Tuesday 25 August 2015

Lion's rampant bombard - It seemed like a good idea . . .

      It's always that point in a long term army build where you have the basics sorted, you even have a tangent of an idea started, and everything feels like it is ticking along nicely, but then something happens in your head and you start to think thoughts that may not be entirely lucid, and this happens:


     You end up buying a medieval bombard from the nice people at Crusader Miniatures. I genuinely have no idea if there are any extra rules on-line for these things, I am working on pure hope and a story I heard down my club of someone that had used one in a game once. Have to say, useful or not, I am extremely pleased with this little project.

crusader miniatures bombard lions rampant baratheon cannon


      This second bit is far more logical. My normal tactic in Lion's Rampant is; foot men at arms charge, foot serjeants charge forward but then slow down and try to encourage the enemy to charge them* and the crossbows, either, just annoy your opponent or wipe unit after unit off the table depending on whether they packed any bolts this time. Simple but it suits me.
      Then I read an entry that read something along the lines of 'hairy men who throw caution into the wind and who's only tactic is charge', I may have paraphrased slightly, but I felt a bond with this unit and knew I had to have one, but I came unstuck on what models to use. My army was really unified looking at this point, and while it is no bad thing to lob something new into the mix every now and again, I felt this army would look worse if there was a unit out of place. So I came up with an idea, simply use the same figures I used for the foot serjeants and change their weapons. Foot serjeants with spears and shields made sense with their stats, give them hand weapons and shields and they look much more unwieldy - although now I have read their stats properly I reckon I should have left the shields off to show their lower armour value, but hey. I now have a unit of fierce foot.

* They are much more dangerous when charged than if they charge

lions rampant fierce foot fireforge foot serjeants

     So the fierce foot themselves are Fireforge serjeants just like the rest of the infantry in my army, but the 'champion' at the front of the unit is the archer figure you got free with your entry bag at Salute. This guy has been trying to get into this army since April and I finally let him join up as he just looked so right standing at the front of this unit.

salute 2015 agincourt archer figure miniature plastic lions rampant

Thanks for reading

6 comments:

  1. Wonderful Mike! I'm glad I am not the only one that serves off on a tangent, at least yours is relevant to the project.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Michael. This is about the most relevant to a project I have done so far and that's only barely.

      Delete
  2. Mike - I'm pretty sure that Dan Mersey has done some rules for powder weapons. It might be worth a look on the Dux Rampant forum to see if they are there (I think they were published in one of the gaming mags a few months ago).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Tamsin. I reckon that's where they would have got them from. I will have a look.

      Delete
  3. Looking great Mike! Cannons are always cool, unless they blow up, then not so much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Bob. Therein lies my problem. Mine tend t be of the exploding in your face variety.

      Delete