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User:Elvish sovereign

2011-04-27T17:02:17Z

Elvish sovereign: Blanked the page

TheHammerOfThursagan

2010-07-21T03:17:11Z

Elvish sovereign: /* Karrag */

The walkthrough is based on medium difficulty, and there are comments covering hard difficulty too.

==Campaign Strategy==

This is quite a balanced campaign - basically all the unit types available to you are useful. Here are some overall hints:

* Angarthing is perhaps the best support unit ever invented. He has two magical impact attacks, one of which slows, he’s very fast and, most importantly, he can give a Leadership-like 25% attack boost to units on the same level (so, once you have him at L3, he gives even your L3 units a boost). As he levels up he becomes able to cure, and then heal +4. As he is your only healer for a while (until scenario 8), make it a priority to level him up all the way. Angarthing makes fighting much easier.
* You gain the ability to recruit mages from mid-campaign. Don't let all your mages die as you then lose the recruit ability. You want to level up at least two white mages as soon as practical after that - you need two +8 healers by the final level.
* But red mages are useful too; you get a free arch mage at Medium, but at hard (Lord) you want to level up a red mage instead. A red mage/arch mage, backed by Angarthing, is excellent at dealing large amounts of damage against enemies in good defensive spots on the final level.
* Dwarf Lords are the backbone of any dwarven army; you will want ~4 by the final level, and more is better.
* It is very useful to level up one or two scouts all the way to an explorers, as their ranged attack is excellent against woses. 2-3 thunderguards are useful too, for the scenarios against dwarves.
* Preserve the Gryphon Rider - you are not able to recruit more. He can only reach L2 but that is worth having, as then it can beat any enemy scouts that it runs into.

==Scenarios==

=== At The East Gate ===
* Objectives: Defeat Orcish leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/30/28 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Gryphon Rider

This is pretty simple. Send a mixed force of Thunderers, Fighters, and Guardsmen along the road, and a few units south into the hills if the orcs go that way. That path through the forest can be deadly – they will surround you if they can, and can heal at the base of the path. Any Dwarf in forest is weak, while Wolf Riders are at a defensive advantage. Send the Gryphon Rider off village gathering to the north. The enemy recruited mostly Wolf Riders and Grunts, with a few Archers as I neared his keep.

Try and keep your units alive (this can be tricky to achieve while moving forward – his units are dangerous, and some are very fast – make sure hurt units stay out of reach, rather than failing to notice that an almost dead Wolf Rider being chased by a Gryphon is still a threat), and try to level at least one dwarf – your leader is an excellent choice. Play according to the basics, and you’ll have no trouble.

=== Reclaiming The Past ===

Plot only - here you gain Angarthing.

=== Strange Allies ===

* Objectives: Defeat Bandit leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing or Marth-Tak (Orcish leader) die or turns run out
* Turns: 30/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur and Angarthing

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

[ [[User:Cph|Cph]] - at Lord, the ally isn't strong enough to survive unaided (1.8.1). Turn 1 you should recruit a small strike force to go east to take out the enemy boss (just a couple of recruits should do to go with your leaders, or ideally a couple of quick recalls) plus recall the gryphon rider to take the more scattered villages and snipe enemies for XP; turn 2, recruit some dwarvish fighters (5 should be enough) to go and block up the plain '''in front of''' the ally's keep (they can grab all his villages on the way). Mainly you want to hold the ford near his keep as this is the most direct route and so is where the first enemy units would reach him from. Your aim isn't to defend, it is to stop or save the ally boss from suicidally attacking the enemy around turn 8. You just need to buy the turn or two that your strike force needs to finish sneaking around the north of the map and take out the enemy boss.]

=== Troll Bridge ===
* Objectives: Defeat Troll leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 20/16/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur and Angarthing
* Other: You loot 200 gold from the troll

This one was a piece of cake. Recall a castle-full of troops, and set camp at the first line of trees and mountains, to the north side of the road. Your opponent can only recruit Level 1 Troll Whelps, so he doesn't have much attack strength. After the first onslaught, the remaining Whelps either retreat, or throw themselves at your weakest unit. Try and kill the enemies with weaker units, as it's a great chance to gain some experience. Also, after you kill the Troll leader, you find that he was sitting on a pile of 200 gold.

[ [[User:Cph|Cph]] - at Lord, the trolls can recruit Trolls. They are still no real problem though - recall a steelclad, a couple of thunderers close to leveling, and fill the rest of the keep with recruited thunderers; just the 1 round of recruit/recall is fine. Push a couple of strong melee units forward to take the shock of the first attack (there are a few hill tiles conveniently placed, and you must not allow any trolls onto these), then swarm them with thunderers. Angarthing 'slow' attack is useful. ]

=== Invaders ===
* Objectives: Defeat enemy leaders (3)
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 40/40/40 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing and another dwarf
* Other: Hostile villagers come out of some villages when first flagged

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

The randomization on the bandit spawning system is also another advantage. Occasionally, you may play a map in which all the villages you flag are bandit-free.

[ [[User:Cph|Cph]] - A simple defensive strategy can work too. There is a convenient line of hills and woods just east of the start; form a defensive line there, but you can afford to take and hold all the villages in the south-west and deal with the ambushes there first, as the enemy won't get to you fast. Just don't get tempted to take any villages further east, as you won't want to deploy units further east to extricate your ambushed unit. Your army should be a mix of fighters and thunderers, including some recalls near leveling and a few already at L2.

Once the enemy's weakened units (from fighting outlaws) hit your defensive line, you get lots of XP from finishing them off; with care you can attack and roll forward, killing lots of enemy units each turn. Once you have crushed the first wave of enemies you can start clearing up. ]

=== High Pass ===
* Objectives: Move Aiglondur to signpost at end of pass
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing or Ratheln die or turns run out
* Turns: 24/18/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur and Angarthing
* Other: Friendly Arch Mage, Ratheln, available in a village near the middle of the path

Recalling your Gryphon Rider is a must on this scenario, he will be your eye in the fog. Dwarves just can't see very far in the snow. The rest is pretty straight forward, just make sure you meet the Arch Mage hiding in a village near the center of the pass.
Time is pretty tight in this scenario. Don't dawdle.

=== Mages and Drakes ===
* Objectives: Defeat Drake leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 30/24/18 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur and Angarthing

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

=== Fear ===
* Objectives: Find the villagers then defeat Masked Dwarf leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 30/24/18 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing and 1 or 2 Mages and Ratheln (depending on difficulty)

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

[ [[User:Cph|Cph]] at Hard, it's different. The problem at hard is that the enemy recruits lots of units and keeps recruiting all the way through - you will barely finish inside the turn limit. So recruit a decent size army; fight in a solid formation against the first wave of enemies, while using your gryphon rider to take and hold the villages to the north; then push forward once the main body of resistance is broken, even though there will still be a steady stream of reinforcements - watch the clock and don't leave it to chance on the last turn. ]

You get an experienced Mage (or two, on easy) at the start of this scenario, and can recruit more. If all of your Magi die (and you have none available for recall) you will lose the ability to recruit them - don't let that happen. Aim for white mages first, see [[#Campaign Strategy]].

=== Forbidden Forest ===
* Objectives: Move '''both''' Aiglondur and Angarthing to the eastern signpost
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 40/34/28 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing and any surviving Mages from Scenario 8

This is a tough one. You are fighting elves. You are fighting them in a forest. And you are fighting them under fog of war. So, once again, your Gryphon Rider (preferably leveled into a Gryphon Master) is a must. Trouble is, Elvish Riders are as fast or faster than he is, and, he won't be able to spot Elvish Rangers or Woses because of their Ambush ability. If I were playing the elves in this scenario, I would take on almost any number of dwarves. Only the stupidity of the AI saves you from a grim defeat. So recall as many units as you can, you need your numbers to make up for your tactical disadvantage.

I've never tried to run in a tight pack to the signpost. It might work, but those elves would swarm you from all sides. Of course you don't have to finish off their leaders, you will have to finish off their entire troops however.

Because of all the ambushing, you only want to have tough units with you that can withstand woses and elves popping out at then from all sides without warning. Recall up to 4 Dwarvish Pathfinders or Explorers that you have available (the blade ranged attack is awesome against woses) and make up to ~7 units with a mix of steelclads near to leveling and dwarf lords. You want only 1 white mage, and recall the gryphon to grab villages. Go for a quick knock-out against the SW enemy (who has only weak units including sorcerors), then park in the wooded hills just east of that keep and fight off the main attack of woses from the SE and elves from the NE. If you park in the wooded hills right beside the road, then some elves will foolishly attack you from the open road tiles, making it easy to kill them.

Then head east to knock off the Elder Wose in the SE, then go for the signpost. Forget the NE enemy and don't bother walking to the center to get the Staff which seems not that useful; splitting your army makes it harder to defend against ambushes. Take care with your gryphon, but most of enemy army will head south (drawn to your leaders) so it should be safe flying around between villages in the NW to keep your income high; it is also useful to have it just at the edge of range to dive in and finish off weakened elves in the road during that first fight.

[ previous suggestion:
If you are struggling with this level, take note that you have quite a few turns. You do not need to sprint to the signpost. The enemy leader to the south is poorly funded and recruits weak units. You should be able to handle her forces by getting to the riverbank quickly and digging in (there is some forested hill terrain useful for this). Magic users will have always have a high chance to hit elves in the forest. The leader won't come get you so once you have killed her units you can move on.

When you reach the central region of the map, expect to get ambushed by several Woses. Fighting them off will not be too hard, as Dwarvish Lords and Magi are highly effective in destroying them. Be careful with your Gryphon, as he is susceptible to getting ambushed, trapped and killed by the hiding Woses, Rangers and Scouts/Riders.

In that temple in the center of the map is the Staff of Righteous Flame that will strike down every enemy next to a dying Mage. It might be worth to give it to an inexperienced Mage and do a kamikaze attack with him. He might take out two or more Level 2 units that way. You could also give it to a more experienced unit and save him until the last scenario, when it could be very useful. ]

=== The Siege of Kal Kartha ===
* Objectives: Defeat Orcish leaders (3)
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing, or Dulcatulos(allied leader) die or turns run out
* Turns: 35/35/35 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing and any surviving Mages from Scenario 8

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

More often than not, the Orcs will ignore you completely and focus all their firepower on your weak ally. If this happens, create three strike teams and rush the enemy leaders (who will be completely unguarded), as your ally will not be able to hold off their collective might for very long.

=== The Court of Karrag ===
* Objectives: Defeat Karrag
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing, or Dulcatulos die or turns run out
* Turns: 12/12/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing, Dulcatulos and Ratheln
* Other: Neither side can recruit units

Almost story only. Once again, those Berserkers are your most dangerous opponents, so take them out with your Dwarvish Lords. Don't let the Lich slip past you (he tries to run NW), as that would slow down killing him - there's a lot of bonus gold to be had here if you can kill him fast. Just ZOC his route for those early turns and then close in for the kill once you've dealt with his henchmen.

=== The Underlevels ===
* Objectives: Defeat Karrag
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing, or Dulcatulos die
* Turns: no limit
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing, Dulcatulos and Ratheln
* Other:
** Two alcoves with 150 gold in the first gallery
** 4 caves with friendly prisoners in the north (just before the spiders)
** Teleportation runes
** Secret passage down to the first Lich

Don't start playing this scenario, if you don't have a lot of time to spare. It's not so much of a scenario, it's actually a small campaign in itself. This is even more extreme than the missions in "Under the Burning Suns". In short, you will have to fight a gallery full of Masked Dwarves, 4 different Masked Dwarf leaders and their armies, a cavern full of Giant Spiders, 2 Liches and their Undead armies, and finally, once you're done with all that, have a final showdown with Karrag. But there is no time limit, so you can take as long as you wish to complete this mission.

It's going to be a long brawl, so you need to be prepared. You will have few villages for a long time, and need a big army from the start, so you will be in massive negative gold quite soon: so just recall and recruit as much as you can and move off. As this is the last fighting scenario, you can recall shamelessly.

(If you come in short of gold - less than 300 say - it may be worth recalling a smaller force and rushing an attack on one of the two side galleries in the start area - there is bonus gold behind a secret door in each gallery. If you have plenty of gold, you can just recall and you will be so negative by the time you get that gold that it won't help you.)

Two White Mages, your loyal Arch Mage and another Red Mage are really useful here. You would like 2-4 thunderguards or dragonguards, and a couple of sentinels would be handy for holding low-defence tiles. Most of your army should be Dwarvish Lords - you want at least 4 lords to start I would say, and in total 10 units that are either lords or will level into lords. Recall everything and recruit more with your leftover gold.

==== The Gallery ====

A hall with a line of dwarves on either side in extremely good defensive position. Try to take them out as fast as you can, as there is a treasure behind each line of defenders, which provides a little extra cash should you need it for more recruits. Establish a defensive line across the room on one of the north-south lines of cave tiles that cut into the room - before long, masked dwarves will start to pour into the gallery from the other side, and you can sit your dwarves on the cave tiles and have a terrain advantage.

==== The First Enemy ====

He sits right at the other end of the gallery, again in a good defensive position. But with enough aggression, he should not be a problem.

Once you've taken his castle, you will need to split your forces. Split them as evenly as you can. (Did I mention, that two White Mages are a real asset? Each group will need a healer!) There are more enemies to the north, so send more units requiring XP to level up in that direction.

==== The Fight in the Corridors ====

You are fighting a steady stream of tough enemies. But you are fighting underground in passages only three hexes wide. This is your advantage. Keep a solid defensive line, let their units come to you, and keep killing and advancing as opportunity permits. Don't worry if this takes some time, there is no turn limit anyway.

When you reach the main enemy at the end of each passage, as you enter the chamber with the keep, the enemy gives a speech and gets a big gold bonus to recruit a horde of L2 units. So don't rush in - step in, form a short solid line in the entrance, let them attack, keep cycling injured units for fresh ones and keep doing damage where you can. Their force will soon be spent and you can then advance again.

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

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

==== The Spiders and the First Lich ====

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

The first possibility is to use the transportation runes to get your forces down to the locked door and fight him from there. In that case, go east with only a few well leveled dwarves, Angarthing and a White Mage, for there is quite a number of Spiders defending the key. Once your read the spell, go back to the runes, reunite your forces and take out the Lich in the east. The lich recruits a big army to start with, but then recruits hardly any more; so once you defeat his main force, you only need to send 4 dwarf lords and Angarthing through the tunnels to take out the lich (moving your white mages through the narrow tunnels is very slow and they won't be needed).

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

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

==== The Second Lich ====

He sits in a big cavern behind the doors in the south west. Only take him on with your entire army (if you don't want to do a slow chokepoint fight at the door). He too makes heavy use of shadows, so make sure to form solid lines (including along the edge of the side chasms - the shadows can fly over them of course).

His forces are likely to be at a fair distance when you open the door, so, if you don't mind save-loading if it doesn't work, you could rush him - but there seems little point as you have to fight his army to progress anyway. So instead form up a solid formation just inside the door to his cavern - advance as far in as you can cover with dwarf lords, with plenty to spare - and then crush his forces when they come to attack you.

==== Karrag ====

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

[elvish_sovereign] The easiest way for me to kill Karrag was to suicide my Mage with the Staff of Righteous Flame on him. It took on shot, my mage and Karrag died. Almost no blood shed!

[[Category:Campaigns]]

User:Elvish sovereign

2010-07-01T15:15:25Z

Elvish sovereign:

Hi, I'm elvish_sovereign. Obviously that isn't my name, so if you want you can call me Zoltan, which is my internet name. I'm 16 and am a student at a conservatory; I play piano and compose music. I've been playing Wesnoth for almost 2 years now; I found Wesnoth during it's 1.4/1.5 stage, so I don't know any of the early releases, although I really want to see them. I primarily play single-player campaigns, but you could occasionally find me on the MP server.

I still have yet to figure out sequencing and those other things before I can contribute music for Wesnoth, but here's some things I'm working on currently:

== Completed ==
* Nothing here. :p

== Currently under development ==
=== Promised Land ===
* ''Lead your people from virtual slavery into a land where you and your kin can live freely, though a perilous journey awaits you.''

This is a single-player campaign centering around goblins. A certain goblin named Prinak manages to gather enough courage and cleverness to lead his people out of slavery. Yeah, I know this has religious connotations, hence the title. But nevertheless, the campaign takes you though his journey though the Northlands approx. 570 YW, after ''Northern Rebirth'', after Tallin, into a perilous period.
* This campaign is still very much in development. I will give a summary of it when it relatively drafted.

=== The "How to Play..." Series ===
A revival project. I plan to take where JW left off in his great guide and finish it. Currently working on the Loyalists faction. Not only MP, I plan to include mainline campaign discussion as well. When I finish this, I will make a PDF of the whole guide so it can be downloaded for offline use.

=== elvish_sovereign's mappack ===
Progressing slowly. A compilation of the best MP maps I've made, with the intention of going mainline. More description when it's more in shape.

== On hiatus ==
=== Spam Era ===
* ''Spam Era! Pick your favorite level 0 or level 1 unit and spam your opponent to death! Gameplay is as normal, but you only have one unit to choose from. Includes mainline multiplayer units and some non-multiplayer units. Have fun spamspamspamspamspamspamspaming!''

This is an MP era, which I made when I had a whole night with nothing to do. The idea is very simple: you pick a unit, and spam your opponent to death. Thus it proves for a very interesting gameplay. Captain_Wrathbow and I (maybe IPS as well) are looking into creating special maps for the era.

TheEasternInvasion

2010-06-30T04:26:25Z

Elvish sovereign: /* Mal-Ravanal's Capital */

This is a discussion of The Eastern Invasion, the campaign featuring Gweddry General of Wesnoth.

''Note by Crus4a7E: I played this campaing in V 1.4.5 (medium difficulty) using this walkthrough. As most parts did not quite seem to reflect the current state of the campain anymore, I felt obliged to contribute a number of updates to most scenarios' walkthroughs. Nevertheless, please feel free to further improve this walkthrough in particular for those scenarios I have not played and thus not updated. Overall the campain now seems well-balanced and is fun to play.''

The following descriptions are aimed at the "medium" difficulty level (as "easy" lets you get away with sloppiness and "hard" is for people who are comfortable with Advanced Tactics). Please improve these and add your own for later levels.

'''Warning: spoilers ahead!'''

=== The Outpost ===

It is probably best to recruit 5 heavy infantry and 1 mage on this scenario. The heavy infantry can flag the villages surrounding you by turn 3, turn 2 if they're quick, and the mage can flag the northern forest village on turn 2 if quick.

Sending 2 HI(heavy infantry) south, to the revenants, is a good idea because you can usually get both of them a 2nd level kill without having either die. The other ones should stand and fight against the enemies coming at you from the north and east. Use the HI most of time, and use the mage when they are in forest and it can get a killing blow. By the end of the scenario, you should have 2-3 shock troopers and 1 half-advanced mage.

It is sometimes a good idea to recruit another mage on turn 10 or so, since you will probably end the scenario with less than 100 gold anyway, so you save money by buying in advance. (mathematically this does make sense). Also, you can get them about 10 experience along the way.

==== Alternative Strategy ====
The above strategy did not work for me despite of several attempts. Whenever I recruited only 5 HI or tried to send 2 HI southwards to capture villages I got slaughtered around turns 10 to 12 by the latest. (Played with V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty) Thus below I describe an alternative strategy which worked rather painlessly for me.

Remark: In V 1.4.5 all of the villages surrounding the player's keep are already flagged at the start. Only in the very south (south of the river) are a couple of unflagged villages.

Recruit one keep full of HI in turn 1 (no mage, as there is little use in it in this scenario and we are short of money). In turn 2, move the HI to build a straight line northeast and east of your castle (the line should be inside the castle walls whereever possible to use its high defence rating but other than that as straight as possible to only allow two enemy units at a time to attack any of your HI). Then wait about 2 to 3 turns until the enemy forces start to attack and you have enough money to recruit about another 3 HI. Use them to reinforce your line.

Then just hold out the enemy attack during night time; only rotate wounded units if possible, but do not counter-attack. At dawn start your counter-attack without worrying to much about keeping the original line intact. Instead try to level 2 or 3 HI to Shock Troopers. The enemy forces quickly cease to be any danger to your forces.

Also around turn 12 the white mage re-arrives and points out a trap door you should use. The trap door is located near your castle and clearly visible unless any unit stands on it. So if you do not see it right away, just move your units around a little.

Position your leader near the trap door so he can reach it in one turn. As it is almost impossible to finish with more than 100 gold (which is the minimum starting gold of the next level), use the remaining turns to level as many units as possible and only move your leader onto the trap door in the very last turn.

Using this strategy I finished with 2 shock troopers and several well-levelled HI. Also your leader and the white mage should have gained a little experience.

==== Alternative Strategy #2 ====
An alternative strategy to consider is to recruit as late as possible and to start fighting when the sun is up. Somehow you will be able to decide when to engage in the battle, as the enemy will let you stay in your castle without bothering you.

At turn #4, recruit 1 Mage and 5 Heavy Infantrymen (HI). The trick is not to move a single unit and somehow, no one attacks you. I did the test multiple times and I always started the first fight when I decided it was time (i.e. during the day light). A variation of the strategy that does not work is to start recruiting only when the sun is up; somehow the enemy attacks your leader.

Turn #7, this is dawn and now you can start attacking. My goal is to finish any fight with my Mage or the Leader to get them to level 2 and 3 as soon as possible. White Mages always make my life easier during Campaigns. I also recruit 2 HI, 1 Cavalryman to go get some villages, and 1 Mage.

You will end up with 1 HI or your Leader at level 2 and your Mages should be half way to Level 2.

==== Alternative Strategy... #3 ====
None of the above tactics work when playing under the "challenging" difficulty level(since you are given only 80 coins at the beginning of the scenario).

My advice when playing this on the hardest level is to spend your starting money on two HI units and two cavalry units. Don't buy any mages -- they are too fragile and expensive. Your main goal is to keep away as much enemy forces as possible from your keep (ESPECIALLY during night). Use the cavalry to divert at least a small portion of the undead by making them chase your horsemen. Remember to always "taunt" them -- capture the villages near their keeps and run away from there the next turn. This way you can keep your fortress not owerwhelmed for some time. Spend every coin possible on heavy infantry and don't let skeletons/bats occupy tiles in your keep. If you do let them, this may be fatal to your leader. ;) You may even recruit a spearman or two to "block" a keep tile if this may save your main character.

NOTE: I did use this exact same tactic to beat the scenario on challenging, however, it did require some luck and re-loading. Remember -- when things seem dire, leveling up is the best healing. I saved my leader(why do I always forget his name?) by letting him kill a second-level skeleton archer, but that only happened by miracle - he hit all three times on 40% and didn't get killed by counter-attacks although he had only 3 HP left! I must be lucky :P

Euclid

=== Escape Tunnel ===
* Objectives: Move Gweddry to the end of the tunnel
* Lose if: Gweddry or Dacyn dies or turns run out
* Turns: 26/24/22 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn
* Other
** Permanent holy amulet in north
** Treasure of 200 gold in southeast

Don't bother recalling Heavy Infantry, they go too slow in caves. Go for a group of mostly Mages, and a couple of Spearmen. (One keep of units in total should easily be enough.)

The map is quite small. Bypass the fights that you can until you have the bulk of your units in th safety of the dwarf leader's keep area. When you are just moving Gweddry along be opportunistic and get some experience. Move your units to the east until you encounter trolls and reach a crossroads. A couple of dwarves will kindly become your allies and keep off the trolls for a few turns.

There is a holy amulet to the north (unlike in other campaigns this holy amulet is permanent!). Send a quick Spearman there or Gweddry (Giving Gweddry the holy amulet (instead of a Spearman) allows him to level very quickly, which is important, since he can advance to Grand Marshal. This gives benefits in other ways on a number of later scenarios as well, such as the River Crossing, where you can get an easy 1st turn kill against the undead leader and take his castle. Note that the leader is very hard to kill anyway).

As soon as you have got the holy amulet start to move all your units south without bothering about the trolls or the undead which appear after a number of turns from the direction of your keep.

The undead, trolls and dwarves will all fight each other, so after having moved all your units south position one Spearman at the end of the cave leading south (so only one unit a turn can attack him) and position the White Mage right behind him to heal it every turn. These two units should easily keep of the enemies following you until the end of the scenario. Move Gweddry to the northeast accompanied by a Mage and a Spearman (to fight individual trolls coming your way).

Before moving Gweddry to the end of the cave (which ends the level) send the Mage to the east past the funny signpost warning you of the troll hole. In the cave the Mage discovers a chest containing a troll treasure amounting to 200 gold.

=== An Unexpected Appearance ===
* Objectives: Defeat either enemy leader
* Lose if: Gweddry or Dacyn dies or turns run out
* Turns: 20/20/20 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn
* Other: your next scenario depends on which leader you defeat

What you do in this scenario depends on which way you want to go. Going east is harder, but brings you more reward, such as the chance to go to Mal-Ravanal's Capital, which gives you the opportunity to get extra experience (a lot for whoever survives) and a free Paladin and several Knights.

First kill Mal-Tar to get your keep. To do this, shoot him with Dacyn and attack him with Gweddry's melee. If you don't kill him the first turn, second turn kill him with Dacyn so Gweddry can recruit. You will be fighting a mix of undead and bats, so recruit Heavy Infantry and Mages (if you gave the amulet to a Spearman in the previous scenario, recall him, too). Dacyn might be wounded, so send him to a village. Don't worry, he can fend for himself, since the bats usually arrive one at a time and he can kill one per turn.

