Saturday 22 January 2022 – “Awake! Awake! Fear, fire, foes! Awake!”. The rallying cry of the Bucklanders and the courage of the Travellers has spurred the Hobbits of the Shire into actions against the Ruffians once and for all. Throughout the night Hobbits flock to the bonfire that the Travellers set ablaze, and in the morning Pippin leads a contingent of Tookish archers to the village, determined to end the violence in the Shire and see the ruffians off. Like an army, the Hobbits set out from Bywater straight into the greatest, most terrible battle in Shire history.

This scenario is found in the Scouring of the Shire (2004) supplement, scenario number 6. It is the finale of a 6-part campaign covering the events of the Scouring of the Shire.

Participants

Good (28 models)Evil (17 + 4 models)
Frodo Mounted on PonySharkey and Worm
Sam Mounted on Pony9 + 2* Ruffians with whip
Pippin Mounted on Pony6 + 2* Ruffians with bow
Merry Mounted on Pony
4 Hobbit Shirrifs
8 Hobbit Archers
12 Hobbit Militia
List of participants.

* These extra Ruffians are included as a campaign bonus for Evil winning scenario 3: Brockenborings.

Objectives

The Good player wins if Sharkey is slain. The Evil player wins if all four of the Travellers (Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin) are slain.

Special rules

Ambush – Before the first turn begins, all Hobbit Archers may shoot once.

The Travellers – When a Hobbit is slain, the Good player may put it aside to use it as reinforcements. At the end of each of the Good player’s Move phases, he may roll a D6 for each of the Travellers still in play. For each roll of a 6, one model from those set aside may move onto the board from any table edge.

The mob – When a Ruffian is slain, the Evil player may put it aside to use it as reinforcements. At the end of each of the Evil player’s Move phases, he may move D3 of the Ruffians set aside back onto the board on the Hobbiton table edge, along the road.

Sharkey – On turn 5, after moving new Ruffians onto the board the Evil player should roll a D6. On a 4+ Sharkey has arrived, move him and Worm onto the board along the road. Written in this way, there is a 50% chance Sharkey won’t arrive at all, rendering the Good victory condition unobtainable. I assume they meant from turn 5 onwards, but it does seem like a silly oversight and this has not been corrected in the official FAQ.

The game

The game board.

The game is played on a 2′ x 3′ (60×90 cm) board. The Evil player deploys all of the Ruffians on the road within 6″ of the Hobbiton board edge. The Good player then deploys Frodo and Sam in base contact on the road behind the barricade. Merry is deployed at the centre of the north board edge, he may be up to 6″ in from the edge of the board. Pippin is deployed at the centre of the south board edge, he may be up to 6″ in from the edge of the board. The remaining Hobbits are divided into three groups of eight and deployed within 6″ of Frodo, Merry and Pippin.

The Ruffians are ready to wreak havoc.

The archers are placed near Frodo and Sam so they’ll get the most shots. Because of the special rule the Hobbits get a free shot before anything else happens. But only 1 Hobbit gets a kill. The Ruffians all march toward Pippin, hoping to kill the Travellers one by one. The Hobbits Archers all hit their shots this turn and two more Ruffians die.

The Hobbit Archers are well placed.
The Hobbits prepare for the oncoming fight.

Good Priority. Pippin and his Hobbits prepare for the oncoming wave of Ruffians. A Hobbit Archer kills another Ruffian, but one Ruffian ‘respawns’. In the Fight phase, Good starts with bad luck. Pippin and the Shirrif lose their fight against a single Ruffian (who won the roll-off after a tied 6) and then got ‘unponyd’. In the other combats 1 Ruffian is slain, but so are 3 Hobbit Militia.

The Ruffians all move toward Pippin, hoping to slay the Hobbit Heroes one by one.

Evil Priority. The Ruffians have already almost overtaken the southern part of the board. Two Ruffians respawn, but so do 2 Hobbits. In the Shoot phase, 1 Hobbit Militia is killed, but so are 2 Ruffians. In the combat phase, Pippin kills both his Ruffian enemies. That is the only good luck Good will have this turn though, as 4 of the 5 other Hobbits on this side of the hedge get killed by Ruffians.

The Ruffians have overtaken the southern region.

Good retakes Priority in turn 4. Pippin and the other Hobbit flee, but they are pursued by the Ruffians. The other Hobbit dies in a Fight, but Pippin manages to slay another Ruffian.

Merry is coming to the aid of Pippin.

