Been playing The Sands of Harad scenario 1 and recently 2, and am finding it extremely hard solo. Has FFG upped the level of difficulty in later expansions to cater for players who have been around and have a decent cardpool, and/or are they also catering more toward those who play in with 2 players.

Busy playing Desert Crossing and there is no way you can complete that quest solo. Firstly you have to increase the temperature by 4 very round in 1B but that isn't too bad because you only need to make 8 progress on that quest. Then with 2B you not only have to increase the temperature by 4 every round but you have to assign X damage every round amongst your characters! Where X is the tens digit of the temperature. Every round! There's no way you can take that amount of damage every round. And you have to make 14 progress on that quest. The final card 3B hits you just as hard, where you have to add X threat strength to the total in the staging area where X is the tens digit of the temperature. You also have to increase the temperature by 4 every round

I realise that this game has traditionally been a hard game, but making it nigh impossible is also not a good way to go. I read one other person on BGG say that the later expansions are harder but does anyone here agree that they are getting quite a bit harder? Maybe I should get Khazad-dum and compare, FFG must just hurry up with the reprinting of those APs as there are some great player cards in them.

Anyone played Desert Crossing solo or 2-player and finished it? Or am I just being a big baby and need to up my game.

And my questing was good this time around. I had Lorien Guide, Northern Tracker, Henmarth Riversong and Eowyn (Core) all questing with a The Favor of the Lady on Eowyn as well. That heat still got up to 60 far too quick.

Expansions naturally become harder chronologically to balance out the growing player card pool. You'll have quite a hard time with some of the newer quests and only a few expansions to build a deck from.

20 minutes ago, Stewart777 said:

Anyone played Desert Crossing solo or 2-player and finished it? Or am I just being a big baby and need to up my game.

Well, those that do are most likely players that have been playing the game for a while and have the experience necessary to complete a self-set challenge like Desert Crossing with just a Core Set. This way of play was not intended for beginners, even if it is possible for veterans.

I'd agree that the card pool grows and increases player power and so must the encounter set.

Desert crossing is, in my opinion beatable in solo, and actually not nearly the hardest quest in solo.

You MUST have healing however. Also you have to move pretty quickly. The hardest quests hit you hard right out of the gate, this does not, allowing you to build up a little, but take too long and you will lose.

Like any quest yiu have to solve the puzzle. Maybe try some different decks than the one you are using?

Good luck!

17 minutes ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

Expansions naturally become harder chronologically to balance out the growing player card pool. You'll have quite a hard time with some of the newer quests and only a few expansions to build a deck from.

Well, those that do are most likely players that have been playing the game for a while and have the experience necessary to complete a self-set challenge like Desert Crossing with just a Core Set. This way of play was not intended for beginners, even if it is possible for veterans.

And here's me going out and buying The Sands of Harad and The Wilds of Rhovanion as my first expansions (also bought some Saga stuff in On the Doorstep, The Black Riders and The Road Darkens; hopefully Black Riders is a little less tough as I'm looking forward to that one). Guess I should've started off at the beginning and worked my way up the ladder. Ah well still time to do that.

There wasn't a great boost of player cards from Sands (might've been better off buying a second Core to be honest for a couple more Unexpected Courage and the like) unfortunately, but lets hope Wilds, The Withered Heath and The Mumakil have some decent player cards as I recently bought those too.

3 minutes ago, player1683311 said:

I'd agree that the card pool grows and increases player power and so must the encounter set.

Desert crossing is, in my opinion beatable in solo, and actually not nearly the hardest quest in solo.

You MUST have healing however. Also you have to move pretty quickly. The hardest quests hit you hard right out of the gate, this does not, allowing you to build up a little, but take too long and you will lose.

Like any quest yiu have to solve the puzzle. Maybe try some different decks than the one you are using?

Good luck!

Moving quickly is key and you have to commit to questing or you're outta there. I didn't have a problem with the enemies, it was the heat that got me and it piles up fast. Yeah for 2B you definitely need some healing or not only will the heat get you but the damage will be huge.

If anyone has beaten Desert Crossing solo, or even 2-player let me know how you done it

I have access to the entire pool, I couldn't begin to remember which different decks I have used, I play almost a hundred games a month.

Have a questing hero, attacking hero, and defending hero. Start building from lore, defaulting to throw in warden of healing and daerons runes to find him.

Early draws of the worms try and kill quickly as they get bigger. Time traveling to the healing oasis when you need it.