The attackers should be no problem so focus on leveling units. If you move quickly you should only need to fight the attackers from one leader. Of course you can have some of your units double back to engage the second set.

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Elven Alliance ====

The Orc's warning about the assassin is overrated; Volas can probably take care of it himself, although you might want to leave ONE unit near him to make sure.

Recruit / recall a wide assortment of units, mostly mages, spearmen and cavalry. Send mages and spearmen up to fight the opponent, send cavalry down as scouts. Any heavy infantry should go up to fight also; they will probably arrive late, and be good for reinforcements when the first troops are wounded.

Align the troops in the forest, so that the enemy will be on grass; this gives you a tactical advantage. Use Dacyn to heal those who need it most - those on the corners, and any mages who are on the front lines.

There is a village at {20,8} that can prove tactically very useful, because the elves usually fight somewhere near it.
The elves are defeated most of the time, and the orcs claim this village; it is crucial to kill the orc on this village and take it over with a resilient spearman, or a HI.

Once you have gotten past turn 6, it will be day, and the orcs will be very easy to defeat. When the assassin appears on turn 7, ignore it unless you have a cavalryman still down there. In that case, use it to fight the assassin. Keep pressing up. By turn 9, the orcish leader should be dead.

==== The Undead Border Patrol ====

This scenario also depends on which way you want to go. If going NW, it is fairly straightforward. The enemy is relatively weak. Do the same as in Unexpected Appearance - recruit 2 suicide cavalrymen to distract the bats. One will probably get enough XP to be worth recalling.

I would use mostly heavy infantry and spearmen with the holy amulet on this level, because mages will only get a +10% to hit from magical. However, as in most scenarios against undead, white mages are very useful.

Try to get the opponent to fight you from the sand. This gives you something like a 70% CTH. >)

(CTH = Chance To Hit).

===== Mal-Ravanal's Capital =====

Only reachable from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' scenario, but you might also skip it and go directly to ''Northern Outpost''.

This is a very challenging scenario. I started with only 100 gold, so I recalled one Mage, two Shock Troopers, one Heavy Infantry, and my holy Halberdier. I defended the starting castle for about 10 turns until the Revenants had made their way over to me. Upon killing several of them, I freed some imprisoned Knights and a Paladin. I moved my forces to kill the Death Knight, and then split my forces. I sent one group to attack Mal-Ravanal and the other to kill the Necromancer in the NW corner. By turn 30, my Eastern assault force was in postion to attack Mal-Ravanal. However, when I attacked him, he teleported my troops back to the starting castle, so I wasn't able to defeat him. When I was ready, I killed the NW Necromancer and progressed to The Northern Outpost.

The reason to go here is to acquire a cavalry force of one Paladin and five Knights. To do this kill the 6 Revenants guarding the cages, but note the number of Knights available is reduced by one for each of your troops that die *after you rescue the first one*. You might want to make sure any expendable troops are "expended" before this. Each rescued unit pops in with full moves.

If you just want to rescue the paladin and 5 knights and get out (in 1.6), this is how I finished that by turn 8. The horses were captive in 6 cages, 4 in a northern loop and 2 in a southern loop. First turn, I sent a quick shock trooper, quick heavy, and a white mage (not Dacyn) around the northern loop, looping from bottom to top (start at bottom knight, end at paladin). I looped that way to clear the middle ASAP and escape the oncoming troops. Also first turn, I sent 3 shock troopers around the southern loop, looping from top to bottom. If you encounter resistance, kill it quick or run as required, and instead focus on killing the guards fast, which conveniently don't hit back. On turn 2, I recruited another keep full of recruits and immediately sent everyone else to take out the northwestern leader. Time it so you kill the northwestern leader just as the last horses are rescued. It is by no means easy, but this way I managed to lose only a few HI types while picking up all 6 horses.

[elvish_sovereign] (1.8.2 Normal) An alternate strategy for the above if you have more leveled mages than leveled HI's. It also requires that you gave the Holy Amulet to Gweddry. I sent a single quick Shock Trooper due south (recruited on the southern-most hex on the starting castle), which promptly took out the southern Revenant on turn 3. Forget about the villages, it'll only delay you. I sent Dacyn due north, a quick RM go take out the second from the bottom Revenant, and a quick HI and a WM with Gweddry to take out the middle-couple Revenants. I also recruited two HI's to stop the advance and distract the two Dark Sorcerers' troops. After Gweddry and the WM take out the third from the bottom Revenant, send that Knight south. After taking out the Revenant with the RM, send the RM, Shock Trooper, and the three Knights in the direction of the SW Dark Sorcerer. Meanwhile, Gweddry, the WM, and the HI take out the third from the top Revenant, and then get Gweddry the hell outta there with the WM. have Dacyn free the Paladin first, then have the remaining Knights, HI, and the Paladin take out the remaining Revenant and hold out in the north. As Gweddry is fleeing and th e final Revenants are being felled, break through the SW Dark Sorcerer's lines (which should be easy if you distracted them properly) with the RM and the Shock Trooper, and send the three Knights to knock him into oblivion. I finished on turn 8 with no losses, but had some near-death moments.

=== The Northern Outpost ===

Reachable both from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' and the ''Elven Alliance'' scenarios.

There are two enemies in this scenario that you must defeat - the undead and the outlaws. The undead are fairly straightforward to defeat, and in any case Owaec usually does a good part of the work. Recall a number of shock troopers, a white mage and the spearman who picked up the holy amulet in one of the previous scenarios. I addition recruit one mage.

Then send Gweddry to the holy amulet in the south west accompanied by the mage. The spearman and the white mage go straight southwards and help Owaec with the undead. Your shock troopers go to the east and surround one of the villages over there without flagging it. (As they are quite slow-moving, having them already over there saves you time later on.) Once Gweddry picked up the holy amulet, send him and the mage to finish off the undead leader together with your spearman. (Note: Your spearman is very effective against the undead and will likely level up.) That was the easy part.

The main challenge is the criminals. They appear randomly in the villages you flag (one of the villages has assasin that is outlaw leader), but not in those Owaec flags. So don't worry about him uncovering enemies for you. Since when you capture a village the outlaws surround it, you should surround each village before you capture it, so the enemy surrounds you. This makes it so they can't gang up on one of your units with more than 3 people. Also, when you capture a village, try to kill as many enemies as you can before they get a turn.

Send your your entire force up on the eastern side of the map flagging one village a turn and fighting the bandits. Once you come across the village where the bandid leader hides, concentrate your attacks on him as the bandits are quite strong.

Note: A Cavalry force (such as the one acquired in Mal-Ravanal's Capital) makes short work of the bandits. Lower level units have trouble against the Bandits, especially at night. Slower moving units also have a disadvantage in searching the villages.

Also note, that from this scenario on you can recruit horsemen. You might want to level up a paladin or two, for fast mobile undead removal services (and quick leader assasination).

/* governor */ Just a note: I had the misfortune of taking a group of men to a village where 5or6 enemies appeared. After taking heavy damage, I retreated my char (low on hitpoints) out of the village. When I recaptured the village the same group of enemies reappeared. Since AI enemies seem to prefer recapturing villages this can allow you to obtain easy experience for weak units a few times.

=== Two Paths ===
This is a fairly tough level (played in V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty) which took several attempts to get through. In V 1.4.5 you have 16 turns (unlike 12 as in earlier versions) and can choose between going north to attack the orc leader or going north-east to attack the undead leader.

One option is going north on the very east side of the map trying to fight your enemies from solid ground and mountains while they stand on sand ground with weak defense. As your troops move very slowly on this terrain, you will likely take some heavy losses however, as your enemies keep surrounding you. Also this will presumably take too many turns to reach the orc leader in time.

Thus the preferred choice is to recall a couple of shock troopers and white mages and move them on the path to the north-west in a tight formation towards the undead leader. Once you survived the first enemy onslaught without loosing units, the rest of this scenario becomes rather easy as the remaining enemies come one by one. Make sure to keep on moving fast to the north-west to reach the undead leader before turns run out.

=== Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Undead Crossing ====
Fighting the undead in this scenario is not the actual problem as they are quite weak. Recall a keep full of shock troopers, white mages and the spearman with the holy amulet (who has likely levelled up by now). Use your faster units to capture the villages in the south-east and move your shock troopers directly to the river crossing.

Once you fought of the bats and skeletons (which the above units should handle quite easily), the undead leader summons two cuttlefish which appear in the water between the two crossings. Be very careful where to position your troops as the cuttlefish have a very nasty melee attack. Fight them with a pair of shock troopers accompanied by Gweddry (to give them leadership) and a white mage for healing.

Make sure you leave your units enough time to cross the river and kill the undead leader before turns run out.

==== The Crossing ====

I had only 100 gold, so recruited some units and went straight north from turn one on. The fighting in the water was quite hard, with some orcs coming down from the north. The un-dead only appeared when I was in the middle of the river, so no encounter with them, and the ogre's helped get rid of the orcs on the north side. (Allefant)

If you have Holy Gweddry, you can (sometimes) get a 1st turn kill on the 1st undead leader, scarf up all the villages, and return to kill the 2nd undead forces before their leader can recruit anything. If you don't, the second undead leader will recruit lots of level two units. The orcs will start out across the river, but usually most of them turn back to fight the ogre reinforcements. Waiting till their first wave hits your shore and wiping them out in the water will probably leave you just enough time to cross the river and find there are only 2 or 3 enemy units left besides the leaders.

Make sure to cover your rear flank with some expendable troops (such as Heavy Infantry) as the undead can move more quickly through the water than your units.

Another strategy is to go straight into the water after killing the first undead leader using the deep water in the middle of the path to seperate the orc forces. You go to the right with Gweddry and Owaec and some support troops while letting the ogres kill many of the orcs in your way. Knights and a Paladin can hold off the orcs enough to get across while the undead behind you are not an issue.

Note: Owaec can move only one hex a turn in the water.

Important: If the ogre leader is alive at the end of the scenario, he agrees to help you, which results in the following bonuses: he joins you as a loyal unit, you get two free Ogres, you gain the ability to recruit Young Ogres, and you skip "Training the Ogres" scenario and go directly to "Xenophobia".
(shadowblack)

=== Training the Ogres ===

*This scenario was missing in 1.6.

This can be a confusing scenario to understand. Basically, you are fighting the ogres while also trying not to let them reach the rocky borders where they will "escape" (or disappear). Understand how the AI works and that units will attack the weakest units who are closest to leveling.

Whenever I tried to attack the ogres or surround them or using any other intuitive strategy, I always ended up getting my white mage killed by turn 3 at the latest.

Thus try the following which makes keeping all 4 ogres on the green very easy (although I still do not understand why the AI behaves as it does...): Move the white mage and the horseman to the very north outside the moving range of the ogres. Position Gweddry on one of the hills in the west just inside their moving range. For the first two turns the ogres hardly move. Then they start to attack Gweddry which he should be able to withstand. By turn 5 when Gweddry's health starts to wear down, the scenario is over already with all four ogres still on the green and all of your units alive.

(It's a bit of a digression, but the AI in this case is failing to realize that, though each Ogre has an individually unfavorable attack on Gweddry, all four attacking together would be rather more favorable. So, the AI decides to form a defensive line and wait for the sun to set, when Gweddry's 25% bonus disappears and their attacks are more favorable. Note that this technique generally only works for units with full health on defensible terrain, and may disappear entirely if the AI is improved to consider joint attacks.)

It is unclear to me however, what the benefit of all four ogres surviving is though.

Note: Whether or not to use ogres is a matter of playing style. Once they level up, Ogres are quite a tough unit that deals middling damage, but unfortunately can't advance beyond level 2. Their upside is that they move at normal speed on hills and cave floor, which makes them your most mobile unit in at least one scenario (''Captured''). And as they are of neutral alignment, they can sometimes be handy to have around at nighttime.

=== Xenophobia ===

In V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty is a very easy and fun level as all parties in the scenario (i.e. elves, orcs, drawves, and yourself) decide to fight each other instead of forming aliances. Thus you can use this level to gain some experience for your units, pick up another permanent holy amulet (in the north, roughly in the middle between the dwarf and the orc keep) e.g. by a shock trooper, and as the actual ogre training camp (see below).

Recall a keep full of shock troopers and send them straight to the north as they are very slow moving. Then recall one or two white mages and recruit about two to four young ogres. Send all of your units straight north to kill the dwarf leader who unwisely sends all his troops for the orcs right at the start and then misses the money to recruit any more troops to defend his keep.

By the time I reached the dwarf leader, the orcs had already killed the elvish leader, so there was two down and only one to go. Use the young ogres on the mountains in the north to fight the remaining dwarves whilst levelling up to ogres.

By the time you killed the dwarf leader, there should be hardly any enemy troops left, so go straight towards the orc leader and earn a decent early finish bonus. And don't forget to pick up the holy amulet on the way.

The main strategy in this scenario is staying out of the fighting as much as possible, picking off the weaker sides, and in general letting your enemies kill themselves. One successful strategy is to delay moving from your keep for 5-6 turns. Let the other factions weaken each other before you move off. (Although that reduces your early finish bonus, so do not do this if your troops are strong enough.)

(Future spoiler: This is your last chance to level non-leader units you will play two scenarios ahead in Captured. For instance, you may want to prepare a dragoon, a white mage, and a couple of adult ogres for that scenario.)

=== Lake Vrug ===
This is a very confusing hide and seek sceario which is not actually hard, but likely takes you several pointless restarts until you have finally discovered the enemy leaders. (Spoiler: there are three enemy keeps, all north of the river. One is to the very northeast (go to the right into the mounts directly after crossing the bridge), one is between the path leading west and the river bank just before the path turns northwards, and one is in the very north at the end of the path. The orc leader resides in the first keep, the gryphon leader in the second, and the third is empty.

Recall two or three shock troopers, two white mages and then recall/recruit as many ogres as possible. (Most of the enemy keeps are surrounded by high mountains which most of your troops cannot pass, but which the ogres handle quite easily.) You might also want to recruit a horseman to scout ahead.

(Future spoiler: Any units you recall will not be available in the next scenario Captured. The units you will get there are the 13 top recalls of the default sorted list at the end of this scenario, so you may want to save some adult ogres and quick white mages for that one.)

The only challenge in this scenario (apart from finding the keeps) is surviving the first onslaught of gryphoons which starts around turn 4 with quite a number of gryphoons appearing from the north-east. Position your heavy units like shock troopers and ogres very tighly around wounded units as the gryphons and dragons really have quite a large moving range and ignore zones of control and thus mercilessly slay away unprotected injured units. To fight them use heavy melee troops like shock troopers.

As you start to cross the bridge a couple of trolls attack. They are really no match for your shock troopers, however, who happy troll-crack away. When taking the enemy keeps, use the ogres who can move on the high mountains unlike most of your other units.

=== Captured ===

You start out by running up a tunnel to find some of your companions. If you go back down that way or you will have to face some extremely mean trolls in the narrow tunnel. Instead, follow the tunnel to the north and west and face a few bats as you proceed. At the end of that tunnel, you will enter a throne room where there is a leader and some enemy troops.

Upon entering the throne room, a group of your wounded troops will appear in a cavern called the "Torture Room" to the east. They will face a number of assassins and trolls as they leave the Torture Room moving west. (Hint: Try to get through the prison "door" of the torture room quickly as otherwise the enemy units have an easy time keeping your entire army locked away with only one unit at a time, i.e. the unit standing at the door, being able to take part in the fighting.)

Any units you recall in the previous scenario will not be available here. Instead, the units you will get here are the 13 top recalls of the default sorted list at the end of the last scenario. If like me, the first time around you end up will all slow moving ineffective cave units and no healers and thus get wiped out quickly here, then you could go back two scenarios to optimize for this one. In Xenophobia, level better cave units, healers, and a dragoon or something to pick up the holy amulet. Then in Lake Vrug, recall units such that you leave the top 13 as the ones you want to bring here.

Victory occurs when Gweddry moves through the exit in the southwest corner. There is quite a comfortable early finish bonus, so you might want to move him there quickly in order to put some money on savings for later scenarios. It should be possible to finish with over 500 gold without making haste, however. You should also flag the numerous villages in a cavern called "The City", a cavern southwest of the Torture Room.

There is a holy necklace on this level, at coordinates x=22, y=38. Preferrably grab it with a horseman or something. similar. He will come in very hand in later scenarios.

Note: Most of the orcs are level two and three units.

=== Evacuation ===
This scenario is a little frusting. Not so much because of its difficulty (it is hard but managable with enough high-level recalls and lots of money), but because you ''will'' take some heavy losses of high-level troops.

Note: You should have over 400 gold and a large number of level 2 and 3 units to recall to start this scenario.

There are two options in this scenario: you can either defeat all enemy leaders or blow up the bridge in the south. In the former case, you will have to accept quite some casualties in fighting the enemy; In the latter case, all your units which are not on the south side of the river by the time you blow up the bridge (including not recalled units, meanly!) are killed by the explosion. In both cases you have to watch out for the very tight time limit of 12 turns.

I went for option 2 (killing all leaders). First recruit two to tree keeps full of your typical experienced troops like iron maulers, white mages, and so on. Ogres are also helpful, if you have some left, as they are strong and you will have no use for them in later scnearios. After that recall a keep full of young ogres as cannon fodder.

Start to move you units south and attack the central enemy right away (i.e. do not wait until you have recruited all units). The last recalls before the young ogres split and send half of them to the north-east and the other half to the south-west (otherwise you might not make it to all three leaders in time). Finally, send some young ogres to the north-east and south-west to distract the enemies there for two or three turns.

With all three groops of your units try to focus on attacking the enemy leaders as soon as possible so you do not run out of time. Apart from that, watch out for the level 2 trolls, particularly, as they can (and frequently will...) instantly kill almost any of your units. Best fight them with two white mages or a white mage accompanied by some other unit.

With a bit of luck and probably some nasty casualties you will have killed all three leaders around turns 10 to 12.

[Garion] In 1.0, I recruited a lot of Cavalry for fodder, spacing them 1 hex apart to establish a ZOC corridor from my castle to the bridge. They got chewed up very quickly, but they bought me enough time to get out. Use a few Shock Troopers to guard your rear against the Blue enemy; they're too slow to escape anyway. Remember to recall your slowest units closest to the bridge, to minimize the time they spend in transit. I was able to evacuate 2 Holy Cavaliers, 2 Paladins, a Great Mage, the three heroes, a quick Iron Mauler, 2 White Mages, and a Mage of Light.

[Vladevil] In 1.2.6 what worked best for me was recruiting only fodder for 2 turns, then running away with all the main characters. I let Owaec and the mage first and Gweddry last since he can take some hits. All in all I was finished on the 6th turn without losing any valuable troops.

=== The Drowned Plains ===
The Skeletal Dragon will be found in or near the castle (located on an island in the south-east). In getting there, there is a chance the undead (three units mostly level two and an occasional level three) will spring out of the ground near the unit you just moved. Therefore less units are better. Advanced mages, paladins, and other fast-moving units with arcane weapons work well here. To withstand the initial dragon attack you will need very strong units (with more than 50 HP). In order to discover the dragon despite the fog units with a large moving range (and thus large visible area) like horseman are helpful.

The dragon wanders around near the castle but only attacks units which he can kill instantly. If only strong units come near him, he tries to flee. Because of the fog the major challenge of this scenario is finding him and then getting him surrounded so he cannot just move away again. Once you have him trapped like this, slaying him should be easy using your stronger units (preferrably impact weapons because the dragon has a low resistance there).

=== Approaching Weldyn ===
This scenario is fairly easy, but also fun to play. The essence to success is being very fast.

Recall 6 to 8 fast-moving units with arcane attacks. This should be any fast unit who has picked up a holy amulet in earlier scenarios like horsemen or spearmen plus some level 2 or level 3 mages. Completely forget about heavy infantry or other slow-moving troops of similar kind. Move all your units to the eastern enemy and try to kill him by turn 3 or 4 by the latest. This should be easy, as he is still very weak.

Then rush over to the western enemy. It will be night by now so not a good time for attacking. If you have a very strong and fast unit (like a dragoon) try to position it on the enemies keep. This trick stops the enemy leader from recruiting more troops despite having plenty of money left. Once your other troops arrive and daylight breaks you should have an easy time finishing of this enemy leader and those of his troops which you ally has not yet killed.

Then attack the third leader in the south-west in the same manner. If you hurry, you should be able to finish by turn 9 and gain a good early finish bonus.

=== The Council ===

Only plot in this. You see the inside of the castle.

=== Weldyn Under Attack ===
This is an interesting scenario where once again choosing the right strategy is the key to success. Also watch out for the time, as you have only 18 turns to finish.

You find your keep in the center of an island. Three allied leaders also have their keeps on the island around yours. There are three enemy leaders: a weak one in the very north, and two equally strong ones in the south-east and south-west, respectively. It stays nighttime (first and second watch) during the entire scenario which is somewhat uncomfortable, but not a big problem.

Start by recalling all high-level units with arcane attacks (6-8 units max). Then recruit two keeps full of mages. Send your troops straight north and finish of the enemy leader. He is quite weak and even moves onto your island so this should be painlessly accomplished by turn 3.

Then split your troops: one half moves onto the western shore (along the very border of the map), the other half onto the eastern shore (same). To get across the river use the bridges in the north-west and the north-east, respectively. Let some of the mages stay behind and capture the villages on the island so you do not loose money. The may also assist you allies so they do not fall so quickly and keep the enemy busy.

The rest of the scenario is straight-forward: move both your troops southwards straight towards the enemy keeps and kill the leaders. As they have sent most of their troops onto the island where they are busy happily slaying away your allies, this should be no challenge for your troops. Watch out for the nightgaunts, though, which tend to ambush you or rush for weak units without you seeing them coming.

If all goes right you should have killed the remaining two enemy leaders around turns 14 or 15.

Hint: If you have one or two silver mages available (e.g. the engineer unit you joined you in the Escape scneario, if he has levelled by now) this is quite useful in this scenario. The map is rather large so have some fast-moving units like horseman run through enemy territory and capture individual villages. Then use the teleport ability of your silver mage to perform hit-and-run (or rather: hit-and-teleport) attacks to weaken your enemy before attacking with your main force. Make sure you do not get him killed, though, by holding out too long after attacking.

After killing all enemy leaders, an enemy messenger appears telling you that you have only fought some delegates of the ancient lich Mal-Ravenal. It challenges you to have a duel with Mal-Ravenal instead of letting the armies meet for a final battle. If you accept the challenge, you get to scenario "The Duel". Otherwise you get to "Weldyn Besieged".

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== The Duel ====
This is a somewhat strange scenario: you and Mal-Ravanal get to recall/recruit exactly six units each and then have to fight each other. Mal-Ravenal will recruit mostly level 3 units so this looks difficult. In fact, it is quite managable, however.

Recall mostly mages of light and other high-level arcance troops. Set them up in a line of 4 units backed up by 2 units at the edge of one of the forsts near your keep. (Your leader should stand in the back up line so he does not accidentaly get killed.)

Then wait for his troops to reach you, but make sure you are the first to attack. By the time you meet it will be close to nightfall. Do not hesitate to attack, however, as Mal-Ravanal plays unfair and recruits another 3 units on every first watch.

In your first attack you should be able to kill two enemy units. Try to have at least 5 of your units survive the first round of enemy attacks. Then kill the remaining enemy units near you and move over to Mal-Ravenal straight away who hides by himself on the very border of the map in the mountains. Again, do not wait for daylight, as you can reach him before his reinforcements get to you, so you should have an easy time killing him with your remaining units.

Spoiler: After killing Mal-Ravanal the campaign ends with a final scene of Gweddry and his companions being honoured by the king.

==== Weldyn Besieged ====

On versions prior to 1.5.6 the siege is laughably easy to break; just recall a keep full of your best troops and rush Mal-Ravanal in the south.

As of 1.5.6 this battle should prove a more substantial challenge. Now the liches' names aren't revealed until they are attacked, and Mal-Ravanal is more likely to be revealed later in the scenario. Sending fast scouts to attack all the liches is not advisable since each lich receives a boost of gold for another round of recruitment after its name is revealed.

A workable strategy is to recall a group of cavalry with holy amulets and paladins to circle behind the undead horde and terminate the liches. You can draw the liches out of their keeps by positioning a sacrificial horseman within their attack radius. Once the lich is out in the open, your arcane damage cavalry should have no trouble finishing the lich off in a single turn.

Meanwhile you'll need the rest of your troops to hold the central keep against the undead onslaught. If you can spare the funds, a few sacrificial troops can delay the incoming enemies on one side, giving you the opportunity to focus your firepower on the undead approaching from the other side(s). If things turn grim, retreat to the castle and make your final stand.

[[Category:Campaigns]]

TheEasternInvasion

2010-06-30T04:24:46Z

Elvish sovereign: /* Mal-Ravanal's Capital */

This is a discussion of The Eastern Invasion, the campaign featuring Gweddry General of Wesnoth.

''Note by Crus4a7E: I played this campaing in V 1.4.5 (medium difficulty) using this walkthrough. As most parts did not quite seem to reflect the current state of the campain anymore, I felt obliged to contribute a number of updates to most scenarios' walkthroughs. Nevertheless, please feel free to further improve this walkthrough in particular for those scenarios I have not played and thus not updated. Overall the campain now seems well-balanced and is fun to play.''

