The Battle for Wesnoth Wiki - User contributions [en]

LegendofWesmere

2008-12-28T23:14:09Z

CMaster: /* Northern Battle */ added comment about the air force

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. As if that wasn't enough, late in the campaign you'll lose access to most of your veteran troops, but not your sylves and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

Loyal troops are even more valuable in this campaign than in most others, partially because they get three traits, but mainly because you'll get to keep them when your other troops are unavailable. With that in mind, you should strongly consider leveling one (or both!) of your loyal fighters into a grand marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Though archers are needed to deal enough damage to the trolls it is a good idea to recall/recruit a number of shamans as well. On the one hand they can level quite easily fighting the high-level trolls, and on the other hand they make your enemies a lot less dangerous through their slowing attack.

Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

This is another leveling opportunity for your shamans, as there is another troll leader to kill. Also you need to make sure that you neither overrecruit nor underrecruit. With too few units, you will take too long to finish your enemies (as always), while too many units won't help you in the fight, and you will need the money!

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. While you finish off the first orc, you should start sending a fair amount of relatively unexperienced archers/shamans west to take on the troll. Then move north over the mountains in a broad line to take out the orcs. A broad front line will help you to quickly overrun the orcs and allow you to finish in good time. Of course, you need sufficient numbers to do this without overstretching yourself.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Use a number of scouts to take the villages of your human ally. They don't need to defend themselves if they stay behind the lines of your ally. The gold is just so much more usefull in your hands...

While you fight the northern enemies, take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. Alternatively, you can recall/recruit sufficient numbers to take both of the northern enemies at once. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). It is essential that you reach your ally quickly. Otherwise he might be dead before you even see him. Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Numbers are an issue, however. So, whatever you do, do not underrecruit!

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

If you have been careful to build an air force (I had four shydes and two sylphs), it is absolutely unnecessary to run for it. Just recall/recruit a fair amount of support troops for your air force and fight in the forest since the woods will help only your troops. Your magic guarantees that. It is easy to defeat your enemies entirely that way.

Alternative Strategy:

The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. With a scout or two sent due south to draw the enemy troops out of their encampment (and away from your valuable troops), you can attack decisively if you have enough troops, or hold the enemy's encampment and let his troops wander north or attack your defensive position. This battle's over as soon as one of your units moves close to Landar's encampment, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

== End of War ==

Recall any remaining veteran troops, then recruit an army of level 1 elves. Send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle at the edge of the forest to maximize the difference in defense (70% vs. 40%, while trying to hold the shore is only 40% vs. 20%). The forest defense bonus also means that your level 1 troops stand a good chace of surviving at least one round of two level 2 attacks (which they are unlikely to survive on open ground). If any enemy elves make it into the forest the best approach is to use magic attacks to smoke them out (a slyph works wonders). Once Landar's army has been dealt with, sweep your troops down to the enemy keep to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-12-28T22:59:03Z

CMaster: /* Costly Revenge */ added comment about numbers

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. As if that wasn't enough, late in the campaign you'll lose access to most of your veteran troops, but not your sylves and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

Loyal troops are even more valuable in this campaign than in most others, partially because they get three traits, but mainly because you'll get to keep them when your other troops are unavailable. With that in mind, you should strongly consider leveling one (or both!) of your loyal fighters into a grand marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Though archers are needed to deal enough damage to the trolls it is a good idea to recall/recruit a number of shamans as well. On the one hand they can level quite easily fighting the high-level trolls, and on the other hand they make your enemies a lot less dangerous through their slowing attack.

Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

This is another leveling opportunity for your shamans, as there is another troll leader to kill. Also you need to make sure that you neither overrecruit nor underrecruit. With too few units, you will take too long to finish your enemies (as always), while too many units won't help you in the fight, and you will need the money!

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. While you finish off the first orc, you should start sending a fair amount of relatively unexperienced archers/shamans west to take on the troll. Then move north over the mountains in a broad line to take out the orcs. A broad front line will help you to quickly overrun the orcs and allow you to finish in good time. Of course, you need sufficient numbers to do this without overstretching yourself.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Use a number of scouts to take the villages of your human ally. They don't need to defend themselves if they stay behind the lines of your ally. The gold is just so much more usefull in your hands...

While you fight the northern enemies, take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. Alternatively, you can recall/recruit sufficient numbers to take both of the northern enemies at once. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). It is essential that you reach your ally quickly. Otherwise he might be dead before you even see him. Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Numbers are an issue, however. So, whatever you do, do not underrecruit!

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Alternative Strategy:

The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. With a scout or two sent due south to draw the enemy troops out of their encampment (and away from your valuable troops), you can attack decisively if you have enough troops, or hold the enemy's encampment and let his troops wander north or attack your defensive position. This battle's over as soon as one of your units moves close to Landar's encampment, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

== End of War ==

Recall any remaining veteran troops, then recruit an army of level 1 elves. Send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle at the edge of the forest to maximize the difference in defense (70% vs. 40%, while trying to hold the shore is only 40% vs. 20%). The forest defense bonus also means that your level 1 troops stand a good chace of surviving at least one round of two level 2 attacks (which they are unlikely to survive on open ground). If any enemy elves make it into the forest the best approach is to use magic attacks to smoke them out (a slyph works wonders). Once Landar's army has been dealt with, sweep your troops down to the enemy keep to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-12-28T22:56:37Z

CMaster: /* Breaking the Siege */

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. As if that wasn't enough, late in the campaign you'll lose access to most of your veteran troops, but not your sylves and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

Loyal troops are even more valuable in this campaign than in most others, partially because they get three traits, but mainly because you'll get to keep them when your other troops are unavailable. With that in mind, you should strongly consider leveling one (or both!) of your loyal fighters into a grand marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Though archers are needed to deal enough damage to the trolls it is a good idea to recall/recruit a number of shamans as well. On the one hand they can level quite easily fighting the high-level trolls, and on the other hand they make your enemies a lot less dangerous through their slowing attack.

Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

This is another leveling opportunity for your shamans, as there is another troll leader to kill. Also you need to make sure that you neither overrecruit nor underrecruit. With too few units, you will take too long to finish your enemies (as always), while too many units won't help you in the fight, and you will need the money!

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. While you finish off the first orc, you should start sending a fair amount of relatively unexperienced archers/shamans west to take on the troll. Then move north over the mountains in a broad line to take out the orcs. A broad front line will help you to quickly overrun the orcs and allow you to finish in good time. Of course, you need sufficient numbers to do this without overstretching yourself.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Use a number of scouts to take the villages of your human ally. They don't need to defend themselves if they stay behind the lines of your ally. The gold is just so much more usefull in your hands...

While you fight the northern enemies, take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. Alternatively, you can recall/recruit sufficient numbers to take both of the northern enemies at once. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). It is essential that you reach your ally quickly. Otherwise he might be dead before you even see him. Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Alternative Strategy:

The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. With a scout or two sent due south to draw the enemy troops out of their encampment (and away from your valuable troops), you can attack decisively if you have enough troops, or hold the enemy's encampment and let his troops wander north or attack your defensive position. This battle's over as soon as one of your units moves close to Landar's encampment, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

== End of War ==

Recall any remaining veteran troops, then recruit an army of level 1 elves. Send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle at the edge of the forest to maximize the difference in defense (70% vs. 40%, while trying to hold the shore is only 40% vs. 20%). The forest defense bonus also means that your level 1 troops stand a good chace of surviving at least one round of two level 2 attacks (which they are unlikely to survive on open ground). If any enemy elves make it into the forest the best approach is to use magic attacks to smoke them out (a slyph works wonders). Once Landar's army has been dealt with, sweep your troops down to the enemy keep to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-12-28T22:52:52Z

CMaster: /* Ancient Alliance */ gold stealing note added

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. As if that wasn't enough, late in the campaign you'll lose access to most of your veteran troops, but not your sylves and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

Loyal troops are even more valuable in this campaign than in most others, partially because they get three traits, but mainly because you'll get to keep them when your other troops are unavailable. With that in mind, you should strongly consider leveling one (or both!) of your loyal fighters into a grand marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Though archers are needed to deal enough damage to the trolls it is a good idea to recall/recruit a number of shamans as well. On the one hand they can level quite easily fighting the high-level trolls, and on the other hand they make your enemies a lot less dangerous through their slowing attack.

Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

This is another leveling opportunity for your shamans, as there is another troll leader to kill. Also you need to make sure that you neither overrecruit nor underrecruit. With too few units, you will take too long to finish your enemies (as always), while too many units won't help you in the fight, and you will need the money!

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. While you finish off the first orc, you should start sending a fair amount of relatively unexperienced archers/shamans west to take on the troll. Then move north over the mountains in a broad line to take out the orcs. A broad front line will help you to quickly overrun the orcs and allow you to finish in good time. Of course, you need sufficient numbers to do this without overstretching yourself.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Use a number of scouts to take the villages of your human ally. They don't need to defend themselves if they stay behind the lines of your ally. The gold is just so much more usefull in your hands...

