Turn 5 – good priority. Luckily, Tom Bombadil has finally heard the chorus of three terrified hobbits calling his name, and he emerges from the Old Forest.
The hobbits, however, are still unaware of this. They barely notice the clearing of the fog, as they continue to battle the barrow-wights. Merry summons his courage and charges a wight. Further east, Frodo stays with still-paralyzed Sam, while Pippin moves eastward. All three conscious hobbits continue to call for Tom. The wights persist with their relentless attack – one tries to paralyze Pippin, but fails. Frodo manages to resist the spell of another wight, which also charges him. Frodo wins the ensuing duel, but fails to harm the spectral creature. Nearby, Pippin is also charged, and he loses the duel – but manages to dodge the wight’s strike. Merry loses his duel, too, and escapes also unscathed. Luckily, all the commotion wakes up Sam from his paralysis.
Turn 6 – evil priority. Each wight charges a hobbit. Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin still continue to shout “Ho! Tom!”, as the four duels commence. Sam uses his frying pan to good effect and wins the duel, but the wight merely utters a cold and terrible laughter at the pan-wielding hobbit. Merry and Frodo lose their fights, but emerge unscathed. Pippin, alas, loses and is paralyzed yet again. Meanwhile, Tom closes in on Merry…
Turn 7 – good priority. Tom is now close enough so that his merry song strengthens Frodo’s badly depleted will. Frodo, Sam and Merry charge a wight each, while the fourth wight begins to drag paralyzed Pippin towards the nearest barrow. Frodo wins his duel, but fails to wound the enemy. Sam loses, but is not harmed – but Merry, unfortunately, goes down.
Turn 8 – evil priority. As two wights charge Frodo and Sam, the two other spectral figures are busy dragging Pippin and Merry into the barrows to be sacrificed. Tom, however, does not take this kindly, and his song revives Pippin. Sam wins his duel again, while Frodo loses – but there are no effects on either side.
Turn 9 – good priority. Tom revives Merry, and engages a wight, as Frodo, Sam and Pippin start heading towards the east. The three other barrow-wights charge Frodo, Sam and Merry. Sam and his frying pan are victorious yet again, while Frodo and Merry lose their duels – and the latter is paralyzed once more, mere moments after being revived by Tom.
Turn 10 – evil priority. While Merry is being dragged yet again towards a barrow, two other wights charge Sam, and the remaining one charges Frodo. For a moment, Pippin considers making a beeline towards safety, but he decides that he will not abandon his friends – thus he joins Frodo’s fight instead. Suddenly, Merry is woken from paralysis – Goldberry has arrived, and she is singing a refreshing song.
Tom joins the fight to help Sam, and one of the two wights is now forced to focus on Tom, instead. Sam wins, again, but causes no harm to the evil spirit. Frodo and Pippin lose their fight, but Pippin manages to evade the wight’s strike.
Turn 11 – good priority. Goldberry and Merry move eastward towards Tom and the other hobbits. Sam charges a wight, while Tom ties another one into a hopeless duel (from the wight’s point of view, of course). A second wight engages Sam, as Frodo and Pippin flee eastward. Merry is also charged by a wight; he loses but is not harmed. Sam, however, is wounded by one of the wights.
Turn 12 – evil priority. The wights are now desperate – only by dividing the attention of the invincible Master Tom and his wife, the River-daughter Goldberry, can they possibly turn the tide of the battle. Spells fly through the now-clear Barrow-downs air, and Pippin, Frodo and Sam go down. Three evil spirits begin immediately to drag the paralyzed hobbits towards barrows, while the fourth one charges Merry, paralyzing him for the third time.
The evil triumph is not long-lasting, however, as Tom engages the wight dragging Sam, while his jolly “Hey! Come merry dol!” wakes up Frodo. In addition, Pippin and Sam manage to break paralysis on their own.
Turn 13 & 14 – evil / good priority. The wights begin to realize that their prey is too difficult to catch. A wight charges Pippin (who loses but stays afoot), while another attempts to grab paralyzed Sam. Tom, however, revives Sam and engages the wight. Goldberry awakens Merry, and both continue eastwards, as does Frodo. In the last game turn, the evil forces yield as Tom sings “Get out, you old Wights! Vanish in the sunlight!”. The wights begin to flee towards their barrows as Goldberry and Tom safely escort the hobbits to the path towards Bree - after gifting them with small swords found inside one of the barrows.
It is already dark as the tired hobbits enter the Prancing Pony inn, asking the innkeeper Barliman Butterbur “We’re friends of Gandalf the Grey, can you tell him we’ve arrived”. The innkeeper pauses for a moment… “Gandalf? Gandalf… Oh yes, I remember! Elderly chap, big gray beard, pointy hat. He’s sitting there at the back table with that Strider fellow.”
And so ends our sixth scenario – felt a bit scary at first, with no Tom in sight. Once Tom was on the board, the wights seemed to have little possibility to achieve victory conditions. As Goldberry joined in, the evil side simply had to give up – no matter how much the barrow-wights tried to paralyze the hobbits, there was always a merry song to undo their nefarious plans. Too bad Tom is adamant about not passing his borders – he’d be a valuable asset on any battlefield! Next, our travelers will face Ringwraiths again, this time within the ruined watchtower of Amon Sûl. The Nazgûl are in for a surprise, however, as Aragorn and the hobbits have a wizard along - one which is definitely not some conjuror of cheap tricks! Stay tuned…
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