This is a scenario of Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, the first in the Escape from Goblintown introductory book. Here Glóin, Óin, Fili, and Kili try to make their way through the precarious Goblintown walkways, while a Goblin Captain and 12 Goblins try to hold them up for ten turns.
I took the advice of the Green Dragon Podcast and played with all the rules, including broken forces. Without the full set of options available to the dwarves and some way to thin out the Goblins, the Good player doesn't stand a chance.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
Here are Glóin, Óin, Kili, and Fili and their adversaries. The Captain is the little guy in front with the gold chevrons on his base.
The Goblintown walkways are placed mostly lengthwise. The dwarves will start at the bottom and must make their way to the top to win. They can't all fit on the same walkway, so they separate out by brotherhood, the weaker Óin joining fighting machine Glóin, and Fili joining Kili on the other on-ramp.
Evil can only set up three Goblins on the platform closest to the dwarves; the others begin at the back where the dwarves are trying to get.
As always, Good starts a scenario with Priority.
The disadvantage of doing these replays so rarely is that I get a bit rusty on the procedures and, sure enough, I forgot to take a picture of turn 1. Fortunately not much happened. The dwarves all ran up their ramps, Óin lagging a bit to hide behind Glóin and Kili moving just half so that he can shoot. But neither Kili's bow nor Fili's throwing axes have any effect. The Goblins withdrew to the ramp where they can't be trapped.
On turn 2, Evil gets Priority, 5-2.
Good sees no reason to call a Heroic Move, so Evil goes ahead. The Goblins man up the ramp, being careful to deploy in formations of four (two on the front line, two just behind to support thanks to the Chittering Horde rule) with an inch between so there's room to, er, make room.
Finally in range, the dwarves advance into combat. Fili's throwing axe kills one Goblin, Kili's bow takes out another, and in combat Glóin slays a third.
At the end of the turn, 2 Goblins come back from the dead on the rear platform.
Good Priority, 1-1.
Fili's throwing axe strikes again; he hops over his victim and advances into combat. Glóin moves to back him up, Óin lags as usual, and Kili lines up another bow shot.
But that's the end of Good's streak of luck. Kili's bow misses. Then Fili rolls a 3-highest against the Goblins' 6, so he can't even Might it to a victory; the Goblins snicker and inflict a wound. Then Glóin muffs his combat as well; it's 6-4 so he could force the win, but only at the cost of both his Might points. Figuring that he'll need the Might later, and being much tougher than Fili (Defense 7 vs 5) he reckons he's not in much danger, and so it proves to be as Evil fails to Wound anything other than Glóin's pride.
This isn't a complete disaster for Good, but the dwarves can't afford any more turns like this.
There's only one Goblin remaining in the dead pile, and rejoins his companions at the back.
Evil Priority, 3-2.
This time there's more at stake, so after making sure all his mates are in range, Kili calls a Heroic Move. The Captain considers countering, but he's got only 2 Might points versus 5 on the Good side and it doesn't seem worth it for just a 50% chance to go.
So Good proceeds, with the dwarves again closing up.
Missile weapons have no effect this turn.
Needing redemption for last turn, Glóin calls a Heroic Combat. His foes roll a 6 but so does Glóin, and he gets his kill. He then advances to engage both the "support" Goblins, again gets his 6, and manages to kill them both. Honor is redeemed.
Fili wins his combat, too, but muffs the Wound rolls and need to spend a Might point to get the kill.
The Goblins have now lost eight warriors and are broken. On the positive side, three warriors come back.
Good Priority, 1-1.
Now the Goblin Captain calls a Heroic Move, thinking that maybe his forces can surround the somewhat exposed Glóin. Óin counters with his lone Might point to prevent that, but Evil wins the roll-off.
Unfortunately, being broken, Evil has to take Courage tests, and the Goblin Captain rolls a disastrous snake-eyes. Oops. The Captain runs off the table (over the edge of the walkways, probably). Disheartened by their leader's cowardly behavior, all but two Goblins run home as well. (My dierolling was seriously awful, with at least two additional snake-eyes and no compensating box-cars.)
The dwarves rush the survivors -- no point in hanging back for bow shots now! Fili wins but fails to wound, while Glóin does his job, leaving one Goblin on the table until the end of the turn, when the dice again favor Good and just one Goblin returns.
Good Priority, 5-3.
Fili and Kili charge the closest Goblin, then Glóin and Óin push on by, with the latter remaining behind to ensure that the engaged Goblin is trapped. At the start of the combat phase ... Combat Synergy! Kili, who still has a point of Might, swaps places with Fili (2nd picture). And sure enough, he dispatches his foe.
Just one Goblin comes back.
Evil Priority, 4-3.
There are only two Goblins on the board. Both pass their Courage test for being broken, then take up blocking positions. Evil's situation is pretty dire, but with some better luck on reinforcement dierolls and another combat round like on Turn 3, there's some chance of pulling out a win.
Only Glóin can reach a Goblin this turn. Fili does try hurling a throwing axe but it misses. Glóin dispatches his opponent.
At the end of the turn three Goblins come back. Are things looking up for Evil?
Evil Priority, 6-5.
The blocking Goblin fails his Courage test, but the three reinforcements from last turn all pass and their enemies are close enough to charge. So they do so.
Fili uses his last Might point to call a Heroic Combat. Fili and Kili win, and use the heroic action to dash for the edge of the platform. Good is now two-thirds of the way towards victory.
Glóin wins his combat, but only manages to kill one of his foes.
Only one Goblin casualty returns. Grim times for Evil.
Evil Priority, 6-1.
The newest arrival looks at the situation and decides that discretion is the better part of valor. That leaves just a lone Goblin on the board. He charges Glóin. Óin comes up to join the combat, which does seem pretty safe at this point. Glóin calls a Heroic Combat, the dwarves win fairly easily, and like their compatriots Glóin and Óin reach the edge of the platform.
Victory to Good!
There were huge swings of luck in that game; it's not hard to imagine a the Goblins sometimes being able to pull off a win here.
Despite not being "historical", this was a pretty fun small-scale scenario when played with all the rules. It would be a no-hoper for the dwarves when playing with the introductory rules set that GW suggests. I wonder how many people tried that and got turned off the game entirely?
I realized in retrospect that I forgot about Óin's Prognostication ability. Oh well, didn't stop the dwarves from winning. The challenge with Thorin's Company in general is trying to remember all the special rules; that has to be one of the reasons for these introductory scenarios with just 3-4 dwarves, right?
There is one rules change that I have been considering, namely changing the Chittering Hordes rule so that "supporting" figures count as being in the combat, and hence are vulnerable to wounding. I think the rule is supposed to represent the Goblins squeezing in to fight, in which case it makes sense that they'd be at risk of getting wounded, too.
The main effect of that rule change would be to allow the stronger fighters to at least sometimes clear away both enemies on a walkway and so make more than 1" of progress without having to expend a Might point. With this rule change, it may even be possible for Good to win without the Broken Forces rules. Maybe.