While you fight the northern enemies, take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. Alternatively, you can recall/recruit sufficient numbers to take both of the northern enemies at once. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Alternative Strategy:

The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. With a scout or two sent due south to draw the enemy troops out of their encampment (and away from your valuable troops), you can attack decisively if you have enough troops, or hold the enemy's encampment and let his troops wander north or attack your defensive position. This battle's over as soon as one of your units moves close to Landar's encampment, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

== End of War ==

Recall any remaining veteran troops, then recruit an army of level 1 elves. Send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle at the edge of the forest to maximize the difference in defense (70% vs. 40%, while trying to hold the shore is only 40% vs. 20%). The forest defense bonus also means that your level 1 troops stand a good chace of surviving at least one round of two level 2 attacks (which they are unlikely to survive on open ground). If any enemy elves make it into the forest the best approach is to use magic attacks to smoke them out (a slyph works wonders). Once Landar's army has been dealt with, sweep your troops down to the enemy keep to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-12-28T22:31:06Z

CMaster: /* Acquaintance in Need */ rewritten

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. As if that wasn't enough, late in the campaign you'll lose access to most of your veteran troops, but not your sylves and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

Loyal troops are even more valuable in this campaign than in most others, partially because they get three traits, but mainly because you'll get to keep them when your other troops are unavailable. With that in mind, you should strongly consider leveling one (or both!) of your loyal fighters into a grand marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Though archers are needed to deal enough damage to the trolls it is a good idea to recall/recruit a number of shamans as well. On the one hand they can level quite easily fighting the high-level trolls, and on the other hand they make your enemies a lot less dangerous through their slowing attack.

Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

This is another leveling opportunity for your shamans, as there is another troll leader to kill. Also you need to make sure that you neither overrecruit nor underrecruit. With too few units, you will take too long to finish your enemies (as always), while too many units won't help you in the fight, and you will need the money!

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. While you finish off the first orc, you should start sending a fair amount of relatively unexperienced archers/shamans west to take on the troll. Then move north over the mountains in a broad line to take out the orcs. A broad front line will help you to quickly overrun the orcs and allow you to finish in good time. Of course, you need sufficient numbers to do this without overstretching yourself.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Alternative Strategy:

The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. With a scout or two sent due south to draw the enemy troops out of their encampment (and away from your valuable troops), you can attack decisively if you have enough troops, or hold the enemy's encampment and let his troops wander north or attack your defensive position. This battle's over as soon as one of your units moves close to Landar's encampment, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

== End of War ==

Recall any remaining veteran troops, then recruit an army of level 1 elves. Send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle at the edge of the forest to maximize the difference in defense (70% vs. 40%, while trying to hold the shore is only 40% vs. 20%). The forest defense bonus also means that your level 1 troops stand a good chace of surviving at least one round of two level 2 attacks (which they are unlikely to survive on open ground). If any enemy elves make it into the forest the best approach is to use magic attacks to smoke them out (a slyph works wonders). Once Landar's army has been dealt with, sweep your troops down to the enemy keep to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-12-28T22:08:04Z

CMaster: /* The Elvish Treasury */ corrected east-west mistake

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. As if that wasn't enough, late in the campaign you'll lose access to most of your veteran troops, but not your sylves and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

Loyal troops are even more valuable in this campaign than in most others, partially because they get three traits, but mainly because you'll get to keep them when your other troops are unavailable. With that in mind, you should strongly consider leveling one (or both!) of your loyal fighters into a grand marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Though archers are needed to deal enough damage to the trolls it is a good idea to recall/recruit a number of shamans as well. On the one hand they can level quite easily fighting the high-level trolls, and on the other hand they make your enemies a lot less dangerous through their slowing attack.

Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. Then move north, tackling the other two enemy keeps as you reach them. Keep your eye on the turn clock, since a lot of the board consists of mountains and will be tough going for your elven troops.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Alternative Strategy:

The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. With a scout or two sent due south to draw the enemy troops out of their encampment (and away from your valuable troops), you can attack decisively if you have enough troops, or hold the enemy's encampment and let his troops wander north or attack your defensive position. This battle's over as soon as one of your units moves close to Landar's encampment, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

== End of War ==

Recall any remaining veteran troops, then recruit an army of level 1 elves. Send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle at the edge of the forest to maximize the difference in defense (70% vs. 40%, while trying to hold the shore is only 40% vs. 20%). The forest defense bonus also means that your level 1 troops stand a good chace of surviving at least one round of two level 2 attacks (which they are unlikely to survive on open ground). If any enemy elves make it into the forest the best approach is to use magic attacks to smoke them out (a slyph works wonders). Once Landar's army has been dealt with, sweep your troops down to the enemy keep to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-12-28T22:04:54Z

CMaster: /* Hostile Mountains */ added note about shamans

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. As if that wasn't enough, late in the campaign you'll lose access to most of your veteran troops, but not your sylves and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

Loyal troops are even more valuable in this campaign than in most others, partially because they get three traits, but mainly because you'll get to keep them when your other troops are unavailable. With that in mind, you should strongly consider leveling one (or both!) of your loyal fighters into a grand marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Though archers are needed to deal enough damage to the trolls it is a good idea to recall/recruit a number of shamans as well. On the one hand they can level quite easily fighting the high-level trolls, and on the other hand they make your enemies a lot less dangerous through their slowing attack.

Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northeast first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn west to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. Then move north, tackling the other two enemy keeps as you reach them. Keep your eye on the turn clock, since a lot of the board consists of mountains and will be tough going for your elven troops.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Alternative Strategy:

The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. With a scout or two sent due south to draw the enemy troops out of their encampment (and away from your valuable troops), you can attack decisively if you have enough troops, or hold the enemy's encampment and let his troops wander north or attack your defensive position. This battle's over as soon as one of your units moves close to Landar's encampment, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

== End of War ==

Recall any remaining veteran troops, then recruit an army of level 1 elves. Send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle at the edge of the forest to maximize the difference in defense (70% vs. 40%, while trying to hold the shore is only 40% vs. 20%). The forest defense bonus also means that your level 1 troops stand a good chace of surviving at least one round of two level 2 attacks (which they are unlikely to survive on open ground). If any enemy elves make it into the forest the best approach is to use magic attacks to smoke them out (a slyph works wonders). Once Landar's army has been dealt with, sweep your troops down to the enemy keep to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-11-29T11:39:04Z

CMaster: Added a hint about the Yetis

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northeast first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn west to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. Then move north, tackling the other two enemy keeps as you reach them. Keep your eye on the turn clock, since a lot of the board consists of mountains and will be tough going for your elven troops.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

== End of War ==

This one is fought on the same map as Northern Battle. Chances are that you will have a lot of gold by this point. You won't have many veterans (whether you leveled any or not) but that doesn't matter because your opponent will be recruiting a lot of second level units and is likely to run out of gold before you can. Recruit heavily (you'll need to in order to defeat the enemy's more powerful units), send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle on the bank of the river to give yourself the best chance of killing the initial waves of units in the water. Then sweep down to the enemy keep at the southwestern corner of the map to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-11-29T11:36:16Z

CMaster: Added hints for defeating the enemies

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northeast first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn west to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. Then move north, tackling the other two enemy keeps as you reach them. Keep your eye on the turn clock, since a lot of the board consists of mountains and will be tough going for your elven troops.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are two tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

== End of War ==

This one is fought on the same map as Northern Battle. Chances are that you will have a lot of gold by this point. You won't have many veterans (whether you leveled any or not) but that doesn't matter because your opponent will be recruiting a lot of second level units and is likely to run out of gold before you can. Recruit heavily (you'll need to in order to defeat the enemy's more powerful units), send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle on the bank of the river to give yourself the best chance of killing the initial waves of units in the water. Then sweep down to the enemy keep at the southwestern corner of the map to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-11-29T11:30:15Z

CMaster: Added note about commanding the AI

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northeast first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn west to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. Then move north, tackling the other two enemy keeps as you reach them. Keep your eye on the turn clock, since a lot of the board consists of mountains and will be tough going for your elven troops.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI:
Your south-east Ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enogh time to concentrate on the nothern battle.
(At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are two tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

== End of War ==

This one is fought on the same map as Northern Battle. Chances are that you will have a lot of gold by this point. You won't have many veterans (whether you leveled any or not) but that doesn't matter because your opponent will be recruiting a lot of second level units and is likely to run out of gold before you can. Recruit heavily (you'll need to in order to defeat the enemy's more powerful units), send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle on the bank of the river to give yourself the best chance of killing the initial waves of units in the water. Then sweep down to the enemy keep at the southwestern corner of the map to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

LegendofWesmere

2008-11-29T10:56:27Z

CMaster: Added a hint about the use of shamans in this campaign

= Legend of Wesmere =

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylves, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. So it really pays to level shamans, level shamans and level shamans.

