The Scouring of the Shire, Part 1: Ruffians in Bree

Good morning gamers,

Last year, Centaur and I played through Fantasy Fellowships every other Saturday and it was a lot of fun. I think Quest of the Ringbearer is the best supplement released to date and the scenario options in it certainly contribute to that. Centaur (Hi Reader!) firmly believes that The Scouring of the Shire supplement is better, so when we were probing through scenario campaigns to do this year, the choice was clear: we were doing Scouring.

Centaur has been collecting Hobbits for ages and has recently printed a bunch of Ruffians to support his GW Sharkey's Rogues heroes, so after finding and painting Robin Smallburrow, he was good to provide all the models. With his help getting some 3D printed roads and smial doors (and a mill - all paid for by advertising revenue from this blog by viewers like you . . . thanks, guys), I undertook the terrain side of the house. Now you know who to critique for what.

Our first scenario begins in Bree, which means I get to show off some really old, child-proof terrain today . . .

Ruffians in Bree

The board is a 4'x4' board in two panels - I have an Inn of the Prancing Pony in the middle for Quest of the Ringbearer, so we measured out a 12" radius in all four cardinal directions and marked the edges with black dice (you can see one at the bottom of the image behind the Ruffian models).

The scenario participants are 4 Hobbit Militia and 8 Bree Villagers (Hobbit Militia with +2" of movement, +1 Strength, and -1 Courage) against Bill Ferny (remember him?) and 9 Ruffians (3 bows, 2 whips, 4 vanilla). To win this scenario, the Bree-folk need to kill Bill Ferny (2 Wounds/1 Fate with Defense 3 and only 1 Attack), while the Ruffians need to quarter the Bree-folk AND Bill Ferny needs to kill two models. If the Ruffians quarter the Bree-Folk but Bill Ferny kills 0-1 models, the game is a draw. Let's see if we can make some mischief in Bree . . .  

Turn 1: Priority Good

Centaur has been using Hobbits for a while - he set up his Hobbits where they could use their thrown stones on the first round and just moved his Bree Villagers to make a line and keep their army from being wrapped and trapped.

The Ruffians advanced, with the three bowmen (bow-women) moving up 3" so they can shoot with their incredibly impressive 5+ shoot value (6+ for this turn because of the moving-and-shooting penalty). The two Ruffians with whips were able to move up 6" and get within 2" of some Hobbits with their whips (still more attempts to wound with that killer 6+ shoot value - I hope you're good at detecting sarcasm, because there's going to be a LOT of that this year). The rest of the Ruffians just moved forward, while Bill Ferny skulked behind one of the archers.

(Shooting this round didn't result in any wounds; I got 3 hits with my throwing stones, and with 5s to wound we should have gotten at least one, but that didn't work out. This is potentially problematic, though, as we have the lower Fight Value and barely more models than the Ruffians, so we're in for a tough next round of combat)

Turn 2: Priority Evil

Without any Might on the Good side of the board, my Ruffians moved forward. Only a few of them could actually charge and the whip-wielding Ruffians didn't kill anyone (though as you can see with the blue die and the red die at the bottom of the image, one of them did hit with the blue die but failed to wound with the red die). Centaur then counter-charged where he could and worked hard to get 2:1 or better odds to make up for having a lower Fight Value (and law of averages says we should win a decent bit of the fights this turn). The two Ruffians with bows near the top of the image shot but didn't kill anyone.

The Fight Phase was pretty brutal - Centaur won just one fight and I killed four models - pretty good run for the Ruffians (aaaaand we're in serious trouble at this point, :P ).

Kill Count: Ruffians 4/12 (0 kills for Bill Ferny), Bree-Folk 0/10.

Turn 3: Priority Evil

Well, I started charging in with everyone I could and my goal was simple: call a Heroic Combat with Bill Ferny, have him kill one model then another, and win the game nice and easy (maybe even sending Bill into the Inn to get a drink while his goons wrap up the job). Nothing of interest happened in the Shoot Phase (I'm basically not shooting anymore after the last round).

The Heroic Combat by Bill Ferny (1/1M) worked with one Hobbit Militia dying. Bill then charged into another Hobbit.

The Fight Phase went pretty well for me with Centaur losing 2 more Bree Villagers, but unfortunately, Bill Ferny lost his fight (though he wasn't wounded). That's not as great as it could have been, but still, I'll take it. There are only 5 Bree Villagers left, so if I can kill 2 more models without Bill Ferny dying, I can win - so long as Bill kills one of them!

Kill Count: Ruffians 7/12 (1 kill for Bill Ferny), Bree-Folk 0/10.

Turn 4: Priority tied, Good

It was about time that Centaur won a priority roll (I mean, starting off with the first round and then losing two is not horrible odds - but getting to pick how his remaining troops set up was big here). He put all four guys into Bill Ferny, with the Hobbits flanking from below and the Bree Villagers wrapping behind. He also tied down my nearest helpers, which clogged up my attempts to help Bill out.

I decided to do something a bit gutsy here - I trapped the Hobbits and pulled all but one of the helpers OUT of Bill Ferny's fight. This means that Bill will need to fight his foe alone, win the fight, and kill that guy without any assistance or tricks. He'll also need to actually win the fight, as Centaur gets to choose the order of fights and he can resolve Bill's fight first while he's trapped . . . and I could actually die thanks to only being D3. Oh well, go big or go home . . .

The Fight Phase again went really well for me - I killed two Hobbits and one of the Bree Villagers, but the guy who was tanking the vanilla Ruffians won his fight (didn't kill anyone - Centaur couldn't wound on better than a 3 on any of the wounding rolls he had basically all game). Also, Bill Ferny's fight was resolved first and he lost his fight and did suffer a wound. As a result, the Bree-folk were reduced to less than a quarter and Bill Ferny had only killed one model - it's a draw!

Kill Count: Ruffians 10/12 (1 kill for Bill Ferny), Bree-Folk 0/10 (1 wound on Bill Ferny).

Conclusion

I told Centaur, "You started off on a bad foot - but leave it to you to pull a draw out of that!" I gotta say, I'm super pleased with the result - I mean, a win would have been a nice start, but the game was super exciting despite it appearing to be a mismatch in forces. I don't think quartering the Bree-folk is that hard because they're all F1 (I don't know why the Bree Villagers aren't Fight 2), but getting 2 wounds with Bill Ferny unless you can get traps is pretty tough. In the end, I think it's a pretty decent scenario, though I think reinforcement rules for both sides and Barliman Butterbur to support the Bree side (I know he was released at a later date, but it could be updated now) would be a better scenario. Make it so you need to kill Barliman or Bill Ferny (with 2+ kills for each hero) and the game becomes a lot more interesting.

Tiberius Scenario Rating: 3/5 stars.

(I've long held that the Scouring scenarios are some of the most balanced that they've ever released, though in part that's probably due to the fact that there aren't many profiles in question, so it is relatively easy to balance them. In this scenario you really need to be able to get 2:1 or 3:1 against a few ruffians each turn, thin the herd, and then hold down Bill so he can't win fights or get the wounds he needs. And I think it's possible if you roll decently to do so. On the other hand, I think the Ruffians benefit from focusing one side of the board at a time, using their higher Fight Value to only pick fights that will result in 1:1 matchups, and slowly work down the villagers. But on the whole, I think they both stand a fighting chance to win, though perhaps a bit tipped toward the Evil player.)

Centaur Scenario Rating: 4/5 stars.