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HeirToTheThrone

2008-04-11T21:11:27Z

Smenze: /* Test of the Clans */

This is a walkthrough of '''Heir to the Throne''', the campaign featuring Konrad. It contains spoilers.

The suggestions herein are based on the "Medium" and "Hard" difficulty levels. It should be possible to win "Easy" level without trying very hard. 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 restart from the beginning (and yes, it is very likely you will have to restart the first time you play Wesnoth), try reading [[AdvancedTactics]]. You should also be familiar with the basics in [[WesnothManual]] -- this is a walkthrough, not an exposition of basic game mechanics.

The walkthrough below was originally written for game versions 0.8 to 0.8.11. A revision is in progress based on 0.9.x. Descriptions that still need updating include Test of the Clans (renamed and redone), Princess of Wesnoth (now harder), and Crossroads (now easier).

Each scenario has an individual forum thread where you can provide feedback to the authors. See also the forum posts [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3601 Suggestions for Heir to the Throne walkthrough] and [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4026 Yet another "Heir to the Throne" walktrough] (sic) for more. [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7064 Ye Compleat Walkthrough To "Heir To The Throne"] is a detailed guide, with illustrations, to the first several scenarios.

Finally, some [http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/my-wesnoth-replays-online replays] were posted by Uwe Hermann.

'''Warning spoilers ahead!'''

== The Elves Besieged ==
Scenario objectives: Both Konrad and Delfador must survive, and Konrad must escape to the signpost in the northwest corner of the map by turn 16.

Terrain dictates two routes to the signpost: west to the druid and then north, or north over the bridge and then west. If Konrad goes west, consider sending Delfador north to encourage the northern army to split. Otherwise, Konrad's route might be blocked by enemy units. If you take the northern path, veer west just south of the rough terrain.

You have enough gold to build 6 units (4 costing 17 or 18, 2 costing 14). For example: two scouts, a shaman, an archer, and two fighters. If you recruit scouts, send them south to capture villages that do not have red flags. They will also delay the southern orcs. Use the ctrl-v command to see how far all enemy units will be able to move on their next turn. Click on an unoccupied hex and then move the cursor over an enemy unit to see how far that unit will be able to move. Position the scouts so only one enemy can attack each scout at once. Do not let them be surrounded, or they will be pinned down and killed!

Your allies will attempt to defend a corridor for Konrad to reach the signpost. Your primary goals in this scenario are to learn how your units move and fight, and observe the strengths and weaknesses of the orcish units. Do not attempt to stand and fight! Not only are you and the elves outnumbered, but many of the orcs are level 2 and 3 units.

Your secondary goal is for some of your units to earn experience points, so they can start advancing. Let your allies lead the attack and bear the brunt of the enemy blows before you slip in an elf to deliver the killing blow. Earning experience in this scenario, without having your units killed, is quite difficult, because the orcs are very strong and your elvish allies are just as eager to earn experience as you are! Note that Delfador is already at his maximum level, try to use him only to weaken enemies, without finishing them off (not always so easy).

Another strategy is to do no recruiting and instead move Konrad west to the castle. After a turn or two, the Elven Lord there will move out and allow Konrad to move to the Keep and do some recruiting. This will change where the orcish units move.

Finally, you can do no recruiting, avoid combat, and move Konrad to the signpost as fast as possible for a nice gold bonus -- but then you will have no units to recall in the second scenario. There are two options on the Preferences dialog that will speed things up: "Skip AI Moves" and "Accelerated Speed".

Early finish bonus: 30 gold per turn.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2881 forum discussion].

== Blackwater Port ==
Scenario objectives: Survive 12 turns (9 on Hard), or kill the enemy leader.

The opening dialog will introduce a new friend, Haldiel. He is a loyal Horseman, and costs less each turn than those you recruit, so try to keep him alive.

Beginning players should start with at least 200 gold that will be used to recruit or recall units. If you have less, redo the first scenario and try to finish before turn 14. If you recall units, choose those that have enough experience to be worth the 2 to 6 gold difference over fresh recruits, or that have specific traits that you need.

Recruit or recall some fast units (scouts or horsemen) to take the villages to the south and southwest. Do not overspend on Horsemen. Acquire at least 4 to 6 elves, including some shamans. (Even if you don't think they are very useful.)

An aggressive strategy is to recruit heavily. Move your elves to the woods east of the enemy's castle and hold a defensive position during the night. When day comes, attack every enemy unit in the hills, then continue onto the enemy castle and destroy the leader. You will probably need to start with at least 250 gold for this to work.

A fiscally conservative strategy is to form up inside the closer woods out of range of the orcs. At dawn, move the horsemen to lure the orcs into the open ground. Be patient and let the enemy come to you. Position your horsemen in the grasslands and your elves in the woods to improve your defence. The knights provided by your ally will cover your northern flank. Mix your units in with your allies and try to get the finishing blow after they have weakened enemy units.

You can also send Haldiel west as fast as possible and attempt to take the village due south of the enemy castle. This will draw the orcs south and make it more likely you will be able to engage them in the woods, where your elves rule. Be careful to not let Haldiel get pinned down and killed.

Feel free to send units to take the villages close to your ally's castle. After all, Sir Kaylan would only use the gold to recruit troops that would steal your experience!

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2929 forum discussion].

== Isle of Alduin ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

The key to victory is to control the villages, earning the gold you need to recruit or recall troops. Send elvish scouts south through the forest and horsemen west across the river and into the plains. This will also encourage the enemy to split their forces. Avoid serious engagements until you have built up a powerful army.

The following strategy works well if you take care of your unit placement. Protect units you cannot afford to lose from multiple attacks at night or when weakened, particularly new horsemen and mages.

First recall or recruit 3 elvish scouts. Send two scouts to the southern villages, and the third to the village to the northwest. Recruit 3 fighters; send one to the south and the other two to the southwest. This works best if one scout is "quick" and the fighter recruited to fill the southeastern hex of your castle is also "quick". If not you may have to modify this strategy. Send Delfador up to the northwest on the first turn to find the mage and send the mage down to the village next to the castle. Konrad should take two nearby villages in the first two turns, because you have no money left anyway.

One of the scouts goes as far south as possible, taking villages and distracting the enemy. This scout is usually destroyed by turn 4. That's OK. The other scout in the south usually has to retreat to survive. You try to take all the villages in the south you can and then reinforce the south slowly and move south. Now your main push is in the west because most villages are there and you need an income of over 20 per turn to recall all of your good troops. I usually use the scout I have sent to the northwest village on the island to take all of the far northwest villages. Delfador can destroy an enemy unit each turn, especially saurians, because these pesky units can kill weakened units in the rear. Horsemen take too long to cross the forest south of your castle but are strong on the western plains during daytime. Send newly-recruited horsemen to the west along with mages. A shaman is useful to the south and later one can be sent to the west.

Approaching turn 10-12, you should have assembled two reasonably powerful forces on each side of the lake. The westerly one usually is based on Delfador and horsemen-mage combos with fighters and archers for ZOC purposes, and the eastern force almost entirely of elves. Remember mages work best against trolls and grunts, and horsemen against archers.

Move south in tight groups, trying not to get too aggressive at night with the west group, until they meet at the far southern end of the island, and assault the castle together.

If you are a new player, you've probably been focusing on game mechanics and how the units and terrain interact. If so, it's time to give serious thought to leveling up some units by allowing them to strike the killing blow. When Konrad or an elven fighter is at level 2, they get the "leadership" skill. When a shaman levels up, they get the "cure" skill.

Hardly any player notices this, but this scenario offers the opportunity for some extra experience at the expence of very little gold. The early finish bonus is 38, but there are 36 villages on the island, so if you controll all villages, you only loose 2 gold per turn (or only 1.6 gold, since only 80% can be retained - should be less than 24, since you hardly ever finish more than 15 turns early). So instead of killing the remaining enemies - especially the enemy leader - you might encircle them and reduce their health to a minimum. If you do not attack them in the subsequent turns, they will neither attack nor move, thus regain 2 HP per turn and will eventually be healthy enough to stand an attack of your weaker units. This is a relatively save way to milk some extra XPs out of them for your weaker units (preferably mages and shamans). While milking level 1 units may not be very rewarding, milking the level 2 leader might easily give 20 extra XPs.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2959 forum discussion].

== Bay of Pearls ==
Scenario objectives: Kill one or both enemy leaders.

You must fight the sea leader, a sea orc, bats, and nagas with the mermen. It will be nigh impossible for your horsemen and elves to wade to the island to fight the sea leader in time, so try to preserve your mermen for this. Mermen and nagas both have high defense in water, so combat can be a bit slow and frustrating. Concentrate three or four mermen on a single enemy unit at a time, rather than spreading your attacks piecemeal.

On the first turn, have Konrad recruit or recall some units. Which units, and in which order, is your first tactical decision. If you recruit/recall in pairs, with one fast (6 movement points or more) and one slow unit, then one will be able to move onto the island the next turn, while the other is still wading through the river.

Then, move Konrad to the cage on the island just to the east. This will free some mermen. (How many depends on whether you are playing on Easy, Medium, or Hard.) One of these can go open the second cage, and so on. There is another cage to the northeast, and one far to the north. Your second tactical decision is which of these two objectives will receive the bulk of your mermen.

Even further north is the Storm Trident, which can only be picked up by one of your mermen. This ranged attack will be crucial in defeating the sea leader. If you win the sea battle, you can use the mermen in one of two ways. You can harass or even assassinate the land orc leader, although you should expect heavy losses; Or, you can attempt to lure the land orcs into the water, where they will be easy prey.

On land, you have to fight off a wave of orcs and trolls heading south and then west. Your third tactical decision is how far west to engage the enemy. Consider carefully the time of day! You are hindered by the limited recruitment you can do each turn, and how long it takes your elves and horsemen to trickle across the river. You will probably need to advance and retreat your units several times, depending on time of day.

Careful management of your killing blows should allow several units to get to Level 2. A charging horseman does so much damage it will be easy for the horsemen to get all the kills, but try to get at least Konrad, a shaman, the merman with the trident, and an elven fighter leveled up.

The outcome of this battle affects the next scenario you play. If you kill the sea leader you wind up on Isle of the Damned. If you kill the land leader you wind up on Muff Malal's Peninsula. If you kill both, you can choose. You fight undead either way.

New players should take the land route to Muff Malal's Peninsula, where you can easily level up your existing units or collect an early finish bonus. Experienced players who are looking for an interesting tactical exercise shoud take the sea route to the Isle of the Damned: you can't recall your usual units but you can recruit outlaws and perhaps recruit a loyal White Mage for future scenarios.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders, and the ability to choose the next scenario.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3022 forum discussion].

== Diverging campaign path ==
=== Muff Malal's Peninsula ===
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

This is an easy scenario, and your aim here should be to build up your gold by controlling most villages, while earning experience against enemy forces. The enemy recruits bats to capture villages, and hordes of Walking Corpses to keep you busy. The occasional Dark Adept can be dangerous on Hard difficulty, but is vulnerable to melee attack, especially from knights.

One approach is to recall a few level 2 units supported by a mage. These units build a defensive position in the central part of the map, using hills and forest for cover, and hold off the first wave of Walking Corpses. Mounted troops capture villages in the north and west, and can charge down the flanks at daytime. A merman or two distract enemy bats and capture sea villages. If you can recall the merman that picked up the trident in Bay of Pearls, it will be able to dispatch bats easily on its own.

During daytime, your main force advances to one of the villages in the south-east, where you wait for more Walking Corpses to attack. A level 2 melee unit (eg. Elvish Captain) can use the village defense bonus to survive attacks, and heal between turns. By the time it is low on hit points, it should be advancing to level 3.

You should now control most villages and have some gold, so recruit or recall additional troops. Launch an offensive with your central force, supported by your horsemen advancing at the sides. Don't forget to use Konrad in the attack.

Try to attack with human units only at day, when the undead are at their weakest, and hold the lines with your elves at night.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3178 forum discussion].

=== Isle of the Damned ===
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leaders, or survive for 27 turns.

Konrad is washed overboard during a storm, but is rescued by two mermen. You start out with 100 gold and cannot recall any units. You are joined by Urlaf, a level 2 Outlaw. In addition to Mermen, you can recruit his friends: Thugs, Poachers and Footpads. This is the only time in the campaign that these units can be recruited, but any outlaw units surviving this scenario can be recalled later. Your gold from Bay of Pearls (minus the usual 20% discount) is saved for the next scenario.

Moremirmu is a White Mage with a holy sword which is very effective against undead. He is hiding in one of the three temples, and will join your cause if you find him. Beware: Xakae, a Revenant with a retinue of Walking Corpses, is waiting to ambush you in another temple. Moremirmu and Xakae are randomly placed; the third temple is always empty. Xakae and the Corpses can be a useful source of experience if you have the troops to deal with them.

Mermen can be used succesfully to harrass the undead in their rear. Typically the undead responds by withdrawing forces to deal with your mermen. Occasionally this tactic can be used to isolate and trap an undead leader while their forces are busy with your land troops. Don't expect the mermen to survive, though.

Moremirmu is critical to winning but also quite fragile. He will die quickly if he is attacked by multiple undead.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders. Moremirmu (and his holy sword) will join you in future scenarios only if both are defeated.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3179 forum discussion].

== The Siege of Elensefar ==
Scenario objectives: Kill both enemy leaders.

Konrad arrives at the southern end of a large map. The island city of Elensefar dominates the center, and the cave of the necromancer Muff Jaanal is far to the north. The orcish warlord Agadla has taken the city. You know what to do!

Your first objective is to retake the city. You could choose to charge across the bridges and fight your way onto the island, taking heavy casualties from the level 2 orcish warriors along the way. Or, you can lure the orcs into the water where they are easy to hit. Remember that mermen, especially the one with the Storm Trident, move quickly and defend quite well in water or on the bridges.

Konrad will recieve some help from the Thieves Guild. Apparently, an orcish occupation is bad for business. They will either show you a hidden ford onto the island, or attack the north gate after you take one of the island villages. Whether you choose to storm the city, and which aid to accept, depends in large part on how much of a hurry you are in. Every turn, the undead march southward, and you'll have quite a fight on your hands after they reinforce the orcs in the city proper.

After you defeat the orcs, you must fight your way north. Fighting against the undead requires a different mix of units than fighting the orcs. Your mermen are too slow on land. Horsemen and elvish units do reduced damage to skeletons. Here, you need... mages. Lots and lots of mages. And a paladin, if you've leveled a unit that high enough. Expect to spend many turns fighting through the northernmost six hexes. You are fighting in a cave, which slows your units down. Being underground, it is also treated as night for the time of day penalties.

