Do you know how it is when you get your coffee just right, the perfect blend of cream, sugar, and life-giving liquid caffeine—and then the waitress comes to top it off and obliterates your perfect mix? (I don't myself, I drink my coffee black, but it's an illustrative point, so just go with it.) That's what it's like for me to have broken in one generation of cats to respect my painting space only to get a new cat who respects not the tradition, like the "new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph" (Exodus 1:8).
Such is life now with Bogart, a.k.a. Destructo-Cat, the new feline pharaoh of Casa de Los Gatos in beautiful, bucolic Lynnwood, WA. Behold the mighty works of Destructo-Cat:
A former paper towel roll, now Bogart fodder
Like someone went at it with an electric hedge trimmer
He's also sociopath cat. He's really sweet with me, but his attitude towards his "girlfriends" is decidedly offputting. Maebh hates him with a passion and fears him like the devil. He's chased her upstairs, downstairs, and all about too many times. I'll be surprised if they're ever friends. Rhiannon seems somewhat indifferent to him—at least she doesn't have the extreme negative reactions that Maebh has—but she would likely hate him once he got access to her.
Which he doesn't have.
For the last year, I've had to keep Bogart and the girls separated. They have the run of the house alternately in a kind of time-share.
Gotta keep 'em separated
Typically, Bogart has the run of the house from 11:00 a.m. to about 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. During this time the girls are ensconced in my bedroom. Otherwise, the girls are out from around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. until 11:00 a.m. the next day. During that time, Bogart is holed up in my den.
Where I paint.
He being no respecter of anything, I have to keep him at bay lest he jump up on my painting table to rummage about my partially painted minis like Godzilla taking on Tokyo. It isn't conducive to productivity.
I paint in a cramped space in my den closet. It gives me the ability to close off the painting table when I'm not working at it.
The painting cave
The closet runs the width of the room, but has two openings. When I sit and paint in the right side opening, the closed left side of the closet is dark, mysterious, cave-like.
And the allure of the cave beckons. The urge to spelunk is too much for Bogart's primitive brain to resist. He has to explore. He crawls in past me and disappears back behind the shelving where he rustles about getting into who knows what (and destroying who knows what).
"And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places" (Isaiah 45:3)
Bogart's activity stops all my activity and I have to root him out from the recesses of the closet. I consider this a nuisance. Bogart considers it wonderful fun. And so it goes.
Most of his destruction is an attempt to get my attention—or get my goat, since he often has my attention.
There is some respite. When he's out and about the house, he will eventually settle on the back of the couch where Grendel wore in his permanent dimple over the course of 10 years.
Respecting the dimple tradition
Once he's zonked out there, I can sneak upstairs and paint uninterruptedly for a while. However, the thought will eventually occur to him that somewhere I may be doing productive work and he'll spring to action to impede that.
But I can foil him by shooing him out of the den and shutting the door. The girls are holed up in the bedroom, I am holed up in the den, and Bogart "as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). It's good for a couple hours painting time as long as there are no loud crashes I need to investigate.
Despite all feline-related hazards, I have actually managed pretty good output this last year. I chalk that up to the quicker method of The Dip. And, if I'm unproductive, it's more often than not my own dilatoriness. Nevertheless, it's easier to blame a cat for my own failings. They're convenient that way.
"The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets" (Proverbs 26:13)
Arriving at my door last week was a wee package from Paul's Modelling Workshop in the UK. I first saw Paul's work when Troy Wold set up a line of breastworks for a Pike & Shotte game using Paul's models, which are sold fully painted through Warlord Games. (Troy: They're £28 cheaper if you buy the fully painted ones directly from Paul.)
Last month, I finally got around to thinking that I wanted some kind of field fortification to use in The Pikeman's Lament games. I crawled the 'Net and found Paul's products sold through his own site.
I instantly wanted all of it, but limited myself to a ravelin and a lunette. Both will make handy standalone field works that are ideal for skirmish games.
In my correspondence with Paul, I found that he was a Seattle Seahawks fan. Who knew there were American football fans in the wilds of Hampshire? Though, to be fair, there are plenty of European football (i.e., soccer) fans in the wilds of Seattle.
Go Hawks!
Paul sells the fully painted pieces through his website, but he also sells the unpainted resin too. I opted for the latter because I can paint and flock to match other terrain I've done.
