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DescentIntoDarkness

2009-12-07T23:01:40Z

Imperative: /* A Haunting in Winter */

=== Saving Parthyn ===
* Objectives: Defend the fort for two nights
* Lose if: Malin Keshar or Drogan die
* Turns: 15
* Starting units: Malin Keshar, two Spearmen and a Bowman
You'll start the battle with three loyal human soldiers. Don't bother leveling them, because they go away at the end of the scenario. Likewise, all you can recruit are Walking Corpses, and they won't be worth recalling. If you're going to collect experience for anyone, it should be your main character. However, if a Walking Corpse kills something, you get another Walking Corpse.

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

=== A Peaceful Valley ===
* Objectives: Occupy all of the goblin villages
* Lose if: Malin Keshar or Darken Volk die or time runs out
* Turns: 29/26/23 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Malin Keshar and Darken Volk
Do not try to solve this level without entering the swamp. Once you enter the swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use Walking Corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with Walking Corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

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

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
* Objectives: Clear the cave of enemies
* Lose if: Malin Keshar or Darken Volk die or time runs out
* Turns: 36/34/32 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Malin Keshar and Darken Volk
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your Ghosts (chosen at random, I believe) will rebel and attack you. You'll want to keep all of your Ghosts close by until one rebels, and then kill the rebel quickly. Afterwards, move a few of your Ghosts up north -- you can get easy experience from killing the dwarves as they wade through the swamp. Your two heroes can kill the enemy bosses with their magic attacks.

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

Addition by Imperative
I used two shadows I had from the dwaves wading to kill the boss while my other forces distracted any recruited units

=== Beginning of the Revenge ===
* Objectives: Defeat the orc leaders and move Malin Keshar to the mountain pass
* Lose if: Malin Keshar or Darken Volk die or time runs out
* Turns: 36
* Starting units: Malin Keshar and Darken Volk
Be careful when moving non-flying units onto the ice next to the bridge which separates you from the orcs' valley, as the ice weakens when a non-flying unit starts a turn on it and weakened ice then breaks and drowns any unit which starts a turn on in. Use this to your advantage and try and lure high level orcs to their demise by placing ghosts in the middle of weakened ice. Ghosts and Corpses can cross the mountains left of your starting fortress. Unfortunately the fire arrows are quite effective against ghosts. I finished the south orc first and had an easy time to defeat the north orc. Ghosts and Bats can capture difficult to reach villages and move on, thus weakening your foes.

[Comment by Mikaka] Sending a few ghosts over the mountains and river allows you to distract the computer into sending troops back to its base, because it interprets the closer enemies as a larger threat. By doing this, you can delay the southern orcs and meet the northern orcs at the lake. Just be careful, because if you distract them too long, they build up a substantial force (rather then sending troops in piecemeal like the computer usually does) which takes a while to cut through.

=== Orc War ===
* Objectives: Defeat the orc leaders
* Lose if: Malin Keshar or Darken Volk die or time runs out
* Turns: 30
* Starting units: Malin Keshar and Darken Volk
Starting with this mission you can recruit Skeletons and Skeleton Archers and Dark Adepts.
There are a couple of ways to approach this scenario:

*One strategy is to recruit two major forces and send one south to hold back the orcs at the bridge then send the other force northwest to take out that leader first. At that point, if you've had particularly good luck on the the southern front you might want to go after that leader next, but more likely, you will want to recruit a few more units plus the units you used to kill the northwest leader and head south to kill the southwest orc leader.
*Another strategy is to recruit one large force and take out either the northwestern or southeastern orc leaders before the other orcish troops can catch up with you. Then you'll probably want to take out the southwestern orc leader. When I tried this I took heavier casualties and had less gold at the end of the scenario but it did work.
*If you've managed to acquire at least two Shadows you can try slipping them behind enemy lines and assassinating one of the orc leaders. If you have at least 4 Shadows your chances of success increase greatly. But after you kill two orc leaders the third will flee and this will end the scenario. You probably will want to prolong this as long as possible,however, to allow your forces to gain experience.

=== Return to Parthyn ===
* Objectives: Kill Drogan then escape to the northwest
* Lose if: Malin Keshar dies or any people from Parthyn die (except Drogan)
* Turns: n/a
* Starting units: Malin Keshar
Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A Wraith, Shadow, or Spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another Wraith or Shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Parthyn townspeople hate you anyway. I found that Wraiths and Shadows were particularly effective since they can fly across the river quite quickly. After you kill Drogan you need to escape across the river and to the west. So first you need to kill the orcs, which shouldn't be a problem, what might be a problem is that the Parthyn troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

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

===A Small Favor - Part One===
* Objectives: Malin Keshar and Darken Volk enter the manor
* Lose if: Malin Keshar or Darken Volk die or time runs out
* Turns: 28/26/22 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Malin Keshar and Darken Volk
As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 Shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your Shadows visible. And keep Malin and Volk out of sight as well, or else the human leader will recruit an unbeatable number of reinforcements.

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

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

It is possible to take out the enemy leader with two Nightgaunts using backstab. Their nightstalk ability gets them past the perimeter guards and directly to the enemy leader. Take him out in one turn or he will recruit heavily. The enemy forces present (if you killed the leader before he could recruit) are minimal. I took them all out with just the two Nightgaunts previously mentioned, two Spectres, two Blood Bats, and Malin and Volk. Once you take out all the enemy units and capture all the villages send Volk directly to the manor, but send Malin to the enemy commander's keep. Wait here accumulating cash each turn until the penultimate turn. On the penultimate turn recruit all the units you will want to take forward into part 2 then move Malin towards the manor. On the last turn move Malin into the manor to join Volk to end the scenario. As there is no early finish bonus, delaying in this way you can accumulate several hundred extra gold for use in later scenarios.

===A Small Favor - Part Two===
* Objectives: Defeat Mage Lord Karres then move through the northwest passage
* Lose if: Malin Keshar or Darken Volk die or time runs out
* Turns: 30/27/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Malin Keshar, Darken Volk and any units that survived the previous scenario

* Other: You can't recruit or recall; only the units from last scenario will be present
You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack.

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

===A Small Favor - Part Three===
* Objectives: Find the book and then escape
* Lose if: Malin Keshar or Darken Volk die or time runs out
* Turns: 30/27/25 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Malin Keshar and any units that survived the previous scenario
* Other
** You can't recruit or recall; only the units from last scenario will be present
** You no longer control Darken Volk

Darken Volk will operate separately with an army of allied undead. Hmmm, in all previous missions you commanded him directly... could this be foreshadowing? Head to the northwest to grab the book. Then head to the northeast to exit.

===Alone at Last===
* Objectives: Take the book from Darken Volk and bring it back to Malin's castle
* Lose if: Malin Keshar dies
* Turns: n/a
* Starting units: Malin Keshar and one unit
* Other: Ghosts and Bats (and the rest of their unit trees) cannot pick up the book

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

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

After you kill Volk, he leaves behind the book, which you want to retrieve and bring to the keep you started the scenario at. Ghosts and Bats (and Spectres, Shadows, Wraiths, and Nightgaunts) can't carry the book, so you want to have sent at least one unit not of this kind with the units you used to kill Volk. In particular, Malin himself is a good choice.

On turn 9 Dela Keshar will show up to the north, set up camp and send forces to attack you as well.

