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Dead Water

2012-04-09T00:24:18Z

Scorchgeek: /* Wolf Coast */

This walkthrough started with the comments in the cfg files, which are based on normal difficulty. Maiklas3000 updated the comments for difficult (Triton/nightmare) level. Feel free to add your own comments and you can place your attribution here (using "edit" at the bottom.)

==Campaign Strategy==
You have piercing-attack Mermen to fight pierce-resistant Undead. What to do? Fortunately, for this campaign you are given a special impact unit, namely the Merman Brawler, which is an advancement of Merman Citizen, the peasants of the Mermen. Spamming Citizens and promoting them to Brawler is one of the keys to the campaign. Brawlers backed by leadership are especially deadly. Take note of the Brawlers' tail attacks with "stun", which can sometimes be used to good effect to disrupt Z.O.C's. You should also aggressively advance Hunters to Netcasters for their impact attacks, with "slow" as a bonus on the ranged attack. Many scenarios benefit from having at least two healers, so you should also promote an Initiate or two (or three) to Priestess early on, to supplement your starting Priestess, Cylanna, whom you should try to promote quickly to Diviner for the illumination. Fighters/Warriors and Spearmen are less useful in this campaign, but you do not always fight Undead, so groom a few on your roster "just in case."

Along the way, you will gather several loyal units that will remain with you until the end, if they survive. So, make sure they survive, replaying scenarios if necessary.

By the way, this is a campaign where it pays to read one scenario ahead, to see if you can better prepare yourself.

edit nuorc: Since I don't like cannon fudder tactics I didn't fuss around with Citizens too much. Instead I went for mass Priestesses and Netcasters, with a few piercing fish and some Enchantresses.

==Scenarios==

=== Invasion ===
This scenario is tricky. Mastering a winning strategy may take you a few attempts.

A key feature of this scenario is that when the Undead capture any village, Walking Corpses spawn. (Soulless spawn on Difficult.) In light of this, you have two possible strategies, with which others have had success:

Option 1: Leader assassination / blitzkrieg. First turn, recruit only (or mostly) level 1 units. When you see an opening to go for the enemy leader, advance and kill him. The enemy will be focused on capturing villages in order to create an overwhelming number of Walking Corpses - so much so that you may be able to just walk in and kill their leader.

Option 2: "General Motorsing". Your basic strategy should be to take and hold as many villages as possible, both to prevent the spawning and to boost your income. If possible, grant the enemy only the three villages closest to his keep (not counting the two in the mountains, which your Mermen can't do anything about.) If you don't let many villages fall into enemy hands, eventually your income will be overwhelming. First turn, recruit a mix of level 1's and Citizens. Send a couple level 1's south to capture and protect villages there and send the Citizens in all directions to snatch up villages. Try not to lose any of the villages north of the eastern river. On Difficult, this is a challenge, but quite possible. Keep that area free of Soulless and Walking Corpses, so that you can concentrate your Citizens there and suicide attack them versus Skeletons.

Let the swimming Soulless/WC advance a bit towards your keep, so that your baby king can dart out to get an easy kill or two. As Gwabbo hints, you would be wise to get Krellis as much experience as possible this scenario; it will make the next scenario much easier.

Attack during the day, but retreat and heal at night. Keep your Citizens and wounded safe from becoming WC's, which often means sitting them on villages, but you can think of other ways, like using the ZOC's of level 1's and 2's to protect them.

Bat control is essential. Don't let even one Bat get into your rear area, or it may spell defeat. Initiates are good against Bats. A key to success is understanding how the Bats work. They will forego capturing a village in favor of making an attack. So, if there is a friendly or unowned village within range of a Bat, you have to make sure the Bat has someone to attack. Citizens make good bat bait.

If you start losing villages, it may not be the end of the world. You can sacrifice the land villages, but hold the ones in the water, using a couple of Fighters/Hunters plus Citizens. Use Cylanna, Gwabbo, and a few Citizens to hold off the Skeletons and Soulless southeast of your keep until the village situation is under control. Remember to look for an easy path to the enemy leader, despite the swarms of Walking Corpses on the rest of the map.

Towards the end, your income probably will be quite large, so if the situation is under control, then it's better to milk XP than go for an early finish. You can swarm the enemy keep with Citizens and take your time to end it. Try to get Krellis to level 1, while also turning some of the Citizens into Brawlers.

=== Flight ===

Hopefully Kai Krellis is at least half leveled up already. Otherwise, this can be painful, as one of the victory conditions is that the Kai must be at least level 1.

