This is a scenario of Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game from the There and Back Again sourcebook. Bilbo tries to rescue his Dwarf friends, who have been captured by the evil Mirkwood spiders.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
This is another small scenario, Bilbo alone against six Mirkwood Spiders. The equalizer is The Ring, which makes Bilbo invisible to the spiders, who are moved randomly unless Bilbo is discovered. Each turn they take a Courage test; if passed, Evil moves them, otherwise Good does. They move d6" in any case, so just because Evil can move them doesn't mean that they will be able to close with Bilbo.
Enjoy the black spider in the back left corner now, as due to the vagaries of the die-rolling he never comes close to mattering. So he'll not be showing up again in any of the subsequent pictures.
If the Mirkwood Spider models here don't look familiar: look, I'm perfectly willing to spend money to support GW's efforts to continue their Strategy Battle Game. I've purchased Iron Hills dwarves, Thranduil on elk, Dáin, ogres, trolls, chariots (plural) and oh so many goat riders and Laketown houses. But I'm afraid I balked at paying $17.50 each for Mirkwood Spiders when I need 18 of them for the Flies & Spiders Part II scenario (though only six here). I just couldn't make myself pay $315 for the privilege of playing these two battles.
So what you see here are plastic spiders from WizKids' Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures range. They aren't as nice or as large as GW's efforts, but at $33 (including shipping!) for six packs of three I find myself well satisfied. I promise to use the $280 saved to buy other more useful GW Middle Earth models.
We see here the forest of Mirkwood. The white dice, arranged triangularly with the apex at the north end of the table, represent three objective markers, two of which contain the captured dwarves of Thorin's company. Bilbo wins by uncovering those two objectives, which he does by ending the turn on them and rolling a 3+.
I recognize that the dice distract a bit from the look of the table. But I think they help you the reader/viewer to orient the pictures and to keep track of which objective is which. So I left them in.
Ordinarily the Evil player decides which objective is the decoy. But since I'm playing this solo I decided that I'd just roll a die when Bilbo was on an objective; 1-3 means the decoy and a 4-6 would be dwarves.
The spiders are arranged hexagonally around the board, with a spider more or less on either side of each objective. Bilbo decides to set up close to Objective 3, a bit off screen to the lower right of the first picture. Three of the spiders are visible.
Good always starts a scenario with Priority, so Bilbo heads straight to Objective 3. The two nearest spiders not only pass their Courage Tests, but get 6" of movement and get alarmingly close to Bilbo. Is this going to be a short game?
The other four spiders fail their Courage Tests and move 1-2" away. Their random meanderings aren't that interesting and so the photos are going to focus on Bilbo and his environs.
Good Priority, 6-5.
Thinking the better of getting too close to a spider, Bilbo skews east. The two closest spiders again pass their Courage Tests(!) but get low rolls for movement and Bilbo is safe for now. He hurls a stone at the nearest spider and hits but fails to wound.
Evil Priority, 5-5.
The two spiders nearest Bilbo fail their Courage Tests and roll high, clearing a path for Bilbo. Looks like Bilbo may be freeing some dwarves next turn. He chucks a rock and hits again but again fails to wound.
Evil Priority, 2-1.
The closest spider passes its Courage Test but the movement roll is disappointing (from Evil's point of view, anyway). The other spiders continue to mill about. Bilbo reaches Objective 3, misses with a thrown stone, rolls to see if the objective is dwarves and ... it is! Good is halfway to victory.
Evil Priority, 6-2.
An uneventful turn. The spiders scatter. Bilbo moves his cautious 4" towards Objective 1, which seems slightly less well guarded than the other remaining objective. It's a long way through the forest, though.
Evil Priority, 3-2.
Likewise.
Good Priority, 5-3.
Bilbo continues on his way, but a spider is now on the scent and charges 5" towards Bilbo, interposing itself between Bilbo and the objective. The other spiders continue to meander with none close enough to have any effect in the near term.
Evil Priority, 2-1.
Evil wakes up a bit to the possibility of a Good walkover and all the spiders save two pass their Courage Tests. The one that threatened Bilbo on turn 2 actually gets close enough behind him to possibly matter next turn.
Unfortunately for Evil, the spider guarding Objective 1 is one of the two that fail their Courage Test. But at least the movement dieroll is 1, so it can still effectively block the objective.
Good Priority, 4-2.
It's gut check time for Bilbo. He needs to reach the objective, but the spider there is pretty threatening. He moves ahead, but to the side as well, cautiously staying over 3" away. He figures that this way even if the guard spider passes its Courage Test that he's still got a 50% chance of avoiding combat. And he'll still be able to reach the objective next turn.
Bilbo's caution is misplaced, as this is a disastrous turn for Evil, with all the spiders failing their Courage Tests. The only silver lining for Evil, such as it is, is that the spider on the objective only moves 1" away.
Evil Priority, 2-1.
Ugh, the spiders all fail their Courage Tests again. Bilbo marches up to the objective, but rolls low and fails to reveal its nature.
Evil Priority, 4-1.
Most of the spiders pull themselves together and two at least get near enough to Bilbo to be of some concern. Bilbo finally manages to reveal the objective ... but it's the decoy! Off to Objective 2 with you, Bilbo.
Good Priority, 4-3.
Bilbo begins the long slog to Objective 2. The spiders nearest Bilbo lose the scent and wander off. One spider near the remaining objective sees the hobbit coming and moves to intercept.
Evil Priority, 5-3.
The gray spider that has been intermittently threatening Bilbo all game gets 1" away from Bilbo! But then Bilbo moves away on his trek to the last objective. The spider there decides that he doesn't need to be so obvious about defending the spot and backs off a bit.
Good Priority, 4-1.
Bilbo advances. Evil gets completely discombobulated and all but one spider fails their Courage Test, and the only passer is in the other corner of the board.
Evil Priority, 2-1.
The pictured spider passes his Courage Test but rolls low. He's really Evil's only hope for victory at this point. Bilbo's now about two turns away from the last objective.
Evil Priority, 3-1.
The spider comes through in big way, passing his Courage Test and rolling a '5' for movement, blocking Bilbo from the objective.
What's Bilbo to do? He's got a higher Fight Value (so will win tied combat rolls), and when he attacks a scenario rule gives him an extra attack die. So he decides to charge, throwing a stone on the way in. The stone misses but Bilbo gets his '6' in the fight, winning the combat and the Wound rolls are '5's, killing the spider!
It takes Bilbo another two turns to reach the objective and reveal it, but the spiders aren't close enough to cause Bilbo much of a sweat. Victory for Good!
This is a great solo scenario, as there's not much decision-making for the Evil player. Gameplay was tense despite the somewhat lopsided result here. A few dierolls going differently could have altered the results drastically. Indeed after the first turn I was worried that the game was going to end on Turn 3 and hence be not much of a battle report!
There isn't endless replayability here, but it's a worthy entry in There and Back Again book and it's certainly worth taking out for a spin or two.
It would be cool if the spiders could make webs which would restrict Bilbo's movement, either blocking him entirely or slowing him down while he cuts through them with Sting. Hmm, I might actually pursue that idea.
One final thought: speed your game play by rolling two black dice and one white die for the spiders' Courage Tests. Use the black dice as the Courage roll and the white die as the movement distance. It's faster than rolling the Courage Test and then rolling again for the distance separately.