The pieces are large and sturdy. The lunette measures 9 5/8 inches from end to end (or 24.5 cm for those who can't manage fractions) and will easily provide cover for one or two TPL sized units. The ravelin is 5 1/2 inches deep and 5 inches wide. It's great for a gun and crew, but any unit could fit.
The raw ravelin
The pieces cleaned up nicely, there wasn't any kind of flash that needed trimming and no assembly required. I just gave 'em a wash with hot water and dish soap and they were ready to rock.
I used white primer on them. I've used Rust-oleum brown primer on some terrain pieces in the past, but with all the wood bits. I thought I'd stick to my standard substrate.
The wood bits on the pieces were painted with a base coat of Vallejo Light Brown (Marron Claro) 70.929. This is my go-to wood color. I use it for pike/spear shafts, gunstocks, peg legs, etc.
Base wood coat — kinda orangey
I then went over that with a scrub of Vallejo Cork Brown (Marron Corcho) 70843, which is a bit lighter in color. Then, to get a weathered look, I drybrushed it with Vallejo Deck Tan (Marron Cubierta) 986. Finally, I went over it all with a wash using a matte varnish with Vallejo Game Ink Sepia 72091 added, then watered down.
Wood bits complete — less orangey
Once the wood bits were done, I gave it a spray of Krylon Matte Finish, and then on to the dirt bits.
I used my standard coat of Vallejo Model Air Mud Brown (Marron Lodo) 71.037. I use this color as the base color for all my basing. After that, I did a drybrush of Vallejo Yellow Ochre (Ocre Amarillo) 70.913, which is also standard for most of the basing, namely for figures that aren't desert types.
I then pondered the question to flock or not to flock? The completed models that Paul does have a flocking that runs raggedly across the bottom. I like the look, but I also liked the plain dirt. In the end, I flocked. I am not sorry.
Murderin' Meg protected by dirt
These little lovelies turned out well and I'm eager to put them to use in a game. They're good for pretty much anything from the Renaissance through 19th c.
Lunette manned by ECW dragoons
Until someone comes to take it away
Of course, I'm also ideating on other Pauline purchases. There's a very nice Large Gun Bastion I have my eye on...
I pulled out my beloved 40mm Prehistoricalistical Europeanoids (a.k.a. North European Bronze Age) minis for a game on Saturday. My last game with them was in 2016 with Kevin Smyth and Phil Bardsley, when we adapted Osprey's En Garde rules to ca. 1800 BC. It worked OK, but rules for dashing swordsmen ca. 1650 aren't exactly suited for bronze age warriors going at it with axes, spears, swords, slings, and arrows. So, I went back to Ganesha Games' Song of Blades and Heroes, which is the rules set I used when I started with them almost four years ago. There's an advanced version, which I purchased after our game (see below).
So off we went in the Wayback Machine to the Bronze Age. Why? Because bronze is brilliant!
The players were Mike Lombardy, Troy Wold, Ralph Holloway, and I. Troy and I were the defenders keeping the forces of Mike and Ralph from disturbing the religious rites being celebrated at the stonehenge-ish site. It gave me my first opportunity to use the mini stonehenge I bought from Daryl Nichols at Enfilade! earlier this year.
Protecting the shameless naked cavorting at the megaliths
The forces were all roughly equal and I used pretty generic characters. Each warband had a leader figure with the values Q2:C5, plus special rules "leader," "Hero," and "tough." Our leaders all got into combat, but no one got killed. The rest of the forces were swordsmen (Q3:C4), spearmen (Q3:C3), Slingers (Q4:C3, medium shooter), and bowmen (Q4:C3, long shooter). Troy and I also had standard bearers who were like swordsmen (Q3:C4), but had the "tough" special rule. Each warband numbered 13 figures.
Separating our warbands was a mostly dry river, whose wet bits were impassible (but bridged). On one end of the table, Troy and Mike squared off, while Ralph and I went at it on the other end.
The field of battle, Mike and Troy at one end
Mike started out with his figures in two groups and used his leader's "leader" rule to move them forward. Troy and Ralph did similiar.
Ralph's boys start off in neat groups
I was just scattered all over and came at Ralph piecemeal. Why be methodical in my mayhem?
Dave's boys running higgeldy-piggeldy across the terrain
My initial clashes against Ralph did not go well. I was down three swordsmen before he'd lost anyone. He was able to get 2:1 and 3:1 against some of my figures. Being on the ropes, I started concentrating my forces and finally got methodical with my mayhem.
