Hello,

I am new to this game and I am getting frustrated. I beat the first story, Mirkwood, and I am about to give up on this game and move on to something else.

I can not seem to get passed the first encounter on the Anduin quest, the second one in the basic game.

The Hill troll just beats my three heroes before I can build up my game for any type of adequate attacks.

Any suggestions?

Read this it might help.

http://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/how-to-kill-a-hill-troll/

The key to it is:

A) threat control - make sure starting threat is less than 30

B) use lore and forest snare

C) sneak attack gandlaf to drop damage

If you can keep starting threat low (use low threat heroes) then you should be able to build up and wait for the snare and eat one attack and raise your threat (to use snare you have to engage and deal with one attack) and then quickly snare him and that's that.

Another way: you have a lot of characters with attack points (up to 10). When it is your turn to attack, play sneak-attack + son of arnor.

It is also a different special way to kill troll without feint or sneak-gandalf.

Thanks, I will try all these out.

I tried a few times. My starting threat level was 26 and I had plenty of time to build up a defense. While I didn't win this scenario yet, my frustration has dimmed. So thanks for the help.

Good luck. This is not an easy scenario especially if using just the core set. Victory will be sweet

Just starting out, it was momentous enough of an occasion that I still remember where I was.

I first beat the hill troll while playing solo in the library, sitting at a one person desk/cubby, while at grad school (when obviously I should have been studying). Where were you?

I had tried a bunch of times at home on my kitchen table and kept getting smashed. I wanted to use the cool heroes like Aragon and Gimli. Frustrated I finally ventured onto forums and saw that people kept their threat lower to avoid engagement right away.

I went back with guys like Theodred etc and when I finally beat him I slammed the table and flipped the encounter deck over haha

I must have played this ten times today, each time getting better and weeding out cards that were not helping me. I finally beat this scenario. I want to try it again and once I beat it again, I will move on to the next quest.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Oh, one more question. The Goblin sniper. When it does one damage, it bypasses the character's defense, right? So it always places a token on the character it is shooting. Is that the correct way?

Yep John, that's correct. Congrats on beating the scenario!

, I will move on to the next quest.

If you thought the Hill Troll was bad, Escape from Dol Guldur is nearly impossible with just the core set, it remains as one of the most difficult quests to date, so don't get frustrated with this one, celebrate your victory over the troll it's the rite of passage of the core set.

If you are new player, i wouldn't try Dol Guldur solo with only core set. Or get more adventure packs, or play with another friends.

I think it is worth playing Dol Guldur once or twice to understand why it is difficult. You may even get lucky and win (a longshot, but would feel pretty cool).

As Mndela mentioned, you have a better shot at winning Escape if you play with a friend or two.

Congratulations on the win over the Hill Troll! I lucked-out (in my opinion) and the very first sphere I ever played was Spirit. It may not be an attack powerhouse, but IMO, Spirit is a great noob-starter...Eowyn's high willpower + Dunhere's ability to strike in the staging area + one other Hero to defend...it seems pretty well-rounded to me. For me, the ability to quest well with a starting threat level less than 30 (along with weeding out cards that seemed worthless for this quest) finally gave me the edge to beat the Hill Troll. That being said, I had ordered/received the entire Shadows of Mirkwood AP + Khazad-Dum before I ever took on Escape from Dol Guldur. Like others here, I won't tell you it's impossible to win that scenario with only the Core set, but a win is almost nigh-improbable; especially playing solo.