The Battle for Wesnoth Wiki - User contributions [en]

LegendofWesmere

2012-01-28T08:34:03Z

Glandis: /* Elvish Assassins */

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

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

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

== The Uprooting ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost
* Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 16/14/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and Anduilas

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

'''Alternate strategy: '''
As with the first scenario in HttT, an effective strategy is to split your leader from your main army. Send Kalenz due west and then south to the sign-post, while the rest of your army moves more southwest to distract the south-west orcs. Since the starting time of day means you will meet the orcs just as day is ending, it is both possible and a good idea to keep engagements to a minimum - just lure the orcs away from Kalenz without getting into a fight. From my experience, the AI has difficulty making up its mind what to do with the southwestern orcs, especially if you grab the eastern villages, and Kalenz should be able to easily sneak by on the western edge of the map to the signpost without any obstructions. I was able to finish the scenario on hard difficulty on turn 6 with 0 losses and level Anduilas, your loyal elf fighter to level 2. One full castle of recruits is probably more than enough. Remember your goal is only to distract, not kill, and the combined upkeep of your units and your ally's that he gives you on turn 3 or so will give you negative income if you recruit too much.

'''New For 1.9.5'''
As of v1.9.5 (Medium) this has changed. There is no longer any signpost. Instead the victory condition is to kill any one of the orc leaders. And for the bonus, keep Velon alive. This is easy to do, there is an orc leader less than 10 hexes to the east and he can only recuit 3 units per turn. I just recruited a single keep and then swarmed him, killing him on Turn 5 (out of 17). But the problem with this strategy is that there is no opportunity to level up any of my units. Which bodes ill for the future. ~~ Sojourner
(Knyghtmare: In this scenario, you can only recruit Elvish Fighters and Elvish Archers. Recruit more archers as the enemy sides recruit mostly melee-based units, who have no ranged attacks. Recruit up to 4 fighters, just for taking out assassins, weak units and crossbowmen.)

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

The most important thing to do is get the dwarves to fight the trolls. Send a disposable unit or two to the middle island. Put a unit in the water where a troll will go to the east bank in order to attack. The unit won't live but you'll get a bunch of allies.

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

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

Some Observations (for Hardest Difficulty, but also applicable to other levels):
# It's not necessary to lure the trolls to step onto the dwarf side of the river by sacrificing a unit. It seems the trolls will go visit the dwarves on their own without needing any encouragement.
# There is a reason the middle island has so much forest. The western bank of the river has a narrow swath of forest surrounded by mountains and hills. This is not ideal terrain for fighting trolls. Trolls move faster than elves on hills and mountains and have comparable defense. A much better idea is to try to occupy the middle island, forcing the trolls to attack from water. Chances are you'll only be able to claim the northern tip of the island at first, so half your army will spill over to the forest on the west bank. Use shamans to slow and don't be afraid to put one unit in water if you can get a kill and then block. The dwarves help by putting units in water and doing other things to distract the trolls and draw fire away from you.
# Sorceresses are very effective at killing trolls, since arcane is the only attack type trolls have negative resistance to. Try to get a few by feeding kills to shamans. They also become incredibly useful later in the campaign, so it will be well worth the effort.

[glandis] As noted in the previous scenario, somewhere in the 1.9.x versions (at Hard, for me), you can only recruit Archers and Fighters, so the Shaman advice no longer applies.

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

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

For the first seven turns you are controlling the defenders of the Ka'lian. See all those Orcish Assassins in the water? You probably don't want to have all your units poisoned to death. Recruit Shamans to sit behind the defenders. They won't be able to cure, but they will prevent the loss of 8 HP per turn. If an Elvish Archer is poisoned, go ahead and use its ranged attack on an Assassin, otherwise try to manage your poisoned units somewhat prudently. Don't just hit Ctrl-R to recruit; you have a massive keep so put your new units in the right place. Don't let the orcs in good defense terrain and you should be fine. When turn 7 is done Kalenz arrives and you lose control of these defenders. If you can, move some units as far west as you can (if the attack has wound down). This seems to help the AI attack the westernmost orc leader, which is useful.

When you take over with Kalenz make your stand in the woods just to the southwest of your keep and to the immediate north of the Ka'lian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages— it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario (note that you can't cross the river on the far eastern edge of the map). If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

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

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

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

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Try and keep on good terrain (or at least keep the saurians out of good terrain) and form a defensive line (against Skirmishers) each turn. Kill the southern leader first. See that temple? That's the treasury. DO NOT go in there. When you go in saurians pop out. Wait until you are ready to kill them to trigger this trap.

When you've dealt with the southern leader and the treasury you can either take an Elvish Scout to the treasury to pick up the gold and return it to the sign post or just go kill the northern leader. Killing the leader is preferable. You'll get XP and any loss in gold from early finish is dwarfed by the 1800 gold you get for beating the level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

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

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

As for experience, the enemy recruits some relatively low HP level 2s and 3s. You can level units quickly after killing a couple of Saurian Oracles. Of course those Oracles have strong magical attacks (especially at night) negating your high defense. Luckily for you the battles start during the day. Recruit just one keepful of troops. Send a dwarf-heavy squad to the left (closer mountains) and an elf-heavy one to the right (more forest). If you recruit more than one keepful Kalenz will have a much tougher time crossing the river.

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

You can distract the serpent by having an Elvish Scout make his way to the western edge of the river bank. When the serpent shows up the rider can distract it with his bow.

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

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

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

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

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

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== News from the Front ==

Story only.

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

The enemy is in three places: the northwest, the northeast (trolls) and the southwest. Only the northeast trolls won't get reinforcements. So the only leaders to focus on eliminating are the trolls. Your recruits/recalls need to do three things: contain the northwest orcs (this is not that hard due to favorable terrain), aid your human allies to the south and eliminate the trolls.

The trolls should be pretty easy to kill. Their leader doesn't have much money so their aren't a lot of trolls. Slow with some shaman, use the forest to your benefit and you should defeat them soon. Send the units to reinforce your other two fronts.

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

The northwest orcs are numerous but should be kept in check by strong units in the bottlenecks. You'll need some tanks (Champions/Marshals or Steelclads) and healers. When the orc reinforcements arrive you may get swarmed. By this time you should have some help coming from your anti-troll army. Also, three elves will arrive along the western edge of the map. Have them come and help out.

You may want to recruit a scout or two at the beginning. Along with the horseman you get they can capture a village almost every turn. Don't bother leaving villages for your ally. The money is better in your hands.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

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

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign (in the middle) and then return to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes (invisible, 80% dodge) for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Landar to level 3. When Kalenz takes the potion he changes into an Elvish Lord. You should easily be able to get him to level up during this scenario.

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

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

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Slyphs and Shydes are best, of course.

It is essential that you reach your ally quickly. Otherwise he might be dead before you even see him. Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally (the one in the middle of the forest). You will want to finish this level quickly or/and to grab as soon as possible all the villages to have lots of gold for the next scenario (on medium you'll probably want at least 500 gold). Send some fast units north to keep your ally alive and send the rest straight west. The western units can sweep up after taking out the southern orc boss. A bunch of Direwolf Riders come as reinforcements when you get to close to the southern orc, so be careful. Alternatively just send everyone north and fan out from there.

With good units this level shouldn't be tough to beat. Just make sure you beat it in good standing for the next scenario.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==
* Objectives: Defeat all enemy units and destroy all enemy villages
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units
* Other

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

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

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

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

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

[version 1.8.2 : this scenario is very difficult, even with 480 gold (already hard to get - you need to catch all the villages quickly in the scenario before). The only way that worked, for me, was to first position my troops in the forest near my keep, and survive the first night. After that, around turn 10, I headed out towards the west keep. As soon as you get near the leader, he reach out at you, making you able to kill him with Kalenz (my Landar was already almost dead, and remained so for the rest of the scenario). Once this is done, it's an easy job to kill the northern leader. If you don't kill the first leader around turn 10, both will recruit loads of new recruits, and you'll be done.]

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

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

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map.Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty. The best choice is probably to recruit Elvish Scouts. You are using their ZoC to keep the attackers away from Kalenz. Don't try and be fancy.

[glandis] In 1.9.14, there's no need to recruit - Kalenz can make it to the signpost with just the units you're given. Which includes a scout not listed above.

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

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. If you have been building a formidable "air force" (shaman line) you can beat this level very easily.
* The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any Slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. If you can't kill him or ZoC him in turn 2, slow him. That will prevent him from getting to back to the keep to recruit. The battle is over as soon as one of your units moves next to Landar, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts (or quick units) and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

If you don't have enough units from the shaman line for the quick kill, try this:
* Because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Remember you don't have to kill all the enemies. Just kill the southeast leader and then sneak a fast unit in next to Landar.

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

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

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

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

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

[[Category: Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

DelfadorsMemoirs

2012-01-06T20:55:19Z

Glandis: /* Showdown in the Northern Swamp */

==Story==

This campaign follows the adventures of Delfador, beginning from him leaving home as a newly qualified journeyman mage,
and leading up to him helping to bring peace to Wesnoth. It is set a couple of generations earlier than "Heir to the
Throne".

==Development==

Original developer: email to Josh Parsons, jp30 AT st-and.ac.uk.
Thread is at http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1293.

More recently, the campaign has been picked up and improved by 'tapik' - see [[CampaignDelfadorsMemoirs]].

==Campaign Strategy==

This section gives some advice on long-term strategy in this campaign.

''NOTE: plot spoilers''. In this campaign, you work with 6 different armies: your starting loyalist army, an undead army in the underworld, Kalenz and Chantal's elven armies, a dwarf army, and a loyalist army from Parthyn. Which armies are on the recall list varies from scenario to scenario. To an extent that means that long-term strategy doesn't matter, because you keep being given a clean slate; conversely, if you are short of vital units, you might have to go back 10 levels to fix it.

As the campaign progresses, money will become scarce and you'll recall ever smaller armies; don't spread experience among too many units, but strive to build a small core of elite troops. Useful long term strategies are:

* loyalists:
** '''mages''': for your starting loyalist army, mages are important. '''Get 2 white mages as early as you can'''. You face a lot of assassins in the early levels, and from level 7 onward there are a lot of undead. You'll have little use for red mages, one really is enough.
** '''heavy infantry''': not that useful, despite the numbers of undead. Too many of the levels are big wide open spaces, or have difficult terrain where your HI will founder, or you are given holy water or dwarves and so have better options. Nonetheless it is worth recruiting some HI in levels that do suit them, because you lose the ability to recruit them at some points but can still recall them.
** '''horsemen''': now these are useful - the early levels suit them well and you can employ them in numbers. Later you'll be mostly facing undead: paladins will be excellent, but it will be hard to level up any more knights. Make your paladins while you're still facing orcs, you'll hardly be able to make more than three (and probably employ only two).
* elves: standard mixture of elves is fine (although there are many undead, you get holy water to deal with them), except:
** '''sorcerors''': you get a druid free, and will want a second, but perhaps more importantly you want plenty of sorcerors as these are good against the sort of undead that you don't want to melee even with holy water (spectres).
* Delfador: perhaps the most important long run strategy in this campaign is to get Delfador to level 3 early, and near to reaching level 4 by the end of the loyalist levels (1-8). Delfador has to fight one level essentially on his own, and it helps a lot if he is at or near level 4 (the free heal from the level-up would be useful during that level).

==Walkthrough==

You should 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=25554 here]. Feedback is useful as it helps the developers improve the campaign in future versions; and the posts by other players may contain advice or pointers beyond those in this walkthrough.

===Overture===

Just an introduction - sit back and enjoy the show.

===This Valley Belongs to Me===

Objectives: kill Grogor-Tuk, the enemy leader.

This one is tricky (at least at Great Mage - hard). The enemy has a lot of gold and sends a steady stream of units your way for the first day. In the south/centre is the easy bit - defend the river. Use your mage of light here to back up a few horsemen/spearmen to fend off the attackers.

The tricky bit is to the north - wolf riders cross the river to the north and come down through the woods. Some spearmen and mages in the woods works here, and there's a village in the woods to the north to anchor your defence on. Wolf riders don't benefit as much as your units do on the wooded tiles. Aim to give plenty of XP to at least one mage, so you can level him up here or early at the next level.

===The Road to Weldyn===

Objectives: kill Urthaka-Tan, the enemy leader.

You want quite a few horsemen here; it's a good opportunity to get lots of horsemen on your recall list (they are cheaper to recall than recruit later on). There are enough villages to fund recruiting or recalling 9 units and still have positive income throughout. You want at least half of your units to be horsemen: the enemy will have lots of archers who are easy prey in these open fields. You start with an archer and gain the ability to recruit more here, but you are better off recalling or recruiting mages, plus a couple of spearmen to play defence in the first night.

[Thrash: When I played it in 1.8.4, the enemy recruited very few archers, instead it was mainly melee units (trollchens, wolves and grunts) so archers and mages were very useful to me, horsemen less so.]

This level is dead easy to win because the enemy has a small keep, so his forces arrive spread out and not supporting each other. Use the day/night cycle; at night just fall back and, particularly on the first night, use the line of woods and castle tiles just west of your start. Your horsemen can go and take villages and make it back to fight at dawn on day 2. In the day, crush them with the horsemen and mages. You want to level up mages and horsemen.

Once you have crushed the enemy army, take the remaining villages and milk for XP - the early exit bonus is only +15/turn, and you should be able to get +14/turn while prolonging the level. You are heading for knights (for paladins later) and white mages, as per [[#Campaign_Strategy]].

===Leollyn===

Objectives: kill Hagha-Tan, and keep Leollyn alive.

You can ignore the ally in my experience; the enemy send a few units down that way, but the L3 mage and his L2 mage recruits are well able to handle them.

You want to recall at least one and preferably two white mages (there will be lots of assassins), and a horseman near leveling up. The rest of your recruit should be a mix of bowmen and spearmen, including one or two level 2 ones. March up to the ford to the north-west and build a defensive position for the night; keep the front line together with as few units as you can, as most will end up poisoned each turn; cycle them out and replace with others. Once day breaks, hopefully you have enough decent units left to mop up the enemy's first wave; your horseman is ideal to pick off any strong enemy units standing in the water.

Hopefully you can push over the river by afternoon on the second day. You can lure out the enemy leader and then run him down with your knight and Delfador.

[Thash: In my experience you want to finish this one early, by say turn 10, to get a big enough bonus for the next scenario, as it seem impossible with minimum starting gold.]

===Council in Weldyn===

Just story.

===Swamps of Illuven===

Objectives: Delfador must reach signpost in north-east before time runs out.

Spoiler: The protection charge is always 80% of your gold, and gets rid of the north-west enemy (the one not in the way of getting to the signpost). The other enemy player (the one blocking the signpost) gets a small gold bonus. So, you are losing 80% of your gold to get rid of around 40% of the enemy gold; hence, it's normally best to refuse to pay. At Easy, the deal is even worse, as the net effect is only about -25% of the enemy gold. Additionally, there is a gold bonus available if you don't pay and do defeat the NW enemy. It is not noted in the "Objectives"; instead, a treasure chest is shown on the map. Remember to take it.

Option 1, refusing to pay: If you don't pay the charge, you get to recruit a big army, get more XP, and finish quicker. You should be able to hold the central island while pushing a force from there to take out the NW leader. A balanced force would consist of couple of horsemen, 2 white mages, a couple of level 2s, a couple of level 1 mages (which are pretty good against footpads and poachers as they ignore their high defense ratings), and the rest spearmen as fodder to form your defensive line. It is vital to use Lionel's level-3 leadership to help your level-1 units fight better.

Option 2, paying the charge: The level is playable paying the charge if you are coming in with ~250 gold or more. Although it gives the AI a big lead in gold, you have halved the recruit rate for the AIs and ensured that they are all on the far side of the level; the AI's forces don't concentrate so well and your small force can evade them at night. You may prefer this route if you prefer a challenging small-army scouting battle rather than a big army battle. You can win by starting with as little as two raw recruit Spearman and a recalled horseman, if you take some villages so that you can recall some more units later.

===Night in the Swamp===

Objective: survive 12 turns.

It is hard to get an early exit bonus here, and you don't need it, so just take the opportunity to level up some units. Grab some heavy infantry and mages, and perhaps a knight - see [[#Campaign Strategy]].

You can put a generator out of action by landing any level 2 or better mage on it; the level will end when there are no skeletons left. At easy, it appears that there is only one generator - you can storm it and get an early exit bonus if you find the next level easier that way, but I think leveling up units is more useful here.

===Ur-Thorodor===

Objectives: get Delfador into the wose castle. No early exit bonus.

The main hazard here is the gryphons - they will attack as you cross the water. Be careful with Lionel and Delfador; you may need to use fodder to lure the gryphons and then blast them. Recall a red mage, a good damage sink (a knight will do), a healer, and perhaps another mage and a fodder unit. Cross straight away, and don't get bogged down on the other side - blast a hole with your mages and get Delfador into the castle asap. You are not likely to win a long fight. Remember that Lionel's leadership helps mages too.

===Houses of the Dead===

Objective: find the Staff and get Delfador to the north signpost within 64 turns.

Explore to your north-west first - there is one village in that direction. To your north is an impassable barrier behind those mountains, so next turn back and work around the level anti-clockwise. No need to climb through the mountains: if you stick to the "road" you won't miss anything. If you pay attention to what you're told, you'll learn about a secret passage that *will* make life easier. But this scenario is pretty straightforward either way.

The friends you find will try to help, but usually throw their, uh, existences away against the skeletons quite quickly; at least they serve as distraction. Any survivors will be available for recall on the next level, one even for free -- but that's not much of a benefit, so don't worry too much.

Don't exit until turn 64, as there is no early exit bonus but you should have a good income. Waiting gives you more gold for the next scenario (1.8.0).

===The Gate Between Worlds===

* Objectives: kill Iliah-Malal
* Starting units: Delfador and a surviving Ghost, Ghoul or advancement from the previous scenario

You get to recruit Ghosts and Ghouls here, your allies of the last level. Money should be no problem.

Players have used two options with success:

Option 1, attack with Ghouls. Backed by Delfador's leadership, ghouls can actually do a lot of damage. But he can't be everywhere, and anyway the ghouls will probably perish quickly. That's alright, as long as you manage to poison most enemies. There's not enough villages for your opponent to heal his army, and if you give battle on your shore of the swamp they won't get anywhere quickly. Ghosts can then finish the poisoned enemies.

Option 2, leader assassination with Ghosts. Send 8 Ghosts around the flanks of the enemy to converge on Iliah-Malal, surrounding and killing him, albeit slowly. Send a Ghoul-heavy force supported by Delfador and a couple of Ghosts up the middle to distract the majority of the enemy forces. Delfador should be cautious; he is only there to distract, and the Dark Adepts and Thugs pack enough of a punch to kill him if you are not careful.

Note: You will be able to recall this undead force in a later scenario, but this may not be very useful, so you don't have to worry about leveling up units for later levels. [glandis: Somewhere in 1.9.x, recalling at least one undead became vital in that later scenario. I found having two shadows really useful.]
===Wasteland===

Objectives: kill Tish Golub

Straightforward scenario, albeit the enemy can recruit L2 units and you have only raw Elven recruits. The walk north to the Elven castle is simple. Most of the fighting takes place in the woods that you can see to your west, so elven archers are good here. Also grab a scout to steal all your ally's villages, otherwise she will keep recruiting L2 units and stealing your XP. Definitely recruit 1 or 2 shamans, as you would like to have a sorcerer early in the next level.

===Terror at the Ford of Parthyn===

Objectives: defeat both the orc and undead leaders.

'''Conservative strategy:'''
As soon as you spot the ford guard, it will come under your control. Using a scout, you can get there in time for the humans to man the walls. Actually, the walls are one huge keep, so Delfador can recruit directly into the fortifications and fill the gaps. You should be able to fend off the first wave of attackers, the more so as the baddies will conveniently arrive at daybreak. The mages, on the other hand, won't get across the river until the fun is mostly over; recall your own healers. You should leave two mages on the other shore anyway, in order to deal with any ghosts that try to get at the villages down there.

'''Play-it-safe strategy:'''
Abandon the northern shore; run to the south castle (without recruiting at all) and play defensive through the first wave of enemies. The orcs and undead are hostile to each other, so this gives them ample opportunity to fight amongst themselves. ''Needs investigation and comments.''

'''Aggressive strategy:'''
Recruit/Recall an army and send them west to deal with the orcs; only one scout should head south and find the guards, which should then retreat to the sourthern castle. The downside is that this approach will lead to more night-time engagements; dont try this if you don't have several lvl-2 elves to begin with. The benefit is that you'll get more experience on the units that need it most: your elves and the human mages. The latter will stay with your host, and often be automatically recalled for free.

You will find that some villages in the north of the map contain ambushes. Two villages near the ford contain allied troops; releasing these early would be a big help to defending the south castle.

===The Return of Trouble===

Objectives: defeat all enemy leaders.

This level has a no-breathing-room start - the east enemy is almost on top of you and has as much gold as you (at Great Mage). The mountains and starting camp are poor terrain for you as that terrain is better for orcs; cross your forces into the woods opposite where you have advantages in defence and movement.

Although you can recruit "raw" L2 units here, don't feel you need to recruit too many of them; the large number of enemy L2s attacking mean that it is hard to keep units in the front line alive, and so recruiting good numbers of units matters here. Recruiting a few druids and captains and recruiting L1 units for the bulk of the army works well.

The ally spends his forces quickly and his leader will die early, but you aren't required to keep him alive, so don't worry about him; when he dies it is even an advantage as it stops encouraging the orcs to go through the woods south of your position.

At lower skills, aim to knock out the east enemy early. His right flank is open but rests on the mountains, which is bad terrain for you - if you try to go around that way he can easily shift forces to meet you. Instead you can approach close to his keep through the woods; this, his left flank, usually isn't open but the AI isn't smart about keeping a proper line here. At Great Mage, you may not have the forces to spare to take him out (if you can even make an opening - he has plenty of units); instead slow him with a shaman when he pops out of his keep to attack and block him from getting back to recruit. Note: With the right recruits it is possible to snipe the east leader on the second turn (but rather difficult and low probability).

You should aim to maintain a line along the north part of the woods; the main line is down the west side of the woods for a few tiles and this is where Kalenz should be; and a line back east inside the wood for your left flank, to catch enemy units coming at you through the woods. Hold out in the woods for 2 days and the storm will eventually subside; you will probably have heavy losses but your survivors should all be L3 or close to it by the end. You can then seize villages and take out the enemy commanders.

===Shadows===

Objectives: defeat all enemy leaders.

You start with your Kalenz force, and get back your Delfador force during the scenario (he arrives in the SE). Grab all three holy waters near the start, but you should then move all your elven forces in one direction, head west to take out the west lich. The forest slows up most of the undead and so means that the undead converging from the other two camps won't catch you before you overwhelm and eliminate the enemy leader that you target. Because you are facing some L1 and L2 troops here, don't feel that you need to give the holy water to L3 units - a mix of L1 and L2 units is ideal and they should level all the way to L3 during the level. Recall any Elven sorcerers or shaman with good XP, and shaman are good extra recruits at the start, again to level to sorcerers.

Once you have knocked out the NW leader, your elven force should head south to take out the south leader, and Delfador's force can head north to take out the NE leader. Lots of the undead forces will spend the whole level floundering around in the north woods around your start camp, chasing but never catching you up.

===Save the King===

Objectives: kill Zorlan, and (at Mage and above) kill all the enemy leaders; and keep Garard alive until that is done.

You don't have to worry about Garard - even at Great Mage, he is more than strong enough to defeat the two southern enemies and his forces significantly help defeat Zorlan (1.8.0). You get a big automatic recall of your white mages, Chantal, and a shock trooper and Kalenz; that's plenty to win with, but recruit some new elves as it gives you some units to give XP to, fodder to face the trolls with, and they are handy to take out the SW enemy faster (at Mage and above). An elven sorcerer is a good recall, but 1 is enough.

Zorlan should be simple; some of his units tangle with Garard's units in the river, so you should meet little opposition getting to his camp - which can be easily crushed with your mages. The onset of trolls at around first watch is the only dangerous moment, but once they have attacked, your mages and high level units can wipe them out mostly in one round. Then send Delfador and a couple of other units to take out the troll leader, and send some elves south with Kalenz to help Garard clean up and then take out the SW leader. Garard usually kills the SE leader by himself.

===Dark Sky Over Weldyn===

Just story.

===A New Ally===

Objectives: kill Gruv-Malal; keep Ulrek and Relgorn alive.

Recruit and recall some mages - get a few L1s and you should be able to level up a couple by the end of the level. Move to Ulrek's keep - provided you have some units there by second watch, there is no danger of him being defeated. The dwarves wear down the undead and your mages get to clean up and take the XP.

===The Portal of Doom===

Objectives: close the portal and get your units out via the mine shaft where you start.

Heavy-infantry are too slow on the ice. Similarly it is best to recall quick mages. Your main force should be dwarf warriors, with a few white mages or quick mages to weaken enemy units and to deal with nightgaunts and the like. A knight (even better, a paladin) would also be useful here, due to the speed and for finishing off enemy units when the dwarves can't reach.

Don't worry about the villages to the north - Illah-Malal appears on day 2 at the north castle, so scouting units sent north would probably get killed. You can defend at your camp to defeat the first wave of undead, then march over the ice to close the portal; the northern undead will come to you. You will finish with deep negative gold but it doesn't matter.

===Showdown in the Northern Swamp===

* Objectives: kill all enemy leaders.
* Other: must kill Illah-Malal with Delfador. [glandis: in 1.9.x somewhere, this was changed so that one of the undead must kill Illah-Malal]

There is lots of holy water at the start, and you might struggle to have enough units to give it to. You get control of Lionel on turn 3 (plus a castle of rubbish L1 recruits), so you don't have to take villages off of him. I suggest give Lionel and Kalenz a holy water each and the third to a good L2 melee unit or knight. Your other 4 recalls could be 2 white mages, a steelclad and a paladin (or a knight close to leveling - as it is an open level).

A good strategy here is to strike straight north and seize the south end of the bridge. The NE necromancer recruits a lot of dark adepts, and you will have to run a long way during the night to outrun them if you don't bottle them up at the crossing. Once you hold the bridge, a good melee unit and a white mage, plus some of the ally's archers, can easily hold off the NE forces. The NW enemies attack during the first night, and the main tricky bit is dealing with the nightgaunts and spectres here - just keep L2 and L3 melee units in the front line to meet the attack, then clean up with your mages. The SW enemy's units are slower and arrive on day 2; so by moving to the bridge, you've split the enemy attack and can crush each in turn.

===Prince of Wesnoth===

Objectives: kill an enemy commander.

Do not attempt to cross into the central woods; it seems like a tempting spot to fight from, but you will struggle to maximise your recruitment and still get all your units across into it, because the southern enemy camp is close to your line of advance. Instead, abandon all your villages and the rest of the level to the enemy and just defend the SW corner. Elves along the edge of the woods should be able to hold out and wear through the enemy. The number of L2 units, and the mages that the enemy recruit, mean that you will take casualties; but you will be killing a lot and scoring plenty of XP. A general mix of level 1, 2 and 3 units works well here; use the best units to hold tiles that can be attacked from several directions, which will deter the enemy from attacking them.

Once the initial wave of enemies is spent, mop up and proceed swiftly through the central woods and jump into an enemy camp to kill the general. You don't have to have much gold for the next level, but will want high-level units, so take time here to level some up if you don't have enough.

====Alternative Strategy====
crus4a8e: I used the following on V1.8.5 (hard) with minimum starting gold of 100. While I had a though struggle using the strategy described above, doing the following worked nicely and was quite a fun way of playing this scenario, too.

Recall the following units: 4 Avengers or Rangers, 2 Shydes. (Remember: Avengers/Rangers are invisible in the woods which comes in very handy in this scenario.)

