This is a scenario of Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, the first in the A Shadow in the East sourcebook.
A squad of Minas Tirith warriors, led by Cirion, is camping for the night at Amon Barad in Ithilien. Keeping watch are six Rangers of Gondor. An force of ten Easterlings is surreptiously creeping up on the tower, but the Good forces have an even uglier surprise in store as Khamûl the Easterling has infiltrated the tower and is killing its inhabitants.
The goal is to be the only side with men within 6" of the tower on or after the start of turn seven.
Good starts with his force inactive. Only the Rangers can move, and they are subject to the Sentinel rules until they detect the Evil troops.
Khamûl appears at the tower door at the end of the Evil move on a 4+, beginning on turn three.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
The Evil forces are 4 bowmen, 4 swordsmen, and 2 spearmen, led by Khamûl, here proxied with a regular ringwraith in much the same pose.
The Good forces are 4 bowmen, 4 swordsmen, 4 spearmen, and 6 rangers, led by Cirion. One of the campfires is from the Weathertop set, while the other two are scratchbuilt from green stuff.
From the purely practical standpoint of purchasing the forces needed for this scenario, those numbers correspond exactly to what you get in a box of Easterlings, a box of Warriors of Minas Tirith, two blister packs of Rangers of Gondor, and the Cirion and Khamûl blisters. Pretty nice.
The campfires are placed at least 6" away from the tower and each other. The Warriors of Minas Tirith and Cirion begin equally distributed amongst the campfires, while the rangers deploy near the board edge. I placed the latter in a sort of hexagon pattern; there are two which are out of frame below the edge of the pictures.
As always, Good starts a scenario with Priority.
The Rangers sense some disturbance in the tower and head towards it as fast as their Sentinel rolls will allow.
The Easterlings enter from the far corner, staying well out of sighting radius of the nearby rangers. Taking a potshot at a ranger has about a 1/3 chance of a kill but a 2/3 chance of failing and hence raising the alarm, so the bowmen keep their arrows to themselves.
Evil Priority, 3-2.
The Easterlings march in single-file towards the tower. The rangers, almost as if by plan, move in the opposite direction.
Good Priority, 3-2.
The closest ranger hears some noises nearby and goes to investigate. He comes upon the Easterling column and raises the alarm. Leaping into action, the rest of the Good forces start moving towards the enemy incursion. The exceptions are a few rangers whose bows (or, more properly, arrows) can reach the enemy, who stay in place to shoot without penalty.
The Easterlings swarm the alarm raiser. Khamûl fails to appear.
Shooting is relatively deadly this turn. The rangers kill two (including one bowman) and the reduced Evil bow contingent succeeds in killing one ranger in return.
Combat sees the alarm-raiser easily slain, evening the casualty count to 2 each.
Evil Priority, 5-3.
To better show the action, the camera angle is now from the eastern edge, which is counterclockwise around the board from the previous orientation.
Evil consolidates but stays out of charge range. Khamûl is still busy in the tower. The Gondorians advance.
Shooting sees another Easterling fall to a ranger. The attrition rates are definitely in favor of the already more-numerous Good forces.
Good Priority, 5-3.
The Good forces get stuck in. The Easterling bowmen remain stationary to maximize their shooting, while the rest of their warriors move to the melee.
But what's this at the doorway? Khamûl finally appears. He can't do anything on the turn he enters, but since Good moved first, they can't really react to him, either.
Shooting is ineffective.
There are two combats. In one, two Minas Tirith warriors face a single Easterling. Despite the advantage of numbers, the Easterling wins and slays one of his attackers. In the other combat, three Easterlings gang up on one Minas Tirith warrior ... and lose. Fortunately for Evil, the Good warrior fails to wound.
Casualties: 3 Good, 3 Evil
Evil Priority, 6-1.
Khamûl charges the Ranger. Might as well get attack the guys with higher Courage; the Warriors of Minas Tirith have less than a 50% chance of countercharging, given the ringwraith's Harbinger of Evil special rule. And the odds work out about right; one warrior joins the ranger, but the others are stuck in place.
Amongst the warriors' combat, the winners are about evenly divided but no one on either side lands a wound.
Khamûl spends a Might point to go to 2 Attacks. Unfortunately, he gets a 3-highest against the Good 5-highest. Is it worth spending both of the only Evil Might points? Good has only two strikes, and both need 6/4, so Evil decides to let Good win. Inevitably, one of the strikes gets 6/5, and Khamûl must rely on his Fate to prevent the end of the game!
Prolonging the agony for Evil, the first Fate roll is a '2'. Again, is it worth spending both Might points? Eventually I decided no, and luckily enough, the second Fate roll was '6'. The game will continue, with Khamûl down to 8 Will and no Fate.
Evil Priority, 6-4.
Cirion calls a Heroic Move. Khamûl counters, but Good gets the nod. But only one of his warriors follows him.
The scrum goes Good's way, killing two Easterlings at the cost of a single warrior.
Khamûl again spends a Will to go to 2 Attacks. Both sides get the '6' and the ringwraith wins on Fight value. He slays the bowman and wounds Cirion by spending his last Might point. Cirion's Fate roll fails.
Casualties: 5 Good, 5 Evil
Good Priority, 2-2.
The dwindling Easterlings are mobbed. There are a lot of troops near Khamûl, but most of them (including Cirion!) fail their Courage tests and so only a warrior and a ranger succeed in engaging him. Way to lead, Cirion....
Two more Easterlings go down, but Khamûl (again going to 2 Attacks) wins his combat and slays the ranger.
Good Priority, 4-2.
The slaughter of the Easterling warriors continues. Cirion Heroic Strikes (now he's out of Might) but for naught as he just straight-up wins the fight against Khamûl, though no wounds are inflicted.
Evil Priority, 6-1.
Khamûl tries to Drain Courage on Cirion, but he gets a 2-highest and the spell fails. The remaining Easterling warrior -- there's only one now -- runs, and the Good warriors are too far away to engage him this turn.
Cirion and a ranger manage to engage Khamûl, and despite 3 dice against 1, Evil wins and Cirion is slain!
Good Priority, 5-3.
Good swamps the two remaining Evil models, and wins both the combats. The Easterling is easily slain, but despite 8 strikes against Khamûl only one gets a '6', and then the followup is a '3' instead of the needed '4'. So the nazgûl lives for another turn, although at this point he is down to 2 Will.
Evil Priority, 2-2.
Courage tests again run generally against Good. Khamûl risks 1 Will to go to 2 Attacks, but loses. Although the Good forces again fail to inflict a wound, Khamûl must then lose another Will point for being in a combat, and he goes *poof*!
Despite losing seven warriors and Cirion, the Good side has won!
That was not particularly even. Sometimes I blame the scenario, and I still think that the Easterlings have a surprisingly uphill battle, considering that "historically" they won. But I think I used some poor tactics as the Evil player, and that certainly didn't help any.
Instead of entering as far away as possible, it would be better for the Easterlings to creep up on one of the camping bands and ambush them. It wouldn't take too much luck for ten warriors to slay three, if not all four, of the sleepers, which would considerably even the odds.
If that puts the warriors closer to Khamûl so that they can cooperate, so much the better.
Still, there might need to be a bit of tweaking here. The attackers are outnumbered almost 2-1, and although Khamûl seems capable, he can't win by himself, as the above shows. So some tweaks might be in order. The rangers were fearsomely efficient in my replay. It might be worth limiting their range, and/or giving them a penalty on their shooting roll. It is supposed to be dark outside, after all.
Or maybe the Easterling warriors should be led by a Captain?
The situation here is interesting enough it seems worth playing with a bit to get it right.