SPOILERS. Don't read any further if you are a player who might one day play this scenario.

So, I sat down with two players yesterday and tried to get through the Journey At Black Fire Pass. With only two players, they took the roles of Gunnar the Agent and Thord the Troll Slayer and set out on their quest.

Everything went pretty smoothly and according to the expectations of the scenario. They met the elf, translated the map, drank the drugged beer, defeated the grave robbers (and even stopped to put things back in its place in the tomb, I gave them a fortune point for this), traveled quickly to the next town, grumbled at the toll to enter the city, failed observation rolls to notice the elf and headed into Black Fire Pass.

The goblin wolfrider got away and warned the greenskins.

So the dwarfs get to the mound of stones with the heads on poles. We're reaching the end of the evening so I figure I'm going to let them find the shield here to have a proper end to the adventure. They just have to get through the last fight.

So, the greenskins attack. Four goblins fire arrows at them, all but one misses but Thord shrugs off the damage. Gnashrukk, the orc leader, comes forward and challanges the troll slayer to a fight, which Thord happily accepts.

Gunnar tries to help the only way he can, by shouting Inspiring Words to the Slayer, which he succeeds at. Thord is ready to face the challange, no injuries, no stress or fatigue and he's now Inspired, so I expect they'll have a fun fight and then we finish for the night.

So far the players have had no real problems. They've had and lost a bit of fatigue/stress and wounds, but everything has been going without a hitch, so since this will be the climax of the game I'm thinking I shouldn't pull any punches and try to make them a bit nervous before we wrap this up. So for the orcs first attack I throw in an Expertise Dice.

And Gnashrukk just about murders Thord on his first hit by doing 8 damage and a critical. That's over half his wound treshold in one hit.

Thord tries desperately to answer with an attack of his own and both dwarfs cheer as he rolls 15 damage. Which is reduced to 4 by the orcs soak and Th. I describe the blow has having nicked the orcs shoulder. The troll slayer is starting to get seriously nervous.

Having no other actions available, Gunnar Scrutinizes the orc and learns that he has 6 Thoughness and 5 Soak. The players chins are dropping a bit at this point.

The orc and the slayer attack eachother a few more times, Thord missing or only causing small wounds while Gnashrukk causes another heavy injury to the slayer.

Desperatly trying to find some way to help his brother, Gunnar shouts insults at the orc. Calling him a coward for using all that armour while his brother is fighting with no armour at all. He rolls well.

Enraged, Gnashrukk rips off his breastplate (-3 soak) and shouts "I don't need no armour to killz you stunties!" (or something to that effect).

And beats Thord to death with his breatplate.

Shocked and grief-stricken, Gunnar charges in to take the orc down himself with his mace.

Gnashrukk laughs as he gives the dwarf a facefull of armour plate.

The orcs ate well that night.