The Battle for Wesnoth Wiki - User contributions [en]

Sceptre of Fire

2013-12-01T18:25:22Z

ElComandante: /* Closing The Gates */

==Campaign Strategy==

You fight this campaign almost entirely with the four classic dwarven units: fighter, thunderer, scout and guardsman. Healers are entirely missing, and villages become a key resource for army regeneration. Given the circumstances, your levelling strategy should lean strongly to the offensive.

In the many scenarios, the village distribution is strongly biased against you, and conquering a village cluster is the key to victory. Your main opponents are trolls, other dwarves and elves, and you are mostly fighting in caverns and mountains.

In this campaign, Dwarvish Fighters can advance to Runesmiths as well as Steelclads. Runemasters are useful overall and absolutely essential for forcing the caves of the Shorbear clan, and you should consider training at least one or two of them in addition to the two that join you. Dwarvish Lords are critical for the rearguard action against Berserkers in "The Dragon", and it is wise to have at least three of them in your army.

The guardsman line is only useful early on, since their pierce attack is useless against trolls and too weak for storming the Shorbear caves or discouraging berserkers in "The Dragon". However, having a few of them on your recall list will be useful for the final scenario. Thunderers do their share as your ranged unit, and scouts as screening forces, but make sure to keep a strong emphasis on the fighter line. Once Thursagan joins you, make it a priority to level him up all the way up to a Dwarvish Arcanister; he's the only unit able to do it, and by doing so he will become a truly frightening unit for your enemies.

==Scenarios==

=== A Bargain Is Struck ===
* Objectives:
** Move the caravans and Alanin to the dwarvish castle, or..
** Defeat the elvish leader.
* Lose if: Rugnur, Haldric II, Alanin or one of the caravans die or time runs out.
* Turns: 24.
* Starting units: Rugnur and Alanin.
* Other: It is probably easier and quicker to defeat the elvish leader.

After a short dialogue, you have to get four caravans (five on ''hard'') to your keep in the north. This is a straightforward mission. Merely move the caravans towards your keep. Recruit two or three units for Rugnur and send them south at all speed (scouts work well here, provided you are playing on 1.7.x). Use Alanin to guard the caravans as well as you can, until they get out of reach of the elves. Normally, your human allies wipe out the elven attack before your troops can get stuck in, but if you can get some experience, all the better for the next mission. However, unless you want to try a very unusual strategy, you probably won't have the chance to provide much experience to many units. As mentioned, two or three recruits is probably enough, so you can focus your experience on Rugnur and Alanin.

Because the humans are so effective against the elves, you may be able to simply ignore the caravans and go kill the elvish leader. Remember elves are tough to hit in forest, so concentrate on picking off the ones who venture into the grassland and let the humans take their licks against the dug-in elves.

[Thrash: In 1.8.4 on hard the above seems to be terribly out of date. The elves kick the human's butt and the objective becomes for the dwarves to kill the elven leader before the elves cause a loss.]

Don't waste time moving your dwarves to the elvish keep. Glildur receives a significant amout of gold around turn 10, allowing him to recruit wave after wave of new elves to fight you, and it can get unmanageable if you let him recruit with impunity by then.

=== Closing The Gates ===
* Objectives: Close the gates by having units standing on all six glyphs simultaneously.
* Lose if: Rugnur or Baglur die or time runs out.
* Turns: 15.
* Starting units: Rugnur, Baglur, 4 Guardsmen (5 on ''easy'').
* Other
** If there are any elves in the caves after you shut the gates, you must kill them.
** Any units outside the caves when the gates close will die; pull your units back.

This involves hunting down some trolls and stalling the elves. Firstly, recall and recruit a substantial amount of thunderers and fighters. Move all your guardsmen down towards the three towers, those two glyphs can be easily covered near the end. Move a couple of thunderers down that way as well.

You have to activate six glyphs and, as you can notice, two of them are near the main entrance and easy to activate. You will find the other four going through the two main passages inside the cave—one directly south of your keep and one to the west. Send teams composed of about 3 or 4 dwarves (mixing fighters, thunderers and perhaps scouts if you like using them) down each passage, and focus the rest of your force on the entrance, resisting the elves. The terrain will be very advantageous to your army so the challenge should not be too complicated.

Once the trolls are dead, place dwarves on each of those fours glyphs. You will notice that there are a couple of small additional entrances to the cave at the end of each passage. Don't worry, turning "on" the glyphs closest to those openings will seal them. You might even shut one or two trolls outside this way.

Once those four glyphs are done you're ready to finish your mission. However, you might as well defend the gate until turn 14 or so, picking up as much experience as possible (try to get Rugnor at least to level 2). Then, pull all your troops back behind the gate (any left outside will automatically die, and those trapped in the door will be squished) and place soldiers on the two remaining glyphs.

[Comment: Killing all the Elves outside will also successfully end the scenario. It is quite possible to do so (v.1.11.6 - medium difficulty).

=== Searching for the Runecrafter ===
* Objectives:
*# Reach Thursagan with a non-gryphon unit.
*# Bring Thursagan back to the caves.
* Lose if: Rugnur, Alanin, Krawg, Thursagan or Baglur die or time runs out.
* Turns: 20.
* Starting units: Rugnur, Baglur, Alanin.

Once you move a unit a little far from the cave, a loyal gryphon named Krawg will show up, along with a friendly Gryphon Rider. Thursagan is hiding in a village placed at random inside the map. You have to go find him and bring him back to the signpost in your keep. He won't follow a Gryphon, so you have to send a dwarf (or Alanin).

The monsters you'll face are Wolves, Ogres, Trolls and Woses. Maintain a defensive position in your mountain stronghold while your Gryphons scout the map to locate Thursagan's village, then send someone else to bring him back.

The Trolls, Woses and Ogres hit hard, so concentrate on killing them quickly when they reach you. Don't let the wolves flank you and get inside your perimeter.

It will be useful to recall/recruit scouts, who are good against woses, along with thunderers and fighters. Try not to over-recruit; this map won't have any other villages other than the ones close to your keep, and Thursagan's home.

=== Gathering Materials ===
* Objective: Mine one gold deposit and two coal deposits (see below).
* Lose if: Rugnur or Thursagan die or time runs out.
* Turns: 40/37/34 (easy/medium/hard).
* Starting units: Rugnur, Baglur, Thursagan and two loyal Runesmiths.
* Other
** To mine you must recruit a Dwarvish Miner, move him to the deposit and move him back to the keep.
** The map is randomized so your map may play slightly differently.

The coal deposits are near the northwest troll and the southeast troll. The gold deposit is towards the middle. (The map layout is randomized, but the minerals are always in these areas). In order to mine, you must recruit a Dwarvish Miner, move him to the deposit and move him back to the keep. The mining can be done with just one Miner, but make it a priority to grab the deposits as quickly as you can. The speed of the miners will be of great help to keep them safe from harm, but still be careful and protect them whenever necessary.

The gold reserve may be the easiest one to snatch first, and maybe the northwest coal could also be grabbed quickly before you kill the enemies up there. A sensible strategy is to recruit about 2 keepfuls of units and get to the crossroad area quickly. The goblins are numerous but weak. The trick here is to hold the northeast against Troll Whelps and Ogres, the southeast against more Whelps and Rocklobbers and still have enough units to kill all the goblins.

The AI tends to avoid attacking your Runesmiths/Thursagan when they are on good defensive ground. You can use this to your advantage when clogging up passageways.

Remember to move your Miner to and from the deposits as quickly as possible. In general, the order of things to do besides that is:

* Get your troops into the middle clearing and dig in.
* Kill the goblins and their leader.
* Kill the last of the wave from the northeast and reinforce the southeast.
* Move some of your forces to finish the northeast leader and the rest to reinforce the southeast.
* Push to the southeast (there are villages down here) and get the last leader.

The easiest order to get the deposits is probably gold, northwest coal, southeast coal.

'''Alternative Strategy'''

In 1.8.2 on the Steelclad (Challenging) difficulty the ogres and goblins fight each other, so you can let them weaken each other while you go south and slaughter the trolls there. Once you've dealt with the south trolls you can use the villages there to heal your troops before going north to finish the survivors (most likely the ogres, as the goblins are too weak). If you choose this strategy be careful not to spend too much time waiting for the fighting in the north to end.

[Thrash: In my experience the enemies seemed to prefer fighting each other instead of the player's units. If you just hang back a turn or two, they will starting fighting and then you can pick off weak units for XP and wade in after a couple turns when they've weakened each other. Also, recruiting 3 miners makes things much easier in turns of time (I wouldn't be surprised if it was impossible with one miner on hard).]

=== Hills of the Shorbear Clan ===
* Objectives: Defeat the dwarf leader and have all heroes in the cave while no enemies are in it.
* Lose if: Rugnur, Alanin, Krawg, Thursagan or Durstorn die or time runs out.
* Turns: 24.
* Starting units: Rugnur, Alanin, Baglur, Krawg, Thursagan, Durstorn, two new loyal units—a Thunderguard and a Steelclad.

Since Durstorn started a fight, you have to kick the dwarves out of their cave. The problem is that some elves show up and start fighting you too. So you have to take over the cave '''and''' kick everyone else out.

You can use Krawg and another Gryphon to go around the map and flag lots of villages. You'll get lots of gold and can use that to recruit a couple of fresh units if you need after you capture the Shorbears' keep.

The scenario is pretty straightforward. When fighting the dwarves use the terrain to your advantage. A dwarf on a mountain tile is only hit 30% of the time... unless you are attacking with a Runesmith/Runemaster. Their magical attacks (70% chance to hit) can make all the difference. Once you are in the cave and fighting off the elves, seal up the exits when you can. Now all you need to do is wipe out any stragglers and you are done.

=== Towards the Caves ===
* Objectives:
** Move Rugnur to the north-east cave entrance.
** Move Alanin to the southern border east of the river.
* Lose if: Rugnur, Alanin, Krawg or Thursagan die or time runs out.
* Turns: 12.
* Starting units: Rugnur, Baglur, Krawg, Thursagan and Alanin.

It is important to realize that the two objectives do not need to be accomplished simultaneously; once Alanin touches the southern border, east of the river, he disappears and his part is done. So, you can just send him straight south from turn 1. Have him go along the western edge of the river and cross over when he is at the bottom. The southeastern elves really don't like Alanin, so be careful not to attract too much attention. (Note that you can use that to your advantage to slow the advance of those elves).

This scenario is an exercise in holding a defensible position. The problem is that position has six entrances and you are up against a bunch of level 2 attackers. Recruit 2 or 3 keeps full of soldiers, sneak Alanin and Rugnur out (maybe with a few units, perhaps Gryphons, for cover and village flagging), and dig in. Rotate your units and try not to lose too many. Since most of the attackers are level 2, you can level some units with a couple of kills. Stay on good defensive ground and don't try anything crazy. It is also possible to win by killing all the leaders, but good luck with that.

[Thrash: I found just running for it worked for me. Alanin is able to make it to the southern edge before any elves can reach him by running down the west bank and crossing over. For Rugnur I recruited 6 sacrificial scouts and used them to screen the northern elves and Rugnur was able to make the cave with the elves on his heels.]

[Sojourner: With WN 10.0, running Alanin south down the west side of the river worked like a charm. I ran Thurgasin into the NW caves to keep him safe. The tricky part was getting Rugnur to the NE cave. Since even a single hex makes the differance, I could only recruit one keep load and then Rugnur had to start running on turn-1. Level 1 scouts as a screen didn't work because the Elvish archers slaughtered them. I used a full keep of Level 1 griffins (all ultimately sacrificed) as a screen, and had Rugnur go through the 5-hex of mountains to the East (32/10). But it was very close because I had to use Krawg at the last to help screen, yet not allow him to get zone-locked and killed. Possible, but tricky.]

=== Outriding the Outriders ===
* Objectives: Reach the outpost in the south.
* Lose if: Alanin dies or time runs out.
* Turns: 12.
* Starting units: Alanin.

Your mission is to run south as quickly as possible. The elvish outriders would easily catch up with you and defeat you, if it were not for the huge help you receive from villagers. Every time you capture a village, two (or three for the first village you capture) new loyalists will come out to help you against the elves. You will have them just for this scenario, so you don't have to worry too much about saving them or leveling them up. If you level a Spearman, the best choice is probably Javelineer. Pikeman and Javelineer have pierce attacks (which are best against the Outriders) but the Javelineer has the ranged attack too.

The main goal is to slow the elves down (which you can of course do by killing them). If a unit has 2 or 3 HP, don't attack with it. Make one of the Outriders waste his turn by killing it. Try and use your units ZOC and the terrain to slow the elves down. The Outriders are slow on ice, hills and mountains. If you have the option of falling back (or moving up) and combining two villages worth of defenders, that's probably a good idea.

There are two villages you can reach with your first move. Go to the southernmost one. This sums up the whole ''modus operandi'' for Alanin: move as far south as you can every turn. Deviate slightly to capture villages, but not too much. You will need most of every turn's moves to get to the outpost in time.

=== The Dragon ===
* Objectives: Get Rugnur, Thursagan and Krawg to the end of the tunnel; then move Thursagan to the forge and defend him for 9 turns
* Lose if: Rugnur, Thursagan or Krawg die
* Turns: Unlimited.
* Starting units: Rugnur, Thursagan, Krawg, and Baglur.

Strong dwarves and elves will come from the west in great numbers. As the dialogue suggests, trying to make a stand in your initial keep would be practically impossible, and your only choice is to recruit as much as you can in the first turn, and flee by going east and then south as quickly as possible, through the zigzag path.

You have to cover a lot of terrain, but the path is easy to follow, and at its end you will reach a small section where you will find the forge where the Sceptre can be built. That is a good place to finally make your stand. Until then, your job is to move quickly, dealing with bats coming from the cave, and dealing with the dwarves from behind. The elves move much more slowly so you'll probably deal with them later on.

Regarding the bats, they would normally be just a small annoyance, except that in this case there are lots of them, so they are challenging in their own right. The best way to kill them is with Scouts' ranged attack or Runesmiths' magical attack. They are level 0 (unless you're playing on ''hard'', where you'll find some level ones) and so don't exert a zone of control. Khrakrahs the dragon might come out but there is no special advantage in killing it. Just move past it and let the elvish army deal with it.

As for the dwarves coming from behind, the biggest challenge is that there are many berserkers among them, and there's a good chance a few of them are quick, so they'll catch up with you in no time. Try to leave Dwarvish Lords and Runemasters with good HP on the rear of your army to deal with them.

Once you finally reach the forge, you may choose to move Thursagan into it quickly, in which case he disappears and the rest of your mission is to survive for 9 more turns, or you can play it patiently and milk as much as experience as you can. In this case, don't move Thursagan into the forge yet, and make sure to advance him up to level 4 if you haven't done so already.

''Note'': Apparently this scenario played very differently in versions previous to 1.10.x, and the suggestions given by this walkthrough mentioned that the elves don't follow you. This no longer applies, and the following comments left here in the past by other players reflect that.

[Thash: Contrary to what this says, the elves and the dwarves did come after me in a big way after a few turns, but I was able to pick a good spot in the tunnel and hold them off by just plugging the tunnel - not attacking - and rotating wounded units through. Also be care of which units you send SW from starting point, beserkers can come running out of darkness and kill Krawg easily.]

[Sojourner: With WN 10.0 the elves and dwarves attacked immediately and relentlessly with level 2 and 3 units. I suggest running flat out until you're past the wide spot where you first see the dragon and then start delaying tactics while you race Thursagan to the forge. The best place to delay are the narrow two-hex choke points on the final SW run towards the forge. Make your main stand there. Expect to lose/sacrifice a fair number of units.]

=== Caverns of Flame ===
* Objectives: Move onto the glyph that makes the volcano erupt; then kill all the elves
* Lose if: Rugnur, Thursagan or Krawg die.
* Turns: Unlimited.
* Starting units: All of your available units, including your entire recall list.

You start with your entire army and won't have any real chance to recruit any new units. What you start with is all you get. The cave is populated by Trolls and a few Orcish Warriors guarding the glyph. Your job is to get onto the glyph and then kill all the elves.

After a turn or two a bunch of dwarves and elves appear at the mouth of the cave (so get your units moving). Just like in the last scenario the elves move very slowly so you'll fight the dwarves separately from the elves. Keep your force together. You face a lot of strong enemies and will need to rotate all your troops to prevent too much attrition. Take advantage of the fact that you are fighting so many level 2 and 3 units to level any of your troops that still can improve.

One way to play this scenario is to move everyone to the westernmost cavern. It has a good bottleneck to hold the dwarves at and plenty of villages to heal. Once you are dug in, send Rugnur, Thursagan (who is an absolute badass now that he has the Sceptre of Fire) and a few other units south to the glyph. Kill the orc guards and step on the glyph. Once you do that you are instructed to kill all the elves before they escape. Luckily for you, stepping on the glyph also unleashes the Troll Warriors '''behind''' the elves. The elves have no chance. The trolls will quickly slaughter them. You can help if you want, but the end is inevitable. Make sure Thursagan and Rugnur don't fall in lava.

To keep Krawg out of trouble you can move him onto one of the lava squares. There are several which are only accessible/attackable by flying units. There are no flying enemies so Krawg will be safe.

Don't worry about the Troll Warriors. They cannot get out until you step on the glyph. By that time it probably doesn't matter.

'''Alternative Strategy'''

A much more direct approach is to simply ignore the trolls coming from the internal caves. Use a few units to slow them down (guardsmen are very effective) and move your heavy hitters south directly into the glyph chamber. Kill the guards as quickly as possible and take defensive positions around the glyph while watching the elves and trolls fight each other. When you're ready, step on the glyph and unleash the Troll Warriors on the elves. Then it's only a matter of surviving until the elves are slaughtered. You might suffer some losses, but as long as the heroes survive it doesn't matter. If the elves don't get entirely wiped out in a few turns, the cave will end up entirely covered in lava, killing everyone. Either way, you win and proceed to the campaign's Epilogue.

