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A new limited time skirm event, Ill Omens, was launched Feb 7, 2019 (runs until Mar 11). It has been designed such that it can be run again in the future too.

Evil stirs in Minas Morgul, and harbingers of the Dead City spread across Middle-earth! Each day, your characters will have the chance to participate in a Skirmish Assault, which will send them to specific sets of existing Skirmishes in search of dangerous new foes. Characters who complete a Skirmish Assault will earn a special currency that can be exchanged for new equipment and cosmetic rewards. As for the most dedicated Skirmishers of Middle-earth, there are several new Deeds and titles to be earned during ‘Ill Omens’. In addition, characters who complete twelve Skirmish Assaults while the event is active will earn a powerful cap-level statted reward.

There are three components to this event for essence box rewards:



1) Skirmish Assault quests.

They consist of needing to enter 3-4 skirmishes and killing their Harbingers. These can be done daily by speaking to Nedda Pinleaf. These give you 2 Tokens of Ill Omens (barter for cosmetics and pets) and advance the Skirmish – Ill Omens meta-quest by 1.

These can be done at + or – 5 of your level..



2) Skirmish – Ill Omens meta-quest.

You must complete 12 Skirmish Assault quests (killing 3-4 Harbingers). This rewards you with an essence box (see below).



3) Skirmish Assault: Ill Omens (Tier 3) meta-deed.

You must kill the Harbinger (before completing the instance) in each of the 19 skirmishes listed. This can only be done at your level cap and on T3; with the exception of Barrow-Downs which can be done at T1. It can be for any group size (solo up to raid). This rewards you with an essence box (see below).

There are three additional deeds for Tokens of Ill Omens:

A) Harbingers of the Dead – Reward of 10 Tokens of Ill Omens

You must kill the 18 Harbingers listed; note that these only spawn in skirms during the daily events.



I started to keep track of which Harbingers appear in which Skirms. It appears to be completely random. Please feel free to comment on your findings on the following spreadsheet.



https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FyBGJ0yfo98WJulrTdR3JCeVthMmEipq/view?usp=sharing



B) Banisher of Ill Omens – Reward of 10 Tokens of Ill Omens

You must kill 60 Harbingers of the Dead



C) Banisher of Ill Omens (Advanced) – Reward is 10 Tokens of Ill Omens and the Ominous title.

You must complete Banisher of Ill Omens.

You must kill 120 Harbingers of the Dead



NOTE: When you complete the event/deed you will receive a piece of paper that is bound to account. DO NOT click on the paper to receive your essence box unless you are on the toon you want the essence to go to. For some crazy reason the essence box becomes bound to character …



Thank you to Knight of Arkenstone for this graphic of the new essences.

To start the event you need to speak with Nedda Pinleaf. She is at the skirm camps in the 21st Hall (6.2S, 105.0W), Bree, and Ost Galadh. This can be done daily if you completed the previous days’ Skirmish Assault quest. The reset is at 3am EST each day.

In order to complete the Ill Omens meta-quest you can do 3/4 skirmishes per day (depending on the rotation) via the Skirmish Assault quest. Each day you can advance the meta-quest by 1/12th. Meaning it will take a minimum of 12 days to receive the reward (assuming you do them daily). It does not appear that this is repeatable.



It is NOT necessary to complete the skirm, you just need to kill the Harbinger of Death to get credit for the event. These spawn at random points throughout the skirm, sometimes this comes quickly; just kill it and leave the instance.

Cosult the LOTRO Wiki for an excellent table describing how to unlock the various Skirmishes: https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Skirmish

A while back (2016/17), Pineleaf did some amazing skirmish guides (all in PDF) and posted them on LOTROplayers.com. Here are the links:

DEFENSIVE SKIRMISHES

OFFENSIVE SKIRMISHES

SURVIVAL

Ghynghyn of Arkenstone also did a very nice job of explaining the event via a YouTube video:

If you find this information to be helpful please consider making a small donation to buy me a coffee (or beer) by clicking the button below or send Dadi (Arkenstone) some in game gold or goodies 🙂