Desert Eagle Rampant

A version of Lion Rampant for modern platoon sized actions in the Middle East and North
and East Africa

Popular Mobilisation Unit in action north of Baghdad 28 May 2015 (AFP Photo Mohammed Sawaf)

Introduction

This adaptation of Lion Rampant is designed to take its simple but flexible mechanics into the
current day. Every time I play with these rules I’m struck by how the use of simple characteristics can
be used to paint a picture of the behaviours of different types of unit. For the 101 reasons that can
be given by anyone to say that medieval skirmish warfare is not the same as modern asymmetrical
combat I say only two things: the first is that both periods feature a high/low mix of expert fighters
(knights/special forces) and untrained levies (peasants/militia) using a common set of simple
weapons (AKs/RPGs, swords/spears) at close range in a largely uncontrolled environment with
limited leadership. The second is that every scenario in Lion Rampant has a modern corollary, from
collecting taxes (Sherriff or drug lord) to delivering a convoy (money, food or emergency supplies or
weapons and drugs). In short, we have the same sorts of people fighting in the same old ways about
the same old things. ISIS reportedly have a habit of burning or boiling to death their own troops and
civilians that seek to run away, if that is not medieval I don’t know what is!

So, how does it work? This is not a re-write of the rules, you will need a copy of these to play this
version. In effect, this is a re-imagining of the rules in a different context. There are some new
special rules and unit descriptions and characteristics. Otherwise, they play in the same way as the
original rules. If in doubt about how to do something, use the standard interpretation from those
rules.

Forces

This game is designed to produce a force consisting of a number of fire teams or squads with a
mixture of back up weapons and vehicles. Your force should look like a typical ragtag column on a
dusty road to another hostile village full of opposition forces. As in Lion Rampant, there will be
around 6 units per force with a maximum points value of 24.

Unit size: As in the original rules, units are six or twelve men strong.

 Team: 6 men forming a well-trained team such as a special forces unit or hardened terrorist
cell (armed with assault rifles such as AKs, light machine guns such as RPDs or SAWs and
light anti-material weapons such as RPGs or LAWs)
 Squad: 12 men forming a standard sized section armed as per fire teams but with more of
them. These teams include trained regulars as well as armed police or militia with a wide
variety of ability and morale.
 Vehicle team: A single vehicle with 6 men or a gun on board (a technical) or a vehicle borne
IED with armour protection or a tank
 Weapon team: A weapon (HMG .50 cal. or 14.5mm, recoilless rifle 73mm and up, AA gun
23mm and up, sniper, suicide vest bomber team or remote detonated IED) with six men as
crew and close protection

ISF team with vehicle 1 June 2016 Fallujah (AFP Photo Ahmad al-Rubaye)

Orders

Rally: Battered units must attempt to rally by taking a courage test (see below). These orders are
resolved first.

Attack: The score on 2d6 to activate a unit to attack

Originally intended simply to reflect the willingness of units to enter hand to hand combat, in this
version this characteristic represents the units willingness to come into close proximity to an enemy
unit. This means a close quarters fire fight with the full range of weapons including grenades
demolition charges, IEDs, RPGs and LAWs. This covers assaulting enemy held compounds or
buildings or driving a vehicle loaded with explosives towards an enemy convoy. The suicidal nature
of some attacks in modern warfare are reflected in the following special rule:
  Wild charge: Units with the wild charge characteristic (vehicle or foot suicide bombers,
remote IED controllers) within attack range of an enemy unit must take an attack test. They
may not be given another order. These orders are resolved after Rally actions are completed
and before any other activations are attempted.

Move: The score on 2d6 to activate a unit to move

This is not just putting one foot in front of another, this is about the leadership ability to move a
force across a combat zone without getting shot at or blown up. Well trained troops are better at
doing this and the best are fleet footed. Other troops spend a lot of time squatting in the dirt waiting
for stuff to happen! It is also rare for vehicles to move at more than walking speed.

Shoot: The score on 2d6 to activate a unit to move

Everyone likes to fire a mag of AK on full auto especially if the press are in the area. Incontinent
small arms fire is the curse of undisciplined units. Nearly all units in this game can fire and it is easy
to do. However, if you look at current video from Iraq or Syria, note how few fighters have
ammunition bandoliers. Guess what their resupply arrangements are like. Poor quality units will be
easy to fire and easy to run out of ammo.

Elite troops near Fallujah (AFP Photo)

Unit characteristics

Toughness: A measure of how hard it is to successfully inflict casualties on a unit, the number of hits
required to remove one figure from a particular unit.

