After my own heart.

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

The real three hunters couldn't beat that stage on their own as well. They had to get some help from Eomer.

Yeah, it might be more thematic to play the Uruk-Hai two handed, with a hunters deck and and an Éomer deck (which allows for both Merry and Pippin as captives). That makes it tougher to have all the cards be thematic, since Éomer is the only hero we have who fought those Uruk-Hai, and there are no FFG-created Rohan heroes to use as placeholders. Éothain is the other named character who was there, but now that we have ally Éothain (The Dread Realm), hero Éothain seems even less likely. Ally Éomer for a solo deck would be ideal

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

The real three hunters couldn't beat that stage on their own as well. They had to get some help from Eomer.

Well you yourself were talking about heroes in decks as symbolic, so you'd be pretty OK to include, say, Eowyn, in such a deck. Theoden maybe, but at this point in the story he's not really in a supporting mood. Theodred is a few days dead at that point. Hama maybe? How about Dunhere or Erkenbrand? They fought in the battle of the Fords of Isen days before Merry and Pippin were taken. I do not know what they were doing while Eomer rode to intercept the Uruks. What did the survivors of the battle do afterward, return to Edoras, or remain at the Fords? Even if they stayed at the Fords, you can easily justify putting them in a deck as symbolic support, since their efforts at the Fords kept the land clear of orcs who would have been there while Aragorn & company hunted.

Taking eomer means 3 tactics heroes, and without hama it might be hard to win. But with trained for battle and maybe Song of travel+some rohan allies this is possible. Taking Eowin would make this possible, but at this time she did very little. Dunhern and erkenbrand hardly helped as well, so Legolas Gimli Eomer deck seems to be the most thematic pick. Fortunately, with trained for battle you can quest like crazy with Gimli and Eomer (boosted by this tactics Rohan ally who discards himself, decreasing threat as well). Aragorn can ready heroes for defense/attack, and with Anduril he is a dangerous defender. Maybe Seastan can help translate this ideas into a deck?

Managed to beat the marshes with Sam, Leadermir, Damrod. After i changed my deck a bit it went well.

Now the crossroads ... i do not have a good feeling about it though

After the resolution of the quest i chose the searching eye instead of +2 threat ( i already start with +2 threat on my campaign).

What option do you find the best?

For the people that haven't yet this Saga Expansion, how are the quests overall in solo (and with the use of thematic or less OP decks)?

As I've been reading here, Passage seems very thematic and more or less easy, Crossroads seems harder. What about Shelob's Lair?

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.

Maybe i miss something, but how can ithilien pit help in solo? With ambush player can attack anyway first on the engaged enemy, how does ithilien pit help?

Nickpes- By combining with ambush I meant that you now have 6 traps that "defend" for you, not that they should be played simultanously. It would be risky to rely on only 3 cards in you deck, and in this scenario Ithilien Pit does the same for 1 less resource (assuming that you can kill this enemy. And you lose Faramir's response...)

The problem I had trying to use the traps was that they are going to attach to the Harad enemies coming out of The Crossroads and then go into the Black Gate at the end of the turn. And in solo you have to let the elephants go. They're just awkward.

Well you yourself were talking about heroes in decks as symbolic

Specifically Galadriel, since she doesn't commit to the quest, attack or defend. It's easier to think of her as helping from afar. Also, Frodo and Sam need another hero, and (aside from Journey to the Cross-roads) she's the most thematic option, even in Mordor (where Sam asks her for light and water, and gets them). Aside from saga boxes 4 and 6, I'd prefer to avoid heroes that aren't physically present.

The other issue with playing The Uruk-Hai two-handed is that I'm trying to minimize hero swaps for campaign mode. I might house rule a thematic swap or two with no threat increase, but I'd like to limit that as much as possible. By playing Breaking of the Fellowship two-handed and The Uruk-Hai solo, I can leave out Sam without a threat increase. It's also thematically nice to have the three hunters stick together in solo, rather than having Fellowship Aragorn switching between the hunters deck (which will have Rohan allies anyways) and the Éomer deck. The solo hunters deck is just missing a new Legolas/Gimli hero (hopefully Spirit, although Leadership would allow for Celebrian's Stone) and ally Éomer.

For Journey to the Cross-roads, I might play it solo and house-rule a no-threat swap from Galadriel to Lore Faramir and Damrod. I have a deck (which might need a bit more support) that runs Ambush, Ithilien Pit, Poisoned Stakes, Ranger Bow (for Ithilien allies), and Forest Patrol. It uses Song of Battle and A Good Harvest to get access to Great Yew Bow and Dagger of Westernesse. The trap attaches to the enemy from The Cross-roads, unless it's an Oliphaunt (which you usually leave alone), in which case it attaches to any enemy from the encounter deck.

Tried multiple games on Crossroads with Leadermir, Sam, Damrod. All failed. Two of them I stopped on turn two cause I had already three mumaks on table (two revealed and one from treachury that I needed to engage the top facedown crossroads card). On Two other attempts I managed to keep Harad enemies from going to black gate after all Harad enemies left the crossroads, but threated out while I had 10 - 15 progress tokens on the quest cards. It is really tough and you need to have a good starting hand to make it work.I use a lot of traps cause the help with card draw too, but I need more questing power, especially when I do not draw the visionary leader

Nickpes- By combining with ambush I meant that you now have 6 traps that "defend" for you, not that they should be played simultanously. It would be risky to rely on only 3 cards in you deck, and in this scenario Ithilien Pit does the same for 1 less resource (assuming that you can kill this enemy. And you lose Faramir's response...)

ok, got your point

Nickpes - At the end of the planning phase all Harad enemies in the staging area go under The Black Gate. So those elephants don't stick around for long. But you have to engage everybody else or risk getting four cards under The Black Gate.

