General Ballroom and I got back together to continue the campaign.
When last you left us the Balrog had chased the Fellowship out of Moria - without needing to kill Gandalf who had failed to survive the previous game. Pippin too had fallen into darkness, Legolas had made a near miraculous recovery on repeat occasions and even the Ringbearer was only on a single wound. A battered and bruised Fellowship indeed.
Anyway in this scenario the Fellowship have to make it into the safety of Lothlorien, where Galadriel will make them all better and give them a nice rest. That is, if the wargs don't get them.
The goblins made for the ford, hot on the heels of Legolas and Gimli.
Some of the Moria residents fancied a dip.
The Fellowship decided to send Merry running off down the flank - presumably as some sort of distraction.
"Yeah mate, you go that way, we'll look after Sam and Frodo, What? Yeah course it's safe"
"Quick, this way while the goblins go after Brandybuck!"
Pretty soon the bulk of the goblins were across the river.
A lone goblin raced after Merry.
Two of his fellows emerged somewhat damp from the river, only a couple were swept off to their doom.
"Come back here, you hairy footed little bleeder!"
The goblins poured after Legolas and Gimli whilst wolves began to appear on the flanks. (The rules say they can appear on *any* edge, but having them pop out of the woods the good guys were running towards seemed pretty unlikely, you'd kind of expect the ekves to deal with that sort of thing, so we stuck with flanks and the starting edge)
Legolas turned to fire at the pursuers.
Aragorn however proved more than capable of breaking the necks of wargs.
The elf and dwarf found themselves being circled.
Aragorn: also handy at murdering goblins.
Legolas began to regret turning round for a few shots.
There were wargs and goblins everywhere!
Suddenly Haldir and his elven chums appeared from the woods!
They began to massacre the evil forces.
The Wild Warg Chieftain managed to get to the Ringbearer.
The goblins tried to drag down the elves.
Boromir called a heroic fight and slew the wolf he was fighting *and* the Warg Chieftain. Frodo was safe...
Or was he?
The Moria goblin captain pulled the same trick, murdered Legolas and then ran over to Frodo and, using his remaining might point slew him too!
Victory to the forces of evil, mwahahahahaha!
In retrospect I'm not sure the Goblin Captain can do a heroic fight. Gen. B. and I are a little old and used to previous versions, so may have got that wrong. However it was suitably cinematic and makes no difference in the end. Frodo rolled to stay alive and he'll be back to full strength after a rest in an elven bed.
Legolas, however is now permanently dead (finally a 1 was rolled after three of four games where he'd been killed and then rolled to recover).
The rising death count will make the Ambush at Amon Hen scenario extra tricky for the good guys, but after that's over it's mainly just Sam and Frodo (with added Gollum) for the remaining games, so it won't be too much of a handicap.
