My run-through of the Scouring of the Shire (2019) scenarios for Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game continues here with "Uprooting of Bagshot Row". Here we see Bill Ferny face down with Sam's ol' dad Hamfast "The Gaffer" Gamgee.
Good wins by killing Bill Ferny; Evil wins by reducing the Good force to 25% or less.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
GW has yet to release a Gaffer model, which is one reason why I held off on doing this scenario for a while. But with the imminent War on Rohan release, it seems unlikely that we'll see him any time soon. So I've gone ahead and substituted Robin Smallburrow and some custom flower bases (discussed below), leading twelve hobbit Militia.
Evil has Bill Ferny at the head of the usual squadron of Ruffians.
Evil sets up within 3" of the Gaffer's hobbit hole. Evidently the Ruffians are looking for Hamfast but he's not home. Instead he's called up his friends and neighbors, who begin 6" from the eastern edge.
After setup, the Gaffer deploys his three flowers. Hobbits reroll '1's to Wound against models within 4" of a flower marker, so the placement matters. But Evil can get rid of them if a model is in base contact during the End Phase, albeit then the Gaffer gets to re-roll Wounds against the perpetrator.
Since in this game the Ruffians don't matter to the victory conditions -- only Bill Ferny does -- the penalty for removing the flowers doesn't faze Evil much. So Good places the flowers more than two moves away from Evil, at a range where when the markers can be removed the hobbits will be in Throw Stones range.
Good always starts with Priority. The Ruffian archers are pretty poor, but given enough time and/or luck they can win the game for Evil single-handedly. So Good is forced to move up.
The two archers in the north have a line of sight to the hobbits, but the southern pair of bowmen does not, and takes a half move to get into a better position.
Bill Ferny stays put, no doubt mumbling "If you want me, come and get me." The rest of the Ruffians move up.
Shooting is utterly ineffective, as none of Ruffians even manage to Hit.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 0
Evil Priority, 6-1.
Hmm, Evil didn't really want this, preferring to see what the hobbits did. Oh well. If the Ruffians move up, they'll just get pelted, so they stay in place!
The hobbits respond by moving up a few inches to put the Ruffians in Throw Stones -- but not Charge -- range.
Shooting is ever so slightly better, with one Ruffian managing to Hit but no Wound is scored.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 0
Good Priority, 2-1.
Now the status quo favors the hobbits, so they stay put. The Ruffians move up, with one guy staying behind to take out the red flowers; he gets a yellow stone so that I can remember that the Gaffer gets the re-roll bonus against him.
Since the Ruffians couldn't quite reach the hobbit line, they have to endure a hail of missile fire. Fortunately for them, the hobbit Shooting is feeble. Although most of the first eleven shots hit, none score a Wound, even accounting for the rerolls due to the nearby flowers. The last Militia shot finally takes out a whip man, and the Gaffer takes out the other with the final shot. While every loss hurts, Evil's lucky to get away with only losing two men.
The Evil return fire continues to be ineffectual.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 2
Evil Priority, 5-4.
Good has only a single Might point, and with numbers on his side he's not too worried about enduring Evil's Charge. So no Heroic Move this turn.
Evil Charges, taking on the occasional 1:2 attack so as to guarantee tying up the entire hobbit front line. The hobbits counter where they can, but their limited 4" movement and the presence of the flower markers on the flanks impede their ability to get into contact.
With the melee starting, Bill Ferny and the archers move up to get into the action, so there's no Shooting this turn.
The combat honors are evenly split, with each side losing two models. One of the Ruffian losses is the guy that stomped out the flowers last turn; a Militia took him out before the Gaffer could get to him. So his yellow stone is now a red one.
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 4
Good Priority, 4-2.
Bill Ferny is too far away for a Heroic Move to be effective, so he saves his sole Might point.
The hobbits swarm the Ruffians. Bill Ferny and the archers (they were big in the 1950s) continue to move up.
Combat is closer than the end results would seem, as, despite generally being outnumbered, a few Ruffians manage to tie their Duel rolls. But every single roll-off goes to Good, and at the turn's end three Ruffians have gone down while only taking one hobbit with them.
The Ruffians are looking very thin on the ground at this point.
Casualties: Good 3, Evil 7
Good Priority, 4-3.
Bill Ferny thinks he may need his Might point to win a Combat, so again no Heroic Move.
The odds are now so far in favor of the hobbits that their move is straightforward: just put everyone into Combat with the best odds possible.
Despite the number of Combats, the turn is fairly bloodless. Bill Ferny wins against his three attackers '5' vs '3', but his Wound roll is an un-Mightable '2'. Elsewhere, only a single Ruffian is slain.
Casualties: Good 3, Evil 8
Good Priority, 6-3.
This is pretty much a repeat of last turn, except for the Bill Ferny combat. Bill gets a '4' in his Duel roll against the Gaffer's '5'. He figures he's in for it anyway so he spends his Might point to force the tie. The Gaffer then does the same to force the win, and Bill Ferny, outnumbered and trapped, goes down in a hail of wounds.
Good Victory!
That wasn't especially even. But I don't think the scenario is necessarily imbalanced. Like most of the scenarios in this book, the forces are so small and even that once either side starts getting an advantage in attrition, it's hard for the other side to recover.
I don't think my Ruffian tactics were good in this game. In turn 3, the Ruffians should probably have retreated rather than advanced. This would have given Evil another round or two of archery, and they were due for causing a casualty or two.
It's not hard to imagine that with better tactics and slightly better luck that Evil could have pulled out a win.