Looks like you'll have to take the encounter card option in those cases. It is hard to evade the searching eye!

So how are people planning on dealing with 3 Oliphaunts?

So I thought that GrandSpleen's counter to the Burden was pretty nifty until I thought about it more. Don't we need to be able to fully resolve one or the other? So if we use Mirror (for example) at the end of turn when say 2/3 or our heroes are exhausted, can we simply exhaust the last one? I thought we had to reveal another card. (Which would still be better than revealing it during staging mind you, but not nothing.)

Thoughts?

The mirror, by the way, is safe, but the Old Bogey-stories boon is not: the card only triggers when you "draw" it. If you can discard it from your deck (Zigil Miner, A Very Good Tale, Expert Treasure Hunter), or get it into your hand without "drawing" it (Mirror, King Under the Mountain), you'll evade its effect. I kind of like this little 'game within a game.' They did the same thing with the Poisoned Counsels burden from Helm's Deep.

So how are people planning on dealing with 3 Oliphaunts?

Got the box yesterday and looking the quest cards had the same thought. I am playing solo one hand. So if ever four enemies get past me, i lose the game. If an oliphaunt comes out on turn one or turn two, or even up to turn four, there is no hope i can win him, so i'll let him go (maybe there is not much hope even if he comes out last). So possibly all of them will escape me and it will only take another Haradrim for me to lose ... seems pretty tough

So how are people planning on dealing with 3 Oliphaunts?

I haven't tried it yet, but the old trick from Heirs of Numenor seems like it would still work. Rivendell Blade+Straight Shot.

Helm! Helm!

Both are quite good .... any for me that I am planning to try (ok, suicide is better word) with a thematic Dunedain Loragorn, Halbarad, Beravor deck ? They have got me all the way through this cycle and I want to give them a shot

The new Speak Your Promise! event could also help you discard an Oliphaunt with Straight Shot, and do so without defending an attack. But you'd have to get Frodo to 5 willpower to do it. If he's got +1 willpower and then you use the new Frodo's +2 willpower effect, you've got it. Maybe not that practical, but it's an option if your campaign deck doesn't have easy access to Rivendell Blade.

I like that Helm! Helm! idea too. If you have a lot of attack potential, the Delay the Enemy sidequest could actually come in useful here.

And here's a weird thought: you could use the Saruman ally to delay putting an enemy under The Black Gate for a round.

O Elbereth! Gilthonial! could also work, but it would push you into pretty high threat. If you have Loragorn though it might not be so bad. And if you're running with Celebrian's Stone, then you already have access to Spirit.

Both are quite good .... any for me that I am planning to try (ok, suicide is better word) with a thematic Dunedain Loragorn, Halbarad, Beravor deck ? They have got me all the way through this cycle and I want to give them a shot

I wrote this having in mind Carn Dum ....

That award goes to the "Is this game dying?" posts.

2 wins so far (in 5 tries) against Journey to the Cross-roads, but the results were not ideal.... all 3 Oliphaunts got through on my first win, and second win I had 2 Oliphaunts and a Man of Harad get through (and he has Surge on him, so probably not a good thing).

Aaaannd I got it. Only a Man of Harad got through, satisfied with that result. Tough luck Oliphaunts, I will NOT see you later!

I switched to an Ent army on the Faramir/Sam/Mablung side and heavy questing with cancellation galore on the Galadriel/Haldir/Damrod side (with traps splashed in and continuing to use Haldir's snipe as much as possible).

I did get lucky with the scenario: no Oliphaunts until the end. They were the last 4 cards under The Cross-roads, and by that time I was verrrrry ready for them. A Test of Will did its fair share of work, and I took out two treacheries and a Man of Harad with Out of the Wild, later cancelling another copy of one of those treacheries with The Door is Closed. Man I love that card.

I did find a neat little trick. The Henneth Annun location is meant to give you some respite from combat, but more often than not it really hurts you because you end up with a ton of combat and threat in the staging area in the following round. However, if you wait until the Planning phase to make it the active location (I used West Road Traveller to do this), you can still deal with enemies who were around in the previous round, then get a round without taking a card out from under The Cross-roads. You can have your cake and eat it too!

Crossroads is a bugger in solo. I'm trying to play it thematic with Sam, Leadermir and Damrod, but just getting whooped. Thought I was going to make it tonight, but no. FAIL

You are essentially revealing two cards per turn and traps aren't really the answer because they will attach to the crossroads card which you have to engage anyway (or it will go to the Black Gate anyway). Meanwhile the threat in the staging is ticking up regardless of what you do.

Any ideas?

I haven't managed to win it solo with a thematic deck, but I think that Ithilien Pit seems the best trap for this scenario. Most opponents have high engagement cost, and if you combine it with ambush you won't have to defend most of the time. Using plenty of allies and Visionary Leadership can help questing, but honestly I don't see how can you kill a Mumak while playing thematicly. Maybe you can engage one on turn 7-8, when you already have an army of allies and can chump block with the one readied by Faramir

I am really puzzled by this. Tried yesterday the Marshes with a thematic deck of Sam, Leadermir and Damrod. I hardly get passed stage one. I start with a threat of 30 (I have a +2 penalty on my campaign), and can never balance my needs on questing and attacking Gollum to turn him on my side.