== The Uprooting ==

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You can't beat the enemy leaders (you have too little gold and only first level units) and you're not expected to try. Recruit just enough units to screen Kalenz and Landar (about a keep or a keep and a half's worth) and run everybody to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Try to send at least one rider to grab villages, including one to the north of your ally's keep—if the orcs attack him before the scenario ends, you will inherit the ally's units (and you'll keep them for future recall if you run them south to join the rest of your army).

== Hostile Mountains ==

Because your units will be mostly first level, you need as many of them as you can afford to survive this scenario. Archers will be the most useful to recall/recruit because the trolls do not have a ranged attack. Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

Send your army en masse to the keep in the northeast first; that's where the Shyde and the gold are. Then turn west to take out the other saurian. When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try not to position any units where a saurian can attack them from swampy ground; and 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage).

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you—the dwarves, which are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. Then move north, tackling the other two enemy keeps as you reach them. Keep your eye on the turn clock, since a lot of the board consists of mountains and will be tough going for your elven troops.

== Elves' Last Stand ==

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against the brown and orange orc troops that will be coming west from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the trolls and the brown and orange orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to the turquoise keep, then east and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the western side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at the turquoise orc's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

There are two tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the “fog of war” applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

== Battle of the Book ==

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northwestern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Still, you will want to have a few fast troops in reserve to ensure that you can kill the northwestern leader before time runs out.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

== End of War ==

This one is fought on the same map as Northern Battle. Chances are that you will have a lot of gold by this point. You won't have many veterans (whether you leveled any or not) but that doesn't matter because your opponent will be recruiting a lot of second level units and is likely to run out of gold before you can. Recruit heavily (you'll need to in order to defeat the enemy's more powerful units), send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle on the bank of the river to give yourself the best chance of killing the initial waves of units in the water. Then sweep down to the enemy keep at the southwestern corner of the map to deliver the coup de grace.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

TheHammerOfThursagan

2008-11-16T01:36:07Z

CMaster: /* The spiders and the first lich */

=== The Hammer of Thursagan ===

==== Scenario 1 – At The East Gate ====

This is pretty simple. Send a mixed force of Thunderers, Fighters, and Guardsmen along the road, and a few units south into the hills if the Orcs go that way. That path through the forest can be deadly – they will surround you if they can, and can heal at the base of the path. Any Dwarf in forest is weak, while Wolf Riders are at a defensive advantage. Send the Gryphon Rider off village gathering to the north. The enemy recruited mostly Wolf Riders and Grunts, with a few Archers as I neared his keep. Preserve the Gryphon Rider, try and keep your units alive (this can be tricky to achieve while moving forward – his units are dangerous, and some are very fast – make sure hurt units stay out of reach, rather than failing to notice that an almost dead Wolf Rider being chased by a Gryphon is still a threat), and try to level at least one Dwarf – your leader is an excellent choice. Play according to the basics, and you’ll have no trouble.

==== Scenario 2 – Reclaiming The Past ====

Plot only. Gain best unit ever invented. Your new companion has two magic, impact attacks, one of these slows, he’s very fast, and HE CAN LEAD PEOPLE HIS OWN LEVEL. He later becomes able to cure, and then heal +4. Angarthing makes fighting very much easier.

==== Scenario 3 - Strange Allies ====

In this scenario, you are allies with the orcs, and must defeat the bandits, who start at the east end of the map, and with quite a fair bit of gold. The bandits recruited mostly footpads and outlaws, but a few thugs, and a poacher or two near the end. I recalled only one turns worth of dwarves and gryphon, and sent them straight east, through the river at the ford. Your allies are an incredible help in this level; once you reach the bandit's side of the river, the orcs should already have engaged most of their troops to the south. One good way to go about the rest of this battle is to keep your units off to one side, and grab the finishing blows, especially to those level 2 outlaws. You should have 3 or 4 people (hopefully including Aiglondur and Angarthing) leveled by the end of this battle.

==== Scenario 4 - Troll Bridge ====

This one was a piece of cake. Recall a castle-full of troops, and set camp at the first line of trees and mountains, to the north side of the road. After the first onslaught, the remaining either retreat, or throw themselves at your weakest unit. Try and kill the unit with a weaker unit, he's a great chance for some experience. Also, after you kill the leader, you find that he was sitting on a pile of 200 gold.

==== Scenario 5 - Invaders ====

When you flag your first vilage, you will discover, that there is quite a number of outlaws in hiding. This can be your undoing, but it can also work to your advantage: Try not to flag too many villages and retain a tight group. That way, your opponents will be quite preoccupied fighting the outlaws and you won't have to fight them simultaneously. Move in a tight pack along the southern border of the map and take out your enemies one by one. When I finally reached the northern Ork, his troops were happily brawling away with the outlaws in the northwest...

==== Scenario 6 - High Pass ====

Recalling your gryphon rider is a must on this scenario, he will be your eye. Dwarves just can't see very far in the snow. The rest is pretty straight forward, just make sure you meet the mage hiding in a vilage near the center of the pass.

==== Scenario 7 - Mages and Drakes ====

Guardsmen and Thunderers are your units of choice in this scenario since they have piercing attacks that are quite deadly to drakes. Do not try to sweep the map of all opposition, your mobility disadvantage is too huge for that. Just move to the nest of the drakes with a pack of well seasoned troops, trying to stay in the mountains/hills as much as possible, otherwise the fire drakes could really hurt your dwarves.

==== Scenario 8 - Fear ====

The worst mistake you can make in this scenario is to recall too many troops. Those ulfs look dangerous (and they probably are, if you let them get at one of your thunderers), but otherwise your enemy is weak and you will need your gold! Just make sure, the Dwarfish Ulfserkers hit only a Dwarfish Lord, preferably while he's standing on a vilage, and everything will be fine.

You get an experienced mage at the start of this scenario. Level him to a white mage, you'll be facing undead before long and you'll need his healing abilities. It really pays to educate a second white mage, by the way, even better if he's quick.

==== Scenario 9 - Forbidden Forest ====

This is a tough one. You are fighting elves. You are fighting them in a forest. And you are fighting them in a fog. So, once again, your gryphon rider is a must. Trouble is: Elvish Riders are faster than he is, and he won't be able to spot Rangers or Woses. If I were playing the elves in this scenario, I would take on almost any number of dwarves. Only the stupidity of the AI saves you from a grim defeat. So recall as many units as you can, you need your numbers to make up for your tactical disadvantage.
I've never tried to run in a tight pack to the signpost. It might work, but those elves would swarm you from all sides. Of course you don't have to finish off their leaders, you will have to finish off their entire troops however.

In that temple in the center is the staff of righteous flame that will strike down every enemy next to the dying mage. It might be worth to give it to an unexperienced mage and do a kamikaze attack with him. He might take out two level two units that way.

==== Scenario 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha ====

It is quite easy to grab the patch of hills in front of you, wait for the northern enemies to come to you and chew them up. But you also need to make sure, that you put enough presure on the central enemy. If left alone, he gangs up with the southern one and you may be too late to rescue your ally.

==== Scenario 11 - The Court of Karrag ====

Almost story only. Once again, those Berserkers are your most dangerous opponents, so take them out with your Dwarfish Lords.

==== Scenario 12 - The Underlevels ====

Don't start playing this scenario, if you don't have a lot of time to spare. It's not so much of a scenario, it's actually a small campaign. This is even more extreme than in "Under the burning Suns". As this is the last fighting scenario, you can recall shamelessly. Two white mages, your loyal Archmage and another red mage are really usefull.

===== The galery =====

A hall with a line of dwarfes on either side in extremely good defensive position. Try to take them out as fast as you can, cycling wounded units back to your healers for, before long, masked dwarves will start to pour into the galery from the other side. There is a treasure behind each line of defenders, but I have no clue, what that is meant to be used for.

===== The first enemy =====

He sits right at the other end of the galery, again in a good defensive position. But with enough agression, he should not be a problem. Once you've taken his castle, you will need to split your forces. Split them as evenly as you can. (Did I mention, that two white mages are a real asset? Each group will need a healer!)

===== The fight in the corridors =====

Your enemies now are numerous and strong. But you are fighting underground in passages only three hexes wide. This is your advantage. Form defensive lines, let them come to you, and beat them to a pulp once they do. Don't wory if this takes some time, you will have to defeat almost their entire forces, before you can dare to enter the halls at the ends of the corridors. There is no turn limit anyway.

Once you defeat the southern enemy, you will find a locked door. Just leave your troops there, your other group can easily take care of getting the key in the north east corner.

When you have defeated the last enemy in the north, make sure to free the prisoners in the cells near his castle.

===== The spiders and the first lich =====

Before you move your norther force east to find the key, you should make a decision. There is a lich on the eastern side of the map. You can enter his cellar from behind the locked door in the south, or through a long windy passage from the north. He's rather weak, but you need to take him out first, if you don't want him attacking your back while you face your real enemy.

