Turn 3 – Evil priority. The situation looked grim – the Watcher pulled the tentacle holding Frodo next to its gaping maw, while the other tentacles blocked the shoreline. Gandalf waded into the pool but not fast enough to reach Frodo. Stretching his will, the Wizard conjured a sorcerous blast, causing the tentacle holding the captive hobbit to fall back. With a splash, Frodo was laying again in the shallow black water. He scrambled up and took a cautious step towards the shore. On the shoreline, Boromir and Gimli charged a tentacle each, while Aragorn attempted to tackle two simultaneously.
The Watcher sent two other tentacles forward in an attempt to snare Frodo and Gandalf, but both appendages missed their intended victims. The beast’s anger was mixed with a sudden pain as an arrow pierced one of its tentacles. The pain reached a white-hot madness when the creature suddenly lost four of its tentacles to sharp metal weapons – Boromir had sliced one off with his sword, while the might of Gimli’s axes hacked another into bits. Closer to Frodo, Aragorn’s mighty swing of Andúril cut off two tentacles. But even with half of its tentacles lost, the beast was far from being done with…
Turn 4 – Good priority. Sensing their chances for escape, Aragorn shouted “at the double!”, urging the Fellowship to retreat into Moria. However, Frodo’s feet slipped on the submerged, slimy rocks and he almost fell down. Summoning his might, he fixed his footing and waded towards safety along with others. Gandalf attempted to protect their flight by immobilizing the Watcher, but again, the spell had no effect. The remaining tentacles moved closer, and the beast shot two of them at Aragorn and Gandalf. Strider easily dodged, but the Wizard was caught off-guard – he was ensnared, and after a brief struggle, also entangled…
Turn 5 – Evil priority. The Watcher wasted no time as it dragged the entangled Gandalf next to its jaws. Aragorn rushed to help the Wizard, and as he sure-footedly charged the tentacle, Gandalf was released. On the shoreline, Frodo continued his retreat towards Moria, while Gimli covered his escape by positioning himself between the hobbit and the flailing tentacles. Boromir charged another tentacle, while Legolas positioned for shooting and let loose three arrows – all of them wildly missing their targets. Near the body of the Watcher, Aragorn’s blade cut loose a fifth tentacle, while Boromir mightily dispatched the sixth.
Turn 6 – Good priority. Gandalf clambered up but slipped on the uneven rock bottom and could not move any further. Aragorn continued to safeguard the Wizard by charging the tentacle nearby. Frodo and Gimli retreated into Moria, while Boromir and Legolas pulled back only a little, electing to stay within the perimeter of the light cast by Gandalf’s staff. The only other remaining tentacle flayed near them, but Legolas’ arrow forced it to pull back to the body of the Watcher. The beast was definitely being subdued now, with Aragorn adding to its agony by cutting off the penultimate tentacle.
Turn 7 – Evil priority. Aragorn shouted “with me”, as he waded quickly out of the pool and towards Moria, followed by Gandalf. The Watcher roared in fury as its final tentacle moved forward – the searing light was still a dire hindrance, and the beast did not succeed in ensnaring anything. In addition, Legolas’ arrow forced it to retract the tentacle yet again.
Turn 8 – Good priority. Urging those still outside to hurry up into safety, Aragorn drove them forward as he shouted “at the double”. The Strider rear-guarded the Company into the darkness beyond the stony gate while keeping a close eye on the wounded, horrifying beast now clambering out of the water.
Inside, Gandalf turned and paused. If he was considering what word would close the gate again from within, there was no need. A coiling tentacle and insect-like legs seized the doors on either side, and with a horrible strength, swung them around. With a shattering echo they slammed, and all light was lost. The others heard Gandalf go back and thrust his staff against the doors. There was a quiver in the stone, but the doors did not open – the beast had piled boulders and uprooted the holly trees across the gate. 
“Well, well!” said the Wizard. “The passage is blocked behind us now, and there is only one way out – on the other side of the mountains.”ConclusionThanks to rok100 for a great discussion & tips for the scenario. As mentioned earlier, the scenario, as played by us, is not 100% based on any published version. We had the journeybook version and the White Dwarf version at hand, and in the end, we used rules and inspiration from both, as well as ideas from rok100. We decided to use the following special rules:
- The deployment was as suggested by rok100, i.e. everyone except Frodo already inside Moria (like in the movie), with the Watcher body and five tentacles in deep water, and Frodo entangled at the shoreline.
