Dragons and Lions Rampant

On Sunday, Tom and I decided to have a game of Dragon Rampant. We haven't played for a while, but knew that it would be easy on the brainicles! Tom joked that I had posted a 'tutorial' video on Dragon Rampant, so should know the rules..I hadn't thought of it like that, but watching it again, I see what he meant! 

In our pre-game texts, we agreed to take 30 points and to go 'old school'. Tom has GW history and still plays WFB regularly.. I've never really done more than dip my toe, but recently was gifted a rather lovely collection of vintage Wood Elves, which I've been in the process of 'refurbishing'. So, Wood Elves vs Night Goblins it was! *The experts will no doubt spot that the mounted Elves are not GW, but still of a respectable vintage :-)

Tom has written up a nice Goblin-centric account of the game on his blog, so just some pics ..

Love these Troll figures!

Then, on Monday evening, enthused by our Dragon Rampant game, and my recent purchase of the new edition of Lion Rampant, I set out a little solo game on my dining table using some Wars of the Roses figures - I used the standard armies from the book*, and played the second scenario 'Gladiators' - where a pre-battle duel gave each side some extra dice. I played Bourchier, who was 'Rash' with Wild Charge, against Stanley, 'Blessed', which allowed him to reroll a set of dice (he picked the wrong ones as it happens!). This was by no means a historical match up, just what I had available.

It was a very quick game and ended by the untimely demise of Thomas Stanley, one of the commanders, but gave me a taste for more Rampant games!

(*One Elite Foot, One Veteran Heavy Infantry and Two Veteran Archers)

Men at Arms clash, bringing down young Stanley

Them Bones.. painted Undead army

In the last Blog post, my newly painted undead forces took to the field. 

I thought I'd have a go at taking some slightly better pictures and a note on how I painted the Oathmark skeletons which make up the bulk of this host..

The 'heroes' are a mix of Reaper Bones and a mounted D&D figure, and the giant Wurms are 3D prints, figure sourced on Thingiverse.

The Oathmark skeletons are really nice figures, and I was quite keen to get the 'ancient bronze' look right. I ended up using a bit of a mix of ideas from various blogs and videos and really like the result.

They were primed with Army Painter 'Skeleton Bone' , then given a wash of the GW contrast 'Skeleton Horde'.. Some of the skeletons also had an additional dark wash and drybrush with Iraqi Sand. The spear shafts were done with Vallejo German Camo green with a light deck tan drybrush, and the bows Vallejo Deck Tan. The few straps and rags of clothing were all Vallejo 'English Uniform'. 

The crucial antique bronze effect was a done by applying GW Warploque bronze, a wash of GW 'Mechanical Nihalac Oxide' and some green ink splotches. The whole lot was washed in AP Strong Tone, along with the leather and cloth bits.

The background in these pictures is a poor print of a really nice free picture from Jon Hodgson

Everything is based up on rounds, the skeletons are all on pennies, which allow me to use them to play Dragon Rampant, Midgard, or any other game really (except perhaps Oathmark!) and although I'm telling myself that the army is 'done' at 24 archers and 50 warriors.. I suspect their numbers will swell!

Some of the army 'at play' recently