You must decide whether to attack east or southwest. To the east is the prospect of more experience, while to the southwest is an easier foe and less distance for Krellis to travel back to the signpost.

Option 1, east: Recruit a bunch of Citizens
and Brawlers, and send them east with Krellis. Use Citizens to lure
the Skeleton Archer types into the water. They are easy pickings
there for other Citizens, Brawlers, and Krellis. One of those guys
gets Krellis half way up to level one. A few Citizens should also
survive to become Brawlers. Remember that you can often turn a near-dead
Citizen into a healthy Brawler by going for a kill, especially with
the leadership of Krellis if he is already at level 1.
About the time you get Krellis leveled
up, and you are thinking about retreating everyone else, the bats
will arrive. On Difficult, this will be a nasty number of Blood Bats.
Use Hunters and Initiates to clear a path back west. Send three or four
expendable units with Krellis. Their job is only to serve as bat bait,
distracting the bats from Krellis, so that he does not get ZOC-locked.
Krellis runs for the corner, while the rest of the troops gain experience doing a
fighting retreat from the skeletons and other bad guys arriving in
the middle of the map.

Option 2, southwest: Send Citizens east, while your best troops go southwest. After you advance to where you meet the enemy, you will start retreating almost as quickly, especially at night. Feed near-dead Blood Bats to Krellis for experience.

Whichever option you choose, this is not the normal sort of scenario where you will slaughter all the enemy. Remember that you are just trying to get enough experience for Krellis to level up. Then have him run like hell for the signpost. Ignore gold for now. You don't need much on the next level.

Killing all the enemy leaders will end the level, but that won't be easy.

Spoiler: Killing any enemy leader is good for a bonus. Each one gives you a different bonus: cash, a loyal bat, or a ring of strength.

=== Wolf Coast ===

This is a fairly easy level to give you a break. Go north, then lure
wolves into the water where you can pick them off. If the wolves come
in too big of a pack, you can split them up by sending Citizens
off to the edges, in (or next to) shallow water.

You really should get a second healer leveled up here if you haven't yet.
Netcasters and enchantresses are probably your next priorities. You'll want a
bunch of both.

There is a storm trident in the southeast, sticking out of a pond. A fighter
would be a wise choice of holder, simply because they have a lot of hit points. With the
trident, he will level quickly. When you get him to level 3, choose Triton, as
Hoplites have only pierce melee attack (bad for Skeletons.)

Money is useful going into the next scenario, but it's hard to get
money out of this scenario. Scrounge every gold piece you can by
starting with mostly level 1's (and 0's) and taking villages.
Rushing for an early finish isn't really a good idea, as the
next scenario also demands leveled troops (or better yet:
about to level troops.)

edit nuorc: I gave the trident to Krellis, although I had to be careful about the right timig so he didn't get chewed up. After that he had a ranged attack (unlike before), and he either killed enemies helping levelling him, or he softened up the opponent helping levelling my other units, both being great with the leadership ability.

scorchgeek: I had great success with a leader-rush tactic. I recalled a spearman and an enchantress and sent them southeast to kill the wolves, then recruited three citizens and also sent them that direction. Then I recalled a couple more L2 units and sent them northwest with the starting units to the very edge of the map. All of the wolves then charged south, whereupon I sacrificed the citizens (keeping them in the water to slow down the orcs) and sent the valuable units west out of their reach. At this point I had three turns to sweep in and take out the leader before they could get back north (done by turn 8), which gave me a nice 285 gold to start the next scenario. The only downsides were that I didn't get a chance to get the storm trident and that I had only 6 L2 and L3 units for the next scenario (but I levelled nearly that many in the next scenario, as it was relatively easy with that amount of gold).

=== Slavers ===

This is one of those scenarios that some will find impossible. However, rest assured it's possible, even on Difficult/Triton/Nightmare.

You get a free, loyal brawler.

There are two cages on the shore. One contains Keshan, a drake burner who can be very useful
during the campaign, and the other contains a poacher named
Siddry. He's not going to be much help here, and he won't come with you. However, if you
keep him alive, he comes back in The Flaming Sword with some friends who
are a big help taking villages in the beginning (and not much help
thereafter).

The shipwreck in the north contains a treasure chest with 100
gold.

Recruit about two castles, one of which should be all level 2's. Hopefully
that includes at least one more healer. Healers are essential here. Also, any
units close to leveling are especially good.

Send a quick Citizen north to get the gold and villages along the way. Send
everyone else east. Hang back a bit during the first watch of the first night: don't try to
grab as much territory as possible; instead, try to lure the Saurians into the water.

