Spilling the beans on Dragon Rampant

[audrey]

Thanks for sharing more about DR on your blog. I have been looking forward to these rules coming out since they were announced.

-Audrey

[otherworld]

Blimey, haven't any of you lot bought a new figure in the last 25 years?  Some of us have got mouths to feed, you know!   

[danmer]

More than happy to work out some lists for your New School Old School stuff 

[Hobgoblin]

One question that occurs to me: how would you represent the typical fantasy soldier armed with mail armour, a "hand weapon" such as a sword or axe, and a shield? Offensive heavy foot? Or something else?

A point that's often struck me is that "hand weapon and shield" wasn't a typical medieval combination, unlike spear and shield (e.g. LR Foot Sergeants or Foot Yeomen) or bills/halberds/poleaxes (LR Foot Sergeants with the Expert upgrade).

Is the equivalent of the Schiltron rule more abstracted so that spears aren't indicated?

[danmer]

Either upgrade to Offensive Heavy/Light Foot, or Bellicose (Fierce  ) Foot, or just stick with Heavy/Light Foot and describe Wall of spears as Wall of Shields.

[Nord]

I am building a chaos army for this game, would appreciate some feedback. It's a WHFB force, Khorne warriors, which for those who don't know this sort of thing are bloodcrazed warriors intent on spilling blood at all costs.

My force will be something along the lines of:-

Chaos Chosen (six), the best troops and thus have to be Men at Arms
Chaos Warriors (12), again these are elite troops in WHFB, so probably expert sergeants for these
Chaos Marauders (12), I suspect these would be fierce foot - I do have 2 units of these, one armed with great weapons, one armed with two weapons, not sure if I can differentiate them in any way?
Ogres - again I have 2 units of these, one armed with great weapons, one with two weapons. Suspect these have to be sergeants at the very least, but not really convinced they are a defensive troop so would have to upgrade them to expert - how can I differentiate these from the chaos warriors? Is there a fear/brute/ogre type upgrade?
Great beast/small giant - basically it's a daemon - how would I represent this?

I do have a slight concern that the original tropes of basic infantry units being defensive do not map well on to this type of force (or indeed any aggressive foot force, such as orcs). Upgrading to expert gets around this to a degree but it would be nice to be able to have aggressive yeoman to simulate less armoured but still bloodthirsty troops.

Cheers in advance, looking forward to the game, hoping that my concerns on some infantry being too defensive is easy to overcome.

[Hobgoblin]

I do have a slight concern that the original tropes of basic infantry units being defensive do not map well on to this type of force (or indeed any aggressive foot force, such as orcs). Upgrading to expert gets around this to a degree but it would be nice to be able to have aggressive yeoman to simulate less armoured but still bloodthirsty troops.

Aren't Fierce (or indeed Bellicose!) Foot exactly that? Unarmoured, but hard-hitting when charging (or counter-charging)? They have the same Armour and Movement as Foot Yeomen, but hit much harder when on the attack.

I think Dan said on his forum that there will be an armoured upgrade for Fierce Foot in DR. If so, that might give you a further means of differentiating between troop types. Although it was a relative rarity historically, warriors carrying an offhand weapon would probably have used it defensively (like a main gauche dagger), so you could have your dual-armed marauders as a more armoured variant.

As for the ogres: I've used Fierce Foot with a smaller number of models for ogres, trolls and the like. That gives you a faster rate of movement to simulate longer limbs, a pretty vicious offensive capability, but also vulnerability to missiles (nice big targets!). We've also used the Mounted Men-at-Arms profiles for minotaurs and similar things. That could work too, if your ogres are suitably spiky - you get a devastating but unruly unit with a vulnerability to skirmishers if lured into confined spaces.

