The Battle for Wesnoth Wiki - User contributions [en]

DescentIntoDarkness

2008-12-26T05:49:14Z

PercyPercy: /* Alone at Last */

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

Try to take advantage of terrain and daytime. I stayed away from the water hexes directly close to the other shore since the defenders have a bonus if they attack water standing units when still standing on land. Block the ford. Then rush for the northern shore if you can reach land. 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 ===
Do not try to solve this level without entering the Swamp. Once you enter the Swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use walking corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with walking corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

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

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your ghosts (chosen at random, I believe) will go 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.

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

[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 ===

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

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

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

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

=== Return to Hal'al ===

Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A wraith, shadow, or spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another wraith or shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Hal'al townspeople hate you anyway. I found that wraiths and shadows were particularly effective since 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 Hal'al troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

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

===A Small Favor===

====Part One====

As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your shadows visible. And keep Malin and 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 cntrl-v). Malin and Darken Volk take the same route, but can't get as far as the ghosts. Then take out as many enemies as you can with your ghosts, targeting the mages first of course, and rush towards the manor with your heros. You should be inside before the battle gets ugly.

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.

====Part Two====

You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario. (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack.

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

====Part Three====

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

===Alone at Last===

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

On turn 5 Sir Cadeaus arrives to take revenge for your attack on the city of Tath, he sets up camp in the southeast corner of the map. He will attack both you and 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 soulless minions south, while sending the best troops you can recall up to the north of Volk. When Sir Cadeaus 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 Cadeaus.

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. This will probably be a turn after you kill Volk, and you can probably take her out with some nightgaunts before she calls any troops. If you can't you'll have to run for it and probably lose some units covering your retreat. If, however, you're lucky enough to take her out before she calls reinforcements, you can probably wipe the map clean before returning to your keep.

An alternative strategy is to summon a few good troops and move everyone to the north, delaying the battle with Draken Volk's minions as long as possible. Once Sir Cadeaus 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 Draken Volk, grab the book and head west to escape.

===Descent into Darkness===

The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a 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.

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

===Eternal Night===

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

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

[[Category:Campaigns]]

DescentIntoDarkness

2008-12-26T04:38:34Z

PercyPercy: /* Part One */

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

Try to take advantage of terrain and daytime. I stayed away from the water hexes directly close to the other shore since the defenders have a bonus if they attack water standing units when still standing on land. Block the ford. Then rush for the northern shore if you can reach land. 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 ===
Do not try to solve this level without entering the Swamp. Once you enter the Swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use walking corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with walking corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

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

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your ghosts (chosen at random, I believe) will go 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.

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

[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 ===

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

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

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

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

=== Return to Hal'al ===

Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A wraith, shadow, or spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another wraith or shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Hal'al townspeople hate you anyway. I found that wraiths and shadows were particularly effective since 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 Hal'al troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

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

===A Small Favor===

====Part One====

As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your shadows visible. And keep Malin and 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 cntrl-v). Malin and Darken Volk take the same route, but can't get as far as the ghosts. Then take out as many enemies as you can with your ghosts, targeting the mages first of course, and rush towards the manor with your heros. You should be inside before the battle gets ugly.

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.

====Part Two====

You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario. (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack.

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

====Part Three====

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

===Alone at Last===

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

On turn 5 Sir Cadeaus arrives to take revenge for your attack on the city of Tath, he sets up camp in the southeast corner of the map. He will attack both you and 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 soulless minions south, while sending the best troops you can recall up to the north of Volk. When Sir Cadeaus 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 Cadeaus.

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 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. This will probably be a turn after you kill Volk, and you can probably take her out with some nightgaunts before she calls any troops. If you can't you'll have to run for it and probably lose some units covering your retreat. If, however, you're lucky enough to take her out before she calls reinforcements, you can probably wipe the map clean before returning to your keep.

