first garden wargame

The sunny weather led to a last minute, late afternoon decision to mow the lawn and play a solo wargame.

Choose the Lion Rampant scenario the Convoy, with the convoy travelling from one corner to the opposite corner, and the convoy raiders divided between the three other corners, with at least 4 points in each corner

starting position (with four corners to take a photo from I choose the one directly into the sun, and also managed to leave one force off shot)
www.findingthepast.org.uk/normans/garden1.jpg

here is the convoy
www.findingthepast.org.uk/normans/garden2.jpg

after a couple of moves we see the leader of the convoy split off all his cavalry to take on the raiders leader, who had devided his troops in a way that left him out numbered on this part of the battlefield

the outnumered raiders leader's unit retreated from a cavalry melee and was annihilated in a storm of arrows. The resulting retinue morale test led to the rest of his cavalry routing or becoming battered. With an early evening dew starting to form on the grass I decided to pack up before it got too damp.

Played on a 23' square of lawn, the Little Wars house rule of a failed move not ending your turn (although a failed attack or shoot still does) worked a treat, with each side having a few failed unit moves each go to add interest without grinding the game to a halt.

There were 5 moves of manouvering before any fighting which for me added to the game, but visually I think it would of been better to triple rather than double the move and shoot ranges in the book, so I'll try that next time (I have more lawn available if I want to maintain plenty of pre-combat manaouvering).

I decided, possibly unrealistic historically, to separate the knights (with pennents on lance) into separate units from the mounted the serjents, giving the former a score of 3+ rather than the normal 4+ for sergents. This made a big difference when attacking cavalry that failed to counter charge, 3+ vs 5+. Next time I separate knights and sergents I will try leaving both with 4+ for attack, and instead give the kinghts a 1 better morale score instead.