Evil has Priority in turn 5. Pippin gets surrounded and the other Ruffians take the southern path to avoid the barricade on the road, hoping to kill Frodo and Sam in a later turn. 2 Ruffians arrive as Reinforcements and after that, Sharkey and Worm enter the board. In Good’s Move turn, Merry charges the charging Ruffian, knowing he can’t help Pippin this turn. 2 Hobbits slain earlier enter the board behind Frodo and Sam. Merry slays the Ruffian, but Pippin takes 2 Wounds (1 of which is prevented by a Fate point).

Change of plan by Merry.

Good thankfully has Priority in turn 6. 1 Hobbit respawns and a Ruffian gets shot. Pippin takes another Wound, but can prevent it with his final point of Fate. Merry loses his Pony and Sharkey kills a Hobbit Militia, but Worm is slain by a Hobbit Shirrif!

Good retains Priority and it is now turn 7. Sharkey senses his vulnerability and calls a Heroic Move. Merry calls one in response. Sharkey gets it and uses 3 Will points to cast an Immobilise on Merry. Since he only rolled a 3 highest, Merry resists with his 2 Will + Resistant to Magic special rule.

One Hobbit re-enters the board, but so do 3 Ruffians. Merry and Pippin are once again surrounded. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam consistently reinforce their army. Three Ruffians get shot down. In the combats, Pippin loses the tie and finally succumbs to his Wounds. Two Hobbits are slain and Merry loses the Fight to Sharkey, who lands a Wound on him.

Evil Priority. Sharkey uses his Final Will point to Immobilise Merry. One Hobbits gets whipped to death. One Ruffian enters the board. Some Ruffians finally start the fight with Frodo and Sam’s host of Hobbits.

Merry is slain. Elsewhere, a Ruffian dies.

Merry is now slain, making the path clear for Sharkey and his rogues.

In the next turn, two Hobbits die and one Ruffian jumps over the barrier.

Most Ruffians have made it to the barricade.

Evil Priority once again. The Ruffians once again try to fight over the barricade and Sam gets charged. The net result this turn: 4 Ruffians slain. But with endlessly respawning Ruffians, Sharkey can just stay back and let his goons do the work for him. With inferior Move values, the only chance Good has at winning the scenario is if Sam somehow can charge Sharkey and kill him.

So that is what Sam tries to do next turn, sneaking away from all the combat turmoil, where nothing very consequential really happens, except for one Ruffian that gets slain.

By now the game has become quite boring. The Ruffians are generally unsuccessfull in taking the barrier, but the Hobbits are too weak to successfully fend off the Ruffian attackers. One Hobbit and one Ruffian die, while Sam moves up.

Good Priority so Sam really only has one option and charges the Ruffians in front of Sharkey. He wins the Fight, but fails to wound.

Sam charges the Ruffians protecting Sharkey, wins the fight but fails to wound.

But then Good wins Priority again and Sam can charge Sharkey. It is a longshot, but this is Good’s only chance to win the scenario. Sam Heroic Strikes, but loses the Fight and then understandably gets slain against Sharkey with 5 Ruffians. There is no point to play further, Evil can’t really lose the scenario anymore and it’s only a matter of time before Frodo is slain as well. Evil Victory.

Sam goes down and with him goes the Shire.

Aftermath

Since the Southfarthing was a draw, the result of this scenario will reflect the outcome of the campaign. This means Evil wins the campaign and the Shire gets truly scoured.

Post-game thoughts

This was quite the disappointment. Aside from omissions in the rules (the Sharkey reinforcement roll only happening on turn 5 with the rules as written), I wholeheartedly agree with Dave T’s analysis on the victory conditions in this scenario. With an endless amount of respawning Ruffians, Sharkey has no reason to put himself in harm’s way. He can easily sit back and let the Ruffians do all the work for him. That makes the game a lot longer and less interesting as a result, but that is the most sensible and obvious plan for the Evil player. Good has no good way to counter this. The pony’s provide superior Movement, but with the amount of Ruffian bodies on the table protecting Sharkey, three not that strong Hobbit Heroes aren’t going to make the difference. So I don’t really see how Good can pull off a win here, except if the Evil player messes up with Sharkey big time.

So that is a disappointing conclusion to this campaign, which truthfully I found to be quite hit-and-miss. It just didn’t always seem very balanced and the rules were at times quite unclear. I therefore wouldn’t particularly recommend it, unless you really like hobbits / Ruffians / the setting. Hopefully the new edition has improved on a lot of these issues.

There’ll be no more Shire. 🙁

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.