I'm sorry if this has already been discused but I could not find anything. Give me a link if there was a discusion about it.

Just got The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill. (One of the few remaining expansions I do not have) Do all you guys think This quest is VERY easy?? Man I just dont see why lots of people like it. First stage can be completed in 2-3 turns all you have to do is just quest with everyone. I just let the stone giant throw his rocks in the staging area. Then the whole board gets wiped clean and you go to the second stage. By this time you have prob 3-5 baggins resorces and you can cancel out all the encounter card reveal effect on the quest card. Goblin King is very easy. And then you just quest a few times with everyone and beat the 20 quest points while taking a few undefended attacks. Then your done. I can beat this quest in 4-5 completed turns all day. I know that 6-7 diffuculty was an unsure guess, but I think this is the easiest quest up to date. I'd rate it a 1 diffuculty. I think PTM is easier. OTMMG would have been a much better intro senario for the core set I think. But man. so easy.

You guys think its so easy too and share my thoughts?

Khamul

did you play it solo? it is much easier that way

i have played it solo, 2 and 3 handed.

2 and 3 handed play in just about all quests after shadow and flame are much harder…before Shadow and flame i mostly works the other way round

so, yes, i really love the quest, if you want a bit more of a challenge try it 2 handed

rich

Never found it SUPER hard, but certainly not a 1, thats a huge exaggeration. An early draw of another stone giant, Galloping Boulders which surges, and a suspicious crow bringing back another galloping boulders could wreck most armies' willpower quite easily. Once you advance, its not that hard to be overwhelmed with enemies.

it also depends on the deck. i know my 'hama/beorn/legolas' deck can kill this quest

thicket of spears is recycled by hama which stops attacks against the tactics deck, those few that go to a partner questing deck are bocked by beorn

then all 3 heros wipe out the goblins. the blades also really help. as does goblin cleaver

Yeah I played it solo.

@Rich - Would you rate it as a 1 diff solo?

I tried it with Flight to the ford deck and played it 3 times and even had 2 Stone Giants 1 time but I had never played an easier quest. I just take all the enemieis and clear out the stagin area and just quest real fast. I'm usually always have 4 enemies in play at a time on 3B but it dont matter cuz I just defend 1 or 2 of them with the 0-1 will power guys and then just let them go undefended for the rest since its only going to be 1-2 turns on 3b.

But I just dont think its fun when you beat it so easy everytime and its so simular.

@Spurries - I see what your saying but thats almost never going to happen. But yeah like I siad I always have tons of enemies in play but I ranger spike 1 of them or something and then just take the rest (2-4) and just take thier damage while questing. I never spend more than 2-3 turns on 3B due to questing with almost everyone.

no - certianly not a 1. it realy depends on the encounter draw.

if you can keep the 1 stone giant in the staging area, then you dont have to worry about dealing with his attacks and discarding allies, just the 4 threat which the flight deck can easily handle (you could even take threat then reset before going onto the next stage)

however there's that card that forces one to engage you (guffawing giants i think)…so unless you have a test of will, you have a problem.

also galloping boulders is a problem if they come together and you have no test of wills.

im pleased the flight deck worked for you- im pretty sure it was the one i beat this quest with first and its certainly my proudest deck. i think the test of will and dwarven tombs are particularly important here, as you dont have any feints or anything to block those giants with

rich

hmm…. Interesting that I find this quest VERY easy and everybody else (well 2 people) dont. Usually when I engage the Stone Giant I use a Silven Refugee as the discard target which Is a very good combo. Then The Sone Giant is not even the slightest problem at all for combat (Frodo Defends and Reset threat at end of 2b.) I dont care at all if the Stone Giant engages me.

I'd just target Aragorn, Glorf, or Frodo for the Galloping Boulders. And most likely later in the game heal them. The only result would just be an extra turn trying to quests through 2b.

