So I just started my first game, I am playing it solo. I don't think I am understanding the questing phase. The combined willpower of my hero's is 4. By turn 3 there was already 6 threat in the staging area. This would mean it is impossible for me to win already, as I will never have more willpower than the threat. (I suppose I could if I could play Gandalf, but he was 15 cards down in my deck, i checked) I could explore 1 location but that still only brought me down to 5, still unwinnable. So, if anybody can please help me, this game seems so fun, but I'm so frustrated trying to get my head around how this works.

Thank so much.

Are you using the Tactics deck? The Tactics deck out of the core set doesn't work for solo, just doesn't have enough questing power. Try the Spirit deck, that will quest better. Once you get a feel for the game you can make a Spirit/Tactics deck as you like.

Yeah I'd definitely suggest trying the Spirit or maybe the Leadership starter deck. Truth be told, none of the starter decks are any good, and some of them are only viable when doing multiplayer games.

It sounds like you're understanding how the quest phase works, so probably it's your deck that is holding you back.

Once you've had some success with a starter deck, you can start to build your own decks and achieve some more powerful combinations. Here are some links for new players that you might find useful:

Beorn's Path at Hall of Beorn blog (great for just starting out and building your first deck)

New Player Guides at Tales From the Cards blog (more of a grab bag of different topics)

Also, if you are just playing solo with one of the 30-card decks, feel free to add another 2 Gandalfs into your deck, this is legal and will make life easier to begin with.

And yes, there are times when through bad luck, you may quest unsuccessfully even though you have a decent questing deck. This is especially likely to happen if high threat enemies and locations pile up as a result of not engaging enemies or travelling to/exploring locations fast enough, or as a result of nasty treacheries that either weaken your questing characters' willpower (e.g., Ungoliant's Spawn) or boost the willpower of enemies and/or locations in staging.

Snowbourn Scout (Leadership), Northern Tracker (Spirit) and Lorien Guide (Spirit) can help you overcome location lock, as can a well-timed questing Gandalf (with our without Sneak Attack).

Still, the bottom line is that sometimes you will have to suffer threat gain during the questing phase, no matter what. It happens to all of us now and then.