An alternative strategy is to summon a few good troops and move everyone to the north, delaying the battle with Darken Volk's minions as long as possible. Once Sir Cadaeus arrives, Volk will shift his attention to the south. Meanwhile, you can stake out an empty field north of Volk's stronghold and wait a few turns. After Dela shows up and is directly dispatched, you can recruit a few more troops and head south to finish off Darken Volk, grab the book and head west to escape.

Addition by Robert.Olesen: I played using 1.6.4 on Normal difficulty. Dela was invincible, so there was no point in attacking her. I also found that Cadaeus was a good deal stronger than Darken Volk, so I really needed Darken Volk to focus his attention on Cadeus, not on me. My solution was to recall only a couple of flyers at start, and use these to take villages while staying out of sight so as to not draw Darken Volks units to attack me. When Cadaeus appeared I started recalling/recruiting in earnest, and then went after the book. Darken Volk would invariably leave his camp to join the fight, and thus the book would appear close to Cadaeus units. I was barely able to attack Cadaeus, take the book with Malik and escape with him back to the castle, but it cost me a lot of good units. I should probably have recruited expendable units instead of recalling. I did, however, manage Descent into Darkness with what I had left, so it wasn't all that bad.

===Descent into Darkness===
* Objectives: Defeat the troll leader
* Lose if: Mal Keshar is destroyed
* Turns: n/a
* Starting units: Mal Keshar
The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a main passage and two side passages. I'm not sure it matters, but I successfully advanced through the main passage. You will face some high level trolls, including Troll Shamans capable of throwing deadly fireballs at your undead minions. There's no particularly good defense against these things, but I will note that all the trolls also deal impact damage, which your Skeletons are weak against, so you may want to avoid recalling your Skeletons.

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

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

===Eternal Night===
* Objectives: Defeat the foolish hero
* Lose if: Mal Keshar is destroyed
* Turns: n/a
* Starting units: Mal Keshar
Play this scenario as many times as you want to. If Malin is defeated, the defeating hero will give a short monologue and the campaign will end.

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

[[Category:Campaigns]]

TheRiseOfWesnoth

2009-08-31T22:16:20Z

Imperative: /* A Summer Of Storms */

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

===Campaign strategy===

[Comments by Easuth] Over the course of this campaign, you will need to level up to some:

* Paladins (lots)
* Silver Mages (at least one, preferably more)
* White Mages/Mages of Light (at least four)
* Royal Guards (lots)
* Assorted other units, maybe some Bowmen and Grand Knights, Great Mages are nice

[Comments by Jonadab] Actually, I played through the campaign with just one Royal Guard (who was strong and quick, and I let him tough-up several times). On the whole, most of the enemies you encounter will have better melee than ranged attacks, so it is better tactics to attack them with bowmen (and mages, if you can avoid being hit back with too many units). When you do need to attack with a strong melee attack, you will generally have your advanced horsemen (Paladins, and whatever Lancers or Grand Knights you may level up). Also by the third scenario you will be able to recruit thugs, which being chaotic are a rather better complement for your mages and horsemen than swordsmen would be. In my estimation it is not necessary to have very many Royal Guards. The other level-up paths for spearmen are, IMO, even less useful in this campaign.

However, you do need a limited number of "damage sink" units (units that can absorb damage without getting killed), and the Royal Guard is excellent in that regard. Burin also serves that purpose very well, and Haldric at level 3 can also take a hit or two. You can pick up one of the white mages you need by choosing the swamp (see below), and he'll be loyal, which is nice, but yes, you will still want to level up 2-3 additional white mages, as they will be your only poison-curing healers, and you will encounter orcish assassins on numerous occasions. And, several Great Mages will be very nice to have. This makes levelling up mages an important strategic goal of the campaign overall. I like to go every-other with the mage levelups: white, then red, then white, then red, and so forth, although after four or so white you may want to make the rest red.

[Comments by Owke] Just finished on medium difficulty. I largely second all of the above, but instead of lots of Paladins I would just level up two, for undead disposal purposes. Make the rest of them Grand Knights, since they easily kill most low level orc or saurian units in a one blow. A mage of light, one paladin, and five Grand Knights make a perfect assault team !

[Comments by cph] Yes just 2 paladins, and you don't need the second of those until The Return of the Fleet. Important not to be too reliant on horsemen through the middle part of the campaign, as there are many hard levels underground, in swamps, in water, or against saurians; use The Vanguard to get to 2 paladins and 2+ grand knights.

Pikemen/halberdiers are useful in many levels; pierce attacks work well against drakes and against the dragon, and they are handy for defensive roles esp. repelling wolf riders. They are less good against undead, though, and don't get that +1 royal guard speed bonus. So I leveled up any non-quick spearmen to swordsmen, and the first 4-5 quick ones as pikemen (to give me some halberdiers for Peoples in Decline).

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) levelled up. These, plus Lady Thief, 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.

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

At first it's best to hire 2 horsemen and 3 other units, possibly spearmen. 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. In any case, send the horsemen with the king over the brige, and the others should follow or start going over the mountain, to avoid being attacked from behind. 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 and grunts you will encounter. Send them on the "over-the-bridge" road and hire some more troops. Start going with the troops and prince Haldric on the "over-the-bridge" road and by this time the king and the horsemen should have arrived, use the king wisely, he has leadership. When the rest of your troops arrive, you should get to the enemy camp.

[Comments by Jonadab] So for recruiting in the first scenario, I would start with two horsemen, and one each mage, bowman, spearman. After that I would go for additional mages and bowmen mostly.

[Comments By Imperative] I would actually go with sending the King off 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 I use spearman and a mage (to level him) whilest I send 1 mage and 2 spearmen up the mountains to flank the boss.

===The Fall===

Saving the Shock Troopers pays off in later scenarios. To save all three, move them south towards the outlaws and recruit two spearmen to stand in their places. This will hold off the orcs for a time. There are two basic strategies to kill the outlaw leader. You can either march west with a large army and use part of it to hold nortwestern 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. Another way is to assassinate the outlaw leader. One way is to wait till orcs have killed all outlaws and assassinate outlaw leader with knights. This strategy is risky because orcs can kill the leader before you. Another way to assassinate the leader is to send mages protected by a spearmen through the mountains to the outlaw keep. Two mages and three spearmen are enough. If you use assassination strategy it is a good idea to fight against eastern orc nearby your keep. This way you can secure your back and earn experience.

===A Harrowing Escape===

There is Dwarf Steelclad in the village at 8,5. Its 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."

You should recruit 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. It is essential to have at least 1 (preferably 2) mages either levelled up or about to level up before going to the Swamp.

[this is just my comments after playing it once in medium - Allefant]
In medium, 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.
[Windscion: leave a few units in the rear, as the enemy can cross hills quickly.] [Samsara: Footpads and Outlaws will also cross hills at reasonable speed. You will, however, only capture about four enemy units that way (in easy). Still, better than having the enemy catch villages behind you!]

(Drake Raider added this note:There are two castle tiles about halfway down, try to send Lady Outlaw and Brunin the Lost to them, they make good guards incase th enemy tries to come straight up. You can also send a couple groups of units down SE to the lake so you can prevent the Green team [SE] from comeing up the river. You can also kill the two Orcish Grunts on the southern castle tiles and then move L.O. and B.t.L. to them.)

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

Orcs again. But you chose that way. You are given plenty of time, so use it wisely. The enemies send lots of orcs, mostly weak ones. So recruit and recall. I took 1 castle of recruits and almost all my recalls, even HI. Then go south. If you go west, only your knights and horsemen will arrive and fight at daytime. My choice was to 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. Mine took the first option, but that depends on the experience it starts with. That way you can finish early (25 turns) and keep your losses low (3 horsemen at the leaders, because they were charging, and he hit 4 times wiht double damage).

