I know there has been a lot made of how difficult Into Ithilian is but out of all the difficult cards in this encounter set... one stands out to me.

Watcher In the wood

How did this card make it through playtesting? With four players this card is non functional. In a normal game with four players at full swing you are looking at everyone raising their threat by anywhere from twelve to thirty points easy. Compare that to a single player effect of raising from three to maybe seven.

The game is supposed to be relatively scaleable. What happened here? With an average threat loss of close to twenty points that's. Instant loss everytime the card is drawn

Keep test of will or Eleonora ready in this case...

Keep test of will or Eleonora ready in this case...

Glaurung, your "advices" are always so trivial... You cant allways include Test of Will or Eleanor and even if you do, 3/50 cards is not really a good chance to draw it.

My playergroup also had the worst experiences with Watcher in the woods and it is ridiculous. The quest punishs you by all sides, if you send all characters to the quest, you get destroyed by watcher in the woods and suffer by the blocking wargs and if you dont send them, you dont make progress and the morgul-spider gets incredible strong.

Not long time ago we had a discussion, cause 4 players and you draw this card means you loose imediately. Even the most stupid idiot in the world who playtested Into Ithilien with 4 players must have realized that. As a result it might be that its only the amount of personal characters and not of all of the group. But anyway, I dont change my opinion about Into Ithilien, its the worst quest of all and I hate it.

Exactly rekath. And Glaurung yes it can be canceled but that wasn't what my post was about

its tough but not broken.

instead of using glaurungs advice, my own would be this- strategically quest, i.e. dont over quest.

this cards mere prescence forces you to think before commiting, so i think it isnt broken, its just a tough card to deal with. of course with 4 encounter cards per turn its tough not to quest a lot, but thats where the challenge is

i know saying 'include this or that' is poor advice, but there are other cards than test of will. you could scout before questing, so thats riversong, risk some light, denethor , palantir. (though all pretty useless in 4 player)

you could take it out with out of the wild (or is it needful to know?)

you could use a mixture of scouting with risk some light (3 cards) then put a shadow of the past card to make you know all 4.....then power quest. this could work as ithiliien is one of those quick quests that works better with quick strategies- you cannot get bogged down

all pretty much stretching for a good strategy there, but this is a tough quest. i dont think this is as bad as that card i wont mention but everyone knows which im talking about

rich

It perhaps would have scaled better if it was that each player raises their threat by the number of questing characters they control. However, as it's currently phrased, you have to raise your threat by all questing characters.

In 4 player game this card will break your game. We've played with Eleanor, but she might cancel the card, but it usally does not matter, because with her you have to replace a card which is equally as bad. 4 or more cars of the encounter deck during this quest is crazy. Southron Support is pretty pad also, which dumps 4 Harad enimes in the staging area on top of the other cards you've draw.

I'm not sure we have ever beat it with 4 players. We got a few wins in 3 player.

We did beat it with 4 player on easy mode, and it still was pretty brutal, but at least you have a chance. In easy mode the cards they take out are no surprise, morgul spider, watcher in the woods, southron support, mumak, and some Blocking wargs.

After we play quests like this and Druadan Forest we highly doubt they playtested this with 4 players, unless they were using some cards that have yet to be released when they did.

perhaps we are forgetting how tough this game may be to test 4 player. not saying that it shouldnt be or anything etc etc. im just saying to play 4 player, you need to get 4 play testers in the same room! (unless you want to skype it or multi hand solo)

so perhaps we can forgive the odd mistake? (yes i know its easy for me to say as i dont play 4 player games)

It perhaps would have scaled better if it was that each player raises their threat by the number of questing characters they control. However, as it's currently phrased, you have to raise your threat by all questing characters.

I agree with this, i think the designers could start making some of the card effects scaled by the number of players . There are some cards like this already, but more would be welcomed.

After we play quests like this and Druadan Forest we highly doubt they playtested this with 4 players, unless they were using some cards that have yet to be released when they did.

yes, it's already been stated in interviews that the quests get tested with all of the player cards in a cycle - but i believe caleb said he also tests with core set + deluxe only, as well.

