I still think we're going to be seeing some cards come out in the AP that will make this scenario much easier. I played Journey to Rhosgobel the other day, the first time in a long time, and it was an absolute cake walk using the cards available since the release of that AP. When this AP came out I must have tried it 5 or 6 times before I got a victory. Now it's almost a joke.

I think the strategy from FFG is to keep the difficulty really high on release knowing full well they will get easier over time.

Very true, and I like it better that way. Too easy right off the bat, and we'd all get bored very quickly. I'm looking forward to there being a "surge killer" card eventually. Man do I hate surge.

Raven1015 said:

id not like anything too powerful…..far from it. cards that make older quests easy are doing more damage to the replayability than having them easy to begin with

rich

Making quests harder in newer products hurts non-hardcore gamers like myself.

I was looking forward to heirs, but quickly cooled off after hearing how difficult the quests are, considering that I only have the core and 2 AP's. Making me buy lots of other products to have a decent chance of winning the quests sucks.
Don't like dwarves so KD is not for me, HoN is too difiicult, so basically the next product I can buy is either the SAGA or in 2014?
I hope that the saga part 2 is good, otherwise I have no more interest in releases for this game.

The nightmare packs are a much better way to cater to those who want very difficult quests.

I think that you should give HoN a chance. I suspect that a lot of the talk about the difficultly of the HoN quests is coming from people who tried to shoehorn existing decks into these scenarios. I firmly believe that you can make effective decks for these scenarios with a more limited card pool (especially if you include Beregond as one of your heroes). Sure, if you don't like tactics you're going to be hard-pressed to field a deck that beats the HoN scenarios with any sort of consistency, but I do not think that you need every LotR card ever printed to make a workable deck.

Solo is a different matter, but assuming you are playing with two players, and the other deck includes Spirit/Lore for cancel/healing, you can make a very effective tactics/leadership deck that will serve as your questing and combat deck for the HoN scenarios.

This deck is off the top of my head, but it only requires 1 core set, 3 chapter packs (2 of which you may already have) and HoN:

Heroes:

Beregond (HoN)

Gimli

Gloin

Allies: 24

Errand Rider (HoN) x3

Gondorian Spearman x3

Defender of Rammas (HoN) x3

Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes AP) x3

Winged Guardian (The Hunt For Gollum AP) x3

Veteran Axehand x3

Gandalf x3

Beorning Beekeeper (Conflict at the Carrock AP) x2

Beorn x1

Attachments: 14

Citadel Plate x2

Citadel Spear (HoN) x2

Dwarven Axe x2

Horn of Gondor x1

Steward of Gondor x2

Song of Battle (The Dead Marshes AP) x1

Dunedain Mark (The Hunt for Gollum AP) x2

Dunedain Warning (Conflict at the Carrock AP) x2

Events: 12

Feint x2

Swift Strike x1

Sneak Attack x2

Thicket of Spears x1

Behind Strong Walls (HoN) x3

Campfire Tales (The Hunt for Gollum AP) x3

I'm not claiming that this deck is automatic against the HoN scenarios, but assuming you play it with a support deck that can cancel some treacheries, quest during the few "normal" stages, and heal Gimli and Gloin when needed, this can be a very effective deck. I think it's a myth that you have to have all of the cards to make effective decks; certainly, it makes it easier, but there are some very good cards in the core set.

Ultimately, we all have our own preferences of the level of difficulty that we prefer. Personally, I really enjoy the challenge of the new scenarios, particularly the way that Battle and Siege quests have forced me to reexamine tactics cards that I previously may have dismissed. I encourage you to keep an open mind, and consider that even without buying other AP's or Expansions, Heirs of Numenor is something that you might enjoy.

In my opinion they should not make the quests that much more difficult.

1.  It discourages new players and the more people playing the game the longer we can expect it to last.

2.  It restricts play style.

3.  "Nightmare mode" play packs are already in the works and these can ramp up the quest difficulty for the more experienced masochists among us.

I don't like the arguement that the quests will become easier with new card packs.  After I played Khazad Dum a few times I adjusted and was able to beat those quests using the tools at hand.  I didn't even have to change my heros, just my strategy.

This begs the question though:  what is a reasonable win percentage for a quest for an experienced player using a good deck?

Easy - 90% ?

Mid - 50% ?

Hard - 10% ?

(I am avoiding using FFG's numbering system since it seems completely arbitrary.)

danpoage said:

Unless you are EXTREMELY lucky, Blocking Wargs will rip this deck apart.

Remember; it does 1 damage to every questing character, is normally shuffled back into the deck AND has Surge.  And there are four copies of it in the deck.  And you don't seem to have any defence against it at all.

Unless all four copies come up as Shadow Cards, I don't believe this deck can beat Into Ithilien.  Sorry.

Stenun said:

I agree, blocking Wargs will rip this deck apart. Having played, and beaten Into Ithilien with a few different decks now, Blocking Wargs rips every deck apart, unless you can cancel it when it comes up or you get enough of an ally presence out and have healing on hand. In my experience, Blocking Wargs is *the* reason why Into Ithilien will always have a fair amount of luck involved, moreso, I would argue than most other scenarios in the game.