Kalenz and the 2 Shydes stay in the western woods. Start moving them up to the northern part of the woods in the beginning and then back down south. Basically their job is not to get killed. ;-) So only attack single enemies and retreat whenever you are under serious attack.

The Avengers cross over into the central woods right away. Whenever only one or at most two enemy units are in reach, they attack or flag villages to become visible and lure individual enemy units into the woods. This also distracts most of the main enemy forces and stops them from attacking Kalenz.

Doing this for about 10 to 15 turns wears down the enemy forces quite easily. When only a few enemy units are left, move your 4 Avenger/Ranger units into the keep of either one enemy leader. You should be able to finish him off in 1 or at most 2 turns.

===Clash at the Manor===

Objectives: kill the enemy commander; prevent any enemies escaping via the roads.

As there are two roads and two signposts, you need to watch both routes. You can break your forces in two or just send one unit to keep an eye on the other route. If you wait at the edge of your forest, almost all the forces should come to you (Dragoons and Cavalry will try to escape instead), and you'll have the terrain advantage. Just be ready to counter anyone trying to make a run for it. You start with Chantal, and a second druid or shyde would be a good idea so that you have a healer and someone to entangle any royal guards. The rest of your recalls should be top melee units (e.g., champions and avengers.) After the assault is broken, the mopping up operation is just to kill the sitting duck leader.

The second phase of the level is a search; just visit all the tiles outside the cave area north of the mansion.

[Thrash: I don't think just sending a single unit to cover one route will work. If enemy sends a couple riders that way, you won't catch them.]

===Face of the Enemy===

Objectives: kill the enemy commander.

Last level, so you don't have to worry about losses or leveling up; recall some sorcerers and a decent melee unit to take the holy water. The enemy recruits few units, so you don't have to cover all the passageways; just advance as a group by the shortest route to the keep, and keep side passages covered (the enemy sometimes uses nightgaunts to ambush and slip in through any gaps). Beware of putting Delfador in front, as the enemy can use Banebows like walking corpses for suicide attacks against him.

This scenario is too easy up to at least 1.8.4, so just play conservatively and coast to victory.

== Old Version ==

Before its inclusion as a mainline campaign, Delfador's Memoirs was distributed as a separate add-on.

=== Installation notes ===

Delfador's Memoirs is distributed as a tarball (.tar.gz), containing all sources for the campaign.
The tarball is built with automake. To install, unpack it, change into the directory delfadors-memoirs-(version) and
run (as root) "./configure && make && make install"

If you can't install DM this way, then you may install download and install it from the campaign server (you will need wesnoth 0.8.5 or a current CVS version to do this).

=== Download ===

Version 0.1: (3 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth = 0.7.7
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/memoirs-0.1.tar.gz

Version 0.2: (7 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth = 0.7.9
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.2.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.2.zip

Version 0.3: (9 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.7.11 (=0.7.11 for the tarball)
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.3.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.3.zip

Version 0.4: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.7.11, <= 0.8.3
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.4.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.4.zip

Version 0.5: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.4, <= 0.8.7
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.tar.gz

Version 0.5.1: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.4, <= 0.8.7
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.1.tar.gz

Version 0.5.2: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.9
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.2.tar.gz

== See Also ==

* [[Mainline Campaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

DelfadorsMemoirs

2012-01-06T20:55:01Z

Glandis: /* Showdown in the Northern Swamp */

==Story==

This campaign follows the adventures of Delfador, beginning from him leaving home as a newly qualified journeyman mage,
and leading up to him helping to bring peace to Wesnoth. It is set a couple of generations earlier than "Heir to the
Throne".

==Development==

Original developer: email to Josh Parsons, jp30 AT st-and.ac.uk.
Thread is at http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1293.

More recently, the campaign has been picked up and improved by 'tapik' - see [[CampaignDelfadorsMemoirs]].

==Campaign Strategy==

This section gives some advice on long-term strategy in this campaign.

''NOTE: plot spoilers''. In this campaign, you work with 6 different armies: your starting loyalist army, an undead army in the underworld, Kalenz and Chantal's elven armies, a dwarf army, and a loyalist army from Parthyn. Which armies are on the recall list varies from scenario to scenario. To an extent that means that long-term strategy doesn't matter, because you keep being given a clean slate; conversely, if you are short of vital units, you might have to go back 10 levels to fix it.

As the campaign progresses, money will become scarce and you'll recall ever smaller armies; don't spread experience among too many units, but strive to build a small core of elite troops. Useful long term strategies are:

* loyalists:
** '''mages''': for your starting loyalist army, mages are important. '''Get 2 white mages as early as you can'''. You face a lot of assassins in the early levels, and from level 7 onward there are a lot of undead. You'll have little use for red mages, one really is enough.
** '''heavy infantry''': not that useful, despite the numbers of undead. Too many of the levels are big wide open spaces, or have difficult terrain where your HI will founder, or you are given holy water or dwarves and so have better options. Nonetheless it is worth recruiting some HI in levels that do suit them, because you lose the ability to recruit them at some points but can still recall them.
** '''horsemen''': now these are useful - the early levels suit them well and you can employ them in numbers. Later you'll be mostly facing undead: paladins will be excellent, but it will be hard to level up any more knights. Make your paladins while you're still facing orcs, you'll hardly be able to make more than three (and probably employ only two).
* elves: standard mixture of elves is fine (although there are many undead, you get holy water to deal with them), except:
** '''sorcerors''': you get a druid free, and will want a second, but perhaps more importantly you want plenty of sorcerors as these are good against the sort of undead that you don't want to melee even with holy water (spectres).
* Delfador: perhaps the most important long run strategy in this campaign is to get Delfador to level 3 early, and near to reaching level 4 by the end of the loyalist levels (1-8). Delfador has to fight one level essentially on his own, and it helps a lot if he is at or near level 4 (the free heal from the level-up would be useful during that level).

==Walkthrough==

You should 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=25554 here]. Feedback is useful as it helps the developers improve the campaign in future versions; and the posts by other players may contain advice or pointers beyond those in this walkthrough.

===Overture===

Just an introduction - sit back and enjoy the show.

===This Valley Belongs to Me===

Objectives: kill Grogor-Tuk, the enemy leader.

This one is tricky (at least at Great Mage - hard). The enemy has a lot of gold and sends a steady stream of units your way for the first day. In the south/centre is the easy bit - defend the river. Use your mage of light here to back up a few horsemen/spearmen to fend off the attackers.

The tricky bit is to the north - wolf riders cross the river to the north and come down through the woods. Some spearmen and mages in the woods works here, and there's a village in the woods to the north to anchor your defence on. Wolf riders don't benefit as much as your units do on the wooded tiles. Aim to give plenty of XP to at least one mage, so you can level him up here or early at the next level.

===The Road to Weldyn===

Objectives: kill Urthaka-Tan, the enemy leader.

You want quite a few horsemen here; it's a good opportunity to get lots of horsemen on your recall list (they are cheaper to recall than recruit later on). There are enough villages to fund recruiting or recalling 9 units and still have positive income throughout. You want at least half of your units to be horsemen: the enemy will have lots of archers who are easy prey in these open fields. You start with an archer and gain the ability to recruit more here, but you are better off recalling or recruiting mages, plus a couple of spearmen to play defence in the first night.

[Thrash: When I played it in 1.8.4, the enemy recruited very few archers, instead it was mainly melee units (trollchens, wolves and grunts) so archers and mages were very useful to me, horsemen less so.]

This level is dead easy to win because the enemy has a small keep, so his forces arrive spread out and not supporting each other. Use the day/night cycle; at night just fall back and, particularly on the first night, use the line of woods and castle tiles just west of your start. Your horsemen can go and take villages and make it back to fight at dawn on day 2. In the day, crush them with the horsemen and mages. You want to level up mages and horsemen.

Once you have crushed the enemy army, take the remaining villages and milk for XP - the early exit bonus is only +15/turn, and you should be able to get +14/turn while prolonging the level. You are heading for knights (for paladins later) and white mages, as per [[#Campaign_Strategy]].

===Leollyn===

Objectives: kill Hagha-Tan, and keep Leollyn alive.

You can ignore the ally in my experience; the enemy send a few units down that way, but the L3 mage and his L2 mage recruits are well able to handle them.

You want to recall at least one and preferably two white mages (there will be lots of assassins), and a horseman near leveling up. The rest of your recruit should be a mix of bowmen and spearmen, including one or two level 2 ones. March up to the ford to the north-west and build a defensive position for the night; keep the front line together with as few units as you can, as most will end up poisoned each turn; cycle them out and replace with others. Once day breaks, hopefully you have enough decent units left to mop up the enemy's first wave; your horseman is ideal to pick off any strong enemy units standing in the water.

Hopefully you can push over the river by afternoon on the second day. You can lure out the enemy leader and then run him down with your knight and Delfador.

[Thash: In my experience you want to finish this one early, by say turn 10, to get a big enough bonus for the next scenario, as it seem impossible with minimum starting gold.]

===Council in Weldyn===

Just story.

===Swamps of Illuven===

Objectives: Delfador must reach signpost in north-east before time runs out.

Spoiler: The protection charge is always 80% of your gold, and gets rid of the north-west enemy (the one not in the way of getting to the signpost). The other enemy player (the one blocking the signpost) gets a small gold bonus. So, you are losing 80% of your gold to get rid of around 40% of the enemy gold; hence, it's normally best to refuse to pay. At Easy, the deal is even worse, as the net effect is only about -25% of the enemy gold. Additionally, there is a gold bonus available if you don't pay and do defeat the NW enemy. It is not noted in the "Objectives"; instead, a treasure chest is shown on the map. Remember to take it.

Option 1, refusing to pay: If you don't pay the charge, you get to recruit a big army, get more XP, and finish quicker. You should be able to hold the central island while pushing a force from there to take out the NW leader. A balanced force would consist of couple of horsemen, 2 white mages, a couple of level 2s, a couple of level 1 mages (which are pretty good against footpads and poachers as they ignore their high defense ratings), and the rest spearmen as fodder to form your defensive line. It is vital to use Lionel's level-3 leadership to help your level-1 units fight better.

Option 2, paying the charge: The level is playable paying the charge if you are coming in with ~250 gold or more. Although it gives the AI a big lead in gold, you have halved the recruit rate for the AIs and ensured that they are all on the far side of the level; the AI's forces don't concentrate so well and your small force can evade them at night. You may prefer this route if you prefer a challenging small-army scouting battle rather than a big army battle. You can win by starting with as little as two raw recruit Spearman and a recalled horseman, if you take some villages so that you can recall some more units later.

===Night in the Swamp===

Objective: survive 12 turns.

It is hard to get an early exit bonus here, and you don't need it, so just take the opportunity to level up some units. Grab some heavy infantry and mages, and perhaps a knight - see [[#Campaign Strategy]].

You can put a generator out of action by landing any level 2 or better mage on it; the level will end when there are no skeletons left. At easy, it appears that there is only one generator - you can storm it and get an early exit bonus if you find the next level easier that way, but I think leveling up units is more useful here.

===Ur-Thorodor===

Objectives: get Delfador into the wose castle. No early exit bonus.

The main hazard here is the gryphons - they will attack as you cross the water. Be careful with Lionel and Delfador; you may need to use fodder to lure the gryphons and then blast them. Recall a red mage, a good damage sink (a knight will do), a healer, and perhaps another mage and a fodder unit. Cross straight away, and don't get bogged down on the other side - blast a hole with your mages and get Delfador into the castle asap. You are not likely to win a long fight. Remember that Lionel's leadership helps mages too.

===Houses of the Dead===

Objective: find the Staff and get Delfador to the north signpost within 64 turns.

Explore to your north-west first - there is one village in that direction. To your north is an impassable barrier behind those mountains, so next turn back and work around the level anti-clockwise. No need to climb through the mountains: if you stick to the "road" you won't miss anything. If you pay attention to what you're told, you'll learn about a secret passage that *will* make life easier. But this scenario is pretty straightforward either way.

The friends you find will try to help, but usually throw their, uh, existences away against the skeletons quite quickly; at least they serve as distraction. Any survivors will be available for recall on the next level, one even for free -- but that's not much of a benefit, so don't worry too much.

Don't exit until turn 64, as there is no early exit bonus but you should have a good income. Waiting gives you more gold for the next scenario (1.8.0).

===The Gate Between Worlds===

* Objectives: kill Iliah-Malal
* Starting units: Delfador and a surviving Ghost, Ghoul or advancement from the previous scenario

You get to recruit Ghosts and Ghouls here, your allies of the last level. Money should be no problem.

Players have used two options with success:

Option 1, attack with Ghouls. Backed by Delfador's leadership, ghouls can actually do a lot of damage. But he can't be everywhere, and anyway the ghouls will probably perish quickly. That's alright, as long as you manage to poison most enemies. There's not enough villages for your opponent to heal his army, and if you give battle on your shore of the swamp they won't get anywhere quickly. Ghosts can then finish the poisoned enemies.

Option 2, leader assassination with Ghosts. Send 8 Ghosts around the flanks of the enemy to converge on Iliah-Malal, surrounding and killing him, albeit slowly. Send a Ghoul-heavy force supported by Delfador and a couple of Ghosts up the middle to distract the majority of the enemy forces. Delfador should be cautious; he is only there to distract, and the Dark Adepts and Thugs pack enough of a punch to kill him if you are not careful.

Note: You will be able to recall this undead force in a later scenario, but this may not be very useful, so you don't have to worry about leveling up units for later levels. [glandis: Somewhere in 1.9.x, recalling at least one undead became vital in that later scenario. I found having two shadows really useful.]
===Wasteland===

Objectives: kill Tish Golub

Straightforward scenario, albeit the enemy can recruit L2 units and you have only raw Elven recruits. The walk north to the Elven castle is simple. Most of the fighting takes place in the woods that you can see to your west, so elven archers are good here. Also grab a scout to steal all your ally's villages, otherwise she will keep recruiting L2 units and stealing your XP. Definitely recruit 1 or 2 shamans, as you would like to have a sorcerer early in the next level.

===Terror at the Ford of Parthyn===

Objectives: defeat both the orc and undead leaders.

'''Conservative strategy:'''
As soon as you spot the ford guard, it will come under your control. Using a scout, you can get there in time for the humans to man the walls. Actually, the walls are one huge keep, so Delfador can recruit directly into the fortifications and fill the gaps. You should be able to fend off the first wave of attackers, the more so as the baddies will conveniently arrive at daybreak. The mages, on the other hand, won't get across the river until the fun is mostly over; recall your own healers. You should leave two mages on the other shore anyway, in order to deal with any ghosts that try to get at the villages down there.

'''Play-it-safe strategy:'''
Abandon the northern shore; run to the south castle (without recruiting at all) and play defensive through the first wave of enemies. The orcs and undead are hostile to each other, so this gives them ample opportunity to fight amongst themselves. ''Needs investigation and comments.''

'''Aggressive strategy:'''
Recruit/Recall an army and send them west to deal with the orcs; only one scout should head south and find the guards, which should then retreat to the sourthern castle. The downside is that this approach will lead to more night-time engagements; dont try this if you don't have several lvl-2 elves to begin with. The benefit is that you'll get more experience on the units that need it most: your elves and the human mages. The latter will stay with your host, and often be automatically recalled for free.

You will find that some villages in the north of the map contain ambushes. Two villages near the ford contain allied troops; releasing these early would be a big help to defending the south castle.

===The Return of Trouble===

Objectives: defeat all enemy leaders.

This level has a no-breathing-room start - the east enemy is almost on top of you and has as much gold as you (at Great Mage). The mountains and starting camp are poor terrain for you as that terrain is better for orcs; cross your forces into the woods opposite where you have advantages in defence and movement.

Although you can recruit "raw" L2 units here, don't feel you need to recruit too many of them; the large number of enemy L2s attacking mean that it is hard to keep units in the front line alive, and so recruiting good numbers of units matters here. Recruiting a few druids and captains and recruiting L1 units for the bulk of the army works well.

The ally spends his forces quickly and his leader will die early, but you aren't required to keep him alive, so don't worry about him; when he dies it is even an advantage as it stops encouraging the orcs to go through the woods south of your position.

At lower skills, aim to knock out the east enemy early. His right flank is open but rests on the mountains, which is bad terrain for you - if you try to go around that way he can easily shift forces to meet you. Instead you can approach close to his keep through the woods; this, his left flank, usually isn't open but the AI isn't smart about keeping a proper line here. At Great Mage, you may not have the forces to spare to take him out (if you can even make an opening - he has plenty of units); instead slow him with a shaman when he pops out of his keep to attack and block him from getting back to recruit. Note: With the right recruits it is possible to snipe the east leader on the second turn (but rather difficult and low probability).

You should aim to maintain a line along the north part of the woods; the main line is down the west side of the woods for a few tiles and this is where Kalenz should be; and a line back east inside the wood for your left flank, to catch enemy units coming at you through the woods. Hold out in the woods for 2 days and the storm will eventually subside; you will probably have heavy losses but your survivors should all be L3 or close to it by the end. You can then seize villages and take out the enemy commanders.

===Shadows===

Objectives: defeat all enemy leaders.

You start with your Kalenz force, and get back your Delfador force during the scenario (he arrives in the SE). Grab all three holy waters near the start, but you should then move all your elven forces in one direction, head west to take out the west lich. The forest slows up most of the undead and so means that the undead converging from the other two camps won't catch you before you overwhelm and eliminate the enemy leader that you target. Because you are facing some L1 and L2 troops here, don't feel that you need to give the holy water to L3 units - a mix of L1 and L2 units is ideal and they should level all the way to L3 during the level. Recall any Elven sorcerers or shaman with good XP, and shaman are good extra recruits at the start, again to level to sorcerers.

Once you have knocked out the NW leader, your elven force should head south to take out the south leader, and Delfador's force can head north to take out the NE leader. Lots of the undead forces will spend the whole level floundering around in the north woods around your start camp, chasing but never catching you up.

===Save the King===

Objectives: kill Zorlan, and (at Mage and above) kill all the enemy leaders; and keep Garard alive until that is done.

You don't have to worry about Garard - even at Great Mage, he is more than strong enough to defeat the two southern enemies and his forces significantly help defeat Zorlan (1.8.0). You get a big automatic recall of your white mages, Chantal, and a shock trooper and Kalenz; that's plenty to win with, but recruit some new elves as it gives you some units to give XP to, fodder to face the trolls with, and they are handy to take out the SW enemy faster (at Mage and above). An elven sorcerer is a good recall, but 1 is enough.

Zorlan should be simple; some of his units tangle with Garard's units in the river, so you should meet little opposition getting to his camp - which can be easily crushed with your mages. The onset of trolls at around first watch is the only dangerous moment, but once they have attacked, your mages and high level units can wipe them out mostly in one round. Then send Delfador and a couple of other units to take out the troll leader, and send some elves south with Kalenz to help Garard clean up and then take out the SW leader. Garard usually kills the SE leader by himself.

===Dark Sky Over Weldyn===

Just story.

===A New Ally===

Objectives: kill Gruv-Malal; keep Ulrek and Relgorn alive.

Recruit and recall some mages - get a few L1s and you should be able to level up a couple by the end of the level. Move to Ulrek's keep - provided you have some units there by second watch, there is no danger of him being defeated. The dwarves wear down the undead and your mages get to clean up and take the XP.

===The Portal of Doom===

Objectives: close the portal and get your units out via the mine shaft where you start.

Heavy-infantry are too slow on the ice. Similarly it is best to recall quick mages. Your main force should be dwarf warriors, with a few white mages or quick mages to weaken enemy units and to deal with nightgaunts and the like. A knight (even better, a paladin) would also be useful here, due to the speed and for finishing off enemy units when the dwarves can't reach.

Don't worry about the villages to the north - Illah-Malal appears on day 2 at the north castle, so scouting units sent north would probably get killed. You can defend at your camp to defeat the first wave of undead, then march over the ice to close the portal; the northern undead will come to you. You will finish with deep negative gold but it doesn't matter.

===Showdown in the Northern Swamp===

* Objectives: kill all enemy leaders.
* Other: must kill Illah-Malal with Delfador.[glandis: in 1.9.x somewhere, this was changed so that one of the undead must kill Illah-Malal.]

There is lots of holy water at the start, and you might struggle to have enough units to give it to. You get control of Lionel on turn 3 (plus a castle of rubbish L1 recruits), so you don't have to take villages off of him. I suggest give Lionel and Kalenz a holy water each and the third to a good L2 melee unit or knight. Your other 4 recalls could be 2 white mages, a steelclad and a paladin (or a knight close to leveling - as it is an open level).

A good strategy here is to strike straight north and seize the south end of the bridge. The NE necromancer recruits a lot of dark adepts, and you will have to run a long way during the night to outrun them if you don't bottle them up at the crossing. Once you hold the bridge, a good melee unit and a white mage, plus some of the ally's archers, can easily hold off the NE forces. The NW enemies attack during the first night, and the main tricky bit is dealing with the nightgaunts and spectres here - just keep L2 and L3 melee units in the front line to meet the attack, then clean up with your mages. The SW enemy's units are slower and arrive on day 2; so by moving to the bridge, you've split the enemy attack and can crush each in turn.

===Prince of Wesnoth===

Objectives: kill an enemy commander.

Do not attempt to cross into the central woods; it seems like a tempting spot to fight from, but you will struggle to maximise your recruitment and still get all your units across into it, because the southern enemy camp is close to your line of advance. Instead, abandon all your villages and the rest of the level to the enemy and just defend the SW corner. Elves along the edge of the woods should be able to hold out and wear through the enemy. The number of L2 units, and the mages that the enemy recruit, mean that you will take casualties; but you will be killing a lot and scoring plenty of XP. A general mix of level 1, 2 and 3 units works well here; use the best units to hold tiles that can be attacked from several directions, which will deter the enemy from attacking them.

Once the initial wave of enemies is spent, mop up and proceed swiftly through the central woods and jump into an enemy camp to kill the general. You don't have to have much gold for the next level, but will want high-level units, so take time here to level some up if you don't have enough.

====Alternative Strategy====
crus4a8e: I used the following on V1.8.5 (hard) with minimum starting gold of 100. While I had a though struggle using the strategy described above, doing the following worked nicely and was quite a fun way of playing this scenario, too.

Recall the following units: 4 Avengers or Rangers, 2 Shydes. (Remember: Avengers/Rangers are invisible in the woods which comes in very handy in this scenario.)

Kalenz and the 2 Shydes stay in the western woods. Start moving them up to the northern part of the woods in the beginning and then back down south. Basically their job is not to get killed. ;-) So only attack single enemies and retreat whenever you are under serious attack.

The Avengers cross over into the central woods right away. Whenever only one or at most two enemy units are in reach, they attack or flag villages to become visible and lure individual enemy units into the woods. This also distracts most of the main enemy forces and stops them from attacking Kalenz.

Doing this for about 10 to 15 turns wears down the enemy forces quite easily. When only a few enemy units are left, move your 4 Avenger/Ranger units into the keep of either one enemy leader. You should be able to finish him off in 1 or at most 2 turns.

===Clash at the Manor===

Objectives: kill the enemy commander; prevent any enemies escaping via the roads.

As there are two roads and two signposts, you need to watch both routes. You can break your forces in two or just send one unit to keep an eye on the other route. If you wait at the edge of your forest, almost all the forces should come to you (Dragoons and Cavalry will try to escape instead), and you'll have the terrain advantage. Just be ready to counter anyone trying to make a run for it. You start with Chantal, and a second druid or shyde would be a good idea so that you have a healer and someone to entangle any royal guards. The rest of your recalls should be top melee units (e.g., champions and avengers.) After the assault is broken, the mopping up operation is just to kill the sitting duck leader.

The second phase of the level is a search; just visit all the tiles outside the cave area north of the mansion.

[Thrash: I don't think just sending a single unit to cover one route will work. If enemy sends a couple riders that way, you won't catch them.]

===Face of the Enemy===

Objectives: kill the enemy commander.

Last level, so you don't have to worry about losses or leveling up; recall some sorcerers and a decent melee unit to take the holy water. The enemy recruits few units, so you don't have to cover all the passageways; just advance as a group by the shortest route to the keep, and keep side passages covered (the enemy sometimes uses nightgaunts to ambush and slip in through any gaps). Beware of putting Delfador in front, as the enemy can use Banebows like walking corpses for suicide attacks against him.

This scenario is too easy up to at least 1.8.4, so just play conservatively and coast to victory.

== Old Version ==

Before its inclusion as a mainline campaign, Delfador's Memoirs was distributed as a separate add-on.

=== Installation notes ===

Delfador's Memoirs is distributed as a tarball (.tar.gz), containing all sources for the campaign.
The tarball is built with automake. To install, unpack it, change into the directory delfadors-memoirs-(version) and
run (as root) "./configure && make && make install"

If you can't install DM this way, then you may install download and install it from the campaign server (you will need wesnoth 0.8.5 or a current CVS version to do this).

=== Download ===

Version 0.1: (3 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth = 0.7.7
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/memoirs-0.1.tar.gz

Version 0.2: (7 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth = 0.7.9
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.2.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.2.zip

Version 0.3: (9 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.7.11 (=0.7.11 for the tarball)
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.3.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.3.zip

Version 0.4: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.7.11, <= 0.8.3
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.4.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.4.zip

Version 0.5: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.4, <= 0.8.7
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.tar.gz

Version 0.5.1: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.4, <= 0.8.7
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.1.tar.gz

Version 0.5.2: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.9
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.2.tar.gz

== See Also ==

* [[Mainline Campaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

DelfadorsMemoirs

2012-01-06T20:53:27Z

Glandis:

==Story==

This campaign follows the adventures of Delfador, beginning from him leaving home as a newly qualified journeyman mage,
and leading up to him helping to bring peace to Wesnoth. It is set a couple of generations earlier than "Heir to the
Throne".

==Development==

Original developer: email to Josh Parsons, jp30 AT st-and.ac.uk.
Thread is at http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1293.

More recently, the campaign has been picked up and improved by 'tapik' - see [[CampaignDelfadorsMemoirs]].

==Campaign Strategy==

This section gives some advice on long-term strategy in this campaign.

''NOTE: plot spoilers''. In this campaign, you work with 6 different armies: your starting loyalist army, an undead army in the underworld, Kalenz and Chantal's elven armies, a dwarf army, and a loyalist army from Parthyn. Which armies are on the recall list varies from scenario to scenario. To an extent that means that long-term strategy doesn't matter, because you keep being given a clean slate; conversely, if you are short of vital units, you might have to go back 10 levels to fix it.

As the campaign progresses, money will become scarce and you'll recall ever smaller armies; don't spread experience among too many units, but strive to build a small core of elite troops. Useful long term strategies are:

* loyalists:
** '''mages''': for your starting loyalist army, mages are important. '''Get 2 white mages as early as you can'''. You face a lot of assassins in the early levels, and from level 7 onward there are a lot of undead. You'll have little use for red mages, one really is enough.
** '''heavy infantry''': not that useful, despite the numbers of undead. Too many of the levels are big wide open spaces, or have difficult terrain where your HI will founder, or you are given holy water or dwarves and so have better options. Nonetheless it is worth recruiting some HI in levels that do suit them, because you lose the ability to recruit them at some points but can still recall them.
** '''horsemen''': now these are useful - the early levels suit them well and you can employ them in numbers. Later you'll be mostly facing undead: paladins will be excellent, but it will be hard to level up any more knights. Make your paladins while you're still facing orcs, you'll hardly be able to make more than three (and probably employ only two).
* elves: standard mixture of elves is fine (although there are many undead, you get holy water to deal with them), except:
** '''sorcerors''': you get a druid free, and will want a second, but perhaps more importantly you want plenty of sorcerors as these are good against the sort of undead that you don't want to melee even with holy water (spectres).
* Delfador: perhaps the most important long run strategy in this campaign is to get Delfador to level 3 early, and near to reaching level 4 by the end of the loyalist levels (1-8). Delfador has to fight one level essentially on his own, and it helps a lot if he is at or near level 4 (the free heal from the level-up would be useful during that level).