Keep test of will or Eleonora ready in this case...

Whoa, wait, what? There are cards that allow us to cancel When Revealed effects?

Im ok when you win or lose 50/50. so this card is good

I don't play with 4 players, but I think Rich is right - questing should be done efficiently. Slowly, but steady progress. Boost your heroes with attachments, use Faramir plus Sword hat was Broken to get even more WP. Use New Boromir when the quest card has the battle keyword. Play Risk some Light to reduce the chance of drawing that card. There's also the brand new Palantir. If you know which encounter cards are to come, you can send everyone to the quest.

An example: Eowyn + Glorfindel + Elrond can give you 18 WP already with Faramir, StwB and Eowyn's ability.

Regarding Test of Will it is important to keep it as long as possible, because this card can be such a pain - even more so than Blocking Wargs. So, I said it.

Its ridiculous. Noone of you played with 4 players this quest and still you try to give advices which are de facto useless. Everything what you say is highly situational. Into Ithilien is not a quest for "slowly steady progress".

- How long does it take to get a Sowrd that was Broken?

- Boromir Leadership: How many cheap Gondor allys with 2 attack do we have??? [Dain + dwarfs is still better here}

- Risk some Light is ok, but u have to pay for it if you are not in secrecy (and who remains secrecy with so many high doomed cards?). Also it shows not even 4 cards, same about Palanthir.

Before you guys give advices, play it in a 4-player-environment and you will realize how impossible it is to avoid that card.

@leptokurt: Du redest vielleicht einen Blödsinn. Was soll das?Die meisten Gondor-Verbündeten haben 1 HP, bei Blocking Wargs sofort tot...

i managed to play this with a secrecy deck and get to 0 threat at the end of the quest. even taking into account the extra 3 cards per turn, you can certainly keep a secrecy deck up and running to play risk some light.

this quest, no matter what some may think, is a situational quest, that requires some very specific plays. giving situational advice is therefore not ridiculous at all - it is strategies like this that win quests.

besides- if you wish for only advice off those who have played this 4 player, you will be scarce on advice indeed

Rich you seem like a really laid back dude. That's cool.

Your strategies to combat this card are superfluous to my problem with the card. This scenario is full of difficult treacheries you are required to deal with. The only valid point you made was that you need to commit characters to the quest strategically. The problem is that when the number of players increases. The bare minimum amount of characters required to quest goes up but so ddamoes the frequency with which this card shows up and its average threat damage. Once you hit Four players this is absolutely out of control. Keep in mind this quest also comes with a card that reads along the lines of

Each player must remove one character from the quest. If any player has no characters committed to the quest remove all characters from the quest

With that in mind... you are looking at minimum two characters per hero lowballing it.

So here is a card that on one end does min 2 threat damage and 8 with four players and that's not a realistic representation of an actual game.

Personally I agree with raven yet there is no errata. Why

thanks . to comment directly on the need for errata, i think that perhaps, if you feel it really does need it, you should perhaps contact caleb and request some sort of scaling for 4 player. to refer back to my point about play testing, i cant say what ffg actually does, but im guessing 4 player gets tested least of all (may be wrong there but it sort of makes sense with the troubles it must raise)....therefore perhaps the designers just dont know about its problems.

i may give this a go 4 handed (though its tough with all the cards) as i want to see first hand how this plays out

rich

Oh... and let's calculate the total damage there

The card deals minimum of 2 damage in one player and 8x4 people in 4 player. That is a twenty two damage difference at Minimum.

I play 4 players often but usually work in a group of 3

what the **** is the problem, just always make sure you have a spare resource on spirit and a test of will.. end of story. Put some card draw in to make sure you pull it, between 4 players you can pack a lot of card draw. This card is a bad ass .. sure.. but it is SO TRIVIAL to play around that this thread is a joke.

learn your quests, learn your requirements, learn your threats build your decks and play accordingly.