By now, you should have either Konrad or a level 2 elven fighter with the Leadership ability. A unit adjacent to a leader receives a +25% bonus to damage. Likewise, carefully position shamen or white mages in your lines so they can heal wounded units. Two adjacent healers will heal each other.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3224 forum discussion].

== Crossroads ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the north-eastern enemy leader.

There are two strategies: either to "run for it", or "kill them all". Which you choose will probably depend on whether you want to earn lots of gold, or level up lots of units.

If you choose to run, recall two turn's worth of troops. Most should be level 2, but you should recruit one or two units as sacrifical lambs. Having two healers (who will stay adjacent to each other for mutual healing) is almost a necessity. Move the units in formation (probably in two packs) along the road. Do not be tempted to move units into the mountains. The increased defence is not worth the risk of triggering ambushes. Drive your way to the leader in the northwest, kill them, and reap the early finish bonus.

The second strategy is to methodically destroy all enemy units on the map. Recruit two turns worth of units, and then drive south. Overcome the southern leader, and recruit more troops in his castle. Move back north, moving into every town and through the mountains, in order to trigger ambushes. This strategy is trickier to pull off, but careful management of your kills should allow you to level multiple units. (Just be careful not to run out of turns...)

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3281 forum discussion].

== The Princess of Wesnoth ==
Scenario objectives: Subdue Li'sar to win

Konrad's life now takes an interesting turn, as he meets the Princess of Wesnoth, Li'sar. Instead of dying when you "kill" her, she surrenders.

Li'sar is supported by troops from the Loyalist faction. Even your tough level 2 units make tempting targets for her lawful horsemen; they will charge and probably kill them. Use terrain and position sacrificial level 1 screening units while the sun is high. Likewise, you can try for a quick kill by charging Li'sar with your own horsemen or knights.

This otherwise straightforward battle is enlivened by reinforcements that Li'sar summons on turns 5 and 10. Also, a level 2 Duelist will defend the Princess' honor when you approach her, appearing from the south of your position. You can trigger his arrival by exploring the mountain with an entrance. Capture the villages on the eastern side as you cross the river, and position units to cover the north-eastern plain to prevent Li'sar's mounted units from capturing these villages.

By the end of this scenario, you should have learned a painful lesson in how the computer player targets its attacks...

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3401 forum discussion].

== The Valley of Death ==
Scenario objectives: Survive 12 turns.

There are two holy water bottles on the map. The unit which picks them up will have their melee attacks be holy for the duration of this scenario. These are especially useful for powerful melee units like Elvish Heroes or Champions which otherwise do little damage to the undead. Or, you could recruit Horsemen and have them grab the holy water. They should easily level to level 2 Lancers or Knights, and maybe even to a Level 3 Paladin by the end of the scenario. As in previous scenarios, mages will be effective against most of the undead enemies.

One strategy is recruit a large army, defeat one of the enemies, and hole up in that enemy's castle. The southern enemy is popular for this strategy. It apparently also works to pack the lake around the starting castle with mermen, and hole up there. Don't underestimate the power of the Walking Corpses (WCs) recruited by the eastern necromancer. They are slow but there are so many that they can overwhelm and kill even your most powerful units if given the chance. On the other hand, do not underestimate the crowd-clearing ability of a Paladin or blessed Champion! A WC will lurch next to your unit. It will attack. It will die, leaving room for another WC to lurch forward.
(Windscion: Unfortunately, this is also a good way to get a high level unit killed: 10 WCs in one turn can be deadly. I prefer a line of archers backed by healers.)

If you don't have the money to recruit a large or powerful army, recruit a few Elvish Fighters and send them to the forest north of your castle. Their job is to slow the Revenant for several turns and then die gloriously. Flee with Konrad and the rest of your army to the south-east corner. If you're lucky, the WC horde will be too slow to reach you before the scenario ends. A cowardly tactic, yes -- but you'll survive...

If you played Isle of The Damned without killing both Liches, and Moremirmu survived, then he will reinforce you with three White Mage buddies between turns 7-10. You can't recall them after this scenario, so they are expendable.

Another strategy, which requires to have Moremirmu to help you and allows you to kill the three Liches, is to recruit 2 horsemen(or recall their leveled up units) and as many thieves as you can, send each horsemen to gather the bottles of holy water, and kill with them the northern and eastern Liches; don't send them the horseman to the northern Lich too quick, because if you do his army will focus on it, and it won't reach the Lich. Move Konrad, Delfador, the elf from the high elven council, and your thieves towards the southeast corner. The thieves be used as a barrier to protect your more important units; place them in woods, mountains or villages(never in plains) as soon as they can, so that the northern and eastern Liches concentrate on them and leave Konrad and his group alone. With some luck you'll kill the northern and eastern Liches around the same turn that Moremirmu appears, and Konrad and his group will survive enough time to have one of Moremirmu's white mages kill the Southern Lich during day time.

Early finish bonus if you somehow manage to defeat all enemy leaders. If you do, feel free to boast about your accomplishment at the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3402 forum discussion].

== Gryphon Mountain ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

Konrad starts in the lower left corner of the map. General Robert, commanding Loyalist troops, is in the upper right. In the middle of the map, surrounded by mountains, is the Mother Gryphon and three sleeping Gryphons.

If you kill the Mother Gryphon before the Loyalists do, you will have access to gryphon eggs, allowing you to to recruit Gryphon Riders in future scenarios. Opinions differ as to whether their ability to capture far-flung villages, safely lure enemy troops, and ability to pierce the map shroud are worth their high cost. Even if you decide not to attack the Gryphons, the enemy will -- and then the wild beasts of the air might decide to attack you.

For a quick victory to earn the early finish bonus, head up the right side of the mountains. To earn experience, head towards the Mother Gryphon, and the enemy will come to you.

Early finish bonus for killing both the mother gryphon as well as the enemy leader.

== The Ford of Abez ==
Scenario objectives: Move Konrad to the north side of the river

The wide Abez river cuts across the middle of the map from left to right, with Konrad starting on the lower right side. Princess Li'sar starts on the lower left, and an orc band is on the north side of the river. If you have lots of gold, if you have a plethora of well-seasoned fighting troops, and you think you're ready for a challenge, you could try and attack the Princess. But do a save first; you'll need it after you are wiped out by her Royal Guards.

Your major decision (after you learn that the Princess's escort is just too tough) is whether to have Konrad recruit for one turn or two. Do not recruit land troops with less than five movement points, as they will have trouble wading across the ford. You're under immense time pressure. The chaotic orcs will attack from the north, the Princess's lawful Loyalists will attack from the south, and... a new enemy (alignment: hungry) will be attacking from downstream. Except for the hungry ones--who will be focused on killing anything in their path--all the enemies will be focused on killing Konrad. The hungry enemies might assist you somewhat as they will probably hit the orcs and humans before trying to snack on your forces. Also, the orcs and humans will fight if they happen to cross paths.

Remember those loyal mermen from in the Bay of Pearls? They should comprise your principal fighting force. Be sure to send one downstream to acquire the Storm Trident there. Lure the orcs into the water, where your mermen have excellent defence and the orcs are highly vulnerable. If you captured the eggs last scenario, consider using a gryphon to distract the enemy.(Note in the latest version Gryphons are not available until a later scenario)

Early finish bonus for getting Konrad onto dry land.

== Northern Winter ==
*Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders (2 of them)
*Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
*Turns: 50
*Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, a random soldier
*Early finish bonus: ?? 
*Other:
**Snow falls on turns 6 and 10, making the tundra patches larger.
 
This is a relatively simple scenario. The quickest strategy is to recall a few Knights, Lancers, Paladins, and/or Grand Knights along with fresh Horsemen, kill the northwestern leader, then head east. The eastern leader's wolf riders will attempt to attack you through the center of the map, so be sure to place a few horsemen there. It' a good idea for Kalenz and Delfador to defent the southern mountains, as a few riders may come there as well. This is a good level for getting a large amount of gold.

== The Dwarven Doors ==
* Objectives: Move Konrad to entrance of the Dwarfen Kingdom
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 26
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Blidd, Kalenz, level 1 thug
* Early finish bonus: Find the correct entrance (the eastern one -- or the main one in version 1.3.4)

This scenario offers the usual strategic choice -- run for the exit and an early finish bonus, or slowly and carefully exterminate the enemy forces. If you choose to follow Delfador's advice and flee in terror, recruit one turn's worth of elven riders or gryphons to sacrifice as screening units. If you choose to attack, you'll be in for a struggle. For a real challenge, move to the middle of the map and get attacked from all sides... If you want to kill all three leaders, taking out the south eastern one with your full force and then splitting to take on both the others. Move Konrad near the exit (the eastern one!) so you can abort at any time. -- [v.1.3.4: moving directly to the eastern entrance does not work; it is blocked]

The main door by the lake is barred from the inside. Further, there is the usual tentacular horror hiding in the lake near the ancient subterranean Dwarven Kingdom. This means you will have to go into the entrance on the east.

If you fought on the Isle of the Damned, one of your outlaws will tell you about a Bandit who will be willing to ally with you. The initial outlaw is expendable, the other one is loyal, though (no upkeep cost!)

"coward" strategy for version 1.3.4 :
In this version, you get a elvish scout, who says he'll check the entrance to see if it is opened. Send him there, passing on the right of the mountains that are along the "path" to the entrance. This will stop the north western orcs from killing him too soon. Once that is done, move the scout to the north western mountains, to lure the ennemies there.
Recruit one turn worth of elvish scouts as sacrificial units. They'll lure the ennemies away from Konrad. For a higher chance of success, leave Delfador and Kalenz near your keep, in the south. Since Kalenz is weak, he can easily be killed before Konrad makes it to the cave entrance. Once Konrad is near the center of the map (and overwhelmed by orcs), move them North a bit, to attract ennemies to them. All you need to do now is move Konrad to the entrance as fast as possible. The cuttlefish should appear in the lake as you pass by it, which will delay the orcs some more.

Do It Quickly:
On the first turn recruit some units you may want to give experience to (and you're not afraid of losing them too), but choose only those having movement range 6 or greater. Then capture two nearest villages with Konrad and Delfador. Run straight north. The elf scout should be the leader to the doors and the only step off the straight path is to capture the village NE of the lake. This should unleash the octopus which will attract NW troops (not sure, tried only once)
Eastern and western opponents are lazy and more attracted to the villages income than to fight. So they will first go south to capture villages near your keep. Before they do, you'll be at the middle of the map.
If you recruited units with movement 6 and headed N without any stop, you're likely to be engaged at the pillars by some units from NW. Delfador and other leaders should have no problem dealing with them. Next attack may happen at the doors, one turn before Konrad reaches the entrance.
I managed to do it, losing only one 1st level mage.

Version 1.2.5:
I played on medium and found that I had only 20 turns. Killing all the orc leaders didn't end the game. You will still need to reach the door with Konrad. After reloading, I killed all the orc leaders AND managed to get Konrad to the door within 20 turns (20 exactly) but there was no bonus and I ended up with -ve gold because I had to recall all my veterans to kill the leaders. Finally, I adopted the coward's strategy. Created 5 Elvish scouts and 10 thieves and used them as canon fodder for the orcs. There were too many orcs and only 2 of the scouts survived but I ended up with 11 rounds of bonus.

== Plunging into the Darkness ==
* Objectives: Find the dwarves
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 19
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: n/a
* Other:
** Secret pasage in southeastern part of the tunnel
** Pretty dull and boring ;)

Since you're reading this walkthrough, you'll also be interested in locating the secret passage leading to a chest of 200 gold pieces in the southeast. However, said chest is guarded by a rather nasty poison-biting, slow-web-throwing level 3 spider. Beware the blood bats, seek out a niche in the wall, and be wary exploring the secret passage!

Tip: For the next three stages you don't have to use too many dwarven companions. All I needed was 2 fighters, 2 riders, 2 guardmen,and 2 thurderer. These fighters I use over and over leading them to all level up to level 3 and having lots and lots of gold by the time I finish the cave levels

== The Lost General ==
* Objectives: Kill all enemy leaders (there are two)
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 64(!)
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: Killing both enemy leaders

Moving underground is slow, especially for elves. Their fighters and archers are also ineffective against undead. Outriders and slyphs might be worth recruiting, if you can afford them. Likewise, gryphons and horsemen are bogged down. Recruit dwarves for speed, and mages to back them up. (However, a griffon can pass the small pond quickly, and there are four towns on the other side.)

You are fighting Lionel, a former general turned Death Knight, who starts trapped in the south. To the west is the usual orc/troll force. In the north is a dwarven ally, although if you are too slow they will be overwhelmed by the orcs.

Dwarven fighters do well against the undead, while the Thunderers do best against the orcs and trolls. If you choose to go for money, rush troops both south and north, reinforcing the native dwarves and triggering the appearance of the undead. If you choose to go for experience, ignore the undead until you have killed the orcs, then return en masse to destroy the undead. Don't take too long, as Lionel will break forth on turn 20.

There are two ways to get to Lionel: an entrance opens in the pond on turn 19/20; and walls collapse when units move into tiles just south of the sign that says "Guest Quarters", regardless of when this happens.

== Hasty Alliance ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 33
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: Killing enemy leader + 200 Gold from Li'sar

Li'sar is about to attack, when you are surrounded by orcs and trolls. She joins forces with you to defeat the troll leader, bringing her Royal Guards and 500 gold worth of allied troops to the struggle.

Your greatest challenge will be to survive the first few turns, as the death of any of Konrad's companions will end the scenario.
Once you have defeated the first wave, it is relatively easy to finish off any remaining trolls and move north to the troll leader. Try and encourage your allies to go first and take the hefty damage from the Level 2 and Level 3 trolls, while your mages and dwarves get the experience for killing blows.

== The Sceptre of Fire ==
* Objectives: Capture the Scepter of Fire with Konrad or Li'sar
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 50
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: n/a
* Other:
** Gold gift from Li'sar: 300 on easy, 200 on medium, 100 on hard
** Milk this level for experience as there is no early finish bonus
** Randomly generated map

The map changes each time, so if you're save-scumming, be sure to checkpoint right after the scenario starts, and replay once you know where the scepter is.
Give Li'sar the sceptre as it gives her a ranged attack and Konrad will be able to pick up another artifact later on.

No early finish bonus, so if you have the gold, this is a good place to level up. If you do, poise the character who is going to pick up the Sceptre right next to it, then send everybody else up to attack. Since there is a large time limit, milk every unit you can for maximum experience. And remember, Dwarvish Lords came in very handy later on.

Note: in version 1.2.4 there is an early finish bonus.(for easy mode at least) It is still a good place (and idea) to level up.

Tip: There is an early finish bonus for I had beat this stage within thirty turns and that had gave me a bonus of 37 gold per turn wich multipied to 185.

