This is replay of a scenario from Games Workshop's A Shadow in the East sourcebook from their Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. It's the last episode in Cirion's campaign against the Easterlings in Ithilien, and the largest in the sourcebook.
There's a lot going on in this scenario. It opens with a commando-style raid of a few Good models infiltrating a Easterling camp, hoping to inflict some mayhem and to open the gates for the rest of the army.
Evil has a few sentries which hope to prevent that. But most of the Evil troops start asleep in their tents in the camp. Likewise, most of the Good forces start off map; as soon as they enter, the Evil camp awakes and the Evil troops begin appearing at their tents. The Easterlings also wake up if a sentry runs across an infiltrator or the camp gate is set on fire.
The Good forces tote along some ladders, and also have a boat, which helps both with their mobility -- the boat will average more than the 6"/turn that a footman can manage -- and with bypassing the walls.
The victory conditions are pretty simple: it's a fight to the death, last side standing wins.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
The Gondor force is lead by Múrin, Madril, Cirion, a Captain, Drár, and young Faramir. The Captain blends in with the generic Warriors of Minas Tirith, so I adorned his base with some gold. Young Faramir is called that because his youth affects his heroic stats, as he starts with just one point each of Might, Will, and Fate.
The remainder of the Good force are 9 Rangers, 6 Citadel Guard (which are really hard to pick out in the image, but you can see their grey bases just behind the leaders), and 36 Warriors of Minas Tirith.
The Easterlings are led by Khamûl, a Easterling Captain (again with a gold mark on the base), and a Khandish Chieftain (with no gold but instead an extra bit of greenery, which was too subtle in practice to be effective). The troops are more or less two boxes each of Easterlings and Khandish Warriors, plus one box each of Kataphrakts and Khandish Horsemen.
The board layout is the standard 4' x 4', except my table isn't big enough so the east and south edges (on the right side of the first image) are cut off a bit.
Barring a few sentries, the Evil troops begin asleep in their tents south of the wall. Some sentries are Easterling warriors, which never move, while others are Khandish troops which act as normal sentries, likely to be controlled by the player with Priority. Along with the sentries visible in the pictures, there is an Easterling in each of the sentry towers, where they will be remarkably ineffective due to the limited 4 inch detection range of a sentry. But it seemed silly to go to all the trouble of making the towers without using them.
The only Good forces on the board are on the west side of the river, where Cirion, Múrin, and Drár each lead a Ranger. They hope to secretly cross the river and infiltrate the camp. The rest of the army can enter whenever it wants, but the Evil forces are alerted when they enter. The infiltrators can kill Evil warriors in their tents, and/or set fire to gate, but the latter (or discovery by a sentry) will also alert the Evil army.
I started the infiltrators as northward as possible so that the drift from the river (I played with a 1d6 drift) wouldn't put them in detection range of the Easterling on the jetty.
As always, Good starts a scenario with Priority.
Cirion and Múrin, who have no shooting weapons, begin crossing the river. Múrin drops his shield to avoid the extra -1 drm for his swim tests -- his Dwarf armor and slightly slower movement are already going to put him in danger as he crosses. The shooters all stay put to maximize their chances of shooting a sentry.
The Khandish sentries all roll in the 2-5 range and the Good player moves them south and/or east.
In the Shooting Phase, the archers manage to kill the nearest sentry. I should mention a rules interpretation that I used that I'm not sure is actually per the rules, but seemed thematic enough, namely: if multiple archers target a unit, all of the shots are resolved before any determination of the sentry sounding the alarm is made. This lets Drár and the Rangers ready their bows, and whisper "one, two, three, FIRE!" to coordinate their shooting, which seems reasonable to me although the letter of the rules doesn't read that way.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 1
Good Priority, 4-3.
Cirion and Múrin continue to cross the river, though not without mishap, as Múrin rolls a '1' and must expend all three of his Might points (due to his armor) to avoid drowning. The bowmen again stay put as sentries are still in range.
The sentry rolls are again helpful to Good, all being in the 1-4 range, and so the sentries move well away from the river.
Shooting knocks off another sentry. These archers must have pretty good night vision.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 2
Evil Priority, 6-3.