For orcs, I'm using Fierce Foot for lightly armoured but aggressive-looking ones, Foot Sergeants for those that are better equipped and armoured, Yeomen or Serfs for those that look reluctant and poorly equipped, and Foot Men-at-Arms for those that are really heavily armed and armoured (like the old Citadel C15 Armoured Orcs). One thing I really like about the LR/DR rules for fantasy games is that they encourage you to differentiate between troop types of the same species. After all, why shouldn't goblins have as many different types of infantry as humans?

[Nord]

Hmmm, treating ogres as mounted men at arms/sergeants is possibly a good idea, extra movement and a propensity to charge the nearest thing sounds about right. Might go with that, didn't occur to me to look in the mounted section. 

[Hobgoblin]

On the variety of troop types within a single fantasy race: here's how I see LR/DR troop types in 1980s Perry goblins.

First, the missile troops: bidower, archer, crossbowman. Or if you prefer, scout, light missile, heavy missile.

And then the melee troops: serf, yeoman, fierce foot, expert foot sergeant and foot man-at-arms. Or ravenous horde, light foot, bellicose foot, offensive heavy foot and elite foot.

I'm some way off having the full units in genuine 80s lead. But I have the foot men-at-arms, serfs and fierce foot well underway, with the missile troops currently forming units of bidowers/scouts. I also have quite a lot of small but heavily armoured goblins that will act as conventional foot sergeants.

[mhsellwood]

Chaos Chosen (six), the best troops and thus have to be Men at Arms
Chaos Warriors (12), again these are elite troops in WHFB, so probably expert sergeants for these
Chaos Marauders (12), I suspect these would be fierce foot - I do have 2 units of these, one armed with great weapons, one armed with two weapons, not sure if I can differentiate them in any way?
Ogres - again I have 2 units of these, one armed with great weapons, one with two weapons. Suspect these have to be sergeants at the very least, but not really convinced they are a defensive troop so would have to upgrade them to expert - how can I differentiate these from the chaos warriors? Is there a fear/brute/ogre type upgrade?
Great beast/small giant - basically it's a daemon - how would I represent this?

I do have a slight concern that the original tropes of basic infantry units being defensive do not map well on to this type of force (or indeed any aggressive foot force, such as orcs). Upgrading to expert gets around this to a degree but it would be nice to be able to have aggressive yeoman to simulate less armoured but still bloodthirsty troops.

Cheers in advance, looking forward to the game, hoping that my concerns on some infantry being too defensive is easy to overcome.

As mentioned by Hobgoblin, the Fierce Foot option would give you some good options.

Running through your list I would see the following:

Chaos Warriors and Chosen in Warhammer game terms fulfill very similar roles: slow, close combat only warriors. This most closely maps to Foot Men at Arms. I would therefore suggest that instead of differentiating these units they are both Foot Men at Arms.

Chaos Marauders would best fit Fierce Foot. An alternative would be Expert Light Foot with the Hatred upgrade (downgrade?) mentioned which appears to give the unit Wild Charge. Light Foot would be worse in terrain, less potent on the attack, a bit more mobile outside of terrain, and more reliable if charged. No right or wrong, but I feel Fierce Foot would be a better option. Or, you could say two hand weapons are better on the defense, so they are Light Foot while Great Weapons are Fierce Foot. Not sure the game style really supports the idea that slightly different weapons justifies complete unit type changes however.

For Ogres you could go for Expert Sergeants and field them as a unit of 4 models. Alternatively there are a couple of new unit types in Dragon Rampant, one of which is Light Warbeasts and may better represent this unit - I say may because obviously the rules are not available yet.

Great Beast I would suggest a single model and the stats for a unit of Mounted Men at Arms or Mounted Sergeants. The mounted Men at Arms are much more potent in combat, the Mounted Sergeants a lot more reliable in non-combat situations. Really therefore it is a question of what suits your view on how they operate.

[gorillacrab]

We've already been using the original Lion Rampant for fantasy, deploying our large GW Lord of the Rings forces for a game that works very well. It was even our club's main game at the Trumpeter Salute Con in Vancouver earlier this year.

