Osprey Games: Dragon Rampant 2nd Edition

Osprey Games präsentieren Informationen zur am 23.10.25 erscheinenden zweiten Edition von Dragon Rampant.

Introducing Dragon Rampant: Second Edition

Will you command an army of noble heroes or lead the forces of darkness?

Daniel Mersey, the author of Dragon Rampant: Second Edition, explains why you should play his easy-to-learn but tactically rewarding fantasy wargame.

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Dragon Rampant is a large-skirmish fantasy wargame that comes with no built-in game world and no tie-in miniatures range. I provide the rules and ideas; you provide your own choice of models and setting.

You can build your Warband (Dragon Rampant-speak for an army) however you wish, using whatever make and size of model you wish (usually 28mm or 15mm models), inspired by any fantasy setting that captures your imagination or any range of miniatures you already own or would love an excuse to own.

Men of the North Heavy Foot form a Shieldwall while on vacation. Let’s hope they don’t get too much sand under their armour. 18mm Wiglaf Miniatures painted by Steve Dean. (Daniel Mersey)

Dragon Rampant battles are chaotic, fast-moving scraps between small rival Warbands rather than massive set-piece battles between epic armies. Your Warband is constructed of individual units built from the core troop types. These troop types are defined by their battlefield role in the game, and each has a different level of ability when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, shooting missiles, bravery, and movement. These abilities can be modified with fantastical upgrades.

Each player will usually field 4 to 12 units in a 24- or 30-army point game (and 6 to 18 units in a 36-army point game). Units often consist of 6 to 12 models but this can vary.

When you want to activate one of your units, you decide whether it is going to Move (without fighting), Attack (move into combat and fight immediately), or Shoot (if the unit is armed with missile weapons). Some units have additional options such as spellcasting or summoning.

Kyle Gibson’s Barbarian Warband musters three Single Model Units (at the front), a Reduced Model Unit (back right), and a standard-sized unit (back left). The Single and Reduced Model Units need to track their Strength Point losses in some way. Models by Rackham. (Kyle Gibson)

Each time you want a unit to carry out an action, you roll and add the total of two six-sided dice, then check against that unit’s ability to carry out that action. Some units are better at certain commands than others – some enjoy charging headlong into their enemies, hacking at anything in front of them; some prefer to stand back in a defensive formation, ready to repel their foes; others like to lurk at a distance and shower their enemies with missiles or spells. Troop types matter on the battlefield, as does what you order them to do. Order the right troop types to carry out the right battlefield tasks and they’ll stand a better chance of success. This is a test of your generalship.

Scenarios are important in Dragon Rampant and they’re not always about hacking your enemies to pieces. The rulebook contains 12 scenarios plus a simple campaign system. There’s a wide variety of effectiveness between different units, so field a well-balanced Warband or risk your troops being poorly suited to the scenario’s task in hand. You won’t know the scenario being played until you’ve chosen your Warband, so this encourages players to choose units of different troop types rather than fielding as many Elite Riders or Greater Warbeasts as they can paint.

“Why the long face?” Are the villagers (Ravenous Hordes) talking to the pig-snouted orc riders or their boar mounts (Heavy Riders)? Otherworld Miniatures photographed by Wayne Richards. (Otherworld Miniatures)

Dragon Rampant can be played using whatever size of models you choose to collect. 28mm is the most popular, but I’ve seen games played with 15mm Warbands and smaller-sized models too. The rulebook includes Warband lists for the many and varied sizes of fantasy models available on the market, although in reality very little needs to be adapted no matter which size of model you choose to use.

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Watch this space for more design diaries coming soon.

Available 23 October 2025 UK & 21 October US. Pre-order now.

Looking for sci-fi or medieval large skirmish wargaming action?
Check out Xenos Rampant and Lion Rampant: Second Edition.

What Changed in Dragon Rampant: Second Edition?

 

Want to know what exciting updates the new edition holds?

Author Daniel Mersey breaks down the changes you can expect from Dragon Rampant: Second Edition.

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Having the expanded page count compared to the first edition meant that I could round out the game so much more than was possible in the original “blue book” format. Essentially, the second edition is an expansion of what Dragon Rampant’s first edition achieved, with more pages, more rules ideas, and more inspirational artwork. Basically, more fantasy wargaming all round.

The new edition is a chunky, 200+ page book (completing my Osprey Publishing hardback trilogy of Lion Rampant / historical medieval, Xenos Rampant / sci fi, and Dragon Rampant / fantasy), beautifully illustrated with photos of classic and modern fantasy ranges to inspire you, atmospheric art by Alan Lathwell (who also illustrated my King Arthur and my Knights of the Round Tables books in the Osprey Adventures series), and retro-themed line artwork by David Needham.

The Battle Rules have been updated and clarified in line with Lion Rampant: Second Edition’s changes. The rules haven’t been subjected to a major overhaul; they have instead had a few fine tweaks here and there to make for a smoother game but gameplay is pretty much as published in the first edition.

The rest of the book includes more in-depth information about building your Warband, more options to shape your units with upgrades and special rules, a more detailed exploration of magic, optional rules, scenarios, a complete campaign system, and more of everything else offered in the first edition due to the much larger page count.

The standard size for a Warband is now 30 army points, but 24- and 36-point Warbands also work nicely. This change was based on player feedback; lots of players told me that 24 points never quite gave them enough scope to buy the units they wished to field along with the special rules they wanted to give those units.

Leaders no longer have randomly chosen Leader Traits (although these still feature as optional rules), but they gain the old Commanding Trait and can purchase other upgrades. And some measurements are now made from the Leader’s model rather than the Leader’s unit – it just feels better that way.

With a roll of 9, this Spellcaster successfully casts Superglue You! (Difficulty: 7+). The enemy augmented tigers get stuck in the muck. Models by Temple of the West and Rackham. (Kyle Gibson)

Spells have had a major overhaul both in number (there are now 20 in the spellbook) and in the way you choose them. I’ve tried to make the new way of spellcasting more fun and certainly more colourful.

Many fantastical upgrades for units remain as they were in the first edition, but some have been renamed or recosted. Others have been updated or changed and many are completely new additions giving you a far greater choice of fantasy-themed unit upgrades. The original rulebook had 16 upgrades; the new edition has just over three times that number.

I’ve added a fantasy campaign system that’s in-keeping with Dragon Rampant’s style of play, and more scenarios too. There’s also more detail about using terrain, which now has a chapter of its own.

I’ve increased the number of sample Warbands shown in the book to help players shape their collection of models and give ideas for buying new ones, but as with the first edition, these are a stepping off point to inspire your own Warband builds.

Das Spiel kommt am 23.10. und kostet mit 232 Seiten als Hardcover 25,00£ und als Ebook 17,50£.

Quelle: Osprey Publishing