The Hounds of Sauron - LOTR / Hobbit Battle report

The Fellowship of the Ring Campaign, Scenario 10, The Hounds of Sauron...

 Our brave little hobbits have finally reached Rivendell, where a great many events occur...

 Their arrival could not be a moment too soon, with Frodo succumbing to the effects of the wound from the Morgul blade... Master Elrond having sufficient healing skill to save him from a fate worse than death; falling into the shadow world and becoming a wraith...

Frodo finds time to heal and recover from his ordeal thus far and is reunited with his fellow hobbits and Aragorn, and indeed Gandalf, finally, too.

And then the great event, the Council of Elrond will determine what the Free Peoples must do. Their final conclusion to destroy the One Ring, by sending it back to the only place it can be unmade, the very fires whence it came; Mount Doom, deep within the land of Mordor...

[Queue; endless Boromir memes; One does not simply walk into Mordor! etc etc... ;-) ]

Finally the members of the Fellowship are determined, and the Quest of Mount Doom is begun...

The Fellowship try to cross the mountains but are beaten back by arduous conditions and terrible weather. Unable to cross the mountains they decide to head for the Mines of Moria, yet en-route, their troubles are still far from over as they are tracked and hunted by a pack wolves and worse - Wargs!

This scenarios is based on events in the book and not the movie...

Forces:
We have the whole Fellowship against a Wild Warg Chieftain and 18 Wargs.

Since we are playing by the events of the book, I have given Aragron, Anduril at this point, though it is not explicit in the Fellowships equipment list.

Deployment:
The Fellowship must all be placed within 3" of the centre of the board.
6 Wargs must be placed touching each of the North, South and West board edges. The Wild Warg Chieftain (WWC), may be placed on any of these edges.


The Fellowship deploy in the centre... surrounding and hopefully protecting the hobbits...

Fell howls fill the air as the wargs close in from three sides...

...their red eyes glowing in the dark of night...

Victory conditions
The Evil players win if 5 or more members of the Fellowship are killed or if Frodo is killed. The Good players wins if the Game ends before this happens.

Special rules.
The Wargs are driven on in this scenarios headless of loss and fear, and automatically pass all Courage tests.
Warg casualties recycle back on at the end of the evil players next movement phase, coming on from a board edge chosen by the player with priority that turn. Except the WWC, who once slain, is removed from play.
The game will end on any turn from turn eleven onward where the Priority roll is a draw!
As always, the Good side has Priority for the first turn...

Game on!

The Fellowship chose to stand their ground as the Wargs close in, and Legolas and Aragorn loose their bows killing two Wargs immediately... the rest close in undeterred...

The Wargs get closer still, ready to charge all at once en-masse...

And suddenly with a howl and a cry the Wargs come tearing in at the Fellowship, fangs gleaming in the moonlight, claws reaching forth...

... but Gandalf has managed to Command away their vile chieftain, who is forced away by the strength of Gandalfs Will...

...but here sadly, the pretty narrative fails; it was carnage and chaos...

The protecting pocket of the Fellowship broke down, over the course of the game. A series of rolling individual fights occurred, turn after turn, with the main combat heroes; Aragorn, Gimli and Boromir, trying to slay as many wargs each turn as they could. Their actions attempting to minimise the numbers getting to the weaker Fellowship members, calling Heroic moves and Heroic Fights, slaughtering endless wargs... Eventually though, numbers began to tell, getting through, and luck played its fickle game. The Fellowship members started to fall... Pippin was the first, falling at Turn 5...

Two turns later, Turn 7, Merry fell...

Turn 8 saw Aragron surrounded, and take a severe mauling...

losing all 3 fate points...

Gandalf and Boromir were left trying to hold as many wargs as possible, off Sam and Frodo...

Elsewhere, Aragorn, Giml and Legolas, were each isolated and surrounded, with Legolas eventually falling on Turn 9...

Aragorn got his revenge on the WWC on the following turn, Turn 10, slaying the foul creature...

Turn 11, came and went, with the Fellowship just trying to hold on, and hoping for that tied priority roll to come to end their misery... allowing them to get away or the morale of these fell creatures to finally break...

...but no! Turn 13 came, and Sam fell...

With less Fellowship members left in the fight, keeping the pressure off Frodo was nigh on impossible, but the Fellowship made valiant attempts to do so, still calling heroic Moves and Fights and still slaying countless Wargs...

Frodo finally was forced to break free and try and make a run for it...

But he was quickly surrounded by Wargs... their speed easily outpacing him...

The remaining Fellowship members still coming to his aid to the best of their abilities... drawing wargs off him, leaving him fighting one, not three...

But eventually the inevitable happened...

... and Frodo fell on Turn 17, also being the fifth Fellowship member to fall....

And so a terrible end to the Quest of Mount Doom... And yet we can only say that, for our Quest to continue in a meaningful way, we must assume the force that drove these crazed creatures on, relented once the Ringbearer fell... Thus allowing the other members of the Fellowship, to come to the aid of their fallen comrades, who hopefully have not suffered fatal injuries, and can continue the Quest!

-----o0o-----

Phew what a slog! Once I read the scenario and saw the recycling Wargs, I knew this game was just going to come down to a matter of time... The Heroes are incredibly powerful, but as they run out of Might, and Fate, they start to become fatigued and thus can eventually be overwhelmed and that is what finally occurred...

Chris had been confident at the start thinking he could win this, and he certainly made light of the opening turns, but slowly and inexorably the tide began to turn...

On average the Fellowship killed 5 wargs per turn, over 17 turns, that's about 85 Wargs! Which works out at about 680 points, plus the WWC at 75 points, making over 750 points of enemy troops killed, for the loss of half the party, and only the weakest members too...

Out of curiosity, we continued rolling our priority dice to see just when the rolls would tie and the game would have ended... it didn't end till turn 33!

I have a feeling this mission is perhaps to allow the Fellowship player just to get a feel for using all the Fellowship Heroes and get used to all their special rules and abilities... consider it on the job training!

Chris did remarkable well with this, and already seems to know the heroes abilities and stats off by heart, a most impressive demonstration of memory and recall.

Lets hope the Fellowship have time to recover from this ordeal, in time for the next challenge, and the Watcher in the Water, outside the Doors of Durin!

-----o0o-----

Further thoughts...

Having written this report I realise we forgot to make use of Sting and the Mithril shirt for Frodo. I don't think either would have made a critical difference here, probably just delaying the end by a couple of turns...

What I think would have made a difference, is if the Fellowship, rather than making a defensive circle where they stood, had actually moved to put their backs to the large rock, near their position. If the hobbits had stood by the rock, the main fighters of the Fellowship could then have a made a crescent defence around them. Sure they would count as trapped if they lost any fights, but the larger bases of the wargs would mean less wargs getting at each individual hero each turn, and thus the heroes could probably hold their ground endlessly over many turns. Legolas could perhaps climb upon the rock and use it as a firing position... I don't think the wargs could climb upon the rock to reach him either?

So we will give this a try, and comment upon the final result...