Fantasy Fellowship Deep Dive, Part 7

Good morning gamers,

There's only one scenario left in Fantasy Fellowships: The End of All Things. This scenario is nuts: it's massive, it takes all day to play, and it has a lot of rules. It's also weird because . . . the part of the board that has virtually all the models on it doesn't matter that much - and both players have a lot to think about on one board and a lot less to think about on the other. So, let's unwrap this mega scenario and see what's important for our Fellowship members as they finish their journey together!

Part 7: The End of All Things 

With the exception of Boromir (which I feel was a missed opportunity), we've got everyone - Frodo and Sam haven't had a rest point since Ithilien and everyone else is coming off the bench fully rested - but boy do we have our work cut out for us! Here's who we have to work with: 

• All eight remaining Fellowship members 
• Eomer (no extra gear) 
• 25 Warriors of Minas Tirith (standard war gear and a banner guy) 
• 25 Warriors of Rohan (standard war gear and a banner guy) 

Opposing us are the following models - many of them we've fought in the previous part: 

• Mordor Troll Chieftain (new kid on the block) 
• The Mouth of Sauron on armored horse (another new kid) 
• Gollum (NOT Smeagol, but basically the same profile) 
• 3 Morannon Orc Captains with shields 
• 50 Morannon Orcs (48 with standard gear and two banner guys) 

Oddly enough, there are actually MORE Good models at the start of the game than evil models - but as is usually the case, Evil gets to bring back its Mordor Orc models that are killed (Morannons and Morannon Orc Captains), so you'll be outnumbered eventually.

Photo Credit: Quest of the Ringbearer
I don't currently own these models . . . but I'm thinking about getting them just for this scenario . . .

The scenario The End of All Things is played on two boards - one that's 2'x2' for Frodo and Sam and one that's 4'x4' for everyone else. There are LOTS of special rules, so let's focus on the relevant ones for the big map first: 

• Gandalf still doesn't have his Staff of Power (which only affects Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast - the rest don't care); 
• As was mentioned above, Mordor Orc models come back after they die (entering from the Black Gate); 
• Good models have to stay within 12" of the center of the board (you can't rush the Black Gate, guys - or flee to the opposite side); 
• The Mordor Troll Chieftain is actually the Uber-Troll Chieftain from the Black Gate Opens LL (Fearless with 3M/2W/2F); and 
• Per the Fantasy Fellowship rules, if you ran Aragorn - Strider, you get Aragorn, King Elessar instead (and if you didn't run Aragorn, your Aragorn hero gets Anduril instead). 

On the Frodo/Sam board, we get some additional constraints: 

• Frodo can't put on the Ring (sigh, but makes sense); 
• The evil player gets to do something before each turn's priority roll: 
• If the Evil player gets a 3+ on a roll, he can make Frodo take a Courage test for each inch he wishes to move: if failed, he becomes Prone and Sam can carry him like a Heavy Object. 
• If the Evil player gets a 4+ on a roll, he can roll a D6 and compare it to Frodo's Courage value: if the result is equal to/higher than Frodo's Courage, Frodo's Courage goes down by 1 (and if it reaches 0, the game ends in a loss); and 
• If the Evil player gets a 5+ on a roll, Gollum attacks and is placed in base contact with the Ringbearer (and you can't use this anymore if Gollum dies). 
• To win the game, Frodo needs to get to the edge of the precipice and both players make opposed rolls (rerolling ties). If the Good player wins three consecutive rolls (with Might to boost), the Good player wins. If the Evil player wins three consecutive rolls, the Evil player wins. 

For the main battle, we have one simple rule: we're trying to keep at least one hero alive to win the game. If all of our heroes die, we get a draw, which isn't too bad. As a result, don't worry too much about the main board - it's fun and exciting, but it's ultimately not that important if you can manage your hero match upsp. 

