So I'm struggling to, being honest, have fun with the game. I find it extremely difficult and unforgiving, to a point of desperation. Having played around 6 times (and only up to four quests, as I'm trying two campaigns simultaneously), I have lost at least half those times. It feels like a race with no pacing, with no time to check or investigate in this continuous race to remove threat and explore tiles to avoid higher threat ranking up in the shadow phase. In the meantime, the game keeps popping enemies left and right that cannot be quickly defeated.

Both campaigns are with only two characters (Bilbo and Aragorn, and Bilbo and Legolas), so I wonder, has anyone experimented with higher player counts and felt it was a better balance? Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

My brother and I find that being in either the same space or adjacent is vital. He is playing Legolas so he has range to get it to work better. We find maintaining Inspiration is key and the best way to do that if you aren't going musician is to kill enemies when adjacent to an ally. I am running pathfinder to move out to explore tiles quickly and come back or take him with me with a skill card.

Also, be sure to move two spaces on a single move action. My brother and I got to scenario 3 only moving one space per action which was very difficult but we managed to be successful.

Oh, and play the app's game a bit. Don't explore a tile if there is white mist next to it unless you are ready. The white mist is going to drop more tiles which will only increase your threat because you haven't explored them.

I am playing with my wife and we have won 3 of 4, and It seems very easy to us 😳

We are playing with other friends (5 players), and we lost because they wanted to do everything and we didn't remain together.

In the case 1, only 4 enemies at a time. In the case 2 all the miniatures and no time to end the mission.

It is not a problem of the number of heroes.

I have played the who campaing with two heroes and did lost one scenario. Some people have moved to hard mode because it was too easy in normal mode, so most likely you need to optimise some of your things in the game. This game is definitely easier than some coop games like Ghost stories (only managet to win that game few times so far)

so this seems to be easier side of coop games. Every coop gam takes some time to find out the ”right” way of playing it. If it does not do that, it most propably is too easy after 20-30 games when you learn how to play the system.

you can try to start the game with one extra inspiration as an easy model like in Lotr Lcg. That can help the Beginning of the game somewhat. Also it is important to use character powers and scouting to their full effect! If you ready 4 cards and the ready one more, you have 5 less cards in your deck. In improves you chances a lot. There Are only 4 succes cards in the deck in the Beginning of the campaigb, so thinning the deck is very important. Also you have to calculate your ods. It is no good to attack enemy if you don`t have enough success cards left in your deck!

it is Also important to get more success cards to your deck. That creatly increases your odds of drawing those success cards Also when and hot to produce inspiration is very important!

I ended up increasing my success card by 4 new success cards so doupling my odd of drawing those instead of drawing something that does not have any success, so the game did get easier to the end of the game actually. Though tittle cards did make my deck worse somewhat so the real effectiveness did increase maybe 30% in the end.

All in all prepare always a card when you can! It is the Main way of getting better ods from yhe deck. And if you have allready drawn you 3 to 4 success cards. There is none left. Better avoid checks at that moment! If your discard pile only have one success there is much more left in the deck and so on. This is like power in that way. It is all about the odds! If the check is not important then making check with no old may be ok. But exploring /moving or other no check action can still be better for the next round. Going back to kill enemies is no good. Lets the enemies run for you. Just try to end outside of their attack range (2 space for human, 3 for wargs etc). So you don`t get attacked.

We find it pretty much impossible. I understand action economy, but the pacing of the game is frantic and forces you to skip stuff. Not really worth playing but the miniatures are good.

Just to be clear, we never re-roll..redraw or use do overs. We have failed events/checks 3-4-5 even 6 times in a row. Taken 5-6 damage in one single shot or have 3 enemies in the first scenario with 3 armor? I find with 4 characters they just start layering on armor on enemies and its such a grind and you receive nothing if you kill 7 stacks of enemies or 1...well nothing but wounds. Sometimes the enemy placement is 1 stack we have had as many as 5 stacks with almost every single unit used...sometimes there is nothing on the board but you have to walk like 14 spaces which is boring and pointless because its random.

The game looks great and I love the concept and I would purchase again(for miniatures), but we'll never play it again as is.

What difficulty are you playing on? Seems excessively hard?!?

5 hours ago, Yivrael said:

We find it pretty much impossible. I understand action economy, but the pacing of the game is frantic and forces you to skip stuff. Not really worth playing but the miniatures are good.

