Dragon Rampant: The Trolls/Orcs

I continue to plough through my Rampant armies adding filler to the bases. Here is another of my Dragon Rampant warbands which has recently had the bases levelled as part of the Great Lockdown Leap Forward.

Following Poul Anderson's world, these are Trolls but they're equivalent to Tolkien's Orcs (who Tolkien sometimes called Goblins). Anyway, to avoid confusion for other wargamers, I will probably have to start calling them Orcs and reserve the name Trolls for larger figures, a couple of which are also featured below.

The figures come from various manufacturers. It's been a while since I bought them, but I'll do my best to identify them. Their physiognomy is similar (I avoided very pig-like features) but clothing styles differ. I'm confident the divergent styles will be brought together once I get some paint on them.

These larger Orcs (Reaper) will provide the Troll King and units of Bellicose and/or Elite Foot.  It's now common to assume that Orcs should be violently green-skinned. Anderson's Trolls and Goblins are both green, but Tolkien visualised his Orcs as swarthy and 'Hunnic' in appearance. I'm compromising on this by painting my Trolls (Orcs), Goblins and giant Trolls in a light olive green, but Hill and other Giants will be completed in human skin tones.

The mass of Trolls/Orcs will be fielded as Offensive Heavy Foot. Some of the more weedy ones may be drawn out as Scouts. The most appropriate Trolls I originally found were the CP Models Orc clubmen but it's a very small range, so I also ordered all the Reaper figures I thought would do, and then added some from a new range by Elite Wargames. I also bought some newer armoured Orcs and Orc bowmen from CP Models but these are disappointingly crude and lumpy designs and I won't be using them.

These Half-Orcs (ex-Grenadier from Mirliton) will be Offensive  Medium Foot. I looked at the Grenadier Orcs but they were anatomically very extreme and I think Trolls and similar are most sinister when they are closer to human form.

There are a few bow-armed figures scattered amongst the various types. These will be ignored or used to indicate units additionally armed with missiles depending on how I want to field things.

Ogres (Otherworld). Great figures but the spear arm on the lower right one was a devil to fit.

Various opportunistic Nasties as Troll/Orc allies. Front row: A Witch (Magister Militum) with Rat (Eureka) flanked by two large Trolls (North Star). Back row: An archetypal 'Fairytale' Giant and a Fantasy Viking-style Frost Giant (North Star OGAM).

Wolves (various manufacturers) as Lesser Warbeasts. They do look a bit puny now, especially next to my wolf-riding Goblin cavalry.

Dragon Rampant: The Elves

Clockwise from bottom left: Elf King, Champion,
Companions, Shaman, Enchantress, spearmen,
swordsmen and archers. The figures will
have a variety of greens and reds etc added.

As I said before, my 28mm Elves and Trolls (Orcs) for Dragon Rampant were to be based more on Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword than on Tolkien, but in actuality I've been restricted by what was readily available in the form of models.

My Elves are 'old school' Grenadier miniatures now sold by Mirliton in Italy. They're obviously Celtic rather than Viking (as I originally conceived), but they're lovely designs and the castings are very clean.

They were previously photographed in a game but I’ve since expanded their ranks and added filler to the bases.

Despite the Celtic look, organisation is still posited on Viking lines so there are Huscarls (High Elves) and Bondi (Wood Elves). I prefer to deploy the archers amongst the spearmen so that every single unit in the warband has a sting. This really unsettles opponents!

There is also a Grenadier Shaman (Druid) and a Reaper Elf Enchantress.

Thoughts on Dragon Rampant

Dragon Rampant - fantasy version of
Lion Rampant.

I drafted this post before last year’s mid-year wargaming hiatus. It’s out of place in time, but I thought I’d go back to catch up with this interest.

As most of you will know, Dragon Rampant is the fantasy version of Lion Rampant. I'm not generally given to fantasy games, but I'm drawn to anything in the Rampant series.

I did collect a couple of 15mm HOTT armies (Pirates and Skeletons) but I never got round to painting them. I'm not keen on being drawn into the ever-expanding Games Workshop universe, and I find Lord of the Rings too well-trodden and at times a little twee.

I'm rather more attracted to Poul Anderson's darker vision in The Broken Sword. I read that many years ago, and last year reread it on Kindle. (To be exact, I mainly listened to it.) So if I did do Elves and Trolls they would as far as possible be as depicted in that book, which is set in the Viking Age.

Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword
- a dark version of Faerie Folk.

Mike McGraw (Skrapwelder on TMP) used Elf heads on Dark Age figures,  but I already have a 25mm Viking army and don’t want to duplicate it with pointy ears!

The best range of Elves that I've been able to find is the Grenadier range now sold by Mirliton in Italy, but at least partly available from a few suppliers in the UK. They look more Celtic than Viking but the castings are very good. I'd model the Elves on a Viking army, using High Elves for the Huscarls and Wood Elves for the Bondi.

There are a number of Orc options for the Trolls. These need to be a little shorter than the Elves, mostly semi-naked and armed with clubs. They are rather more simple and primitive than the way in which Lord of the Rings Orcs are usually depicted and the best option I've identified so far is the small range from CP Models supplemented by selected Reaper castings.

There would also be wolves, giants and sorcerers. Dragon Rampant very cleverly introduced the idea of reduced size and single model units as long as they add up to 6 or 12 Strength Points. For example, you can field 6-figure units counting 2 points per figure. Convenient sized units are, therefore, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 or 12 models, which gives you a lot of flexibility and is potentially very economical.

Foundry North European Bronze Age figures

Other possibilities would be to recycle my 25mm Vikings with the addition of some fantastical elements, and my 28mm Late Mediaevals as an Arthurian Romance army. More recently I've also been thinking about Nordic and Greek Bronze Age armies using Foundry figures, or something skeletal using the North Star Skeletons. So many options!