Mike started initially getting badly hurt by Troy's forces, but the worm eventually turned. Both of them fought in tight opposing lines. Ralph and I were more scattered with little clumps fighting in various places.
Ralph's initial successes left him a bit scattered and vulnerable for counterattack. A few good activations later and I was on him in force.
The axeman cometh
The first tough clash is known in my tribe's lore as the "battle by the tree near the swampy bit." It was here that I took my initial losses, but by bringing more warriors to bear—and my hero leader—I turned the tide. My leader exerted only moral force by the tree; when it came time to kick some Bronze Age butt, I rolled two failed activations with him. I just repositioned him with my one action and the battle by the tree near the swampy bit resolved itself when I brought my standard bearer into it.
My leader weighs whether to join the fray (he didn't)
My standard bearer shouting his enemies to death
The fighting was pretty hairy for a bit. Two of my swordsmen held off four of Ralph's spears. It started with just one.
2:1 in my favor and no luck
My failure to kill the lone spearman, however, drew in the rest of Ralph's spears. Another swordsman came to my help and I was then 1:2.
Suddenly a wall of spears!
I got one of my swordsmen killed (and one of Ralph's spears), which left the odds still decidedly against me.
Now 1:3...
However, the lone swordsman prevailed. I'd like to claim skill, but it was just lucky dice. Try as he might, Ralph's attacks were foiled by low scores which left us tied (no result) or had me pushing him back or knocking him down. Once down, a figure is pretty vulnerable to kills or the dreaded GRUESOME KILL (of which we had none this game).
Whittled 'em down to two and soon to none
I lost several chances to kill Ralph's leader. I engaged him with my leader and managed to have him at 2:1 and fallen, but only managed to wound because of the leader's "tough" special rule.
So close...
The "tough" rule helped Troy also, whose standard bearer (a.k.a. "Penis Man" due to the ithyphallic deity totem he carried) was knocked down and wounded multiple times, but survived the game and was standing proud by the megaliths at the end.
I get knocked down, but I get up again...
On the periphery, the missile troops plugged away at each other. I tried a long shot at Ralph's hero, but the odds are so far out the best I could hope for would be a "fallen" result, which I didn't get. However, Ralph and I each took out two opposing missile figures.
Bronze Age firefight
Both Troy and Ralph had to make morale checks for losing more than half their initial force (more dead than alive). For Ralph, this affected only his leader, who scurried back one move. The rest of his force stood their ground.
By game's end, Ralph had four survivors: His wounded leader/hero, one intrepid swordsman, a slinger, and a bowman. I had my leader/hero, my standard bearer, three swordsmen, a slinger, and a bowman.
My men glower menacingly at Ralph's survivors
Troy was on the ropes, pretty much a mirror image of Ralph's situation, but Mike was almost as badly beat up. We called the game for the defenders. The henge ceremony went on without further interruption.
And there was much rejoicing (and gratuitous nudity) at the megaliths
It was a good time despite the pain (see postscript below). I really like my 40mm figures and need to get more—although they're not really available right now, but there is hope...
Final thoughts: Song of Blades and Heroes (SBH)
I like SBH as a system. The game moves along quickly and the back-and-forth can be tense. They're also great for limited numbers of figures. We each had 13 figures in a warbands. We could easily have handled more—if I had more.
They are, however, not quite what I want for the period.
SBH was created for fantasy skirmish battles. I use about 40% of the rules for what I do with them. They don't take into account weapons and armor and there are no rules for my big 40mm scale chariot. The other 60% of the rules cover fantasy rules staples like monsters and magic.
There was once some development on a set of rules to be called Song of Spear and Shield (SSS). I had some correspondence with Andrea Sfiligoi about them going back to 2014. They seemed to be always just on the cusp of being released, but other projects kept getting precedence and they're not even listed in the Work in Progress section anymore. As recently as a few days ago, Andrea confirmed that they will be released, just no indication when. Needless to say, I'm a bit flustered. Patience has never been a virtue I was overly supplied with.
However, I just got the PDF download of the Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes (ASBH). It has a bit more of what I want (and a bit more of what I don't). The only armor rule is the same as what was in the standard SBH, i.e., "heavily armored," which adds +1 to your combat score if you're beaten, i.e., it can be decisive in turning a kill into a pushback. It's kind of moot for the Bronze Age, though. I have figures in cuirass and helmet, I have figures with bronze chest discs, I have figures with just shields (small and large), I have figures with nada but a weapon. It would be nice to have varying degrees of armoredness.
