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So, we just played the first scenario of the Fellowship of the Ring book: The Hunt Begins. A half dozen times - or maybe a few more! The scenario pits three Ringwraiths - including the Witch King - against a number of Dunedain Rangers. We deployed the board and terrain in keeping with the deployment map.

Unfortunately, the information that the Ringwraiths should be mounted was hidden in a boxout several pages earlier, so all those games but one we spent wondering how on earth the Ringwraiths were ever meant to win. Every battle, regardless of tactics, resulted in a crushing victory for the Dunedain, many times without a single casualty! Needing a 6/5 to wound with a bow is pretty lousy, but when you only need to kill two targets and have nine collective might points to change it to 5/4 the odds of getting a kill are quite good. Eventually we decided to give the Ringwraiths horses and see if that balanced the scenario and the result was a narrow victory for the Dunedain - their superior heroic stats allowing them (with a couple of tactical Heroic Moves) to engage and destroy the Ringwraiths in melee.

The scenario was a lot more fun once we tried it with horses! There was also a clue in the alternative participants section - it says to take two forces of approximately the same size, and the default forces' costs are very close with the horses included, but not so close without them. In a scenario where the Ringwraiths are trying to get off the board the extra mobility is also very helpful, though the horses are quite vulnerable to the bow-equipped Dunedain.

Have you tried this scenario? Did you like it? Were you as confused about the horses as us?