Memorial Evening and Dragon Rampant Mash-Up

Memorial Evening – to celebrate the memory of members past

Our first Memorial Evening was on Friday 7/10/16, a year after the sad loss of Chris who was a very popular member of the club with a smile and a chat for everyone. He was a great painter of figures and in wargames he always liked to attack.
Chris had a particular fondness of Fantasy Wargames so it was an evening of Fantasy Wargaming including a large Dragon Rampant game with seven players and also a 40K game.
Below is a Battle Report of the Dragon Rampant game.

Keiron's Dragon Rampant Heavy Foot painted by Chris

Dragon Rampant Game

Seven players each had their own retinue and we were arrayed around an 8ft x 6ft table. There were no formal alliances and there was a common objective in the centre of the table so large scale conflict was inevitable. Chris would have loved it.

Clockwise around the table from bottom left : Ian, Jim, Graham, Henry, Keiron, Bill and me missing at this end.
40K in the background

Some informal alliances were made, well one at least. Bill and I started the game very close to each other and we agreed that if we just turned on each other we wouldn’t have any chance of gaining the objective and we would be attacked in the rear by the player on the other side. We made a slightly uneasy alliance to not attack each other, but even so we each had a unit of Wild Charging Bellicose Foot on our facing flank in case the other got too close. I think Graham and Henry had a similar agreement.


I won’t list all the retinues, but mine was based on Rats as follows.
Keiron lent me the figures which were originally Chris’s and were painted by him.

• 1 unit of Heavy Foot (Offensive)
• 2 units of Bellicose Foot (Wild Charge, Counter-Charge, Shiny Armour, Rangers)
• 1 unit of Light Foot (Venomous)
My Leader was Brave so he would not be affected by Fear.

On the right, Keiron got off to a great start and some of his troops were soon heading across the river towards the objective which was the prestigious pile of rocks in the centre. Bill was making his way through the woods and my retinue got off to a slow start in the bottom left of the photo. Our Bellicose Foot facing each other ensured our uneasy alliance.

Keiron crosses the river and Bill moves through the wood.

On the left, Ian took a kill from my Venomous Light Foot and decided to give them a wide berth concentrate on heading for the objective on the other side of a copse. By the farm, Jim's Undead(?) move out and on the far side Graham and Henry look like they have a similar agreement as me and Bill and are avoiding confrontation with each other.

Most of Ian's move around the copse towards the objective.

My Wild Charging Bellicose Foot and Venomous Light Foot both painted by Chris
The Bellicose Foot ensure the alliance with Bill

Jim's Undead archers get caught by Graham's Heavy Foot and get wiped out

My units didn't move for three turns but are now ready to cross the river.

Some of Ian's Bellicose Foot come to intercept my units

My Heavy Foot crossed the river in time to be ready for them.
They fail to charge the Bellicose Foot so have to endure their Wild Charge.
They succeed and beat them off.

After the Bellicose Foot came Ian's Heavy Cavalry, he was slightly put out by me calling them warthogs.
Whatever they were, they ran.

Meanwhile Keiron has occupied the objective with one unit drawing arrow fire and units from all sides. One of Jim's Undead approach but Keiron heads them off with a unit of Heavy Foot. Bill has got out of the wood and has is hitting Keiron's units with arrows and has a unit crossing the river.

Keiron gets to the objective and must hold it, but the unit is already weak.
Jim's Undead approach and Keiron's Heavies head them off.
Bill's units cross the river towards the pile of rocks.

Graham's units close in from one side
The last of Jim's Undead can be seen in the farmyard moments from their final demise.

Ian's troops march in from another side

and my Venomous Light Foot on the opposite bank fired the final shot to finish off the last of Keiron's defenders on the rocks.
Keiron's Leader was killed with them and another unit was lost in the Morale Check

There was a mad rush for the unoccupied pile of rocks, which Graham won with his units rejoicing on top at the end of the evening.

Graham occupied the pile of rocks with one of Ian's units just missing out

It was a lot of fun with much throwing of the dice against the wall in disgust of a bad roll, as Chris would do. As I said in the beginning, he would have loved it.

Dragon Rampant rules were written by Dan Mersey, published by Osprey, and are widely available.