AAR - Dragon Rampant

My bride and I (she's becoming quite the regular gaming buddy these days) put Dragon Rampant on the kitchen table Saturday evening. She hadn't played and it's been many moons since I'd played. We kept the battle as a simple killfest to get familiar with the rules. Minis are 15mm and we played on a 36" X 36" battlefield.

The Time Travelers
Witchy Poo (7) - Light Foot + Spellcaster
Musketeers (4) - Heavy Missiles
Amazons (6) - Heavy Foot + Mystical Armor
Merry Men (2) - Scouts
Roman Cavalry (5) - Heavy Riders + Enchanted Weapons

The Undead
Archers (4) - Light Missiles + Undead
Warriors (6) - Heavy Foot + Offensive + Undead
Spirits (7) - Lesser Warbeasts + Invisibility + Undead
Skelephant (7) - Greater Warbeast + Undead + Ponderous

Witchy Poo's band, from left to right : Cavalry, Amazons, Musketeers, Wizard, Scouts.

 

The shambling horde : Warriors, Archers, War Elephant, Spirits. The stray ghost in front is more of a cheerleader than anything...

 

My activation rolls are great and everything pushes forward.

 

The musketeers loose a volley at the archers in the distance, killing two.

And the scouts do the same, killing two more!

The equites smash into the skeleton warriors!

 

But it's not all fun and games - both sides lose two models. The skeletons have the number to absorb that kind of loss while my horsemen certainly do not!

 

A more broad view of things. The undead archers have moved to a safer position. The skelephant is still stuck in neutral.

 

The age of flash photography is ushered in! My gang continues to push forward to weed out the unholy menace.

Second verse, same as the first! Another 2 to 2 exchange leaves my cavalry in dire straights. The do pass their courage test though.

 

Things officially go off the tracks for Witchy Poo and Co. The beast from the east finally wakes up and trudges across the wide open central avenue unscathed.

 

The cavalry uses its speed to get away from the monstrosity. My Amazons, a solid defensive fortress of a unit, receives the mighty but silent charge!

 

And it's a bloodbath. The Amazons down, although they did take a strength point of the monster. The warrior women promptly failed their courage test and fled.

 

Witchy Poo cast "sharper blades" on the Amazons who failed to rally. They were again charged by the elephant with very familiar results.

 

Run away, run away! That elephant might as well have been Muad'Dib.

The ladies' reputation is naught but smoke and mirrors. I've had better results out of Red Army conscripts. I continue to fail courage tests and the Amazons' shoes continue to get a work out.

Icing on the cake - the skeletal archers send a volley at the Merry Men, killing two. They promptly fail their morale test, with the leader standing right damn there. She would not forget this. Dark elves have long memories.

The lousy Amazons bomb another courage test, this time severely resulting in them quitting the battlefield. Good job gals. It's been a while since I had a unit, in any game, perform that miserably.

 

The elephant and skeleton warriors go on the offensive, attacking my musketeers and sorceress.

 

It didn't turn out badly - sure, they traded damage, but it was quite acceptable.

 

My cavalry re-appear. They'd been in skulk mode but now that the ele' was quite damaged, they charged in to finish it off. They managed it quite well. Woo hoo!

 

The archers and musketeers thrash the skeleton warriors with two solid volleys, eliminating them.

 

The cavalry is the first to reach the graveyard. Although they smash the archers quite handily...

 

The long dormant spirits waste no time killing the riders.

 

Witchy Poo's Dark Elf side is made plain as she order the scouts to get between the ghosts and her. The ghosts, having "wild charge" are forced to attack the nearest unit.

 

The scouts debt of earlier cowardice is paid and the sorceress strides in amongst the unsuspecting spirits, dismissing them!

 

Witchy Poo (and her loyal musketeers) are victorious!

 

The undead, back where they belong.

That was a close affair for a while! I think if she'd gotten the spirits out, working together with the elephant, it would have been really sad for me. As it was, my wife wanted to see us fight in the graveyard. We're both looking forward to another chapter of this!

And now for my next trick!

Well I set some sort of speed painting record for myself Saturday and Sunday. Numbers-wise, it may not be all that impressive, but in the context of "me" it is nuts. Fifteen legionaries with gladii, eleven horses and ten riders. ELEVEN HORSES?!?! What madness is this? I decided I didn't terribly much need a musician and left him out. They're all based for HOTT and I hope to give them a whirl this weekend. I still want to add a god and at least one artillery (a scorpion or onager) but they'll wait.

Five stands of blades.

Five stands of cavalry! I'll probably field them as riders although I may try them as knights too. The general will probably be classed as a Hero to give the army a bit of punch. I need to put something on the standard, but still need to make up my mind.

And last but not least, a stronghold...

A bit of "Life of Brian" for ya.

The whole army so far...

It feels good to have made a dent in the lead pile. On to the next group!

Sick Saturday

My whole family was feeling under the weather this afternoon / evening so I didn't get in my planned game with Zig. I did, however, get to work on my lead pile and made some good progress on the 15mm Romans I bought for HOTT. They've been floundering primed and "sort-of" painted for months. I guess a relaxing evening of Ghost Adventures and nursing a cold is just what they needed!

 Five bases of cavalry! Impressive for me since I despise painting horses.

Some Legionaries. They'll make up 5 bases when done. The red bits are indeed pinkish right now, they'll be proper Roman Red before its over.

The cavalry riders. They're glued to drinking straws which turned out to be perfect horse proxies for the painting process.

I may actually get these guys done in the upcoming week - it's taken long enough. Looking back, it appears I got them back on May 9th. That's 148 days, give or take. James is going to see about getting some time to play next Sunday - he's got an army for HOTT but hasn't yet played. He's kept the army secret, so I hope we do get to play.