LOL Yep! Osgiliath is a killer! I can get a couple plays of that before I put it away for the night. I'm convinced that I'll need 3 copies of the core set cards to succeed on that quest....or Boromir from Dead Marshes.
Sorry to say but Hills of Emin Muil is... boring
Style75 said:
The_Big_Show said:
Playing Emyn Muil again last night I found it really easy as solo, but in the couple two player games it has been an average challenge because to start with we had do deal with 8 threat from the two starting locations, plus whatever came out during the questing. While there may not be many enemies to fight, I see this scenario as being a threat based challenge for 3-4 player games.
I agree that this scenario is more difficult with 2 players than solo, assuming of course you're playing with a single core set and single copies of each AP. I havn't played it yet with 4 players, but I suspect it would be significantly tougher than solo. The same can also be said of The Hunt for Gollum. Assume for a moment that all 4 players are not playing dedicated questing decks (ie-using just 2 core sets and 2 copies of each AP) then you'll probably have 2 decks at the table that are not ideal for dealing with the threat from the locations. In that situation, the threat would pile up very quickly.
Has anyone played this with 4 players? Can you say if this is the case?
My first time playing Emyn Muil was 4 players. The initial starting threat of 16 in the staging area is pretty killer and gets even higher with 4 more cards coming in during the quest phase. After a bit we were able to get rid of some of the locations but there are so many in this quest and dealing out 4 cards every questing phase most of which are 4 more locations is a little brutal. We eventually beat the quest but it did take a very long time to do just because when we thought we were about to get all the Emyn Muil locations out of the staging area, 3 more would be thrown back in. It is more difficult with 4 than solo that is for sure. I played it solo last night and finished it very quickly. So ya we actually enjoyed it 4 player because it was so annoying trying to get rid of all the locations and quest with enough will power to match the high willpower in the staging area. What you said is true its more difficult with 4 than 1 and I enjoyed the 4 player game alot.
Dam said:
Having played Osgiliath for the first time today, EM probably doesn't kill you on the first turn. Cut Off to discard all allies, then Enemies get Cut Off too for +3 attack (since can't discard an ally) for a first turn hero death (by a Snaga no less). Combo that with 8 threat in the staging area, forcing us to quest with almost all the heroes or bump up threat and forced to take on even more Enemies, there was basically nobody left to kill Enemies. End game still in stage 1, 3x of that location that gets +3 threat if the players haven't crossed the Anduin for a nifty 12 threat just by themselves saw us hitting 50 threat. And this from a pair of decks that just breezed through Carrock, a supposed 7. No allies and having to take on 4-6 Enemies right away while somehow putting up at least 7-8 Willpower, not sure how that's done.
Don worry after some time you will understand how to play against a start to win. But when you come to this point other quests start to be boring for you you will see.......
One thing I noticed about Wolves from Mordor in MaO was to in the future throw some meat for them, to shulffle them back into the Encounter deck. Of course, no such option here with all allies going poof on the first turn (didn't want to put out Snowbourn Scout with no locations out, will know better next time). But even then, I think we would have just 1 ally total out between the two of us, nowhere near enough to survive. With a single Spirit hero in the mix, lasting three turns for Greetings probably means Greetings perhaps just about nullifies all the threat one deck has taken those three turns and all those turns no Spirit allies into play, leaving the other deck with still a high threat. Also, Shadow Effects seem to make using allies for defense risky, with deal 2 damage and another that removes defending character from combat, you can lose/negate the ally and suddenly have an undefended attack coming through (remover Shadow Effect was the final nail in the coffin, meant another autokill on a hero after Scout wasn't the defender anymore).