==Walkthrough==

You should 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=25554 here]. Feedback is useful as it helps the developers improve the campaign in future versions; and the posts by other players may contain advice or pointers beyond those in this walkthrough.

===Overture===

Just an introduction - sit back and enjoy the show.

===This Valley Belongs to Me===

Objectives: kill Grogor-Tuk, the enemy leader.

This one is tricky (at least at Great Mage - hard). The enemy has a lot of gold and sends a steady stream of units your way for the first day. In the south/centre is the easy bit - defend the river. Use your mage of light here to back up a few horsemen/spearmen to fend off the attackers.

The tricky bit is to the north - wolf riders cross the river to the north and come down through the woods. Some spearmen and mages in the woods works here, and there's a village in the woods to the north to anchor your defence on. Wolf riders don't benefit as much as your units do on the wooded tiles. Aim to give plenty of XP to at least one mage, so you can level him up here or early at the next level.

===The Road to Weldyn===

Objectives: kill Urthaka-Tan, the enemy leader.

You want quite a few horsemen here; it's a good opportunity to get lots of horsemen on your recall list (they are cheaper to recall than recruit later on). There are enough villages to fund recruiting or recalling 9 units and still have positive income throughout. You want at least half of your units to be horsemen: the enemy will have lots of archers who are easy prey in these open fields. You start with an archer and gain the ability to recruit more here, but you are better off recalling or recruiting mages, plus a couple of spearmen to play defence in the first night.

[Thrash: When I played it in 1.8.4, the enemy recruited very few archers, instead it was mainly melee units (trollchens, wolves and grunts) so archers and mages were very useful to me, horsemen less so.]

This level is dead easy to win because the enemy has a small keep, so his forces arrive spread out and not supporting each other. Use the day/night cycle; at night just fall back and, particularly on the first night, use the line of woods and castle tiles just west of your start. Your horsemen can go and take villages and make it back to fight at dawn on day 2. In the day, crush them with the horsemen and mages. You want to level up mages and horsemen.

Once you have crushed the enemy army, take the remaining villages and milk for XP - the early exit bonus is only +15/turn, and you should be able to get +14/turn while prolonging the level. You are heading for knights (for paladins later) and white mages, as per [[#Campaign_Strategy]].

===Leollyn===

Objectives: kill Hagha-Tan, and keep Leollyn alive.

You can ignore the ally in my experience; the enemy send a few units down that way, but the L3 mage and his L2 mage recruits are well able to handle them.

You want to recall at least one and preferably two white mages (there will be lots of assassins), and a horseman near leveling up. The rest of your recruit should be a mix of bowmen and spearmen, including one or two level 2 ones. March up to the ford to the north-west and build a defensive position for the night; keep the front line together with as few units as you can, as most will end up poisoned each turn; cycle them out and replace with others. Once day breaks, hopefully you have enough decent units left to mop up the enemy's first wave; your horseman is ideal to pick off any strong enemy units standing in the water.

Hopefully you can push over the river by afternoon on the second day. You can lure out the enemy leader and then run him down with your knight and Delfador.

[Thash: In my experience you want to finish this one early, by say turn 10, to get a big enough bonus for the next scenario, as it seem impossible with minimum starting gold.]

===Council in Weldyn===

Just story.

===Swamps of Illuven===

Objectives: Delfador must reach signpost in north-east before time runs out.

Spoiler: The protection charge is always 80% of your gold, and gets rid of the north-west enemy (the one not in the way of getting to the signpost). The other enemy player (the one blocking the signpost) gets a small gold bonus. So, you are losing 80% of your gold to get rid of around 40% of the enemy gold; hence, it's normally best to refuse to pay. At Easy, the deal is even worse, as the net effect is only about -25% of the enemy gold. Additionally, there is a gold bonus available if you don't pay and do defeat the NW enemy. It is not noted in the "Objectives"; instead, a treasure chest is shown on the map. Remember to take it.

Option 1, refusing to pay: If you don't pay the charge, you get to recruit a big army, get more XP, and finish quicker. You should be able to hold the central island while pushing a force from there to take out the NW leader. A balanced force would consist of couple of horsemen, 2 white mages, a couple of level 2s, a couple of level 1 mages (which are pretty good against footpads and poachers as they ignore their high defense ratings), and the rest spearmen as fodder to form your defensive line. It is vital to use Lionel's level-3 leadership to help your level-1 units fight better.

Option 2, paying the charge: The level is playable paying the charge if you are coming in with ~250 gold or more. Although it gives the AI a big lead in gold, you have halved the recruit rate for the AIs and ensured that they are all on the far side of the level; the AI's forces don't concentrate so well and your small force can evade them at night. You may prefer this route if you prefer a challenging small-army scouting battle rather than a big army battle. You can win by starting with as little as two raw recruit Spearman and a recalled horseman, if you take some villages so that you can recall some more units later.

===Night in the Swamp===

Objective: survive 12 turns.

It is hard to get an early exit bonus here, and you don't need it, so just take the opportunity to level up some units. Grab some heavy infantry and mages, and perhaps a knight - see [[#Campaign Strategy]].

You can put a generator out of action by landing any level 2 or better mage on it; the level will end when there are no skeletons left. At easy, it appears that there is only one generator - you can storm it and get an early exit bonus if you find the next level easier that way, but I think leveling up units is more useful here.

===Ur-Thorodor===

Objectives: get Delfador into the wose castle. No early exit bonus.

The main hazard here is the gryphons - they will attack as you cross the water. Be careful with Lionel and Delfador; you may need to use fodder to lure the gryphons and then blast them. Recall a red mage, a good damage sink (a knight will do), a healer, and perhaps another mage and a fodder unit. Cross straight away, and don't get bogged down on the other side - blast a hole with your mages and get Delfador into the castle asap. You are not likely to win a long fight. Remember that Lionel's leadership helps mages too.

===Houses of the Dead===

Objective: find the Staff and get Delfador to the north signpost within 64 turns.

Explore to your north-west first - there is one village in that direction. To your north is an impassable barrier behind those mountains, so next turn back and work around the level anti-clockwise. No need to climb through the mountains: if you stick to the "road" you won't miss anything. If you pay attention to what you're told, you'll learn about a secret passage that *will* make life easier. But this scenario is pretty straightforward either way.

The friends you find will try to help, but usually throw their, uh, existences away against the skeletons quite quickly; at least they serve as distraction. Any survivors will be available for recall on the next level, one even for free -- but that's not much of a benefit, so don't worry too much.

Don't exit until turn 64, as there is no early exit bonus but you should have a good income. Waiting gives you more gold for the next scenario (1.8.0).

===The Gate Between Worlds===

* Objectives: kill Iliah-Malal
* Starting units: Delfador and a surviving Ghost, Ghoul or advancement from the previous scenario

You get to recruit Ghosts and Ghouls here, your allies of the last level. Money should be no problem.

Players have used two options with success:

Option 1, attack with Ghouls. Backed by Delfador's leadership, ghouls can actually do a lot of damage. But he can't be everywhere, and anyway the ghouls will probably perish quickly. That's alright, as long as you manage to poison most enemies. There's not enough villages for your opponent to heal his army, and if you give battle on your shore of the swamp they won't get anywhere quickly. Ghosts can then finish the poisoned enemies.

Option 2, leader assassination with Ghosts. Send 8 Ghosts around the flanks of the enemy to converge on Iliah-Malal, surrounding and killing him, albeit slowly. Send a Ghoul-heavy force supported by Delfador and a couple of Ghosts up the middle to distract the majority of the enemy forces. Delfador should be cautious; he is only there to distract, and the Dark Adepts and Thugs pack enough of a punch to kill him if you are not careful.

Note: You will be able to recall this undead force in a later scenario, but this may not be very useful, so you don't have to worry about leveling up units for later levels. [glandis: Somewhere in 1.9.x, recalling at least one undead became vital in that later scenario. I found having two shadows really useful.]
===Wasteland===

Objectives: kill Tish Golub

Straightforward scenario, albeit the enemy can recruit L2 units and you have only raw Elven recruits. The walk north to the Elven castle is simple. Most of the fighting takes place in the woods that you can see to your west, so elven archers are good here. Also grab a scout to steal all your ally's villages, otherwise she will keep recruiting L2 units and stealing your XP. Definitely recruit 1 or 2 shamans, as you would like to have a sorcerer early in the next level.

===Terror at the Ford of Parthyn===

Objectives: defeat both the orc and undead leaders.

'''Conservative strategy:'''
As soon as you spot the ford guard, it will come under your control. Using a scout, you can get there in time for the humans to man the walls. Actually, the walls are one huge keep, so Delfador can recruit directly into the fortifications and fill the gaps. You should be able to fend off the first wave of attackers, the more so as the baddies will conveniently arrive at daybreak. The mages, on the other hand, won't get across the river until the fun is mostly over; recall your own healers. You should leave two mages on the other shore anyway, in order to deal with any ghosts that try to get at the villages down there.

'''Play-it-safe strategy:'''
Abandon the northern shore; run to the south castle (without recruiting at all) and play defensive through the first wave of enemies. The orcs and undead are hostile to each other, so this gives them ample opportunity to fight amongst themselves. ''Needs investigation and comments.''

'''Aggressive strategy:'''
Recruit/Recall an army and send them west to deal with the orcs; only one scout should head south and find the guards, which should then retreat to the sourthern castle. The downside is that this approach will lead to more night-time engagements; dont try this if you don't have several lvl-2 elves to begin with. The benefit is that you'll get more experience on the units that need it most: your elves and the human mages. The latter will stay with your host, and often be automatically recalled for free.

You will find that some villages in the north of the map contain ambushes. Two villages near the ford contain allied troops; releasing these early would be a big help to defending the south castle.

===The Return of Trouble===

Objectives: defeat all enemy leaders.

This level has a no-breathing-room start - the east enemy is almost on top of you and has as much gold as you (at Great Mage). The mountains and starting camp are poor terrain for you as that terrain is better for orcs; cross your forces into the woods opposite where you have advantages in defence and movement.

Although you can recruit "raw" L2 units here, don't feel you need to recruit too many of them; the large number of enemy L2s attacking mean that it is hard to keep units in the front line alive, and so recruiting good numbers of units matters here. Recruiting a few druids and captains and recruiting L1 units for the bulk of the army works well.

The ally spends his forces quickly and his leader will die early, but you aren't required to keep him alive, so don't worry about him; when he dies it is even an advantage as it stops encouraging the orcs to go through the woods south of your position.

At lower skills, aim to knock out the east enemy early. His right flank is open but rests on the mountains, which is bad terrain for you - if you try to go around that way he can easily shift forces to meet you. Instead you can approach close to his keep through the woods; this, his left flank, usually isn't open but the AI isn't smart about keeping a proper line here. At Great Mage, you may not have the forces to spare to take him out (if you can even make an opening - he has plenty of units); instead slow him with a shaman when he pops out of his keep to attack and block him from getting back to recruit. Note: With the right recruits it is possible to snipe the east leader on the second turn (but rather difficult and low probability).

You should aim to maintain a line along the north part of the woods; the main line is down the west side of the woods for a few tiles and this is where Kalenz should be; and a line back east inside the wood for your left flank, to catch enemy units coming at you through the woods. Hold out in the woods for 2 days and the storm will eventually subside; you will probably have heavy losses but your survivors should all be L3 or close to it by the end. You can then seize villages and take out the enemy commanders.

===Shadows===

Objectives: defeat all enemy leaders.

You start with your Kalenz force, and get back your Delfador force during the scenario (he arrives in the SE). Grab all three holy waters near the start, but you should then move all your elven forces in one direction, head west to take out the west lich. The forest slows up most of the undead and so means that the undead converging from the other two camps won't catch you before you overwhelm and eliminate the enemy leader that you target. Because you are facing some L1 and L2 troops here, don't feel that you need to give the holy water to L3 units - a mix of L1 and L2 units is ideal and they should level all the way to L3 during the level. Recall any Elven sorcerers or shaman with good XP, and shaman are good extra recruits at the start, again to level to sorcerers.

Once you have knocked out the NW leader, your elven force should head south to take out the south leader, and Delfador's force can head north to take out the NE leader. Lots of the undead forces will spend the whole level floundering around in the north woods around your start camp, chasing but never catching you up.

===Save the King===

Objectives: kill Zorlan, and (at Mage and above) kill all the enemy leaders; and keep Garard alive until that is done.

You don't have to worry about Garard - even at Great Mage, he is more than strong enough to defeat the two southern enemies and his forces significantly help defeat Zorlan (1.8.0). You get a big automatic recall of your white mages, Chantal, and a shock trooper and Kalenz; that's plenty to win with, but recruit some new elves as it gives you some units to give XP to, fodder to face the trolls with, and they are handy to take out the SW enemy faster (at Mage and above). An elven sorcerer is a good recall, but 1 is enough.

Zorlan should be simple; some of his units tangle with Garard's units in the river, so you should meet little opposition getting to his camp - which can be easily crushed with your mages. The onset of trolls at around first watch is the only dangerous moment, but once they have attacked, your mages and high level units can wipe them out mostly in one round. Then send Delfador and a couple of other units to take out the troll leader, and send some elves south with Kalenz to help Garard clean up and then take out the SW leader. Garard usually kills the SE leader by himself.

===Dark Sky Over Weldyn===

Just story.

===A New Ally===

Objectives: kill Gruv-Malal; keep Ulrek and Relgorn alive.

Recruit and recall some mages - get a few L1s and you should be able to level up a couple by the end of the level. Move to Ulrek's keep - provided you have some units there by second watch, there is no danger of him being defeated. The dwarves wear down the undead and your mages get to clean up and take the XP.

===The Portal of Doom===

Objectives: close the portal and get your units out via the mine shaft where you start.

Heavy-infantry are too slow on the ice. Similarly it is best to recall quick mages. Your main force should be dwarf warriors, with a few white mages or quick mages to weaken enemy units and to deal with nightgaunts and the like. A knight (even better, a paladin) would also be useful here, due to the speed and for finishing off enemy units when the dwarves can't reach.

Don't worry about the villages to the north - Illah-Malal appears on day 2 at the north castle, so scouting units sent north would probably get killed. You can defend at your camp to defeat the first wave of undead, then march over the ice to close the portal; the northern undead will come to you. You will finish with deep negative gold but it doesn't matter.

===Showdown in the Northern Swamp===

* Objectives: kill all enemy leaders.
* Other: must kill Illah-Malal with Delfador.[glandis: in 1.9.x somewhere, this was changed so that one of the undead must kill Illah-Malal, so you DO have a reason to recall them]

There is lots of holy water at the start, and you might struggle to have enough units to give it to. You get control of Lionel on turn 3 (plus a castle of rubbish L1 recruits), so you don't have to take villages off of him. I suggest give Lionel and Kalenz a holy water each and the third to a good L2 melee unit or knight. Your other 4 recalls could be 2 white mages, a steelclad and a paladin (or a knight close to leveling - as it is an open level).

A good strategy here is to strike straight north and seize the south end of the bridge. The NE necromancer recruits a lot of dark adepts, and you will have to run a long way during the night to outrun them if you don't bottle them up at the crossing. Once you hold the bridge, a good melee unit and a white mage, plus some of the ally's archers, can easily hold off the NE forces. The NW enemies attack during the first night, and the main tricky bit is dealing with the nightgaunts and spectres here - just keep L2 and L3 melee units in the front line to meet the attack, then clean up with your mages. The SW enemy's units are slower and arrive on day 2; so by moving to the bridge, you've split the enemy attack and can crush each in turn.

===Prince of Wesnoth===

Objectives: kill an enemy commander.

Do not attempt to cross into the central woods; it seems like a tempting spot to fight from, but you will struggle to maximise your recruitment and still get all your units across into it, because the southern enemy camp is close to your line of advance. Instead, abandon all your villages and the rest of the level to the enemy and just defend the SW corner. Elves along the edge of the woods should be able to hold out and wear through the enemy. The number of L2 units, and the mages that the enemy recruit, mean that you will take casualties; but you will be killing a lot and scoring plenty of XP. A general mix of level 1, 2 and 3 units works well here; use the best units to hold tiles that can be attacked from several directions, which will deter the enemy from attacking them.

Once the initial wave of enemies is spent, mop up and proceed swiftly through the central woods and jump into an enemy camp to kill the general. You don't have to have much gold for the next level, but will want high-level units, so take time here to level some up if you don't have enough.

====Alternative Strategy====
crus4a8e: I used the following on V1.8.5 (hard) with minimum starting gold of 100. While I had a though struggle using the strategy described above, doing the following worked nicely and was quite a fun way of playing this scenario, too.

Recall the following units: 4 Avengers or Rangers, 2 Shydes. (Remember: Avengers/Rangers are invisible in the woods which comes in very handy in this scenario.)

Kalenz and the 2 Shydes stay in the western woods. Start moving them up to the northern part of the woods in the beginning and then back down south. Basically their job is not to get killed. ;-) So only attack single enemies and retreat whenever you are under serious attack.

The Avengers cross over into the central woods right away. Whenever only one or at most two enemy units are in reach, they attack or flag villages to become visible and lure individual enemy units into the woods. This also distracts most of the main enemy forces and stops them from attacking Kalenz.

Doing this for about 10 to 15 turns wears down the enemy forces quite easily. When only a few enemy units are left, move your 4 Avenger/Ranger units into the keep of either one enemy leader. You should be able to finish him off in 1 or at most 2 turns.

===Clash at the Manor===

Objectives: kill the enemy commander; prevent any enemies escaping via the roads.

As there are two roads and two signposts, you need to watch both routes. You can break your forces in two or just send one unit to keep an eye on the other route. If you wait at the edge of your forest, almost all the forces should come to you (Dragoons and Cavalry will try to escape instead), and you'll have the terrain advantage. Just be ready to counter anyone trying to make a run for it. You start with Chantal, and a second druid or shyde would be a good idea so that you have a healer and someone to entangle any royal guards. The rest of your recalls should be top melee units (e.g., champions and avengers.) After the assault is broken, the mopping up operation is just to kill the sitting duck leader.

The second phase of the level is a search; just visit all the tiles outside the cave area north of the mansion.

[Thrash: I don't think just sending a single unit to cover one route will work. If enemy sends a couple riders that way, you won't catch them.]

===Face of the Enemy===

Objectives: kill the enemy commander.

Last level, so you don't have to worry about losses or leveling up; recall some sorcerers and a decent melee unit to take the holy water. The enemy recruits few units, so you don't have to cover all the passageways; just advance as a group by the shortest route to the keep, and keep side passages covered (the enemy sometimes uses nightgaunts to ambush and slip in through any gaps). Beware of putting Delfador in front, as the enemy can use Banebows like walking corpses for suicide attacks against him.

This scenario is too easy up to at least 1.8.4, so just play conservatively and coast to victory.

== Old Version ==

Before its inclusion as a mainline campaign, Delfador's Memoirs was distributed as a separate add-on.

=== Installation notes ===

Delfador's Memoirs is distributed as a tarball (.tar.gz), containing all sources for the campaign.
The tarball is built with automake. To install, unpack it, change into the directory delfadors-memoirs-(version) and
run (as root) "./configure && make && make install"

If you can't install DM this way, then you may install download and install it from the campaign server (you will need wesnoth 0.8.5 or a current CVS version to do this).

=== Download ===

Version 0.1: (3 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth = 0.7.7
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/memoirs-0.1.tar.gz

Version 0.2: (7 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth = 0.7.9
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.2.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.2.zip

Version 0.3: (9 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.7.11 (=0.7.11 for the tarball)
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.3.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.3.zip

Version 0.4: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.7.11, <= 0.8.3
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.4.tar.gz
* http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.4.zip

Version 0.5: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.4, <= 0.8.7
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.tar.gz

Version 0.5.1: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.4, <= 0.8.7
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.1.tar.gz

Version 0.5.2: (10 playable scenarios) requires wesnoth >= 0.8.9
* http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/delfadors_memoirs-0.5.2.tar.gz

== See Also ==

* [[Mainline Campaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

LegendofWesmere

2011-12-19T21:34:36Z

Glandis: /* Hostile Mountains */

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

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

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

== The Uprooting ==
* Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost
* Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 16/14/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and Anduilas

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

'''Alternate strategy: '''
As with the first scenario in HttT, an effective strategy is to split your leader from your main army. Send Kalenz due west and then south to the sign-post, while the rest of your army moves more southwest to distract the south-west orcs. Since the starting time of day means you will meet the orcs just as day is ending, it is both possible and a good idea to keep engagements to a minimum - just lure the orcs away from Kalenz without getting into a fight. From my experience, the AI has difficulty making up its mind what to do with the southwestern orcs, especially if you grab the eastern villages, and Kalenz should be able to easily sneak by on the western edge of the map to the signpost without any obstructions. I was able to finish the scenario on hard difficulty on turn 6 with 0 losses and level Anduilas, your loyal elf fighter to level 2. One full castle of recruits is probably more than enough. Remember your goal is only to distract, not kill, and the combined upkeep of your units and your ally's that he gives you on turn 3 or so will give you negative income if you recruit too much.

'''New For 1.9.5'''
As of v1.9.5 (Medium) this has changed. There is no longer any signpost. Instead the victory condition is to kill any one of the orc leaders. And for the bonus, keep Velon alive. This is easy to do, there is an orc leader less than 10 hexes to the east and he can only recuit 3 units per turn. I just recruited a single keep and then swarmed him, killing him on Turn 5 (out of 17). But the problem with this strategy is that there is no opportunity to level up any of my units. Which bodes ill for the future. ~~ Sojourner
(Knyghtmare: In this scenario, you can only recruit Elvish Fighters and Elvish Archers. Recruit more archers as the enemy sides recruit mostly melee-based units, who have no ranged attacks. Recruit up to 4 fighters, just for taking out assassins, weak units and crossbowmen.)

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

The most important thing to do is get the dwarves to fight the trolls. Send a disposable unit or two to the middle island. Put a unit in the water where a troll will go to the east bank in order to attack. The unit won't live but you'll get a bunch of allies.

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

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

Some Observations (for Hardest Difficulty, but also applicable to other levels):
# It's not necessary to lure the trolls to step onto the dwarf side of the river by sacrificing a unit. It seems the trolls will go visit the dwarves on their own without needing any encouragement.
# There is a reason the middle island has so much forest. The western bank of the river has a narrow swath of forest surrounded by mountains and hills. This is not ideal terrain for fighting trolls. Trolls move faster than elves on hills and mountains and have comparable defense. A much better idea is to try to occupy the middle island, forcing the trolls to attack from water. Chances are you'll only be able to claim the northern tip of the island at first, so half your army will spill over to the forest on the west bank. Use shamans to slow and don't be afraid to put one unit in water if you can get a kill and then block. The dwarves help by putting units in water and doing other things to distract the trolls and draw fire away from you.
# Sorceresses are very effective at killing trolls, since arcane is the only attack type trolls have negative resistance to. Try to get a few by feeding kills to shamans. They also become incredibly useful later in the campaign, so it will be well worth the effort.

[glandis] As noted in the previous scenario, somewhere in the 1.9.x versions (at Hard, for me), you can only recruit Archers and Fighters, so the Shaman advice no longer applies.

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

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

For the first seven turns you are controlling the defenders of the Ka'lian. See all those Orcish Assassins in the water? You probably don't want to have all your units poisoned to death. Recruit Shamans to sit behind the defenders. They won't be able to cure, but they will prevent the loss of 8 HP per turn. If an Elvish Archer is poisoned, go ahead and use its ranged attack on an Assassin, otherwise try to manage your poisoned units somewhat prudently. Don't just hit Ctrl-R to recruit; you have a massive keep so put your new units in the right place. Don't let the orcs in good defense terrain and you should be fine. When turn 7 is done Kalenz arrives and you lose control of these defenders. If you can, move some units as far west as you can (if the attack has wound down). This seems to help the AI attack the westernmost orc leader, which is useful.

When you take over with Kalenz make your stand in the woods just to the southwest of your keep and to the immediate north of the Ka'lian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages— it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario (note that you can't cross the river on the far eastern edge of the map). If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

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

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

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

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Try and keep on good terrain (or at least keep the saurians out of good terrain) and form a defensive line (against Skirmishers) each turn. Kill the southern leader first. See that temple? That's the treasury. DO NOT go in there. When you go in saurians pop out. Wait until you are ready to kill them to trigger this trap.

When you've dealt with the southern leader and the treasury you can either take an Elvish Scout to the treasury to pick up the gold and return it to the sign post or just go kill the northern leader. Killing the leader is preferable. You'll get XP and any loss in gold from early finish is dwarfed by the 1800 gold you get for beating the level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

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

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

As for experience, the enemy recruits some relatively low HP level 2s and 3s. You can level units quickly after killing a couple of Saurian Oracles. Of course those Oracles have strong magical attacks (especially at night) negating your high defense. Luckily for you the battles start during the day. Recruit just one keepful of troops. Send a dwarf-heavy squad to the left (closer mountains) and an elf-heavy one to the right (more forest). If you recruit more than one keepful Kalenz will have a much tougher time crossing the river.

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

You can distract the serpent by having an Elvish Scout make his way to the western edge of the river bank. When the serpent shows up the rider can distract it with his bow.

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

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

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

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

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

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== News from the Front ==

Story only.

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

The enemy is in three places: the northwest, the northeast (trolls) and the southwest. Only the northeast trolls won't get reinforcements. So the only leaders to focus on eliminating are the trolls. Your recruits/recalls need to do three things: contain the northwest orcs (this is not that hard due to favorable terrain), aid your human allies to the south and eliminate the trolls.

The trolls should be pretty easy to kill. Their leader doesn't have much money so their aren't a lot of trolls. Slow with some shaman, use the forest to your benefit and you should defeat them soon. Send the units to reinforce your other two fronts.

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

The northwest orcs are numerous but should be kept in check by strong units in the bottlenecks. You'll need some tanks (Champions/Marshals or Steelclads) and healers. When the orc reinforcements arrive you may get swarmed. By this time you should have some help coming from your anti-troll army. Also, three elves will arrive along the western edge of the map. Have them come and help out.

You may want to recruit a scout or two at the beginning. Along with the horseman you get they can capture a village almost every turn. Don't bother leaving villages for your ally. The money is better in your hands.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

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

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign (in the middle) and then return to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes (invisible, 80% dodge) for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Landar to level 3. When Kalenz takes the potion he changes into an Elvish Lord. You should easily be able to get him to level up during this scenario.

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

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

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Slyphs and Shydes are best, of course.

It is essential that you reach your ally quickly. Otherwise he might be dead before you even see him. Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally (the one in the middle of the forest). You will want to finish this level quickly or/and to grab as soon as possible all the villages to have lots of gold for the next scenario (on medium you'll probably want at least 500 gold). Send some fast units north to keep your ally alive and send the rest straight west. The western units can sweep up after taking out the southern orc boss. A bunch of Direwolf Riders come as reinforcements when you get to close to the southern orc, so be careful. Alternatively just send everyone north and fan out from there.

With good units this level shouldn't be tough to beat. Just make sure you beat it in good standing for the next scenario.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==
* Objectives: Defeat all enemy units and destroy all enemy villages
* Lose if: Kalenz, Landar dies or turns run out
* Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units
* Other

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

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

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

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

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

[version 1.8.2 : this scenario is very difficult, even with 480 gold (already hard to get - you need to catch all the villages quickly in the scenario before). The only way that worked, for me, was to first position my troops in the forest near my keep, and survive the first night. After that, around turn 10, I headed out towards the west keep. As soon as you get near the leader, he reach out at you, making you able to kill him with Kalenz (my Landar was already almost dead, and remained so for the rest of the scenario). Once this is done, it's an easy job to kill the northern leader. If you don't kill the first leader around turn 10, both will recruit loads of new recruits, and you'll be done.]