During daytime, be aggressive in taking out the troops and getting to the leader, but don't leave any units out and exposed. At night, be conservative and forego attacks that would put your units at risk. As always against Saurians, maintain a solid line and make constant use of
control-v to watch where the enemy can move.

For triggering the slave revolt, a nice time is turn 7, after you have finished your attacks. It's dusk then, and the slaves will distract the Saurians from counterattacking you that turn and on into the night, plus it will slow down the Saurians coming from the North. However, if earlier you find you find yourself with a hole in your line or a unit in jeopardy, that's going to be your best time to pull the trigger on the slave revolt.

When it's safe, rescue the drake, and try to get him some experience--carefully. When he advances, maybe in a later scenario, choose Drake Flare, for the leadership bonus, as you will often have large hordes of level 0/1 troops and only one other leader, Krellis.

After taking out the leader and taking over the keep, you can recruit a unit or two as
replacements, and maybe a couple of Citizens for distractions, but you shouldn't need more than that, except maybe on Difficult. You should just be getting involved with the first wave from the north leader now. (He's slowed down by the water.) Sit tight around the castle until the enemy onslaught has thinned out. Try to secure the board edge east of the enemy fortress and north of the forest, so that you do not get surrounded.

After that it should be no problem wiping out the other two leaders--if you have survived this far, you have quite a few high-level units. Advance north cautiously in line formation, while keeping an eye on the clock.

Note: If you find you cannot beat the scenario, you may need to go back and replay the campaign to this point, concentrating on promoting units in each scenario and gathering gold in the previous scenario.

=== Tirigaz ===

This level is not too hard, so long as you give the high level undead their due respect.

Don't go too negative on gold, but recruit three or four high-level units. You need mostly leveled
initiates for their magic ranged attacks. Keshan is a big help, and
so is the unit with the storm trident.

Back off at the initial advance of the undead, waiting until daytime to go
after them. Keep a solid line to protect against Shadows/Nightgaunts.

If you decide to go after the orc leader, wait until the undead are dispatched. Heal everyone,
then assemble just to the north of his keep. Don't touch the ships
or piers though! Wait until daytime, then send in all the units
with magical attacks. Use other units to keep the slurbows
busy. Hopefully the leader won't kill anyone before your next
turn. One more round of magical attacks should kill him before his
recruits start beating you up. Killing the orc leader isn't really
necessary, but he helps someone level up, and he has a fair bit of
gold. The next level is much easier with lots of gold.

=== Uncharted Islands ===

Get some Citizens to capture villages and some more Citizens and level 1's to serve as cannon fodder
to help soak up the awesome damage capability of the first wave of monsters. Then, recall your
most powerful units. You need firepower. You also could really use the slow ability of Netcasters
and Entanglers. Two healers are probably a minimum. Brawlers have no place here.

Slide the first Citizens around the edges capturing villages. This is mostly to distract the enemy and disperse his units, weakening his first assault wave, which arrives at night. Don't
worry about gold -- you probably can't start the next scenario with more than the minimum.

Keshan can handle the upper bottleneck section himself. He is good against the tentacles and even
the cuttlefish, if he stays healed. If you lack Keshan, then an Entangler will suffice.

Put everyone else in the middle, using terrain to your advantage. As always, keep an eye on time of day. Use your auras as much as possible: leadership and illuminate (Cylanna is a diviner by now isn't she?) Use "slows" to keep all your units from dying. You will probably lose a
couple leveled-up ones anyway.

If you cannot win by a fair fight, you always have the option of leader assassination, sliding your assassination force along the north edge of the board, while the bulk of your force stays in the middle.

Spoiler: When you finish off the enemy leader, he gives you a loyal Cuttle Fish. It is isn't terribly useful, but cool to have anyway. When the Cuttle Fish levels into a Kraken, he is quite a
bit nicer to have.

=== BilHeld ===

This scenario should be rated "R" for massive violence! Both sides
can do lots of damage to the other.

Here's where you can use all the
piercing units you have. Hopefully you haven't been totally ignoring
the spearman and warrior lines. Even level one units can do pretty
high damage to drakes though, so you can level up some more
here. Get piercing units, almost exclusively. Netcasters aren't
really necessary, and one diviner is enough (but a second healer can help.)
However, don't get any units aside from maybe a few level zero Citizens for
about four turns. The drakes will take a while getting to
you, so just take some villages and let your income
work. Don't worry about holding the villages; you'll get a bonus
in the end if you survive. Just worry about getting enough units
so that you do survive.

