Dan Becker's Lion Rampant Game (Arthurians vs Goths)

For the last several miniatures articles, I've been painting Victrix Ltd 28mm Late Roman figures in Arthurian, Goth, and Byzantine styles. I made units of cavalry, armored and unarmored infantry, and archers.

This article describes a battle of Arthurians versus Goths using the Lion Rampant rules from Osprey Games. The rules model leadership, movement, attack/defense/shooting, armor, and courage. Some units have special attributes like wild charge or shieldwall. This rule set is fun because rather than "I move all units/you move all units" the turn could end at any time if you fail an activation role (typically 6 or more on two dice).

Also, facing does not matter so there is no need for wheeling or formation or precise measuring. You just move blobs of minis, er I mean units, around the battle. Keep the unit figures close together and the units at least 3 inches apart (although some people use one inch unit spacing).

Scroll to read the story and see smaller photos. Click on the photos for a gallery of all the larger images.

First photo shows the initial battle lines. The warbands have discovered each other on opposite sides of the crossroads (brown felt). There are some hills (gray styrofoam) and forests (green felt).

The crossroads intersection is worth a victory point if you control it solely. Wiping out a unit also gets a victory point. The game ends at 5 victory points.

The Goths (at the bottom) were able to activate all units and get their cavalry on the table (lower right). The Arthurians (at the top), were in a confusion, and the leader Arthur could not get all units moving and on the table.

Second photo, the first battle at the crossroads with lightly armored medium infantry.

The Goths (green dice) got 5 hits, the Arthurians got 8 hits. With medium armor, each two hits is a casualty. The Arthurians score more casualties and will force the Goth unit back.

Third photo, more units draw closer to the crossroads objectives. Two enemies contest the crossroads intersection. The Goths have been able to move archers on the hill, and their light cavalry is within striking distance.

Arthur tries to join the crossroads battle, but fails another activation roll with his armored heavy infantry. Leaders get to reroll one failure per turn, but Arthur fails the second roll (red dice) as well. Arthur's side appears frozen in confusion!

Fourth photo, the Goths armored infantry attack Arthur's unit. This is the clash of the heavies.

Goths get 3 hits and Arthur scores 2 hits. Both heavies have armor of 3, so that translates to zero Goth casualties and one Arthurian casualty (hits are rounded down). This is a fairly light result.

Fifth photo, the next turn Arthur moves the unarmored infantry into attack. Both sides get 5 hits/2 casualties.

In this game any casualties force a courage check (typically 4 or more on two dice), but you subtract one pip for each casualty.

Sixth photo, Goths fail courage test with "greater than zero" roll (green dice). They are battered (symbolized by the skull token) which means they have to rally next turn before fighting again.

Arthurians also fail their courage test, but with a "less than zero" roll (red dice) which means they disband and flee the field. One more victory points for the Goths!

For the rest of the battle, it continued downhill for the the Arthurians. The battle concluded with the Goths winning the game 5 victory points to 2!

I hope you enjoyed seeing the details of these figures and getting a flavor of the Lion Rampant second edition rules. They certainly are fun to use with medieval period, big battle skirmish games. I will be painting miniatures and playing more battles in the future. Thanks for reading about my latest miniature figures.