The Sands of Karna!

Today's scenario takes us into the distant past, almost two decades ago! Digging through my copy of "The Best of White Dwarf: Return of the King", I stumbled across a very interesting old scenario, "The Sands of Karna". Asking around my gaming group, my friend Ryan Cu, not to be confused with me, Ryan Ca, offered to take me up to play it out.

Warriors of Minas Tirith are rebound for their steadfast bravery in the face of evil, their honour, courage and willingness to do what is right. However, they are men, and we know men are susceptible to the will of evil...

A group of warriors from the White City, against advise, have decided to enter the ruined city of Karna. This is not for glory, nor to defend the realm of Gondor, but greed as they go looking for treasure and wealth. The warriors have stumbled across an ancient tower, and convinced that it holds buried treasure in its halls, have entered the towers walls and started to search for anything of value.

Locals know this is no ordinary tower, but is rumoured to be the home of several Dimlokhi, unspeakable spirits, or barrow weights as others may call them, from the distant past. The board is set up on a standard 4x4" area, with the dreaded tower in the middle, and several smaller ruins, trees, rocks and rubble around the remainder of the playing area.

The local Haradrim are not pleased with this intrusion into their ancestral capital, and have gathered for an ambush. They have completed surrounded the tower and begin to move in from all sides. The battle will rage until one force is reduced to 25% of their starting numbers.

Valadir, a captain of Gondor leads the forces of good. He is accompanied by 24 warriors of Minas Tirith, 8 with bow, 8 with shield and 8 with spear and shield. Valadir himself is armed with an axe, but dropped his shield in the hunt for treasure and could not find it when the Harad ambush began.

Kashdhar, the Haradrim Chieftain who leads the local villages is the leader of the evil army. He has not been so forgetful and brings a shield and spear into the battle. He leads 12 Haradrim with bow, 12 with spear and 4 of the dreaded Dimlokhi.

Deployment sees the Gondorian force set up all around the tower, with a handful of archers braving the walls of the tower itself. In their fever to find treasure, the Gondor soldiers are spread out, all no closer than 2" away from each other. Valadir runs out from the tower's entrance and prepares to face the enemy arriving from the South.

The Haradrim are more organised, arriving from all four board edges in equal units. Kashdhar arrives from the North, leading his force towards the tower's back. However, the Dimlokhi are not yet awoken. They still slumber within the tower and will only arise upon the death of a combatant. Each warrior that falls from either side gives the evil player the chance to roll a single dice per fallen warrior, on a 5+, a Dimlokhi is awoken and joins the battle from inside the tower.

This is both a blessing and a curse for the Haradrim. They are unbelievably afraid of the Dimlokhi, and any Harad warrior within 6" of the cursed spirits at the start of their movement must take a courage test. Fail, and the run directly away from the weight, pass and they can move as normal.

The Gondorians deploy around the Tower, whilst the Haradrim sprint their ambush

Turn one priority goes too Gondor, they begin to form small shield walls on all four sides of the tower. Valahir joins with his comrades and prepares to push into the six desert warriors facing him down. A Minas Tirith archer decides to move up into the tower entrance, but when attempting to step onto the tower, falls to the ground and lands dangerously when faced with the terror within the evil walls.

The evil side decide to move slightly forward, giving them a chance to use their deadly poison arrows and try to take a few warriors out before joining in hand to hand combat. Arrows fly through the air and one Minas Tirith warrior is slain, an arrow puncturing his heavy armour.

The Dimlokhi have heard the sounds of battle and begin to stir. One dead warrior, one dice to see if one of the evil spirts joins the fray. The Haradrim try their look and roll a 6! At the first time of trying, one of the dreaded Dimlokhi arises on top of the tower.

The Dimlokhi enters the battle, and the terrified archer falls over when trying to climb the steps.

The next turn begins with Gondor winning priority. Although one of the Dimlokhi is now on the battlefield wreaking a terrible pall over both the good and evil men of Middle Earth, this turn felt like the calm before a storm. Our brave warriors of Minas Tirith continued to reform their lines around the tower, with the Haradrim raiding parties moving up half, within charge range, but enabling them to get another volley of poisoned arrows flying through the air towards the tower defendants.

More arrows fly, the Haradrim weave side to side and avoiding all projectiles fired towards them. However, one unlucky warrior of the White Tower gets hit between the armour plates under his arm. He crumbles, the Dimloki hear his death wails, another 6 is rolled and a second spirit awakens atop the tower. The turn is not done however, there is already one spirit awakened and it has cornered a terrified archer on the battlements. The archer drops his bow and dives out the way of the cursed blade, just avoiding a terrible fate at the hands of the Dimloki's evil weapon.

More luck befalls the brave willed men of Gondor, as the Dimloki attempts to paralyse Valahir go astray and his cast fails.

Turn three begins, this is the turn combat will begin in earnest as the Haradrim forget further attempts of archery. They seize priority and push in from all sides, engaging the slightly outnumbered men of Gondor where possible.

