My playthrough of the Scouring of the Shire (2019) scenarios from Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Game ends, in a manner of speaking, with this scenario, The Burning of Woody End. It's not the last scenario in the book. But the additional scenarios (coming soon!) take place before the War of the Ring, not after. Nor is it even the end of the Scouring-era scenarios. It appears last in my playthrough for reasons of needing the most scenery construction.
Here we see first class arsonist Rowan Thistlewood and a large band of Ruffians try to burn five hobbit holes in Woody End by the end of the tenth turn. Good wins by keeping the property damage to three hobbit holes or less. Four burned hobbit holes is a tie.
Rowan has a special rule giving him a one-time two-thirds chance of lighting up a terrain piece during Movement. But the other Ruffians, if unengaged, can also torch a hobbit hole in base contact on a dr 5+ during the End Phase.
Once lit, hobbits touching a hobbit hole can try to douse the fire by rolling a '6'. But if they roll a '1', the fire has gone out of control and the fire is permanent.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
Baldo Tulpenny leads a contingent of hobbit militia, leavened with some archers.
Rowan heads the Ruffians, his numbers larger than the usual twelve thugs.
This is the second-largest scenario in the book, behind only the Battle of Bywater.
Woody End has five hobbit holes, one in each quadrant and another in the center. The hobbits are divided equally into five groups and each group deployed within 2" of a hobbit hole. Baldo is more or less in the center of the table (image 1).
I've arranged the closeup pictures in a 2x2 array, the upper left being the northwest corner, lower left is southwest, lower right is southeast, and upper right is northeast. (This probably won't work for you on smaller screens.) I hope that will help orient you for the action, especially as the angles of the images are inconsistent in my effort to include nearby action. But at least the same hobbit holes are always in the same relative position from turn to turn.
The black disks are Baldo's traps. Good places them to "guard" the bits of the hobbit holes which are closest to the Evil starting area.
Speaking of Evil, the Ruffians set up in the woods within 3" of the board edge. Three archers each set up in the middle of the west and east edges. The six whipmen likewise split and set up in the middle of the northern and southern edges. The remaining Ruffians split up evenly and start near the outer hobbit holes. Rowan joins the bad guys in the southeast corner.
Good starts narrative scenarios with Priority. Which he'd rather not have, preferring to be able to react to the Ruffians. So most figures stay put and ready arrows and stones.
Evil rushes in, except the archers. Their job is going to fire at the hobbit holes with flaming arrows, which set the hobbit hole on fire if they Wound. By scenario special rule, Shooting at hobbit holes never suffers any In The Way rolls.
Shooting is just terrible. The hobbits roll nearly a dozen dice and only succeed in killing a single Ruffian (southeast picture). Evil return shots are no better, with none of the six Ruffian archers even scoring a hit.
There are no Combats this turn. A Ruffian in the northeast tried to set the hobbit hole on fire, but he fails.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 1
Good Priority, 2-1.
With approximate parity in numbers, Good's strategy is obvious -- tie up as many Ruffians as possible to prevent them from using their matches. Still, several Ruffians remain unengaged and use their own Movement to get up against the housing. One fellow (southeast, white marker) braves a trap to get into contact. It turns out to a be pit, into which he falls. It's not mentioned in the scenario explanation, but I ruled that you can't make arson rolls while stuck in a trap.
Hobbit Shooting is still mostly bad, but one Ruffian in contact with northwest hole is killed, which feels important. Evil archery manages to set the center hole (not pictured) on fire.
Combat breaks even, with two hobbits and two Ruffians going down. Note in the northwest where the doughty hobbit in the yellow jacket has killed an opponent despite being outnumbered two to one!
There are two firing attempts, with the one in the northwest succeeding.
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 3, 2 fires
Good Priority, 5-2.
Again the hobbits try to tie up the Ruffians. Two hobbits try to extinguish the fires, to no effect.
Rowan Thistlewood uses his special Burn It Down! rule to set the southeast hobbit hole on fire. The man stuck in the pit remains stuck.
Shooting has no effect.
Combat favors Good. Though two hobbits die, they somehow manage to slay three Ruffians in return.
In the End Phase, a Ruffian lights up the southwestern hobbit hole.
Casualties: Good 4, Evil 7, 4 fires
Evil Priority, 2-1. At last.
