Good morning gamers,
Today kicks off the scenarios for Part 5 of Fantasy Fellowships and it's all about Frodo/Old Bilbo Baggins and Sam/Farmer Maggot and his dogs. Oh, and Smeagol. :) The first scenario we have on the docket is the Dead Marshes - a scenario I played before and knew could take a long time or a short time depending on the participants involved. While Frodo and Sam don't really want to tangle with a Nazgul on Fell Beast, Smeagol can wound the Nazgul on a 6 (5 if he uses his Might point) and Maggot can use Piercing Strike with his two-handed scythe to wound him on 5s (4s if he has his Might point). Old Bilbo wants nothing to do with this guy. So . . . while I intend to not fight a Nazgul if I can help it, I'm feeling better about it than with the normal participants (where you have to hope that Sam can Strike up high enough to beat the wraith's Fight Value and someone can get a wound in). Let's get into the scenario!
The Dead Marshes
The board is a 48" x 48" setup, with six spectres in six marshes, the Fell Beast on one side, and my Fellowship of six models on the other:
My plan was to go towards the northern board edge to make two of the spectres non-players in the game - here's how we got on!
Turn 1-3: Priority Good, then Evil, then Good
The first three turns of the game were all about maneuvering - in Turn 1, three of the spectres were under my control (top-left, bottom-right, right-most), two spectres were under Centaur's control (bottom-left moved 3" through the swamp, top-right moved full and got out of his swamp), one spectre didn't move at all (center), and the Nazgul flitted 3" forward:
On Turn 2, I continued to advance northwards, while two spectres didn't move (bottom-left and right-most), three spectres moved under my control (top-left, center, top-right), and one moved under Centaur's control (bottom-right - he got out of the marsh and moved to intercept). The Nazgul moved 6" under my control and decided that there was something very interesting in the southeast corner of the board:
On Turn 3, I started to near some of the spectres, but things looked pretty good for me again - I got to move two of the spectres (top-left - he's looking for mushrooms around that hill - and bottom-right), two spectres didn't move (top-right and bottom-left), and two moved under Centaur's control (center moved full, rightmost moved through the marsh a bit). The big swing here was that the Fell Beast got to move fully under Centaur's control - and boy can that guy close a gap fast:
Centaur had control of most of his spectres - 3" moves with the top-left, top-right, and rightmost spectres and full moves with the bottom-left and bottom-right guys. Thankfully, I got to move the center guy 3" away from us and the Nazgul flew 6" back towards the southeast corner, so that gave me a pretty good break. I charged one spectre with all three of the dogs, while the rest of my models just moved up behind them. Smeagol, as you can see, is outpacing the others by a hair - and the dogs are really outpacing the group:
The combat went . . . not as I expected it - the dogs got a two-high on the dueling roll (as you can see in the photo) and backed away. Thankfully, with C5 from Farmer Maggot, they were unwounded by the spectre:
Turn 5: Priority Evil
Turn 5 was the first turn of the game where priority didn't change hands - and since I wanted to get a charge in on the alert spectre before he could drag Smeagol off (his Courage 4 can be a bit unreliable), I called a Heroic Move with Bilbo (1/1M). As you can see below, one of the dogs (Wolf) was outside of the Heroic Move radius (marked with the red die), but basically everyone else moved up towards the alerted spectre or charged him:
The rest of the movements were as you see below - the top-left spectre was under my control again (looking for mushrooms), the bottom-left spectre stayed stationary, and the center, rightmost, and bottom-right spectres moved under Centaur's control their full distance. One of these spectres was subsequently charged by Wolf, as you see below. The Nazgul was under my control and was very interested in the southeast corner and moved 6" that way again:
In the Fight Phase, we killed the spectre (good job doing your job this time, guys) and Wolf lost his fight but wasn't wounded.
It's now 6 Evil models (one alerted) against 6 Good models - if the Fell Beast stays away, I'm feeling pretty good about this . . .
Turn 6: Priority tied, Good
Well, with no Might points on the other side, we swarmed the two spectres near us with everyone except Bilbo getting into a fight. I had control of the bottom-left spectre and the top-left spectre ("I can smell the mushrooms - they're nearby!") and the bottom-right spectre didn't move. The Fell Beast came back under Centaur's full control and jumped back to the rightmost swamp . . . basically where he was three turns ago:
In the Fight Phase, we killed one spectre (Maggot doing his thing - that guy wounds these guys on 4s!), but we lost a dog (Fang) to a spectre:
It's 5-on-5 now (with one alerted spectre) - still anyone's game, but we're about halfway up the field!
