My run through the recent (2019) Scouring of the Shire book for Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game continues with The Lockholes. Rowan Thistlewood and his Ruffian gang are patrolling the area around the Lockholes, where they have imprisoned Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Fatty Bolger, and some miscellaneous other troublemakers. Baldo Tulpenny and Paladin Took have organized an expedition to free them.
Good wins if four or more of the imprisoned hobbits can escape off the west, south, or east board edges. Evil wins if Good doesn't.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
Good has four leaders here along with four Archers and twelve Militia. Arrayed against them is Rowan Thistlewood and the seemingly standard dozen Ruffians.
Evil sets up first within 6" of the Lockholes. The hobbits then begin within 12" of the south edge of the board.
Both sides have some forces off-board (fifth image). For the hobbits, six figures (including Lobelia and Fatty) are jailed in the Lockholes. The Ruffians also have a half-dozen mates that enter on any given turn on a dieroll 4-6 on a random board edge.
The hobbits have concentrated in the southwest corner, mainly in the large wood copse there. The archers in the wood (not visible) hope to use the cover to outshoot the Ruffians. Good also hopes that concentration will help the hobbits avoid getting picked off by stray Ruffians reinforcements.
Good Priority, as always for a narrative scenario.
Paladin leads a contingent towards the Lockholes. The remainder await developments from the Ruffian reinforcements. In particular, ace stone-thrower Baldo stays puts to discourage the Ruffians from appearing too close to the hobbits in the south.
The Ruffian bowmen stay in place to maximize their firepower while the others move up to the fence line for some protection. Two Ruffian reinforcements enter, both bowmen. One comes on in the west (image 1, left, in the background), the other in the east (image 3) where he's got a few turns before he'll get into the action.
Each side shoots off their arrows but no Wounds are scored.
Evil Priority, 5-2.
Evil decides to advance, threatening to Charge Paladin next turn. The bowmen stay put to shoot. A Ruffian reinforcement enters from the west edge.
With the threat of reinforcements diminishing -- there are only two left now -- the hobbits in the copse start fanning out. The hobbits nearest the Ruffians nock their arrows and stoop for stones.
The Ruffians draw first blood in the game with an archer killing a hobbit Militia. The hobbits launch a hail of missiles in return, but although many hits are scored, the Wound dierolls are dismal and only a single Ruffian is taken out.
Casualties: Good 1, Evil 1
Good Priority, 5-3.
Paladin and his followers withdraw out of Charge range of the Ruffians. The other hobbits stoop for stones.
The Evil bowmen take aim while the other Ruffians move up to threaten a Charge next turn. The remaining three Ruffian reinforcements enter, two in the west and one in the south.
A number of Good missiles find their mark; a Ruffian goes down and, thanks to Baldo's re-roll to hit, Rowan receives three Wounds and is slain! The Evil archers take aim looking for revenge, but fail to inflict any Wounds. A disastrous turn for Evil.
Casualties: Good 1, Evil 3
Good Priority, 4-1.
The hobbits in the west stay out of Charge range of the reinforcing Ruffians. In the east, the hobbits Charge. The Ruffians move up as they can to get into the action.
A Ruffian using a tree for cover (second image, right) is targeted by Baldo, who gets his '6' when chucking a stone at him and auto-kills! This is the first six that Baldo has gotten over the several scenarios that he's appeared in.
There are two Combats this turn. Paladin and a Militia engage a Ruffian, who overcomes the odds and kills the hobbit. The other combat is a 1:1 where the hobbit wins, but fails to Wound.
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 4
Good Priority, 4-1.
Again the hobbits swarm, and again Evil moves up where he can. There's no hobbit shooting this turn as everyone has moved. The Ruffian bowmen take aim but their luck is no better than usual and their archery has no result.
Evil's run of bad luck continues into the Combat phase, as despite their generally higher Fight value and even odds, four Ruffians go down with no loss at all to the hobbits!
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 8
Evil Priority, 3-3.
Evil finally gets the jump on the hobbits ... but there's only one Ruffian and four archers on the board, and the latter are way out of Charge range. The Ruffian withdraws out of Throw Stones range, and the archers stay put hoping their dice will finally heat up.
It's time for the hobbits to start heading towards the Lockholes. A couple hang back to Shoot better, but as the phase ends the only casualty is one Ruffian bowman.
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 9
Evil Priority, 6-2.
The Ruffian clubman again moves out of missile range and the bows get ready to Shoot again. The hobbits move to the fence.
The Ruffians finally get a bit of luck and one bowman takes out a hobbit. Better still, the hobbit return fire is ineffective.
Casualties: Good 3, Evil 9
Good Priority, 4-2.
The hobbits continue to move forward. Shooting goes the other way this turn and the club Ruffian falls.
You can see what happens from here, right? The hobbits swarm the greatly-outnumbered Ruffians and though one brave man wins a Combat despite being outnumbered 3:1, Evil fails to cause any more casualties over the next few turns. The hobbits easily free the prisoners in the Lockholes and stroll their way off the board.
Good victory!
There's no need to feel sorry for the Evil player here. This is actually my second playthrough; I didn't bother writing up the first instance because it was also a blowout -- but in the other direction! The hobbits just couldn't inflict any Wounds, and the Ruffians were easily winning low odds attacks and killing hobbits.
Which is, I suppose, what you can expect when you pit low-defence troops against each other.
But the luck swings aren't really a big problem. What is a problem in my view is that the scenario doesn't seem to succeed at what it's trying to portray. There are specific rules for freeing prisoners -- but they didn't matter at all in either of my playthroughs. It seems unlikely that the slow-moving hobbits are ever going to sneak up to the Lockholes without the Ruffians being more or less already defeated (as happened here).
I can't claim optimal play. (For example, in this playthrough, Rowan Thistlewood certainly should have called a Heroic Move on Turn 3.) So perhaps I'm missing some tactics to turn this more into the cat-and-mouse game that the special rules seem to imply we should be experiencing?
Is it possible that the Ruffians should be under Sentry rules, maybe?
If not, I think the Ruffians should just form square around the door to the Lockholes and rely on their higher Fight Value to win the attrition war. Which isn't very interesting, and certainly wouldn't require a 4'x4' board.
Not really bad, but could use some improvement.