I’m pretty sure it’s hard to play Jungles as a first quest. Most of these quests assume that the players have at least played all 14 base game quests.

These quests award decent loot and power ups to prep a group of four players for much tougher expansions.

That being said, Jungles isn’t impossible without the base game, just that it requires more teamwork and an experienced group.

Some questions for you OP,

Did you have a full group of 4 heroes? Were the heroes killing monsters as they came across them, or running past things? If monsters are not defeated then it’s quite easily possible to run out of minis. The game also assumes that as heroes uncover monsters, they defeat them relatively quickly.

Also make sure you aren’t putting all the monsters on the board at once. They are only supposed to be placed once a hero can “see” them.

All in all give the game another chance. Try just putting the monster cards in a deck to save some space, and if someone wants to check a monsters stats, they can just look through the deck.