,, Or, how the holy heck do you beat The Old Forest without building a deck which is optimized to work on TOF. I think I've played this quest 14 or 15 times and barely beaten it once. Does anyone have suggestions on a deck to play through the saga solo which can deal with The Old Forest

I don't have any real advice, but I went through all the Fellowship of the RIng scenarios with my Gondor deck and with my Silvan deck fairly easily. Of course Journey in the Dark required more than 1 try but I don't recall Old Forest being that difficult for any kinda well-rounded deck to be honest. Maybe you've just been unlucky, or maybe I was extremely lucky.

I think that I'm jinxed as far as this quest goes. I think I'm currently on a 1-14 win-loss ratio and it's really cheesing me off. I keep on either getting location-locked or run out of threat before I can get all the VP I need.

I registered just to share the decks I made this week to tackle this exact problem. I decided to give the full campaign a go again (I usually play the boxes separate).

This first deck got my through A Shadow of the Past, The Old Forest, Fog on the Barrow Downs, A Knife in the Dark, Flight to the Ford and The Ring Goes South. Aragorn snuffed it on Journey in the Dark so I replaced him with Tactics Boromir. The latter hero trio's deck was reworked quite a bit and just beat Journey in the Dark, but BARELY - round 23, threat 49. Most epic win ever (which is what the game is all about!) But this first deck served me very well and was a blast to play:

Total Cards: (50)

Hero: (4)
1x Aragorn (Core Set)
1x Merry (The Black Riders)
1x Pippin (The Black Riders)
1x Frodo Baggins (The Black Riders)

Ally: (21)
2x Son of Arnor (Core Set)
2x Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes)
3x Imladris Stargazer (Foundations of Stone)
2x Gleowine (Core Set)
1x Henamarth Riversong (Core Set)
2x Master of the Forge (Shadow and Flame)
2x Miner of the Iron Hills (Core Set)
2x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
2x Errand-rider (Heirs of Numenor)

Attachment: (20)
1x Celebrian's Stone (Core Set)
2x Sword that was Broken (The Watcher in the Water)
2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
2x Gondorian Shield (The Steward's Fear)
2x Blood of Numenor (Heirs of Numenor)
1x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
2x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)
2x Gondorian Fire (Assault on Osgiliath)
2x Dagger of Westernesse (The Black Riders)
2x Song of Wisdom (Conflict at the Carrock)
2x Song of Travel (The Hills of Emyn Muil)

Event: (9)
2x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
2x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Daeron's Runes (Foundations of Stone)
2x Frodo's Intuition (The Black Riders)

There's so many combos in this deck, but admittedly some of the good ones are Aragorn-based so unlucky draws might stifle it. Card draw is above average, which can lead to a total steamroll on some scenarios if the deck is nice to you. Comments on how to tighten it up are very welcome, I've been playing LOTR LCG for about 1.5 years now and have first 4 cycles (except first 3 APs of Ringmaker), and all saga except Land of Shadow.

Simce a good few expansions have come out since I started this (and I rarely play solo) does anyone have any suggestions on what a strong solo deck is in the current meta.

Not exactly an answer to your question, but... I play 2-handed, and when I choose heroes for my campaign I choose based on 1) theme, 2) heroes with multiple sphere versions, and 3) synergy in mind.

1- theme for obvious reasons

2- multiple spheres because you are allowed to change the version of a hero that you are using without incurring a threat penalty. You are also allowed to swap heroes between decks. I open up more deck possibilities by picking heroes this way, which allows me to more easily tailor my deck for a specific quest. As an example, Gimli/Beregond(T)/Beravor with Amarthiul/Elfhelm/Eowyn(Sp) for Passing of the Grey company but I failed the quest, so I retooled for lower threat and threat reduction effects, giving it a second go with Gimli/Eowyn(T)/Beravor with Amarthiul/Elfhelm/Beregond(Sp) and won the second time.

3-synergy so I can build powerful decks, of course.

If I were doing solo I would try to pick three heroes who had multiple versions each. In the current cardpool that is pretty easy to do, and it would allow me to build a more combat or willpower-oriented deck depending on what the next quest in the saga demands.

I never thought of the whole 'using heroes with multiple versions' idea. It makes sense. I was thinking about going with a Beorn/Beregond/Eowyn deck (it's a old school deck build I had some success with and Eowyn has a lot of new toys now) but the new versions of Beregond and Eowyn make things more interesting.