== A Choice Must Be Made ==
* Objectives: Defeat either of the leaders
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 33
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: Kill either leader
* Other:
** Next level depends on killed leader
*** Northern orcish leader will get you to the ''Snow Plains'' and the Flaming Sword
*** Southern undead leader will get you to the ''Swamp Of Dread'' and give you the chance to get lotsa gold
** Simply decide for one direction and block the bridge in the other direction unless you want to fight on two large fronts
** First real chance to level gryphons

Scenario objectives: Kill either leader.

You must choose whether to go north or south. A Death Knight and the undead lie to the south, guarding the way to the Swamp of Dread. This path is easier, as the undead are hampered by the swampy terrain even more than you. To the north are the usual orc horde, fighting in the hills, a tougher battle. Your choice will affect which magic artifact you can get in the next level. Northwards are the Snow Plains, where a magic weapon awaits; south is the Undead Swamp, where one of your units can obtain better armor.

Whether you go north or south, recruit a few level 1 units as sacrifices, or use fast-moving gryphons to delay the other force.

Tip: You can use mermans specifically using the strongest ones and the ones that were able to pick up the tridents on bay of pearls and forf of abez that is if you use to go downward to kill the undead leader.

== Diverging campaign path ==
=== Snow Plains ===
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 43
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: Kill the leader
* Other:
** Li'sar will tell you she does not like her mother

Konrad will find the Flaming Sword (15-4 melee, fire, magical) hidden in one of the northern villages (under the great tree in 1.1). It will take Konrad a while to slog through the snow, forest, and hills, so you'll have to think about how many turns he will recall units. Dwarves will do well in the mountains, as will the flying gryphons.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

=== Swamp Of Dread ===
Scenario objectives: Kill all enemy leaders.

There are lots of undead, but also many villages. You can earn lots of gold if you can capture and hold villages. It may be useful recruiting cheap units to defend villages against bats. One of the Death Knights drops the Void Armor when killed. The unit that picks it up will gain high resistance to physical damage (blade, impact and pierce). Since Li'sar is vulnerable to precisely those types of damage, you should probably give her the armor.

Early finish bonus for killing all 5 enemy leaders.

Tip:This is another stage where you can use mermans specifically your strongest merman, merman priestess and ones with the tridents.

== Home of the North Elves ==
* Objectives:
** Reach the forest kingdom of Emetria
** Survive until turns run out
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 21
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: 47 Gold per turn
* Other:
** Your base will be dismantled after the first turn

This is a very large map with some interesting challenges. First, Konrad needs to move all the way across to the right side, and if you're playing on Medium or Hard, you don't have many turns to waste. Second, Fog of War is turned on, so you won't know where the enemy is until you blunder into them.

On the other hand, while both the orc and human sides will attack you, you can lure them into attacking each other. The orcs start in the north central part of the map, while the humans begin in the southeast. You must decide whether Konrad will try to sneak along the northern map edge, or try to thread between the two opponents.

In order to win, Konrad must be in the Elvish castle by the end of the last turn. The early finish bonus is rather substantial: 44 gp per turn. However, you only get it if you kill both enemy leaders. Also, if both leaders are dead, it no longer matters whether your hero has reached the elven castle. Therefore, if one's dead already, killing the other makes for a workable 'plan b' if you realise you're 4 turns away from the castle, but only 2 away from the timer running out. (In 1.1, the enemy camps have been reinforced, and it is no longer practical to kill the leaders.)

Version 1.2.5:
In this version, the fastest and best way for me was to just make Konrad run alone. Don't recall any units as the elvish riders that appear can be cannon fodder if necessary. Start by moving near the river side until you see orcs in the distance. Proceed slowly and wait for them to engage the humans. Then a group of elves will rush in to fight both orcs and humans. Time your run carefully between the elven forces in a NE direction and you can avoid meeting any humans or orcs. I think I finished in 13 or 14 turns without a single shot being fired (or flaming sword being slashed).

== The Elven Council ==
This is a cut-scene furthering the storyline. No combat takes place.

== Return to Wesnoth ==
Scenario objectives: Kill all three enemy leaders.

Three Halbardiers appear when Josephus dies. The bridge across the river is a good place to establish a defensive position, since attackers have to use the beach and water hexes to attack. Use the forests to your advantage: elven troops are best in forest, while the loyalists and orcs are seriously slowed by the trees.

Early finish bonus for killing all enemy leaders: 27 Gold

== Test of the Clans ==
* Objectives: Defeat either all four leaders or 25 units in total
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 53
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: 55 Gold per turn

You are facing mostly knights and horsemen, so fast and powerful units like Grand Knights, Lancers or Paladins are important. When any of the enemy leaders is killed, it is replaced with one or two knights (two or three in Hard). Reportedly, one way to win is to gang up on Bayar with fast units while attacking the south-eastern leader with the rest of your army.

If you want to have a long field battle, you can put groups of dwarves or elves in the hills. The enemy will tend to attack the hills, thus giving you some advantage. Hills also make a good safe haven for healing your mounted units. Try to kill the south-eastern leader early so you don't have to divert so many of your resources to the south flank.

Tip: You can use gryphons riders as sacrifice to help you in your aid included with your horseman try to recruit many of them though. May be able to get some of them to level two if you use them smartly, but you may also lose some though using this method but hey you can finish with a pretty nice bonus that is if you go to kill just 25 men.

---edit smenze---
This can be one of the hardest or easiest scenarios depending on your goal. After a lot of trial and error, I found a way to kill the leaders before defeating 25 units. It seems costly, but with the bonus for early finish and killing the clan leaders it was well worth it. So here goes: GRIFFON RIDERS and quite a few of them. I started by getting my healers (for my main army) and then recruited the rest in Griffon Riders. Send this compliment (four of them) North to pick up the villages then onto the deep water of the lake. The next castle was the remainder of my recalls to fill out my main army (just enough to surround my healers in a hedgehog) and 2 more Griffon riders to fill it out. Then march your main army south to take out the Southeast Leader and send the 2 Griffons up to join the rest on the lake.

As soon as the majority of Blue's (the Northwest leader) troops move away from him launch your griffon attack on him. With only 6 it takes some luck, but he dies in 1-2 rounds of attacks assuming you don't lose too many of your troops. In the Southeast recruit a couple of castles worth of Griffon Riders and send them West to take on the Southwest (black) leader, all the while keeping your main force just out of range of attackers if at all possible. As your griffons cross the river and are attacking the AI usually moves guys back in to defend with, but for the most part you can out run them. You can always highlight the troops to find out its movement area. Converge all the griffons you have left on the middle leader (purple). I won around turn 25 giving me around 1600 gold to start the last scenario.

== The Battle for Wesnoth ==
* Objectives: Defeat Asheviere
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 60
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar, as many Grand Knights as you defeated in the last map
* Early finish bonus: 46
Scenario objectives: Defeat Asheviere and, by killing her, reclaim the throne.

Healers are useful for your army, as are high level units to take the large amounts of damage the enemies deal. You don't need to worry about saving them for later, because this is the last scenario. Useful recruits are Dwarvish Fighters and Elvish Shamans to aid the rest of your army. Try to level some of them up. Since the enemies are so high-level and numerous, it is surprisingly easy.

You can make a line with new and higher level dwarves in the front ranks. Put leadership units and healers behind. Behind that, let the wounded units rest. Put the line quite near your castle so your fresh recruits can reach the front line in 1-2 turns. A shorter line will also be easier to manage. Some seem to put heavy emphasis on healing units here, but the battle is so short and intense, that some prefer more fighters, and fewer healers.

After you have killed most of the enemy units, advance your powerful units towards Asheviere for the kill. Your main units, Delfador, Li'sar, and the rest, are good here. Especially Li'sar with skirmisher and the Scepter (if you gave it to her), who can do a quick and deadly assassination once the enemies have reduced in numbers. Knights are probably good here as well. Asheviere has exactly 48 HP, so three hits of a 16-damage weapon, like the Scepter, or four 12-damage hits, is enough for the kill.

A quick assassination can even be performed by Master Gryphons or even sometimes Gryphon Riders: you can recruit a castle of them on turn 1, send them south, elude enemy forces sent by the general in the futile attempt to catch you, then approach Asheviere for the kill (she will not have many troops at her own protection). Using this strategy, I won on turn 6 (and without losses). Swarming all four enemies with 6 new knights each turn is a very effective distraction strategy. Asheviere may divert about half of her force to destory the gryphons. If this happens, congratulations. This means you've won. You should have still about 20 living Knights, and you should easily break through her lines.

A good bonus from The Test of the Clans should be enough to win this scenario.

== See also ==
* [[MainlineCampaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns]]

HeirToTheThrone

2008-04-11T21:09:01Z

Smenze: /* edit smenze */

This is a walkthrough of '''Heir to the Throne''', the campaign featuring Konrad. It contains spoilers.

The suggestions herein are based on the "Medium" and "Hard" difficulty levels. It should be possible to win "Easy" level without trying very hard. 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 restart from the beginning (and yes, it is very likely you will have to restart the first time you play Wesnoth), try reading [[AdvancedTactics]]. You should also be familiar with the basics in [[WesnothManual]] -- this is a walkthrough, not an exposition of basic game mechanics.

The walkthrough below was originally written for game versions 0.8 to 0.8.11. A revision is in progress based on 0.9.x. Descriptions that still need updating include Test of the Clans (renamed and redone), Princess of Wesnoth (now harder), and Crossroads (now easier).

Each scenario has an individual forum thread where you can provide feedback to the authors. See also the forum posts [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3601 Suggestions for Heir to the Throne walkthrough] and [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4026 Yet another "Heir to the Throne" walktrough] (sic) for more. [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7064 Ye Compleat Walkthrough To "Heir To The Throne"] is a detailed guide, with illustrations, to the first several scenarios.

Finally, some [http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/my-wesnoth-replays-online replays] were posted by Uwe Hermann.

'''Warning spoilers ahead!'''

== The Elves Besieged ==
Scenario objectives: Both Konrad and Delfador must survive, and Konrad must escape to the signpost in the northwest corner of the map by turn 16.

Terrain dictates two routes to the signpost: west to the druid and then north, or north over the bridge and then west. If Konrad goes west, consider sending Delfador north to encourage the northern army to split. Otherwise, Konrad's route might be blocked by enemy units. If you take the northern path, veer west just south of the rough terrain.

You have enough gold to build 6 units (4 costing 17 or 18, 2 costing 14). For example: two scouts, a shaman, an archer, and two fighters. If you recruit scouts, send them south to capture villages that do not have red flags. They will also delay the southern orcs. Use the ctrl-v command to see how far all enemy units will be able to move on their next turn. Click on an unoccupied hex and then move the cursor over an enemy unit to see how far that unit will be able to move. Position the scouts so only one enemy can attack each scout at once. Do not let them be surrounded, or they will be pinned down and killed!

Your allies will attempt to defend a corridor for Konrad to reach the signpost. Your primary goals in this scenario are to learn how your units move and fight, and observe the strengths and weaknesses of the orcish units. Do not attempt to stand and fight! Not only are you and the elves outnumbered, but many of the orcs are level 2 and 3 units.

Your secondary goal is for some of your units to earn experience points, so they can start advancing. Let your allies lead the attack and bear the brunt of the enemy blows before you slip in an elf to deliver the killing blow. Earning experience in this scenario, without having your units killed, is quite difficult, because the orcs are very strong and your elvish allies are just as eager to earn experience as you are! Note that Delfador is already at his maximum level, try to use him only to weaken enemies, without finishing them off (not always so easy).

Another strategy is to do no recruiting and instead move Konrad west to the castle. After a turn or two, the Elven Lord there will move out and allow Konrad to move to the Keep and do some recruiting. This will change where the orcish units move.

Finally, you can do no recruiting, avoid combat, and move Konrad to the signpost as fast as possible for a nice gold bonus -- but then you will have no units to recall in the second scenario. There are two options on the Preferences dialog that will speed things up: "Skip AI Moves" and "Accelerated Speed".

Early finish bonus: 30 gold per turn.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2881 forum discussion].

== Blackwater Port ==
Scenario objectives: Survive 12 turns (9 on Hard), or kill the enemy leader.

The opening dialog will introduce a new friend, Haldiel. He is a loyal Horseman, and costs less each turn than those you recruit, so try to keep him alive.

Beginning players should start with at least 200 gold that will be used to recruit or recall units. If you have less, redo the first scenario and try to finish before turn 14. If you recall units, choose those that have enough experience to be worth the 2 to 6 gold difference over fresh recruits, or that have specific traits that you need.

Recruit or recall some fast units (scouts or horsemen) to take the villages to the south and southwest. Do not overspend on Horsemen. Acquire at least 4 to 6 elves, including some shamans. (Even if you don't think they are very useful.)

An aggressive strategy is to recruit heavily. Move your elves to the woods east of the enemy's castle and hold a defensive position during the night. When day comes, attack every enemy unit in the hills, then continue onto the enemy castle and destroy the leader. You will probably need to start with at least 250 gold for this to work.

A fiscally conservative strategy is to form up inside the closer woods out of range of the orcs. At dawn, move the horsemen to lure the orcs into the open ground. Be patient and let the enemy come to you. Position your horsemen in the grasslands and your elves in the woods to improve your defence. The knights provided by your ally will cover your northern flank. Mix your units in with your allies and try to get the finishing blow after they have weakened enemy units.

You can also send Haldiel west as fast as possible and attempt to take the village due south of the enemy castle. This will draw the orcs south and make it more likely you will be able to engage them in the woods, where your elves rule. Be careful to not let Haldiel get pinned down and killed.

Feel free to send units to take the villages close to your ally's castle. After all, Sir Kaylan would only use the gold to recruit troops that would steal your experience!

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2929 forum discussion].

== Isle of Alduin ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

The key to victory is to control the villages, earning the gold you need to recruit or recall troops. Send elvish scouts south through the forest and horsemen west across the river and into the plains. This will also encourage the enemy to split their forces. Avoid serious engagements until you have built up a powerful army.

The following strategy works well if you take care of your unit placement. Protect units you cannot afford to lose from multiple attacks at night or when weakened, particularly new horsemen and mages.

First recall or recruit 3 elvish scouts. Send two scouts to the southern villages, and the third to the village to the northwest. Recruit 3 fighters; send one to the south and the other two to the southwest. This works best if one scout is "quick" and the fighter recruited to fill the southeastern hex of your castle is also "quick". If not you may have to modify this strategy. Send Delfador up to the northwest on the first turn to find the mage and send the mage down to the village next to the castle. Konrad should take two nearby villages in the first two turns, because you have no money left anyway.

