Guest Post - The Distinguished Opponent

 

 Last week I was lucky enough to finally get in a game of fantasy with the Brother in Law. Yep, first bit of proper wargaming since March. I kind of forced his hand by basically telling him to get on with it and make an army. Enthusiasm reigned and two armys met on the field of battle.

You've heard a bit about my army, so I thought I would hand over to the Distinguished Opponent to tell you a bit about his army choices.

Greetings fellow dice tossers (maybe not) chuckers, rollers, slingers; I’ll work on it.  Allow me to introduce myself I am the Brother-in-Law.  As regular readers will know your usual correspondent sent me a copy of the rulebook for Dragon Rampant, in an effort to convince me that there is more to life than space marines which is complete heresy.   One of the things that attracted me to the game was that it’s not limited to one manufacturer’s minis, encouraging players to use models from different companies or even toys.  So with book in hand I decided to build an army.  I drew inspiration from my first ever GW army, the undead.  Braving the horrors of the internet I purchased some minis, spending what I would have done at Colours this year if it had not been cancelled due to Nurgles blessing.

 

I ended up buying minis from MANY different manufactures (the caps are necessary).  So many that this blogs normal...ish writer encouraged me to go through my army rather than just give him a list of where they came from.  Fair warning this is going to take some time so grab a coffee, I’ll wait...got it?  Good let’s begin.

 

The Leader

My leader is a 3D printed lich designed by Stanislav Kuznetov who trades as Onmioji online.  I purchase this model pre-printed as I lack the means for 3D printing myself. 

 

Giant Ghost

This is a resin knight that I got off my Dad.  He makes ‘real’ soldiers so I asked if he had a spare knight model to use as a giant.  If you are wondering a ‘real’ soldier is a miniature which is at least 54mm tall.  Fortunately for me he had this knight he found in a charity shop.  I got the idea of a giant ghost knight from an animated version of Hamlet that the BBC made many years ago.  In the cartoon the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears as a giant wearing a suit of armour. 

 

Vampires

As well as being designed to not be limited to one company’s miniatures, Dragon Rampant encourages the players to have fun with their minis.  So I present Lord and Lady Puffynose d’Pompous, two vampires who didn’t realise some battles take place during the day.  They were inspired by the Discworld character Otto Chriek and his unfortunate workplace accidents.  The ‘miniatures’ themselves are small piles of basing sand set with a large amount of glue then painted an ash colour.

 

 

 

Skeleton Spearmen

Yes I bought them from Games Workshop.  There is a reason why they have been around for as long as they have, they make really good miniatures.  The one without a head is a deliberate choice.  I imagine the poor soul’s killer regularly drinking from his skull, at least until Mr and Mrs Berserk-Bloodaxe come for dinner; then only the ‘good’ skulls will do.  The fact I’d dropped the skull on the floor and failed to find it has nothing to do with this choice you understand.  Looking back I also wish I had given them swords rather than spears, would have made putting them in the case and pulling them out a lot easier.

 

Skeleton Cavalry

Rather a sad story with these two.  When it comes to cavalry, Dragon Rampant’s attitude is if your cavalry are just horses, you are doing it wrong.  An example picture in the book shows dwarfs riding badgers, they are glorious.  The riders are the oldest models I got having been made by Citadel back in the late 80’s long before I had ever heard of Games Workshop. Unfortunately they were not old enough to allow me to take advantage of the ‘Honouring Your Elders’ rule which allows for two extra Glory points at the end of the game.  The fact this rule requires the entire army to use models made before 1984 was another reason I was not able to get those points.  Their original mounts were going to be skeleton crocodiles made by Dark Fable Miniatures.  This is where the story gets sad.  Sometime after placing the order it was cancelled and my money refunded, since donated to charity.  I then received an e-mail explaining that the reason for the order being cancelled.  The owner of Dark Fable Miniatures had passed away from cancer earlier this year.  Following this news I purchased a pair of skeleton raptors from Battlezone Miniatures because dinosaurs.  While this is an unhappy story there is one piece of good news.  The e-mail I received with my refund was from the owner of Dragon Bait Miniatures who was a close friend of Dark Fable’s owner.  In it he explained that he is working to add the Dark Fable’s range to his online store, although he did say this was going to take some time to implement.  At least Dark Fable Miniatures legacy will not go the way of Chapterhouse Studios and be lost to us forever.

 

Skeleton Archers

I wanted to avoid using too many Games Workshop miniatures so I looked for some alternatives for the archers.  In the end I went to two different companies.  Half came from Alternative Armies, the other half were ordered from Bear Head Miniatures.

 

Banshees

I have had these models for a while.  I got them off eBay where they were sold as 28mm Cultists, with the idea of using them as Watcher’s in the Dark for my Dark Angels.  I don’t know who made them but the casting tabs were copyright Pure Evil.  The paint scheme was chosen when I read that in Irish mythology banshees wore grey robes over a green dress.

 

 

 

Zombie Pigs

I found these while buying the archers from Bear Head.  They make a number of different zombie animals.  I chose pigs over cows, sheep and rhinos (still think I made a mistake not getting that last one) as the idea of having different breeds of pigs appealed to me.  After spending a lunch hour looking at different breeds online I chose to paint them up as a Tamworth, a Gloucester Old Spot and a Saddleback, the one I am most happy with.

 

Ghosts

We all have them, a selection of random models we have acquired over the years that we never got round to using.  Thanks to this game I have finally found a use for mine.    The large knight with the axe was made by Scibor Miniatures.  I got him to use as a Grand Master of the Deathwing but I did not think much of the model once assembled.  The man with the shield was made up of some random parts from a sprue of Warhammer parts that were mixed in with a previous purchase; I think it was for the Empire.  The lady with the totally necessary (sarcasm) lack of clothes and chest with its own gravitational pull was a freebie that Alternative Armies sent me along with the skeleton archers.  Finally the Dwarf musician I’d planned to use in my Bloodbowl team.  I cannot for the life of me remember how, or who made it.

 

Zombies

While my first army was the undead, my first introduction to fantasy wargaming was Heroquest, I even used the undead models from my original set when I started that army.  In honour of that first army I once again chose to use Heroquest models in this army. 

 

Catapult

The last unit I purchased was an old Screaming Skull Catapult.  I hadn’t intended to buy any more models, but while looking for some old style space marine arms on eBay, it showed up and I was not going to pass it up at the price it was being sold for.  I had one of these in my original undead army and I remembered it being an absolute (insert expletive of your choice) to put together.  20 years on nothing has changed in that department, although my vocabulary has expanded in that time and was used to great effect when putting it together.

 

So that was my force.  I must say that I really enjoyed putting this army together and painting them.  I did think about adding some mummies as well as a large monster, either a zombie dragon or a large dinosaur skeleton.  I decided against this for several reasons.  First Dragon Rampant encourages players to limit their armies to 24 points and mine was double that before I got the catapult, a fact that shocked me when I realised it. 

Second the army I built fits completely into a second hand carry case I found really cheap online.  Any more models will require buying a new case.  Finally as much fun as I had painting this army, this army is intended for a small game and I felt that if I added any more models then I would be moving into large Warhammer sized army territory and away from what Dragon Rampant is all about.  

 

So that is it, hopefully you enjoyed me talking about my mini’s, maybe I will be allowed back in the future. Until then I will leave you to your regular writer.  

 

Well there you go. I gotta say it was a fun army to play against. Yes we both got carried away and went way over the 24 points in the end, but Dragon Rampant does still work really well even well you multiply up the points. We managed a 51 point game on our first learning attempt in the space of a morning. But I'll tell you about that next time.