Dragon Rampant Solo Gaming Campaign

Over the past few years I’ve been slowly chipping away at various armies for my Middle Earth project- which in itself is more of a vague idea of a large scale game using most of the forces I’ve been putting together rather than an actual project, but hey, it’s kept me busy..  

So now I’ve got quite a few “building block” forces, which are something I decided quite a while ago to do. Build smallish armies which can be combined for various larger armies. In historics this can be quite easily achieved, the Carthaginians for example are a good building block army as several different nationalities/armies can be combined into a larger force and morphed into all sorts of interesting directions. 

Part of my thinking has been building 4-6 unit divisions for Hail Caesar, or smaller forces for Dragon Rampant and using these to combine into larger games. For example, putting Gondor + Rohan together to be able to field larger forces or play large games or for scaling up gaming systems from Dragon Rampant to Hail Caesar. I can have at least one division of each nationalty in a larger Hail Caesar style game and usually have enough fores painted up for two, sometimes three divisions from one nationality. A number of my historics forces can also pull double duty for Middle Earth or more regular fantasy style gaming too. 

I find that Dragon Rampant, using fixed base units, is my go to game size way these days, you can get a fun, engaging game with 6-8 units per side without having to paint up too large a forces. My standard armies for Dragon Rampant games are 36 pts per side but can easily enough field twice that many points per side games if I wanted and one day will do so.

Anyway, as you’ve probably noticed actual games have been few and far between in the past few years but I’m kind of getting the gaming itch again. Having moved houses at the end of last year, downsizing into a smaller home after my wife and I decided to live separately and sort some stuff out, we've currently come to a point we we are comfortable living apart, each with our own space and looks like that's the way things will remain and so I am starting to toy with the idea of getting a few more gaming related paintings etc for the walls and giving the place more of a wargamer/historic geek vibe.  

 Anyway,  my new place has lacked room for my gaming gear so I built a garden shed to house my gaming stuff in and have finally got a gaming space organised. Until recently I’ve been living in the internal garage when not down at the bach while my son and a mate of his had the bedrooms in the unit that we’ve bought. I have been toying with the idea of converting the garage into a proper utility room and have insulated one side of it so far, but still need to strip the gib off the other side, insulate it, put some more power plugs in to complete that particular project but am in no hurry to do so- good things take time apparently.  

Anyway, our boarder went home to the North island just prior to the Covid-19 lockdown so I’ve been able to move back into the house proper and that frees up the garage/utility room for use as a gaming space. Excellent. 

So with that in mind time for a wee bit of solo gaming. I’ve always enjoyed solo gaming. As a teenager I'd often recreate WWII battles on a gaming table in my sleepout, Monte Cassino using a large amount of the shingle of the pathway for rubble of the town of Cassino being one of my favourites and conduct solo games. Often, I’d run little practice scenarios and games and used Donald Featherstone’s Solo Wargaming book for ideas and inspiration.

 Solo gaming does not have quite the same of the satisfaction of outsmarting (okay, rolling better dice than) an actual opponent but can be, and is, a pleasant way to while away a bit of free time. So with that in mind I’ve decided to try and run a bit of a solo knock out style campaign over the next few weeks.

I’ve put together eight different forces and over the next few weeks (assuming I don’t get too busy/side tracked with other projects- or with my studies, I’m doing some uni papers extramurally as well this year, I will endeavour to run a small knock out campaign. And, who knows, at the end of it assuming life has returned to normal may get my mate Ian down for a large scale gaming using all the forces on weekend.

So the Campaign rules, not many actually. 

36 point Dragon Rampant Armies

The winners of each match up go though to the next round So there should be 7 games in all.

 And that’s it really, why complicate things too much I say?

Round One match ups. 

• Dwarves vs Ogres
•  
• Gondor vs Bugbears
•  
• Rohan vs Easterlings
•  
• Dunlendings vs Orcs and Goblins 

Oathmark Goblins

Team Bugbear

Dunlendings (WiP)

And ready for action

Dwarves

Easterlings

Rohan

Ogres

 Riders of Rohan

 Let the madness begin! 