The 'Dark' Option: Using Footpads. If you chose to work with the the outlaws in the last round, then this works good. 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 to the upper west and south, followed by higher level units: mages, horseman etc. For the time being, we will be leaving 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 enemys gold and increases yours. Don't attack at first, just defend, until more of your slow higher powered units arrive. I sent a level 2 horseman and a red mage along with level 2 lost dwarf. The strategy here is to pick off the orcs, and send the horseman to capture villages. While this is going, to the south you send your footpads to capture any villages you can and, more imporantly put a footpad on the hex that is adjacent to the bridge, there by stopping easy advancement of their greater numbered troops. Probably sending a thief or two would be good, as one enemy got into one of the villages on the north of river, and it took a lot to dislodge him. I sent the white mage along with this group and also had some level 2 trappers. The intention is to engage the enemy so that they are fighting from the river squares, at a huge disadvantage. I also sent some level one bowman for the orc-wolves.

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

You should kill the eastern enemy quickly. Send Burin with knights, a white mage, and some other mages east at start. Mages are effective against scorpions. Try to attack dark adepts with Burin or horsemen before they have chance to attack you. You can send some horsemen from the second castle you recruit to strengthen the eastern front.

There is also 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 Lady Outlaw to the temple at 19,5.

After you have killed the eastern leader and eliminated troops there you can send the eastern army south against next leader. Send a second army south with Haldric. Bowmen and shocktroopers are useful on southern front. Bowmen can shoot outlaws and scorpions. They also retaliate against dark adepts so they are good for defence. Shocktroopers survive even if they are attacked with several outlaws. A couple of horsemen and mages are also useful. You can also add spearmen or swordsmen in southern army. If you have a rogue send him also south. An assassin will be very useful later. There are temples in the swamp. Searching them is good. However, some of them contain nasty surprises. So keep extra troops nearby when you enter one.

===The Oldwood===

The main bulk of your force should head East to the orc in the Northeastern castle. Haldric, a white mage and a few good units (the heavy infantry from The Fall work very well, along with a few other units)should head South to the other orc leader. The castle in the middle is inhabited by the tree folk, so dont bother sending troops there. If you are working effectively, you shouldn't have a problem defending them. If you're having a hard time, however, you might want to divert a few units to watch their backs. The Northeastern leader recruits a lot of units, and most of them are level 2, so watch out. Once you defeat the main in the North, the orc's supplies will be low, and reinforcements few. In the South you'll have a little more of a cakewalk. 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.

''[comments by Allefant]
This is how I played in medium: I sent 3 knights, 3 mages, Haldric and some spearmen south, and all the rest east (4 knights, 4 mages, some other units). Every group had 2 white mages to heal wounded ones. Both were very slowly (avoid placing knights in the forest, don't attack at night-time) making for the two enemy leaders. It's important to keep an eye also on the middle, sending some units around in the forest, since the orcs will try to kill the tree.''

''[comments by Elilmaldur-Rithrandil]
This is kind of risky, but here goes;I started the game by sending Sir Ladoc and another knight to the south. The green leader arrives at the first town on his side of the river on the third turn. Since Sir Ladoc was present at the beginning, his arrival to that vary town syncs with the green leader, I had him attack for 70 damage, then retreat, and had my other knight attack him in the 4th turn. This way, there are only four green enemies to fight!''

===Temple in the Deep===

First recall your veterans who are either mages or have over 6 movement (don't bother with cavalry regardless of movement) and then recruit lots of thugs as undead fodder (1 or 2 turns worth should do it). Burin is very effective if you give him the holy water, being able to move quickly in the caves and also being able to drop almost every undead on a nonspectacular hit. 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 boneshooters, revenants and deathblades, as they could easily mess up a level 3 unit. Your knight (the one who was a messenger earlier on) is completely useless, and should be left somewhere out of the way. Once you see the two chokepoints, hold them so one of their units is facing 2 of yours (prefferably with a white mage behind them). Try level up at least one white mage to a mage of light while fighting in the choke point. Gradually progress northwards once the flow and quality 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. The Ruby can only be picked up by Haldric.

[comments by Allefant]
One advice here: Don't over-recruit. Knights are useless in caves. I dragged them all around at the back, doing nothing at all and eating up my complete gold reserves. In fact, I think you can win this with just mages. The dwarf also is very useful, he'll fully upgrade if he hasn't yet.

[comments by Gdou]
(on easy mode at least) You can beat this level by recruiting only mages.
Give Holy Water to Haldric. use the dwarf to weak at maximum strongest skeletons (lvl2 and 3), finish them with the mages.
At the begining wait for the first wave of skelettons on your side of the lake. Skeletons are less resistants in water, so killing them is easier.
Then, use the less experienced mages as cannon fodder, protecting your more important units. The lich can kill almost every unit in one turn with a 15*4 magical attack.
I killed the lich in one turn by attacking it with the dwarf, the knight (Sir Ruddry), the Prince (Haldric) and finished him with one or two fireballs launched by a freshly upgraded red mage.
Some white mages are useful as there are few places where wounded units can recover healing.

[comments by flynn]
Use this level to get experience. The early-finish bonus is tiny.
The tentacles are perfect for levelling up two thugs (use Haldric's leadership to assist). Sir Ruddry can help buffer. Keep Burin away from the water at this stage, or he'll kill all tentacles as they attack, depriving the thugs of XP.
The Shock Troopers saved in The Fall are good buffers in this scenario - a level 2 should get to level 3, and they're loyal, so they don't bleed your cash while you're stretching the game out.

[comments by smenze]
Playing on medium I noticed a few things about this level. First, you can actually not recruit very many units assuming you have some leveled up. I recalled 1 mage (about to level), 1 fire mage (lvl 2), white mages (lvl 2), and 4 lvl 2 outlaws (leveled up footpads). Then i ran up and grabbed the choke points basically splitting my force in half (sent Burin one direction and Haldric the other). You could probably do it with one of the leveled up foot pads to rotate in on each side, but I would have to replay it to try that strategy.

[comments by Pravda]
Giving the holy water to Burin is useless, he already has an impact attack. By giving it to Haldric, you get another unit which can easily take down ennemies, and give Burin a break every now and then. He is much, much weaker than Burin, even at level 3, but he can take a few hits. 2 white mages are absolutely necessary. A level 2 quick thug and a couple of level 2 footpads (note that a quick footpad moves as fast as Burin in caves and has an impact ranged attack) would be good, otherwise try to level whatever you have with the tentacles. White mages are absolutely necessary, but don't bring any other mage unless it is quick (and even then, it is not absolutely necessary). Clearly, do not recruit mages. With the right units and some luck, this level can be won with one castle (at hard).

The difficult part is to survive the first wave. Try to move Burin to the choke point ASAP, and unshroud as much as possible. After a moment, you will notice the ennemy units will attack only one side. When you have a chance, send the units from the other side to surround what remains of the undead.

===Return to Oldwood===

Plot only.

===Clearwater Port===

Your allies are useless, unless they do suicide runs, which is at least entertaining. The north leader will waste a lot of time trying to move his units E and then S over the shallows toward your rearguard, no matter how strongly defended you are there. So defend strongly on the coastline and fill the bay with their corpses. You will need to recruit lots of units to fight off the hordes to the W, so don't be a piker. Pikemen are fine, though. Try to get lots of your allies killed early so they don't clog the bridges later when you split your forces N and S.

