I can't find anywhere in the rulebook where it says what happens to influence on a Shadow Stronghold during the Hero Rally Step if a Hero happens to be there.

Does the influence stay put because influence cannot be removed from a stronghold?

Does the influence go away but then can be immediately replaced as desired during the Sauron Action Step?

Perhaps I just missed it in the rulebook....

CrowOfPyke said:

"In this step, each hero discards all influence tokens from his
current location (as long as he is not in a Shadow Stronghold)." (p. 11)

Further, it has been ruled that Encounters also cannot be used to remove influence from a Shadow Stronghold (there is at least two I can think of that would allow the Heroes to do that). Basically Shadow Strongholds never lose influence from them.

Thanks for the reply!

If you want to get rid of a lot of influence: wait a turn at the foot of Mt. Doom

Doom1502 said:

Wouldn't work around here. I don't really ever place any influence either in Barad-Dur or into Mordor or connect out of BD for that matter. No Plots in Mordor require influence, while the line of Dol Guldur-Mt. Gundabad Plots do. Mordor is also easier to protect with Minions (no less than three start there or within one move of it, Black Serpent) and the Heroes have less point in even going there. As for the RW to Shire/6 influence Mission, unless I draw the teleport Shadow Card, I'll just run my token to the Finale and get nice bonus for the final combat, it's too much work to get the influence chain connected up there and too easy for the Heroes to cut it (since they get a Rest Step before the final Story Step).

Interesting. The Sauron of my choice loves fear, and so he sometimes needs to connect Barad Dur when a hero gains wisdom or Eleanor is in play.

Once I won as Sauron because I drew the Event card that lets you teleport a Minion into the Shire^^ But I agree: in our games Sauron has never won with 6 influence with the shire: either he had the teleport card and won or he didn't.

Having now played 2 games as Sauron, I would imagine guarding extensions of influence from Barad Dur to the Shire would be nigh impossible - especially with 3 Heroes in play.

Easier to run the ring wraith's there

That depends. We had an interesting game last week.

Sauron had the Shire-goal to achiev and would've won if the heroes didn't got an Event where they could move their token one space foreward and end the game before Saurons action step. If they hadn't Saurons yellow marker and the hero marker would've been on top of each other one space before the Finale. Sauron would've chosen 3x influence, the connections were good enough, and he had us convinved that his goal is to reach the third part of the game with the yellow marker. And then he would'Ve taken the gollum-shadow ("shire, baggins", something like that in english) card and ... all would've been over.

We naver had such a situation before and wouln't have guessed it, but sheer luck saved the heroes