According to the FFG instructions, The Hunt for Gollum quest is difficulty level 4. That would put it on a par with the Anduin quest. Yet, I have now played Hunt for Gollum 5 times and have beaten it 4 straight. It is nowhere near the same level of difficulty as Anduin, as far as I can tell. I have gone back and I cannot find anything that I'm doing wrong. I'm familiar with all the base mechanics and I follow the instructions on the quest cards carefully. So, why the disparity in challenge when the difficulty levels are supposed to be the same?

I think the "problem" could be one of two things. First is the deck. Its just a fact that some decks work better for different scenarios. I made a spirit/lore deck that destroyed Anduin, but could barely finish Mirkwood.

The other thing is that not all the scenarios scale as well for single player. Look at Escape from Dol Guldur: Capturing one of the heros there gets rid of 33% of the heros in a one player game, but only 17% in a two player game, 9% in three player and four player. Thats a HUGE difference in available resources.

On the scaling issue, Anduin doesn't scale particularly well, and that becomes doubly true when one or two Northern Trackers hit the board. Gollum, in contrast, maintains a similar level of challenge across the whole range of players.

So far I've not managed to complete THfG, solo or two player, despite several attempts. Anduin is far easier than THfG IMO.

From what I've read here on the forums, Hunt for Gollum gets harder with more players while Anduin gets easier with more players. Solo I beat Hunt for Gollum on the first attempt but took me several tries to beat Anduin solo.

The consensus is that the scenario rating system is based off of two-player games. So Hunt for Gollum and Journey Along the Anduin are both 4s when it comes to two-player games. Gollum would become something lower than 4 in solo and Anduin would become higher than 4. Dol Guldur is probably a 10 solo.

Gollum can be very unpredictable i find - Hunters from Mordor are fairly easy to deal with if there are no clues out, but lethal if there are lots. The Old Ford can either be fairly insignificant or terrifying, and the presence or lack of clues can really skew questing in a 3 or 4 -player game. All those factors I think make it far more unpredictable. Difficulty is probably more of an averaged out thing?

Are difficulty levels based on core game 30 card decks or tournament ready 50 card decks? This will make a pretty serious difference especially once more expansions are released and you can have some well tuned 50 card decks.

Peace

Difficulty ratings are an abstract number that only has meaning relative to other difficulty numbers. As such, I doubt the format of the player deck matters.

Mighty Jim said:

For me, it's actually the opposite. I find Gollum to be more predictable than other quests, at least in solo play. I think the reason for this is the lack of balance between questing and fighting. It is very heavily leaning towards questing, and there isn't a lot of fighting. You can also affect the staging area because you get to select quite a few cards to put there in the first two scenarios. So, you can manipulate the quest a lot more than you could previous ones.

It does make sense that scenarios are rated or averaged out for 2 players. I guess that's a good compromise between 1-4 players. I play solo, so that would explain why Gollum's difficulty bears little resemblance to Anduin's. I would say Gollum is difficulty 2 for solo players. Anduin may be more like a 6 and Dol Guldur is certainly right around 9-10. I only came close to passing that one once.

The difficult level in this game is really strange thing!!! What is mean 4 or 5 or 6? Difficult for 1 player or for 2 players???? Difficult for starer decks or for tournaments 50 cards expert decks??? And why same difficult 4 HFG and DTA is so big difference in the end. Gollum is really easy quest even for 2 players....For 2 players is more long but not more difficult......

For me all quest of the game which one i use to play is easy. Include Dol-guldor. For 1 is impossible for 2 is easy. I never , never lose this one!!!!

Only 1 quest which is ok is Massing in Osgiliath. Difficult 9. Is really hard and interesting quest. So for me everything i less than 7 is not fun at all.

I didn try Carrock yet and hope is ok. Difficult 7. But what i really mean i dont know...

Background, we play 3 players quite frequently. Sometimes only two. I never play sologames.

