I just thought I'd brush off some of the fist quests and have a nice time with HfG. I was at stage 3B and was about to clear it, just had to turn over 2 cards when the encounter cards that was dealt was the following:

Cards for player 1:

Sign of Gollum (Guarded)

Sign of Gollum (Guarded)

Sign of Gollum (Guarded)

Goblingtown Scavengers (Thread 4)

Gladden Fields (Threat 3)

The East Bank (Threat 3)

Card for player 2:

The East Bank (Threat 3)

Each player please rise…your threat to 10 each. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Dead! DAMN!

LOL but it was great anyway :)

ooooh…..thats nasty

i know it sounds obvious, but did you forget to shuffle ? (j/k )

actually i know how bad this quest can be….no matter how much you shuffle those damn clues will always come at the wrong time together

 So true. The things I'm looking for is always (almost) ruining it for me :D now that's irony!

 Actually, it was an electronic game on lackey. I did remember to shuffle so that just make it even more annoying :)

 This kind of thing happens to us all too often.  The other day we were playing Watcher in the Water and were literally one turn from winning.  My threat was high -- 46 or 48 thanks to my Frodo/Boromir combination.  We committed something like 22 willpower between the two of us, and it looked like everything was in the bag.  Then…

Player 1: reveal Stagnant Creek -- forces a reveal of the next card.  This was some Tentacle enemy, so boom! Stagnant Creek forces everyone's threat up by 5. I am eliminated, reducing our questing willpower by 10+.

I don't remember what player 2 revealed, but the threat in the staging area was 20+ in the end.  She had to raise her threat by 10 or more, leaving her around 46.  We quit at that point because she had no way to deal with the massive threat in the staging area on her own.

My own fault for letting my threat get so high… but man, that quest can be tentacle hell!