The first posibility is to use the transportation rhunes to get your forces down to the locked door and fight him from there. In that case, go east with only a few well leveled dwarfes, Angarthing and a white mage, for there is quite a number of spiders defending the key. Once your read the spell, go back to the rhunes, reunite your forces and take out the lich in the east.

But if you want to get to the lich through the back door, you need to take your whole northern force east. Defeat the spiders, run down that narrow passage until your reach the end of the tunel. It's just caved in, you can open it by moving a unit there. Before you do, open the locked door and advance with your southern force south east until you meet the undead forces. Be carefull, they recruit quite a number of shadows, nasty skirmishing, nightstalking ghosts. Once the battle is raging you can open the backdoor to the lichs castle and take him out.

Either way, you will have to do some boring running here.

===== The second lich =====

He sits in a big cavern behind the doors in the south west. Only take him on with your entire army (if you don't want to do another chokepoint fight at the door). He too makes heavy use of shadows, so make sure to form solid lines! His forces are likely to be at a fair distance when you open the door, so, with your entire army, you have a good chance to finish him in only a few turns by rushing in at top speed. If that does not work, safeload and do a chokepoint fight at the door.

===== Karrag =====

He's defended by quite a number of level 3 Draughts. They can take out a fully healed Dwarfish Lord in a single turn! So make sure, they don't hack Aiglondur to pieces. Dwarfish Lords are your unit of choice nevertheless, since their Hammers do heavy damage while they fight off the onslaught. Take out the wounded with your mages, protecting them once again with Dwarfish Lords. You should be able to get to Karrag before you have to finish off all the Draughts.

==== Scenario 13 - Epilogue ====
Just story here.

TheHammerOfThursagan

2008-11-16T01:28:51Z

CMaster: /* The galery */

=== The Hammer of Thursagan ===

==== Scenario 1 – At The East Gate ====

This is pretty simple. Send a mixed force of Thunderers, Fighters, and Guardsmen along the road, and a few units south into the hills if the Orcs go that way. That path through the forest can be deadly – they will surround you if they can, and can heal at the base of the path. Any Dwarf in forest is weak, while Wolf Riders are at a defensive advantage. Send the Gryphon Rider off village gathering to the north. The enemy recruited mostly Wolf Riders and Grunts, with a few Archers as I neared his keep. Preserve the Gryphon Rider, try and keep your units alive (this can be tricky to achieve while moving forward – his units are dangerous, and some are very fast – make sure hurt units stay out of reach, rather than failing to notice that an almost dead Wolf Rider being chased by a Gryphon is still a threat), and try to level at least one Dwarf – your leader is an excellent choice. Play according to the basics, and you’ll have no trouble.

==== Scenario 2 – Reclaiming The Past ====

Plot only. Gain best unit ever invented. Your new companion has two magic, impact attacks, one of these slows, he’s very fast, and HE CAN LEAD PEOPLE HIS OWN LEVEL. He later becomes able to cure, and then heal +4. Angarthing makes fighting very much easier.

==== Scenario 3 - Strange Allies ====

In this scenario, you are allies with the orcs, and must defeat the bandits, who start at the east end of the map, and with quite a fair bit of gold. The bandits recruited mostly footpads and outlaws, but a few thugs, and a poacher or two near the end. I recalled only one turns worth of dwarves and gryphon, and sent them straight east, through the river at the ford. Your allies are an incredible help in this level; once you reach the bandit's side of the river, the orcs should already have engaged most of their troops to the south. One good way to go about the rest of this battle is to keep your units off to one side, and grab the finishing blows, especially to those level 2 outlaws. You should have 3 or 4 people (hopefully including Aiglondur and Angarthing) leveled by the end of this battle.

==== Scenario 4 - Troll Bridge ====

This one was a piece of cake. Recall a castle-full of troops, and set camp at the first line of trees and mountains, to the north side of the road. After the first onslaught, the remaining either retreat, or throw themselves at your weakest unit. Try and kill the unit with a weaker unit, he's a great chance for some experience. Also, after you kill the leader, you find that he was sitting on a pile of 200 gold.

==== Scenario 5 - Invaders ====

When you flag your first vilage, you will discover, that there is quite a number of outlaws in hiding. This can be your undoing, but it can also work to your advantage: Try not to flag too many villages and retain a tight group. That way, your opponents will be quite preoccupied fighting the outlaws and you won't have to fight them simultaneously. Move in a tight pack along the southern border of the map and take out your enemies one by one. When I finally reached the northern Ork, his troops were happily brawling away with the outlaws in the northwest...

==== Scenario 6 - High Pass ====

Recalling your gryphon rider is a must on this scenario, he will be your eye. Dwarves just can't see very far in the snow. The rest is pretty straight forward, just make sure you meet the mage hiding in a vilage near the center of the pass.

==== Scenario 7 - Mages and Drakes ====

Guardsmen and Thunderers are your units of choice in this scenario since they have piercing attacks that are quite deadly to drakes. Do not try to sweep the map of all opposition, your mobility disadvantage is too huge for that. Just move to the nest of the drakes with a pack of well seasoned troops, trying to stay in the mountains/hills as much as possible, otherwise the fire drakes could really hurt your dwarves.

==== Scenario 8 - Fear ====

The worst mistake you can make in this scenario is to recall too many troops. Those ulfs look dangerous (and they probably are, if you let them get at one of your thunderers), but otherwise your enemy is weak and you will need your gold! Just make sure, the Dwarfish Ulfserkers hit only a Dwarfish Lord, preferably while he's standing on a vilage, and everything will be fine.

You get an experienced mage at the start of this scenario. Level him to a white mage, you'll be facing undead before long and you'll need his healing abilities. It really pays to educate a second white mage, by the way, even better if he's quick.

==== Scenario 9 - Forbidden Forest ====

This is a tough one. You are fighting elves. You are fighting them in a forest. And you are fighting them in a fog. So, once again, your gryphon rider is a must. Trouble is: Elvish Riders are faster than he is, and he won't be able to spot Rangers or Woses. If I were playing the elves in this scenario, I would take on almost any number of dwarves. Only the stupidity of the AI saves you from a grim defeat. So recall as many units as you can, you need your numbers to make up for your tactical disadvantage.
I've never tried to run in a tight pack to the signpost. It might work, but those elves would swarm you from all sides. Of course you don't have to finish off their leaders, you will have to finish off their entire troops however.

In that temple in the center is the staff of righteous flame that will strike down every enemy next to the dying mage. It might be worth to give it to an unexperienced mage and do a kamikaze attack with him. He might take out two level two units that way.

==== Scenario 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha ====

It is quite easy to grab the patch of hills in front of you, wait for the northern enemies to come to you and chew them up. But you also need to make sure, that you put enough presure on the central enemy. If left alone, he gangs up with the southern one and you may be too late to rescue your ally.

==== Scenario 11 - The Court of Karrag ====

Almost story only. Once again, those Berserkers are your most dangerous opponents, so take them out with your Dwarfish Lords.

==== Scenario 12 - The Underlevels ====

Don't start playing this scenario, if you don't have a lot of time to spare. It's not so much of a scenario, it's actually a small campaign. This is even more extreme than in "Under the burning Suns". As this is the last fighting scenario, you can recall shamelessly. Two white mages, your loyal Archmage and another red mage are really usefull.

===== The galery =====

A hall with a line of dwarfes on either side in extremely good defensive position. Try to take them out as fast as you can, cycling wounded units back to your healers for, before long, masked dwarves will start to pour into the galery from the other side. There is a treasure behind each line of defenders, but I have no clue, what that is meant to be used for.

===== The first enemy =====

He sits right at the other end of the galery, again in a good defensive position. But with enough agression, he should not be a problem. Once you've taken his castle, you will need to split your forces. Split them as evenly as you can. (Did I mention, that two white mages are a real asset? Each group will need a healer!)

===== The fight in the corridors =====

Your enemies now are numerous and strong. But you are fighting underground in passages only three hexes wide. This is your advantage. Form defensive lines, let them come to you, and beat them to a pulp once they do. Don't wory if this takes some time, you will have to defeat almost their entire forces, before you can dare to enter the halls at the ends of the corridors. There is no turn limit anyway.

Once you defeat the southern enemy, you will find a locked door. Just leave your troops there, your other group can easily take care of getting the key in the north east corner.

When you have defeated the last enemy in the north, make sure to free the prisoners in the cells near his castle.

===== The spiders and the first lich =====

Before you go east to find the key, you should make a decision. There is a lich on the eastern side of the map. You can enter his cellar from behind the locked door, or through a long windy passage. He's rather weak, but you need to take him out first, if you don't want him attacking your back while you face your real enemy.