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

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

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map.Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty. The best choice is probably to recruit Elvish Scouts. You are using their ZoC to keep the attackers away from Kalenz. Don't try and be fancy.

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

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. If you have been building a formidable "air force" (shaman line) you can beat this level very easily.
* The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any Slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. If you can't kill him or ZoC him in turn 2, slow him. That will prevent him from getting to back to the keep to recruit. The battle is over as soon as one of your units moves next to Landar, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts (or quick units) and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

If you don't have enough units from the shaman line for the quick kill, try this:
* Because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Remember you don't have to kill all the enemies. Just kill the southeast leader and then sneak a fast unit in next to Landar.

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

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

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

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

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

[[Category: Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

TheRiseOfWesnoth

2011-09-27T21:50:47Z

Glandis: /* Campaign strategy */

== Strategy Guide for The Rise of Wesnoth Campaign ==

===Campaign strategy===

Over the course of this campaign, you will need to level up to some:

* Healers: White Mages/Mages of Light (at least four)
* Undead killers: Paladins (two)
* Mobile strikers: Silver Mages (at least one, preferably more), Grand Knights (several), Fugitives (one or more helps)
* Damage sinks: Royal Guards, Iron Maulers, Highwaymen, Halberdiers, level 3 Burin, and again Grand Knights
* Leaders: level 3 Haldric, level 3 Lady Outlaw, and much later level 3 Commander Aethyr
* Ranged attackers: Great Mages (can use several in the last scenario), Longbowmen/Master Bowmen (two), Trapper/Huntsman (one is helpful)

A Mage of Light, one Paladin, and five Grand Knights make a perfect assault team!

Although Horsemen are key for the first three or four scenarios, it's important not to be too reliant on horse units through the middle part of the campaign, as there are many hard levels underground, in swamps, in water, or against Saurians; use XP from the scenario ''The Vanguard'' to get to 2 Paladins and 2+ Grand Knights.

Don't overlook Pikemen/Halberdiers, which are useful in many levels; pierce attacks work well against Drakes and against the dragon, and they are handy for defensive roles especially repelling Wolf Riders. They are less good against undead, though, and don't get that +1 MP Royal Guard speed bonus.

Due to many undead opponents, you will want to recruit many Thugs at times, and get a few (the quick ones, since you need them underground) leveled up. Footpads help too, once leveled up. Due to swamps, you will sometimes be spamming Poachers, which get marksmanship once at level 3. These, plus Lady Outlaw, give tactical options at other levels too: some decent chaotic troops form an ideal reserve, since you can attack with your lawful troops at dawn, and by nightfall when you need to heal them, use some chaotic troops to either continue the attack or to shield your healing lawful units.

Here are some recommended units to have obtained by specific scenarios:

2. The Fall - 1 Knight 
3. A Harrowing Escape - 1 White Mage, 2 Knights, plus about-to-level troops 
4a. The Midlands - avoid, go to The Swamp of Eden instead 
4b. The Swamp of Eden - level 2 Haldric, level 2 Lady Outlaw, 2 Knights, 2 Shocktroopers 
6. Temple of the Deep - level 3 Haldric, level 3 Burin, 1-2 Mages of Light or several Outlaws / quick Bandits 
8. Clearwater Port - level 3 Lady Outlaw, 3 White Mages / Mages of Light, 3 Iron Maulers / Royal Guards / Halberdiers 
12. A Final Spring - 1-2 Silver Mages 
14. Rough Landing - the 3 loyal Mermen from the previous scenario, ''Peoples in Decline''[glandis] In 1.8.6, there was no opportunity for 3 loyal mermen - maybe this was in an older version? And only Merman fighters can be recruited - no Netcaster upgardes are possible 
17a. The Dragon - up to 4 White Mages / Mages of Light 
17d. Cursed Island - 1 Paladin 
19. The Vanguard - 4 Knights/Lancers/Grand Knights, 2 Paladins (or about-to-level Knights) 
20. Return of the Fleet - 1 Mermen Entangler, 1 Merman Triton with Storm Trident, level 3 Commander Aethyr desirable 
22. The Rise of Wesnoth - 2 Paladins, 3 Royal Guards, 4 Mages of Light

Because the campaign is long and you won't be able to recall all your level 3's in the final scenario, it pays to create some "uber-units". An example is a quick, resilient Silver Mage that has been AMLA advanced a few times.

==Scenarios==
===A Summer Of Storms ===

This is a relatively easy scenario, so gear your recruitment and strategy with an eye towards gathering XP.

Recruitment...
# For the first round, recruit 2-3 Horsemen and the rest can be all Spearmen or a mix of Spearmen and Bowmen as you see fit.
# Then, you should probably hire Bowmen and more Spearmen. Whatever Bowmen you can get advanced will be useful later on for fighting the many trolls, grunts, and riders you will encounter. Note, however, that you will not have any healers until you level up at least one mage to White Mage status, and the sooner you can do that the better. Red mages will also prove very useful in subsequent scenarios, so consider recruiting at least two mages.

Strategy...
* Players have used at least three strategies with success...
# The "over the bridge" strategy: Send the horsemen with the king over the bridge, and the others should follow or start going over the mountain, to avoid being attacked from behind. Send subsequent Spearmen and Bowmen on the "over-the-bridge" road, and when the Prince and final troops have just about caught up, march on the enemy camp.
# The "hide in the swamp" strategy: Proceed much like the above, but send the king with 3 Horsemen to capture the nearest houses, then retreat into the swamp area until you have your lawful bonus to kill off troops during the day. To hold them back, you can use a Spearman and a Mage (to level him.)
# "Sandbagging" strategy: On the hardest difficulty level, the initial enemy assault will only be easy to handle by entrenching your troops behind the river. Use the king to block the bridge initially, while Spearmen handle the shoreline just north and Horsemen carefully flag villages across the river. Run the king around, lending his leadership as you massacre the stupid enemy troops that have jumped like lemmings into the water.
* For all these options, you will also need to send a squad north into the mountains and around into the flank of the enemy. A quick Spearman, a quick Bowman, and one other unit, possibly a quick Mage, should be more than sufficient.
* When you see that the fronts are under control, stop recruiting and send prince Haldric and your Mages over the bridge on a quest for XP, assisted by the leadership of the king, and converge on the enemy camp.

===The Fall===

This is a scenario that looks scary, but it is only moderately difficult with proper recruitment and strategy.

Recruitment...
* Recall or recruit Spearmen and Bowmen to man the lines.
* Horsemen/Knights are desirable, because you probably do not yet have a White Mage, and the villages are widely spaced.
* Recalling or recruiting Mages for XP gathering is highly advisable for future scenarios.

Strategy...
* There are three basic approaches to take out the outlaw leader...
# "Brute force" strategy: You can march west with a large army and use part of it to hold northwestern orc. Use the rest to fight outlaws and kill the leader. This strategy requires a lot of troops but it can bring you plenty of experience and can bring a quick victory.
# "Assassination over the bridge" strategy: You can assassinate the outlaw leader. One way is to wait until the orcs have killed almost all outlaws and then assassinate the outlaw leader with Knights, rushing over the enemy camp's bridge and into the keep. This strategy is risky because orcs can kill the leader before you.
# "Assassination via the mountain pass" strategy: Another way to assassinate the leader is to send a squad through the southern mountains to the outlaw keep. Two Mages and three Spearmen are enough. You may wish to substitute one of the Spearmen with a Knight or Horseman, though horse units have only a narrow passage devoid of mountains and could get pinned by the enemy.
* On the hardest difficulty level, you may be forced to assassinate. For either of the assassination strategies, it is a good idea to fight against the northeastern orc nearby your keep. This way, you can secure your back and earn experience.

Hints...

* Saving the loyal Heavy Infantrymen (or Shock Troopers on easy) pays off in later scenarios. To save all three, move them south towards the outlaws.

* Once you eliminate the HP of the Lady Outlaw, she offers to help you. If you say yes, she comes back as a loyal unit in future scenarios and you will be able to recruit outlaw units, plus she cannot be killed in the next couple of scenarios (instead, she disappears when she goes to zero HP, and comes back the next scenario.) This is quite valuable. If you say no and try to kill her, you find out she cannot be killed. However, you do get 200 gold that she leaves behind.

* Heads up: The following scenario (''A Harrowing Escape'') is a handful on the hardest difficulty level. On hard, a carryover of almost 150 gold (so you have 250 starting gold) would be wise, so although Lady Outlaw's assistance is worth much more than 200 gold, you may be forced to choose the gold. Another thing you need to beat the following scenario on hard is a White Mage at or near the start of the scenario. Also, about-to-level units will be especially nice for their self-healing ability and low initial upkeep. Steer XP accordingly.

===A Harrowing Escape===

This scenario is much easier on lower difficulty levels, calling for different strategies.

On easy/medium...
* Recruitment: You should recruit/recall at least one, possibly two Mages here, and use them for killing Goblin Spearmen and finishing off injured Wolf Riders in the hills & mountains bordering the valley. Other than the Mages, simply recruit what you want, and go along the road. You get enough villages to pay upkeep for quite some army, and can give some of them a bit of experience.
* Strategy: Leave a few units in the rear, as the enemy can cross hills quickly. Note that Footpads and Outlaws will also cross hills at reasonable speed, if you need to hunt down some units. There are two castle tiles about halfway down, try to send Lady Outlaw and Brunin the Lost to them, they make good guards in case the enemy tries to come straight up. You can also send a couple groups of units down southeast to the lake, so you can prevent the Green team (southeast) from coming up the river. You can also kill the two Orcish Grunts (or Warriors on medium) on the southern castle tiles and then move Lady Outlaw and Brunin to them.

On hard...
* Recruitment: To beat this scenario on the hardest difficulty level, you need some level 2 (or better yet, about-to-level level 1) units already and a lot of starting gold. It is possible with ~200 starting gold, but only barely. 250+ is better. You can stretch your gold a bit by not going negative on upkeep and waiting until you can't wait any longer to do one last round of recruiting, recalling mostly level 2's. For timing your final recruitment, watch the wolves that are likely trying to flank through the mountains south of your keep. Another requirement for beating this scenario is a White Mage (or two.) If need be, you must promote a Mage (or two) tout de suite, as you will be dealing with severe damage and assassins, while only having easy access to 2 or 3 villages initially. Horsemen and Knights are useful for dissipating damage by serving as meat shields against blades and then running off to remote villages to heal. Quick Horsemen are especially nice, as they can transfer between two strategically placed villages in one turn, for healing on the go. Horsemen, Knights, and Swordsmen are useful for swatting assassins.

* Strategy: More important than terrain is avoiding getting flanked, so mobility of individual units is key; if you climb up deep into the mountains, you will have a harder time with mobility than staying on or near the valley floor. Additionally, many of your units cannot go on mountain hexes, so it's easier to maintain your lines if everyone stays close to the valley. Near the start of combat, it's crucial to kill units quickly on the road: first the wave of wolves, then the wave of assassins. In contrast to easy and medium, on the hardest difficulty level both pairs of roadside castle tiles are guarded, not just the second pair. As on medium, the guards are Orcish Warriors.

Hints...
* On medium/hard, you can lure out the roadside guard Warriors one at a time by putting a unit within attack range of one (and out of range of the other.) They mostly come at night. Mostly. That is, the Warriors might not bite bait put out during the day.

* If you have Lady Outlaw, note that she has leadership, which will be useful to help promote Prince Haldric, if he is still level 0. It's worth advancing her to level 2, to continue to provide leadership to level 1 Haldric and your other level 1's. You may also make use of her odd ability "distract", which allows adjacent allied units to ignore ZOCs. And Lady Outlaw allows you to recruit outlaw types. On hard especially, Thugs can be useful as meat shields and to provide strong attacks at night when your lawful forces are crippled. Remember too that Lady Outlaw cannot be permanently killed (at least not yet), so when desperate times call for desperate measures, you can move her into a suicidal position.

Spoilers...

* There is Dwarf Steelclad in the village at 8,5. It's not far from your camp, so send Lady Outlaw there. Dwarf joins you because "It has been a long time since he felt the satisfying crunch of Orcs under his Axe."

* After you kill the first orc leader, an Orcish Slayer and two Assassins will pop out of nowhere, so you would be wise not to have any wounded units stuck without movement points at that point. Also, the other leader will get an infusion of gold and start recruiting on all available hexes, so if you can sit on some of those hexes first, it will help keep the situation from getting out of control.

* At the end, you will be given the choice of the river/swamp road or the midlands/orc road. These fork to the scenarios ''The Swamp of Esten'' and ''The Midlands'', respectively. The swamp scenario is relatively easy, while ''The Midlands'' could cost you some leveled units or even prove impossible to beat if you are low on gold. Also, the swamp gives you a free loyal White Mage, so it's a no brainer, unless you want more of a challenge.

* Heads up: it would be wise to have at least 1 Mage either levelled up to White or about to level up before going to the scenario ''The Swamp of Esten''.

===Diverging Campaign Path===
====The Midlands====

Orcs again. But you chose that way. This scenario may appear impossible, but with a lot of gold and a little strategy, it can be beat.

Recruitment...
* You are given plenty of time, so use it wisely. The enemies send lots of orcs, mostly weak ones. So recruit and recall everything you can.
* Recall any White Mages you have. You'll need them.
* Bowmen are good for the wolf units you will be facing.
* The rest depends on your strategy.

Strategy...
* The "Fast Assault" option: use an assassination team. If you go west, only your Knights and Horsemen will arrive and fight at daytime. So go south. Take the bridge and defend against the enemy closing in from the west. Take out Yellow with a fast assault team (they should take a healer along), but be careful about the leader. Your main force moves west, takes and holds the second bridge, and takes out Blue. Your assault team stays in the south and goes for the last enemy leader - they won't face any serious resistance. The enemy moves north to support Blue. The HI guarding the bridge might gain a level or die, but hopefully not the latter, as they are loyal units in a long campaign. With this approach, you can finish early (around 25 turns) and keep your losses low.
* The "Dark Assault" option: use Footpads. If you chose to work with the the outlaws in the last round, then this works well. Footpads are cheap. And they are fast. And they have good defensive abilities. Plus they fight well in the dark and in the forest. So recruit lots of Footpads-pawns and quickly dispatch them to the upper west and south, followed by more powerful units: Mages, Horsemen, etc. For the time being, leave the middle enemy alone. To the upper west, send several Footpads into the forest and capture the village and set up a defensive line. This cuts down the enemy's gold and increases yours. Don't attack at first, just defend, until more of your slow higher powered units arrive. The strategy here is to pick off the orcs, and send the Horsemen to capture villages. While this is going, to the south you send your Footpads to capture any villages you can and, more importantly, put a Footpad on the hex that is adjacent to the bridge, thereby stopping easy advancement of their greater numbered troops. A White Mage, a couple Trappers and some Bowmen would make a good escort. Probably sending a Thief or two would be good too, to help dispatch any enemy that infiltrate the villages north of the river. one enemy got into one of the villages on the north of river, and it took a lot to dislodge him. The intention is to engage the enemy so that they are fighting from the river squares, at a huge disadvantage.

====The Swamp Of Esten====

This scenario is not too hard if you are conservative and don't send important units off alone.

Recruitment...
# First round, recall 1-2 quick Knights (or Paladins, if you have them), recruit 1-2 Horsemen, and recall your loyal Shocktroopers or whatever they are now.
# Next round, recruit/recall Mages to kill Scorpions (and Bats) and at least one White Mage to deal with poison, plus maybe a Poacher, as they are good in swamp (and you would like a Huntsman eventually, for its markmanship.)
# A little Thug spam can come next, but you don't need a full third round of recruitment. Then send Prince Haldric off to lend his leadership.

Strategy...
# You must blitz the northeastern leader, or risk getting bogged down on bad terrain facing a swarm of undead spam, which can be nasty at night. Quickly send Knights (or Paladins) and Burin over the ford to start wailing on undead. A disposable Horseman can try to take out Scorpions in this area at first. On the way is your proper Scorpion disposal unit, the Mages and White Mage. Try to kill Dark Adepts with Burin or horse units before they have chance to attack you. As you close in on the leader, hover your mouse over him to watch where he can go, as his ranged attack is nasty and can be followed up by waves of kamikaze Walking Corpses, which can take out a Knight.
# After you have killed the northeastern leader and eliminated troops there, you can either send your whole army back across the ford and south or split your army into two halves, sending one part to each leader. If you have lost several units but have lots of turns left, it's probably safer to stick together. This is not a simple mop-up operation, as powerful undead can take out some of your valuable units if you're not careful. On hard, Shadows are a constant threat at night.

Spoiler...

* Searching the temples is a good idea. Some have gold. There is a free loyal White Mage hiding in (a random) one of the temples - visit the temple close to the keep ASAP, and if not there, try rushing a horse unit or Lady Outlaw to the temple at 19,5. However, some of the temples contain undead, so keep extra troops nearby when you enter one.

===The Oldwood===

This is a relatively easy scenario.

Recruitment...
# First round, recall your (probably leveled up) Heavy Infantry from The Fall and some quick fighters.
# Second round, recall White Mages and quick Mages.
# Third round, round out with Thugs, Bowmen, and Spearmen, preferably quick.

Strategy...
* Your forces will have three main combat arenas: the northeast, the south, and the middle.
# The main bulk of your force, including at least one White Mage, should head east to the orc in the northeastern castle. The leader there recruits a lot of units, and most of them are level 2, so watch out.
# Haldric, a White Mage, your loyal Heavy Infantry types, and a couple of level 1's (maybe a Mage and a Thug) should head south to the other orc leader. A few effective melee units can easily counter the riders they send early on, and then with a little forethought and patience you can take out their Archers and Crossbowmen without giving them time to shoot.
# The castle in the middle is inhabited by the tree folk, so don't bother sending troops there; however, you might want to keep a couple speedy units not far off to watch their backs, in case the allied leader gets into trouble, as is usually the case.

Spoilers...
* The temple contains the entrance to the catacombs, but you need the leader Wose's help to open it, and to get that help you have to win the current scenario, so there is no point in visiting this temple.

* Heads up: The next scenario is in the catacombs, i.e., underground, and it's a tough one, so you need to groom your roster accordingly. Two Mages of Light would make it a whole lot easier. Failing that, level up your fearless loyal Shocktrooper and chaotic outlaw types. Bandits/Highwaymen and Fugitives are especially nice. Quick units of almost any type (except horse units) will be helpful, if leveled and possessing high HP (>50).

===Temple in the Deep===

You will be facing undead underground. This is a difficult situation that will prove much easier with proper recruitment. Then the strategy will be fairly straightforward.

Recruitment...

* All in all, what you need is a small elite force. Two rounds of recalls is enough, if you didn't lose Burin in a prior scenario.
# First round, recall your loyal Shocktroopers / Iron Maulers, especially the fearless one, though their slow movement will prove frustrating. Also on the first round, recall a fast "tank" and someone to grab the holy water (if Burin is not your choice.)
# Second round, recall any Mages of Light you might already have, and a total of at least two White Mages or Mages of Light, preferably quick. For the rest of your recruitment, what you need are high movement (6+ MP) non-horse units with high hitpoints (>50 HP), preferably chaotic, preferably with a ranged attack, and preferably impact attacks. Put all the requirements together and it points to Fugitives. Outlaws and quick Arch Mages are worth recalling too. Fill out the rest with Bandits/Highwaymen, Trappers/Huntsmen, and Longbowmen/Master Bowmen, preferably quick. You might think that Red Mages would be good, but they attract melee attacks that they likely will not survive. Note that Horse units are too sluggish to be useful here and should not be recalled/recruited.
# Third round (optional), you can add a unit or two for a safety margin.

Strategy...

# There are two ways north, but they will meet up together before you meet any enemies besides the Tentacles. Ignore the tentacles for the most part and only kill them when it's convenient, as you will need to have a strong line set up by the time you engage the undead. Watch out for the enemy's Bone Shooters, Revenants and Deathblades, as they could easily mess up a level 3 unit. Once you see the two choke points, hold them so one of their units is facing 2 of yours (preferably with a White Mage behind them). You may be able to level up a White Mage to a Mage of Light while fighting in the choke point. If your troops are too slow to grab both choke points, you can send Burin and others to the west choke point while your slow troops line up at the southeast shoreline and bridge.
# Gradually progress northwards once the flow of baddies has tapered off, and once you get into the final chamber, the boss should be a piece of cake, although his ranged attack is devastating, so try to attack him with melee units. Be careful if he has recruits around, as their combined damage can take down one of your level 3's. Note that the Ruby can only be picked up by Haldric.

Hints...

* Holy water: Burin is very effective if you give him the holy water; however, it's more helpful to send Burin running to the west choke point without delay. A good alternative is a Highwayman - or a Bandit, who should level quickly. Compared to a Highwayman/Bandit, Prince Haldric or a Royal Guard is not that great a choice for the holy water due to their lawful alignment and -25% penalty, unless you have (or will soon get) a Mage of Light.

* XP: Use this level to get experience. The early-finish bonus is tiny. The tentacles are perfect for leveling up units. If you're hurting for leveled chaotic units, you can even level up two raw recruit Thugs (use Haldric's leadership to assist). Keep Burin away from the water at this stage, or he'll kill all tentacles as they attack, depriving those who could benefit from the XP.

Spoilers...

* Your killed units will be turned into Walking Corpses (or Soulless on hard.) Therefore, spam is not helpful. A Mage or two can be okay, if used with great care, but mostly you need to recall leveled troops here.

===Return to Oldwood===

Plot only.

===Clearwater Port===

This scenario is easy if you take the first boat out, more and more challenging for the second and third boats, and very difficult (on hard) if you want to take out all three leaders.

Recruitment...
# First turn, recall your loyal Shocktroopers / Iron Maulers from ''The Fall.'' You will also want several Footpads, for speedy village snatching, coastline defending (under leader supervision), and possibly for filling castle hexes if your lines get too thin.
# Second turn, recruit/recall more low maintenance units. It's a good scenario for leveling troops, so recalling acouple half-leveled Spearmen or similar is a good idea.
# Third and later turns, start recalling your high maintenance units. The key to winning this scenario is to recall several advanced units that can take a lot of damage and get good defense in castles (no Horsemen). You will also want at least 3 White Mages or Mages of Light.

Strategy...
# Backstab your ally, stealing all his villages. Your ally is useless anyway, except for the entertainment value from his troops' suicide runs. The income is much better in your hands.
# Send your heavy duty troops with some White Mages over to the line of castle near Lt. Aethyr. (Optionally, you can rush forward past the castle, but you will need to return almost as quickly before the main enemy wave and night arrive.) Aethyr will usually be done recruiting by the second or third turn, before the enemy reaches you, so fill the entire line with your units, and put Knight Sir Rudry in the one non castled tile (or leave it empty, if no enemy are adjacent.) Place the White Mages behind this line. After the enemy has reached you and it is your turn to attack, go mostly for the assasins, as they have a weak melee attack and their poison can be a huge problem.
# Meanwhile, on the northeastern coast, the northern enemy leader will send lots of units to catch your flank unguarded. Send 2 Footpads, a Spearman, Lady Jessene, and Haldric to guard the coast. If Lady Jessene is already level 3, you can substitute a Royal Guard, Swordsman, or Javelineer for Haldric. This coastline defense squad may need help later, so be ready to divert a speedy powerful unit there. If you keep a healthy unit on the village at the tip of the land, then, unless you are very unlucky, you will be able to hold off everything the northern leader sends. After the assault from the water has been crushed, some of your troops may be able to cross the ford north, but be careful not to get attacked in the water with only 20% defense. (Certain of your chaotic units do have 40% defense in water; now is a good time to pay attention to that.) Also, notice that the lighthouse has a similar effect as a Mage of Light.
# You have two options for the endgame:
## "Total victory" strategy: Once you've thinned the enemy to where they only have a few units that are close to your line, usually this happens conveniently around dawn, move your people out and start heading for their leaders. Split your force, sending a few down the southern path, to distract the eney and most of them toward the middle leader, to kill him. Once he's dead, send some of your army down to kill the southern leader and devote a few units to defending the bridge until the rest of your army can rejoin you. A unit or two with a lot of HP with a white mage are usually enough to do this.
## "Run like hell" strategy: Alternatively, you can leave your leader near the docks and take one of the boats to end the scenario.

===Fallen Lich Point===

This is a high variance scenario. It may be very easy or very hard, depending on events beyond your control.

Recruitment...
* Recruit fairly lightly initially, as you will likely have a chance to use the Lich's keep to recruit again.
* Mages, White Mages, and Mages of Light are good, and as are all the other advancements of Mages.
* You automatically should have your loyal Knight. Because of the mountains around "lichland" and frozen ground everywhere else, additional horse units are not recommended, except a single Paladin will come in handy.
* Some Thugs or a Bandit or Highwayman will provide a little extra undead bashing power.
* Footpads will help with village flagging, after the Wolf Rider types are taken care of, but you can postpone buying Footpads until after killing the Lich.

Strategy...
# The Orcs will be busy with the Yetis, so you can walk with a big group south and kill the Lich-Lord. Move Haldric to the stone monument to de-petrify the Lich. It may help to post some units around the undead before doing so. Use several mages to make a hole or two in the ring of undead, and then push in a burly fighter or two and/or Paladin to kill the Lich.
# After killing the Lich, assess the Orc/Yeti situation (as well as the empty village situation) and decide if you need to use the Lich's keep to recruit some reinforcements.
# After that, head north and walk into the sewer entrance (the "cave") or else kill the orc leaders.

Hints...
* It is also possible, if you recruit heavily, to split your force and head north to attack the eastern Orcs before they finish with the Yetis. However, be careful not to be attacked by a Yeti yourself; a Yeti is dangerous even if heavily wounded. A Yeti will attack you if it can get to a unit within one turn (and it doesn't have a more appealing orc target.)
* When dealing with the Lich, be aware that he has money; if you let him vacate any of his encampment tiles, or if you kill any of his units but do not occupy their tiles, he will be able to recruit. (This is not necessarily all bad, as it can mean more experience, but depending on the strength of your force you may want to be careful.)
* Note that this level becomes a lot tougher if the Yetis get poisoned early on and quickly die. If this happens you basically have no other choice than to kill the orc leaders first.

===Sewer of Southbay===

This is a swampy underground scenario, but with attention to recruitment, it's not very difficult.

Recruitment...
* As always underground, you want non-horse units with 6+ MP.
* Recall White Mages / Mages of Light, at least two, three is probably the optimal number.
* There are quite a few villages in this cave, so an expensive force is supportable, though not necessary. Some players recruit a large and spammy force, while others go with small and elite:
** Option 1, "Large and spammy" recruitment: Recruit four each of Mages, Thugs, and Poachers. Yes, Poachers normally stink, but here they really shine in a swamp that is permanently dark, underground. If you recruit four Poachers, you could finish with three Trappers and a Huntsman - or you could finish with four dead Poachers. The Thugs are especially likely to die, as they will be facing off against Red Mages, but somebody has to do it.
** Option 2, "Small and elite" recruitment: Recall something like one Red Mage, one Arch Mage, one Silver Mage, 2 twooyal Guards/Highwaymen/etc, and a Trapper or Huntsman, plus three regular Mages and a Poacher.

Strategy...
# After leaving your initial chamber, you will be in a large swamp room with three entrances, through which will be a flood of bad guys. Use two Poachers and a Thug or similar to blockade the southeast, a small elite group to block the north, and then a mix of fighters and mages to handle the west entrance. Give each group a White Mage or Mage of Light, as well as at least one regular Mage. Try to keep the Mages of Light away from your chaotic forces on the front lines, though. Use the leadership of Haldric and Lady Jessene - and Mage of Light illumination or lack thereof - to get the most from each attack.
# When the initial battle has died down, you have two options:
## If you have enough forces, you can divide into two groups and attack both brothers simultanously, east and west.
## Otherwise, do them one after the other, and then look for the exit.