A measure of tactical ability to take advantage of terrain and cover as well as personal armour.
Replaces Armour in the original Lion Rampant rules. Western troops with full protective kit making
best use of terrain and formations will be more resistant to casualties than hastily trained militia
troops with limited training and equipment.
Courage: A measure of how the unit will react to taking casualties, the total needed on 2d6 to carry
on.

As in the original Lion Rampant, courage tests may cause units to become battered and to retreat.
This is a good reflection of how non-western armies, where discipline and training, as well as
casualty support, are far less developed, can rapidly degrade in combat as a result of taking
casualties. There is both a human tendency to succour the wounded and, especially in low discipline
units, a natural desire to help the wounded off home. However, in modern warfare there are
exceptions represented by these special rules:

 Mission first: These units are focussed on their target. They include Western special forces
troops of all types who are intensively focussed on achieving their mission and extremist
units, especially those with a suicide mission, who will not be deterred from their target.
These units have a favourable courage rating and only test for courage due to casualties
they have taken themselves, no other factors will impact, even if the rest of the force has
suffered significant casualties driving a mass courage test.
 Man down: In US forces, the soldiers creed states that “I will never leave a fallen comrade.”
Policy suggests that there are circumstances where casualty treatment or recovery may be
subordinate to achievement of the mission (see this interesting study by the US Army). In
reality, casualties incurred slow down operational activity because, by and large, casualties
in Western armies are treated and evacuated as a priority. These units, when suffering
casualties in a turn and would otherwise have to take a courage test, may elect to evacuate
their casualties instead of taking a courage test. Mark the unit with a CASEVAC indicator.
This unit may undertake no other action in their next activation other than shooting.

Special rules

Wild charge: See Attack above.

Mission first/Man down: See Courage above.

Undisciplined fire: Units with this characteristic may easily run out of ammo. On rolling for a shoot
order a score of 1.1 or 6.6 indicates that the

Fleet footed: Special forces are not affected by rough terrain.

Evade:

Hard to target:

Skirmish:

Facing:
 On the outskirts of Fallujah (AFP Photo Ahmad al-Rubaye)

Other rule modifications

Under construction

Drone footage of initial artillery bombardment 23 May 2016 (footage from Hezbollah Brigades channel)

Units

Under construction

Hex grid conversion

I am very fond of using hex grids and I think Lion Rampant is perfectly suited to this approach. Of
course, you don’t have too use a hex grid, but I just think it makes things lots easier. By a stroke of
good luck, Phil Dutre and Bart Vetters of the Tiny Tin Men Blog have arrived at a similar conclusion
and they have developed their own hex based approach to Lion Rampant. I think their conversion is
great and you can find a helpful discussion of their thinking in their blog post.
With some of my own slight modifications, here are the conversion rules:

 A single unit occupies a single hex.

 Movement 6", 8", 10", 12" converts to 2, 3, 3, 4 hexes.
 Firing ranges 6", 12", 18" converts to 3, 5, 7 hexes.
 Shooting at 6 or 7 hexes is at -1.
 Melee happens when units are adjacent.
 Leaders give +1 to courage rolls when within 4 hexes of unit.

My changes are:

 Units do not have to maintain 1 hex between at all times.

 Facing rules don’t have to be applied but if you want some here they are:
o Not all units have a facing requirement, in this game facing only affects units based
around vehicles. The unit special rules show the facing requirement.
o Units with a facing requirement will face a vertex at all times. The two hexes either
side of the vertex are frontal hexes. Units may only move or fire through these two
hex sides.
o Facing can be changed as part of movement, whether or not a unit then
subsequently moves out of the hex.
o Units being attacked through their non-frontal hex sides suffer a -1 adjustment to
any courage role they are required to take after combat. There is no other combat
impact.
 Other units and terrain block line of sight for shooting.
 Cover may either be a full hex (a forest for example), or simply a hex side (perhaps a large
wall or berm).

The morality issue

This is not a black game. However, I hope readers will understand that in writing this adaptation of
the Lion Rampant rules I have made some simple statements for purposes of clarity. Whilst I may
equate activity by friendly forces and enemy forces for the purposes of the rules I do not intend any
moral equivalence. What I do intend is that anyone playing these rules will be better informed and
better able to reach views about how the world actually works. For good or ill!

Credits

The key people to thanks for this are:

 Dan Mersey for the original Lion Rampant in the first place (hurrah!).
 Arthur Wells-Lee for the Eagle Rampant conversion in Wargames Illustrated 342.
 Phil Dutre and Bart Vetters of the Tiny Tin Men Blog for the hex grid conversion.

By Old Trousers July 2016