The following descriptions are aimed at the "medium" difficulty level (as "easy" lets you get away with sloppiness and "hard" is for people who are comfortable with Advanced Tactics). Please improve these and add your own for later levels.

'''Warning: spoilers ahead!'''

=== The Outpost ===

It is probably best to recruit 5 heavy infantry and 1 mage on this scenario. The heavy infantry can flag the villages surrounding you by turn 3, turn 2 if they're quick, and the mage can flag the northern forest village on turn 2 if quick.

Sending 2 HI(heavy infantry) south, to the revenants, is a good idea because you can usually get both of them a 2nd level kill without having either die. The other ones should stand and fight against the enemies coming at you from the north and east. Use the HI most of time, and use the mage when they are in forest and it can get a killing blow. By the end of the scenario, you should have 2-3 shock troopers and 1 half-advanced mage.

It is sometimes a good idea to recruit another mage on turn 10 or so, since you will probably end the scenario with less than 100 gold anyway, so you save money by buying in advance. (mathematically this does make sense). Also, you can get them about 10 experience along the way.

==== Alternative Strategy ====
The above strategy did not work for me despite of several attempts. Whenever I recruited only 5 HI or tried to send 2 HI southwards to capture villages I got slaughtered around turns 10 to 12 by the latest. (Played with V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty) Thus below I describe an alternative strategy which worked rather painlessly for me.

Remark: In V 1.4.5 all of the villages surrounding the player's keep are already flagged at the start. Only in the very south (south of the river) are a couple of unflagged villages.

Recruit one keep full of HI in turn 1 (no mage, as there is little use in it in this scenario and we are short of money). In turn 2, move the HI to build a straight line northeast and east of your castle (the line should be inside the castle walls whereever possible to use its high defence rating but other than that as straight as possible to only allow two enemy units at a time to attack any of your HI). Then wait about 2 to 3 turns until the enemy forces start to attack and you have enough money to recruit about another 3 HI. Use them to reinforce your line.

Then just hold out the enemy attack during night time; only rotate wounded units if possible, but do not counter-attack. At dawn start your counter-attack without worrying to much about keeping the original line intact. Instead try to level 2 or 3 HI to Shock Troopers. The enemy forces quickly cease to be any danger to your forces.

Also around turn 12 the white mage re-arrives and points out a trap door you should use. The trap door is located near your castle and clearly visible unless any unit stands on it. So if you do not see it right away, just move your units around a little.

Position your leader near the trap door so he can reach it in one turn. As it is almost impossible to finish with more than 100 gold (which is the minimum starting gold of the next level), use the remaining turns to level as many units as possible and only move your leader onto the trap door in the very last turn.

Using this strategy I finished with 2 shock troopers and several well-levelled HI. Also your leader and the white mage should have gained a little experience.

==== Alternative Strategy #2 ====
An alternative strategy to consider is to recruit as late as possible and to start fighting when the sun is up. Somehow you will be able to decide when to engage in the battle, as the enemy will let you stay in your castle without bothering you.

At turn #4, recruit 1 Mage and 5 Heavy Infantrymen (HI). The trick is not to move a single unit and somehow, no one attacks you. I did the test multiple times and I always started the first fight when I decided it was time (i.e. during the day light). A variation of the strategy that does not work is to start recruiting only when the sun is up; somehow the enemy attacks your leader.

Turn #7, this is dawn and now you can start attacking. My goal is to finish any fight with my Mage or the Leader to get them to level 2 and 3 as soon as possible. White Mages always make my life easier during Campaigns. I also recruit 2 HI, 1 Cavalryman to go get some villages, and 1 Mage.

You will end up with 1 HI or your Leader at level 2 and your Mages should be half way to Level 2.

==== Alternative Strategy... #3 ====
None of the above tactics work when playing under the "challenging" difficulty level(since you are given only 80 coins at the beginning of the scenario).

My advice when playing this on the hardest level is to spend your starting money on two HI units and two cavalry units. Don't buy any mages -- they are too fragile and expensive. Your main goal is to keep away as much enemy forces as possible from your keep (ESPECIALLY during night). Use the cavalry to divert at least a small portion of the undead by making them chase your horsemen. Remember to always "taunt" them -- capture the villages near their keeps and run away from there the next turn. This way you can keep your fortress not owerwhelmed for some time. Spend every coin possible on heavy infantry and don't let skeletons/bats occupy tiles in your keep. If you do let them, this may be fatal to your leader. ;) You may even recruit a spearman or two to "block" a keep tile if this may save your main character.

NOTE: I did use this exact same tactic to beat the scenario on challenging, however, it did require some luck and re-loading. Remember -- when things seem dire, leveling up is the best healing. I saved my leader(why do I always forget his name?) by letting him kill a second-level skeleton archer, but that only happened by miracle - he hit all three times on 40% and didn't get killed by counter-attacks although he had only 3 HP left! I must be lucky :P

Euclid

=== Escape Tunnel ===
* Objectives: Move Gweddry to the end of the tunnel
* Lose if: Gweddry or Dacyn dies or turns run out
* Turns: 26/24/22 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn
* Other
** Permanent holy amulet in north
** Treasure of 200 gold in southeast

Don't bother recalling Heavy Infantry, they go too slow in caves. Go for a group of mostly Mages, and a couple of Spearmen. (One keep of units in total should easily be enough.)

The map is quite small. Bypass the fights that you can until you have the bulk of your units in th safety of the dwarf leader's keep area. When you are just moving Gweddry along be opportunistic and get some experience. Move your units to the east until you encounter trolls and reach a crossroads. A couple of dwarves will kindly become your allies and keep off the trolls for a few turns.

There is a holy amulet to the north (unlike in other campaigns this holy amulet is permanent!). Send a quick Spearman there or Gweddry (Giving Gweddry the holy amulet (instead of a Spearman) allows him to level very quickly, which is important, since he can advance to Grand Marshal. This gives benefits in other ways on a number of later scenarios as well, such as the River Crossing, where you can get an easy 1st turn kill against the undead leader and take his castle. Note that the leader is very hard to kill anyway).

As soon as you have got the holy amulet start to move all your units south without bothering about the trolls or the undead which appear after a number of turns from the direction of your keep.

The undead, trolls and dwarves will all fight each other, so after having moved all your units south position one Spearman at the end of the cave leading south (so only one unit a turn can attack him) and position the White Mage right behind him to heal it every turn. These two units should easily keep of the enemies following you until the end of the scenario. Move Gweddry to the northeast accompanied by a Mage and a Spearman (to fight individual trolls coming your way).

Before moving Gweddry to the end of the cave (which ends the level) send the Mage to the east past the funny signpost warning you of the troll hole. In the cave the Mage discovers a chest containing a troll treasure amounting to 200 gold.

=== An Unexpected Appearance ===
* Objectives: Defeat either enemy leader
* Lose if: Gweddry or Dacyn dies or turns run out
* Turns: 20/20/20 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn
* Other: your next scenario depends on which leader you defeat

What you do in this scenario depends on which way you want to go. Going east is harder, but brings you more reward, such as the chance to go to Mal-Ravanal's Capital, which gives you the opportunity to get extra experience (a lot for whoever survives) and a free Paladin and several Knights.

First kill Mal-Tar to get your keep. To do this, shoot him with Dacyn and attack him with Gweddry's melee. If you don't kill him the first turn, second turn kill him with Dacyn so Gweddry can recruit. You will be fighting a mix of undead and bats, so recruit Heavy Infantry and Mages (if you gave the amulet to a Spearman in the previous scenario, recall him, too). Dacyn might be wounded, so send him to a village. Don't worry, he can fend for himself, since the bats usually arrive one at a time and he can kill one per turn.

The attackers should be no problem so focus on leveling units. If you move quickly you should only need to fight the attackers from one leader. Of course you can have some of your units double back to engage the second set.

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Elven Alliance ====

The Orc's warning about the assassin is overrated; Volas can probably take care of it himself, although you might want to leave ONE unit near him to make sure.

Recruit / recall a wide assortment of units, mostly mages, spearmen and cavalry. Send mages and spearmen up to fight the opponent, send cavalry down as scouts. Any heavy infantry should go up to fight also; they will probably arrive late, and be good for reinforcements when the first troops are wounded.

Align the troops in the forest, so that the enemy will be on grass; this gives you a tactical advantage. Use Dacyn to heal those who need it most - those on the corners, and any mages who are on the front lines.

There is a village at {20,8} that can prove tactically very useful, because the elves usually fight somewhere near it.
The elves are defeated most of the time, and the orcs claim this village; it is crucial to kill the orc on this village and take it over with a resilient spearman, or a HI.

Once you have gotten past turn 6, it will be day, and the orcs will be very easy to defeat. When the assassin appears on turn 7, ignore it unless you have a cavalryman still down there. In that case, use it to fight the assassin. Keep pressing up. By turn 9, the orcish leader should be dead.

==== The Undead Border Patrol ====

This scenario also depends on which way you want to go. If going NW, it is fairly straightforward. The enemy is relatively weak. Do the same as in Unexpected Appearance - recruit 2 suicide cavalrymen to distract the bats. One will probably get enough XP to be worth recalling.

I would use mostly heavy infantry and spearmen with the holy amulet on this level, because mages will only get a +10% to hit from magical. However, as in most scenarios against undead, white mages are very useful.

Try to get the opponent to fight you from the sand. This gives you something like a 70% CTH. >)

(CTH = Chance To Hit).

===== Mal-Ravanal's Capital =====

Only reachable from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' scenario, but you might also skip it and go directly to ''Northern Outpost''.

This is a very challenging scenario. I started with only 100 gold, so I recalled one Mage, two Shock Troopers, one Heavy Infantry, and my holy Halberdier. I defended the starting castle for about 10 turns until the Revenants had made their way over to me. Upon killing several of them, I freed some imprisoned Knights and a Paladin. I moved my forces to kill the Death Knight, and then split my forces. I sent one group to attack Mal-Ravanal and the other to kill the Necromancer in the NW corner. By turn 30, my Eastern assault force was in postion to attack Mal-Ravanal. However, when I attacked him, he teleported my troops back to the starting castle, so I wasn't able to defeat him. When I was ready, I killed the NW Necromancer and progressed to The Northern Outpost.

The reason to go here is to acquire a cavalry force of one Paladin and five Knights. To do this kill the 6 Revenants guarding the cages, but note the number of Knights available is reduced by one for each of your troops that die *after you rescue the first one*. You might want to make sure any expendable troops are "expended" before this. Each rescued unit pops in with full moves.

If you just want to rescue the paladin and 5 knights and get out (in 1.6), this is how I finished that by turn 8. The horses were captive in 6 cages, 4 in a northern loop and 2 in a southern loop. First turn, I sent a quick shock trooper, quick heavy, and a white mage (not Dacyn) around the northern loop, looping from bottom to top (start at bottom knight, end at paladin). I looped that way to clear the middle ASAP and escape the oncoming troops. Also first turn, I sent 3 shock troopers around the southern loop, looping from top to bottom. If you encounter resistance, kill it quick or run as required, and instead focus on killing the guards fast, which conveniently don't hit back. On turn 2, I recruited another keep full of recruits and immediately sent everyone else to take out the northwestern leader. Time it so you kill the northwestern leader just as the last horses are rescued. It is by no means easy, but this way I managed to lose only a few HI types while picking up all 6 horses.

[elvish_sovereign] (1.8.2 Normal) An alternate strategy for the above if you have more leveled mages than leveled HI's. I sent a single quick Shock Trooper due south (recruited on the southern-most hex on the starting castle), which promptly took out the southern Revenant on turn 3. Forget about the villages, it'll only delay you. I sent Dacyn due north, a quick RM go take out the second from the bottom Revenant, and a quick HI and a WM with Gweddry to take out the middle-couple Revenants. I also recruited two HI's to stop the advance and distract the two Dark Sorcerers' troops. After Gweddry and the WM take out the third from the bottom Revenant, send that Knight south. After taking out the Revenant with the RM, send the RM, Shock Trooper, and the three Knights in the direction of the SW Dark Sorcerer. Meanwhile, Gweddry, the WM, and the HI take out the third from the top Revenant, and then get Gweddry the hell outta there with the WM. have Dacyn free the Paladin first, then have the remaining Knights, HI, and the Paladin take out the remaining Revenant and hold out in the north. As Gweddry is fleeing and th e final Revenants are being felled, break through the SW Dark Sorcerer's lines (which should be easy if you distracted them properly) with the RM and the Shock Trooper, and send the three Knights to knock him into oblivion. I finished on turn 8 with no losses, but had some near-death moments.

=== The Northern Outpost ===

Reachable both from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' and the ''Elven Alliance'' scenarios.

There are two enemies in this scenario that you must defeat - the undead and the outlaws. The undead are fairly straightforward to defeat, and in any case Owaec usually does a good part of the work. Recall a number of shock troopers, a white mage and the spearman who picked up the holy amulet in one of the previous scenarios. I addition recruit one mage.

Then send Gweddry to the holy amulet in the south west accompanied by the mage. The spearman and the white mage go straight southwards and help Owaec with the undead. Your shock troopers go to the east and surround one of the villages over there without flagging it. (As they are quite slow-moving, having them already over there saves you time later on.) Once Gweddry picked up the holy amulet, send him and the mage to finish off the undead leader together with your spearman. (Note: Your spearman is very effective against the undead and will likely level up.) That was the easy part.

The main challenge is the criminals. They appear randomly in the villages you flag (one of the villages has assasin that is outlaw leader), but not in those Owaec flags. So don't worry about him uncovering enemies for you. Since when you capture a village the outlaws surround it, you should surround each village before you capture it, so the enemy surrounds you. This makes it so they can't gang up on one of your units with more than 3 people. Also, when you capture a village, try to kill as many enemies as you can before they get a turn.

Send your your entire force up on the eastern side of the map flagging one village a turn and fighting the bandits. Once you come across the village where the bandid leader hides, concentrate your attacks on him as the bandits are quite strong.

Note: A Cavalry force (such as the one acquired in Mal-Ravanal's Capital) makes short work of the bandits. Lower level units have trouble against the Bandits, especially at night. Slower moving units also have a disadvantage in searching the villages.

Also note, that from this scenario on you can recruit horsemen. You might want to level up a paladin or two, for fast mobile undead removal services (and quick leader assasination).

/* governor */ Just a note: I had the misfortune of taking a group of men to a village where 5or6 enemies appeared. After taking heavy damage, I retreated my char (low on hitpoints) out of the village. When I recaptured the village the same group of enemies reappeared. Since AI enemies seem to prefer recapturing villages this can allow you to obtain easy experience for weak units a few times.

=== Two Paths ===
This is a fairly tough level (played in V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty) which took several attempts to get through. In V 1.4.5 you have 16 turns (unlike 12 as in earlier versions) and can choose between going north to attack the orc leader or going north-east to attack the undead leader.

One option is going north on the very east side of the map trying to fight your enemies from solid ground and mountains while they stand on sand ground with weak defense. As your troops move very slowly on this terrain, you will likely take some heavy losses however, as your enemies keep surrounding you. Also this will presumably take too many turns to reach the orc leader in time.

Thus the preferred choice is to recall a couple of shock troopers and white mages and move them on the path to the north-west in a tight formation towards the undead leader. Once you survived the first enemy onslaught without loosing units, the rest of this scenario becomes rather easy as the remaining enemies come one by one. Make sure to keep on moving fast to the north-west to reach the undead leader before turns run out.

=== Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Undead Crossing ====
Fighting the undead in this scenario is not the actual problem as they are quite weak. Recall a keep full of shock troopers, white mages and the spearman with the holy amulet (who has likely levelled up by now). Use your faster units to capture the villages in the south-east and move your shock troopers directly to the river crossing.

Once you fought of the bats and skeletons (which the above units should handle quite easily), the undead leader summons two cuttlefish which appear in the water between the two crossings. Be very careful where to position your troops as the cuttlefish have a very nasty melee attack. Fight them with a pair of shock troopers accompanied by Gweddry (to give them leadership) and a white mage for healing.

Make sure you leave your units enough time to cross the river and kill the undead leader before turns run out.

==== The Crossing ====

I had only 100 gold, so recruited some units and went straight north from turn one on. The fighting in the water was quite hard, with some orcs coming down from the north. The un-dead only appeared when I was in the middle of the river, so no encounter with them, and the ogre's helped get rid of the orcs on the north side. (Allefant)

If you have Holy Gweddry, you can (sometimes) get a 1st turn kill on the 1st undead leader, scarf up all the villages, and return to kill the 2nd undead forces before their leader can recruit anything. If you don't, the second undead leader will recruit lots of level two units. The orcs will start out across the river, but usually most of them turn back to fight the ogre reinforcements. Waiting till their first wave hits your shore and wiping them out in the water will probably leave you just enough time to cross the river and find there are only 2 or 3 enemy units left besides the leaders.

Make sure to cover your rear flank with some expendable troops (such as Heavy Infantry) as the undead can move more quickly through the water than your units.

Another strategy is to go straight into the water after killing the first undead leader using the deep water in the middle of the path to seperate the orc forces. You go to the right with Gweddry and Owaec and some support troops while letting the ogres kill many of the orcs in your way. Knights and a Paladin can hold off the orcs enough to get across while the undead behind you are not an issue.

Note: Owaec can move only one hex a turn in the water.

Important: If the ogre leader is alive at the end of the scenario, he agrees to help you, which results in the following bonuses: he joins you as a loyal unit, you get two free Ogres, you gain the ability to recruit Young Ogres, and you skip "Training the Ogres" scenario and go directly to "Xenophobia".
(shadowblack)

=== Training the Ogres ===

*This scenario was missing in 1.6.

This can be a confusing scenario to understand. Basically, you are fighting the ogres while also trying not to let them reach the rocky borders where they will "escape" (or disappear). Understand how the AI works and that units will attack the weakest units who are closest to leveling.

Whenever I tried to attack the ogres or surround them or using any other intuitive strategy, I always ended up getting my white mage killed by turn 3 at the latest.

Thus try the following which makes keeping all 4 ogres on the green very easy (although I still do not understand why the AI behaves as it does...): Move the white mage and the horseman to the very north outside the moving range of the ogres. Position Gweddry on one of the hills in the west just inside their moving range. For the first two turns the ogres hardly move. Then they start to attack Gweddry which he should be able to withstand. By turn 5 when Gweddry's health starts to wear down, the scenario is over already with all four ogres still on the green and all of your units alive.

(It's a bit of a digression, but the AI in this case is failing to realize that, though each Ogre has an individually unfavorable attack on Gweddry, all four attacking together would be rather more favorable. So, the AI decides to form a defensive line and wait for the sun to set, when Gweddry's 25% bonus disappears and their attacks are more favorable. Note that this technique generally only works for units with full health on defensible terrain, and may disappear entirely if the AI is improved to consider joint attacks.)

It is unclear to me however, what the benefit of all four ogres surviving is though.

Note: Whether or not to use ogres is a matter of playing style. Once they level up, Ogres are quite a tough unit that deals middling damage, but unfortunately can't advance beyond level 2. Their upside is that they move at normal speed on hills and cave floor, which makes them your most mobile unit in at least one scenario (''Captured''). And as they are of neutral alignment, they can sometimes be handy to have around at nighttime.

=== Xenophobia ===

In V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty is a very easy and fun level as all parties in the scenario (i.e. elves, orcs, drawves, and yourself) decide to fight each other instead of forming aliances. Thus you can use this level to gain some experience for your units, pick up another permanent holy amulet (in the north, roughly in the middle between the dwarf and the orc keep) e.g. by a shock trooper, and as the actual ogre training camp (see below).

Recall a keep full of shock troopers and send them straight to the north as they are very slow moving. Then recall one or two white mages and recruit about two to four young ogres. Send all of your units straight north to kill the dwarf leader who unwisely sends all his troops for the orcs right at the start and then misses the money to recruit any more troops to defend his keep.

By the time I reached the dwarf leader, the orcs had already killed the elvish leader, so there was two down and only one to go. Use the young ogres on the mountains in the north to fight the remaining dwarves whilst levelling up to ogres.

By the time you killed the dwarf leader, there should be hardly any enemy troops left, so go straight towards the orc leader and earn a decent early finish bonus. And don't forget to pick up the holy amulet on the way.

The main strategy in this scenario is staying out of the fighting as much as possible, picking off the weaker sides, and in general letting your enemies kill themselves. One successful strategy is to delay moving from your keep for 5-6 turns. Let the other factions weaken each other before you move off. (Although that reduces your early finish bonus, so do not do this if your troops are strong enough.)

(Future spoiler: This is your last chance to level non-leader units you will play two scenarios ahead in Captured. For instance, you may want to prepare a dragoon, a white mage, and a couple of adult ogres for that scenario.)

=== Lake Vrug ===
This is a very confusing hide and seek sceario which is not actually hard, but likely takes you several pointless restarts until you have finally discovered the enemy leaders. (Spoiler: there are three enemy keeps, all north of the river. One is to the very northeast (go to the right into the mounts directly after crossing the bridge), one is between the path leading west and the river bank just before the path turns northwards, and one is in the very north at the end of the path. The orc leader resides in the first keep, the gryphon leader in the second, and the third is empty.

Recall two or three shock troopers, two white mages and then recall/recruit as many ogres as possible. (Most of the enemy keeps are surrounded by high mountains which most of your troops cannot pass, but which the ogres handle quite easily.) You might also want to recruit a horseman to scout ahead.

(Future spoiler: Any units you recall will not be available in the next scenario Captured. The units you will get there are the 13 top recalls of the default sorted list at the end of this scenario, so you may want to save some adult ogres and quick white mages for that one.)

The only challenge in this scenario (apart from finding the keeps) is surviving the first onslaught of gryphoons which starts around turn 4 with quite a number of gryphoons appearing from the north-east. Position your heavy units like shock troopers and ogres very tighly around wounded units as the gryphons and dragons really have quite a large moving range and ignore zones of control and thus mercilessly slay away unprotected injured units. To fight them use heavy melee troops like shock troopers.

As you start to cross the bridge a couple of trolls attack. They are really no match for your shock troopers, however, who happy troll-crack away. When taking the enemy keeps, use the ogres who can move on the high mountains unlike most of your other units.

=== Captured ===

You start out by running up a tunnel to find some of your companions. If you go back down that way or you will have to face some extremely mean trolls in the narrow tunnel. Instead, follow the tunnel to the north and west and face a few bats as you proceed. At the end of that tunnel, you will enter a throne room where there is a leader and some enemy troops.

Upon entering the throne room, a group of your wounded troops will appear in a cavern called the "Torture Room" to the east. They will face a number of assassins and trolls as they leave the Torture Room moving west. (Hint: Try to get through the prison "door" of the torture room quickly as otherwise the enemy units have an easy time keeping your entire army locked away with only one unit at a time, i.e. the unit standing at the door, being able to take part in the fighting.)

Any units you recall in the previous scenario will not be available here. Instead, the units you will get here are the 13 top recalls of the default sorted list at the end of the last scenario. If like me, the first time around you end up will all slow moving ineffective cave units and no healers and thus get wiped out quickly here, then you could go back two scenarios to optimize for this one. In Xenophobia, level better cave units, healers, and a dragoon or something to pick up the holy amulet. Then in Lake Vrug, recall units such that you leave the top 13 as the ones you want to bring here.

Victory occurs when Gweddry moves through the exit in the southwest corner. There is quite a comfortable early finish bonus, so you might want to move him there quickly in order to put some money on savings for later scenarios. It should be possible to finish with over 500 gold without making haste, however. You should also flag the numerous villages in a cavern called "The City", a cavern southwest of the Torture Room.

There is a holy necklace on this level, at coordinates x=22, y=38. Preferrably grab it with a horseman or something. similar. He will come in very hand in later scenarios.

Note: Most of the orcs are level two and three units.

=== Evacuation ===
This scenario is a little frusting. Not so much because of its difficulty (it is hard but managable with enough high-level recalls and lots of money), but because you ''will'' take some heavy losses of high-level troops.

Note: You should have over 400 gold and a large number of level 2 and 3 units to recall to start this scenario.

There are two options in this scenario: you can either defeat all enemy leaders or blow up the bridge in the south. In the former case, you will have to accept quite some casualties in fighting the enemy; In the latter case, all your units which are not on the south side of the river by the time you blow up the bridge (including not recalled units, meanly!) are killed by the explosion. In both cases you have to watch out for the very tight time limit of 12 turns.

I went for option 2 (killing all leaders). First recruit two to tree keeps full of your typical experienced troops like iron maulers, white mages, and so on. Ogres are also helpful, if you have some left, as they are strong and you will have no use for them in later scnearios. After that recall a keep full of young ogres as cannon fodder.

Start to move you units south and attack the central enemy right away (i.e. do not wait until you have recruited all units). The last recalls before the young ogres split and send half of them to the north-east and the other half to the south-west (otherwise you might not make it to all three leaders in time). Finally, send some young ogres to the north-east and south-west to distract the enemies there for two or three turns.

With all three groops of your units try to focus on attacking the enemy leaders as soon as possible so you do not run out of time. Apart from that, watch out for the level 2 trolls, particularly, as they can (and frequently will...) instantly kill almost any of your units. Best fight them with two white mages or a white mage accompanied by some other unit.

With a bit of luck and probably some nasty casualties you will have killed all three leaders around turns 10 to 12.

