The Sacred Mole of Ukkert

Following on from thoughts myself and Just John had about using Dragon Rampant for skirmish we decided to organize a game. Rather than full skirmish we decided on the heroic approach. A small band of dwarf heroes (with each model representing 6 strength points) vs an entire Orc raiding warband. Heroic stuff in the Fantasy Age!

King Thorgrimm Ranulfsson has lead a mission to investigate a hold not hear from in recent months. upon arrival they find their dwarfen kin slaughtered and the hold ransacked and occupied by greenskins. Thorgrimm leads his small band of dwarfs in to the hold to recover heirlooms they know will still be sealed in the secret vault. They fight their way in and out, killing anything in their way, and bring out the lost treasure to take home. As they gain the surface they see a large orc warband arrayed before them. Obviously some sneaky goblin went for help! Shouldering their weapons they prepare to fight their way out!

This was a 30pt game with only 24pts allowed to be spent on units. The remaining 6pts had to be upgrades.

 The Dwarven heroes venture in to the mine.

Reaper Bones large earth elemental

Got this model all set and ready for Dragon Rampant/Frostgrave this week. Took less than 2 hours to paint and turned out well. It was the first Reaper Bone miniature I've painted and I was really surprised at the amount of detail on it.

This was a very easy model to paint. I picked out the areas of earth in brown and then chose 3-4 different greys for the stone, just for variety. The earth got a light brown drybrush and all the stone a drybrush of fortress grey. I then picked out the skeleton with bleached bone and the entire model, earth, bone and stone got a light white drybrush, which tied it together. Finally a wash of Agrax Earthshade went across it to pick out a lot of the detail. Simples!

Reaper bones dragon

2nd reaper bones miniature nearly finished and ready for frostgrave! This was painted very quickly, more for table battle quality than painting competition!

Dragon Rampant Dwarfs vs Orcs

Me and JustJohn managed to get another game of Dragon Rampant in this weekend. We had slightly different army lists this time. I had a greater warbeast (Ancient Bron...See previous post) and he had a giant (Bellicose Foot). It was another fun game of Dragon Rampant with us both still learning the rules a bit (and forgetting to do stuff!).

Our lists were:

Dwarfs

Elite Foot - Hammerers with leader

Heavy Foot - Dwarf Warriors

Heavy Foot - Dwarf Warriors

Greater Warbeast - Ancient Bron

Scouts - Dwarf Rangers

Scouts - Dwarf Rangers

Orcs

Heavy Foot with Offensive - Orc Leader and 2 Bodyguards

Bellicose Foot - Giant

Bellicose Foot with Shiny Armour - Orcs with 2h weapons

Light Foot with Mixed weapons - Orcs with spears and bows

Light Foot - Orcs with spear and shield.

We rolled for scenarios and got The Ringbearer. We completely forgot to name quests, which has quite an effect later on!

The Orcs had recently come across two small fellows sneaking through their lands on foot. These annoying hairy footed chaps had been quickly stuffed in a pot and boiled up with something nice. On their person the Orc leader found a lovely shiny ring, which he quickly stuffed in its pocket.

Having heard of the news of their death King Thorgrimm wakes Ancient Bron and sets off to avenge their rather short unbearded friends (and get his hands on a magic shiny gold ring in the process! ). The Dwarfs are attacking and Orcs defending.

The location of the ring written down for safekeeping. What has it got in its pocketses?

Schleich dragons

I spied a bunch of these in my local smyths toys today and decided to purchase one. They cost between 15 and 20 euro so 10-14GBP.

The paint scheme on them is surprisingly good and would need very little work to make the table with the 'battering dragon' (the one I got) just needing a wash over two small areas that have no shading and maybe a drybrush on the horns. As you can see they are decent enough size for the likes of frostgrave or dragon rampant style games. The largest dragon (the warrior) was about 5" in height. The battering dragon may not represent a fully grown dragon able to decimate armies but its a nice scale for smaller sized games.

Safari dragons  are also quite nice, cheap and along a similar vein. I especially love the desert dragon

Dwarf dreadnought *cough* I mean interred elder!

Basically a space marine dreadnought rip off, but I liked the idea more than a simple golem! It'll do as either a Greater Warbeast or single model unit of Elite Foot

When beloved King Bron lay on his death bed his son, Brendon, gathered together the best runesmiths and engineers his hold could muster and begged them for a solution to save the kings life. Working swiftly they crafted a body from their most precious metals that comprised a mix of runic magic and engineering. Inside the inert metal shell they interred the dying body of the king, using the runes to bind the kings soul to the machine.

