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

More Blackstone Fortress

With a little effort I have completed the painting of a few more inhabitants of the Blackstone Fortress. 

First up a couple of explorers.

The missionary zealot - Pious Vorne. 

Kroot tracker - Dahyak Grekh

Then a couple of the denizens - Rogue Psykers. 

Just varnish and bases to be done. 

Unfortunately I don’t have enough explorers to try’s game yet as it needs 4 to play. I have also finished all the miniatures I had assembled so far. But on the plus side there are only 6 (5 playable) explorers, 7 traitor guards and the 3 chaos space marines to go. 

I am hoping that even with distractions I should be able to complete the game before Christmas - and should be able to trial it possibly before the end of the summer …

Morts

A bit of painting done.

So for my fantasy human army some medium cavalry. 

Oathmark  human cavalry - with green stuff romanised helmets. An ok paint job - I did try grey undercoat and then some contrast cygor brown for the dark brown horses - I think it must be me because I didn’t get the effects I was wanting or hoping for, so had to wash and highlight as normal for me. I suppose I can’t be using it right.  

Also painted some of the battlefield objectives from mantic. 

There were a grey undercoat then some washes and a dry brush- nice and easy.

Might try using these sometime. 

Morts

It has been a bit warm.

So the recent heat wave we have had in dear old Blighty, I haven’t done any painting, which is a bit sad. 

I have done some DofE checkpointing and tracking - which was rather sweaty down in the South Hams, but really rewarding when all the little dears got around. 

One thing the hot weather doesn’t do is stop me buying stuff I don’t really need. I have been looking a an Eldar Kill Team for a while now so took the plunge and picked up some metal rangers off eBay and a set of Dire Avengers. 

I think this lot are about 110 points in current Kill Team. However they are bringing out a new edition of Kill Team in August - I have to say I am probably going to get this - possibly not the starter set with the Death Korps of Krieg and Orks (with terrain), but I could sell on the bits I don’t want. Decision decisions. The game is a departure from using the 40k stats that the current version is tied to. We shall see. 

Also picked this up for Catan - an interesting addition. I might see if I can get a copy of the seafarers expansion. 

Morts 

First Blackstone Explorer

It has been a quiet couple of weeks painting wise with the football on - a disappointing result for England I the end, but the boys done good to get there. More than a bit embarrassing how some of my countrymen reacted to the result and penalty takers - a sad reflection of their ignorance. 

I was out on a virtual Ten Tors expedition on Exmoor at the weekend- a July downpour overnight then a 16 mile hike up and down the valley around Tarr Steps. Discovered the tent is still waterproof (a good thing), one of my walking boots has a leak …. and that after not walking all day with a pack for a few years - it is really quite tough. I have to admit to being quite knackered afterwards.

However I have managed to paint up one of  the explorers for Blackstone Fortress - the Ministorum Priest. 

Not a bad job - I am not used to painting individuals much so I found him a challenge - I am not totally happy about the robes, but I intend to finish the miniatures for Blackstone before Christmas and anymore distractions …. Such as the new version of Kill Team. 

Morts

Hellblasters

The primaris Hellblasters I picked up for the Argonauts Space Marine Chapter have been painted (a spot of varnish and the bases need finishing off). 

The sergeant has had a little conversion work - should have spent more time tidying up some of the paint work and the helmet on the sergeant’s back. I rushed these a bit - probably because I knew I should get back to Blackstone Fortress miniatures. 

Unfortunately they can’t be used in Kill Team as primaris intercessors can’t take plasma weapons - even in the upgraded Pariah Nexus book. Just the lieutenant and assault intercessors to go - then NO MORE MISSION CREEP!

I will have to try and play a Combat Patrol style game at some point with this lot. 

More Kill Team - Trouble in the Imperium

So last night Bazza came around for a game of Kill Team. Bazza used to play 40k twenty odd years ago - so this was a reintroduction into the 40k universe and nerd-dom in general. Bazza picked a Space Marine (used to play Ultramarines), with a auxiliary grenade launcher, stalker both rifle, leader with power sword, a standard intercessor and a couple or reivers -one of which was a sergeant.  I went for the assault oriented Mechanicus team which was soundly thrashed by Steedo’s Deathwatch a couple of weeks ago.  

We played the Open scenario Break the Lines - with my objective to get my figures off Bazza’ send of the board. His lib was to stop me. 

The Ad-Mech’s starting positions. 

The plan was to rush forward with everything apart from the ranger with the big gun, who would shot stuff from a far.

Above the Sicarians and Skitari scuttle forward …. A wound is put on a Reiver. But a wound is put on a ruststalker. 

Bazza puts a charge in the centre with his leader and Reiver sergeant - this turned into quite a fight. The ruststalker and vanguard getting flesh wounds on the marines (but annoyingly I couldn’t roll high enough to put the marines out of action!).

On the other side of the battlefield one Reiver was blocking off the advance on the other side by a couple vanguard including the leader and an infiltrator - by the end of the 5th turn I finally put him out of action - after 2flesh wounds had been inflicted … this seriously buggered up my plan. 

Back on the other side the marines took out the ruststalker stalker - but were tied up up a single vanguard who survived 4 shooting attacks with pistols and 14 melee attacks with combat knifes and power sword before eventually being overwhelmed - having already sustained 2 flesh wounds … a true hero of the machine god!

By the end of turn 3 I had managed to put flesh wounds on 2/3 of the marines - but Bazza had managed to put 2 of mine Out of Action (OoA) and flesh wounds on a couple of others - we both passed the morale for that round. 

Turn 4 progressed both of us hitting the others troops but the saving throws undoing all that effort. Unfortunately at the end of the turn I failed the morale test and the team was broken and one of the skitarii was shaken - and we were going to be playing turn 5! 

It was going to be tough turn for the Ad-Mech!

The pictures above show the end of the game - the valiant vanguard had prevented the marine leader and Reiver sergeant getting back in the game, I had final kill off the Reiver who had been blocking 3 of my figures in melee, but on the other side I was down to one ruststalker versus 2 marines …

Fortunately the dice roll put me out of my misery by ending the game … I hadn’t got a single figure off Bazza’s start line. An 8 nil thrashing…

Obviously I let him win to encourage him to play again…

I really enjoyed this game actually very close - I managed early on to get some of the marines down to 0 wounds, but I couldn’t roll high enough to put them out of action which was frustrating (I think I put 12 wounds on the marines but only put one OaA). As for the objective - the table was cluttered so it was difficult to get lines of fire for the transonic arquebus. We also played the table long ways - so a narrow battlefield, if we had played with a wider field it would have been difficult to get the choke points. I should have also sacrificed a troops to screen off Bazza’s troops in true blitzkrieg style. 

Morts