Spoilers...
* Danger: there is a Giant Spider at the exit. You may wish to keep one or two cannon fodder units in order to be able to save your advanced units. It is best to use ranged attacks against the spider, so leveled mages are good here.
* Heads up: the next scenario is a lot easier with a lot of gold, especially on the hardest difficulty level.

===Southbay in Winter===

Plot only.

===A Final Spring===

This is a large battle, and any mistake on any front can spell doom, but overall it will be fairly easy on the easier difficulty levels. On hard, it will only be a cakewalk with a lot of starting gold (more than 450 or so.)

Recruitment...
# On the first turn, recall a Silver Mage to teleport to the island, recruit Footpads for village snatching, recall one or more of your loyal Iron Maulers (leveled up Heavy Infantrymen from ''The Fall''), and recall one or more Knights or similar.
# Second turn, continue with this theme, but it will be nightfall soon, so recall Outlaws, Bandits, Assassins, etc.
# Turn three is a bit more of the same, but you need to start thinking about preserving your income and also keeping a gold reserve. You can spam some peasants to preserve cash and income.
# Turn four turn is more of the same.
# Turn five is similar, but it will be day soon, so lawfuls like Knights and level 1 Mages are a good idea.
# Turn six, you will have new recruitment options (see spoiler at walkthrough end.)

Strategy is broken into four fronts...
# The first front is the south land area. Do a counter-clockwise sweep with mounted units, optionally augmented with Footpads, which can help pad out your lines with forest and village hexes. Note that it will be nightfall soon after game start, so it might be wise to delay any serious mounted assault until the next day, and you can delay your recalls for this.
# The second front is the walled city. Move slower units and your loyal White Mage / Mage of Light to defend here. Take your ally's villages; your ally wouldn't do much useful with the money anyway. When your mounted units from the second front complete their sweep, you can break the remaining southern forces against the city wall in a hammer and anvil. Then your united forces can move north. On easy, you may be able to push north more quickly than that using just part of your city troops.
# The third front is the bay and peninsula north of your keep. If you don't protect this area well, Wolf Riders and others will mount an amphibious assault in an effort to flank your troops. On the easier difficulty levels, you may wish to beat the punch and quickly establish a bridgehead on the other side of the bay.
# The fourth front is the two small islands. Send a Silver Mage there ASAP. (You should have a village already there, so the Silver Mage can teleport over.) Footpads/Outlaws/Fugitives and others will help later. Lady Jessene could be used. A quick White Mage would be useful, either on the coast or on the islands. Do not use Assassins on this front. Assassins have relatively weak defense in water against Orcs and Nagas, they're very weak against blade, which is all orcs and nagas use, and their relatively slow movement in water makes backstab hard to use reliably. Overall, you need to devote more resources to this front than you might think.

Hints...
* You should have lots of high-level units now, so concentrate on recruiting new ones and levelling them up to fill needs.
* Peasants are useful as placeholders for villages and distractions for the enemy.

Spoilers...
* On turn 5, a gang of nasty undead show up in the east. So, for your city taskforce, you'll want to recruit/recall units with impact and arcane attacks. Note that if undead capture villages, they will be flagged with the Orc island boss' black flag! This can result in an overwhelming number of Nagas, and it's one reason that you must devote a lot of resources to the island campaign. Flag any black flag villages you can.
* On turn 6, a gang of nasty Mermen show up in the west. Fortunately, they are on your side. You can now recruit Mermen. This is the real reason to keep a gold reserve until this time.

===Peoples in Decline===

This is a bloody scenario versus Drakes. It can be a real challenge on the hardest difficulty setting, less so on the easier levels. Proper recruitment is more important than strategy here, as you will have little opportunity to maneuver.

Recruitment...
* Drakes can be dangerous, so this is a great scenario to use the time honored technique of cannon fodder. Now that you can recruit level 0 units for cheap, you can protect your higher level units by recruiting endless Peasants to distract the Drakes' firepower.
* Drakes are vulnerable to pierce attacks, so spam cheap pierce attack units. In addition to Peasants, there are Poachers, Bowmen, Peasants, Spearmen, Merman Fighters, and Merman Hunters. Poachers are key here, due to the swampy terrain and their chaotic alignment.
* You will need about 3 White Mages / Mages of Light in all.
* On your last turn of recruitment when you have about 80 gold, recall some advanced units, like Master Bowmen.

Strategy...
* Since you will have a lot of level 1 and 0 units, make sure to use the leadership of Prince Haldric and Lady Jessene.
* Look for opportunities to heal via leveling up.
* Pay attention to the day-night cycle in this scenario. Drakes will be strong during day, but become very weak in the night.
* Take advantage of the mountains for defense, but note that on hard, you need to set up a relatively small perimeter around your base, as you will be hard pressed to even hold a small area.
* Be careful with your loyals.
* Because most Drakes have powerful ranged attacks, the roles of your melee and ranged units are reversed from the norm. Whereas usually you would use fighters to protect archers, here you will use archers to protect fighters. Melee-only units should hide behind the lines until they attack, preferably at night (with a Mage of Light supplying illumination.)

Spoiler...
* Make sure you get the Storm Trident in the middle of the sea, but be certain that you've cleared most of the Drakes first, since a Sea Serpent will appear. It's best to have some strong units ready to kill it in 1 or 2 turns. You can give the trident to Lord Typhon, but since he leaves a bit later, you may want to give it to another Merman Fighter. Movement over land is important for Mermen in the campaign as a whole. If the Merman Fighter to whom you give the storm trident has the Quick attribute, you can make him a Hoplite when he gets to level 3. Otherwise, make him a Triton, because movement over land is important for Mermen in this campaign as a whole.

===Rough Landing===

You will be fighting Nagas and Vampire Bats, primarily. This is a scenario that may be frustrating on the easier difficulty levels, though on hard it is just par for the course. Good recruitment and strategy will save you from getting slaughtered.

Recruitment...
* You are probably going to go negative on gold and be unable to rectify that with the paultry early finish bonus, so you might as will go very negative and be resigned to start the next scenario with minimum gold.
* Recruit/recall many Mermen and 1 or 2 White Mages or Mages of Light. A few Peasants can be useful to pad out your force, distract the enemy, and protect villages from stray Bats. A Silver Mage can be useful for island hopping but is not essential. Thieves/Assassins are blade vulnerable, and Nagas only use blades, so it's probably best not to recall them.

Strategy...
# Knock out the southeastern leader in a blitz. It's important to get that out of the way, because a wave of Nagas is advancing at light speed from the north.
# Next, hurriedly set up a line in the water alongside your fortress island. Your fortress troops can anchor one flank, while Burin the Dwarf can go to the island to the northeast to anchor the other end of your line. Nobody messes with Burin. Move Lady Jessene behind the lines to lend her support to the Mermen. Your loyal Mage of Light will be able to move back and forth more (to lend illumination) if kept in the fortress area.
# Finally, once the enemy assault wave has been broken, advance northward to kill the final two leaders in a straightforward mop-up operation. Just be careful not leave isolated units where they can get swarmed.

Hints/Spoilers...
* Try to level up the mermen; they can be useful in another scenario later.
* Beware of Sea Serpents. Three of them will appear, one on each of the three turns following your first kill of an enemy unit. Make sure to kill them at once. The Storm Trident from the previous scenario and the Ruby of Fire will come in handy against the Serpents.

===A New Land===

This is a non-scenario. The scenario objectives tell you to avoid all confrontation for as long as possible, but actually the faster your units encounter the others the faster the scenario will end.

Recruitment...
* None necessary.

Strategy...
* The optimal strategy for gold carryover is to grab the three closest villages, then retreat to your keep and wait. Once one attack occurs, the non-scenario will be over.

Spoiler...
* One thing to keep in mind is that this the last chance you have to grab some more Mermen as their king leaves. They are quite helpful in a later scenario so grabbing a few extra here cannot hurt if you can spare the gold.

===The Ka'lian===

Story, with your choice of four battles next. You have to beat them all in whatever order. The amount of gold you have should be the factor in deciding when you choose to play Cursed Isle (the undead problem).

===Diverging Campaign Path===

All four scenarios have to be beaten, but in whatever order you choose.
====The Dragon====

This scenario is not as difficult as it looks, though your recruitment and strategy need to be tailored to fight the Saurian Skirmishers and other foes you will face here.

Recruitment...
* Saurians use piercing attacks mostly, so it's better to use units resistant to pierce. Spearmen have 40% pierce resistance. Javelineers are ideal as Saurians use ranged attacks a lot.
* You may wish to bench some or all of your loyal Iron Maulers. They are ineffective against the 70% impact resistant Mudcrawlers, while also vulnerable to the ranged attacks of both Mudcrawlers and Saurians.
* Consider adopting a force of all units with ranged attacks, save for horse and thief units, which can be kept behind the lines when not in use. It is amusing when Saurian Augers are forced to tap your units with their little staffs.
* Healers are a necessity to deal with the heavy damage your units will be sustaining. Depending on the strategy you adopt, you will want 2-4 healers. Mages of Light rock here, as they can easily do front line duty in pairs and their illumination blinds the Saurians, reducing their damage.
* You need something to clean up mud. Versus level 0 Mudcrawlers, Horsemen and their advancements can charge with no counterattack, and likewise Thieves and their advancements can backstab with no counterattack. Mages can be used as well on the fire vulnerable mud.
* A Merman or two will help with water hexes. An Entangler's slow ability will help tame the dragon.

Strategy...
* Players have used many different strategies with success:
** "Hedgehog" strategy: Fighting Saurians requires a disciplined formation. If you're used to stringing out troops to move them into position as they get there, that won't work after Turn 2 or 3. You can use a "healing hedgehog" of ten troops--two white mages next to each other and eight troops completely encircling them. If someone gets badly injured, move them to the inside and put a white mage on one of the long edges, fighting as you go. If you're trying for the big bonus, you'll need two hedgehogs. Try to keep reserves back a bit in cities. If the terrain favorably protects you, or the wounded is a fast unit, you can try moving wounded back to cities too. Once the main wave of Saurians is broken, you can string non-wounded troops out a bit in the rush for the leaders.
** "Triangular Hedgehog" strategy: Switching wounded units to the inside of the hedgehog can be a problem if you are surrounded. ZOC prevents you from creating an open hex to move the inner unit into. You can fix this by creating a triangle with three hexes inside, instead of the standard two of the hedgehog. If you do this on your castle, only three units are in grasslands. If you set it right, you can make most of the hexes adjacent to your triangle be grassland as well, forcing the Saurians into a bad defensive position. In terms of unit positioning, the simplest way is to fill two inner spaces with Mages of Light, a but a better tactic is to put one of the mages on an edge, thereby ensuring that all but one of your units are healing. The remaining unit can either be a Merman Hoplite, (prefereably resilient and carrying a Storm Trident) or Lady Jessene, since she has excellent defense and is chaotic and therefore benefits by not being in the Mages' light.
** "Giant Hedgehog" strategy: Recruit a lot of units, and then move the whole army as one big bulk. Keep healers in the middle (about four), rotate stronger units outwards, and make sure you leave no gaps. The Saurians will slip through the tiniest gap and kill your weak units. Head first for the east or wast leader, but steer for good terrain, because your force will soon be swarmed until about turn 10, when there should be many few Saurians alive.
** "Standard Line" strategy: Form a line from the west board edge diagonally up towards your keep across the two villages just in front of the forest. You will probably wish to bend upwards at the forest, rather than running the line all the way to the keep. Whenever the Saurians have a small number of troops at your line and you have enough strength to kill them all, you can advance your whole line one hex south, allowing you to get additional attacks on them from non-frontline troops. Once you advance a unit to the first water hex at west board edge, the west leader will probably come out to greet it, so be ready to fry him with Haldric's ruby. After killing the leader, back up into good terrain to prepare to meet the dragon.
** "Wake the Dragon" strategy: Prematurely wake the dragon (see spoiler below) and back up your troops to north of your keep. When the dragon comes, kill him. The scenario can be over on turn 7. There is no early finish bonus for this, but you can recruit lightly so that you still have gold at the end and will carry-over 40%, if you need it for your next scenario.
* With all these strategies, the Saurians may hold back for quite a while. This is okay, as the Dragon will eventually appear and come to you. Kill it. Then you are given a choice of whether to end the scenario or to try to kill all the enemy leaders before time runs out. You can choose to finish the remaining Saurians for a nice bonus. However, on the hardest difficulty setting the turn limit (33 turns) is insufficient for you to plow through the vast hordes of level 0 spam to get to the leaders, so it's best to simply end the scenario after killing the dragon.

Spoilers...
* The dragon will awake on turn 15 or when you move a unit down around the road north of the mountains. If you wish to wake the dragon prematurely, you can recruit a Horseman on turn 1 and run him down. It's a suicide mission for him, however.
* If you have a fast non-horse unit in position, rush it to the mountain cave after the Dragon leaves to grab the 200 in gold, though that's nothing compared to the Hero bonus for defeating all the Saurian leaders. So focus on killing all of them first.

====Lizard Beach====

This is a scenario versus Saurians, Giant Scorpions, and Mudcrawlers, where good recruiting and strategy will save you from massive bloodshed.

Recruiting...
* Mermen are helpful for the swamp and water areas.
* Bench some or all of your loyal Iron Maulers, veterans from ''The Fall.'' They are laughably ineffective against the impact resistant Mudcrawlers - and laughably vulnerable to their ranged attacks.
* Thieves, Horsemen, and their advancements are good for mud cleanup, though you must keep them out of range of Saurian skirmishers. Swordsmen and Royal Guards are also good, though overkill.
* Recall a lot of fairly high HP units, preferably with strong non-impact ranged and melee attacks.
* Mages are good. Mages of Light are especially useful, since they can do front line duty. Lots of healing may be necessary, about 3 healers are good, so White Mages can be used too. Raw recruit Mages can be used as well, for disposal of Giant Scorpions and the occasional Saurian Skirmisher that wanders too far. At least one Silver Mage is highly desirable, along with a speedy unit (e.g., Fugitive, Footpad, or Horseman) to capture villages for the Silver Mage to use north of the river.

Strategy...
* General strategy: as Saurians have skirmishers and a lot of movement, be sure to protect your wounded units well. Because of the Saurians unnerving ability to concentrate their fire on one unit, be sure to keep several healers around and try to keep your line straight so only two can mob one guy. Hedgehog tactic also seems to work well.
* Opening strategy: here are some specific strategies that players have used with success in the early part of the scenario:
# "Mermen in center" strategy: Recall 2-4 Mermen, 1-2 Trappers/Huntsmen, and a lot of high HP troops, then form a line. Initially, you can either form a north-south line around the lake area with one flank at the south board edge, or, if you want to be conservative, you can do a diagonal line in the southeast corner, with both flanks tied to board edges. You'll need the Mermen to handle the lake area, and Trappers/Huntsmen/Mermen for the swamp areas. Keep troops in reserve, so that when a few Saurians meet your line, you can advance your whole line over them. Do not be too conservative/defensive on hard, as your time is limited.
# "Mermen on flank" strategy: Recall several decent land melee units & then 4-5 level 2 Mermen on rounds 2-3. Most of your force forms a line of battle near your keep, Mermen on the north flank in the river, land units extending south, flanks bent back with strongest units at the corners - then let the Saurians break on it. Once their first wave has broken, the rest of their troops come in drips and are no problem, so now you can split up and wipe out the stragglers and claim villages; any L2 units you start with should level up. After you defeat the main force from the south send just one or two guys north to capture towns so your Silver Mages can teleport into the fray.
# "Mermen feint" strategy: Recall most of your Mermen from before and send them along the river towards the sea. This will harry the saurian troops coming down from the north, allowing your main force to advance on the southern enemy undisturbed. Beware, though as your mermen will encounter the Saurians at night time (giving you -25% and them +25%), so try to minimize conflict until dawn, just get in their way.
# "No Mermen" strategy: On your first two turns recall two keeps of strong, fast veterans like mounted units (not Paladins though; they're pretty ineffective against saurians), Outlaws/Assassins, and Silver Magi along with some other veterans, preferably with a lot of HP: if all goes well (at least on easy and medium) that may be all you need. Dash them across the swamp directly west of your keep, south of the sands, and form a line with strong units at the ends. They'll flank you, but you're stronger than them and you can use your slower units to crush the flanking saurians in a hammer and anvil. The first wave of southern Saurians should get itself killed before the northern Saurians arrive in force. Once the northern Saurians arrive, take them out with your slower units while your quicker ones go for the southern leader.
# "Sacrificial lamb" strategy: In addition to a couple mages, 2 healers, and some other fighters, recruit a castle-full of peasants to draw the Saurians out onto open ground. Surround a single peasant on 5 sides, with 2 healers behind him. Build your formation around that.
* Closing strategy: The enemy's onslaught tapers out after their initial wave, so the final push for the southern leader should be quick and clean. Taking out the northern leader is harder, because all of your units will be stuck south of the marshes and the river. If you want to go for a quick win, just march forth with Silver Mages, Mermen, and anyone who's close enough to be a help. If you don't want to lose any of your better units, patience may be the key.

Spoilers...
* When one of your units gets as far west as the second bridge, a wave of Nagas will arrive out at sea. You may wish to delay going that far until the second watch, so that the Nagas will make contact with your forces during the day.
* Killing one leader gives more gold to the other, so when you've defeated pretty much all the southern leader's forces, just plant a level 3 or two in his keep and leave him alive; kill them both in the same turn.

====The Troll Hole====

This is a scenario that you cannot win by brute force, because the trolls have more brute force than you. Wise recruitment and strategy are necessary.

Recruitment...
* It's underground time again, so as before, mainly recruit mages. The trolls are strong, so hopefully you have lots of levelled up mages. Mages of Light are especially nice, because they are tough enough to survive an attack from most trolls, while simultaneously reducing the damage sustained (due to illumination blinding the trolls.) Level 1 Mages can be used to good effect too, especially if quick. If only attacked by a single Troll Whelp, a healthy level 1 Mage will survive.
* In addition to mages, your chaotic units can be helpful here again, especially against the occasional Rocklobber, which you will not want to attack with mages.
* Forget about your loyal Iron Maulers (leveled up Heavy Infantrymen from ''the Fall''). They are too slow. It's not that you'll be running around, but you will be rotating troops due to heavy damage, and they will only get in the way.
* Putting Mermen in the moat will really help you fend off the first wave of attacks.

Strategy...
* There are 4 castles, and two of them (randomly placed it seems) are the troll leaders you need to kill.
* Try to use the narrow corridors to your advantage, so the enemy can only place one attack against a strong unit of yours, but you can kill a troll at a time with two mages or Haldric. Also keep an eye at your back since they will try to surround you. And resist the temptation to send single units wandering around in what seems empty caves - they will all die, probably by the fangs of a Giant Spider.
* Try to arrange it so one troll can enter to be attacked by many troops. Have regular troops in front initially. Move mages forward to finish the troll, plug the gap where the troll was with Burin or a Royal Guard or an Iron Mauler, and reset the trap on the next turn. When you've whittled down the enemy, go the direction they came from and kill the leaders, ignoring spider keeps.
* Alternative: This could be a good choice if you have low gold: recall 2 quick red mages, and 3 quick tough melee units (say 2 royal guards & a L3 chaotic unit like a Fugitive). Play expedition style: abandon the start island, stay fairly close together, with your troops roughly divided in two between those moving forward and those fighting rearguard. Provided you knock out one troll leader early, the rest is manageable, just work your way carefully over to the other.

====Cursed Isle====

You will be fighting undead, mostly of the incorporeal and ghoulish lineages. Victory comes surprisingly easily.

Recruitment...
* Recruit lightly, certainly no more than two castles of troops. You could use 1-3 Paladins, 1-2 Mages, and 1-2 White Mages / Mages of Light.
* Recall your loyal Merman Triton or similar and have him pick up the holy water.

Strategy...
* This can be the first or last quest you choose. If you can wait, do it last, as you will come out of it with a lot of gold, which you will need for the first scenario after the quests, ''The Vanguard''.
* Keep a very tight formation for the first night, as Shadows will hit hard and you don't want to get backstabbed or swarmed. By dawn, it should be smooth sailing.
* If you get anywhere near the enemy leaders' keeps, expect to get rushed by a leader.

Spoiler...
* In one of the temples if a Vampire Lady. All you really need is a Paladin or three to rush the temples. Kill her. Game over, you win. One of the other temples has some gold; grab that first.

===A Spy In The Woods===

Plot only.

===The Vanguard===

You will be fighting a large number of orcs, trolls and other enemies in a location with a natural defensive line, where presumably an underground river has carved a line of sinkholes. This scenario will be difficult or impossible with minimum gold (200), but quite doable with a large amount of gold (450+) even on the hardest difficulty setting. Recruitment and strategy are fairly straightforward, given the board layout.

Recruitment...
* Recruit a lot of units; you will need them.
# First turn, recall/recruit speedy units: Knights, Lancers, Paladins, Horsemen, Outlaws, and similar.
# Second turn, recall your loyal Iron Maulers (leveled up from ''The Fall'') and Spearmen/Swordsmen/Royal Guards.
# On subsequent turns, recall/recruit healers and other sorts of Mages, Thugs and their advancements, and Longbowmen. You will need quite a lot of healing power: 3-4 White Mages / Mages of Light and 1-2 Paladins. A Silver Mage would come in handy, since your forces will be widely spaced, but you could start with a couple of Red Mages and try to level up one or both to Silver Mage.

Strategy...
# This map is smaller than fog of war and sinkholes make it appear. Rush the west and northwest gaps with mounted units, but slow & strong will carry the day once the sun rises and the odds are in your favor.
# Seal of all the gaps in the ring of sinkholes. When the onslaught begins, wounded units can retreat back into villages or be cared for by healers - or actually both, since soon you will be out of non-wounded units.
# A "Sitzkrieg" may develop, where neither side can make progress. Shift units to the southwest and break out there, using the west board edge defensively. From there, sweep northwards, taking out the western orc leader first and then the next orc leader.
# Don't forget the chest of gold, which you can see even in fog.
# End the scenario with the kill of the final leader, a level 3 troll.

Spoilers...
* Once you kill more than half the units of any side, a few tough undead units will appear near that side's stronghold at the edge of the map. So, this will happen three times. Beware the Chocobones. Their double damage from charge means they can take out Commander Aethyr at night just by hitting 2 for 2, and they will certainly try if they get the opportunity.
* Heads up: the next scenario is much less difficult with extra gold. You can use Peasants to avoid going negative on gold, promoting them to Spearmen only when needed.

===Return of the Fleet===

Welcome to the "kitchen sink" defense. You've made it this far; now the enemy will launch a desperate defense, throwing a little bit of everything at you. The effect is mostly psychological, but it could be a problem if you came into the scenario with minimum gold or your initial assessment causes you to drastically under-recruit. Time is money.

Recruitment...
* On medium, at least, you don't want to overrecruit. First turn, recall Mermen to assassinate the undead leader; 2 Entanglers/Netcasters and the Triton with the Storm Trident. Later, you should recruit 1 or more Silver Mages also for this taskforce as well as for causing general mayhem. It's also worth recruiting 5-10 L1/L0 units to take the brunt of the first wave of attacks; you can use any combination of Footpads, Poachers, Thugs, Spearmen, and Peasants, as you see fit. You'll want some decent L2 and L3 recalls for healing, to flank your lines, and to start kicking some butt at daybreak. A Mage or Red Mage to blast Trolls and Chocobones will level up by end of scenario. Paladins are good too. In addition to your loyal Mage of Light, you will need a bare minimum of 1 more healer.
* On medium, don't recruit too much for fighting the undead - 2 Paladins at most, 1 or 2 Thugs, the stormy Merman, and the nearest Mage working with your land force are sufficient - the undead commander only gets 5-6 L2 recruits and they come ashore scattered (on medium, anyway). Paladins are so effective against undead that you can wade into the water after them. Just remember, Paladins can't go into deep water and undead can.
* On hard, you also don't want to recruit too much for fighting the undead, but it's only because going on an offensive early against them will get you crushed by a Chocobone armada.

Strategy...
# Move the Mermen (including the storm trident) as quickly as possible pretty much straight to the West. (There is a village and swamp hex that can aid your travel if you pick the best route). Move these guys up the West side once they get there to get to the Undead Leader as quickly as possible.
# Your loyal units can do a little village grabbing, but it would be unwise to venture too far north.
# After nightfall, fog will appear; for the rest of the scenario, the map will become shrouded, like in a cave scenario. So while you're still amazingly able to see, note the key terrain features, castle and city locations, and troop dispositions (especially Chocobones.) Also, visually explore the avenues of approach you want to be able to see later.
# The first wave is largely at night and will have Goblin Knights and Pillagers, and later Chocobones and Troll Warriors. The damage they can cause is bone chilling, so make sure to divert their attention with plenty of spam. You want to meet them on the edge of the woodland, while inducing the orcs to fight from the grassland. Footpads and Poachers are handy here, as they have high defense in woodland. Players have had success setting up the initial line in either the north and northeast woodlands, with respect to the castle. Others have succeeded by fighting mostly from the open plain, retaining mobility by leaving the woodlands to their Footpads.
# Once your Mermen have taken an island city, teleport over one or more Silver Mages to help kill the undead leader - in addition to a Silver Mage, you will want the storm trident, a Netcaster/Entangler, plus one more leveled unit to be fairly sure to knock him out in one round. Quick striking like this you end up fighting a lot less undead. You probably end up foddering one of the mermen to the Undead Archers, but the trade off is well worth it. You can keep cycling your mermen up to fight with any orcs or trolls that come into the water. Silver Mages can assist, since they are not needed much in the other part of the fight.
# After the undead leader is assassinated and the first wave is broken, you may advance cautiously due north or to the northwest along the coast and ultimately finish off the two orc leaders.

Spoilers...
* When you are close to the break in the woods at the east board edge, tighten your formation and keep wounded units well away, as a small force of high-level Saurians will appear. Trigger them in daylight if possible, and knock them out fast. Alternatively, you can delay triggering the Saurians as long as possible by moving your force northwest near the water and then onto the small island, though even then it is possible to trigger the Saurians if you are not careful where you step. (Stepping to 10 hexes or less from 34,15 triggers the Saurians.) You can fight the final wave of orcs from the island, then move northeast to the mainland, finally triggering the Saurians.
* Two cuttlefish appear when you approach the north-central island. Assuming you're sending a strike force through the water to knock out the undead commander, you really don't want to trigger these until that force is on the island - the storm trident Merman is the only thing that can stand up to them in water, and they will avoid him to attack more vulnerable units.
* Once you kill one enemy leader, the other gets more gold & recruits a new wave of L2s. This can be useful if you need to kill off surplus L1 units to improve the finish bonus, or if you need the XP more than the gold; otherwise, try to knock out both leaders on the same turn before they can recruit more. Alternatively, if you kill the first one at dawn, the second will be reluctant to attack with his L2s in daylight, and you might jump in and kill him before he uses them.
* Heads up: The next scenario is the final one. Therefore, loyal units are now somewhat disposable. However, you will need plenty of gold. Recruit some Peasants in the current scenario if you need to save some gold. Not only are they cheap, but they have no upkeep and Chocobones love 'em. Send a unit with leadership with them and they can even deal some amount of damage and be used to finish off wounded enemy, though at night you should just let them take the beating passively since otherwise they die too quickly.

===Rise of Wesnoth===

It's the final battle: be patient, recall everybody - the early finish bonus doesn't mean anything. Also, loyal units are no better than other units after your recruitment is finished.

