The Battle of The Grave Barrens - Dragon Rampant solo game

 After Elvira's first victory in what was later known as the Battle of Lost Souls, named after the nearby ruins of the Monastery of Lost Souls, she began to move inland. The region was known as the Realm of Tozar and had only recently been conquered by the Caedoran Kingdom. The necromancer Jaromir Mathesius, one of Elvira's companions, advised Elvira that they should travel to The Grave Barrens where he would be able to raise more undead troops for their army.

Elvira's victory had not gone unnoticed. The only survivor from the battle rushed back to Lord Campeius, who was in command and in the progress of subjugating Tozar. Lord Campeius was a very successful general, who had led the successful campaign against the northern tribes some years ago.

Lord Campeius quickly gathered an army and advanced out to find and defeat Elvira. His scouts found her in The Grave Barrens. An area known for many ancient battles. Campeius immediately told his troops to attack.

This is a homemade Dragon Rampant scenario. Elvira and Jaromir starts on the table with only a unit of ghouls and a unit of zombies. Jaromir can then summon the following units during the battle.

Zombies on 5+ (only one unit on the table)

Ghouls on 6+ (only one unit on the table)

Crypt Horrors on 7+ (only once)

Vargheists on 7+ (only once)

Terrorgheist on 8+ (only once)

Elvira	Elite Foot	Undead
Jaromir Mathesius	Light Foot	Wizardling
Zombies	Ravenous Horde	Undead
Ghouls	Bellicose Foot
Vargheists	Lesser Warbeasts	Flying Undead
Crypt Horrors	Heavy Foot	Undead
Zombie Dragon/ Terrorgheist	Greater Warbeast	Undead Flying Fear

 

 

The Caedoran army:

Lord Campeius	Elite Riders	Level Headed
Wizard	Light Foot	Wizardling
Halberdiers	Light Foot
Swordsmen	Light Foot	Offensive
Crossbowmen	Heavy Missiles
Knights	Heavy Riders
Cannon	Artillery	Enhanced Rampant
Scouts	Scouts

The Caedorans are deployed across a stream from left to right: Cannon, Lord Campeius, Halberdiers, Crossbowmen, Wizard, Swordsmen, Scouts, Knights. 

The undeads have deployed the zombies and ghouls defending the bridge and the ford. Elvira stand ready to protect Jaromir while he summons more troops at the shrine.

The battle is very a narrative driven battle, so there are no specific objectives or victory conditions. The death of either of the named characters will be what drives the narrative on.

The Caedorans launches their attacks across the stream and quickly destroys the undead units and advances towards the shrine.

Jaromir summons more troops to the battlefield before the humans can get to him.

The vargheists fly forward and utterly routs the halberdiers, that must have lost their courage when faced with the these monstrous beasts. The vargheists are, however, killed by a hail of bolts from the crossbowmen shortly after.

The knights easily tramples through the units of ghouls and manages to attack Elvira. Although they manage to wound her, the vampire eventually kills the knights.

Suddenly the Caedorans see a mighty but repulsive beast emerge on the field. A terrorgheist have been summoned and is ready to spread havoc.

Bravely the swordsmen charge the terrorgheist but the beast routs them of the field.

While the crossbowmen kill more monstrous beasts with their impressive firing, the terrorgheist continues its rampage and kills the scouts as well.

Lord Campeius, then, heroically charges into the terrorgheist and slays the monster. But that gives Elvira the chance to charge the crossbowmen and kill them all.

By now Lord Campeius has lost almost all of his troops, apart from the cannon that never really got to shoot and the wizard, who wisely decided to withdraw. The brave lord charged once more towards the Jaromir but surrounded by undead troops he was finally killed by Elvira.

So Elvira was victorious once again and was free to raise even more troops from the Grave Barrens. So her quest for revenge continues. The game was probably not entirely balanced, but since I was more interested in the narrative, it didn't really matter. However, it should bet noted that Elvira was nearly killed by the knights early on in the game, so it could have gone bad.

I will try other games to continue the narrative. Next time it will probably be SAGA Age of Magic. I'm also working on making an Oathmark army, which I will use in both solo games but also against my regular gaming companion Steffen.

I have already written more background stuff about the characters and their world, which I will use for my games. It has been great fun, and I'm really looking forward to expanding the story.

Painted 28mm Undead army and thoughts on fantasy rules

 So I just finished painting a small Undead army. I had ordered an GW Flesh-Eaters start collecting box and a Flesh-Eaters Warcry box to add to my existing collecting of old painted metal characters and a bunch half-painted zombies I had bought years ago.

As always they are painted in my very simplistic style, which in this case meant almost entirely with contrast paints. The metal characters were either painted by my brother 25 years ago or bought painted at some point. I finished the zombies using contrast paints as well. And all the bases were painted and flocked.

None of the miniatures are a work of art, but they are painted now and ready to play with.

At the same time I have been thinking about what rules to use for gaming with the army and fantasy in general (non-LotR). While I used to play Warhammer Fantasy Battle and loved the setting and lore, I really dislike some of the core rules, in particularly the lack of Command & Control and the IGOUGO system.

Age of Sigmar doesn't really do it for me either, but I had a few other rulesets that could be used. That was Sword & Spear Fantasy, SAGA Age of Sigmar and Dragon Rampant. I think all of these rulesets have interesting and C & C and activation mechanics and could be great fun to play. I had only played the historical versions of these rulesets and those were great games. So I was eager to try the fantasy versions.

One thing the 3 sets have in common, is that they are very open to what miniatures you can use. They have various defined troop types that you can tinker with, so they can fit your collection. The idea is then to be inspired by Warhammer themed armies, but used within the various rules.