Cirion and Múrin drift, Cirion alarmingly so as he rolls a '6'.
The sentries, now under Evil control, start heading back in the general direction of the Good force.
Cirion and Múrin roll well and reach the far bank of the river. The archers again stay put to shoot at the Khandish warrior threatening to discover them. They score three hits on the sentry, but the wound rolls are terrible and Drár is forced to spend two points of Might to deliver the coup de grâce.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 3
Evil Priority, 5-1.
There are only three mobile sentries left, and they all roll a '3' and start ambling over to the river.
Cirion and Múrin begin circling the watchtower to the south in an attempt to stay out of detection range as long as possible. The archers will need to cross the river eventually, but this turn there's still another sentry in range and so they stay put and dispatch him with little fuss.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 4
Good Priority, 6-1.
With no likely targets, Drár and the archers begin fording the river, and one of the rangers drowns though (a bit surprisingly) Drár has no trouble at all. Cirion gets adjacent to a tent, where he can attack a mostly-defenseless (well, defence 3) enemy with double strikes. Múrin is close behind.
The two remaining sentries roll a '4' and a '5' and decide some noises off to the east are more interesting than the silence coming from where the other sentries used to be.
In the first Combat of the game, the dice determine that Cirion attacks a warrior of the Good player's choice and so an Easterling with sword and shield goes down. They are so much easier to kill when asleep!
Casualties: Good 1, Evil 5
Evil Priority, 6-3.
The forders drift. The sentries roll fours and start heading toward the gate.
Cirion and Múrin stay next to the tent for more mayhem, while the archers continue to cross the river. The two remaining Rangers make it to the other side, but Drár, perhaps too cocky from the ease with which he swam last turn, has a tragic Swim test and drowns!
There's no shooting this turn, but in the Combat Phase both Cirion and Múrin kill another Easterling.
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 7
Good Priority, 6-1.
The photographer clearly needs to work on his depth of field.
Cirion and Múrin go to the next tent in the general direction of the gate. From a strict game standpoint, they should continue to skulk from tent to tent as far from the sentries as possible, and it's not unlikely that they could kill the entire Evil army (barring the heroes, which are immune from tent attacks) before the alarm was raised. But that didn't seem very satisfying, so I thought I would have them try to set the gate on fire, which, judging by the scenario special rules, is what they are meant for. But even so, that doesn't mean that they can't try to kill the odd enemy or two on the way there.
Good controls the sentries this turn due to priority but the nearer one rolls a '6' and the Evil player gets to move him ever so close to Cirion. But not yet close enough to raise the alarm.
The Combat Phase sees Cirion and Múrin each kill another enemy.
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 9
Evil Priority, 4-4.
Since it's Evil Priority, the nearest sentry is very likely to sound the alarm, so Cirion calls a Heroic Move in hopes of getting out of the way. He leads Múrin west to the previous tent, as the two remaining Rangers catch up to the heros.
But Cirion's hopes are in vain, as the nearby sentry rolls a '6', moves in, and notices the infiltrators! The alarm is raised!
The Rangers try to shoot down the noisy enemy but there's only two of them, the dice are unkind, and they have no Might points to fix the bad rolls.
Combat sees Cirion take out another sleeper, but Múrin muffs his rolls somehow (and has no Might to make them better) ... so the alarm would have been set off anyway.
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 10
Good Priority, 3-3.
With the alarm raised anyway, it's time to bring in the remainder of the Gondorian force. To the west, Madril leads a squad of eight warriors down the Anduin in a boat. In the east, a considerable number of bowmen line up to take down any defender brave enough to defend the wall. In between are three ladder-carrying squads with Faramir and the Captain.
Cirion and Múrin move to ambush the alarm-raiser.
The Evil army begins emerging from its tents. As Good gets to nominate the tent where the Captains show up, they begin in the southeast (upper right of the second image), as far away from the action as possible.
The previously-frozen Easterling sentries (including one in each watchtower) are now free to move and begin doing so.
There are a few scattered shootings but they are all ineffective.