Let the first wave of drakes come to you. You'll have the advantage in
the water--even against high-level units. They will kill some of your
weaker units, but you will do far more damage to them, and level up
some new ones in the process. If you survive the first wave, you should
be fine. You probably will have to do a little fighting on land towards the end.
Just be careful about how many units can attack each of yours.

=== Talking to Tyegea ===

No fighting to do here. Give one of your leveled fighters the holy water. Those units won't
be as useful after one more scenario unless they have special weapons.

=== The Mage ===

You need fire (e.g., storm trident) and arcane to take care of scorpions. Mermen Javelineers get
one more level to shine. Diviners are also great.

Stay near your fortress initially, forming a line across the southwest corner, because you will be hit with a nasty number of bats and scorpions, not to mention the occasional giant spider.

Hopefully you have Keshan, as he is especially helpful in actually finding the
mage. He can get there several turns ahead of even the fastest
Merman (after you take out most of the scorpions in the way), but of
course you don't need him. Without Keshan, the timing will
be very tight, and you must focus on killing the creepy crawlies
quickly and getting on your way ASAP.

=== The Flaming Sword ===

This is one of those scenarios where there are a lot of villages, so you will
want to start with some level 0 units (e.g., Mermen Citizens), but don't expect
them to last long. Manage your expenses and try to keep your income large, so
you can create a large army supported by spam. If you have a large stable of
Brawlers, you can start treating them suicidally much like Citizens, as this
is just before the last scenario.

After you advance to the three villages in the center, you'll
want to retreat just as fast, as night will be coming, as well as a nasty wave
of high level Undead. If you only see a couple of ghosts emerging out of the fog,
don't be fooled: run like hell, because they are backed up by Spectres and other
tough undead. You may wish to send a few weak units to the northwest, backed by
a stronger unit with an arcane ranged attack, like an Enchantress. This will tend
to draw some undead that way, making it easier to deal with the ones in the middle.

Towards the end, hoard your gold. You will need some for the last scenario.

You defeat the lich to try to get the sword, but as soon as the lich
drops it, Caladon teleports in and picks it up. Now, you need to
defeat Caladon to get the sword. He grants you time to leave, which
is actually a turn to remove any very damaged units from the
vicinity as Caladon is pretty dangerous. You can attack him now, or
wait a turn for him to get impatient and attack you. When he
attacks, or you attack him, he summons fire guardians (stolen from
the campaign Under the Burning Suns.) He does not also recruit, because that would just be
mean. (There is no reason he would have much gold, anyway.)

=== Getting Help ===
No combat here. You gain the ability to recruit priestesses.

=== Revenge ===
It's the last scenario. Losses of loyal units are acceptable. Also, you are relieved of the responsibility of protecting Cylanna. And you gain a loyal diviner, the Kai's grandmother, Tyegëa.

Your minimum gold is 300, but this is likely insufficient, so hopefully you have more than 400. Recruit a batch or two of Merman Citizens to capture villages. Recruit Brawlers next, who are good for bashing skeleton types, doubly so when the Brawlers are supported by leadership. Pace your main recruitment to end by turn 5 or 6. Diviners and Priestesses are especially useful in this scenario, to kill Bats and arcane-suspectible undead, as well as to heal your main force. Remember that you now have the ability to recruit Priestesses, which will come in handy if you don't already have a stockpile of them to recall.

You must kill all the enemy leaders. The choice of which enemy leader to kill first is easy. The enemy leader at southeast is protected by terrain that is nasty to Mermen. Therefore, the bulk of your force should head to the island in the middle. Send only a few Citizens to collect villages in the east. The four toughies at the northwest strait will not bother you if you do not go near them, so steer clear. The middle leader may dart out if you present him with an easy kill. Try to take him down then, as he is tougher in the middle of the island, protected by his recruits. After killing the middle leader, the rest should be downhill. However, keep an eye on the location of the Shadows recruited by the southeast leader, so that they do not surprise you at night. To protect the wounded, stay in line formation whenever Shadows threaten.

Give great respect to the undead at night, backing off and foregoing attacks. By day, wail on them mercilessly.

Use your halos (illumination and leadership.) They are key. Hopefully, Keshan is both alive and a Flameheart, for its leadership bonus.

Spoiler 1: The pile of skeleton bones in the West has an ankh that will provide the wearer with 70% resistance to arcane damage. A good bearer is an Entangler like Gwabbo, who can then slow enemy necromancers with relative impunity.