Recruitment...
* You will need at least 300 starting gold, maybe more like 400 on the hardest difficulty level, so if need be, replay the previous scenario.
* To stretch your money, start with loyal Iron Maulers and a couple ready-to-level level 1's and level 2's. Finally, recall as many level 3's as possible.
* Healers: 3-6 Mages of Light / White Mages. Your few chaotic units will appreciate a White Mage.
* Horse units: 2-4 Paladins, 3-4 Knights / Grand Knights.
* Horse escorts: about 3 speedy units, like Royal Guards, Fugitives, and Silver Mages.
* Tanks: at least 6 high HP units, such as Royal Guards, Highwayman, Master Bowmen, and the loyal Iron Maulers.
* Mages: at least 3 high level Mages aside from your basic healers, so Arch Mages, Great Mages, and Silver Mages. Additional Mages of Light can be substituted.
* Some Mermen might be useful here, but surprisingly, they're not really necessary.
* On 1.9.3 and earlier, you can recruit Saurian Skirmishers on medium and Skirmishers plus Ambushers on hard. This appears to be a bug, so ignore the option.

Strategy...
* You will launch a two pronged assault: mounted units will race to the west and then south, while the main army heads due south.
* With your mounted units, race forwards by day and backwards by night.
* Along with the mounted units should go some escorts, speedy foot units intended to kill things like Goblin Impalers, which make even Grand Knights nervous. They would also benefit from a quick Mage of Light.
* Meanwhile, with your tanks and the rest of your healers and support units, form a line or hedgehog in the woods just south of your keep or next to the river.
* Keep your leaders with the main army, to avoid drawing too much attention to the mounted detachment.
* Maintain awareness of the overall battlefield. If the main army gets in trouble, you can send some or all of the mounted units to assist. There may be an opportunity to hammer-and-anvil enemy forces trapped in the middle. And you may wish to transfer units, like Paladins may be useful to the main army after it is on the move.
* You'll need at least two Paladins to kill Jevyan himself; nothing else is half as effective (except perhaps Mages of Light and suicidal Lancers). Don't forget to sacrifice Aethyr to Jevyan. If he doesn't want to come out and play, march up to Jevyan and use a crossbow attack. When Jevyan is dead, the yellow and green leaders may still be alive. You'll have to kill one, leaving at least one orc leader alive. You pick. Congratulations! Enjoy the ending!

Spoilers...
* When one of your units is within 8 hexes of a bridge, but you have no units within 2 hexes of the bridge, and there are no units on the bridge, then a Cuttle Fish will appear and destroy the bridge. This is usually disadvantageous. Not only does it leave you with a Cuttle Fish to fight, but it slows your progress south and the bad guys progress north. At least on the hardest difficulty level, it's hard to kill all the spam in time, so you don't want to impede their advance by removing the bridge.
* When any of your units is killed, it becomes a Walking Corpse. On hard, it becomes a Soulless, which makes it important to be careful with your level 2's, especially Lancers.
* After the first orc leader is killed, then some gold goes to mister Lich. It's 40, 80, or 120 gold, for easy, medium, and hard, respectively.

== See Also ==

* [[MainlineCampaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns - The Rise of Wesnoth]]
[[Category:Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

TheRiseOfWesnoth

2011-09-26T06:30:43Z

Glandis: /* Campaign strategy */

== Strategy Guide for The Rise of Wesnoth Campaign ==

===Campaign strategy===

Over the course of this campaign, you will need to level up to some:

* Healers: White Mages/Mages of Light (at least four)
* Undead killers: Paladins (two)
* Mobile strikers: Silver Mages (at least one, preferably more), Grand Knights (several), Fugitives (one or more helps)
* Damage sinks: Royal Guards, Iron Maulers, Highwaymen, Halberdiers, level 3 Burin, and again Grand Knights
* Leaders: level 3 Haldric, level 3 Lady Outlaw, and much later level 3 Commander Aethyr
* Ranged attackers: Great Mages (can use several in the last scenario), Longbowmen/Master Bowmen (two), Trapper/Huntsman (one is helpful)

A Mage of Light, one Paladin, and five Grand Knights make a perfect assault team!

Although Horsemen are key for the first three or four scenarios, it's important not to be too reliant on horse units through the middle part of the campaign, as there are many hard levels underground, in swamps, in water, or against Saurians; use XP from the scenario ''The Vanguard'' to get to 2 Paladins and 2+ Grand Knights.

Don't overlook Pikemen/Halberdiers, which are useful in many levels; pierce attacks work well against Drakes and against the dragon, and they are handy for defensive roles especially repelling Wolf Riders. They are less good against undead, though, and don't get that +1 MP Royal Guard speed bonus.

Due to many undead opponents, you will want to recruit many Thugs at times, and get a few (the quick ones, since you need them underground) leveled up. Footpads help too, once leveled up. Due to swamps, you will sometimes be spamming Poachers, which get marksmanship once at level 3. These, plus Lady Outlaw, give tactical options at other levels too: some decent chaotic troops form an ideal reserve, since you can attack with your lawful troops at dawn, and by nightfall when you need to heal them, use some chaotic troops to either continue the attack or to shield your healing lawful units.

Here are some recommended units to have obtained by specific scenarios:

2. The Fall - 1 Knight 
3. A Harrowing Escape - 1 White Mage, 2 Knights, plus about-to-level troops 
4a. The Midlands - avoid, go to The Swamp of Eden instead 
4b. The Swamp of Eden - level 2 Haldric, level 2 Lady Outlaw, 2 Knights, 2 Shocktroopers 
6. Temple of the Deep - level 3 Haldric, level 3 Burin, 1-2 Mages of Light or several Outlaws / quick Bandits 
8. Clearwater Port - level 3 Lady Outlaw, 3 White Mages / Mages of Light, 3 Iron Maulers / Royal Guards / Halberdiers 
12. A Final Spring - 1-2 Silver Mages 
14. Rough Landing - the 3 loyal Mermen from the previous scenario, ''Peoples in Decline''[glandis] In 1.8.6, there was no opportunity for 3 loyal mermen - maybe this was in an older version? 
17a. The Dragon - up to 4 White Mages / Mages of Light 
17d. Cursed Island - 1 Paladin 
19. The Vanguard - 4 Knights/Lancers/Grand Knights, 2 Paladins (or about-to-level Knights) 
20. Return of the Fleet - 1 Mermen Entangler, 1 Merman Triton with Storm Trident, level 3 Commander Aethyr desirable 
22. The Rise of Wesnoth - 2 Paladins, 3 Royal Guards, 4 Mages of Light

Because the campaign is long and you won't be able to recall all your level 3's in the final scenario, it pays to create some "uber-units". An example is a quick, resilient Silver Mage that has been AMLA advanced a few times.

==Scenarios==
===A Summer Of Storms ===

This is a relatively easy scenario, so gear your recruitment and strategy with an eye towards gathering XP.

Recruitment...
# For the first round, recruit 2-3 Horsemen and the rest can be all Spearmen or a mix of Spearmen and Bowmen as you see fit.
# Then, you should probably hire Bowmen and more Spearmen. Whatever Bowmen you can get advanced will be useful later on for fighting the many trolls, grunts, and riders you will encounter. Note, however, that you will not have any healers until you level up at least one mage to White Mage status, and the sooner you can do that the better. Red mages will also prove very useful in subsequent scenarios, so consider recruiting at least two mages.

Strategy...
* Players have used at least three strategies with success...
# The "over the bridge" strategy: Send the horsemen with the king over the bridge, and the others should follow or start going over the mountain, to avoid being attacked from behind. Send subsequent Spearmen and Bowmen on the "over-the-bridge" road, and when the Prince and final troops have just about caught up, march on the enemy camp.
# The "hide in the swamp" strategy: Proceed much like the above, but send the king with 3 Horsemen to capture the nearest houses, then retreat into the swamp area until you have your lawful bonus to kill off troops during the day. To hold them back, you can use a Spearman and a Mage (to level him.)
# "Sandbagging" strategy: On the hardest difficulty level, the initial enemy assault will only be easy to handle by entrenching your troops behind the river. Use the king to block the bridge initially, while Spearmen handle the shoreline just north and Horsemen carefully flag villages across the river. Run the king around, lending his leadership as you massacre the stupid enemy troops that have jumped like lemmings into the water.
* For all these options, you will also need to send a squad north into the mountains and around into the flank of the enemy. A quick Spearman, a quick Bowman, and one other unit, possibly a quick Mage, should be more than sufficient.
* When you see that the fronts are under control, stop recruiting and send prince Haldric and your Mages over the bridge on a quest for XP, assisted by the leadership of the king, and converge on the enemy camp.

===The Fall===

This is a scenario that looks scary, but it is only moderately difficult with proper recruitment and strategy.

Recruitment...
* Recall or recruit Spearmen and Bowmen to man the lines.
* Horsemen/Knights are desirable, because you probably do not yet have a White Mage, and the villages are widely spaced.
* Recalling or recruiting Mages for XP gathering is highly advisable for future scenarios.

Strategy...
* There are three basic approaches to take out the outlaw leader...
# "Brute force" strategy: You can march west with a large army and use part of it to hold northwestern orc. Use the rest to fight outlaws and kill the leader. This strategy requires a lot of troops but it can bring you plenty of experience and can bring a quick victory.
# "Assassination over the bridge" strategy: You can assassinate the outlaw leader. One way is to wait until the orcs have killed almost all outlaws and then assassinate the outlaw leader with Knights, rushing over the enemy camp's bridge and into the keep. This strategy is risky because orcs can kill the leader before you.
# "Assassination via the mountain pass" strategy: Another way to assassinate the leader is to send a squad through the southern mountains to the outlaw keep. Two Mages and three Spearmen are enough. You may wish to substitute one of the Spearmen with a Knight or Horseman, though horse units have only a narrow passage devoid of mountains and could get pinned by the enemy.
* On the hardest difficulty level, you may be forced to assassinate. For either of the assassination strategies, it is a good idea to fight against the northeastern orc nearby your keep. This way, you can secure your back and earn experience.

Hints...

* Saving the loyal Heavy Infantrymen (or Shock Troopers on easy) pays off in later scenarios. To save all three, move them south towards the outlaws.

* Once you eliminate the HP of the Lady Outlaw, she offers to help you. If you say yes, she comes back as a loyal unit in future scenarios and you will be able to recruit outlaw units, plus she cannot be killed in the next couple of scenarios (instead, she disappears when she goes to zero HP, and comes back the next scenario.) This is quite valuable. If you say no and try to kill her, you find out she cannot be killed. However, you do get 200 gold that she leaves behind.

* Heads up: The following scenario (''A Harrowing Escape'') is a handful on the hardest difficulty level. On hard, a carryover of almost 150 gold (so you have 250 starting gold) would be wise, so although Lady Outlaw's assistance is worth much more than 200 gold, you may be forced to choose the gold. Another thing you need to beat the following scenario on hard is a White Mage at or near the start of the scenario. Also, about-to-level units will be especially nice for their self-healing ability and low initial upkeep. Steer XP accordingly.

===A Harrowing Escape===

This scenario is much easier on lower difficulty levels, calling for different strategies.

On easy/medium...
* Recruitment: You should recruit/recall at least one, possibly two Mages here, and use them for killing Goblin Spearmen and finishing off injured Wolf Riders in the hills & mountains bordering the valley. Other than the Mages, simply recruit what you want, and go along the road. You get enough villages to pay upkeep for quite some army, and can give some of them a bit of experience.
* Strategy: Leave a few units in the rear, as the enemy can cross hills quickly. Note that Footpads and Outlaws will also cross hills at reasonable speed, if you need to hunt down some units. There are two castle tiles about halfway down, try to send Lady Outlaw and Brunin the Lost to them, they make good guards in case the enemy tries to come straight up. You can also send a couple groups of units down southeast to the lake, so you can prevent the Green team (southeast) from coming up the river. You can also kill the two Orcish Grunts (or Warriors on medium) on the southern castle tiles and then move Lady Outlaw and Brunin to them.

On hard...
* Recruitment: To beat this scenario on the hardest difficulty level, you need some level 2 (or better yet, about-to-level level 1) units already and a lot of starting gold. It is possible with ~200 starting gold, but only barely. 250+ is better. You can stretch your gold a bit by not going negative on upkeep and waiting until you can't wait any longer to do one last round of recruiting, recalling mostly level 2's. For timing your final recruitment, watch the wolves that are likely trying to flank through the mountains south of your keep. Another requirement for beating this scenario is a White Mage (or two.) If need be, you must promote a Mage (or two) tout de suite, as you will be dealing with severe damage and assassins, while only having easy access to 2 or 3 villages initially. Horsemen and Knights are useful for dissipating damage by serving as meat shields against blades and then running off to remote villages to heal. Quick Horsemen are especially nice, as they can transfer between two strategically placed villages in one turn, for healing on the go. Horsemen, Knights, and Swordsmen are useful for swatting assassins.

* Strategy: More important than terrain is avoiding getting flanked, so mobility of individual units is key; if you climb up deep into the mountains, you will have a harder time with mobility than staying on or near the valley floor. Additionally, many of your units cannot go on mountain hexes, so it's easier to maintain your lines if everyone stays close to the valley. Near the start of combat, it's crucial to kill units quickly on the road: first the wave of wolves, then the wave of assassins. In contrast to easy and medium, on the hardest difficulty level both pairs of roadside castle tiles are guarded, not just the second pair. As on medium, the guards are Orcish Warriors.

Hints...
* On medium/hard, you can lure out the roadside guard Warriors one at a time by putting a unit within attack range of one (and out of range of the other.) They mostly come at night. Mostly. That is, the Warriors might not bite bait put out during the day.

* If you have Lady Outlaw, note that she has leadership, which will be useful to help promote Prince Haldric, if he is still level 0. It's worth advancing her to level 2, to continue to provide leadership to level 1 Haldric and your other level 1's. You may also make use of her odd ability "distract", which allows adjacent allied units to ignore ZOCs. And Lady Outlaw allows you to recruit outlaw types. On hard especially, Thugs can be useful as meat shields and to provide strong attacks at night when your lawful forces are crippled. Remember too that Lady Outlaw cannot be permanently killed (at least not yet), so when desperate times call for desperate measures, you can move her into a suicidal position.

Spoilers...

* There is Dwarf Steelclad in the village at 8,5. It's not far from your camp, so send Lady Outlaw there. Dwarf joins you because "It has been a long time since he felt the satisfying crunch of Orcs under his Axe."

* After you kill the first orc leader, an Orcish Slayer and two Assassins will pop out of nowhere, so you would be wise not to have any wounded units stuck without movement points at that point. Also, the other leader will get an infusion of gold and start recruiting on all available hexes, so if you can sit on some of those hexes first, it will help keep the situation from getting out of control.

* At the end, you will be given the choice of the river/swamp road or the midlands/orc road. These fork to the scenarios ''The Swamp of Esten'' and ''The Midlands'', respectively. The swamp scenario is relatively easy, while ''The Midlands'' could cost you some leveled units or even prove impossible to beat if you are low on gold. Also, the swamp gives you a free loyal White Mage, so it's a no brainer, unless you want more of a challenge.

* Heads up: it would be wise to have at least 1 Mage either levelled up to White or about to level up before going to the scenario ''The Swamp of Esten''.

===Diverging Campaign Path===
====The Midlands====

Orcs again. But you chose that way. This scenario may appear impossible, but with a lot of gold and a little strategy, it can be beat.

Recruitment...
* You are given plenty of time, so use it wisely. The enemies send lots of orcs, mostly weak ones. So recruit and recall everything you can.
* Recall any White Mages you have. You'll need them.
* Bowmen are good for the wolf units you will be facing.
* The rest depends on your strategy.

Strategy...
* The "Fast Assault" option: use an assassination team. If you go west, only your Knights and Horsemen will arrive and fight at daytime. So go south. Take the bridge and defend against the enemy closing in from the west. Take out Yellow with a fast assault team (they should take a healer along), but be careful about the leader. Your main force moves west, takes and holds the second bridge, and takes out Blue. Your assault team stays in the south and goes for the last enemy leader - they won't face any serious resistance. The enemy moves north to support Blue. The HI guarding the bridge might gain a level or die, but hopefully not the latter, as they are loyal units in a long campaign. With this approach, you can finish early (around 25 turns) and keep your losses low.
* The "Dark Assault" option: use Footpads. If you chose to work with the the outlaws in the last round, then this works well. Footpads are cheap. And they are fast. And they have good defensive abilities. Plus they fight well in the dark and in the forest. So recruit lots of Footpads-pawns and quickly dispatch them to the upper west and south, followed by more powerful units: Mages, Horsemen, etc. For the time being, leave the middle enemy alone. To the upper west, send several Footpads into the forest and capture the village and set up a defensive line. This cuts down the enemy's gold and increases yours. Don't attack at first, just defend, until more of your slow higher powered units arrive. The strategy here is to pick off the orcs, and send the Horsemen to capture villages. While this is going, to the south you send your Footpads to capture any villages you can and, more importantly, put a Footpad on the hex that is adjacent to the bridge, thereby stopping easy advancement of their greater numbered troops. A White Mage, a couple Trappers and some Bowmen would make a good escort. Probably sending a Thief or two would be good too, to help dispatch any enemy that infiltrate the villages north of the river. one enemy got into one of the villages on the north of river, and it took a lot to dislodge him. The intention is to engage the enemy so that they are fighting from the river squares, at a huge disadvantage.

====The Swamp Of Esten====

This scenario is not too hard if you are conservative and don't send important units off alone.

Recruitment...
# First round, recall 1-2 quick Knights (or Paladins, if you have them), recruit 1-2 Horsemen, and recall your loyal Shocktroopers or whatever they are now.
# Next round, recruit/recall Mages to kill Scorpions (and Bats) and at least one White Mage to deal with poison, plus maybe a Poacher, as they are good in swamp (and you would like a Huntsman eventually, for its markmanship.)
# A little Thug spam can come next, but you don't need a full third round of recruitment. Then send Prince Haldric off to lend his leadership.

Strategy...
# You must blitz the northeastern leader, or risk getting bogged down on bad terrain facing a swarm of undead spam, which can be nasty at night. Quickly send Knights (or Paladins) and Burin over the ford to start wailing on undead. A disposable Horseman can try to take out Scorpions in this area at first. On the way is your proper Scorpion disposal unit, the Mages and White Mage. Try to kill Dark Adepts with Burin or horse units before they have chance to attack you. As you close in on the leader, hover your mouse over him to watch where he can go, as his ranged attack is nasty and can be followed up by waves of kamikaze Walking Corpses, which can take out a Knight.
# After you have killed the northeastern leader and eliminated troops there, you can either send your whole army back across the ford and south or split your army into two halves, sending one part to each leader. If you have lost several units but have lots of turns left, it's probably safer to stick together. This is not a simple mop-up operation, as powerful undead can take out some of your valuable units if you're not careful. On hard, Shadows are a constant threat at night.

Spoiler...

* Searching the temples is a good idea. Some have gold. There is a free loyal White Mage hiding in (a random) one of the temples - visit the temple close to the keep ASAP, and if not there, try rushing a horse unit or Lady Outlaw to the temple at 19,5. However, some of the temples contain undead, so keep extra troops nearby when you enter one.

===The Oldwood===

This is a relatively easy scenario.

Recruitment...
# First round, recall your (probably leveled up) Heavy Infantry from The Fall and some quick fighters.
# Second round, recall White Mages and quick Mages.
# Third round, round out with Thugs, Bowmen, and Spearmen, preferably quick.

Strategy...
* Your forces will have three main combat arenas: the northeast, the south, and the middle.
# The main bulk of your force, including at least one White Mage, should head east to the orc in the northeastern castle. The leader there recruits a lot of units, and most of them are level 2, so watch out.
# Haldric, a White Mage, your loyal Heavy Infantry types, and a couple of level 1's (maybe a Mage and a Thug) should head south to the other orc leader. A few effective melee units can easily counter the riders they send early on, and then with a little forethought and patience you can take out their Archers and Crossbowmen without giving them time to shoot.
# The castle in the middle is inhabited by the tree folk, so don't bother sending troops there; however, you might want to keep a couple speedy units not far off to watch their backs, in case the allied leader gets into trouble, as is usually the case.

Spoilers...
* The temple contains the entrance to the catacombs, but you need the leader Wose's help to open it, and to get that help you have to win the current scenario, so there is no point in visiting this temple.

* Heads up: The next scenario is in the catacombs, i.e., underground, and it's a tough one, so you need to groom your roster accordingly. Two Mages of Light would make it a whole lot easier. Failing that, level up your fearless loyal Shocktrooper and chaotic outlaw types. Bandits/Highwaymen and Fugitives are especially nice. Quick units of almost any type (except horse units) will be helpful, if leveled and possessing high HP (>50).

===Temple in the Deep===

You will be facing undead underground. This is a difficult situation that will prove much easier with proper recruitment. Then the strategy will be fairly straightforward.

Recruitment...

* All in all, what you need is a small elite force. Two rounds of recalls is enough, if you didn't lose Burin in a prior scenario.
# First round, recall your loyal Shocktroopers / Iron Maulers, especially the fearless one, though their slow movement will prove frustrating. Also on the first round, recall a fast "tank" and someone to grab the holy water (if Burin is not your choice.)
# Second round, recall any Mages of Light you might already have, and a total of at least two White Mages or Mages of Light, preferably quick. For the rest of your recruitment, what you need are high movement (6+ MP) non-horse units with high hitpoints (>50 HP), preferably chaotic, preferably with a ranged attack, and preferably impact attacks. Put all the requirements together and it points to Fugitives. Outlaws and quick Arch Mages are worth recalling too. Fill out the rest with Bandits/Highwaymen, Trappers/Huntsmen, and Longbowmen/Master Bowmen, preferably quick. You might think that Red Mages would be good, but they attract melee attacks that they likely will not survive. Note that Horse units are too sluggish to be useful here and should not be recalled/recruited.
# Third round (optional), you can add a unit or two for a safety margin.

Strategy...

# There are two ways north, but they will meet up together before you meet any enemies besides the Tentacles. Ignore the tentacles for the most part and only kill them when it's convenient, as you will need to have a strong line set up by the time you engage the undead. Watch out for the enemy's Bone Shooters, Revenants and Deathblades, as they could easily mess up a level 3 unit. Once you see the two choke points, hold them so one of their units is facing 2 of yours (preferably with a White Mage behind them). You may be able to level up a White Mage to a Mage of Light while fighting in the choke point. If your troops are too slow to grab both choke points, you can send Burin and others to the west choke point while your slow troops line up at the southeast shoreline and bridge.
# Gradually progress northwards once the flow of baddies has tapered off, and once you get into the final chamber, the boss should be a piece of cake, although his ranged attack is devastating, so try to attack him with melee units. Be careful if he has recruits around, as their combined damage can take down one of your level 3's. Note that the Ruby can only be picked up by Haldric.

Hints...

* Holy water: Burin is very effective if you give him the holy water; however, it's more helpful to send Burin running to the west choke point without delay. A good alternative is a Highwayman - or a Bandit, who should level quickly. Compared to a Highwayman/Bandit, Prince Haldric or a Royal Guard is not that great a choice for the holy water due to their lawful alignment and -25% penalty, unless you have (or will soon get) a Mage of Light.

* XP: Use this level to get experience. The early-finish bonus is tiny. The tentacles are perfect for leveling up units. If you're hurting for leveled chaotic units, you can even level up two raw recruit Thugs (use Haldric's leadership to assist). Keep Burin away from the water at this stage, or he'll kill all tentacles as they attack, depriving those who could benefit from the XP.

Spoilers...

* Your killed units will be turned into Walking Corpses (or Soulless on hard.) Therefore, spam is not helpful. A Mage or two can be okay, if used with great care, but mostly you need to recall leveled troops here.

===Return to Oldwood===

Plot only.

===Clearwater Port===

This scenario is easy if you take the first boat out, more and more challenging for the second and third boats, and very difficult (on hard) if you want to take out all three leaders.

Recruitment...
# First turn, recall your loyal Shocktroopers / Iron Maulers from ''The Fall.'' You will also want several Footpads, for speedy village snatching, coastline defending (under leader supervision), and possibly for filling castle hexes if your lines get too thin.
# Second turn, recruit/recall more low maintenance units. It's a good scenario for leveling troops, so recalling acouple half-leveled Spearmen or similar is a good idea.
# Third and later turns, start recalling your high maintenance units. The key to winning this scenario is to recall several advanced units that can take a lot of damage and get good defense in castles (no Horsemen). You will also want at least 3 White Mages or Mages of Light.

Strategy...
# Backstab your ally, stealing all his villages. Your ally is useless anyway, except for the entertainment value from his troops' suicide runs. The income is much better in your hands.
# Send your heavy duty troops with some White Mages over to the line of castle near Lt. Aethyr. (Optionally, you can rush forward past the castle, but you will need to return almost as quickly before the main enemy wave and night arrive.) Aethyr will usually be done recruiting by the second or third turn, before the enemy reaches you, so fill the entire line with your units, and put Knight Sir Rudry in the one non castled tile (or leave it empty, if no enemy are adjacent.) Place the White Mages behind this line. After the enemy has reached you and it is your turn to attack, go mostly for the assasins, as they have a weak melee attack and their poison can be a huge problem.
# Meanwhile, on the northeastern coast, the northern enemy leader will send lots of units to catch your flank unguarded. Send 2 Footpads, a Spearman, Lady Jessene, and Haldric to guard the coast. If Lady Jessene is already level 3, you can substitute a Royal Guard, Swordsman, or Javelineer for Haldric. This coastline defense squad may need help later, so be ready to divert a speedy powerful unit there. If you keep a healthy unit on the village at the tip of the land, then, unless you are very unlucky, you will be able to hold off everything the northern leader sends. After the assault from the water has been crushed, some of your troops may be able to cross the ford north, but be careful not to get attacked in the water with only 20% defense. (Certain of your chaotic units do have 40% defense in water; now is a good time to pay attention to that.) Also, notice that the lighthouse has a similar effect as a Mage of Light.
# You have two options for the endgame:
## "Total victory" strategy: Once you've thinned the enemy to where they only have a few units that are close to your line, usually this happens conveniently around dawn, move your people out and start heading for their leaders. Split your force, sending a few down the southern path, to distract the eney and most of them toward the middle leader, to kill him. Once he's dead, send some of your army down to kill the southern leader and devote a few units to defending the bridge until the rest of your army can rejoin you. A unit or two with a lot of HP with a white mage are usually enough to do this.
## "Run like hell" strategy: Alternatively, you can leave your leader near the docks and take one of the boats to end the scenario.

===Fallen Lich Point===

This is a high variance scenario. It may be very easy or very hard, depending on events beyond your control.

Recruitment...
* Recruit fairly lightly initially, as you will likely have a chance to use the Lich's keep to recruit again.
* Mages, White Mages, and Mages of Light are good, and as are all the other advancements of Mages.
* You automatically should have your loyal Knight. Because of the mountains around "lichland" and frozen ground everywhere else, additional horse units are not recommended, except a single Paladin will come in handy.
* Some Thugs or a Bandit or Highwayman will provide a little extra undead bashing power.
* Footpads will help with village flagging, after the Wolf Rider types are taken care of, but you can postpone buying Footpads until after killing the Lich.

Strategy...
# The Orcs will be busy with the Yetis, so you can walk with a big group south and kill the Lich-Lord. Move Haldric to the stone monument to de-petrify the Lich. It may help to post some units around the undead before doing so. Use several mages to make a hole or two in the ring of undead, and then push in a burly fighter or two and/or Paladin to kill the Lich.
# After killing the Lich, assess the Orc/Yeti situation (as well as the empty village situation) and decide if you need to use the Lich's keep to recruit some reinforcements.
# After that, head north and walk into the sewer entrance (the "cave") or else kill the orc leaders.