I'll change my deck a bit -trying to be thematic again- or else I might need to include ents in it (I want to stick thematic on heroes at least, I've done it my whole campaign so far)

edit: After a bit of change I made it to quest stage 3, but I started with two undead enemies + a Nazgul engaged with me and all but two allies exhausted, threat on 45 so ... If I knew that when I enter the quest stage 3 I should add an undead I would have played differently (I never read the quest cards untill I finally make it to them , so the first time I progress from a stage, the next one is tottaly unknown to me)

Frodo

Sam

Galadriel

Allies Number

Faramir 2

Dunedain Watcher 2

Dunedain Wanderer 2

Anborn 1

Northern Tracker 2

Arwen 2

Damrod 1

Bilbo 1

Galadriel's Handmaiden 3

Curious Brandybuck 1

Gandalf 3

Warden of Healing 2

Total 22

Attachments

Steward of Gondor 2

Unexpected Courage 1

Ancient Mathom 2

Mirror of Galadriel 2

Silver Harp 2

Song of Travel 2

Resourceful 3

Nenya 3

Total 17

Events

Sneak Attack 3

Galadhrim's Greeting 2

Elrond's Council 3

A Test of Will 3

Total 11

Sorry for the crappy formatting. That's the deck I used for The Dead Marshes that was thematic and worked well. Really struggling with Crossroads now though.

hm, for me Galadriel or Gandalf are not thematic to be honest here, as they were not there at the marshes or crossroads (well, neither Faramir at marshes I agree). I try to be strictly thematic (I mean, Dunedain rangers are not thematic for me on the Land of Shadows) and maybe this is a mistake, I have to admit, cause this is a game and not the books and I am loosing a lot of fun trying to play like I am in the books ...

Galadriel's pretty thematic, since she doesn't directly commit to the quest and in the book she's supporting Frodo and Sam from afar (for example, after Sam says her name and tugs on the elven rope, the knot comes undone). Core set Gandalf also seems relatively thematic if he's not used for direct damage or attacking, since he's like an event representing the help the Ringbearer gets from Gandalf and Aragorn drawing Sauron's attention west, or representing luck/fate. (I consider ally Elrond mostly thematic for the same reason.) I hope that the sixth saga box provides some powerful attachments and events to support players who want to attempt the Frodo and Sam quests with minimal allies.

Galadriel's pretty thematic, since she doesn't directly commit to the quest and in the book she's supporting Frodo and Sam from afar (for example, after Sam says her name and tugs on the elven rope, the knot comes undone).

Good point, never thought about it

There is also a scene in Book 3 where Gandalf is bending his will against the enemy. So that's my rationale for Gandalf. I think we are a long way from Sam being able to do it all with a bunch of attachments and events.

I managed to win Marshes with only Sam and Galadriel and no allies. It wasn't easy and required some luck, but with low starting threat I avoided enemies and got resourcefulls. I then equiped Sam with cloak and signs and with Taste it Again! and Frodo's bonus attack "killed" Smeagol. Then I had enough attack to slowly kill undead. I progressed at first by Song of Nimrodel (lots of resources of Sam from resourcefull) and then I had enough willpower. It took me a lot of time (something like 15 turns) but I managed. Fighting Shelob is another story though... My deck didn't stand any chance

Congrats for beating The Dead Marshes like that! I'm hoping against hope that we will reach the point where all of the Frodo/Sam quests are beatable with minimal allies (not counting Journey to the Crossroads: in campaign mode, I might switch to two-handed just for this quest). Ideally, I'd only use core Gandalf and Elrond, which means I'd get at least some benefit from Galadriel's first ability. We're definitely not at that point yet, but with support from the sixth saga box and Flight of the Dreamcaller, we might reach it.

Flight of the Dreamcaller announced more support for decks with fewer than three heroes. I asked Matt Newman whether this support would be worded such that it supports decks with two regular heroes and one saga hero. He said no, since they "tend to keep certain saga considerations separate when making cards for the cycle" (partly to avoid confusing players who haven't played the saga expansions), but he also said that I had his blessing to play those upcoming cards as though they said "if you control 2 or fewer non-Baggins, non-Fellowship heroes." (By the same logic, you could play Strength of Arms in a mono-Leadership deck if you controlled a saga hero.)

The saga stage that still haunts me is the seventh, Hunting the Uruk Hai. Just can't beat that with the three hunters.

Yeah, but I'm sure we're going to get new hero versions of Legolas and Gimli at some point, so I'm waiting for that before deciding whether the three hunters can beat The Uruk-Hai. Hopefully we'll get a spirit version of one of them, which will allow for cheap, high-willpower, thematic Rohan allies. My hope is that by the time the sixth saga box comes out, it will be possible to do a campaign that's quite close to the books. I'm also looking forward to Merry and Pippin allies for the Gandalf-Aragorn-Sam deck I'm using for The Ring Goes South and Journey in the Dark (Breaking of the Fellowship will be two-handed, with the Gimli deck continuing to the Uruk-Hai and Legolas replacing Boromir: probably Aragorn-Sam-Pippin and Gimli-Boromir-Merry). I'd also love ally Aragorn for A Knife in the Dark and Flight to the Ford.