The Crystal Gale

After a bit of a break, it was time for a return to wargaming with a game of Dragon’s Rampant. My opponent had an army of lizards and wizards, and I fielded by Knights of Furyondy – a mostly human foce with some magical beasts as support. We went for a random scenario, and selected “The Crystal Gale”.

The royal crystals have been lost! A powerful – possibly enchanted – gale blew through the queen’s palace, carrying all before it. The precious crystals fell scattered across the borderlands, and both the attacker (sent by the queen) and defender (onto whose land they dropped) want them.

The table had quite a bit of terrain on it, which may have impact by mostly mounted army of knights. In the end though, it didn’t make too much difference. The crystals were distributed across the battle field (represented by yellow tokens), and the aim of the game was to collect as many as possible. Once collected, a crystal was teleported back back, so couldn’t be reclaimed by the enemy. This is different to the loot grabbing Saga games we’ve had, where you needed to defend your winnings after claiming them.

It did mean that a more aggressive approach was probably needed – just move forward as fast as possible, and be first to the crystals. Having a force of mounted knights, plus a flying Chimera, would probably benefit me.

We rolled randomly for special leader abilities. I got Charmed, so my leader couldn’t be affected by spells. The wizards got Commanding, so they could re-roll activation checks. They also took a quest of “I shall strike the first blow”. I didn’t take a quest, mostly because I hadn’t had time to think about them.

As with most games of X Rampant, turns went quickly, so my notes are limited. As the attacker, my Knights got to deploy and move first, and all my units succeeded in activating. We claimed one of the crystals for our Queen in the first turn. Oddly, the books I have on Greyhawk mention that the King of Furyondy is King Belvor IV, but no mention is made of a Queen (though the king has sons, so presumably we do have a Queen).

The Lizards moved forward themselves, claiming two crystals themselves, but three of their units failed to activate, so we quickly moved back to the Knights.

The Knights claimed two crystals, charging forward as fast as they could, but my leader failed their activation check. The Lizards failed to activated anything for the following three turns (and forgot their ‘Commander’ ability).

By the end of turn five, I have four crystals and the Lizards have three. The following turn, the Knights grabbed their fifth crystal, but my archers failed their activation check so continued to sit next to the crystal in the ruins.

My leading unit of knights was then charged by a group of lizards out from some rough terrain. This put all of us into rough terrain, which dropped by knight’s armour to 2. It was a vicious attack by a group of beats with teeth and claws. We slew two of them, but three of our knights fell. We succeeded at a courage test, but fell back. First blood went to the Wizards and Lizards.

Turn seven, and my archers finally decided to get off their back sides and pick up our sixth crystal. Technically I had now won the game. I had six crystals, and the lizards had three. There was one crystal outstanding, plus the Lizards had +1 from their Quest. The most they could get was five points to my six. But the game did end until all crystals were accounted for.

We continued the game, with the Lizards defending the last crystal but not defending it. They were obviously more interested in bloody combat than property. The knights moved forward a bit, to try and draw the Lizards out whilst I tried to move my Chimera up the board to sneak a grab on the final crystal.

It turned out that mounted knights against venomous giant lizards wasn’t a battle that I could win, and my knights were quite quickly torn apart. My leader fell back to a hill, but his men were quickly dispatched. My archers turned out unable to hurt the giant beasts as well, and they routed.

The final battle of the game was a one-on-one between my heroic leader and a lizard in single combat. He was ripped apart, and was unable to penetrate the lizard’s tough hide.

My Chimera had got up to the back of the woods, but we decided to call it quits at that point as the Wizards grabbed the final crystal.

I had killed one unit of lesser beasts. I had a single unit (my Chimera) remaining. Combat wise, it had been a total defeat. Points wise, I’d won 6 points to 5.

I’d got into too many combats near rough terrain, which had weakened my forces, but in the end that hadn’t really mattered. Being first to the crystals was the only important factor. It definitely leads to a faster game, but having to defend the objectives (or get them back to your table edge) gives a more tactical game.

It was a fun game, with an unusual result given the disparity between combat losses and victory points.