Friday Night "Lion Rampant" Reconquista Game.

 John, Andrew, Chris, Julian and I had a Reconquista game at Julians place on Friday, using the Lion Rampant ruleset. Its several years since we last played the rules and we only played a couple of times then, so basically none of us really knew what was going on to start with! Instead of playing UGO IGO by sides, Julian decided to use activation chits a la Sharpes Practice - which I think probably slowed things down.

Three 5-unit Muslim forces took on two 7-unit Christian forces, but with the third Muslim force not arriving till mid game.

Not a hell of a lot happened tactically, so there are not a huge number of pics. Nice figures (many painted by Andrew for Julians collection) but I was not particularly enamoured of the rules (although that might have had something to do with the activation system - there seemed to be a lot of hanging around waiting to get a turn). The individual activation of each unit also caused me problems - my "bidowers" ie skirmish archers - actually never made it onto the table, despite us playing for about four hours and having multiple turns, and I had several occasions where I only managed to activate one unit before failing and my turn ended.

Not the best game I have ever played really but here are the pics :)

My force, two "mounted serjeants" two "yeoman infantry" and the "bidower" archers who failed to arrive at all!

A few close ups of the various Muslim contingents

In theory, the object of the game was a Christian catapult in the centre of the table that was bombarding a besieged Muslim town off table. The Muslims (John and me on the table, with Julian in charge of the third force) were attempting to capture it and the Christians were defending. 

The Christians advanced rapidly to protect the catapult.

Early in the game, I sent my best unit (classed as Mounted Serjeants) against Andrew's crossbowmen, who were able to fire then withdraw if they passed a test (which they duly did!)

Andrew then charged into my cavalry with heavy infantry and inflicted more damage, forcing them back with 50% casualties already

The other Christian force, controlled by Chris, deployed to oppose John AND guard against Julians arrival from the flank.

John managed to do quite a bit of damage to Chris with his heavy mounted troops

Most of the action took place in the centre right (from our perspective) with John pushing hard against Chris. Julians force can be seen just beginning to arrive on the table edge.

Another of Johns cavalry units charge Christian crossbowmen 

My leader led his personal command against one of Andrews foot units which had become "battered" in earlier fighting - but that didn't seem to affect them much in the melee!

Andrew and I both attempted "personal challenges" ie the leaders fighting an individual dual - but both ended in an inconclusive draw. The Christian leader and his household troops then charged my leader.

Meanwhile, Johns mounted unit, having driven back the crossbowmen, fought a series of combats against one of Andrews mounted units, eventually destroying them completely.

His light infantry did not do so well, however - despite charging at Andrews archers, the latter were also able to pull the "fire and retire" trick and with two or three rounds of arrow fire, completely wiped out the hapless Muslim unit

Andrew had basically driven me back to my baseline - my leader is hiding in the woods, needing only one more casualty to be destroyed, and the heavy infantry are about to be assaulted, beaten in combat and forced to retire off the table! The archers to the left are not actually there - they are still waiting to roll a successful activation and get onto the table (which as I mentioned, they were never able to do!)

Action in the centre and to our right as the game draws to a close - John did a reasonable job against Chris, plus his cameo with the cavalry against Andrew, but with 10 weaker units against 14 better ones for three quarters of the game, it was always going to be an uphill struggle for the Muslims. 

Julian arrived too late to help balance things out - if he could have combined with John to overwhelm Chris, while I distracted Andrews forces and died to a man, we might have managed to achieve a win.

But as it was, my force was basically annihilated by Andrew for virtually no loss and Chris was able to contain Julians reinforcements quite easily, so we came nowhere near to winning this game. 

Great to see this beautiful collection on the table and any game is better than no game, but not my finest hour and I wasn't overly impressed by the rules to be honest. Anyway, it gets my post count for October started and I am off to Barrys tomorrow for a Great Paraguayan War battle using Mark's Perry Miniatures collection, so another AAR will be on the cards either Sunday evening or possibly on Monday.