I've reached the conclusion that building my own QRS is a key step in truly understanding a set of rules.

This is the game that got me started, and eventually to little wars TV.

I like these rules. Easy but still you want to charge with knights, shoot with archers, move another kind off unit etc. It can be a bit harsh if you get to unlucky about activation. We played with "If you only got one activation last time one fre re-roll to activate, if you did not get any activation last time two free re-rolls to activate. This turn only (no re-roll of re-rolls or saving any re-rolls)". When you are down to 1-2 units this means you get to activate often and can do difficult stunts :)

To make it easier to get in to just reduce the unit sizes down to 3 and 6 rather than 6 and 12.

It's a game that I've gotten my fantasy minded friend to play. I prefer historical and sci-fi games myself, but LR is easy enough to get into and cinematic enough that it's entered our rotation. I think it's a good gateway game in general for crunchier historical wargames. There are some universal concepts (moving, ranges, cover, terrain, etc.) that help create a shared language for pivoting to more specific rulesets.

Lion Rampant is an excellent set of rules for our gaming group nights where we want to get through a game in 2-3 hours and have a lot of fun doing it (I concur with the comment below which says you guys should have a 'Fun' category in your review process). The rules are easy to learn but hard to master, and has some subtleties included from the special rules so there is some flavour to the game. We introduced two changes to the rules which work well for us. We have an initiative throw at the start of the turn which adds some uncertainty, and we dispensed with the rule where once you fail an activation the are no further retinue activations that turn. We allow each unit an attempt regardless, as this creates its own uncertainty where (for example) you want 3 cavalry to charge and if two fail the one successful unit charges forward into the sunset and never to be seen again. Thanks guys for an excellent review and look forward to your next video.

Glad you guys are there

Great game and one of the benefits of the rule system is it's easily adapted to other periods. We've played Dark Ages, Late Romans etc and it works well 👍

LR is one of the first historical rules I got into. Its pretty good, quick to learn and play. Its a good entry level ruleset for new wargamers to try out. I play it with 15mm miniatures, and I see you guys have a nice collection yourselves. Would love to see you guys play a few games with them, you did a great job painting them. Keep up the good work guys, and thank you for sharing.

I simply love this game! It's fast, fun, and has a lot of chivalric spledour through the boasts and colourful medieval armies. The cinematic feel is great, as even a pickup game can have a "story-feeling" to it. I feel it emulates the old adventure movies, i.e. Ivanhoe, Knights of the Round Table, etc., which interested me in the period in the first place when I was young. The fantasy version Dragon Rampant might also be worth a look, I use it to air out my Lord of the Rings minis from time to time.

Great review. I'm a big fan of all Lion Rampant and all the other related rules (Pikeman's Lament, Rebel's and Patriots, etc) and variants. Very easy way to start in a particular period and play around an see if you like it.

I've heard some folks call a game "skirmish" level because each model was representative of 1 soldier.

I really like rules reviews. More please!

Agree with everyone who says this game is fun. This is a good gateway game, and also great to play with kids. The medieval period is one that really gets kids' imaginations going, so as a gateway to historical gaming it is a good period. And LR is one of the simplest, most fun, and popular rules sets for the period. I play with 1/72 plastic minis which are cheap and easy to paint as well. Thanks for the review, guys.

ah lion rampart, the best beer and pretzel game.

That was my first Rampant series purchase and our group liked the concepts, its easy and fast like you guys said. Actually I use Pikeman's Lament version for a lot of my skirmish games over mulitple eras.

Good review chaps, I have a copy of Lion Rampant, but have still to actually play a game of it... I'm sure it will happen one day... From my initial reading of it, I also agree with your comments on the unit size and the rigidity of it.

Lots of people seem to like it and have a lot of fun. Which, to me, is what is a game is about. would love to see you review pikemen’s lament, which is my favorite blue book game.

Definitely my go-to rules when I do medieval "skirmish" gaming. I still like the 'ol school game called, Flower of Chivalry" by the Canadian Wargamers Group. Anyways, yup I get it, not really historical, but like you guys said, "it's delicious and I want more". Well to be honest there is more. I'm sure you've seen, or even mentioned here, the expansion for LR called, "The Crusader States". Holy cow...what an expansion. It covers all the armies types, extra boast and units for the wars in the Crusades. I now have a Peasant army and a Mongolian army. The scenarios are awesome too. That would be a great follow-up review to this video. Great stuff guys. Take care.

