The quest is very different to previous adventures. So far I tried it several times (everything I write refers to solo play) and even though the difficulty is "just" 4, the quest scored some wins against me. Mind you, the deck that I play (Theodred - Eowyn - Legolas) is rather succesful against most scenarios apart from dol guldur escape and rhosgobel. It did not lost against Hunt For Gollum ever , so I am pleasantly surpised that another "location heavy" quest can give me some fun.

First of all, the quest is divided into two parts (yes, there is just one stage, but in practice there are two parts). First part happens in the early game, when both Amon Lhaw and Amon Hen are present. Before they are explored, turns are quite hard because you have to concentrate on beating the locations as soon as possible and that means you are exposed to enemies. If you draw some more locations, you are in serious trouble which even Northern Tracker can't solve (he is just too slow and before the locations are gone, the total threat can be quite high). This part of the quest is a major challenge since if you commit all characters to quest, you put yourself at risk of being attacked be enemy creatures and if some damage dealing treacheries trigger, you'll enter the second phase of the quest harmed. And if you do not commit enough willpower, you may fail exploring locations which can lead to a very quick defeat.

Once the board is stabilized (no enemies and no locations on the board), the natural reaction is to feel safe. Wrong! The quest enters second phase which can be VERY tricky, this is where the quest feels different than previous adventures. After you clear all initial locations, you will have 30-40 threat (depending what happened), around 12-15 victory points accumulated and gaining remaining points can be a long journey. Sometimes it takes 4-5 turns, sometimes it can take 10-15 turns. During every turn you have to make a choice and decide who should quest. You really don't want to commit your heroes since the treacheries are devastating and the additional surge (stage 1B effect) means that a lot of allies you throw to quest will die before you gain 20 victory points. Questing with Eowyn is like playing with fire, you get burnt a lot and my deck does not have healing. From time to time you'll have to commit more characters to quest than you would like (for example some enemy returned to staging area, so the threat is bigger, or Rauros is an active location) and when you do, you are exposed to a big risk. When you don't quest, your threat can skyrocket due to core set treachery from Sauron set (raise threat for each not commited character). In this scenario it is possibly to die due to threat hitting 50, it happened to me once when this nasty treachery hit me and I was not expecting it.

What are the differences between Hills and Gollum quest? This is a valid question because both quests are location heavy and have same difficulty assigned. The differences:

- Sauron set is used in both adventures, but in Gollum you are not exposed to 35 threat cards (assuming you use threat reduction, which you probably do). This means many cards in Gollum do not pose any danger since you easily control the threat level. In Hills, the threat control is harder and the 35 threat cards are no more dead.

- Anduin set used in Gollum is VERY easy, while orc set used in Hills makes questing rather dangerous. Combine it with Storm from Sauron set and with new treacheries from Hills and suddently the characters suddently start dying.

- Northern Tracker kills Gollum quest. In Hills he is a nice addition, but I did lose a couple of games where Tracker was present (he just simply died due to treacheries or the initial location threat was too high to handle when he entered the game in 3rd turn). To be honest, he makes the games easier, but this is not an auto win as many expected. Sometimes tracker feels like a "win more", sometimes it helps you minimaze the risk as you don't have to trigger travel effects. But still, I was afraid that Tracker will murder Hills and I am pleasantly surprised that Tracker does not shine as brightly as in Gollum quest.

- Hills make you decide a lot and sometimes you pay dearly for the mistakes. Gollum is much more forgiving

Don't get me wrong, this quest is no Rhosgobel, it is no Escape From Dol Goldur. You will win against it, but the game will feel much better than Hunt For Gollum and the adventure is much more challenging.

Umm...I feel this quest should be a 2 or 3 difficulty, max. It is by far the easiest of the AP scenarios yet, bar none. I don't really understand your difficulty with this quest, especially since you have Eowyn...I used Eowyn/Theodred/Beravor 3 times vs. Emyn Muil and have easily crushed it each game, scoring a 9, 7, and 11 respectively. If you are fighting any enemies not named Dol Guldor Orcs than you need to reconsider your deck construction. You should be able to quest most heroes each round, maybe leaving 1 to defend, without much worry.

I agree! This quest is way to easy! I would like to have seen them add some interesting new monster types, but the art work is so awesome on all of the cards I am not complaining! In the future I hope more of the quest are around 5 or 6 difficulty, since I can beat all of the 4's, but still having trouble beating both of the 7's.

It really depends on the deck. For example, Carrock and Anduin are quite easy for me, Osgilath is hard but manageable, Gollum is extremaly boring and extremaly easy, but Rhosgobel / Dol Guldur are way too brutal. For my deck, Hills are on a similar difficulty level as Carrock and Anduin.