Do your worst, for I will do mine

And so to the wargaming table, and about time too. However, although we brought to an end the recent barren spell, we didn't break the sequence of somewhat disappointing scenarios. We had the Seven Years War battle where no one wanted to attack (least of all me); then there was our first try of Lion Rampant where is was obvious from the very beginning that the convoy should have started on the table instead of off; just before our break we played an X-Wing game where the rebels (or possibly the Empire - I am hazy on the details of all this) didn't have the manoeuvrability to shoot down the razor blades; and now we had another Lion Rampant set-up which wasn't robust enough to cope with a series of extraordinarily bad activation rolls by the Ottomans very early on.

The 18th century stalemate was just one of those things, but the others were caused by unfamiliarity with the rules. In the case of Lion Rampant I continue to be impressed with their simplicity and playability. We need to make some clarifications and/or tweaks because of using multiple instead of individually based figures, but that's no real issue. In this particular case I think I hadn't sufficiently adjusted the basic messenger scenario (a) to allow for the larger table. If I were to replay it I think I would add to each side a unit of cavalry who had been sent ahead to seize control of the bridge and I would restrict the crossbowmen to the ramparts of the town wall, perhaps giving them a range extension in return. I'd also be specific that the Timar's wild charge needed to be tested for. Clearly none of that means anything to anyone in the absence of OOBs, scenario notes, maps or photographs, but it's my blog and I don't care.

In other wargaming news I have moved on to painting a British bombing section. The figures that I bought only contain two bombing poses (b) so I have been busy with the Stanley knife and the superglue. I'm quite pleased with the results, although as usual with 20mm plastic we find that kneeling figures would be seven feet tall were they to stand up. I particularly like a couple of my conversions which look as if they are throwing the grenades downwards into a trench. On top of all that the Great War project got a further boost with first of my second hand Ospreys arriving. It looks very new for a previously-loved book and, even better, has printing on both sides of every single page.

(a) we actually played the messenger as a kidnapped princess solely in order to get some use out of my kidnapped princess figure, one of many I own to not yet have seen any action.
(b) both of them pretty stereotypical; one 'third man throwing back to the wicket keeper' pose (first figure second row here) and one 'off-spinner planting his left leg on the popping crease' (second figure top row here)