Love these reviews

Interesting choice to review a book that launched a series that has now ended (Men who would be Kings, Pikeman's Lament, Dragon Rampant, Rebs and Patriots). Also, the later books strive to correct what many saw as a flaw in LR - the fact that your full turn ends on a single failed order. MWWBK, for one, allows you to continue rolling for units. That original LR rule significantly raised the "luck" component of the game and is its greatest weakness for many, probably why Mersey and co-authors continued to tweak the activation rules in later versions. Thanks for the review - stay healthy, gentlemen.

Dangit Greg, i'm going to have to buy one of those hoodies arent I

Also available on Kindle We use for BIG battles with a few amendments and use them for siege games, which I covered in an old Wargames Illustratex

Given the cinematic timbre, this might be a nice seguay game for fantasy gamers to dip a toe in historical gaming.

Also, the new Lion Rampant The Crusader States book is worth looking at. They have used the game as described in the book for Crusader era games in a class room setting.

I really enjoy LR. And yes, it is a perfect 'sandbox.' I used to to put on Hastings, with a 4 retinue(William) vs 3 retinue(Harald) and it worked perfectly.

I introduced some college students to Lion Rampant several years go who were heavily influenced by Games Workshop rules. They were amazed that the can have a fun game that does not take forever to look up all the various modifiers just to have one round of combat.

Id love to see you guys do coverage of more of this periods rules offerings - Deus Ex, Burn and Loot, Mortem Et Gloriam, To the King, For the Strongest etc.

I adore everything LTV does - regarding this being a borderline skirmish game.....I travel a lot for work and found great depth in doubling the stamina of each mini while halving the mini count. In fairness - I play with 10mm on 3'x3' mat - the system works seamlessly this way (3 mini in a cav unit - 6 mini in an infantry unit etc...) The system certainly abstracts some mechanics - but the mechanics are definitely versatile and easily adaptable. Thanks as always for the great review!

Still waiting for the rome campaign I am very very excited

I really enjoy Lion Rampant. Been playing a bit of Never Mind the Billhooks lately which I also recommend

Sweet hoodie, Greg!

I love the hoodie!!! Found it on Amazon! Thank you Greg!

I love all Dan Mersey Osprey rule sets...for they fast, easy to learn and most of all, "FUN".

I’d love to see you guys do a review of TooFatLardies Sharp Practice 2. I think it gives a very good historical skirmish feel along with a nice story driven experience. Plus there is very good support for it in miniature ranges. And the Facebook group is always active. And additional armies have been created by both the community and TFL for free

Never took much notice of it as it seemed a medieval era rule set based on the picture. I had my Simon de Montfort and Duke de Warrene era in the late 80's and sold them (crying now!)

I think its one of the first rulebooks I bought (or was that Dragon Rampant?). Its Fun. Its on the tin, and it delivers. I can also recommend Henry Hyde's podcast episode with Dan Mersey on his Patreon (should be free to listen) where he talks more about design ideas.

Re: skirmish game or not: someone rightly mentioned that it's not that hard to get enough models for the retinues, for example buying a couple of the Perry Minis plastic boxes for Agincourt (which are a terrific value and the minis are very cool, plus the booklets have nice painting guides) and I agree... however, to me skirmish also means I'll have to paint few minis. 60+ minis to paint seems daunting if you don't already have them. I struggle to find the time to paint, that's why when I think skirmish I think something closer to Ravenfeast, Song of Blades & Heroes, etc. The barrier to entry is not just buying the models, but actually painting them!

Thank you for the great video

Just received my own copy in the mail the other day. I'll be sure to report back once I've managed a battle or two.

Oh hey have you guys seen there is a "newish" suppliment for lion rampant? It's called Lion Rampant: Crusader States

A very fair and honest review here, I thought. Lion Rampant is a game, in my view, that succeeds in being what it sets out to be. With my gaming friends we started out using it as a filler game between more 'serious' campaigns, but that soon escalated into a campaign in its own right, loosely based on the Baron's Wars.

Own the book but never played, looks like I might have to try it now.

Rampant series is awesome. The best one will always be Dragon Rampant.

Very nice review, I'm looking for a wargaming management system and this dose look quite good, all the best, Garry

Yeah, shout out to it's little happy brother, Dragon Rampant! I know all high and mighty important with your historical wargames, but why not have some sci-fi and fantasy reviews to the mix. I have Lion Rampant book as well, but no forces done yet. Gearing up for fantasy -- humans vs monsters (undead + orcs/goblins). But I am wondering, what historical "knight" era rules are there that have the most historic depth and feel to it?

