anyone play this yet? I played it toay and it seemed super easy. I even went back over all the rules to make sure I did it right. I ended up with 25 saved villagers and one dead villager. It actually felt easier than passage through Mirkwood. But maybe we just had a good day.

what are your thoughts on it?

I played it once today too and won without a ton of trouble. Really only requires a lot of willpower and you should have no trouble completing it. It might be slightly more challenging if Lord Alcaron didn't have his effect. It's almost as of they were trying to make up for the overtly difficult yet similar in style quest of Journey to Rhosgobel. Either way I'm thankful to have another scenario to play

I played it once today too and won without a ton of trouble. Really only requires a lot of willpower and you should have no trouble completing it. It might be slightly more challenging if Lord Alcaron didn't have his effect. It's almost as of they were trying to make up for the overtly difficult yet similar in style quest of Journey to Rhosgobel. Either way I'm thankful to have another scenario to play

I played it once today too and won without a ton of trouble. Really only requires a lot of willpower and you should have no trouble completing it. It might be slightly more challenging if Lord Alcaron didn't have his effect. It's almost as of they were trying to make up for the overtly difficult yet similar in style quest of Journey to Rhosgobel. Either way I'm thankful to have another scenario to play[/

So you cab takw him off and play witout him. That what i will try to do

galarung: that would really be a the simplest way to increase the difficulty of the scenario. Lord Alcaron serves no other purpose so removing him from the game doesnt hinder you in any other aspect unless i suppose

galarung: that would really be a the simplest way to increase the difficulty of the scenario. Lord Alcaron serves no other purpose so removing him from the game doesnt hinder you in any other aspect unless i suppose

Yes sure but you lose to play some cool ally and also lose a part of story....... I dont really understand FFG. After briliant and coo HON they give us some boring easy quests. And the same time give us some very powerful player cards. Yes we have easy mode and normal mode straight away and for nightmtare i must ot wait now for 1 year or what?

Very strange politic......

Glaurung: I totally agree. Gosh it's really annoying that they give us 3 very easy solo quests in a row. The whole part of the game is the quests and its no fun when you beat them so easy every time (At least that's what I think) I like when it actually gives a challenge and these last 3 quests are not doing that at all. I wait so long for new quest and you get some easy thing that you beat right away easy. Very disappointing. Makes you not want to play that quest very much at all after 2-3 try. Looks like we might finnaly get some harder quests with Assault on Osgiliath and Morgul vale. We better.........

I think every story is interesting ( I mean quest) but when is easy is quite stupid. Ok for new players is ok but for veteran? If i already play nightmare what is a point got back to esasy boring quest. Why they dont make a easy standart nightmare straight away in the adventure pack? What i suppose to do with my friends? Play HON again? Or wait for 3 months when we will get more hard quests???? Very stupid! Sounds like if you are veteran there is nothing to do anymore in this game.

Thematic decks and weak deck is boring, Special if you play cool quests like Nightmare mode or HON!!! \

So now seat and wait for Morgul vale.........

Yea, I can see the nightmare version of this deck already. No lord alcaron, ghulat has a lower threat and is immune to player card effects, and villagers get discarded by the 2s or 3s.

galarung: that would really be a the simplest way to increase the difficulty of the scenario. Lord Alcaron serves no other purpose so removing him from the game doesnt hinder you in any other aspect unless i suppose

Just wondering, are you playing it so that Alcaron only save 1 villager at a time? The first time I played I thought he could stop multiple villagers from dying, but that is not the case. I rarely used his ability, rather saved him to attack with Aragorn, as this quest has a lot of 5 or lower strength enemies to kill.

I've probably played the quest now about a dozen times with 4 different decks and i'm just enjoying it for what it is. Its a shorter quest thats not incredibly difficult but fun to play. Seems to be a very good quest to test new decks against where as previously in this cycle, SF required huge willpower and DF required healing (usually). FFG built a lot of storyline into this adventure too which is always cool to see. The upcoming Assault on Osgilith will likely be a much more difficult test of our deck building skills if the preview article way back when is any indication

So I played this solo and 2 player and was also experiencing this as a fairly easy quest.

However, last night I tried this 3 player with my wife and brother and it was TOUGH!

The first time we got swarmed with enemies and the second try we got location swamped plus so many dead villagers.
I think this is another quest like the last two which is fairly easy solo but exponentially ramps up the difficulty with more players.

So, if you're finding it too easy, just find a couple people to play with or play with dual decks.

Enjoy!

yea pretty much only play solo so i cant speak to how difficult it is with more players

galarung: that would really be a the simplest way to increase the difficulty of the scenario. Lord Alcaron serves no other purpose so removing him from the game doesnt hinder you in any other aspect unless i suppose

Just wondering, are you playing it so that Alcaron only save 1 villager at a time? The first time I played I thought he could stop multiple villagers from dying, but that is not the case. I rarely used his ability, rather saved him to attack with Aragorn, as this quest has a lot of 5 or lower strength enemies to kill.

I didn get this quest. Still waiting for my pack

This is another quest that gets much harder with number of players. easy solo, manageable 2 players, 3 players very difficult, and 4 players almost impossible. I've played all of these the other night and each player added increased the difficulty ten fold.

