Been playing the Assault on Osgiliath scenario, and watched a video of a guy playing it. In the video, he chooses West Gate for his initial location. West Gate contains the text:

"Action: If there is no active location, search the encounter deck and discard pile for an Osgiliath location, reveal it and add it to the staging area. Then, make West Gate the active location. Shuffle the encounter deck."

So the guy says "That's an action, I don't have to do that". So he doesn't, and ends up getting a quick win as he quickly gets West Gate explored.

Is that true? He doesn't have to add another Osgiliath location? Or is this a mistake? It seems to me, given the circumstances of this scenario, if you didn't HAVE to get out another Osgiliath location, why would you ever do it? I'm guessing the guy is mistaken, and that the action is triggered by there being no active location, and you have to search the deck for another Osgiliath location.

Am I right or is he?

Here's the link to the video, by the way. Looks like he could use more views

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=676xl6qPum0

That quest is kind of broken in solo play. It can be very swingy. You can win on round 1 or round 10 depending on how the encounter deck is shuffled.

9 minutes ago, stimpaksam said:

That quest is kind of broken in solo play. It can be very swingy. You can win on round 1 or round 10 depending on how the encounter deck is shuffled.

You're right that it's swingy (or as I put it, it's very dependent on luck). I don't think that makes it broken though. I find the scenario kind of refreshingly different. If you win on round one just play another one.

Doesn't answer my question though.

Yes, he was correct in saying he didn't have to do that action.

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It seems to me, given the circumstances of this scenario, if you didn't HAVE to get out another Osgiliath location, why would you ever do it?

That's why I said it was kind of broken for solo play. But maybe "broken" was too harsh a word, more like a design flaw. The nightmare version fixes these flaws IMO and makes solo play more balanced.

4 hours ago, stimpaksam said:

Yes, he was correct in saying he didn't have to do that action.

If that is true, can someone explain to me WHY on earth anyone would ever perform that action? To win the scenario, you have to clear all Osgiliath locations in play. Given that, WHY would anyone ever want to add another? What possible advantage could there be in it?

I guess what you're saying is that this was a mistake or oversight on the part of the game designers.

2 hours ago, Vince79 said:

If that is true, can someone explain to me WHY on earth anyone would ever perform that action? To win the scenario, you have to clear all Osgiliath locations in play. Given that, WHY would anyone ever want to add another? What possible advantage could there be in it?

First turn, you can use West Gate's Action, quest through it to take control, then play Heirs of Earendil to discard the non-unique location you fetched for the cheesy win at the end of the round, assuming you didn't reveal another location during staging.

(Of course, this uses a player card way later in the life cycle than the quest's release…)

EDIT: I suppose more relevant at the time of release was fetching a Ruined Tower, traveling to it, and Asfalothing it for the quick win.

1 hour ago, sappidus said:

First turn, you can use West Gate's Action, quest through it to take control, then play Heirs of Earendil to discard the non-unique location you fetched for the cheesy win at the end of the round, assuming you didn't reveal another location during staging.

So wait, you're saying West Gate does force you to travel to another Osgiliath location? Because otherwise, why would you? We're getting some differences of opinion here.

That aside, I'm playing progressive style (at least for now), so Heirs of Earendil isn't available to me yet. I'm not having trouble beating the quest (it's one of the easiest in the cycle), I'm just looking for a rules clarification here.

7 hours ago, Vince79 said:

So wait, you're saying West Gate does force you to travel to another Osgiliath location? Because otherwise, why would you? We're getting some differences of opinion here.

No he's not saying it's mandatory. However, you can use the action outside the travel phase - more specifically before quest resolution on the first turn in order to explore it faster. If (and only if) you use this action, then you must reveal an extra location.

Indeed @stimpaksam and @rees263 have the right of it. Here's RR Triggered Ability (note that no mention is made of player card vs. encounter card, because it doesn't matter):

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Unless prefaced by the word forced, all action and response abilities are optional.

Also of note is this text from the Khazad-dûm insert:

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An "Action:" on an encounter card in play can be triggered by any player, following normal restrictions on triggering abilities.

6 hours ago, rees263 said:

No he's not saying it's mandatory. However, you can use the action outside the travel phase - more specifically before quest resolution on the first turn in order to explore it faster. If (and only if) you use this action, then you must reveal an extra location.

Okay, that makes sense. Use it to travel outside the travel phase. West Gate takes five resources to clear while others might only take two. You could clear the other location with Asfaloth (if you have it). Thanks to all who tried to beat this into my thick head, I appreciate the patience.

I still think the above would be a fairly rare situation, and probably more common in multiplayer. Unless you have everything lined up, I would probably just wait until the travel phase. But since the action is optional, that certainly makes West Gate the best choice for the first unique location, which could give you a quick easy win.

When published, the best location to choose for an easy/cheesy win was Ancient Harbor with TaBoromir. If another Osgaliath location doesn't come out, you just exhaust TaBoromir five times in the combat phase to win.

Of course, there's little point in playing a quest if you're not really trying to play the quest, so I don't think that means the quest is "broken". The trick doesn't work in multiplayer, and if solo players want to nerf a quest in the first turn with a particular combo it hurts no one else. Swingy is certainly a good word for the quest, and like all location-centered quests it's easier with less players.