You can not just play each quest like a ******* robot, you need to make strategic decisions... like... always having a test of will in hand and resource ready.

Stop bitching and learn to play.

Your strategies to combat this card are superfluous to my problem with the card. This scenario is full of difficult treacheries you are required to deal with.

True, but you need to plan your strategy. The general rule is if it doesn't kill you and end the game, do not cancel it. There are other threats sure, but this one WILL end the game, so it has higher priority. So if another card is bad, this is worse.. so you hold the cancels for this one and this one alone.

there is no errata. Why

Because the game has to speak to the entire population of players not just *******. While no one is forcing collectors to buy 3 copies of core and the like , many do. i have played 4 player games were every player is running 3will+3Tomb for a total of 24 Test of will cards on the table. That was unusual but I hope you get the point. We need super hard quest with super hard threats as some of us play with large card pools and spend a lot of time making powerful decks. It is not out of line for FFG to design a card for 4 player games and expect each player to have there own copy of core. Just cause you have only 1 or 2 for a 4 player game doesn't reflect everyone, and FFG need to make allowances for ALL players. That doesn't mean each quest is for all players, it means that a quest has to come now and then out of the tons available that caters to these people.

This is why it will not get errata.

1) It is piss easy to play around even with smaller card pools

2) anyone playing with a decent card pool (as in more than one player collects) will have no trouble at all

3) if it pisses you off, just take it out of the deck. end of story. This is a co-op game, just change the card text yourself.

Its ridiculous. Noone of you played with 4 players this quest and still you try to give advices which are de facto useless. Everything what you say is highly situational. Into Ithilien is not a quest for "slowly steady progress".

- How long does it take to get a Sowrd that was Broken?

- Boromir Leadership: How many cheap Gondor allys with 2 attack do we have??? [Dain + dwarfs is still better here}

- Risk some Light is ok, but u have to pay for it if you are not in secrecy (and who remains secrecy with so many high doomed cards?). Also it shows not even 4 cards, same about Palanthir.

Before you guys give advices, play it in a 4-player-environment and you will realize how impossible it is to avoid that card.

@leptokurt: Du redest vielleicht einen Blödsinn. Was soll das?Die meisten Gondor-Verbündeten haben 1 HP, bei Blocking Wargs sofort tot...

Agreed. This is one of the quests I was referring to in my 4 player balance thread. I set this up today and tried it 6 times. Best show for the decks was lasting until turn 3 before Heroes started dying left and right. It's a massacre.

besides- if you wish for only advice off those who have played this 4 player, you will be scarce on advice indeed

Exactly! This is first and foremost a 1-2 player game. Just because I CAN be played with more doesn't mean it should be. If you think this quest is so horrible 3-4 player, rekath16 the, then play it with the recommended number of players instead of biting the head of those trying to give advise.

what the **** is the problem, just always make sure you have a spare resource on spirit and a test of will.. end of story. Put some card draw in to make sure you pull it, between 4 players you can pack a lot of card draw. This card is a bad ass .. sure.. but it is SO TRIVIAL to play around that this thread is a joke.

learn your quests, learn your requirements, learn your threats build your decks and play accordingly.

You can not just play each quest like a ******* robot, you need to make strategic decisions... like... always having a test of will in hand and resource ready.

Stop bitching and learn to play.

Your strategies to combat this card are superfluous to my problem with the card. This scenario is full of difficult treacheries you are required to deal with.

True, but you need to plan your strategy. The general rule is if it doesn't kill you and end the game, do not cancel it. There are other threats sure, but this one WILL end the game, so it has higher priority. So if another card is bad, this is worse.. so you hold the cancels for this one and this one alone.

there is no errata. Why

Because the game has to speak to the entire population of players not just *******. While no one is forcing collectors to buy 3 copies of core and the like , many do. i have played 4 player games were every player is running 3will+3Tomb for a total of 24 Test of will cards on the table. That was unusual but I hope you get the point. We need super hard quest with super hard threats as some of us play with large card pools and spend a lot of time making powerful decks. It is not out of line for FFG to design a card for 4 player games and expect each player to have there own copy of core. Just cause you have only 1 or 2 for a 4 player game doesn't reflect everyone, and FFG need to make allowances for ALL players. That doesn't mean each quest is for all players, it means that a quest has to come now and then out of the tons available that caters to these people.

