My Scouring of the Shire runthrough continues winding down with the penultimate scenario, The Wolves of Winter. Drop on by if you like to see if Gandalf can successfully save the hobbits from the ravaging Wargs.

http://davetownsend.org/Battles/LotR-20200329/

Love your carefully made fires that do nothing at all in the scenario Certainly not a Canadian winter in the shire! Kind of makes you wonder who play tests the scenarios before they publish them.

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"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a rock." -Will Rogers

Really enjoyed this report (as usual!) and that picture above is fantastic! Quite possibly one of your best battle report pictures yet. I completely agree that it is not practical to make a winter themed board or terrain for this scenario unless you're going to play another game where you would use that sort of thing more. I can't think of any other narrative scenarios where you'd need that terrain.

With that said, this is a scenario that looks really fun and it is certainly disappointing to hear the balance was optimal. It is puzzling to me that some Scouring scenarios took a step back in terms of balance. I do think your ideas are worth trying and may very well improve the balance and lead to a more fun game. Could The Road to Rivendell be your next battle report? That is another one that sounds really fun (and I'm hoping it turns out to be better than this one).

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You can find me at: https://KuribosPainting.com/ and on Instagram @kuribospainting.

Thanks, guys, I appreciate the comments.

I don't want to give the impression of throwing too much shade on the scenarios. I almost always enjoy the experience -- there aren't any one-star scenarios here -- and overall I'm really both impressed with and liking the new edition of The Scouring of the Shire. If not everything's perfect, well, I'm not entirely satisfied with most of my playthroughs, either.

And of course I never claim to be playing optimally. I'm sure at some point someone has rolled their eyes at some strategy I've used, or tactic that I've failed to use, which could well address perceived imbalance. I'd love to hear about it if so. My thoughts after one play are rarely meant to be definitive.

I especially regret if I gave the impression that the old version of this scenario was better than the new. The STF guys have a video of that on YouTube and the result was much the same, despite While having some terrible die-rolls.

There seems ample evidence that more thought has gone into SotS than into the rather obviously tossed-off RotK journeybook that I was previously running through. (And despite that, there were some good scenarios in there, too.)

Thanks, too, for the comment on the photography, which I think I'm gradually improving on, and terrain where, if I'm no match for Celevue and Zorpazorp, I hope at least that things look reasonably cool.

The board looks great! It has me itching to whip out my unpainted Hobbits and Ruffians, paint them up and start playing some Scouring of the Shire scenarios!

Nice battle report as well. I can understand why it might a bit unbalanced, the Hobbits superior numbers seems to really win them fights.

One small thing I noticed, if I'm not mistaken: in the new edition if you roll a natural '6' when resisting magic (such as the Warg Chieftain had done at the first sorcerous blast), the spent willpoint is immediately recovered. But reading the report, it seems this wouldn't have had too much of an impact on the game. But worth pointing out, again if I'm not msitaken.

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Full Lord of the Rings campaign: https://aiwendil.net/

Thanks for the comments, Voyager. And you're absolutely right -- a '6' on the resist roll should have given the Warg Chieftain his Will point back. It could have made a difference....

Nice work! I plan to go through the old SotS book myself, in the fullness of time once the Journey Books are all done

Thanks, Slinky!

Hello DaveT, I like your battle reports very much. Thre reader gets a clear understanding of the events in the game, and your thoughst about the scenarios are helpful.

I don't possess the actual edition of the souring of the Shire, only the old one. It contains the profile of Golfimbul. Do you know if this profile has been changed in the new edition? Or is it still the same as before.

It would be great, if you could give me this information. Thank you.

Hi @werennor, thanks for the comments!

Golfimbul has the same basic stats as before. But he's a few points cheaper, has a hand-and-a-half mace, access to a couple of special heroic actions, and has a new special rule which effectively gives him Fate-like saves, sort of like the Goblintown King.

Hi DaveT, thank you very much for the detailed information about Golfimbul! Now I have to decide if I shall buy the new SotS book. In the end, i guess, I will ...

i bought my Golfimbul miniature this January at a small tabletop convention from somebody who reduced his stack of unfinished models, together with a modified Hobbit, a Moria blackshield goblin (without shield) and some other stuff for little money. Bandobras Tuk is in my Hobbit army too, so I could reply the battele of Greenfield against Golfimbul, once both models are finished. (Both are in work now.)

This is a bit belated but I wonder if you'd consider sharing what star rating you'd give a scenario like I assume you rank it on SBG Inventory. One thing I realized recently is it would be cool too see other people's collections and scenario ratings on there one day.
Sharing your rating here could be an easy way for someone to gauge how you feel about it if it is something you don't mind including with your battle report. I can certainly understand if that is something you didn't want to do too.

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You can find me at: https://KuribosPainting.com/ and on Instagram @kuribospainting.

Hi Kuribo, you can see how I rated the SotS scenarios over at sbginventory.com because I'm the only person that's rated them there so far.

I hadn't considered breaking down the ratings by user name. I'm always a bit wary about exposing personal information -- I don't want to have to deal with privacy issues -- but scenario ratings are presumably not particularly sensitive.

Collections might be a little more so; I guess I could add the option to make your collection public, in which case registered users could "impersonate" you to browse around (but not make changes, of course). That way you can opt in, but have to consciously make the choice to do so.

There are so many improvements and fixes that could be made to sbginventory.com. (Examples in addition to what you've mentioned: figure ratings; user comments for scenarios and figures; silhouettes for all the figures; figure URLs so you can link a photo of your painted figures; filter scenarios by keyword [#river, #fort, ...], etc etc etc. ) Time is the enemy for site improvements. Of course, if folks would prefer those improvements to battle reports, time could be found.

Including my ratings with the battle reports is a good idea. I'll try to remember to do that in the future.

Those are all great counterpoints or indeed, complications to the ideas that I suggested. I think I was imagining a "friend" system so you can pick and choose who sees your individual ratings or collections but I think you're right that it is difficult to manage privacy versus the free flow of information. I have absolutely know idea how hard it would be pull off such an idea too so take everything I suggest with a grain of salt.

Even if you take none of my suggestions, you've created an invaluable resource for us to use. For me it, is very motivating to track what I've painted and what I still need so I imagine I'll be using it for many years to come.

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You can find me at: https://KuribosPainting.com/ and on Instagram @kuribospainting.