It's been awhile since i've amanged a face to face game so today I took a quick trip to Christchurch for a game of Dragon Rampant today pitting my Ogres of the Northen Wastelands vs Ian's elves.
Ian's elves
Petal- elite foot wizard (10 pts)
2x elven sharp shooters @6 pts each
1x elite elves- @ 6 pts
1x Ent & hurons (greater warbeasts) @ 8pts (cunning defence 5+)
Ogres
1x ogre chief (elite foot) @6pts
2x ogre warriros (bellicose foot) @ 6 pts- shiny armour
2x wargs (lesser warbeasts) @4pts
1x Warg riders @ 4 pts
1x Owlbears (greater warbeasts) @6pts
What do you call a group of owlbears- a hoot.
We decided to use a few glory quests, I chose:
- Half the enemy shall fall to my blades
- I will make them run
Ian chose
- I will destroy mre units than I lose
- Our missiles will rain down upon them
As you can see the shadow of Mordor lies heavy on the land- or in this case shadows from the open garage door.
The Ogre army masses
turn 1, the elves advance whilst the Ent and hurons apparently natter to a couple of hobbits in a tree.
I send the warga on cunning outflanking a=manouvre.
Target #1 a gaggle of elven sharpshooters.
Yep another turn of nattering for the Ents. moving is moot when you roll badly, or is a moot more important so they won't move?
The elves mill around waiting for the onslaught.
Move damn it move. Ian tries to use telepatyhy to will the Ent forward.
Swarming around the woods comes a hoot of owlbears.
And on the other side the ogres look forward to bashing a few elves.
first contact the ogres take on the elte elven warrirors.
Alas the elves slide and dice the ogres who fail their courage test and break,=. first blood to the pointy ears.
howeve, the owlbears hone in on a nice juicy unit of sharpshooters. Woot woot!
A second wave of bellicose ogres charge the elite elves.
At last the Ents decide the time has come to take part in the battle- but wargs like to play fetch.
The Ent retreat across the river.
Meanwhile the owlbears regroup for a secon go at the elves- and the elite elves are looking a tad, well fragile.
But thanks to their leader are full of pluck and decide to go down fighting
The owlbears continue so slaughter elves though wounds are mounting.
the shadow once mroe falls over the land (well the sun stremaing into the garage on a warm winters afternoon being a pain- sorry about that!).
Once more the Ent and his hurons cross the stream this time sending the wargs packing.
And then there was one- the bellicose ogre is down to only a couple of wounds left.
the elven leader Petal and the Ent are all that are left of the elven force.
The ogre chief decides it is time to step forward and destroy his nemisis, an elvn wizardess Petal and her loyal henchelves. Petal. Really?
Alas, the ogre retreats.
The elven wizardess has lost more than half her force so needs a courage test and promptly flees the field.
Result: 6-1 to the Ogres although they too were badly mauled and the fianl wlbear, ogres and chief all being down to a handful of woidns between them, only my seocnf unit fo wargs being still in fighting condition.
We both managed to complete one of our quests bu fal the others (I can't quite recall Ianm's third quest).
Thoughts
As with all our games of Dragon Rampant it made for a fast, furious and light hearted game. I really do like the simplicity of the system and the creativity it allows when it comes to force compostion. 36-40 points are probably my sweet spot for the system as it allows for a good varietyof units on table. I am keen to double the numbers and run 2x 36 point commands per side next time we get a chance to have a game.
Sharpshooter was very, very nice on the elves but the elven general at 10 points was proably a bit underwhelming in their impact- wizards are probably a bit too expensive and a wizardling would possibly abe been a better option and if Ian reduced the unit to something like heavy foot he's be able to squeeze in an extra unit. Also it made it a unit that wasn't sure oif it was to sit back and sue spells or better off geting stuck in to combat so see an ption there for Ian to maybe tweak thinbgs a bit.
Ian also had a couple of lovely giant eagle models which did not get on table and would love to see them incorporated in the army sometime in the future.
Shiny armour on bellicose infantry- that upgrade was defintely worth it, armour 3 vs armour 2 made the unit far more resilient than they usually are so was good value for money. I was considering using the Ogres as heavy foot offensive but like the savage nature of bellicose, it suits the ogres temperament.
Possible tweaks
One thought I've had is doubling the base points for units (and also size of the points in the games we play) but keeping the upgrades the same, so a core unit of heavy foot would be 8 points or 10 if the offensive option was taken It would just add a bit more granuality as some of the upgrades do seem more cost effective than others- it might also make light infantry a bit more common in our games.
iaven't given it a whole lot of thought yet but just one of those idea I've been ,ulling over for a while.
Changes to the Ogre army?
I kind of like the up and at 'em nature of it, lots of wild charging goodness- as long as its the ogres, wargs and owlbears on attack all goes well but when forced to defend it is another story. It would be nice to get a spell caster into the army at some point but overall I am fairly happy with it.
Craig
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