-shadowblack

[[Category:Campaigns]]
[[Category:Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

Northern Rebirth

2013-11-24T21:42:49Z

ElComandante: /* Old Friend */

===Breaking the Chains===
* Objective: Defeat the orc leaders.
* Lose if: Tallin dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 51/41/31/26 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin and Zlex, a loyal peasant.

All you can recruit in this scenario are level 0 Peasants and Woodsmen, so it calls for unusual tactics. Initially you can't overpower the orcs by brute force. Fortunately though, the orcs are fighting amongst themselves, so guerilla tactics will work. Keep your head down, and let the orcs weaken each other while you slip around the edges and grab as many villages as you can - even if you have to sacrifice a few units. Once the orcs are done fighting (one side will be mostly out of units), march your Woodsmen in a line and finish them off.

The next scenario can be ''expensive'', so try to finish as early as you can. Don't worry too much about levelling troops (except for Tallin and Zlex), because you'll get better troops next scenario anyway. When you do level units, keep in mind that you'll mostly be fighting skeletons for the next four scenarios; Bowmen will be okay late-game but not so good in the near future.

Also, beware of the tunnel entrance to the north-east. When you move there you will unleash a squad of trolls. Sometimes they attack the orcs (good for you) but other times they attack you. Since they are resistant to your pierce attacks, they can give you a bit of trouble should the latter happen.

===Infested Caves===
* Objectives:
** Find the dwarves and move Tallin to their castle; or..
** Clear the caves by defeating all enemy leaders.
* Lose if: Tallin or Hamel dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 60/55/50/45 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin and a supporter (typically Zlex, unless you lose him).
* Other: Find Camerin the Arch Mage in the northernmost village.

This will be a long write-up, because this is a difficult scenario that stumps many players.

First, here is the big picture. If you play just a few turns into this scenario, you will readily notice the green and blue Troll Whelps, the orange and white Skeletons, and you'll probably soon see the brown level 2 trolls coming from the far side of the large chamber. All of these have a cache of villages behind some sort of choke-point, which means that they won't run out of money and fresh recruits. Once you make it past the brown trolls, you'll come across another castle of skeletons, then finally, the home of the dwarves. Trolls, skeletons, and dwarves will all fight the others, given the chance. Depending on much randomness and the difficulty level, the dwarves may kill their adjacent undead leader and show up in the main hall as early as turn 15, or they may be stalemated by the skeletons until the end of time.

Now, let's have a look at the troops at your disposal:

*Footpads' don't have many HP, but also tend to take little damage due to their dodge rating. They're also quite fast. However, their damage output is (barely) sufficient against skeletons and totally inadequate against trolls—they won't get pushed back, but won't push forward either. Still, footpads should make up the bulk of your army: As you lack healers, your troops need to run back back to a village when they get beat up. Footpads run faster and take less damage than your other units.
*Thugs, with their powerful impact attack, will do more damage than anyone else. However, being melee-only means they get beat up in the process, not to mention shot to pieces by the Skeleton Archers. Pulling them back for healing takes a lot of time. Having a thug in the right place at the right time can make quite a difference... but you don't need them to finish this level and probably won't ever recall them later.
*Poachers are virtually useless against skeletons, but the best ranged attackers against trolls. Later (much later) you will need a few good archers, and now is the time to train them. Something like four or six will probably be enough, though.

Next, let's examine your opponents. The area in the east around the brown trolls is the key to winning this scenario. But let's start with the minor opponents, the four teams of level-1 trolls and skeletons closest to your initial keep. Sealing them at their choke-points is easy. Generally, you should immediately send off some footpads towards each of the four, occupy a favorable line of defense, then reinforce them over the next couple of turns. If and when you defeat any of the four, you'll discover a secret passage to their neighbour. Meanwhile, additional troops should assemble in the main hall for the fight against the brown trolls. All told, you will need like 40 men and could use many more—if you don't have at least 500 gold to begin with, revert and replay the previous level, shooting for more like 800 gold.

There are six opponents in all:

1) The blue trolls (north). There's village on a small patch of meadows where you'll discover a level-3 mage who will join you. Get there quickly or you won't make it until much much later. If you want to stalemate the blue trolls, put a Footpad on the mushroom patch and another unit on the cave hex. There are other possible stalemate lines if you need to fall back. You can kill this leader by an assault up this tunnel, but it will take some time unless you get lucky.

2) The green trolls (south). There are two excellent stalemate lines here. In the 2-hex wide area, the village close to your keep and one adjacent hex behind are great for quick Footpads, which can dart off to another village to heal if necessary. The other stalemate line is in the 3-hex wide area, where there is a village and a mushroom patch opposite. Putting a third unit in the middle and behind for a U-shaped line allows you to get three attacks on one, whereas the enemy can only muster two attacks on one. If you want to kill the green troll leader instead of just stalemating him, you'll need to be more aggressive, moving as far forward as quickly as possible. With your troops closing in on his keep, the leader will occasionally take part in the fight—eventually this will be his downfall.

3) The orange skeletons (east then south) can be totally contained with a couple of Footpads initially. The trolls will come to help. On harder difficulty levels, you may want to widen the containment area so that a few orange skeletons enter the main chamber; this will attract more trolls to bash on the skeletons, which means less trolls bashing on your troops.

4) The white skeletons' exit (east then north) is extremely easy to guard—just see to it that you get there in time. But hey: there's a second hole further down the hall, pretty close to the brown trolls. For now, that's in your favor. After the brown trolls have been defeated, you can loosen your grip on the first gap—his skeletons will prefer that outlet and leave the second corridor unguarded. You can then march a whole army up there and occupy about ten white villages. Deprived of his income, destroying the white leader will be standard procedure.

5) The brown trolls (east). Occupy the castle ruins and rugged terrain in the center of the large cave, but not before most of the trolls have moved off to fight the orange and white skeletons. You may try to lure out the troll leader and pin him down, or just rush in and occupy his castle. Just make sure that he can't recruit any more. Killing him may take several turns and will certainly cost you some units, but as long as you keep him from recruiting, things will work out. Also remember that there's another set of skeletons behind the trolls. On the harder difficulty levels, the undead will be ready to burst out of the south-east tunnel by turn 13; you will want to arrive before, so that you can contain them.

6) The final skeletons (south-east) you'll find past the trolls are in a battle with the dwarves. On the easier difficulty levels, it's is even possible they no longer exist, as they may have succumbed to the dwarves. On the harder difficulty levels, these skeletons have probably stalemated the dwarves and have turned their attention to an assault on the trolls and you. Once these undead are gone, the dwarves will pour out and "help" you with the remaining opponents, stealing kills and standing in the way. You should maybe fill up the corridor just south of the brown trolls' fortress with units of your own, just to keep the dwarves away. Peasants will do. Also don't forget to seize the dwarven villages - there's quite a few.

Finally, here are strategies players have used with success...

* "Total victory" strategy — Technically speaking, it would suffice to win if you somehow manage to move Tallin into the dwarves' home without killing any enemy leaders. However, this requires that you somehow get past the brown trolls; if you can do that, you can just as well rub them out. On the easier difficulty levels, killing all the other enemy leaders on top of the brown troll leader isn't difficult but takes some patience. On easy, you've got 60 turns, and even if you need 40 in order to clear the map, you're still in for a <i>huge</i> early finish bonus, which you'll really need later on. Advance with all haste on the blue trolls, green trolls, brown trolls, and/or white skeletons (using the eastern entrance or the secret passage from the blue trolls); use their villages to build a massive army for the rest.

* "Migration" strategy (as per [http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?p=476131#p476131 HomerJ's forum post]) — On the harder difficulty levels, a total victory might not be possible and even just getting Tallin to the dwarves will require a carefully choreographed ballet, playing off the trolls against the skeletons. First things first: rescue the Arch Mage and send him to join your main army. Using Footpads, set up containment lines against the blue trolls, green trolls, white skeletons, and orange skeletons. In the main chamber, the trolls there will be more interested in fighting the skeletons than your troops, if you keep them healthy and on good terrain. Around turn 8, after most of the brown trolls have joined your Footpads against the skeletons, move the bulk of your army into the main chamber. Fan your Footpads out, grabbing fortress hexes and other good terrain, creating a pocket for your more vulnerable units inside. By turn 12, you need to be in the brown trolls' keep so that you can block the undead that are about to burst out of the south-east passage. Meanwhile, you should "release the hounds" - remove the stalemate lines against Troll Whelps in the west, allowing them to pour into the main chamber. This will entertain the orange and white skeletons for quite some time, preventing the skeletons from endangering your new home in the east. The brown trolls have a cache of villages just north-east of their keep, so grab those, start generating income again, and recruit units as needed. Set up a defensive line along the western edge of your new keep, while advancing through the south-east tunnel and killing the undead leader there. Raid the dwarven villages for income and wait until the last turn to move Tallin to a dwarven castle hex.

===To The Mines===
* Objectives:
** Go to the mines (with Tallin); or..
** Defeat the wolves.
* Lose if: Tallin or Hamel dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 40/36/30/24 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Hamel, Camerin and a supporter.

This is designed to be more of a breather scenario, letting you get a bit of fresh air and level a few units before you plunge back into the caves. However, stay on your guard because if you get sloppy, you could experience a lot of grief.

The basic strategy is to recruit lots of dwarves and sweep north in a line. You'll lose a few but level up more, which will be your most reliable heavy infantry in later scenarios. Beware Wolf Riders nipping around your flanks and don't leave any units isolated. Recalling Poachers/Trappers will make quicker work of the Wolf Riders but the experience may be appreciated more if it is doled out to dwarves.

Alternatively, recruit a keep full of level 0 "targets" and make a point of leaving one or two of them isolated (but with support troops nearby). The AI loves to attack these "soft" targets, leaving his units vulnerable to your full counterattack. With a bit of luck, you can even lure out the enemy leader for an easy (and early) finish.

===Clearing The Mines===
* Objective: Clear the mines by defeating all enemy leaders.
* Lose if: Tallin or Hamel dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 85/75/65/55 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Hamel, Camerin, a supporter and a couple of veteran dwarves.
* Other: LOTS of ghouls show up on turn 21.

This is a large scenario, and a tough one, but it's very important to do well here. There are two key secrets which will dictate your strategy.

The first secret: this is the last scenario on which you can recruit dwarfs. Dwarfs are probably the best units in your army, *especially* against skeletons; you want to recruit lots of them now, so that you can recall them later and level them into Dwarven Lords. Recruit, recruit, recruit, until you run out of gold. You should have a continuous stream of of dwarfs going both north and east.

I didn't recruit any of the Dwarvish Thunderers—they're not much good against skeletons, and I don't like the element of randomness where half the time they deal no damage. You might feel differently.

When fighting the guard skeletons, try to lure them off their platforms before attacking. They'll cheerfully leave their posts to attack your low-level units, especially if they think there's a chance to kill something.

The second secret: see all that water on the level? On turn 21, most of that water turns into swamp, and every swamp hex will have a Ghoul on it. You need to have most of the Death Knights dead before this happens, so don't dawdle.

There are two ways to deal with the Ghouls. The first option is to kill the Lich before turn 22. This is tricky, but very doable. The Lich is very frisky about leaving his keep to attack you; lure him away and hit him with whatever Dwarven Lords you have.

The second option is to farm the Ghouls for experience. You've got lots and lots of dwarves, right? Why not have fun with them? Surround the water with dwarfs on all sides, and wait for turn 21. You'll lose a few dwarfs, but you'll gain a lot of experience, too. Be careful of the Lich, who will attack when you get close. You don't want to kill him until most of the Ghouls are dead, so it's best to just put up with him (and try not to move any high-level units where he can get at them).

Comment (Nightmare): Finishing before turn 21 or even surrounding all the water by that time looks very much impossible, however even if you only took out the two leaders on the western edge of the map until turn 21 it is very well possible to kill all those Ghouls and still receive a handy gold bonus. Ghouls are scared of levelled thugs and dwarf fighters, which makes "controlling" them pretty easy.

===The Pursuit===
* Objectives: Find Malifor and destroy him.
* Lose if: Tallin dies.
* Turns: Unlimited.
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, a supporter and a veteran dwarf.
* Other:
** Get the Rod of Justice in the northern chamber.
** Raid the treasury.
** You'll find many loyal units in this scenario, including an Elvish Druid, two White Mages, a Drake Burner, a group of 3 Dwarves and a Wraith.

This level opens with an 8-way junction of passages (one of which is where you enter). Don't get involved in fights in all 7 passages at once; you can only use Camerin in one place at a time, and initially you have a serious problem with healing (namely, you don't have any means to heal units, so they just have to go and stand in the entrance passage and regain 2hp per turn).

If you have luck with the initial guards, by turn 2 you should have Tallin on the camp, recruiting/recalling bandits and dwarves. This scenario doesn't have a time limit, and although it has many enemy leaders, most of them won't be actively recruiting until you get close to them so you won't be too pressured to rush your actions. At the same time, don't waste time. The faster you finish this long scenario, the more money (from treasure chests you find here) you'll get to keep.

Only two Death Knights (located directly east and west from the keep) will start sending some skeletons to you from the very start. On the easiest difficulty level they will recruit only L1 skeletons, but on higher difficulties they will include L2 units as well. The bad news is it's difficult to get to these guys (it's almost impossible on the highest difficulty levels), because the path is full of bottlenecks, and they can recruit new units frequently. The good news is there's not really any need to kill these guys—put some dwarfs or thugs in the bottleneck and kill the skeletons as they come out. Fairly quickly you'll need to heal your defenders, which is why it is important to rescue the healers (see below) quickly. On the easiest difficulty, you can probably defeat these two leaders without much work; they have some Revenants as guards, but the one to the west has less of them, so it will probably be quicker to get rid of him first. If you defeat the one to the east, you'll be rewarded with six bottles of holy water stored in a couple of chambers behind doors.

Occasionally some single units will come from the north-east and north-west because there are more enemy leaders up there and, although they don't start with any money to recruit, they have some incoming base gold per turn and so every now and then they will gather enough to recruit one unit and send it your way.

As for the rest of the leaders (and surprises) of this scenario, you can approach them more or less sequentially and patiently. In general, when you see some enemy shout some type of exclamation, it means one or two leaders will start recruiting the next turn, so you will be basically committed to clear the path you're exploring.

You should probably start by handling the leader to the south-west. There, you will find the first group of loyal units who will join you. The druid you get is pretty awesome, but the real prize here is the two invincible white mages. Whenever one white mage gets killed, the other one resurrects it, with apparently no penalty! Well, any experience they may have gained is lost and they start from scratch again, but if a white mage reaches level 3, it will stay level 3 forever.

Your first order of business is to send the female white mage (with the "quick" attribute) down the south-east tunnel, the one with the "water monsters" warning. Send her an escort—three or four units, any type as long as they all have 6+ movement. She'll eventually win the scenario for you.

Now that you've got your base under control, it's time to focus on profit. Remember that long tunnel behind Krash? Send a footpad down that tunnel; he'll eventually find three loyal dwarfs. (He'll also find a back-door into the Treasury, but it's probably not worth your time to send an army down that way to take advantage of it.) In the meantime, grab some healthy units and hit the Treasury from the front. When you get close, you'll trigger two Death Knights to summon units at you. Retreat out of the tunnel and kill them as they chase you into your main room, then head back in once they run out of gold.

You don't ever want to attack the guards on their platforms; instead, put an expendable unit (newly recruited Thug or Footpad) where they can reach it, and they'll leave their platform every time. Repeat until done. Your goal in the Treasury is the chest in the far north, which has 10K gold. Try not to spend too much of it. The rest of the chests have less gold, but still worth getting.

Finish the Treasury? Both the north and north-east tunnels eventually lead to the final boss, but more importantly, there's other benefits to going up the two tunnels: loads of XP and the almighty Rod of Justice.

The north tunnel leads to the Rod of Justice. The tunnel is almost entirely unguarded at first, and after a while opens into a large, open chamber. Take Tallin and the druid with a hardened force with you, because going into the chamber has two effects: your retreat is cut off by a cave-in, and you're attacked by a mass of ''very'' dangerous level 3 spiders. This is where the druid comes in: spiders have poison, and the druid can cure. Luckily, there's a choke-point that you can fall back to and wear down the spiders' numbers before having to assault the chamber in force. The reward for killing the spiders? The Rod of Justice. When you've secured the chamber, send Tallin to go grab it. It gives him stat boosts and an incredibly powerful ranged attack.

The north-east tunnel doesn't have any big rewards like the Rod of Justice, but there are two Death Knights and loads of skeletons, making it good for experience. It's also nice and narrow, so while the going is slow, you don't have to worry about being overwhelmed.

As you've been doing all this, your white mage has been running down that long south-east tunnel. At one point her escort has to deal with some tentacles. At that point, send a footpad down a south tunnel, where you'll find a friendly Wraith. Later she passes a pool which contains a sea monster. If you don't go in the room, it won't attack. Eventually she reaches a keep guarded by three nagas. When you're ready to take out the boss, grab your other white mage (the male one, with movement 5) and send him off to get killed somewhere. He'll teleport next to the female mage. It no longer matters if your white mages die, because they'll just respawn in the same place. Kill the nagas and open the secret door; the lich has a bunch of guards, but your white mages are invincible, and eventually (probably around turn 55-60) they'll finish the scenario for you.

===Old Friend===
* Objectives:
** Defeat Rakshas (almost impossible); or..
** Resist until the end of turns.
* Lose if: Tallin dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 18/18/18/18 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare)
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia and a supporter.

This is meant to be an easy mission if your objective is to simply survive and hoard gold (comment: in v1.11.6 objectives say no gold is carried over). You don't have to defeat the Orcs to win this one, so you can just lurk just inside the two-hex-wide aperture of the cave only two orcs at a time will be able to get at you; it's not hard to fend them off until time runs out. Spend as little gold as possible and level up some troops.

If you are using this approach, it's worth recalling one dwarvish steelclad and run him round to the east-most village in the northern mountains—this one has impassable mountains on 2 adjacent tiles, so it can be attacked from only one tile, so a steelclad can easily hold out here and gain some XP doing so.