Spoiler 2: After you kill the middle leader, he drops a ring of power, which "increases the damage of all its owner's attacks by one, and adds three hitpoints." Inky or Krellis would be a good choice of bearer.

Spoiler 3: On turn 10, a squad of Dark Adepts (easy) or Necromancers (difficult) arrives on the northern beach. For this reason, your attack on the central island should veer towards the northwest. This way, you can cut them down in daylight with Brawlers backed by leadership.

[[Category: Campaigns - Walkthroughs]]

LegendofWesmere

2009-08-19T01:34:50Z

Scorchgeek: /* Kal'ian Under Attack */

= Legend of Wesmere =

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

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

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

== The Uprooting ==

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

== Hostile Mountains ==

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

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

== Kal'ian Under Attack ==

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later. Make your stand in the woods just to the southeast of your keep and to the immediate north of the Kal'ian. [In 1.6.2, this seems to have changed--your keep is in the northeast, so said woods are to the southwest of it.] Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages—it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario. Although it looks tempting to try to form up your lines at the edge of the river, you're not close enough to get there before the orcs come over in numbers. If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

== The Elvish Treasury ==

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

== The Saurian Treasury ==

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Do NOT send a lone unit north to try to grab the treasury; it will just get swarmed and killed. Instead, send your troops west en masse to take out the leader in the blue keep. If you need to leave Kalenz behind to recruit, make sure he has at least a couple of units to help screen/defend him. Once you've killed the blue saurian leader, move north, en masse, to take the treasury and dispose of the other saurian leader. Note: You should have a boatload of gold after you win this scenario.

== Acquaintance in Need ==

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

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

== Elves' Last Stand ==

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

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

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

== Council of Hard Choices ==

Story only.

== Bounty Hunters ==

More saurians. However, this time, it's not your job to wipe them out (which is fortunate, because their keeps are located in high mountains where your elves are very slow). Your only task is to get Kalenz over to the other side of the river. The river is fordable throughout most of its length, but infested with enemy creatures. Fortunately, the creatures will attack the saurians too, and you can turn that fact to your advantage. Recruit a castle or two (at most) of primarily riders and fighters (dwarves aren't very useful on this terrain), run north as fast as you can, aiming for the island in the center of the river—used carefully, that will allow you to get Kalenz over the water without having to park him in the river for any longer than a turn.

[CMaster]: I disagree. With four healers, a bunch of sorceror line elves and the dwarves who showed up at the Ka'lian, it is perfectly possible to defeat both enemy leaders simultaneously. Run Kalenz north once you got enough troops recalled, he can cross the river unaided (at least on medium difficulty). Just make sure he reaches the forrest on the western isle before the sea monsters appear.

== Cliffs of Thoria ==

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

== Battle of the Book ==

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

== Revelations ==

Story only.

== Ancient Alliance ==

Your human ally is sufficiently strong that he can deal with the enemies on the south side of the river while you move north with your troops to take out the northwestern enemy first. Use a number of scouts to take the villages of your human ally. They don't need to defend themselves if they stay behind the lines of your ally. The gold is just so much more usefull in your hands...

While you fight the northern enemies, take your stands in such a fashion that the enemy must attack you from the water whenever possible. After you've killed the green (northwestern) leader, move directly east to the northeastern keep to take out that leader. Alternatively, you can recall/recruit sufficient numbers to take both of the northern enemies at once. At this point, be prepared to detach some units south to come to your ally's aid. When the northeast leader is gone, move the rest of your army south to help your ally mop up stray units and kill the remaining leaders.

== The Treaty ==

Story only.

== The Chief Must Die ==

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign and reach the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Kalenz and Landar to level 3. Take the most direct route to the Orc (he's in the large keep in the center of the map), fight only the units that attack you, and get out as quickly as you can. If you can grab a few villages on the way in or out, all the better.

== Breaking the Siege ==

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). It is essential that you reach your ally quickly. Otherwise he might be dead before you even see him. Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally. Send part of your forces straight north to deal with the orcs in the north central keep, while sending the rest of your army directly west, then north.

== Hour of Glory ==

Story only.

== Costly Revenge ==

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

== Council Ruling ==

Story only.

== Elvish Assassins ==

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty.

== Northern Battle ==

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. However, because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

If you have been careful to build an air force (I had four shydes and two sylphs), it is absolutely unnecessary to run for it. Just recall/recruit a fair amount of support troops for your air force and fight in the forest since the woods will help only your troops. Your magic guarantees that. It is easy to defeat your enemies entirely that way.