Craig  

Orcs and Ogres

I've been working through the lockdown, a mixture of working form home and time in the office, so far its been fairly quiet and hopefully that doesn't change.

Yesterday and this morning I finally found a bit of free time to work on a few minutes. We've taken our weekly Dungeons and dragons game online, just using video chat on messenger and the first session was a lot more successful than I thought it would be and so am hopeful we'll be able to continue for the remainder of the lockdown.

The players are currently investigating a hill giant lair (using and hill giant den from Storm King's thunder) and since there are quit a few giants it inspired me to paint up some of the Reaper Bones ogres  which I got in a kickstrater a few years back. I prefer my giants in D&D to be based more on the 1E version rather than the more powerful (as in more hit dice) versions of 2E, 3E and 5E so the Reaper Bones ogres will suit my purposes nicely to stand in for the giants.

As well as use in our D&D games they'll become part of my Dragon Rampant forces, maybe even an army in their own right.

Working on the base coats.

I've still got to go back and apply highlights on most of them, I simply wanted them ready for this week's video D&D session.

As well as the ogres I painted up 8 Oathmark Goblins which will be used as orcs in my D&D games. Again a simply block paint job + wash to get them on table I intend to paint up a few units worth for Dragon Rampant (which will have 14 orcs per unit- 2 bases of 7). A few of the figures have fairly soft details on their armour but they still paint up all right.

Craig

The stormarrives

Sorry, not a gaming post, more a reflection on the unfolding events here in NZ and elsewhere.

As with many places in the world we've been watching as the corona virus pandemic unfolds. A little over a week ago it was NZs turn to be hit.

We've had a pretty average summer down this way, but autumn has finally cleared up and Saturday week ago (the 14th) was a stunning day. I was down at the bach so got out for an enjoyable little surf with a half dozen other people including a father and his kids. It was pretty much a perfect day down  at Kakanui but since then though the world has started to change...

Roll forward a few days and our cases of corona virus started to climb, 6, 11, 23... etc. On Saturday our new classification were implemented, Alert level 2. It wasn't to last.

A few weeks back I returned to Oranga Tamariki (Ministry of Children) after having last worked as a care and protection social worker 12 years ago. As we are deemed an essential service we will be working though the crisis and so Monday morning was a series of meetings to determine how to implement the changes required. Lunchtime yesterday and the announcement came thought that we were going to alert level 3 and we will implement alert level 4 by Wednesday (tomorrow). Level 4 is a complete shut down, only essential workers to be at work and there will be travel restrictions, so I headed down to the bach after work last night to get some bits and pieces and close it down for the next few weeks. As my wife and I headed south out of town we encountered a southerly change and storm sweeping up the country which brought rain and hail. I fitting metaphor for the days ahead me thinks.

 My wife is a midwife so she too is going to be working though the next few weeks, doing all she can along with the other health professionals. In my office we are starting by having half staff at work, half working from home each day and no doubt this will change in time as the situation unfolds.

I’ve been thinking about my grandmother who was born in 1899 and died in 1993. She lived through  the Great War, the flu pandemic of 1918, the Great Depression and World War Two. Four events of epic, world changing, proportions. Until now I’ve really not been able to comprehend an event of such magnitude happening in my lifetime, the Christchurch earthquake being probably the closest such event here, though localised and affecting only a small part of the country. And yet in the past four weeks have started to witness what may be our generations equivalent of those events. We are in the middle of a maelstrom of historic proportions which is affecting everyone on this planet. 

Right now about 20% of the world's population in in lockdown. Something like that seemed impossible a few short weeks ago, international travel curtailed etc. Here businesses have closed, international flights all but ended and domestic travel too being heavily restricted. I, like many people, was a bit blasé about this pandemic only a few short weeks ago but have watched it unfold with a growing sense of dread and like many am hoping that our health system won't be overwhelmed. 