I think we have an Equal mix of Failures/Successes on Anduin and Gollum.

But here is what I have noticed.

Anduin is usually a nail-biter challenge where you win as much as you loose. It's a close call every time and it has tension all the way through.

Gollum is usually either a walk in the park or a downright smack-down.

So I would say the Gollum scenario is alot more sensitive to chance and random luck than the Anduin is, but I could be wrong.

Example: Last time we lost Gollum (2 player game) was going well up until we Suddenly Revealed:

• 1st Card: The Old Ford... (We had 11 Allies in play)
• 2nd Card: Gollum Clue...
• Guard1: Gollum Clue...
• Guard1: Hunters from Mordor
• Guard2: Hunters from Mordor

And the Staging Area wasn't exactly Empty when this happened..... We counter a Threat total of 36 (we had 4 Clues in play total so only the Hunters alone were 20 points Threat ... ) And we quested maybe 16 points or something like that... a Number that previous to Staging seemed well within reasonable...

We were all killed by Threat.

Stuff like that never happens in Anduin.

/wolf

GhostWolf69 said:

Wow sounds very brutal!!! But ok it can happens once in lets say 50 session. Mostly of the time HFG very easy. Anduin can be also brutal on the last stage ambush sometimes can bring you 45 enemies with crow surge. And if one of them is troll oooo man you done!!!! Anduin is cool quest i like it.

Yeah it was. But we've had it happen twice in 4 rounds. (more or less)

The other two rounds have been a breeze, we have had the option of Discarding the really "bad" encounter cards through clever use of "Quest Effects" and not seen much combat at all. So I think statistically there is a 50-50 chance for us.

That is the same for Anduin, but in Anduin we can prepare and plan ahead more, since there is not so many "Random" elements to it really. The Ambush can be brutal and you know it, so you have to plan your timing and "trigger" it when you have combatants ready to handle it. It will still be hard as hell, but you have more "control" over it.... or at least the "feeling of Control."

In Gollum... I have no such feeling. Or at least very little.

/wolf

GhostWolf69 said:

Really? Once the very first card drawn from the encounter deck was the second Hill Troll. They both beaten one player to death the next turn. We started a new game. If you draw A Frightened Beast during the second half of a Carrock game and cant counter it you lose the game due to threat. We started a new game after that. If you draw both Caught in the web during the first turn of Mirkwood you probably have to start a new game as well.

There are instant kill moments in every quest so far. Its the unpredictable nature of a card game...

I was 3-0 against Journey Down the Anduin before the latest game. Leadership/Tactics (Aragorn, Theodred, Legolas) and Spirit/Lore (Beravor, Dunhere, Eleanor) and they started the game with 6 Threat and 4 Enemies in play after the Hill Troll had been added. Things were looking bad right away, but then the first quest phase added Marsh Drake and Wargs for a total of 11 Threat. Needless to say five of the six Enemies (including Hill Troll) were auto-engagements and while Aragorn survived the Troll's attack, killing anything was out of the question. Most of the characters were hanging on for dear life. Gandalf jumped in to defend against the Hill Troll on turn two, except the Troll drew a Shadow Effect that forced an exhausted ally to be returned to hand, yep, Gandalf was the only one available, so Troll was undefended. With Threat 35+ for both parties, Eleanor cancels Necromancer's Reach, only to draw Evil Storm that wipes out Aragorn, Beravor and Eleanor.

Yesterday we too got wiped out by HfG, triple-Clue draw late in the game (with 6+ locations in the staging area), then 2 Hunters from Mordor to guard the first two Clues. Threat hit 50 for both real fast. Yes, Spirit cards were in the game, but even with Beravor drawing like crazy, no Northern Trackers (ironically it was the exact same pair of decks as in the loss to JDtA above). Then the other two decks (Lore/Leadership and Tactics/Spirit) just molested Conflict at the Carrock for a relatively easy win, including killing two Hill Trolls during stage 1 and exploring all four copies to River Langflood. And this was with only Gandalf available as threat reduction. Didn't feel much like a difficulty 7 quest, not compared to the hammerings on the two plays of diff 4 quests just earlier.

