Lion Rampant II

[Guy Farrish]

Anyone got a copy, read it, played the game yet?

Hardback, £20 from Osprey, £14.47 on Amazon, supposedly better lay out and logical format that first edition, a few rule changes but not many. Expanded in time to cover Early Medieval through to Late Medieval/Renaissance (but from the review this looks largely cosmetic name changes for troop types).

Do I overcome my natural parsimony and suspicion of 2nd Editions of rule sets and buy it or stick with First Edition? I love LR for a relaxing toy soldier game that has more or less nothing to do with medieval warfare but does that justify buying a rejigged book with more pics?

[Mike]

Buy it if you are unhappy with first?
If it sucks then ignore it and stick with first?
Ignore me?
Some and or all of the above?

[Steve Johnson]

I have toyed with the idea but honestly for the amount of times I play the rules these days, the 1st edition works fine for me. Troop types can be tweaked easily to suit various periods, or stats brought over from other books in the series, for example ‘The Pikemen’s Lament’.

[Tony S]

I bought it, and read through it.  Haven’t played a game yet – there’s a definite backlog in my “new rules to try” list!  Heck – I’m only going to try Soldiers of Napoleon this Sunday.

But as for LR2, there’s really not much different from the first edition.  The author helpfully has a section highlighting the differences between old and new, and it isn’t long.  Troop names have been changed to more generic types, but the actual mechanisms and rules are pretty much identical.

It does push back into the Dark Ages, but the only addition I can see is that there’s a new rule called Shieldwall.  It’s like Schiltron, but you can move.

Honestly, if you’re happy with the blue book, there’s not much to justify in practical terms the purchase of the new edition.

[Guy Farrish]

Thanks people.

Not unhappy with First edition at all.

I knew when I bought it about the Hollywood approach and I quite like that as a change.

I would never ignore you Mike!

LR I does  not need a rewrite as far as I can tell and I wondered what I would be getting. A more robust hardback is an attraction. Not sure about the rest.

[Derek H]

Guy Farrish wrote:

I love LR for a relaxing toy soldier game that has more or less nothing to with medieval warfare

My thoughts exactly.  But I prefer Dragon Rampant because it doesn’t even pretend to have anything to do with history.

And I’m looking forward to seeing what Xenos Rampant is like.

[Author]

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