There's only one Combat (third image). Cirion calls for a Heroic Combat, the plan being to get closer to the gate by slaying the Khandish Warrior. One hapless warrior with a -1 for a two-handed weapon against the two most powerful Good heroes is pretty much a foregone conclusion; Cirion and Múrin barely work up a sweat as they pass the speed bump and run towards the gate (fourth image).
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 11
Good Priority, 6-4.
Khamûl calls a Heroic Move, hoping to move into line of sight of the good heroes and Transfix one of them. Sensing the danger, Cirion calls a Heroic Move of his own and wins the roll-off. Cirion and Múrin head for the gate and manage to get into contact; should the still be there at the end of the Combat Phase, they can try to set it afire.
Between the drift in the Priority Phase and a good piloting roll in the Movement Phase, the boat clears the wall and runs aground so the passengers can begin debarking. Approaching the wall from the north, the archers make a half-move so that they can clear the walls if need be, and the ladder squads continue their advance.
As more Evil troops continue to emerge from the tents, they charge the enemy where they can, or move to the wall where they can't. The two guardians at the gate, seeing twenty-one archers notching their bows, decide that getting down from the ledge is prudent. They move to attack the heroes at the gate.
The archers north of the wall then have no targets. South of the wall the remaining Rangers and Evil archers take a few shots, but none are telling.
The Combat Phase sees a brave Ranger (mostly obscured by the tower in the first image) defeat his two attackers, though he fails to inflict any wounds.
Cirion and Múrin both win their combats and slay three of their four enemies. Since they are adjacent to the gate, they roll to set it on fire and succeed, with it taking a hit!
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 14
Good Priority, 4-3.
In the Priority Phase, the gate burns down.
The ladder-bearers reach the wall and begin their ascent with very few enemies to obstruct them. The Good forces in the west, where they have a local superiority in numbers, move to engage. The bowmen make another half-move so as to keep the Easterlings off the wall, or to be able to fire into the encampment through the ashes of the now-open gate.
Cirion and Múrin, low on heroic resources, duck around the corners of the gate to protect themselves from charges. The nearby Evil cavalry now can't see them any better than we can in these pictures.
Khamûl tries to Transfix the Captain on the wall with one die but fails.
The Khandish horsemen do their bit to stop the archers by charging them to block their line of sight (running right past Múrin and Cirion as they do so). The rest of the Evil forces charge where they can to resist the attackers.
The Shooting Phase is disappointing for the both players. Fifteen Good attacks manage to kill only two of the suicide Khandish horsemen, while Evil gets a few random hits but none of them succeed in wounding the enemy.
The Combat Phase sees both sides get their licks in. The last couple of infiltrating Rangers are eliminated, and the Kataphrakts kill another Gondor bowman. On the other hand, Madril takes out a Kataphrakt and the Captain, having shrugged off Khamûl's spell, easily slays his opponent at the wall.
Casualties: Good 5, Evil 18
Evil Priority, 3-2.
The forces of Gondor are in a pretty good position and would like to capitalize on it, so Faramir, Madril, and the Captain each call a Heroic Move. Frustrated, Khamûl counters and things continue to slightly go Evil's way as the ringwraith wins the roll-off.
Magic finally has an effect as Khamûl at last succeeds in Transfixing the Captain, who fails to resist.
Everybody charges where they can. The Heroic Moves help the Good forces consolidate their toehold on the walls, but with no leadership near the gate the archers must concede the initiative to the Evil forces. Another group of horsemen charge them as they await, with the surviving Khandish horseman from last turn noticing Múrin cowering behind him and backing up to engage him.
One Easterling tries to climb up to attack the Captain but falls as he does so (you can see him in the middle of the second picture). He's fine except for a bruised ego, but no combat for him. Still, Evil has managed to get three dice against the Transfixed Captain.
Shooting sees Evil pick off a Gondorian spearman on the wall, while of 15 shots from the Gondor troops only one kills.
Sensing blood, Evil opens the Combat Phase with the fight against the Captain. The warriors steel themselves and roll ... '1', '1', '3'. The Captain (down to one die due to the baleful effects of the spell) of course gets the '6' and wins. There is much gnashing of Evil teeth.