I like to hit the middle leader first, then send a detachment south to deal with the southern leader while the main force crosses the bridge. (Your troops can't all cross the bridge at once anyway.) Some troops may also be able to ford north across the water at the eastern end of the bay (after first killing most of the orcs that try to cross there), 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.) The units that cross the water probably won't reach the enemy leader before your main force kills him, but you can pick up some of the eastern villages. When crossing, if there are enemy chaotic units to receive you, notice that the lighthouse has a similar effect as a Mage of Light.

[comments by IoN] I find that the allies are actually quite useful in killing the middle enemy, as well as serving as fodder so that the orcs don't attack your units.

Having played at all easy and hard, I find that the best way to win this scenario is to recruit several advanced units who can take alot of damage and who get good defense in castles (no horsemen), if you don't have many, supplement what you do have with footpads. Send all of these with some white mages over to the line of castle near Lt. Aethyr. 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 Sir Rudry in the one non castled tile. Place the white mages behind this line, and leave it there until the enemy has made it through Aethyr's men. 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. 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 enemy 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.

Meanwhile, on the eastern coast, the northern enemy leader will send lots of units to catch you unguarded. Immediately after you recruit the units for the castle, recruit at least three footpads, to send with Lady Jessica nad Haldric to guard the coast. If you keep a unit on the village at the tip of the land, unless you are very unlucky, you will be able to hold off everything the northern leader sends. Once the northern leader is distracted by the units approaching him from the bridge, you will be able to send these units across the river relatively unharried, to attack the orc leader from the other side.

[Note: This is meant for people trying to kill enemy leaders, if you use this strategy with the intent to leave on the first ship, you will be overstaffed, so don't use so many units, and don't take Haldric with Jessica. You do however need to move Haldric closer to the docks, as he cannot reach them from his keep in one turn.]

===Fallen Lich Point===

The Orcs will be busy with the Yetis, so you can walk with a big group (best to use mostly mages for that) south and kill the Lich-Lord. Move Haldric over the stone to de-petrify him. It may help to post some mages around the undead before doing so. After that, head north and walk into the sewer enrance, and possibly kill the Orc leaders before.

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 Yeti. However, be careful not to be attacked by the Yeti yourself; it is dangerous even if heavily wounded. The Yeti will attack you if he can get to a unit within one turn.

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.) Also note that units which cannot cross mountains (e.g., Paladins) are practically worthless here.

Note that this level becomes a lot tougher if the Yetis get poisoned early on. If this happens you basically have no other choice than to kill the orc leaders first.

===Sewer of Southbay===

As always, don't recruit a lot of units in underground, and don't recruit units which can barely move there. Only mages is probably best, maybe some thieves or other chaotic units. If you have enough levelled up mages, you can divide into two groups and attack both brothers simultanously - else do them one after the other, and then look for the exit.

Pay particular attention to the Giant Spider at the exit. I found best to keep one or two cannon fodder units in order to be able to save to most advanced units. It is best to use ranged attacks against the spider, so mages are good here.

[comments by scorchgeek]
Only mages is probably a bad idea, since the enemy can recruit red mages, which you won't want to use ranged attacks on. I used thugs, but other chaotic troops would work fine too.

===Southbay in Winter===

Plot only.

===A Final Spring===

For the south land area, do a counter-clockwise sweep with mounted units. Move slower units to defend the walled city, which you would think your allies could do a better job of. Take their villages; they don't do anything useful with the money anyway. When your mounted units complete their sweep, you can break the remaining southern forces against the walls in a hammer and anvil. Then your united forces can move north.

You should have lots of high-level units now, so concentrate on recruiting new ones and levelling them up to fill needs.

Treat the island boss as a separate effort. If you have a Silver Mage (or two) send it across via teleportation ASAP (you should start with one of the villages on the island). This gives you a foothold to get some quicker units (Fugitives/Outlaws) across. Do not use assassins. 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. Instead, wait until your first combat, after which you can recruit Mermen. Maybe send a white mage into the water with the mermen for healing purposes, and when you get to the island's cities, you can bring in Silver Mages (hopefully you have at least one by now) to help finish off the boss.

[Comments by flynn]
Depending on your strength, you may be able to move some units immediately north over the water to hold the houses on both sides of the bridge. This should also allow an earlier finish. Note that many of the first enemy units to arrive will have no ranged attack.

===Peoples in Decline===

Pay attention to the day-night cycle in this scenario. Drakes will be strong during day, but become very weak in the night. I found it best to play a bit defensive, taking advantage of the mountains. Most of the drake leaders were careless enough to fly near enough to me that I could kill them outside their bases. 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.

[Comments by Easuth] Movement over land is important for Mermen in the campaign as a whole. If the Merman you give the storm trident to has the Quick attribute, you can make him a Hoplite when he gets to level 3. Otherwise, make him a Triton.

[Comments by gdou] Drakes have less resistance towards pierce attacks. I used mainly Bowmen and horsemen during days, and Poachers at nights.

[Comments by Jonadab] Note also that while drakes are resistant to fire, so are your mages. This can make them useful against the less fiery drakes (e.g., Drake Fighters). Against the Burners and whatnot you will want to use melee attacks. The Drakes that fly are more or less impervious to rough terrain, so you must pay closer attention to their range of movement when you plan your zones of control. Be careful about protecting your mages at night.

[Comments by Sailboat] Drakes can be dangerous, so this is a great scenario to use to 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 for the first six turns or so, them bringing back your better units to kill off the rest of the drakes.

===Rough Landing===

Recruit just mermen and thieves (you should already have some assassins to recall at this point as well). Maybe a white mage or two for extra healing. Try to level up the mermen, they can be useful in another scenario later. I went first for the right enemy, keeping all my troops together and moving straight east. The other two leaders sent all their troops towards me as well, so after the southeast leader was finished, there weren't much enemies left. I sent all remaining mermen to the northwest one, and a group of assassins to the northeast one over the long isle.

Also, beware of sea serpents, make sure to surround them and kill at once. The trident from the previous scenario will come in handy as well.

[Notes by flynn] Use Lady Jessica's leadership ability to help the mermen fight and level. Put her in the water if necessary - just surround her with mermen.

===A New Land===

In case you find the map looks familiar, it seems to be from "Bay of Pearls" from HttT. This scenario is mainly story though. Recruit nothing, and attack nothing.

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, that saves time.

---edited smenze---
One thing to keep in mind is that this the last chance you have to grab some more merman 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====

There are a lot of Saurian enemies in this, and they all have the ''skirmish'' ability. My strategy to win was to recruit a lot of units, and then move the whole army as one big bulk. Keep healers in the middle (I used 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. My route was to start off straight east, towards the green enemy, but I was surrounded about half-way, then camped there and fought a huge onslaught of Saurians until around turn 10.
By that time, there were many fewer Saurians left than in the beginning.
And the green leader foolishly placed himself next to Haldric's Sceptre and was killed as well. So I now split up my group, sent one half back to the blue leader, and another south. The southern group first killed off the yellow leader, and then met the dragon. After that I also let the west group who had killed the blue leader finish of the SW leader. The key really is the beginning turns, if you can survive the initial onslaught without half your troops dying already, the map is won.

[Comments by Easuth] 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. I 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. If you have a Lancer in position, rush in to the cave after the Dragon leaves to grab the gold (edit: except the cave is in the mountains, so a Lancer cannot reach it), though that's nothing compared to the Hero bonus for defeating all the Saurian leaders. So focus on killing all of them first.

