Dragon Rampant....Humans vs Monsters

With the recent COVID lockdowns and eased restrictions here in Darwin, my local club suspended opening last weekend...

Not to be deterred, my mate offered to host a game at his house. 

So I organised more of a teaching/introductory game of Dragon Rampant for the three of us to get together, have a play, have a good old chin-wag and just catch up. I decided to umpire rather than play, simply to ease one of my mates - K- into the game.

K was playing against my regular opponent M.

Now K has bonafide nerdy credentials, so he knew what to expect. He's in his early twenties, a Role-Player & a Dungeon Master and he had introduced me to D & D a few years ago. I first discovered we shared an interest in nerdy games a few years ago when I met him. 

He told me he loved Heroquest...the kid's a proper, proper geek. 

As for D&D, I do love it but haven't really committed to it. It seems like a real 'lifestyle game'... the breadth of the rules are almost too much for me to commit to. Anyway, we never could manage to get group up and running. 

Getting everyone together at the same time, with everyone's competing jobs and commitments was almost impossible. Needless to say our D&D aspirations stalled, and spluttered out before we even got up and running.

One-on-one tabletop gaming, however, is a lot easier to organise, and because I have all the stuff, it makes more sense for me to just expand my gaming friends wider and wider.  I invite friends to come and just nerd out with me, and my enthusiasm seems to rub off on people.

Maybe people are just tired playing video games.

Back to Dragon Rampant.

I chose a scenario from my ebook copy of Dragon Rampant that I have on my Kindle. I used my trusty Zvezda & Miniart medieval French, and pitted them against a rag-tag bunch of old Wizkids D&D & Heroscape monster figures we have had lying around for ages. 

They were once part of an elder child's indulgence back in the 90s-2000s and he has since moved away and on to a different life.  We kept all the stuff and it's come in handy over the years...little kids love 'em...and more recently I've found uses for the figures and terrain.

The scenario was the 'Pot Boiler' scenario from the Dragon Rampant book, and it's essentially a timed 'rescue'.

The humans had to enter the gates of the 'Doomed City' and capture the Temple with one good ordered unit in order to save the 10 Damsels that were to be sacrificed by Death.

Death was the leader of the Monsters. He couldn't move, but could exert his 'influence' around the perimeter of the Temple, using his power to boost courage tests.

Every Damsel either killed or saved was worth a point. We also scored points for every unit killed or routed off the table.

M started off as the attacker.

Using his tough and fast mounted Knights he headed straight towards K's weak spot, a unit of Undead Zombies, Wolves and Skeletons at the South West perimeter of the temple. M also used his turn to activate his Crossbowmen, Foot Men-at-Arms and a unit of Skirmishers. 

Only his Fierce Foot, on his far left flank failed to activate.

K's first two activations were horrendous. 

He failed to move or attack any units, forfeiting space to M's lightning fast Cavalry thrust. K's undead were soon battered and wiped aside by M's Mounted Knights. This left the Monster's Temple dangerously exposed.

It honestly looked as though the game was going to end by the beginning of turn 3. I was a bit worried that the game would fizzle out so quickly...much like our dreams of creating a D&D group had died an early death.

It wasn't a great introduction to Dragon Rampant, I thought.

Of all the bad rolls...two consecutive activations for a young lad's first try at the game!!!!

But with Lion/DragonRampant, activations are the key. K started moving his more mobile units on his next turn, rather than trying to motivate his major units.

K's fortunes turned soon. 

Although K had lost his Undead unit (1pt), he soon roused his Venomous Horde. The unit is fast, moving at 12 inches, and M found, much to his surprise, that they were formidable opponents.

The two units - Mounted Knights & The Venomous Horde - were to wild charge, attack and duel each other through the course of the next few turns. The contact left the Knights worse for wear, because K soon brought his Beastmen (Fierce Foot) into the fray was well.

M's Mounted Knight's charged, fought, withdrew and charged again, but couldn't seem to break through. Eventually, they lost the attritional contest and were routed from the field.

Heavy mounted units like this seem to be great for certain roles on the battlefield...but sustained combat isn't their strength when they are evenly matched...and at six strength points, they can't sustain damage forever...

Anyway, by this stage, M's Foot Men-at-Arms and Skirmishers had more activations and were slowly advancing in the centre. 

K's Black Dragon had also woken from her slumber, and being a dragon, had obviously the power of flight, enabling her to move anywhere on the field of battle. She and M's skirmishers played a nifty little game of cat & mouse for a few turns...as M's Skirmishers ducked and weaved behind cover, throwing off the odd javelin to no effect...but were to lose a few figures as the Dragon began to charcoal them with fire from a distance of twelve inches.

Death, of course, was highly amused by the proceedings...more so now that Damsels were beginning to be sacrificed on the Temple's Altar....and K was beginning to accrue some points by this stage.

On M's far left flank, his bottle-rocket Fierce Foot had failed to activate again and again and again...much to M's frustrations.....they never really entered the game. 

In the centre, M's Crossbowmen edged into position. 

Now I've felt the stab of these Crossbows in my own games with M. He absolutely loves this unit for their brutal, brutal effectiveness. 

I made sure to warn K about them, reminding him on several occasions throughout the game.

K positioned his Goblin Miners (Skirmishers), Black Dragon, and his gargantuan Troll Warriors behind the perimeter wall. It did give him a good position to harass M's Foot Knights as they approached, but they were all exposed to those Crossbows....

Moving them out of cover was dangerous for K...as his Black Dragon and Trolls met the assault, M had time to let loose with his crossbows at a range of 18 inches. The Foot Knights were worn down and beaten back, but at a cost. 

K's Black Dragon was shot up badly by those crossbows and soon she fled the battlefield.

This back and forth melee went on for several turns and by this stage - according to the scenario rules - a Damsel would be sacrificed at the end of every one of K's turns after the third turn.

There were a lot of Damsels in the Deathly Never-World by now.

All K had to do was sit back and let M vainly try to break the perimeter.... count his victory points...and win the game.

But...K, an aggressive young man, chose to take up the fight, never one to sit idle.

Good to see. I love it.

He used his Venomous Horde to strike again at the Foot Men-at-Arms, wearing them down by a figure or so but not killing them off.

He also moved his Beastmen to M's right flank in an attempt to rush his Crossbowmen and catch them off guard. 

K's tactic almost worked, wiping out three figures from M's twelve Crossbowmen. Good, but not enough. K soon discovered that Fierce Foot units are impact players in Dragon Rampant/Lion Rampant. 

They are a 'one-and-done' unit. Good for fast hard strikes, but not great on defence, especially when assaulting a fully equipped unit with good defensive strength like M's Crossbowmen.

K's Beastmen were slaughtered in the melee, but by this stage of the game, all of the Damsels had been sacrificed.

The game was over and it was time to tally the points.

Once all of the game points had been tallied, the result was a lot closer than anyone had imagined. Throughout the game K was conscious of his lost units, but towards the end game he had - quite rightly - started to suspect that his losses may cost him the game.

All the Damsels were sacrificed, giving K the 10 points...

But he had also lost his Black Dragon (8pts), his Beastmen (4 pts) and his lowly Undead Horde at the beginning of the game.

M had 13 pts.

Then we remember that the only unit M had actually lost on the battlefield were his princely Mounted Knights...worth 6 pts.

The Monsters had tallied up 16 pts....a narrow win for K.

In retrospect M did well to battle hard and fight aggressively for VPs. I think he could have even broken through the perimeter if his Fierce Foot unit had played a more active part in the battle.