Fall of the Necromancer – Scenario 13: The Fall of the Necromancer

The White Council confronts the Necromancer of Dol Guldur.

Playthrough: 1v1

Played on: Saturday 11 April & Friday 17 April 2026

Scenario: Fall of the Necromancer (2021) #13 (out of 13)

Ruleset / profiles: 7th edition (2024 War of the Rohirrim Edition) with the Priority houserule as described here.

Participants

Good (5 models)	Evil (11 models)
Gandalf the Grey	The Necromancer
Saruman the White	All 9 Nazgûl of Dol Guldur
Radagast the Brown on Sleigh	Keeper of the Dungeons
Galadriel, Lady of Light
Elrond, Master of Rivendell

Objectives

The game lasts until one side has completed their objective.

The Good side wins immediately if Gandalf is rescued by having him move off of any board edge and the Necromancer has been banished.

The Evil side wins if at least three members of the White Council are slain.

Any other result is a draw.

Special rules

A Wizard lies Dying – Gandalf starts the game with no Might or Will, no Staff of Power, and under the effects of the Paralyse Magical Power. Friendly models may carry Gandalf, in which case he counts as a Heavy object.

“I will Destroy You!” – Galadriel can target the Keeper of the Dungeons with the Banish Magical Power as if it were a Spirit model.

“Nine for Mortal Men, Doomed to Die” – As soon as the Keeper of the Dungeons is slain, place all nine Nazgûl of Dol Guldur on the board at least 6″ away from any Good model.

“Are you in need of Assistance?” – The Good player may choose to have Saruman and Elrond enter the board at the end of any Good Move phase after the first turn. In the turn they arrive, Saruman and Elrond may use up to two Magical Powers. These may even be the same Magical Power twice if you prefer.

Radagast to the Rescue – The Good player may choose to have Radagast arrive at the end of any Good Move phase after Saruman and Elrond have arrived. Gandalf may be loaded onto Radagast’s Sleigh, at which point he counts as a passenger.

Sauron’s Return – At the end of the ninth game turn, the Evil player places the Necromancer touching any board edge.

Campaign bonus(Evil 2x) – Gandalf may not roll to recover from the Paralyse Magical Power in the first two turns. Radagast starts the game with only 1 point of Might.

Pre-game tactics and thoughts

There are so many special rules in all the different unique profiles that this will likely be a bit of a complex game.

The game

The game is played on a 2’x2′ board, representing a courtyard of Dol Guldur. Gandalf starts the game in the centre of the board, after which the Evil player deploys the Keeper of the Dungeons within 3″ of him. Galadriel is then placed touching any board edge.

Elrond rolls a 1 and so starts the game with 1 Foresight point.

1G. -> Galadriel uses 2 Will to cast a Banishment on the Keeper of the Dungeons, which goes through. This means he is down 1 Wound. The Keeper attacks Gandalf, rolls 6 dice and wounds him on a 2+. Rolling only a single 1, he uses 1 Might to guarantee Gandalf’s dead. This means the Good side can’t win the scenario. With the older profiles, the Keeper had 2 Attacks instead of 3, meaning he could only deal 4 Wounds at most (but still on a 2+). A fix would be to give the Keeper just 2 Attacks instead of 3 in this scenario, but for this playthrough we just changed the Victory condition for Good in that they only need to banish the Necromancer. I wouldn’t recommend doing it this way for future playthroughs, as that changes an important dynamic in this scenario.

2E. -> Evil begins and the Keeper charges Galadriel. Saruman and Elrond arrive and may cast 2 spells this turn. Saruman Transfixes the Keeper, but he resists successfully using 2 Will. Saruman Transfixes the Keeper again, which goes through this time. In the combat, the Keeper uses his remaining 2 Might to win the combat, but may not strike.

3G. -> Good begins. Galadriel uses 2 Will for a Banishment, but rolls snake eyes. So Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman surround the Keeper, who will be very dead by the end of the turn. Saruman successfully casts a Terrifying Aura before he Charges, so all Good models now have Terror. Radagast enters the board and gets into position. After the Keeper is killed, the nine Nazgûl appear.

4E. -> Evil begins. Radagast calls a Heroic Move and wins the Roll-off against one of the Nazgûl. This is important, because he now gets to Charge with his Chariot, killing 1 Nazgûl and getting into a good position to join the rest of the council while messing up the deployment of the Nazgûl. That Chariot is more agile than it looks! Thanks to Radagast’s Move and large base size, the rest of the Council can activate as well, casting Magic and getting into advantageous combats. Galadriel shamefully rolls a 3 on her Courage Test and thus needs to spend a Will point to get into a Fight, which hopefully won’t happen again!

2 more Nazgûl perish in the combat phase, which is less than I hoped but oh well.