Khamul

I always play 2-player. This quest is one of the easier ones, but nicely done I think. Early encounter card draw can paralyze you on the first stage for awhile, and drawing the wrong combination of cards is not super rare given the relatively thin encounter deck. Once we get to the goblin's caverns we are always pretty well set up to deal with the goblins and finish that stage in a couple of turns. But I always have fun with this quest even though it's easy. Sometimes Stone Giants do smash heroes into jelly!

I did not find the quest to be as easy as you describe, although I can't remember losing ever. Would you mind posting your decklist so I can verify your reports. Perhaps you just have a sweet deck. You mentioned that you have Frodo and healing. I've never had a deck with both those in one.

I think the giants are ok, but the second part with the Goblin Kiing is truly underwhelming. He's easy to defeat, and all these Baggins resources help you quite a lot. There are alot of interesting enemies in the second part, but I never get to see them because I'm already through before they appear. The first quest is great though, the third is a joke. This expansion is the worst they ever published. I hope that On the Doorstep won't be another disappointment like that.

hmm…. Interesting that I find this quest VERY easy and everybody else (well 2 people) dont. Usually when I engage the Stone Giant I use a Silven Refugee as the discard target which Is a very good combo. Then The Sone Giant is not even the slightest problem at all for combat (Frodo Defends and Reset threat at end of 2b.) I dont care at all if the Stone Giant engages me.

I'd just target Aragorn, Glorf, or Frodo for the Galloping Boulders. And most likely later in the game heal them. The only result would just be an extra turn trying to quests through 2b.

Khamul

To be fair, Silvan Refugee is a new card which didn't exist when the scenarion was published

DukeWellington said:

i think khamul has made some changes (silvan refugee for instance) but the flight to the ford deck is a deck i came up with during the dwarrowdelf cycle

…it is lore aragorn/ frodo/ spirit glorfindel

the basic idea is you use the mixture of glorfindel's low start threat, frodos ability and striders threat reset, to take threat to almost the top, then reset.

it is possible to have healing in with the lore strider.

its probably my favourite deck, and works great solo…though as i say, there's been a lot of new packs since i cam up with the idea so i would probably add some cards myself

the key cards are always asfaloth, light of valinor, imladris stargazer, mirkwood runner, gleowine and a few others that escpae my mind.

rich

So I threw together a quick deck with Frodo/Loregon/spiritGlorf based on the small description from rich. I easily beat the first stage in 2 or 3 turns each time. Actually if you optionally engage the giant you can beat it turn two nearly every time. However, it is ussually better to wait to turn 3. You want to have 2 resources on Bilbo so that on stage 2 only 1 extra card is revealed. You then kill the Goblin king and max quest without concern for attacks. I ussually won on turn 6 or 7.

So yeah, you have mastered the quest.

I then took the same deck and played Hunt for Gollum and I got virtually the same results. I actually beat that quest on turn 4 once. Also, if you look on the strategy forum for my deck called "Ranger Danger" you will find my decklist for a deck I used against Druadan Forest. I beat that quest with that deck on about turn 6 or 7 every time and I never once felt like I was in any danger of losing. If I were to compare I would say right now that Druadan Forest is actually an easier quest.

Yet there is more. I built a Dwarf deck around Ori, Oin, and Nori. Basically I put in as many dwarves as possible with 3 copies of Durin's Legacy. I then played that deck against the "level 8" difficulty quest shadow and flame. Basically I would quest for 6 on turn one. If the stage had more than 6 and I took threat on the first turn then I would lose, otherwise, I would just play a dwarf every turn with Nori and keep at 0 threat until I could swing with a Erebor battle master with 2 dwarrowdelf axes and kill the balrog in one attack. That quest was crazy chump. All the quests in HON are harder than the quest with the highest difficulty rating in the game (other than print on demand). I mean difficulty 8?!? What were they smoking? That quest is so easy.

