Hi everyone,

I just started on Land of Shadow. I play mainly true solo. And the Journey to the Crossroads quest is brutal. I'm having way more difficulty than with Battle of Helm's deep. Even with the all killing Gandalf, Elrond, Glorfindel combo (a deck that went through all previous campaign quests with hardly a scratch and manages Escape from Dol Guldur) needed about 10 playthroughs to get through. My core + LOTR saga only decks struggled even harder relying on sam, lore denethor and gandalf (I like Gandalf and in solo I don't have to worry about annoying other players).

it does lead to some epic moments. On my final win i was battling 3 Oliphaunts simulataneously. And somehow I scratched out a win, but it seems you have to get very lucky against this quest, which in solo reveals 2 cards per player for about 9 rounds.

Am I missing something?
Does anyone have pointers?

Or is it just very hard?

It is a hard quest for sure. But I think it is actually harder with 2 players, because if a player gets The Dark Lord's Summons early and is unable to cancel it, it will often result in a quick beginning of an end. As in many other quests, I find the Black Riders Frodo Baggins absolutely essential to prevent some of these deadly scenarios, but the Peril keyword can still ruin the day easily. But it is a good mechanic, messing up with A Test of Will.

The hero Dunhere is part of the solution, and the event Straight shot (Mummacks have 0 defense). So try to kill ennemies in the staging are in pure solo.

I beat it solo by ignoring the Mumaks completely and letting them escape -- I'm sure I'll pay for that later. It took a number of tries to beat it.

It is a hard quest for sure. But I think it is actually harder with 2 players, because if a player gets The Dark Lord's Summons early and is unable to cancel it, it will often result in a quick beginning of an end. As in many other quests, I find the Black Riders Frodo Baggins absolutely essential to prevent some of these deadly scenarios, but the Peril keyword can still ruin the day easily. But it is a good mechanic, messing up with A Test of Will.

I second the usefulness of Black Riders Frodo. I finally got this quest last night (really behind on LOTR these days), and Frodo saved me on what was my second last turn by getting rid of a Haradrim Captain while I still had two Mumaks engaged! I tried the Straight Shot trick but never got a single one in my hand the whole game, so I ended up killing 2 out of the 3 Mumaks. Great quest! But tricky for sure. 3 enemies got by me, but not one Mumak

Thanks for the tips.

i have only a limited cardpool so straightshot is not available to me. the suggestion of Dunhere is good. Too bad I shuffled him out for Gandalf iwhne the campaign visited Rivendell.

Im solo peril is more or less meaningless the way I understood it.

Yep. Peril doesn't count when you play solo, but it can reaily screw you up when you play coop.

Very frustrating quest. I could beat it in my second try with a Dunedain deck with sheer luck. Noldor decks don't stand a chance at all.

Most of the times I loose because there are too many enemies attacking me. If that's not the case, I loose beacuse there are too many locations in the staging area. Like it has been said already, it doesn't seem right that you have to reveal two cards each turn as a solo player - right from the start! The scaling is really bad for solo, not sure how you're supposed to beat this one all alone.

I'm also not sure what you're supposed to do when you reveal these enemies with a surge effect. Often they surge in a second enemy, and that means game over.

I played it as a single scenario, so I'd like to know if it does it get any better when you're playing it in campaign mode when you have some boons to pimp your heroes.

Last thing I'm going to try now is a deck based on Bilbo as a defense bulwark. If anyone has other hero combo suggestions, please tell!

I beat it consistently with the Gandalf, Beregond, Elrond deck I posted a few weeks ago. But that is one of the strongest solo decks I have played. And I agree, the two cards a round, plus increasing the threat of the Cross-roads location, it is a lot, even though you start without a location in solo. You really need to start taking the enemies (except the Mumak, of course) on round one, as the threat should not be too big then. The good thing is you know the enemy before you commit, so if it is a Mumak, you quest more and leave it, if otherwise, the threat should only be 2 or 3 before staging, so you can probably just need to quest with a single hero, and two characters max.

