Irish Raiders for Lion Rampant and 100 Years War Retinues

I’m doing OK on retinues for Lion Rampant but as usual I’ve gone for the exotica, Samurai and the Bronze Age respectively. With the best will in the world these are variants rather than the rules as written.  With that firmly in mind I have bought two retinues from Donnington New Era, English and French for the 100 Years War a classic match-up. I’ll start painting them soon.

Meantime I have a bunch of the old Feudal Castings medieval Irish to hand including the now out of production Irish cavalry-lovely figures.  Most of them are painted so a little re -basing job and I’ll be good to go.  I'll opt for the retinue of the King of Leinster Art Óg Mac Murchadha Caomhanách, who we see below.

On the flat the Irish could not stand up to the massed armoured cavalry of royal expeditions from England or assembled from the colonial nobility.  All of which tends to make for a dull game.  

That said under many rules it is perfectly possible to field an Irish army that operates somewhat like a Roman legion, with double ranks of Gallóglaich, flanked by auxiliaries, fronted by skirmishers and with the cavalry in reserve.  For me, there is no fun in that, I have Roman armies and a fair idea of how the Irish tackled well-armed opponents, I think there is a better option.

All of which brings me back to Lion Rampant which I think will well reflect the small wars of raids and ambushes that now and then became small battles. Here is the retinue.

The nobles as sergeants.

Other marc slua as mounted yeomen with javelins.

Two bands of Kern as Bidowers.  More foot to follow.

And as you can see we are back in business courtesy of Imgur and the good advice available on the Wargames website which does what it says on the label.