You can use the transportation rhunes to get your forces down to the locked door and fight him from there. In that case, go east with a few well leveled dwarfes, Angarthing and a white mage, for there is quite a number of spiders defending the key. Once your read the spell, go back to the rhunes, reunite your forces and take out the lich in the east.

But if you want to get to the lich through the back door, you need to take your whole northern force east. Defeat the spiders, run down that narrow passage until your reach the end of the tunel. It's just caved in, you can open it by moving a unit there. Before you do, open the locked door and advance with your southern force south east until you meet the undead forces. Be carefull, they recruit quite a number of shadows, nasty skirmishing, nightstalking ghosts. Once the battle is raging you can open the backdoor to the lichs castle and take him out.

Either way, you will have to do some boring running here.

===== The second lich =====

He sits in a big cavern behind the doors in the south west. Only take him on with your entire army (if you don't want to do another chokepoint fight at the door). He too makes heavy use of shadows, so make sure to form solid lines! His forces are likely to be at a fair distance when you open the door, so, with your entire army, you have a good chance to finish him in only a few turns by rushing in at top speed. If that does not work, safeload and do a chokepoint fight at the door.

===== Karrag =====

He's defended by quite a number of level 3 Draughts. They can take out a fully healed Dwarfish Lord in a single turn! So make sure, they don't hack Aiglondur to pieces. Dwarfish Lords are your unit of choice nevertheless, since their Hammers do heavy damage while they fight off the onslaught. Take out the wounded with your mages, protecting them once again with Dwarfish Lords. You should be able to get to Karrag before you have to finish off all the Draughts.

==== Scenario 13 - Epilogue ====
Just story here.

TheHammerOfThursagan

2008-11-15T01:29:40Z

CMaster: Added description of scenarios 5 - 13

=== The Hammer of Thursagan ===

==== Scenario 1 – At The East Gate ====

This is pretty simple. Send a mixed force of Thunderers, Fighters, and Guardsmen along the road, and a few units south into the hills if the Orcs go that way. That path through the forest can be deadly – they will surround you if they can, and can heal at the base of the path. Any Dwarf in forest is weak, while Wolf Riders are at a defensive advantage. Send the Gryphon Rider off village gathering to the north. The enemy recruited mostly Wolf Riders and Grunts, with a few Archers as I neared his keep. Preserve the Gryphon Rider, try and keep your units alive (this can be tricky to achieve while moving forward – his units are dangerous, and some are very fast – make sure hurt units stay out of reach, rather than failing to notice that an almost dead Wolf Rider being chased by a Gryphon is still a threat), and try to level at least one Dwarf – your leader is an excellent choice. Play according to the basics, and you’ll have no trouble.

==== Scenario 2 – Reclaiming The Past ====

Plot only. Gain best unit ever invented. Your new companion has two magic, impact attacks, one of these slows, he’s very fast, and HE CAN LEAD PEOPLE HIS OWN LEVEL. He later becomes able to cure, and then heal +4. Angarthing makes fighting very much easier.

==== Scenario 3 - Strange Allies ====

In this scenario, you are allies with the orcs, and must defeat the bandits, who start at the east end of the map, and with quite a fair bit of gold. The bandits recruited mostly footpads and outlaws, but a few thugs, and a poacher or two near the end. I recalled only one turns worth of dwarves and gryphon, and sent them straight east, through the river at the ford. Your allies are an incredible help in this level; once you reach the bandit's side of the river, the orcs should already have engaged most of their troops to the south. One good way to go about the rest of this battle is to keep your units off to one side, and grab the finishing blows, especially to those level 2 outlaws. You should have 3 or 4 people (hopefully including Aiglondur and Angarthing) leveled by the end of this battle.

==== Scenario 4 - Troll Bridge ====

This one was a piece of cake. Recall a castle-full of troops, and set camp at the first line of trees and mountains, to the north side of the road. After the first onslaught, the remaining either retreat, or throw themselves at your weakest unit. Try and kill the unit with a weaker unit, he's a great chance for some experience. Also, after you kill the leader, you find that he was sitting on a pile of 200 gold.

==== Scenario 5 - Invaders ====

When you flag your first vilage, you will discover, that there is quite a number of outlaws in hiding. This can be your undoing, but it can also work to your advantage: Try not to flag too many villages and retain a tight group. That way, your opponents will be quite preoccupied fighting the outlaws and you won't have to fight them simultaneously. Move in a tight pack along the southern border of the map and take out your enemies one by one. When I finally reached the northern Ork, his troops were happily brawling away with the outlaws in the northwest...

==== Scenario 6 - High Pass ====

Recalling your gryphon rider is a must on this scenario, he will be your eye. Dwarves just can't see very far in the snow. The rest is pretty straight forward, just make sure you meet the mage hiding in a vilage near the center of the pass.

==== Scenario 7 - Mages and Drakes ====

Guardsmen and Thunderers are your units of choice in this scenario since they have piercing attacks that are quite deadly to drakes. Do not try to sweep the map of all opposition, your mobility disadvantage is too huge for that. Just move to the nest of the drakes with a pack of well seasoned troops, trying to stay in the mountains/hills as much as possible, otherwise the fire drakes could really hurt your dwarves.

==== Scenario 8 - Fear ====

The worst mistake you can make in this scenario is to recall too many troops. Those ulfs look dangerous (and they probably are, if you let them get at one of your thunderers), but otherwise your enemy is weak and you will need your gold! Just make sure, the Dwarfish Ulfserkers hit only a Dwarfish Lord, preferably while he's standing on a vilage, and everything will be fine.

You get an experienced mage at the start of this scenario. Level him to a white mage, you'll be facing undead before long and you'll need his healing abilities. It really pays to educate a second white mage, by the way, even better if he's quick.

==== Scenario 9 - Forbidden Forest ====

This is a tough one. You are fighting elves. You are fighting them in a forest. And you are fighting them in a fog. So, once again, your gryphon rider is a must. Trouble is: Elvish Riders are faster than he is, and he won't be able to spot Rangers or Woses. If I were playing the elves in this scenario, I would take on almost any number of dwarves. Only the stupidity of the AI saves you from a grim defeat. So recall as many units as you can, you need your numbers to make up for your tactical disadvantage.
I've never tried to run in a tight pack to the signpost. It might work, but those elves would swarm you from all sides. Of course you don't have to finish off their leaders, you will have to finish off their entire troops however.

In that temple in the center is the staff of righteous flame that will strike down every enemy next to the dying mage. It might be worth to give it to an unexperienced mage and do a kamikaze attack with him. He might take out two level two units that way.

==== Scenario 10 - The Siege of Kal Kartha ====

It is quite easy to grab the patch of hills in front of you, wait for the northern enemies to come to you and chew them up. But you also need to make sure, that you put enough presure on the central enemy. If left alone, he gangs up with the southern one and you may be too late to rescue your ally.

==== Scenario 11 - The Court of Karrag ====

Almost story only. Once again, those Berserkers are your most dangerous opponents, so take them out with your Dwarfish Lords.

==== Scenario 12 - The Underlevels ====

Don't start playing this scenario, if you don't have a lot of time to spare. It's not so much of a scenario, it's actually a small campaign. This is even more extreme than in "Under the burning Suns". As this is the last fighting scenario, you can recall shamelessly. Two white mages, your loyal Archmage and another red mage are really usefull.

===== The galery =====

A hall with a line of dwarfes in extremely good defensive position. Try to take them out as fast as you can, cycling wounded units back to your healers for, before long, dwarf will start to pour into the galery from the other side. There is a treasure behind each line of defenders, but I have no clue, what that is meant to be used for.

===== The first enemy =====

He sits right at the other end of the galery, again in a good defensive position. But with enough agression, he should not be a problem. Once you've taken his castle, you will need to split your forces. Split them as evenly as you can. (Did I mention, that two white mages are a real asset? Each group will need a healer!)

===== The fight in the corridors =====

Your enemies now are numerous and strong. But you are fighting underground in passages only three hexes wide. This is your advantage. Form defensive lines, let them come to you, and beat them to a pulp once they do. Don't wory if this takes some time, you will have to defeat almost their entire forces, before you can dare to enter the halls at the ends of the corridors. There is no turn limit anyway.

Once you defeat the southern enemy, you will find a locked door. Just leave your troops there, your other group can easily take care of getting the key in the north east corner.

When you have defeated the last enemy in the north, make sure to free the prisoners in the cells near his castle.

===== The spiders and the first lich =====

Before you go east to find the key, you should make a decision. There is a lich on the eastern side of the map. You can enter his cellar from behind the locked door, or through a long windy passage. He's rather weak, but you need to take him out first, if you don't want him attacking your back while you face your real enemy.

You can use the transportation rhunes to get your forces down to the locked door and fight him from there. In that case, go east with a few well leveled dwarfes, Angarthing and a white mage, for there is quite a number of spiders defending the key. Once your read the spell, go back to the rhunes, reunite your forces and take out the lich in the east.