Just to be clear, we never re-roll..redraw or use do overs. We have failed events/checks 3-4-5 even 6 times in a row. Taken 5-6 damage in one single shot or have 3 enemies in the first scenario with 3 armor? I find with 4 characters they just start layering on armor on enemies and its such a grind and you receive nothing if you kill 7 stacks of enemies or 1...well nothing but wounds. Sometimes the enemy placement is 1 stack we have had as many as 5 stacks with almost every single unit used...sometimes there is nothing on the board but you have to walk like 14 spaces which is boring and pointless because its random.

The game looks great and I love the concept and I would purchase again(for miniatures), but we'll never play it again as is.

I can't help but wonder if you are playing on Hard? I have played all the campaign, except the finale. I find almost all enemies to just be a nuisance. Just there to make you waste actions. Almost all combats are one two actions with minimal damage. Bosses are tougher, sure, but manageable. My experience is the game is almost too easy.

3 minutes ago, jkayati said:

My experience is the game is almost too easy.

My brother and I experienced this in scenario 3. We had the objective, expected it to update the objective but it suddenly said we won unlike 1 and 2 which seemed hard but we think we understand the game more now.

Also I was planning on touching a glowing green search token in a cave that game. Now I may never know what it was for months. (Someone direct message me if they know please)

The game is certainly too easy in my opinion. Fair if your mileage varies, but you have to understand the basic concepts of the game before calling it too hard. Most scenario now (after the first 2) I win with 60% of the threat bar filled so I could even spend more time doing side quest etc. If I wanted. However, this is my first time playing and I want to maximize the odds of winning every scenario. I'm 7 in 7 at this point. Haven't restarted or anything.

I do think that you have to prioritize. Some markers from the description sound pretty useless and I usually pass those tokens never looking back (A lot of those useless one that I did try end up being 1 or 2 inspiration... Sometimes having to pass a test first that will cost you 1 inspiration to succeed on... worthless). Often, I'll finish a quest without having removed 2 or 3 exploration tokens from the maps. Descent, Imperial Assault and Mansion of Madness were always games that had a clock controlling how long you can waste time. This game is exactly the same. Learn to priorities, get rid of easily reachable exploration markers/threat tokens, don't spread out too much, kill all enemies before potentially triggering more enemies (Common triggers: Advancing the quest, exploring new tiles, threat increases.) Try not to trigger new enemies with no activation left (It might be worthwhile to do nothing with an activation if you are sitting beside an unexplored tile with only one activation (What if you trigger 6 enemy group and add a ton of exploration/threat tokens by exploring that tile.)

Once those basic rules are understood (and how to pass test, by controlling luck: with inspiration/scouting) the game becomes extremely easy.

Quote

I find with 4 characters they just start layering on armor on enemies a  n  d its such a grind and you re  cei  ve nothing  if you kill  7 stacks of enemies or 1...well nothing but wounds.

Killing stacks give you inspiration, which is essential to pass test... I don't see how that's nothing?

Thank you everyone for the feedback and input, it's much appreciated (and helpful!).

I still disagree with the game being easy, and I find it far more punishing than Imperial Assault or Mansions of Madness (which I find challenging but doable, and when I lost a scenario I always felt it was my fault).

I don't feel Scouting cards compensates for having four successes in a deck of 15 cards, and although I read your advice I don't seem to live those situations.

"Remember you can only prepare 4 skills...": I don't think a round goes by with me not having to use the prepared skill, situations always require that extra help.

Inspiration doesn't come by as often and, with only 4 successes in your deck, I end up having to use inspiration in almost every single test (when I have it). A lot of the tests are notoriously hard like test "Might: 3" when having three successes in 2-4 cards is just against the odds.

Yesterday I tested to remove a threat token and had a difficulty of three, which I didn't pass. I gained fear and of course it was to keep face up, explaining that I needed to discard one inspiration from now on every time I wanted to interact with a threat token. Bad luck? This type of problem seems to come across all the time for me. Also, it seems that all damage and fear seems to be face up for me 3 out of 4 times and it just makes things worse.

"Don't reveal or explore areas before you are ready": Yesterday the game literally deployed 4 areas, 3 remained unexplored and the central piece had then 2 threat tokens (which again I genuinely failed to remove). It's just unbalanced to me I'm sorry.

