Andrew brought over his Japanese to have a go at a Lion Rampant game. In part it was an experiment of basing styles as his are based for Armati which he plays with the White Rock Gamers, and mine which I merely placed on pre-cut wood shapes of ovals and circles from an art store . While my units had a greater arc of fire - the rules have range simply based upon nearest point - and I have wider units, it did not seem to have much obvious effect. ( as he was victorious ).
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| Andrew's "tight formations" of arquebus armed ashigaru advance against my mixed armed unit of Takeda ashigaru in the foreground. |
And the battle was a bloody affair with courage tests being passed by good dice...as compared to most of our combat rolls....
The scenario, as it was, to have Andrew take the village while I was to defend it. The orchard and houses created lanes of attack so the battle had a form of north and south zones. His primarily teppo force [ arquebus armed units ] moved against my mixed weapon [ bow and spear armed ] units in the 'north' while his samurai, both foot and horse, moved against the Takeda teppo and samurai in the 'south'.
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| the 'northern' section of the battle |
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| ..and in the 'south' Andrew's Dixon mounted samurai unit moves against my Kingsford types - a clash which my Takeda took the worst |
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| the clash of foot samurai |
In future I shall look at some of the more inventive scenario plans for perhaps a more interesting game but as a test, the rules work well for the period as we simply used LR attributes. My archers did seem to do a bit better than his teppo inclusive units so might increase the arquebus power as the Japanese of the era gave the firepower more like the flintlock than a medieval handgonne.
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| my ashigaru await the onslaught. |
The Takeda arquebus behind their pavises however could not shoot well but Andrew likewise could not get his foot samurai to advance quickly - or in Lion Rampant terms...failed activation often which gave me another turn to fail to inflict casualties!
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| a rare view from the 'other side'! Andrew's foot samurai charging from the left finally get to grips with my teppo unit. |
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| the pavises cost 2 points but increase 'armor' protection. Homemade by gluing three wooden coffee stir sticks side by side and painted in the clan 'colours' |
Speaking of activation, we employed the two and out rather than having the first fail to stop your turn. Much better feel - more to the player's frustration level than to the game play, but the game is
supposed to be fun...