[Garion] In 1.0, I recruited a lot of Cavalry for fodder, spacing them 1 hex apart to establish a ZOC corridor from my castle to the bridge. They got chewed up very quickly, but they bought me enough time to get out. Use a few Shock Troopers to guard your rear against the Blue enemy; they're too slow to escape anyway. Remember to recall your slowest units closest to the bridge, to minimize the time they spend in transit. I was able to evacuate 2 Holy Cavaliers, 2 Paladins, a Great Mage, the three heroes, a quick Iron Mauler, 2 White Mages, and a Mage of Light.

[Vladevil] In 1.2.6 what worked best for me was recruiting only fodder for 2 turns, then running away with all the main characters. I let Owaec and the mage first and Gweddry last since he can take some hits. All in all I was finished on the 6th turn without losing any valuable troops.

=== The Drowned Plains ===
The Skeletal Dragon will be found in or near the castle (located on an island in the south-east). In getting there, there is a chance the undead (three units mostly level two and an occasional level three) will spring out of the ground near the unit you just moved. Therefore less units are better. Advanced mages, paladins, and other fast-moving units with arcane weapons work well here. To withstand the initial dragon attack you will need very strong units (with more than 50 HP). In order to discover the dragon despite the fog units with a large moving range (and thus large visible area) like horseman are helpful.

The dragon wanders around near the castle but only attacks units which he can kill instantly. If only strong units come near him, he tries to flee. Because of the fog the major challenge of this scenario is finding him and then getting him surrounded so he cannot just move away again. Once you have him trapped like this, slaying him should be easy using your stronger units (preferrably impact weapons because the dragon has a low resistance there).

=== Approaching Weldyn ===
This scenario is fairly easy, but also fun to play. The essence to success is being very fast.

Recall 6 to 8 fast-moving units with arcane attacks. This should be any fast unit who has picked up a holy amulet in earlier scenarios like horsemen or spearmen plus some level 2 or level 3 mages. Completely forget about heavy infantry or other slow-moving troops of similar kind. Move all your units to the eastern enemy and try to kill him by turn 3 or 4 by the latest. This should be easy, as he is still very weak.

Then rush over to the western enemy. It will be night by now so not a good time for attacking. If you have a very strong and fast unit (like a dragoon) try to position it on the enemies keep. This trick stops the enemy leader from recruiting more troops despite having plenty of money left. Once your other troops arrive and daylight breaks you should have an easy time finishing of this enemy leader and those of his troops which you ally has not yet killed.

Then attack the third leader in the south-west in the same manner. If you hurry, you should be able to finish by turn 9 and gain a good early finish bonus.

=== The Council ===

Only plot in this. You see the inside of the castle.

=== Weldyn Under Attack ===
This is an interesting scenario where once again choosing the right strategy is the key to success. Also watch out for the time, as you have only 18 turns to finish.

You find your keep in the center of an island. Three allied leaders also have their keeps on the island around yours. There are three enemy leaders: a weak one in the very north, and two equally strong ones in the south-east and south-west, respectively. It stays nighttime (first and second watch) during the entire scenario which is somewhat uncomfortable, but not a big problem.

Start by recalling all high-level units with arcane attacks (6-8 units max). Then recruit two keeps full of mages. Send your troops straight north and finish of the enemy leader. He is quite weak and even moves onto your island so this should be painlessly accomplished by turn 3.

Then split your troops: one half moves onto the western shore (along the very border of the map), the other half onto the eastern shore (same). To get across the river use the bridges in the north-west and the north-east, respectively. Let some of the mages stay behind and capture the villages on the island so you do not loose money. The may also assist you allies so they do not fall so quickly and keep the enemy busy.

The rest of the scenario is straight-forward: move both your troops southwards straight towards the enemy keeps and kill the leaders. As they have sent most of their troops onto the island where they are busy happily slaying away your allies, this should be no challenge for your troops. Watch out for the nightgaunts, though, which tend to ambush you or rush for weak units without you seeing them coming.

If all goes right you should have killed the remaining two enemy leaders around turns 14 or 15.

Hint: If you have one or two silver mages available (e.g. the engineer unit you joined you in the Escape scneario, if he has levelled by now) this is quite useful in this scenario. The map is rather large so have some fast-moving units like horseman run through enemy territory and capture individual villages. Then use the teleport ability of your silver mage to perform hit-and-run (or rather: hit-and-teleport) attacks to weaken your enemy before attacking with your main force. Make sure you do not get him killed, though, by holding out too long after attacking.

After killing all enemy leaders, an enemy messenger appears telling you that you have only fought some delegates of the ancient lich Mal-Ravenal. It challenges you to have a duel with Mal-Ravenal instead of letting the armies meet for a final battle. If you accept the challenge, you get to scenario "The Duel". Otherwise you get to "Weldyn Besieged".

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== The Duel ====
This is a somewhat strange scenario: you and Mal-Ravanal get to recall/recruit exactly six units each and then have to fight each other. Mal-Ravenal will recruit mostly level 3 units so this looks difficult. In fact, it is quite managable, however.

Recall mostly mages of light and other high-level arcance troops. Set them up in a line of 4 units backed up by 2 units at the edge of one of the forsts near your keep. (Your leader should stand in the back up line so he does not accidentaly get killed.)

Then wait for his troops to reach you, but make sure you are the first to attack. By the time you meet it will be close to nightfall. Do not hesitate to attack, however, as Mal-Ravanal plays unfair and recruits another 3 units on every first watch.

In your first attack you should be able to kill two enemy units. Try to have at least 5 of your units survive the first round of enemy attacks. Then kill the remaining enemy units near you and move over to Mal-Ravenal straight away who hides by himself on the very border of the map in the mountains. Again, do not wait for daylight, as you can reach him before his reinforcements get to you, so you should have an easy time killing him with your remaining units.

Spoiler: After killing Mal-Ravanal the campaign ends with a final scene of Gweddry and his companions being honoured by the king.

==== Weldyn Besieged ====

On versions prior to 1.5.6 the siege is laughably easy to break; just recall a keep full of your best troops and rush Mal-Ravanal in the south.

As of 1.5.6 this battle should prove a more substantial challenge. Now the liches' names aren't revealed until they are attacked, and Mal-Ravanal is more likely to be revealed later in the scenario. Sending fast scouts to attack all the liches is not advisable since each lich receives a boost of gold for another round of recruitment after its name is revealed.

A workable strategy is to recall a group of cavalry with holy amulets and paladins to circle behind the undead horde and terminate the liches. You can draw the liches out of their keeps by positioning a sacrificial horseman within their attack radius. Once the lich is out in the open, your arcane damage cavalry should have no trouble finishing the lich off in a single turn.

Meanwhile you'll need the rest of your troops to hold the central keep against the undead onslaught. If you can spare the funds, a few sacrificial troops can delay the incoming enemies on one side, giving you the opportunity to focus your firepower on the undead approaching from the other side(s). If things turn grim, retreat to the castle and make your final stand.

[[Category:Campaigns]]

TheEasternInvasion

2010-06-30T04:23:51Z

Elvish sovereign: /* Mal-Ravanal's Capital */

This is a discussion of The Eastern Invasion, the campaign featuring Gweddry General of Wesnoth.

''Note by Crus4a7E: I played this campaing in V 1.4.5 (medium difficulty) using this walkthrough. As most parts did not quite seem to reflect the current state of the campain anymore, I felt obliged to contribute a number of updates to most scenarios' walkthroughs. Nevertheless, please feel free to further improve this walkthrough in particular for those scenarios I have not played and thus not updated. Overall the campain now seems well-balanced and is fun to play.''

The following descriptions are aimed at the "medium" difficulty level (as "easy" lets you get away with sloppiness and "hard" is for people who are comfortable with Advanced Tactics). Please improve these and add your own for later levels.

'''Warning: spoilers ahead!'''

=== The Outpost ===

It is probably best to recruit 5 heavy infantry and 1 mage on this scenario. The heavy infantry can flag the villages surrounding you by turn 3, turn 2 if they're quick, and the mage can flag the northern forest village on turn 2 if quick.

Sending 2 HI(heavy infantry) south, to the revenants, is a good idea because you can usually get both of them a 2nd level kill without having either die. The other ones should stand and fight against the enemies coming at you from the north and east. Use the HI most of time, and use the mage when they are in forest and it can get a killing blow. By the end of the scenario, you should have 2-3 shock troopers and 1 half-advanced mage.

It is sometimes a good idea to recruit another mage on turn 10 or so, since you will probably end the scenario with less than 100 gold anyway, so you save money by buying in advance. (mathematically this does make sense). Also, you can get them about 10 experience along the way.

==== Alternative Strategy ====
The above strategy did not work for me despite of several attempts. Whenever I recruited only 5 HI or tried to send 2 HI southwards to capture villages I got slaughtered around turns 10 to 12 by the latest. (Played with V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty) Thus below I describe an alternative strategy which worked rather painlessly for me.

Remark: In V 1.4.5 all of the villages surrounding the player's keep are already flagged at the start. Only in the very south (south of the river) are a couple of unflagged villages.

Recruit one keep full of HI in turn 1 (no mage, as there is little use in it in this scenario and we are short of money). In turn 2, move the HI to build a straight line northeast and east of your castle (the line should be inside the castle walls whereever possible to use its high defence rating but other than that as straight as possible to only allow two enemy units at a time to attack any of your HI). Then wait about 2 to 3 turns until the enemy forces start to attack and you have enough money to recruit about another 3 HI. Use them to reinforce your line.

Then just hold out the enemy attack during night time; only rotate wounded units if possible, but do not counter-attack. At dawn start your counter-attack without worrying to much about keeping the original line intact. Instead try to level 2 or 3 HI to Shock Troopers. The enemy forces quickly cease to be any danger to your forces.

Also around turn 12 the white mage re-arrives and points out a trap door you should use. The trap door is located near your castle and clearly visible unless any unit stands on it. So if you do not see it right away, just move your units around a little.

Position your leader near the trap door so he can reach it in one turn. As it is almost impossible to finish with more than 100 gold (which is the minimum starting gold of the next level), use the remaining turns to level as many units as possible and only move your leader onto the trap door in the very last turn.

Using this strategy I finished with 2 shock troopers and several well-levelled HI. Also your leader and the white mage should have gained a little experience.

==== Alternative Strategy #2 ====
An alternative strategy to consider is to recruit as late as possible and to start fighting when the sun is up. Somehow you will be able to decide when to engage in the battle, as the enemy will let you stay in your castle without bothering you.

At turn #4, recruit 1 Mage and 5 Heavy Infantrymen (HI). The trick is not to move a single unit and somehow, no one attacks you. I did the test multiple times and I always started the first fight when I decided it was time (i.e. during the day light). A variation of the strategy that does not work is to start recruiting only when the sun is up; somehow the enemy attacks your leader.

Turn #7, this is dawn and now you can start attacking. My goal is to finish any fight with my Mage or the Leader to get them to level 2 and 3 as soon as possible. White Mages always make my life easier during Campaigns. I also recruit 2 HI, 1 Cavalryman to go get some villages, and 1 Mage.

You will end up with 1 HI or your Leader at level 2 and your Mages should be half way to Level 2.

==== Alternative Strategy... #3 ====
None of the above tactics work when playing under the "challenging" difficulty level(since you are given only 80 coins at the beginning of the scenario).

My advice when playing this on the hardest level is to spend your starting money on two HI units and two cavalry units. Don't buy any mages -- they are too fragile and expensive. Your main goal is to keep away as much enemy forces as possible from your keep (ESPECIALLY during night). Use the cavalry to divert at least a small portion of the undead by making them chase your horsemen. Remember to always "taunt" them -- capture the villages near their keeps and run away from there the next turn. This way you can keep your fortress not owerwhelmed for some time. Spend every coin possible on heavy infantry and don't let skeletons/bats occupy tiles in your keep. If you do let them, this may be fatal to your leader. ;) You may even recruit a spearman or two to "block" a keep tile if this may save your main character.

NOTE: I did use this exact same tactic to beat the scenario on challenging, however, it did require some luck and re-loading. Remember -- when things seem dire, leveling up is the best healing. I saved my leader(why do I always forget his name?) by letting him kill a second-level skeleton archer, but that only happened by miracle - he hit all three times on 40% and didn't get killed by counter-attacks although he had only 3 HP left! I must be lucky :P

Euclid

=== Escape Tunnel ===
* Objectives: Move Gweddry to the end of the tunnel
* Lose if: Gweddry or Dacyn dies or turns run out
* Turns: 26/24/22 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn
* Other
** Permanent holy amulet in north
** Treasure of 200 gold in southeast

Don't bother recalling Heavy Infantry, they go too slow in caves. Go for a group of mostly Mages, and a couple of Spearmen. (One keep of units in total should easily be enough.)

The map is quite small. Bypass the fights that you can until you have the bulk of your units in th safety of the dwarf leader's keep area. When you are just moving Gweddry along be opportunistic and get some experience. Move your units to the east until you encounter trolls and reach a crossroads. A couple of dwarves will kindly become your allies and keep off the trolls for a few turns.

There is a holy amulet to the north (unlike in other campaigns this holy amulet is permanent!). Send a quick Spearman there or Gweddry (Giving Gweddry the holy amulet (instead of a Spearman) allows him to level very quickly, which is important, since he can advance to Grand Marshal. This gives benefits in other ways on a number of later scenarios as well, such as the River Crossing, where you can get an easy 1st turn kill against the undead leader and take his castle. Note that the leader is very hard to kill anyway).

As soon as you have got the holy amulet start to move all your units south without bothering about the trolls or the undead which appear after a number of turns from the direction of your keep.

The undead, trolls and dwarves will all fight each other, so after having moved all your units south position one Spearman at the end of the cave leading south (so only one unit a turn can attack him) and position the White Mage right behind him to heal it every turn. These two units should easily keep of the enemies following you until the end of the scenario. Move Gweddry to the northeast accompanied by a Mage and a Spearman (to fight individual trolls coming your way).

Before moving Gweddry to the end of the cave (which ends the level) send the Mage to the east past the funny signpost warning you of the troll hole. In the cave the Mage discovers a chest containing a troll treasure amounting to 200 gold.

=== An Unexpected Appearance ===
* Objectives: Defeat either enemy leader
* Lose if: Gweddry or Dacyn dies or turns run out
* Turns: 20/20/20 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn
* Other: your next scenario depends on which leader you defeat

What you do in this scenario depends on which way you want to go. Going east is harder, but brings you more reward, such as the chance to go to Mal-Ravanal's Capital, which gives you the opportunity to get extra experience (a lot for whoever survives) and a free Paladin and several Knights.

First kill Mal-Tar to get your keep. To do this, shoot him with Dacyn and attack him with Gweddry's melee. If you don't kill him the first turn, second turn kill him with Dacyn so Gweddry can recruit. You will be fighting a mix of undead and bats, so recruit Heavy Infantry and Mages (if you gave the amulet to a Spearman in the previous scenario, recall him, too). Dacyn might be wounded, so send him to a village. Don't worry, he can fend for himself, since the bats usually arrive one at a time and he can kill one per turn.

The attackers should be no problem so focus on leveling units. If you move quickly you should only need to fight the attackers from one leader. Of course you can have some of your units double back to engage the second set.

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Elven Alliance ====

The Orc's warning about the assassin is overrated; Volas can probably take care of it himself, although you might want to leave ONE unit near him to make sure.

Recruit / recall a wide assortment of units, mostly mages, spearmen and cavalry. Send mages and spearmen up to fight the opponent, send cavalry down as scouts. Any heavy infantry should go up to fight also; they will probably arrive late, and be good for reinforcements when the first troops are wounded.

Align the troops in the forest, so that the enemy will be on grass; this gives you a tactical advantage. Use Dacyn to heal those who need it most - those on the corners, and any mages who are on the front lines.

There is a village at {20,8} that can prove tactically very useful, because the elves usually fight somewhere near it.
The elves are defeated most of the time, and the orcs claim this village; it is crucial to kill the orc on this village and take it over with a resilient spearman, or a HI.

Once you have gotten past turn 6, it will be day, and the orcs will be very easy to defeat. When the assassin appears on turn 7, ignore it unless you have a cavalryman still down there. In that case, use it to fight the assassin. Keep pressing up. By turn 9, the orcish leader should be dead.

==== The Undead Border Patrol ====

This scenario also depends on which way you want to go. If going NW, it is fairly straightforward. The enemy is relatively weak. Do the same as in Unexpected Appearance - recruit 2 suicide cavalrymen to distract the bats. One will probably get enough XP to be worth recalling.

I would use mostly heavy infantry and spearmen with the holy amulet on this level, because mages will only get a +10% to hit from magical. However, as in most scenarios against undead, white mages are very useful.

Try to get the opponent to fight you from the sand. This gives you something like a 70% CTH. >)

(CTH = Chance To Hit).

===== Mal-Ravanal's Capital =====

Only reachable from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' scenario, but you might also skip it and go directly to ''Northern Outpost''.

This is a very challenging scenario. I started with only 100 gold, so I recalled one Mage, two Shock Troopers, one Heavy Infantry, and my holy Halberdier. I defended the starting castle for about 10 turns until the Revenants had made their way over to me. Upon killing several of them, I freed some imprisoned Knights and a Paladin. I moved my forces to kill the Death Knight, and then split my forces. I sent one group to attack Mal-Ravanal and the other to kill the Necromancer in the NW corner. By turn 30, my Eastern assault force was in postion to attack Mal-Ravanal. However, when I attacked him, he teleported my troops back to the starting castle, so I wasn't able to defeat him. When I was ready, I killed the NW Necromancer and progressed to The Northern Outpost.

The reason to go here is to acquire a cavalry force of one Paladin and five Knights. To do this kill the 6 Revenants guarding the cages, but note the number of Knights available is reduced by one for each of your troops that die *after you rescue the first one*. You might want to make sure any expendable troops are "expended" before this. Each rescued unit pops in with full moves.

If you just want to rescue the paladin and 5 knights and get out (in 1.6), this is how I finished that by turn 8. The horses were captive in 6 cages, 4 in a northern loop and 2 in a southern loop. First turn, I sent a quick shock trooper, quick heavy, and a white mage (not Dacyn) around the northern loop, looping from bottom to top (start at bottom knight, end at paladin). I looped that way to clear the middle ASAP and escape the oncoming troops. Also first turn, I sent 3 shock troopers around the southern loop, looping from top to bottom. If you encounter resistance, kill it quick or run as required, and instead focus on killing the guards fast, which conveniently don't hit back. On turn 2, I recruited another keep full of recruits and immediately sent everyone else to take out the northwestern leader. Time it so you kill the northwestern leader just as the last horses are rescued. It is by no means easy, but this way I managed to lose only a few HI types while picking up all 6 horses.

[elvish_sovereign] (1.8.2 Normal) An alternate strategy for the above if you have more leveled mages than leveled HI's. I sent a single quick Shock Trooper due south (recruited on the southern-most hex on the starting castle), which promptly took out the southern Revenant on turn 3. Forget about the villages, it'll only delay you. I sent Dacyn due north, a quick RM go take out the second from the bottom Revenant, and a quick HI and a WM with Gweddry to take out the middle-couple Revenants. I also recruited two HI's to stop the advance and distract the two Dark Sorcerers' troops. After Gweddry and the WM take out the third from the bottom Revenant, send that Knight south. After taking out the Revenant with the RM, send the RM, Shock Trooper, and the three Knights in the direction of the SW Dasrk Sorcerer. Meanwhile, Gweddry, the WM, and the HI take out the third from the top Revenant, and then get Gweddry the hell outta there with the WM. have Dacyn free the Paladin first, then have the remaining Knights, HI, and the Paladin take out the remaining Revenant and hold out in the north. As Gweddry is fleeing and th e final Revenants are being felled, break through the SW's lines (which should be easy if you distracted them properly) with the RM and the Shock Trooper, and send the three Knights to knock him into oblivion. I finished on turn 8 with no losses, but had some near-death moments.

=== The Northern Outpost ===

Reachable both from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' and the ''Elven Alliance'' scenarios.

There are two enemies in this scenario that you must defeat - the undead and the outlaws. The undead are fairly straightforward to defeat, and in any case Owaec usually does a good part of the work. Recall a number of shock troopers, a white mage and the spearman who picked up the holy amulet in one of the previous scenarios. I addition recruit one mage.

Then send Gweddry to the holy amulet in the south west accompanied by the mage. The spearman and the white mage go straight southwards and help Owaec with the undead. Your shock troopers go to the east and surround one of the villages over there without flagging it. (As they are quite slow-moving, having them already over there saves you time later on.) Once Gweddry picked up the holy amulet, send him and the mage to finish off the undead leader together with your spearman. (Note: Your spearman is very effective against the undead and will likely level up.) That was the easy part.

The main challenge is the criminals. They appear randomly in the villages you flag (one of the villages has assasin that is outlaw leader), but not in those Owaec flags. So don't worry about him uncovering enemies for you. Since when you capture a village the outlaws surround it, you should surround each village before you capture it, so the enemy surrounds you. This makes it so they can't gang up on one of your units with more than 3 people. Also, when you capture a village, try to kill as many enemies as you can before they get a turn.

Send your your entire force up on the eastern side of the map flagging one village a turn and fighting the bandits. Once you come across the village where the bandid leader hides, concentrate your attacks on him as the bandits are quite strong.

Note: A Cavalry force (such as the one acquired in Mal-Ravanal's Capital) makes short work of the bandits. Lower level units have trouble against the Bandits, especially at night. Slower moving units also have a disadvantage in searching the villages.

Also note, that from this scenario on you can recruit horsemen. You might want to level up a paladin or two, for fast mobile undead removal services (and quick leader assasination).

/* governor */ Just a note: I had the misfortune of taking a group of men to a village where 5or6 enemies appeared. After taking heavy damage, I retreated my char (low on hitpoints) out of the village. When I recaptured the village the same group of enemies reappeared. Since AI enemies seem to prefer recapturing villages this can allow you to obtain easy experience for weak units a few times.

=== Two Paths ===
This is a fairly tough level (played in V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty) which took several attempts to get through. In V 1.4.5 you have 16 turns (unlike 12 as in earlier versions) and can choose between going north to attack the orc leader or going north-east to attack the undead leader.

One option is going north on the very east side of the map trying to fight your enemies from solid ground and mountains while they stand on sand ground with weak defense. As your troops move very slowly on this terrain, you will likely take some heavy losses however, as your enemies keep surrounding you. Also this will presumably take too many turns to reach the orc leader in time.

Thus the preferred choice is to recall a couple of shock troopers and white mages and move them on the path to the north-west in a tight formation towards the undead leader. Once you survived the first enemy onslaught without loosing units, the rest of this scenario becomes rather easy as the remaining enemies come one by one. Make sure to keep on moving fast to the north-west to reach the undead leader before turns run out.

=== Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Undead Crossing ====
Fighting the undead in this scenario is not the actual problem as they are quite weak. Recall a keep full of shock troopers, white mages and the spearman with the holy amulet (who has likely levelled up by now). Use your faster units to capture the villages in the south-east and move your shock troopers directly to the river crossing.

Once you fought of the bats and skeletons (which the above units should handle quite easily), the undead leader summons two cuttlefish which appear in the water between the two crossings. Be very careful where to position your troops as the cuttlefish have a very nasty melee attack. Fight them with a pair of shock troopers accompanied by Gweddry (to give them leadership) and a white mage for healing.

Make sure you leave your units enough time to cross the river and kill the undead leader before turns run out.

==== The Crossing ====

I had only 100 gold, so recruited some units and went straight north from turn one on. The fighting in the water was quite hard, with some orcs coming down from the north. The un-dead only appeared when I was in the middle of the river, so no encounter with them, and the ogre's helped get rid of the orcs on the north side. (Allefant)

If you have Holy Gweddry, you can (sometimes) get a 1st turn kill on the 1st undead leader, scarf up all the villages, and return to kill the 2nd undead forces before their leader can recruit anything. If you don't, the second undead leader will recruit lots of level two units. The orcs will start out across the river, but usually most of them turn back to fight the ogre reinforcements. Waiting till their first wave hits your shore and wiping them out in the water will probably leave you just enough time to cross the river and find there are only 2 or 3 enemy units left besides the leaders.

Make sure to cover your rear flank with some expendable troops (such as Heavy Infantry) as the undead can move more quickly through the water than your units.

Another strategy is to go straight into the water after killing the first undead leader using the deep water in the middle of the path to seperate the orc forces. You go to the right with Gweddry and Owaec and some support troops while letting the ogres kill many of the orcs in your way. Knights and a Paladin can hold off the orcs enough to get across while the undead behind you are not an issue.

Note: Owaec can move only one hex a turn in the water.

Important: If the ogre leader is alive at the end of the scenario, he agrees to help you, which results in the following bonuses: he joins you as a loyal unit, you get two free Ogres, you gain the ability to recruit Young Ogres, and you skip "Training the Ogres" scenario and go directly to "Xenophobia".
(shadowblack)

=== Training the Ogres ===

*This scenario was missing in 1.6.

This can be a confusing scenario to understand. Basically, you are fighting the ogres while also trying not to let them reach the rocky borders where they will "escape" (or disappear). Understand how the AI works and that units will attack the weakest units who are closest to leveling.

Whenever I tried to attack the ogres or surround them or using any other intuitive strategy, I always ended up getting my white mage killed by turn 3 at the latest.

