I've managed to nab the gen-con decks now that I've got almost all the nightmares. Though I've come across a hitch when playing Lake Town and I'm not sure how to resolve this yet, I've looked and no-one seems to have asked the same question.

Smaug the Magnificent has this text:

"Excess damage from attacks by Smaug the Magnificent must be assigned to Lake-town."

I understand the concept easy enough, it's like the hill troll. You block, then if the defender dies excess damage is placed on Lake-Town done deal.

However what happens if the attack is undefended? For example, Smaug attacks for 8, does 8 damage to Lake town. Does he also assign 8 damage to a hero? Or does all of his attack effectively hit Lake town? Or on the flip side, does Lake Town take no damage and one hero takes 8 since this isn't "Excess damage"?

Edit: Just thought of another excess damage scenario. If the undefended attack goes to a hero they take 8 damage, they will likely die form this damage, say they have 4 hit points. They take the 4 hit points of damage and the 4 remaining is 'excess' thus is assigned to Lake Town. Is this version correct?

I've just been chump blocking just because I'm assuming the ruling that is worse for the players is the actual one. However there could be an interesting tactic in letting Lake Town burn a bit and then douse it all in water during stage 2.

If you take an attack undefended, any damage above and beyond the amount it takes to kill that hero is "excess damage." For example, if you have Glorfindel exhausted and with 5 health remaining and he takes the attack undefended, shadow card is dealt and does nothing resulting in 8 damage, since it only takes 5 to kill him, 3 is placed on Lake-Town.