One of the scouts goes as far south as possible, taking villages and distracting the enemy. This scout is usually destroyed by turn 4. That's OK. The other scout in the south usually has to retreat to survive. You try to take all the villages in the south you can and then reinforce the south slowly and move south. Now your main push is in the west because most villages are there and you need an income of over 20 per turn to recall all of your good troops. I usually use the scout I have sent to the northwest village on the island to take all of the far northwest villages. Delfador can destroy an enemy unit each turn, especially saurians, because these pesky units can kill weakened units in the rear. Horsemen take too long to cross the forest south of your castle but are strong on the western plains during daytime. Send newly-recruited horsemen to the west along with mages. A shaman is useful to the south and later one can be sent to the west.

Approaching turn 10-12, you should have assembled two reasonably powerful forces on each side of the lake. The westerly one usually is based on Delfador and horsemen-mage combos with fighters and archers for ZOC purposes, and the eastern force almost entirely of elves. Remember mages work best against trolls and grunts, and horsemen against archers.

Move south in tight groups, trying not to get too aggressive at night with the west group, until they meet at the far southern end of the island, and assault the castle together.

If you are a new player, you've probably been focusing on game mechanics and how the units and terrain interact. If so, it's time to give serious thought to leveling up some units by allowing them to strike the killing blow. When Konrad or an elven fighter is at level 2, they get the "leadership" skill. When a shaman levels up, they get the "cure" skill.

Hardly any player notices this, but this scenario offers the opportunity for some extra experience at the expence of very little gold. The early finish bonus is 38, but there are 36 villages on the island, so if you controll all villages, you only loose 2 gold per turn (or only 1.6 gold, since only 80% can be retained - should be less than 24, since you hardly ever finish more than 15 turns early). So instead of killing the remaining enemies - especially the enemy leader - you might encircle them and reduce their health to a minimum. If you do not attack them in the subsequent turns, they will neither attack nor move, thus regain 2 HP per turn and will eventually be healthy enough to stand an attack of your weaker units. This is a relatively save way to milk some extra XPs out of them for your weaker units (preferably mages and shamans). While milking level 1 units may not be very rewarding, milking the level 2 leader might easily give 20 extra XPs.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2959 forum discussion].

== Bay of Pearls ==
Scenario objectives: Kill one or both enemy leaders.

You must fight the sea leader, a sea orc, bats, and nagas with the mermen. It will be nigh impossible for your horsemen and elves to wade to the island to fight the sea leader in time, so try to preserve your mermen for this. Mermen and nagas both have high defense in water, so combat can be a bit slow and frustrating. Concentrate three or four mermen on a single enemy unit at a time, rather than spreading your attacks piecemeal.

On the first turn, have Konrad recruit or recall some units. Which units, and in which order, is your first tactical decision. If you recruit/recall in pairs, with one fast (6 movement points or more) and one slow unit, then one will be able to move onto the island the next turn, while the other is still wading through the river.

Then, move Konrad to the cage on the island just to the east. This will free some mermen. (How many depends on whether you are playing on Easy, Medium, or Hard.) One of these can go open the second cage, and so on. There is another cage to the northeast, and one far to the north. Your second tactical decision is which of these two objectives will receive the bulk of your mermen.

Even further north is the Storm Trident, which can only be picked up by one of your mermen. This ranged attack will be crucial in defeating the sea leader. If you win the sea battle, you can use the mermen in one of two ways. You can harass or even assassinate the land orc leader, although you should expect heavy losses; Or, you can attempt to lure the land orcs into the water, where they will be easy prey.

On land, you have to fight off a wave of orcs and trolls heading south and then west. Your third tactical decision is how far west to engage the enemy. Consider carefully the time of day! You are hindered by the limited recruitment you can do each turn, and how long it takes your elves and horsemen to trickle across the river. You will probably need to advance and retreat your units several times, depending on time of day.

Careful management of your killing blows should allow several units to get to Level 2. A charging horseman does so much damage it will be easy for the horsemen to get all the kills, but try to get at least Konrad, a shaman, the merman with the trident, and an elven fighter leveled up.

The outcome of this battle affects the next scenario you play. If you kill the sea leader you wind up on Isle of the Damned. If you kill the land leader you wind up on Muff Malal's Peninsula. If you kill both, you can choose. You fight undead either way.

New players should take the land route to Muff Malal's Peninsula, where you can easily level up your existing units or collect an early finish bonus. Experienced players who are looking for an interesting tactical exercise shoud take the sea route to the Isle of the Damned: you can't recall your usual units but you can recruit outlaws and perhaps recruit a loyal White Mage for future scenarios.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders, and the ability to choose the next scenario.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3022 forum discussion].

== Diverging campaign path ==
=== Muff Malal's Peninsula ===
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

This is an easy scenario, and your aim here should be to build up your gold by controlling most villages, while earning experience against enemy forces. The enemy recruits bats to capture villages, and hordes of Walking Corpses to keep you busy. The occasional Dark Adept can be dangerous on Hard difficulty, but is vulnerable to melee attack, especially from knights.

One approach is to recall a few level 2 units supported by a mage. These units build a defensive position in the central part of the map, using hills and forest for cover, and hold off the first wave of Walking Corpses. Mounted troops capture villages in the north and west, and can charge down the flanks at daytime. A merman or two distract enemy bats and capture sea villages. If you can recall the merman that picked up the trident in Bay of Pearls, it will be able to dispatch bats easily on its own.

During daytime, your main force advances to one of the villages in the south-east, where you wait for more Walking Corpses to attack. A level 2 melee unit (eg. Elvish Captain) can use the village defense bonus to survive attacks, and heal between turns. By the time it is low on hit points, it should be advancing to level 3.

You should now control most villages and have some gold, so recruit or recall additional troops. Launch an offensive with your central force, supported by your horsemen advancing at the sides. Don't forget to use Konrad in the attack.

Try to attack with human units only at day, when the undead are at their weakest, and hold the lines with your elves at night.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3178 forum discussion].

=== Isle of the Damned ===
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leaders, or survive for 27 turns.

Konrad is washed overboard during a storm, but is rescued by two mermen. You start out with 100 gold and cannot recall any units. You are joined by Urlaf, a level 2 Outlaw. In addition to Mermen, you can recruit his friends: Thugs, Poachers and Footpads. This is the only time in the campaign that these units can be recruited, but any outlaw units surviving this scenario can be recalled later. Your gold from Bay of Pearls (minus the usual 20% discount) is saved for the next scenario.

Moremirmu is a White Mage with a holy sword which is very effective against undead. He is hiding in one of the three temples, and will join your cause if you find him. Beware: Xakae, a Revenant with a retinue of Walking Corpses, is waiting to ambush you in another temple. Moremirmu and Xakae are randomly placed; the third temple is always empty. Xakae and the Corpses can be a useful source of experience if you have the troops to deal with them.

Mermen can be used succesfully to harrass the undead in their rear. Typically the undead responds by withdrawing forces to deal with your mermen. Occasionally this tactic can be used to isolate and trap an undead leader while their forces are busy with your land troops. Don't expect the mermen to survive, though.

Moremirmu is critical to winning but also quite fragile. He will die quickly if he is attacked by multiple undead.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders. Moremirmu (and his holy sword) will join you in future scenarios only if both are defeated.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3179 forum discussion].

== The Siege of Elensefar ==
Scenario objectives: Kill both enemy leaders.

Konrad arrives at the southern end of a large map. The island city of Elensefar dominates the center, and the cave of the necromancer Muff Jaanal is far to the north. The orcish warlord Agadla has taken the city. You know what to do!

Your first objective is to retake the city. You could choose to charge across the bridges and fight your way onto the island, taking heavy casualties from the level 2 orcish warriors along the way. Or, you can lure the orcs into the water where they are easy to hit. Remember that mermen, especially the one with the Storm Trident, move quickly and defend quite well in water or on the bridges.

Konrad will recieve some help from the Thieves Guild. Apparently, an orcish occupation is bad for business. They will either show you a hidden ford onto the island, or attack the north gate after you take one of the island villages. Whether you choose to storm the city, and which aid to accept, depends in large part on how much of a hurry you are in. Every turn, the undead march southward, and you'll have quite a fight on your hands after they reinforce the orcs in the city proper.

After you defeat the orcs, you must fight your way north. Fighting against the undead requires a different mix of units than fighting the orcs. Your mermen are too slow on land. Horsemen and elvish units do reduced damage to skeletons. Here, you need... mages. Lots and lots of mages. And a paladin, if you've leveled a unit that high enough. Expect to spend many turns fighting through the northernmost six hexes. You are fighting in a cave, which slows your units down. Being underground, it is also treated as night for the time of day penalties.

By now, you should have either Konrad or a level 2 elven fighter with the Leadership ability. A unit adjacent to a leader receives a +25% bonus to damage. Likewise, carefully position shamen or white mages in your lines so they can heal wounded units. Two adjacent healers will heal each other.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3224 forum discussion].

== Crossroads ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the north-eastern enemy leader.

There are two strategies: either to "run for it", or "kill them all". Which you choose will probably depend on whether you want to earn lots of gold, or level up lots of units.

If you choose to run, recall two turn's worth of troops. Most should be level 2, but you should recruit one or two units as sacrifical lambs. Having two healers (who will stay adjacent to each other for mutual healing) is almost a necessity. Move the units in formation (probably in two packs) along the road. Do not be tempted to move units into the mountains. The increased defence is not worth the risk of triggering ambushes. Drive your way to the leader in the northwest, kill them, and reap the early finish bonus.

The second strategy is to methodically destroy all enemy units on the map. Recruit two turns worth of units, and then drive south. Overcome the southern leader, and recruit more troops in his castle. Move back north, moving into every town and through the mountains, in order to trigger ambushes. This strategy is trickier to pull off, but careful management of your kills should allow you to level multiple units. (Just be careful not to run out of turns...)

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3281 forum discussion].

== The Princess of Wesnoth ==
Scenario objectives: Subdue Li'sar to win

Konrad's life now takes an interesting turn, as he meets the Princess of Wesnoth, Li'sar. Instead of dying when you "kill" her, she surrenders.

Li'sar is supported by troops from the Loyalist faction. Even your tough level 2 units make tempting targets for her lawful horsemen; they will charge and probably kill them. Use terrain and position sacrificial level 1 screening units while the sun is high. Likewise, you can try for a quick kill by charging Li'sar with your own horsemen or knights.

This otherwise straightforward battle is enlivened by reinforcements that Li'sar summons on turns 5 and 10. Also, a level 2 Duelist will defend the Princess' honor when you approach her, appearing from the south of your position. You can trigger his arrival by exploring the mountain with an entrance. Capture the villages on the eastern side as you cross the river, and position units to cover the north-eastern plain to prevent Li'sar's mounted units from capturing these villages.

By the end of this scenario, you should have learned a painful lesson in how the computer player targets its attacks...

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3401 forum discussion].

== The Valley of Death ==
Scenario objectives: Survive 12 turns.

There are two holy water bottles on the map. The unit which picks them up will have their melee attacks be holy for the duration of this scenario. These are especially useful for powerful melee units like Elvish Heroes or Champions which otherwise do little damage to the undead. Or, you could recruit Horsemen and have them grab the holy water. They should easily level to level 2 Lancers or Knights, and maybe even to a Level 3 Paladin by the end of the scenario. As in previous scenarios, mages will be effective against most of the undead enemies.

One strategy is recruit a large army, defeat one of the enemies, and hole up in that enemy's castle. The southern enemy is popular for this strategy. It apparently also works to pack the lake around the starting castle with mermen, and hole up there. Don't underestimate the power of the Walking Corpses (WCs) recruited by the eastern necromancer. They are slow but there are so many that they can overwhelm and kill even your most powerful units if given the chance. On the other hand, do not underestimate the crowd-clearing ability of a Paladin or blessed Champion! A WC will lurch next to your unit. It will attack. It will die, leaving room for another WC to lurch forward.
(Windscion: Unfortunately, this is also a good way to get a high level unit killed: 10 WCs in one turn can be deadly. I prefer a line of archers backed by healers.)

If you don't have the money to recruit a large or powerful army, recruit a few Elvish Fighters and send them to the forest north of your castle. Their job is to slow the Revenant for several turns and then die gloriously. Flee with Konrad and the rest of your army to the south-east corner. If you're lucky, the WC horde will be too slow to reach you before the scenario ends. A cowardly tactic, yes -- but you'll survive...

If you played Isle of The Damned without killing both Liches, and Moremirmu survived, then he will reinforce you with three White Mage buddies between turns 7-10. You can't recall them after this scenario, so they are expendable.

Another strategy, which requires to have Moremirmu to help you and allows you to kill the three Liches, is to recruit 2 horsemen(or recall their leveled up units) and as many thieves as you can, send each horsemen to gather the bottles of holy water, and kill with them the northern and eastern Liches; don't send them the horseman to the northern Lich too quick, because if you do his army will focus on it, and it won't reach the Lich. Move Konrad, Delfador, the elf from the high elven council, and your thieves towards the southeast corner. The thieves be used as a barrier to protect your more important units; place them in woods, mountains or villages(never in plains) as soon as they can, so that the northern and eastern Liches concentrate on them and leave Konrad and his group alone. With some luck you'll kill the northern and eastern Liches around the same turn that Moremirmu appears, and Konrad and his group will survive enough time to have one of Moremirmu's white mages kill the Southern Lich during day time.

Early finish bonus if you somehow manage to defeat all enemy leaders. If you do, feel free to boast about your accomplishment at the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3402 forum discussion].

== Gryphon Mountain ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

Konrad starts in the lower left corner of the map. General Robert, commanding Loyalist troops, is in the upper right. In the middle of the map, surrounded by mountains, is the Mother Gryphon and three sleeping Gryphons.

If you kill the Mother Gryphon before the Loyalists do, you will have access to gryphon eggs, allowing you to to recruit Gryphon Riders in future scenarios. Opinions differ as to whether their ability to capture far-flung villages, safely lure enemy troops, and ability to pierce the map shroud are worth their high cost. Even if you decide not to attack the Gryphons, the enemy will -- and then the wild beasts of the air might decide to attack you.

For a quick victory to earn the early finish bonus, head up the right side of the mountains. To earn experience, head towards the Mother Gryphon, and the enemy will come to you.

Early finish bonus for killing both the mother gryphon as well as the enemy leader.

== The Ford of Abez ==
Scenario objectives: Move Konrad to the north side of the river

The wide Abez river cuts across the middle of the map from left to right, with Konrad starting on the lower right side. Princess Li'sar starts on the lower left, and an orc band is on the north side of the river. If you have lots of gold, if you have a plethora of well-seasoned fighting troops, and you think you're ready for a challenge, you could try and attack the Princess. But do a save first; you'll need it after you are wiped out by her Royal Guards.