Thus try the following which makes keeping all 4 ogres on the green very easy (although I still do not understand why the AI behaves as it does...): Move the white mage and the horseman to the very north outside the moving range of the ogres. Position Gweddry on one of the hills in the west just inside their moving range. For the first two turns the ogres hardly move. Then they start to attack Gweddry which he should be able to withstand. By turn 5 when Gweddry's health starts to wear down, the scenario is over already with all four ogres still on the green and all of your units alive.

(It's a bit of a digression, but the AI in this case is failing to realize that, though each Ogre has an individually unfavorable attack on Gweddry, all four attacking together would be rather more favorable. So, the AI decides to form a defensive line and wait for the sun to set, when Gweddry's 25% bonus disappears and their attacks are more favorable. Note that this technique generally only works for units with full health on defensible terrain, and may disappear entirely if the AI is improved to consider joint attacks.)

It is unclear to me however, what the benefit of all four ogres surviving is though.

Note: Whether or not to use ogres is a matter of playing style. Once they level up, Ogres are quite a tough unit that deals middling damage, but unfortunately can't advance beyond level 2. Their upside is that they move at normal speed on hills and cave floor, which makes them your most mobile unit in at least one scenario (''Captured''). And as they are of neutral alignment, they can sometimes be handy to have around at nighttime.

=== Xenophobia ===

In V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty is a very easy and fun level as all parties in the scenario (i.e. elves, orcs, drawves, and yourself) decide to fight each other instead of forming aliances. Thus you can use this level to gain some experience for your units, pick up another permanent holy amulet (in the north, roughly in the middle between the dwarf and the orc keep) e.g. by a shock trooper, and as the actual ogre training camp (see below).

Recall a keep full of shock troopers and send them straight to the north as they are very slow moving. Then recall one or two white mages and recruit about two to four young ogres. Send all of your units straight north to kill the dwarf leader who unwisely sends all his troops for the orcs right at the start and then misses the money to recruit any more troops to defend his keep.

By the time I reached the dwarf leader, the orcs had already killed the elvish leader, so there was two down and only one to go. Use the young ogres on the mountains in the north to fight the remaining dwarves whilst levelling up to ogres.

By the time you killed the dwarf leader, there should be hardly any enemy troops left, so go straight towards the orc leader and earn a decent early finish bonus. And don't forget to pick up the holy amulet on the way.

The main strategy in this scenario is staying out of the fighting as much as possible, picking off the weaker sides, and in general letting your enemies kill themselves. One successful strategy is to delay moving from your keep for 5-6 turns. Let the other factions weaken each other before you move off. (Although that reduces your early finish bonus, so do not do this if your troops are strong enough.)

(Future spoiler: This is your last chance to level non-leader units you will play two scenarios ahead in Captured. For instance, you may want to prepare a dragoon, a white mage, and a couple of adult ogres for that scenario.)

=== Lake Vrug ===
This is a very confusing hide and seek sceario which is not actually hard, but likely takes you several pointless restarts until you have finally discovered the enemy leaders. (Spoiler: there are three enemy keeps, all north of the river. One is to the very northeast (go to the right into the mounts directly after crossing the bridge), one is between the path leading west and the river bank just before the path turns northwards, and one is in the very north at the end of the path. The orc leader resides in the first keep, the gryphon leader in the second, and the third is empty.

Recall two or three shock troopers, two white mages and then recall/recruit as many ogres as possible. (Most of the enemy keeps are surrounded by high mountains which most of your troops cannot pass, but which the ogres handle quite easily.) You might also want to recruit a horseman to scout ahead.

(Future spoiler: Any units you recall will not be available in the next scenario Captured. The units you will get there are the 13 top recalls of the default sorted list at the end of this scenario, so you may want to save some adult ogres and quick white mages for that one.)

The only challenge in this scenario (apart from finding the keeps) is surviving the first onslaught of gryphoons which starts around turn 4 with quite a number of gryphoons appearing from the north-east. Position your heavy units like shock troopers and ogres very tighly around wounded units as the gryphons and dragons really have quite a large moving range and ignore zones of control and thus mercilessly slay away unprotected injured units. To fight them use heavy melee troops like shock troopers.

As you start to cross the bridge a couple of trolls attack. They are really no match for your shock troopers, however, who happy troll-crack away. When taking the enemy keeps, use the ogres who can move on the high mountains unlike most of your other units.

=== Captured ===

You start out by running up a tunnel to find some of your companions. If you go back down that way or you will have to face some extremely mean trolls in the narrow tunnel. Instead, follow the tunnel to the north and west and face a few bats as you proceed. At the end of that tunnel, you will enter a throne room where there is a leader and some enemy troops.

Upon entering the throne room, a group of your wounded troops will appear in a cavern called the "Torture Room" to the east. They will face a number of assassins and trolls as they leave the Torture Room moving west. (Hint: Try to get through the prison "door" of the torture room quickly as otherwise the enemy units have an easy time keeping your entire army locked away with only one unit at a time, i.e. the unit standing at the door, being able to take part in the fighting.)

Any units you recall in the previous scenario will not be available here. Instead, the units you will get here are the 13 top recalls of the default sorted list at the end of the last scenario. If like me, the first time around you end up will all slow moving ineffective cave units and no healers and thus get wiped out quickly here, then you could go back two scenarios to optimize for this one. In Xenophobia, level better cave units, healers, and a dragoon or something to pick up the holy amulet. Then in Lake Vrug, recall units such that you leave the top 13 as the ones you want to bring here.

Victory occurs when Gweddry moves through the exit in the southwest corner. There is quite a comfortable early finish bonus, so you might want to move him there quickly in order to put some money on savings for later scenarios. It should be possible to finish with over 500 gold without making haste, however. You should also flag the numerous villages in a cavern called "The City", a cavern southwest of the Torture Room.

There is a holy necklace on this level, at coordinates x=22, y=38. Preferrably grab it with a horseman or something. similar. He will come in very hand in later scenarios.

Note: Most of the orcs are level two and three units.

=== Evacuation ===
This scenario is a little frusting. Not so much because of its difficulty (it is hard but managable with enough high-level recalls and lots of money), but because you ''will'' take some heavy losses of high-level troops.

Note: You should have over 400 gold and a large number of level 2 and 3 units to recall to start this scenario.

There are two options in this scenario: you can either defeat all enemy leaders or blow up the bridge in the south. In the former case, you will have to accept quite some casualties in fighting the enemy; In the latter case, all your units which are not on the south side of the river by the time you blow up the bridge (including not recalled units, meanly!) are killed by the explosion. In both cases you have to watch out for the very tight time limit of 12 turns.

I went for option 2 (killing all leaders). First recruit two to tree keeps full of your typical experienced troops like iron maulers, white mages, and so on. Ogres are also helpful, if you have some left, as they are strong and you will have no use for them in later scnearios. After that recall a keep full of young ogres as cannon fodder.

Start to move you units south and attack the central enemy right away (i.e. do not wait until you have recruited all units). The last recalls before the young ogres split and send half of them to the north-east and the other half to the south-west (otherwise you might not make it to all three leaders in time). Finally, send some young ogres to the north-east and south-west to distract the enemies there for two or three turns.

With all three groops of your units try to focus on attacking the enemy leaders as soon as possible so you do not run out of time. Apart from that, watch out for the level 2 trolls, particularly, as they can (and frequently will...) instantly kill almost any of your units. Best fight them with two white mages or a white mage accompanied by some other unit.

With a bit of luck and probably some nasty casualties you will have killed all three leaders around turns 10 to 12.

[Garion] In 1.0, I recruited a lot of Cavalry for fodder, spacing them 1 hex apart to establish a ZOC corridor from my castle to the bridge. They got chewed up very quickly, but they bought me enough time to get out. Use a few Shock Troopers to guard your rear against the Blue enemy; they're too slow to escape anyway. Remember to recall your slowest units closest to the bridge, to minimize the time they spend in transit. I was able to evacuate 2 Holy Cavaliers, 2 Paladins, a Great Mage, the three heroes, a quick Iron Mauler, 2 White Mages, and a Mage of Light.

[Vladevil] In 1.2.6 what worked best for me was recruiting only fodder for 2 turns, then running away with all the main characters. I let Owaec and the mage first and Gweddry last since he can take some hits. All in all I was finished on the 6th turn without losing any valuable troops.

=== The Drowned Plains ===
The Skeletal Dragon will be found in or near the castle (located on an island in the south-east). In getting there, there is a chance the undead (three units mostly level two and an occasional level three) will spring out of the ground near the unit you just moved. Therefore less units are better. Advanced mages, paladins, and other fast-moving units with arcane weapons work well here. To withstand the initial dragon attack you will need very strong units (with more than 50 HP). In order to discover the dragon despite the fog units with a large moving range (and thus large visible area) like horseman are helpful.

The dragon wanders around near the castle but only attacks units which he can kill instantly. If only strong units come near him, he tries to flee. Because of the fog the major challenge of this scenario is finding him and then getting him surrounded so he cannot just move away again. Once you have him trapped like this, slaying him should be easy using your stronger units (preferrably impact weapons because the dragon has a low resistance there).

=== Approaching Weldyn ===
This scenario is fairly easy, but also fun to play. The essence to success is being very fast.

Recall 6 to 8 fast-moving units with arcane attacks. This should be any fast unit who has picked up a holy amulet in earlier scenarios like horsemen or spearmen plus some level 2 or level 3 mages. Completely forget about heavy infantry or other slow-moving troops of similar kind. Move all your units to the eastern enemy and try to kill him by turn 3 or 4 by the latest. This should be easy, as he is still very weak.

Then rush over to the western enemy. It will be night by now so not a good time for attacking. If you have a very strong and fast unit (like a dragoon) try to position it on the enemies keep. This trick stops the enemy leader from recruiting more troops despite having plenty of money left. Once your other troops arrive and daylight breaks you should have an easy time finishing of this enemy leader and those of his troops which you ally has not yet killed.

Then attack the third leader in the south-west in the same manner. If you hurry, you should be able to finish by turn 9 and gain a good early finish bonus.

=== The Council ===

Only plot in this. You see the inside of the castle.

=== Weldyn Under Attack ===
This is an interesting scenario where once again choosing the right strategy is the key to success. Also watch out for the time, as you have only 18 turns to finish.

You find your keep in the center of an island. Three allied leaders also have their keeps on the island around yours. There are three enemy leaders: a weak one in the very north, and two equally strong ones in the south-east and south-west, respectively. It stays nighttime (first and second watch) during the entire scenario which is somewhat uncomfortable, but not a big problem.

Start by recalling all high-level units with arcane attacks (6-8 units max). Then recruit two keeps full of mages. Send your troops straight north and finish of the enemy leader. He is quite weak and even moves onto your island so this should be painlessly accomplished by turn 3.

Then split your troops: one half moves onto the western shore (along the very border of the map), the other half onto the eastern shore (same). To get across the river use the bridges in the north-west and the north-east, respectively. Let some of the mages stay behind and capture the villages on the island so you do not loose money. The may also assist you allies so they do not fall so quickly and keep the enemy busy.

The rest of the scenario is straight-forward: move both your troops southwards straight towards the enemy keeps and kill the leaders. As they have sent most of their troops onto the island where they are busy happily slaying away your allies, this should be no challenge for your troops. Watch out for the nightgaunts, though, which tend to ambush you or rush for weak units without you seeing them coming.

If all goes right you should have killed the remaining two enemy leaders around turns 14 or 15.

Hint: If you have one or two silver mages available (e.g. the engineer unit you joined you in the Escape scneario, if he has levelled by now) this is quite useful in this scenario. The map is rather large so have some fast-moving units like horseman run through enemy territory and capture individual villages. Then use the teleport ability of your silver mage to perform hit-and-run (or rather: hit-and-teleport) attacks to weaken your enemy before attacking with your main force. Make sure you do not get him killed, though, by holding out too long after attacking.

After killing all enemy leaders, an enemy messenger appears telling you that you have only fought some delegates of the ancient lich Mal-Ravenal. It challenges you to have a duel with Mal-Ravenal instead of letting the armies meet for a final battle. If you accept the challenge, you get to scenario "The Duel". Otherwise you get to "Weldyn Besieged".

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== The Duel ====
This is a somewhat strange scenario: you and Mal-Ravanal get to recall/recruit exactly six units each and then have to fight each other. Mal-Ravenal will recruit mostly level 3 units so this looks difficult. In fact, it is quite managable, however.

Recall mostly mages of light and other high-level arcance troops. Set them up in a line of 4 units backed up by 2 units at the edge of one of the forsts near your keep. (Your leader should stand in the back up line so he does not accidentaly get killed.)

Then wait for his troops to reach you, but make sure you are the first to attack. By the time you meet it will be close to nightfall. Do not hesitate to attack, however, as Mal-Ravanal plays unfair and recruits another 3 units on every first watch.

In your first attack you should be able to kill two enemy units. Try to have at least 5 of your units survive the first round of enemy attacks. Then kill the remaining enemy units near you and move over to Mal-Ravenal straight away who hides by himself on the very border of the map in the mountains. Again, do not wait for daylight, as you can reach him before his reinforcements get to you, so you should have an easy time killing him with your remaining units.

Spoiler: After killing Mal-Ravanal the campaign ends with a final scene of Gweddry and his companions being honoured by the king.

==== Weldyn Besieged ====

On versions prior to 1.5.6 the siege is laughably easy to break; just recall a keep full of your best troops and rush Mal-Ravanal in the south.

As of 1.5.6 this battle should prove a more substantial challenge. Now the liches' names aren't revealed until they are attacked, and Mal-Ravanal is more likely to be revealed later in the scenario. Sending fast scouts to attack all the liches is not advisable since each lich receives a boost of gold for another round of recruitment after its name is revealed.

A workable strategy is to recall a group of cavalry with holy amulets and paladins to circle behind the undead horde and terminate the liches. You can draw the liches out of their keeps by positioning a sacrificial horseman within their attack radius. Once the lich is out in the open, your arcane damage cavalry should have no trouble finishing the lich off in a single turn.

Meanwhile you'll need the rest of your troops to hold the central keep against the undead onslaught. If you can spare the funds, a few sacrificial troops can delay the incoming enemies on one side, giving you the opportunity to focus your firepower on the undead approaching from the other side(s). If things turn grim, retreat to the castle and make your final stand.

[[Category:Campaigns]]

TheEasternInvasion

2010-06-30T04:22:24Z

Elvish sovereign: /* Mal-Ravanal's Capital */

This is a discussion of The Eastern Invasion, the campaign featuring Gweddry General of Wesnoth.

''Note by Crus4a7E: I played this campaing in V 1.4.5 (medium difficulty) using this walkthrough. As most parts did not quite seem to reflect the current state of the campain anymore, I felt obliged to contribute a number of updates to most scenarios' walkthroughs. Nevertheless, please feel free to further improve this walkthrough in particular for those scenarios I have not played and thus not updated. Overall the campain now seems well-balanced and is fun to play.''

The following descriptions are aimed at the "medium" difficulty level (as "easy" lets you get away with sloppiness and "hard" is for people who are comfortable with Advanced Tactics). Please improve these and add your own for later levels.

'''Warning: spoilers ahead!'''

=== The Outpost ===

It is probably best to recruit 5 heavy infantry and 1 mage on this scenario. The heavy infantry can flag the villages surrounding you by turn 3, turn 2 if they're quick, and the mage can flag the northern forest village on turn 2 if quick.

Sending 2 HI(heavy infantry) south, to the revenants, is a good idea because you can usually get both of them a 2nd level kill without having either die. The other ones should stand and fight against the enemies coming at you from the north and east. Use the HI most of time, and use the mage when they are in forest and it can get a killing blow. By the end of the scenario, you should have 2-3 shock troopers and 1 half-advanced mage.

It is sometimes a good idea to recruit another mage on turn 10 or so, since you will probably end the scenario with less than 100 gold anyway, so you save money by buying in advance. (mathematically this does make sense). Also, you can get them about 10 experience along the way.

==== Alternative Strategy ====
The above strategy did not work for me despite of several attempts. Whenever I recruited only 5 HI or tried to send 2 HI southwards to capture villages I got slaughtered around turns 10 to 12 by the latest. (Played with V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty) Thus below I describe an alternative strategy which worked rather painlessly for me.

Remark: In V 1.4.5 all of the villages surrounding the player's keep are already flagged at the start. Only in the very south (south of the river) are a couple of unflagged villages.

Recruit one keep full of HI in turn 1 (no mage, as there is little use in it in this scenario and we are short of money). In turn 2, move the HI to build a straight line northeast and east of your castle (the line should be inside the castle walls whereever possible to use its high defence rating but other than that as straight as possible to only allow two enemy units at a time to attack any of your HI). Then wait about 2 to 3 turns until the enemy forces start to attack and you have enough money to recruit about another 3 HI. Use them to reinforce your line.

Then just hold out the enemy attack during night time; only rotate wounded units if possible, but do not counter-attack. At dawn start your counter-attack without worrying to much about keeping the original line intact. Instead try to level 2 or 3 HI to Shock Troopers. The enemy forces quickly cease to be any danger to your forces.

Also around turn 12 the white mage re-arrives and points out a trap door you should use. The trap door is located near your castle and clearly visible unless any unit stands on it. So if you do not see it right away, just move your units around a little.

Position your leader near the trap door so he can reach it in one turn. As it is almost impossible to finish with more than 100 gold (which is the minimum starting gold of the next level), use the remaining turns to level as many units as possible and only move your leader onto the trap door in the very last turn.

Using this strategy I finished with 2 shock troopers and several well-levelled HI. Also your leader and the white mage should have gained a little experience.

==== Alternative Strategy #2 ====
An alternative strategy to consider is to recruit as late as possible and to start fighting when the sun is up. Somehow you will be able to decide when to engage in the battle, as the enemy will let you stay in your castle without bothering you.

At turn #4, recruit 1 Mage and 5 Heavy Infantrymen (HI). The trick is not to move a single unit and somehow, no one attacks you. I did the test multiple times and I always started the first fight when I decided it was time (i.e. during the day light). A variation of the strategy that does not work is to start recruiting only when the sun is up; somehow the enemy attacks your leader.

Turn #7, this is dawn and now you can start attacking. My goal is to finish any fight with my Mage or the Leader to get them to level 2 and 3 as soon as possible. White Mages always make my life easier during Campaigns. I also recruit 2 HI, 1 Cavalryman to go get some villages, and 1 Mage.

You will end up with 1 HI or your Leader at level 2 and your Mages should be half way to Level 2.

==== Alternative Strategy... #3 ====
None of the above tactics work when playing under the "challenging" difficulty level(since you are given only 80 coins at the beginning of the scenario).

My advice when playing this on the hardest level is to spend your starting money on two HI units and two cavalry units. Don't buy any mages -- they are too fragile and expensive. Your main goal is to keep away as much enemy forces as possible from your keep (ESPECIALLY during night). Use the cavalry to divert at least a small portion of the undead by making them chase your horsemen. Remember to always "taunt" them -- capture the villages near their keeps and run away from there the next turn. This way you can keep your fortress not owerwhelmed for some time. Spend every coin possible on heavy infantry and don't let skeletons/bats occupy tiles in your keep. If you do let them, this may be fatal to your leader. ;) You may even recruit a spearman or two to "block" a keep tile if this may save your main character.

NOTE: I did use this exact same tactic to beat the scenario on challenging, however, it did require some luck and re-loading. Remember -- when things seem dire, leveling up is the best healing. I saved my leader(why do I always forget his name?) by letting him kill a second-level skeleton archer, but that only happened by miracle - he hit all three times on 40% and didn't get killed by counter-attacks although he had only 3 HP left! I must be lucky :P

Euclid

=== Escape Tunnel ===
* Objectives: Move Gweddry to the end of the tunnel
* Lose if: Gweddry or Dacyn dies or turns run out
* Turns: 26/24/22 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn
* Other
** Permanent holy amulet in north
** Treasure of 200 gold in southeast

Don't bother recalling Heavy Infantry, they go too slow in caves. Go for a group of mostly Mages, and a couple of Spearmen. (One keep of units in total should easily be enough.)

The map is quite small. Bypass the fights that you can until you have the bulk of your units in th safety of the dwarf leader's keep area. When you are just moving Gweddry along be opportunistic and get some experience. Move your units to the east until you encounter trolls and reach a crossroads. A couple of dwarves will kindly become your allies and keep off the trolls for a few turns.

There is a holy amulet to the north (unlike in other campaigns this holy amulet is permanent!). Send a quick Spearman there or Gweddry (Giving Gweddry the holy amulet (instead of a Spearman) allows him to level very quickly, which is important, since he can advance to Grand Marshal. This gives benefits in other ways on a number of later scenarios as well, such as the River Crossing, where you can get an easy 1st turn kill against the undead leader and take his castle. Note that the leader is very hard to kill anyway).

As soon as you have got the holy amulet start to move all your units south without bothering about the trolls or the undead which appear after a number of turns from the direction of your keep.

The undead, trolls and dwarves will all fight each other, so after having moved all your units south position one Spearman at the end of the cave leading south (so only one unit a turn can attack him) and position the White Mage right behind him to heal it every turn. These two units should easily keep of the enemies following you until the end of the scenario. Move Gweddry to the northeast accompanied by a Mage and a Spearman (to fight individual trolls coming your way).

Before moving Gweddry to the end of the cave (which ends the level) send the Mage to the east past the funny signpost warning you of the troll hole. In the cave the Mage discovers a chest containing a troll treasure amounting to 200 gold.

=== An Unexpected Appearance ===
* Objectives: Defeat either enemy leader
* Lose if: Gweddry or Dacyn dies or turns run out
* Turns: 20/20/20 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn
* Other: your next scenario depends on which leader you defeat

What you do in this scenario depends on which way you want to go. Going east is harder, but brings you more reward, such as the chance to go to Mal-Ravanal's Capital, which gives you the opportunity to get extra experience (a lot for whoever survives) and a free Paladin and several Knights.

First kill Mal-Tar to get your keep. To do this, shoot him with Dacyn and attack him with Gweddry's melee. If you don't kill him the first turn, second turn kill him with Dacyn so Gweddry can recruit. You will be fighting a mix of undead and bats, so recruit Heavy Infantry and Mages (if you gave the amulet to a Spearman in the previous scenario, recall him, too). Dacyn might be wounded, so send him to a village. Don't worry, he can fend for himself, since the bats usually arrive one at a time and he can kill one per turn.

The attackers should be no problem so focus on leveling units. If you move quickly you should only need to fight the attackers from one leader. Of course you can have some of your units double back to engage the second set.

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Elven Alliance ====

The Orc's warning about the assassin is overrated; Volas can probably take care of it himself, although you might want to leave ONE unit near him to make sure.

Recruit / recall a wide assortment of units, mostly mages, spearmen and cavalry. Send mages and spearmen up to fight the opponent, send cavalry down as scouts. Any heavy infantry should go up to fight also; they will probably arrive late, and be good for reinforcements when the first troops are wounded.

Align the troops in the forest, so that the enemy will be on grass; this gives you a tactical advantage. Use Dacyn to heal those who need it most - those on the corners, and any mages who are on the front lines.

There is a village at {20,8} that can prove tactically very useful, because the elves usually fight somewhere near it.
The elves are defeated most of the time, and the orcs claim this village; it is crucial to kill the orc on this village and take it over with a resilient spearman, or a HI.

Once you have gotten past turn 6, it will be day, and the orcs will be very easy to defeat. When the assassin appears on turn 7, ignore it unless you have a cavalryman still down there. In that case, use it to fight the assassin. Keep pressing up. By turn 9, the orcish leader should be dead.

==== The Undead Border Patrol ====

This scenario also depends on which way you want to go. If going NW, it is fairly straightforward. The enemy is relatively weak. Do the same as in Unexpected Appearance - recruit 2 suicide cavalrymen to distract the bats. One will probably get enough XP to be worth recalling.

I would use mostly heavy infantry and spearmen with the holy amulet on this level, because mages will only get a +10% to hit from magical. However, as in most scenarios against undead, white mages are very useful.

Try to get the opponent to fight you from the sand. This gives you something like a 70% CTH. >)

(CTH = Chance To Hit).

===== Mal-Ravanal's Capital =====

Only reachable from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' scenario, but you might also skip it and go directly to ''Northern Outpost''.

This is a very challenging scenario. I started with only 100 gold, so I recalled one Mage, two Shock Troopers, one Heavy Infantry, and my holy Halberdier. I defended the starting castle for about 10 turns until the Revenants had made their way over to me. Upon killing several of them, I freed some imprisoned Knights and a Paladin. I moved my forces to kill the Death Knight, and then split my forces. I sent one group to attack Mal-Ravanal and the other to kill the Necromancer in the NW corner. By turn 30, my Eastern assault force was in postion to attack Mal-Ravanal. However, when I attacked him, he teleported my troops back to the starting castle, so I wasn't able to defeat him. When I was ready, I killed the NW Necromancer and progressed to The Northern Outpost.

The reason to go here is to acquire a cavalry force of one Paladin and five Knights. To do this kill the 6 Revenants guarding the cages, but note the number of Knights available is reduced by one for each of your troops that die *after you rescue the first one*. You might want to make sure any expendable troops are "expended" before this. Each rescued unit pops in with full moves.