Alternatively, you can go ahead and sally. It is supposed to be impossible to actually defeat them entirely, but if you stick to defensive terrain and keep recycling fresh units to the front, you should soon pile up stacks of orcish corpses as well as experience, which always comes in handy. It may even be possible to beat the nearer two orcs on the easiest difficulty, but it is not advisable. When you move far enough from your keep towards the south-west, Rakshas triggers the appearance of Goblin Knights on all the mountain tiles in the centre of the map, and all enemy leaders receive a huge gold injection. You may get away with defeating Poul (the enemy leader on the south-east), but getting too close to Drung is more likely trigger the Goblin Knight trap.

[Adeptus] Block the corridor with 2 units at 1XP to increase level. The I.A. won't attack unless it has non-zero probability to kill the unit with one single attack. Skip turn 18 times (and cry for all that XP you did not gain).

===Settling Disputes===
* Objectives: Capture the liches and save Stalrag.
* Lose if: Tallin or Stalrag dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 30/25/20/15 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia and a supporter

Your two White Mages and Camerin will be teleported into the middle of a battle between some ogres, trolls and a Lich and some dwarves. Your first job is to kill the Lich and not let the dwarf leader die. This is straightforward but Stalrag, the dwarvish leader, is quite cavalier with his life. You need to kill the Lich and then help the Ulfserkers to the south with the ogre and troll. Otherwise Stalrag will run to the village and likely be killed by the troll.

You have 100 gold, so recruit 5 good units. Your Poachers/Trappers can be used since you'll be fighting trolls and ogres with a few mages and gryphons thrown in. Assault in two places: down the east side of the map with your three mages (and any leftover dwarves) and across the river ford in the middle. Your White Mages are still immortal so you can be quite aggressive. For the river ford, you'll get across at night so be defensive (the level 2 Ogres are hard hitters) until day. (Of course, using the Rod of Justice on melee-only opponents is something that you should do all the time...) The initial wave will probably be blunted by then, too. Then sweep down and subdue the Lich.

===Elvish Princess===
* Objectives:
** Survive until the end of turns; or..
** Rescue the princess (special bonus).
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies.
* Turns: 24/21/18/15 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag and a supporter.

In this one it may be best to go straight at Bitterhold with a small group of hardened veterans—you need to be in there fast, especially on high difficulty levels where the turn limit is tight. Camerin and the Rod of Justice will be particularly helpful here. Your objective, getting a unit onto the cage at the center of the castle, may be best accomplished with a flyer (a Gryphon recruited specifically for this purpose can be useful) once you've chewed a few holes in the inner ring of defenders.

Either way, you also have to send a segment of your army to the south-east, to handle the enemy leader. Abhai (the Spectre) and another fast unit (Zlex if you gave him the rod) can usually pin down the Blue Orc leader to the East and kill him early. This is useful as it prevents him harrying your flank, and with a little support from your main force, gives you a second attack point, which helps clear the defenders quickly.

You should be making an effort to keep your loyal units alive, but just in case, if you plan to rescue Eryssa (the kidnapped Elvish Sorceress) you should still have Elenia with you, otherwise she (Eryssa) won't stay with you, and the story for the rest of the campaign accommodates to this. If you don't rescue her, you just skip the next scenario (''Introductions'').

===Introductions===
* Objective: Move Tallin to the northern signpost.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 24/21/18/15 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, Eryssa and a supporter.

This is a small level with just a bunch of trolls. Nothing too complicated. Standard dungeon-crawling tactics should work fine in this one—minimize your exposed front, and cycle wounded units back to the healers before they get killed. The destination signpost is in the north-west corner. Try and level any non-max-level units you still have. Send your wraith up the right-hand passage and he can attack/distract some of the trolls. There is nothing interesting in any of the side passages.

===Stolen Gold===
* Objectives:
** Defeat the enemy leaders; or..
** Resist until time runs out.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies.
* Turns: 36/36/36/36 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, Eryssa and a supporter.

You'll have two problems in this scenario. One is lots and lots and lots of trolls. The other is that Krash is going to fly off and recruit level-one drakes to help you, but if they get swarmed by all the level-two trolls they're not going to live long. Krash's camp will materialize in the mountains near the map-edge west of your camp; the house at edge of board will be one hex NW of his tent square. Don't do anything in the beginning with Krash except grab villages. He leaves on turn 2, only to return on turn 7.

The first thing you could do is kill the north-west troll. Move the Sorceress, the Ancient Lich and the Spectre towards the Blue troll on your first turn. Recall a castle of level 3s or high XP level 2s, mostly Dwarf Lords and Dragonguards, though the occasional Fugitive or Huntsman can be useful. Then move rod-bearer (Tallin or Zlex) towards the blue leader as well. The Blue leader will take the village to the SE of his camp on turn 1. With the rod bearers high movement and the power of the Lich, it's possible to ZoC him on turn 2 and kill him (it helps to use the Sorceress, she needs the XP). Then, mopping up the blue trolls is not much of a problem with the units available - apart from the sorceress, they can usually kill between one and 2 trolls per turn. Recruit a couple more troops on the Blue base if you've still got the money and attend to the rest.

I like to send the two White Mages on their own to the south. Since they are immortal they can stall the two southern trolls for (hopefully) enough time for you to kill the north-east troll. The drawback is that you go from 3 healers to just 1. If you do this, make sure to keep them in the middle of the map. Sometimes they regenerate off to the side. If this happens the trolls will just bypass them and attack your main force before you are ready.

Using your first turn recalls, establish a defensive line on the line of hills in the middle of the map at the top, putting the Shyde in the forest. Wait out the Green trolls' charge, then counterattack, bringing the Spectre and possibly the Sorceress round to help. The green troll should be on the way out around the time Krash arrives. One of the White Mages provides healing up here (if you aren't sending them on a kamikaze mission to the south).

The Lich and 2 or 3 other dwarves (healthy/resilient if possible) should hold the edge of the hills on the west side of the map, keeping them clear for Krash's arrival. They shouldn't kill any Whelps that oppose them, but take out Rocklobbers and Grunts for as little return damage as possible. Use ranged attacks in preference to melee, apart from if the Lich needs some health back. Tallin should take and hold the village in the middle when he's finished with the Blue trolls, and provide leadership. The second White Mage stays near the base, and will resurrect there when killed, providing a wonderful distraction to up to 8 trolls per turn. Krash's arrival should happen around the time that the troops from the Green troll attack are freed up - sweep all of the remaining trolls southwards. Krash and company should kill the Black leader, and the Elves and Spectre will take care of Purple around the time the Brown Elf team arrives. Good for a huge gold bonus, but requires a very aggressive start and risks losing a couple of high level units.

'''Alternate strategy:''' Recall nine or ten veterans and linger up around where his camp
will appear. Hold off the troll swarm until the drakes show up, then bust out of the encirclement and clean up.

The Spectre can be extremely effective against the trolls; place him in the village on the northern tip of the eastern island, and he should be able to safely defend against one to three trolls each turn. The Elvish Shyde and Sorceress, as well as the two liches, can be put to
better use if you move them into the forest on the eastern island in the beginning of the scenario. Stay within the forest and lure in trolls one or two at a time to level up the Sorceress and create a distraction. Once the troll leaders in the NE and SE have finished recruiting and their forces have moved over to attack in the west, the liches and the shyde can jump in and kill the leaders, and seize as many villages as possible.

After Krash's camp is set up, you will be controlling both Tallin's and Krash's troops. Krash's team will take its turn after all the trolls, and before Tallin. The trolls will probably be still swarming in front of Tallin's defense, but you can create opportunities for the drakes to level
up by withdrawing one of Tallin's units and defeating the two trolls next to that opening, so that the trolls will be zone-locked and unable to get into the opening. The drakes will have the advantage that after they attack they can be healed by Tallin's healers, before the trolls retaliate.

Although you will be in deep negative gold during this one, don't succumb to the temptation to give all the villages to Krash. He can make use of them immediately, but that isn't important, as he starts with enough gold to recruit enough drakes for what you need. You will get a big early finish bonus, so seize villages with your forces in the east, and with your main force once you break out. It's essential to get more than 140 gold going into the next level. (Krash won't go negative, so he'll end up with 400-500 gold with the early finish bonus anyway.)

===Eastern Flank===
* Objective: Defeat the enemy leaders.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 56/53/50/47 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, Eryssa, a Gryphon, a supporter and Krash (as a team leader).

'''Strategy 1:''' The only good thing about drakes in mountains is that you can rush them away to heal once they get trashed. They have a much lower defense on mountains relative to non-drake units. So it's better for Tallin to recall L2 and L3 dwarves (maybe one L1 dwarf), and spread these along the line in the mountains - you probably can't get enough to avoid having quite a number of drakes here, but it limits the number of drakes that the enemy can trash per turn; and the limited mobility in the mountains means they can't always attack the drakes with the units that they want.

Use drakes first to finish off weakened enemies, and drake burners to soften up the higher level enemy melee units (try to avoid having many L1 drake units in the line at night, when they are extremely vulnerable). Tallin's higher level units are better used for attacks on fresh enemy units. Don't extend your drake line to the map edge any faster than needed - the AI won't deliberately try to outflank, he'll just try to wrap around the last unit in line. You want to minimise the number of drakes he can maul each turn. Get the two human healers up into the mountains, and wounded drakes should congregate behind the lines around these. The two liches are good front-line units here, as the high defense means the enemy melee troops can't batter them too much (their drain attacks tend to compensate for any health loss), and their magic attacks are perhaps the most potent on this terrain.

Meanwhile, the east side of your line starts in the village just E of the mountains, where Tallin should be - the enemy are generally afraid to attack him due to the Rod. The line east of here consists of the spectre, the shyde & sorceress, and a mix of drakes and any high-level human units in your auto-recall. (The drakes have only a 10% difference in defense on these terrains, and have better mobility over the river.) Use the shyde and sorceress to entangle the best enemy melee units each turn, and drakes to soften up and kill them.

You hold this line for 2 days, wearing through the enemy. Once they run low on units, the drakes become valuable for encircling isolated units, rolling up the flanks, and darting behind their lines to seize villages. Push south through the mountains, and use the wizards to blast the orc leaders.

'''Strategy 2:''' I use the same technique as Strategy 1 in the mountains, but a radically different strategy otherwise. I recalled all my veterans, sent the dwarves north, and almost everyone else directly west. I recruited as many Gryphons as I could with my money, and sent them, as well as Abhai, south to take the island. I also made sure to move Tallin and Krash near to the front lines. The sheer number of high-level units attacking the main front was too much for the orcs, and by turn 11 the dwarf/drake force had defeated the northern flank. I moved Krash into one of the leader castle squares in the fortress, and recruited a Drake Burner in every free square in the fortress. (If you still somehow have positive gold with Tallin, you can use a similar technique with him) By turn 12, the orcs' main front had also collapsed due to the Drake Burners, and I defeated the last orc leader on turn 16.

The gryphons in the south basically were slaughtered by turn 10. I only had two remaining with low health; I retreated these in case they would be useful for recall (20 gold vs. recruiting 40 gold). By then, however, the island was free from orcs and there was only a small band (~5-6) of one Orcish Warrior and several Wolf Riders left. Abhai easily slaughtered most of them in the water, and the healed surviving Gryphons killed the rest by turn 14.

The only problem with this strategy is that it puts you in deep negative gold, but the early finish bonus more than makes up for that.

'''Strategy 3:''' I managed to win this scenario (on Easy) only by sending the White mages / Mages of Light to the mountains to the west of Krash, along with every dwarf lord I could recall, while the elves, Abhai, and Camerin went south of the river. I put the liches on the mountain-peninsula so that they could attack many units. Krash recruited Burners and Clashers, with the occasional Fighter, and they planted themselves in the forest and grassland west of Tallin's keep. They died easily but did not fail completely, they held the line west and I did manage to level several drakes (of each line) up to at least Level 2. This is the only way I could win without getting veterans slaughtered, and even when they weren't slaughtered, the orcs were bold enough to walk up to Tallin's keep, attack him, and steal the villages. My "advisor" was a Huntsman, who died easily, so I just kept him back. The drakes that needed healing in the field or forest took advantages of nearby villages (there were some on an island south of Tallin's keep, some in the mountains, and some in the forest). The dwarves in the mountains went into nearby villages or the White Mages if they needed healing. Abhai as a Spectre did well in the far south against Wolf Riders, and the elves and the Great Mage did well in the forest on the edge of the island against the occasional Assassin or Wolf Rider. Later, I sent a drake or two that way. Once the front line of the orcs was eliminated, Krash and Tallin moved forward with all the troops, and sat in the keeps. Because of the unique way that the castle is designed, the orcs recruited units right next to my units, while I recruited units right next to theirs. I lost a good drake or two but otherwise did not suffer many problems.

Comment (Nightmare): I would recommend taking up a very forward position (which leaves you with only one flat hex to defend and a shorter way to the castle when you decide to push through). As the distance to the keep, where Tallin is busy recruiting, becomes quite large, I would recommend giving the rod to Zlex (Royal Guard by now) in Pursuit. That way it will see more action and he even can receive leadership by Tallin later. If you treat your drakes well, i.e. always retreat at dusk, they can do a lot of work, gain experience and most of all kill scores of bathing assassins. Instead of wasting gold and blood on recruiting many L1 in the enemy castle, recalling some resilient units (i.e. dwarf lords + a few shielding L1) to prevent any further recruiting (instead of attempting to directly kill the leaders with them) is much more efficient.

===Get the Gold===
* Objectives: Defeat the orcs.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 40/35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, a supporter, Krash (as team leader) and Eryssa (as team leader).
* Other: Save Sisal if at all possible. If you do, you get your gold from "The Pursuit" back.

The primary challenge in this scenario is trying to save Sisal, and though it is not stated that Sisal's survival is essential, you do not get back the gold that you earned in "The Pursuit" if she dies. You really, really want that gold. Setting her side's behavior (with right-click) to "defensive" is usually enough to make her stall the orcs successfully until you can either get quick reinforcements to her, or defeat the enemy leader.

The enemy is pretty strong so recruit with the drakes, elves and Tallin's crew. Level what units you can and focus on killing enemy units. Other than keeping Sisal alive this is a simple assault against strong enemies.

''Note'': In versions previous to 1.10.x, this scenario was slightly different and keeping Sisal alive was much more challenging because you couldn't give here commands, and she had a high propensity to jump into the water and get killed. The following paragraphs apply to those older versions.

The AI controlling Sisal may behave strangely and she jumps into the river to be slaughtered easily. If you are desperate, an option is using the [[CommandMode|droid command]] to change Sisal to a human controller - that way, you control her and prevent her from dying within 3 turns.

'''Alternative Strategy:''' On turn one, mass produce gliders with the drakes and gryphons with the humans. Send the gryphons along the eastern edge of the map, and send the gliders immediately due south. The gryphons will need to punch a small hole to proceed (when forces try and stop them in the mountains), but they're then easily able to wrap around to the south-east of the enemy's forces. Send the gliders to the south-west of the enemy's forces on turn three.

Throw in a few scouts from the elvish army for good measure, and you can effectively, quickly create a wall of units to shield Sisal—at which point she returns to her keep.

This strategy also causes the AI to heavily attack your southern units, giving you a weak enemy line in the north you can quickly punch through with your massive army. I was able to defeat their leader on turn six without a problem.

===Showdown===
* Objectives: Defeat all enemies.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian, Ro'Sothian or Hamel dies or turns run out.
* Turns: Unlimited.
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, a supporter, Krash (as team leader) and Eryssa (as team leader).
* Other: If you have recovered your gold on the previous scenario, it gets split into three equal parts, and assigned to your three leaders (Tallin, Krash and Eryssa).

Pull out all the stops, because this is it. The wall is defended by level 3 orcs (Warlords and Slurbows). You'll want to draw them off the walls before engaging them, they're dangerous enough as it is without the fortification bonus; hanging a unit or two just within their engagement range will do it. Because there are so many orcs, you need to be especially careful about neither leaving units isolated nor presenting unanchored flanks for them to swarm around (the drakes, in particular, should fort up in the northern camp until they've thinned out their attackers considerably). Get to the edge of the moat and then cycle in fresh units and expand along the edge of the moat. The enemy will probably swarm towards Tallin's units. Don't try and breakthrough. Just be content to kill the units that enter the moat.

Recruit lots of druids with the elves and send them to help out Tallin and the drakes. Other than that the same strategy applies: kill the units in the moat. If there is an opening, move in.

Same thing with the drakes. If you level a Burner, turn it into a Flare. Since you have lots of level 1's the leadership will be useful.

Hamel will tear up the western edge of the fort pretty well. Aid him with elves if you can and then follow his lead to attack from within the castle walls.

Recruit, recruit, recruit, especially with the drakes. Take out the level 3 wall defenders, wear down the attackers in the moat and punch through where you can. Somewhat tedious but inevitable with your massive gold reserves.

[[Category:Campaigns]]
[[Category: Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

Northern Rebirth

2013-11-24T21:42:32Z

ElComandante: /* Old Friend */

===Breaking the Chains===
* Objective: Defeat the orc leaders.
* Lose if: Tallin dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 51/41/31/26 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin and Zlex, a loyal peasant.

All you can recruit in this scenario are level 0 Peasants and Woodsmen, so it calls for unusual tactics. Initially you can't overpower the orcs by brute force. Fortunately though, the orcs are fighting amongst themselves, so guerilla tactics will work. Keep your head down, and let the orcs weaken each other while you slip around the edges and grab as many villages as you can - even if you have to sacrifice a few units. Once the orcs are done fighting (one side will be mostly out of units), march your Woodsmen in a line and finish them off.

The next scenario can be ''expensive'', so try to finish as early as you can. Don't worry too much about levelling troops (except for Tallin and Zlex), because you'll get better troops next scenario anyway. When you do level units, keep in mind that you'll mostly be fighting skeletons for the next four scenarios; Bowmen will be okay late-game but not so good in the near future.

Also, beware of the tunnel entrance to the north-east. When you move there you will unleash a squad of trolls. Sometimes they attack the orcs (good for you) but other times they attack you. Since they are resistant to your pierce attacks, they can give you a bit of trouble should the latter happen.