[Comments by Globulin]
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. A better strategy is to create 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 Jessica, since she has excellent defense and is chaotic and therefore benefits by not being in the Mages' light.

The Saurians may hold back for quite a while. This is alright, as the Dragon will eventually appear and come to you. Kill it, and finish the remaining Saurians for a nice bonus.

[Comments by Megatuga] I've found the triangle strategy a bit dificult to use, because the movement isn't the same for everyone. So I really didn't use a specific strategy. I sent everyone towards. At turn 3 I had the first encounter, at South. I defeated the blue leader quite easily, but I needed to restore my units' HP. You have to manage your villages well, not only because of the HP but also because of the negative money.

Returning back to HP, you'll need some mages to restore it. But make sure you have powerful units blocking the enemy's way to mages, thought their HP is a bit low (I got 2 quick ones, which means -10HP each) and can get killed easily. Another big point of this scenario is the destructive enemy attacks. They don't attack many units, they focus their attack in one single unit and kill him. Another fact is the day/night one. I found it easily to deafeat enemy leaders at day: my units attacks were stronger and really helped me with that task. Their leaders may also rush: get your chance and give them a powerful attack.

But if you're going to take the South way, make sure you have some units in your castle because purple and green enemys are also quite strong and will send units straight to Haldric. My Outlaw showed good skills entertaining enemys for some turns in the northern woods: he has 70% defence in there, so I recommend his use, if supported by one or two more Outlaws.

Here you can also find Big Mudcrawlers. Try to do not attack them with one single unit specially if you have many enemys around you and/or your unit HP is too low, because if you kill him he will get divided and then you found yourself surrounded by 2 mudcrawlers. After killing the blue leader, I killed the grey one, then the green rushed and I killed him too. After all this it's all easy: now the enemy has no resources and just a few units. Now kill the purple leader. Then you can reorganize, but you don't have plenty of time: he appears after killing all the enemy leaders. And watch out, don't spawn him too earlier, you may get weaken if you can't kill him. Avoid the brown road around the mountain.

[Comment by Mihoshi]
Saurians use piercing attacks mostly, so it's better to use units, resistant to pierce. Namely spearmen and heavy infantry have 40% pierce resistance. Javelineers are ideal as saurians use ranged attacks a lot.

====Lizard Beach====

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. As saurians all have skirmish and alot 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 strait so only two can mob one guy (hedgehog tactic also seems to work well).

[Comments by cph: Not sure about the above strategy - pushing forward with mermen on the north flank is futile when saurians can run around them & cut them up on the first night. I recall two shock troopers on the first round and a footpad (to scout the villages in the NE). Recall a couple more decent land melee units & then 4-5 L2 mermen on rounds 2-3. Everything has to be fairly tough in melee so it can stand saurians focusing their attacks & injure them enough when they do that you can kill them next turn; one healer (more than one is hard to protect) and no other mages. Gambit - throw the footpad out their way at first watch, wasting the turn for a couple of saurians. The rest of your force forms a line of battle near your keep, mermen on the N flank in the river, land units extending south, flanks bent back with strongest units at the corners - and 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. The enemy's onslaught tapers out after their initial wave, so the final push should be quick and clean. It's harder to take the northern leader without alot of foreplanning 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 dont want to lose any of you better units, patience may be the key. As soon as you approach the beach a naga warrior and four nagas arrive in the sea right around the mouth of the river to help the lizardmen, so be careful endangering your mermen there.

[Comments by Gia_Boy: I actually used a sacrifice strategy for this one. In addition to a couple mages, 2 healers, and some other fighters, I recruited a castle-full of peasants to draw the saurians out onto open ground. I surrounded a single peasant on 5 sides, with 2 healers behind him, and built my formation around that. I had an assassin near the front to get around the saurians after they took the bait. The mages were useful for in case a saurian got into some strong ground. Also, I sent a fugitive north, where he moved from village to village, until he got to the village closest to the north enemy's castle. If you have a silver mage by then (which I didn't), then you can go to the last village, and assassinate their leader. The only merman who I got was the Hoplite who had the trident. He didn't go way out, he mostly helped take out the nagas. Also, I didn't get any impact people, because they were quite useless against the mud gobs, which was actually what they seemed to recruit most. Maybe it's just 'cause they explode.]

====The Troll Hole====

There are 4 castles, and two of them (randomly placed it seems) are the troll leaders you need to kill. It's underground time again, so as before, mainly recruit mages. The trolls are strong, so hopefully you have lots of levelled up mages. 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. I had to restart just to save the dwarf, who had happily wandered off alone searching for gold, right into the lair of a giant spider.

[Comments by Easuth] 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.

[Comments by Jonadab] 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.

[Comments by Samsara] Putting mermen in the moat will really help you fend off the first wave of attacks.

[Comments by cph] 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====

This can be the first or last map you choose, depending on how desperate you are for cash. If you can wait, do it last. All you really need is a Paladin or three to rush the temples, one of which contains a Vampire Lady. Defeat her, and the scene is over just like that. One of the other temples has some gold; grab that too.

If you'd rather not deal with the vampire lady, recall some experienced mermen and have them pick up the holy water.

===A Spy In The Woods===

Plot only.

===The Vanguard===

My strategy was to seal of all the gaps in the canyon. So, recruit a lot of units, you will need them. When the onslaught begins, wounded units can retreat back into villages or being cared for by healers. Or actually both, since soon you will be out of non-wounded units.

[Comments by Easuth] This map is smaller than fog of war and canyons make it appear. Rush the NW gaps with mounted units, but slow & strong will carry the day once the sun rises and the odds are in your favor. Don't forget the cash, which you can see even in fog.

[Comments by Owke] Note that once you attack the leaders, a few undead units will appear near them at the edge of the map. Thus you may want to be sure to have some spare firepower before you attack the leader. I made do with three rounds of recalls. One mounted batch to take out the west, the other two to hold off the remaining forces coming from the north and east. As soon as the first wave dies down, take down the west leader and move up north for the kill of the other two.

===Return of the Fleet===

Welcome to the "kitchen sink" defense. You've made it this far; now the game will start to throw things at you, whatever it has left. The effect is mostly psychological, but it could be a problem if your initial assessment causes you to drastically under-recruit. Time is money.

At medium, at least, you don't want to overrecruit. It's worth recruiting a 5-10 L1 units to take the brunt of the first wave of attacks. The first wave is largely at night & will have goblin knights, and later chocobones. You want to meet them on the edge of the woodland in the centre-south; footpads and poachers are handy here, as they have high defense in woodland. You'll want some decent L2 and L3 recalls for healing, to flank your forces in the woods, and to mop up the enemy at daybreak. A mage or red mage to blast trolls & chocobones will level up by end of scenario.

When combat starts, the map will become shrouded, like in a cave scenario. You just haven't been informed of it yet. So while you're still amazingly able to see, note the key terrain features and castle and city locations. Also, physically explore the avenues of approach you want to be able to see later.

It would be very useful to bring a storm trident into the water. It'll take a few turns, but the undead trying to reach shore will take even longer. 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 (at 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. Once you take an island city, teleport over a silver mage to help kill the leader - you want a paladin, a silver mage, the storm trident, plus one more unit to be fairly sure to knock him out in one round (another paladin or silver mage makes very sure, but a quick thug will do).

When you reach the swampy woods in the north-centre of the map, tighten your formation and keep wounded units well away, as a small force of high-level Saurians will appear when you get halfway through the woods. Trigger them in daylight if possible, and knock them out fast.

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 strike both leaders out before they can recruit more; or 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.

