The Battle of Bywater
The Scouring of the Shire #4 (x1)

Quest
4A-B (-)

When Revealed: Shuffle the encounter discard pile into the encounter deck. Remove each Shirriff enemy in play and in the encounter deck from the game. The first player searches the encounter deck and victory display for 1 copy of Gang of Ruffians and engages it. Then, each player not engaged with a Ruffian enemy searches the encounter deck for a Ruffian enemy and engages it. Shuffle the encounter deck. Discard cards from the encounter deck until X enemies are discarded, and add those enemies to the staging area. X is the number of encounter side quests in play. Then, remove those side quests from the game.

The ruffians could not now be cowed so easily. A few of them obeyed, but were immediately set on by their fellows. A score or more broke back and charged the wagons. —The Return of the King

While any Ruffian enemy in play has any remaining hit points, all Ruffian enemies gain indestructible.

If there are no enemies in play, advance to the next quest stage.