LOTRO Anniversary Missions | What, Where, How, Why?

What are Anniversary Missions?

The new Anniversary Missions are standalone versions of other soloable instances and quests in LOTRO, but only available during the event. They are mostly based on pre-existing content, or continue the story, but reworked to fit the requirements of a Mission.

Because they are short, they fit easily in between other Anniversary quests, especially if you’re waiting for the Fireworks to start.

As with all missions, those at the LOTRO Anniversary are scalable and always on-level.

What Level Do You Need to Be?

I believe you need to be a minimum of Level 20. But, apart from that, I can’t see any other requirements.

What is a Twist?

Twists exist in most other normal missions. They give you a warning of a mechanic, or a specific type of attack or other trap or device you need to be aware of.

LOTRO Twist: Never-Ending

LOTRO Twist: Inspiring Presence

There are no twists in Anniversary ones, just defeat things, keep others safe and get back alive.

Go into the Prancing Pony Inn in Bree Town and speak to the oddly-familiar “Hooded Stranger”. He’s quite rightly at the back and off to the side.

Asking for the location of the missions NPC is reasonable, there’s no quest-arc (or “vector”) taking you to him. I had searched for ages before I asked on social media.

Thankfully on xTwit pointed me in the right direction!

This Mission is based on the end of a side-quest chain in The Shire. The aim is to get through the Dourhand camp and defeat their leader.

• The fighting doesn’t start until you’ve /slapped the correct Dourhand outside the camp.
• This is a nice, linear quest. Just keep progressing through the camp slaughtering defeating Dourhands as you go.
• When you reach the end, take on the leader, who eventually unleashes his troll on you.

Bish-bash-bosh. You’re done.

This Mission takes place at Limael’s Vineyard, which also happens to be a great place for hunting Ered Luin Goblins.

The quests here are side-quests, arguably missable. But whenever I have a new Elf or High Elf, I still do them.

Quest Objectives

1. Collect Wine-flasks × 12 (from defeated Goblins)
2. Pick Grape Clusters from Vines × 6
3. Defeat Pampraush (objective appears after the first two have been completed)

You need to pluck grapes from these grape-vines.

Pampraush spawns up by the main building.

…there’s no time to lose. The goblins are likely drinking all the good wine as we speak!

Hooded Stranger

Tips

• The enemy goblins don’t seem to spawn until you’re down the path. The first goblin is near your first grape-vine (26.4S, 95.7W)
• Assuming you don’t aggro them, it seems you can walk past any goblin that’s asleep in a total drunken stupor.
• There are more grape-vines than you need, so don’t worry about “missing one”.
• One of the grape-vines is higher up. You may find using your “select nearest item” keyboard shortcut worthwhile.
• If you finish the mission objectives and are up near the main building, Pampraush may not spawn. Just run back down the path and up again and he will appear.

Drunk goblin on the floor during the Mission.

This Anniversary Mission harkens back to the first real time you encounter Lalia – before she opened up her shop in Bree. Reading about an amazing Prince from the Barrow-downs she runs out there not knowing what will greet her.

Mission Objectives

1. Escort Lalia to Safety
2. Lalia must stay alive. Duh.

Tips

The aim is to “escort Lalia to safety”, but don’t be fooled. You’re chasing her around the Barrow-downs, because she mislaid her cloak.

• She can take damage quite quickly, so be swift in grabbing aggro. This is especially true during the parts where you have three or so wights at once.
• Her movement speed also changes between walking and running, which can catch you off-guard.
• If you are in combat, however, Lalia does pause until you’ve dispatched the enemies.
• If you can shoot or aggro wights in Lalia’s general walking direction, you should save yourself some headaches.

At the end, ignore the fact that, at the end of the Mission she says she will “run home”. Watch as she blatantly turns and walks…back into the Barrow-downs. Your work is done. It really is!

After you've escorted Lalia to safety she walks back into the Barrow-downs!

