Play a deck that has lots of dwarf allies, three copies of Galadhrim's Greeting and three copies of Dwarven Tomb to recycle the Greetings.  When you Sneak Attack Gandalf reduce threat.

Slow play stage 1 until you are ready for stage 2.  You are not ready for stage 2 unless a copy of Troll Camp is in the staging area.  Do not explore it; take the threat hit.  Then Bilbo's job is to use his resources (which are almost useless otherwise) to remove sacks.  Put an Unexpected Courage on him or a Fast Hitch.  Play Path of Need on the Troll Cave.  With lots of dwarven allies Erebor Battle Master should be swinging a heavy stick and can take down a troll in one or two swings.

I use Thorin, Ori & Nori and am soon collecting many resources and cards.  With many allies out Ori and Nori often have time for Peace and Thought.  Don't forget to reduce your threat every time an ally comes into play.

This same deck also fairs well against the second adventure unless you draw an early Guffawing Giants.  The second adventure isn't so special imo.  I haven't had a chance at the third one yet.

man- just had first play through with my flight to the ford deck- got killed

and yes this quest is all about timing

we need a card that allows you to discard cards to REDUCE your commited willpower

rich

The_Big_Show said:

Keep in mind that you don't actually have to kill any of the trolls. If you want, you can focus your deck around generating boatloads of willpower (Faramir, Astonishing Speed, etc.) and try to burn through the encounter deck.

Forgot to mention that.  I often don't quest at all during stage 1.  It's really easy to get too far ahead of yourself because SO much of the encounter deck is treacheries.  There is a card "Late to the Party?" or something like that that helps with this, but I don't use it.  You need lots and lots of threat reducers.

richsabre said:

I just ended up intentionally UNDER-questing to not advance, then used Faramir and Late to the Party to make up what difference I might need…

I finally beat this quest, had to kill all 3 trolls but never got the troll key, so i didn't discover the treasures (bummer!). had to use gandalf to lower threat, which allowed me to, for the most part, deal with one troll at a time. lots of the treacheries are nasty as they either raise your threat or sack you or force a troll to engage with you. nasty stuff. the battlemasters made relatively quick work of the trolls but i wasn't able to quest much to kind the key b/c i was needing to hold back defenders or attackers. oh, and having all of your attachments discarded really sucks, too! haha.  either way, it's a fun quest and i love the treasure hunting aspect as it really increases replayability!

Bullroarer Took said:

starhawk77 said:

That's what I ended up doing in the end. Threw everything into willpower and sped my way through the quest. Meant that I didn't get the treasures but hey. Maybe in a 2+ player game might be doable but right now I don't know how a solo deck could take the trolls on successfully.

Second quest seemed like a breeze until the third stage at which point I simply got mobbed by hordes of goblins and couldn't control them.

Just got my copy of Hobbit today. Play all quest with my rule them all Elrond/Glorifindel/Hama deck. Manage to win first quest without big problem.

this one better then Carrock but still quite monotony.Anyway better cool! Second and last quests is really good. Love it. For solo play quite difficult and interesting. Cannot wait for nightmare mode with 2 or 3 players.

 My Hobbit themed dwarf deck did well against the first two quests, but got owned on the third.  I'm not even sure what I'm going to do to my deck to make it beatable.  I'm for sure going to try the new Gandalf and probably throw in some eagles as well.  It's a tough quest for a band dwarves though as the difficulty starts right away.  I'm really pleased with Quests 1 & 3, but 2 less so.

i have now won the first and second quests solo both win my flight to the ford (strider frodo and glorfindel)

the 2nd is by far the easiest of the 3, but all 3 are very enjoyable. im currently dabbling with elrond instead of frodo for the 3rd

rich

 Aaaaarrrrrrrggghhh!!!

So close, but a Not Fair! Not Fair!  Followed closely by a What's in my Pocket? Led to my demise.  I had 8 progress on 2B, but Bilbo had 2 damage on him when I discarded 7 cards to Pocket.  Had I been able to discard an 8th I would have moved on to stage 3.  This is a good Quest.

Yeah, it really requires that you know your deck inside and out. You have to always be thinking about the chances of revealing any particular card type/sphere/cost. Even with a powerful build a la Elrond & Vilya, you're sunk if you can't answer those riddles correctly.

Seems like a was really lucky on my first attempt of this quest. Today i play another 3 games and lost all of them. Also lost another 2 games against last quest.

Cool! Really challenge! Love it! Need to try more.