About 120 points worth of goblins (and one goblin riding a warg) versus about 120 points worth of good guys!
Fortunately, even though the goblins are many, they are a bit spread out, so as long as the rocks and arrows hit their marks, the goblins shouldn't be too tough, though if they can get into a lot of melee combats against hobbits there'll be trouble! Goblins have spears, so can get their two against one bonus - and against a combat weak hobbit that's a problem! Turn one starts off really well, Cookie throws a stone and knocks a goblin out on the first turn!
No way! While Skodi faces off a goblin, a goblin arrow from further afield thwacks into Loki, taking him out! That's a massive blow to the good force, as they only had three proper fighters, now suddenly down to two!
Skodi takes out his goblin just in time to join in the melee against the warg rider, who charged in to battle and was swarmed by as many as could pile in! Hedger and his squad rolled nothing higher than a four! Fortunately the goblin rolled a one and a two!
The two archer hobbits, Tom and Harry, take aim at long range and take out a goblin archer! The archery so far has been dreadful for the Shire force, there were turns where everybody missed (all 1s and 2s) and many other turns where even the hits didn't manage to get any wounds, so this was a good feeling!
And the archery continues! Hedger and Harry take out two goblins! Skodi and Cookie smack down another goblin - Cookie smacks his frying pan right into the goblin's chittering face, sending it to the gravel. Jolly, Hugo and Rory similarly gang up on a goblin, only winning because the Shirrifs have a massive fight value of 3 while the goblin only has 2! I think this turn turned the whole battle around, as the goblins were getting close to swarming us! Thank goodness that sometimes the archery works!
Pushing forward, Hedger and the team manage to gang up on some more goblins, Skodi taking out another in close combat while Harry takes aim and shoots another hill-top goblin!
Skodi takes on two goblins and loses the fight, but the spear thrust is turned aside by his shield. Hedger pushes back a goblin but can't get a damaging strike in. Cookie, however, frying pans another goblin!
There are fewer goblins now, but Hedger and Skodi continue to take on as many goblins as they can to spare the Hobbits. Skodi pushes a goblin away from the Hobbits. Hedger slips on something and the goblin lunges forward and takes him out! Hedger got one bow kill this game and did nothing else except distract goblins from Hobbits! Meanwhile, Hugo clonks another goblin in the head and knocks him out!
Vengeance is theirs as the Dwarf, Skodi, and all the remaining Hobbits pile in to thwack the final goblins down! They hear a cheerful barking and snarling sound in the distance and see the massive black wolf claw down two goblins as it howls in the direction of the Hobbits as it bounds away into the distance. Mission accomplished! But at what cost?!
Post game rolls - Loki rolls snake eyes - DEATH!?!? But then as we're making a fuss about what rotten luck we realise that the whole way through the game we had Hedger's stats wrong (I thought he only had 3 defence) so that he shouldn't have even been knocked out! So we fudged the results by one and had Loki roll a three instead. So our next mission will be trying to rescue him as he wasn't found after the battle - the goblins have dragged him off somewhere!
In better post-game rolls I got double sixes (thanks to the horn bonus) and got a Wood Elf Sentinel, Geleth, and another hobbit, Farmer Maddock. Also, Cookie rolled and got a six, promoting him to a Hero! A hero Hobbit with a frying pan! Skodi and Hedger also qualified for promotions. Skodi has decided that the Hobbits need protecting and so he is now a Khazad Guard, ready to lay down his axes for the little folk. Hedger has donned better protective armour and is now a fully fledged Ranger of the North. Here's hoping that will help him in future battles!