Seems like it worked best with two players. I wonder if that is how most of these scenarios are play tested with two players, since that seems to be the sweet spot. My suggestion to my gaming group was to play these new scenarios in easy mode once you get to 3 or 4 player games. 3-4 encounter cards with surges and what not is to much in normal mode For instance, in Amon Din first turn all villagers from the active location were already dead. The mechanic they introduced in the game was broken with this may players since it was impossible to save any vilagers.

This was the same thing with 3-4 players against. Druadan Forest and archery damage. The difficulty of the last few scenarios are scaling very poorly with the number of players.

Seems like it worked better when the quest were more difficult for solo and got easier with more players. For a solo play I would rather have a more difficulty quest, and I'm sure my gaming group would appreciate easier quest, since these scenarios are often quite discouraging for the group, and interest in the game seems is wavering for the group, and we find ourselves replaying the older scenarios.

galarung: that would really be a the simplest way to increase the difficulty of the scenario. Lord Alcaron serves no other purpose so removing him from the game doesnt hinder you in any other aspect unless i suppose

Yes sure but you lose to play some cool ally and also lose a part of story....... I dont really understand FFG. After briliant and coo HON they give us some boring easy quests. And the same time give us some very powerful player cards. Yes we have easy mode and normal mode straight away and for nightmtare i must ot wait now for 1 year or what?

Very strange politic......

It's not boring, actually the opposite. Maybe for expert like you who love nightmare modes. Understand players who dont want to suffer all the time like into Ithilien.

If you want to increase difficulty, dont play always with the same overpowered decks.

This is another quest that gets much harder with number of players. easy solo, manageable 2 players, 3 players very difficult, and 4 players almost impossible. I've played all of these the other night and each player added increased the difficulty ten fold.

Seems like it worked best with two players. I wonder if that is how most of these scenarios are play tested with two players, since that seems to be the sweet spot.

Must be.

Found it pretty easy-mode solo this quest. Will confirm group play later in the week

Few things--

First of all...I feel a little bad for the guys at FFG. The community was pretty vocal about the steep difficulty of the HoN quests and the inviability of solo play, but now that they've given us what the majority (not all, I'll grant you) asked for--lower difficulty quests that scale in difficulty the more people play them--we are all complaining.

Second, while this quest IS easier than any of the quests we've had in a while, I liked it. The quest was mechanically enjoyable to me, which is all I really care about. I DO understand that some people play the game because they enjoy the kind of challenge HoN gave...but to be honest everyone I have ever played Into Ithilian with has found it unenjoyably hard. So do I most of the time, and I'm a fairly experienced player. At that difficulty, all decks start to look and act the same.

I also think it needs to be brought up again that this quest (like Druadan Forest and Journey to Rhosgobel) gets harder the more players are at the table, which seems like a much more manageable way of balancing the game than weighting it to larger groups and making it almost impossible to solo unless you are running one of a handful of power decks.

Take everything I'm saying with a grain of salt though as I am kind of a special case. I am in the camp that found HoN was balanced wrong and was far too difficult, yet I also hate "easy mode" as it tends to sap some of the most interesting cards from the encounter decks.

played this first time today and loved it! great quest that is around the right difficulty for me, its also very thematic.

. ....also it threw quite a few nasty combos....listen to this...

shadow cards...i got the orc arsonist, the scourge of mordor, and the other one that gives shadow cards per player...i ended up with 9 shadow cards in the end!!! (it was well shuffled)

rich

And what did you think of DF? btw wasn't the story awesome?

played this first time today and loved it! great quest that is around the right difficulty for me, its also very thematic. . ....also it threw quite a few nasty combos....listen to this... shadow cards...i got the orc arsonist, the scourge of mordor, and the other one that gives shadow cards per player...i ended up with 9 shadow cards in the end!!! (it was well shuffled)rich

Ouch! Lady luck was not on your side

Seriously though, I think it's a very solid quest. And I think we NEEDED a few easier quests at this point in the game as a new player coming in now isn't going to necessarily start in Shadows of Mirkwood. Even if they WANTED to go back and play them in order it's almost impossible to find some of the Mirkwood cycle at this point, and even when they reprint that would be a HUGE cost. After all, a new MTG player doesn't buy every card from all the previous cycles when they get into the game--it's not practical and we are approaching that point with this game.

And what did you think of DF? btw wasn't the story awesome?

no idea! still havnt got it! i have it on pre order but managed to get amon din from a friend. i was trying really hard not to play it but in the end i gave up and just played it for the game and tried not to look at the spoiler text. ..so at the moment amon din is just a random encounter with orcs, and not part of the cycle narrative...another annoying thing about the pack problems in the uk....but if its half as good as this then it will be great, amon din has gone straight to my top 5

@jonofpdx - i know! and i agree with you, i was one of the players asking for this level of quests and im happy we got it

Does anyone now about when assault on Osgiliath will be releashed ?

Is there any clue about its hero ?

I like this quest. It's perhaps a bit to easy in solo mode, but like others said, the mechanics are cool. I only wished there would be more dead villagers (and doesn't that sound creepy...). Perhaps I will give it a try in a twohanded game or I simply remove Alcaron ("have a beer with Aragorn, we will handle this in the meantime") from the game. This is a good quest btw to try out a Hobbit deck.

Got it in my shop today. Will go to pick up and try ...