The two Dimlokhi both attempt to cast their spells, both throwing paralyses at warriors of Minas Tirith now in combat with Haradrim. Yet again however, their spells fall harmlessly on the brave warriors and both fail to cast. They do however charge both archers atop the battlements on the highest reaches of the tower.

Combat hits, men of Gondor start to fall in numbers and several fall to the spears and blades of the Haradrim across the North of the battlefield. With more deaths comes more chance of the remaining Dimloki awaking. On two more rolls of a 5 and 6, the final spirits have awaked and enter the field in the lower floor of the tower. The two weights on top of the tower make light work of the archers trapped with them to round out this turn of combats.

The final Dimlokhi awaken in the tower, with the remaining defendants soon to fall

Turn four begins with good winning priority. Seeing their comrades fall, the Gondorian force attempt to reconcile their forces to the East, right of the towers main entrance. The remaining three archers in the tower bravely climb the stairs in a vain attempt to slow down the charge of evil spirits and let their fellow warriors put some ground between them and the dreaded enemy.

However, fleeing the spirits in the tower, the Gondor force now faces into the onrush of mostly untouched Haradrim raiding parties. 

To the North, facing the entrance of the tower it's now a 3v4 combat to the death in favour of Harad with the remaining troops trying everything to gain an advance over their foe. To the South, the back of the tower, Kashdhar has finally entered combat and charges the two Gondor archers just outside the tower whilst his force pivots to support the East advance of White Tower warriors.

The remaining three Gondor warriors to the West fall back in front of the tower, forming what small shield wall they can after seeing their comrades die the previous turn to the onrushing warband of Harad.

Gondor tries to retreat from the tower, however are trapped between the Dimlokhi and Harad forces!

Although two of the Dimlokhi have been charged by brave Gondor archers, the remaining two, stuck in the tower, attempt and fail yet again to case their dread paralyse on warriors of Minas Tirith around the battlefield. A madness of anger takes them with their continued failure and as combat hits, all but one brave archer remaining in the tower are slain.

As the battle rages, Harad continue to demonstrate why they are so feared in combat. The warriors of the East let fly a handful of arrows, felling a single warrior from the group in front of the tower's entrance before hand to hand combat kicks off in ernest. Although the Gondorian force has attempted to reform to the East, they swiftly fall foul of the Harad spears and swords with several more falling with only a token number of Harad dying in return.

However, the warriors to the North are still embroiled in a deadly combat of 3v4. Unbelievably, the warriors of the light rally and manage to win all three combats, killing three of the four Harad! The turn does not end well however, with Kashdhar swiftly dispatching the two archers he was in combat with around the base of the tower.

The battle is almost over now, and although as the following turn begins, several Harad are now close enough to see the terrible weights up close, fail their courage tests and flee maximum distance from the Dimlokhi, the focus turns entirely to self preservation for Gondor.

Movement concludes with the Dimlokhi leaving the tower and begin their hunt of Valahir and his remaining warriors to the East of the tower. The forces of Harad to the East slam into Valahir and his warriors, with the remaining Harad surround the warriors of Gondor left behind around the tower, several of whom become paralysed from the Dimlokhi's accursed magic. This includes Valahir himself, who after bravely leading his men so far, now falls to the terror of the weights chasing behind him and cowers in terror, paralysed.

The Dimlokhi leave the tower and chase the men of Gondor to the East, resulting in mass casualty as the final turn ends

The final turns of the game are short, with the forces of Evil catching and killing almost all the remaining Gondor warriors to the East, including Valahir himself. Two brave warriors to the North however survived the onslaught of Harad and continued to chop down several over the final turns.

Once the Dimlohki caught the warriors of Gondor retreating to the East it was only a matter of time before their force crumbled. They are reduced to less than 25% of their starting numbers, the greed of men once more is their downfall and the game ends with a resounding victory to the forces of evil lead by the charge of the four oppressive Dimlohki.

Conclusion

What a fun scenario! Playing something created over two decades ago, from a long forgotten book, was a pleasure.

The special rules for the scenario really gave Ryan Cu and I something to think about. The fact Warriors of Minas Tirith had to deploy 2" away from each other meant they couldn't create a solid wall to make sure of their shieldwall rule before combat hit.

The fear of Dimlokhi appearing at any time once a warrior of either side had died added a real threat to the game. I loved the fact the Harad also are terrified of the Barrow Weights, with their rule of having to take a courage check if they are within range of one and running directly away if failing it a fantastic addition. Looking back, I should have played into this more to try survive for longer!

Although Minas Tirith lost, I feel playing this again and making better use of the scenario specific rules I would have stood a better chance for success.

This is a fairly straightforward scenario to pull together with common models required on both sides, and if you have the ability to do so, I would highly recommend it. A solid 8/10 for me!

If you have gotten this far, thank you for reading my rambles. Happy hobbying!