Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by 258092

When you reach the stage where you are champion for your first faction and are doing this quest for champion seals while you have the option to open up another city for valiant stage, you can do this quest at the same time as the valiant version. That's the troll version there, but you get the idea.

Comment by adashiel

For the record, this is the Horde version of the quest, with the exception of death knights. Unlike other characters, who receive their Champion dailies from the Argent Crusade, death knights work for the Knights of the Ebon Blade. The other versions of the quest, which all share the same name, are:

Aside from faction and specific quest NPCs, the different versions are identical. The division makes sense in game, but it means strategies and comments end up spread across the Wowhead database. If the advice for this particular version doesn't work for you, you may want to take a look at the others.

For still more information, there's also the related daily "At The Enemy's Gates", which is the equivalent for Valiants. It too is divided into different quests, one for each city:

Keep in mind that as of 3.2, there is no overlap in mobs between the Champion and Valiant quests. Champions kill the Boneguard Commander, while Valiants kill the Boneguard Footman, Boneguard Scout, and Boneguard Lieutenant. They're just in the same general area.

Comment by SnakeEyes097

Something I noticed with my hunter that other hunters (and possibly other classes, such as warriors) should take note of. After doing some testing to confirm it, if you jump on your Argent Horse and you have Aspect of the Viper active, your Shield Break ability will only do 60% damage. For example, Shield Break was only doing 6000 damage vs. the scouts, instead of the 10000 damage it should normally do. I presume any other class that has a passive ability that reduces their damage such as a warrior's Defensive Stance, that the damage would also be lowered the proper amount. Just a small thing that can make a difference, especially against the commanders. Any other aspect (or no aspect for that matter) does regular damage. I did not notice any change in damage with the charge ability, so it appears to only affect Shield Break. I invite other people to corroborate my findings, and I would be interested to hear if it does indeed affect other classes.

Comment by 258919

This is a pretty awesome chain. A couple tips.

- Almost all of the enemies can take down one shield with one attack
- The scouts are annoying and will attack you if you get close. They take two shield breakers to kill.
- The footmen are jokes. If they attack you, just trot on away and they'll fall down dead (giving you credits).
- The Lieutenants aren't too tough (though they are majorly overkilled by other players) but they're no joke. Try not to pull two at once or you're in trouble.
- The Commanders are pretty much the same as the duels up at the Tournament Grounds. It works best if you kite them around, using shield breakers when you can. But try not to pull any other mobs while you do.
- Should you be killed, it's a real pain. As soon as your horse goes down, you'll have a bunch of angry mobs on you. If you're a paladin, pop a bubble right then and there and run back to the camp. If you're any other class, good luck.

Should you die, make sure you res where you know there's no enemies so you can fly away.

Comment by 130740

you are not able to see the quest area if you are not on the quest.

Comment by 27993

This is (at least for myself and the 2 people that were doing it with me) down to just killing 3 of the Commanders and nothing else.

Comment by Avenara

Icecrown - 49.08 71.47

/way Icecrown 49.08 71.47 Battle Before The Citadel

Comment by 403716

Note that the Campaign Warhorse's Charge, unlike those used by the other Argent Tournament mounts, ignores Defend.

This makes Shield Breaker less useful here (except as a pulling tool) than it is when jousting with Champions. If you Charge every time you can do so with aggroing additional mobs, the Commanders tend to go down pretty quickly.

Comment by DreddDeimos

Found the gargoyle bat guards extremely annoying, pull/kite the commanders all the way towards the back part of the camp where you pick up your mounts 48,68 , that area is clear of those pesky gargoyle patrols, and makes this quest a lot easier.

Comment by 29281

Speaking as a loremaster and '3000 quests completed', I abandoned this quest and won't be bothering with it. After all the quests I have done, I have never had a quest that I didn't want to do. This is one of those quests.

While the champion matches can get boring and repetitive, this is just plain annoying and tedious. It's bad enough that you have to fly all the way down there to do a glorfied match that could have been fought in the Argent Tournament ring, but the AI has the mob running everywhere and you end up spending more time fighting the adds than the commander - which means he gets to whittle you down before you can really focus on him.

