Monday 23 June 2025
With Sauron having fled into the east, his influence over Mirkwood has faded. The Elvenking Thranduil commands his Rangers to patrol the paths of Mirkwood to clear the forest of any remaining Orcs or other foul creatures. On one such patrol, Legolas is attacked by a mob of Orcs.
Participants
| Good (12 models) | Evil (26 models) |
| Legolas Greenleaf, Prince of Mirkwood | 2 Orc Captains with Shield |
| 1 Mirkwood Ranger Captain | 8 Orc Warrior with Shield |
| 10 Mirkwood Rangers | 8 Orc Warrior with Spear |
| 4 Orc Warrior with Two-handed weapon | |
| 4 Orc Warrior with Orc Bow |
Objectives
The game lasts until the end of a turn in which one side has completed their objective.
The Good side wins if they can reduce the Evil side to 25% of their starting numbers (6 remaining models).
The Evil side wins if they can reduce the Good side to 25% of their starting numbers (3 remaining models) or if they kill Legolas.
Special rules
Silent Hunters – Good models may re-roll failed To Hit rolls when making shooting attacks if they did not move during the preceding Move phase.
The game
The Good player deploys their models within 12″ of the northern board edge. I’ve placed my Elves approximately evenly in a line, to cover as large a shooting arc as possible. I deployed Legolas in the centre, together with the Mirkwood Ranger Captain.
The Evil player then deploys their models within 24″ of the southern board edge. That is half of the board! My opponent places all his Orcs within 6″ of one of his Captains, as close to Legolas as possible. His strategy seems to be to take down Legolas, no matter the cost.
1G. -> Evil begins. One Orc Captain calls a Heroic March to try and get into fights as soon as possible. The Elves shoot down 8 orcs! The re-rolling failed to Hit rolls helps, but my rolls were generally pretty good as well.
2G. -> Good begins. The Elves make sure to get out of charging range, while most Elves stay still. The outer Elves move closer towards the centre. The same Orc Captain once again calls a Heroic March, meaning the Orcs are now really close to Legolas and the other Elves. Shooting is not as amazing as last turn, but still feeling confident and wanting to kill as many Orcs as possible before the fighting starts, Legolas uses a Might point. In total a further 3 Orcs went down, meaning Evil is down to 15 models.
3G. -> Good begins. I tried to place the Elves in as advantageous a fighting position as possible, considering the extra attacks the Mirkwood Rangers get when engaged with multiple models. Unfortunately, the Elves generally lose the fights, despite better odds. Legolas spends another Might point to kill an Orc he is engaged in combat with during the Shooting phase (we’re using the new profiles) and the Ranger Captain spends a Might point to win his Fight. In total 4 more Orcs die and the mightless Orc Captain takes a Wound. Two Elves die. Total number of models left: 10 for Good, 11 for Evil.
4E. -> Evil begins. Feeling pretty invincible, Good is oblivious to the fact that I could (and should) call a Heroic Move to prevent Evil from dictating the fights. The unthinkable happens: Legolas loses his fight and takes 5 Wounds. Fate has forsaken him and me and he dies on the spot, Evil victory!
Aftermath
Victory for Evil. This means that in the next scenario : Clearing the Nests, Spider models return to the board on a 4+ rather than a 5+.
Post-game thoughts
Well, that was quite unexpected for me. I was pretty sure I had this scenario in the bag, especially after the first turn. In my hubris I completely forgot about Heroic Move being an option and I spend Legolas’ Might points too casually. Sure, thinning down the numbers of Orcs helps, but with a superior Fight value across the board, the Knife Fighter special rule on my Mirkwood Rangers and Legolas being able to fire three shots even into combat, I could afford a few more turns. I should have definitely saved the Might points to make sure I win every combat I could possibly die in. So that was a big learning experience for me.
On the positive side, I enjoyed this scenario a lot more than I initially thought I would. On paper this scenario seemed really boring to me, a simple matter of thinning out the enemy ranks. With all the trees dotted around I feared this would be a slog as my opponent would try to position all 26 Orcs as sneakily as possible to avoid bowfire. Which would then draw out the game (considering there is no turn limit). By choosing to rush head first into Legolas, at least the game was over very quickly. And because of the deployment zone, the Orcs could start really close to the Elves, which means the action could take place swiftly.
I really enjoyed the Mirkwood Rangers finally actually doing some significant shooting damage in this campaign. As well as finally being able to make proper use of the Knife Fighters special rule. I also enjoyed playing the new Legolas profile. I can see why people complain he is overpowered in Matched Play. For Narrative Play however, he does feel more like in the films where he is a true powerhouse. So all in all I was pleasantly surprised by this scenario (before playing I felt this scenario was maybe just a filler to have 13 scenarios in the campaign).
While rushing down towards Legolas worked in this playthrough, I don’t think it would work as well if I played better. But the only other real alternative I see is for Evil to try to use cover a lot and then pick out some Elves here and there. With such large numbers, I think that would be quite hard for Evil to pull off, as they’ll likely get shot down and then perhaps mowed down in combat. So my guess is this scenario favours the Good side, especially when playing the newest edition where Legolas is even stronger. Narratively that’s not necessarily a problem as that is the historical outcome, but thematically this feels like a rather random and nameless encounter, so that begs the question if it’s worth including / playing at all. Furthermore, it doesn’t seem thematically consistent for all those Orcs to be after Legolas specifically, since he is pretty much a nobody at this point (well, aside from being the Prince of Mirkwood, but I’m not sure if these Orcs are aware of that in this point in time). Which also makes it a bit weird to have Legolas in full strength, while he is narratively still honing his skills. So I found the scenario to be more enjoyable than I expected and it is probably a fun one-off inclusion in your Fall of the Necromancer campaign. But I don’t think it would hold up pretty well on replays.
In the next scenario, Legolas is back where he is joined by Tauriel and other Mirkwood Rangers to destroy a Spider’s nest.