of the Journey books..... Especially the first one.

It seems like its almost way to hard to get the vanilla wraiths with no fate or might and limited will across the board.

The times we have played this scenario the dunedain always try to stay out of range of the wraiths spells and just shoot until they get a lucky wound which they have plenty of turns to try to make.

With 9 dunedains with a 1 M, W and F they just stay back and concentrate arrows at one ringwraith at a time, if they come close to wounding they just top it off with the M they got and usually bring one wraith down per two or so turns making it extremely hard on the evil player.

We have tried with several tactics and strategies. Using magic heavily to try to transfix or command as many of the dunedain as possible to limit the bow shots usually results in the dunedain player switching tactics and charging the wraiths with low will. Even when using magic at key moments doesn't seem to result in much either.

We use pretty much a copied board from the book so there isn't really much terrain to use to try to avoid the arrows.

Anyone that can offer any advice to the wraith player in these scenarios since I think we have only seen the wraith player win the second scenario once or twice and have never won the first scenario. It seems to us that whoever wrote the scenario didn't quite think it through or playtested it enough. Have we missed anything or is this scenario tipped in the good players favor?

Oh and a question on the side. In these scenarios when the dead dunedain comes back into play after being killed. Do you play it that they come fresh with new M, W and F or do you keep the stats just if the same one came back?

In regards to the Dunedain, reset statistics of M/W/F -- to me, it seemed as though they represented reserve troops or just recently arrived.

I have played many of the scenarios from the journey book and they are not balanced in my opinion in terms of equal chances of victory. I guess most of the scenarios are suppose to reflect the actual story. Regardless, they are fun to play.

Stand alone, they are incredibly hard for the Evil player to win. I'd tweak the scenario and at least give the Ringwraiths a Fate point. Alternatively, having the Dunedain on sentry duty could be interesting.

It's better when playing the campaign though, as it gives the Good player a chance to do some damage to the Wraiths before the Hobbit scenarios.

Yeah we figured those scenarios were there to soft up the wraiths before getting them into the other scenarios. Especially the one with gandalf at amon sul.... that one is just murder to gandalf... 9 sap will attempts a turn leaves gandalf a very poor spellcaster extremely soon. In that case the best tactic for the dunedain is just to try to get all the wraiths will down to 0 to see if the evil player botches a good number of recovery rolls. But when just playing the scenario it feels kinda wierd that the wraiths pretty easily get shot down by an arrow.

Sentries is a nice idea. We are toying with the idea to give the wraiths the elven cloak rules instead representing that the riders travel mostly at night. To "balance" it we could remove the nazgul cry rule.

I agree that balance is something that should be disregarded in these scenarios. Heck it wouldnt be fun if it were balanced. But there are some scenarios which is outright almost impossible. Especially in the first book. The first two spring to mind immidietly as well as the one with gandalf at amon sul. But also the one in which frodo and aragorn face lurtz the first time. The ringbearer pretty much always pop the ring when the uruks get into range and then run down the table while aragorn just have to survive a few turns. That one pretty much just come down to frodo's dice rolls to see who controls him.

I was just looking around if anyone has any good tips for the wraith player as it seems like we are horrible playing a ringwraith only force against 9 mini-heroes. Not to mention that keeping track of the dunedains M/W/F is pretty darn tedious.

Give the wraiths horses, 'upgrade' any number of wraiths into castellans, or, simply play a points match.

There's just too many mini heroes, which is why I suggested the fate points because it gives the RIngwraiths the ability to survive a lucky arrow and makes the Good player think a little more. But as it is, in a straight up face off, the Nazgul have little chance. I like your idea for Elven Cloaks. Alternatively, employ night fighting rules such as not being able to see more than 14cm away (the Nazgul of course are unaffected). If you did sentries, the Cry of the Nazgul would also alert them.

Seeing as you were complaining about so many mini heroes, maybe try swapping Dunedain for Rangers? Have a Dunedain or 2 leading companies and the rest Rangers of Arnor. It fits the Grey Company theme and feel of the scenario while giving the RIngwraiths a little more chance to get through?

Yes, definitely give the Nazgul horses, it would make all the difference. We played this campaign with 'foot' nazgul and it wasn't pretty. The Journey book, page 4, under 'Equipment' says equip the characters as they are depicted in the film or book scene, so hosses it is.

Oh

No-one has pointed this out before- good spot!

Technically horses would make it easier for the nazgul, however I think its the amassed bows that is the problem in this scenario as nazgul only have one wound. One lucky shot is all that takes, either that or they actually shoot the horses out from under them.

About depicting them in the same way as the book or film it is true that the nazgul rode horses when heading for the shire. However in the Journey book the scenario is depicted using wraiths on foot. However they have done the same thing in other scenarios, adding the wrong troops to the example pictures.

Yeah we will have to try to see how we can make it a bit more even. Not intrested in balancing out completely just to give the wraiths a fighting chance.