===Infested Caves===
* Objectives:
** Find the dwarves and move Tallin to their castle; or..
** Clear the caves by defeating all enemy leaders.
* Lose if: Tallin or Hamel dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 60/55/50/45 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin and a supporter (typically Zlex, unless you lose him).
* Other: Find Camerin the Arch Mage in the northernmost village.

This will be a long write-up, because this is a difficult scenario that stumps many players.

First, here is the big picture. If you play just a few turns into this scenario, you will readily notice the green and blue Troll Whelps, the orange and white Skeletons, and you'll probably soon see the brown level 2 trolls coming from the far side of the large chamber. All of these have a cache of villages behind some sort of choke-point, which means that they won't run out of money and fresh recruits. Once you make it past the brown trolls, you'll come across another castle of skeletons, then finally, the home of the dwarves. Trolls, skeletons, and dwarves will all fight the others, given the chance. Depending on much randomness and the difficulty level, the dwarves may kill their adjacent undead leader and show up in the main hall as early as turn 15, or they may be stalemated by the skeletons until the end of time.

Now, let's have a look at the troops at your disposal:

*Footpads' don't have many HP, but also tend to take little damage due to their dodge rating. They're also quite fast. However, their damage output is (barely) sufficient against skeletons and totally inadequate against trolls—they won't get pushed back, but won't push forward either. Still, footpads should make up the bulk of your army: As you lack healers, your troops need to run back back to a village when they get beat up. Footpads run faster and take less damage than your other units.
*Thugs, with their powerful impact attack, will do more damage than anyone else. However, being melee-only means they get beat up in the process, not to mention shot to pieces by the Skeleton Archers. Pulling them back for healing takes a lot of time. Having a thug in the right place at the right time can make quite a difference... but you don't need them to finish this level and probably won't ever recall them later.
*Poachers are virtually useless against skeletons, but the best ranged attackers against trolls. Later (much later) you will need a few good archers, and now is the time to train them. Something like four or six will probably be enough, though.

Next, let's examine your opponents. The area in the east around the brown trolls is the key to winning this scenario. But let's start with the minor opponents, the four teams of level-1 trolls and skeletons closest to your initial keep. Sealing them at their choke-points is easy. Generally, you should immediately send off some footpads towards each of the four, occupy a favorable line of defense, then reinforce them over the next couple of turns. If and when you defeat any of the four, you'll discover a secret passage to their neighbour. Meanwhile, additional troops should assemble in the main hall for the fight against the brown trolls. All told, you will need like 40 men and could use many more—if you don't have at least 500 gold to begin with, revert and replay the previous level, shooting for more like 800 gold.

There are six opponents in all:

1) The blue trolls (north). There's village on a small patch of meadows where you'll discover a level-3 mage who will join you. Get there quickly or you won't make it until much much later. If you want to stalemate the blue trolls, put a Footpad on the mushroom patch and another unit on the cave hex. There are other possible stalemate lines if you need to fall back. You can kill this leader by an assault up this tunnel, but it will take some time unless you get lucky.

2) The green trolls (south). There are two excellent stalemate lines here. In the 2-hex wide area, the village close to your keep and one adjacent hex behind are great for quick Footpads, which can dart off to another village to heal if necessary. The other stalemate line is in the 3-hex wide area, where there is a village and a mushroom patch opposite. Putting a third unit in the middle and behind for a U-shaped line allows you to get three attacks on one, whereas the enemy can only muster two attacks on one. If you want to kill the green troll leader instead of just stalemating him, you'll need to be more aggressive, moving as far forward as quickly as possible. With your troops closing in on his keep, the leader will occasionally take part in the fight—eventually this will be his downfall.

3) The orange skeletons (east then south) can be totally contained with a couple of Footpads initially. The trolls will come to help. On harder difficulty levels, you may want to widen the containment area so that a few orange skeletons enter the main chamber; this will attract more trolls to bash on the skeletons, which means less trolls bashing on your troops.

4) The white skeletons' exit (east then north) is extremely easy to guard—just see to it that you get there in time. But hey: there's a second hole further down the hall, pretty close to the brown trolls. For now, that's in your favor. After the brown trolls have been defeated, you can loosen your grip on the first gap—his skeletons will prefer that outlet and leave the second corridor unguarded. You can then march a whole army up there and occupy about ten white villages. Deprived of his income, destroying the white leader will be standard procedure.

5) The brown trolls (east). Occupy the castle ruins and rugged terrain in the center of the large cave, but not before most of the trolls have moved off to fight the orange and white skeletons. You may try to lure out the troll leader and pin him down, or just rush in and occupy his castle. Just make sure that he can't recruit any more. Killing him may take several turns and will certainly cost you some units, but as long as you keep him from recruiting, things will work out. Also remember that there's another set of skeletons behind the trolls. On the harder difficulty levels, the undead will be ready to burst out of the south-east tunnel by turn 13; you will want to arrive before, so that you can contain them.

6) The final skeletons (south-east) you'll find past the trolls are in a battle with the dwarves. On the easier difficulty levels, it's is even possible they no longer exist, as they may have succumbed to the dwarves. On the harder difficulty levels, these skeletons have probably stalemated the dwarves and have turned their attention to an assault on the trolls and you. Once these undead are gone, the dwarves will pour out and "help" you with the remaining opponents, stealing kills and standing in the way. You should maybe fill up the corridor just south of the brown trolls' fortress with units of your own, just to keep the dwarves away. Peasants will do. Also don't forget to seize the dwarven villages - there's quite a few.

Finally, here are strategies players have used with success...

* "Total victory" strategy — Technically speaking, it would suffice to win if you somehow manage to move Tallin into the dwarves' home without killing any enemy leaders. However, this requires that you somehow get past the brown trolls; if you can do that, you can just as well rub them out. On the easier difficulty levels, killing all the other enemy leaders on top of the brown troll leader isn't difficult but takes some patience. On easy, you've got 60 turns, and even if you need 40 in order to clear the map, you're still in for a <i>huge</i> early finish bonus, which you'll really need later on. Advance with all haste on the blue trolls, green trolls, brown trolls, and/or white skeletons (using the eastern entrance or the secret passage from the blue trolls); use their villages to build a massive army for the rest.

* "Migration" strategy (as per [http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?p=476131#p476131 HomerJ's forum post]) — On the harder difficulty levels, a total victory might not be possible and even just getting Tallin to the dwarves will require a carefully choreographed ballet, playing off the trolls against the skeletons. First things first: rescue the Arch Mage and send him to join your main army. Using Footpads, set up containment lines against the blue trolls, green trolls, white skeletons, and orange skeletons. In the main chamber, the trolls there will be more interested in fighting the skeletons than your troops, if you keep them healthy and on good terrain. Around turn 8, after most of the brown trolls have joined your Footpads against the skeletons, move the bulk of your army into the main chamber. Fan your Footpads out, grabbing fortress hexes and other good terrain, creating a pocket for your more vulnerable units inside. By turn 12, you need to be in the brown trolls' keep so that you can block the undead that are about to burst out of the south-east passage. Meanwhile, you should "release the hounds" - remove the stalemate lines against Troll Whelps in the west, allowing them to pour into the main chamber. This will entertain the orange and white skeletons for quite some time, preventing the skeletons from endangering your new home in the east. The brown trolls have a cache of villages just north-east of their keep, so grab those, start generating income again, and recruit units as needed. Set up a defensive line along the western edge of your new keep, while advancing through the south-east tunnel and killing the undead leader there. Raid the dwarven villages for income and wait until the last turn to move Tallin to a dwarven castle hex.

===To The Mines===
* Objectives:
** Go to the mines (with Tallin); or..
** Defeat the wolves.
* Lose if: Tallin or Hamel dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 40/36/30/24 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Hamel, Camerin and a supporter.

This is designed to be more of a breather scenario, letting you get a bit of fresh air and level a few units before you plunge back into the caves. However, stay on your guard because if you get sloppy, you could experience a lot of grief.

The basic strategy is to recruit lots of dwarves and sweep north in a line. You'll lose a few but level up more, which will be your most reliable heavy infantry in later scenarios. Beware Wolf Riders nipping around your flanks and don't leave any units isolated. Recalling Poachers/Trappers will make quicker work of the Wolf Riders but the experience may be appreciated more if it is doled out to dwarves.

Alternatively, recruit a keep full of level 0 "targets" and make a point of leaving one or two of them isolated (but with support troops nearby). The AI loves to attack these "soft" targets, leaving his units vulnerable to your full counterattack. With a bit of luck, you can even lure out the enemy leader for an easy (and early) finish.

===Clearing The Mines===
* Objective: Clear the mines by defeating all enemy leaders.
* Lose if: Tallin or Hamel dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 85/75/65/55 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Hamel, Camerin, a supporter and a couple of veteran dwarves.
* Other: LOTS of ghouls show up on turn 21.

This is a large scenario, and a tough one, but it's very important to do well here. There are two key secrets which will dictate your strategy.

The first secret: this is the last scenario on which you can recruit dwarfs. Dwarfs are probably the best units in your army, *especially* against skeletons; you want to recruit lots of them now, so that you can recall them later and level them into Dwarven Lords. Recruit, recruit, recruit, until you run out of gold. You should have a continuous stream of of dwarfs going both north and east.

I didn't recruit any of the Dwarvish Thunderers—they're not much good against skeletons, and I don't like the element of randomness where half the time they deal no damage. You might feel differently.

When fighting the guard skeletons, try to lure them off their platforms before attacking. They'll cheerfully leave their posts to attack your low-level units, especially if they think there's a chance to kill something.

The second secret: see all that water on the level? On turn 21, most of that water turns into swamp, and every swamp hex will have a Ghoul on it. You need to have most of the Death Knights dead before this happens, so don't dawdle.

There are two ways to deal with the Ghouls. The first option is to kill the Lich before turn 22. This is tricky, but very doable. The Lich is very frisky about leaving his keep to attack you; lure him away and hit him with whatever Dwarven Lords you have.

The second option is to farm the Ghouls for experience. You've got lots and lots of dwarves, right? Why not have fun with them? Surround the water with dwarfs on all sides, and wait for turn 21. You'll lose a few dwarfs, but you'll gain a lot of experience, too. Be careful of the Lich, who will attack when you get close. You don't want to kill him until most of the Ghouls are dead, so it's best to just put up with him (and try not to move any high-level units where he can get at them).

Comment (Nightmare): Finishing before turn 21 or even surrounding all the water by that time looks very much impossible, however even if you only took out the two leaders on the western edge of the map until turn 21 it is very well possible to kill all those Ghouls and still receive a handy gold bonus. Ghouls are scared of levelled thugs and dwarf fighters, which makes "controlling" them pretty easy.

===The Pursuit===
* Objectives: Find Malifor and destroy him.
* Lose if: Tallin dies.
* Turns: Unlimited.
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, a supporter and a veteran dwarf.
* Other:
** Get the Rod of Justice in the northern chamber.
** Raid the treasury.
** You'll find many loyal units in this scenario, including an Elvish Druid, two White Mages, a Drake Burner, a group of 3 Dwarves and a Wraith.

This level opens with an 8-way junction of passages (one of which is where you enter). Don't get involved in fights in all 7 passages at once; you can only use Camerin in one place at a time, and initially you have a serious problem with healing (namely, you don't have any means to heal units, so they just have to go and stand in the entrance passage and regain 2hp per turn).

If you have luck with the initial guards, by turn 2 you should have Tallin on the camp, recruiting/recalling bandits and dwarves. This scenario doesn't have a time limit, and although it has many enemy leaders, most of them won't be actively recruiting until you get close to them so you won't be too pressured to rush your actions. At the same time, don't waste time. The faster you finish this long scenario, the more money (from treasure chests you find here) you'll get to keep.

Only two Death Knights (located directly east and west from the keep) will start sending some skeletons to you from the very start. On the easiest difficulty level they will recruit only L1 skeletons, but on higher difficulties they will include L2 units as well. The bad news is it's difficult to get to these guys (it's almost impossible on the highest difficulty levels), because the path is full of bottlenecks, and they can recruit new units frequently. The good news is there's not really any need to kill these guys—put some dwarfs or thugs in the bottleneck and kill the skeletons as they come out. Fairly quickly you'll need to heal your defenders, which is why it is important to rescue the healers (see below) quickly. On the easiest difficulty, you can probably defeat these two leaders without much work; they have some Revenants as guards, but the one to the west has less of them, so it will probably be quicker to get rid of him first. If you defeat the one to the east, you'll be rewarded with six bottles of holy water stored in a couple of chambers behind doors.

Occasionally some single units will come from the north-east and north-west because there are more enemy leaders up there and, although they don't start with any money to recruit, they have some incoming base gold per turn and so every now and then they will gather enough to recruit one unit and send it your way.

As for the rest of the leaders (and surprises) of this scenario, you can approach them more or less sequentially and patiently. In general, when you see some enemy shout some type of exclamation, it means one or two leaders will start recruiting the next turn, so you will be basically committed to clear the path you're exploring.

You should probably start by handling the leader to the south-west. There, you will find the first group of loyal units who will join you. The druid you get is pretty awesome, but the real prize here is the two invincible white mages. Whenever one white mage gets killed, the other one resurrects it, with apparently no penalty! Well, any experience they may have gained is lost and they start from scratch again, but if a white mage reaches level 3, it will stay level 3 forever.

Your first order of business is to send the female white mage (with the "quick" attribute) down the south-east tunnel, the one with the "water monsters" warning. Send her an escort—three or four units, any type as long as they all have 6+ movement. She'll eventually win the scenario for you.

Now that you've got your base under control, it's time to focus on profit. Remember that long tunnel behind Krash? Send a footpad down that tunnel; he'll eventually find three loyal dwarfs. (He'll also find a back-door into the Treasury, but it's probably not worth your time to send an army down that way to take advantage of it.) In the meantime, grab some healthy units and hit the Treasury from the front. When you get close, you'll trigger two Death Knights to summon units at you. Retreat out of the tunnel and kill them as they chase you into your main room, then head back in once they run out of gold.

You don't ever want to attack the guards on their platforms; instead, put an expendable unit (newly recruited Thug or Footpad) where they can reach it, and they'll leave their platform every time. Repeat until done. Your goal in the Treasury is the chest in the far north, which has 10K gold. Try not to spend too much of it. The rest of the chests have less gold, but still worth getting.

Finish the Treasury? Both the north and north-east tunnels eventually lead to the final boss, but more importantly, there's other benefits to going up the two tunnels: loads of XP and the almighty Rod of Justice.

The north tunnel leads to the Rod of Justice. The tunnel is almost entirely unguarded at first, and after a while opens into a large, open chamber. Take Tallin and the druid with a hardened force with you, because going into the chamber has two effects: your retreat is cut off by a cave-in, and you're attacked by a mass of ''very'' dangerous level 3 spiders. This is where the druid comes in: spiders have poison, and the druid can cure. Luckily, there's a choke-point that you can fall back to and wear down the spiders' numbers before having to assault the chamber in force. The reward for killing the spiders? The Rod of Justice. When you've secured the chamber, send Tallin to go grab it. It gives him stat boosts and an incredibly powerful ranged attack.

The north-east tunnel doesn't have any big rewards like the Rod of Justice, but there are two Death Knights and loads of skeletons, making it good for experience. It's also nice and narrow, so while the going is slow, you don't have to worry about being overwhelmed.

As you've been doing all this, your white mage has been running down that long south-east tunnel. At one point her escort has to deal with some tentacles. At that point, send a footpad down a south tunnel, where you'll find a friendly Wraith. Later she passes a pool which contains a sea monster. If you don't go in the room, it won't attack. Eventually she reaches a keep guarded by three nagas. When you're ready to take out the boss, grab your other white mage (the male one, with movement 5) and send him off to get killed somewhere. He'll teleport next to the female mage. It no longer matters if your white mages die, because they'll just respawn in the same place. Kill the nagas and open the secret door; the lich has a bunch of guards, but your white mages are invincible, and eventually (probably around turn 55-60) they'll finish the scenario for you.

===Old Friend===
* Objectives:
** Defeat Rakshas (almost impossible); or..
** Resist until the end of turns.
* Lose if: Tallin dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 18/18/18/18 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare)
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia and a supporter.

This is meant to be an easy mission if your objective is to simply survive and hoard gold (comment: in 1.11.6 objectives say no gold is carried over). You don't have to defeat the Orcs to win this one, so you can just lurk just inside the two-hex-wide aperture of the cave only two orcs at a time will be able to get at you; it's not hard to fend them off until time runs out. Spend as little gold as possible and level up some troops.

If you are using this approach, it's worth recalling one dwarvish steelclad and run him round to the east-most village in the northern mountains—this one has impassable mountains on 2 adjacent tiles, so it can be attacked from only one tile, so a steelclad can easily hold out here and gain some XP doing so.

Alternatively, you can go ahead and sally. It is supposed to be impossible to actually defeat them entirely, but if you stick to defensive terrain and keep recycling fresh units to the front, you should soon pile up stacks of orcish corpses as well as experience, which always comes in handy. It may even be possible to beat the nearer two orcs on the easiest difficulty, but it is not advisable. When you move far enough from your keep towards the south-west, Rakshas triggers the appearance of Goblin Knights on all the mountain tiles in the centre of the map, and all enemy leaders receive a huge gold injection. You may get away with defeating Poul (the enemy leader on the south-east), but getting too close to Drung is more likely trigger the Goblin Knight trap.

[Adeptus] Block the corridor with 2 units at 1XP to increase level. The I.A. won't attack unless it has non-zero probability to kill the unit with one single attack. Skip turn 18 times (and cry for all that XP you did not gain).

===Settling Disputes===
* Objectives: Capture the liches and save Stalrag.
* Lose if: Tallin or Stalrag dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 30/25/20/15 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia and a supporter

Your two White Mages and Camerin will be teleported into the middle of a battle between some ogres, trolls and a Lich and some dwarves. Your first job is to kill the Lich and not let the dwarf leader die. This is straightforward but Stalrag, the dwarvish leader, is quite cavalier with his life. You need to kill the Lich and then help the Ulfserkers to the south with the ogre and troll. Otherwise Stalrag will run to the village and likely be killed by the troll.

