of Test of Resolve is very positive, and I would certainly recommend trying them out to anyone looking for some new Wars of the Roses rules. 

* Both known knowns and unknown unknowns.

Flourish. Enter King Edward...

 ... in triumph; with Gloucester, Clarence and the rest.

"Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course

And we are graced with wreaths of victory"

And so it proved in our refight of Barnet. Sadly for Hastings 'the rest' didn't include him as he had perished upon the roll of a natural one in melee. But Gloucester, obviously stung by my previous observation that he never seemed to make it through any of our games, played a blinder. I didn't take many photos and no good ones at all, but include this shot to illustrate Dickon in action.

This was the largest of the games we've played using Test of Resolve - indeed I'm pretty sure it was the biggest WotR game I've ever put on - and thus wasn't over quite as quickly as the others. It played out rather well I thought. The 'stand off distance' mechanism in ToR lends itself nicely to the scenario specific rules required to mimic the fog which was a big influence at Barnet historically. The clinching factor in our game was that Oxford's battle wasn't able to manoeuvre as quickly when it realised there was nothing in front of it as Gloucester's did in the same position.

I think we'll have one more WotR game before I set up a different period and no, it won't be Mortimer's Cross. No paint has yet touched kern, and I'm now off to Wales for a couple of days of birthday celebrations in the inevitable rain. One thing that does need sorting out is a better way of marking casualties and troop types. The existing system was designed for gridded games and just doesn't work properly in a non-gridded game. Also required is a method of distinguishing battles one from another given that most troops look the same. Neither of those will be done by next week.

Iechyd da.

Tewkesbury again again

 Not for the first time I can report that we have replayed the battle of Tewkesbury. The 'Test of Resolve' rules continue to please, perhaps even more now that we are playing them properly. The Yorkists won, mainly by dint of throwing large numbers of elevens and twelves, against which the Lancastrians had no answer.

There were several presentational changes starting with the movement trays which I had pre-ordered and picked-up at Vapnartak. I'd also painted up some more household troops, allowing for the nobles to lead their battles from the front rather than being embedded in units in order to bulk them out. I have to report that the plastic mountain is so depleted that if I wanted to refight Towton I would actually have to buy some more; who'd have thought that day would ever come.

Speaking of buying figures, there has been a request to do Mortimer's Cross, but unfortunately I have no kern. There's no point in buying any unless I get enough to also refight Stoke Field, which it turns out requires quite a lot of them. Still, what is money for if not to buy more toys? And it will still just about cost less than an evening at the opera, particularly after factoring in the programme, the ice cream and the private jet to San Francisco with Julia Roberts.

So, next week won't feature any Irish, but there will be some in due course.

And Somerset Another Goodly Mast

Prince Edward: I know my duty; you are all undutiful:
                          Lascivious Edward, and thou perjured George,
                          And thou mis-shapen Dick, I tell ye all
                          I am your better, traitors as ye are:
                          And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.

King Edward IV: Take that, thou likeness of this railer here. [Stabs him]

Richard, Duke of Gloucester: Sprawl'st thou? take that, to end thy agony. [Stabs him]

George, Duke of Clarence). And there's for twitting me with perjury. [Stabs him]

Or at least that's how Shakespeare has it in Henry VI, Part III. It didn't end like that in our refight of Tewkesbury, although it came close.

Mark turned up this week and took the Yorkists, allowing me to umpire. That should have given me time to take more photos, but didn't, mainly because the more I read the rules the more convinced I became that we playing the melee rules incorrectly. The starting point was our seeming inability to work out which companies in one battle ought to be rolling off against which companies in the opposing battle. The 'Test of Resolve' rules are fairly clearly written, so that was a bit of a surprise to me. It turned out to be a knock-effect of something else which we weren't doing right. In our defence the way things work is pretty much the opposite of how things work in the rules we have most recently been playtesting in the Legendary Wargames Room, and intuitively we seem to have gone down that road again. 