Your major decision (after you learn that the Princess's escort is just too tough) is whether to have Konrad recruit for one turn or two. Do not recruit land troops with less than five movement points, as they will have trouble wading across the ford. You're under immense time pressure. The chaotic orcs will attack from the north, the Princess's lawful Loyalists will attack from the south, and... a new enemy (alignment: hungry) will be attacking from downstream. Except for the hungry ones--who will be focused on killing anything in their path--all the enemies will be focused on killing Konrad. The hungry enemies might assist you somewhat as they will probably hit the orcs and humans before trying to snack on your forces. Also, the orcs and humans will fight if they happen to cross paths.

Remember those loyal mermen from in the Bay of Pearls? They should comprise your principal fighting force. Be sure to send one downstream to acquire the Storm Trident there. Lure the orcs into the water, where your mermen have excellent defence and the orcs are highly vulnerable. If you captured the eggs last scenario, consider using a gryphon to distract the enemy.(Note in the latest version Gryphons are not available until a later scenario)

Early finish bonus for getting Konrad onto dry land.

== Northern Winter ==
*Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders (2 of them)
*Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
*Turns: 50
*Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, a random soldier
*Early finish bonus: ?? 
*Other:
**Snow falls on turns 6 and 10, making the tundra patches larger.
 
This is a relatively simple scenario. The quickest strategy is to recall a few Knights, Lancers, Paladins, and/or Grand Knights along with fresh Horsemen, kill the northwestern leader, then head east. The eastern leader's wolf riders will attempt to attack you through the center of the map, so be sure to place a few horsemen there. It' a good idea for Kalenz and Delfador to defent the southern mountains, as a few riders may come there as well. This is a good level for getting a large amount of gold.

== The Dwarven Doors ==
* Objectives: Move Konrad to entrance of the Dwarfen Kingdom
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 26
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Blidd, Kalenz, level 1 thug
* Early finish bonus: Find the correct entrance (the eastern one -- or the main one in version 1.3.4)

This scenario offers the usual strategic choice -- run for the exit and an early finish bonus, or slowly and carefully exterminate the enemy forces. If you choose to follow Delfador's advice and flee in terror, recruit one turn's worth of elven riders or gryphons to sacrifice as screening units. If you choose to attack, you'll be in for a struggle. For a real challenge, move to the middle of the map and get attacked from all sides... If you want to kill all three leaders, taking out the south eastern one with your full force and then splitting to take on both the others. Move Konrad near the exit (the eastern one!) so you can abort at any time. -- [v.1.3.4: moving directly to the eastern entrance does not work; it is blocked]

The main door by the lake is barred from the inside. Further, there is the usual tentacular horror hiding in the lake near the ancient subterranean Dwarven Kingdom. This means you will have to go into the entrance on the east.

If you fought on the Isle of the Damned, one of your outlaws will tell you about a Bandit who will be willing to ally with you. The initial outlaw is expendable, the other one is loyal, though (no upkeep cost!)

"coward" strategy for version 1.3.4 :
In this version, you get a elvish scout, who says he'll check the entrance to see if it is opened. Send him there, passing on the right of the mountains that are along the "path" to the entrance. This will stop the north western orcs from killing him too soon. Once that is done, move the scout to the north western mountains, to lure the ennemies there.
Recruit one turn worth of elvish scouts as sacrificial units. They'll lure the ennemies away from Konrad. For a higher chance of success, leave Delfador and Kalenz near your keep, in the south. Since Kalenz is weak, he can easily be killed before Konrad makes it to the cave entrance. Once Konrad is near the center of the map (and overwhelmed by orcs), move them North a bit, to attract ennemies to them. All you need to do now is move Konrad to the entrance as fast as possible. The cuttlefish should appear in the lake as you pass by it, which will delay the orcs some more.

Do It Quickly:
On the first turn recruit some units you may want to give experience to (and you're not afraid of losing them too), but choose only those having movement range 6 or greater. Then capture two nearest villages with Konrad and Delfador. Run straight north. The elf scout should be the leader to the doors and the only step off the straight path is to capture the village NE of the lake. This should unleash the octopus which will attract NW troops (not sure, tried only once)
Eastern and western opponents are lazy and more attracted to the villages income than to fight. So they will first go south to capture villages near your keep. Before they do, you'll be at the middle of the map.
If you recruited units with movement 6 and headed N without any stop, you're likely to be engaged at the pillars by some units from NW. Delfador and other leaders should have no problem dealing with them. Next attack may happen at the doors, one turn before Konrad reaches the entrance.
I managed to do it, losing only one 1st level mage.

Version 1.2.5:
I played on medium and found that I had only 20 turns. Killing all the orc leaders didn't end the game. You will still need to reach the door with Konrad. After reloading, I killed all the orc leaders AND managed to get Konrad to the door within 20 turns (20 exactly) but there was no bonus and I ended up with -ve gold because I had to recall all my veterans to kill the leaders. Finally, I adopted the coward's strategy. Created 5 Elvish scouts and 10 thieves and used them as canon fodder for the orcs. There were too many orcs and only 2 of the scouts survived but I ended up with 11 rounds of bonus.

== Plunging into the Darkness ==
* Objectives: Find the dwarves
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 19
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: n/a
* Other:
** Secret pasage in southeastern part of the tunnel
** Pretty dull and boring ;)

Since you're reading this walkthrough, you'll also be interested in locating the secret passage leading to a chest of 200 gold pieces in the southeast. However, said chest is guarded by a rather nasty poison-biting, slow-web-throwing level 3 spider. Beware the blood bats, seek out a niche in the wall, and be wary exploring the secret passage!

Tip: For the next three stages you don't have to use too many dwarven companions. All I needed was 2 fighters, 2 riders, 2 guardmen,and 2 thurderer. These fighters I use over and over leading them to all level up to level 3 and having lots and lots of gold by the time I finish the cave levels

== The Lost General ==
* Objectives: Kill all enemy leaders (there are two)
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 64(!)
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: Killing both enemy leaders

Moving underground is slow, especially for elves. Their fighters and archers are also ineffective against undead. Outriders and slyphs might be worth recruiting, if you can afford them. Likewise, gryphons and horsemen are bogged down. Recruit dwarves for speed, and mages to back them up. (However, a griffon can pass the small pond quickly, and there are four towns on the other side.)

You are fighting Lionel, a former general turned Death Knight, who starts trapped in the south. To the west is the usual orc/troll force. In the north is a dwarven ally, although if you are too slow they will be overwhelmed by the orcs.

Dwarven fighters do well against the undead, while the Thunderers do best against the orcs and trolls. If you choose to go for money, rush troops both south and north, reinforcing the native dwarves and triggering the appearance of the undead. If you choose to go for experience, ignore the undead until you have killed the orcs, then return en masse to destroy the undead. Don't take too long, as Lionel will break forth on turn 20.

There are two ways to get to Lionel: an entrance opens in the pond on turn 19/20; and walls collapse when units move into tiles just south of the sign that says "Guest Quarters", regardless of when this happens.

== Hasty Alliance ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 33
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: Killing enemy leader + 200 Gold from Li'sar

Li'sar is about to attack, when you are surrounded by orcs and trolls. She joins forces with you to defeat the troll leader, bringing her Royal Guards and 500 gold worth of allied troops to the struggle.

Your greatest challenge will be to survive the first few turns, as the death of any of Konrad's companions will end the scenario.
Once you have defeated the first wave, it is relatively easy to finish off any remaining trolls and move north to the troll leader. Try and encourage your allies to go first and take the hefty damage from the Level 2 and Level 3 trolls, while your mages and dwarves get the experience for killing blows.

== The Sceptre of Fire ==
* Objectives: Capture the Scepter of Fire with Konrad or Li'sar
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 50
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: n/a
* Other:
** Gold gift from Li'sar: 300 on easy, 200 on medium, 100 on hard
** Milk this level for experience as there is no early finish bonus
** Randomly generated map

The map changes each time, so if you're save-scumming, be sure to checkpoint right after the scenario starts, and replay once you know where the scepter is.
Give Li'sar the sceptre as it gives her a ranged attack and Konrad will be able to pick up another artifact later on.

No early finish bonus, so if you have the gold, this is a good place to level up. If you do, poise the character who is going to pick up the Sceptre right next to it, then send everybody else up to attack. Since there is a large time limit, milk every unit you can for maximum experience. And remember, Dwarvish Lords came in very handy later on.

Note: in version 1.2.4 there is an early finish bonus.(for easy mode at least) It is still a good place (and idea) to level up.

Tip: There is an early finish bonus for I had beat this stage within thirty turns and that had gave me a bonus of 37 gold per turn wich multipied to 185.

== A Choice Must Be Made ==
* Objectives: Defeat either of the leaders
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 33
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: Kill either leader
* Other:
** Next level depends on killed leader
*** Northern orcish leader will get you to the ''Snow Plains'' and the Flaming Sword
*** Southern undead leader will get you to the ''Swamp Of Dread'' and give you the chance to get lotsa gold
** Simply decide for one direction and block the bridge in the other direction unless you want to fight on two large fronts
** First real chance to level gryphons

Scenario objectives: Kill either leader.

You must choose whether to go north or south. A Death Knight and the undead lie to the south, guarding the way to the Swamp of Dread. This path is easier, as the undead are hampered by the swampy terrain even more than you. To the north are the usual orc horde, fighting in the hills, a tougher battle. Your choice will affect which magic artifact you can get in the next level. Northwards are the Snow Plains, where a magic weapon awaits; south is the Undead Swamp, where one of your units can obtain better armor.

Whether you go north or south, recruit a few level 1 units as sacrifices, or use fast-moving gryphons to delay the other force.

Tip: You can use mermans specifically using the strongest ones and the ones that were able to pick up the tridents on bay of pearls and forf of abez that is if you use to go downward to kill the undead leader.

== Diverging campaign path ==
=== Snow Plains ===
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 43
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: Kill the leader
* Other:
** Li'sar will tell you she does not like her mother

Konrad will find the Flaming Sword (15-4 melee, fire, magical) hidden in one of the northern villages (under the great tree in 1.1). It will take Konrad a while to slog through the snow, forest, and hills, so you'll have to think about how many turns he will recall units. Dwarves will do well in the mountains, as will the flying gryphons.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

=== Swamp Of Dread ===
Scenario objectives: Kill all enemy leaders.

There are lots of undead, but also many villages. You can earn lots of gold if you can capture and hold villages. It may be useful recruiting cheap units to defend villages against bats. One of the Death Knights drops the Void Armor when killed. The unit that picks it up will gain high resistance to physical damage (blade, impact and pierce). Since Li'sar is vulnerable to precisely those types of damage, you should probably give her the armor.

Early finish bonus for killing all 5 enemy leaders.

Tip:This is another stage where you can use mermans specifically your strongest merman, merman priestess and ones with the tridents.

== Home of the North Elves ==
* Objectives:
** Reach the forest kingdom of Emetria
** Survive until turns run out
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 21
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: 47 Gold per turn
* Other:
** Your base will be dismantled after the first turn

This is a very large map with some interesting challenges. First, Konrad needs to move all the way across to the right side, and if you're playing on Medium or Hard, you don't have many turns to waste. Second, Fog of War is turned on, so you won't know where the enemy is until you blunder into them.

On the other hand, while both the orc and human sides will attack you, you can lure them into attacking each other. The orcs start in the north central part of the map, while the humans begin in the southeast. You must decide whether Konrad will try to sneak along the northern map edge, or try to thread between the two opponents.

In order to win, Konrad must be in the Elvish castle by the end of the last turn. The early finish bonus is rather substantial: 44 gp per turn. However, you only get it if you kill both enemy leaders. Also, if both leaders are dead, it no longer matters whether your hero has reached the elven castle. Therefore, if one's dead already, killing the other makes for a workable 'plan b' if you realise you're 4 turns away from the castle, but only 2 away from the timer running out. (In 1.1, the enemy camps have been reinforced, and it is no longer practical to kill the leaders.)

Version 1.2.5:
In this version, the fastest and best way for me was to just make Konrad run alone. Don't recall any units as the elvish riders that appear can be cannon fodder if necessary. Start by moving near the river side until you see orcs in the distance. Proceed slowly and wait for them to engage the humans. Then a group of elves will rush in to fight both orcs and humans. Time your run carefully between the elven forces in a NE direction and you can avoid meeting any humans or orcs. I think I finished in 13 or 14 turns without a single shot being fired (or flaming sword being slashed).

== The Elven Council ==
This is a cut-scene furthering the storyline. No combat takes place.

== Return to Wesnoth ==
Scenario objectives: Kill all three enemy leaders.

Three Halbardiers appear when Josephus dies. The bridge across the river is a good place to establish a defensive position, since attackers have to use the beach and water hexes to attack. Use the forests to your advantage: elven troops are best in forest, while the loyalists and orcs are seriously slowed by the trees.

Early finish bonus for killing all enemy leaders: 27 Gold

== Test of the Clans ==
* Objectives: Defeat either all four leaders or 25 units in total
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 53
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: 55 Gold per turn

You are facing mostly knights and horsemen, so fast and powerful units like Grand Knights, Lancers or Paladins are important. When any of the enemy leaders is killed, it is replaced with one or two knights (two or three in Hard). Reportedly, one way to win is to gang up on Bayar with fast units while attacking the south-eastern leader with the rest of your army.

If you want to have a long field battle, you can put groups of dwarves or elves in the hills. The enemy will tend to attack the hills, thus giving you some advantage. Hills also make a good safe haven for healing your mounted units. Try to kill the south-eastern leader early so you don't have to divert so many of your resources to the south flank.

Tip: You can use gryphons riders as sacrifice to help you in your aid included with your horseman try to recruit many of them though. May be able to get some of them to level two if you use them smartly, but you may also lose some though using this method but hey you can finish with a pretty nice bonus that is if you go to kill just 25 men.

---edit smenze---
This can be one of the hardest or easiest scenarios depending on your goal. After a lot of trial and error, I found a way to kill the leaders before defeating 25 units. It seems costly, but with the bonus for early finish and killing the clan leaders it was well worth it. So here goes: GRIFFON RIDERS and quite a few of them. I started by getting my healers (for my main army) and then recruited the rest in Griffon Riders. Send this compliment (four of them) North to pick up the villages then onto the deep water of the lake. The next castle was completely the remainder of my recalls to fill out my main army (just enough to surround my healers in a hedgehog) and 2 more Griffon riders to fill it out. Then march your main army south to take out the Southeast Leader and send the 2 Griffons up to join the rest on the lake. As soon as the majority of Blue's (the Northwest leader) troops move away from him launch your griffon attack on him. With only 6 it takes some luck, but he dies in 1-2 rounds of attacks assuming you don't lose too many of your troops. In the Southeast recruit a couple of castles worth of Griffon Riders and send them West to take on the Southwest (black) leader, all the while keeping your main force just out of range of attackers if at all possible. As your griffons cross the river and are attacking the AI usually moves guys back in to defend with, but for the most part you can out run them. You can always highlight the troops to find out its movement area. Converge all the griffons you have left on the middle leader (purple). I won around turn 25 giving me around 1600 gold to start the last scenario.