An alternative strategy is to summon a few good troops and move everyone to the north, delaying the battle with Draken Volk's minions as long as possible. Once Sir Cadeaus 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 Draken Volk, grab the book and head west to escape.

===Descent into Darkness===

The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a 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.

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

===Eternal Night===

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

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

[[Category:Campaigns]]

DescentIntoDarkness

2008-12-26T04:36:24Z

PercyPercy: /* Part One */

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

Try to take advantage of terrain and daytime. I stayed away from the water hexes directly close to the other shore since the defenders have a bonus if they attack water standing units when still standing on land. Block the ford. Then rush for the northern shore if you can reach land. 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 ===
Do not try to solve this level without entering the Swamp. Once you enter the Swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use walking corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with walking corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

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

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your ghosts (chosen at random, I believe) will go 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.

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

[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 ===

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

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

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

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

=== Return to Hal'al ===

Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A wraith, shadow, or spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another wraith or shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Hal'al townspeople hate you anyway. I found that wraiths and shadows were particularly effective since 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 Hal'al troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

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

===A Small Favor===

====Part One====

As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your shadows visible. And keep Malin and 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 cntrl-v). Malin and Darken Volk take the same route, but can't get as far as the ghosts. Then take out as many enemies as you can with your ghosts, targeting the mages first of course, and rush towards the manor with your heros. You should be inside before the battle gets ugly.

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 specters, 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.

====Part Two====

You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario. (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack.

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

====Part Three====

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

===Alone at Last===

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

On turn 5 Sir Cadeaus arrives to take revenge for your attack on the city of Tath, he sets up camp in the southeast corner of the map. He will attack both you and 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 soulless minions south, while sending the best troops you can recall up to the north of Volk. When Sir Cadeaus 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 Cadeaus.

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 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. This will probably be a turn after you kill Volk, and you can probably take her out with some nightgaunts before she calls any troops. If you can't you'll have to run for it and probably lose some units covering your retreat. If, however, you're lucky enough to take her out before she calls reinforcements, you can probably wipe the map clean before returning to your keep.

An alternative strategy is to summon a few good troops and move everyone to the north, delaying the battle with Draken Volk's minions as long as possible. Once Sir Cadeaus 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 Draken Volk, grab the book and head west to escape.

===Descent into Darkness===

The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a 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.

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

===Eternal Night===

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

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

[[Category:Campaigns]]

SonOfThe BlackEye

2008-12-02T00:12:03Z

PercyPercy: /* The Coward */

=== 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 the neutral keep near the east edge of the board,

=== 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.

=== 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 sucessfully, 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 seperate 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.

=== 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.

=== 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.

=== 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.

=== Clash of Armies ===

You'll only have +4 healing from your saurians, 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.

=== 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; you might even conaider no recruiting for
two turns to let then get ahead,

=== 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).

=== Northern Alliance ===

Your first job is to bust Kapou'e out of the ring of grey orcs, then
run Kapou'e north to the main keep where he can recruit. Your ally
generals and Howgarth cannot quite neutralize Earl Lanbec'h by themselves, so
split your troops and send half south and half east after Shan Taum.

=== Epilogue ===

Story only.

[[Category:Campaigns]]

SonOfThe BlackEye

2008-11-27T17:15:29Z

PercyPercy: /* Black Flag */

=== 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 the neutral keep near the east edge of the board,

=== 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.

=== 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 sucessfully, 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 seperate 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.

=== 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.

=== 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.

=== 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.

=== Clash of Armies ===

You'll only have +4 healing from your saurians, 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.

=== 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; you might even conaider no recruiting for
two turns to let then get ahead,

=== 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.

=== 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).

=== Northern Alliance ===

Your first job is to bust Kapou'e out of the ring of grey orcs, then
run Kapou'e north to the main keep where he can recruit. Your ally
generals and Howgarth cannot quite neutralize Earl Lanbec'h by themselves, so
split your troops and send half south and half east after Shan Taum.

=== Epilogue ===

Story only.

[[Category:Campaigns]]