The first part of this quest where you kill the Lieutenants wasn't too bad since even if you got an add or two, it wouldn't kill you. With these commanders if you try and kite them back to an open area, they are spamming the shield breakers at you, so you end up at a disadvantage. Fight them where they are and you deal with 5 bat adds at least. (However, it is possible you may end up with no adds and lots of open area if many people are doing the quests, but nowadays that's not the case.)

In case you are considering getting off your mount and soloing them the 'hard way', don't bother. The sheild mitigates about 90% of your damage. (297 point 'crits' - heh, with 250K health that's gonna take a while)

Could I do the quest if I wanted to? Sure. I had killed one when I decided that it just wasn't worth the time investment for a single Champion's Seal and 10g in a bag, so I abandoned it. (I don't need the rep, I'm exalted all factions) It took 10 minutes to do one with all the false starts, so it's just not worth the time.

If anything, the quest should be marked as , so that people know it is best done with two players, but you can do it alone if you are prepared to endure the extra effort.

My suggestion is that if you really want to do this quest, bring a friend (that is at least on the first part of the chain) and then they can deal with the adds and help a bit on the main mob, while you focus on the main mob. Yes you can definitely do this quest alone, but I think you may find the annoyances grinding on your nerves.

I know I did.

Comment by clavarnway

I don't get what's so hard about it - takes me about 3 minutes once I arrive at the area. What I do when I find one that is flanked by other mobs is I pull with Shield Breaker, and jump-turn while kiting so I can cast Shield Breaker on cooldown. When we arrive to where I want to fight I just do a general rotation of Charge on cooldown, Shield Breaker otherwise, unless I need to use Defend. If you get jumped by a Bat just shoot it down real fast, the Bat's attack removes a layer of Defend, so if you ignore it, the knight will kill you really fast.

Comment by Flenop

One commander takes much too long to kill, even on the off chance you do not run into respawn and do fight him in a mob-free area.

They take about the same amount of time as one of the Champions you fight for the other mounted Champion daily. In fact, they take less time since you can lead in with a Charge as opposed to waiting for the Tournament ones to activate.

I realize people hate this quest, but from all that I've seen, they're more gripes with the vehicle system and the phase barriers than the actual quest itself. It takes about 3-5 minutes to finish if you take your time, assuming you have no competition.

Lead in with a Charge, Thrust, run away and Throw. Continue running and Throwing until Charge is up, then Charge again. Refresh Defend if needed. You will never fall to one Commander even with Scouts nearby unless you simply stand there and Thrust like people do at the Tournament grounds fighting the Champions.

I'm sorry you guys hate this quest, but it's not a hard, annoying or time-consuming one. Given it has the same rewards and takes less time than the 15 Cultists (for some classes or low gear) or the random "go collect such-and-such to help restock for the tournament!" quests, it's better overall assuming you can stand vehicles. And if you can't, that doesn't even make this one a bad quest.

Comment by brionl

Post Cataclysm Update:
If you are still doing this at 80+ (for pets & mounts perhaps), this is eminently soloable, because there is probably not going to be anybody to group with. The best way I've found to solo it these days is to start from the camp and head towards the Icecrown Citadel stairs.
When you get to the first Commander in front of the main wad, kill the scouts around the edges and try to pull the group of footmen in front of the Commander and kill them w/o pulling the Commander. You can fight them all at the same time, but the footmen will eat your shields like crazy and make it a much tougher fight.
Then when you fight the Commander, try to stay on the main path, very few scouts spawn on top of the path itself, they are mostly around the edges. If the Commander runs off the path, throw a javelin, and run towards the other side of the path, and charge when he gets back on it.
Continue and kill the 2 Lieutenants on the 2nd row.
Pull the excess footmen and kill them.
Throw a Javelin at one of the Commanders in the next row, and pull it out to you. Fight it in the same manner as the 1st, then kill the 3rd one.
If you take too long, you may get some respawns of the Lieutenants and footmen, so watch out for those.

Comment by witteafval

This quest can be very exasperating if it's not done properly. The scouts are a real nuisance, and the commanders get their shields up in no time at all. I tried kiting one away from the scouts by leading him to the gate south of the camp, then lost my mount and ended up killing him on foot. (I was an 82 prot paladin, and the fight took about ten minutes based on how often avenging wrath came off cooldown. Even if other classes can do the same thing, I don't recommend it.)