[Comments by Owke]
I had a problem here, since either I went bankrupt or I got bogged down pretty fast. Both of these are undesirable since you need money for the last scenario. After four restarts I finally found a way that works : peasants !

I first sent a merman force west to deal with the undead. Northwest I sent a mounted force with one healer to hold the line. Then I recruited 3 or 4 castles worth of peasants as cannon fodder north/northeast, to draw away fire from your cleanup crew. Especially against Chocobones this is nice. Entice it into killing a peasant, then finish it with a high level unit.

That may sound like a waste of money, but keep in mind that peasants cost only 8 gold, and do not require any upkeep ! Send a unit with leadership with them and they can even deal some amount of damage, though at night you should just let them take the beating since otherwise they die too quickly.

After the mermen (and one paladin) dealt with the undead you can bring them in and push through to the leaders. This tactic worked at medium level with 17 turns to spare.

---edit by smenze---

My strategy is really divided into a few different sections. It looks like you will end up losing alot of gold, but honestly in the end you don't.

Section 1 (the mermen and the West)
My orginal recruits were 3-4 "quick" mermen (including the storm trident) and 2 poachers (more about them later). Move the merman 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. I was able to get to him at dusk (some penalty but not full penalty) and dispatch him one attack using the storm trident, a silver mage, and needed only one attack from a merman to finish him. Quick striking like this you end up fighting alot 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 merman (and silver mages since they aren't needed too much in the other part of the fight) up to fight with any orcs or trolls that come into the water. The cuttle fish die fast enough that they are really no bother at all.

Section 2 (rest of the beginning)
Following the first castle recruiting, I recruited another castles worth of poachers/footpads. They are really there just to hold off the orc/troll barage for the first night. Move them up to the edge of the forest just NW of your castle allowing them to use the forest for cover and the orcs are forced to fight from the grasslands. Use your original troops grab up the villages near where you start to help offset some of the costs. My third castle was day time units including one white mage (it was only lvl 2 at the time but about to hit three) and a paladin (who later died). I tried to pick units that were about to level so they got a free healing during the combat. My final bit of recruiting was 3 sliver mages and cannon fodder (I typically use spearmen for this as opposed to peasants). The silver mage commando brigade (teleport is so cheater) is used to damage where needed so station them on villages near where you start so you can pull them anywhere you need quickly. Group up your original units as quickly as you can on the plains just north of you castle. They are going to come in the day light to kill the orcs that venture down at first.

Section 3 (the battle ensues)
The orcs/trolls seem to come in three waves. You should be able to kill off the intial wave during the first day with your groups. The chocobones deal a pretty fair damage, but a paladin and silver mage can take them down in a hurry. If you are really careful, you will most likely not lose any units outside of those that are designed to fodder (and even those could live see further below). After dealing with them, move your group (which should be a fairly tight hedgehog around your two healers now) West to NW up near the water. This avoids triggering the Saurians as long as possible and allows you to dictate the fights much better. Force the orcs to fight on bad terrian (water or grass land) even if that forces you onto the grasslands. The second wave should be dealt with right around the waters edge (and they will fight from in the water if you let them). Then carefully move your group onto the island in the middle of the river. I say carefully because it is possible to trigger the Saurians which make the level a lot harder if you are not ready for them. The final large push of orcs/trolls can be dealt with from here. Once that is finished, move NE onto the main land again thus triggering the Saurians.

I ended up with a smaller second contingent (one horse L2, one footpad L2 and one spearman L2) that didn't fit my hedgehog so i sent them to the East to grab up the hand full of villages there, but i kept them in the south forest so I didn't trigger the Saurian attack until I was ready.

Section 4 (clean up)
This phase was really self explanatory. Now you have the Saurians to deal with too, but if you ended up with extra troops like I did then you have them pincered and they tend to split up and attack both groups. From there it is just finishing the objectives (i.e. kill the leaders).

===Rise of Wesnoth===

It's the final battle: be patient, recall everybody, the early finish bonus doesn't mean anything. Some Mermen would be useful here, but surprisingly, they're not really necessary. I started by sending mounted units around both sides of the forest to your SW. Whichever troops the orange guys go after, slam into their rear guard with the other forces, making an orc sandwich. Ewww. I thought I would have to sneak the Paladins back to the E for the undead troops, but once the first east bridge collapses (all bridges collapse as soon as you cross them once), the undead want to follow the path that doesn't leave them floundering in the water. So leave the W bridge intact, playing Catch the Sea Orc on the north shore with Haldric & Co., and you can send a large force down the E side practically unopposed by the second wave of Jevyan's troops. You'll need at least two Paladins in the E to kill Jevyan himself; nothing else is half as effective (perhaps mages of light - but beware his ranged attack !). 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 will probably still be alive. You'll have to kill one, leaving at least one orc leader alive. You pick. Congratulations! Enjoy the ending!

== See Also ==

* [[MainlineCampaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns]]

SonOfThe BlackEye

2009-08-31T20:40:29Z

Imperative: /* Towards Mountains of Haag */

=== The End Of Peace ===

It looks tempting to recruit lots of Wolf Riders to match the humans'
cavalry mobility, but don't try -- they're not quite a match for
cavalry and tend to get cut to pieces in detail. Two Wolf Riders for
village stealing is enough, recruit mostly Orcish Grunts and Orcish
Archers instead. Keep close order, pot the cavalry with archers, and
bodyguard the archers with the grunts. Kapou'e can do a second round
of recruiting at one of the neutral keeps closer to the battle.

=== The Human Army ===

Avoid this scenario; it is basically impossible to beat. You'll be
given the option at the end of the first scenario.

=== Towards Mountains of Haag ===

Keep Kapou'e and your troops moving and try to brush the dwarves off
your flank as you pass, because if they get to mass on you and fight a
static battle they will chop you to dogmeat. Recruit at most for two
rounds and run for the signpost at least until the trolls show up.
Then, if the odds are with you, you can linger a bit and harvest some
EP. Again, your Archers are your best offensive tool (since the
dwarves have no missile attack) but you need to use Grunts and Wolf
Riders keep the dwarves off them. Even if you kill the dwarves you still have to move Kapou'e to the signpost.

If you fight the dwarves, try and get them onto non-hill/mountain terrain.

[edit by imperative]
I managed to fight off the dwarves fairly easily using this strategy: 1: Run 2-3 wolf riders around to nab ALL of the villages outside of the mountain border. 2: Send grunts to defend archers and begin to weaken the dwarves. 3: Archers kill the dwarves for the most part. 4: Try to use a crossbowman (if you have one) to kill a lot of the dwarves. 5: Send whatever units can get there in time to the edge of the mountains near the signpost and keep the 1-2 dwarves away. (I like to use 1-2 grunts for this.) 6: Send a large group of archers with grunts and kapou'e directly to the king. He'll step off of the keep, send kapou'e to this spot and recruit your soldiers at that base, and crush the remaining dwarves.

=== The Siege of Barag Gor ===

The key to winning this one is that, even though you get a nice allied
troop surge in Barag Gor at the beginning of turn 2, you shouldn't
waste your own troops in a futile effort to hold the city. Instead,
run the trapped shamans out as soon as possible; a gap is likely to
open up to the SE around turn 3. Take your troops south to knock out
the elves there, then west, then north.

I did defend the city successfully, by recruiting lots of trolls. I had a couple of wolves go get villages and to distract the southern and northeast troops from attacking the city en masse. When I had got enough troops leveled up, I sent a force south first, to take out the southern leader and then go west for the southwestern leader. Then, I sent out a separate forces to the northeastern leader and northern leader. Pay attention to income. The more you get, the more trolls you can recruit. (vlade)

Note: Defeating all four enemy leaders wins the scenario.