You need to quest fast, and are required to kill the worms so you need to be strong on all fronts.

Dale is really powerful but probably take too long to build up and I usually dont run lore since I want to play king of dale quick.

I sometimes make proxies of cards that aren't out yet, so you could always sharpie a silverlode archer or something like him to add a card you dont own yet or is out of print.

Sniping some of those enemies if you have lower threat with someone like dunhere is an idea, although I'd have to recheck the quest to be sure. That would save you a dedicated defender.

Also just play it a bunch. On the really tough quests I'll play a dozen games before I win sometimes. And after a while you get the tempo down and figure out the best ways to travel, engage, and press your luck on shadows and the like.

This can have some bad beats, like drawing aanother worm when you have the quest beat that turn. But nad beats are always possible

Sorry I dont have a specific deck for you, check rings DB!

Thanks appreciated. And to add insult to injury they throw in a Treachery like Sandstorm which instructs you to either discard your entire hand of cards or assign X damage amongst your characters, where X is the number of cards in your hand. And to top it off I had just used Lorien's Wealth to get 3 more cards (who doesn't want more cards in their hand) so there was quite a bit of damage to go around... In one game I did have Self Preservation attached to my defender so that did help.

Here's the review of that quest and the deck they used to beat it from a blog that it explicitly looking at doing exactly what you are doing - that is, playing through the box with only the core set.

https://darklingdoor.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/path-less-traveled-desert-crossing/

Great thanks!

4 hours ago, Stewart777 said:

And here's me going out and buying The Sands of Harad and The Wilds of Rhovanion as my first expansions (also bought some Saga stuff in On the Doorstep, The Black Riders and The Road Darkens; hopefully Black Riders is a little less tough as I'm looking forward to that one).

Black Riders and On the Doorstep are both very friendly to solo players with a limited number of expanions. Expect some serious deck re-construction for Lonely Mountain and Battle of Five Armies, though.

On 10/27/2018 at 4:49 PM, Stewart777 said:

And here's me going out and buying The Sands of Harad and The Wilds of Rhovanion as my first expansions (also bought some Saga stuff in On the Doorstep, The Black Riders and The Road Darkens; hopefully Black Riders is a little less tough as I'm looking forward to that one). Guess I should've started off at the beginning and worked my way up the ladder. Ah well still time to do that.

How's this working out for you so far, playing the adventures in a more random order?

The reason I am asking is I recently started going through the adventures in chronological order myself, using only cards that are available in the current cycle and the previous ones. Which makes for a nice narrative experience. But I do get the urge to add in more player cards and heroes from some of the upcoming expansions, which I already own. Just thought it might be weird fighting spiders in Mirkwood one day, then getting heat stroke in the deserts of Harad the other and then escorting Hobbits to Mordor the day after.

1 hour ago, AstroChicken said:

How's this working out for you so far, playing the adventures in a more random order?

The reason I am asking is I recently started going through the adventures in chronological order myself, using only cards that are available in the current cycle and the previous ones. Which makes for a nice narrative experience. But I do get the urge to add in more player cards and heroes from some of the upcoming expansions, which I already own. Just thought it might be weird fighting spiders in Mirkwood one day, then getting heat stroke in the deserts of Harad the other and then escorting Hobbits to Mordor the day after.

To be honest the best would probably be to start at the beginning and work your way up. It's not essential though as you can just see the different cycles as different periods in the lives of the heroes. It obviously doesn't flow as well when doing it chronologically but it's still fun.

Now if only FFG would get on with reprinting so I could do that exact thing Waiting patiently for the Dwarrowdelf cycle as there as some great cards in there.

Not using the later cards would be tough, as it would be so tempting to use them

Edit: This guy is trying something similar, check it out - Path Less Travelled, he uses basically only uses the Core set and the particular expansion he's playing to see if he can get through some of the later expansions that way.

I like to do things in the right order, so I play cycles one after the other. I will start cycle 5 soon. Even if I use all the cards I have (they can come from a cycle after the one I play), I find the quests hard enough even with this kind of cheating

1 hour ago, Stewart777 said:

Now if only FFG would get on with reprinting so I could do that exact thing Waiting patiently for the Dwarrowdelf cycle as there as some great cards in there.

Yeah, some of the card packs not being available anywhere sure makes doing the chronological thing hard. Or super expensive. When I first bought the core game earlier this year, some of the older AP's were on bookdepository.com for like 10-11€, including shipping. Figured I'd pick them up later. Guess how that worked out for me... ?