Phoenix Models Norman Spearmen in 25mm

A friend gave these 25mm Phoenix Models some time ago. Thet are suitable for any number of armies. I originally painted them up as mercenaries for a later Byzantine army but they fit equally well into my Norman collection. Historical Phoenix minis are hard to come by so they occupy a unique place in my collection. I use them in Lion Rampant games.

The Sword Brethren of the Livonian Knights Versus Nevsky's Rus in Lion Rampant 2

The era of the Baltic Crusades has become an era of  interest to me. My friend has painted up Mongols for the period and I have Livonian Knights and Nevsky period Russians.

Doing the Baltic tribes and Danes\Swedes for the period are on the agenda as well.

The figures in this game are all Zvezda and Strelets in 1\72 plastic, painted in a toy soldier retro fashion. 

This is my first attempt to play the Five Battle Campaign from Lion Rampant 2. I'm playing solo. After I set up the five armies per side I made a rough system how to fight out the battles.

The first game was with these forces. 

Livonian Knight (LK OB)

2 Units of Elite Cavalry

2 Units of Heavy Cavalry

2 Units of split Light Infantry 

30 points

Russians (Rus OB)

2 Units of Dvor Elite Cavalry (one unit is motivated)

2 Units of Druzina Heavy Cavalry

1 Unit of Cuman Light Cavalry

1 Unit of dismounted Druzina Heavy Infantry

1 Unit of split Light Infantry

1 Unit of Skirmish Infantry

36 points

Victory Condition

The Russians are on their way to reinforce another Russian force. To do this they had to run a diagonal gauntlet across the board between two Livonian Knight forces trying to intercept them.

Terrain placement was diced for and there is quite a lot. The way it turned out there are a number of bottle necks. The stream and hedges are all obstacles. The terrain favored the Russians because of the obstacles but favored the Livonian Knights given the bottlenecks that the Russians had to pass through.

The Russians are supposed exit the board to reinforce another army. The knights are supposed to stop them.

The Livonian Knights also know as Sword Brethren were split into two equal wings each of one Knights (Elite Cavalry), one of Sergeants (Hv. Cavalry) and one split Light Infantry (1\2 crossbow, one half spearmen). Each wing had a leader in the Knight unit

The Russians were divided into foot and horse contingents. The foot contingent was ordered to take the village and control the bottleneck thus protecting the flank of the horse contingent.

The horse contingent was ordered to run the gauntlet along the stream to eventually exit the board. To win 18 points had to exited. A failed activation for the Russians did not end their turn. That turned out to be critical. It was offset a little by assigning a leader to each of the Livonian Knight wings.

The Game