Alternative Strategy:

The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. With a scout or two sent due south to draw the enemy troops out of their encampment (and away from your valuable troops), you can attack decisively if you have enough troops, or hold the enemy's encampment and let his troops wander north or attack your defensive position. This battle's over as soon as one of your units moves close to Landar's encampment, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

== End of War ==

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

== Epilogue ==

Story only.

AnOrcishIncursion

2009-08-18T18:33:52Z

Scorchgeek: /* A Detour Through the Swamp */

The walkthrough is up-to-date as of version 1.6.3.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

=== Wasteland ===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

=== A Detour Through the Swamp ===

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

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

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

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

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

[[Category: Campaigns]]

AnOrcishIncursion

2009-08-18T18:31:21Z

Scorchgeek: /* A Detour Through the Swamp */

The walkthrough is up-to-date as of version 1.6.3.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

=== Wasteland ===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

=== A Detour Through the Swamp ===

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

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

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

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

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

[[Category: Campaigns]]

TheHammerOfThursagan

2009-08-16T22:42:29Z

Scorchgeek: /* Forbidden Forest */

The walkthrough is based on medium difficulty.

=== At The East Gate ===
* Objectives: Defeat Orcish leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur dies or turns run out
* Turns: 32/30/28 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Gryphon Rider
This is pretty simple. Send a mixed force of Thunderers, Fighters, and Guardsmen along the road, and a few units south into the hills if the orcs go that way. That path through the forest can be deadly – they will surround you if they can, and can heal at the base of the path. Any Dwarf in forest is weak, while Wolf Riders are at a defensive advantage. Send the Gryphon Rider off village gathering to the north. The enemy recruited mostly Wolf Riders and Grunts, with a few Archers as I neared his keep.
Preserve the Gryphon Rider; you are not able to recruit more. Try and keep your units alive (this can be tricky to achieve while moving forward – his units are dangerous, and some are very fast – make sure hurt units stay out of reach, rather than failing to notice that an almost dead Wolf Rider being chased by a Gryphon is still a threat), and try to level at least one dwarf – your leader is an excellent choice. Play according to the basics, and you’ll have no trouble.

=== Reclaiming The Past ===
Plot only. You gain what is perhaps the best support unit ever invented. Your new companion has two magical impact attacks, one of which slows, he’s very fast, and most importantly, he can give a Leadership-like 25% attack boost to units on the same level. He later becomes able to cure, and then heal +4. As he is your only healer for a while (until scenario 8), make it a priority to level him and get the curing/healing. Angarthing makes fighting much easier.

=== Strange Allies ===
* Objectives: Defeat Bandit leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing or Marth-Tak (Orcish leader) die or turns run out
* Turns: 30/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur and Angarthing
In this scenario, you are allies with the orcs, and must defeat the bandits, who start at the east end of the map, and with quite a fair bit of gold. The bandits recruited mostly footpads and outlaws, but a few thugs, and a poacher or two near the end. I recalled only one turns worth of dwarves and the Gryphon, and sent them straight east, through the river at the ford. Your allies are an incredible help in this level; once you reach the bandit's side of the river, the orcs should already have engaged most of their troops to the south. One good way to go about the rest of this battle is to keep your units off to one side, and grab the finishing blows, especially to those level 2 outlaws. You should have 3 or 4 people (hopefully including Aiglondur and Angarthing) leveled by the end of this battle.

=== Troll Bridge ===
* Objectives: Defeat Troll leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 20/16/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur and Angarthing
* Other: You loot 200 gold from the troll
This one was a piece of cake. Recall a castle-full of troops, and set camp at the first line of trees and mountains, to the north side of the road. Your opponent can only recruit Level 1 Troll Whelps, so he doesn't have much attack strength. After the first onslaught, the remaining Whelps either retreat, or throw themselves at your weakest unit. Try and kill the enemies with weaker units, as it's a great chance to gain some experience. Also, after you kill the Troll leader, you find that he was sitting on a pile of 200 gold.

=== Invaders ===
* Objectives: Defeat enemy leaders (3)
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 40/40/40 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing and another dwarf
* Other: Hostile villagers come out of some villages when first flagged
When you flag your first village, you will discover that there are quite a number of outlaws hiding in it. This can be your undoing, but it can also work to your advantage: Try not to flag too many villages and retain a tight group. That way, your opponents will be quite preoccupied fighting the outlaws and you won't have to fight them simultaneously. Move in a tight pack along the southern border of the map and take out your enemies one by one. When I finally reached the northern orc, his troops were happily brawling away with the outlaws in the northwest...