Turn 7: Priority Good
With back-to-back priorities, I jumped all of the models I could into the alerted spectre (Maggot couldn't make it) in hopes that I could get a Heroic Combat off to get my guys moving. The spectres obliged me, giving me control of the top-left guy ("I CAN SEE THE MUSHROOMS!"), a 3" move for Centaur on the bottom-left guy, and no movement for the bottom-right guy. The Nazgul moved 3" towards us under Centaur's control . . . and we're finally in Harbinger of Evil range:
In the Fight Phase, I called a Heroic Combat with Smeagol (1/1M) and unsurprisingly (and thankfully) we won, Smeagol killed the guy, and we moved Bilbo up the field. As you can see, however, we're pretty close to the Fell Beast . . . and outpacing Maggot a bit . . .
We finally have the model count advantage - time to beat a hasty retreat!
Turn 8: Priority tied, Evil
Boy was I scared - if Centaur got a 6 for the Fell Beast, I would be lunch. Thankfully, he got a 1, so he didn't move. The top-left spectre is fully under the control of the mushrooms and moves towards them ("THEY SMELL AMAZING!"), while the bottom-left spectre moves a full move under Centaur's control and the bottom-right spectre moves 3" towards us. We run like mad, making a simple anti-flyer formation to keep Bilbo from being charged right away:
We got lucky there - time to book it!
Turn 9: Priority Good
And with another turn to just run, we do just that - racing our guys as fast as we can away from the Fell Beast. We're outside of 3", but not outside of 6", so if Centaur got control of him, we'd be discovered for sure . . . and thankfully, Centaur got ANOTHER 1 for the Nazgul! The other three spectres at this point are non-players, especially since they all moved under my control . . . the top-left finally found the mushrooms ("WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M AN INCORPOREAL SPIRIT AND CAN'T EAT THEM! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!") while the other two just backed away towards their home marshes:
I just need a little more space - two more turns and I'm off the board!
Turn 10: Priority tied, Evil
I've gotten lucky for the last two turns, but I lucked out big time on this one - the Ringwraith got a 2 for his control roll and I moved him 6" away from us. With this move, paired with my later move, he can't get to Bilbo next turn and the game will be won! Neither the bottom-left spectre nor the top-left spectre were able to move (he's sulking about the mushrooms), while the bottom-right guy moved up 3" under Centaur's control:
Things are looking good - time for everything to change . . .
Turn 11: Priority Evil
So the rules for charging while in Sentry mode were a bit unclear to us if you rolled a 6 . . . which the Ringwraith did. Since the rule for rolling a 6 says you "move normally," we assumed this was the only way for a non-alert Sentry to perform a charge . . . so charge the Ringwraith did. He couldn't get Bilbo (who casually walked off the board, abandoning Smeagol and Wolf), which was the important thing. Maggot would have gone into the Ringwraith, but he got an absolutely RUBBISH roll for his Courage test and just missed being able to boost it to a success thanks to the Harbinger of Evil rule. Grip didn't make it in either, but he wanted to be in there - he really did:
And with that, the match was won! Because we get a rest point, there wasn't any need to roll for stat regeneration, but since Bilbo had spent 1 Might point and Smeagol automatically regains everything as a non-Fellowship character, it was moot on several levels. The Bravest Companion was definitely Maggot . . . until the end, where he failed a Courage Test that, yes, could have seen him die, but I'd rather he have a chance to fight a Nazgul than not. Oh well . . .
Conclusion
Looking at the timestamps of the pictures, this took us just over 30 minutes to play - the scenario rules weren't hard, the model count was low, and the random nature of the Evil movement was interesting. When Centaur did this mission, he killed three Spectres between Rounds 2 and 3 - after that, it was pretty much just walking. Near the end of the game, this happened:
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| Oh look, the Nazgul and a Spectre are hovering near the escaping Fellowship . . . |
Then this happened - the wraith got a 1 and didn't move (he was sniffing the air or something - sound familiar?):
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| Oh look, that Fell Beast decided not to move while the Spectre got killed by a thrown stone! |
Then this happened - he charged in and killed two dogs, then got charged by Maggot and Smeagol on the following turn, lost his fight, and died:
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| Oh look, the Fell Beast died . . . nice . . . |
Some excitement, but pretty much a lot of nothing. The scenario is fun to play, but it's heavily dependent on how the Sentry rolls go. There was definitely tension and excitement for me, but Centaur's game was over in 20 minutes because, well, nothing really happened. The rounds also get a lot faster the fewer Sentry rolls you need to make, but that's normal for SBG. Hopefully you enjoyed this - we'll be back in two weeks with the Osgiliath and Shelob's Lair scenarios (and Osgiliath may be the best scenario yet). Until then, happy hobbying!
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