I can see the Mumak's being really nasty in solo play, but my worry about ignoring them is that if you are playing in campaign mode you are (surely) just pushing them off to a later scenario! The side quest that lets you discard a non-unique enemy in play with you looks like it could be an answer (but I could never quest enough with combat strength to trigger it).

For the Mumak, try this combo : Rinvendell Blade on a hero, which gives Mumak 0 defense, and then a nice Straight shot and you're done!

(This is not my combo, it's from a Seastan deck).

Cool combo indeed!

What buggers me about the scenario is that there are too many cards that force you to engage enemies in the encounter deck or to put them under the Black Gate.

As for the strategy part, Bilbo did a good job in defending multiple attacks, but it still takes time to build him up, so you better draw some Mumaks at the start to give him some time.

One card that helped me a lot is Saruman. His ability is able to keep one nasty enemy in the staging area for one more turn. In the meantime he helps you defating the remaing enemies.

Funny thing: Today I built a rather decent Halbarad/Amarthiul/Bilbo deck. I managed to overcome all nine enemies (3 Mumaks (Olifants in German btw) being under the gate) and only had to make the 20 quest points plus exploring the gate. And then I drew that enocunter card that tells you to put one enemy that is engaged with you under the Black Gate or to reveal one of the enemies under the Crossroads card. Game over, just when I was about to win!And it was my own fault as I could have beaten that remaining enemy if I wanted to, but kept him - playing a Dunedain deck - out of habit, as he did pose no threat to my fellowship. Man, totally forgot about that card and screwed it!

When I saw the LOTR movies in theatres and on Blu-Ray in English, they also say ''Olifants'' here in Quebec. I never understood why they say Mumak in the game...

I tried the defence reduction plus straight shot, but never drew any straight shots! Very annoying! In my campaign I have a pretty beefed up Eomer, who on his own slowly wore down 2 Mumak/Oliphaunts, and the third was left as I quested out the game. Without Eomer though...

Saruman used to be my go to for dealing with certain quests. In campaign mode, is he now allowed after Treason of Saruman? It doesn't say in the rulebook that we can't use him, does it? I lost my rulesheet for this current Saga box, which is annoying.

When I saw the LOTR movies in theatres and on Blu-Ray in English, they also say ''Olifants'' here in Quebec. I never understood why they say Mumak in the game...

The Lord of the Rings was originally a series of books.

I tried the defence reduction plus straight shot, but never drew any straight shots! Very annoying! In my campaign I have a pretty beefed up Eomer, who on his own slowly wore down 2 Mumak/Oliphaunts, and the third was left as I quested out the game. Without Eomer though...

Saruman used to be my go to for dealing with certain quests. In campaign mode, is he now allowed after Treason of Saruman? It doesn't say in the rulebook that we can't use him, does it? I lost my rulesheet for this current Saga box, which is annoying.

Well, I don't play in campaign mode.

Nonetheless, I always believed that Saruman wasn't scheming all the time in Orthanc (that's just elven propaganda), but I'd like to think he was peacefully hiking through the Ithilien woods, slaying orcs and Harad bandits on his way.

I tried the defence reduction plus straight shot, but never drew any straight shots! Very annoying! In my campaign I have a pretty beefed up Eomer, who on his own slowly wore down 2 Mumak/Oliphaunts, and the third was left as I quested out the game. Without Eomer though...

Saruman used to be my go to for dealing with certain quests. In campaign mode, is he now allowed after Treason of Saruman? It doesn't say in the rulebook that we can't use him, does it? I lost my rulesheet for this current Saga box, which is annoying.

Well, I don't play in campaign mode.

Nonetheless, I always believed that Saruman wasn't scheming all the time in Orthanc (that's just elven propaganda), but I'd like to think he was peacefully hiking through the Ithilien woods, slaying orcs and Harad bandits on his way.

Heh! I would like Saruman to be back in my team again - it really hurt losing his pinch-hitting. He works so well with Galadriel, since he gets to quest and then whack someone for 5! And dump a card out for a turn. Sooooo good.

Maybe he made a detour on the way our of Isengard?