After having read all of the rules and thought about what sort games I was interested in, I realised that Sword & Spear Fantasy would probably not be the best for 28mm, as it is more aimed at large battles, where heroes, monsters and magic have a more limited impact. 

I did try out a Dragon Rampant solo game which went rather well, and I have set up another game to play in the coming days. I have created a small narrative around these games, that I hope to expand on in the future, both with Dragon Rampant and other games.

I have ordered some SAGA dice, and when they arrive, I will try a solo SAGA Age of Magic game. They will arrive with some skeletons, that I have ordered to expand the army and to use with yet another ruleset, that I am eager to try: Oathmark.

When I read these rules I was instantly drawn to them. If WFB had used rules like these I would probably still have played Warhammer. I love the activation system, the rules mechanics and the narrative aspect of the rules. Fortunately I was able lure my regular gaming friend Steffen into the game as well, and we are both in the progress of painting and preparing armies to do battle with. 

Unlike the other rulesets, Oathmark, has a defined universe and are as such not a toolbox to create your own fantasy world and armies. This, however, doesn't prevent you from being a little creative about what miniatures you use for the various troop types. For now, there are only a handful of fractions/races and some different monsters, but hopefully they will expand on those in the future as well.

So there should be some interesting fantasy gaming going on in the future, both solo and otherwise. Plans are also to expand the fantasy collection, although I'm sticking to my creed of not playing with anything unpainted, which is a long way from how I used to play Warhammer.

Game - Sword & Spear - 6mm Pontic vs. Early Imperial Romans

 Last Sunday I played a game of Sword & Spear against Torben with our 6mm ancients armies.

I fielded a Pontic once again, and almost exactly the same as last time we played.

Pontic army:

1 General and 2 Captains - 105 pts.

2 Phalanx, heavy foot(L) - 84 pts.

2 Thureophoroi, medium foot - 36 pts.

1 Slingers, light foot - 9 pts.

2 Javelinmen, light foot - 18 pts.

1 Javelinmen, medium foot - 15 pts.

4 Imitation Legionaries, heavy foot(D5) - 72 pts.

2 Archers, medium foot - 24 pts.

2 Heavy Cavalry, armoured - 64 pts.

1 Light Cavalry - 15 pts.

1 Scythian Horse Archers - 18 pts.

1 Sarmatian Cavalry - 40 pts.

1 Camp - 0 pts.

I alt 500 pts., 68 army value (23/34)

 

Torben's army had the following in his army. I can't remember his breaking points but they were smaller than mine:

1 General and 1 Captain

4 Legionaries

2 Veteran Legionaries

2 Auxiliary infantry 

2 light Archers

1 Slingers

2 Heavy Cavalry

2 Bolt shooters

1 Camp - 0 pts.

 

That meant 20 die for me, and 16 for the Romans. When we placed terrain, Torben tried to stack a lot of terrain on my left flank to force me to advance on a more limited front. Unfortunately for him it didn't quite work. He did, however, get a nice hill in the center of his deployment zone, which were ideal for his bolt shooters.

Deployment:

Pontic army from right to left: Light cavalry and horse archers behind them, 2 heavy cavalry, the Sarmatian cavalry (cataphracts), 1 Thureophoroi with slingers behind them, 2 Phalanx with light javelins behind them, 1 Thureophoroi, with light javelins behind them, 4 imitation legionaries with one of them behind the other 3, and behind the woods were 2 medium foot archers and 1 medium foot javelinmen.

Roman army from left to right: Heavy cavalry with slingers in front, 1 Auxiliary infantry and 2 legionaries with light archers in front, and again 1 Auxiliary infantry and 2 legionaries with light archers in front, 1 heavy cavalry and the 2 veteran legionaries out on the Roman left flank. And the 2 bolt shooters on the hill.

The Pontic army started the battle with a cavalry advance on their left flank, as this seemed like the weakest point in the Roman line.

On the Pontic right flank the medium foot archers and javelinmen took positions in the woods in case the Romans decided to advance here. The Roman cavalry on this flank began to make a move around the woods to hit the Pontic army in the rear.

Combat erupted on Pontic left flank as their Sarmatian cavalry charged into some legionaries and 2 heavy cavalry units faced off as well. While the Romans began to shift their central legionaries towards this flank, the Pontic light skirmishers moved in to harass their advance.

The Pontic cavalry was locked in combat with the Roman infantry, and then the Sarmatian cavalry was hit in the flank. The Pontic phalanxes move up to support, but the heavy foot is too slow to rescue the cataphracts. They do, however, catch one of the legionary units in the flank.

On the Pontic left flank the Roman cavalry is continuing its advance around the woods. The Pontic archers move to shoot at the cavalry but unable to stop them.

The fight on the flank has created a nice line. Despite some heavy losses in some of their units, the Romans are beginning to get the tactical advantage. Then disaster happens as the Roman general tries to rally the heavy cavalry but ends up getting killed in stead. Suddenly the battle turns in favour of the Pontics instead.

Since the Pontic units in the center remain still, partly due to not wanting to advance in front of the bolt shooters, more Roman legionaries are sent to help on the flank.

The Roman cavalry that tried to advance behind the Pontic lines are caught by archers and killed.

The Romans manage to form a new line on their right flank, but it is too late, as the Pontic Thureophoroi infantry loots the Roman camp, which finally breaks the Roman army and they retreat.

A very interesting and fun battle that shifted back and forwards. The key moment, however, was when the Roman general was killed. This meant that the majority of the Romans on that flank was out of command and thus harder to activate and maneuver. 

I really do love the command & control and activation aspects of this ruleset. It does stand above everything else. The rules would be even better if they were more tightly written and edited, but of course it doesn't help that we only play a couple of times a year, so often forget things in between.