You have 100 gold, so recruit 5 good units. Your Poachers/Trappers can be used since you'll be fighting trolls and ogres with a few mages and gryphons thrown in. Assault in two places: down the east side of the map with your three mages (and any leftover dwarves) and across the river ford in the middle. Your White Mages are still immortal so you can be quite aggressive. For the river ford, you'll get across at night so be defensive (the level 2 Ogres are hard hitters) until day. (Of course, using the Rod of Justice on melee-only opponents is something that you should do all the time...) The initial wave will probably be blunted by then, too. Then sweep down and subdue the Lich.

===Elvish Princess===
* Objectives:
** Survive until the end of turns; or..
** Rescue the princess (special bonus).
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies.
* Turns: 24/21/18/15 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag and a supporter.

In this one it may be best to go straight at Bitterhold with a small group of hardened veterans—you need to be in there fast, especially on high difficulty levels where the turn limit is tight. Camerin and the Rod of Justice will be particularly helpful here. Your objective, getting a unit onto the cage at the center of the castle, may be best accomplished with a flyer (a Gryphon recruited specifically for this purpose can be useful) once you've chewed a few holes in the inner ring of defenders.

Either way, you also have to send a segment of your army to the south-east, to handle the enemy leader. Abhai (the Spectre) and another fast unit (Zlex if you gave him the rod) can usually pin down the Blue Orc leader to the East and kill him early. This is useful as it prevents him harrying your flank, and with a little support from your main force, gives you a second attack point, which helps clear the defenders quickly.

You should be making an effort to keep your loyal units alive, but just in case, if you plan to rescue Eryssa (the kidnapped Elvish Sorceress) you should still have Elenia with you, otherwise she (Eryssa) won't stay with you, and the story for the rest of the campaign accommodates to this. If you don't rescue her, you just skip the next scenario (''Introductions'').

===Introductions===
* Objective: Move Tallin to the northern signpost.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 24/21/18/15 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, Eryssa and a supporter.

This is a small level with just a bunch of trolls. Nothing too complicated. Standard dungeon-crawling tactics should work fine in this one—minimize your exposed front, and cycle wounded units back to the healers before they get killed. The destination signpost is in the north-west corner. Try and level any non-max-level units you still have. Send your wraith up the right-hand passage and he can attack/distract some of the trolls. There is nothing interesting in any of the side passages.

===Stolen Gold===
* Objectives:
** Defeat the enemy leaders; or..
** Resist until time runs out.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies.
* Turns: 36/36/36/36 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Krash, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, Eryssa and a supporter.

You'll have two problems in this scenario. One is lots and lots and lots of trolls. The other is that Krash is going to fly off and recruit level-one drakes to help you, but if they get swarmed by all the level-two trolls they're not going to live long. Krash's camp will materialize in the mountains near the map-edge west of your camp; the house at edge of board will be one hex NW of his tent square. Don't do anything in the beginning with Krash except grab villages. He leaves on turn 2, only to return on turn 7.

The first thing you could do is kill the north-west troll. Move the Sorceress, the Ancient Lich and the Spectre towards the Blue troll on your first turn. Recall a castle of level 3s or high XP level 2s, mostly Dwarf Lords and Dragonguards, though the occasional Fugitive or Huntsman can be useful. Then move rod-bearer (Tallin or Zlex) towards the blue leader as well. The Blue leader will take the village to the SE of his camp on turn 1. With the rod bearers high movement and the power of the Lich, it's possible to ZoC him on turn 2 and kill him (it helps to use the Sorceress, she needs the XP). Then, mopping up the blue trolls is not much of a problem with the units available - apart from the sorceress, they can usually kill between one and 2 trolls per turn. Recruit a couple more troops on the Blue base if you've still got the money and attend to the rest.

I like to send the two White Mages on their own to the south. Since they are immortal they can stall the two southern trolls for (hopefully) enough time for you to kill the north-east troll. The drawback is that you go from 3 healers to just 1. If you do this, make sure to keep them in the middle of the map. Sometimes they regenerate off to the side. If this happens the trolls will just bypass them and attack your main force before you are ready.

Using your first turn recalls, establish a defensive line on the line of hills in the middle of the map at the top, putting the Shyde in the forest. Wait out the Green trolls' charge, then counterattack, bringing the Spectre and possibly the Sorceress round to help. The green troll should be on the way out around the time Krash arrives. One of the White Mages provides healing up here (if you aren't sending them on a kamikaze mission to the south).

The Lich and 2 or 3 other dwarves (healthy/resilient if possible) should hold the edge of the hills on the west side of the map, keeping them clear for Krash's arrival. They shouldn't kill any Whelps that oppose them, but take out Rocklobbers and Grunts for as little return damage as possible. Use ranged attacks in preference to melee, apart from if the Lich needs some health back. Tallin should take and hold the village in the middle when he's finished with the Blue trolls, and provide leadership. The second White Mage stays near the base, and will resurrect there when killed, providing a wonderful distraction to up to 8 trolls per turn. Krash's arrival should happen around the time that the troops from the Green troll attack are freed up - sweep all of the remaining trolls southwards. Krash and company should kill the Black leader, and the Elves and Spectre will take care of Purple around the time the Brown Elf team arrives. Good for a huge gold bonus, but requires a very aggressive start and risks losing a couple of high level units.

'''Alternate strategy:''' Recall nine or ten veterans and linger up around where his camp
will appear. Hold off the troll swarm until the drakes show up, then bust out of the encirclement and clean up.

The Spectre can be extremely effective against the trolls; place him in the village on the northern tip of the eastern island, and he should be able to safely defend against one to three trolls each turn. The Elvish Shyde and Sorceress, as well as the two liches, can be put to
better use if you move them into the forest on the eastern island in the beginning of the scenario. Stay within the forest and lure in trolls one or two at a time to level up the Sorceress and create a distraction. Once the troll leaders in the NE and SE have finished recruiting and their forces have moved over to attack in the west, the liches and the shyde can jump in and kill the leaders, and seize as many villages as possible.

After Krash's camp is set up, you will be controlling both Tallin's and Krash's troops. Krash's team will take its turn after all the trolls, and before Tallin. The trolls will probably be still swarming in front of Tallin's defense, but you can create opportunities for the drakes to level
up by withdrawing one of Tallin's units and defeating the two trolls next to that opening, so that the trolls will be zone-locked and unable to get into the opening. The drakes will have the advantage that after they attack they can be healed by Tallin's healers, before the trolls retaliate.

Although you will be in deep negative gold during this one, don't succumb to the temptation to give all the villages to Krash. He can make use of them immediately, but that isn't important, as he starts with enough gold to recruit enough drakes for what you need. You will get a big early finish bonus, so seize villages with your forces in the east, and with your main force once you break out. It's essential to get more than 140 gold going into the next level. (Krash won't go negative, so he'll end up with 400-500 gold with the early finish bonus anyway.)

===Eastern Flank===
* Objective: Defeat the enemy leaders.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 56/53/50/47 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, Eryssa, a Gryphon, a supporter and Krash (as a team leader).

'''Strategy 1:''' The only good thing about drakes in mountains is that you can rush them away to heal once they get trashed. They have a much lower defense on mountains relative to non-drake units. So it's better for Tallin to recall L2 and L3 dwarves (maybe one L1 dwarf), and spread these along the line in the mountains - you probably can't get enough to avoid having quite a number of drakes here, but it limits the number of drakes that the enemy can trash per turn; and the limited mobility in the mountains means they can't always attack the drakes with the units that they want.

Use drakes first to finish off weakened enemies, and drake burners to soften up the higher level enemy melee units (try to avoid having many L1 drake units in the line at night, when they are extremely vulnerable). Tallin's higher level units are better used for attacks on fresh enemy units. Don't extend your drake line to the map edge any faster than needed - the AI won't deliberately try to outflank, he'll just try to wrap around the last unit in line. You want to minimise the number of drakes he can maul each turn. Get the two human healers up into the mountains, and wounded drakes should congregate behind the lines around these. The two liches are good front-line units here, as the high defense means the enemy melee troops can't batter them too much (their drain attacks tend to compensate for any health loss), and their magic attacks are perhaps the most potent on this terrain.

Meanwhile, the east side of your line starts in the village just E of the mountains, where Tallin should be - the enemy are generally afraid to attack him due to the Rod. The line east of here consists of the spectre, the shyde & sorceress, and a mix of drakes and any high-level human units in your auto-recall. (The drakes have only a 10% difference in defense on these terrains, and have better mobility over the river.) Use the shyde and sorceress to entangle the best enemy melee units each turn, and drakes to soften up and kill them.

You hold this line for 2 days, wearing through the enemy. Once they run low on units, the drakes become valuable for encircling isolated units, rolling up the flanks, and darting behind their lines to seize villages. Push south through the mountains, and use the wizards to blast the orc leaders.

'''Strategy 2:''' I use the same technique as Strategy 1 in the mountains, but a radically different strategy otherwise. I recalled all my veterans, sent the dwarves north, and almost everyone else directly west. I recruited as many Gryphons as I could with my money, and sent them, as well as Abhai, south to take the island. I also made sure to move Tallin and Krash near to the front lines. The sheer number of high-level units attacking the main front was too much for the orcs, and by turn 11 the dwarf/drake force had defeated the northern flank. I moved Krash into one of the leader castle squares in the fortress, and recruited a Drake Burner in every free square in the fortress. (If you still somehow have positive gold with Tallin, you can use a similar technique with him) By turn 12, the orcs' main front had also collapsed due to the Drake Burners, and I defeated the last orc leader on turn 16.

The gryphons in the south basically were slaughtered by turn 10. I only had two remaining with low health; I retreated these in case they would be useful for recall (20 gold vs. recruiting 40 gold). By then, however, the island was free from orcs and there was only a small band (~5-6) of one Orcish Warrior and several Wolf Riders left. Abhai easily slaughtered most of them in the water, and the healed surviving Gryphons killed the rest by turn 14.

The only problem with this strategy is that it puts you in deep negative gold, but the early finish bonus more than makes up for that.

'''Strategy 3:''' I managed to win this scenario (on Easy) only by sending the White mages / Mages of Light to the mountains to the west of Krash, along with every dwarf lord I could recall, while the elves, Abhai, and Camerin went south of the river. I put the liches on the mountain-peninsula so that they could attack many units. Krash recruited Burners and Clashers, with the occasional Fighter, and they planted themselves in the forest and grassland west of Tallin's keep. They died easily but did not fail completely, they held the line west and I did manage to level several drakes (of each line) up to at least Level 2. This is the only way I could win without getting veterans slaughtered, and even when they weren't slaughtered, the orcs were bold enough to walk up to Tallin's keep, attack him, and steal the villages. My "advisor" was a Huntsman, who died easily, so I just kept him back. The drakes that needed healing in the field or forest took advantages of nearby villages (there were some on an island south of Tallin's keep, some in the mountains, and some in the forest). The dwarves in the mountains went into nearby villages or the White Mages if they needed healing. Abhai as a Spectre did well in the far south against Wolf Riders, and the elves and the Great Mage did well in the forest on the edge of the island against the occasional Assassin or Wolf Rider. Later, I sent a drake or two that way. Once the front line of the orcs was eliminated, Krash and Tallin moved forward with all the troops, and sat in the keeps. Because of the unique way that the castle is designed, the orcs recruited units right next to my units, while I recruited units right next to theirs. I lost a good drake or two but otherwise did not suffer many problems.

Comment (Nightmare): I would recommend taking up a very forward position (which leaves you with only one flat hex to defend and a shorter way to the castle when you decide to push through). As the distance to the keep, where Tallin is busy recruiting, becomes quite large, I would recommend giving the rod to Zlex (Royal Guard by now) in Pursuit. That way it will see more action and he even can receive leadership by Tallin later. If you treat your drakes well, i.e. always retreat at dusk, they can do a lot of work, gain experience and most of all kill scores of bathing assassins. Instead of wasting gold and blood on recruiting many L1 in the enemy castle, recalling some resilient units (i.e. dwarf lords + a few shielding L1) to prevent any further recruiting (instead of attempting to directly kill the leaders with them) is much more efficient.

===Get the Gold===
* Objectives: Defeat the orcs.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian or Ro'Sothian dies or turns run out.
* Turns: 40/35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard/nightmare).
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, a supporter, Krash (as team leader) and Eryssa (as team leader).
* Other: Save Sisal if at all possible. If you do, you get your gold from "The Pursuit" back.

The primary challenge in this scenario is trying to save Sisal, and though it is not stated that Sisal's survival is essential, you do not get back the gold that you earned in "The Pursuit" if she dies. You really, really want that gold. Setting her side's behavior (with right-click) to "defensive" is usually enough to make her stall the orcs successfully until you can either get quick reinforcements to her, or defeat the enemy leader.

The enemy is pretty strong so recruit with the drakes, elves and Tallin's crew. Level what units you can and focus on killing enemy units. Other than keeping Sisal alive this is a simple assault against strong enemies.

''Note'': In versions previous to 1.10.x, this scenario was slightly different and keeping Sisal alive was much more challenging because you couldn't give here commands, and she had a high propensity to jump into the water and get killed. The following paragraphs apply to those older versions.

The AI controlling Sisal may behave strangely and she jumps into the river to be slaughtered easily. If you are desperate, an option is using the [[CommandMode|droid command]] to change Sisal to a human controller - that way, you control her and prevent her from dying within 3 turns.

'''Alternative Strategy:''' On turn one, mass produce gliders with the drakes and gryphons with the humans. Send the gryphons along the eastern edge of the map, and send the gliders immediately due south. The gryphons will need to punch a small hole to proceed (when forces try and stop them in the mountains), but they're then easily able to wrap around to the south-east of the enemy's forces. Send the gliders to the south-west of the enemy's forces on turn three.

Throw in a few scouts from the elvish army for good measure, and you can effectively, quickly create a wall of units to shield Sisal—at which point she returns to her keep.

This strategy also causes the AI to heavily attack your southern units, giving you a weak enemy line in the north you can quickly punch through with your massive army. I was able to defeat their leader on turn six without a problem.

===Showdown===
* Objectives: Defeat all enemies.
* Lose if: Tallin, Ro'Arthian, Ro'Sothian or Hamel dies or turns run out.
* Turns: Unlimited.
* Starting units: Tallin, Camerin, Abhai, Father Morvin, Sister Thera, Elenia, Stalrag, a supporter, Krash (as team leader) and Eryssa (as team leader).
* Other: If you have recovered your gold on the previous scenario, it gets split into three equal parts, and assigned to your three leaders (Tallin, Krash and Eryssa).

Pull out all the stops, because this is it. The wall is defended by level 3 orcs (Warlords and Slurbows). You'll want to draw them off the walls before engaging them, they're dangerous enough as it is without the fortification bonus; hanging a unit or two just within their engagement range will do it. Because there are so many orcs, you need to be especially careful about neither leaving units isolated nor presenting unanchored flanks for them to swarm around (the drakes, in particular, should fort up in the northern camp until they've thinned out their attackers considerably). Get to the edge of the moat and then cycle in fresh units and expand along the edge of the moat. The enemy will probably swarm towards Tallin's units. Don't try and breakthrough. Just be content to kill the units that enter the moat.

Recruit lots of druids with the elves and send them to help out Tallin and the drakes. Other than that the same strategy applies: kill the units in the moat. If there is an opening, move in.

Same thing with the drakes. If you level a Burner, turn it into a Flare. Since you have lots of level 1's the leadership will be useful.

Hamel will tear up the western edge of the fort pretty well. Aid him with elves if you can and then follow his lead to attack from within the castle walls.

Recruit, recruit, recruit, especially with the drakes. Take out the level 3 wall defenders, wear down the attackers in the moat and punch through where you can. Somewhat tedious but inevitable with your massive gold reserves.

[[Category:Campaigns]]
[[Category: Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

LegendofWesmere

2013-10-27T16:59:10Z

ElComandante: /* Battle of the Book */

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 sylphs, 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 sylphs and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans. However, they are not recruitable during the first four scenarios (since version 1.9.x) --you will still have enough opportunity to level them up, but it requires some effort.

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 marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==
* Objectives: Kill any of the orc leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 16/14/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and Anduilas

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 might want to simply run away (and previously you could), but you have to kill one enemy leader. The keep directly to the east might seem tempting, but it will be hard to conquer, since its orcish leader will be pumping out units constantly for the first few turns.

A good alternative is going southwest, as this puts the maximum distance between you and the troops of the other orcish leaders, and only level 1 orcs will come from that corner. It also allows you to use the units of Velon more efficiently; they come under your control after they are first attacked by an orc. The villages will also become yours at that point, so you don't need to worry too much about them (except for healing, of course).

You can only recruit fighters and archers. Use fighters to shield yourself and archers to kill the grunts (warriors). Keep loyals and leaders safe - if only one unit shields them, remember that it can be killed by a single lucky L2 orc. If you manage to level up units choose captain for fighters and marksman for archers.

[Addition by vanatteveldt: At least on medium, you can also storm the eastern fortress. I recruited a fortress full of archers and a couple of fighters and immediately stormed the eastern fortress. If you keep the orcs penned up in the keep and immediately place (and replace) a fighter on any vacant keep square, you can prevent the computer from recruited more than 1 unit per turn or so. I finished on turn 6 with the eastern orc leader having 155 gold left that it couldn't spend.]

== Hostile Mountains ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost or defeat the troll leader
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

The most important thing to do is get the dwarves to fight the trolls. The trolls will go to the east bank without any bait, just take care you don't lure them away or worse anger the dwarves yourself. Even after they fight with the trolls, do not go to the east bank.

Recruit fighters to die, archers to do damage. The trolls will tend to go for the fighters when given the option. If you don't have a captain yet, level up a fighter as soon as possible, and use his leadership on your archers. You will need marksmen to kill trolls on mountains, so keep your archers safe (well, at least on reasonable terrain).

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 out an archer or two (preferably ''quick'' ones) 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.