Anyway, notwithstanding having played it wrongly all evening, a good time was had by all. The Lancastrians won quite comprehensively in the end. The Yorkist ambush failed to happen, and Gloucester perished early on, as he often seems to in refights of this engagement. Hastings' battle also dispersed leaving Edward IV all on his own. He could still win though, by defeating Wenlock's battle in melee and pushing through to kill Edward, Prince of Wales, which he came tantalisingly close to doing. He was only thwarted by rolling very low against Edward's bodyguards very high roll. That is always a possibility with D12s. Still, as I said before, it was most enjoyable, as I'm pretty sure it would have been had we played it properly.

First St Albans - ish

 We played the 'Test of Resolve' 1st St Albans scenario featuring all the wrong nobles (*) and the rules met with a fair degree of approval. We were able to get a completely unbiased opinion as there was neither winner nor loser. Henry VI unfortunately got caught in the crossfire and perished. In the words of the victory conditions: "If he dies the game ends immediately and inconclusively as a draw! The Wars of the Roses take a surprising turn".

My main concern prior to playing a full game was whether the special period specific rules together with the game's initiative system would result in things running on rails, leaving no interesting decisions to the players. I'm pleased to say that didn't happen, although 1st St Albans is not a particularly normal battle, so perhaps no firm conclusions can be drawn. A concern that did arise came through the use of D12s, which inevitably means that luck in combat and morale testing can swing quite a bit. Still, I think we shall have another go, with a battle in the open rather than in a town next time.

The scenario itself was fine. I previously observed that one of the roads along which the Yorkists attacked is actually quite steep, but in truth had they been penalised for that they would surely have never fought their way into the town. The one area I would probably change is the 'God Save the King Test' which had to be taken by the first Yorkist units into the square. This was a straight die roll, but I think I would give them the normal bonuses for quality, attached commander etc. If the first unit fails then perhaps I would give a down to the subsequent units to reflect this. In terms of the way I laid it out, I would next time specifically mark out the areas around the square notionally occupied by houses, as well as scattering a few buildings about for aesthetic effect. 

* There have been questions about how I come to have a WotR collection which doesn't include a Warwick figure; he was after all fairly prominent at the time. Well the good news is that I have found him. I definitely don't have either York or Salisbury though.

Ramparts Unclimbed

 A couple of months ago I posted photos of the forces laid out for the final assault in the siege game that has been clogging up the table in the annexe since the middle of last year. I have actually played it out, I just haven't written it up. The reason for that was that it became obvious fairly quickly that it was impossible for the attackers to succeed using the combination of the rules as written, the forces as chosen and the tactics which I was employing. 

A small part of the problem was that the defenders had won every one of the preliminary siege rounds, forcing the besiegers to attack before they had built all the siege equipment they otherwise might have and without the level of superiority of forces they would have wished for. Possibly also I had jinxed them a bit by writing in that last post: "I don't see how the attackers can lose". However the main problem is that assault by escalade is exceedingly difficult. Now, obviously it should be, but then again one wants a balanced game. I came away with a number of thoughts as to how to tweak things, for example I think more, but smaller, defending units might work better. The attackers also need to concentrate their efforts to gain local superiority. I had held off posting about it pending trying those out, but have decided to move on and do something else completely.

So, overall I thought the rules, which you will recall were published about a year ago in Miniature Wargames, were an interesting way to represent a medieval siege. They could also provide a platform to build on to include some of the aspects which Vauban's Wars introduced effectively e.g. food, spies, disease. The part that didn't work for me was the assault, but funnily enough that's the bit that isn't handled well by VW either. 

Keep them dogies movin'

 "Whatever happened to the siege you were playing using Lion Rampant?" asked absolutely no one. Well, it fell victim to the double edged sword that is having a dedicated wargames room, or in my case a dedicated wargames outhouse. The great thing about them is that you can leave stuff set up for as long as you like, whereas on the other hand if you are, like me, easily tempted away by other ways of spending your time then out of sight out of mind. Anyway, the other stuff having come to a natural and inevitable conclusion I have returned chastened to the world of toy soldiers vowing never again.