== The Battle for Wesnoth ==
* Objectives: Defeat Asheviere
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 60
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar, as many Grand Knights as you defeated in the last map
* Early finish bonus: 46
Scenario objectives: Defeat Asheviere and, by killing her, reclaim the throne.

Healers are useful for your army, as are high level units to take the large amounts of damage the enemies deal. You don't need to worry about saving them for later, because this is the last scenario. Useful recruits are Dwarvish Fighters and Elvish Shamans to aid the rest of your army. Try to level some of them up. Since the enemies are so high-level and numerous, it is surprisingly easy.

You can make a line with new and higher level dwarves in the front ranks. Put leadership units and healers behind. Behind that, let the wounded units rest. Put the line quite near your castle so your fresh recruits can reach the front line in 1-2 turns. A shorter line will also be easier to manage. Some seem to put heavy emphasis on healing units here, but the battle is so short and intense, that some prefer more fighters, and fewer healers.

After you have killed most of the enemy units, advance your powerful units towards Asheviere for the kill. Your main units, Delfador, Li'sar, and the rest, are good here. Especially Li'sar with skirmisher and the Scepter (if you gave it to her), who can do a quick and deadly assassination once the enemies have reduced in numbers. Knights are probably good here as well. Asheviere has exactly 48 HP, so three hits of a 16-damage weapon, like the Scepter, or four 12-damage hits, is enough for the kill.

A quick assassination can even be performed by Master Gryphons or even sometimes Gryphon Riders: you can recruit a castle of them on turn 1, send them south, elude enemy forces sent by the general in the futile attempt to catch you, then approach Asheviere for the kill (she will not have many troops at her own protection). Using this strategy, I won on turn 6 (and without losses). Swarming all four enemies with 6 new knights each turn is a very effective distraction strategy. Asheviere may divert about half of her force to destory the gryphons. If this happens, congratulations. This means you've won. You should have still about 20 living Knights, and you should easily break through her lines.

A good bonus from The Test of the Clans should be enough to win this scenario.

== See also ==
* [[MainlineCampaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns]]

HeirToTheThrone

2008-04-11T21:08:29Z

Smenze: /* Test of the Clans */

This is a walkthrough of '''Heir to the Throne''', the campaign featuring Konrad. It contains spoilers.

The suggestions herein are based on the "Medium" and "Hard" difficulty levels. It should be possible to win "Easy" level without trying very hard. 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 restart from the beginning (and yes, it is very likely you will have to restart the first time you play Wesnoth), try reading [[AdvancedTactics]]. You should also be familiar with the basics in [[WesnothManual]] -- this is a walkthrough, not an exposition of basic game mechanics.

The walkthrough below was originally written for game versions 0.8 to 0.8.11. A revision is in progress based on 0.9.x. Descriptions that still need updating include Test of the Clans (renamed and redone), Princess of Wesnoth (now harder), and Crossroads (now easier).

Each scenario has an individual forum thread where you can provide feedback to the authors. See also the forum posts [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3601 Suggestions for Heir to the Throne walkthrough] and [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4026 Yet another "Heir to the Throne" walktrough] (sic) for more. [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7064 Ye Compleat Walkthrough To "Heir To The Throne"] is a detailed guide, with illustrations, to the first several scenarios.

Finally, some [http://www.hermann-uwe.de/blog/my-wesnoth-replays-online replays] were posted by Uwe Hermann.

'''Warning spoilers ahead!'''

== The Elves Besieged ==
Scenario objectives: Both Konrad and Delfador must survive, and Konrad must escape to the signpost in the northwest corner of the map by turn 16.

Terrain dictates two routes to the signpost: west to the druid and then north, or north over the bridge and then west. If Konrad goes west, consider sending Delfador north to encourage the northern army to split. Otherwise, Konrad's route might be blocked by enemy units. If you take the northern path, veer west just south of the rough terrain.

You have enough gold to build 6 units (4 costing 17 or 18, 2 costing 14). For example: two scouts, a shaman, an archer, and two fighters. If you recruit scouts, send them south to capture villages that do not have red flags. They will also delay the southern orcs. Use the ctrl-v command to see how far all enemy units will be able to move on their next turn. Click on an unoccupied hex and then move the cursor over an enemy unit to see how far that unit will be able to move. Position the scouts so only one enemy can attack each scout at once. Do not let them be surrounded, or they will be pinned down and killed!

Your allies will attempt to defend a corridor for Konrad to reach the signpost. Your primary goals in this scenario are to learn how your units move and fight, and observe the strengths and weaknesses of the orcish units. Do not attempt to stand and fight! Not only are you and the elves outnumbered, but many of the orcs are level 2 and 3 units.

Your secondary goal is for some of your units to earn experience points, so they can start advancing. Let your allies lead the attack and bear the brunt of the enemy blows before you slip in an elf to deliver the killing blow. Earning experience in this scenario, without having your units killed, is quite difficult, because the orcs are very strong and your elvish allies are just as eager to earn experience as you are! Note that Delfador is already at his maximum level, try to use him only to weaken enemies, without finishing them off (not always so easy).

Another strategy is to do no recruiting and instead move Konrad west to the castle. After a turn or two, the Elven Lord there will move out and allow Konrad to move to the Keep and do some recruiting. This will change where the orcish units move.

Finally, you can do no recruiting, avoid combat, and move Konrad to the signpost as fast as possible for a nice gold bonus -- but then you will have no units to recall in the second scenario. There are two options on the Preferences dialog that will speed things up: "Skip AI Moves" and "Accelerated Speed".

Early finish bonus: 30 gold per turn.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2881 forum discussion].

== Blackwater Port ==
Scenario objectives: Survive 12 turns (9 on Hard), or kill the enemy leader.

The opening dialog will introduce a new friend, Haldiel. He is a loyal Horseman, and costs less each turn than those you recruit, so try to keep him alive.

Beginning players should start with at least 200 gold that will be used to recruit or recall units. If you have less, redo the first scenario and try to finish before turn 14. If you recall units, choose those that have enough experience to be worth the 2 to 6 gold difference over fresh recruits, or that have specific traits that you need.

Recruit or recall some fast units (scouts or horsemen) to take the villages to the south and southwest. Do not overspend on Horsemen. Acquire at least 4 to 6 elves, including some shamans. (Even if you don't think they are very useful.)

An aggressive strategy is to recruit heavily. Move your elves to the woods east of the enemy's castle and hold a defensive position during the night. When day comes, attack every enemy unit in the hills, then continue onto the enemy castle and destroy the leader. You will probably need to start with at least 250 gold for this to work.

A fiscally conservative strategy is to form up inside the closer woods out of range of the orcs. At dawn, move the horsemen to lure the orcs into the open ground. Be patient and let the enemy come to you. Position your horsemen in the grasslands and your elves in the woods to improve your defence. The knights provided by your ally will cover your northern flank. Mix your units in with your allies and try to get the finishing blow after they have weakened enemy units.

You can also send Haldiel west as fast as possible and attempt to take the village due south of the enemy castle. This will draw the orcs south and make it more likely you will be able to engage them in the woods, where your elves rule. Be careful to not let Haldiel get pinned down and killed.

Feel free to send units to take the villages close to your ally's castle. After all, Sir Kaylan would only use the gold to recruit troops that would steal your experience!

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2929 forum discussion].

== Isle of Alduin ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

The key to victory is to control the villages, earning the gold you need to recruit or recall troops. Send elvish scouts south through the forest and horsemen west across the river and into the plains. This will also encourage the enemy to split their forces. Avoid serious engagements until you have built up a powerful army.

The following strategy works well if you take care of your unit placement. Protect units you cannot afford to lose from multiple attacks at night or when weakened, particularly new horsemen and mages.

First recall or recruit 3 elvish scouts. Send two scouts to the southern villages, and the third to the village to the northwest. Recruit 3 fighters; send one to the south and the other two to the southwest. This works best if one scout is "quick" and the fighter recruited to fill the southeastern hex of your castle is also "quick". If not you may have to modify this strategy. Send Delfador up to the northwest on the first turn to find the mage and send the mage down to the village next to the castle. Konrad should take two nearby villages in the first two turns, because you have no money left anyway.

One of the scouts goes as far south as possible, taking villages and distracting the enemy. This scout is usually destroyed by turn 4. That's OK. The other scout in the south usually has to retreat to survive. You try to take all the villages in the south you can and then reinforce the south slowly and move south. Now your main push is in the west because most villages are there and you need an income of over 20 per turn to recall all of your good troops. I usually use the scout I have sent to the northwest village on the island to take all of the far northwest villages. Delfador can destroy an enemy unit each turn, especially saurians, because these pesky units can kill weakened units in the rear. Horsemen take too long to cross the forest south of your castle but are strong on the western plains during daytime. Send newly-recruited horsemen to the west along with mages. A shaman is useful to the south and later one can be sent to the west.

Approaching turn 10-12, you should have assembled two reasonably powerful forces on each side of the lake. The westerly one usually is based on Delfador and horsemen-mage combos with fighters and archers for ZOC purposes, and the eastern force almost entirely of elves. Remember mages work best against trolls and grunts, and horsemen against archers.

Move south in tight groups, trying not to get too aggressive at night with the west group, until they meet at the far southern end of the island, and assault the castle together.

If you are a new player, you've probably been focusing on game mechanics and how the units and terrain interact. If so, it's time to give serious thought to leveling up some units by allowing them to strike the killing blow. When Konrad or an elven fighter is at level 2, they get the "leadership" skill. When a shaman levels up, they get the "cure" skill.

Hardly any player notices this, but this scenario offers the opportunity for some extra experience at the expence of very little gold. The early finish bonus is 38, but there are 36 villages on the island, so if you controll all villages, you only loose 2 gold per turn (or only 1.6 gold, since only 80% can be retained - should be less than 24, since you hardly ever finish more than 15 turns early). So instead of killing the remaining enemies - especially the enemy leader - you might encircle them and reduce their health to a minimum. If you do not attack them in the subsequent turns, they will neither attack nor move, thus regain 2 HP per turn and will eventually be healthy enough to stand an attack of your weaker units. This is a relatively save way to milk some extra XPs out of them for your weaker units (preferably mages and shamans). While milking level 1 units may not be very rewarding, milking the level 2 leader might easily give 20 extra XPs.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2959 forum discussion].

== Bay of Pearls ==
Scenario objectives: Kill one or both enemy leaders.

You must fight the sea leader, a sea orc, bats, and nagas with the mermen. It will be nigh impossible for your horsemen and elves to wade to the island to fight the sea leader in time, so try to preserve your mermen for this. Mermen and nagas both have high defense in water, so combat can be a bit slow and frustrating. Concentrate three or four mermen on a single enemy unit at a time, rather than spreading your attacks piecemeal.

On the first turn, have Konrad recruit or recall some units. Which units, and in which order, is your first tactical decision. If you recruit/recall in pairs, with one fast (6 movement points or more) and one slow unit, then one will be able to move onto the island the next turn, while the other is still wading through the river.

Then, move Konrad to the cage on the island just to the east. This will free some mermen. (How many depends on whether you are playing on Easy, Medium, or Hard.) One of these can go open the second cage, and so on. There is another cage to the northeast, and one far to the north. Your second tactical decision is which of these two objectives will receive the bulk of your mermen.

Even further north is the Storm Trident, which can only be picked up by one of your mermen. This ranged attack will be crucial in defeating the sea leader. If you win the sea battle, you can use the mermen in one of two ways. You can harass or even assassinate the land orc leader, although you should expect heavy losses; Or, you can attempt to lure the land orcs into the water, where they will be easy prey.

On land, you have to fight off a wave of orcs and trolls heading south and then west. Your third tactical decision is how far west to engage the enemy. Consider carefully the time of day! You are hindered by the limited recruitment you can do each turn, and how long it takes your elves and horsemen to trickle across the river. You will probably need to advance and retreat your units several times, depending on time of day.

Careful management of your killing blows should allow several units to get to Level 2. A charging horseman does so much damage it will be easy for the horsemen to get all the kills, but try to get at least Konrad, a shaman, the merman with the trident, and an elven fighter leveled up.

The outcome of this battle affects the next scenario you play. If you kill the sea leader you wind up on Isle of the Damned. If you kill the land leader you wind up on Muff Malal's Peninsula. If you kill both, you can choose. You fight undead either way.

New players should take the land route to Muff Malal's Peninsula, where you can easily level up your existing units or collect an early finish bonus. Experienced players who are looking for an interesting tactical exercise shoud take the sea route to the Isle of the Damned: you can't recall your usual units but you can recruit outlaws and perhaps recruit a loyal White Mage for future scenarios.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders, and the ability to choose the next scenario.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3022 forum discussion].

== Diverging campaign path ==
=== Muff Malal's Peninsula ===
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

This is an easy scenario, and your aim here should be to build up your gold by controlling most villages, while earning experience against enemy forces. The enemy recruits bats to capture villages, and hordes of Walking Corpses to keep you busy. The occasional Dark Adept can be dangerous on Hard difficulty, but is vulnerable to melee attack, especially from knights.

One approach is to recall a few level 2 units supported by a mage. These units build a defensive position in the central part of the map, using hills and forest for cover, and hold off the first wave of Walking Corpses. Mounted troops capture villages in the north and west, and can charge down the flanks at daytime. A merman or two distract enemy bats and capture sea villages. If you can recall the merman that picked up the trident in Bay of Pearls, it will be able to dispatch bats easily on its own.

During daytime, your main force advances to one of the villages in the south-east, where you wait for more Walking Corpses to attack. A level 2 melee unit (eg. Elvish Captain) can use the village defense bonus to survive attacks, and heal between turns. By the time it is low on hit points, it should be advancing to level 3.

You should now control most villages and have some gold, so recruit or recall additional troops. Launch an offensive with your central force, supported by your horsemen advancing at the sides. Don't forget to use Konrad in the attack.

Try to attack with human units only at day, when the undead are at their weakest, and hold the lines with your elves at night.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3178 forum discussion].

=== Isle of the Damned ===
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leaders, or survive for 27 turns.

