I used the forum search but couldn't find a clear answer to these 2 questions so excuse me if they've already been answered.

Many of the quest will instruct you to Draw and place cards in the staging area at the beginning of a scenario. My question is what if one or both of the cards are treachery cards? Do you just resolve their effects immediately and then discard them? Many of them don't really have an effect at the very start of the game because they do stuff to units that are committed to quests or to players with high threat or what have you.

We played a game the other night and used the 2nd quest in the core set the Journey down the Anduin. On the initial setup since we were playing with 2 people we drew 2 cards. One was a hill troll that we placed in the staging area, the other was a treachery card that ended up doing absolutely nothing. We Since there was already a Hill troll in play we did not have to search through the deck to find one. Therefore we started the quest with only 1 card in the staging area - the Hill Troll.

I was thinking to myself, man what if we had drawn 2 regular enemy encounter cards AND had to go find the hill troll so that the staging area had 3 enemies in it right from the start... that would make the scenario way harder than what happened to us.

Also when you are setting up a quest initially according to the Stage 1A card do you resolve the "When Revealed" effects of cards that enter the staging area or do you only resolve those after the game is actually underway.

The other question I had was about the first turn and drawing. You're supposed to draw a card after collecting resources each turn... does that include the first turn of play or not?

Thanks for the help all!

Yes, you draw on the first round as well.

As far as I know you play Treachery cards even when drawing them during setup. Even if they don't do anything at that point. Think of it as a good start compared to a 3 enemy bad start. Makes it so each game you play won't be the same even with the same quest deck.

Some of the quests state "place X in the staging area", where others state "reveal the top X cards". You should only execute the "When Revealed" step of a card if it is "revealed" by card text or the rules. (Encounter cards are "revealed" during the quest phase.) So if you just "place 3 cards in the staging area", they are not "revealed" according to the definition envisioned by the rules.

AH ok, so if a quest card says "Reveal X cards and place in staging area" then the when revealed effects go off?

Yes, precisely. If it simply said "place the top X cards in the staging area" then they wouldn't. Here's a great example:

The first quest card in Journey Down the Anduin reads:

" Setup : Each player reveals 1 card from the the top encounter deck, and adds it to the staging area.
When Revealed : Search the encounter deck for 1 Hill Troll (if one is not already in play), and place it in the staging area . Shuffle the encounter deck."

The cards added during setup get their When Revealed effects (if any). The Hill Troll doesn't (it doesn't have any anyway, but that's not important right now ).

radiskull said:

I completely agree with this. In case of Dol Goldur set up it actually says "attach" so I do not apply the "when revealed" effects there. Yet some people think they should according to the Guarded keyword but I understand that note is for objectives revealed from the encounter deck - as the rules read. I find this one of the clearer FAQ points, yet some people strongly disagree.