Estel - If you were able to beat Crossroads with that deck, please post it.

I am going to go back and try traps again. I may even switch to Lore Faramir just for the green resource.

Man, Journey to the Crossroads is a pretty hard quest. Frustratingly hard at times. So you have to reveal 1 enemy from under the Crossroads each turn, and then an encounter card. But there were times where I revealed another enemy and my threat was relatively low so I couldn't optionally engage both of them, which means next turn that's another enemy under the Black Gate. That's frustrating because I couldn't do anything to avoid it. It wasn't due to a bad play or bad decision, just pure bad luck. And I couldn't avoid it.

And I couldn't avoid it.

http://hallofbeorn.com/Cards/Search?Query=engage%20th&DeckType=Player&SetType=OFFICIAL

I am totally aware of these cards, but much like Carn Dum, I hate depending on a very specific strategy or a very select group of cards to be able to win. What if I'm playing Campaign and I'm not using Leadership or Tactics? Do I stop right there? Must I try countless times and hope that I don't get 2 enemies in the same round, which is the most likely? I'm not arguing that the quest can't be beat, I'm arguing that from a design standpoint quests like these are so specific and incompatible with so many decks that they're just not fun, to me at least.

I did Cross-roads 2-handed and 2-player, and it was a sphere combination that was the key to victory. Lore and tactics were the real heroes, with lore the centerpiece: Damrod+Haldir make for a nice little combination. But of course tactics was necessary to make Haldir viable for staging area attack (and the leadership Dunedain Marks helped as well).

I beat it several times just letting the Oliphaunts get through, but really wanted to get a campaign win with no Oliphaunts under the Black Gate. For that, tactics shone more, and I had Faramir with Ents to help deal with the elephants.

I am totally aware of these cards, but much like Carn Dum, I hate depending on a very specific strategy or a very select group of cards to be able to win. What if I'm playing Campaign and I'm not using Leadership or Tactics? Do I stop right there? Must I try countless times and hope that I don't get 2 enemies in the same round, which is the most likely? I'm not arguing that the quest can't be beat, I'm arguing that from a design standpoint quests like these are so specific and incompatible with so many decks that they're just not fun, to me at least.

I do think it's strange, and there probably should be much fewer enemies in the main deck for solo play. But it's not so hard to make a minor adjustment to overcome it. Lore has the easily splashable Mablung ally.

Alternatively, you can just let your threat raise to 36 then you will have no problem engaging everyone. It could be a good strategy for spirit since they have the ability to maintain a high threat without threating out. A quick way to increase your threat is to throw in some O Elbereth Gilthonial, which also happens to be great at getting rid of Oliphaunts.

Nickpes - At the end of the planning phase all Harad enemies in the staging area go under The Black Gate. So those elephants don't stick around for long. But you have to engage everybody else or risk getting four cards under The Black Gate.

I know

I draw one on turn one and engage him (ok, maybe suicide but I do). Next turn I draw another and from the encounter deck a treachury that asks me to engage the first facedown card from crossroads, which again was a Mumak ... so turn two with three mamuks. Happened twice. I have to shuffle better I guess

Nickpes - At the end of the planning phase all Harad enemies in the staging area go under The Black Gate. So those elephants don't stick around for long. But you have to engage everybody else or risk getting four cards under The Black Gate.

I know

I draw one on turn one and engage him (ok, maybe suicide but I do). Next turn I draw another and from the encounter deck a treachury that asks me to engage the first facedown card from crossroads, which again was a Mumak ... so turn two with three mamuks. Happened twice. I have to shuffle better I guess

Just for the record, overall on all my attempts i have managed to kill mumaks on four occations

I do think it's strange, and there probably should be much fewer enemies in the main deck for solo play.

I think you're supposed to get swamped with enemies regardless of how many players. You're still only revealing 1 enemy from under the Cross-roads at the beginning of the quest phase in 4 player, but it seems like all of the treacheries in this quest result in you taking an additional enemy out from under that card.

I do think it's strange, and there probably should be much fewer enemies in the main deck for solo play.

I think you're supposed to get swamped with enemies regardless of how many players. You're still only revealing 1 enemy from under the Cross-roads at the beginning of the quest phase in 4 player, but it seems like all of the treacheries in this quest result in you taking an additional enemy out from under that card.

As well as many travel effects.

It seems there are two strategies. Either march out into the middle of the road with valor, or stay in the bushes in secrecy. But in the latter case, make sure you have a way to get the enemies to notice you. You are trying to stop them after all.

Well ... I believe that there is no other way with whom I can lose this quest after my last attempt ...

20 progress on quest, 7 progress on crossroads, three Harad enemies under black gate, five Harad enemies dead and I am engaged with an Oliphant whom I chump block for a couple of turns so that I can quest and win the game ... put my characters on quest, ready to celebrate my first win and I draw from the encounter deck .... The Dark Lord's Summons ...

How the hell did Frodo managed to get to the Mount Doom