Song of Drar and Murin: Game 5

As promised, I took the fighting outdoor and added some warg riders to the pack.

Instead of placing the cards on the tiles, I changed the rule for this scenario: the dwarves must make their way to the entrance to the mines, with the pursuing goblins being placed on the starting tile each turn. Since the goblins move faster than the dwarves, the dwarves must make their way across the open area quickly before the goblins can surround them.

To make sure that the goblin commander and the warg riders make an appearance in this scenario, I picked the goblin commander and one war riders card out, then drew another four cards at random, and then shuffled the six together.

The dwarves need to make it to the top left corner. The goblins enter from the bottom right corner.

The first two cards I draw are the goblin commander and the warg riders! Birgir, the new leader of the dwarves, orders the men to leg it.

But it is not possible to out-run the warg riders. The dwarves form a defence at the defile.

The goblins are pushed back after the first scuffle, but more warg riders arrive and one warrior ventures too far ahead of the line...

The warg riders charge again, and the warrior stumbles. Birgir face a tough choice: should he try to save the warrior, or get the rest of the men to safety?

We are dwarves - that's not even a question! Birgir sends two dwarves to prepare a second line of defence while he and the slayer charge in to rescue the downed warrior. The goblins begin to gather but they are unable to make it into combat.

A gruesome kill by Birgir sends many goblins fleeing - you can see the "casualty pile" on the top right of the photo.

The goblin commander rallies his men for a second charge, but another gruesome kill, this time by the slayer, sends more of his followers scrambling for safety.

Now outnumbered, the goblin commander decides discretion is the better part of valour...

Lucky tile placements allowed the dwarves to hold off superior number of enemies in this game. The most tense part of the game was when Birgir was faced with the choice of abandoning one of his men or risking all their lives. It took me a while to decide, but I realised I had to do the dwarven thing.

I played the whole thing through in an hour, with History Channel's Vikings in the background, and managed to pack all the figures and tiles away in less time than a commercial break took. Now I wonder what the next scenario should be.