This is a scenario of Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, the from the Scouring of the Shire (2019) supplement.
Here we have the final battle from The Lord of the Rings books, wherein Sharkey's Rogues are finally driven from the Shire for good. The victory conditions are simple: Good must kill Sharkey; Evil must kill Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Entirely straightforward.
This is an updated version of the scenario originally published in the first Scouring of the Shire supplement in 2004. There have been a large number of changes:
The hobbits have gotten some good advantages there, but that last change is a killer. With no hope of reinforcements they need a short game. The longer the scenario goes on, the more chance they have of getting wiped out by the theoretically endless swarm of Ruffians.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
The Good force has a cornucopia of heroes: the four Fellowship hobbits on ponies (second row), plus Holfoot Bracegirdle, Farmer Cotton, and Robin Smallburrow (first row). Collectively they muster eleven Might points! Behind them are eight Battlin' Brandybucks, eight Shirriffs, and eight Tookish Hunters.
Evil has Sharkey and Worm, leading Bill Ferny, Sid Briarthorn (4 Might points in all), and a largish force of 24 Ruffians.
The Evil force, less Sharkey and Worm, sets up within 6" of the center of the western table edge (images 1 & 5). Sharkey and Worm will enter on a 5+ dieroll any time after turn 3.
Good sets up in three groups, Merry and his Battlin' Brandybucks in the north (image 2), Pippin and his Tookish Hunters in the south (image 4), and the remaining models behind the barricades to the east (image 3).
Good begins with Priority as always.
Sam and Frodo slightly shift positions to give the Rogues no unobstructed shots at them. Otherwise the hobbits sit tight and ready their missiles.
The Ruffians charge. They can endure even slightly unfavorable exchanges of casualties because they (eventually) come back but the hobbits don't. Also, tying up the hobbits as far east as possible is the best protection for Sharkey when he eventually arrives.
In the Shooting phase, Pippin's troops -- you know, the archers, who should be the most competent shooters -- can't cause a single Wound. But Merry's stone throwers show him how it's done and three Ruffians go down.
I often give a running casualty tally in these battle reports, but I won't bother here because only Sharkey and the Fellowship hobbits matter for victory, and the Ruffians keep recycling.
Evil Priority, 6-4.
Good has plenty of Might, but the Ruffians aren't very close so no Heroic Move is called.
Evil charges, the heroes hiding behind some missile fodder. The three Ruffian casualties roll to return and get '2', '2', and '1' -- not only did no one get their '6', they didn't even get '6' in total.
Frodo's group (off camera) starts spreading out to where the battles are happening in the north and south, but Merry and Pippin's forces unleash another hailstorm of missiles. The Ruffians in the way of their leaders are mown down and Sid and Bill each take a Wound.
There's only one Combat. Merry defeats his attacker but can't inflict a Wound.
Good Priority, 2-1.
Evil, vastly outnumbered in Might and with casualties coming back anyway, lets Good have it. The hobbits charge.
The Ruffians continue to move forward where they can. No casualties return.
In the north, Sid takes down a hobbit, as does one of his bully boys. In return, the hobbits kill three Ruffians.
To the south, Pippin calls a Heroic Strike in his Combat against Bill Ferny, and it pays off as he then automatically wins the tied Duel roll of boxcars. But his Wound rolls are disappointing (even given his special ability to re-roll Wounds against Heroes) and Bill Ferny escapes without further damage. Elsewhere, Good's luck is a little better as though an archer is slain, three Ruffians are killed in return.
Missed Opportunities Department: Merry should probably have called a Heroic Combat this turn, since he (and Pippin) get a free one once per game. Given his two Attacks and the re-roll from Frodo's banner effect, he was very likely to win the Combat against a single Ruffian and could have helped out against Sid.
Evil Priority, 5-5.
Merry and Pippin are in danger of being trapped, so Holfoot and Robin call Heroic Moves to enable them to avoid that. Sid, with 2 Might points, counters, but Bill, having only 1 and not really being in danger himself, does not. The roll-off goes to Evil.
Evil continues to engage. Sure, the Ruffians are getting the worst of it, but Good is suffering as well and those Evil casualties will come back while Good's losses are permanent. Well, at least theoretically the Evil casualties come back: out of twelve "dead" troops, only one returns.
Sharkey and Worm enter on the first try. Sharkey stays put on the board edge (and so not on camera), well out of range of the hobbits. But Worm is sent towards the action -- no point in leaving him around where he might actually be able to attack Sharkey should his special rule come into play.