ASBH adds "reaction" to the options for players. It basically works that when a player rolls dice for activation, any failures can be rerolled for an activation attempt by the opposing player before the first player conducts his actions (if any) or rolls his next activation. If two dice fail in an activation attempt, which normally ends a player's activations, the opposing player can choose to have the normal turnover or re-roll the two failed dice as a reaction, which keeps the first player the active player. I can see a lot of advantage in this.
Weapons have been added in some way. Long spears, for example, can benefit from the "long reach" rule, basically letting you attack through/over a friendly figure. I'd give this to my spear figures. There are also rules for heavy weapons like two-handed axes (I only have one figure with that).
All in all, ASBH looks promising—but I'm still eager to see SSS released!
Postscript: Ouch!
I tweaked my back as I was loading my car to head out to The Panzer Depot. By the time I got there and was unloading, I was suffering. I made it through the game, but was only able to load up for the return trip with the help of Mike, Troy, and Ralph. It's Sunday afternoon now and I haven't unpacked yet. In fact, I've been resting since I got home yesterday, groaning every time I have to move.
I've been downing ibuprofen and applying heat and cold alternately. I'm barely mobile, but still able to sit and bash this post out. I'm about to go back to resting with the hope that by tomorrow, my back will be better. It's not spinal, it's a muscle spasm of some kind, just on my lower right.
Post-postscript: Grrr!
I went to work on this blog only to find that all the pics I took with my iPhone came out as HEIC files (i.e., Live photo). This is what the iPhone camera keeps defaulting to. Photoshop can't read that format, so I had to monkey about with a conversion utility just to get everything to work.
Apparently you can set the iPhone camera not to default to Live, which I thought I'd done, but it still defaults to Live. I wish I could just disable it.
We played our second game of The Pikeman's Lament this Saturday at The Panzer Depot in Kirkland, WA. We'd been pretty much on haitus through the summer, but now that Fall is here, there's more time to play.
The forces
We had four players on a 6' x 8' table. Mike Lombardy and I were on one side, Troy Wold and a new player named Ralph (or Malcolm depending on when you asked Troy) were on the other. The forces were two 24-point companies per side.
Mike Lombardy had his atomic Poles:
2 x Elite Aggressive Gallopers (wingéd hussars)
3 x Aggressive Gallopers (pancerni)
I had my 16th c. Irish in their first game:
1 x Elite Forlorn Hope (redshanks)
1 x Aggressive Forlorn Hope (gallowglass with my commander)
1 x Pike
1 x Shot
1 x Commanded Shot (kern with calivers)
Troy had a 30 Years War force:
2 x Elite Pike
1 x Pike
2 x Shot
Ralph had a force using my ECW figures:
1 x Aggressive Forlorn Hope (angry pikemen plus the commander)
1 x Elite Forlorn Hope (firelocks)
2 x Commanded Shot (dismounted dragoons)
1 x Field Gun ("Murderin' Meg")
Scenario and deployment
We played the Gå På scenario, basically a free for all. No objective other than the enemy.
The field I set up had a lot of terrain. I was fearing a replay of Mike's Pancerni division coming at me and wanted enough places to hide to make a game of it. It turns out that Mike was my ally this game and so I gave good ground to Troy, who was opposite Mike with his units taking position in difficult terrain and behind stone walls and hedges.
Ralph was opposite me. He had a bit of a problem in placing his field gun, which is immovable in the game, but can command the field—if you manage to keep rolling 8s for activation.
I put my pikes and shot just left of our center with the idea of advancing them up to fight on the hill that dominated the center of the board. The kern, redshanks, and gallowglass were on the far left in the town on the other side of the river. My plan for them was to advance up the side and attack Ralph's field gun from the flank while my pikes and calivers were getting shelled from three feet away.
Kern in the bog, gallowglass and redshanks in the town
The game
Mike's aggressive Poles couldn't help but quickly pitch into Troy's pikes. Aggressive Gallopers in TPL really aren't a subtle unit type. In a broader tactical situation, you might keep them as a force de frappe to be unleashed after you've softened up a position with shooting. But with no shooters, Mike had to go pretty much straight at 'em from the get-go.
It wasn't pretty.
