Scenario 9: The Watchful Peace

Many years had passed since the corruption of the Greenwood following Sauron's unknown retreat to the east. Dol Guldur fell into ruin and the old pathways within the woods became accessible and usable again. However, even in peaceful times like this bands of Orc's and creatures still dwelt within the shadows of the woods, waiting for the time to strike while being hunted by Thranduil's best rangers and his son Legolas.

Forces of Good:

Legolas Greenleaf, Prince of Mirkwood with elven cloak

Mirkwood Ranger Captain (Tauriel Model)
10x Mirkwood Rangers

Forces of Evil:

2x Orc Captains with Shield

24x Orc Warriors (8x Shield, 8x Spear, 4x Two Handed Weapon, 4x Orc Bow)

Additionally, the following rules are in play:

• Good models may re-roll failed to hit rolls with shooting attacks if they did not move during the move phase.

The Scenario ends on either of the following victory conditions:

• If the forces of Evil are reduced below 25% of their starting number at the end of a turn the forces of Good win!
• If the forces of Good are reduced below 25% of their starting number at the end of a turn the forces of Evil win!
• If both sides are reduced to 25% on the same turn it is a Draw!
  
• If Legolas is slain the game ends immediately for a forces of Evil win!

Deployment

The Elves making use of their elven cloaks lay wait in ambush hidden behind the tree waiting for the Orc's to come into range of their volleys. The Orc's meanwhile with no idea the Elves were aware of their presence at all proceeded through the woods in formation.

Elven Ambush

The Elves aware of the Orc presence stayed where they were, ready to fire at the opportune moment. The Orc's meanwhile stayed in their formation marched forward, proceeding through the forest at speed, blind to the fact any Elves knew where they were.

The first volley of the Elves took out four Orc spearmen, their arrows slipping past the front rank of shield carrying Orc's. Legolas himself scoring two of these kills.

The Orc's now aware of the Elves and their rough location again marched forward to where the arrows came from. The Elves held their position again and fired another volley. A further five Orc's are slain in the volley with Legolas himself claiming his third kill.

The Elves Uncovered

As the pace of the Orc's quickened between volleys, and knowing that so many of their number had already fallen the Elves chose to engage in melee rather than retreat. Almost all the Elves piled in making most fights a one on one with the few unengaged Orc's filling in or supporting where they could. The remaining elves moved over to fire at the select few remaining Orc's they could safely shoot.

Both the Elf captain and Orc captain face off in the centre of the line while the other Orc captain took on a ranger with two fellow Orc's. Legolas unable to get to the best position took on only a single Orc warrior. The few Elf bow shots miss their mark and take out no further Orc's.

The two captains face off with the Elf captain prevailing and injuring the Orc captain who barely survives the engagement, fate intervening to stop him suffering his second wound. The other Orc captain also loses his fight to the one Elf ranger showing his skill when outnumbered, but suffers no wounds or losses any fellow Orc's in response. Legolas however completely struggled to show his martial prowess and lost his fight vs the Orc warrior and to add further insult lost two fate points ignoring the wound caused.

The Orc captains and Legolas took the brunt of damage in the first engagement as despite all the other fights that went on around the woods only two Orc's fell at the cost of a single Elf.

Thick of the fight

Both sides knew now they were close enough that there would be nothing but melee to finish this engagement off. Many fights again become a one on one with Orc's filling in the gaps and the Elf captain getting assistance to finish off the wounded Orc captain.

With the Elves wanting to press their advantage and prevent themselves from ever getting overwhelmed by numbers both Legolas and the Elf captain called heroic combats. The Elf captain hoping to finish off the captain she wounded earlier and Legolas to take out a single trapped Orc.

The Elf captain performs as needed and finishes off the Orc captain then moves to engage the remaining Orc captain, knowing he is the last major threat. Legolas however again fails to perform beating the Orc but failing to wound it despite being trapped. Both captains fight and while the Elf takes it no wounds are caused. As the fights finish two Elves lay slain for one Orc and a captain.

Another round of combat ensues, the Orc's being only seven slain away from routing, and the Elves being only six away. The Elf captain again engages the Orc captain and this time successfully wounds him, Legolas meanwhile finally scored a kill with his daggers against a single Orc. 

Another full found of combat leaves two dead on each side, the Elves not performing as well as they should despite their fight value but this could also largely be due to Legolas struggling. If each round the number of kills is a tie its looking like it'll be a draw or Evil win.

Finishing the Fight

Evil took the first priority of their's this game and engaged all the Elves with the Orc captain again taking on the Elf captain and two Orc's charging Legolas due to his lacklustre performance and hope they could slay the prince.

Combat again went well for Evil having killed another two Elves, but this was at the cost of their Captain which the Elf captain finally felled. However both Legolas and the Elf captain remained uninjured. Another round of combat ensued with the Elf captain being completely trapped in the middle but both she and Legolas performed this turn. Legolas sley both of the Orc's that had been keeping him engaged and the Elf captain was able to kill a single Orc while being trapped.

Both sides lost three of their number leaving four elves remaining but this included the Elf captain and Legolas. On the Evil side seven Orc's still remained. Good was only one more dead Elf away from retreating while the Orc's needed to lose two of their number.

The Final Moment

Knowing they were in trouble a single Elf that was out of position retreated away from the Orc's so they couldn't catch them. Legolas and the captain then took on as many Orc's as they could to try and end this now.

There were only three combats to following but each one was important as all could make or break this for each side. The single Elf ranger was able to win their fight but failed to kill the Orc against them. Legolas then stepped up and both beat and killed the Orc fighting him. Finally it was all down to the Elf captain, who had performed over and over again in this engagement, claiming the heads of two Orc captains and a few Orc's. She went in and sley both of her opponents, routing what remaining of the Orc force and giving Good a narrow and pyrrhic victory.

Legolas 0/2/1 2W (Alive and a long rest) - 5 kills

Review 

I don't know if its Elf shooting or all shooting in this campaign but it never seems to quite do the damage I expect. The fact only four Elves were left at the end what I wrote off as being an easy for Good to win scenario because a lot closer at the end. But this could also have been due to how badly Legolas did in combat at the start, him losing and using two fate at the start had us both very worried. If there wasn't a long rest between scenarios Legolas would have been my Fool of a Took.

The Elf captain did so well this scenario however and completely covered for Legolas' failings. I like to think this was actually Tauriel as that was the model we used and this is how she got promoted or her name known from Legolas talking about her from this, or at least that's what I will go with for this campaign.

A good scenario although as I think will be the case with a lot of Mirkwood/ Lothlorien scenarios I am not sure if it should just be lots of trees or areas of woodland terrain, for this one we just used many scattered trees as it was just an ambush in the woods by the Elves.

As Good win the scenario they get a bonus in a future Clearing the Nests scenario where Legolas will lead his Elves, and the newly promoted Tauriel, to take on the spiders deeper in the woods of Mirkwood. Also a point of note as this Legolas is the prince of Mirkwood while I am tracking the kills this amount will not be used with the competition with Gimli, I will track those separately.

The next scenario coming will be the Fields of Celebrant where we see Rohan ride to the aid of Gondor who are under attack by the Variags of Khand.