Very Old School - Playing With Real Toy Soldiers

I visited my good friend Graham yesterday for a day of hobby fun in his excellent games room. After a cup of tea Graham announced that he would like to try something different from our default (Citadel miniatures and Games Workshop games).

Graham is a collector of Elastolin toy soldiers - roughly 40mm plastic figures, produced in Germany from the 1960s through to the 1980s (so Graham tells me - forgive me if I'm wrong). A stack of likely looking figures was assembled on the tabletop, with some retinue sheets for us to play a game using Osprey's Lion Rampant rules - we would both be novices as I had never played Lion Rampant before, and Graham had just a single game under his belt.

 

I would be fielding a largely Saxon force led by Prince Valiant, with some allied Vikings, while Graham's force consisted of Caesar's Roman Legionaries with some skirmishing auxiliaries.

 

Prince Valiant (note, this isn't Graham's figure, just an almost identical image I grabbed from the net)

A quick note on the Osprey rules; the game works on unit activation; you roll to see whether a unit can move, shoot, charge into combat or whatever. If at any point you fail with a unit, your turn immediately ends. This is a great game mechanic for adding uncertainty and risk management into the game. It also neatly represents battlefield confusion or hesitation.

The Roman Legion had marched on the Saxon village of Dudden Leah. Prince Valiant, alerted to the danger, called his kinsfolk to arms. Asvald of the Vikings, friend of Valiant, also promised a ship's company of swords...

The battle lines are drawn, with the Romans on the left and the Saxons on the right