Also Note: Remember to try and, at the very least, get to the Assassin cage near Blue's castle- It nets you a Loyal Assassin and the ability to train MORE assassins.

=== Towards Harbor of Tirigaz ===

The northeastern enemy can be blocked with a couple of veteran units at the
river fort; do that while you take villages on the near side of the river
with your shamans and take a recruiting round or two of troops south to deal
with the southwestern enemy. Ignore the holy water as any unit that reaches
it will just drink it.

[stupidjaguar] Remember to recruit the Archer lines and the Troll lines. Anything else is far less useful. The level 3 archers and trolls can take out an undead unit every turn with little damage to themselves.

=== Black Flag ===

If you run Grüü and Kapou'e straight south to the central keep (not stopping
to grab villages unless you can end a longest possible move south on one)
you'll get to recruit troops in time to meet the first pirates on the
beach. This will be good as fighting from the water hinders them. Punch out
Harmon's (southern) keep first, then roll north.
(If you can, take out the galleons by attacking them directly before they can offload their troops. Goblin Knights or Direwolf Riders are good for this. This way you can effectively take out four units for the price of one.)

=== The Desert of Death ===

Pick troops with lots of mobility because the desert is hard to move
in. Use your shamans' ranged attacks against the giant scorpions.
Head southeast towards the near edge of the big lake; the enemy you'll
need to defeat is there. His troops aren't very effective but beware
of letting isolated units get swarmed.

=== The Silent Forest ===

=== Shan Taum the Smug ===

=== Saving Inarix ===

The main thing to know here is that the elves have a 100-per-turn income;
you can contain them long enough to get Inarix to the river but you can't
beat them. Block the elves with a strong force (they recruit L1s, so this
is a leveling-up opportunity), bloody the dwarves with a slightly weaker one,
and run Inarix up the middle.

Some units will attack your saurians as they move up the map. It will make the next level a lot easier if you can level one of the Augurs to a Soothsayer (+8 heal). Make this a priority. Killing the elven leader will help.

=== Clash of Armies ===

You'll only have +4 healing from your saurians (unless you have already leveled an Augur), so this is a test of how efficiently you can cycle units from the fortifications back to villages without losing them. Your left flank is more exposed than your right as there will be gryphons and the occasional merman (they become rare after the first surge). Hold the river bastion or bridge if possible; if they get to the shore hey'll be able to widen the front and make better use of their numbers. Orcish Slurbows will be really useful. Grüü will be effective against the Gryphons, so try and keep him in the hills. Lure the mermen onto land and then strike at them with leveled up trolls and Inarix.

The assault across the river is weak and you should easily contain it. There are only 3 hexes where the enemy can attack you from so you can bottle their massive force up quite easily. If a weak (level 1) unit gets in one of these hexes, don't kill it. They will clog the way. Would you rather have an Archer attack you or a Red Mage? Use this area to sneak kills for your lower level units (especially to get a Soothsayer) but in general just have Orcish Warlords, Slurbows and Troll Warriors hold the bridgehead.

The stiffer challenge comes from the mermen and Gryphons. Keep a Slurbow on the bridge to intercept any Gryphons. As for the mermen, those castle hexes on the water are just trying to sucker you in. If you go there you will be fighting the mermen when they are in water. Bad idea. Go a little inland. You'll be closer to the villages and the mermen will be on land and easier to hit. Again, do most of the damage with your strong units and sneak kills with lower level ones. This is the best place for Kapou'e to take advantage of his leadership.

=== Giving Some Back ===

=== A Dwarvish Stand ===

Recruit Wolf Riders and other types with lots of mobility, because just mushing
through the snow to get to the enemy units is work. Let your allies get in
front of you and screen your troops. Let them fight the entrenched units and rush out onto poor defensive ground. Your saurians will be almost useless here due to low mobility. It may be worthwhile to have a Soothsayer or two.

=== Back Home ===

This is a big, messy brawl. Your allies will show up late but in large numbers.
Concentrate on the human and elvish keeps nearest you, allies (including Gruu,
who you'll play when he arrives) should do an effective job of squashing the
others.

=== Civil War ===

It's difficult to get this one finished in time unless you divide your forces
and get maximum use from the roads. Send two groups at the northwestern and
southeastern keeps, then converge on the southwestern one.

=== The Coward ===

Lots of scenery -- and lots of villages -- in this one. Build two or three
wolf riders just to run around grabbing villages, it will pay off. The AI
will tend to move his units north to grab the coastal villages; encourage this
by sending a handful of veterans in that direction to draw more troops north
even as you run your main body down the road towards the city gate.
[Make sure you take out the two leaders close to your starting position on the first turn or you will be fighting a losing battle with fourteen units right on top of your four units and no place to recruit from.]

=== Human Attack ===

Let your ally-generals soak up the casualties; use them to screen your
flanks and your movements. A static defense on the city wall will work, or
you can recruit a large army early on and punch down the middle; that has the
advantage that you may be able to take out Earl Lanbec'h before a lot of his
reinforcements arrive (they show up at the south-center edge of the board
every morning).

Feel free to spend a lot of money. The early finish bonus is massive.

=== Northern Alliance ===
Shan Taum is far weaker than Lanbec'h. The benefit of taking him out quickly is that your ally will then concentrate his forces on Lanbec'h; if both enemies are present, Howgarth's forces oscillate a little in between the two.

You should start this level with '''a lot''' of gold. Keep recruiting every turn until you run out. With the Great Horde low upkeep this will take a while. Keep doing it. Since you'll largely be level 1 units against their level 2 and 3 units, Orcish Assassins level the playing field nicely with poisoning. The Assassins also have high defense and tend to draw enemy attacks.

Hold the wall until you reach a certain (im)balance and then push south. Lanbec'h gets reinforcements in the afternoon but they are nothing like as formidable as the previous scenario. All you have to do is kill Lanbec'h, not all the enemy units. So, if you get a chance, pick him off.

If you are willing to put up with the tedium of recruiting tons of units, your victory should be inevitable.

[[Category:Campaigns]]

SonOfThe BlackEye

2009-08-31T20:39:23Z

Imperative: /* Towards Mountains of Haag */

=== The End Of Peace ===

It looks tempting to recruit lots of Wolf Riders to match the humans'
cavalry mobility, but don't try -- they're not quite a match for
cavalry and tend to get cut to pieces in detail. Two Wolf Riders for
village stealing is enough, recruit mostly Orcish Grunts and Orcish
Archers instead. Keep close order, pot the cavalry with archers, and
bodyguard the archers with the grunts. Kapou'e can do a second round
of recruiting at one of the neutral keeps closer to the battle.

=== The Human Army ===

Avoid this scenario; it is basically impossible to beat. You'll be
given the option at the end of the first scenario.

=== Towards Mountains of Haag ===

Keep Kapou'e and your troops moving and try to brush the dwarves off
your flank as you pass, because if they get to mass on you and fight a
static battle they will chop you to dogmeat. Recruit at most for two
rounds and run for the signpost at least until the trolls show up.
Then, if the odds are with you, you can linger a bit and harvest some
EP. Again, your Archers are your best offensive tool (since the
dwarves have no missile attack) but you need to use Grunts and Wolf
Riders keep the dwarves off them. Even if you kill the dwarves you still have to move Kapou'e to the signpost.