Mike's Pancerni division crashes into Troy's pikes
Mike managed to inflict a lot of hurt on Troy, but at a cost. Hard-hitting 6-figure units can do a lot of damage, but can't take a lot before they're in trouble. In the initial clash, Mike managed to rout one of Troy's pike units, but had to struggle against another.
Donnybrook on the right
The advance of my pike and shot in the center was harassed by "Murderin' Meg." There were enough attempts where Ralph failed to activate—rolling an 8 is on the wrong side of the odds. However, when he managed to shoot, it was Katie-bar-the-door.
The Hiberno-Polish center advances
The shot wavered and rolled back from one shot, but the pikes seemed to stand it well, even after taking losses.
Irish pike crest the hill and on to glory (and death)
Working my flanking force along the river took a while and it was several turns before I got in range.
Gallowglass and kern leaving the town to march on the flank
By then, Ralph had moved his firelocks over to protect "Murderin' Meg" and there was a brisk firefight at long range between his firelocks and my redshanks.
Redshanks engage the firelocks at long distance
My kern, however, entered in and the weight of shot soon took out the firelocks.
"Murderin' Meg" and the firelocks
In the center, my pikes managed to crest the hill and drive one of Ralph's dismounted dragoon units out from behind a hedge. That was their high-water maker, however. I couldn't get them to advance across the hedge to the green fields beyond and Ralph's other dragoon unit and Troy's shot peppered away at me until I spectacularly failed my morale test. Good-bye pikes.
The pikes take the hedge
Troy and Mike kept at it hammer and tongs on our right. It seemed bad for Mike, he lost his commander along with his unit and two of his pancerni. But he rolled the blesséd 6-6-6 activation (boxcars followed a by a 6 on the special chart), which brought 4 points of units on the table for him. He resurrected on of his pancerni and went right back to it. Troy, meanwhile, had lost his other two pike units, including his general, and had his centermost shot unit—the one that shot up my pikes—in danger of being overrun.
Ralph blasted my shot unit down to three figures and I couldn't pass the moral test to keep 'em around. That left him free to turn "Murderin' Meg" towards my flanking force. But I was able to shoot his crew away before he could unleash a whiff of grapeshot at me. My gallowglass, The O'Sullivan at its head, rushed in to take the gun position.
The O'Sullivan and his gallowglass take "Murderin' Meg"
Mike had swept away Troy's shot unit in the center, leaving Troy with just his one shot unit that was over on the other flank. Mike then started to move towards Ralph's troops, ignoring Troy's surviving shot. He caught Ralph's dragoons, who failed their evade test, and killed every figure in the unti. Being Commanded Shot in the open, the dragoons had a stamina of 1, which is not what you want to have when you struck by Polish Wingéd Hussars.
At this point, all that Ralph had left was his Aggressive Forlorn Hope. Troy only had a single, damaged shot unit. My redshanks and gallowglass were in great shape, Mike's hussars and pancerni were both at full strength. We'd been rolling for game end for a couple turns and still getting to roll to play on, but Troy and Ralph threw in the towel. They'd lost 38 out of 48 points. We'd lost 22 of our original 48, but Mike had gained 4 points in reinforcements.
This is the end
The whole game lasted about 2 hours and we all had a great time at it. I've come to love the "Rampant" series of games from Dan Mersey. The Pikeman's Lament is especially nice because there's a lot of versatility with defining unit types. For example, I used the dragoon units in our first game as Dragoons, but made them Commanded Shot to try out how they'd work in a terrain-heavy game where they could skulk and shoot. Although Ralph put them in open ground and even my kern (also Commanded Shot) spend the game in the open. It never really came up to have to put them in cover.
I'm happy that my Irish did reasonably well in their first game as a company. When I made the ECW company list, I gave it "Murderin' Meg" thinking that I'd be the one throwing thunderbolts with it. It's not a pleasant thing to be on the receiving end—but I have the delight of having captured the gun by game's end.
Dice and accoutrements
I was able to get another of my unique "Rampant" barker markers into play.
I have two of these, which I got from Warbases in the UK. They're made of MDF and assemble quickly with a bit of white glue. After they were assembled, I distressed them severely with a small knifing file to make a lot of nicks in them. Nothing looks pretty after sitting in the Irish countryside for a few centuries.
I also went back to using my beloved Viking bone dice. My game, my misshapen non-cuboid instruments of chance.
