Lion Rampant: Håtunaleken - Mora Stenar 1301

A little over a month ago we started our Håtuna campaign for real and for our first game, five people turned up, so we divided into two teams, one for the current king – Briger and the one that did not quite agree.

For the King we had the following forces

House of Trolle

Mounted Men-at-Arms

Foot Serjants

Bidowers

The House of Torgils Knutsson  - My force

Foot Men-at-Arms

Foot Serjants

Bidowers

House of Ulvåsa

2 x Foot Yeomen with Mixed Weapons

Bidowers

The contenders brought the following:

House of Bjälbo -Erik Magnusson

Foot Serjants with Mixed Weapons

Crossbowmen

House of Bjälbo - Valdemar Magnusson

Mounted Men-at-Arms

Foot Men-at-Arms

House of Algotssönerna

Foot Men-at-Arms

Foot Serjants with Mixed Weapons

A bit of setup

Here’s Torgils and his brave men in the center

Valdemar and some of the Algotssönerna

Ulvåsa took up the left flank

On the left, Trolle

The first turns saw quite little action as the forces slowly moved towards each other

My forces formed some battle line and moved out

The skirmishing bidowers took some firing positions in a clump of trees...

.., and took good aim on the foot knights rushing up to meet Trolles forces

My bidowers was easely the MWPs of my force, from their position in the woods the shot down knight after knight during the game, here they took down two of Valdemars best.

This was something that did not amuse Valdemar though, and he challenged Torgils to a fight one on one, well.. It did not turn out great for old Torgils and the young Valdemar rode him down and he had to be carried of the battlefield by some of his men.

On the other side of the field Trolles knights had finally gotten things sorted out and advanced in line with my forces

Valdemar wasn't slow to throw down another gauntlet, and Trolle steeped up to the challenge, but that was only to be smashed down again, as Valdemar added another helm to his collection.

This resulted in some disorder in his unit, and when the foot knights from Bjällbo charged them, they was all but destroyed, starting a trend of holding back on the side of Trolle, and both Torgils and Ulvåsa started to question if he really was on our side or if he had been paid of...

And overview mid battle, my bodowers continued to do great work, and had by this point driven the hated Valdemar to flight after another knight was pierced by crossbow shafts. But the enemy had gathered forces and drawn up a battle line right in front of my and Ulvåsas positions.

My foot sergeants formed a shield wall and awaited the coming charge form the newly reformed Valdemar and Bjällbo that we all knew was coming.

After both had charged and been repelled, the foot sergeants started to be worn down, if it hadn't been for the excellent shooting from the bidowers in the forest they would never had hold them off. But a shield was is a though nut to crack.

By this time Ulvåsa had moved into a supporting position as well, the fence that stood between them and the rest of the battle had not been great for them, and finally they abandoned it, and joined in the real fight.

Slowed by the terrain, the fence and bad rolling Ulvåsa had so far not contributed to much of anything so far, other than been the target for some arrows and had lost a few brave men here and there.

But another challenge was issued and Ulvåsa and Algostsönerna battled it out, and for once our side had the best of it and came winning out of the engagement. There was much rejoicing on the kings side.

But it was a little to little a bit to late, and soon after the unit disappeared under a cloud of arrows and Ulvåsa was no more and the side of the king had to withdraw and leave Mora stenar to the contenders.

Over all this was an excellent game, I really liked the mechanics in Lion Rampant, and with a card driven activation that we used there was a lot of tension if you would have the jump on your immediate enemy or if they would get the better of you.

You can read another great AAR of this battle over at Dalauppror I can highly recommend you check that out, and since this game was played an I finally got myself to actually write something down, there has been another game played that I sadly could not get to, so check that out too over at Dalauppror.