There is a reason the middle island has so much forest. The western bank of the river has a narrow swath of forest surrounded by mountains and hills. This is not ideal terrain for fighting trolls. Trolls move faster than elves on hills and mountains and have comparable defense. A much better idea is to try to occupy the middle island, forcing the trolls to attack from water. Chances are you'll only be able to claim the northern tip of the island at first, so half your army will spill over to the forest on the west bank. The dwarves help by putting units in water and doing other things to distract the trolls and draw fire away from you.

It is preferable to aim to kill the troll leader rather than get to the signpost as the experience is most important.

== Ka'lian Under Attack ==
* Objectives: Survive the initial attack with Galtrid, then defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Galtrid dies or turns run out
* Turns: 5/7/9 initially, then 35/30/25 extra (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later.

For the first turns (original turn limit) you play the defenders of the Ka'lian. See all those Orcish Assassins in the water? Make sure they receive as much retaliation as possible when they poison your units (archers). As you can heal only 2 units per turn, make sure they can't poison your fresh recruits as well. So you can as well kill them with some of your poisoned units as long as they have still enough health. Distribute XP carefully, units heal upon level up, rarely is this more useful than in this scenario.

Don't just hit Ctrl-R to recruit; you have a massive keep so put your new units in the right place. Don't let the orcs in good defense terrain and you should be fine. Use Galtrids leadership carefully by moving him multiple times per turn to support different areas of the castle.

When Kalenz arrives - and if you defended the Ka'lian well - the orcs just pile up in the northwestern corner. Control the map, by trapping and killing the village stealing wolf riders, heal your poisoned Ka'lian defenders and let them do some work. Close in carefully - it will be very hard avoiding casualties, but when the time comes, let them be L1 fighters and not your L2. You can level a number of units, but don't wait too long, you will need gold for the next scenario. (250+ carryover)

The behaviour of the orcs will depend directly on your ability to hold out the invasion of your fortress. If you manage to repel somewhat successfully their initial attack, the orcs will assume a defensive stance for the second part of the battle (usually triggered when Kalenz arrives). If, on the other hand, the orcs have a more successful start, they then become more aggresive and the battle becomes much more lively on the second part.

A special feature of this particular scenario --something not very common in a campaign-- is that you will control two armies simultaneously after Kalenz' arrival. You start assuming the role of El'Isomithir, ant later Kalenz joins the party and by then you will switch between your two roles. However, you won't control El'Isomithir's army anymore in the future, so don't grow too attached to it.

== The Elvish Treasury ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Cleodil dies or turns run out
* Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

There are two ways to play this scenario. The most straightforward solution is to send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where Cleodil (an Elvish Shyde) is. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. Recruit plenty of fighters, use leadership to full extent and try to heal by level up.

It is alternatively possible to kill the eastern leader with rangers/avengers, the AI will completely ignore them once they are in the woods again. This allows to play more defensively in the west.

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 to keep the saurians on bad terrain 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). Kill the Augurs as soon as possible with your fighter line. The skirmishers have a lot of movement points; make sure that wounded units are safe or meant to be sacrificed. In general, take your time to experiment and figure out what works best on your strategy against saurians, as you'll be seeing many more of them in the future.

Along with Cleodil, one fighter and one archer (2 on ''easy'') will be freed from their prison. All of them become loyal to your cause, so by the end of this scenario you'll have a small loyal army on your hands. Protect them well and plan carefully how you are going to level them up, since they will become the core of your troops from now on until the very end (although you will be occasionally separated from them).

There's a couple of things worth noting regarding Cleodil: one is that she has a special ability labeled ''elates Kalenz'' which works basically like leadership, but only works on Kalenz. What this means is that from now on it's a good idea to keep those two close to each other in the battle field. The other one is that she can recruit shamans and woses. You may try it out in this scenario, in the small keep to the north. This works out nicely if your strategy for this scenario is to concentrate on the northwestern enemy first. With a little effort, you can free Cleodil relatively quickly, and then her recruits can be very helpful for the rest of the battle.

== The Saurian Treasury ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Cleodil dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24/20/18 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

With Cleodil on your side now, you may finally recruit shamans, as well as woses.

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). Try to confront them on favorable terrain and form a defensive line (against skirmishers) each turn. Woses are very effective against saurians, and the ''slows'' attribute of shamans' ranged attacks limits the damage potential and mobility of skirmishers. Kill the southern leader first.

When you've dealt with the southern leader and the treasury (the single saurian sitting on a village and not moving) you can either take an Elvish Scout to the treasury to pick up the gold and return it to the sign post (you will have only have the movement points after taking up the treasure) or just go kill the northern leader. Killing the leader is preferable. You'll get XP and any loss in gold from early finish is dwarfed by the 1800 gold you get for beating the level.

Keep an eye on the turn limit. The enemy leaders are easily lured out with a scout.

== Acquaintance in Need ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

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, who 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.

The dwarves will get a lot of kills/occupy the enemy quite a bit. Their high mountain defense and mobility ensure this. You may need to resign yourself to softening the orcs up and letting the dwarves get the kills.

On this scenario you'll be able to ask Olurf to move to a specific location inside the map (using right-click), which may be useful in case you want his help in some particularly tight spot. This is one of the ways in which you can control the behaviour of your allies (you'll see another in the next scenario). Notice, however, that this command only applies to Olurf himself, and his troops will continue to move freely as they please, often taking experience away from you.

By the end of the scenario, you will end up "hiring" Olurf --paying him 400 gold-- but if you've been careful with your finances, you probably won't miss that amount.

== Elves' Last Stand ==
* Objectives: Defeat all of the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Galtrid dies or turns run out
* Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

[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.

Avoid focusing too much on the troll keep for the first few turns. If you do this, Galdrid will probably be left without much assistance inside Ka'lian, and by turn 5-6 it will probably be too late. Instead, focus on moving your army to Ka'lian as quickly as possible and continue the battle from there. Fortunately, the terrain will help you repel the trolls and orcs coming from the north and west while you move the bulk of your army.

If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the aforementioned trolls and orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to Grubr's keep, then west 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 eastern side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at Grubr'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 the reinforcements won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Olurf will show up on turn 12 and you'll have to choose whether to place him on the northeast, or the northwest corner. Since dwarves are quite comfortable on mountains, a good choice is the northeast corner, from which you can guide him and his troops to finish off the troll leader.

If you want to save Eradion (your elf ally on the southwest), order him to move inside Ka'lian from the first turn. Otherwise, he will probably end up being caught in the fire and experiencing a not very heroic death.

Note for directing the AI:
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 enough time to concentrate on the nothern battle.

[Comment by ElComandante]: There is another victory condition - "You must own the field and be capable of overwhelming your opponents." This apparently means "own more than 25 units while keeping the opponents under 15". Played on medium difficulty/1.11.6.

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz across the river
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

The only thing you gain from defeating the saurians is experience. Since you just left a lot of your troops at the Ka'lian, experience may be worth your effort. Nonetheless, if you are having trouble beating this level just run north as fast as you can. You should be able to cross the river with little trouble. You probably don't even need to recruit.

If you want to claim some experience, you can form a small army --gold will be the main limitation, since the considerable treasure you had was left on Ka'lian in the previous scenario-- and then either split it into two fronts, or take it all to one of the saurian keeps first if you don't feel comfortable splitting such a small army. If you do split it, send a dwarf-heavy squad to the left (closer mountains) and an elf-heavy one to the right (more forest).

The enemy recruits some relatively low HP level 2s and 3s. You can level units quickly after killing a couple of Saurian Oracles. Of course those Oracles have strong magical attacks (especially at night) negating your high defense. Luckily for you the battles start during the day.

Focus on killing the Oracles and Augurs first. They are easy to kill and do a lot of damage. Instead of throwing 3 or 4 units at a level 3 Flanker, just slow it and rack up kills. Try and kill as many units as you can before nightfall, when the attacks become much more ferocious.

The battles will be on high defense terrain, so they will go slowly. If you recruit more than one keepful Kalenz will have a much tougher time crossing the river.

However, if you already have good units that don't need a lot of extra experience, it might be better to aim for an early finish, in order to amass a good gold reserve again. Gold will become very important by the time you reach the ''Human Alliance'' scenario.

Once you reach the river, a few sea creatures will show up (water serpents and cuttle fish), but they are usually not much of a challenge. Make use of the small islands to get Kalenz across as quickly as possible. You may also try distracting the monsters with elvish scouts.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost or defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

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, among your enemies you will find level 4 Yetis (which pack quite a punch), and Gryphons (which move very quickly through any terrain). Keep your shamans ready to slow Yetis before you attack them with other units.

You may try splitting 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.

Another strategy could be sending your full army northwest through the forest, using a quick unit to scout the way until you encounter the Yetis (there are 3 in total), and try to dispatch them quickly, before the trolls catch up with you from the east. Then send a few units to deal with the Gryphon leader on the northwest, while your main force goes east to fight the trolls, and Kalenz goes northeast to reach the sign post. If you want to gain as much XP as possible, move Kalenz ''near'' the signpost while you fight the remaining enemies. You can win the scenario by defeating the leaders, but if things get too hairy, you can always finish by moving Kalenz to its destination.

== Battle of the Book ==
* Objectives: Defeat Aquagar the drake wizard
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Crelanu or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 30/34/38 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

The drakes, commanded by Aquagar (the foe you have to defeat) are at the northwest corner, while a keep of trolls is located at the northeast. Crelanu, the wise mage you came here for, is by the lake. You can send a quick unit (e.g. Cleodil) towards that keep in the middle of the map to trigger the dialogue with Crelanu.

You may try splitting your forces, sending half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

However, it will take some time for the trolls to reach Crelanu, so you may try focusing all your power towards Aquagar to finish him as quickly as possible, and then Crelanu won't need any assistance. If you go for killing Aquagar quickly, you might manage with just a few units, so you can save some gold by not over-recruiting.

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.

'''For 1.9.x'''
In this scenario, you only have to kill Aquagar. So you just focus attacking the drakes. Send some Steelclads, Pathfinders to aid Crelanu. Marksmen, Rangers, Druids, Thunderguards, Stalwarts are extremely useful here. I killed Aquagar by turn 5. ~~Knyghtmare.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== News from the Front ==

Story only.

== Human Alliance ==
* Objectives: Survive until the end of turns
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf or Aldar (the human leader) dies or turns run out
* Turns: 18/20/22 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

This scenario is the unofficial final, the following scenarios are pretty much a sequel, and easier too.

The enemy is in three places: the northwest, the northeast (trolls) and the southwest. The northeast trolls will not receive reinforcements, so you should concentrate on eliminating their army first.

The most challenging aspect of this scenario is that your army has to do three things practically simultaneously: contain the northwest orcs (this is not that hard due to favorable terrain), aid your human allies to the south, and eliminate the trolls.

The trolls should be pretty easy to kill. Their leader doesn't have much money, so there will not be many trolls to face. Slowing with some shaman and using the forest (and mountain tiles for placing your dwarves) to your benefit leads to a quick victory. Afterwards, send the units to reinforce your other two fronts.

Your allies can hold their own against the first wave of southern attackers but after that they'll be toast. A much better course of action is to team up with them and crush the first wave. When the reinforcements come you should be in a good position to defeat the orcs (especially with your victorious anti-troll army coming to help).

The northwest orcs are numerous but should be kept in check by strong units in the bottlenecks. You'll need some tanks (Champions/Marshals or Steelclads) and healers. When the orc reinforcements arrive you may get swarmed. By this time you should have some help coming from your anti-troll army.

The first wave of reinforcements for the orcs will arrive by the end of turn 5. The second wave will come at turn 12. By the end of the battle, the number of orcs will be overwhelming, and the action will take quite some time between turns. By the second half of the battle your complete focus should probably be on protecting your ally general, who by then will be out of money, occasionally recruiting one or two fodder units, and will remain immovable on his castle keep.

On turn 9, some of the elves you had left on Ka'lian will make a come back (including your loyals!). However, they will show up a little to the west of the keep where you start this scenario. It is a strange location for them to show up, and by that point of the battle it will probably be surrounded by enemies, so keeping these reinforcements alive may be very challenging if you don't have at least some of your forces making a stand near that location. If you can save just some of them, aim for the loyal units, and sacrifice the others.

You should spend all your gold upfront --there is no much point in saving it for later. You may want to recruit a scout or two at the beginning, if you think the investment will be profitable. They can capture a village almost every turn. Don't bother leaving villages for your ally. The money is better in your hands.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==
* Objectives: Kill the orc chief then return to the signpost
* Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/32/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz and Landar

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 (in the middle) and then return to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes (invisible, 80% dodge) for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Landar to level 3.

When Kalenz takes the potion he changes into an Elvish Lord (as you might remember him if you have played [[HeirToTheThrone|HttT]]). He will now possess an arcane-magical attack, which proves very useful against many enemies. You should easily be able to get him to level up during this scenario.

You should have plenty of turns. The only units that will attack you are the Wolf Rider line. They don't pose much threat thanks to Landar's bow and your 80% dodge. Go to the orc leader, kill him and return to the signpost. There is no point in grabbing villages as you get no income from them. There is also no point in finishing early so go ahead and level Kalenz.

== Breaking the Siege ==
* Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf or Uradredia (the elf leader) dies or turns run out
* Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

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). Sylphs and Shydes are best, of course.

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 (the one in the middle of the forest). You will want to finish this level quickly or/and to grab as soon as possible all the villages to have lots of gold for the next scenario (on medium you'll probably want at least 500 gold). Send some fast units north to keep your ally alive and send the rest straight west. The western units can sweep up after taking out the southern orc boss. A few of Direwolf Riders come as reinforcements when you get to close to the southern orc, so be careful. Alternatively just send everyone north and fan out from there.

With good units this level shouldn't be tough to beat. Just make sure you beat it in good standing for the next scenario. At this point, this campaign becomes a very good example of why keeping your loyal units alive is very much worth it.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==
* Objectives: Defeat all enemy units and destroy all enemy villages
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 40/35/30 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units
* Other

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 northeastern 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! (You don't need more than minimal gold in the next recruiting scenario.)

The best place to make a stand is probably near the patch of forest in the middle (high casualty approach) or the forest with the big ice plain in front of it (low casualty approach).

High casualty approach:

You have to put units in the swamp to keep the saurians out of there. The only poor-defense terrain for the saurians is the ice, so keep them on it. The Oracles/Soothsayers will use their ranged attack on your melee units and the Skirmishers/Flankers will use their melee attack on your archers. You will take heavy losses but this is actually good (more on that in a second).

I like to send Kalenz and a couple of fast units (Scouts/Riders) along the northern forest and then have them cut across the top of the map. This accomplishes three things: one, you torch some out of the way villages; two, you can distract the northern saurians long enough to keep your main force (in the middle of the map) in control; three, you can move them over to kill the northern leader at the end.

There is a weird twist to this level. After this the elvish civil war breaks out. All your units except loyal ones and scouts defect and serve Landar. So, see that Elvish Champion racking up the kills? Next time he's in battle he will be killing ''your'' units. After the tide of the battle has turned try and get the non-loyal high level units killed (attack those last two Oracles with ranged attack, etc).

If you have enough gold your main worries will be getting to the villages in time (scouts come in handy), getting to the northern leader in time and leaving as few good units for the civil war as possible.

Low casualty approach:

1.10.1 (hard): It is not necessary to get your units killed consciously and this scenario is possible with fairly low gold (220 gold for me) by recruiting mainly veterans and exploiting the horrible saurian movement / defence on ice (low casualty approach). As the turn limit isn't very long, it is useful to send some rangers/avengers behind the saurian lines to start burning villages, as soon as they hide in a forest they are invisible to the AI. Constantly check the turn clock, and be as aggresive as possible during the day.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost
* Lose if: Kalenz or Cleodil dies or turns run out
* Turns: 20/16/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and Anduilas

There's no need to recruit - Kalenz can make it to the signpost with just the units you're given.

You might feel tempted to take this scenario as an opportunity to level up some new recruits from scratch, but this may not be a good idea. After a few turns, one of your elf allies (chosen at random) will turn against you, making the battle unpredictable and risky, for not a lot of gain.

There's just a couple of extra scenarios left in this campaign, and if you feel like leveling up units for the final battle, it's better to do it in the next scenario, where you can recall Cleodil's troops again.

== Northern Battle ==
* Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders or survive for six days
* Lose if: Kalenz, Cleodil or Uradredia dies or turns run out
* Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and Anduilas

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 a little to the north from yours. Approximately two thirds of your non-loyal veterans, chosen at random, will go with Landar, while the remaining third will go with Uradredia.

If you have been building a formidable "air force" (shaman line) you can beat this level very easily. Moreover, the objective description is not very faithful, since you don't really have to kill all enemy leaders. It suffices to move any of your units adjacent to Landar. This makes this scenario quite easy to beat. If you still have Huraldur (your loyal quick elvish rider) on your side and you have leveled him up, you can take him straight to Landar's keep, and --thanks to the vulnerable design of Landar's keep-- place him next to Landar by turn 3, finishing the scenario with a huge gold reward. Alternatively, you may try a similar strategy with a group of new scout recruits or other quick units.

However, you can take the opportunity to level up a few recruits. Particularly, now could be a good time to level up any shamans/woses from Cleodil's old recall list to their maximum. Keep in mind that you need to put Cleodil in the ''Encampment Keep'' tile so you can recall those units.

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 you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay Crintil's army 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.

Playing this scenario patiently has a nice side-effect: by killing Landar's strong veterans here, they won't be available to him in the final battle. As a consequence, if you completely wipe up his army now, he'll be stuck with just fresh level-1 and level-2 elves to recruit by then (unless you're playing on ''hard'' difficulty). Also, all of Uradredia's units will become yours, so if you have the chance to save some of his veterans in this scenario, it's worth doing it.