I truly want to like the game, and I'm thankful for the advice above which I take with me. Maybe I have to start over again and plan better.

I have played 8 mission and lost 2. Its too easy but still very fun the play, just lovit!!! Next campaing will be hard mode.

I think that if players are finding the game too difficult OR too easy they should read through the rules again. This game is still new; missed or misinterpreted rules can really change the difficulty.

There is definitely a learning curve to this game. I'm playing on Hard Mode and lost the first 4 missions, but a lot of that was because I made rules errors or completely forgot to use one of my hero powers or prepared cards. Looking back I could have easily won some of those missions if I didn't make a dumb mistake (like forgetting that Legolas can spend an inspiration to leave his space, so he doesn't get punched in the face by the boss during Retaliate)

Inspiration economy is a huge part of the strategy, especially in Hard Mode. You need to focus the early game on collecting Inspiration and not spending it. This means taking advantage of cards like Trailblazer, Resourceful, Traveling Song, etc. that generate Inspiration for you. It's also very important to understand that most of the cards with success icons, are still worth a success if you prepare them. If the card gives you an inspiration, or lets you convert a LEAF into a success, then it's still given you a success, but maybe one that you have saved up for later. There's nothing more annoying than flipping 3 success icons when you only needed 1.

The way you lose this game is when you need to make a critical skill test (Last Stand, Combat, Final Objective, etc.) and you don't have enough inspiration to pay for the number of successes you need, even though you flipped enough cards with LEAF icons.

2 hours ago, Juan4aigle said:

Inspiration doesn't come by as often and, with only 4 successes in your deck, I end up having to use inspiration in almost every single test (when I have it). A lot of the tests are notoriously hard like test "Might: 3" when having three successes in 2-4 cards is just against the odds.  



Harp + Elena might make your woes a lot better. The Harp generates 1 inspiration for someone with 0 inspiration in your space. Elena can then use that inspiration and pass it along. That's 2 free inspiration a turn. It has been a huge help in my game. Elena also helps healing (facedown) damage naturally and musician (With some skill cards) can even heal face up damage).

36 minutes ago, Faranim said:

It's also very important to understand that most of the cards with success icons, are still worth a success if you prepare them.

Just want to clarify this statement here. My understanding is that when the cards are prepared you can not use them for success, only their abilities.

From Rules Reference

69.6 When a skill card is prepared, any success () and fate () icons on that card have no effect and are ignored.

Did I misread your comment or is there something I am missing?

He meant that preparing the success cards usually gives you a benefit that is equal to, or perhaps better than, drawing that card for its success symbol during a test.

I've played through the first 7 adventures solo controlling Aragorn and Legolas and have won all 7 pretty easily. I've only had to make one Last Stand and I usually interact with almost every token.

The most important thing is to try to keep a stack of inspiration as much as possible. I prioritize getting inspiration in the first few turns (by preparing or exploring as necessary), which makes everything else easier. It's also sometimes a good idea to not spend inspiration, especially for negate tests, unless there's a good reason to do so. I'd rather use a guard card (which gives Aragorn inspiration) or a trinket item to prevent/heal than use precious inspiration. If you keep enemies clear, which is not hard to do with 2 heroes, then most turns will only require 1 test. That means you have a lot of control using the start of round scouting. It's rare that I fail the first test of a round.

I have also played a 4 player game. That was much much harder (granted the other 3 players were new) as the threat gain is much higher AND you get more enemies (it seems like it should be one or the other). I think the game may be poorly balanced based on number of heroes; I'd rather the threat gain be 2 plus 1 per hero (instead of 2 per hero). This would change nothing for a 2 hero game, but would give a little more time with more heroes.

33 minutes ago, PickleTheHutt said:

I usually interact with almost every token. 

That's incredible! I haven't played the game yet, but when I do, I hope I'm skilled enough to have enough time to explore all those juicy, thematic side quests. Interacting with the search tokens and discovering new things is the biggest draw of the game for me, but it's sadly counter-productive to do that if you want to play optimally.

2 minutes ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

That's incredible! I haven't played the game yet, but when I do, I hope I'm skilled enough to have enough time to explore all those juicy, thematic side quests. Interacting with the search tokens and discovering new things is the biggest draw of the game for me, but it's sadly counter-productive to do that if you want to play optimally.

The difficulty spikes each time you fail a test which is why inspiration is huge in this game. You essentially lose a turn if you fail a test and for a game that gets harder as time passes, it is not good.