Shelfwear said:

Shelfwear said:

Sounds like we need to play only first 4 5 turns. If is ok so it mean game is won?????? No point to play more. Anyway you will win....

That why this game sometimes really boring. In the middle of the quest you understand you win. You know the encounter deck you now the game and you just understand you win. Encounter deck cannot do nothing. I hate this feeling. This make game boring for me.

But In Maasing is Osgiliath is not same!!!! This only 1quest you never know...... And the last stage is really brutal. Even if you kill Witch-King is mean nothing.

You get Estearling Captain or Massing In Osgiliath treachery card on the last stage and you cannot cancel it???? You have a big problem. I like this quest. Is most difficult but also very good structure of the quest. Is more hard for 2 players this sure but more interesting as well.

Cannot wait to Carrock...........

Shelfwear said:

I disagree. You have plenty of ways to prepare for and counter effects coming from Treachery (like "A Frightened Beast") and Setup Instructions (Like the Hill Troll in Anduin.) Sometimes you suffer a bad draw and end up on the wrong side of luck, for sure, but usually, if you are prepared for it you can handle it.

Gollum IMO is really hard to counter. If bad luck shines (and it seems to do that quite alot) you cannot counter it. I see now way to counter Multiple "Gollum Clues" and "Hunters of Mordor" for instance, wheras I have "Eleanor" (God bless her) and lots of "A Test of Will" to counter Treachery.

And that Hill Troll in Anduin? You KNOW it's gonna be there... so there's zero surprise involved. Sure you might have a crap hand all around the table so no one can deal with it even after all the Mulligans, but that is RARE in our group.

"There are instant kill moments in every quest so far. Its the unpredictable nature of a card game..."

Of course there is. I'm just saying some are more easily countered than others or doesn't appear as "random / out of the blue" as in Gollum. That is my experience.

/wolf

The Opposite is also true, I've never had an Easier win than in Gollum. One time we played it through without even breaking a sweat, two player, and we ended up with a Score around 58 or 60. We had ONE battle along the way and wondered what the hell we did "wrong"...

... that has never happened in any other adventure either. Usually (for us) it is a struggle.

My conclusion: "Gollum is more prone to 'chance' than the others."

You guys don't have to agree. Different decks, different Skill, different Number of Players etc. It's all good.

/wolf

ok, I agree that HfG is much less predictable than the other quests. But I never felt it's design being unfair or broken. When we played it it was like experiencing a suspicious calm: No visible dangers but you know that the Hunters can come down on you at the very next moment. We got crushed once bc our Lore player had Strider's Path in his hand but never cared to spare one resource - of course Old Ford showed up. On another occasion I had to persuade all others to engage a present hunter at the very first turn bc I knew that the clue cards will turn up at some point.

HfG is a quest where difficulty strongly varies but my opinion is that this captures the feeling I descriped above very well...

Shelfwear said:

Exactly my point. I'm not saying it's broken. Just that it varies a little bit more between "extremes" depending on chance. That's all I'm saying. And I agree that it is very enjoyable to play and never know when you're going to get whacked! One of our sessions was like that as well, we thought we had it all in the box and just wanted to end it quickly... and then WHAM! We all died.

/wolf

I don't have Massing at Osgiliath yet, so probably the most challenging, entertaining game I've ever played ended up being a Hunt for Gollum, due to some spectacularly unlucky draws during staging (see the full writeup at http://cardboardoftherings.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/e5-westfold/#comments , near the bottom, it was fantastic)

On the other hand, though, the last time I played THfG (with my brother, who I'm really trying to sell on the game), my opening hand was 2 Northern Trackers, he had a Steward of Gondor to put on Eowyn, and our first seven encounter cards were all locations...

Cue the, "It normally isn't like this, I swear!"