But if you want to get to the lich through the back door, you need to take your whole northern force east. Defeat the spiders, run down that narrow passage until your reach the end of the tunel. It's just caved in, you can open it by moving a unit there. Before you do, open the locked door and advance with your southern force south east until you meet the undead forces. Be carefull, they recruit quite a number of shadows, nasty skirmishing, nightstalking ghosts. Once the battle is raging you can open the backdoor to the lichs castle and take him out.

Either way, you will have to do some boring running here.

===== The second lich =====

He sits in a big cavern behind the doors in the south west. Only take him on with your entire army (if you don't want to do another chokepoint fight at the door). He too makes heavy use of shadows, so make sure to form solid lines! His forces are likely to be at a fair distance when you open the door, so, with your entire army, you have a good chance to finish him in only a few turns by rushing in at top speed. If that does not work, safeload and do a chokepoint fight at the door.

===== Karrag =====

He's defended by quite a number of level 3 Draughts. They can take out a fully healed Dwarfish Lord in a single turn! So make sure, they don't hack Aiglondur to pieces. Dwarfish Lords are your unit of choice nevertheless, since their Hammers do heavy damage while they fight off the onslaught. Take out the wounded with your mages, protecting them once again with Dwarfish Lords. You should be able to get to Karrag before you have to finish off all the Draughts.

==== Scenario 13 - Epilogue ====
Just story here.

DescentIntoDarkness

2008-09-01T17:03:01Z

CMaster: added hint about the Troll Shamans

=== Saving Parthyn ===
You'll start the battle with three loyal human soldiers. Don't bother leveling them, because they go away at the end of the scenario. Likewise, all you can recruit are zombies, and they won't be worth recalling. If you're going to collect experience for anyone, it should be your main character.

Try to take advantage of terrain and daytime. I stayed away from the water hexes directly close to the other shore since the defenders have a bonus if they attack water standing units when still standing on land. Block the ford. Then rush for the northern shore if you can reach land. Capture villages and let your human allies do the hard work.

=== A Peaceful Valley ===
Do not try to solve this level without entering the Swamp. Once you enter the Swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use walking corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with walking corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

Note that the ghouls that rise from the swamp are loyal units.

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your ghosts (the first one that gains any experience?) will go rebel and attack you. Kill him quick. Move a few of your other ghosts up north -- you can get easy experience from killing the dwarves as they wade through the swamp. Your two heroes can kill the enemy bosses with their magic attacks.

Addition by Cabbit:
This is a good opportunity to gain experience for your ghosts. While both the Wraith and Shadow units are useful, it is important to have at least 4 shadows by a certain scenario. Also note that there are two routes to the dwarven leader. One is through the swamp, but you can also send flying units over the chasm to the south of the swamp and attack the dwarves on two fronts.

=== Beginning of the Revenge ===
Do not move non-flying units onto the ice next to the bridge which separates you from the Orcs' valley, it does not carry much weight. Use this to your advantage and try and lure high level orcs to their demise by placing ghosts in the middle of the ice. Ghosts and Corpses can cross the mountains left of your starting fortress. Unfortunately the fire arrows are quite effective against ghosts. I finished the south Orc first and had an easy time to defeat the north Orc. Ghosts and Bats can capture difficult to reach villages and move on, thus weakening your foes.

=== Orc War ===

Starting with this mission you can recruit skeletons (both axemen and archers) and apprentices.
There are a couple of ways to approach this scenario:

-One strategy is to recruit two major forces and send one south to hold back the orcs at the bridge then send the other force northwest to take out that leader first. At that point, if you've had particularly good luck on the the southern front you might want to go after that leader next, but more likely, you will want to recruit a few more units plus the units you used to kill the northwest leader and head south to kill the southwest orc leader.

-Another strategy is to recruit one large force and take out either the northwestern or southeastern orc leaders before the other orcish troops can catch up with you. Then you'll probably want to take out the southwestern orc leader. When I tried this I took heavier casualties and had less gold at the end of the scenario but it did work.

-If you've managed to acquire at least two shadows you can try slipping them behind enemy lines and assassinating one of the orc leaders. If you have at least 4 shadows your chances of success increase greatly. But after you kill two orc leaders the third will flee and this will end the scenario. You probably will want to prolong this as long as possible,however, to allow your forces to gain experience.

=== Return to Hal'al ===

Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A wraith, shadow, or spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another wraith or shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Hal'al townspeople hate you anyway. I found that wraiths and shadows were particularly effective since crossing the river doesn't slow them down at all. After you kill Drogan you need to escape across the river and to the west. So first you need to kill the orcs, which shouldn't be a problem, what might be a problem is that the Hal'al troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

You don't HAVE to flee immediately. At least on the easiest setting it is possible to stay and completely defeat Dela and the Hal'al townspeople. But you face fairly strong opposition and will probably take enough casualties that it isn't really worth it. Also, you'll have to recruit enough units that you lose gold each turn, since there's no time limit, if you defeat the Hal'el townspeople after taking heavy enough casualties that you gain gold each turn, you can wait and make up the loss. It isn't really worth it, however, because you'll need your high level troops for the next mission.

===A Small Favor===

====Part One====

As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your shadows visible. And keep Malin and Valk out of sight as well, or else the human leader will recruit an unbeatable number of reinforcements.

After you takeout the enemy leader, take out the rest of the human troops and capture the rest of the villages at your leisure. Get Malin to the enemy keep to recall forces you will want to use in the next mission. Wraiths and Shadows are particularly useful. Anything else is less useful; if you have a ghost about to level up it might be worth recalling; otherwise don't even bother with level one units.

Addition by cMaster:
It is possible to win this part without any Shadows. I use 6 Wraiths/Spectres and slip them around the north of the map as near to the entrance of the manor as possible while staying out of sight (you can see how much your enemies can see with cntrl-v). Malin and Darken Volk take the same route, but can't get as far as the ghosts. Then take out as many enemies as you can with your ghosts, targeting the mages first of course, and rush towards the manor with your heros. You should be inside before the battle gets ugly.

====Part Two====

You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario. (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack. Darken Volk will operate separately with an army of allied undead. Hmmm, in all previous missions you commanded him directly... could this be foreshadowing?

Anyway, your first task is to kill Karres, who is a great mage and is put into one of the rooms at random. Each room is filled with mages of one variety or another. They won't leave the rooms of their own accord, although a couple of swordsman and other human units wander the halls, but these shouldn't be a big deal, the mages, however, can be quite deadly. Always make sure you have sufficient forces to wipe out at least three red or white mages before opening a door. (You open doors by placing a unit in front of the door) Actually, most room only has one or two mages in it, and they may be level one mages, but the room with Karres in it will also have two white mages. The invisibility of Shadows and Nightgaunts, in particular, is useful in wiping out mages. If you let the mages counter-attack, you will almost certainly lose one or more units. Head north west with Malin and move on.

====Part Three====

After you kill Karres, head to the Northwest to grab the book. Then head to the Northeast to exit. You may mop up the remaining enemy forces for experience points, but to the northwest of the room right before the supply through which you exit there is one room you should probably just leave alone; it contains four silver mages and I don't think it's possible to take them out without casualties.

===Alone at Last===

So you've got to fight it out with Darken Volk. You probably don't have much money, which makes this difficult to win in a straightforward manor.

On turn 5 Sir Cadeaus arrives to take revenge for your attack on the city of Tath, he sets up camp in the southeast corner of the map. He will attack both you and Valk if given the opportunity. More usefully, Valk will attack him , so what you probably want to do is send some units to the east to draw Valk's soulless minions south, while sending the best troops you can recall up to the north of Valk. When Sir Cadeaus arrives, Valk's forces will be split on two fronts, so you should be able to take him out. If you're lucky, his forces will also take out Sir Cadeaus.

After you kill Valk, he leaves behind the book, which you want to retrieve and bring to the keep you started the scenario at. Ghosts and bats (and spectres, shadows, wraiths, and nightgaunts) can't carry the book, so you want to have sent at least one unit of this kind with the units you used to kill Valk. In particular, Malin himself is a good choice.

On turn 9 Dela Keshar will show up to the north, set up camp and send forces to attack you as well. This will probably be a turn after you kill Valk, and you can probably take her out with some nightgaunts before she calls any troops. If you can't you'll have to run for it and probably lose some units covering your retreat. If, however, you're lucky enough to take her out before she calls reinforcements, you can probably wipe the map clean before returning to your keep.

===Descent into Darkness===

The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a many passage and two side passages. I'm not sure it matters, but I successfully advanced through the main passage. You will face some high level trolls, including Troll Shamans capable of throwing deadly fireballs at your undead minions. There's no particularly good defense against these things, but I will note that all the trolls also deal impact damage, which your skeletons are weak against, so you may want to avoid recalling your skeletons.

