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.

Dragon Rampant - Solo Game

For some time I have had an urge to do some fantasy gaming. I used to play a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but I stopped playing just before AoS came out. I sold off most of my miniatures and only kept a smaller Empire army, a handful of undead characters and a bunch of zombies.

Now it should be mentioned that I actually play Middle-Earth, which certainly is fantasy gaming, but for some reason I make a difference between Middle-Earth and other fantasy gaming. Probably because I feel that my LotR miniatures collection is tied very much to the game Middle-Earth, even though you could easily use other rule-sets to play with them.

Since my Warhammer days I have seen and discovered a lot of other fantasy manufacturers, but I still have a strong connection to the Warhammer universe, and I still think the GW miniatures are (mostly) great looking. So I will, at least initially, look to do some kind of Warhammer armies, but use other rules to game with, such as Dragon Rampant, Saga Age of Magic and Oathmark.

Since I have a small Empire army and a very small collection of undeads, one of which is a female vampire I have used in a Mordheim warband, I quickly thought of a narrative scenario which hopefully will be the starting point to a new and exciting world.

Elvira Le Borgne was a young noble woman from one of the smaller houses in the Caedoran kingdom. She was seduced by prince Cassius, the heir to the throne, and fell madly in love with him. When the prince eventually disavowed her in favour of a wealthier noble woman, Elvira was left disgraced and dishonoured. 

She fled to the eastern island sea to plot for her revenge. Here she met Lord Acheron, a powerful and ancient vampire, who was more than eager to enlist Elvira in his ranks and aid Elvira with her vengeance. Once her powers had grown Acheron gave her 3 companions, and she went on her quest for retribution.

The scenario is Elvira and her companions first attack on a small Caedorian outpost close to the coast. I use the Dragon Rampant rules in a self-made scenario. The rules is a sort of sandbox where you can make your own units from a set of preset unit templates. I will not go into detail how the various units work, apart from 'The Companions' unit which is one where I have tinkered more with the rules to make a unit that worked for me.

Armies

The Undead Army:

Elvira - Elite Foot - 9 pts.

Special rules: Ranger, Hatred(humans), Fear, Undead

 

The Companions - Heavy Foot - 9 pts. (approx.)

This unit is comprised of 3 different characters; a Ghoul Lord, a Spectre and a Necromancer. The characters must be within 12" of one another. They can be ordered either individually, or as a group of 2 or 3 in which case they have to be within 6" of each other. The Ghoul Lord and the Spectre have 6 attack dice each and the Necromancer has none. The 3 characters have 4 defence dice each. If the they are within 6" of each other they will use their combined attack/defence dice. Each character have 4 strength points. If more character than one character is involved in a fight or the target of a shooting attach, they will divide any hits equally starting with the closest character to the enemy.

Special rules: Undead (Ghoul Lord and Spectre), Fear (Ghoul Lord and Spectre), Venomous (Ghoul Lord), Invisibility (Spectre), Summoner (Necromancer)

Zombie Horde - Ravenous Horde - 3 pts.

The Necromancer can summon zombie hordes using the Summoner rules. Only 2 Zombie units can be on the table at any one time.

Special rules: Undead, Fear 

The Caedorian Army:

Captain - Light Foot - 3 pts.

Wizard - Light Foot - 5 pts.

Special rules: Wizardling (spells: Almighty Prod, Stronger Shields, Sharper Blades)

Halberdiers - Heavy Foot - 4 pts.

Special rules: Wall of Spears

Swordsmen - Heavy Foot - 4 pts.

Special rules: Wall of Spears

Crossbowmen - Heavy Missiles - 4 pts.

Scouts - Scouts - 2 pts.

Deployment 

The outpost is in the center of the board with some woods to the west and a ruined monastery to the east. The Companions start in the woods, while Elvira starts behind the monastery.

The Captain and Wizard start in the tower. The Swordsmen are in one guard post and the Crossbowmen in the other. The Scouts are posted at the wall towards the woods, while the Halberdiers stand in front of the tower. The Caedorian soldiers have to spot Elvira and THe Companions before they can attack them. This is an action on 8+ if within 12" and 9+ if over. If one Caedorian unit spots either Elvira or the Companions then all other Caedorian units can see them as well. Conversely if Elvira or The Companions attacks the Caedorians then they are spotted by all.

Elvira sneaks through the ruined monastery while the Companions approach the outpost from the opposite side.

It takes 6 turns before the Caedorians spot the Companions. The Captain immediately descends the tower, but the rest of the humans seem petrified in fear and fail to activate.

Meanwhile Elvira gets closer to the Crossbowmen, who fail to spot the vampire, probably distracted by the shouts from the other end of the outpost.

After having been spotted the Necromancer summons a horde of zombies.

From the top of the tower the Wizard tries to aid the Caedorians, but apparently he's a novice, as he often fails to cast any spells. Or maybe the Spectre in the woods somehow messes up his spellcasting.

The Swordsmen move to defend the walls against the zombies. The zombies are easily pushed back but at least keep the Swordsmen in place.

On the other side Elvira finally ambushes the Crossbowmen. Apparently they are so shocked by this attack they immediately runs away.

The Ghoul Lord has crawled over the walls and attacks the Swordsmen who almost flee, but stand their ground thanks to the Captains nearby encouragement.

After slaughtering the Crossbowmen Elvira moves to attack the Halberdiers, while the Companions press the attack on the Swordsmen.

Elvira attacks and push the Halberdiers back up the tower.

The Swordsmen manage to kill off the zombies across the wall, but more zombies appear from the monastery. The Captain bravely attacks the Companions but is pushed back battered.

Elvira kills the Halberdiers, while The Companions move towards the Scouts. The Swordsmen and zombies kill each other by the monastery.

The poor wizard is trapped in the tower and is effortlessly killed by Elvira and thrown out off the tower. The Scouts were also killed easily by The Companions, leaving only the Captain alive, who wisely decide to run for it. Elvira first attack was a great success. The outpost will be burned down, and Elvira will assemble more troops to continue her attack on the Caedoran kingdom.

This was a great, narrative game that went really well. I did make some rules errors throughout the game, but as it was a solo game it didn't really matter. And it was my first game of Dragon Rampant, and several years ago I last tried Lion Rampant. My rules for the Companions worked really well and was a fun narrative addition. 

I also liked the look of the game. The cardboard terrain was new and from a company called Battle Systems. I really like the buildings and the scatter terrain, but am a little unsure about the walls as they lack some depth to look entirely natural. But in general I think it works very well.

In general the game was probably in the Undeads favour, but as this was a narrative game, that was perfectly fine for me. It should be noted, however, that the Caedorians rolled rather poorly throughout the game, so it could have been more close. And the Ghoul King was one strength point away from dying, and the Spectre two, so they could have died as well. Elvira was a beast, but I thoroughly enjoyed that.

I have already ordered some more reinforcements for Elvira's army, but I need to paint them before I can play again (and the zombies as well, sorry about that). I'm thinking about playing some games of SAGA Age of Magic and Oathmark as well, but I don't think I have enough Undead troops to that properly. 

So we'll have to see what the future brings. I really want to continue this narrative, so I'll be thinking about of ideas to how that story shall continue.