Bottom line, we are good at this game because we are gamers. The vast majority of casual gamers out there don't read blogs on FFG.com. Most of them don't own every card. Most of them think this game is brutally hard. So lighten up a bit.

Yeah, the quest is easy once you have mastered it, but before that it is a pretty fun quest full of flavor and story line. I like the epic feel it creates because it is essentially two mini quests glued together.

You can play Nightmare mode.

@ Duke Wellington - Woah Woah. I wasn't being negative. I was just saying this quest is quite easy. I and certanly do not own every card. There are still a fair amount of expansions I do not own. But I was just doing what your supposed to do on this website, sharing thoughts about. So I was just saying if anyone else thought this is super easy. But yeah looks like you had very simular results on the Misty Mountains Grim quest. 2-3 rounds on first stage, 2-3 on second stage. You have mastered this quest too.

Druadan Forest has some of the coolest enemies in the game i think. But yeah very easy solo. I going to get together with a freind and try out DF 2 player with actually 2 players. Can't wait too see the full power of this quest.

Yeah FFG is VERY bad at guessing diffuculy levels. The only ones I think they are right on are:

Hunt for Gollum

A Journy to Rhosgobel

Emyn Muil

Return to Mirkwood

Redhorn Gate

Foundations of Stone

Peril in Peligir

I think Siege of Cair Andros should be a 8-9 seems crazy hard to me

Stewards Fear

DDACD

And I do not know quests for On the Doorstep, MAO, Laketown. Do you guys agree on the above?

Khamul

Khamul The Easterling said:

I wouldn't say it was an easy quest. I've lost against it a few times, certainly. It sounds like you have a deck which works well against it - well done. How many different decks have you tried against it? Have you beaten it with a deck that doesn't use Spirit yet?

I've never beaten this quest in 4-5 turns. Are you sure you are playing the game right?

the difficulty ratings do not have much meaning when you take into account different player amounts. as i said, the game changes around hobbit 1/ hiers of numenor with solo being easier than multi, whilst it was the other way round previously

i think in this quest the first part is easier 1 handed as the encounter deck cant throw as many evil combos against you, and the second part is easier multi handed as you can take down goblins easier with a support deck

rich

All this talk of how easy this quest is made me go back and try it again tonight (2-player). I'd only played it a handful of times previously, but my win% had been 100%…. not so tonight. So Khamul, if you want to experience vicariously the devilry that this quest can throw at you…. read on.

Round 1: No Campfire. We eat the threat increase. 2nd reveal is a location. We opt to leave the Giant in the staging area (big mistake).

Round 2: No Campfire again. One deck is now around 38 threat, so we raise threat on one player and do a reveal for the other. The next reveal is some inconspicuous location. Second native reveal is Galloping Boulders (surge). Surges into A Suspicious Crow, which of course brings Galloping Boulders back out and resolves it again, Surge and all. Surges into another Stone Giant.

So now we have 2 players questing almost all in, and the first player has removed 2 characters from the quest and put 3 damage on each. There's around 15 threat in the staging area and maybe 5 WP committed to the quest as a result of the treachery. Threat way up over 40, and 2 Stone Giants inbound with only Dain ready for defense.

Ok, so we'll restart and try again.

Next game, Steward of Gondor is out in the setup hand for one deck. We play that immediately. Of course, this turns into a first round Wind-Whipped Rain. Next round I play Erebor Hammersmith to get Steward out of the trash. It stays in the hand for awhile because we're afraid of losing it a second time, but when it does get played again, there is of course an immediate Wind-Whipped Rain reveal. And us with no cancellation in our hands. This game hit us again with the Galloping Boulder + A Suspicious Crow combo as well. And on the turn when we cleared the first stage (technically 2B), our nicely accumulated stack of Baggins resources is wiped away by More Like a Grocer. We DO have A Test of Will in one deck, but no copies come out through the whole game. In the goblin chamber, this means 6 cards are revealed along with the Great Goblin, plus surge effects. We end up with 4 enemies engaged, but one deck has Lure of Moria in hand and plenty of cash, so we turn things around a bit. All enemies but one are cleared out, including the Great Goblin. The game goes for a couple more rounds, stalled by Goblin Driver causing Dain to exhaust and screwing our quest power for one round, and Grip, Grab! Pinch, Nab! filling up the staging area with more goblins. Our defenses are whittled down-- Ori and Bombur fall to undefended attacks. On my side of the table I have only Legolas left, who himself has 3 damage tokens on him. There was a healer in my hand at one point, but it was discarded due to the Forced effect on Dreary Hills earlier on. Finally we put the last lingering progress tokens on the quest card and scramble out of the goblin's chamber.