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

=== High Pass ===
* Objectives: Move Aiglondur to signpost at end of pass
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing or Ratheln die or turns run out
* Turns: 24/18/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur and Angarthing
* Other: Friendly Arch Mage, Ratheln, available in a village near the middle of the path
Recalling your Gryphon Rider is a must on this scenario, he will be your eye in the fog. Dwarves just can't see very far in the snow. The rest is pretty straight forward, just make sure you meet the Arch Mage hiding in a village near the center of the pass.
Time is pretty tight in this scenario. Don't dawdle.

=== Mages and Drakes ===
* Objectives: Defeat Drake leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 30/24/18 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur and Angarthing
Guardsmen and Thunderers are your units of choice in this scenario since they have piercing attacks that are quite deadly to drakes. Do not try to sweep the map of all opposition, your mobility disadvantage is too huge for that. Just move to the nest of the drakes with a pack of well seasoned troops, trying to stay in the mountains/hills as much as possible, otherwise the fire drakes could really hurt your dwarves.

=== Fear ===
* Objectives: Find the villagers then defeat Masked Dwarf leader
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 30/24/18 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing and 1 or 2 Mages and Ratheln (depending on difficulty)
The worst mistake you can make in this scenario is to recall too many troops. Those Ulfserkers look dangerous (and they probably are, if you let them get at one of your Thunderers or Magi), but otherwise your enemy is weak and you will need your gold. Just make sure, the Dwarvish Ulfserkers hit only a Dwarvish Lord or Sentinel, preferably while he's standing on a village, and everything will be fine.

You get an experienced Mage (or two, on easy) at the start of this scenario. Level him to a White Mage, you'll be facing undead before long and you'll need his healing abilities. It really pays to educate a second White Mage, by the way, even better if he's quick.

You can recruit the Mage unit now. If all of your Magi die (and you have none available for recall) you will lose the ability to recruit them. This would be a big blow, so don't let it happen.

=== Forbidden Forest ===
* Objectives: Move '''both''' Aiglondur and Angarthing to the eastern signpost
* Lose if: Aiglondur or Angarthing die or turns run out
* Turns: 40/34/28 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing and any surviving Mages from Scenario 8
This is a tough one. You are fighting elves. You are fighting them in a forest. And you are fighting them under fog of war. So, once again, your Gryphon Rider (preferably leveled into a Gryphon Master) is a must. Trouble is, Elvish Riders are as fast or faster than he is, and, he won't be able to spot Elvish Rangers or Woses because of their Ambush ability. If I were playing the elves in this scenario, I would take on almost any number of dwarves. Only the stupidity of the AI saves you from a grim defeat. So recall as many units as you can, you need your numbers to make up for your tactical disadvantage.

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

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

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

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

=== The Siege of Kal Kartha ===
* Objectives: Defeat Orcish leaders (3)
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing, or Dulcatulos(allied leader) die or turns run out
* Turns: 35/35/35 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing and any surviving Mages from Scenario 8
It is quite easy to grab the patch of hills in front of you, wait for the northern enemies to come to you and chew them up. But you also need to make sure, that you put enough pressure on the central enemy. If left alone, he gangs up with the southern one and you may be too late to rescue your ally.

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

=== The Court of Karrag ===
* Objectives: Defeat Karrag
* Lose if: Aiglondur, Angarthing, or Dulcatulos die or turns run out
* Turns: 12/12/12 (easy/medium/hard)
* Starting units: Aiglondur, Angarthing, Dulcatulos and Ratheln
* Other: Neither side can recruit units
Almost story only. Once again, those Berserkers are your most dangerous opponents, so take them out with your Dwarvish Lords.

If you can, get Dulcatulos some kills. Leveling him helps his survival in the next scenario.

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

Don't start playing this scenario, if you don't have a lot of time to spare. It's not so much of a scenario, it's actually a small campaign in itself. This is even more extreme than the missions in "Under the Burning Suns". As this is the last fighting scenario, you can recall shamelessly. Two White Mages, your loyal Arch Mage and another Red Mage are really useful here. By now, your army should consist of numerous Dwarvish Lords, Sentinels and Dragonguards, along with lower-level units. Recall everything and recruit more with your leftover gold. It's going to be a long brawl, so you need to be prepared.

