Overall Score: B+
Difficulty: 
Theme: 
Fun Factor: 

Conflict at the Carrock if you are playing the game in chronological order is going to be very tough.  In fact, its arguably one of the toughest quests in the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle.  Now of course, all quests are easier with a larger card pool, but even if you have the entire collection at your disposal, this one requires your attention.

Conflict at the Carrock was so tough for me in fact I actually did a special What Makes It Tick article on this particular quest.

Thematically speaking it’s a bit of a side quest from the general theme of hunting down Gollum, though having Trolls capture you, throw you in sacks and then roast you slowly are all elements of this quest, so it fits in the scope of the Lord of the Rings universe beautifully, in particular for Hobbit fans.

The overall goal of the quest is to defeat 4 Trolls in an all out battle in the second phase of the quest.  Before you get thrown into this battle you’ll have time to prepare in the first leg of the quest, which in its own right can be quite tough thanks to some pretty mean encounter cards.  In the end the quest requires a lot of simultaneous juggling as you must control your threat so the Trolls don’t overwhelm you in the second part of the quest, build up a force of allies so you have something to fight with and finally control the encounter deck which is filled with nasty surprises like Muck Adder & Frightened Beast.

Fortunately Conflict at The Carrock also comes with some helpful allies including the very important Objective Ally, Grimbeorn the Old which is kind of critical to getting on your team prior to facing the Trolls.  Unfortunately you don’t get much help for your card pool as a whole from Carrock, in fact I recall this being one of the most disappointing expansions in that regard.  You won’t find much help from lackluster cards like Beorning Beekeeper &  Second Breakfast.  Though its not all terrible, you do get the Eomund ally card which doesn’t really help in solving the Conflict At Carrock deck building puzzle but will be appreciated later when you have more Rohan characters to play with.

I personally love a good challenge however and I enjoyed this quest immensely both in solo play and co-op.  Its tough, there is definitely a deck building puzzle to solve, but its so satisfying to unravel and thanks to the amazing art work for the many encounter cards of this quest as well as the general theme, I never tired of trying to beat it.

I’m not sure Chronologically speaking it makes sense to have such a tough quest in the first cycle of a game, considering players buying in chronological order won’t really have the card pool necessary to beat it with any consistency.  You will really need to get lucky, at least until you have more cards.  I find the more cards I have in my card pool the easier this quest gets, but it’s always a tough one.

Overall I really like this one a lot, it’s fun, thematic and challenging.