The majority of our strategy will be employed on the Frodo and Sam board - we probably need to travel ~24" to get to the precipice (the actual distance will be determined by your board design), but that means we need to move quickly. Frodo hasn't had a rest point since Ithilien, so hopefully he regained/retained his Might after the Plateau of Gorgoroth mission (which, I imagine, was heavily influenced by whether you played for a draw or not). Ideally, he'll get to the top of the slope in 6-8 turns, giving your opponent a limited number of opportunities to hinder him - and once again, if you can get access to Heroic March, you're in much better shape than if you don't have it. While the rolls the opponent is able to make sound really bad, they're actually quite unlikely to do much to you - here's why: 

• The first action (Exhaustion) will only happen on two-out-of-three turns that it's chosen - and all it does is make Frodo Prone. Depending on your Ringbearer (C4 on Smeagol, C6 on everyone else), you have a 72% or 91% chance of success in passing an unmodified Courage test - so if you're not running Smeagol, you should pass most of the time (and that's probably ALL of the time, since your Will store has no use other than passing Courage tests). If you're testing 4 times each Move phase, you should expect to spend Will once ever other turn this skill is active. If it's the only skill that the Evil player chooses to use, you may "collapse" once during your race up Mount Doom. Being prone can actually be helpful if you have at least two 8" move dogs with you, since Frodo can be carried . . .
• The second action (Corruption) will only happen every other turn that it's chosen - and will only work the first time on the roll of a natural 6 if you're not Smeagol (a 4+ if you have Smeagol). If you're not running Smeagol, you might see your Courage go down once (which will lower your success rate for Exhaustion to 83%, but that's still quite high and likely that you'll get 3-4" of movement each turn). If Smeagol is booking it and moving 5" a turn straight up, he might get 2-3 points of Courage reduced, which is dangerously low, but still more likely to fail to slow him down than to succeed. 
• The third action (Lure of the Ring) will only happen on one-out-of-three turns that it's chosen - so maybe twice per game if that's all your opponent is trying to do. If you keep your Ringbearer and Companion together, your Companion will always be able to charge Gollum and help your Ringbearer win the fight. Interestingly enough, while Smeagol has been a liability in both of the other options, he's actually the strongest option here, since Smeagol and Gollum have identical combat profiles, making the addition of any other model a tilt in favor of the Good player. 

So the moral of the story is this: Smeagol is the most vulnerable Ringbearer in this scenario when it comes to getting up Mount Doom, but since he's also the fastest Ringbearer, he might be okay.  

Once you're up Mount Doom and you're starting to roll to see who wins the game, Old Bilbo actually comes out behind the rest since he maxes out at 1 Might point and the others can all have 2 Might (since Smeagol gets +1 Might/Fate instead of the Mithril Coat and Sting). Winning three rolls in a row requires some math, but thankfully, we can figure that out: 

• We know that, without Might, we have a 50% chance of winning an unmodified dice roll (technically its a 42% chance of winning with an additional 50% chance of winning the ties that occur roughly 16% of the time), so if we were to have three contingent probabilities of 50% (0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5), we'd have a 12.5% chance of winning. 
• If we are willing to spend 1 Might point on a roll, we have a 63% chance of winning (55% chance of winning outright with the same chance of tying 16% of the time), giving us a roughly 20% chance of winning if we have 2 Might (and a 16% chance of winning if we have 1 Might). 
• We COULD dump both of our Might on one roll, but we'd probably want to do that only if we knew it would win us the game - and THIS would give us a 67% chance of winning that roll, but because we'll only be in this situation after we've won two 50/50 rolls, the probability of it working is only a 17% chance. 

So, lesson learned: burn 2 Might only on the last go (where you have a 67% chance of winning the game) or burn your Might one roll at a time to have a 20% chance of winning . . . no matter how you cut it, that's rough. 

And with that, you have the end of your Fantasy Fellowship journey - and hopefully, your heroes come out on the other side with a win and you don't roll abysmally for destroying the Ring. 

Conclusion 

Hopefully you've enjoyed this series - we've taken almost a full year to walk through things to think about when it comes to Fantasy Fellowships (and you've hopefully seen the battle report recaps of how my Fellowship did). If you liked it, let us know in the comments! Based on the reactions we get from our player groups, we may do another round of this in the future (but for now, we're mostly looking at Matched Play . . . and a different sourcebook for scenarios). Next time, we'll be seeing how my Fellowship does at the Black Gate - until then, happy hobbying!