If you just want to rescue the paladin and 5 knights and get out (in 1.6), this is how I finished that by turn 8. The horses were captive in 6 cages, 4 in a northern loop and 2 in a southern loop. First turn, I sent a quick shock trooper, quick heavy, and a white mage (not Dacyn) around the northern loop, looping from bottom to top (start at bottom knight, end at paladin). I looped that way to clear the middle ASAP and escape the oncoming troops. Also first turn, I sent 3 shock troopers around the southern loop, looping from top to bottom. If you encounter resistance, kill it quick or run as required, and instead focus on killing the guards fast, which conveniently don't hit back. On turn 2, I recruited another keep full of recruits and immediately sent everyone else to take out the northwestern leader. Time it so you kill the northwestern leader just as the last horses are rescued. It is by no means easy, but this way I managed to lose only a few HI types while picking up all 6 horses.

[elvish_sovereign] (1.8.2 Normal) An alternate strategy for the above if you have more leveled mages than leveled HI's. I sent a single quick Shock Trooper due south (recruited on the southern-most hex on the starting castle, which promptly took out the southern Revenant on turn 3. Forget about the villages, it'll only delay you. I sent Dacyn due north, a quick RM go take out the bottom from the bottom Revenant, and a quick HI and a WM with Gweddry to take out the middle-couple Revenants. I also recruited two HI's to stop the advance and distract the two Dark Sorcerers' troops. After Gweddry and the WM take out the third from the bottom Revenant, send that Knight south. After taking out the Revenant with the RM, send the RM, Shock Trooper, and the three Knights in the direction of the SW Dasrk Sorcerer. Meanwhile, Gweddry, the WM, and the HI take out the third from the top Revenant, and the get Gweddry the hell outta there with the WM. have Dacyn free the Paladin first, then have the remaining Knights, HI, and the Paladin take out the remaining Revenant and hold out in the north. As Gweddry is fleeing and th e final Revenants are being felled, break through the SW's lines (which should be easy if you distracted them properly) with the RM and the Shock Trooper, and send the three Knights to knock him into oblivion. I finished on turn 8 with no losses, but had some near-death moments.

=== The Northern Outpost ===

Reachable both from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' and the ''Elven Alliance'' scenarios.

There are two enemies in this scenario that you must defeat - the undead and the outlaws. The undead are fairly straightforward to defeat, and in any case Owaec usually does a good part of the work. Recall a number of shock troopers, a white mage and the spearman who picked up the holy amulet in one of the previous scenarios. I addition recruit one mage.

Then send Gweddry to the holy amulet in the south west accompanied by the mage. The spearman and the white mage go straight southwards and help Owaec with the undead. Your shock troopers go to the east and surround one of the villages over there without flagging it. (As they are quite slow-moving, having them already over there saves you time later on.) Once Gweddry picked up the holy amulet, send him and the mage to finish off the undead leader together with your spearman. (Note: Your spearman is very effective against the undead and will likely level up.) That was the easy part.

The main challenge is the criminals. They appear randomly in the villages you flag (one of the villages has assasin that is outlaw leader), but not in those Owaec flags. So don't worry about him uncovering enemies for you. Since when you capture a village the outlaws surround it, you should surround each village before you capture it, so the enemy surrounds you. This makes it so they can't gang up on one of your units with more than 3 people. Also, when you capture a village, try to kill as many enemies as you can before they get a turn.

Send your your entire force up on the eastern side of the map flagging one village a turn and fighting the bandits. Once you come across the village where the bandid leader hides, concentrate your attacks on him as the bandits are quite strong.

Note: A Cavalry force (such as the one acquired in Mal-Ravanal's Capital) makes short work of the bandits. Lower level units have trouble against the Bandits, especially at night. Slower moving units also have a disadvantage in searching the villages.

Also note, that from this scenario on you can recruit horsemen. You might want to level up a paladin or two, for fast mobile undead removal services (and quick leader assasination).

/* governor */ Just a note: I had the misfortune of taking a group of men to a village where 5or6 enemies appeared. After taking heavy damage, I retreated my char (low on hitpoints) out of the village. When I recaptured the village the same group of enemies reappeared. Since AI enemies seem to prefer recapturing villages this can allow you to obtain easy experience for weak units a few times.

=== Two Paths ===
This is a fairly tough level (played in V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty) which took several attempts to get through. In V 1.4.5 you have 16 turns (unlike 12 as in earlier versions) and can choose between going north to attack the orc leader or going north-east to attack the undead leader.

One option is going north on the very east side of the map trying to fight your enemies from solid ground and mountains while they stand on sand ground with weak defense. As your troops move very slowly on this terrain, you will likely take some heavy losses however, as your enemies keep surrounding you. Also this will presumably take too many turns to reach the orc leader in time.

Thus the preferred choice is to recall a couple of shock troopers and white mages and move them on the path to the north-west in a tight formation towards the undead leader. Once you survived the first enemy onslaught without loosing units, the rest of this scenario becomes rather easy as the remaining enemies come one by one. Make sure to keep on moving fast to the north-west to reach the undead leader before turns run out.

=== Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Undead Crossing ====
Fighting the undead in this scenario is not the actual problem as they are quite weak. Recall a keep full of shock troopers, white mages and the spearman with the holy amulet (who has likely levelled up by now). Use your faster units to capture the villages in the south-east and move your shock troopers directly to the river crossing.

Once you fought of the bats and skeletons (which the above units should handle quite easily), the undead leader summons two cuttlefish which appear in the water between the two crossings. Be very careful where to position your troops as the cuttlefish have a very nasty melee attack. Fight them with a pair of shock troopers accompanied by Gweddry (to give them leadership) and a white mage for healing.

Make sure you leave your units enough time to cross the river and kill the undead leader before turns run out.

==== The Crossing ====

I had only 100 gold, so recruited some units and went straight north from turn one on. The fighting in the water was quite hard, with some orcs coming down from the north. The un-dead only appeared when I was in the middle of the river, so no encounter with them, and the ogre's helped get rid of the orcs on the north side. (Allefant)

If you have Holy Gweddry, you can (sometimes) get a 1st turn kill on the 1st undead leader, scarf up all the villages, and return to kill the 2nd undead forces before their leader can recruit anything. If you don't, the second undead leader will recruit lots of level two units. The orcs will start out across the river, but usually most of them turn back to fight the ogre reinforcements. Waiting till their first wave hits your shore and wiping them out in the water will probably leave you just enough time to cross the river and find there are only 2 or 3 enemy units left besides the leaders.

Make sure to cover your rear flank with some expendable troops (such as Heavy Infantry) as the undead can move more quickly through the water than your units.

Another strategy is to go straight into the water after killing the first undead leader using the deep water in the middle of the path to seperate the orc forces. You go to the right with Gweddry and Owaec and some support troops while letting the ogres kill many of the orcs in your way. Knights and a Paladin can hold off the orcs enough to get across while the undead behind you are not an issue.

Note: Owaec can move only one hex a turn in the water.

Important: If the ogre leader is alive at the end of the scenario, he agrees to help you, which results in the following bonuses: he joins you as a loyal unit, you get two free Ogres, you gain the ability to recruit Young Ogres, and you skip "Training the Ogres" scenario and go directly to "Xenophobia".
(shadowblack)

=== Training the Ogres ===

*This scenario was missing in 1.6.

This can be a confusing scenario to understand. Basically, you are fighting the ogres while also trying not to let them reach the rocky borders where they will "escape" (or disappear). Understand how the AI works and that units will attack the weakest units who are closest to leveling.

Whenever I tried to attack the ogres or surround them or using any other intuitive strategy, I always ended up getting my white mage killed by turn 3 at the latest.

Thus try the following which makes keeping all 4 ogres on the green very easy (although I still do not understand why the AI behaves as it does...): Move the white mage and the horseman to the very north outside the moving range of the ogres. Position Gweddry on one of the hills in the west just inside their moving range. For the first two turns the ogres hardly move. Then they start to attack Gweddry which he should be able to withstand. By turn 5 when Gweddry's health starts to wear down, the scenario is over already with all four ogres still on the green and all of your units alive.

(It's a bit of a digression, but the AI in this case is failing to realize that, though each Ogre has an individually unfavorable attack on Gweddry, all four attacking together would be rather more favorable. So, the AI decides to form a defensive line and wait for the sun to set, when Gweddry's 25% bonus disappears and their attacks are more favorable. Note that this technique generally only works for units with full health on defensible terrain, and may disappear entirely if the AI is improved to consider joint attacks.)

It is unclear to me however, what the benefit of all four ogres surviving is though.

Note: Whether or not to use ogres is a matter of playing style. Once they level up, Ogres are quite a tough unit that deals middling damage, but unfortunately can't advance beyond level 2. Their upside is that they move at normal speed on hills and cave floor, which makes them your most mobile unit in at least one scenario (''Captured''). And as they are of neutral alignment, they can sometimes be handy to have around at nighttime.

=== Xenophobia ===

In V 1.4.5 on medium difficulty is a very easy and fun level as all parties in the scenario (i.e. elves, orcs, drawves, and yourself) decide to fight each other instead of forming aliances. Thus you can use this level to gain some experience for your units, pick up another permanent holy amulet (in the north, roughly in the middle between the dwarf and the orc keep) e.g. by a shock trooper, and as the actual ogre training camp (see below).

Recall a keep full of shock troopers and send them straight to the north as they are very slow moving. Then recall one or two white mages and recruit about two to four young ogres. Send all of your units straight north to kill the dwarf leader who unwisely sends all his troops for the orcs right at the start and then misses the money to recruit any more troops to defend his keep.

By the time I reached the dwarf leader, the orcs had already killed the elvish leader, so there was two down and only one to go. Use the young ogres on the mountains in the north to fight the remaining dwarves whilst levelling up to ogres.

By the time you killed the dwarf leader, there should be hardly any enemy troops left, so go straight towards the orc leader and earn a decent early finish bonus. And don't forget to pick up the holy amulet on the way.

The main strategy in this scenario is staying out of the fighting as much as possible, picking off the weaker sides, and in general letting your enemies kill themselves. One successful strategy is to delay moving from your keep for 5-6 turns. Let the other factions weaken each other before you move off. (Although that reduces your early finish bonus, so do not do this if your troops are strong enough.)

(Future spoiler: This is your last chance to level non-leader units you will play two scenarios ahead in Captured. For instance, you may want to prepare a dragoon, a white mage, and a couple of adult ogres for that scenario.)

=== Lake Vrug ===
This is a very confusing hide and seek sceario which is not actually hard, but likely takes you several pointless restarts until you have finally discovered the enemy leaders. (Spoiler: there are three enemy keeps, all north of the river. One is to the very northeast (go to the right into the mounts directly after crossing the bridge), one is between the path leading west and the river bank just before the path turns northwards, and one is in the very north at the end of the path. The orc leader resides in the first keep, the gryphon leader in the second, and the third is empty.

Recall two or three shock troopers, two white mages and then recall/recruit as many ogres as possible. (Most of the enemy keeps are surrounded by high mountains which most of your troops cannot pass, but which the ogres handle quite easily.) You might also want to recruit a horseman to scout ahead.

(Future spoiler: Any units you recall will not be available in the next scenario Captured. The units you will get there are the 13 top recalls of the default sorted list at the end of this scenario, so you may want to save some adult ogres and quick white mages for that one.)

The only challenge in this scenario (apart from finding the keeps) is surviving the first onslaught of gryphoons which starts around turn 4 with quite a number of gryphoons appearing from the north-east. Position your heavy units like shock troopers and ogres very tighly around wounded units as the gryphons and dragons really have quite a large moving range and ignore zones of control and thus mercilessly slay away unprotected injured units. To fight them use heavy melee troops like shock troopers.

As you start to cross the bridge a couple of trolls attack. They are really no match for your shock troopers, however, who happy troll-crack away. When taking the enemy keeps, use the ogres who can move on the high mountains unlike most of your other units.

=== Captured ===

You start out by running up a tunnel to find some of your companions. If you go back down that way or you will have to face some extremely mean trolls in the narrow tunnel. Instead, follow the tunnel to the north and west and face a few bats as you proceed. At the end of that tunnel, you will enter a throne room where there is a leader and some enemy troops.

Upon entering the throne room, a group of your wounded troops will appear in a cavern called the "Torture Room" to the east. They will face a number of assassins and trolls as they leave the Torture Room moving west. (Hint: Try to get through the prison "door" of the torture room quickly as otherwise the enemy units have an easy time keeping your entire army locked away with only one unit at a time, i.e. the unit standing at the door, being able to take part in the fighting.)

Any units you recall in the previous scenario will not be available here. Instead, the units you will get here are the 13 top recalls of the default sorted list at the end of the last scenario. If like me, the first time around you end up will all slow moving ineffective cave units and no healers and thus get wiped out quickly here, then you could go back two scenarios to optimize for this one. In Xenophobia, level better cave units, healers, and a dragoon or something to pick up the holy amulet. Then in Lake Vrug, recall units such that you leave the top 13 as the ones you want to bring here.

Victory occurs when Gweddry moves through the exit in the southwest corner. There is quite a comfortable early finish bonus, so you might want to move him there quickly in order to put some money on savings for later scenarios. It should be possible to finish with over 500 gold without making haste, however. You should also flag the numerous villages in a cavern called "The City", a cavern southwest of the Torture Room.

There is a holy necklace on this level, at coordinates x=22, y=38. Preferrably grab it with a horseman or something. similar. He will come in very hand in later scenarios.

Note: Most of the orcs are level two and three units.

=== Evacuation ===
This scenario is a little frusting. Not so much because of its difficulty (it is hard but managable with enough high-level recalls and lots of money), but because you ''will'' take some heavy losses of high-level troops.

Note: You should have over 400 gold and a large number of level 2 and 3 units to recall to start this scenario.

There are two options in this scenario: you can either defeat all enemy leaders or blow up the bridge in the south. In the former case, you will have to accept quite some casualties in fighting the enemy; In the latter case, all your units which are not on the south side of the river by the time you blow up the bridge (including not recalled units, meanly!) are killed by the explosion. In both cases you have to watch out for the very tight time limit of 12 turns.

I went for option 2 (killing all leaders). First recruit two to tree keeps full of your typical experienced troops like iron maulers, white mages, and so on. Ogres are also helpful, if you have some left, as they are strong and you will have no use for them in later scnearios. After that recall a keep full of young ogres as cannon fodder.

Start to move you units south and attack the central enemy right away (i.e. do not wait until you have recruited all units). The last recalls before the young ogres split and send half of them to the north-east and the other half to the south-west (otherwise you might not make it to all three leaders in time). Finally, send some young ogres to the north-east and south-west to distract the enemies there for two or three turns.

With all three groops of your units try to focus on attacking the enemy leaders as soon as possible so you do not run out of time. Apart from that, watch out for the level 2 trolls, particularly, as they can (and frequently will...) instantly kill almost any of your units. Best fight them with two white mages or a white mage accompanied by some other unit.

With a bit of luck and probably some nasty casualties you will have killed all three leaders around turns 10 to 12.

[Garion] In 1.0, I recruited a lot of Cavalry for fodder, spacing them 1 hex apart to establish a ZOC corridor from my castle to the bridge. They got chewed up very quickly, but they bought me enough time to get out. Use a few Shock Troopers to guard your rear against the Blue enemy; they're too slow to escape anyway. Remember to recall your slowest units closest to the bridge, to minimize the time they spend in transit. I was able to evacuate 2 Holy Cavaliers, 2 Paladins, a Great Mage, the three heroes, a quick Iron Mauler, 2 White Mages, and a Mage of Light.

[Vladevil] In 1.2.6 what worked best for me was recruiting only fodder for 2 turns, then running away with all the main characters. I let Owaec and the mage first and Gweddry last since he can take some hits. All in all I was finished on the 6th turn without losing any valuable troops.

=== The Drowned Plains ===
The Skeletal Dragon will be found in or near the castle (located on an island in the south-east). In getting there, there is a chance the undead (three units mostly level two and an occasional level three) will spring out of the ground near the unit you just moved. Therefore less units are better. Advanced mages, paladins, and other fast-moving units with arcane weapons work well here. To withstand the initial dragon attack you will need very strong units (with more than 50 HP). In order to discover the dragon despite the fog units with a large moving range (and thus large visible area) like horseman are helpful.

The dragon wanders around near the castle but only attacks units which he can kill instantly. If only strong units come near him, he tries to flee. Because of the fog the major challenge of this scenario is finding him and then getting him surrounded so he cannot just move away again. Once you have him trapped like this, slaying him should be easy using your stronger units (preferrably impact weapons because the dragon has a low resistance there).

=== Approaching Weldyn ===
This scenario is fairly easy, but also fun to play. The essence to success is being very fast.

Recall 6 to 8 fast-moving units with arcane attacks. This should be any fast unit who has picked up a holy amulet in earlier scenarios like horsemen or spearmen plus some level 2 or level 3 mages. Completely forget about heavy infantry or other slow-moving troops of similar kind. Move all your units to the eastern enemy and try to kill him by turn 3 or 4 by the latest. This should be easy, as he is still very weak.

Then rush over to the western enemy. It will be night by now so not a good time for attacking. If you have a very strong and fast unit (like a dragoon) try to position it on the enemies keep. This trick stops the enemy leader from recruiting more troops despite having plenty of money left. Once your other troops arrive and daylight breaks you should have an easy time finishing of this enemy leader and those of his troops which you ally has not yet killed.

Then attack the third leader in the south-west in the same manner. If you hurry, you should be able to finish by turn 9 and gain a good early finish bonus.

=== The Council ===

Only plot in this. You see the inside of the castle.

=== Weldyn Under Attack ===
This is an interesting scenario where once again choosing the right strategy is the key to success. Also watch out for the time, as you have only 18 turns to finish.

You find your keep in the center of an island. Three allied leaders also have their keeps on the island around yours. There are three enemy leaders: a weak one in the very north, and two equally strong ones in the south-east and south-west, respectively. It stays nighttime (first and second watch) during the entire scenario which is somewhat uncomfortable, but not a big problem.

Start by recalling all high-level units with arcane attacks (6-8 units max). Then recruit two keeps full of mages. Send your troops straight north and finish of the enemy leader. He is quite weak and even moves onto your island so this should be painlessly accomplished by turn 3.

Then split your troops: one half moves onto the western shore (along the very border of the map), the other half onto the eastern shore (same). To get across the river use the bridges in the north-west and the north-east, respectively. Let some of the mages stay behind and capture the villages on the island so you do not loose money. The may also assist you allies so they do not fall so quickly and keep the enemy busy.

The rest of the scenario is straight-forward: move both your troops southwards straight towards the enemy keeps and kill the leaders. As they have sent most of their troops onto the island where they are busy happily slaying away your allies, this should be no challenge for your troops. Watch out for the nightgaunts, though, which tend to ambush you or rush for weak units without you seeing them coming.

If all goes right you should have killed the remaining two enemy leaders around turns 14 or 15.

Hint: If you have one or two silver mages available (e.g. the engineer unit you joined you in the Escape scneario, if he has levelled by now) this is quite useful in this scenario. The map is rather large so have some fast-moving units like horseman run through enemy territory and capture individual villages. Then use the teleport ability of your silver mage to perform hit-and-run (or rather: hit-and-teleport) attacks to weaken your enemy before attacking with your main force. Make sure you do not get him killed, though, by holding out too long after attacking.

After killing all enemy leaders, an enemy messenger appears telling you that you have only fought some delegates of the ancient lich Mal-Ravenal. It challenges you to have a duel with Mal-Ravenal instead of letting the armies meet for a final battle. If you accept the challenge, you get to scenario "The Duel". Otherwise you get to "Weldyn Besieged".

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== The Duel ====
This is a somewhat strange scenario: you and Mal-Ravanal get to recall/recruit exactly six units each and then have to fight each other. Mal-Ravenal will recruit mostly level 3 units so this looks difficult. In fact, it is quite managable, however.

Recall mostly mages of light and other high-level arcance troops. Set them up in a line of 4 units backed up by 2 units at the edge of one of the forsts near your keep. (Your leader should stand in the back up line so he does not accidentaly get killed.)

Then wait for his troops to reach you, but make sure you are the first to attack. By the time you meet it will be close to nightfall. Do not hesitate to attack, however, as Mal-Ravanal plays unfair and recruits another 3 units on every first watch.

In your first attack you should be able to kill two enemy units. Try to have at least 5 of your units survive the first round of enemy attacks. Then kill the remaining enemy units near you and move over to Mal-Ravenal straight away who hides by himself on the very border of the map in the mountains. Again, do not wait for daylight, as you can reach him before his reinforcements get to you, so you should have an easy time killing him with your remaining units.

Spoiler: After killing Mal-Ravanal the campaign ends with a final scene of Gweddry and his companions being honoured by the king.

==== Weldyn Besieged ====

On versions prior to 1.5.6 the siege is laughably easy to break; just recall a keep full of your best troops and rush Mal-Ravanal in the south.

As of 1.5.6 this battle should prove a more substantial challenge. Now the liches' names aren't revealed until they are attacked, and Mal-Ravanal is more likely to be revealed later in the scenario. Sending fast scouts to attack all the liches is not advisable since each lich receives a boost of gold for another round of recruitment after its name is revealed.

A workable strategy is to recall a group of cavalry with holy amulets and paladins to circle behind the undead horde and terminate the liches. You can draw the liches out of their keeps by positioning a sacrificial horseman within their attack radius. Once the lich is out in the open, your arcane damage cavalry should have no trouble finishing the lich off in a single turn.

Meanwhile you'll need the rest of your troops to hold the central keep against the undead onslaught. If you can spare the funds, a few sacrificial troops can delay the incoming enemies on one side, giving you the opportunity to focus your firepower on the undead approaching from the other side(s). If things turn grim, retreat to the castle and make your final stand.

[[Category:Campaigns]]

User:Elvish sovereign

2010-06-17T18:03:11Z

Elvish sovereign:

Hi, I'm elvish_sovereign. Obviously that isn't my name, so if you want you can call me Zoltan, which is my internet name. I'm 15 and am a student at a conservatory; I play piano and compose music. I've been playing Wesnoth for almost 2 years now; I found Wesnoth during it's 1.4/1.5 stage, so I don't know any of the early releases, although I really want to see them. I primarily play single-player campaigns, but you could occasionally find me on the MP server.

I still have yet to figure out sequencing and those other things before I can contribute music for Wesnoth, but here's some things I'm working on currently:

== Completed ==
* Nothing here. :p

== Currently under development ==
=== Promised Land ===
* ''Lead your people from virtual slavery into a land where you and your kin can live freely, though a perilous journey awaits you.''

This is a single-player campaign centering around goblins. A certain goblin named Prinak manages to gather enough courage and cleverness to lead his people out of slavery. Yeah, I know this has religious connotations, hence the title. But nevertheless, the campaign takes you though his journey though the Northlands approx. 570 YW, after ''Northern Rebirth'', after Tallin, into a perilous period.
* This campaign is still very much in development. I will give a summary of it when it relatively drafted.

=== The "How to Play..." Series ===
A revival project. I plan to take where JW left off in his great guide and finish it. Currently working on the Loyalists faction. Not only MP, I plan to include mainline campaign discussion as well. When I finish this, I will make a PDF of the whole guide so it can be downloaded for offline use.

=== elvish_sovereign's mappack ===
Progressing slowly. A compilation of the best MP maps I've made, with the intention of going mainline. More description when it's more in shape.

== On hiatus ==
=== Spam Era ===
* ''Spam Era! Pick your favorite level 0 or level 1 unit and spam your opponent to death! Gameplay is as normal, but you only have one unit to choose from. Includes mainline multiplayer units and some non-multiplayer units. Have fun spamspamspamspamspamspamspaming!''

This is an MP era, which I made when I had a whole night with nothing to do. The idea is very simple: you pick a unit, and spam your opponent to death. Thus it proves for a very interesting gameplay. Captain_Wrathbow and I (maybe IPS as well) are looking into creating special maps for the era.

How to play Loyalists

2010-05-26T13:53:23Z

Elvish sovereign: /* Loyalists vs. Rebels */

==General Loyalist Strategy==
Loyalists are considered to be the most versatile faction in the game. They have most available unit types to recruit ( 8 ), more than any other faction. Loyalists are mostly melee oriented faction, with only two ranged unit types, the '''mage''' and the '''bowman''', but their ranged units play a significant role in the loyalists strategy and have to be used effectively. About the melee troops the loyalist player gets to choose among:
* '''Heavy Infantrymen''': few strikes, high damage per strike, slow, higher hitpoints, good resistances, low defenses, deals impact damage which is good against undead
* '''Spearman''' average strikes, average damage per strike, average movement, medium hitpoints, normal resistances, average defenses, deals pierce damage which is good against drakes, has a weak ranged attack
* '''Fencer''': high number of strikes, low damage per strike, quick, low hitpoints, bad resistances, good defenses, deals blade damage which is good against elusive foots or wose, deals less total damage than the other two, is a skirmisher.

The loyalists unit price ranges from the cheap spearmen and mermen (14 gold) to the expensive horsemen (23 gold).

Loyalist units generally have good hitpoints and they deal good damage, even the cheap spearmen and bowmen. Even their scouts have high hitpoints and better melee attack compared to most of the scouts of the other factions. But OTOH, the loyalist scouts have lower defences than most of the other scouts and they do not have a ranged attack.

The loyalists have some units with good resistances, like HI or Cavalryman, which can be very good for defending if you notice that your opponent doesn't have the proper units to counter them. Other units, like the bowman, who is more vulnerable than the previous two, but is also good for defense because it has better defense, is cheaper and it deals solid damage back in both melee and range. Similar goes for the spearman.