I tried the defence reduction plus straight shot, but never drew any straight shots! Very annoying! In my campaign I have a pretty beefed up Eomer, who on his own slowly wore down 2 Mumak/Oliphaunts, and the third was left as I quested out the game. Without Eomer though...

Saruman used to be my go to for dealing with certain quests. In campaign mode, is he now allowed after Treason of Saruman? It doesn't say in the rulebook that we can't use him, does it? I lost my rulesheet for this current Saga box, which is annoying.

I guess you need good card draw (did I say Lore?)...

Well, the rulebook only says that you cannot use Aragorn in campaign mode.

I tried the defence reduction plus straight shot, but never drew any straight shots! Very annoying! In my campaign I have a pretty beefed up Eomer, who on his own slowly wore down 2 Mumak/Oliphaunts, and the third was left as I quested out the game. Without Eomer though...

Saruman used to be my go to for dealing with certain quests. In campaign mode, is he now allowed after Treason of Saruman? It doesn't say in the rulebook that we can't use him, does it? I lost my rulesheet for this current Saga box, which is annoying.

Well, I don't play in campaign mode.

Nonetheless, I always believed that Saruman wasn't scheming all the time in Orthanc (that's just elven propaganda), but I'd like to think he was peacefully hiking through the Ithilien woods, slaying orcs and Harad bandits on his way.

All evidence that Saruman is up to no good comes from Gandalf making a speech at the council of Elrond, and the story is full of holes. Radagast an unwitting pawn? Eagles carried him off the tower? A magic super-fast horse that he instantly broke and became best friends with brought him home just in time?

The wizard's power is in his voice.

For the Mumak, try this combo : Rinvendell Blade on a hero, which gives Mumak 0 defense, and then a nice Straight shot and you're done!

(This is not my combo, it's from a Seastan deck).

Well, I remember it a long time before first seeing Seastan here, haha. But there is really no need for credits here.

Revealed in Wrath is even easier to deal with Mumaks. I personally try to avoid them for moral reasons, as naive as it is in a card game.

I tried the defence reduction plus straight shot, but never drew any straight shots! Very annoying! In my campaign I have a pretty beefed up Eomer, who on his own slowly wore down 2 Mumak/Oliphaunts, and the third was left as I quested out the game. Without Eomer though...

Saruman used to be my go to for dealing with certain quests. In campaign mode, is he now allowed after Treason of Saruman? It doesn't say in the rulebook that we can't use him, does it? I lost my rulesheet for this current Saga box, which is annoying.

I guess you need good card draw (did I say Lore?)...

Heh, yeah. The deck usually does OK for card draw via Galadriel, and only gains Lore via her - perhaps I should add Daeron's Runes just to deck thin. In this case she got hit (as the most expendable hero) with Overcome by Grief and a lack of readying effects (the deck has loads of them, but they never surfaced) so I ended up just swarming Rohan allies instead. The main purpose of the deck is to load up Eomer to kill stuff and drop in expendable Rohan allies to quest and then die/discard. I feel a bit callous when playing it...

For the Mumak, try this combo : Rinvendell Blade on a hero, which gives Mumak 0 defense, and then a nice Straight shot and you're done!

(This is not my combo, it's from a Seastan deck).

Well, I remember it a long time before first seeing Seastan here, haha. But there is really no need for credits here.

I mentioned it like this because of a video Seastan made with this combo for this specific quest.

On 8/1/2016 at 5:22 AM, Fingolfin Fate said:

I beat it consistently with the Gandalf, Beregond, Elrond deck I posted a few weeks ago. But that is one of the strongest solo decks I have played. And I agree, the two cards a round, plus increasing the threat of the Cross-roads location, it is a lot, even though you start without a location in solo. You really need to start taking the enemies (except the Mumak, of course) on round one, as the threat should not be too big then. The good thing is you know the enemy before you commit, so if it is a Mumak, you quest more and leave it, if otherwise, the threat should only be 2 or 3 before staging, so you can probably just need to quest with a single hero, and two characters max.

so far, one loss with this deck on easy mode. let's try again and see how "consistent" this deck plays