Elsewhere Combat generally goes Evil's way -- note both Múrin and Cirion knocked to the ground -- as even though Good wins more individual fights, Evil's successes are tending to result in wounds, and Good is not likewise rewarded.
Casualties: Good 9, Evil 24
Good Priority, 5-4.
The Easterling Captain tries to take advantage of Cirion's being prone and calls a Heroic Move. He can't himself reach Cirion, but he can encourage some nearby troops to reach him.
A general scrum begins all over the board. Some of the Good archers peel of some of the enemy attacking Cirion, while others engage the last of the enemy horsemen which are keeping the archers out of the fort.
Khamûl tries to Transfix the Captain again with one die but fails.
Good has no Shooting this turn, and what little Evil has is ineffective.
In the east (picture 3), a Khandish horsemen holds off the onslaught of five attackers, but Evil's glee is short-lived as Cirion's attackers inflict no wounds, either.
In the west (picture 1), Evil's losses are about balanced by Good losses, with a Easterling warrior wounding Madril (negated by Fate).
In the middle (picture 2), the dice favor Evil but the Captain uses his last Might point to thwart the Easterlings yet again and he slays his opponent!
Casualties: Good 11, Evil 29
Evil Priority, 6-4.
Evil charges, with Khamûl again Transfixing the Captain. No one stays back for shooting as both sides need to inflict casualties! Evil is nearing their breakpoint of 32 models and so spreads out the heroes so as to cover most of the troops.
Good responds by getting as many reinforcements into the front line as possible.
A Citadel Guard archer takes a sneaky shot at Khamûl and even hits, but the wound roll fails.
Combat see Múrin fail spectacularly with his three dice against a lowly axeman with only one die and a -1 drm. Having used all his Might crossing the river, Múrin braces for a wound. But despite the +1 for a two-handed weapon, the axeman fails do anything other than chip away a decoration on Múrin's armor.
Cirion is attacked by the Easterling Captain and a warrior, but unlike Múrin he manages to win his combat and kills the warrior, though he is unable to wound the Captain.
Madril is surrounded by the Khandish Captain and two warriors, but also wins his combat, though he fails to wound.
Casualties: Good 14, Evil 33. The Evil force is broken and must start taking Courage tests next turn.
Good Priority, 6-5.
Flush with the tide of victory, the Gondor troops rush to engage the enemy. That might be a mistake, because engaged models don't have take Courage Tests for being broken. But tying up the Captains does mean that six Evil unengaged warriors run away at the start of their turn.
Khamûl again tries to Transfix the Captain and again fails. Luck is not with the Ringwraith.
In the Shooting Phase, Evil has two bowmen take potshots at the banner bearer on the wall; both hit but neither can wound.
With Evil's troops thinning out, many of the Combats are now 2 Gondorians vs 1 Easterling and the numbers are beginning to tell. Madril wounds the Khandish Captain and Cirion wins against the Easterling Captain but cannot score a wound despite the help of three warriors and double strikes!
Evil Priority, 4-2.
Now having to go first, the Evil Heroes take their Courage tests. The Easterling Captain, having fended off a four enemies single-handedly last turn, rolls an '11' and is staying put. But the Khandish Captain, perhaps rattled by the wound he received, rolls snake-eyes and runs away. Fortunately for Evil, Khamûl then rolls boxcars and manages to keep the center intact. But the Evil left flank is in trouble now. Without a hero to stiffen their resolve, three warriors (including a Kataphrakt) run away.
Evil pulls back to get almost everyone (barring the Easterling Captain) within range of Khamûl's Standfast. Desperate for a way to turn the game around, or perhaps just frustrated, Khamûl hurls a Black Dart at Madril, but the spell is not cast successfully despite the three dice rolled. Of course.
Good Shooting -- about ten shots -- is ineffective also.
There are only three Combats this turn. The Easterling Captain yet again loses but yet again takes no wounds; that fellow has some good armor. Likewise an Easterling bowman (bottom of first picture). But the Easterling caught behind enemy lines (just visible behind Madril in the upper left of the first picture) is taken down pretty handily.
Good Priority, 4-2.
