Dragon Rampant - Solo

I had arranged with Steedo to come over and have a game - I had picked  Dragon Rampant, to give it another go and because I wanted to try it again as I have downloaded the Xenos Rampant version off the inter-web. I am thinking of Space Marines versus Arachnids - could be interesting. 

So as Steedo forgot I played a solo game to get the rules down. I just had standard units for both sides to make sure my brain wasn't overly taxed. The units were all the same number of figures as strength points.

The scenario was that the Red King has started summoning the forces of darkness to him - to this end the humans of Kal Khaos had collected some Black Orc mercenaries were on the march. The Red King's plans are unknown to the Humans of Solcity, however they sent out a force to stop the forces of darkness moving across their lands. The objectives were for the forces of darkness to force their way across the field.

Both forces had six units - 

Kal Khaos 

Elite Foot, Human  heavy foot (Offensive), Human heavy foot, Black Orcs - 2 units of Bellicose foot and 1 unit of wolf-riders (as heavy cavalry). 

Solcity 

Elite cavalry, Heavy cavalry, Light cavalry, Archers, 2 units of heavy infantry.

Initial positions.

The gradual (should that be glacial) advance of the forces of darkness.

There Black Orcs were putting in some effort. The human ranger cavalry getting in some skirmish and evade hits before being ridden down and destroyed by the wolf riders (the armour 1 for trying to evade and failing hurts!). Things aren't looking good for the forces of Solcity (their archers and knights not doing what is needed). 

The Black Orcs continue to push forward - eager mercenaries these boys. The forces of good try to block a wild charge on the knights by moving the spearmen forward. The rest of the forces of darkness also move forward. The Black Orcs do wild charge (which blocks the second unit of Black Orcs) - this forces the spearmen back .... 

This allows the Knights to charge into the Orcs as they regroup. Over on the other side of the battlefield the archers are getting a few hits on the human infantry in the centre and the heavy cavalry charge into a shield wall - ouch!

The Knights continue to charge the Black Orcs - forcing one unit to rout and the other to become battered! Although they are down to half strength at this point and looking ripe to be eliminated ...

The archers have forced the evil humans to rout as they continued to shoot away - the heavy cavalry had been continuing to put the evil human shield wall under pressure. The highlight for Kal Khaos' forces was the wolf-riders rallying from being battered!

The final field of battle - I called the game here after the wolf-riders failed an activation to charge the Knights.

The forces of darkness had been thwarted - they would have to try and get to the rendezvous with the Red King .....

Will I play another another game in this "campaign/narrative" only time will tell.

Dragon Rampant played more smoothly than the last time I played it - possibly because I was able to work through them without the pressure of telling other people what to do, as already stated to I kept it simple without any special rules or reduced model units. 

It was nice to get so many units to the table for the first time - 7 units had their first outing, as did the 2020 highlighted field of battle! 

 Morts