Hints...
* It is also possible, if you recruit heavily, to split your force and head north to attack the eastern Orcs before they finish with the Yetis. However, be careful not to be attacked by a Yeti yourself; a Yeti is dangerous even if heavily wounded. A Yeti will attack you if it can get to a unit within one turn (and it doesn't have a more appealing orc target.)
* When dealing with the Lich, be aware that he has money; if you let him vacate any of his encampment tiles, or if you kill any of his units but do not occupy their tiles, he will be able to recruit. (This is not necessarily all bad, as it can mean more experience, but depending on the strength of your force you may want to be careful.)
* Note that this level becomes a lot tougher if the Yetis get poisoned early on and quickly die. If this happens you basically have no other choice than to kill the orc leaders first.

===Sewer of Southbay===

This is a swampy underground scenario, but with attention to recruitment, it's not very difficult.

Recruitment...
* As always underground, you want non-horse units with 6+ MP.
* Recall White Mages / Mages of Light, at least two, three is probably the optimal number.
* There are quite a few villages in this cave, so an expensive force is supportable, though not necessary. Some players recruit a large and spammy force, while others go with small and elite:
** Option 1, "Large and spammy" recruitment: Recruit four each of Mages, Thugs, and Poachers. Yes, Poachers normally stink, but here they really shine in a swamp that is permanently dark, underground. If you recruit four Poachers, you could finish with three Trappers and a Huntsman - or you could finish with four dead Poachers. The Thugs are especially likely to die, as they will be facing off against Red Mages, but somebody has to do it.
** Option 2, "Small and elite" recruitment: Recall something like one Red Mage, one Arch Mage, one Silver Mage, 2 twooyal Guards/Highwaymen/etc, and a Trapper or Huntsman, plus three regular Mages and a Poacher.

Strategy...
# After leaving your initial chamber, you will be in a large swamp room with three entrances, through which will be a flood of bad guys. Use two Poachers and a Thug or similar to blockade the southeast, a small elite group to block the north, and then a mix of fighters and mages to handle the west entrance. Give each group a White Mage or Mage of Light, as well as at least one regular Mage. Try to keep the Mages of Light away from your chaotic forces on the front lines, though. Use the leadership of Haldric and Lady Jessene - and Mage of Light illumination or lack thereof - to get the most from each attack.
# When the initial battle has died down, you have two options:
## If you have enough forces, you can divide into two groups and attack both brothers simultanously, east and west.
## Otherwise, do them one after the other, and then look for the exit.

Spoilers...
* Danger: there is a Giant Spider at the exit. You may wish to keep one or two cannon fodder units in order to be able to save your advanced units. It is best to use ranged attacks against the spider, so leveled mages are good here.
* Heads up: the next scenario is a lot easier with a lot of gold, especially on the hardest difficulty level.

===Southbay in Winter===

Plot only.

===A Final Spring===

This is a large battle, and any mistake on any front can spell doom, but overall it will be fairly easy on the easier difficulty levels. On hard, it will only be a cakewalk with a lot of starting gold (more than 450 or so.)

Recruitment...
# On the first turn, recall a Silver Mage to teleport to the island, recruit Footpads for village snatching, recall one or more of your loyal Iron Maulers (leveled up Heavy Infantrymen from ''The Fall''), and recall one or more Knights or similar.
# Second turn, continue with this theme, but it will be nightfall soon, so recall Outlaws, Bandits, Assassins, etc.
# Turn three is a bit more of the same, but you need to start thinking about preserving your income and also keeping a gold reserve. You can spam some peasants to preserve cash and income.
# Turn four turn is more of the same.
# Turn five is similar, but it will be day soon, so lawfuls like Knights and level 1 Mages are a good idea.
# Turn six, you will have new recruitment options (see spoiler at walkthrough end.)

Strategy is broken into four fronts...
# The first front is the south land area. Do a counter-clockwise sweep with mounted units, optionally augmented with Footpads, which can help pad out your lines with forest and village hexes. Note that it will be nightfall soon after game start, so it might be wise to delay any serious mounted assault until the next day, and you can delay your recalls for this.
# The second front is the walled city. Move slower units and your loyal White Mage / Mage of Light to defend here. Take your ally's villages; your ally wouldn't do much useful with the money anyway. When your mounted units from the second front complete their sweep, you can break the remaining southern forces against the city wall in a hammer and anvil. Then your united forces can move north. On easy, you may be able to push north more quickly than that using just part of your city troops.
# The third front is the bay and peninsula north of your keep. If you don't protect this area well, Wolf Riders and others will mount an amphibious assault in an effort to flank your troops. On the easier difficulty levels, you may wish to beat the punch and quickly establish a bridgehead on the other side of the bay.
# The fourth front is the two small islands. Send a Silver Mage there ASAP. (You should have a village already there, so the Silver Mage can teleport over.) Footpads/Outlaws/Fugitives and others will help later. Lady Jessene could be used. A quick White Mage would be useful, either on the coast or on the islands. Do not use Assassins on this front. Assassins have relatively weak defense in water against Orcs and Nagas, they're very weak against blade, which is all orcs and nagas use, and their relatively slow movement in water makes backstab hard to use reliably. Overall, you need to devote more resources to this front than you might think.

Hints...
* You should have lots of high-level units now, so concentrate on recruiting new ones and levelling them up to fill needs.
* Peasants are useful as placeholders for villages and distractions for the enemy.

Spoilers...
* On turn 5, a gang of nasty undead show up in the east. So, for your city taskforce, you'll want to recruit/recall units with impact and arcane attacks. Note that if undead capture villages, they will be flagged with the Orc island boss' black flag! This can result in an overwhelming number of Nagas, and it's one reason that you must devote a lot of resources to the island campaign. Flag any black flag villages you can.
* On turn 6, a gang of nasty Mermen show up in the west. Fortunately, they are on your side. You can now recruit Mermen. This is the real reason to keep a gold reserve until this time.

===Peoples in Decline===

This is a bloody scenario versus Drakes. It can be a real challenge on the hardest difficulty setting, less so on the easier levels. Proper recruitment is more important than strategy here, as you will have little opportunity to maneuver.

Recruitment...
* Drakes can be dangerous, so this is a great scenario to use the time honored technique of cannon fodder. Now that you can recruit level 0 units for cheap, you can protect your higher level units by recruiting endless Peasants to distract the Drakes' firepower.
* Drakes are vulnerable to pierce attacks, so spam cheap pierce attack units. In addition to Peasants, there are Poachers, Bowmen, Peasants, Spearmen, Merman Fighters, and Merman Hunters. Poachers are key here, due to the swampy terrain and their chaotic alignment.
* You will need about 3 White Mages / Mages of Light in all.
* On your last turn of recruitment when you have about 80 gold, recall some advanced units, like Master Bowmen.

Strategy...
* Since you will have a lot of level 1 and 0 units, make sure to use the leadership of Prince Haldric and Lady Jessene.
* Look for opportunities to heal via leveling up.
* Pay attention to the day-night cycle in this scenario. Drakes will be strong during day, but become very weak in the night.
* Take advantage of the mountains for defense, but note that on hard, you need to set up a relatively small perimeter around your base, as you will be hard pressed to even hold a small area.
* Be careful with your loyals.
* Because most Drakes have powerful ranged attacks, the roles of your melee and ranged units are reversed from the norm. Whereas usually you would use fighters to protect archers, here you will use archers to protect fighters. Melee-only units should hide behind the lines until they attack, preferably at night (with a Mage of Light supplying illumination.)

Spoiler...
* Make sure you get the Storm Trident in the middle of the sea, but be certain that you've cleared most of the Drakes first, since a Sea Serpent will appear. It's best to have some strong units ready to kill it in 1 or 2 turns. You can give the trident to Lord Typhon, but since he leaves a bit later, you may want to give it to another Merman Fighter. Movement over land is important for Mermen in the campaign as a whole. If the Merman Fighter to whom you give the storm trident has the Quick attribute, you can make him a Hoplite when he gets to level 3. Otherwise, make him a Triton, because movement over land is important for Mermen in this campaign as a whole.

===Rough Landing===

You will be fighting Nagas and Vampire Bats, primarily. This is a scenario that may be frustrating on the easier difficulty levels, though on hard it is just par for the course. Good recruitment and strategy will save you from getting slaughtered.

Recruitment...
* You are probably going to go negative on gold and be unable to rectify that with the paultry early finish bonus, so you might as will go very negative and be resigned to start the next scenario with minimum gold.
* Recruit/recall many Mermen and 1 or 2 White Mages or Mages of Light. A few Peasants can be useful to pad out your force, distract the enemy, and protect villages from stray Bats. A Silver Mage can be useful for island hopping but is not essential. Thieves/Assassins are blade vulnerable, and Nagas only use blades, so it's probably best not to recall them.

Strategy...
# Knock out the southeastern leader in a blitz. It's important to get that out of the way, because a wave of Nagas is advancing at light speed from the north.
# Next, hurriedly set up a line in the water alongside your fortress island. Your fortress troops can anchor one flank, while Burin the Dwarf can go to the island to the northeast to anchor the other end of your line. Nobody messes with Burin. Move Lady Jessene behind the lines to lend her support to the Mermen. Your loyal Mage of Light will be able to move back and forth more (to lend illumination) if kept in the fortress area.
# Finally, once the enemy assault wave has been broken, advance northward to kill the final two leaders in a straightforward mop-up operation. Just be careful not leave isolated units where they can get swarmed.

Hints/Spoilers...
* Try to level up the mermen; they can be useful in another scenario later.
* Beware of Sea Serpents. Three of them will appear, one on each of the three turns following your first kill of an enemy unit. Make sure to kill them at once. The Storm Trident from the previous scenario and the Ruby of Fire will come in handy against the Serpents.

===A New Land===

This is a non-scenario. The scenario objectives tell you to avoid all confrontation for as long as possible, but actually the faster your units encounter the others the faster the scenario will end.

Recruitment...
* None necessary.

Strategy...
* The optimal strategy for gold carryover is to grab the three closest villages, then retreat to your keep and wait. Once one attack occurs, the non-scenario will be over.

Spoiler...
* One thing to keep in mind is that this the last chance you have to grab some more Mermen as their king leaves. They are quite helpful in a later scenario so grabbing a few extra here cannot hurt if you can spare the gold.

===The Ka'lian===

Story, with your choice of four battles next. You have to beat them all in whatever order. The amount of gold you have should be the factor in deciding when you choose to play Cursed Isle (the undead problem).

===Diverging Campaign Path===

All four scenarios have to be beaten, but in whatever order you choose.
====The Dragon====

This scenario is not as difficult as it looks, though your recruitment and strategy need to be tailored to fight the Saurian Skirmishers and other foes you will face here.

Recruitment...
* Saurians use piercing attacks mostly, so it's better to use units resistant to pierce. Spearmen have 40% pierce resistance. Javelineers are ideal as Saurians use ranged attacks a lot.
* You may wish to bench some or all of your loyal Iron Maulers. They are ineffective against the 70% impact resistant Mudcrawlers, while also vulnerable to the ranged attacks of both Mudcrawlers and Saurians.
* Consider adopting a force of all units with ranged attacks, save for horse and thief units, which can be kept behind the lines when not in use. It is amusing when Saurian Augers are forced to tap your units with their little staffs.
* Healers are a necessity to deal with the heavy damage your units will be sustaining. Depending on the strategy you adopt, you will want 2-4 healers. Mages of Light rock here, as they can easily do front line duty in pairs and their illumination blinds the Saurians, reducing their damage.
* You need something to clean up mud. Versus level 0 Mudcrawlers, Horsemen and their advancements can charge with no counterattack, and likewise Thieves and their advancements can backstab with no counterattack. Mages can be used as well on the fire vulnerable mud.
* A Merman or two will help with water hexes. An Entangler's slow ability will help tame the dragon.

Strategy...
* Players have used many different strategies with success:
** "Hedgehog" strategy: Fighting Saurians requires a disciplined formation. If you're used to stringing out troops to move them into position as they get there, that won't work after Turn 2 or 3. You can use a "healing hedgehog" of ten troops--two white mages next to each other and eight troops completely encircling them. If someone gets badly injured, move them to the inside and put a white mage on one of the long edges, fighting as you go. If you're trying for the big bonus, you'll need two hedgehogs. Try to keep reserves back a bit in cities. If the terrain favorably protects you, or the wounded is a fast unit, you can try moving wounded back to cities too. Once the main wave of Saurians is broken, you can string non-wounded troops out a bit in the rush for the leaders.
** "Triangular Hedgehog" strategy: Switching wounded units to the inside of the hedgehog can be a problem if you are surrounded. ZOC prevents you from creating an open hex to move the inner unit into. You can fix this by creating a triangle with three hexes inside, instead of the standard two of the hedgehog. If you do this on your castle, only three units are in grasslands. If you set it right, you can make most of the hexes adjacent to your triangle be grassland as well, forcing the Saurians into a bad defensive position. In terms of unit positioning, the simplest way is to fill two inner spaces with Mages of Light, a but a better tactic is to put one of the mages on an edge, thereby ensuring that all but one of your units are healing. The remaining unit can either be a Merman Hoplite, (prefereably resilient and carrying a Storm Trident) or Lady Jessene, since she has excellent defense and is chaotic and therefore benefits by not being in the Mages' light.
** "Giant Hedgehog" strategy: Recruit a lot of units, and then move the whole army as one big bulk. Keep healers in the middle (about four), rotate stronger units outwards, and make sure you leave no gaps. The Saurians will slip through the tiniest gap and kill your weak units. Head first for the east or wast leader, but steer for good terrain, because your force will soon be swarmed until about turn 10, when there should be many few Saurians alive.
** "Standard Line" strategy: Form a line from the west board edge diagonally up towards your keep across the two villages just in front of the forest. You will probably wish to bend upwards at the forest, rather than running the line all the way to the keep. Whenever the Saurians have a small number of troops at your line and you have enough strength to kill them all, you can advance your whole line one hex south, allowing you to get additional attacks on them from non-frontline troops. Once you advance a unit to the first water hex at west board edge, the west leader will probably come out to greet it, so be ready to fry him with Haldric's ruby. After killing the leader, back up into good terrain to prepare to meet the dragon.
** "Wake the Dragon" strategy: Prematurely wake the dragon (see spoiler below) and back up your troops to north of your keep. When the dragon comes, kill him. The scenario can be over on turn 7. There is no early finish bonus for this, but you can recruit lightly so that you still have gold at the end and will carry-over 40%, if you need it for your next scenario.
* With all these strategies, the Saurians may hold back for quite a while. This is okay, as the Dragon will eventually appear and come to you. Kill it. Then you are given a choice of whether to end the scenario or to try to kill all the enemy leaders before time runs out. You can choose to finish the remaining Saurians for a nice bonus. However, on the hardest difficulty setting the turn limit (33 turns) is insufficient for you to plow through the vast hordes of level 0 spam to get to the leaders, so it's best to simply end the scenario after killing the dragon.

Spoilers...
* The dragon will awake on turn 15 or when you move a unit down around the road north of the mountains. If you wish to wake the dragon prematurely, you can recruit a Horseman on turn 1 and run him down. It's a suicide mission for him, however.
* If you have a fast non-horse unit in position, rush it to the mountain cave after the Dragon leaves to grab the 200 in gold, though that's nothing compared to the Hero bonus for defeating all the Saurian leaders. So focus on killing all of them first.

====Lizard Beach====

This is a scenario versus Saurians, Giant Scorpions, and Mudcrawlers, where good recruiting and strategy will save you from massive bloodshed.

Recruiting...
* Mermen are helpful for the swamp and water areas.
* Bench some or all of your loyal Iron Maulers, veterans from ''The Fall.'' They are laughably ineffective against the impact resistant Mudcrawlers - and laughably vulnerable to their ranged attacks.
* Thieves, Horsemen, and their advancements are good for mud cleanup, though you must keep them out of range of Saurian skirmishers. Swordsmen and Royal Guards are also good, though overkill.
* Recall a lot of fairly high HP units, preferably with strong non-impact ranged and melee attacks.
* Mages are good. Mages of Light are especially useful, since they can do front line duty. Lots of healing may be necessary, about 3 healers are good, so White Mages can be used too. Raw recruit Mages can be used as well, for disposal of Giant Scorpions and the occasional Saurian Skirmisher that wanders too far. At least one Silver Mage is highly desirable, along with a speedy unit (e.g., Fugitive, Footpad, or Horseman) to capture villages for the Silver Mage to use north of the river.

Strategy...
* General strategy: as Saurians have skirmishers and a lot of movement, be sure to protect your wounded units well. Because of the Saurians unnerving ability to concentrate their fire on one unit, be sure to keep several healers around and try to keep your line straight so only two can mob one guy. Hedgehog tactic also seems to work well.
* Opening strategy: here are some specific strategies that players have used with success in the early part of the scenario:
# "Mermen in center" strategy: Recall 2-4 Mermen, 1-2 Trappers/Huntsmen, and a lot of high HP troops, then form a line. Initially, you can either form a north-south line around the lake area with one flank at the south board edge, or, if you want to be conservative, you can do a diagonal line in the southeast corner, with both flanks tied to board edges. You'll need the Mermen to handle the lake area, and Trappers/Huntsmen/Mermen for the swamp areas. Keep troops in reserve, so that when a few Saurians meet your line, you can advance your whole line over them. Do not be too conservative/defensive on hard, as your time is limited.
# "Mermen on flank" strategy: Recall several decent land melee units & then 4-5 level 2 Mermen on rounds 2-3. Most of your force forms a line of battle near your keep, Mermen on the north flank in the river, land units extending south, flanks bent back with strongest units at the corners - then let the Saurians break on it. Once their first wave has broken, the rest of their troops come in drips and are no problem, so now you can split up and wipe out the stragglers and claim villages; any L2 units you start with should level up. After you defeat the main force from the south send just one or two guys north to capture towns so your Silver Mages can teleport into the fray.
# "Mermen feint" strategy: Recall most of your Mermen from before and send them along the river towards the sea. This will harry the saurian troops coming down from the north, allowing your main force to advance on the southern enemy undisturbed. Beware, though as your mermen will encounter the Saurians at night time (giving you -25% and them +25%), so try to minimize conflict until dawn, just get in their way.
# "No Mermen" strategy: On your first two turns recall two keeps of strong, fast veterans like mounted units (not Paladins though; they're pretty ineffective against saurians), Outlaws/Assassins, and Silver Magi along with some other veterans, preferably with a lot of HP: if all goes well (at least on easy and medium) that may be all you need. Dash them across the swamp directly west of your keep, south of the sands, and form a line with strong units at the ends. They'll flank you, but you're stronger than them and you can use your slower units to crush the flanking saurians in a hammer and anvil. The first wave of southern Saurians should get itself killed before the northern Saurians arrive in force. Once the northern Saurians arrive, take them out with your slower units while your quicker ones go for the southern leader.
# "Sacrificial lamb" strategy: In addition to a couple mages, 2 healers, and some other fighters, recruit a castle-full of peasants to draw the Saurians out onto open ground. Surround a single peasant on 5 sides, with 2 healers behind him. Build your formation around that.
* Closing strategy: The enemy's onslaught tapers out after their initial wave, so the final push for the southern leader should be quick and clean. Taking out the northern leader is harder, because all of your units will be stuck south of the marshes and the river. If you want to go for a quick win, just march forth with Silver Mages, Mermen, and anyone who's close enough to be a help. If you don't want to lose any of your better units, patience may be the key.

Spoilers...
* When one of your units gets as far west as the second bridge, a wave of Nagas will arrive out at sea. You may wish to delay going that far until the second watch, so that the Nagas will make contact with your forces during the day.
* Killing one leader gives more gold to the other, so when you've defeated pretty much all the southern leader's forces, just plant a level 3 or two in his keep and leave him alive; kill them both in the same turn.

====The Troll Hole====

This is a scenario that you cannot win by brute force, because the trolls have more brute force than you. Wise recruitment and strategy are necessary.

Recruitment...
* It's underground time again, so as before, mainly recruit mages. The trolls are strong, so hopefully you have lots of levelled up mages. Mages of Light are especially nice, because they are tough enough to survive an attack from most trolls, while simultaneously reducing the damage sustained (due to illumination blinding the trolls.) Level 1 Mages can be used to good effect too, especially if quick. If only attacked by a single Troll Whelp, a healthy level 1 Mage will survive.
* In addition to mages, your chaotic units can be helpful here again, especially against the occasional Rocklobber, which you will not want to attack with mages.
* Forget about your loyal Iron Maulers (leveled up Heavy Infantrymen from ''the Fall''). They are too slow. It's not that you'll be running around, but you will be rotating troops due to heavy damage, and they will only get in the way.
* Putting Mermen in the moat will really help you fend off the first wave of attacks.

Strategy...
* There are 4 castles, and two of them (randomly placed it seems) are the troll leaders you need to kill.
* Try to use the narrow corridors to your advantage, so the enemy can only place one attack against a strong unit of yours, but you can kill a troll at a time with two mages or Haldric. Also keep an eye at your back since they will try to surround you. And resist the temptation to send single units wandering around in what seems empty caves - they will all die, probably by the fangs of a Giant Spider.
* Try to arrange it so one troll can enter to be attacked by many troops. Have regular troops in front initially. Move mages forward to finish the troll, plug the gap where the troll was with Burin or a Royal Guard or an Iron Mauler, and reset the trap on the next turn. When you've whittled down the enemy, go the direction they came from and kill the leaders, ignoring spider keeps.
* Alternative: This could be a good choice if you have low gold: recall 2 quick red mages, and 3 quick tough melee units (say 2 royal guards & a L3 chaotic unit like a Fugitive). Play expedition style: abandon the start island, stay fairly close together, with your troops roughly divided in two between those moving forward and those fighting rearguard. Provided you knock out one troll leader early, the rest is manageable, just work your way carefully over to the other.

====Cursed Isle====

You will be fighting undead, mostly of the incorporeal and ghoulish lineages. Victory comes surprisingly easily.

Recruitment...
* Recruit lightly, certainly no more than two castles of troops. You could use 1-3 Paladins, 1-2 Mages, and 1-2 White Mages / Mages of Light.
* Recall your loyal Merman Triton or similar and have him pick up the holy water.

Strategy...
* This can be the first or last quest you choose. If you can wait, do it last, as you will come out of it with a lot of gold, which you will need for the first scenario after the quests, ''The Vanguard''.
* Keep a very tight formation for the first night, as Shadows will hit hard and you don't want to get backstabbed or swarmed. By dawn, it should be smooth sailing.
* If you get anywhere near the enemy leaders' keeps, expect to get rushed by a leader.

Spoiler...
* In one of the temples if a Vampire Lady. All you really need is a Paladin or three to rush the temples. Kill her. Game over, you win. One of the other temples has some gold; grab that first.

===A Spy In The Woods===

Plot only.

===The Vanguard===

You will be fighting a large number of orcs, trolls and other enemies in a location with a natural defensive line, where presumably an underground river has carved a line of sinkholes. This scenario will be difficult or impossible with minimum gold (200), but quite doable with a large amount of gold (450+) even on the hardest difficulty setting. Recruitment and strategy are fairly straightforward, given the board layout.

Recruitment...
* Recruit a lot of units; you will need them.
# First turn, recall/recruit speedy units: Knights, Lancers, Paladins, Horsemen, Outlaws, and similar.
# Second turn, recall your loyal Iron Maulers (leveled up from ''The Fall'') and Spearmen/Swordsmen/Royal Guards.
# On subsequent turns, recall/recruit healers and other sorts of Mages, Thugs and their advancements, and Longbowmen. You will need quite a lot of healing power: 3-4 White Mages / Mages of Light and 1-2 Paladins. A Silver Mage would come in handy, since your forces will be widely spaced, but you could start with a couple of Red Mages and try to level up one or both to Silver Mage.

Strategy...
# This map is smaller than fog of war and sinkholes make it appear. Rush the west and northwest gaps with mounted units, but slow & strong will carry the day once the sun rises and the odds are in your favor.
# Seal of all the gaps in the ring of sinkholes. When the onslaught begins, wounded units can retreat back into villages or be cared for by healers - or actually both, since soon you will be out of non-wounded units.
# A "Sitzkrieg" may develop, where neither side can make progress. Shift units to the southwest and break out there, using the west board edge defensively. From there, sweep northwards, taking out the western orc leader first and then the next orc leader.
# Don't forget the chest of gold, which you can see even in fog.
# End the scenario with the kill of the final leader, a level 3 troll.

Spoilers...
* Once you kill more than half the units of any side, a few tough undead units will appear near that side's stronghold at the edge of the map. So, this will happen three times. Beware the Chocobones. Their double damage from charge means they can take out Commander Aethyr at night just by hitting 2 for 2, and they will certainly try if they get the opportunity.
* Heads up: the next scenario is much less difficult with extra gold. You can use Peasants to avoid going negative on gold, promoting them to Spearmen only when needed.

===Return of the Fleet===

Welcome to the "kitchen sink" defense. You've made it this far; now the enemy will launch a desperate defense, throwing a little bit of everything at you. The effect is mostly psychological, but it could be a problem if you came into the scenario with minimum gold or your initial assessment causes you to drastically under-recruit. Time is money.

Recruitment...
* On medium, at least, you don't want to overrecruit. First turn, recall Mermen to assassinate the undead leader; 2 Entanglers/Netcasters and the Triton with the Storm Trident. Later, you should recruit 1 or more Silver Mages also for this taskforce as well as for causing general mayhem. It's also worth recruiting 5-10 L1/L0 units to take the brunt of the first wave of attacks; you can use any combination of Footpads, Poachers, Thugs, Spearmen, and Peasants, as you see fit. You'll want some decent L2 and L3 recalls for healing, to flank your lines, and to start kicking some butt at daybreak. A Mage or Red Mage to blast Trolls and Chocobones will level up by end of scenario. Paladins are good too. In addition to your loyal Mage of Light, you will need a bare minimum of 1 more healer.
* On medium, don't recruit too much for fighting the undead - 2 Paladins at most, 1 or 2 Thugs, the stormy Merman, and the nearest Mage working with your land force are sufficient - the undead commander only gets 5-6 L2 recruits and they come ashore scattered (on medium, anyway). Paladins are so effective against undead that you can wade into the water after them. Just remember, Paladins can't go into deep water and undead can.
* On hard, you also don't want to recruit too much for fighting the undead, but it's only because going on an offensive early against them will get you crushed by a Chocobone armada.

Strategy...
# Move the Mermen (including the storm trident) as quickly as possible pretty much straight to the West. (There is a village and swamp hex that can aid your travel if you pick the best route). Move these guys up the West side once they get there to get to the Undead Leader as quickly as possible.
# Your loyal units can do a little village grabbing, but it would be unwise to venture too far north.
# After nightfall, fog will appear; for the rest of the scenario, the map will become shrouded, like in a cave scenario. So while you're still amazingly able to see, note the key terrain features, castle and city locations, and troop dispositions (especially Chocobones.) Also, visually explore the avenues of approach you want to be able to see later.
# The first wave is largely at night and will have Goblin Knights and Pillagers, and later Chocobones and Troll Warriors. The damage they can cause is bone chilling, so make sure to divert their attention with plenty of spam. You want to meet them on the edge of the woodland, while inducing the orcs to fight from the grassland. Footpads and Poachers are handy here, as they have high defense in woodland. Players have had success setting up the initial line in either the north and northeast woodlands, with respect to the castle. Others have succeeded by fighting mostly from the open plain, retaining mobility by leaving the woodlands to their Footpads.
# Once your Mermen have taken an island city, teleport over one or more Silver Mages to help kill the undead leader - in addition to a Silver Mage, you will want the storm trident, a Netcaster/Entangler, plus one more leveled unit to be fairly sure to knock him out in one round. Quick striking like this you end up fighting a lot less undead. You probably end up foddering one of the mermen to the Undead Archers, but the trade off is well worth it. You can keep cycling your mermen up to fight with any orcs or trolls that come into the water. Silver Mages can assist, since they are not needed much in the other part of the fight.
# After the undead leader is assassinated and the first wave is broken, you may advance cautiously due north or to the northwest along the coast and ultimately finish off the two orc leaders.