Needing to defend themselves, Merry and Pippin call Heroic Strikes. This works well for Pippin, who loses the Duel
roll '5' to '6'. But he still has a Might point left
Merry's story is less happy. He also loses the Duel '5' to '6' but he doesn't have any Might
left
Evil is a quarter of the way to victory.
The news is not good for Good elsewhere either, as five hobbits are slain at the cost of only two Ruffians.
Evil Priority, 5-2.
Sam calls a Heroic Move. Bill Ferny counters, and Evil again wins the roll-off. In go the Ruffians. Three casualties (of thirteen) reappear. In the north, the hobbits are so thin on the ground that Sid leaves his men to mop up while he tries to break through the bottleneck between the fence and the hobbit hole to get to Frodo.
There's a bit of luck for Good as Bill Ferny is taken out by a lowly Shirriff. But overall, luck continues to be with Evil, as two Ruffian casualties are more than counterbalanced by the 6 hobbits -- 25% of all their warriors! -- which are slain.
Good Priority, 5-5.
Sid keeps his Might.
In the north, Frodo sees his danger and runs. Cotton tries to jump the fence to help out Robin, but he rolls a '1' and that's why he's prone (image 2, right). Yeah, we're supposed to use tokens instead of actually laying the model down, but this way is more visual.
With Evil thinned out in the south, Pippin moves towards Sharkey, who casts Channeled Terrifying Aura in response.
Three (of thirteen) dead Ruffians return.
The hobbits win the majority of the Combats, but have trouble Wounding. By the end of the phase, only two Ruffians have been slain, at the cost of a dead Battlin' Brandybuck and a wound on Holfoot.
Good Priority, 3-1.
Evil deems it not worth spending his last Might point (of Sid) so Good makes his move.
Pippin, in fear of a trap, withdraws until some support can come up. His troops try to mop up the remaining Ruffians in the South. Frodo moves nearby to lend his banner effect to that effort.
Three dead Ruffians come back.
It's another Combat round in favor of Evil. Despite the odds, Sam and an archer fail to defeat a single Ruffian, who rewards Sam for his bravery with a Wound! Then Holfoot, supported by Cotton, attacks Sid. Both sides roll a '3' highest. Cotton has two Might points to Sid's one; Good can hence force the win and so Sid saves his Might. His fortitude is rewarded as Good frustratingly fails to score any Wounds.
Of the warriors, one Ruffian is lost while three hobbits go down. Evil is certainly winning the battle of attrition.
Evil Priority, 4-4.
No image for Turn 8. Sorry. Trying to get some momentum going, Frodo calls a Heroic Move to better decide who is fighting who and to try to somehow get to Sharkey.
No dead Ruffians return.
Combat is a little better for Good as three Ruffians are slain for the loss of no hobbits. But the news isn't entirely good, as Pippin takes a Wound, and Cotton and Holfoot again win against Sid but fail to inflict even a single Wound.
Turn 9 (pictured) sees Priority going to Good, 5-2. The hobbits continue to try to grind forward. Holfoot spends a Will point to pass his Courage test to Charge Sid.
Two dead Ruffians return.
Combat swings in Good's favor. One hobbit dies, but two Ruffians are slain and Sid Briarthorn finally goes down to the attacks of Holfoot and Cotton, his Fate roll being un-Might-ably low.
Evil Priority, 1-1.
Evil's getting a little thin on the ground in the middle but they engage where they can and the hobbits in return are continuing to fight their way west towards Sharkey. Three dead Ruffians return.
I haven't been mentioning it, but those Ruffian archers (image 1) have been plinking away for many a turn now, to utterly no effect.
Pippin has a great Combat, winning and slaying both of his attackers. Should've called the free Heroic Combat this turn, guy. Well, hindsight is 20/20.
But Sam's luck continues to be rather terrible. Aided by Cotton and Holfoot, he attacks a single Ruffian, and somehow despite the 3-1 dice advantage, Good loses and the Ruffian puts another Wound on Sam! Luckily a Fate point comes through and he survives.
Yet Another hobbit warrior dies, but elsewhere results are inconclusive.
Good Priority, 2-2.
Numbers are getting very thin at this point so the action all fits into a single picture, with the exception of a hobbit/Ruffian 1:1 combat taking place to the south.
