Sunday, February 14, 2016

A Gift of Terrain

Due to my cancer, I am not able to get out much but have played some "Lion Rampant" over the past month.

From our third "Lion Rampant" game.  

As you can see by the above photo, I use pieces of outdoor carpet to indicate terrain.  Dark Green is used for woods; Light Green (upper left) is used for brush; and Gray is used for rocky areas.

You might also notice that I have trees for the woods and plants for the brush but nothing for the rocky areas.  I asked Rob (one of my players) to gather some small stones so that I could scatter them on the carpet sections.  Rob did so, but then got creative . . . and this is what he did before sending me a photo of what he has made for me:

Rob's Rocks will work magnificently



I think that these will work marvelously, don't you?

By the way, here is a link to Rob's account of our most recent games.

-- Jeff

11 comments:

tradgardmastare said...

Glad to hear you got some games in, they look fun. Rob has done you proud with his terrain.
Alan

The Good Soldier Svjek said...

Lion Rampant is such a fun set of rules, like the terrain, Tony

Independentwargamesgroup said...

Great to see your post Jeff,
Osprey have done an excellent job in releasing this rulebook.

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

A good job on the rocks by your victim. :)

I enjoyed reading the battle reports but they reinforce my growing prejudice against this sort of activation system. The occasional hiccup is ok but I've now seen/played too many games where one player never really got to play. (never me thankfully but it sucked the joy from the game for me anyway)

But to each their own and here it sounds like all had a good time.

marinergrim said...

good to read that you've got some games in and are enjoying the hobby.

Jonathan Freitag said...

Jeff, very good to see a post from you!

Rocks will work well on your table top and pleased to see that you are still managing a game or two.

Best wishes, my friend.

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Best wishes, Jeff..

Fitz-Badger said...

The rocks look very good like that. What a nice gift!

I've only played one game of Dragon Rampant so far, but I liked the uncertainty the activation brings to a solo game. I can see how this sort of activation won't appeal to everyone. It would have irked me if I was playing against someone else and I couldn't get my leader's unit to move in the first turn. At the very least it seems like you should be able to get your leader to do what you want. But in a solo game I just take that as part of the "story" - maybe the leader held back for some reason (good or not). In the game I played it also went back and forth between one side or the other not getting to do everything they wanted.

Bluebear Jeff said...

Ross & Fitz-Badger,

Yes, the activation rolls can be frustrating . . . but then, units do not always react the way you would want them to.

The thing that I like about them is that it forces one to make choices . . . do I move the easier units first? OR the one that is lagging behind? "What needs doing the most?"

As for the difficulty in moving one's Leader (especially with Mounted MAA) can be annoying. Rob also felt that the Leader should be able to get his own unit to act and we came up with something that we use.

If the Leader fails to activate his own unit, he gets one chance to re-roll his activation with a -1 to his dice score (so, he would need an 8+ instead of a 7+ to move).


-- Jeff

Archduke Piccolo said...

In chess, it is a useful rule of thumb if you find yourself unable to decide what to do in a quiet position, is to move to a more useful square the piece that is contributing least to your game. Just a thought...

I do like these rocky terrain pieces - very versatile and suitable for any war theatre.

A J said...

They do look good, and there's no question as to where the boundaries of the terrain lie.