Spring 991 - The Battle of Dragon Downs

Umbellifera Cruciferox was a patient dragon, as dragons understood these things, but the noise of the neighbours was too much tonight. She was trying to digest her latest meal and rest on her treasure horde. Outside the cave, a group of human horsewomen were making enough noise to wake the entire country.

"Darn these Johnny-come-lately races," she thought to herself. She was a very proper dragon and not given much to uncouth language, so this was a clear demonstration of how irked she was. It was time to remonstrate with the humans. Perhaps they would leave her in peace if she could only talk with them.

"Some of us are trying to sleep in here, you noisy humans!"

As soon as she emerged onto the hill top, the humans swarmed forwards on their ponies, ribbons blowing in the air and tried to surround her.

Pesky humans everywhere

Clearly she needed to speak to the leader of the humans. Presumably that was the one with the most ribbons on her pony that had stayed well away from the cave. So much for courage, eh.

The human leader clearly does not wish to discuss the matter

As she approached the human leader, the leader tried to attack her. That was just downright unfriendly, so Umbellifera ate some of her companions. The human leader ran away. Umbellifera tried to approach the leader, but to no avail. Most of the humans had formed a square, while their leader ran away. Oh well, time to try to talk to them instead. As she did so, they shot arrows at her. That hurt!

The humans tried to surround her and shoot her

Annoyed, Umbellifera breathed fire at the humans and scattered them

The human arrows were really starting to hurt now. Every time she tried to pin some of the humans down they melted away on their ponies and reformed around her again in a slightly different formation. She was picking them off slowly, but her wounds were starting to hurt a lot.

Surrounded and outnumbered

Eventually it was all just too much for Umbellifera. The humans had hurt her badly and she could not retreat to her cave so she took to wing and flew off in search of a quieter place to nest.

Epilogue

Hardecg Legbiter congratulated her troops on their victory over the fearsome dragon that had been terrifying the area. It was hurt badly and had been driven off. Better yet, the coffers of the nation had been enhanced by the dragon's treasure and her troops reported that they had found an ancient artefact among the loot.

"Great leader, here is the artefact. Is it not a glorious thing?"

Hardecg looked at it puzzled, "How am I meant to wear that? It looks proper uncomfortable."

Now it was the scout's turn to look puzzled, "Wear it, my leader? No you are meant to burn things in it."

"But I thought you said it was the Brassiere of Durmun," replied Hardecg disappointedly.

This was a great game. We both thought the dragon would have an easy time of it, but that proved not to be the case. Steve kept his light cavalry together so that they could not be easily routed piecemeal. This also meant that they did not rout when the dragon attacked his general and the general routed. The dragon was able to fly off the table and back on, picking at the Hykari ponygirls but Steve's use of circular and square formations gave him the best opportunity for reaction fire, bringing more shots to bear and pinning the dragon in place due to reactions. This wore the dragon down until it could no longer pass a reaction test and routed.