It was a task done in haste and nobody considered the effect this would have on the king himself. At first the king marveled at his new mechanical body. Able to run the speed of a horse and carve an ogre in two was exhilarating. But in the long times of peace between battles the king grew frustrated. With little to do and deprived of three of the five senses (smell, touch and taste) mortals take for granted the king was driven to depression, making him more and more a machine of war than much loved leader. More than once Bron was driven to fits of rage, and although no dwarf was slain the damage was sometimes extensive. Rather than turn his own armies upon his father King Brendon made the decision to deactivate him, at least temporarily. The runesmiths once more gathered together and while they could not destroy the runes they had crafted hastily, they could at least make them dormant.

Hundreds of years later King Thorgrimm of Greyhold wakes Ancient Bron, as he is now known, only in times of need. Either for advice from a lost era or to accompany the hold in to battle. His mind can cope with short periods of wakefulness but then he must be put back to sleep, lest he be driven to insanity in his cold metal shell.

Dragon Rampant Game 2 Dwarfs vs Elves

This was another introductory game of Dragon Rampant. This time introducing Panzermonkey and his Elves to the rules. Yet again we decided to ignore the movement penalty for terrain and to treat the stream as open as it kind of dominated the centre of the table!

The dwarfs were the same as the last game
Elite foot with leader - lord with Hammerers
HeavyFoot - Dwarf warriors
Heavy Foot - Dwarf warriors
Bellicose Foot - Troll Slayers
Heavy Missiles - Dwarf Crossbows
Scouts - Dwarf Rangers

The Elves were different to reflect their nature and Panzermonkeys models!
Elite Riders with leader - Lord with Silver Helms
Elite Foot - Elven White Lions
Light Foot - Elf spearmen
Light Foot - Elf spearmen
Light Missiles - Elf archers
Scouts - Elven Shadow Warriors

Both Warbands came to 24 points.

The scenario was the standard kill all your opponents models just for simplicity.

The Elf Cavalry are so fast they are a blur!

The Dwarf Lord and his bodyguard look on unimpressed

The two battle lines draw up againt one another

The Dwarfs (attacking) decide to stand and grumble a bit as they fail their first activation of the game

The Elves surge forwards while the dwarfs stumble along

The Dwarf Rangers make the bridge first and fire upon the Shadow Warriors killing 1

The Dwarf battle line makes it to the river

The Elf archers move forwards to fire on the Dwarf warriors

The Scouts hold the vital bridge crossing point (well not really with our terrain rules!)

The Lord and Silver Helms wild charge into the dwarf warriors 

Its a bloody combat typical of Dragon Rampant (you remove models quickly once combat joined 1)

The Dwarfs are pushed back across the river

And then fired upon by the Elf archers forcing them to retreat further (and also meaning they no longer block a charge on the crossbows)

The Silver Helms charge the crossbows battering them

The Stoic warriors charge the cavalry but get counter charged in return

The casualties are enough to rout them off the table

Elf spearmen move on to the bridge to engage the scouts but move too close and are charge by the Dwarf Lord and Hammerers

Who see them off and batter them. They then rout in their following activation

The Troll slayers charge the Elf spearmen and batter them. In return they are charged by the White Lions and routed

The Dwarf Lord then manages to charge the Shadow Warriors, wiping them out.

A bad dice roll sees the Elf cavalry fail to charge the crossbows before they retreat into the ruins. The crossbows get a round of shooting at them and then the depleted Silver Helms charge the crossbows in rough terrain.

And are wiped out.

The Elf archers fail to activate and are caught by the Dwarf Lord. They rout from the field.

We called the game there as the Dwarfs had three units remaining (Lord and Hammerers, Dwarf Warriors and crossbows) while the elves only had a half strength unit of White Lions. I may have to stop going overboard with scenery. It really hampered the cavalry in this game, or would have done if the river had been rough terrain too!

Dragon Rampant Game 1 Dwarfs vs Orcs

Ever since I bought these rules (well the Lion Rampant ones) earlier in the year I've really liked the look of them. Late last year myself and JustJohn decided to give the system a go.

The system allows for a small amount of unit upgrades which can help differentiate, for example, dwarf warriors with hand weapon and shield (Heavy Foot) to dwarf warriors with 2h weapons (Heavy Foot with Offensive upgrade). You can even easily represent larger models such as ogres (Elite Foot) as 3 model units with 2 'wounds' each or even a dragon (Elite Riders or Greater Warbeast)

For this first game we decided to ignore the movement penalties for terrain, just so we could get stuck in!

Dawn rises over the old temple ruins