The Camberwick Green Chronicles

During my recent (and ongoing) sort out of my wargames stuff, I came across two storage trays of figures for use with 'The Pikemen's Lament' and 'Dragon Rampant' rulesets. Like so many of my projects, I had a burst of enthusiasm of planning, purchasing and painting, only for it to fall by the wayside as my interest wained for a variety of reasons. Looking at the figures anew, some of the ideas I'd had for both sets resurfaced and so I decided to look through my notes and see if I could get a game or two in before Xmas.

Essentially the original idea was to have a bit of fun with a narrative campaign set in and around the Forest of Dean and the Mines of Gloria, with Dean being some sort of Demon and Gloria well, just the person who owned the mines. Obviously a bit of a nod to JRR Tolkein's Mines of Moria, but the whimsy tickled my fancy! This led to the idea of setting it in and around the village of Camberwick Green, inspired not only by my love of the whole Trumpton tv series, but also of Norm Smith's Piggy Longton chronicles and Keith's Border Reivers Ballade's verse.

Plenty of ideas abound for sure, all with a very whimsical slant, but first and foremost I need to reacquaint myself with the rules. Looking at them I've decided to have a mix of both rulesets, calling the mishmash 'The Dragon's Lament'. I'm not sure how well they'll play, but looking at them there is very little difference between the two. Time will tell. At least I made up some basic unit cards for a game, to try and speed things up and set up a very simple encounter type scenario, as it didn't need to be anything fancy at this stage.

To set the scene:

Somewhere in the Forest of Dean, 1685.

The Glorious Revolution has caused chaos in the area and rumours abound. One such is:

"You fear to go into those mines. The miners delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Hazard's Doom ... shadow and flame."

The scene is set.

The miners are defending their church.

A 'Basset's All Sorts' force.

Some of Camberwick Green's finest.

Commanded Shot lead the way.

The action underway, as the Miners see off an attack by Goblin Scouts, routing them.

The 'Basset's All Sorts' force closes in on the church.

Treemen watch on in case anyone wants to damage their trees.

Reckless, rowdy Rupert counter-charges the Saddleback Pigs...

... and is driven back...

... but the Saddleback Pigs rout! Oh the shame of it in their first battle.

Gerald the Giant easily sees off the Commanded Shot.

A few Turns into the game.

Goblin Shamans throw fireballs at anyone in their way.

That reckless and feckless rogue, Rupert, decides to charge Derek the Devil, which is not a good idea as he routs from the table!

Gerald the Giant charges Jones's Pikemen...

... who force him back despite taking losses themselves. He doesn't like it up him!

The end of the game.

Derek the Devil is happy to see more Saddleback Pigs arrive as reinforcements.

The Camberwick Green Militia have taken losses and are waivering, so decided to call it a day and retire to the pub for a pint of cider or two.

Post Game Thoughts

Well it's been quite some time since I've played these rules and I'm happy to say it all came back to me, bar the odd query, which was nice. So a few thoughts on how things went:

• First and foremost it was fun! I loved the mix of figures and scales which I think helped give it that real fantasy look that I remember as a kid, something I was hoping to achieve. So the Giant looked like a Giant rather than a slightly bigger figures on the table.
• The unit cards I made really made it easier than looking up on a unit roster. As I get more au fait with the rules, I will make more bespoke cards for the fantasy figures to better reflect them than the current generic Great or Lesser Warbeasts for example. As an example Derek the Devil will be able to fly, maybe the Treemen will be more vulnerable to fire attacks etc. 
• The mash up of the rules worked fine and I saw no issues at all in this first game. Early days of course but given this will be a solo outing, I can always fudge things if need be.
• I think the Camberwick Green Milita (as they are currently called) might need some fantasy input in terms of units they can call upon. Dwarves are on my list for sure as Bellicose Foot and probably a Cleric or Wizard. Maybe even a Solomon Kane type hero?

What's Next?

Well more playtesting for sure, then firming up the background story too, along with character and unit names. Then of course the ever present need to paint figures!

TTFN.