Konrad is washed overboard during a storm, but is rescued by two mermen. You start out with 100 gold and cannot recall any units. You are joined by Urlaf, a level 2 Outlaw. In addition to Mermen, you can recruit his friends: Thugs, Poachers and Footpads. This is the only time in the campaign that these units can be recruited, but any outlaw units surviving this scenario can be recalled later. Your gold from Bay of Pearls (minus the usual 20% discount) is saved for the next scenario.

Moremirmu is a White Mage with a holy sword which is very effective against undead. He is hiding in one of the three temples, and will join your cause if you find him. Beware: Xakae, a Revenant with a retinue of Walking Corpses, is waiting to ambush you in another temple. Moremirmu and Xakae are randomly placed; the third temple is always empty. Xakae and the Corpses can be a useful source of experience if you have the troops to deal with them.

Mermen can be used succesfully to harrass the undead in their rear. Typically the undead responds by withdrawing forces to deal with your mermen. Occasionally this tactic can be used to isolate and trap an undead leader while their forces are busy with your land troops. Don't expect the mermen to survive, though.

Moremirmu is critical to winning but also quite fragile. He will die quickly if he is attacked by multiple undead.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders. Moremirmu (and his holy sword) will join you in future scenarios only if both are defeated.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3179 forum discussion].

== The Siege of Elensefar ==
Scenario objectives: Kill both enemy leaders.

Konrad arrives at the southern end of a large map. The island city of Elensefar dominates the center, and the cave of the necromancer Muff Jaanal is far to the north. The orcish warlord Agadla has taken the city. You know what to do!

Your first objective is to retake the city. You could choose to charge across the bridges and fight your way onto the island, taking heavy casualties from the level 2 orcish warriors along the way. Or, you can lure the orcs into the water where they are easy to hit. Remember that mermen, especially the one with the Storm Trident, move quickly and defend quite well in water or on the bridges.

Konrad will recieve some help from the Thieves Guild. Apparently, an orcish occupation is bad for business. They will either show you a hidden ford onto the island, or attack the north gate after you take one of the island villages. Whether you choose to storm the city, and which aid to accept, depends in large part on how much of a hurry you are in. Every turn, the undead march southward, and you'll have quite a fight on your hands after they reinforce the orcs in the city proper.

After you defeat the orcs, you must fight your way north. Fighting against the undead requires a different mix of units than fighting the orcs. Your mermen are too slow on land. Horsemen and elvish units do reduced damage to skeletons. Here, you need... mages. Lots and lots of mages. And a paladin, if you've leveled a unit that high enough. Expect to spend many turns fighting through the northernmost six hexes. You are fighting in a cave, which slows your units down. Being underground, it is also treated as night for the time of day penalties.

By now, you should have either Konrad or a level 2 elven fighter with the Leadership ability. A unit adjacent to a leader receives a +25% bonus to damage. Likewise, carefully position shamen or white mages in your lines so they can heal wounded units. Two adjacent healers will heal each other.

Early finish bonus for killing both enemy leaders.

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3224 forum discussion].

== Crossroads ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the north-eastern enemy leader.

There are two strategies: either to "run for it", or "kill them all". Which you choose will probably depend on whether you want to earn lots of gold, or level up lots of units.

If you choose to run, recall two turn's worth of troops. Most should be level 2, but you should recruit one or two units as sacrifical lambs. Having two healers (who will stay adjacent to each other for mutual healing) is almost a necessity. Move the units in formation (probably in two packs) along the road. Do not be tempted to move units into the mountains. The increased defence is not worth the risk of triggering ambushes. Drive your way to the leader in the northwest, kill them, and reap the early finish bonus.

The second strategy is to methodically destroy all enemy units on the map. Recruit two turns worth of units, and then drive south. Overcome the southern leader, and recruit more troops in his castle. Move back north, moving into every town and through the mountains, in order to trigger ambushes. This strategy is trickier to pull off, but careful management of your kills should allow you to level multiple units. (Just be careful not to run out of turns...)

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3281 forum discussion].

== The Princess of Wesnoth ==
Scenario objectives: Subdue Li'sar to win

Konrad's life now takes an interesting turn, as he meets the Princess of Wesnoth, Li'sar. Instead of dying when you "kill" her, she surrenders.

Li'sar is supported by troops from the Loyalist faction. Even your tough level 2 units make tempting targets for her lawful horsemen; they will charge and probably kill them. Use terrain and position sacrificial level 1 screening units while the sun is high. Likewise, you can try for a quick kill by charging Li'sar with your own horsemen or knights.

This otherwise straightforward battle is enlivened by reinforcements that Li'sar summons on turns 5 and 10. Also, a level 2 Duelist will defend the Princess' honor when you approach her, appearing from the south of your position. You can trigger his arrival by exploring the mountain with an entrance. Capture the villages on the eastern side as you cross the river, and position units to cover the north-eastern plain to prevent Li'sar's mounted units from capturing these villages.

By the end of this scenario, you should have learned a painful lesson in how the computer player targets its attacks...

See also the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3401 forum discussion].

== The Valley of Death ==
Scenario objectives: Survive 12 turns.

There are two holy water bottles on the map. The unit which picks them up will have their melee attacks be holy for the duration of this scenario. These are especially useful for powerful melee units like Elvish Heroes or Champions which otherwise do little damage to the undead. Or, you could recruit Horsemen and have them grab the holy water. They should easily level to level 2 Lancers or Knights, and maybe even to a Level 3 Paladin by the end of the scenario. As in previous scenarios, mages will be effective against most of the undead enemies.

One strategy is recruit a large army, defeat one of the enemies, and hole up in that enemy's castle. The southern enemy is popular for this strategy. It apparently also works to pack the lake around the starting castle with mermen, and hole up there. Don't underestimate the power of the Walking Corpses (WCs) recruited by the eastern necromancer. They are slow but there are so many that they can overwhelm and kill even your most powerful units if given the chance. On the other hand, do not underestimate the crowd-clearing ability of a Paladin or blessed Champion! A WC will lurch next to your unit. It will attack. It will die, leaving room for another WC to lurch forward.
(Windscion: Unfortunately, this is also a good way to get a high level unit killed: 10 WCs in one turn can be deadly. I prefer a line of archers backed by healers.)

If you don't have the money to recruit a large or powerful army, recruit a few Elvish Fighters and send them to the forest north of your castle. Their job is to slow the Revenant for several turns and then die gloriously. Flee with Konrad and the rest of your army to the south-east corner. If you're lucky, the WC horde will be too slow to reach you before the scenario ends. A cowardly tactic, yes -- but you'll survive...

If you played Isle of The Damned without killing both Liches, and Moremirmu survived, then he will reinforce you with three White Mage buddies between turns 7-10. You can't recall them after this scenario, so they are expendable.

Another strategy, which requires to have Moremirmu to help you and allows you to kill the three Liches, is to recruit 2 horsemen(or recall their leveled up units) and as many thieves as you can, send each horsemen to gather the bottles of holy water, and kill with them the northern and eastern Liches; don't send them the horseman to the northern Lich too quick, because if you do his army will focus on it, and it won't reach the Lich. Move Konrad, Delfador, the elf from the high elven council, and your thieves towards the southeast corner. The thieves be used as a barrier to protect your more important units; place them in woods, mountains or villages(never in plains) as soon as they can, so that the northern and eastern Liches concentrate on them and leave Konrad and his group alone. With some luck you'll kill the northern and eastern Liches around the same turn that Moremirmu appears, and Konrad and his group will survive enough time to have one of Moremirmu's white mages kill the Southern Lich during day time.

Early finish bonus if you somehow manage to defeat all enemy leaders. If you do, feel free to boast about your accomplishment at the [http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3402 forum discussion].

== Gryphon Mountain ==
Scenario objectives: Kill the enemy leader.

Konrad starts in the lower left corner of the map. General Robert, commanding Loyalist troops, is in the upper right. In the middle of the map, surrounded by mountains, is the Mother Gryphon and three sleeping Gryphons.

If you kill the Mother Gryphon before the Loyalists do, you will have access to gryphon eggs, allowing you to to recruit Gryphon Riders in future scenarios. Opinions differ as to whether their ability to capture far-flung villages, safely lure enemy troops, and ability to pierce the map shroud are worth their high cost. Even if you decide not to attack the Gryphons, the enemy will -- and then the wild beasts of the air might decide to attack you.

For a quick victory to earn the early finish bonus, head up the right side of the mountains. To earn experience, head towards the Mother Gryphon, and the enemy will come to you.

Early finish bonus for killing both the mother gryphon as well as the enemy leader.

== The Ford of Abez ==
Scenario objectives: Move Konrad to the north side of the river

The wide Abez river cuts across the middle of the map from left to right, with Konrad starting on the lower right side. Princess Li'sar starts on the lower left, and an orc band is on the north side of the river. If you have lots of gold, if you have a plethora of well-seasoned fighting troops, and you think you're ready for a challenge, you could try and attack the Princess. But do a save first; you'll need it after you are wiped out by her Royal Guards.

Your major decision (after you learn that the Princess's escort is just too tough) is whether to have Konrad recruit for one turn or two. Do not recruit land troops with less than five movement points, as they will have trouble wading across the ford. You're under immense time pressure. The chaotic orcs will attack from the north, the Princess's lawful Loyalists will attack from the south, and... a new enemy (alignment: hungry) will be attacking from downstream. Except for the hungry ones--who will be focused on killing anything in their path--all the enemies will be focused on killing Konrad. The hungry enemies might assist you somewhat as they will probably hit the orcs and humans before trying to snack on your forces. Also, the orcs and humans will fight if they happen to cross paths.

Remember those loyal mermen from in the Bay of Pearls? They should comprise your principal fighting force. Be sure to send one downstream to acquire the Storm Trident there. Lure the orcs into the water, where your mermen have excellent defence and the orcs are highly vulnerable. If you captured the eggs last scenario, consider using a gryphon to distract the enemy.(Note in the latest version Gryphons are not available until a later scenario)

Early finish bonus for getting Konrad onto dry land.

== Northern Winter ==
*Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders (2 of them)
*Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
*Turns: 50
*Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, a random soldier
*Early finish bonus: ?? 
*Other:
**Snow falls on turns 6 and 10, making the tundra patches larger.
 
This is a relatively simple scenario. The quickest strategy is to recall a few Knights, Lancers, Paladins, and/or Grand Knights along with fresh Horsemen, kill the northwestern leader, then head east. The eastern leader's wolf riders will attempt to attack you through the center of the map, so be sure to place a few horsemen there. It' a good idea for Kalenz and Delfador to defent the southern mountains, as a few riders may come there as well. This is a good level for getting a large amount of gold.

== The Dwarven Doors ==
* Objectives: Move Konrad to entrance of the Dwarfen Kingdom
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 26
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Blidd, Kalenz, level 1 thug
* Early finish bonus: Find the correct entrance (the eastern one -- or the main one in version 1.3.4)

This scenario offers the usual strategic choice -- run for the exit and an early finish bonus, or slowly and carefully exterminate the enemy forces. If you choose to follow Delfador's advice and flee in terror, recruit one turn's worth of elven riders or gryphons to sacrifice as screening units. If you choose to attack, you'll be in for a struggle. For a real challenge, move to the middle of the map and get attacked from all sides... If you want to kill all three leaders, taking out the south eastern one with your full force and then splitting to take on both the others. Move Konrad near the exit (the eastern one!) so you can abort at any time. -- [v.1.3.4: moving directly to the eastern entrance does not work; it is blocked]

The main door by the lake is barred from the inside. Further, there is the usual tentacular horror hiding in the lake near the ancient subterranean Dwarven Kingdom. This means you will have to go into the entrance on the east.

If you fought on the Isle of the Damned, one of your outlaws will tell you about a Bandit who will be willing to ally with you. The initial outlaw is expendable, the other one is loyal, though (no upkeep cost!)

"coward" strategy for version 1.3.4 :
In this version, you get a elvish scout, who says he'll check the entrance to see if it is opened. Send him there, passing on the right of the mountains that are along the "path" to the entrance. This will stop the north western orcs from killing him too soon. Once that is done, move the scout to the north western mountains, to lure the ennemies there.
Recruit one turn worth of elvish scouts as sacrificial units. They'll lure the ennemies away from Konrad. For a higher chance of success, leave Delfador and Kalenz near your keep, in the south. Since Kalenz is weak, he can easily be killed before Konrad makes it to the cave entrance. Once Konrad is near the center of the map (and overwhelmed by orcs), move them North a bit, to attract ennemies to them. All you need to do now is move Konrad to the entrance as fast as possible. The cuttlefish should appear in the lake as you pass by it, which will delay the orcs some more.

Do It Quickly:
On the first turn recruit some units you may want to give experience to (and you're not afraid of losing them too), but choose only those having movement range 6 or greater. Then capture two nearest villages with Konrad and Delfador. Run straight north. The elf scout should be the leader to the doors and the only step off the straight path is to capture the village NE of the lake. This should unleash the octopus which will attract NW troops (not sure, tried only once)
Eastern and western opponents are lazy and more attracted to the villages income than to fight. So they will first go south to capture villages near your keep. Before they do, you'll be at the middle of the map.
If you recruited units with movement 6 and headed N without any stop, you're likely to be engaged at the pillars by some units from NW. Delfador and other leaders should have no problem dealing with them. Next attack may happen at the doors, one turn before Konrad reaches the entrance.
I managed to do it, losing only one 1st level mage.

Version 1.2.5:
I played on medium and found that I had only 20 turns. Killing all the orc leaders didn't end the game. You will still need to reach the door with Konrad. After reloading, I killed all the orc leaders AND managed to get Konrad to the door within 20 turns (20 exactly) but there was no bonus and I ended up with -ve gold because I had to recall all my veterans to kill the leaders. Finally, I adopted the coward's strategy. Created 5 Elvish scouts and 10 thieves and used them as canon fodder for the orcs. There were too many orcs and only 2 of the scouts survived but I ended up with 11 rounds of bonus.

== Plunging into the Darkness ==
* Objectives: Find the dwarves
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 19
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: n/a
* Other:
** Secret pasage in southeastern part of the tunnel
** Pretty dull and boring ;)

Since you're reading this walkthrough, you'll also be interested in locating the secret passage leading to a chest of 200 gold pieces in the southeast. However, said chest is guarded by a rather nasty poison-biting, slow-web-throwing level 3 spider. Beware the blood bats, seek out a niche in the wall, and be wary exploring the secret passage!

