The Ceidonian Heist

So the Swiss have robbed the treasury of the Dukedom of Ceidonia, and are now making a break for it.

I played another game of Dragon Rampant last night, using similar armies to the previous game. I used random terrain and selected a random scenario. I got the Sacred Mole of Ukkert scenario, which involves the one side having to transport a stolen object from one corner to the opposite, whiles the other side has to stop them and, if possible, return the item to its starting location.

The Swiss force was similar to the first game, except that I dropped the mounted crossbows for some pikemen (heavy foot). The Ceidonians dropped a group of knights and downgraded one of the heavy foot units to light foot, then added their fearsome steam-tank (heavy riders with chariot and mounted missiles).

Here's the setup. The Swiss are top-right and have to get the stolen treasure to the bottom-left. The Ceidonians could start top left or bottom-right, but the bottom-right corner was so hemmed in with terrain that starting units there would have been pointless.

The Ceidonians spread out, some units moving to attack the Swiss directly and some foot moving to block their advance. A large wood kind of forced the Ceidonians to commit to a direction.

The Swiss are slow-moving, but threw out a screen of troops to cover the movement of the unit with the treasure (which happened to be that with their leader in it; he was keeping a close eye on things). Their skirmishers occupied a field.

The skirmishers in the field, and a wall of pikes towards the top of the board made a direct approach on the Swiss impractical. So the Ceidonians switched to moving almost all of their units the other way around the wood, aiming to intercept the Swiss towards the centre of the board.

Their light foot occupied the hill, but the Swiss scouts, who had now moved into the woods, shot at them and the hapless Ceidonians immediately broke and ran.

The steam-tank had now moved into a good blocking position, and opened fire on the Swiss infantry units.

The Swiss scouts in the wood had another effect - they were the nearest unit to the Ceidonian knights (which included the Duke himself) who rashly charged into the woods to engage them instead of getting on with intercepting the main Swiss force.

The steam-tank kept shooting, whilst the Swiss stood around wondering what do do about it.

Eventually they charged ...

... and were repulsed.

Meanwhile in the woods the crossbowmen had entered the fight against the scouts. The scouts eventually ran off, but the Duke of Ceidonia had lost a few followers.

The Swiss assembled for a massed assault on the tank, which was slowly picking off their troops.

In they went! The tank was now looking dangerously exposed.

Unfortunately the other Ceidonian units were blocked from advancing both by a Swiss pike-block in a solid wall, and their own pathetic activation rolls.

The Swiss leader himself led his troops in a final attack on the tank, demolishing it and clearing the way for an escape.

A unit of foot was diverted to the hill in order to draw off the Duke of Ceidonia's knights.

Which it did.

As the knights tussled with Swiss infantry and the Duke's foot nervously eyed up the pike phalanx before them, the Swiss leader led his troops to safety with their ill-gotten spoils.

This was a convincing win for the Swiss, who got the Glory for a successful heist, and who completed one of their quests as well by destroying the tank. The Ceidonians failed both of their quests.