Good considers holding back and seeing if Khamûl will flub his Courage test, but the odds are that he won't and it's nearing the end of the game anyway, so: Charge!
Just about all of the Evil figures are engaged, but no one can quite get to Khamûl, who hurls a two-die Black Dart at his nemesis the Captain, who of course continues to luck out as the spell fails.
Combat goes Good's way entirely, as seven Evil models are slain without any Good casualties at all.
Good Priority, 4-3.
With the Evil lines thinned considerably, Khamûl is now vulnerable and a Good warrior musters his courage and charges the Nazgûl. Good wins every fight but kills only two enemies. Still, even engaging Khamûl costs him a Will point and he's now down to 3.
Evil Priority, 6-2.
Khamûl begins with a Courage test but his roll of boxcars shows his commitment to the cause of Sauron.
In the ensuing mopping up, somehow both Khamûl and a spearman survive.
Good Priority, 5-4.
The Easterling spearman is clearly dead man walking but despite superiority in numbers only Múrin musters the courage to charge Khamûl. The Ringwraith manages to win the combat despite having only one die against three, but it doesn't matter, as this combat cost him his last Will point and he goes back to the nothingness from whence he came
Victory to Gondor!
That was a fun scenario. There's a lot going on, with infiltration, assault boats, siege equipment, and a slumbering camp all contributing to a colorful story. The Good side has a lot of opportunities for strategizing; because of the nature of the scenario the Evil side must play things by ear but the variety of toys (cavalry, two-handed weapons, magic) somewhat compensate for that.
It's not for the faint-hearted, though, as the scenery and troop needs are fairly large.
There were a few things with the situation that bothered me. Nothing too important, but I might consider a few alterations were I to attempt to tackle this scenario again.
The ability to kill enemies in the tent as they sleep is very thematic but has some problems, too. Because troops aren't allocated to any specific tents, it's possible for Good to camp out at one tent and have the 3-Attack heroes grind up the entire Evil army. Which is absurd, of course -- what are all of those other tents for? I know that for many folks a gentleman's agreement to not abuse the rules is sufficient, but I personally prefer my rules a little more prescriptive and less loosey-goosey.
So I think the scenario would benefit from tent assignments: Evil decides who goes in what tent on a piece of paper placed underneath the tent at the start of the game, and that determines which targets Good can possibly kill in that particular tent. If Good gets 'em all, it's time to move on to the next tent, which introduces more risk of detection by the sentries.
Some sort of time limit for the night-time shenanigans wouldn't hurt, either. Maybe make the entire camp wake up automatically at some point, Turn 10 maybe? The right amount of time pressure would allow Good to get in a few turns doing some assassinations while preventing them from taking too long about it.
It's a bit odd to have Múrin and Drár have to cross the river when they are so likely to drown (made worse by the changes in the Hobbit rule set). Perhaps say they have floating devices (wooden rafts?) which negate the armor penalties?
Watching horsemen emerge fully-mounted from tents is a little weird. Can six horsemen and their mounts really fit in one tent? I grant that it's a fair concession to playability, but I wonder if making an enclosure for the horses and having the riders have to run from their tents to mount up at the enclosure would be better? Maybe the infiltrators could attack the horses, too, with an increased chance of raising the alarm?
My final nit is the sentry range in combination with the watchtowers. Since the watchtowers are more than 4" off the ground, a sentry within the watchtower can't see anything at all, which makes the watchtowers useless as anything other than a pretty piece of scenery. It makes more sense to have a sentry within a tower have a 4" range extending out from the base of the tower (but maybe not directly underneath because the floor obscures line of sight). I would have used a rule like that in this replay, but since I had to shrink the board a bit to accomodate my table the Evil encampment is smaller than it should be, which makes detection easier. So further penalizing the Good player for inability to move far enough from the watchtowers didn't make much sense.
None of the above interfered with my enjoyment of the game. I like the smaller scenarios quite a lot but there's something to be said for these larger scenarios, too, where there are plenty of chances for the die-rolling to even out.
Not that I think the luck was particularly even. The Gondor Captain led a charmed life, and Cirion, Múrin, and Madril all escaped from potentially lethal situations had die rolls been a little more even.