'''When attacking''', Loyalists have units which can be pretty devastating, like the horseman for attacking enemy magi and other ranged units, magi against the entrenched melee units, fencers for killing enemy injured and valuable units trying to heal behind their lines. But the mentioned units are also very vulnerable and they can die very easily if not properly supported.

The loyalists as a faction generally have average '''defenses''' ( they do not get 70% defense anywhere, with the exception of the fencer, which is a special case ) and they are not a terrain dependent faction ( like the Elves or Knalgans are ). Therefore, even if it good to put spearmen and bowmen on mountains, villages and castles where they get 60% defense, you should also take the faction you are facing into account when deciding where to place your units. For example, if you are fighting knalgans, you should try not to move your units next to hills and mountains and/or take the hills and mountains with your units and leave the forest to the dwarves.

All the loyalist units are lawful, which obviously leads to the conclusion that the loyalists should be more aggressive and attack at day ( or even start at dawn, because your opponent in most of the cases will be reluctant to attack too aggressively and leave units on bad ground when the morning arrives ) while at night the loyalists should at least play conservatively, or in some cases even run away. Of course, that is also dependent upon the faction of your opponent.

'''The greatest weakness''' of the loyalists is their limited mobility. The loyalists' units have normal movement, some of their units like the horseman,cavalryman,merman fighter and the fencer are pretty quick when they are in their favorable environment, but all their units get slowed over rough terrain a lot compared to the other factions' units . Half of the loyalists units can not even move on/over mountains, and their scouts get significantly slowed in forest, for example. This lack of mobility will often give your opponent an opportunity to outmaneuver you in the game.To prevent that, sometimes it is good to attack hard on a certain point and defend only with minimal amount of units elsewhere, rather than uniformly spreading your units around the front.

When you don't know '''which faction you are facing''', it is good to get a mixture of units. On most of the default 1v1 maps, this initial recruitment list would be good : spearman, bowman, fencer, mage, merman fighter, cavalryman. As always, you should carefully consider about the exact placement of each individual unit from the initial recruits on the castle to come up with the most optimal combination that will allow you the quickest village grabbing in the first turns of the game.

==Loyalists vs. Undead==
When fighting undead, your recruiting pattern will depend on whether your opponent spams Skeleton Archers or Dark Adepts for ranged attacks. If you see lots of skeletons, you'll have to focus heavily on HI and Mages. If you see lots of DAs, you'll want some Cavalry, Horsemen and maybe some Spearmen.

* Bowman - '''D-''' - Almost entirely useless. You might use them to poke at Walking Corpses, Ghouls, Vampire Bats and Ghosts, but Mages are much better at all of these things. I would only buy a Bowman to counter a large zombie horde.

* Cavalryman - '''B+''' - You'll want some Cavalry for scouting and dealing initial damage to DAs so that a Horseman can finish them. They are also decent at fighting Skeletons in the daytime, because Cavalry are blade-resistant. However, the cheap Skeleton Archers will really ruin Cavalry quickly at night, so if there are any Skeleton Archers on the other side you won't be able to use Cavalry to hold territory. If your opponent over-recruits DAs, however, you can use cold-resistant Cavalry to hold territory against them. They are also decent for holding territory against Ghouls because they can run away and heal (unlike your HI).

* Fencer - '''C-''' - Fencers are a bad recruit in this matchup because they are vulnerable to the blade and pierce damage of skeletons and cannot damage them much in return. They also are incapable of holding territory against DAs, who cut right through the high defense of Fencers. However, you may want to have a Fencer or two around for trapping DAs or getting in that last hit. With luck, they may also be able to frustrate non-magical attacks from skeletons and the like.

* Heavy Infantryman - '''B+''' - You need Heavy Infantry to hold territory against Skeletons and Skeleton Archers, and they will be your unit of choice for dealing melee damage, especially to the cheap Skeleton Archers. Any HI in the daytime can kill a full-health skeleton archer in two hits, while a strong HI in the daytime can kill a full-health skeleton in two hits, dealing 18 damage per strike (even a Mage in daytime cannot kill a skeleton in one round, unless supported by a Lieutenant). A fearless HI may be dangerous even at night. If you don't have enough HI to go around, you can get your initial hits in on a Skeleton Archer with an HI and finish him with a Mage. Just keep HI away from DAs, and only let Ghouls hit HI if the HI is on a village (or has a White Mage or other healer next to him), since HI can't easily run away to heal. Also beware Walking Corpses, which deal a surprising amount of damage at all times of day since HI can't dodge and impact damage goes around their resistances, and the ranged cold attack of Ghosts. The biggest problem with HI is they are slow, which means they're hard to retreat at night and hard to advance in day. Without shielding units they'll get trapped and killed, and if you have to shield a unit maybe it should be a Mage instead.

* Horseman - '''B''' - Because they deal pierce damage, Horsemen may not be very useful when faced with Skeletons. However, if your opponent over-recruits Dark Adepts, Horsemen can be extremely useful, as DAs deal no return damage to the normally risky charge attack. Horsemen can even be used to finish Skeleton Archers, their nemesis, in the daytime. However, if your opponent recruits enough Skeleton Archers you will have a hard time shielding your Horsemen from their devastating pierce attacks, and Skeleton Archers are dirt cheap. Horsemen can also one-shot bats and zombies, which can be useful if you need to clear out a lot of lvl 0 units quickly. I would want to have at least one Horseman around to keep my opponent from getting too bold with DAs, if not more. Your opponent will be forced to recruit DAs if you have HI in the field.

* Mage - '''A+''' - Mages are an absolute necessity against Undead. If you do not have Mages it will be almost impossible for you to kill Ghosts, but with Mages it's a piece of cake. Mages are the best unit for killing almost everything Undead can throw at you, and can even be used to finish Dark Adepts in the daytime. Your main problem is that Dark Adepts are cheaper and deal almost as much damage, so your opponent can spam DAs while you cannot afford to spam Mages. You will also have the difficult task of shielding fragile, expensive mages against lots of cheap Undead units. Your opponent will use Skeletons and Ghouls to attack your Mages when he can, but bats, zombies or just about any other unit will do for killing your Mages in a pinch. Shield your Mages well, surround them with damage soakers and if you can deliver them safely to their targets you'll be able to clear out the Undead quickly.

* Merman Fighter - '''C-''' - Mermen make a decent navy against Undead, since bats and Ghosts will have a hard time killing them with their high defense. Even Dark Adepts will find Mermen annoying because of their 20% cold resistance. However, Mermen will have a hard time hurting anything the Undead have with their lame pierce weapon. Generally Mermen are only good for holding water hexes and scouting, but don't underestimate how useful that can be. Some well-placed Mermen on a water map can prevent bats from sneaking behind your lines and capturing villages or killing injured units. Even on mostly land maps, a Merman in a river can help hold a defensive line, or a quick Merman can use a river to slip behind the enemy to trap DAs or other units that are trying to escape at daytime.

* Spearman - '''C-''' - Spearmen are mostly useful as cheap units for holding villages and occupying space when faced with Dark Adepts or Skeleton Archers. (You'll want to avoid letting DAs hit your Heavy Infantrymen because of their vulnerability to cold.) However, you don't really want Spearmen to take hits from DAs, it would be better to let the cold-resistant Cavalry absorb the damage. The only units Spearmen are good for attacking are Dark Adepts and Walking Corpses. Spearmen are completely useless against skeletons unless you level one into a Swordsman, and even then they're pretty mediocre. However, if there are lots of Skeleton Archers you won't be able to use much Cavalry or Horsemen, so a Spearman or two may be necessary as defenders and damage soakers even if they are lousy at dealing damage to Undead.

==Loyalists vs. Rebels==
[comments by elvish_sovereign] Elves are a very versatile faction like the Loyalists. So you need to counter their versatility with yours. Their weakest trait is low hitpoints. That is compensated somewhat by relatively higher defenses and mobility, so you'll need a combination of hard-hitters and speed. Mages are also nice for their magical attacks. Anyways, the key for a Loyalist general is to effectively use his hard-hitting units and kill as many units as he can at day. And at night, to defend well as elves ignore the TOD.

[comments by nelson] The smartest thing you can do upon discovering that your opponent is playing Rebels is to assume that your opponent has Woses and recruit accordingly. Woses are a necessary counter to Loyalists' daytime attacks and as soon as your opponent realizes that you are Loyalists he will almost certainly recruit Woses. Remember that just because you don't see any Woses doesn't mean there aren't a couple hiding in the forest! To fight Woses you will need Cavalry as meat shields, Mages to deal damage, and maybe Fencers to get the last hit in. Sadly, Cavalry are very vulnerable to Elvish Archers, so you'll need to make sure that the Archers die, which can be difficult if they are in forest. Get Horsemen which can one-shot Archers (despite their high dodge) and keep up with your Cav. If one horseman misses, follow up with another one, it's a lucky archer that can dodge 4/4 one-shot attempts. HI are also great against everything but Woses and Mages, and will reduce the effectiveness of Archer spam. Spearmen are useless against Woses, recruit them sparingly and keep them away from unscouted forest.

[comments based on ParadiseCity and psychic] An alternative way of playing this match-up is to maximize the mobility offered by the Loyalists' fastest units, namely the two horse units. By using them to outrun the Rebel units you can achieve some devastating rushes. Some matches require use of both styles of playing. Again, their versatility must be countered with yours.

* Bowman - '''C+''' - Rebels in general are effective in both melee and ranged attacks, so recruiting a ranged unit is less beneficial than most factions because most of the Rebels' units can retaliate against you. They can be useful for taking out an Scout or two, but otherwise, this is not really a smart buy.

* Cavalryman - '''B+''' - A good scout and an effective counter to Woses. Watch out for Archers, though, they can really tear horses to shreds. And as always, they are effective against ranged oriented units like the mage.

** Alternate - '''A''' - If you're going for some faster action, Cavalrymen are vital in the attack. They do great damage during the day, and combined with their dangerous mobility, they can be a fearsome unit indeed. Just be careful of archers ZoCing you and tearing the unit to shreds.

* Fencer - '''B+''' - The Fencer shares the 70% defense in the forest like most of the elves, but it has negative resistances. Theoretically, they should be effective against Woses, but more often than not Woses will crush them easily. In spite of this, Fencers still have skirmsher, which means that they can sneak behind an injured unit and finish them off. Do not over-recruit them, as enemy Mages will tear though their high defense.

* Heavy Infantryman - '''D-''' - Avoid recruiting this unit. It's too slow to deal with most of the Rebel units, and it is owned by Mages, Woses, and even Archers. Even though it has a high damage potential, because of its inherently low defense Shamans can easily get hits on it and turn it into a piece of metal for a turn.

* Horseman - '''B''' - One Horseman may be nice, but no more than that. Enemy Archers will tear them apart and Shamans totally mess them up. They're expensive too. Their greatest use is probably killing Mages or an Archer that has gone slightly off-track.

** Alternate - '''A-''' - Again, when mobility is required, these units need to come and do serious damage. Since Rebels are mostly comprised of low-hp units, horsemen at day can usually rip them apart. Again be careful of archers, for this unit is worth 23 gold. Shield him properly if he is damaged.

* Mage - '''A-''' - You'll need these guys to tear though those high elvish 60-70% evasion in the forest; but be careful, Archers and Shamans will retaliate and some pretty nasty things may come from that. One purely positive thing though, they just absolutely destroy Woses. 13-3 at day. Ouch. Mages are expensive and fragile though, so keep them protected.

* Merman Fighter - '''B+''' - If the map has a lot of water, maybe recruit a few to prevent the Rebel's Mermen Hunters from taking over the waters. Otherwise they don't really contribute much else.

* Spearman - '''A''' - A necessity. To defend at night, to kill pretty much anything except for Woses, and to be cheap and cost only 14 gold. These guys pretty much tear though most of the Rebel units, if it were not only for the high-defense Archer and Shaman. Get a bunch, and move them like a wall against the enemy units.

At the start of the game, recruit 1-2 Cavalrymen, depending on the map size, 1 Mage, (1 Merman Fighter if you need some water coverage), maybe 1 Fencer, and the rest Spearman. Later on you maybe can recruit some Horseman if you opponent recruits mass Mages, or more Cavalrymen and Mages if he masses Woses. Otherwise, Spearmen and Mages should help you get through most of the match.

If you're going for speed, recruit 2-3 Cavalrymen, depending on the map, 1 Horseman, maybe 1 Fencer, and the rest Spearmen. Use your Spearmen to fill the holes and consolidate the territory that the horses took over. Use the horses to outrun the archers and attack when they can.

==See also==
[[How to play Horseman]]

[[How to play Mages]]

{{Factionbox}}

[[Category: How to Play]]

How to play Loyalists

2010-05-26T13:52:07Z

Elvish sovereign:

==General Loyalist Strategy==
Loyalists are considered to be the most versatile faction in the game. They have most available unit types to recruit ( 8 ), more than any other faction. Loyalists are mostly melee oriented faction, with only two ranged unit types, the '''mage''' and the '''bowman''', but their ranged units play a significant role in the loyalists strategy and have to be used effectively. About the melee troops the loyalist player gets to choose among:
* '''Heavy Infantrymen''': few strikes, high damage per strike, slow, higher hitpoints, good resistances, low defenses, deals impact damage which is good against undead
* '''Spearman''' average strikes, average damage per strike, average movement, medium hitpoints, normal resistances, average defenses, deals pierce damage which is good against drakes, has a weak ranged attack
* '''Fencer''': high number of strikes, low damage per strike, quick, low hitpoints, bad resistances, good defenses, deals blade damage which is good against elusive foots or wose, deals less total damage than the other two, is a skirmisher.

The loyalists unit price ranges from the cheap spearmen and mermen (14 gold) to the expensive horsemen (23 gold).

Loyalist units generally have good hitpoints and they deal good damage, even the cheap spearmen and bowmen. Even their scouts have high hitpoints and better melee attack compared to most of the scouts of the other factions. But OTOH, the loyalist scouts have lower defences than most of the other scouts and they do not have a ranged attack.

The loyalists have some units with good resistances, like HI or Cavalryman, which can be very good for defending if you notice that your opponent doesn't have the proper units to counter them. Other units, like the bowman, who is more vulnerable than the previous two, but is also good for defense because it has better defense, is cheaper and it deals solid damage back in both melee and range. Similar goes for the spearman.

'''When attacking''', Loyalists have units which can be pretty devastating, like the horseman for attacking enemy magi and other ranged units, magi against the entrenched melee units, fencers for killing enemy injured and valuable units trying to heal behind their lines. But the mentioned units are also very vulnerable and they can die very easily if not properly supported.

The loyalists as a faction generally have average '''defenses''' ( they do not get 70% defense anywhere, with the exception of the fencer, which is a special case ) and they are not a terrain dependent faction ( like the Elves or Knalgans are ). Therefore, even if it good to put spearmen and bowmen on mountains, villages and castles where they get 60% defense, you should also take the faction you are facing into account when deciding where to place your units. For example, if you are fighting knalgans, you should try not to move your units next to hills and mountains and/or take the hills and mountains with your units and leave the forest to the dwarves.

All the loyalist units are lawful, which obviously leads to the conclusion that the loyalists should be more aggressive and attack at day ( or even start at dawn, because your opponent in most of the cases will be reluctant to attack too aggressively and leave units on bad ground when the morning arrives ) while at night the loyalists should at least play conservatively, or in some cases even run away. Of course, that is also dependent upon the faction of your opponent.

'''The greatest weakness''' of the loyalists is their limited mobility. The loyalists' units have normal movement, some of their units like the horseman,cavalryman,merman fighter and the fencer are pretty quick when they are in their favorable environment, but all their units get slowed over rough terrain a lot compared to the other factions' units . Half of the loyalists units can not even move on/over mountains, and their scouts get significantly slowed in forest, for example. This lack of mobility will often give your opponent an opportunity to outmaneuver you in the game.To prevent that, sometimes it is good to attack hard on a certain point and defend only with minimal amount of units elsewhere, rather than uniformly spreading your units around the front.

When you don't know '''which faction you are facing''', it is good to get a mixture of units. On most of the default 1v1 maps, this initial recruitment list would be good : spearman, bowman, fencer, mage, merman fighter, cavalryman. As always, you should carefully consider about the exact placement of each individual unit from the initial recruits on the castle to come up with the most optimal combination that will allow you the quickest village grabbing in the first turns of the game.

==Loyalists vs. Undead==
When fighting undead, your recruiting pattern will depend on whether your opponent spams Skeleton Archers or Dark Adepts for ranged attacks. If you see lots of skeletons, you'll have to focus heavily on HI and Mages. If you see lots of DAs, you'll want some Cavalry, Horsemen and maybe some Spearmen.

* Bowman - '''D-''' - Almost entirely useless. You might use them to poke at Walking Corpses, Ghouls, Vampire Bats and Ghosts, but Mages are much better at all of these things. I would only buy a Bowman to counter a large zombie horde.

* Cavalryman - '''B+''' - You'll want some Cavalry for scouting and dealing initial damage to DAs so that a Horseman can finish them. They are also decent at fighting Skeletons in the daytime, because Cavalry are blade-resistant. However, the cheap Skeleton Archers will really ruin Cavalry quickly at night, so if there are any Skeleton Archers on the other side you won't be able to use Cavalry to hold territory. If your opponent over-recruits DAs, however, you can use cold-resistant Cavalry to hold territory against them. They are also decent for holding territory against Ghouls because they can run away and heal (unlike your HI).

* Fencer - '''C-''' - Fencers are a bad recruit in this matchup because they are vulnerable to the blade and pierce damage of skeletons and cannot damage them much in return. They also are incapable of holding territory against DAs, who cut right through the high defense of Fencers. However, you may want to have a Fencer or two around for trapping DAs or getting in that last hit. With luck, they may also be able to frustrate non-magical attacks from skeletons and the like.

* Heavy Infantryman - '''B+''' - You need Heavy Infantry to hold territory against Skeletons and Skeleton Archers, and they will be your unit of choice for dealing melee damage, especially to the cheap Skeleton Archers. Any HI in the daytime can kill a full-health skeleton archer in two hits, while a strong HI in the daytime can kill a full-health skeleton in two hits, dealing 18 damage per strike (even a Mage in daytime cannot kill a skeleton in one round, unless supported by a Lieutenant). A fearless HI may be dangerous even at night. If you don't have enough HI to go around, you can get your initial hits in on a Skeleton Archer with an HI and finish him with a Mage. Just keep HI away from DAs, and only let Ghouls hit HI if the HI is on a village (or has a White Mage or other healer next to him), since HI can't easily run away to heal. Also beware Walking Corpses, which deal a surprising amount of damage at all times of day since HI can't dodge and impact damage goes around their resistances, and the ranged cold attack of Ghosts. The biggest problem with HI is they are slow, which means they're hard to retreat at night and hard to advance in day. Without shielding units they'll get trapped and killed, and if you have to shield a unit maybe it should be a Mage instead.

* Horseman - '''B''' - Because they deal pierce damage, Horsemen may not be very useful when faced with Skeletons. However, if your opponent over-recruits Dark Adepts, Horsemen can be extremely useful, as DAs deal no return damage to the normally risky charge attack. Horsemen can even be used to finish Skeleton Archers, their nemesis, in the daytime. However, if your opponent recruits enough Skeleton Archers you will have a hard time shielding your Horsemen from their devastating pierce attacks, and Skeleton Archers are dirt cheap. Horsemen can also one-shot bats and zombies, which can be useful if you need to clear out a lot of lvl 0 units quickly. I would want to have at least one Horseman around to keep my opponent from getting too bold with DAs, if not more. Your opponent will be forced to recruit DAs if you have HI in the field.

* Mage - '''A+''' - Mages are an absolute necessity against Undead. If you do not have Mages it will be almost impossible for you to kill Ghosts, but with Mages it's a piece of cake. Mages are the best unit for killing almost everything Undead can throw at you, and can even be used to finish Dark Adepts in the daytime. Your main problem is that Dark Adepts are cheaper and deal almost as much damage, so your opponent can spam DAs while you cannot afford to spam Mages. You will also have the difficult task of shielding fragile, expensive mages against lots of cheap Undead units. Your opponent will use Skeletons and Ghouls to attack your Mages when he can, but bats, zombies or just about any other unit will do for killing your Mages in a pinch. Shield your Mages well, surround them with damage soakers and if you can deliver them safely to their targets you'll be able to clear out the Undead quickly.

* Merman Fighter - '''C-''' - Mermen make a decent navy against Undead, since bats and Ghosts will have a hard time killing them with their high defense. Even Dark Adepts will find Mermen annoying because of their 20% cold resistance. However, Mermen will have a hard time hurting anything the Undead have with their lame pierce weapon. Generally Mermen are only good for holding water hexes and scouting, but don't underestimate how useful that can be. Some well-placed Mermen on a water map can prevent bats from sneaking behind your lines and capturing villages or killing injured units. Even on mostly land maps, a Merman in a river can help hold a defensive line, or a quick Merman can use a river to slip behind the enemy to trap DAs or other units that are trying to escape at daytime.

* Spearman - '''C-''' - Spearmen are mostly useful as cheap units for holding villages and occupying space when faced with Dark Adepts or Skeleton Archers. (You'll want to avoid letting DAs hit your Heavy Infantrymen because of their vulnerability to cold.) However, you don't really want Spearmen to take hits from DAs, it would be better to let the cold-resistant Cavalry absorb the damage. The only units Spearmen are good for attacking are Dark Adepts and Walking Corpses. Spearmen are completely useless against skeletons unless you level one into a Swordsman, and even then they're pretty mediocre. However, if there are lots of Skeleton Archers you won't be able to use much Cavalry or Horsemen, so a Spearman or two may be necessary as defenders and damage soakers even if they are lousy at dealing damage to Undead.

==Loyalists vs. Rebels==
[comments by elvish_sovereign] Elves are a very versatile faction like the Loyalists. So you need to counter their versatility with yours. Their weakest trait is low hitpoints. That is compensated somewhat by relatively higher defenses and mobility, so you'll need a combination of hard-hitters and speed. Mages are also nice for their magical attacks. Anyways, the key for a Loyalist general is to effectively use his hard-hitting units and kill as many units as he can at day. And at night, to defend well as elves ignore the TOD.

[comments by nelson] The smartest thing you can do upon discovering that your opponent is playing Rebels is to assume that your opponent has Woses and recruit accordingly. Woses are a necessary counter to Loyalists' daytime attacks and as soon as your opponent realizes that you are Loyalists he will almost certainly recruit Woses. Remember that just because you don't see any Woses doesn't mean there aren't a couple hiding in the forest! To fight Woses you will need Cavalry as meat shields, Mages to deal damage, and maybe Fencers to get the last hit in. Sadly, Cavalry are very vulnerable to Elvish Archers, so you'll need to make sure that the Archers die, which can be difficult if they are in forest. Get Horsemen which can one-shot Archers (despite their high dodge) and keep up with your Cav. If one horseman misses, follow up with another one, it's a lucky archer that can dodge 4/4 one-shot attempts. HI are also great against everything but Woses and Mages, and will reduce the effectiveness of Archer spam. Spearmen are useless against Woses, recruit them sparingly and keep them away from unscouted forest.

[comments based on ParadiseCity and psychic] An alternative way of playing this match-up is to maximize the mobility offered by the Loyalists' fastest units, namely the two horse units. By using them to outrun the Rebel units you can achieve some devastating rushes. Some matches require use of both styles of playing. Again, their versatility must be countered with yours.

* Bowman - '''C+''' - Rebels in general are effective in both melee and ranged attacks, so recruiting a ranged unit is less beneficial than most factions because most of the Rebels' units can retaliate against you. They can be useful for taking out an Scout or two, but otherwise, this is not really a smart buy.

* Cavalryman - '''B+''' - A good scout and an effective counter to Woses. Watch out for Archers, though, they can really tear horses to shreds. And as always, they are effective against ranged oriented units like the mage.

** Alternate - '''A''' - If you're going for some faster action, Cavalrymen are vital in the attack. They do great damage during the day, and combined with their dangerous mobility, they can be a fearsome unit indeed. Just be careful of archers ZoCing you and tearing the unit to shreds.

* Fencer - '''B+''' - The Fencer shares the 70% defense in the forest like most of the elves, but it has negative resistances. Theoretically, they should be effective against Woses, but more often than not Woses will crush them easily. In spite of this, Fencers still have skirmsher, which means that they can sneak behind an injured unit and finish them off. Do not over-recruit them, as enemy Mages will tear though their high defense.

* Heavy Infantryman - '''D-''' - Avoid recruiting this unit. It's too slow to deal with most of the Rebel units, and it is owned by Mages, Woses, and even Archers. Even though it has a high damage potential, because of its inherently low defense Shamans can easily get hits on it and turn it into a piece of metal for a turn.

* Horseman - '''B''' - One Horseman may be nice, but no more than that. Enemy Archers will tear them apart and Shamans totally mess them up. They're expensive too. Their greatest use is probably killing Mages or an Archer that has gone slightly off-track.

** Alternate - '''A-''' - Again, when mobility is required, these units need to come and do serious damage. Since Rebels are mostly comprised of low-hp units, horsemen at day can usually rip them apart. Again be careful of archers, for this unit is worth 23 gold. Shield him properly if he is damaged.