The boasts system sounds like seccondary objectives from Warhammer. Sounds like a great system all around!

We play the Rampant games all the time. It is vary adaptable and works very well for large multi-player group games. The most memrorable game was a Jerusalem Siege/assualt game, which we played 3 times in a row over 2 months as it was that much fun. (Crussaders took Jerusalem, Saracens took it back, Crusaders tried to take it back again.)

I just bought this at Osprey and picked up Outremer as well. Can you review that one? I only purchased them because I don't know if Ravensfeast will work for larger games yet. Ravensfeast is currently my favorite rule set and I wish you guys would build on it for other periods, games, etc. I feel that it has the potential to accommodate a lot of time periods if you guys tweak it.

Nice review and great game… Tom always looks like he has better places to be! 😂

I wasn't looking at the screen when he said "Dux Rampant", so immediately tried to think of a country that has a duck on their coat of arms.

It’d be cool to hear a list of your more played games.

I love the Rampant series although played more Pikemans Lament, I'm very fortunate that a lead playtester and the Duxs Forum Moderator (you flashed his monica very quickly when referencing the forum) frequents my FLGS and taught me the rules first hand, hes quite a fan of real ales. Which is handy as a real ale pub is barely 20 yards from where our FLGS is :)

I wonder what battle is coming our way. Since Agincourt is covered i reckon something else than HYW... 3rd Crusade? Hattin maybe? Hastings?

Hi guys, thank you for another informative video. I wonder what your opinion of a rule book called "Fantastic Battles" by Nic Wright they are designed for all scales as measurements are by base width and cover any force from historical to fantasy

Lovely miniatures!

For medieval Skirmish (the 20 or so models Lion Rampant isn't), I recommend Knyghte Pyke and Sworde by Nordic Weasel Games. The author support is top notch!

It is also a great game alongside Dragon Rampant to play with the kids. One can substitute or change the 12 or 6 dice roll to match numbers of miniatures and have more flexibility unit wise. With potentially better quality troops getting 2 attack dice example mounted knights.

I've barely touched Lion Rampant, but I have had quite a few games of Dragon Rampant which is basically a less historical and more fantasy version of the ruleset...and I'm going to be getting the crusades expansion book that came out recently. Dragon Rampant stuff works well for a more mythical arthurian type play style or where a touch of the supernatural might make things far more fun

you should do the ww2 crossfire rules one day

You can get Lion Rampant: The Crusader States as a Wargame Vault download. I have the game but not played it as I do not have the figures. I did play Dan Mersey’s Rebels and Patriots which is similar in mechanics. I liked it, but my game group showed tepid interest. They had the same criticisms as Little Wars regarding plain vanilla, unit size, and number of dice thrown. I personally like the quick simplicity for an evening game. It is fun as long as you don’t take your games too seriously.

Played Lion/Dragon Rampant a few times. A Good little knock about game, rather like Warhammer back in the days of the first 2 editions (before it got overburdened with codex's and tried to be a mass battle game). It is a LOT less abstract than say the DBM/DBA/Hoards of the Things. A Lot of people out there have built retinues on Game of Thrones houses. It seems to be based on smaller battles, between local lords rather than a mass battle, hence why your force is called a Retinue. Once I got that in my head, it made perfect sense.

Would game play be adversely affected by allowing varying strength units and throwing one combat dice per model?

A great game that I've played many, many times. The mechanics are so generic that they can be modified to fit various other sword and shield eras with a bit of thought and minimal effort. I created my own Shieldwall Rampant rules that work nicely for basic Dark Ages battles.

Ok I pulled the trigger on 300 figures in 54mm use Ravenfeast or this set for angincourt

The far more important question… where did Greg get that incredible hoodie?

God damn, that hoodie!

Re skirmish or not - I think it works well as a clash of small retinues but many of the LR scenarios presented in WI and WSS were for large historical battles, sometimes reduced in size to fit LR’s usual unit scale, sometimes presented as larger games with 3 commanders per side

I am actually really big fan of the scale of these battles. Actual skirmishes usually didnt involve just 8 or 12 men a side, but where in the scale of multiple dozens (not to say I dont like more orthodox skirmish games, small group actions are fun too). And in terms of pure game feel, Its a nice goldylocks zone between those orthodox skirmish games and full scale wargames. Not as miniature demanding as full wargames, but still gives you a nice “Massed” feel while still having some of the more “indivigual” feel as well.

I want this hoddie 😁😁😁

What is an alternative entry level skirmish rules system? I like any era except guns.

