Aggressive Infantry for Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant

In my initial post about simple rule sets, I observed that "rules-as-written may seem a little limiting at times" in the Rampant games by Daniel Mersey and published by Osprey Books. To elaborate further, one area in which I note that is how both Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant represent infantry.

Lion Rampant was, I suspect, written initially to depict the battlefields of the High Middle Ages, which were dominated by cavalry charges. In these times, on many Western European battlefields, as I understand it, the day would often be carried by heavily-armoured knights smashing through enemy formations. At least, that's the theory; I don't know nearly enough about medieval warfare to know if this is actually true. Regardless, in this system, infantry were used largely defensively. Armed with shields and spears, they would form walls of hard points that horses would not approach, at least not with much hope of success. Hence in Lion Rampant, the primary infantry choices are heavy infantry (foot serjeants in the first edition) and light infantry (foot yeomen in the first edition).

These are both defensive units. More dangerous to their opponents when being attacked than when themselves attacking, they have a "Wall of Spears" special rule ("Schiltron" in first edition) which improves their armour if they stay in a close, immobile formation. In many cases they function better as a threat than anything else, as small cavalry units and unarmoured foot warriors may struggle to break them up without sustaining heavy casualties of their own. The slower, more heavily armoured heavy infantry are especially tough, but in a recent game even the faster-moving, more lightly armoured light infantry were able to hold their positions relatively well.

This is all well and good for representing defensive units and, as far as I know, for simulating the common tactics of the High Middle Ages (a period from roughly 1000 to 1300 CE). But what about infantry outside of defensive formations, and battles outside of those time periods? As I mentioned in my previous post, Lion Rampant, especially in its Second Edition, endeavours to also cover Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages (or Dark Ages, if you prefer), and the Late Middle Ages. In the first of those, while cavalry was certainly dominant in parts, especially on the eastern borders of the Roman Empire, many of Rome's European enemies (and allies) still fought in large infantry assaults. Similarly, the fighting of the Dark Ages, especially in Western Europe and particularly in the British Isles, again featured infantry to a much greater extent than cavalry. At the other end of the time period, the traditional knight declined and the role of cavalry changed with the increasing use of new tactics and gunpowder weapons. Infantry were again fighting more aggressively, with, for instance, halberds and in some cases large two-handed swords. The former weapon was used by the famed Swiss mercenaries, and the latter by their German imitators, the landsknechte.

So, how does Lion Rampant represent more aggressive infantry units? There are a few options. One is through warrior infantry ("fierce foot" in the first edition). This is a unit type with a generous roll to hit on the attack, but a very poor roll to hit on defence. They also experience wild charge, meaning that if an enemy is in range they must attempt to attack them. In the lists, Mersey uses these to represent a wide variety of units, including Germanic warriors at the fall of Rome, Norse berserkers, Swiss halberdiers and Berber infantry: basically any infantry unit more concerned with attack than defence.

There's also the option to upgrade one's heavy or light infantry to "veteran" ("expert" in first edition), improving their roll to hit on the attack but removing their ability to perform a wall of spears. Mersey suggests this can represent billmen, halberdiers and axemen. In the suggested lists they're mostly used, however, for more aggressive Late Antiquity and Dark Age troops of the British Isles and surrounding regions, along with Wars of the Roses billmen and Hussites on foot. This is all well and good, but "veteran" is an expensive upgrade in a small-scale game where points are at a premium. A unit of veteran light infantry is 5 points and a unit of veteran heavy infantry 6, and in an average 24-point game that's a quarter of your points gone. This seems like a particularly difficult investment to make on a unit that, firstly, has lost one of its best abilities (wall of spears) for the trade off of a higher attack value, but has also retained its decent defence value when, in all probability, it doesn't really need it.

I see this as the problem with infantry in Lion Rampant: there's a gap. Putting aside small units of elite infantry (foot men-at-arms in first edition), you essentially have two choices for aggressive infantry: hard-to-control, fragile units of warrior infantry, or expensive all-rounder veteran infantry. Furthermore, veteran units retain their activation roll preference for moving over attacking.

Thus, I would suggest an alternative troop type for Lion Rampant (and Dragon Rampant, but I'll get to that): aggressive infantry. This is infantry with the same points costs as regular light and heavy infantry, but with their attack and move values switched and their attack value and defence value switched. As for whether they can (or should) be able to take the existing options of their equivalent defensive troop types I would leave up to the individual player. In any event, these are my proposed profiles for "Aggressive Light Infantry" and "Aggressive Heavy Infantry", set out in the Rampant style with the right colours and everything:

AGGRESSIVE LIGHT INFANTRY
Models Per Unit	12	Points	3
Attack	5+	Attack Value	4+
Move	6+	Defence Value	5+
Shoot	-	Shoot Value	-
Courage	4+	Maximum Movement	8”
Armour	2	Special Rules	Counter-Charge Versus Infantry

AGGRESSIVE HEAVY INFANTRY
Models Per Unit	12	Points	4
Attack	5+	Attack Value	4+
Move	6+	Defence Value	5+
Shoot	-	Shoot Value	-
Courage	4+	Maximum Movement	6”
Armour	3	Special Rules	Counter-Charge Versus Infantry

  

You'll forgive my lack of access to the exact fonts and Blogger's inability to display tables nicely. The special rule is definitely something that needs testing. Should they have Counter-charge against infantry? They probably should.

I believe the same units should also be available in Dragon Rampant: warfare in fantasy is obviously even more varied than in history, and should have similar options. See below for the same units in Dragon Rampant style.

UNIT NAME	Aggressive Light Foot	POINTS	3
Attack	5+	Attack Value	4+
Move	6+	Defence Value	5+
Shoot	-	Shoot Value	-
Courage	4+	Maximum movement	8”
Armour	2	Strength Points	12

 SPECIAL RULE: Counter-charge versus foot.

UNIT NAME	Aggressive Heavy Foot	POINTS	4
Attack	5+	Attack Value	4+
Move	6+	Defence Value	5+
Shoot	-	Shoot Value	-
Courage	4+	Maximum movement	6”
Armour	3	Strength Points	12

SPECIAL RULE: Counter-charge versus foot.

I will note that a very similar proposition was made on this blog back in 2017, and credit there for the inclusion of counter-charge, although I arrived at the rest of this independently with a regular opponent. As I say, this needs testing. I don't have comments enabled on this blog, mostly to prevent Blogger's glut of spam, but if anyone sees this, or has tried something similar, I would be interested to see any testing of it on the Dux Rampant forums or on the Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant Facebook pages.