In short, you will have to fight a gallery full of Masked Dwarves, 4 different Masked Dwarf leaders and their armies, a cavern full of Giant Spiders, 2 Liches and their Undead armies, and finally, once you're done with all that, have a final showdown with Karrag. But there is no time limit, so you can take as long as you wish to complete this mission.

==== The Gallery ====

A hall with a line of dwarves on either side in extremely good defensive position. Try to take them out as fast as you can, cycling wounded units back to your healers for, before long, masked dwarves will start to pour into the gallery from the other side. There is a treasure behind each line of defenders, which provides a little extra cash should you need it for more recruits.

==== The First Enemy ====

He sits right at the other end of the gallery, again in a good defensive position. But with enough aggression, he should not be a problem. Once you've taken his castle, you will need to split your forces. Split them as evenly as you can. (Did I mention, that two White Mages are a real asset? Each group will need a healer!)

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

Your enemies now are numerous and strong. But you are fighting underground in passages only three hexes wide. This is your advantage. Form defensive lines, let them come to you, and beat them to a pulp once they do. Don't worry if this takes some time, you will have to defeat almost their entire forces, before you can dare to enter the halls at the ends of the corridors. There is no turn limit anyway.

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

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

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

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

The first possibility is to use the transportation runes to get your forces down to the locked door and fight him from there. In that case, go east with only a few well leveled dwarves, Angarthing and a White Mage, for there is quite a number of Spiders defending the key. Once your read the spell, go back to the runes, reunite your forces and take out the Lich in the east.

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

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

==== The Second Lich ====

He sits in a big cavern behind the doors in the south west. Only take him on with your entire army (if you don't want to do another chokepoint fight at the door). He too makes heavy use of shadows, so make sure to form solid lines! His forces are likely to be at a fair distance when you open the door, so, with your entire army, you have a good chance to finish him in only a few turns by rushing in at top speed. If that does not work, safeload and do a chokepoint fight at the door.

==== Karrag ====

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

[[Category:Campaigns]]

TheRiseOfWesnoth

2009-08-02T02:55:29Z

Scorchgeek: /* Sewer of Southbay */

== 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.

===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===

Just story. I wonder what would have happened if the outlaw lady had died in one of the previous scenarios. [She just poofs back in and rejoins the plot at that point. --Anon. speaking from experience]

===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.

===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===

Just an enjoyable plot.

===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.

Treat the island boss as a separate effort. Do not use assassins. Assassins have relatively weak defense in water against Sea Orcs and Nagas, they're very weak against blade, which is all Sea 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.

[comments by Elilmaldur-Rithrandil]
Funny Fact: I managed to keep both Burin The Lost, and Sir Ladoc alive until this level, at the beginning, when Haldric is testing the ruby of fire, Burin says"Fool of a boy is gonna burn us all up. Humans, always playing at being wizards", and then Ladoc replies "For the glory of Southbay!". This was probably not intended, because we weren't supposed to have them alive, but it is funny nonetheless

===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.

===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 Jonadab] Thieves have only 20% defense in water. Outlaws have 40%. Obviously you're going to try to keep your land-based units mostly on land, but I used outlaws rather than thieves here for this reason. (EDIT by Jozrael: This is incorrect, thieves also have 40% defense in shallow water. Neither can go into deep water.)

[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]]

TheRiseOfWesnoth

2009-08-01T21:09:22Z

Scorchgeek:

== 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.

===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===

Just story. I wonder what would have happened if the outlaw lady had died in one of the previous scenarios. [She just poofs back in and rejoins the plot at that point. --Anon. speaking from experience]

===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.

===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 would use some thugs too.

===Southbay in Winter===

Just an enjoyable plot.

===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.

Treat the island boss as a separate effort. Do not use assassins. Assassins have relatively weak defense in water against Sea Orcs and Nagas, they're very weak against blade, which is all Sea 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.

[comments by Elilmaldur-Rithrandil]
Funny Fact: I managed to keep both Burin The Lost, and Sir Ladoc alive until this level, at the beginning, when Haldric is testing the ruby of fire, Burin says"Fool of a boy is gonna burn us all up. Humans, always playing at being wizards", and then Ladoc replies "For the glory of Southbay!". This was probably not intended, because we weren't supposed to have them alive, but it is funny nonetheless

===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.

===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 Jonadab] Thieves have only 20% defense in water. Outlaws have 40%. Obviously you're going to try to keep your land-based units mostly on land, but I used outlaws rather than thieves here for this reason. (EDIT by Jozrael: This is incorrect, thieves also have 40% defense in shallow water. Neither can go into deep water.)

[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]]