*Shakes fist at Aragorn's agility*

The funny thing is that some people find it extremely hard and some find the "hard" level not enough.. What is going on? I'm on the side of the people that find it very hard. I made one big stupid mistake in the beginning with the enemy movement. When enemies move the 1st time and there is no target then after the 2th (move) instruction only the 2th instruction is the result and not the two instructions combined. But also repairing this mistake did not make the game a lot easier. By the 2th instruction often the enemies move a lot of spaces anyway and attack. I also had this nasty "Dazed" card (when interacting you have to spend one inspiration) Of course i got this at the last token needed during heavy combat, counterattacks and negating. Bad luck? Not sure. But that said, I still gaming only with Bilbo and Aragorn and that might be a bad combination and maybe they are missing special skills. I still hold on because I see my hero's become slowly better. I see that with more experience points you can purchase cards with success symbols, so the skill-deck gets stronger and stronger, also because of the better prepare cards. On the other hand I'm afraid that the enemies also get stronger soon. Anyway I still love the game.

What role is Bilbo using, @Henilin ?

I kept Bilbo Burgler to make him really sneaky to avoid proving enemies and doing interactions. Aragorn is Captain with some Guardian skills.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that the map can make a difference. The Journey Map tiles are randomly created (?). When I replayed adventure 6, it was easier to reach the pool once it was activated (those who have played it will know what I mean).

The first time my group played it (4 heroes) we had to activate it then walk around to access it which wasted actions just to walk and/or provoke!!!

The second time (5 heroes) it was right in front of the place it was activated at!

40 minutes ago, Henilin said:

I kept Bilbo Burgler to make him really sneaky to avoid proving enemies and doing interactions. Aragorn is Captain with some Guardian skills.

That might explain it. The Burglar role cards really want their character to strike out on his own, but Aragorn, Guardian, and Captain cards focus on being nearby other heroes.

Juan, hi,

some feedback from my side (60 games played, 75% of them played 2p, 25% of them played 3p). Scenarios are really balanced well for 2p (my win-loss ratio is close to 90% - a lot of close calls / games won in the last two rounds, but still), but it's vital that players understand how to control the board. Every round threat increases by +2 per player, +1 per unexplored tile in play, +1 per threat token in play. When you start playing, the app shows you the starting tiles and the area where the map would be created (represented by fog on the screen). New tiles enter play due to different factors:

a) specific events coded in the timers for the scenario / in encounters or
b) players exploring too close to the unrevealed zones

Thus, it's vital understand how to move: never, never, never go with the last action available to "see what's there" because you can trigger a +3 or a +4 threat like nothing. Start the round with characters able to move fast if you have to explore, so that in case the app reveals too many areas, you have the movement points to explore and reduce the threat. You'll have plenty of time to return to the encounters left behind at a later time.

Then, inspiration: seems like you're not doing things properly here (sorry) because with Bilbo in the party, running low on inspiration is really unlikely (unless decks are prepared not in the proper way: as a general rule, unless you really have something you need, slot cards without successes so that you'll have all the successes in the deck): use him for scouting, and Legolas from behind for heavier darting of enemies. Also, remember Legolas abilities for movement: he can really do marvels on the scenarios. If you still feel the party's unbalanced, consider adding Gimli to the mix (and leave Bilbo out for now): you'll have the two strongest fighters in the game, and Lego is amazing at movement, so, you're really fielding an alpha team.

As for the cards: it's right that you don't keep them slotted that much. Vital are the cards granting you extra successes: these cards are like a blessing for when you'll have 3-difficulty tests to past.

And in the end, remember it's a game that needs to work for you (not the other way around), so, if you're not comfortable with the rythm or the difficulty of the game, just give your heroes an extra action per round (the app doesn't keep score of the actions you resolve)

@Wandalf the Gizzard Yes that might be. I'm aware of that but Aragorn can't leave Bilbo too long out of his range. When Bilbo looses hidden then he must return immediately. So, most of the time Bilbo is nearby Aragorn, just to have any chance for handling an attack. Also Aragorn shouldn't do this on his own. I just have to play more to get a better overview. Although i experience this hardness and failing a scenario, its not so that the joy of playing the game is less then winning a scenario. Most of the time is at the end of the scenario when things go crazy. The campaign Just continues when loosing anyway.