On Friday night I had a solo game of Dragon Rampant, as my planned remote game fell through. I’d seen a report on by TWD
https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=130686.msg1656543#msg1656543 about a DR game using Warmaster figures, and this made me want to get some of my own 10mm Fantasy on the table for a game of DR.
I put together a force of Elves (mainly using the sample list in the rules) and Ogres (rather more ad hoc, in its creation, but that is the point of the rules). The scenario was an interesting one, with lots of areas of dangerous terrain, and both forces split in their deployment, and trying to get troops off, either end of the table. But needing to destroy enough enemy units that they couldn’t win by getting their troops off the table
The Ogre ForcesThe Ogres were deployed top left and bottom right. The Elves bottom left and top right. The exit points where in the middle of the top and bottom edges (shown by the roads).
After the first turn, both sides only managed a couple of activations each. The Elven knights have moved in to the middle of the table and their Reaver light cavalry have moved too. For the Ogres their Leader’s unit of Ogres has moved forward, as have the greenlings nearest the camera.
Another turn of some activations, the Wolf riders move forward, as do the Elven infantry at the top right (there is a unit of Elven spears off camera at the bottom left). The second unit of wolf riders fails to activate when right in front of the Elven knights
The knights charge the wolf riders - who could attempt to evade, but are too close so would be caught, which would be very bad. So they stand to receive the charge, which is just bad.
Both units roll 12 dice, the knights needing 3+ to hit, the Wolf riders needing 6+. The knights need 3 hits to cause a wound, the Wolf riders need 4.
The knights unsurprisingly do a lot of damage! The Wolf riders do manage to get 4 hits and cause a point of damage back. The wolf riders are knocked down to half strength by this attack. Both sides need to take a Courage test from the combat result. The wolf riders at -3 on the test, but they pass an just retreat from the combat.
Troops continue to advance slowly, there has been an exchange of arrows between the Reavers and other unit of Wolf riders, both suffering minor damage. I was feeling by this point that I should have made a note of the key points of the Skirmish and Evade rules as it was the one page of the rules I kept having to go back to repeatedly, but with 3 light cavalry units this perhaps isn’t too surprising!
The Elven knights activate and swing round to charge the greenlings nearest the camera - due to the scale of the game this isn’t a flank charge - but this is the end result of the combat:
The knights caused several wounds on the Greenlings, who caused 1 back to the knights. Both had to test for Courage, and both rolled poorly, the Greenlings had to retreat - directly away from the enemy - off the table and as such are destroyed. The knights rolled even worse and became battered - basically they need to spend their next turn recovering (they need to roll to recover but for the knights this should be easy enough with a base score of 4+ (on 2d6) -2 for wounds and +1 for the leader).
This does highlight the swinginess of the 2d6 courage test - with both units failing. And it being catastrophic for the Greenlings as they were trying to head towards the exit point along the table edge
This pretty much cleared the south of the table for the Elves, and the two main Ogre combat units were still shuffling forwards at the top due to failed activation rolls.
The Elven archers got a good volley in against the Yeti, who failed their courage test and retreated.
But this wasn’t enough and the Yetis charged in the next turn - causing lots of damage- but the Elves rolled high on their courage test and just fell back. Putting them out of charge range of the Ogre infantry.
The Wolf Riders came out on top of the skirmishes with the Reavers, breaking them under repeated volleys of arrows.
The Yetis charged the archers again, causing enough damage that they couldn’t make their Courage roll so routed, but the archers gave enough back that the Yetis became battered
The Elven knights managed to catch the Wolf riders (who failed to evade) and destroyed them
This put the Ogre force below 50% causing another round of Courage tests, which meant the Yetis broke, leaving just the Ogre Infantry, who had suffered a fair number of wounds by this stage
This was effectively game over, as the Ogres where being hit by 2 Elven units, with a 3rd on its way
Overall it was good to get the figure son the table, and the scenario was interesting. I like the DR combat mechanism with different to hit scores depending if you are attacking or defending, along with armour affecting the number of hits needed to score a wound. This tends to give the results you would expect, but has a bit of variance in there too.
But the activation rolls - which are needed for each unit (typically 5+ or 6+ on 2d6), and with a failure it is turn over, means that for many turns large parts of the force does nothing. The Courage rolls feel equally swingy with both combatants falling back on more than one occasion.
This is my second solo play through of DR - and after the first, some time ago, I felt it was too random, and this play through reinforces that. I do like a degree of randomness and friction to the activation within a game, but I don’t like it to totally dominate.
If I was to play again, I’d perhaps do some or all of the below
1) Failed order doesn’t end the turn
2) Leader can give a re-roll per turn (this is one of the Leader traits, but perhaps give it too all leaders)
3) Give a small pool of re-rolls to each side
Which might help it feel what you as the player is doing has more influence than just the dice.