- The hobbits started at the doorway, forcing them to back out into the danger zone in order to let the stronger heroes out.
- The Watcher body could move up to 3” in water, while tentacles moved 6”.
- The Watcher has eight tentacles available; once wounded (i.e. cut) in close combat, the tentacle is removed from play. A tentacle wounded by arrows or sorcerous blast is retracted and placed in base-to-base contact with the body, in a position chosen by the good player.
- There are a maximum of six tentacles in play at any given time (practical reason: I had only six separate tentacle models available). The two first tentacles slain are respawn next to the Watcher body. After that, the number of separate tentacles begins to decline.
- If the body comes closer to 3” of the shoreline, it is replaced by the full (finecast) Watcher model.
- For the Watcher body, we used a stat line of the Finecast Watcher for fight, strength, defense, courage, might, will and fate. For separate tentacles, we used the White Dwarf statline as given.
- As per rok100’s suggestion, the separate tentacles cannot move onto land. Instead, they can
ensnare in the shoot phase to drag models towards them. In practice, this counts as shooting attack with a range of D6”+1”, roll to hit is to beat the target’s unmodified strength on a D6. There must be a clear line of sight & clear path for the target model’s base to pass directly to the tentacle. However, since this counted as a shooting attack, it was also affected by the blinding light spell. Hence, ensnaring succeeded only with a roll of six (provided that the model is close enough to Gandalf). If a model is successfully ensnared, it is pulled to base contact with the tentacle ready for the fight phase.
- In fight phase, if the tentacle is victorious, instead of rolling to wound, it may
entangle a single victim. In the subsequent turn, the tentacle may drag the victim D6”. The victim cannot move but is released if the tentacle is engaged in close combat or is wounded by a ranged attack. The dropped victim is placed prone (but takes no damage). Standing up takes half the movement.
- Tentacles are immune to magic (exception: sorcerous blast) and terror, but not the body. Immobilise / command affects both the body and the tentacles.
- Tentacles can always be shot at without other models being in the way; ranged attacks (including sorcerous blast) only harm the tentacle, not any entangled victims.
- If the body of the Watcher is engaged in combat while in water, it will be hit automatically unless one or more tentacles are fighting with it. If the body is wounded, the Watcher must take a courage test. If the test fails, all tentacles drop any victims and move into base-to-base contact with the body.
- If an entangled model is in base-to-base contact with the Watcher body at the end of the fight phase, it will take D6 automatic S8 hits as the Watcher tries to eat it.
- The Watcher may use might on behalf of any of its tentacles.
- If the Watcher is out of the water, then it fights as described in the Moria sourcebook, except that its attacks work as with the ensnare rule above, and the number of attacks is equal to the number of remaining tentacles.
- Good models starting their movement in the water must make a test roll (1D6 in shallow water, 2D6 & choose the lower in deep water): 1 = model loses footing and may not move; 2-5 = unsteady footing, model moves at half speed; 6 = unhindered, may move at full rate. Legolas gets +1 modifier to this roll.
As discussed with rok100, this scenario should be calibrated for the terrain used; for instance, the range of ensnare should be tailored so that there is no safe spot on the ground other than inside Moria. However, a large range for ensnare also means that the models are quickly drawn to deep water. In addition, the body moved surprisingly quickly close to the shoreline, so there was a clear danger of entangled models to be eaten. The blinding light limited ensnaring quite effectively, however, and having a rather limited number of tentacles available was also making it progressively easier for the Fellowship to make a controlled retreat into Moria from turn seven onwards. After all, the Fellowship did not want to fight the Watcher to the death, as this would have undoubtedly meant a loss of a hero or two. Even now, it was a close call for Gandalf at one point, and it wasn’t so easy for Frodo, either, to get out of the water and into safety. The adjusted scenario worked well for the campaign – it was fun to play, evoked the scene from the movie, had a couple of tight spots, and it eroded away might and will points, making it that much harder for the Fellowship to face the long dark of Moria. Stay tuned for the battle in Balin’s tomb coming up next…
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