The general scrum continues. One dead Ruffian returns. The hobbits manage to win every Combat this turn, but score only a single Wound, and that against Worm. Yep, that surrounded redcloak who Wounded Sam last turn survives six dice of Strikes. So frustrating!
Evil Priority, 3-2.
Good continues to try to somehow reach Sharkey. Three dead Ruffians return, which exactly replace the three Ruffians who are killed in Combat this turn. Mr. Redcloak continues to be Sam's nemesis, winning the Duel and inflicting another Wound on the poor Gardener, who needs to use his two remaining Fate points to survive!
Good Priority, 4-1.
Four Ruffians return. Good is rapidly losing morale.
A stray Ruffian arrow hits Frodo; luckily for Good it fails to Wound.
Heroic Mr. Redcloak finally is slain. Sic transit gloria mundi. Robin Smallburrow takes a Wound but he's saved by Fate. Two Ruffians die.
Evil Priority, 6-5.
Two Ruffians return. There are now only five men left in the Evil dead pile, against twenty permanently-dead hobbits, plus Merry.
But four Ruffians are slain, against the loss of a single hobbit, namely that one guy out off camera to the south.
Good Priority, 6-5.
The grinding forward continues. A single dead Ruffian returns.
Pippin calls his once-per-game free Heroic Combat, slays his opponent (the Ruffian behind him against the fence), moves on to the archers and kills another.
The other hobbits manage to down five Ruffians with no losses themselves. If only more turns went like this, thinks Good....
Evil Priority, 2-1.
Cotton calls a Heroic Move. All Good models are in range, and Evil hasn't had any Might since Sid died. In they go.
No dead Ruffians return.
One Ruffian is slain, but that's the end of Good's streak of luck, as an archer dies and Holfoot and Sam take Wounds. Since Sam has no more Fate, he dies. "Two down, two to go," says Evil.
Evil Priority, 6-4.
One dead Ruffian comes back. Frodo and Pippin are surrounded, but both manage to win their Combats. Frodo can't make Strikes, but Pippin does and kills two opponents.
Robin is not so lucky, as he is killed by his Ruffian attacker.
Good Priority, 6-1.
With Pippin's good luck last turn, the way is clear to Sharkey. Despite the Terrifying Aura, Pippin passes his Courage check and in he goes. Incredibly, there is some chance that Good could win the game this turn!
Then no dead Ruffians return, and Good really starts getting his hopes up.
But it is not to be. Pippin wins the Combat, but, despite his re-rolls against heroes, he fails to score even a single Wound. Because of Sharkey's special rule, he then has to pass a Courage test to avoid an S4 hit. He passes only by grace of having two Will points.
Frodo is surrounded and takes two Wounds, and he is only saved by his Fate point. The last hobbit archer is killed; there's only a single hobbit warrior left to help the remaining heroes.
Evil Priority, 6-3.
There's not much to say here. The highly-outnumbered hobbits are surrounded. Frodo and Merry are beaten down. Evil Victory!
Hmm. I know that the earlier versions of this scenario are very popular. And there are some things to like here, too.
The boosts to the Good's combat power are nice. Given the relatively powerful heroes and increased Fight values from Merry and Pippin's contingents, the hobbits here can go toe-to-toe with the Ruffians in a way that they can't in the other Scouring of the Shire scenarios. And both side have larger-than-usual forces, which is fun.
But I'm not a fan of the "win by killing a single model" Good objective. You may have noticed that Sharkey didn't move in this battle. If I were playing competitively, he should have, outrunning the slower-moving hobbits all over the board until the endless stream of Ruffians eventually kills all the Good force.
But that wouldn't have been satisfactory at all. Even here, with Sharkey bolted down in place, Good doesn't seem to have had much of a chance. If Sharkey had run around, the game would likely be twice as long and less interesting.
A scenario shouldn't have to rely on the good will of the players to be a contest. That's why I pay for the books: I want well-thought through, playtested, at least semi-competitive scenarios. I get especially salty with scenarios like this where the odds seem tilted against the side that "historically" won! We're fighting in the Shire; surely there are more hobbit Militia than men in the area.
I will say that I don't think my play did much to help the hobbits. Losing Merry so early was clearly a mistake both in terms of record keeping and strategy and there were no doubt other missed opportunities as well.
Luck did Good no favors, either. I'm not sure Sam ever landed a Wound and he repeatedly lost Combats where he outnumbered his foe. This contributed to Good's inability to clear out their backfield, which in turn hindered their ability to get to Sharkey.
This is an interesting situation let down by the victory conditions.