This is why it will not get errata.

1) It is piss easy to play around even with smaller card pools

2) anyone playing with a decent card pool (as in more than one player collects) will have no trouble at all

3) if it pisses you off, just take it out of the deck. end of story. This is a co-op game, just change the card text yourself.

Nothing impresses me more than someone talking smack on the interwebz.

Look, Dood. Not everyone is playing Spirit with three tests of wills in their deck.

OBVIOUSLY if you have a test of will sitting there in your opening hand you're golden. Oh except there's another 4 cards that will drag out 4 more Harad enemies each.

AND With the amount of surging going on , it's fairly common to draw 6 encounter cards rather than 4.

This quest chops you up in 4 player (oh did we mention Morgul Spiders? They are basically a hero insta-kill at the 4 player level)

Look if the card made each player raise their threat by the number of their own questing characters it would be perfectly balanced and work with any number of players. It would still be terrible and still need to be canceled as raising threat by any amount is bad.

In a four player game this card is broken because it easily reaches the potential to raise all players threat by more threat than Will Ever be present in the game. That's completely unneccesary. if you were hanging around playing you normal two player game with your bud and a card told you to raise your threat by 40.... wouldn't you feel ripped off? I generally play decks starting around thirty threat which means there is only 20 threat to play with.

.

No card should be cancel or die guaranteed. It lacks subtlety.

Also... in this quest frankly this card is waaaaaaaaaaay down on my list of priorites. The point is the text doesn't make since. Why raise my threat by 20 or 25 when 8 will do just as well to make me hopeless? It is mega overkill and has an easy fix

On a side note, I do feel the game is most unbalanced when playing 1 and 4 players and most balanced at 2 but it is labeled as a 1-4 player game so I think my concern is reasonable

Look, Dood. Not everyone is playing Spirit with three tests of wills in their deck.

my basic philosophy for multiplayer games is that at least 1 player should be playing spirit with 3 ATOW...and if it's a 4 player game, at least 2.

@ rekath

Wait, most Gondor allies have only 1 HP. Ever heard of Faramir, Citadel Custodian, Citadel Guard, Errant Rider, White Tower Watchman, or Damrod? Knights of Minath Tirith are new but should be very helpful here. If they are in your starting hand you could play them and pick one SC from the staging area and giving them 3 points damage already. Anyway, if you play with Gondor and Boromir, of course you only use those allies to quest that have more than one HP. The others are kept ready to block or to kill enemies. Or to use Hail of Stones.

I don't think you need to have played this with 4 players to give reasonable advice that is common knowledge. Pimping your heroes with attachments is not very situational. Relying on your heros strengtht is the most e reliable thing that this game offers. The OP said that he had to add 12-30 (!!!) threat points, so his play group clearly does something wrong, namel to commit too many characters to the quest. Any solutuon should start by solving that problem first, and the soultion is to pimp your heroes and to use high quality allies and stuff like For Gondor. Questing slow and steady before you finish the stage 1 in one single turn with everything you have (when you can be fairly sure it won't kill you) is a superior strategy for every number of players, as it minimizes the risk of being caught off guard by one of those nasty treacheries.. Like others said, wait until you have Test of Will in your hand and possibly Risk some Light and then - go! Ok, you should have these WP powering tools that I talked of earlier. If you don't know how to get them in your starting hand, loook for the keywords mulligan , card draw , Word of Command ., Gildor and Master of the Forge . (I'd definitely run a leadership/lore deck).

If all of that (and all the dwarf synergies) doesn't help, then this scenario is simply unplayable with 4 players.