Having tried the older Return of the King version of Gandalf rescuing Faramir from his crazy dad, I thought I'd take a break from my RotK run-through to try out the more recent Gondor at War rewrite.
This version has several tweaks compared to its predecessor:
All the characters are using their new profiles; notably Gandalf has two Attacks now and Denethor has no Might or Fate, just 3 Will.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
Gandalf and Pippin begin down the corridor behind Beregond, while the Citadel Guard prepare themselves to defend the Steward of Gondor.
I didn't have a good Faramir figure to use as a body, so I commandeered a Perry knight casualty from the Wars of the Roses range. I thought Denethor's torch was a little too red in the last game so I touched it up with some yellow; I like this better.
Good starts with Priority, as always for narrative play.
Priority is actually a bit of a disadvantage here as if Beregond and Gandalf take a full move towards the pyre they will just be swamped by Citadel Guard. So they stay just out of Charge range to await developments.
The Citadel Guard then move up to prepare for the next turn.
Good Priority, 3-2.
Good might as well minimize Evil's mobility, so Bergond charges one Citadel Guard and Gandalf, dropping off Pippin, tackles two others. This leaves Evil with only one model to move; he joins his compatriot against Beregond.
Beregond lucks out and wins a roll-off due to a tied Duel roll & Fight value; Gandalf handily overcomes his foes. Good isn't allowed to strike, but Shadowfax still knocks the two guards to the ground.
Evil Priority, 5-2.
It seems like a good idea to take advantage of half the "Evil" guards being prone. Besides, Good has three points of Might against Evil's none, and there's no point in saving them for Strikes here. So Pippin calls a Heroic Move, which Evil cannot contest.
The fundamental choice for Gandalf in this scenario is what to do with his single Will point. Sorcerous Blast is a way to maybe take out some Evil figures without violating the letter of the law against making Strikes. But it's got no better than a 50% chance of working (counting Gandalf's Might point), and even then actually killing an enemy isn't too probable.
A interesting weaselly play is casting Channeled Strengthen Will on himself. This would give him 1-3 Will points; with luck he'd get three Will and then could consider Sorcerous Blasting his way to a win. But for this to work, a lot of dierolls would have to break favorably, and there's a one third chance he'd end up just getting his one Will point back and spending his sole Might point for nothing.
Immobilize or Command are also pretty useful, but only being able to cast it once per game while being outnumbered (and Denethor having three dice to resist should he be the target) makes them less attractive than they usually are.
Which leaves Terrifying Aura. Gandalf decides to call a Heroic Channel, cast this spell -- he succeeds -- and rely on it to protect him. He then moves to the back of the pyre (closest to the camera) and pulls Faramir off.
Beregond and Pippin do their bit to tie up Citadel Guard.
With Faramir off the pyre, Denethor is free to move. His Courage Test to Charge Gandalf is '1','5','5' and his Courage 5 sees him through.
Beregond continues to perform above expectations, winning another 1-vs-2 combat but frustratingly unable to knock out his opponents. Pippin loses his 1-vs-2, but as his opponents are prone, they just stand up and everything's fine.
Infuriated by Gandalf's presumption, Denethor outrolls a now-Might-less Gandalf. He strikes at Shadowfax, scoring only a single hit but the Lord of the Mearas fails his Fate roll and dies. Luck finally returns to a shocked Gandalf, who rolls a '6' for his Thrown Rider test and nimbly lands on his feet.
At this point you might be thinking, wait, there's a flaw in that analysis of Gandalf's spells. And you're right! Unfortunately I didn't notice it until I edited this battle report. I'll talk about it more in the end game notes.
Good Priority, 5-5.
Gandalf picks up Faramir and takes his half move for carrying a heavy object. Beregond tackles two Citadel Guard again -- so far it's been working! -- while Pippin takes on another.
This leaves a Citadel Guard and Denethor unengaged. The guard tries to Charge the wizard but Channeled Terrifying Aura does its job and the man decides that maybe letting the boss deal with the situation would be best. Denethor has no such qualms and takes another shot at Gandalf.
Combat sees Gandalf and Beregond win, but as usual they get no Strikes. Pippin loses, but his armor saves him and he suffers no Wounds.
At this point I noticed an ambiguity in the Victory Conditions. The relevant paragraph is: "The game lasts for eight turns. If, at the end of eight turns, Faramir is either upon the pyre or within 1" of it, the Evil player wins. If the Good player can carry Faramir more than 1" away from the pyre by the end of the eighth turn, the Good player is the winner."
The problem: those objectives aren't mutually exclusive! What happens if the Good player drags Faramir far enough away (as has happened here), but then the Evil player drags him back before the end of turn 8?
Read completely literally, the last sentence gives Good the win at this point, since Faramir is far enough away from the pyre. But that seems to make for an anti-climactic game. So let's play on as if victory, Good or Evil, is decided at the end of the eighth turn. Rule of cool and all...
Good Priority, 4-1.
Gandalf's spell seems to work well against the Citadel Guard; it's high-Courage Denethor who is the problem. So Pippin moves to tie him up. Beregond tries his hand yet again against two foes. Gandalf continues to drag Faramir's body away.
Evil changes tactics a bit and although Denethor charges Gandalf as usual, the Citadel Guard decide to take Beregond out for once and for all, though one Charges Pippin to keep him honest.
Denethor wins against a struggling Gandalf and even inflicts a Wound, though a Fate point backed by Narya's power negates it. Seeing Gandalf's predicament, Pippin wins his Fight and Beregond ties his. Beregond and the Citadel Guard are equal in Fight, so this would ordinarily be a rolloff. But the consequences of losing here are so drastic -- dying is a distinct possibility given six chances to Wound -- that Beregond uses his sole Might point to win the battle.
Good Priority, 5-3.
Pippin pins Denethor, Gandalf drags Faramir, Beregond continues his delaying swordplay.
Evil finally gets some satisfaction as Pippin is killed in a flurry of blows. But the happiness is short-lived, as Good won the Priority roll for Turn 7, at which point Gandalf could drag Faramir far enough away that Evil had no hope of getting him back to the pyre by the next turn.
So Good wins the hard (well, harder) way anyway.
Despite pretty much the same forces, that felt like a very different scenario than the RotK version.
If you didn't catch the flaw in my Turn 3 spell analysis, the problem with Terrifying Aura (Channeled or not) is that it only lasts until exhaustion (i.e. Gandalf has no Will left). But since Gandalf has only one Will point in this scenario, as soon as he casts the spell, it expires!
While my boo-boo certainly helped Good, I'm not sure it made any decisive difference. It turned out that one Citadel Guard on one turn stood still; we can get the same sequence of events by pretending that Gandalf cast Immobilize on him that turn.
Good won reasonably handily, but Priority rolls largely favored them and Beregond was lucky to come out of five turns of fighting without even a scratch. I could see Good having a harder time if Beregond is killed early on.
I have mixed feelings about Good's inability to Strike. It sort of makes sense on the face of it from a "well, they are the good guys" standpoint. But there are a number of other scenarios where we just pretend that Wounds knock out models instead of killing them; I'm not sure why we can't do that here. And the movie moment when Gandalf smacks Denethor with his staff is so very satisfying; maybe he should be allowed to Stun?
Keeping the Citadel Guard separated enough that Shadowfax can only knock one down seems like a good idea.
Like a lot of the smaller scenarios, I don't think this one is endlessly replayable. But it seems like an improvement over the RotK incarnation and worth a couple of plays. I still have no idea what the best use of Gandalf's single Will point is!