[On version 1.8.2, all my levelled shaman-line had also disappeared - some for my ally, other for Landar. I could only recruit some shaman about to level. And some of my warriors had gone to my ally, not to Landar. With only first level units, killing the south-east level at turn 2 or 3 is not possible... but you can still buy some second-level warriors who will do the job. After that, most of Landar's units will go toward your ally's keep, which makes you able to reach Landar and end the scenario. Careful, he will be able to deal a final blow to the unit who assaulted him ! ]

If you have some experienced woses (highly resistant against pierce damage!), you can as well crush all the traitors frontally - as long as you engage them outside the forest - for an early finish and large bonus.

== End of War ==
* Objectives: Defeat Landar
* Lose if: Kalenz or Cleodil dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24/21/18 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

A relatively short and simple battle, considering this is the final scenario. Recall/recruit all worthy veterans, and don't worry about gold or grabbing villages. If you've made it this far, surely you have the necessary strategic/tactical skills necessary to deal with Landar's army. Now is the time to try risky ideas; this is the last stop for you and your army, so give them the chance to act heroically on the battle field.

A straightforward strategy involves recalling any remaining veteran troops, then recruiting an army of level 1 elves. 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.

[version 1.8.2 : on medium, you can just buy loads of level 1 warriors, and keep - most of the time - in the woods. Landar start with about the same money as you do, but doing this, you just suffocate him under numbers.]

Again experienced woses dominate your enemies outside of forests.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

[[Category: Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

LegendofWesmere

2013-10-26T15:44:14Z

ElComandante: /* Elves' Last Stand */ Additional victory condition

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 sylphs, 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 sylphs and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans. However, they are not recruitable during the first four scenarios (since version 1.9.x) --you will still have enough opportunity to level them up, but it requires some effort.

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 marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

== The Uprooting ==
* Objectives: Kill any of the orc leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 16/14/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and Anduilas

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 might want to simply run away (and previously you could), but you have to kill one enemy leader. The keep directly to the east might seem tempting, but it will be hard to conquer, since its orcish leader will be pumping out units constantly for the first few turns.

A good alternative is going southwest, as this puts the maximum distance between you and the troops of the other orcish leaders, and only level 1 orcs will come from that corner. It also allows you to use the units of Velon more efficiently; they come under your control after they are first attacked by an orc. The villages will also become yours at that point, so you don't need to worry too much about them (except for healing, of course).

You can only recruit fighters and archers. Use fighters to shield yourself and archers to kill the grunts (warriors). Keep loyals and leaders safe - if only one unit shields them, remember that it can be killed by a single lucky L2 orc. If you manage to level up units choose captain for fighters and marksman for archers.

[Addition by vanatteveldt: At least on medium, you can also storm the eastern fortress. I recruited a fortress full of archers and a couple of fighters and immediately stormed the eastern fortress. If you keep the orcs penned up in the keep and immediately place (and replace) a fighter on any vacant keep square, you can prevent the computer from recruited more than 1 unit per turn or so. I finished on turn 6 with the eastern orc leader having 155 gold left that it couldn't spend.]

== Hostile Mountains ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost or defeat the troll leader
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

The most important thing to do is get the dwarves to fight the trolls. The trolls will go to the east bank without any bait, just take care you don't lure them away or worse anger the dwarves yourself. Even after they fight with the trolls, do not go to the east bank.

Recruit fighters to die, archers to do damage. The trolls will tend to go for the fighters when given the option. If you don't have a captain yet, level up a fighter as soon as possible, and use his leadership on your archers. You will need marksmen to kill trolls on mountains, so keep your archers safe (well, at least on reasonable terrain).

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 out an archer or two (preferably ''quick'' ones) 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.

There is a reason the middle island has so much forest. The western bank of the river has a narrow swath of forest surrounded by mountains and hills. This is not ideal terrain for fighting trolls. Trolls move faster than elves on hills and mountains and have comparable defense. A much better idea is to try to occupy the middle island, forcing the trolls to attack from water. Chances are you'll only be able to claim the northern tip of the island at first, so half your army will spill over to the forest on the west bank. The dwarves help by putting units in water and doing other things to distract the trolls and draw fire away from you.

It is preferable to aim to kill the troll leader rather than get to the signpost as the experience is most important.

== Ka'lian Under Attack ==
* Objectives: Survive the initial attack with Galtrid, then defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Galtrid dies or turns run out
* Turns: 5/7/9 initially, then 35/30/25 extra (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later.

For the first turns (original turn limit) you play the defenders of the Ka'lian. See all those Orcish Assassins in the water? Make sure they receive as much retaliation as possible when they poison your units (archers). As you can heal only 2 units per turn, make sure they can't poison your fresh recruits as well. So you can as well kill them with some of your poisoned units as long as they have still enough health. Distribute XP carefully, units heal upon level up, rarely is this more useful than in this scenario.

Don't just hit Ctrl-R to recruit; you have a massive keep so put your new units in the right place. Don't let the orcs in good defense terrain and you should be fine. Use Galtrids leadership carefully by moving him multiple times per turn to support different areas of the castle.

When Kalenz arrives - and if you defended the Ka'lian well - the orcs just pile up in the northwestern corner. Control the map, by trapping and killing the village stealing wolf riders, heal your poisoned Ka'lian defenders and let them do some work. Close in carefully - it will be very hard avoiding casualties, but when the time comes, let them be L1 fighters and not your L2. You can level a number of units, but don't wait too long, you will need gold for the next scenario. (250+ carryover)

The behaviour of the orcs will depend directly on your ability to hold out the invasion of your fortress. If you manage to repel somewhat successfully their initial attack, the orcs will assume a defensive stance for the second part of the battle (usually triggered when Kalenz arrives). If, on the other hand, the orcs have a more successful start, they then become more aggresive and the battle becomes much more lively on the second part.

A special feature of this particular scenario --something not very common in a campaign-- is that you will control two armies simultaneously after Kalenz' arrival. You start assuming the role of El'Isomithir, ant later Kalenz joins the party and by then you will switch between your two roles. However, you won't control El'Isomithir's army anymore in the future, so don't grow too attached to it.

== The Elvish Treasury ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Cleodil dies or turns run out
* Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

There are two ways to play this scenario. The most straightforward solution is to send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where Cleodil (an Elvish Shyde) is. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. Recruit plenty of fighters, use leadership to full extent and try to heal by level up.

It is alternatively possible to kill the eastern leader with rangers/avengers, the AI will completely ignore them once they are in the woods again. This allows to play more defensively in the west.

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 to keep the saurians on bad terrain 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). Kill the Augurs as soon as possible with your fighter line. The skirmishers have a lot of movement points; make sure that wounded units are safe or meant to be sacrificed. In general, take your time to experiment and figure out what works best on your strategy against saurians, as you'll be seeing many more of them in the future.

Along with Cleodil, one fighter and one archer (2 on ''easy'') will be freed from their prison. All of them become loyal to your cause, so by the end of this scenario you'll have a small loyal army on your hands. Protect them well and plan carefully how you are going to level them up, since they will become the core of your troops from now on until the very end (although you will be occasionally separated from them).

There's a couple of things worth noting regarding Cleodil: one is that she has a special ability labeled ''elates Kalenz'' which works basically like leadership, but only works on Kalenz. What this means is that from now on it's a good idea to keep those two close to each other in the battle field. The other one is that she can recruit shamans and woses. You may try it out in this scenario, in the small keep to the north. This works out nicely if your strategy for this scenario is to concentrate on the northwestern enemy first. With a little effort, you can free Cleodil relatively quickly, and then her recruits can be very helpful for the rest of the battle.

== The Saurian Treasury ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Cleodil dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24/20/18 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

With Cleodil on your side now, you may finally recruit shamans, as well as woses.

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). Try to confront them on favorable terrain and form a defensive line (against skirmishers) each turn. Woses are very effective against saurians, and the ''slows'' attribute of shamans' ranged attacks limits the damage potential and mobility of skirmishers. Kill the southern leader first.

When you've dealt with the southern leader and the treasury (the single saurian sitting on a village and not moving) you can either take an Elvish Scout to the treasury to pick up the gold and return it to the sign post (you will have only have the movement points after taking up the treasure) or just go kill the northern leader. Killing the leader is preferable. You'll get XP and any loss in gold from early finish is dwarfed by the 1800 gold you get for beating the level.

Keep an eye on the turn limit. The enemy leaders are easily lured out with a scout.

== Acquaintance in Need ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

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, who 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.

The dwarves will get a lot of kills/occupy the enemy quite a bit. Their high mountain defense and mobility ensure this. You may need to resign yourself to softening the orcs up and letting the dwarves get the kills.

On this scenario you'll be able to ask Olurf to move to a specific location inside the map (using right-click), which may be useful in case you want his help in some particularly tight spot. This is one of the ways in which you can control the behaviour of your allies (you'll see another in the next scenario). Notice, however, that this command only applies to Olurf himself, and his troops will continue to move freely as they please, often taking experience away from you.

By the end of the scenario, you will end up "hiring" Olurf --paying him 400 gold-- but if you've been careful with your finances, you probably won't miss that amount.

== Elves' Last Stand ==
* Objectives: Defeat all of the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Galtrid dies or turns run out
* Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

[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.

Avoid focusing too much on the troll keep for the first few turns. If you do this, Galdrid will probably be left without much assistance inside Ka'lian, and by turn 5-6 it will probably be too late. Instead, focus on moving your army to Ka'lian as quickly as possible and continue the battle from there. Fortunately, the terrain will help you repel the trolls and orcs coming from the north and west while you move the bulk of your army.

If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the aforementioned trolls and orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to Grubr's keep, then west 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 eastern side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at Grubr'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 the reinforcements won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Olurf will show up on turn 12 and you'll have to choose whether to place him on the northeast, or the northwest corner. Since dwarves are quite comfortable on mountains, a good choice is the northeast corner, from which you can guide him and his troops to finish off the troll leader.

If you want to save Eradion (your elf ally on the southwest), order him to move inside Ka'lian from the first turn. Otherwise, he will probably end up being caught in the fire and experiencing a not very heroic death.

Note for directing the AI:
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 enough time to concentrate on the nothern battle.

[Comment by ElComandante]: There is another victory condition - "You must own the field and be capable of overwhelming your opponents." This apparently means "own more than 25 units while keeping the opponents under 15". Played on medium difficulty/1.11.6.

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz across the river
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

The only thing you gain from defeating the saurians is experience. Since you just left a lot of your troops at the Ka'lian, experience may be worth your effort. Nonetheless, if you are having trouble beating this level just run north as fast as you can. You should be able to cross the river with little trouble. You probably don't even need to recruit.

If you want to claim some experience, you can form a small army --gold will be the main limitation, since the considerable treasure you had was left on Ka'lian in the previous scenario-- and then either split it into two fronts, or take it all to one of the saurian keeps first if you don't feel comfortable splitting such a small army. If you do split it, send a dwarf-heavy squad to the left (closer mountains) and an elf-heavy one to the right (more forest).

The enemy recruits some relatively low HP level 2s and 3s. You can level units quickly after killing a couple of Saurian Oracles. Of course those Oracles have strong magical attacks (especially at night) negating your high defense. Luckily for you the battles start during the day.

Focus on killing the Oracles and Augurs first. They are easy to kill and do a lot of damage. Instead of throwing 3 or 4 units at a level 3 Flanker, just slow it and rack up kills. Try and kill as many units as you can before nightfall, when the attacks become much more ferocious.

The battles will be on high defense terrain, so they will go slowly. If you recruit more than one keepful Kalenz will have a much tougher time crossing the river.

However, if you already have good units that don't need a lot of extra experience, it might be better to aim for an early finish, in order to amass a good gold reserve again. Gold will become very important by the time you reach the ''Human Alliance'' scenario.

Once you reach the river, a few sea creatures will show up (water serpents and cuttle fish), but they are usually not much of a challenge. Make use of the small islands to get Kalenz across as quickly as possible. You may also try distracting the monsters with elvish scouts.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost or defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

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, among your enemies you will find level 4 Yetis (which pack quite a punch), and Gryphons (which move very quickly through any terrain). Keep your shamans ready to slow Yetis before you attack them with other units.

You may try splitting 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.

Another strategy could be sending your full army northwest through the forest, using a quick unit to scout the way until you encounter the Yetis (there are 3 in total), and try to dispatch them quickly, before the trolls catch up with you from the east. Then send a few units to deal with the Gryphon leader on the northwest, while your main force goes east to fight the trolls, and Kalenz goes northeast to reach the sign post. If you want to gain as much XP as possible, move Kalenz ''near'' the signpost while you fight the remaining enemies. You can win the scenario by defeating the leaders, but if things get too hairy, you can always finish by moving Kalenz to its destination.

== Battle of the Book ==
* Objectives: Defeat Aquagar the drake wizard
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
* Turns: 30/34/38 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

The drakes, commanded by Aquagar (the foe you have to defeat) are at the northwest corner, while a keep of trolls is located at the northeast. Crelanu, the wise mage you came here for, is by the lake. You can send a quick unit (e.g. Cleodil) towards that keep in the middle of the map to trigger the dialogue with Crelanu.

You may try splitting your forces, sending half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

However, it will take some time for the trolls to reach Crelanu, so you may try focusing all your power towards Aquagar to finish him as quickly as possible, and then Crelanu won't need any assistance. If you go for killing Aquagar quickly, you might manage with just a few units, so you can save some gold by not over-recruiting.

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.

'''For 1.9.x'''
In this scenario, you only have to kill Aquagar. So you just focus attacking the drakes. Send some Steelclads, Pathfinders to aid Crelanu. Marksmen, Rangers, Druids, Thunderguards, Stalwarts are extremely useful here. I killed Aquagar by turn 5. ~~Knyghtmare.

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== News from the Front ==

Story only.

== Human Alliance ==
* Objectives: Survive until the end of turns
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf or Aldar (the human leader) dies or turns run out
* Turns: 18/20/22 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

This scenario is the unofficial final, the following scenarios are pretty much a sequel, and easier too.

The enemy is in three places: the northwest, the northeast (trolls) and the southwest. The northeast trolls will not receive reinforcements, so you should concentrate on eliminating their army first.

The most challenging aspect of this scenario is that your army has to do three things practically simultaneously: contain the northwest orcs (this is not that hard due to favorable terrain), aid your human allies to the south, and eliminate the trolls.

The trolls should be pretty easy to kill. Their leader doesn't have much money, so there will not be many trolls to face. Slowing with some shaman and using the forest (and mountain tiles for placing your dwarves) to your benefit leads to a quick victory. Afterwards, send the units to reinforce your other two fronts.

Your allies can hold their own against the first wave of southern attackers but after that they'll be toast. A much better course of action is to team up with them and crush the first wave. When the reinforcements come you should be in a good position to defeat the orcs (especially with your victorious anti-troll army coming to help).

The northwest orcs are numerous but should be kept in check by strong units in the bottlenecks. You'll need some tanks (Champions/Marshals or Steelclads) and healers. When the orc reinforcements arrive you may get swarmed. By this time you should have some help coming from your anti-troll army.

The first wave of reinforcements for the orcs will arrive by the end of turn 5. The second wave will come at turn 12. By the end of the battle, the number of orcs will be overwhelming, and the action will take quite some time between turns. By the second half of the battle your complete focus should probably be on protecting your ally general, who by then will be out of money, occasionally recruiting one or two fodder units, and will remain immovable on his castle keep.

On turn 9, some of the elves you had left on Ka'lian will make a come back (including your loyals!). However, they will show up a little to the west of the keep where you start this scenario. It is a strange location for them to show up, and by that point of the battle it will probably be surrounded by enemies, so keeping these reinforcements alive may be very challenging if you don't have at least some of your forces making a stand near that location. If you can save just some of them, aim for the loyal units, and sacrifice the others.

You should spend all your gold upfront --there is no much point in saving it for later. You may want to recruit a scout or two at the beginning, if you think the investment will be profitable. They can capture a village almost every turn. Don't bother leaving villages for your ally. The money is better in your hands.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==
* Objectives: Kill the orc chief then return to the signpost
* Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/32/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz and Landar

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 (in the middle) and then return to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes (invisible, 80% dodge) for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Landar to level 3.

When Kalenz takes the potion he changes into an Elvish Lord (as you might remember him if you have played [[HeirToTheThrone|HttT]]). He will now possess an arcane-magical attack, which proves very useful against many enemies. You should easily be able to get him to level up during this scenario.

You should have plenty of turns. The only units that will attack you are the Wolf Rider line. They don't pose much threat thanks to Landar's bow and your 80% dodge. Go to the orc leader, kill him and return to the signpost. There is no point in grabbing villages as you get no income from them. There is also no point in finishing early so go ahead and level Kalenz.

== Breaking the Siege ==
* Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf or Uradredia (the elf leader) dies or turns run out
* Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

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). Sylphs and Shydes are best, of course.

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 (the one in the middle of the forest). You will want to finish this level quickly or/and to grab as soon as possible all the villages to have lots of gold for the next scenario (on medium you'll probably want at least 500 gold). Send some fast units north to keep your ally alive and send the rest straight west. The western units can sweep up after taking out the southern orc boss. A few of Direwolf Riders come as reinforcements when you get to close to the southern orc, so be careful. Alternatively just send everyone north and fan out from there.

With good units this level shouldn't be tough to beat. Just make sure you beat it in good standing for the next scenario. At this point, this campaign becomes a very good example of why keeping your loyal units alive is very much worth it.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==
* Objectives: Defeat all enemy units and destroy all enemy villages
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 40/35/30 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units
* Other

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 northeastern 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! (You don't need more than minimal gold in the next recruiting scenario.)

The best place to make a stand is probably near the patch of forest in the middle (high casualty approach) or the forest with the big ice plain in front of it (low casualty approach).

High casualty approach:

You have to put units in the swamp to keep the saurians out of there. The only poor-defense terrain for the saurians is the ice, so keep them on it. The Oracles/Soothsayers will use their ranged attack on your melee units and the Skirmishers/Flankers will use their melee attack on your archers. You will take heavy losses but this is actually good (more on that in a second).

I like to send Kalenz and a couple of fast units (Scouts/Riders) along the northern forest and then have them cut across the top of the map. This accomplishes three things: one, you torch some out of the way villages; two, you can distract the northern saurians long enough to keep your main force (in the middle of the map) in control; three, you can move them over to kill the northern leader at the end.

