what state are the characters in when you remove the sack. Im thinking the way they were in when sacked. also troll camp says that bilbo can use the action even if he is sacked. So does that mean he can use it more then once since he is not exhausted or ready. Is it once per round. I'm thinking it's best just not to get sacked at all and leave the trolls in the staging area and quest a lot.

Bullroarer Took said:

Ok, does the bolded part refer to Tom's card text? Because in my German version his text states that a troll can only be atacked by a single player at a time. Could anyone confirm that B.R. is right about that?

leptokurt said:

Yes, check the card javascript:void(0);

This is why I hate translated games. The original designer english wording is confusing enough, no need to add the translator confusion to this.

wlk said:

  Well, usually they translate the cards very good, but this time they really messed it up. One time they translate the word "character" with "ally" (on the sack cards), and one time with "player". I get the feeling that the translator hasn't played the game before translating it. Quest 1 is really only a kindergarden version in German…

Thanks for clearing that!

leptokurt said:

Actually, in English there is at least one of the "sack" cards that does mention an ally, so that may be translated correctly.

benhanses said:

i was talking to leptokurt on that last night- it does sound like the whole cards are pretty much screwed

richsabre said:

Well, that's disappointing… as confusing as the FFG wordin gIN ENGLISH can be at times, if translation gets buggered up to German (Spanish, French, whichever), that must be frustrating as hell….

 Feel like I'm a bit late to the Hobbit party, having only just recently played the first two quests, but it seems FFG did an amazing job with these quests! First run through of Troll quest, and ended up engaged to all three trolls across the two teams of dwarves thanks to some nasty shadow effects. We almost got the first troll killed while only engaged with two of the trolls, only for the treachery that forces you to engage with a troll brought the last one in, and sacked enough characters to really push us.

Then, with glorious timing, the new Gandalf popped up (came into my partners hand at just the right moment, just like Gandalf), and in two turns of questing we managed, just, with nearly every ally dead from the trolls, to discard the last card from the deck, with our threat levels pushing 46 and 48, and Gandalf hanging around to finish off the job! Perfect combo of a win in good narrative fashion, and with defeat so near. I love the fact that the quest holds so true to the narrative of the Hobbit, and yet also makes it work in gameplay terms that are really satisfying. If FFG continues like this with quests (and the track record recently is so good with FoS etc) I'll be very happy!

monkeyrama said:

Yes i agree with you quality of the quest is better then before. Keep good work FFG!

I tried to do this solo tonight and basically threw in the towel when I saw 3 trolls in the staging area.  Between them and the sack effects, my whole party was going to get slaughtered.  I was using heroes from the saga expansion (2 dwarves plus that bear).  I wonder if it is like Conflict at the Carrock where you keep your threat ultra low and wait through the first part of the quest before engaging the trolls.  Any suggestions on winning this using the heroes and themes from the Saga expansion???

I tried to do this solo tonight and basically threw in the towel when I saw 3 trolls in the staging area.  Between them and the sack effects, my whole party was going to get slaughtered.  I was using heroes from the saga expansion (2 dwarves plus that bear).  I wonder if it is like Conflict at the Carrock where you keep your threat ultra low and wait through the first part of the quest before engaging the trolls.  Any suggestions on winning this using the heroes and themes from the Saga expansion???

Sorry for the double post, but I have two more questions

1/ Do you mix the Treasure cards into the encounter deck and then "discover them"?  It seems that since they have rings on the back they would stick out when you are mixing up the encounter deck.

2/  Can you use 3 Gandalf cards from the core set AND the 3 new Gandalf cards from the saga expansion in the same deck?

peterstepon said:

1. Treasures are player cards and can be put into your player deck for scenarios 2 and 3 IF you can claim them during this quest.

2. The rules state only 3 cards with the same name per deck, so no you can't have 3 of both types of Gandalf.

As for tactics, I played a similar sounding deck to you and did very little questing in stage 1 so as not to complete it before I was ready. I had 2 trolls engage by then, but I had a troll camp in play and a fast hitch on Bilbo, so the sack cards were never a problem.

I finally managed to beat the third quest on a regular basis. Inspired by Mementix's solo-sphere deck I created a two-sphere (spirit/leadership) deck with tons of 2 and 3 cost allies. Men, I didn't use Lorien Guide for ages! But that way I could finally solve these riddles before I ran out of cards (didn't need to use  Will of the West so far). My heroes were Dain/Nori/Dwalin which is a good combo to keep your threat low (<30).

The quest still feels overly complicated. I like fighting against the hordes of goblins, but the riddles feel like they've put too much new stuff into one quest. I like it better now but still the whole expansion doesn't give me that feeling of awesomeness like KD did. The news about HoN sounds promising though!

peterstepon said:

I tried about 10 times solo using just the cards from 1 core set and the hobbit expansion and did not have any luck.  I finally gave up and used some of the good tactics cards from the Darrowdelf cycle (e.g. Erebor BattleMaster, Heavy Stroke, Khazad!, Khazad!, etc.) and a couple of the key Neutral cards to help with making sure I can get the Troll Key in the unlucky case it gets put in the Discard pile if it comes up as a Shadow Card (e.g. Shadow of the Past, The End Comes).  The strategy I use is to avoid completing 1st quest phase until a Troll Camp comes up and I have enough allies to help with questing and defending against the trolls (cheap allies make good troll fodder).  Then as soon as I complete the 1st quest phase I travel to the Troll Camp (I used to avoid doing this as I wanted to ensure I didn't explore it and lose it from play, but then I realized a better strategy is to travel to it so that the threat level in the staging area comes down significantly and the first few rounds during the 2nd quest phase you don't really need to worry about over questing and exploring it anyways).  I then try to bring down the trolls one at a time to make it managable removing the sacks and leave the last troll alive until I have the troll key and have explored the troll cave.  With this approach I was able to improve my win rate, but it still took me quite a few more attempts before I successfully found the treasure (when I changed my strategy to travel to the troll camp right away that helped a lot).  My last game had an epic ending - the Troll Key was the 3rd last card in the encounter deck and I was in danger of discarding the last encounter card before I was able to explore the troll cave but I was able to use "The End Comes" to shuffle the encounter discard pile pack into the deck to allow me to find the treasures.  Never found a good use for the card until now!

I use a dwarf deck and heroes Beorn, Thorin, Nori and Bilbo to stick with the Hobbit theme.  The only non-hobbit ally I added was Arwyn so that I could use Elrond's Counsel for some extra threat reduction relief.