Besides having my copy of Lion Rampant, found my copies of Dragon Rampant, Pikeman's Lament, and Rebels & Patriots. Plus I have copies of the supplement's to Pikeman's Lament ... Exotic Army Lists and National Army Lists.
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By the way, there is another set of the rules called "The Men Who Would Be Kings". This set of rules is for the mid to late 19th century Colonial Era.
And the same author wrote the Dark Age rules called Dux Bellorum, although not on the same chassis as the rest listed above.
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Also, found some ideas for Handgonnes to be used with Lion Rampant, and these all came from the author Dan Mersey.
1. He calls this listing the "Hollywood" version ...
This unit type has not been as heavily tested as the ones in the book … I dropped gunpowder part way through development, so this is very much a work in progress.
Additionally, please note that this profile is rather fanciful, to make this new technology stand out as something different on your battlefield – you may or may not like the results!
Lion Rampant is really intended for skirmishes fought before gunpowder became common on the battlefield. Even when large battles involved some numbers of guns, this wouldn’t always have filtered down to the localised conflicts depicted within these rules. That said, there are some lovely models available for early handgunners, so feel free to use this troop type in your host if appropriate.
UNIT NAME Handgonnes POINTS 4
Attack 7+ Attack value 6
Move 6+ Defence value 6
Shoot 8+ Shoot value / Range 6 / 12”
Courage 4+ Maximum movement 6”
Armour 2 Special rules Bang; Panic
Models per unit: 6
Special rules:
• Bang: All units count as Armour 1 against Shooting by this unit (Armour 2 if in cover).
• Panic: When this unit Shoots, the target unit must take a Courage test regardless of the number of hits inflicted.
Unit upgrades:
• Pavises @ 2 points per unit. As for Crossbows.
2. For use with the crossbow listing already provided in the rules ...
Admittedly the Handgonnes profile above is a little fanciful, for fun more than anything else. If that grates with your enjoyment of the rules, a more sober assessment of early gunpowder would be as a variant of Crossbowmen:
Unit upgrades:
• Firearms @ -1 point per unit: Range becomes 12”; may still upgrade to pavises.
Therefore a unit equipped in this way will cost 3 points (5 points with pavises). Not all of the models in the unit need to be armed with guns, a number could be carrying pavises or other weapons, without this affecting the unit’s effectiveness or profile.
3. This listing provides for a way to just use the figures and fitting into the rules without any changes ...
Use the Bidowers profile: Equally quick and simple, but I’d suggest this is a more accurate way of depicting firearms: the range is shorter and they will act as true skirmishers.
4. This listing just uses the crossbow rules and just switches the figures ...
Use the Crossbowmen profile: this is a quick and simple way to include firearms in your units; although their range is quite long, the slower firing rate compared to bows is a reasonable representation of early firearms.
I like the idea of using #3 for the Middle Ages time period of the rules. However, if using these rules for early renaissance, Italian Wars era, I might use #2 instead. I could see experimenting with #1, yet not sure I'd enjoy them. And #4 seems much less to my liking.
