However, I came up with another earlier on... Whilst I was ordering Farmer Maggot and his Hounds, Grip Fang and Wolf it occurred to me. SPOILERS ALERT TO THOSE READING/HAVEN'T READ BUT WISH TO READ THE BOOK, that Farmer Maggot and the Ring Wraith had a falling out earlier on in the story, before he helps Frodo and company make it to the Buckleberry ferry. So, in a 'What if' scenario, What if the Ringwraith had sent some kind of foul servant out for revenge on the farmer, on his way back with his two sons in the dark on his cart, after dropping Frodo off.
Now, I'm not exactly sure what type of Evil force would work here. Good would be easy enough. Farmer Maggot, his three hounds (For the purpose of this scenario they were sleeping in the cart on the way there. I mean, I'd take my scary, fierce hounds if I knew evil was afoot!) and his two sons, which should be represented by a Hobbit Shiriff, since I'm sure they'll have more fight in them than a standard hobbit would, being Maggot's sons after all!
As I say, evil forces is something I'm stumped on. Orcs were my first guess, but how would the Orcs have gotten to the Shire? My next thought was Wargs, but no Wargs/Wolves had been in the Shire since the Brandywine froze over long ago. So I'm truly stumped on that one. Maybe 4-5 Orcs and a Ringwraith or, A couple of Ruffians to represent Sauron's spies from Bree that have travelled to the Shire to aid the Ringwraith? Feel free to comment, and give any ideas over, I'll continue to work on it myself and hopefully come up with a pretty balanced force list!
The scenario would be a sort of last man standing. Nobody flees, it's a grudge between Farmer M and the Ringwraith. The layout would be a big field with plenty of open space, and the cart has it's back wheels suspiciously broken, meaning it cannot be driven. Due to the hobbits small size though, it can be used as cover!
So, though my blog may not get many visits yet, I notice it gets around 10-15 a day so feel free to comment, leave feedback etc, I'm keen to hear opinions!
Until next time!
I like your thinking... some other options may include "ruffian types" such as Bill Ferny at Bree, which you could use the Isengard Ruffians for, also Wildmen of Dunland used similarly... or perhaps come up with some "half-orcs", there is one mentioned in the Bree scenes associating with Ferny... although the inference is it was sent up from Isengard as a spy from Saruman... you'd have to model these with an appropriate model or do some converting as the current GW range does not include hlaf orcs, and come up with suitable stats...
ReplyDeleteRuffians are a good idea, maybe a half orc or so amongst them. I plan on updating this fully soon
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