So things didn't go so well. These are pretty solid decks with wins against about half of the quests available (see an older version of what we're playing with here). We still did win the second game, but our win% is no longer 100%

Typically an easy quest, but you can definitely have "off" nights with it.

@ GrandSpleen - Thanks for writing that up. I'm sure that took a bit out of your day. Yeah 2 player is prob harder. It can be some unlucky card draws.

@ jrd - I beat the first stage in 2 rounds. Actually only 1 and a half if you know what I mean. I was questing for 11 (Arwen, glorf, fordo, aragorn, silven refugee) So Then I was at the start of turn 2 and I quested with everyone but Aragorn and glorf had LoV. So total 9 willpower. Then I make like 4 progress or something. Then I let Goblin King undefended against Frodo and kill it with Glorf and Aragorn + Glamdring and 2 other attack from an ally. Then I reset threat. Then I quest with everyone I have (11-13 willpower) and take all enemies out of the staging area or Ranger Spike 1 or 2 and let all enemies go undefended.

Quite easy and happened like that 3 times in a row.

Hi Khamul,

I tried a solo Spirit/Tactics Deck last night with Oin, Beragond, and Gimli, and the first stage trounced me 4 times in a row. Granted this is a deck pretty weak on willpower and probably better suited as a support deck in two-player, but anyway. Maybe a unlucky draw, but what would happen is basically either an early draw of Boulders/Crow, or a Crow would attack early, and its Shadow Card was the Boulders, so that causes Boulders to get put on top of the deck. With a solo players starting with 1 Giant and another card(just for setup), this made it very tough for a solo deck with not a ton of willpower to overcome the threat. On the first quest stage, there will usually be 3 cards in the staging area, and on the first turn this usually causes a threat increase. Got locked a turn or so after that. So I could see it being easy with some of the more powerful decks out there, but for others, certainly no walk in the park.

Cheers,

s

Yeah well the only hard part of the quest is the first stage and I don't think its how powerfull the deck is. Its the tactics. I use a deck that starts with lots of willpower and I try to get a test of will in hand. Then I engage Stone Giant first turn taking threat increase and questing with everyone for 2 turns to beat the 16 progress. Then yeah maybe I will get the deal 2 damage to charachters but at that point in the game I only have 1-2 allies into play if any so it don't matter much with the easyness of 3b since I have good will power to go through it fast. But I guess this quest can be quite hard as many people have said on this thread. I'll play it some more with a differant deck but I think Flight to the Ford deck is a master against it.

Khamul

So if you bring him down early and quest for everyone, for 2 turns, are you using a chump blocker or just taking his damage undefended?

I take his damage undefended ion frodo and then reset threat when I get to 3b

Ah gotcha. Yea that kind of strategy really only would work with the super powerful Loragorn/Frodo in my mind, as if you didnt have Aragorn your threat would get pretty high very quickly, but maybe it could be done. With my deck I think I could try Beragond with his Shield to lock down one giant and try to push through.

Yeah the deck i used was Strider, Frodo, Glorf. Starting threat of only 24, but almost the most powerfull Heroes in the game. Crazy good deck. but yeah I got to try some other decks against this quest. But otherwise that deck I just mentioned tottaly dominates this quest.