Thursday 10 October 2024
Over a thousand years passed since Sauron was defeated. Now, he has returned, though not yet in full form. He secretly makes it to the southern region of the Greenwood where he wants to get rid of the Woodsmen living there, so that he can take residence there for himself. Will he succeed in creating Dol Guldur, or will the Woodsmen be able to prevent him from settling here?
Participants
| Good (13 models) | Evil (13 models) |
| 1 Woodsmen Chieftain with shield | The Necromancer (with only 12 Will) |
| 12 Woodsmen (4 Shield, 4 Throwing Spear & Shield, 4 Bow) | 12 Orc Warriors (4 Shield, 4 Spear, 2 Two-handed, 2 Bow) |
Objectives
The Evil player wins if at the end of any turn all the Woodsmen have been slain.
The Good player wins immediately if the Necromancer is slain.
Special rules
All Evil models have the Terror special rule and the Necromancer starts with only 12 Will.
The game
The Woodsmen (who have the same profile as Rohirrim) start spread out around the cabin in the centre of the board, because the Necromancer and his forces can deploy anywhere on the board.
1G. The Woodsmen relocate to the side where the Necromancer appeared. A few Woodsmen go after the Orc archers that are stationed elsewhere. One Orc archer draws first blood: a Woodsmen archer is shot.
2G. The Woodsmen try to group together, while staying out of charging range and while allowing them to shoot as much as possible. The Necromancer uses 3 Will points to Chill Soul (5+) another Woodsmen archer and rolls 3 5’s: the Woodsmen’s soul has been chilled all right.
3G. The Necromancer calls a Heroic Move, which allows him to have his rabble of Orcs advantageously charge the Woodsmen. The Woodsmen Chieftain is too far away to meaningfully counteract. To make matters worse, the Necromancer transfixes the Chieftain, so he stays out of the fights.
The Fight phase is a massacre: all of the charged Woodsmen die!
4E – 6. It is clear that Good won’t win this scenario. The Chieftain gets surrounded and another brave Woodsmen valiantly survives for a few more turns, but he too ultimately dies by a Chill Soul spell from the Necromancer. Evil victory!
Aftermath
Because Evil wins the scenario, in the next one an additional Good model needs to escape the board edge to win the game.
Post-game thoughts
Evil had some great dice rolling (lots of 5’s and 6’s) and I (the Good player) made a few mistakes. I probably should have ignored the Orc archers. In the last campaign I played (Siege of Gondor), the Orc archers of my opponent were really effective so I wanted to prevent that here. That didn’t work out and I probably would have benefitted more from more numbers near the Necromancer.
Nevertheless, with the Terror rule in place on every Evil model and the –1 Courage value because of Ancient Evils, I wonder how much it really would have mattered. I don’t feel like this scenario was particularly balanced, because of this Terror rule. It means the Good player can’t reliably dictate the combats and the Necromancer can just stay back and out of combat, while reducing Courage and popping an occasional Chill Soul. Thematically the rule makes a lot of sense and thematically it is obvious that Evil should win the way they did here. But from a gameplay perspective, it doesn’t really make for a very fun or balanced game. I still enjoyed playing it, but that’s because I love the game, the theme and enjoy the challenge of playing against my opponent, who is generally much better at these type of games than I am. However it also feels a bit unsatisfying to get decimated like this, without doing much in return (I killed a single Orc with a throwing spear).
So I guess this scenario has a place in this campaign because it’s a great thematic start, but it’s not something I’d recommend playing on its own.
In the coming years the Necromancer builds Dol Guldur in secret. But eventually a number of Elves will find it. Will they survive while trying to reach Thranduil to inform him of this new threat?
You have a great collection of trees and forest terrain, in general! This was a very nice looking board and its a shame the good guys weren’t able to put up even more of a fight. I’ve often wondered if the designers know that these campaigns have scenarios that tilt a particular way and accommodate that in the overall campaign or not. I’m sure its tough because many of these events are pre-determined in Tolkien’s works but I’d still love to know how they balance everything.
Thank you! I like how forests like this look on the tabletop. Even though the trees are quite differently styled, I am fond of them all.
I’d also like to know how much playtesting goes on in these scenarios. Sometimes they are so tense that I feel they have nearly perfected it, but other times they seem so out of whack that I wonder if it was play-tested at all.