* Mage - '''A-''' - You'll need these guys to tear though those high elvish 60-70% evasion in the forest; but be careful, Archers and Shamans will retaliate and some pretty nasty things may come from that. One purely positive thing though, they just absolutely destroy Woses. 13-3 at day. Ouch. Mages are expensive and fragile though, so keep them protected.

* Merman Fighter - '''B+''' - If the map has a lot of water, maybe recruit a few to prevent the Rebel's Mermen Hunters from taking over the waters. Otherwise they don't really contribute much else.

* Spearman - '''A''' - A necessity. To defend at night, to kill pretty much anything except for Woses, and to be cheap and cost only 14 gold. These guys pretty much tear though most of the Rebel units, if it were not only for the high-defense Archer and Shaman. Get a bunch, and move them like a wall against the enemy units.

* At the start of the game, recruit 1-2 Cavalrymen, depending on the map size, 1 Mage, (1 Merman Fighter if you need some water coverage), maybe 1 Fencer, and the rest Spearman. Later on you maybe can recruit some Horseman if you opponent recruits mass Mages, or more Cavalrymen and Mages if he masses Woses. Otherwise, Spearmen and Mages should help you get through most of the match.

If you're going for speed, recruit 2-3 Cavalrymen, depending on the map, 1 Horseman, maybe 1 Fencer, and the rest Spearmen. Use your Spearmen to fill the holes and consolidate the territory that the horses took over. Use the horses to outrun the archers and attack when they can.

==See also==
[[How to play Horseman]]

[[How to play Mages]]

{{Factionbox}}

[[Category: How to Play]]

How to play Loyalists

2010-05-26T01:58:45Z

Elvish sovereign:

==General Loyalist Strategy==
Loyalists are considered to be the most versatile faction in the game. They have most available unit types to recruit ( 8 ), more than any other faction. Loyalists are mostly melee oriented faction, with only two ranged unit types, the '''mage''' and the '''bowman''', but their ranged units play a significant role in the loyalists strategy and have to be used effectively. About the melee troops the loyalist player gets to choose among:
* '''Heavy Infantrymen''': few strikes, high damage per strike, slow, higher hitpoints, good resistances, low defenses, deals impact damage which is good against undead
* '''Spearman''' average strikes, average damage per strike, average movement, medium hitpoints, normal resistances, average defenses, deals pierce damage which is good against drakes, has a weak ranged attack
* '''Fencer''': high number of strikes, low damage per strike, quick, low hitpoints, bad resistances, good defenses, deals blade damage which is good against elusive foots or wose, deals less total damage than the other two, is a skirmisher.

The loyalists unit price ranges from the cheap spearmen and mermen (14 gold) to the expensive horsemen (23 gold).

Loyalist units generally have good hitpoints and they deal good damage, even the cheap spearmen and bowmen. Even their scouts have high hitpoints and better melee attack compared to most of the scouts of the other factions. But OTOH, the loyalist scouts have lower defences than most of the other scouts and they do not have a ranged attack.

The loyalists have some units with good resistances, like HI or Cavalryman, which can be very good for defending if you notice that your opponent doesn't have the proper units to counter them. Other units, like the bowman, who is more vulnerable than the previous two, but is also good for defense because it has better defense, is cheaper and it deals solid damage back in both melee and range. Similar goes for the spearman.

'''When attacking''', Loyalists have units which can be pretty devastating, like the horseman for attacking enemy magi and other ranged units, magi against the entrenched melee units, fencers for killing enemy injured and valuable units trying to heal behind their lines. But the mentioned units are also very vulnerable and they can die very easily if not properly supported.

The loyalists as a faction generally have average '''defenses''' ( they do not get 70% defense anywhere, with the exception of the fencer, which is a special case ) and they are not a terrain dependent faction ( like the Elves or Knalgans are ). Therefore, even if it good to put spearmen and bowmen on mountains, villages and castles where they get 60% defense, you should also take the faction you are facing into account when deciding where to place your units. For example, if you are fighting knalgans, you should try not to move your units next to hills and mountains and/or take the hills and mountains with your units and leave the forest to the dwarves.

All the loyalist units are lawful, which obviously leads to the conclusion that the loyalists should be more aggressive and attack at day ( or even start at dawn, because your opponent in most of the cases will be reluctant to attack too aggressively and leave units on bad ground when the morning arrives ) while at night the loyalists should at least play conservatively, or in some cases even run away. Of course, that is also dependent upon the faction of your opponent.

'''The greatest weakness''' of the loyalists is their limited mobility. The loyalists' units have normal movement, some of their units like the horseman,cavalryman,merman fighter and the fencer are pretty quick when they are in their favorable environment, but all their units get slowed over rough terrain a lot compared to the other factions' units . Half of the loyalists units can not even move on/over mountains, and their scouts get significantly slowed in forest, for example. This lack of mobility will often give your opponent an opportunity to outmaneuver you in the game.To prevent that, sometimes it is good to attack hard on a certain point and defend only with minimal amount of units elsewhere, rather than uniformly spreading your units around the front.

When you don't know '''which faction you are facing''', it is good to get a mixture of units. On most of the default 1v1 maps, this initial recruitment list would be good : spearman, bowman, fencer, mage, merman fighter, cavalryman. As always, you should carefully consider about the exact placement of each individual unit from the initial recruits on the castle to come up with the most optimal combination that will allow you the quickest village grabbing in the first turns of the game.

==Loyalists vs. Undead==
When fighting undead, your recruiting pattern will depend on whether your opponent spams Skeleton Archers or Dark Adepts for ranged attacks. If you see lots of skeletons, you'll have to focus heavily on HI and Mages. If you see lots of DAs, you'll want some Cavalry, Horsemen and maybe some Spearmen.

* Bowman - '''D-''' - Almost entirely useless. You might use them to poke at Walking Corpses, Ghouls, Vampire Bats and Ghosts, but Mages are much better at all of these things. I would only buy a Bowman to counter a large zombie horde.

* Cavalryman - '''B+''' - You'll want some Cavalry for scouting and dealing initial damage to DAs so that a Horseman can finish them. They are also decent at fighting Skeletons in the daytime, because Cavalry are blade-resistant. However, the cheap Skeleton Archers will really ruin Cavalry quickly at night, so if there are any Skeleton Archers on the other side you won't be able to use Cavalry to hold territory. If your opponent over-recruits DAs, however, you can use cold-resistant Cavalry to hold territory against them. They are also decent for holding territory against Ghouls because they can run away and heal (unlike your HI).

* Fencer - '''C-''' - Fencers are a bad recruit in this matchup because they are vulnerable to the blade and pierce damage of skeletons and cannot damage them much in return. They also are incapable of holding territory against DAs, who cut right through the high defense of Fencers. However, you may want to have a Fencer or two around for trapping DAs or getting in that last hit. With luck, they may also be able to frustrate non-magical attacks from skeletons and the like.

* Heavy Infantryman - '''B+''' - You need Heavy Infantry to hold territory against Skeletons and Skeleton Archers, and they will be your unit of choice for dealing melee damage, especially to the cheap Skeleton Archers. Any HI in the daytime can kill a full-health skeleton archer in two hits, while a strong HI in the daytime can kill a full-health skeleton in two hits, dealing 18 damage per strike (even a Mage in daytime cannot kill a skeleton in one round, unless supported by a Lieutenant). A fearless HI may be dangerous even at night. If you don't have enough HI to go around, you can get your initial hits in on a Skeleton Archer with an HI and finish him with a Mage. Just keep HI away from DAs, and only let Ghouls hit HI if the HI is on a village (or has a White Mage or other healer next to him), since HI can't easily run away to heal. Also beware Walking Corpses, which deal a surprising amount of damage at all times of day since HI can't dodge and impact damage goes around their resistances, and the ranged cold attack of Ghosts. The biggest problem with HI is they are slow, which means they're hard to retreat at night and hard to advance in day. Without shielding units they'll get trapped and killed, and if you have to shield a unit maybe it should be a Mage instead.

* Horseman - '''B''' - Because they deal pierce damage, Horsemen may not be very useful when faced with Skeletons. However, if your opponent over-recruits Dark Adepts, Horsemen can be extremely useful, as DAs deal no return damage to the normally risky charge attack. Horsemen can even be used to finish Skeleton Archers, their nemesis, in the daytime. However, if your opponent recruits enough Skeleton Archers you will have a hard time shielding your Horsemen from their devastating pierce attacks, and Skeleton Archers are dirt cheap. Horsemen can also one-shot bats and zombies, which can be useful if you need to clear out a lot of lvl 0 units quickly. I would want to have at least one Horseman around to keep my opponent from getting too bold with DAs, if not more. Your opponent will be forced to recruit DAs if you have HI in the field.

* Mage - '''A+''' - Mages are an absolute necessity against Undead. If you do not have Mages it will be almost impossible for you to kill Ghosts, but with Mages it's a piece of cake. Mages are the best unit for killing almost everything Undead can throw at you, and can even be used to finish Dark Adepts in the daytime. Your main problem is that Dark Adepts are cheaper and deal almost as much damage, so your opponent can spam DAs while you cannot afford to spam Mages. You will also have the difficult task of shielding fragile, expensive mages against lots of cheap Undead units. Your opponent will use Skeletons and Ghouls to attack your Mages when he can, but bats, zombies or just about any other unit will do for killing your Mages in a pinch. Shield your Mages well, surround them with damage soakers and if you can deliver them safely to their targets you'll be able to clear out the Undead quickly.

* Merman Fighter - '''C-''' - Mermen make a decent navy against Undead, since bats and Ghosts will have a hard time killing them with their high defense. Even Dark Adepts will find Mermen annoying because of their 20% cold resistance. However, Mermen will have a hard time hurting anything the Undead have with their lame pierce weapon. Generally Mermen are only good for holding water hexes and scouting, but don't underestimate how useful that can be. Some well-placed Mermen on a water map can prevent bats from sneaking behind your lines and capturing villages or killing injured units. Even on mostly land maps, a Merman in a river can help hold a defensive line, or a quick Merman can use a river to slip behind the enemy to trap DAs or other units that are trying to escape at daytime.

* Spearman - '''C-''' - Spearmen are mostly useful as cheap units for holding villages and occupying space when faced with Dark Adepts or Skeleton Archers. (You'll want to avoid letting DAs hit your Heavy Infantrymen because of their vulnerability to cold.) However, you don't really want Spearmen to take hits from DAs, it would be better to let the cold-resistant Cavalry absorb the damage. The only units Spearmen are good for attacking are Dark Adepts and Walking Corpses. Spearmen are completely useless against skeletons unless you level one into a Swordsman, and even then they're pretty mediocre. However, if there are lots of Skeleton Archers you won't be able to use much Cavalry or Horsemen, so a Spearman or two may be necessary as defenders and damage soakers even if they are lousy at dealing damage to Undead.

===Loyalists vs. Rebels===
[comments by elvish_sovereign] Elves are a very versatile faction like the Loyalists. So you need to counter their versatility with yours. Their weakest trait is low hitpoints. That is compensated somewhat by relatively higher defenses and mobility, so you'll need a combination of hard-hitters and speed. Mages are also nice for their magical attacks. Anyways, the key for a Loyalist general is to effectively use his hard-hitting units and kill as many units as he can at day. And at night, to defend well as elves ignore the TOD.

[comments by nelson] The smartest thing you can do upon discovering that your opponent is playing Rebels is to assume that your opponent has Woses and recruit accordingly. Woses are a necessary counter to Loyalists' daytime attacks and as soon as your opponent realizes that you are Loyalists he will almost certainly recruit Woses. Remember that just because you don't see any Woses doesn't mean there aren't a couple hiding in the forest! To fight Woses you will need Cavalry as meat shields, Mages to deal damage, and maybe Fencers to get the last hit in. Sadly, Cavalry are very vulnerable to Elvish Archers, so you'll need to make sure that the Archers die, which can be difficult if they are in forest. Get Horsemen which can one-shot Archers (despite their high dodge) and keep up with your Cav. If one horseman misses, follow up with another one, it's a lucky archer that can dodge 4/4 one-shot attempts. HI are also great against everything but Woses and Mages, and will reduce the effectiveness of Archer spam. Spearmen are useless against Woses, recruit them sparingly and keep them away from unscouted forest.

[comments based on ParadiseCity and psychic] An alternative way of playing this match-up is to maximize the mobility offered by the Loyalists' fastest units, namely the two horse units. By using them to outrun the Rebel units you can achieve some devastating rushes. Some matches require use of both styles of playing. Again, their versatility must be countered with yours.

* Bowman - '''C+''' - Rebels in general are effective in both melee and ranged attacks, so recruiting a ranged unit is less beneficial than most factions because most of the Rebels' units can retaliate against you. They can be useful for taking out an Scout or two, but otherwise, this is not really a smart buy.

* Cavalryman - '''B+''' - A good scout and an effective counter to Woses. Watch out for Archers, though, they can really tear horses to shreds. And as always, they are effective against ranged oriented units like the mage.

** Alternate - '''A''' - If you're going for some faster action, Cavalrymen are vital in the attack. They do great damage during the day, and combined with their dangerous mobility, they can be a fearsome unit indeed. Just be careful of archers ZoCing you and tearing the unit to shreds.

* Fencer - '''B+''' - The Fencer shares the 70% defense in the forest like most of the elves, but it has negative resistances. Theoretically, they should be effective against Woses, but more often than not Woses will crush them easily. Use them sparingly, as enemy Mages will tear though their high defense.

* Heavy Infantryman - '''D-''' - Avoid recruiting this unit. It's too slow to deal with most of the Rebel units, and it is owned by Mages, Woses, and even Archers. Even though it has a high damage potential, because of its inherently low defense Shamans can easily get hits on it and turn it into a piece of metal for a turn.

* Horseman - '''B''' - One Horseman may be nice, but no more than that. Enemy Archers will tear them apart and Shamans totally mess them up. They're expensive too. Their greatest use is probably killing Mages or an Archer that has gone slightly off-track.

** Alternate - '''A-''' - Again, when mobility is required, these units need to come and do serious damage. Since Rebels are mostly comprised of low-hp units, horsemen at day can usually rip them apart. Again be careful of archers, for this unit is worth 23 gold. Shield him properly if he is damaged.

* Mage - '''A-''' - You'll need these guys to tear though those high elvish 60-70% evasion in the forest; but be careful, Archers and Shamans will retaliate and some pretty nasty things may come from that. One purely positive thing though, they just absolutely destroy Woses. 13-3 at day. Ouch. Mages are expensive and fragile though, so keep them protected.

* Merman Fighter - '''B+''' - If the map has a lot of water, maybe recruit a few to prevent the Rebel's Mermen Hunters from taking over the waters. Otherwise they don't really contribute much else.

* Spearman - '''A''' - A necessity. To defend at night, to kill pretty much anything except for Woses, and to be cheap and cost only 14 gold. These guys pretty much tear though most of the Rebel units, if it were not only for the high-defense Archer and Shaman. Get a bunch, and move them like a wall against the enemy units.

* At the start of the game, recruit 1-2 Cavalrymen, depending on the map size, 1 Mage, (1 Merman Fighter if you need some water coverage), maybe 1 Fencer, and the rest Spearman. Later on you maybe can recruit some Horseman if you opponent recruits mass Mages, or more Cavalrymen and Mages if he masses Woses. Otherwise, Spearmen and Mages should help you get through most of the match.

If you're going for speed, recruit 2-3 Cavalrymen, depending on the map, 1 Horseman, maybe 1 Fencer, and the rest Spearmen. Use your Spearmen to fill the holes and consolidate the territory that the horses took over. Use the horses to outrun the archers and attack when they can.

==See also==
[[How to play Horseman]]

[[How to play Mages]]

{{Factionbox}}

[[Category: How to Play]]

AnOrcishIncursion

2010-05-08T21:05:44Z

Elvish sovereign: /* Linaera the Quick */

If you feel comfortable with turn-based games, especially ones featuring units moving on a hex map, then you can play the Tutorial and then dive right into "Medium" to get a feel for the elements of the game. After you have played a few scenarios and are ready to hone your skills, try reading [[AdvancedTactics]]. You should also be familiar with the basics in [[WesnothManual]] -- this is a walkthrough, not an exposition of basic game mechanics.

Each scenario has an individual forum thread where you can provide feedback to the authors. You can find these [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=20249 here].

=== Defend the Forest ===
* Objectives: Defeat Urugha, the enemy leader
* Lose if: Erlornas dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24
* Starting units: Erlornas and an Elvish Rider

This is a simple 'Kill the enemy leader' scenario. The main objective in the first couple scenarios in this campaign is to develop your shaman line recruits, so you should recruit a fairly even mix of fighters, archers, and shamans. Normally as Rebels you would recruit many more fighters, but in this campaign you can be assured of lots of forest, so you don't need quite as many of them. As always, plan your starting recruits so that you can get the most villages quickly (many require a quick archer to reach expediently, unfortunately).

The battle is quickly over. Watch for the enemy Grunts as they have the highest damage dealing potential, and some Wolf Riders may try to steal your village. Try to milk the enemy leader for XP at the end, especially on your Shamans. If he's slowed, he's not much of a threat, even at night. Finish early for a nice bonus.

=== Assassins ===
* Objectives: Defeat Ghalrsa, the enemy leader
* Lose if: Erlornas dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24
* Starting units: Erlornas and another unit
Hopefully you're entering this scenario with a good hunk of XP on your units, if not level 2s already. Your primary goal is to get a Druid quickly in this scenario - the AI uses Orcish Assassins, which will poison you. A Druid will make this far less painful than if you were relying solely on your Shamans.

It is up to you where to make your stand, but try to get the enemy to fight from the river. Even if you lose a unit or two, the return damage he will deal hitting them in the river is quite tremendous and will greatly weaken their forces. Especially on the higher levels of difficulty, consider recruiting quite a bit more than one castleful for this scenario as the enemy will have units aplenty. This enemy leader isn't quite so easy to milk so finish it as quickly as possible.

=== Wasteland ===

* Objectives: Defeat Gnargha, the Orcish Warlord
* Lose if: Erlornas dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24
* Starting units: Erlornas and another unit

This is an interesting scenario - no villages. Check your income in the top: it's all you're going to get. The next scenario is possible with minimum starting gold but painful, especially if you don't have leveled troops that you're willing to lose. This is slightly offset by the gold bonus you will (hopefully) get at the end of the scenario. This scenario is as much an exercise in gold management as anything else. Keep in mind that some troops may level and try to stay under your income as much as possible with your upkeep. Multiple level 1s may be better than your leveled units in some cases. A Druid, of course, is a necessity with the lack of villages.

Establish your units in the middle "island" of forest. With some healers behind your line you should easily absorb the wave of attackers then take out the leader.

When you finish, you will get a small gold bonus that was laying around the orcish camp.

=== Valley of Trolls ===
* Objectives: Defeat the two Troll leaders
* Lose if: Erlornas dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24
* Starting units: Erlornas and another unit

Largely regarded as the first truly difficult scenario by many beginners, this has stumped many by either waves of Troll Whelps or truly scary adult Trolls, depending on your difficulty. What may not be obvious to you is that the troll AI has been set up to NOT USE the two mountain hexes that border their caves, but only the path through the middle. Once you realize this it is far easier to setup a nice bottleneck for them.

The troops from the shaman line should make good use of their slow attack. A slowed troll is much more survivable.

Good luck! Try to eliminate the blue troll quickly so that the teal one will be a sole target.

[stupidjaguar] I agree with all of the above. The scenario becomes much easier if you use the Sorceress line and Elornas, because of the Trolls' vulnerabilities to arcane damage. Slow them with Shamen and Druids, then take them out with faerie fire.

[cph] Maybe the bottleneck approach above works for the Easy skill, but I don't think it's suitable for Challenging. Instead, it's a divide-and-conquer level. Send a scout west over the river to grab villages and distract the west trolls, and throw the rest of your forces in a quick knock-out against the east trolls. Remember to recall some L2 or near-to-levelling up units with good ranged damage: you want to be able to take out trolls in 1 or two turns. It would help to level up Erlornas before you get here, as he does more ranged damage at L3.

=== Linaera the Quick ===
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
* Lose if: Erlornas or Linaera die or turns run out
* Turns: 24
* Starting units: Erlornas, another unit, Linaera and three Mages

This is a fun scenario lending you a very handy unit, the Silver Mage. Be careful not to lose her and use her as a surprise attacker. The AI does not understand that a Silver Mage can appear from any of your villages, so when she's not teleporting around the map grabbing more villages for you keep her on a village so that she's handy to aid in a strike on an unsuspecting AI unit.

You may start off with low gold after last scenario, so start off slow, especially on higher difficulty levels. Let them come to you instead of you rushing them. You have plenty of time to take the rest of the map once the first wave has pummeled you.

[comments by elvish_sovereign] If your low on gold (which you might be because of the previous scenario), try this strategy if you need some quick cash. Depending on the amount of gold you have, get one or two scouts. Recruit fighters with the rest of your gold. Place Linaera on one of the villages you start with. The orc leader will start recruiting and sending units down to attack you. Use your fighters to lure the enemy units first south and then west. When all of the enemy units are attacking your fighters, use your scout(s) to rush up north and aim to grab the village at 9,5: the village right above the enemy leader. Once your scout leaves that village teleport Linaera to the village and kill the leader. Try not to let the scout(s) die because they also can shoot the leader with their bow(s). This way I finished the scenario (on hard) on turn 6, giving me loads of gold for the next scenario.

=== A Detour Through the Swamp ===

* Objectives: Defeat Keremal the Lich
* Lose if: Erlornas or Linaera die or turns run out
* Turns: 24
* Starting units: Erlornas, Linaera and any surviving Mages

Pretty simple 'kill the enemy leader' scenario again. This campaign has a lot of them. Be careful of the undead at night - they pack a serious punch, but they're much less scary in the daytime. Your best unit will be your Mages. The final boss is a toughy. The only thing you really have that can hurt him is your Mages, with Linaera being by far the best as a Silver Mage (she resists the Lich attack quite a bit!). Get in a gang around him and then try to finish him off in one turn. If that fails, try again. You'll probably have heavy casualties finishing him if you're new to fighting Liches, and beware using melee attacks on him (he'll heal when he hits you), even if his ranged attack is truly terrifyingly powerful. Again, slowing the Lich will help a lot.

[comments by scorchgeek]
Erlornas and Elvish Sorceresses also do heavy damage to undead. I sacrificed all my mages in the previous scenario and at first thought I would have to go back and repeat it, but as I had 2 Sorceresses, I did fine in the end.

=== Showdown ===
* Objectives: Defeat the Orcish Sovereign
* Lose if: Erlornas dies or turns run out
* Turns: 24
* Starting units: Erlornas, Linaera, another unit and 4 Elvish Rangers

Another kill the enemy leader, but with a twist: you get 4 loyal Rangers to sneak around the backside for an assassination! If you have any rangers of your own, send them along to and use the rest of your forces as a diversion to the southwest. If played well you can actually just destroy his army at the moment, but it's always fun to pop out of the trees and surround the bewildered AI.

[[Category: Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]
[[Category:Campaigns - An Orcish Incursion]]

User:Elvish sovereign

2010-04-20T01:43:25Z

Elvish sovereign: Created page with 'Hi, I'm elvish_sovereign. Obviously that isn't my name, so if you want you can call me Zoltan, which is my internet name. I'm 15 and am a student at a conservatory; I play piano …'

Hi, I'm elvish_sovereign. Obviously that isn't my name, so if you want you can call me Zoltan, which is my internet name. I'm 15 and am a student at a conservatory; I play piano and compose music. I've been playing Wesnoth for almost 2 years now; I found Wesnoth during it's 1.4/1.5 stage, so I don't know any of the early releases, although I really want to see them. I primarily play single-player campaigns, but you could occasionally find me on the MP server.

I still have yet to figure out sequencing and those other things before I can contribute music for Wesnoth, but here's some things I'm working on currently:

== Completed ==
* Nothing here. :p

== Currently under development ==
=== Promised Land ===
* ''Lead your people from virtual slavery into a land where you and your kin can live freely, though a perilous journey awaits you.''

This is a single-player campaign centering around goblins. A certain goblin named Prinak manages to gather enough courage and cleverness to lead his people out of slavery. Yeah, I know this has religious connotations, hence the title. But nevertheless, the campaign takes you though his journey though the Northlands approx. 570 YW, after ''Northern Rebirth'', after Tallin, into a perilous period.
* This campaign is still very much in development. I will give a summary of it when it relatively drafted.

=== Spam Era ===
* ''Spam Era! Pick your favorite level 0 or level 1 unit and spam your opponent to death! Gameplay is as normal, but you only have one unit to choose from. Includes mainline multiplayer units and some non-multiplayer units. Have fun spamspamspamspamspamspamspaming!''

This is an MP era, which I made when I had a whole night with nothing to do. The idea is very simple: you pick a unit, and spam your opponent to death. Thus it proves for a very interesting gameplay. Captain_Wrathbow and I (maybe IPS as well) are looking into creating special maps for the era.

== Planned, but not started yet ==
=== Empires (or a name of the sort) ===
This was inspired by Conquest 2 on the Wesnoth 1.8 add-on server by alda, Mabuse, and others. This will be that on a large scale. Although it uses a similar way of functioning, there is, for example, a more complicated diplomatic situation, and many other differences. In a sense it will be very RPG-like, but this is all brainstorming, so I'm not sure about anything yet.