We used the excellent list of troop types and applied them to LOTR units and then added a few spells and effects for "leaders" attached to units such as wraiths, Gandalf or heroes. These included effects such as making foes near Wraiths weaker in morale tests or boosting the fight of units with a hero attached.

Looking ahead to DR, we are wondering about the range of spells, effects and attributes that leader or "special" figures will have to add a heavier "fantasy flavor" to a very good large skirmish game.
- GC

[danmer]

And now I've posted the first of many Dragon Rampant sample warbands on my blog: http://merseybooks.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/dragon%20rampant

First up are goblins.

My goblins are Warrior Miniatures, there's something about the bow-legged look and oddball armour that really reminds me of early 80s models, even though these were sculpted in the late 90s. My goblins meet with mixed success, it very much depends on how the mounted units get on...

[Vermis]

Solid.

reminds me of early 80s models, even though these were sculpted in the late 90s. My goblins meet with mixed success

Well there you go, then.

[Hobgoblin]

I played a game of Lion Rampant with the kids over the weekend, using the Dragon Rampant rules revealed thus far. It worked terrifically well - and absorbed a four-year-old as much as her seven-year-old brother (rolling 12 dice all at once certainly helps in this regard, but she was giving some canny orders too, keeping some goblin yeomen with mixed weapons out of the fray to pepper their foes with arrows). This was the first game I'd played using the official strength points; I'd previously used a home-brewed and somewhat different means of reducing unit sizes.

Our forces were as follows:

The goblins:
Chieftain and two bugbear guards: foot men-at-arms* (3 models)
Goblin warriors: yeomen with mixed weapons (12 models)
Goblin-soldiers of greater stature (old Citadel orcs): fierce foot (12 models)
Trolls: fierce foot (4 models)
Scouts: bidowers (6 models)
Goblin levies (a mix of ancient Citadel orcs and night goblins): yeomen (12 models)

The reptiles:
Clan chief mounted on small dinosaur and five guards: foot men-at-arms* (6 models)
Tyrannosaurus: mounted men-at-arms (1 model)
Dragon lizard: foot sergeants (1 model)
Dragon men: mounted sergeants (3 models)
Jabberwock: mounted sergeants (1 model)

We used the bloodbath scenario and ended up fighting to a standstill - with only the reptile leader and most of the mixed-weapon goblin warriors remaining on the table. A draw was declared (always a good result with small children on either side ...).

I was impressed by the minimal amount of book-keeping entailed by strength points. My seven-year-old did all of it for the reptiles, and it worked just fine. The reduced-numbers units acted appropriately; the orcish scouts lured the tyrannosaur into the woods, where they were able to harry it successfully, until it eventually drove them right through the trees and devoured them. By that point, though, the poor thing was down to one strength point and fell easy prey to the goblin archers.

Simply treating the winged dragon men as cavalry worked very well; they moved suitably quickly around the table and were able to countercharge. It looked and felt right. I understand that DR will have proper flying rules and look forward to them, but this worked just fine.

The range of troop types that you can use to represent larger monsters gives some nice flexibility. We were using the trolls in the first page of this thread, so fierce foot felt right: these particular trolls look fast and aggressive, but don't have much in the way of armour. Thus, the wild charge, ferocious, fleet foot and counter-charge rules all fitted them perfectly, as did the 8" move. Their main role in the game was to prowl through a large area of woods before charging out to scatter the dragon men and assail the dragon lizard (who eventually wiped them out).

As ever with LR, the interaction of troops with terrain was deeply satisfying, whether it was the orcish fierce foot surging over a hill with surprising speed to assail the jabberwock, the ferocious lizardmen standing guard in the ruins, or the goblin scouts proving a real handful in the woods. The rage of the tyrannosaur as it found itself needled by a smaller foe in the confines of the forest was palpable!

A question for Dan: you mentioned that there would be an armour upgrade for fierce/bellicose foot in DR. Is that still the case?

[danmer]

Sounds great! And yes, there is an armour upgrade for Bellicose foot.