You may recall, although if you do then you're doing better than me, that the game languishing for the last couple of months was an attempt by the defenders to drive off the besiegers' cattle herd. In the photo above the raiders have been successfully guided out of the woods by their local associates, the hunting party is making its way towards them (top right) and those in the camp haven't stirred. The following notes are for my own future reference really:

• The three parties of attackers all got a chance to activate each turn whilst still in the wood regardless of any failures. As it happens there weren't any failures.
• The besiegers in the camp had to activate once to be, as it were, aroused before they could move. This proved to be an important factor.
• As in previous games I tweaked the base unit stats in the rules (and as a digression I played this game with version 2 of the rules, having acquired those since I last pushed plastic) to match what was on the table. Oddly enough the rules don't cover such basic troop types as an early-morning boar-hunting party. I was too lazy to write these tweaks down; this was a mistake and caused me no end of confusion.
• I had decided to have a couple of the units start the game split up e.g. half a unit of crossbowmen were on guard and half were asleep in the camp. The base rules give twelve combat dice until the unit is at half strength and six thereafter. To accommodate my half units I switched to two or four dice per stand left, depending on troop type, which seemed to work OK. It does mean that eventually a unit won't be able to inflict any hits and that this will happen sooner the more armoured the unit which they are facing. I figured that I could live with that. In retrospect though I clearly forgot to make a corresponding change to the courage test rules, so need to remember to do that next time.

It is now revealed which of the raiding parties are real, which was the blind and also the location of their insipid leader.

The crossbowmen guarding the herd have been driven back (if I'd changed the courage test properly they may well have been destroyed), but the raiders have to look to their flank as the hunting party emerges from the wood. There are no combat dice for the dogs; perhaps there should be. To win the game, the raiders have to be in contact with the pen at the end of the turn, without any enemy presence.

The hunting party charged home, honours were fairly even in the melee, but then they rolled very badly in the courage test and had to retreat. Those in the camp have belatedly started to move forwards.

In fact, they have moved so far forward they have reached the pen just in time. This is just as well because the hunting party has had trouble rallying themselves.

They eventually did so and with a total reversal of their dice rolling they completely wiped out one of the raiding parties, at the cost of once again failing their own courage test. The infantry bottom left are similarly broken and the melee just about to happen will see the same happen to the crossbowmen, whose retreat leaves the raiders having achieved their victory conditions. The defenders in this siege have now won every round.

Help is sent for

 "You that way, we this way." - Shakespeare

Lion Rampant has an activation mechanism which poses a similar dilemma to, for example, To The Strongest!. Does one try to move the most useful unit if it is more difficult to do so than activating something which will be of less value? Of course one does, silly question. And so the besieger's Men-at-Arms failed to activate on the first turn, and the defenders' messenger quickly moved twice to the pursuers once.

I diced to see which way that the MAA went, but in any case I think logic says that after failing to move and with the light cavalry screening the other route then what they did was appropriate. A Rash leader attached to unit which already has the Wild Charge attribute means that they must charge at anything in reach. However, I decided that they couldn't see the foresters lying in ambush and so didn't have to.

Elsewhere the besieger's infantry had moved to block the route of the cavalry hoping to delay them until their own heavy cavalry turned up. That unit, right at the top of the next photo, was about to be fired on by the foresters.

The ambush caused no casualties, but now the MAA were aware of the bowmen  they were forced to charge them.

Unsurprisingly they caused many casualties and the foresters fell back Battered (*). They carried on falling back and getting weaker for the rest of the game. One LR rule which I rather like is that Battered units get an automatic chance to rally each turn, but if they fail they retreat further and take another casualty, which in turn makes it less likely they will rally next time.

On the other side of the stream from the watermill there were a couple of cavalry versus infantry melees. The unit with the messenger attached got thrown back, but despite the leader's Vulnerability (which made it three times more likely that he would be a casualty) he survived, as did the messenger. The infantry themselves failed their courage test and fell back Battered. The light cavalry had similarly pushed back and Battered the other infantry unit.

The same light cavalry then destroyed the Battered infantry blocking the way to the exit point allowing through the unit with the messenger. I called the game at that point because the Rash leader will be forced to charge the cavalry behind them (no facings in this game) and the messenger will get three attempts at least to move off table. 

So, the siege game is underway with a victory for the defenders which makes it more likely - but not certain - that the besiegers will have to storm the town before making as many preparations as they would wish. It took an hour or so and passed the time quite nicely. If I was going to do it again I would make the stream a more significant barrier than the basic rules suggest.

* I know that term just means the same in context as Shaken, Broken or Disordered, but it really is a ridiculous word to have chosen.