Maybe consider reviewing L'Art De La Guerre, it is huge in Europe and is kind of like DBA

I play Dragon Rampant all the time. It has a couple more unit options and a lot more upgrade options but the core rules are virtually the same. I can't recommend any of the 'Rampant' series rules enough. I've even have a small French and Indian War collection due to the Rebels and Patriots book. Game play is quick and fun with the choices you make influencing the game to a degree (will always be at the mercy of the dice). For me the real value is the ability to home brew rules and/or make club changes. Don't like a rule, change it, and play a couple of games. If it works, run with those scissors. My friends are cooking up a 'rampant' style ruleset for those prepainted MechWarriors click figures that came out years ago we all have gather dust in storage.

I play this in 6mm, 10mm and 28mm (not 15 as I don’t have any) easy to pick up and play.

This looks very Warhammer fantasy, very similar to using my brettonian army with the movement and line of sight type charges

Surprised you guys didn't mention the Crusader States expansion.

Have you all seen the expansion to LR covering the Crusades? Adds much needed historicity to original LR retinues.

I'd love to see a Hail Ceaser review :D

Osprey games makes awesome products. I know you guys dont like fantasy games, but Oathmark is a masterpiece you guys should check out.

So you use your copy of Risk: Europe to get the figs... Also the fantasy version, Dragon Rampant, is also great.

Could these be used for 54mm figures for Agincourt

Quick question: Can this be played with multiple players in teams?

Haha I’m first. Good to see more of these rules reviews

There is a Xeno Rampant coming next year

Concur with your assessment: a B&P "grand skirmish" game. Not what I call a true skirmish game, like your Ravenfeast. And with all the "Rampant" games having basically the same mechanics, it's easy to switch between them. When we play DR now, we use the LR mechanic where a failed activation means that unit doesn't go, but you don't end your turn. I think one reason so many QRSs in new games are lacking is because most new games are pretty simple, and the author/publisher doesn't want you to be able to play the game with just the QRS and not buy the book - which is kind of weird since IMO the object of a [good] QRS is to allow you to play the game without having to constantly refer to the book.

Amusingly 2nd edition came out with pretty much the same rules but with a Asterix of optional rules that just say if you don't like the rule ignore it. haha

You were spot on when you said the Blue Book games are hit and miss. I like the Rampant series and MWWBK. I was excited to see Ronin until I got to play it at a store event (back when it was possible). It worked just fine until you got into melee. Then it got bogged down in an overly ambitious and complex mess. It took FOREVER to resolve a 3-on-3 combat. (rant over) On another note, have you guys played Songs of Drums and Shakoes? It's another game where your turn ends with a failed activation...sort of. You can attempt to perform 1-3 actions per unit and your turn ends if you fail twice with a unit. Turns can go quickly when both players fail twice on their first activation! Since it takes 2 actions to reload your musket (Has to be in one turn), you're going to have to risk failure quite often.

I thought the answer to Greg's concerns about the fixed arbitrary and anachronistic size of units was fairly obvious. I think it's simply a design choice for an aide-mémoire for players to determine the all important unit half size threshold. If units were all differing sizes, then some sort of roster would be needed. I think Mr Mersey went for simplicity over "realism" on this one. Just my thoughts anyway, and I do understand Greg's concerns about it.

I find them a little generic and lacking flavour. But well written and presented set of rules. I'm looking into Baron`s War as an alternative.

Multi-base your figures, and use wound-trackers to determine when you need to remove stands. If you do stands of 6, you're in good shape. Of course, it doesn't need to be 6 models on a stand. You can just as easily have a whole move of angry peasants with 10 figures packed onto that stand, or you can have a nice scenic base with just 2 or 3 mounted knights. I find that it gets the "look" right, and gets rid of Greg's complaint about arbitrary unit sizes. Otherwise, I agree; the 6/12 arbitrary caps are odd in an otherwise 'loose' ruleset.

Neat boast mechanics. Refreshingly amusing!

18:10 okay hands up who else thought Greg said "Ducks Rampant"?

Loving that hoody Greg! 😍😍

We need an agreed name for the gap between "Skirmish" and "Army" level wargames.

Not a bad looking game.

I don't like the fact combat is unit Vs unit only there's no multiple combats, other than that it's not a bad game

I don't like the "Greetings Little Warriors" line. Just saying, keep thinking about it :p

First! Cheers guys

I downloaded the pdf for free two days ago. 🤔

Little Wars Warriors as "Little Warriors" is slightly condescending.