They didn't fail me. My rolls were never spectacular, but I passed nearly all of my activation tests, even getting boxcars twice—and never rolled snake-eyes. My shooting and combat dice were well enough to do the job, so I was happy with the little guys.
They didn't get in the game—but might have if I'd rolled the 6-6-6 activation—however, I wanted to show a pic of the first of my English units for the Irish Project: Pikes.
Lizzie's boys looking formidable
The Timeline/Graven Images/Hoka Hey! line makes a nice command set for the "garrison troops," so I can add some flags for color. The flags I used for them are Pete's Flags, which are available from his eBay store. He only has one sheet of Irish flags, but three for the English. It's a pity, though, that there isn't a corresponding command for Irish pikes. Even with the flags, there's no one to wave them.
This Saturday we had a Lion Rampant game day at the Gig Harbor, WA public library. Pat Lowinger runs this annually. I was all set to go last year, but Grendel's sickness and death took the mickey out of me and I didn't manage to get my El Cid Spanish retinue completed. (It is, in fact, still uncompleted, which necessitated my borrowing an army for the day.)
En route
Having 58 miles to cover, and always unsure of how the traffic will be, I took my trip south in stages. I started out from home around 9:00 and stopped to have delicious Swedish pancakes for breakfast at Family Pancake House in Edmonds.
From there I headed down I-5 and when I hit Tacoma, I turned off to visit the Tacoma Book Center. It looked even more packed than before. I meant to just stroll in and browse—the game day started at 12:00 and I was making good enough time that I had time to kill. However, I didn't manage to leave until I bought four books on Medieval warfare. I seem unable to ever leave a bookstore without books in hand. C'est comme ça.
From Tacoma Book Center, the next stop was the Gig Harbor library. To get there, I had to cross the Narrows Bridge, which was made famous back in 1940 for its spectacular collapse.
The only life lost back then was Tubby, the poor cocker spaniel who was left in the car and went down with it when the bridge collapsed. An attempt to rescue him before the collapse failed when he was too frightened to get out of the car and bit one of the people trying to pull him out.
My trip across the bridge (rebuilt in 1950 and with a second span completed in 2007) was much less eventful. No lives—animal or otherwise—were lost.
Doubly stable now
I got the the library just after 11:00 and we started setting up. The venue is very nice, with room to fit six tables comfortably (and more uncomfortably). There's access to the meeting room from outside and it was a very short schlepp to bring in our toys 'n' terrain 'n' stuff.
Setting up
We set up 6 tables and had about 10 people playing. There was no tournament, just find an opponent and play. I got two enjoyable games in.
Game 1
My army for the day was borrowed from Mike Garcia. He was playing Medieval Russians and I used his Mongols. I think I gave him reason to think he ought to have loaned me the Russians and played the Mongols himself.
We played on the table I set up with all my terrain. It was nice to get my new trees on a table. We set out the units in our retinues and I won the die roll to start first.
Mongols are, I have learned, a lovely army. I made a retinue with 2 x Mounted Sergeants with bows, 3 x Mounted Yeomen, and 1 x Bidowers. The whole army is fast-moving missile troops. The Mounted Yeomen can skirmish and evade, the Bidowers can scoot through terrain, and the Mounted Sergeants provide a bit of close combat backbone.
Opening moves
In the initial sparring, I lost one of my Mounted Yeomen units when Mike got off a nice shot at it, taking out two figures, and I rolled snake-eyes for my courage test. That had me worried because that unit constituted my entire right wing. Everything else was concentrated on the center and left.
But in the center, I managed to get the advantage on Mike's two Foot Yeoman units. They suffered under the Mongol bowfire. I charged one with my Mounted Sergeants and that was that. The other one broke from an extremely failed courage test.
Running down the oiks, Mongol style
Through bowfire and combat, I managed to wipe out Mike's center. Mike's dice didn't treat him well. I think I had better than average luck. I used my reliable, venerable bakelite dice. I brought my beloved Viking bone dice, but since they're only vaguely cuboid, I figured someone may object to agents of chance that couldn't possible be truly random (though I can attest that they fail me as often as they favor).
The ending action was the combat between Mike's general's unit and mine. We were both Mounted Sergeants, though I had bows. I took it badly in the combat, being beaten twice, but my supporting units managed to put enough arrows into Mike's unit that it evaporated.