As I mentioned above, this deck needs to be played in a two player game alongside a Spirit/Lore support deck. I'm not saying that this is the ideal deck for Into Ithilien, I was simply providing an example of a deck that could be effective (with support) against HoN quests with a limited card pool. Yes, you will need to get some luck, as, in my experience, does every deck against that scenario. Even with two highly tuned decks using all available cards, a handful of games that we played were lost within the first two rounds simply because of bad draws from the encounter deck. There is no magic bullet solution to that, but I do believe that this deck, with support, could be effective against Into Ithilien. It's a matter of expectation, there is no way with this card pool that you are going to make a pair of decks that beat Into Ithilien even 50% of the time, but you would be hard pressed to make two decks that meet that criteria using every card currently available.

Since I just came up with this deck off the top of my head and haven't had a chance to play with it, it may very well be entirely ineffective against Into Ithilien. The only way to know for sure is to try it out. I actually quite enjoy the challenge of deck-building with (admittedly arbitrary) constraints so I am going to take this as a goal, and an experiment:

Is it possible to build two decks that have at least a 20% chance of beating Into Ithilien using only the following:

1 Core Set

3 Chapter Packs (The Hunt for Gollum, The Dead Marshes, Conflict at the Carrock)

1 Heirs of Numenor

Having played Into Ithilien several times, and having had to tune decks specifically to deal with it (particularly Blocking Wargs), I suspect that you may be right. This, or a deck like it using the above card pool, may be impossibly overmatched by this scenario. In any case, I am now very curious to try this out. I will work on a Spirit/Lore support decking using this same card pool and see if can't make two decks with even a modicum of a chance.

I'm going to try this expirment and let everyone kwow how it goes.

Here is the Lore/Spirit support deck that I will pair with the Tactics/Leadership deck above to see if it is possible to make effective decks for Into Ithilien using a limited card pool.

Spirit/Lore Support Deck (with limited card pool)

Heroes:

Eleanor

Denethor

Glorfindel (Core)

Allies: 22

Henemarth Riversong x1

Gleowine x2

Erebor Hammersmith x2

Silvan Tracker (Dead Marshes AP) x3

Mirkwood Runner (Return to Mirkwood AP) x3

Miner of the Iron Hills x2

Ithilien Tracker (HoN) x3

Master of Lore (HoN) x3

Daugther of Nimrodel x1

Hunter of Lamedon (HoN) x2

Attachments: 12

Unexpected Courage x1

A Burning Brand (Conflict at Carrock AP) x3

Protector of Lorien x2

Self Preservation x1

Ranger Spikes (HoN) x3

Blood of Numenor (HoN) x2

Events: 16

A Test of Will x2

Hasty Stroke x2

Galadhrim's Greeting x2

Dwarven Tomb x1

Stand and Fight x2

Lorien's Wealth x1

Radagast's Cunning x3

Secret Paths x3

After a lot of tries with various strategies, the Three Hunters come through!

Strider/Gimli/Legolas with ranger spikes, peeking at the encounter deck, and pleanty of eagles won the day.

I was trying to get a secrecy strategy to work with Glorfindel(S),Legolas and Thalin but just couldn't quite make it. Mostly due to lack of healing.

I'm still convinced that a secrecy approach could work well with this scenario but you have to have Hands Upon the Bow to make it work.

I really like this discussion about difficulty, and balancing it for experienced vs. new players. I feel like it is something that has come up many times. I feel like it wouldn't be too difficult to include with each quest, or at least with the big expansions some type of "easy mode", even if it's something like "remove the following cards from the encounter deck". On the other hand, for those who are reluctant to buy HoN because of difficulty, I'll be honest, the quests are definitely difficult, but I agree with those who are saying that it is possible to beat them without having the entire card pool available. A lot of times we may find ourselves crediting our victories to having more powerful cards, but its also the case that the more you play this game and talk about it and read about it, the better you become (which is why I disagree with those who say that the game is mostly luck). So while that may be a double strike against new players, if they are willing to give the game a chance and invest some time into it, the difficulty will ease with practice. I think it would be an interesting challenge to construct a deck with an older pool of cards and see if it can beat the HoN quests. 

Raven1015 said:

ironic that ffg are doing the exact opposite- making add on cards to make quests harder…..though i agree with you. ive seen alot of players give up and go because of the difficulty (in the early game)

rich

Raven1015 said:

Yes i always was for the system when players can change difficult by themself. I play this game long time and my friend also so for us most of the quest is boring to play cose we win all the time! I like to play for example Hunt for Gollum but problem is to easy for 2 or 3 players so we never play this quest anymore. Hope we will get some nightmare pack for SOM cycle so we can play old quests again with challenge.

We love HON!!! This level of difficulty we really waiting for long time.

To make it harder, just add 1 more card during staging.

Still to easy? Add 1 more card, and so on till you reach desired difficulty.

kennoastic said:

The problem is reveal extra cards is doesn work.  We play this game long time already and you think we didn try this very first solution what can come in your mind?

Balance of the game is really fragile and 1 more card is easy destroy you special in begin.