Then someone told me I can charge and throw a shield breaker at the same time, and that made all the difference in the world! There's no other way to take them down easily without their shields coming back up all the time. Naturally, you'll still want to fight them where they won't get help from scouts or other mounted mobs.

Comment by 740032

just fight them on the stairs... and don't chase if they run towards the adds, keep your shields up and its not so bad

Comment by 598252

While I will agree that this is probably one of THE most annoying quests EVER, I have found that using a hunter style "jump spin" approach makes the fights much faster and bearable. All you have to do while running away from the commanders is jump, spin your sights around with the mouse while in midair to face him, and spam shield breaker and charge at the SAME time. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
Note it can get a little wonky sometimes with your charge sending you in different directions all the time, but after a few rounds you'll get the hang of it. Also, if you haven't learned to use your mouse to move yet instead of the keyboard, now might be a good time to learn and save yourself some frustration here and elsewhere in the game.

Comment by Rickykling

How to do this quest?

Get a Lance and head to (48,71) in icecrown to get a mount... Kill the Boneguards the same way as you are doing in duels.. rly easy.

Comment by QuickBASIC

In Cata, entirely possible to do without using the argent lance and associated mount.

He does have a buff that reduces damage taken by 90%, but I was able to put down a "solid" 3.5k dps on him in 359 gear and he barely does any damage to you (about 2k/hit).

Comment by 900996

I must say, this is one annoying quest. I normally do not complain, but this one makes me cringe to even think of having to complete for only one Champion Seal, and NO the cash reward doesn't lessen the irritation. However, depending on your class and level will determine how long it will take you to complete. I am so horrible and take so long as a lvl85 SPriest, that there are few kind Alliance that always just kill them for me. Well, they are either being kind or so irritated at my ineptness that they feel sorry for me. Either way - I thank any Ally who have helped me and will help me in the future! :) Apologies. I digress.

As a lvl85 you can kill them without ever mounting up and equipping the lance given to you for the quest; however, their shields make it take a very long time if you are a squish like me who has a possibility of running out of mana. I prefer to mount, equip the lance and complete it like you would when you are attaining the Valiant Seals. I would suggest clearing the scouts in the area you plan on pulling the Commander. They are the most annoying, and respawn quickly. The Boneguard Footmen are easy, so you will not have to worry about them as much - easy to kill. For myself, I always choose and wait on the Commander that has a path that crosses in front of the Argent area. You can keep him in that area, and have little problems with the Scouts. Just spam your shield, keep as close to him as possible, thrust and throw.

Yes, it takes me longer, but if that doesn't work for you, there are plenty of Commander's close and around the Lieutenants (that you can move to while waiting on him to respawn). I would suggest, however, if you have trouble and are a lower level, group with someone. It might make a difference in time and irritation. All in all, I do know that you can complete this one fairly quick and solo. I have seen it done by others. So, don't necessarily think by it taking me a long time, that it will be the same for you. Get a rythm down and have fun! Oh, and maybe the cash and seals do make up for me not really liking this quest, because I keep accepting! :)

**In addition, make sure you do not waist time getting the writs for reputation. Go for the Champion's Purse. You can gain reputation easy and quickly by other means (questing/dungeons).

Links

Battle Before The Citadel

Eadric the Pure at the Argent Tournament Grounds wants you to kill 3 Boneguard Commanders.

	Boneguard Commander slain (3)

Description

Even as some of us labor on the tournament, our brothers prepare the way for an assault on the enemy's stronghold of Icecrown Citadel.

In the Court of Bones in southwestern Icecrown, a few brave crusaders have set up a forward camp on the southern side of Corp'rethar. Equip your lance and mount the stabled argent charger at the camp, then destroy the Lich King's commanders.

Do not fear the masses of boneguard footmen, <name>, for they can easily be trampled under your horse's hooves.

Completion

Rewards

You will be able to choose one of these rewards:

	Champion's Writ		Champion's Purse

You will also receive:

	Champion's Purse		Champion's Writ
	Champion's Seal

Gains

Upon completion of this quest you will gain:

250 reputation with Argent Crusade
250 reputation with The Sunreavers

See if you've already completed this by typing:

/run print(C_QuestLog.IsQuestFlaggedCompleted(13862))

Battle Before The Citadel

Description

Completion

Rewards

Gains

Related

Contribute