actually is a cool quest! Even with mu Super Elrond Vilya Deck you never know how you will ending . Blast!

I did, but on each stage 2 i had only one guardian on ( on stage three all of them) and i want to make sure i was correct

There is a trechery card that puts a guardian from victory display into play. I don't know how you could play this quest and missed that.

maybe it came as a shadow ... ok, thus I played it correctly. Lost anyway

The added doomed cost on these cards kind of sucks- you're already paying for them, it only triggers when they enter play and you have to raise everyone's threat... that's why I don't like Greyflood Wanderer, 3 cost and doomed 2 is terrible to me but could be helpful in certain situations. This Mirkwood Pioneer however looks real good, only doomed 1 is great. And another random trait: Woodman... lol

Anyways, this quest is really fun and has great replayability but is definitely more difficult with one player as you have to deal with all the guardians at the end by yourself and they all attack multiple times.. so brutal, I've died many times

Ian included Greyflood Wanderer in his location control deck for The Old Forest and it was quite effective. In the early game, with many locations in the staging area, his ability was quite powerful. In the late game, he still quests well for the cost, or can be used as a chump blocker in case of emergency. The thing to remember with these doomed allies is that you don't have to add the doomed cost, and the card can still be useful. The advantage of including them is that it provides another option, in case you need it. Making your decks more versatile is a good idea, and some of these allies will be very effective in certain scenarios - just like the Wanderer was in The Old Forest.

Thinking more about Greyflood Wanderer, would you take him ahead of Northern Tracker? NT costs one more resource, but 2 less threat and is a repeatable source of progress. Maybe you take both, but I'll take the venerable Tracker ahead of GW.

The added doomed cost on these cards kind of sucks- you're already paying for them, it only triggers when they enter play and you have to raise everyone's threat... that's why I don't like Greyflood Wanderer, 3 cost and doomed 2 is terrible to me but could be helpful in certain situations. This Mirkwood Pioneer however looks real good, only doomed 1 is great. And another random trait: Woodman... lol

Anyways, this quest is really fun and has great replayability but is definitely more difficult with one player as you have to deal with all the guardians at the end by yourself and they all attack multiple times.. so brutal, I've died many times

Ian included Greyflood Wanderer in his location control deck for The Old Forest and it was quite effective. In the early game, with many locations in the staging area, his ability was quite powerful. In the late game, he still quests well for the cost, or can be used as a chump blocker in case of emergency. The thing to remember with these doomed allies is that you don't have to add the doomed cost, and the card can still be useful. The advantage of including them is that it provides another option, in case you need it. Making your decks more versatile is a good idea, and some of these allies will be very effective in certain scenarios - just like the Wanderer was in The Old Forest.

Please tell us more about this quest?

The Trial of Perseverance is just a joke, use Saruman to let the location leave play, and you can get through it....

And the barrow location will remain there to bug you until the end of the game.

The Old Forest is very location heavy. Most of the locations have victory points. The first stage is simply a "setup" stage and then players move to a random stage 2 (of which there are 4). Players keep going from one random stage 2 to the next at the end of each round, until they have accumulated 5 times the number of players worth of victory points (from locations) in the victory display. Once this happens, the players instead move to stage 3 at the end of the round. There are some enemies, and they can be dangerous if you don't plan carefully, or get caught over-questing. The worst enemy makes an immediate attack from the staging area at strength 4 against the first player, whenever the active location is explored.

Many of the locations have terrible passive effects that apply while they are in play: e.g. players cannot heal, players can only play 1 card from their hand each round, progress must be placed on this location before the current quest. There is also a location with a forced effect that makes a player raise their threat by X when optionally engaging an enemy (X is the enemy's Attack). This made it harder for the combat-focused decks to help the quest-focused decks. Sentinel on Elrohir was very helpful (Elven Mail is amazing). I even managed almost the entire game without a copy of Steward of Gondor, so I had Errand-riders frantically transferring my other resources so that he could defend multiple attacks.

Each stage 2 does something different, and one of them removes a location from the victory display, which could make this quest almost impossible solo (or without serious location-control). They all have a passive that triggers if there are less than X locations in the staging area at the beginning of the round, you have to add locations until you have X. (X = # of players). For us, in a three player game we almost always had at least 3 locations in play. This is why Greyflood, Northern Tracker, and especially Asfaloth were so important. No surprise, Idraen is beyond amazing in this scenario. Also Elf-stone and Ancient Mathom are highly recommended.

The last stage is no joke. First you add Old Man Willow and Withywindle to the staging area, then you reveal number of players - 1 cards from the encounter deck. Old Man is indestructible, immune and cannot leave the stage area. He attacks each player for 5 each round and raises the threat of the defending player by removing more locations from the victory display. When we beat it, I spent my precious Leadership resources to play Faramir and everyone quested with every single character they had to clear the Withywindle (which must be explored to win) and put the 18 progress on the 3B. My threat and Ian's were both at 47 and Matt H's threat was around 43. Ian and I would have likely died that round to threat increase, not to mention the attacks of multiple enemies. It was a thrilling, "by the skin of our teeth" type of victory. The Old Forest is beatable, and had we all built specifically for it, or had a drawn a Steward earlier, we probably could have done better. Still, I suspect that players who go into it blind with decks that lack a strong mix of location-control, questing and combat will be very frustrated.

Some of the treacheries are basically must-cancel in multiplayer. The worst was probably "Falling Branches": Each player removes a character they control from the quest. If the chosen character is a hero, deal 2 damage to it, 3 damage instead if it is an ally. Absolutely brutal in the early game when the risk of location lock is looming. It also totally throws off your willpower calculations. Eowyn and Protector of Lorien are really helpful as well, since it helps to be able to control your progress down to the point. Good old Bombadil will show up from time to time, great stats and helps with the quest, though he goes away at the end of the round. Sadly, we lost him as a shadow card a couple times in the game that we won - he certainly would have made combat less dangerous, especially in the later rounds. Anyway, the fact that it is challenging, and thematic, and part of the Saga, makes it one of my new favorites.