If you fight the dwarves, try and get them onto non-hill/mountain terrain.

[edit by imperative]
I managed to fight off the dwarves fairly easily using this strategy:
Run 2-3 wolf riders around to nab ALL of the villages outside of the mountain border
Send grunts to defend archers and begin to weaken the dwarves
Archers kill the dwarves for the most part. Try to use a crossbowman (if you have one) to kill a lot of the dwarves
Send whatever units can get there in time to the edge of the mountains near the signpost and keep the 1-2 dwarves away. I like to use 1-2 grunts for this.
Send a large group of archers with grunts and kapou'e directly to the king. He'll step off of the keep, send kapou'e to this spot and recruit your soldiers at that base, and crush the remaining dwarves.

=== The Siege of Barag Gor ===

The key to winning this one is that, even though you get a nice allied
troop surge in Barag Gor at the beginning of turn 2, you shouldn't
waste your own troops in a futile effort to hold the city. Instead,
run the trapped shamans out as soon as possible; a gap is likely to
open up to the SE around turn 3. Take your troops south to knock out
the elves there, then west, then north.

I did defend the city successfully, by recruiting lots of trolls. I had a couple of wolves go get villages and to distract the southern and northeast troops from attacking the city en masse. When I had got enough troops leveled up, I sent a force south first, to take out the southern leader and then go west for the southwestern leader. Then, I sent out a separate forces to the northeastern leader and northern leader. Pay attention to income. The more you get, the more trolls you can recruit. (vlade)

Note: Defeating all four enemy leaders wins the scenario.

Also Note: Remember to try and, at the very least, get to the Assassin cage near Blue's castle- It nets you a Loyal Assassin and the ability to train MORE assassins.

=== Towards Harbor of Tirigaz ===

The northeastern enemy can be blocked with a couple of veteran units at the
river fort; do that while you take villages on the near side of the river
with your shamans and take a recruiting round or two of troops south to deal
with the southwestern enemy. Ignore the holy water as any unit that reaches
it will just drink it.

[stupidjaguar] Remember to recruit the Archer lines and the Troll lines. Anything else is far less useful. The level 3 archers and trolls can take out an undead unit every turn with little damage to themselves.

=== Black Flag ===

If you run Grüü and Kapou'e straight south to the central keep (not stopping
to grab villages unless you can end a longest possible move south on one)
you'll get to recruit troops in time to meet the first pirates on the
beach. This will be good as fighting from the water hinders them. Punch out
Harmon's (southern) keep first, then roll north.
(If you can, take out the galleons by attacking them directly before they can offload their troops. Goblin Knights or Direwolf Riders are good for this. This way you can effectively take out four units for the price of one.)

=== The Desert of Death ===

Pick troops with lots of mobility because the desert is hard to move
in. Use your shamans' ranged attacks against the giant scorpions.
Head southeast towards the near edge of the big lake; the enemy you'll
need to defeat is there. His troops aren't very effective but beware
of letting isolated units get swarmed.

=== The Silent Forest ===

=== Shan Taum the Smug ===

=== Saving Inarix ===

The main thing to know here is that the elves have a 100-per-turn income;
you can contain them long enough to get Inarix to the river but you can't
beat them. Block the elves with a strong force (they recruit L1s, so this
is a leveling-up opportunity), bloody the dwarves with a slightly weaker one,
and run Inarix up the middle.

Some units will attack your saurians as they move up the map. It will make the next level a lot easier if you can level one of the Augurs to a Soothsayer (+8 heal). Make this a priority. Killing the elven leader will help.

=== Clash of Armies ===

You'll only have +4 healing from your saurians (unless you have already leveled an Augur), so this is a test of how efficiently you can cycle units from the fortifications back to villages without losing them. Your left flank is more exposed than your right as there will be gryphons and the occasional merman (they become rare after the first surge). Hold the river bastion or bridge if possible; if they get to the shore hey'll be able to widen the front and make better use of their numbers. Orcish Slurbows will be really useful. Grüü will be effective against the Gryphons, so try and keep him in the hills. Lure the mermen onto land and then strike at them with leveled up trolls and Inarix.

The assault across the river is weak and you should easily contain it. There are only 3 hexes where the enemy can attack you from so you can bottle their massive force up quite easily. If a weak (level 1) unit gets in one of these hexes, don't kill it. They will clog the way. Would you rather have an Archer attack you or a Red Mage? Use this area to sneak kills for your lower level units (especially to get a Soothsayer) but in general just have Orcish Warlords, Slurbows and Troll Warriors hold the bridgehead.

The stiffer challenge comes from the mermen and Gryphons. Keep a Slurbow on the bridge to intercept any Gryphons. As for the mermen, those castle hexes on the water are just trying to sucker you in. If you go there you will be fighting the mermen when they are in water. Bad idea. Go a little inland. You'll be closer to the villages and the mermen will be on land and easier to hit. Again, do most of the damage with your strong units and sneak kills with lower level ones. This is the best place for Kapou'e to take advantage of his leadership.

=== Giving Some Back ===

=== A Dwarvish Stand ===

Recruit Wolf Riders and other types with lots of mobility, because just mushing
through the snow to get to the enemy units is work. Let your allies get in
front of you and screen your troops. Let them fight the entrenched units and rush out onto poor defensive ground. Your saurians will be almost useless here due to low mobility. It may be worthwhile to have a Soothsayer or two.

=== Back Home ===

This is a big, messy brawl. Your allies will show up late but in large numbers.
Concentrate on the human and elvish keeps nearest you, allies (including Gruu,
who you'll play when he arrives) should do an effective job of squashing the
others.

=== Civil War ===

It's difficult to get this one finished in time unless you divide your forces
and get maximum use from the roads. Send two groups at the northwestern and
southeastern keeps, then converge on the southwestern one.

=== The Coward ===

Lots of scenery -- and lots of villages -- in this one. Build two or three
wolf riders just to run around grabbing villages, it will pay off. The AI
will tend to move his units north to grab the coastal villages; encourage this
by sending a handful of veterans in that direction to draw more troops north
even as you run your main body down the road towards the city gate.
[Make sure you take out the two leaders close to your starting position on the first turn or you will be fighting a losing battle with fourteen units right on top of your four units and no place to recruit from.]

=== Human Attack ===

Let your ally-generals soak up the casualties; use them to screen your
flanks and your movements. A static defense on the city wall will work, or
you can recruit a large army early on and punch down the middle; that has the
advantage that you may be able to take out Earl Lanbec'h before a lot of his
reinforcements arrive (they show up at the south-center edge of the board
every morning).

Feel free to spend a lot of money. The early finish bonus is massive.

=== Northern Alliance ===
Shan Taum is far weaker than Lanbec'h. The benefit of taking him out quickly is that your ally will then concentrate his forces on Lanbec'h; if both enemies are present, Howgarth's forces oscillate a little in between the two.

You should start this level with '''a lot''' of gold. Keep recruiting every turn until you run out. With the Great Horde low upkeep this will take a while. Keep doing it. Since you'll largely be level 1 units against their level 2 and 3 units, Orcish Assassins level the playing field nicely with poisoning. The Assassins also have high defense and tend to draw enemy attacks.

Hold the wall until you reach a certain (im)balance and then push south. Lanbec'h gets reinforcements in the afternoon but they are nothing like as formidable as the previous scenario. All you have to do is kill Lanbec'h, not all the enemy units. So, if you get a chance, pick him off.

If you are willing to put up with the tedium of recruiting tons of units, your victory should be inevitable.

[[Category:Campaigns]]