To chime into this discussion: we played it that the targeting was as written on the stage card (like move to target A) without the Mob rule targeting as it was not written on the special encounter rules. Only when the tribe attacks and then the mob keyword was attached to this attack, this attack is performed as mob attack.

Fellow Oathsworn, last night my group played Chapter 4.....and at the end of the session, almost everyone felt frustrated and annoyed(could have entirely been our fault). Are we the ones in the wrong here, or is it the game? The "exploration" of the tiles combined with the story of getting "turned around and lost" had us travel North for a few, then east, then back track down south, we hit the waystone that said both of the ford's locations(we figured out which was which) so we traveled south once and west once only to be blocked off again and again. We randomly picked east, dead end again. Then just went West and found the encounter. Did we horribly screw up or is the story/geo mechanics just bad? We constantly checked the map and we're 99.9% sure we knew where we were. Any help or input would be great, (we lost the encounter due to too many starvation events and are replaying it Friday, another salt to the wound

How my group interpreted it (and based on some of the designer comments I think we did the main path they anticipated):

you infer from the map that you should be heading south or east to start (baston in the north of the map,your goal in the south east)

going in that direction leads you to a waystone. you can infer from the way stone which of the ones on the map you are possibly at...confirming you need to go south/east, across a river

trying to go that way you run into a wall...you have to go west a whole bunch along the wall, then eventually north (i think) and you find the bridge

we got really frustrated while doing the map because it felt like we interpreted everything correctly but the presence of the wall indicated not...but in reality it was just the Deepwood messing with the player. once we realized that and how it fit with the general narrative, we found it very satisfying.

This was our route through the deepwood. We found both the waystones around the oak and figured out where we were. We knew that we head south west to intercept the wire road but kept getting blocked by the thickness of the deep wood and were forced south east until we could go west. We found the bridge and then our way into the village being attacked

We took a very similar route but only picked up the lower of the two waystones

We felt similarrly frustrated, but we didnt end up starving. Sometimes when games get frustrating, I like to just "rule of cool" it and make it so it isnt as frustrating. Make it up that you made it or something or add in some extra food tolkens. I will say out of the 9 chapters we played so far, this was the only story we got frustrated by.

Once you realize you're in the upper right, I believe the devs intend for the player to follow the dotted line, leading south and then looping around to the southwest to the nearest village. We also did not make that second conclusion, to follow the line, also trying to go south and then getting confused when there wasn't an option to go south anymore.

Exact same experience for our group

Huh, good to know I'm not the only one out there. Wish us luck tonight as we re-try the barb squad!

Maybe the key would be, to mention that the paths on the map might be the only paths available? Because, if I remember right, the map is accurate and the path the players should follow is on the map. Trying to cut across directly to Verum leads to a lot of confusion, though. That's the stated objective, not getting to the nearest village, and that disconnect probably doesn't help much either. (Replying to @Kaaihn from here: https://discord.com/channels/984588759519600670/984588759985188915/1063474931733626930 )

The path based on the story clues is on the map, it just turns out to be blocked. So you have to use the map to pick the next viable path to verum and follow that. That path leads you through the village where the encounter is. All the story needs is a reminder from the dude as he hands you the map that some mapped paths have been blocked or reclaimed by the Deepwood and might not be passable. That would solve the problem completely.

Agree. Although, personally I kind of liked (in retrospect) that it didn't explain that and it just was something we had to figure out. Emergent storytelling

I would also have been fine with that if it happened when that mechanic wasn’t a first time use.

funny my group rushed the right path going first SE then west then south. problem is that you know the direktion you have to go but its often blocked. we managed to do this to encounter with only 2 breaks of rations

* Checks map * Oh, yeah, you're right, there is a path straight south that is blocked. I misremembered that. Definitely agree on your point that a reminder at that moment would've been good or if it didn't happen the first time.

I went up north/northeast first. It wasn't until I found the three and the waystone I got the clue where to go. After that I hadn't really any issue finding the path.

Interesting that we have followed exactly the same path. 😄

So when a berserker redraws all attacks, how does this affect a mob attack?

We decided to record the attacks separately and then redraw the berserker misses...simple enough

I played it like a normal mob attack (draw all might cards at once). If at least one berserker was in that attack, I kept redrawing all blanks.

Interesting - that's a mega advantage for the mob that way. We saw a BGG post that said to track the berserker draws separately and only redraw their blanks....

It would not surprise me if I did a mistake in here as well. Would not be the first one. 🙂

Death to the unpainted one!

Haha, I've spent all my spare time painting the minis for my wife and friends, or the bosses... that is my lone unpainted mini. He is also the tank... and tanks hard, as you can see... so I keep expecting him to die. Mob with the Scar Tribe was rough

Your minis look great! It is a lot to paint, so it’s not something to worry about IMO. It’s just funny to imagine the Warden taunting everybody because of his lack of fashion sense 😆

Thanks, and I agree.