The next four weeks will probably decide how we cope with the crisis and whether or not we can come though unscathed. I really hope we’ve not left it too late but can’t help but think that maybe we have been two weeks too slow in our response here in NZ, I guess time will tell. Hopefully self isolating will allow us as a country to flatten the curve, so health services don’t get swamped, but even so it is going to be a tough next few weeks or months ahead.

This event and the way governments are reacting is unprecedented. I think in time we will look back at be world BEFORE March 2020 and the new world that will exist post March 2020. This event, yet to really strike us, is potentially that, our generations Great War or Spanish flu pandemic. None of us know how our countries will come through this but for many of us around the world it is time to hunker down and to try and weather the storm.

Stay safe

Craig

Dunlendings

Another of those off again, on again projects of mine. I've just rebased some of my dark ages figures to make a Dunlending force for Middle Earth Rampant. The Wildmen of Dunland are made up of some old Glory Scots (I think), the figures were quite a bit shorter than the rest of the force (Footsore, Gripping Beast and  Victrix Vikings) so I put them on 20mm round bases to give them a bit more height and that has made the differences less noticeable to the eye.

The army assembles.

 Light and Medium horse

 Bowmen or scouts depending on my mood.

Huscarls

 The Wildmen

It should make for another interesting force for Middle Earth Rampant.

Craig

Oathmark Dwarves

Another force I've been slowly working my way through in the past year are my dwarves. The force is mainly made up of the Oathmark Heavy Dwarven infantry and Conqueror Models crossbow-dwarves. Although there is a slight differences in size the two ranges complement each other fairly well.

The Oathmark Dwarves are easy to assemble and a pleasure to paint with lots of easy to pick out details and unlike some of the dwarven ranges out there they even have knees!

The force for Dragon Rampant I've made consists of:

	Unit	Unit Type	Special Rules	Points	Total Points
1	Dwarf Lord	Elite foot	Ranger	6	6
1	Housecarls	Elite foot		6	6
2	Axe Thanes	Heavy foot	Offensive	6	12
2	Crosssbows	Heavy missiles		4	8
1	Warmachine			4	4
7				Total:	36

The only unit I haven't finished yet are the Housecarls which I'll  run as either elite foot. I am waiting for more bases to arrive so I can rebase them to match the rest of the force.

The army assembles for war.

The crossbowmen are by Conqueor Models.

The Warmachine is by GW.

One of the two units of axe-dwarves (heavy foot offensive). 

The dwarven lord and his faithful servant/axeman.

My new bases. Joe atTitan Terrain has been making a variety of bases for me with roudnd corners (similar to FoW ones) in a range of different sizes for my various units.

 Kent has moved to CHCH to live so I think I'll hae have a little solo game playtest in the next few days of the stoic, disciplined dwarves vs the fury of the bellicose bugbear horde...

Bugbears!

I've finished off my last few Reaper Bones Bugbears and now have a 36 point force for Dragon Rampant.


4x Bugbears (Bellicose foot)
1x Ettins (Greater Warbeasts)
2x Wargs (Lesser Warbeasts)

Maybe slightly one dimensional but I'm looking forward to giving them a run soon vs my Oathmark Dwarves.

Craig

All quiet on the gaming front

Well, not a whole lot to report on the gaming front from the last few weeks. I did a wee bit of painting over the Christmas holidays while down at my bach- a few bugbears for my Dragon Rampant bugbear force, some animals for D&D games and started a few Galadhrim elves for another LoTR Dragon Rampant project- I’ve had few elves lying around but not really enough for a force yet.

Really though, have had little time or inclination for gaming. My weekly D&D game is really the only gaming related stuff I have been doing of late although I did pop round and catch up with my old gaming buddy Kent who is in the middle of packing. He is moving up to Christchurch to study and be closer to his kids so there may be even less gaming on the horizon for me this year. I do think I will try to head up to Christchurch once he is settled and maybe try to get some gaming organised with him, Martin and Ian. Maybe a Dragon Ramapnt day, we will see.

In the meantime I will endeavour to work up some energy to get my butt into gear and get some gaming stuff under way…soon.

Craig