Addition by cMaster: Wraiths/Spectres are actually quite good at killing Troll Shamans, since they deal arcane damage. So you just have to make sure, that you get to the Shamans before they get to you. If you can't take out one of them, stay out of his reach.

--additionally by smenze--I just finished up this scenario and it was as easy as I have ever played. Move to the far side of the make shift altar to attack it at the start then pretty much run by past the creatures that are there for you to regain your strength on. If you get really unlucky with your counter attacks, you can die this way, but normally you won't. Grab the castle on the west side of the passageway and recall some Nightgaunts (3 was more then enough for me). I just sent them straight up the passage to the "main castle," and stabbed the troll leader to death leading to an instant victory.

===Eternal Night===

Play this scenario as many times as you want to. If Malin is defeated, the defeating hero will give a short monologue and the campaign will end.

Addition by cMaster: If you care to play this scenario more than just a few times, it might be worth noting the small cavity to the right at the bottom of the map. You can easily place 11 units inside (you won't be able to recall more than 10 units + Mal Keshar) and it's got a choke point of only two hexes. Use this to chew away any enemy foolish enough to enter the choke point, and forget about the seven villages. Your enemy will not be able to pay the upkeep of his troops anyway. Correctly used you should not have to fear any number of enemies!

[[Category:Campaigns]]

DescentIntoDarkness

2008-09-01T16:57:57Z

CMaster: added some info for surviving a long time and changed the name

=== Saving Parthyn ===
You'll start the battle with three loyal human soldiers. Don't bother leveling them, because they go away at the end of the scenario. Likewise, all you can recruit are zombies, and they won't be worth recalling. If you're going to collect experience for anyone, it should be your main character.

Try to take advantage of terrain and daytime. I stayed away from the water hexes directly close to the other shore since the defenders have a bonus if they attack water standing units when still standing on land. Block the ford. Then rush for the northern shore if you can reach land. Capture villages and let your human allies do the hard work.

=== A Peaceful Valley ===
Do not try to solve this level without entering the Swamp. Once you enter the Swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use walking corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with walking corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

Note that the ghouls that rise from the swamp are loyal units.

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your ghosts (the first one that gains any experience?) will go rebel and attack you. Kill him quick. Move a few of your other ghosts up north -- you can get easy experience from killing the dwarves as they wade through the swamp. Your two heroes can kill the enemy bosses with their magic attacks.

Addition by Cabbit:
This is a good opportunity to gain experience for your ghosts. While both the Wraith and Shadow units are useful, it is important to have at least 4 shadows by a certain scenario. Also note that there are two routes to the dwarven leader. One is through the swamp, but you can also send flying units over the chasm to the south of the swamp and attack the dwarves on two fronts.

=== Beginning of the Revenge ===
Do not move non-flying units onto the ice next to the bridge which separates you from the Orcs' valley, it does not carry much weight. Use this to your advantage and try and lure high level orcs to their demise by placing ghosts in the middle of the ice. Ghosts and Corpses can cross the mountains left of your starting fortress. Unfortunately the fire arrows are quite effective against ghosts. I finished the south Orc first and had an easy time to defeat the north Orc. Ghosts and Bats can capture difficult to reach villages and move on, thus weakening your foes.

=== Orc War ===

Starting with this mission you can recruit skeletons (both axemen and archers) and apprentices.
There are a couple of ways to approach this scenario:

-One strategy is to recruit two major forces and send one south to hold back the orcs at the bridge then send the other force northwest to take out that leader first. At that point, if you've had particularly good luck on the the southern front you might want to go after that leader next, but more likely, you will want to recruit a few more units plus the units you used to kill the northwest leader and head south to kill the southwest orc leader.

-Another strategy is to recruit one large force and take out either the northwestern or southeastern orc leaders before the other orcish troops can catch up with you. Then you'll probably want to take out the southwestern orc leader. When I tried this I took heavier casualties and had less gold at the end of the scenario but it did work.

-If you've managed to acquire at least two shadows you can try slipping them behind enemy lines and assassinating one of the orc leaders. If you have at least 4 shadows your chances of success increase greatly. But after you kill two orc leaders the third will flee and this will end the scenario. You probably will want to prolong this as long as possible,however, to allow your forces to gain experience.

=== Return to Hal'al ===

Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A wraith, shadow, or spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another wraith or shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Hal'al townspeople hate you anyway. I found that wraiths and shadows were particularly effective since crossing the river doesn't slow them down at all. After you kill Drogan you need to escape across the river and to the west. So first you need to kill the orcs, which shouldn't be a problem, what might be a problem is that the Hal'al troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

You don't HAVE to flee immediately. At least on the easiest setting it is possible to stay and completely defeat Dela and the Hal'al townspeople. But you face fairly strong opposition and will probably take enough casualties that it isn't really worth it. Also, you'll have to recruit enough units that you lose gold each turn, since there's no time limit, if you defeat the Hal'el townspeople after taking heavy enough casualties that you gain gold each turn, you can wait and make up the loss. It isn't really worth it, however, because you'll need your high level troops for the next mission.

===A Small Favor===

====Part One====

As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your shadows visible. And keep Malin and Valk out of sight as well, or else the human leader will recruit an unbeatable number of reinforcements.

After you takeout the enemy leader, take out the rest of the human troops and capture the rest of the villages at your leisure. Get Malin to the enemy keep to recall forces you will want to use in the next mission. Wraiths and Shadows are particularly useful. Anything else is less useful; if you have a ghost about to level up it might be worth recalling; otherwise don't even bother with level one units.

Addition by cMaster:
It is possible to win this part without any Shadows. I use 6 Wraiths/Spectres and slip them around the north of the map as near to the entrance of the manor as possible while staying out of sight (you can see how much your enemies can see with cntrl-v). Malin and Darken Volk take the same route, but can't get as far as the ghosts. Then take out as many enemies as you can with your ghosts, targeting the mages first of course, and rush towards the manor with your heros. You should be inside before the battle gets ugly.

====Part Two====

You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario. (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack. Darken Volk will operate separately with an army of allied undead. Hmmm, in all previous missions you commanded him directly... could this be foreshadowing?

Anyway, your first task is to kill Karres, who is a great mage and is put into one of the rooms at random. Each room is filled with mages of one variety or another. They won't leave the rooms of their own accord, although a couple of swordsman and other human units wander the halls, but these shouldn't be a big deal, the mages, however, can be quite deadly. Always make sure you have sufficient forces to wipe out at least three red or white mages before opening a door. (You open doors by placing a unit in front of the door) Actually, most room only has one or two mages in it, and they may be level one mages, but the room with Karres in it will also have two white mages. The invisibility of Shadows and Nightgaunts, in particular, is useful in wiping out mages. If you let the mages counter-attack, you will almost certainly lose one or more units. Head north west with Malin and move on.

====Part Three====

After you kill Karres, head to the Northwest to grab the book. Then head to the Northeast to exit. You may mop up the remaining enemy forces for experience points, but to the northwest of the room right before the supply through which you exit there is one room you should probably just leave alone; it contains four silver mages and I don't think it's possible to take them out without casualties.

===Alone at Last===

So you've got to fight it out with Darken Volk. You probably don't have much money, which makes this difficult to win in a straightforward manor.

On turn 5 Sir Cadeaus arrives to take revenge for your attack on the city of Tath, he sets up camp in the southeast corner of the map. He will attack both you and Valk if given the opportunity. More usefully, Valk will attack him , so what you probably want to do is send some units to the east to draw Valk's soulless minions south, while sending the best troops you can recall up to the north of Valk. When Sir Cadeaus arrives, Valk's forces will be split on two fronts, so you should be able to take him out. If you're lucky, his forces will also take out Sir Cadeaus.

After you kill Valk, he leaves behind the book, which you want to retrieve and bring to the keep you started the scenario at. Ghosts and bats (and spectres, shadows, wraiths, and nightgaunts) can't carry the book, so you want to have sent at least one unit of this kind with the units you used to kill Valk. In particular, Malin himself is a good choice.

On turn 9 Dela Keshar will show up to the north, set up camp and send forces to attack you as well. This will probably be a turn after you kill Valk, and you can probably take her out with some nightgaunts before she calls any troops. If you can't you'll have to run for it and probably lose some units covering your retreat. If, however, you're lucky enough to take her out before she calls reinforcements, you can probably wipe the map clean before returning to your keep.

===Descent into Darkness===

The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a many passage and two side passages. I'm not sure it matters, but I successfully advanced through the main passage. You will face some high level trolls, including Troll Shamans capable of throwing deadly fireballs at your undead minions. There's no particularly good defense against these things, but I will note that all the trolls also deal impact damage, which your skeletons are weak against, so you may want to avoid recalling your skeletons.

--additionally by smenze--I just finished up this scenario and it was as easy as I have ever played. Move to the far side of the make shift altar to attack it at the start then pretty much run by past the creatures that are there for you to regain your strength on. If you get really unlucky with your counter attacks, you can die this way, but normally you won't. Grab the castle on the west side of the passageway and recall some Nightgaunts (3 was more then enough for me). I just sent them straight up the passage to the "main castle," and stabbed the troll leader to death leading to an instant victory.

