Lion Rampant.. at last!!

My Foot Sergeants form schiltron to hold off the repeated charges of Greg's knights

Some considerable time after finishing off my retinue for Lion Rampant, Greg (& Ben) and I finally managed to get a game in at the Polly last night! That has to be one of the longest delays for painting to table.

Neither of us had played before, although we both had copies of the rules and had a read through in the week preceding.. in fairness, there isn't a lot to take in really.

My Retinue were based upon the German list in the rulebook. 
Basically this consisted of;
A unit of mounted men at arms, with the leader
Two units of Foot Sergeants
One unit of Foot crossbows with Pavises
One unit of Mounted Sergeants with crossbows

Greg and Ben, if I remember rightly, had some GW Brettonian/Empire figures;
A unit of Mounted men-at-arms
One unit of Foot men-at-arms with the leader
One unit of Bidowers
One unit of Foot crossbows
One unit of Expert Foot Sergeants with halberds

We neglected to roll for Leader characteristics and opted for the simple head to head 'Blood Bath' scenario without playing any boasts. This was about getting a feel for the game.

The battle played through very smoothly and without too much reference to the book, or puzzling over situations that one sometimes gets in these first games.. a testament to the simplicity I guess. It was also a fairly satisfying bash, with some valuable lessons learned..

We write liked the way that once your impetuous knights are committed, they are pretty much out of your control and will grind themselves into oblivion and/or achieve glorious victory with their Wild Charges.

Mounted Crossbows try to keep the halberdiers at arm's length

Crossbow fire across the field doesn't disturb the cattle

Although these sheep are about to become the mutton in a Knight sandwich!

Don't block the retreat of your own units is pretty fundamental really - no excuse for that one!

The courage tests worked quite well, with the accumulative effect of losses, building the chance and tension with each test.

We called a halt when we hit five units remaining, although I realise that we didn't actually work out who had won! Never mind..

So, overall a thumbs up.. especially if we introduce the character of the scenarios, boasts and leader qualities on top of the 'vanilla' game. Greg seemed to keen to have a root through his unpainted GW figures too!