Spoilers...
* When you are close to the break in the woods at the east board edge, tighten your formation and keep wounded units well away, as a small force of high-level Saurians will appear. Trigger them in daylight if possible, and knock them out fast. Alternatively, you can delay triggering the Saurians as long as possible by moving your force northwest near the water and then onto the small island, though even then it is possible to trigger the Saurians if you are not careful where you step. (Stepping to 10 hexes or less from 34,15 triggers the Saurians.) You can fight the final wave of orcs from the island, then move northeast to the mainland, finally triggering the Saurians.
* Two cuttlefish appear when you approach the north-central island. Assuming you're sending a strike force through the water to knock out the undead commander, you really don't want to trigger these until that force is on the island - the storm trident Merman is the only thing that can stand up to them in water, and they will avoid him to attack more vulnerable units.
* Once you kill one enemy leader, the other gets more gold & recruits a new wave of L2s. This can be useful if you need to kill off surplus L1 units to improve the finish bonus, or if you need the XP more than the gold; otherwise, try to knock out both leaders on the same turn before they can recruit more. Alternatively, if you kill the first one at dawn, the second will be reluctant to attack with his L2s in daylight, and you might jump in and kill him before he uses them.
* Heads up: The next scenario is the final one. Therefore, loyal units are now somewhat disposable. However, you will need plenty of gold. Recruit some Peasants in the current scenario if you need to save some gold. Not only are they cheap, but they have no upkeep and Chocobones love 'em. Send a unit with leadership with them and they can even deal some amount of damage and be used to finish off wounded enemy, though at night you should just let them take the beating passively since otherwise they die too quickly.

===Rise of Wesnoth===

It's the final battle: be patient, recall everybody - the early finish bonus doesn't mean anything. Also, loyal units are no better than other units after your recruitment is finished.

Recruitment...
* You will need at least 300 starting gold, maybe more like 400 on the hardest difficulty level, so if need be, replay the previous scenario.
* To stretch your money, start with loyal Iron Maulers and a couple ready-to-level level 1's and level 2's. Finally, recall as many level 3's as possible.
* Healers: 3-6 Mages of Light / White Mages. Your few chaotic units will appreciate a White Mage.
* Horse units: 2-4 Paladins, 3-4 Knights / Grand Knights.
* Horse escorts: about 3 speedy units, like Royal Guards, Fugitives, and Silver Mages.
* Tanks: at least 6 high HP units, such as Royal Guards, Highwayman, Master Bowmen, and the loyal Iron Maulers.
* Mages: at least 3 high level Mages aside from your basic healers, so Arch Mages, Great Mages, and Silver Mages. Additional Mages of Light can be substituted.
* Some Mermen might be useful here, but surprisingly, they're not really necessary.
* On 1.9.3 and earlier, you can recruit Saurian Skirmishers on medium and Skirmishers plus Ambushers on hard. This appears to be a bug, so ignore the option.

Strategy...
* You will launch a two pronged assault: mounted units will race to the west and then south, while the main army heads due south.
* With your mounted units, race forwards by day and backwards by night.
* Along with the mounted units should go some escorts, speedy foot units intended to kill things like Goblin Impalers, which make even Grand Knights nervous. They would also benefit from a quick Mage of Light.
* Meanwhile, with your tanks and the rest of your healers and support units, form a line or hedgehog in the woods just south of your keep or next to the river.
* Keep your leaders with the main army, to avoid drawing too much attention to the mounted detachment.
* Maintain awareness of the overall battlefield. If the main army gets in trouble, you can send some or all of the mounted units to assist. There may be an opportunity to hammer-and-anvil enemy forces trapped in the middle. And you may wish to transfer units, like Paladins may be useful to the main army after it is on the move.
* You'll need at least two Paladins to kill Jevyan himself; nothing else is half as effective (except perhaps Mages of Light and suicidal Lancers). Don't forget to sacrifice Aethyr to Jevyan. If he doesn't want to come out and play, march up to Jevyan and use a crossbow attack. When Jevyan is dead, the yellow and green leaders may still be alive. You'll have to kill one, leaving at least one orc leader alive. You pick. Congratulations! Enjoy the ending!

Spoilers...
* When one of your units is within 8 hexes of a bridge, but you have no units within 2 hexes of the bridge, and there are no units on the bridge, then a Cuttle Fish will appear and destroy the bridge. This is usually disadvantageous. Not only does it leave you with a Cuttle Fish to fight, but it slows your progress south and the bad guys progress north. At least on the hardest difficulty level, it's hard to kill all the spam in time, so you don't want to impede their advance by removing the bridge.
* When any of your units is killed, it becomes a Walking Corpse. On hard, it becomes a Soulless, which makes it important to be careful with your level 2's, especially Lancers.
* After the first orc leader is killed, then some gold goes to mister Lich. It's 40, 80, or 120 gold, for easy, medium, and hard, respectively.

== See Also ==

* [[MainlineCampaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns - The Rise of Wesnoth]]
[[Category:Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

TheEasternInvasion

2011-09-11T05:54:40Z

Glandis: /* The Outpost */

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

''This walkthrough has been updated by Maiklas3000 to reflect changes up to version 1.8.3 on hard and previously by Crus4a7E for up to version 1.4.5 on medium. Feel free to add your own updates.''

'''Warning: spoilers ahead!'''

This is a campaign where you may wish to read ahead to see what you will be facing. In particular, you might wish to read about the scenarios Captured, Evacuation and Weldyn Under Attack in order to plan ahead.

=== The Outpost ===

The best approach is to recruit heavy infantry and optionally a mage (who should not be expected to survive.) Build a line using the heavy infantry, using the castle hexes and other hexes to the northwest. When and if you have more money available later, purchase additional heavy infantry.

Just hold out for 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 too much about keeping the original line intact. Instead, try to level 2 or 3 HI to Shock Troopers. The enemy's forces quickly will cease to be any danger to yours.

Also, around turn 12 the white mage returns and points out a trap door you should use. (Note that this trap door will be near your starting fort, so you'll either need to hold the fort or be prepared to get back to it by turn 16).

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, you may be able to finish with a couple of shock troopers, as well as adding experience to your other units.

In 1.8.6, 40% of any gold you finish with is ADDED to your 100 starting gold in the next scenario. So you'll have to decide if money or experience is more important for you.

On challenging, this scenario is quite, hmm, challenging. These tactics can succeed, but alternatively you can try purchasing a couple of calvary to use as a diversionary force, capturing enemy villages and running away, taunting and distracting the enemy.

=== 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, as 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 the 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 (and 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 first 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.

[Thrash: Alternately, I used predominately Heavy Infantry on this level. I found (on medium) they were tough enough to hold the central cave and pretty much beat the trolls into submission long enough for Gweddry to run north to the the amulet and then cover his retreat south, only then recruiting a mage when the troll numbers were lower. With other units, I had problems with the trolls overrunning them and getting Gweddry trapped to the north. Also a heavy infantry in the village by your starting fort will hold off the undead for a long time.]

=== 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 more difficult, especially on hard, 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.

On easy or medium (or hard going west), 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. It is possible to kill the orcish leader by turn 9 for a nice gold bonus.

==== 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).

If you go East, expect to take some time getting over the river and through the swamp. A small force recruited to defend the fort will keep troops from the NW off of your backside and they'll pick up a good amount of experience in the process.

===== 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.

[Thrash] My take on justing getting the paladin and 5 knights quickly is you want to send units in parallel to attack the NW enemy and free as many of the knights at the same time. The trick is you free the knights and then kill the NW leader right after before all your troops get overwhelmed by units from the East. Time of day is critical - if you can get to the revenants before dusk, a white mage or shock trooper can kill them in one turn, after that it will take two turns or a little help (like a previously freed knight). Gweddry, even with an amulet, will probably take 3 turns to kill one, but with his one turn head start, that's OK. With one fort of recruits (2 white mages and 4 shock troopers), I was able to free 5 of the 6 and kill the NW enemy leader on turn 6. I sent 3 shock troopers and a white mage at the NW enemy, diverting one of those to freeing the 6th knight probably would have gotten me 6 out of the 6.

=== The Northern Outpost ===

This scenario is reachable both from ''The Undead Border Patrol'' and the ''Elven Alliance'' scenarios.

Here, there are two enemies that you must defeat: the undead and the outlaws. You will create a separate task force for each.

The undead are fairly straightforward to defeat, and in any case Owaec usually does a good part of the work. To finish off the undead, it's useful to have a white mage, since Dacyn has gone AWOL for this scenario. If you don't have a white mage, you can try recruiting a few mages or else go back one or more scenarios and promote a mage to white mage. In addition to the mages or white mage, recall whomever picked up the holy amulet in one of the previous scenarios and have them accompany Gweddry to the southeast. If Gweddry is the one with the holy amulet and you have a white mage, then you can supplement them with a mage. You should also send a horseman or quick spearman to pick up the new holy amulet in the southwest.

By contrast to the undead, the outlaws require a novel strategy. Recruit/recall fast units, e.g., cavalry and horsemen. You may supplement them by recalling quick spearmen and quick shock troopers. The challenge is that criminals will sometimes appear randomly around the villages you flag. Therefore, before flagging a village, position as many healthy units as you can immediately around it. Note that you will get a chance to kill any newly appeared outlaws before they get a move. Outlaws will not appear in the villages that Owaec flags, so don't worry about him uncovering enemies for you. Send your outlaw hunting posse up the eastern side of the map flagging one village a turn and fighting the bandits. One of the villages has the assassin that is the outlaw leader, and there are a lot of villages, so speed is of the essence.

Once your undead task force has finished the undead, form them into a second outlaw hunting posse, transferring units as needed from the first posse.

When you come across the village where the bandit leader hides, divert any available units to the battle, as the bandits have a bite.

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.

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.

[Thrash] When I played, Oweac only recruited a couple mages, so he needed significant help as they get slaughtered quickly - I'd say 3-4 units. Also you don't really need to surround a village before flagging it, just have units in range to sweep in and attack if bandits pop out; this can save you some turns as move around as you can send one unit in to flag a village and move the rest on if nothing appears. Finally, the outlaw leader ran away when I played, so be prepared to chase him down.

=== 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-west 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.

On hard (and version 1.8.3), what will probably work better is an all-out suicidal calvary charge to assassinate the undead leader as quickly as possible.

It's worth noting that killing the orc leader results in what appears to be a easier and more rewarding subsequent scenario (The Crossing) than killing the undead leader (Undead Crossing).

=== Diverging Campaign Path===
==== Undead Crossing ====
Spoiler ahead... this scenario has a surprise that will be explained below.

Recall a couple of quick swordsmen (or about-to-level quick spearmen), two white mages, a red mage or multiple regular mages, and any units with holy amulets. Shock troopers are too slow. Send these units as quickly as possible northwest through the swamp towards the eastern crossing. Meanwhile, recruit/recall calvary. The calvary should run as fast as possible along the southern board edge (so as to not attract undue attention from bats and swimming undead) and then up the western crossing. You can divert a couple of calvary and Owaec to snatch up villages and then those units can join the eastern assault.

Now for the surprise... Once you have fought off the bats and skeletons, you will find this was not your biggest challenge, as the undead leader summons two or three cuttlefish, which appear in the water between the two crossings. These always appear on the same turn number. Be very careful where to position your troops as the cuttlefish have a very nasty melee attack. You have at least three options for the crossing. Option 1 is to just try to get a couple of your calvary across each of the two crossings, while the rest of your units run like hell away from the water and swamp. Option 2 is to send across more units while tossing a spearman into the water as bait. Option 3 is to fight the cuttlefish, which is extremely hazardous. For a fight, maneuver your units to encourage the cuttlefish to separate, then use good melee troops backed by Gweddry (for leadership) and a white mage to kill them one at a time. Good luck. 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.

[Thrash] I don't think the above is realistic in 1.8.3. The leader is a Revenant with 47HP, both Gweddry (lvl 2) and Oweac (lvl 1) together would have to hit 100% to dish that out in one turn. He does come out to grab a village though, and Dacyn can make short work of him on turn 2.

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. Alternately, if you kill the first wave of undead quickly enough (by turn 3), you can make it across the river before the second wave catches you from behind.

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)

[Thrash] I had problems with the Ogre leader dying before I could get to him. Sending Oweac into the river on turn 1 seemed to draw enough of the orcs south to solve this problem.

=== Training the Ogres ===

*This scenario was missing in 1.6.

This can be a confusing scenario to understand. Basically, your three units just have to survive. However, if you want to be able to recruit young ogres later, you need a couple of the ogres to not reach the rocky borders where they will "escape", whereby they seem to disappear into thin air. You have a couple of options for accomplishing this. Option 1 is to run. To keep ogres in the area, you wind up running in a circle, probably with Gweddry. However, running in a circle, Gweddry cannot outrun ogres and he will not survive repeated attacks from multiple ogres. Therefore, you need some of the ogres to "escape", which you can arrange by having Gweddry run close to the rocky border. Option 2 is to fight and kill some of the ogres, but this is hazardous. Or you could try a combination of these options.

Being able to recruit young ogres allows you to promote them to ogres, which do middling damage, but unfortunately can't advance beyond level 2. Ogres are especially mobile on mountains (such as in the later scenario ''Lake Vrug'') and in caves (in the scenario ''Captured''). Being of neutral alignment, ogres can be helpful at night (especially in the scenario ''Weldyn Under Attack''). Perhaps less obvious is that even young ogres are quite useful. Given their low, low price of 15 gold, they make good spam, attracting attention from the enemy and soaking up a lot of damage before they die.

=== Xenophobia ===

This is a fun and silly level as all parties in the scenario (i.e. elves, orcs, drawves, and yourself) decide to fight each other instead of forming aliances. The scenario is not very difficult, so you can use this time 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), and train ogres (see below).

You have two obvious options: attack the elves first or the dwarves first. Don't worry, they will be distracted by the orcs. After you kill the first leader, proceed to the orcs and then finish off the remaining leader.

Attacking the elves first has the advantage that they have the richest lands, i.e., the most villages, so it means more gold for you by the end of the scenario. It has the side effect that you're more likely to face a live orc leader relative to if you had attacked the dwarves first, as the elves are pretty good at killing him.

Attacking the dwarves first has the advantage that it's probably easier, since the orc leader is more likely to die at the hands of the elves, plus the mountains make good ogre training grounds. It has the disadvantage that you have to spend time getting out of the dwarven mountains and then you will ultimately fight a lot of elves, though most of them will have come out of their forests by then.

In either case, you have a lot of ground to cover, so try to do without any non-quick shock troopers. Calvary, white mages, red mages and spearman track units (preferably quick) are all good.

Strongly consider recruiting three or four young ogres as well. Use the young ogres on the mountains in the north (and west) to hunt down any stray dwarves (and elves) whilst levelling up to ogres.

(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 scenario that could take you several pointless restarts until you have finally discover the enemy leaders. To spare you the frustration, here is a spoiler...

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.

Gryphons are vulnerable to the impact damage of heavy infantry and shock troopers, so recall two or three, preferably quick ones. Also recall another white mage to supplement Dacyn and recall as many ogres as possible, supplemented by young ogres. (Most of the enemy keeps are surrounded by high mountains which some of your troops cannot pass, but which the ogres handle quite easily.) You might also want to recruit a horseman to scout ahead.

Apart from finding the keeps, the main challenge in this scenario is surviving the first onslaught of gryphons, which starts around turn 4 with quite a number of gryphons appearing from the northwest. On hard, the onslaught will be especially difficult to handle. When you see the first gryphon swoop out of the fog, ''panic!'' Generally where there is one gryphon, there are more gryphons. So, fall back away from the fog and form a defensive line that will eventually become a circle. Keep in mind that you can grab good terrain, i.e., the mountains, as gryphons are only too happy to attack you wherever you are, and your ogres and young ogres will hold up well there. Once you have wounded units, position your heavy units such as shock troopers and ogres very tighly around them, as the gryphons really have quite a large moving range and thus mercilessly slay unprotected injured units.

Just when you thought you had the gryphons wrapped up, here come the trolls across the bridge. They may be only a minor nuisance on medium or easy, but on hard it's a strain facing a large number of trolls with troops bloodied by the swarm of gryphons. Trolls are really no match for your shock troopers, however, who happily troll-crack away.

Unfortunately, the shock troopers won't do you much good in the end phase. When taking the enemy keeps, use the ogres, who can move well on the high mountains, unlike most of your other units.

=== Captured ===

Gweddry starts out on autopilot, running up a tunnel to find some of his companions. These companions will consist of Dacyn, Oweac and, from your recall list, one Red Mage, Longbowman, Master Bowman, Arch Mage, Silver Mage, or Great Mage, plus one Swordsman, Pikeman, Javelineer, Royal Guard, or Halberdier. If you don't have any of those units, Gweddry, Dacyn and Oweac will be on their own and facing a tough challenge.

Do not send this group back the way he came, or you will have to face some extremely mean trolls in the narrow tunnel. Instead, follow the tunnel to the north and west. You will face a few bats as you proceed. At the end of that tunnel, you will enter a throne room where you will find an enemy leader and his troops. Don't panic; the leader doesn't recruit and the troops are pretty sedate. Beware that a troll can ambush you out of the shroud, though.

Meanwhile, when any of your units first enters the throne room, the resulting ruckus causes a group of your captured troops to plot an escape. Already wounded, they appear in a cavern called the "Torture Room" to the east. These troops will face a number of assassins as they leave the Torture Room moving west. Try to get through the prison "door" of the torture room quickly; otherwise, the enemy units have an easy time keeping your entire army locked away using just a single unit blocking the door. To get through the entrance quickly, you need to have your troops back away, allowing the guard to come in so that you can get multiple attacks on him to kill him. Any ogres you have will come in handy to rush out and prevent other assassins from blocking the entrance.

[Thrash] From looking at the WML I believe the captured troops will consist of the 13 highest level troops from your recall list. You are well served by making sure you've got some Ogres, Mages of Light and others who do well in caves in that list.

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, because - believe me when I say - you're going to need every gold piece for the next scenario. You should also quickly flag the numerous villages in a cavern called "The City", a cavern southwest of the Torture Room, where you will be confronted by a troll and other enemy units. If you have a silver mage, remember that the silver mage can teleport back and forth between the Throne Room and The City, as needed. With these things in mind, it should be possible to finish with over 500 gold on medium or 300 gold on hard.

There is a holy necklace on this level in the City, at coordinates x=22, y=38. Preferably grab it with a horseman or something similar. He will come in very hand in later scenarios (if he survives the next scenario, that is.)

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

=== Evacuation ===
This is one of those scenarios many deem "impossible", but it is by no means impossible, even on hard, given adequate gold. However, you must wrap your mind around an unpleasant truth: it may be necessary to accept heavy losses of high level troops. On the other hand, some players with strong rosters after going to Mal-Ravanal's Capital have beat this scenario on medium with minimal losses.

Note: You should have over 400 gold and a large number of level 2 and 3 units to recall to start this scenario. The scenario is doable with 300 gold even on hard, but will result in even higher casualties.

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 could suffer quite some casualties in fighting the enemy. In the latter case, all your units that are not on the south side of the river by the time you blow up the bridge are killed by the explosion. Cruelly, this includes your nonrecalled units! Whichever option you take, watch out for the very tight time limit of 12 turns. And watch out for the level 2 trolls, 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.

Of the two options, killing all the enemy leaders is preferable if you can pull it off, so that you can keep your nonrecalled troops. First, recruit two to three keeps full of your typical experienced troops like iron maulers, white mages, and so on. If you went Mal-Ravanal's Capital and so have a lot of knights, recall them too. Ogres are also helpful, if you have some left, as they are strong and you will have no use for them in later scenarios (except maybe ''Weldyn Under Attack''). After that, for cannon fodder, recall a keep full of young ogres and calvary.

Start to move your units south and attack the central enemy right away (i.e., do not wait until you have recruited all units). Split the second batch of recalls, sending half of them to the northeast and the other half to the southwest (otherwise you might not make it to all three leaders in time). Finally, send some young ogres and calvary to the northeast and southwest to distract the enemies there for two or three turns.

With all three groups of your units try to focus on attacking the enemy leaders as soon as possible, so you do not run out of time. With a bit of luck and probably some nasty casualties, you will have killed all three leaders around turns 10 to 12.

The second option - blowing up the bridge - is quite a bit easier to pull off, especially on hard or with less than 400 gold. Your opening move will be to start running the engineer, Dacyn, and Owaec to the southwest. Then recall a keep of cannon fodder: young ogres, ogres, and calvary. Send them in all directions to distract the enemy. On subsequent turns, recall the troops that you want to try to save, putting slower ones at the head of the line. However, non-quick shock troopers and iron maulers are so slow that they should be sacrificed in rear guard action. Focus on running the engineer, using other units to block for him, creating a ZOC corridor. Keep in mind that almost everyone is expendable. Use combat sparingly, just where you need to open a hole or where you see an opportunity to level up and heal.

If you finish the scenario with just the required units plus about three level 3 units, don't panic. You can indeed finish the rest of the scenarios, even on hard, starting with just a few level 3's. Note that the next scenario, ''The Drowned Plains'', is good for levelling raw recruits. However, if you have a lot of level 3's, it would certainly be easier to tackle another upcoming "impossible" scenario, namely ''Weldyn Under Attack'', so you may wish to replay ''Evacuation'' to get a better result.

=== The Drowned Plains ===
The Skeletal Dragon will be found in or near the castle (located on an island in the south). In getting there, you need to proceed slowly and carefully through the swamp. That is because there are lots of fairly high level undead hidden there, waiting to ambush your troops. Don't panic. They are easy to take one at a time, and you can offer the killing blow to troops that you are eager to promote. Think twice about trying to maneuver more units around the back of the one you're trying to kill, as there may be more ambushing undead there.

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).

Note: On at least version 1.8.3, the Skeletal Dragon is buggy. It comes to you in the northeast early on and sits in your keep. [Thrash] I saw this behavior as well, the dragon just camped and didn't even attack, just sat there. I also found him far from the castle, not too far from where I started. Same problem observed in 1.8.5. Mages magic attacks very effective against the dragon. Since there's a good early finish bonus, just recruit a keep of high mages/paladins/etc, surround and kill the dragon and reap the reward. [Sojourner].

=== Approaching Weldyn ===
The objective is to "get Gweddry to Weldyn", which means that Gweddry has to reach one of the seven castle hexes. This is simply a matter of moving him there quickly. The end.

There is no challenge here, but with undead around you can pick up some XP with your fast moving arcane-enhanced troops (i.e., the ones that picked up holy amulets in earlier scenarios.) Try not to overrecruit or dilly-dally, though, as you need all the gold you can get for the next scenario, ''Weldyn Under Attack''.

=== The Council ===

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

=== Weldyn Under Attack ===
*Objectives: Survive until end of turns
*Lose if: Gweddry, Dacyn, Owaec, or Konrad II dies
*Turns: 18/18/18 (easy/medium/hard)
*Starting units: Gweddry, Dacyn, Owaec, Konrad II, engineer

Brace yourself. This is the most difficult scenario of the campaign to this point. You already survived one scenario that many have found impossible, namely ''Evacuation'', so you can survive this one too. Rest assured, the scenario is winnable on hard with ~500 gold even without very many high level troops.

At scenario start, 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 with equal amounts of gold at their disposal. The southwestern enemy leader is the only one that recruits nightgaunts, the southeastern enemy leader is the only one that recruits bats, and the northern leader is the only one that recruits Spectres. It stays nighttime (first and second watch) during most of the scenario, which is painful with the damage the undead will unleash.

Your strategy should be to kill off one of the leaders and his troops, so that you can take over his defensive position. It's probably easiest to take the northern keep.

The backbone of your army will be heavy infantry track units, mages, and mages of light. On the first turn, recall one of each, plus three calvary units to the rear, preferably quick. Send the calvary to backstab your allies, robbing them of their villages. They won't mind. Later, the calvary can run around to distract the enemy. Send your heavy infantry types, mages, and mages of light towards the target enemy stronghold. You should supplement them with any units with arcane attacks: arch mages, silver mages, white mages, and any units that picked up amulets in previous scenarios. Pad out your force with ogre / young ogre spam. As ogres are neutral, their attacks won't suffer in the near-permanent darkness, and they are useful on the hills to protect your flanks.

You probably will not be able to assassinate the leader before he is out of gold. When he dashes out to attack, check his gold. If he's broke, you might wish to ignore him for a turn or two while you kill off other units.

After you take over the stronghold, you may be able to recruit some more troops, if you saved some gold and/or did a good job capturing villages with your calvary. Note that saving gold is of no use for ''The Duel'', so spend it now. Next, you should start preparing for the assault waves of the other two leaders. The combined assault waves may be more than your forces can survive. Therefore, while your main force braces itself, you should send out some ogres, young ogres, calvary, and/or silver mages as distractions, mostly along the board edges. They can even get in a few kills.

For your main force, unless you have taken over the southwestern keep, you need to think about the invisible, infiltrating, backstabbing Nightgaunts that are now headed your way. Have your units form a block with their back to the board edge. Round the corners of the block towards the enemy (so that you don't have one unit face four attacks.) Keep your whole line solid and heavily wounded units buried deep inside.

In addition to Nightgaunts, you have the threat of Banebows, which can do 52 ranged damage in one turn. However, they are fairly easily killed with proper strategy. Move a mage of light adjacent to blind the Banebow (i.e., remove its +25% bonus) and provide light for your lawful unit's attack (i.e., remove its -25% adjustment.) Move a shock trooper (or similar, preferably arcane enhanced) adjacent to the banebow and mage of light. Move a general up to lend leadership to the attacker. You may kill the Banebow in one attack. Otherwise, if the Banebow is quite wounded, you can use the mage of light to finish it off.

If you lose when you try to make a stand, you could instead try splitting your forces in two, travelling along the board edges to attack the remaining two leaders. Some players have had success with this, killing the last leader by turn 14 or 15. Just remember that the objective is to survive until the end of turns, and Nightgaunts may be a problem. Killing all three leaders is a victory though and will earn you a early finish bonus of 54/turn, which is important if you go on to Weldyn Besieged.

Hint: If you have one or two silver mages available, they are quite useful in this scenario. The map is rather large so have some fast-moving units like horsemen 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. Make sure you do not get him killed, though, by holding out too long after attacking.

At the end of the scenario, 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 go to ''Weldyn Besieged''. [Thrash: In my opinion Weldyn Besieged is much tougher and you probably only want to go that route if you have a decent carry-over.]

===Diverging Campaign Path===
==== The Duel ====
* Objectives: Defeat Mal-Ravanal
* Lose if: Gweddry dies
* Turns: infinite
* Starting units: Gweddry
* Other
** Maximum six recruits/recalls for you.
** Starting gold is 200.

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-Ravanal will recruit mostly level 3 units so this looks difficult. However, it is, in fact, quite managable.

Recall mostly mages of light and other high-level arcane troops. Set them up in a line of 4 units backed up by 2 units at the edge of your starting stockade. "Cowardly" Gweddry should stand in the back up line so he does not accidentaly get killed.

Then wait for Mal-Ravanal's troops to reach you, but try to be the first to attack (which may require a step or two backwards and then advancing again.) Try to finish them off quickly, as Mal-Ravanal plays unfair and every so often recruits another 3 units, albeit not so tough as the first batch of 6.

Mal-Ravanal stays holed up in a little tunnel until your forces come near, when he will pop out and attack one of your 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.

[Thrash: I had no success with the strategy of sending out a group of cavalry as I needed all hands on deck to defend the keep. What I found to be the key to winning was to make sure you get good hard first attacks on the approaching undead, starting with the ones from the south on turn 3 and then others on turn 4.]

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