===Eternal Night===

Play this scenario as many times as you want to. If Malin is defeated, the defeating hero will give a short monologue and the campaign will end.

Addition by cMaster: If you care to play this scenario more than just a few times, it might be worth noting the small cavity to the right at the bottom of the map. You can easily place 11 units inside (you won't be able to recall more than 10 units + Mal Keshar) and it's got a choke point of only two hexes. Use this to chew away any enemy foolish enough to enter the choke point, and forget about the seven villages. Your enemy will not be able to pay the upkeep of his troops anyway. Correctly used you should not have to fear any number of enemies!

[[Category:Campaigns]]

DescentIntoDarkness

2008-09-01T16:46:44Z

CMaster: added a no-shadow strategy

=== Saving Parthyn ===
You'll start the battle with three loyal human soldiers. Don't bother leveling them, because they go away at the end of the scenario. Likewise, all you can recruit are zombies, and they won't be worth recalling. If you're going to collect experience for anyone, it should be your main character.

Try to take advantage of terrain and daytime. I stayed away from the water hexes directly close to the other shore since the defenders have a bonus if they attack water standing units when still standing on land. Block the ford. Then rush for the northern shore if you can reach land. Capture villages and let your human allies do the hard work.

=== A Peaceful Valley ===
Do not try to solve this level without entering the Swamp. Once you enter the Swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use walking corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with walking corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

Note that the ghouls that rise from the swamp are loyal units.

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your ghosts (the first one that gains any experience?) will go rebel and attack you. Kill him quick. Move a few of your other ghosts up north -- you can get easy experience from killing the dwarves as they wade through the swamp. Your two heroes can kill the enemy bosses with their magic attacks.

Addition by Cabbit:
This is a good opportunity to gain experience for your ghosts. While both the Wraith and Shadow units are useful, it is important to have at least 4 shadows by a certain scenario. Also note that there are two routes to the dwarven leader. One is through the swamp, but you can also send flying units over the chasm to the south of the swamp and attack the dwarves on two fronts.

=== Beginning of the Revenge ===
Do not move non-flying units onto the ice next to the bridge which separates you from the Orcs' valley, it does not carry much weight. Use this to your advantage and try and lure high level orcs to their demise by placing ghosts in the middle of the ice. Ghosts and Corpses can cross the mountains left of your starting fortress. Unfortunately the fire arrows are quite effective against ghosts. I finished the south Orc first and had an easy time to defeat the north Orc. Ghosts and Bats can capture difficult to reach villages and move on, thus weakening your foes.

=== Orc War ===

Starting with this mission you can recruit skeletons (both axemen and archers) and apprentices.
There are a couple of ways to approach this scenario:

-One strategy is to recruit two major forces and send one south to hold back the orcs at the bridge then send the other force northwest to take out that leader first. At that point, if you've had particularly good luck on the the southern front you might want to go after that leader next, but more likely, you will want to recruit a few more units plus the units you used to kill the northwest leader and head south to kill the southwest orc leader.

-Another strategy is to recruit one large force and take out either the northwestern or southeastern orc leaders before the other orcish troops can catch up with you. Then you'll probably want to take out the southwestern orc leader. When I tried this I took heavier casualties and had less gold at the end of the scenario but it did work.

-If you've managed to acquire at least two shadows you can try slipping them behind enemy lines and assassinating one of the orc leaders. If you have at least 4 shadows your chances of success increase greatly. But after you kill two orc leaders the third will flee and this will end the scenario. You probably will want to prolong this as long as possible,however, to allow your forces to gain experience.

=== Return to Hal'al ===

Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A wraith, shadow, or spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another wraith or shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Hal'al townspeople hate you anyway. I found that wraiths and shadows were particularly effective since crossing the river doesn't slow them down at all. After you kill Drogan you need to escape across the river and to the west. So first you need to kill the orcs, which shouldn't be a problem, what might be a problem is that the Hal'al troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

You don't HAVE to flee immediately. At least on the easiest setting it is possible to stay and completely defeat Dela and the Hal'al townspeople. But you face fairly strong opposition and will probably take enough casualties that it isn't really worth it. Also, you'll have to recruit enough units that you lose gold each turn, since there's no time limit, if you defeat the Hal'el townspeople after taking heavy enough casualties that you gain gold each turn, you can wait and make up the loss. It isn't really worth it, however, because you'll need your high level troops for the next mission.

===A Small Favor===

====Part One====

As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your shadows visible. And keep Malin and Valk out of sight as well, or else the human leader will recruit an unbeatable number of reinforcements.

After you takeout the enemy leader, take out the rest of the human troops and capture the rest of the villages at your leisure. Get Malin to the enemy keep to recall forces you will want to use in the next mission. Wraiths and Shadows are particularly useful. Anything else is less useful; if you have a ghost about to level up it might be worth recalling; otherwise don't even bother with level one units.

Addition by cMaster:
It is possible to win this part without any Shadows. I use 6 Wraiths/Spectres and slip them around the north of the map as near to the entrance of the manor as possible while staying out of sight (you can see how much your enemies can see with cntrl-v). Malin and Darken Volk take the same route, but can't get as far as the ghosts. Then take out as many enemies as you can with your ghosts, targeting the mages first of course, and rush towards the manor with your heros. You should be inside before the battle gets ugly.

====Part Two====

You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario. (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack. Darken Volk will operate separately with an army of allied undead. Hmmm, in all previous missions you commanded him directly... could this be foreshadowing?

Anyway, your first task is to kill Karres, who is a great mage and is put into one of the rooms at random. Each room is filled with mages of one variety or another. They won't leave the rooms of their own accord, although a couple of swordsman and other human units wander the halls, but these shouldn't be a big deal, the mages, however, can be quite deadly. Always make sure you have sufficient forces to wipe out at least three red or white mages before opening a door. (You open doors by placing a unit in front of the door) Actually, most room only has one or two mages in it, and they may be level one mages, but the room with Karres in it will also have two white mages. The invisibility of Shadows and Nightgaunts, in particular, is useful in wiping out mages. If you let the mages counter-attack, you will almost certainly lose one or more units. Head north west with Malin and move on.

====Part Three====

After you kill Karres, head to the Northwest to grab the book. Then head to the Northeast to exit. You may mop up the remaining enemy forces for experience points, but to the northwest of the room right before the supply through which you exit there is one room you should probably just leave alone; it contains four silver mages and I don't think it's possible to take them out without casualties.

===Alone at Last===

So you've got to fight it out with Darken Volk. You probably don't have much money, which makes this difficult to win in a straightforward manor.

On turn 5 Sir Cadeaus arrives to take revenge for your attack on the city of Tath, he sets up camp in the southeast corner of the map. He will attack both you and Valk if given the opportunity. More usefully, Valk will attack him , so what you probably want to do is send some units to the east to draw Valk's soulless minions south, while sending the best troops you can recall up to the north of Valk. When Sir Cadeaus arrives, Valk's forces will be split on two fronts, so you should be able to take him out. If you're lucky, his forces will also take out Sir Cadeaus.

After you kill Valk, he leaves behind the book, which you want to retrieve and bring to the keep you started the scenario at. Ghosts and bats (and spectres, shadows, wraiths, and nightgaunts) can't carry the book, so you want to have sent at least one unit of this kind with the units you used to kill Valk. In particular, Malin himself is a good choice.

On turn 9 Dela Keshar will show up to the north, set up camp and send forces to attack you as well. This will probably be a turn after you kill Valk, and you can probably take her out with some nightgaunts before she calls any troops. If you can't you'll have to run for it and probably lose some units covering your retreat. If, however, you're lucky enough to take her out before she calls reinforcements, you can probably wipe the map clean before returning to your keep.

===Descent into Darkness===

The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a many passage and two side passages. I'm not sure it matters, but I successfully advanced through the main passage. You will face some high level trolls, including Troll Shamans capable of throwing deadly fireballs at your undead minions. There's no particularly good defense against these things, but I will note that all the trolls also deal impact damage, which your skeletons are weak against, so you may want to avoid recalling your skeletons.

--additionally by smenze--I just finished up this scenario and it was as easy as I have ever played. Move to the far side of the make shift altar to attack it at the start then pretty much run by past the creatures that are there for you to regain your strength on. If you get really unlucky with your counter attacks, you can die this way, but normally you won't. Grab the castle on the west side of the passageway and recall some Nightgaunts (3 was more then enough for me). I just sent them straight up the passage to the "main castle," and stabbed the troll leader to death leading to an instant victory.

===Forever After, Amen===

Play this scenario as many times as you want to. If Malin is defeated, the defeating hero will give a short monologue and the campaign will end.

[[Category:Campaigns]]