I haven't tried the suggested decks - and I won't - because I don't think they're very good.  Not that I'm a great deck builder, but I don't like these at all.

My Thorin, Ori and Nori deck is 2 for 2 against the first quest.  I'm really happy with this deck, but it could be even better.*  The hard part for me isn't so much beating the trolls, it's finding the key and purse.  (I'm basically not putting them into the deck until stage 2 because the wording is so bad.)  The strategy is to slow play stage 1 while getting all my dwarven allies in play and reducing my threat via GG and Gandalf.  Then move to stage 2 and take the trolls on one by one.  By this time Erebor Battle Master will be swinging for 10 and can take a troll down in a couple of hits.*  Take out the first troll with EBM, then Forest Snare the 2nd one and then kill the third one.  The reason I snare the second one is that the third brings 2 sacks with him and I don't want to risk Ori being sacked at the wrong time.

*At first I included Khazad! and Heavy Stroke in my deck to increase EBM's hitting power, but Thorin is a sack magnet and is never around to play these for me at the critical time (with Narvi's Belt).  So I'm going to take these out and put in another Dwarven Tomb and Miner of the Iron Hills.

How does this quest compares with conflict at the carrock?

They seem so similar, as to make one of them redundant….

koraldon said:

totally different. from my perspective, this is more like Escape from the core set, as your heroes get taken out of play and it's quite annoying (especially in solo)…and you really have to manage threat, which you don't in CaC.

I tried Richsabre's Flight from the ford deck that he has talked about, and beat it first try.  In response to the whole troll key and purse thing, what we noticed is you have to shuffle the discard pile back into the encounter deck when you start stage two.  We missed that our first few attempts. With this, its not nearly as difficult to get the objectives, and with the flight to the ford deck I was able to just quest through stage two and only engage one of the trolls, and keep it engaged with me.  It actually happened fairly easy.

In response to Koraldon, it is still pretty different, not to mention is very thematically entertaining.  Very likely, CatC was put out by ffg before they had thought of this, as it is a little redundant but Im sure almost no one minds, too cool of a quest!

koraldon said:

koraldon said:

They are so similar that I would hazard a guess as to say that Carrock was meant to recreate the situation in The Hobbit, but was designed BEFORE FFG got the license to do The Hobbit.

However, the trolls are different (and maybe a little worse) and the sacks and the sack mechnic are certainly different.  So I would not use the word 'redundant', but 'similar'.

I have to say that I just got it today and I'm really loving this quest! I think it's way more interesting than Carrock. It's great times trying to get the into the cave to get the Treasure cards! It's nice adding that optional bonus and I think really increases replayability. Well done FFG!!!

Bullroarer Took said:

You can still collect resources and spend them even while sacked, as far as I can tell…

Narsil0420 said:

I thought that exhausting Narvi would be triggering an effect.  No?

Last night I changed my strategy a little bit more by waiting until I had a Troll Camp in the staging area before moving to 2.  Then I just left it there and ate the threat.  This allowed Bilbo to make quick work of the sacks and I never needed my Miners.  (Finally got the Treasures too!)

Miner of the Iron Hills wont work on the Sacks are objectives not conditions sorry to say

Bullroarer Took said:

Do u find that Navri's belt is sufficient to pay all the costs for the three spheres or do u include any songs?

Narvi's Belt is only to pay for the Tactics cards, particularly the Erebor Battle Master.  I also have Ori and Nori for Spirit and Lore.  With a heavy dwarf deck, Thorin is pulling 2 resources every turn, and with Steward he's pulling 4.  Money is not an issue.  ;)

Shockeffect said:

Wow.  You're right.  Glad I've been using Bilbo.  Out with the Miners!

 So there's no official difficulty in these quests? I only play solo, so I'm not sure if I want to get this expansion if they are too hard to solo with one deck.

The first and third are difficult, but they can be done solo.  Very fun quests.  I would definately reccomend getting them.

lleimmoen said:

Dain, Nori and Ori were the trio I took with me in my first run-through of this today, despite the theme reservations. It went pretty well until Dain got sacked, losing the boost to all my other dwarfy allies (thank you, rich, I love that term!) and it was pretty much curtains from that point.