Somewhere in space on a desert (not Dune)

Sadly no big worms in this game. Followers will know I have been painting up some spare Tallarn figures bringing them together for a small Xeno Rampant force. With a few days at home George travelled up to give them a run out.

Xeno Rampant is obviously part of the lion Rampant stable of rules which we have played many times. It is more like LR than R&P but quite a few changes have been made around shooting ranges, some free activations etc… the main thing is the rules are incredibly flexible in terms of creating an army with basic stats for each troop type being easily adapted to create a bespoke force.

Hidden deep in the dungeon I have four 40k armies if you include the Tallarn imperials, these games can often collapse quickly I thought I would get three forces ready for George and we could play a couple of very different options. To some extent this was a great test of the rules for a mini campaign I am planning in the future.

The Tallarn a fairly balanced force, two larger infantry squads, two heavy weapons teams, an elite command squad and of course the Walker.

Classic Xeno swarm, these are entirely combat focussed, some have special insertion options to allow them to arrive behind the enemy and the giant thing can cause terror pinning the enemy with fear

Tricky intergalactic alien species (Tau) lots of powerful long range shooting and some heavy jump suit types.

One slight challenge (which some will enjoy others not) is the rules are so flexible it takes ages to create the army list with nearly every unit having additional bonus stats. The three forces are all 30 point armies which seem to work well on a modest 4x4 table. Of course like lion rampant and unlike R&P a failed activation means the end of your turn this causes everybody’s plan to fall apart and much frustration. This is a game for lighthearted fun and brutal thrills not for those who like careful command and control.

Anyway with George taking the Tallarn we faced them against the Brutal alien swarm to start with.

With only combat and no long range shooting the aliens advance really quickly, as they crashed into their first combat with both shuddered as they literally cut their way right through the first unit of Tallarn.

But the larger aliens are not quite so fast

More monsters appeared behind the Tallarn lines but they are able to hold them back, on the rocky hill the Tallarn command squad forces the swarm back first in combat and then accurate laser fire. The giant monster is gradually heading for the Walker !

Ambushed from behind that’s not much fun !, enraged and literally mindless the creatures charge at the Walker 

But the Walker is tough ! And the Alien claws have little impact one swipe with its crushing fists and the Walker sends the Aliens back pinning them down

According to the rules we should probably have finished the game here but we were having fun, the aliens had nearly been stamped out but in a final twist these last two sneak from under the bridge and devour the Tallarn commander. No doubt he will be awarded some posthumous medal by the Emperor, that is if the rest of his force survives long enough to tell anybody about his heroics !

We then reset to face the Tallarn against the Tau

Little did the Tallarn know the planet had already been colonised by the Tau who have sent a small force to see the invaders off

Lots of long range shooting the Tau initially show what they are made of streaks of laser fire across the desert surface.

A heavy weapons team have been secretly inserted and pop up behind cover

But the Tallarn are a battle proven force and not easily scarred they lay down a withering fire from behind any cover they can find in the desert

The Tau no struggle to advance to support their other troops who get picked off piecemeal

The Tallarn take a hammering but gain another hard won victory.

We certainly enjoyed the battles, each very different as I had planned, we played the same scenario both times and I suspect it would have been more challenging for both sides had we needed to capture objectives or such like. There are plenty of scenarios in the rule book but of course these are pretty simple to generate anyway, I’m sure we will see some more adventures in the depths of space in the future. If nothing else it has been fun exploring some older collections and tidying them up for battle, as I explained to George after the games, in the past I was far less worried about playing with only painted figures so I have lots of only partly painted stuff, some of which I might now complete ?

To this end I have been working on three Tallarn/Imperial vehicles a Chimera transport vehicle

Here shown for scale (having taken the picture I have done a little more work on the transfers to blend them in a little more)

Finally I have been prepping more stuff, I wanted to pick up a few more Fallschirmjager to enable me to use my existing force for Chain of command. Fortunately/unfortunately this lot turned up very cheap at the York show a couple of weeks ago. Way more than I need, and in fact a have a few in detox for stripping as well. But this now gives me a more robust force for both CoC but also bolt action. So these will be coming to Sicily soon. Having searched for a while I believe they are mainly Black Tree figures a tiny bit smaller than my favourite crusader sculpts but not a bad match.

Well that’s it for now, I am packing up more stuff to take with me to Edinburgh as I am heading north again this weekend.

Thanks as always for checking by 👍

Matt