Can someone advise me here?

Tried it for the first time today. Used mixture of spirit and leadership, starting threat of 29. Card, revealed during setup was the one, which increases threat of player based on how many of his characters are not committed to the quest, effectively raising my threat to 32. Troll from the staging area immediately engaged. Feeding low price allies to him was a bad option because of the constant threat increase. I got slaughtered.

Next time I tried with a single lore deck with starting threat 30. Got lucky with the starting hand - had one forest snare for the troll. By the time troll engaged me I placed hammersmith just to leave heroes safe. Next turn I attached snare to the troll. And got overwhelmed in next few - Dol Guldur Orcs with Orc Rider shadow card, resulting in the Orc Rider engaging me paired with the Warfs from his surge. Not enough characters to defend, one of them gets Dol Guldur orcs as a shadow, meaning +3 undefended damage and resulting in emmdiate loss of a hero, and losing the game in next turn.

hi please search in a topic called 'drowning on the anduin' as this has about 6 pages of advice- alternatively find a topic i started called 'strategy mega thread journey along the anduin' both have much more than i could possibly type here

ill just say two things about it though- there are two heros who are good for it

dunhere for the 2b part to get enemies in the staging area

gimli for the troll - take the damage on him for the first turn putting his attack up by 4, then attack the troll with everything you have next turn

rich

I invited my friend and we attempted this scenario in two players coop.

I played Spirit and asked him to play Tactics because of Thalin. I saw someone on forums said that Thalin, while committed to the quest, kills the crows before they surge. And we rules it that way. Is this right?

Yes, we won. Final score was around 172 points.

You played it right (Thalin + Eastern Crows). This erratum is in the FAQ. Note that you still reshuffle the Crows though.

Yeah, I did. Funny part, crows were the only creatures left at the very end, when you must reveal 2 cards per player and end quest by defeating every enemy in the game.