There is a weird twist to this level. After this the elvish civil war breaks out. All your units except loyal ones and scouts defect and serve Landar. So, see that Elvish Champion racking up the kills? Next time he's in battle he will be killing ''your'' units. After the tide of the battle has turned try and get the non-loyal high level units killed (attack those last two Oracles with ranged attack, etc).

If you have enough gold your main worries will be getting to the villages in time (scouts come in handy), getting to the northern leader in time and leaving as few good units for the civil war as possible.

Low casualty approach:

1.10.1 (hard): It is not necessary to get your units killed consciously and this scenario is possible with fairly low gold (220 gold for me) by recruiting mainly veterans and exploiting the horrible saurian movement / defence on ice (low casualty approach). As the turn limit isn't very long, it is useful to send some rangers/avengers behind the saurian lines to start burning villages, as soon as they hide in a forest they are invisible to the AI. Constantly check the turn clock, and be as aggresive as possible during the day.

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost
* Lose if: Kalenz or Cleodil dies or turns run out
* Turns: 20/16/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and Anduilas

There's no need to recruit - Kalenz can make it to the signpost with just the units you're given.

You might feel tempted to take this scenario as an opportunity to level up some new recruits from scratch, but this may not be a good idea. After a few turns, one of your elf allies (chosen at random) will turn against you, making the battle unpredictable and risky, for not a lot of gain.

There's just a couple of extra scenarios left in this campaign, and if you feel like leveling up units for the final battle, it's better to do it in the next scenario, where you can recall Cleodil's troops again.

== Northern Battle ==
* Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders or survive for six days
* Lose if: Kalenz, Cleodil or Uradredia dies or turns run out
* Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and Anduilas

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 a little to the north from yours. Approximately two thirds of your non-loyal veterans, chosen at random, will go with Landar, while the remaining third will go with Uradredia.

If you have been building a formidable "air force" (shaman line) you can beat this level very easily. Moreover, the objective description is not very faithful, since you don't really have to kill all enemy leaders. It suffices to move any of your units adjacent to Landar. This makes this scenario quite easy to beat. If you still have Huraldur (your loyal quick elvish rider) on your side and you have leveled him up, you can take him straight to Landar's keep, and --thanks to the vulnerable design of Landar's keep-- place him next to Landar by turn 3, finishing the scenario with a huge gold reward. Alternatively, you may try a similar strategy with a group of new scout recruits or other quick units.

However, you can take the opportunity to level up a few recruits. Particularly, now could be a good time to level up any shamans/woses from Cleodil's old recall list to their maximum. Keep in mind that you need to put Cleodil in the ''Encampment Keep'' tile so you can recall those units.

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 you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay Crintil's army 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.

Playing this scenario patiently has a nice side-effect: by killing Landar's strong veterans here, they won't be available to him in the final battle. As a consequence, if you completely wipe up his army now, he'll be stuck with just fresh level-1 and level-2 elves to recruit by then (unless you're playing on ''hard'' difficulty). Also, all of Uradredia's units will become yours, so if you have the chance to save some of his veterans in this scenario, it's worth doing it.

[On version 1.8.2, all my levelled shaman-line had also disappeared - some for my ally, other for Landar. I could only recruit some shaman about to level. And some of my warriors had gone to my ally, not to Landar. With only first level units, killing the south-east level at turn 2 or 3 is not possible... but you can still buy some second-level warriors who will do the job. After that, most of Landar's units will go toward your ally's keep, which makes you able to reach Landar and end the scenario. Careful, he will be able to deal a final blow to the unit who assaulted him ! ]

If you have some experienced woses (highly resistant against pierce damage!), you can as well crush all the traitors frontally - as long as you engage them outside the forest - for an early finish and large bonus.

== End of War ==
* Objectives: Defeat Landar
* Lose if: Kalenz or Cleodil dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24/21/18 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

A relatively short and simple battle, considering this is the final scenario. Recall/recruit all worthy veterans, and don't worry about gold or grabbing villages. If you've made it this far, surely you have the necessary strategic/tactical skills necessary to deal with Landar's army. Now is the time to try risky ideas; this is the last stop for you and your army, so give them the chance to act heroically on the battle field.

A straightforward strategy involves recalling any remaining veteran troops, then recruiting an army of level 1 elves. 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.

[version 1.8.2 : on medium, you can just buy loads of level 1 warriors, and keep - most of the time - in the woods. Landar start with about the same money as you do, but doing this, you just suffocate him under numbers.]

Again experienced woses dominate your enemies outside of forests.

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

[[Category: Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

Liberty

2013-10-26T15:41:28Z

ElComandante: /* Glory */ Lord Maddock's reinforcements

Footpads are the core unit for this campaign. High defense, mixed attacks, and low cost makes them handy in all events. You get Harper, a loyal Footpad in all scenarios, and assume the role of Baldras, a Bandit; level these up, plus any others you recruit with good traits.

Notice that, during the first two scenarios of this campaign, your units will not be exactly Footpads, Thugs and Poachers. They will be instead ''Peasant Youths'', ''Villagers'' and ''Peasant Hunters''. The main difference of these counterparts is that they have a neutral alignment, so you need to adjust your strategies accordingly in case you're accustomed to the Time of Day cycle for chaotic units. From the third scenario onwards, your army will become regular (chaotic) units.

The main problem in this campaign is finding units to deal damage; Footpads are great for swarming and pinning enemies, but even swarming an enemy from all sides they might take less than half its HP off in one turn. None of your L1 units cause much damage. It's important to level up a couple each of Thugs and Poachers; you then use these as first strike against an enemy unit, followed by the Footpad swarm to finish them off or at least pin them so you can finish them next turn. In particular, you want a Huntsman by scenario 7 so you have decent marksman damage for busting enemy commanders.

=== The Raid ===
* Objectives: Defeat the goblins
* Lose if: The goblins reach the village or Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
* Turns: 24/18/14 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Baldras, Harper and other bandits

You have enough troops to beat the goblins in a straight-up fight; your problem is luring the leader to attack you rather than running straight up the board and into the town of Dallben (if this happens you lose!). This means you need to dangle some units in his engagement range. Using Footpads for this purpose is a good idea, given their high defense.

Running Harper and one other Footpad north works well. Provided the other draws the goblin leader off of his run north, Harper can then either join in fighting him, or complete the run north, where you get a couple of thugs for free (3 on ''Easy'') and return with them, depending on how far north you get before he breaks his run. These guards will show up if the enemy gets too close to Dallben anyway, but since the goblins will try very aggressively to get into town, it's better to support them with extra footpads to keep them out.

=== Civil Disobedience ===
* Objectives: Defeat the army captain
* Lose if: Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
* Turns: 14/13/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Baldras and Harper
Bunch up all your fighters and use them to swarm single or paired cavalry units. Use houses for cover. Remember to keep recruiting in those early turns, even if you have to forgo attacking enemies from good cover to make the space for the recruit to stand.

Poachers are useful for getting damage into the enemy cavalry and have decent defense when in your castle or in villages, and then use footpads to take positions in the open (they have good defense in the open) to wrap around enemy units. Ideally you want the enemy to wrap cavalry around units in your keep, and you then wrap around the ones behind your keep with Poachers and Footpads. The enemy commander is a tough fight, since he often meets you in daylight and has good melee and ranged attacks; ideally get him next to your keep so you can have your commander and two Poachers hitting him from relative safety, and then put a Footpad or Thug on the other side to pin him there.

=== A Strategy of Hope ===
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Baldras, Harper or Relana die or time runs out
* Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Baldras and Harper

The orcs don't make a lot of archers, so swarm them with Footpads and Outlaws firing slingstones. Detach one or two Footpads to go on an extended village-stealing run in the north of the board while you're doing this. The saurians are much weaker than the orcs so concentrate your forces against the orcs. Your allies are a little better than evenly matched against the saurians, so by the time you finish the orcs you should be able to run northwest and take the leader without too much trouble.

Notice that, after the stark realization reached by Baldras at the end of the previous scenario, your army has turned now into standard chaotic units (Footpads, Thugs, etc.).

=== Unlawful Orders ===
* Objectives: Defeat Asheviere's general
* Lose if: Baldras, Harper or Lord Maddock die or time runs out
* Turns: 30/22/16 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Baldras and Harper
Detach two Footpads to grab villages, one in the town (Lord Maddock isn't going to use them all
anyway) and one to the north. Move your commander onto Lord Maddock's keep at the first chance you get, so you can recruit more and closer to the action.

Lord Maddock's throws his troops away early. Your force should be a few Thugs, a couple of Footpads and perhaps 2 Poachers to hold the south bank of the island; let the enemy come to you here and fight from in the water. Then send an Outlaw and Footpad strike force out the east gate and down, which will swarm enemy stragglers and late recruits and then hit the enemy commander.

=== Hide and Seek ===
* Objectives: Get Baldras to the signpost (preferably without being seen)
* Lose if: Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
* Turns: 34/30/26 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Baldras and Harper
* Other: You will be seen if you end your turn within visual range of an enemy unit
The moment you get within visual range of an enemy it will attack and all the other enemies wake up also. What saves you is that Harper can see farther than they can. Don't run ahead with him, you need Baldras to the exit point; Harper scouts the way, he follows.

The safe route is south-east, using Harper to eye a way between the soldiers. Head between some others through some mountains and head all the way across to the east edge of the map. Then head south through a lake and then southeast until above the exit and down. Also avoid the temptation to grab a village. This will trigger an attack even when not in range of a soldier.

If you still need to level either Harper or Baldras, go ahead and kill one or two of the soldiers when you are right near the signpost.

=== The Grey Woods ===
* Objectives: Defeat the Lich and the other two enemy leaders
* Lose if: Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
* Turns: 50/44/42 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Baldras and Harper

This is a fairly straightforward search-and destroy, with lots of relatively weak undead so lots of leveling-up opportunities. Grab Helicrom's villages, he starts with a ton of gold anyway. The bad guys are at the southeast, southwest and northeast corners.

Helicrom's troops will help you soaking much of the damage from the enemies, and then you can move on your troops to take the final blows. The first enemy your joined army will encounter is probably the Necromancer at the southwest. You may send a couple of Footpads/Outlaws there to maybe sneak some XP, and to scout and grab villages below, on the southwest corner. Your main force, Footpads plus a few Thugs/Bandits should head northeast and have a quick fight with the second Necromancer and its troops. After you're finished with him, head south to the final enemy, a Lich.

This map is an excellent place to level up some Footpads to L2 or even L3. Just keep in mind that your allies will have no problem stealing away some of your XP, so try to finish off your enemies as quick as possible.

At the end, you will be asked to choose between three different "prizes" from Helicrom:

# 500 gold
# The ability to recruit Thieves, Rogue Mages and Shadow Mages (the last two being specific to this campaign)
# Have Helicrom's army as an ally for the final battle

Of these, the gold is probably the least favorable one (unless you're ''really'' tight on money by this point, which is not very likely). The better choice between the new recruits, or the reinforcements for the final battle depends on your playing style. On ''easy'', the choice is probably not very important, but on harder difficulties, the third choice will make the final battle much more manageable. On the other hand, the new units provide an interesting tactical challenge: Shadow Mages (level 2) and Shadow Lords (level 3) have ranged-cold, magical attacks, and the ''leadership'' trait.

If you want the challenge, the second option may provide you with the most fun. Otherwise, the third option will make the final scenario significantly easier.

=== The Hunters ===
* Objectives: Defeat all the enemy forces
* Lose if: Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
* Turns: 36/31/26 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Baldras and Harper
The trick in this one is that your Outlaws fight better in mountains than Heavy Infantry do. So bean them with missile weapons from the mountains at the north edge of the road, then clump your guys and go west towards the keep. Swarm the cavalry units as they hit you; they probably won't concentrate enough to be more than a nuisance to L2 and L3 characters.

[Comments by Bumblebee] Another trick is that Outlaws are good in the forest, and enemies from the castle have a long way to go before they reach it, so they don't reach the forest together. After Heavy Infantry platoon is taken care of, prepare to meat the first wave of attackers in the forest (some Trappers or Poachers with pierce attack are helpful, Shadow Mages are surprisingly effective too). Send few quick units to the north to take villages. In my game at medium, two Footpads and a watchman were enough to draw two riders to the north, trap them on the narrow forest road for several turns and finally kill them (there are villages to heal in and plenty of space to retreat). As soon as enemies of the first wave have found their eternal home in the forest, counterattack. Take villages, protect wounded, swarm in the dark. Don't recruit too many units in this mission because you will need money for the next one.

=== Glory ===
* Objectives: Destroy all four towers
* Lose if: Baldras dies or time runs out
* Turns: 48/45/40 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Baldras and Harper
* Other: Move a unit onto the trap door to destroy a tower
The only genuinely difficult puzzle in Liberty, because the Wesnoth army is tough to beat if you have to try to take them inside their fortress (and they get reinforcements every afternoon). You have to lure as many as possible out of the fortress -- dangle bait just within their engagement range. It's the final scenario, so don't worry about money, just recall all your L2 and L3 recalls and recruit until you are out of gold.

If you chose to have Helicrom join you in battle, he appears in a camp to your right at the start. While his troops get in the way a lot, they do kill some units and help if only by diverting some of the opposing forces.

March them straight north and hang out around the first village there. It will be a nice pitched battle for a few turns, but eventually your numbers will overwhelm them. Then you can split your forces a bit to the west and south entrances. Remember that your Outlaws and above fight a lot better in the mountains than your opponents (offsetting the garrison bonus).

[Comments by cph] At hard, I played it a bit differently. Helicrom's units throw themselves at the south gate and clog it for a day or so; the riders attack the west gate and tie up the enemy there. So I marched my entire force into the woods southwest of the fortress; once both gates were clogged by the allies, I moved my forces closer to both gates, and then lunged into the fortress with all the Footpads, Outlaws and Fugitives I could fit in. Fugitives on good defensive tiles are great for holding the flanks of the thrust, and Footpads are expendable. Bash away throughout the night on all the enemies you can, moving as much as you can into the fortress; seize the central fort with outlaws, and rush Footpads to the 4 towers as soon as you get an opening. The orcs went down the east side of the level, so they ran straight into the reinforcements, and I didn't have to fight either.

[Comments by Bumblebee] A different strategy is to avoid direct fight as much as possible and remember you lead guerilla fighters. Recall all quick L2 and L3 units (with at least 6 or 7 moves per turn), recall all ''quick'' L1 Footpads, some poachers and a couple of Thieves or Rogues are helpful too. Spend the first day taking villages and moving your forces, let riders and orcs kill some defenders. Don't send too many units on eastern flank, or they will lure orcs, and orcs will fight mostly you instead of garrison. When army reinforces arrive, retreat if they notice you. Kill pursuers one by one. Let reinforces meet orcs.

Meanwhile, put quick units near every tower. Southern, western and northern sides of the fortress are relatively safe for that. Don't put units too close to bridges and entrances, or they will draw defenders' attention. Let riders and orcs fight and lure enemy forces away from the towers. When a tower is empty for a moment, sneak into it. Quick Footpads can reach entrance to catacombs from outside in one turn if way is free. When riders and orcs are dead, simulate night attacks on the bridge opposite to the towers you want to take. I had to sacrifice some units at the southern bridge before guards left one of the northern towers. I finished at turn 16 at medium.

[Comments by KingElk] Similar to bumblebee, but more specific. This worked on normal difficulty, I'm not sure if it would work on hard. First, recall any Outlaws/Fugitives, or Rangers (I had one ranger (L3 Poacher) and it came in handy fending some of the enemies off, and it is fast.) As the above states, any units with 6/7 moves per turn. Do NOT recall anything else, even if its L3. After, with any leftover gold, recruit Outlaws until you are out of money. Move your entire army (and leader) along the dead west part of the map, until you reach the west entrance. Do NOT fight the army coming from the south gate. They might get a few shots at you but you will beat the scenario before they swing around their main army to trap you in the west (your northwest ally will fend them off for 3+ turns). Split your Outlaws and send 3-5 to the north gate, and the remaining shoved into the west gate. You will probably meet resistance in the west, but the only entrance you need to reach from the west gate is the southwest one. From the north, split again and attempt to reach the northwest and northeast objectives in one turn if possible. As a bonus, if your Outlaw has one extra movement point when it takes an objective, it still has that after and can move onto a castle for 70% defense. The southwest objective can be taken by pushing through the west gate. After those three are down, squeeze some Outlaws from the north or west to the southeast, at any cost. In all likelihood, the northeast Outlaw will have little resistance because of the orc/human fighting. Your leader can head northwest to the corner of the map for safety, don't use him for fighting. NOTE: You don't need the extra ally that was offered earlier in the campaign, or the extra gold. I made the mistake of getting Rogue Mages, but it didn't matter.

[Comments by Hipparchos] Similar to KingElk, but even faster in my experience: recall/recruit all quick troops then it's "student body left" as you march north along the west side of the map. Hugging the edge isn't necessary (and slows you down a bit), just stay about 4 hexes away from the city walls and you won't attract any defenders (which is what you want). Avoid all enemy contact and combat, and ignore villages, as your goal is the NORTH gate! You must accept Helicrom's help, then fall in behind his lines as his horsemen attack the city and attract the guards away from the western walls while the orcs attract the guards away from the eastern walls. I also send a single sacrificial unit east to distract and delay the Wesnoth reinforcements. And sometimes the west gate is left unguarded for a turn, so it's a good idea to drop off an outlaw nearby to exploit that. By the time you're at the north gate, it should be unguarded. The city is fast-moving pavement, so you should be able to rush enough units in through the north gate to take all four towers in one or two turns. The game's AI makes the enemy seek out weaker units to attack, which means they will mostly leave you alone as you take their rear. The entire scenario takes me 12 turns this way at normal difficulty.

[Comment by ElComandante] I see no mention of Lord Maddock's reinforcements. They arrive at the northwest part of the map on turn 5. It's quite a significant help (about 10 units of Knights and Lancers). They storm the gates of the city and kill quite a few units. Played on medium difficulty/1.11.6.

[[Category:Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]
[[Category:Campaigns - Liberty]]