5G. -> Good begins. One of the Nazgûl won’t resurrect, but the others will. Khamûl calls a Heroic Move. Already feeling fairly depleted, I decide to not spend any Might to countercall. Khamûl fails his Terror check, so stands still. This does mess things up a little bit for the Evil player, but he still outnumbers me enough that it doesn’t matter that much. Saruman gets Trapped by 3 Nazgûl including the Witch-king. He calls a Heroic Defense, but still takes 3 Wounds. He has to spend 2 Fate to make sure he doesn’t die. Elsewhere Good’s resources are further depleted.

6G. -> Good begins. All slain Nazgûl resurrect. 1 Nazgûl calls a Heroic Move, which is countercalled by Saruman. Good wins the roll-off. Saruman compels the Witch-king to stay under a building this turn. Galadriel once again rolls a 3 on her Courage Test and already used her free Will point for a Banishment (which at least was successfully in slaying the Lingering Shadow).

By this point, 1 Nazgûl is permanently dead, 4 are in need of Resurrection and the other 4 have a total of 5 Might left (3 of which belong to the Witch-king). Meanwhile, Good is down to just 2 Might, Elrond to 2 Wounds and Saruman to 0 Might, 2 Will, 1 Fate, 1 Wound. So that is not so great when a fully kitted out Necromancer will appear in 3 turns time. But hopefully the Resurrection rolls will go poorly, as it would certainly help to not be outnumbered.

7E. -> Evil begins. The Lingering Shadow doesn’t Resurrect, but the other Nazgûl do. Saruman uses his Lord of the Istari special rule on the Witch-king, who has to Might his Intelligence test to be able to Activate. Three Nazgûl fail their Courage tests, but Khamûl uses his Will point to pass. Saruman is surrounded by the Witch-king and 2 other Nazgul. Elrond calls a Heroic Combat to hopefully be able to help Saruman, but the Witch-king counter-calls and wins the roll-off. Saruman is slain. Elrond loses his combat against the Forsaken, so his Heroic Combat doesn’t even go off. Galadriel kills the Nazgûl she was engaged with.

8G. -> Good begins. The final point of Might by the Nazgûl is spend on a Heroic Move, which Galadriel counter-calls. But she loses the roll-off, and the White Council is again pinned down. This time it is Galadriel that is overwhelmed and she dies. Elrond again loses his combat against the Forsaken, and Radagast takes 2 Wounds on the Sleigh and uses 2 Fate points to prevent a third.

9E. -> Evil begins. With no more Might on the board, this goes uncontested. Radagast is killed, failing his Fate roll. Elrond finally wins the combat and kills the Forsaken, but it is too late. He is the final surviving member of the White Council and he is out of Might and wounded. At the end of the turn, the Necromancer arrives with a fresh 3 Might and 25 Will, which means Evil has resoundingly won the campaign.

Aftermath

Victory for Evil. Evil wins the campaign.

Post-game thoughts

We were a bit overwhelmed at the start going over all the rules and profiles, but we quickly got used to it and then it became a really fun and exciting game. That is, until the Nazgûl just kept coming back and the White Council were completely withered down before the Necromancer even arrived. I think this was at least in some part due to some poor dice rolling by Good. I think you want to kill the Keeper as fast as possible to give you more time to deal with the Nazgûl before the Necromancer arrives. But he managed to survive for a turn longer than hoped, while also costing the Council some Will points. Then the Nazgûl were pretty resilient in the combats and they just kept coming back. They also have 11 Might points across the board, and then a further 3 for the Keeper and 3 more for the Necromancer. That’s 17 Might against 10 Might from the White Council, while also outnumbering in terms of bodies, where all of those bodies have at least 2 Attacks base. So all in all it does seem like the odds are stacked against Good in this scenario. Which seemed to be a trademark of this campaign. But Radagast losing his fights with 6 Attacks, Elrond losing his fights with 3 Attacks and a re-roll, Galadriel failing her Courage test twice while having a 3+ Courage value, Galadriel failing her 4+ Banishment with 2 Will, Good losing the final 2 Heroic Move-offs in a row, the Nazgûl mostly resurrecting, all those things don’t really help. I feel like I didn’t really get to use my Magic as much as I’d have liked. I think this scenario would be more fun if you included the Army List bonuses. Both sides would be buffed, but I think it would be more fun to play that way and both the White Council members as well as the Necromancers would feel even more powerful.

We really enjoyed the scenario for the theme and the cool profiles, but felt our playthrough became a bit one-sided towards the end. We were also both very pleased with the Priority houserule, as Priority was distributed more fairly while still being random. We will for sure be using this for all upcoming games going forward!

To conclude I think this is one the of the coolest scenarios in the campaign, which would likely be more fun if you use the Army bonuses. You also need to tweak it if you use the new profiles so Gandalf won’t be killed outright in turn 1, but that can be fixed fairly easily.