One of the Hero's victory condiditons is the need to kill all but 2 of Saurons Minions. The way I've read the rules of peril and combat is that the Sauron player decides which to have happen. It becomes impossible to confront a minion in a permenantly perilous spot/Gothmag's aura. After ending your turn in the space with a minion sauron can simply move the minion away even if you surround him. I realize that moving a monion just to avoid a fight is a waste of saurons precious actions but it also just rendered a whole hero's turn moot. Am I interpreting the rules correctly in this regard?

RAW, you do need to end your turn in a location with the Minion and force Sauron to either spend an action to move away or face a fight (multiple heroes can surround a minion easier). That said, you could just as easily ignore your Mission and take down Sauron's Plots instead (since his minion are in hiding, not defending the Plots) and get a huge edge going into the Final Combat, winning it easily.

There is a new clarification (which I really, really HATE) that the heroes are allowed to fight a monster/minion in a Perilous location if Sauron chooses Peril. I hate it because there is no hint of it in the rules whatsoever and seems simply to have been made up to get around the issue of Sauron hiding his minions to stop one Mission:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/841610/the-abstract-of-70-plays

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/860686/monsterminion-and-peril-sauron-choose-or-both-occu/page/1

Wow, really? How come such clarification isn't in the FAQ?

It's come out since the last FAQ update and don't really see MEQ getting another FAQ, unless an expansion gets made.