The Scouring of the Shire, Part 4: The Old Mill

Good morning gamers,

NOTE: Today, the Kickstarter for Jacob Lucas's Kingdom of Tor Ithilas dropped - and the project is already fully funded! Be sure to check it out (it's a bargain price - and if it's at all like his previous work, the terrain is going to be AWESOME for game play) and back it if you can! Also, I don't get anything for advertising for Jacob - his stuff is just awesome. Okay, back to today's planned content . . .

We're back in the Scouring of the Shire supplement (Hey Reader!) and while the Ruffians had a hard go of it last time, this scenario appears to be a lot more promising. The Ruffians are attempting to take over Sandyman's Mill - and with Ted Sandyman joining them (with the keys to the building in hand), they hope to drive off the rabble-rousing Hobbits that stand in their way and get the wheels of industry moving.

The Old Mill

The board is a 2' x 2' board - but we have a slightly different setup than the book has. Originally, the right board edge is supposed to represent the doors of the mill . . . but Centaur 3D-printed a mill from Dark Realms' Hobbit Village line instead and we're going to enter that. I'll probably do a terrain post near the end of the year, but the design of the 1' x 2' panel that the mill sits on marries up with the two Brandywine River tiles from the previous scenario. 

The forces in this scenario appear to favor the Ruffians pretty heavily - I start with Ted and 12 Ruffians (8 vanilla, 4 with whips), while Centaur has . . . 12 Hobbit Militia. Yikes . . . The Ruffians win if they can get into Sandyman's Mill (with Ted opening the door or by dealing 2 wounds to a D7 door that always counts as being trapped) before they are quartered.

Turn 1: Priority Good

Centaur did what all Hobbit Militia veteran generals do . . . he stood still and stooped for stones. Learning from the Brandywine scenario, the Ruffians advanced forward but stayed outside of 8" range. Yes, we'll need to close that gap next turn (and we have no bows to force them to come to us - blessedly, as that would make the scenario WAY too one-sided), but I don't have to endure TWO hailstorms, now do I?

Turn 2: Priority Good

Centaur had to move first again and . . . well, he stooped again. #CalledIt (#ImNotStupid) One of my Ruffians failed a climb test to get up onto the ledge, but the rest of the troop just advanced toward and prepared to get hit with stones.

Centaur grabbed 10 dice and scored 5 hits, but no wounds. I was like, "I'm sorry, that's bad luck" and he was like, "Well, you know - sometimes 10 shots don't work out." And I was like, "Wait, 10 shots? You're supposed to have 12 guys?" It was then that we looked at the board and discovered that while chatting during setup, Centaur was down two models. So I was like, "Put them on the board and shoot two more times!" So he did . . . and got 2 hits . . . and 2 wounds. Well, that's two Ruffians with whips who won't be doing anything for me . . . glad we caught that before things got interesting, eh?

Kill Count: Ruffians 0/12, Shire 2/13.

Turn 3: Priority Evil

With me getting to decide how the matchups worked out, I had a Ruffian with whip lead the charge and he killed a guy on his approach. The rest of my models just made charges as best they could, while two of my models climbed up onto the mill's outer wall-walk. There were some counter-charges as well, as the Hobbits tried to get a better numbers ratio in as many fights as they could. The Hobbit Militia standing on the wall-walk decided not to charge me (probably a good idea), stooped for a stone, and threw it . . . he didn't hit.

Lots of death was had this round - mostly by the Ruffians against the Hobbits. With 5 additional casualties (I won and wounded my foes in basically every fight) for the Hobbits and only one Ruffian killed in return (Centaur failed to wound a Ruffian he had trapped with two guys), things have turned pretty quickly against the Hobbits . . .

Kill Count: Ruffians 6/12, Shire 3/13.

Turn 4: Priority Evil

I got to pick the matchups again and unsurprisingly, I went for traps. One Ruffian engaged the Hobbit Militia on the wall-walk, while his buddy (who failed that climb test on the second turn - remember him?) just walked up behind him, egging his friend on. My one remaining whip guy (just to add insult to injury) got a kill with his whip on the way in . . . this is starting to get un-fun, even for me . . .

Aaaaaaand I killed a bunch more Hobbits. With only two guys left on the enemy side, this game has reached a point where being broken (let alone quartered) is basically impossible and victory is imminent. One more round, eh?

Kill Count: Ruffians 10/12, Shire 3/13.

Turn 5: Priority Good

Centaur could have moved first . . . except I called a Heroic Move with Ted. Sorry, Centaur. I tied up the two guys who were left as Ted moseyed on over to the door of his mill. With lots of traps, I'm feeling pretty good about this . . .

And I was right - the Hobbits were tabled and the game ended. Victory to the Ruffians! While Centaur's win last mission got him Maggot and his dogs for the final scenario (the Battle of Bywater), I now get Ted Sandyman for that mission . . . yaye? I like Ted and all, but golly that didn't seem like a fair trade. Whatever - a win is a win, even if it didn't feel like much of a game.

Kill Count: Ruffians 12/12, Shire 3/13.

Conclusion

The game would have gone a lot more differently if Centaur had gotten off a second volley of thrown stones (or if the first volley would have been better). 12 thrown stones hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 5+ should convert into 2-3 wounds/turn - and Centaur got 2 wounds in the one volley he had. Unfortunately for him, this just meant that he had a 1-model numerical advantage . . . and that just isn't enough to counter the higher Fight Value models who wound on 4s . . . it just isn't. I'm glad I won this game - it netted me Ted Sandyman for the final scenario, plus a win is a win - but I didn't enjoy winning it . . .

Tiberius Scenario Rating: 1/5 stars. Like I said last time (but the other way around in this case), there's a points discrepancy in this scenario - and a pretty big one! The Shire has 48pts of Hobbits, while the Ruffians have 84pts of models (including one with a Might point). It seems to me like the Hobbits should be able to get reinforcements or start with 20 Hobbits instead of 12 . . . that wouldn't quite make the points level equal, but both would give the Hobbits some chance of putting up a fight (they start outnumbered, out-Fight-Valued, out-Strengthed, and if they don't kill things with their rocks, they're just not going to survive). Besides that, the game was excellent and very enjoyable . . . well, for me. :-)

Centaur Scenario Rating: 3/5 stars. Okay, I actually thought that I could have made better decisions in this scenario, and that could have increased my odds of winning. Naturally, looking at odds, if you have 12 throwing stones in a single volley, that gives you 8 hits on a 3+ Shoot Value, and that means 2-3 wounds on a 5+ to wound. So I didn't do particularly lower than average for ranged shooting. A second round would have been helpful, but even more helpful would have been castling up around the building so that we can't be wrapped and trapped as easily. If most of the fights were 1:1, I don't have a great chance of winning thanks to having F1, but I don't have a horrible chance either, and while he's wounding on 4s and I'm wounding on 5s, that's better odds than when you are outnumbered, out-Fight-Valued, and double the wounding dice. So I dunno: I could have managed the threat better, played more conservative, and stood a better chance at beating down the Ruffians. But I do think the scenario is favorable to the Ruffians: they have higher numbers, the only Might Point, the better Fight Value, and arguably the better victory conditions.