The Battle of Four Armies

On the Saturday evening over Thanksgiving weekend, we managed to get in a couple of skirmishes across my dining room table. John brought a number of his painted miniatures (mostly cavalry and foot soldiers), and we combined them with a variety of figures from my collection so that he could teach me, Jared, and Zach how to play Dragon Rampant. It's only the second time I've played something akin to a "mass battle" game in which you're moving around trays of units rather than individual figures (the first being the castle siege game I played a couple of weeks back at Fall In). While you can't afford to get attached to "characters" as one might in a game such as Song of Blades and Heroes, it's great fun moving large clumps of troops across the terrain and throwing them against an enemy formation.

As for how the battles unfolded, John was quick to the keyboard and already got his after-action report of our first skirmish posted on his blog with lots of great photos, so I encourage you to check that out (see link at bottom of this post). That was one of the unexpected pleasures of the evening: We actually got our very first game completed in about two hours, letting us break for some pizza and then dive right back in, exchanging armies and swapping in several different terrain pieces on the battlefield. The second skirmish lasted about as long, wrapping maybe even a little faster.

Because John worked up the army profiles, I'm going to quote his description of them below:

Undead

Necromancer, two units of mummies, skeleton warriors, skeleton archers and zombies.

Goblinoids

Chieftain and bodyguard, two units of heavy orcs, spear armed night goblins, goblin archers, and reluctant goblin levy.

Men of the White City

Gray cloaked beardy wizard, mounted knights, foot knights, and elven archers.

Men of the Iron hills

Prince and mounted retinue, two units of heavy foot, crossbows, and dwarves.

In the first clash ("Battle of Four Armies"), John and I led the Men of the White City and the Men of the Iron Hills, while Zach and Jared commanded the undead and goblinoid armies, respectively. In the second skirmish ("Battle at the Abandoned Tower" below), we swapped forces, and I led the goblinoids, while John commanded the undead.

Below are the handful of photos I took of the second game (since John did such a great job on his blog with recounting the first), and then I'll share my wife Ellen's wonderful photos snapped earlier in the evening during the first battle.

Battle at the Abandoned Tower

My goblinoid army began the night's second battle staring across the swampy terrain at Jared's Men of the Iron Hills, while John's undead troops squared off with Zach's Men of the White City, whose elven archers quickly moved up onto the tower's lower-level fortifications for the improved cover and easy targets below.

A unit of mummies trudge forward against a withering volley of elven arrows.

In response, I send a tough unit of orcs onto the tower's opposite side to keep from ceding the tower entirely to our opponent. In the meantime, my goblin archers get some nice volleys off against the prince's charging cavalry.

I march some goblins and orcs into the swamps hoping to lure my opponent into crossing swords with me in the muck, but he was too wise or too cowardly. (I claim the latter.)

The orc captain and his guards are about to charge into the action from the rear once it becomes clear the cavalry is about to ride right through his goblin archers.

It took a bit longer than hoped for John's necromancer to inspire his undead troops to finally enjoin the enemy. 

After a laughably long run of bad die rolls by John in this game.

Because you can either laugh or you can...die. As the dice would have it, it ended up being both in John's case.

Ah...that's more like it, Mr. Bones. Time to get up to the front and knock some heads!

Remember that unit of orcs I moved onto the other battlements? The plan from the onset was to use the ladders to come down the other side and disrupt those elven archers. 

The plan succeeded spectacularly well, even to my surprise. The orcs didn't merely rout the archers, they slew them to a one before they could flee from the battlements.

Eventually, though, discretion became the better part of valor, and I started to strategically move my archers, then my orcs, and finally the captain up onto the tower's battlements to fight off the men from a more defensible position.

Unfortunately, the undead troops in both the first and second game of the night proved a bit too brittle, and by the next turn they were routed. I think there was a chance the the orcs could have prevailed, though it would have been uphill from that point, so we decided to call it a night and relinquish the field to the men and dwarves (but not the elves...because, remember, I killed them all).

The First Battle of Four Armies

The following is not a traditional battle report—John did that far better than I could have on his blog—but rather an unchronological series of photographic impressions of the first game. The first dozen or so pictures are by me during the course of play, but the bulk thereafter are Ellen's photos. My wife enjoys popping into our games and snapping some pics of the miniatures, terrain, and us having a general good time. This can happen at any point in the proceedings. Hopefully you enjoy the glimpse they provide into our game!

In this battle we played the opposite armies: John and I played the free men armies, while Jared and Zach played the goblinoid and undead armies, respectively.

This is what the battlefield looked like around the second or third turn of the game.

Zach and Jared, frozen in fear at my onrushing knights!

Ellen's photos carry the day from this point onward, as should be readily apparent by the inarguable jump in quality and artistry.

Spears set for the cavalry charge they face (hence the black cube markers).

Not sure what he's grinning about...he's dead!

Joe and Zach, mortal enemies (for a couple of hours at least).

Our work is done here...let's go harry some orcs.

This unit of mummies was waiting in reserve for the necromancer to summon them onto the battlefield. One of the nice fantasy touches in the game.

I'm sometimes not sure in these games what the difference is between setting an ambush in the woods and simply being slowed to a crawl by "rough terrain."

These knights rode off the battlefield in bloodied glory and unto the lofty heights of Valhalla.

Playing these Knights was a hell of a lot of fun, especially given how beautifully John had painted them.

Dice, snacks, and toy soldiers...what a life!

Throwing fistfuls of dice was a pleasure I had not had before this game.

I think this is what today we call a "target-rich environment."

"Move, you laggards!"

The Necromancer! 

Jared: "So, I'm going to do this..."

John: "Then you leave me no choice but to do that, sir!"
Jared: "Whoa! Whoa! Wait a minute..."

Orcs scale the hillside and start to disperse the elven archers.

"Dwarves! Plug that hole!"

Reinforcements on the way.

"I am the One!"

Four generals dukin' it out.

After the necromancer fled the battlefield, the orcs eventually receded into the night to tend their wounds and hope to exact revenge another day.

(left to right clockwise) John, Joe, Zach, and Jared

John's battle report of the night's first game can be found at his blog, 1,000 Foot General, which with his tutorials and battle reports was an early inspiration for me as I explored taking up tabletop miniatures gaming. Lucky for me, I'm now a fan and a friend of John and his work. 

Thoughts

Very much looking forward to getting the chance to play Dragon Rampant again in the near future. I ordered enough 15mm miniatures from the most recent Battle Valor Kickstarter to be able to field four decent-sized armies, and I anticipate it'll be even more fun to field hundreds and hundreds of miniatures at once.

As for the rules, given it was most everyone's first time playing Dragon Rampant, we elected to keep things a little loose with some of the movement and zone-of-control restrictions (e.g., maintaining three inches between friendly units). My dining room table being only three feet wide (though eight feet long), it also made things a smidgen more cramped, also encouraging a little laxity with things like zone of control. When I get my 15mm armies ready for action, a lot of those problems will go away. Now that we've played once and quickly got the hang of the basic mechanics, I find I'm already eager to do a little online investigating for any house rules folks may have developed to boost things like spellcasting a bit; John and I shared the complaint that the fantasy elements could have been a bit more developed and robust. But in the end, those were quibbles and certainly didn't detract from the fun we had clashing across my dining room table.