With so many houses on fire, it's Evil's turn to tie up hobbits so they can't put out the flames. The archers in the west, with all the hobbit holes in range already alight, begin to move out. The eastern archers remain in place, hoping to light up the final hobbit hole. The guy in pit again can't get out.
Good still manages a number of extinguishing attempts. The southwest fire is put out, but the northwest and center fires roll a '1' and are now permanently aflame. Disastrous.
Combat favors Evil. Although only two hobbits die, the Ruffians take no losses at all.
Casualties: Good 6, Evil 7, 2 permanent fires, 1 fire
Good Priority, 5-4.
The hobbits try to extinguish the southeast fire -- to no effect -- and tie up Evil elsewhere. Evil manages to get a free man in contact with the northeast house, but the guy in the pit still can't get out.
Shooting has no effect. Combat is about what you'd expect, with two Ruffians and three hobbits dying.
The potential arsonist in the northeast comes through and another hobbit hole is on fire.
Casualties: Good 9, Evil 9, 2 permanent fires, 2 fires
Evil Priority, 5-4.
The Ruffians move to tie up the hobbits to prevent extinguish attempts. The Ruffian stuck in the pit all this time finally escapes. Three hobbits are able to roll to put out the fires, but they score '2', '2', and '2'. Consistent, but not helpful.
Baldo, able to reroll missed thrown stones and auto-Wounding on '6's, decides to hurl missiles instead of engaging. Naturally he rolls a '2' to hit, and then '2' again on his re-roll. *sigh*
The hobbits have been doing surprisingly well in Combat. Until now. Five hobbits are slain against a single Ruffian.
Worse, the fifth hobbit hole is set aflame. Note that this isn't an instant win for Evil -- victory is determined on Turn 10, not before.
Casualties: Good 14, Evil 10, 2 permanent fires, 3 fires
Good Priority, 3-1.
Good needed that priority. Hobbits rush into contact with fires so as to put them out. The first extinguish roll is a '1'. Now three houses are permanently aflame. The next extinguish roll is a '2', then a '1'. That's four houses....
You know where this is going, right? The last extinguish attempt is also a '1'. With five houses permanently on fire, Evil wins!
The luck here was so skewed that I'm not sure conclusions can be drawn from this particular playthough. But I will opine anyway.
Common to a lot of the Scouring scenarios, the troop numbers here are roughly equal. But hobbits are disadvantaged against Ruffians, having lower Fight value and needing '5's to Wound against the Ruffians needing only '4's. On larger maps the 4" move is a handicap, too. So barring counterbalancing advantages, Ruffians should be able to attrition away hobbits over time.
For that reason, despite how the game ended, I'd argue the hobbits actually had better than average luck. Look how often Good had Priority, and how the hobbits held their own in Combat for the first few turns.
But that didn't matter much in light of their truly tragic extinguish dierolls. There's no way Good had a chance with that kind of dierolling.
I really like the basic outline of this scenario. Victory based on something else besides casualties is a nice change of pace. I just wish the firing and extinguish rules didn't overwhelm strategy and tactics.
Suppose fires had levels, like so: 1:Spark, 2:Blaze, 3:Fire, 4:Inferno. Any level of fire would count for the Victory Conditions. Inferno is a permanent fire per the original rules. Fires start as a Spark, and gain a level in the End Phase unless contained or already an Inferno. The Extinguish rolls -- Mightable! -- could then go like this:
| 1-3 | No Effect |
| 4 | Fire Contained |
| 5 | Fire Contained and Loses a Level |
| 6 | Fire Extinguished |
Obviously some playtesting for balance is needed. But I think the general idea is sound. Permanent fires are still possible; but Good can no longer shoot himself in the foot by trying to do the right thing and then being punished for it with poor dierolling.
I also would get rid of the Ruffian archers' ability to set fire to the hobbit holes. Six archers should get two hits each turn and each hit has a one-third chance of setting fire to a hobbit hole. Statistically, that's over six fires caused in the course of a ten turn game, which just seems way too high.
One last note: Baldo's traps did hold up a single Ruffian for a number of turns, but in the end really didn't matter a great deal. So I'm not sure The Green Dragon Podcast guys are right when they say "traps win games"! 😊