15mm Wargaming for Fun and Sanity: Song of Spear and Shield vs Dragon Rampant Crashing Chariots and Stampeding Spiders

Dragon Rampant vs Song of Spear & Shield.

There are times, oh my hoopy droogs, when wargaming allows me to appear extremely clever. There are other times where even your steamed narrator is forced to slap forehead (sometimes even his own!) and say Doh! A lot.

This is such a time. Frequent pursuers of the forbidden knowledge will remember our dragon ~~wam~~ rampant comparison series. For others pop down to January16.

For some reason I left Song of Spear and shield orf the list. In my defence it's intended as a large scale ancient skirmish set, not a set of fantasy rules. But I'd point out that DR is also such adapted.

In the last game we diced for each figure. Here we dice for the unit.

This is the Dragon Rampant list:

Japanese. DR SoSS Morale

+ Goblin Leader (1 figure) 78 15 15

Goblin light foot 3 (12 figures) 240 2 24

+Goblin light foot 3 (12 figures) 240 2 24

Goblin light missiles 4 (12 figures) 225 2 24

Spiders lesser warbeasts 4 (6 figures) 180 3 18

Mounted Goblin 4 (6 figures) 180 3 18

Oni greater warbeasts 8 (3 figures) 171 6 18

Spiders heavy riders 4 (3 figures) 243 8 24

Total 23 1,542 164 = 55 BECOMES SHAKEN

55 models, max unit size (1/3) 18, so 6 Goblins can form a guard and the rest a unit of 18.

Goblin Leader
Points 78	Quality 4+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Armor 3, Hero, Leader, Sword

Goblin Naginata
Points 20	Quality 5+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Terrifying Charge, Two Handed Weapon

Goblin Bow
Points 15	Quality 5+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Bow: Short

Mounted Goblin
Points 30	Quality 5+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Bow: Short, Long Move, Mounted: Light Horse

Spiders Small
Points 30	Quality 5+	Combat 3
Special Rules	Dashing, Mounted: Pony, Sword, Terrifying Charge

Oni
Points 57	Quality 4+	Combat 4
Special Rules	Armor 3, Axe, Dashing, Long Move, Slow

Spiders Big
Points 81	Quality 4+	Combat 3
Special Rules	Armor 2, Dashing, Long Move, Mounted: Warhorse, Terrifying Charge, Two Handed Weapon

Fortunately we'd done the chariot testing in March 15 so I had these mostly done.

Achaean DR SoSS Morale

Spearmen light foot 3 (12 figures) 384 3 36

light foot javelin 4 (12 figures) 396 3 36

skeleton light foot 3 (12 figures) 108 0 00

archers 4 (12 figures) 276 2 24

Satyr & amazon scouts 2 (6 figures) 27 3 9

Chariots heavy riders 6 (3 figures) 330 11 22

+ upgrade Ch to Heroic Leader 30 17 17

Total 23 1,551 189 /3 = 63 BECOMES SHAKEN

57 models so max unit size 19. As they're different types there's nothing to play with here, although the leader can be separated.

Points 32	Quality 4+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Pavise, Spear, Sword

Early spearman with tower shield

Points 33	Quality 4+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Javelin, Pavise, Sword

Javelin with tower shield

SKELETON
Points 9	Quality 6+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Expendable, Shield, Spear

Points 23	Quality 4+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Bow: Short

archer skirmisher

Points 9	Quality 4+	Combat 1
Special Rules	Javelin, Wavering

Satyr & Amazon scouts

Points 110	Quality 3+	Combat 2
Special Rules	Armor 3, Chariot: Light, Expert Charioteer, Long Move, Spear, Sword

Dendle armoured hero with spear

I failed totally to keep track of losses. Here's the final score

Japanese. Loss Morale loss

Goblin Leader 0

Goblin light foot 6 12

Goblin light foot 11 22

Goblin light missiles 2 4

Spiders lesser warbeasts 3 9

Mounted Goblin 3 9

Oni greater warbeasts 0

Spiders heavy riders 0

55 BECOMES SHAKEN Total loss 56!

Achaean Loss Morale Losses

Spearmen light foot 7 21

light foot javelin 4 12

skeleton light foot 12 00

archers 3 6

Satyr scouts 6 18

Chariots 0

Ch to Heroic Leader 0

Total 57 - 51 BECOMES SHAKEN

The Game

So at the end of the day and in the back of the net-. The Japanese became disordered first, quickly followed by the Achaeans. I had my chariots in his real but, he has his 2 remnant beast/light cavalry on hand and I had nothing to hit his two heavy units.

Hang on, rewind, start at the beginning. I had the Achaean’s. My set up was fairly normal, although I kept my skirmishers and chariots back. The throw away skellies were dead centre as a “come on”. It was my intention to use the javelin as a corridor to interpenetrate and hit Tony in the valuables.

Tony set up fairly standard but with his heavies in the centre backed up with archers, a sort of tactical reserve. Light cavalry (goblins) get an extra move at the start of each move and Tony used it to move in on my javelins, followed up by the left naginata. Thankfully I held and the cavalry retired.

I advanced my skirmishers in front of my spear, which proved too tempting to his spiders and they pounced and trounced. I advanced my spear and slapped them. Bit of luck, I'd expected them to slap my flank or rear. My archers and the naginata started a long ding-dong battle. By keeping in touch I managed to avoid their terrifying charge.

Slowly, slowly approached the Oni, mostly using reactions. They grind into my spear. With purpose the large spiders latch on to my skeletons. War horse mounted get a free hack on turnover and my skellies crumbled.

I'd expected an end-run from one or other of his light cavalry so I'd kept my chariots back. Here it comes and I send them in, pushing their lighter foes tumbling. With those flung back I started on the naginatas. I lose one charioteer. Eggshells armed with hammers.

By now my centre has disappeared and on my right my javelin reform, faced with the big spiders. Tony's hero leader goes against mine, killing a horse. I break free, but my now hampered leader is faced by the 2 remnant cavalries-.

I lost, but it was Pyrric to say the least. The spiders and Oni worked very well. A good fast game, much superior to the slow and clunky DR. Andrea! You need to develop this!