Rescue by Moonlight is actually a key moment in the Ered Luin Epic questline. If you did not start as an Elf, High Elf, Dwarf or Stout-Axe, you may not have run into it at all. I did all three starters on my main character, because it can be helpful to see what’s going on “behind the scenes” before you head to Bree.

Your aim is to rescue an Elf called Avorthal who is being held my evil Dwarves in Kheledûl Docks.

Mission Objectives

1. Defeat Dourhands × 12 (not difficult, there are plenty)
2. Collect Treasure-boxes × 6
3. Locate the Irestone (this objective does not appear until the first two are complete)
4. Keep Avorthal Alive

Head for this ship once Dourhands and Boxes are done.

One of the unassuming treasure-boxes.

Tips

1. In the Epic version you have a few moments without alerting the Dourhands. Not in the Anniversary Missions version, I’m afraid!
2. Sometimes looting a treasure-box will spawn a rather annoyed Dourhand.
3. There appear to be more treasure-boxes on the map than you need to find.
4. “Locate the Irestone” is a false-flag. Actually go to the ship docked and speak to Avorthal.
5. Even when you defeat the ship’s Captain a few more dourhands join in the fight. Use AoEs to keept the heat off Avorthal as he doesn’t fight (which I thought he did in the Epic…)

Avorthal on the ship showing where the boss and adds spawn from.

LOTRO have now fixed the mission so it actually is night-time when you run it. Totally right, but it was funny to have it happen in the daytime.

Scary Quarry is home to a key moment in The Shire’s Epic too, though more for where it leads to than itself. One of the Wistmead quests during Fall Festival brings you to the quarry also. This mission won’t require you to go into the tunnels, thankfully.

Mission Objectives

1. Defeat Greenfields Biters × 8
2. Defeat Greenfields Tree-weavers x 6
3. Defeat Greenfields Queen × 1 (objective appears once the first two are complete)

Greenfields Biter

Greenfields Tree-weaver

Tips

• The different spiders thankfully look different, and are spread around the quarry. It’s on-level, of course, so check the red dots on your mini-map.
• You can ignore the tiny spiderlings.
• Depending on your AoE confidence, clear the area near the cave entrance before the Queen objective is triggered.
• When the objective for the Queen comes up, head down towards the cave entrance. The Queen and two additional Biters will appear.
• Enjoy the Hobbit’s comment about getting long with Bolgers “better than…spiders”!

The Queen Spider and her minions.

Robb Thornley’s mini-saga is a northern Bree-land side-quest, which you may have breezed past due to being over-levelled. In short, he was captured by Orcs. You had to bust in, free him, then bust him out to get him back to his wife.

Well being rescued wasn’t quite enough for Mister Thornley. He wants revenge, but knows he’s not really the person to deal it out. I suspect his wife (quite rightly) wouldn’t let him try. But you can put yourself in harms way for justice revenge can’t you? The location: Cirith Nûr, the best place for the Bree-land Orc Slayer Deed.

Please note: Orcs in this Mission Do not count towards your Bree-land Slayer Deed at this point.

Mission Objectives

1. Defeat Tarkrip Orcs × 8
2. Deliver More Vengeance x 8
3. Find the Red Reaver (and defeat him. Don’t just find him and run).

Tips

• As soon as you enter, there is an Orc either side of the ‘tunnel’ you go through.
• Finding Orcs is not a difficult task here.
• Once you’ve defeated (at least) 16 Orcs (kill more for pleasure if you wish), the Red Reaver objective will appear.
• Unlike on landscape, where he is roaming around, go close to the cave entrance and he will stroll out to meet you in battle.

Approach the cave and the Red Reaver will greet you. Sort of.

As things currently stand each mission awards:

• A relevant amount of XP and Coin
• Legendary Item XP
• 3 × Shagâni Ghîn
• A Choice of:
  • Historical Ikorbâni Scroll
  • Handful of Wild Seeds
  • Modest Charcoal Discovery

What are these things?

In summary, they are Umbar-related currency and reputation items.

I will check with a few alts, but on the ones I’ve tested so far, the currency and item-choice rewards are the same regardless of your character’s level.