Vladimir's last stand
Game 2
For game 2 of the day, Dean Motoyama and Ron Beery challenged Mike and me to a 2:2 game. They'd played each other earlier and were looking for another game. So we added another table to the one Mike and I played on and rotated my felt mat so it perfectly covered the 6' x 8' surface. (I was worried initially that the mat I brought would be too big.)
Table set, forces deployed
I was on our right, Mike was on the left. Opposite me was Dean with his bowless English 100 Years War army. Dean was trying to bring the minimal number of figure, so he had four expensive 6-figure units: 1 x Mounted Men-at-Arms, 1 x Mounted Yeomen with bows (+ expert), 2 x Foot Men-at-Arms. It looked to me more formidable than it turned out to be. Englishmen without bows are kind of a toothless dog.
Mike's force was the one he used in our earlier game: 3 x Mounted Sergeants, 1 x Mounted Yeomen with bows, 2 x Foot Yeomen.
Ron brought the big guns. The core of his force was 2 x Crossbowmen with pavises. They were formidable. The pavises make them hard to hurt, but they inflict hurt at 18". They felt kind of like Hussites without wagons, Foot Hussites, or Hussites zu Fuß. He also had an Archer unit and 2 x Mounted Sergeants.
Dean and Ron won the coin-toss, but elected to receive on turn 1. I pushed my troopies forward against Dean, whose units were all deployed back or behind trees. I was soon able to start pouring bowfire into one of Dean's Foot Men-at-Arms. It takes a lot of 5s and 6s to remove a figure, but I slowly whittled him down.
The fight on the right
I was troubled a bit by Dean's Mounted Yeomen, but I was ultimately able to bear more weight of shot against him—though they fought bravely to the last figure.
On our left, Mike had to contend with Ron's death-dealing Hussites zu Fuß. Actually, we both did, though Mike got the brunt of it. I lost two units in the game, both withering under a hail of crossbow bolts.
Attacking the Hussites zu Fuß (to no avail)
Mike managed to attack one unit with one of his Mounted Sergeants—and push it back, though without being battered—but the attack faltered when Ron started pounding him at close range with the crossbows. That was Mike's high-water mark. He soon lost hist two Foot Yeomen to arrows and crossbow bolts (mental note: Foot Yeomen = pin cushions), and had nothing left to challenge the center. By the end of the game, he was riding around the flank with his surviving two units to see if he could worry Ron's edges without coming into range of the fearsome Hussites zu Fuß.
On my end, I had eliminated two of Dean's units, which was half his force, and was working away on the second Foot Men-at-Arms with my surviving four units.
Hunting Men-at-Arms in the woods
I eventually got it, but not before it managed to charge one of my Mounted Yeomen, which failed to evade. They tore it up, but not fatally. Dean's Mounted Men-at-Arms never got into the fray. He held them back. That was the unit his commander was with and I suppose he didn't want it tearing around the field making unwise charges against units in rough terrain.
At this point, we called the game. Dean and Mike were effectively spent at one and two units remaining respectively. I was still above half strength, but barely. Only one of my units was at full strength and one was reduced to just 2 figures. Ron was sitting pretty. He'd taken just a few losses to one of his Hussites zu Fuß units and a few to his Archer unit, but was comfortably above half strength for both. Every other unit was pristine. His retinue hardly broke a sweat and I wasn't about to tackle him.
After that, we picked up and packed up. I had a long drive home and left just after 4:00. I stopped for lunch/dinner at the Carl's Jr. just over the highway from where we played. I grew up in California where we had Carl's. It's new-ish to Washington. There are a few somewhat near to me, but out of the way. Since there was one athwart my path, I had to stop. Carl's was as delicious as I remember it, though they've added menu items and changed their fries. I loved the Carl's fries I recall from my youthful days in CA. The new fries are good, just not as good as before—or maybe my memory is faulty. I left CA 30 years ago.
It was great to have a Lion Rampant game day. I'm quite chuffed to have been able to use my new Lion Rampant version of the "Barker marker."
Lion Rampant is one of my favorite games, though I hadn't played straight-up Lion Rampant in quite a while. Everything I've been playing has been focused on variants like Quetzalcoatl Rampant and Pikeman's Lament.
I have a renewed interest in getting my El Cid retinue finished and in making progress with all the Old Glory Medievals I bought 20 years ago for the Pig Wars Late Medieval variant I did. I'm also getting eager to play Chariots Rampant, Pat Lowinger's Late Bronze Age variant that was published in Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy 82—I've already priced out a Mitanni retinue using Foundry figures...
