Last night John and I got a chance to play our second game of Dragon Rampant. Last time we played the first scenario which represented an encounter between two armies. This time we tackled scenario B, which involves an attacker trying to move a treasure from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner. The ‘defender’ is trying to prevent this and move the treasure back to its start point.
I worked out a (tentative) mapping between Wood Elves units and the Dragon Rampant stereotypes (plus options) and used this as the basis of my 36pt list. Here’s what I put into my force –
- Spellsinger and Retinue (Spells: Apotheosis, Wrath of the Wood, Power of Darkness) (8)
- Glade Guard x2 (8)
- Dryads x2 (8)
- Deepwood Scouts (3)
- Wardancers (6)
- Wild Riders (6)
All of my melee units have the Wild Charge rule, which means they can be a little impetuous, so I would have to be careful that they don’t get drawn out in a piecemeal fashion. That said they all hit pretty hard. My spells on the Spellsinger (plus Retinue) are all support spells – Heal Thee!, Bog Thee! and Sharper Blades!
John’s force was comprised of –
- Slann – Heavy Foot, Spellcaster (8)
- Temple Guard – Elite Foot (6)
- Cold One Riders – Heavy Riders (4)
- Saurus – Heavy Foot (4)
- Skinks – Light Foot, Short Range Missiles (4)
- Chameleon Skinks – Scouts (2)
- Skink Archers – Light Missiles (4)
- Kroxigors – Bellicose Foot (4)
The Battle
We diced off and John let me be the attacker. I gave the treasure to my Spellsinger unit as they move on a 5+ and have a decent 8″ move. That said they are quite delicate, so I wanted to keep them away from any fighting or shooting! Here’s my deployment. The scouts and Spellsingers move on 5+, the other infantry units on a 6+ and the Wild Riders on a 7+. This became important as I had a slow start with a number of turns cut short by failed tests! This lead to a slight staggering of my force early on, but thankfully I was able to keep a reasonably coherent battle line.
John’s force deployed where I was trying to get to, so I’d have to push through his army to achieve my goal. John had a better run of activations of the first few turns and was able to get his force moving. In fact they probably moved out too well…
You can see, below, how John’s force has moved up a little faster than mine. The issue he ran into was presenting isolated targets to my ranged unit, particularly the Glade Guard on the hill. They started to plink off the Temple Guard, diminishing their fighting strength. Between them and the Wardancers the Temple Guard were whittled down.
The Wardancers didn’t have it all their own way. They took losses from the Temple Guard and some ranged fire from Skinks.
The Kroxigors, following a mauling from the Wardancers charged the Glade Guard. Charging uphill improved the Elves’ defenses and they survived the assault. My Spellsingers continued to hide out in the back behind my force and waited for some lagging units, principally the Wild Riders to get moving.
Once the Wild Riders got moving they were going to be at the forefront of my push up the right flank. The Spellsingers, carrying the treasure, and Deepwood Scouts trailed behind them. The wood between our forces became a useful blocker as did the Dryads!
My Glade Guard also continued to perform very well and shot the Chameleon Skinks and Saurus off the board. This left only(!) the Slann and the Skink Archers to prevent me making a run for the end zone. I thought my Wild Riders were in a good position to screen that run, but they bounced hard off of the Slann. However, they drew its attention away just long enough for my Spellsingers to get moving. The Scouts also flung themselves at the Slann.
John was unlucky not to land a ranged spell onto the delicate Spellsingers, leaving them to scarper to the corner and finish the game!
The Aftermath
I picked up 5 Glory for completing my mission. but we still had to work out the Quests. John achieved both of his Quests – destroying the Wild Riders and causing 3 hits on a single unit – scoring him 3 Glory. I succeeded (late in the game) in achieving my Quest of having two enemy units battered at the same time, but failed in my attempt to rout a unit off the board. This scored me 2 – 1 = 1 point for a total of 6. The resulted in a 6:3 win to me, but had I failed both of my quests it could easily have been a 3:3 draw!
My shooting proved very effective in this game, but I think if we played it again John would be much cagier and would hold back more of his force near the deployment zone. After all I had to exit through that zone!
Dragon Rampant continues to be great fun. Looking forward to trying Scenario C next…
Until next time,
Owen