Tip: For the next three stages you don't have to use too many dwarven companions. All I needed was 2 fighters, 2 riders, 2 guardmen,and 2 thurderer. These fighters I use over and over leading them to all level up to level 3 and having lots and lots of gold by the time I finish the cave levels

== The Lost General ==
* Objectives: Kill all enemy leaders (there are two)
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador or Kalenz die or turns run out
* Turns: 64(!)
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: Killing both enemy leaders

Moving underground is slow, especially for elves. Their fighters and archers are also ineffective against undead. Outriders and slyphs might be worth recruiting, if you can afford them. Likewise, gryphons and horsemen are bogged down. Recruit dwarves for speed, and mages to back them up. (However, a griffon can pass the small pond quickly, and there are four towns on the other side.)

You are fighting Lionel, a former general turned Death Knight, who starts trapped in the south. To the west is the usual orc/troll force. In the north is a dwarven ally, although if you are too slow they will be overwhelmed by the orcs.

Dwarven fighters do well against the undead, while the Thunderers do best against the orcs and trolls. If you choose to go for money, rush troops both south and north, reinforcing the native dwarves and triggering the appearance of the undead. If you choose to go for experience, ignore the undead until you have killed the orcs, then return en masse to destroy the undead. Don't take too long, as Lionel will break forth on turn 20.

There are two ways to get to Lionel: an entrance opens in the pond on turn 19/20; and walls collapse when units move into tiles just south of the sign that says "Guest Quarters", regardless of when this happens.

== Hasty Alliance ==
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 33
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz
* Early finish bonus: Killing enemy leader + 200 Gold from Li'sar

Li'sar is about to attack, when you are surrounded by orcs and trolls. She joins forces with you to defeat the troll leader, bringing her Royal Guards and 500 gold worth of allied troops to the struggle.

Your greatest challenge will be to survive the first few turns, as the death of any of Konrad's companions will end the scenario.
Once you have defeated the first wave, it is relatively easy to finish off any remaining trolls and move north to the troll leader. Try and encourage your allies to go first and take the hefty damage from the Level 2 and Level 3 trolls, while your mages and dwarves get the experience for killing blows.

== The Sceptre of Fire ==
* Objectives: Capture the Scepter of Fire with Konrad or Li'sar
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 50
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: n/a
* Other:
** Gold gift from Li'sar: 300 on easy, 200 on medium, 100 on hard
** Milk this level for experience as there is no early finish bonus
** Randomly generated map

The map changes each time, so if you're save-scumming, be sure to checkpoint right after the scenario starts, and replay once you know where the scepter is.
Give Li'sar the sceptre as it gives her a ranged attack and Konrad will be able to pick up another artifact later on.

No early finish bonus, so if you have the gold, this is a good place to level up. If you do, poise the character who is going to pick up the Sceptre right next to it, then send everybody else up to attack. Since there is a large time limit, milk every unit you can for maximum experience. And remember, Dwarvish Lords came in very handy later on.

Note: in version 1.2.4 there is an early finish bonus.(for easy mode at least) It is still a good place (and idea) to level up.

Tip: There is an early finish bonus for I had beat this stage within thirty turns and that had gave me a bonus of 37 gold per turn wich multipied to 185.

== A Choice Must Be Made ==
* Objectives: Defeat either of the leaders
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 33
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: Kill either leader
* Other:
** Next level depends on killed leader
*** Northern orcish leader will get you to the ''Snow Plains'' and the Flaming Sword
*** Southern undead leader will get you to the ''Swamp Of Dread'' and give you the chance to get lotsa gold
** Simply decide for one direction and block the bridge in the other direction unless you want to fight on two large fronts
** First real chance to level gryphons

Scenario objectives: Kill either leader.

You must choose whether to go north or south. A Death Knight and the undead lie to the south, guarding the way to the Swamp of Dread. This path is easier, as the undead are hampered by the swampy terrain even more than you. To the north are the usual orc horde, fighting in the hills, a tougher battle. Your choice will affect which magic artifact you can get in the next level. Northwards are the Snow Plains, where a magic weapon awaits; south is the Undead Swamp, where one of your units can obtain better armor.

Whether you go north or south, recruit a few level 1 units as sacrifices, or use fast-moving gryphons to delay the other force.

Tip: You can use mermans specifically using the strongest ones and the ones that were able to pick up the tridents on bay of pearls and forf of abez that is if you use to go downward to kill the undead leader.

== Diverging campaign path ==
=== Snow Plains ===
* Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 43
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: Kill the leader
* Other:
** Li'sar will tell you she does not like her mother

Konrad will find the Flaming Sword (15-4 melee, fire, magical) hidden in one of the northern villages (under the great tree in 1.1). It will take Konrad a while to slog through the snow, forest, and hills, so you'll have to think about how many turns he will recall units. Dwarves will do well in the mountains, as will the flying gryphons.

Early finish bonus for killing the enemy leader.

=== Swamp Of Dread ===
Scenario objectives: Kill all enemy leaders.

There are lots of undead, but also many villages. You can earn lots of gold if you can capture and hold villages. It may be useful recruiting cheap units to defend villages against bats. One of the Death Knights drops the Void Armor when killed. The unit that picks it up will gain high resistance to physical damage (blade, impact and pierce). Since Li'sar is vulnerable to precisely those types of damage, you should probably give her the armor.

Early finish bonus for killing all 5 enemy leaders.

Tip:This is another stage where you can use mermans specifically your strongest merman, merman priestess and ones with the tridents.

== Home of the North Elves ==
* Objectives:
** Reach the forest kingdom of Emetria
** Survive until turns run out
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 21
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: 47 Gold per turn
* Other:
** Your base will be dismantled after the first turn

This is a very large map with some interesting challenges. First, Konrad needs to move all the way across to the right side, and if you're playing on Medium or Hard, you don't have many turns to waste. Second, Fog of War is turned on, so you won't know where the enemy is until you blunder into them.

On the other hand, while both the orc and human sides will attack you, you can lure them into attacking each other. The orcs start in the north central part of the map, while the humans begin in the southeast. You must decide whether Konrad will try to sneak along the northern map edge, or try to thread between the two opponents.

In order to win, Konrad must be in the Elvish castle by the end of the last turn. The early finish bonus is rather substantial: 44 gp per turn. However, you only get it if you kill both enemy leaders. Also, if both leaders are dead, it no longer matters whether your hero has reached the elven castle. Therefore, if one's dead already, killing the other makes for a workable 'plan b' if you realise you're 4 turns away from the castle, but only 2 away from the timer running out. (In 1.1, the enemy camps have been reinforced, and it is no longer practical to kill the leaders.)

Version 1.2.5:
In this version, the fastest and best way for me was to just make Konrad run alone. Don't recall any units as the elvish riders that appear can be cannon fodder if necessary. Start by moving near the river side until you see orcs in the distance. Proceed slowly and wait for them to engage the humans. Then a group of elves will rush in to fight both orcs and humans. Time your run carefully between the elven forces in a NE direction and you can avoid meeting any humans or orcs. I think I finished in 13 or 14 turns without a single shot being fired (or flaming sword being slashed).

== The Elven Council ==
This is a cut-scene furthering the storyline. No combat takes place.

== Return to Wesnoth ==
Scenario objectives: Kill all three enemy leaders.

Three Halbardiers appear when Josephus dies. The bridge across the river is a good place to establish a defensive position, since attackers have to use the beach and water hexes to attack. Use the forests to your advantage: elven troops are best in forest, while the loyalists and orcs are seriously slowed by the trees.

Early finish bonus for killing all enemy leaders: 27 Gold

== Test of the Clans ==
* Objectives: Defeat either all four leaders or 25 units in total
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 53
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar
* Early finish bonus: 55 Gold per turn

You are facing mostly knights and horsemen, so fast and powerful units like Grand Knights, Lancers or Paladins are important. When any of the enemy leaders is killed, it is replaced with one or two knights (two or three in Hard). Reportedly, one way to win is to gang up on Bayar with fast units while attacking the south-eastern leader with the rest of your army.

If you want to have a long field battle, you can put groups of dwarves or elves in the hills. The enemy will tend to attack the hills, thus giving you some advantage. Hills also make a good safe haven for healing your mounted units. Try to kill the south-eastern leader early so you don't have to divert so many of your resources to the south flank.

Tip: You can use gryphons riders as sacrifice to help you in your aid included with your horseman try to recruit many of them though. May be able to get some of them to level two if you use them smartly, but you may also lose some though using this method but hey you can finish with a pretty nice bonus that is if you go to kill just 25 men.

===edit smenze===
This can be one of the hardest or easiest scenarios depending on your goal. After a lot of trial and error, I found a way to kill the leaders before defeating 25 units. It seems costly, but with the bonus for early finish and killing the clan leaders it was well worth it. So here goes: GRIFFON RIDERS and quite a few of them. I started by getting my healers (for my main army) and then recruited the rest in Griffon Riders. Send this compliment (four of them) North to pick up the villages then onto the deep water of the lake. The next castle was completely the remainder of my recalls to fill out my main army (just enough to surround my healers in a hedgehog) and 2 more Griffon riders to fill it out. Then march your main army south to take out the Southeast Leader and send the 2 Griffons up to join the rest on the lake. As soon as the majority of Blue's (the Northwest leader) troops move away from him launch your griffon attack on him. With only 6 it takes some luck, but he dies in 1-2 rounds of attacks assuming you don't lose too many of your troops. In the Southeast recruit a couple of castles worth of Griffon Riders and send them West to take on the Southwest (black) leader, all the while keeping your main force just out of range of attackers if at all possible. As your griffons cross the river and are attacking the AI usually moves guys back in to defend with, but for the most part you can out run them. You can always highlight the troops to find out its movement area. Converge all the griffons you have left on the middle leader (purple). I won around turn 25 giving me around 1600 gold to start the last scenario.

== The Battle for Wesnoth ==
* Objectives: Defeat Asheviere
* Lose if: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz or Li'sar die or turns run out
* Turns: 60
* Starting units: Konrad, Delfador, Kalenz, Li'sar, as many Grand Knights as you defeated in the last map
* Early finish bonus: 46
Scenario objectives: Defeat Asheviere and, by killing her, reclaim the throne.

Healers are useful for your army, as are high level units to take the large amounts of damage the enemies deal. You don't need to worry about saving them for later, because this is the last scenario. Useful recruits are Dwarvish Fighters and Elvish Shamans to aid the rest of your army. Try to level some of them up. Since the enemies are so high-level and numerous, it is surprisingly easy.

You can make a line with new and higher level dwarves in the front ranks. Put leadership units and healers behind. Behind that, let the wounded units rest. Put the line quite near your castle so your fresh recruits can reach the front line in 1-2 turns. A shorter line will also be easier to manage. Some seem to put heavy emphasis on healing units here, but the battle is so short and intense, that some prefer more fighters, and fewer healers.

After you have killed most of the enemy units, advance your powerful units towards Asheviere for the kill. Your main units, Delfador, Li'sar, and the rest, are good here. Especially Li'sar with skirmisher and the Scepter (if you gave it to her), who can do a quick and deadly assassination once the enemies have reduced in numbers. Knights are probably good here as well. Asheviere has exactly 48 HP, so three hits of a 16-damage weapon, like the Scepter, or four 12-damage hits, is enough for the kill.

A quick assassination can even be performed by Master Gryphons or even sometimes Gryphon Riders: you can recruit a castle of them on turn 1, send them south, elude enemy forces sent by the general in the futile attempt to catch you, then approach Asheviere for the kill (she will not have many troops at her own protection). Using this strategy, I won on turn 6 (and without losses). Swarming all four enemies with 6 new knights each turn is a very effective distraction strategy. Asheviere may divert about half of her force to destory the gryphons. If this happens, congratulations. This means you've won. You should have still about 20 living Knights, and you should easily break through her lines.

A good bonus from The Test of the Clans should be enough to win this scenario.

== See also ==
* [[MainlineCampaigns]]

[[Category:Campaigns]]

TheRiseOfWesnoth

2008-04-04T19:06:11Z

Smenze: /* Return of the Fleet */

== 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] Agreed, certainly no more than 2 paladins; I got by so far with just one. Important not to be too reliant on horsemen generally, as there are many hard levels underground, in swamps, in water, or against saurians.

Due to the number of levels against the undead, important to level up lots of spearmen to swordsmen. But equally, 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. I went 50:50 on halberdiers and swordsmen.

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.

===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 Temperal] 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. One strategy to counter the river ambush is to wait until they're almost there, and then recruit a castle of spear men.

[comment by Pent] I wonder how much gold you had in the beginning. Personally I had only 100, so I could only hold until the 1st ship.

===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.

===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.

[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 sauians 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). 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.

====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.

====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.

This map starts out in shroud, like a cave. 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. Paladins are so effective against undead that you can wade into the water after them. But keep some around for the Chocobones. Just remember, Paladins can't go into deep water and undead can. Once you take an island city, use Silver Mages in support to finish the leader.

When you reach the swamp in the north, tighten to a hedgehog formation. Not only are Saurian skirmishers a problem, but Chocobones move fairly quickly through a variety of terrain, and they have Charge. Defend until the most dangerous enemies are in poor position, then wipe them out. This map sports the least effective Cuttlefish I've ever seen; he was in the water near me but fled. Remember where the keeps are, and advance to the finish.

The cuttlefish appear as soon as you hit the shore. Several additional saurians also appear when you approach the swamp.

[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 (i finished with about 1000 gold).

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 pensored 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

2008-04-03T15:10:31Z

Smenze: /* A New Land */

== 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] Agreed, certainly no more than 2 paladins; I got by so far with just one. Important not to be too reliant on horsemen generally, as there are many hard levels underground, in swamps, in water, or against saurians.

Due to the number of levels against the undead, important to level up lots of spearmen to swordsmen. But equally, 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. I went 50:50 on halberdiers and swordsmen.

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.

===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 Temperal] 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. One strategy to counter the river ambush is to wait until they're almost there, and then recruit a castle of spear men.

[comment by Pent] I wonder how much gold you had in the beginning. Personally I had only 100, so I could only hold until the 1st ship.

===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.

===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.

[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 sauians 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). 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.

====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.

====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.

This map starts out in shroud, like a cave. 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. Paladins are so effective against undead that you can wade into the water after them. But keep some around for the Chocobones. Just remember, Paladins can't go into deep water and undead can. Once you take an island city, use Silver Mages in support to finish the leader.

When you reach the swamp in the north, tighten to a hedgehog formation. Not only are Saurian skirmishers a problem, but Chocobones move fairly quickly through a variety of terrain, and they have Charge. Defend until the most dangerous enemies are in poor position, then wipe them out. This map sports the least effective Cuttlefish I've ever seen; he was in the water near me but fled. Remember where the keeps are, and advance to the finish.

The cuttlefish appear as soon as you hit the shore. Several additional saurians also appear when you approach the swamp.

[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.

===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]]

DescentIntoDarkness

2008-03-25T21:23:17Z

Smenze: /* Descent into Darkness */

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

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

=== A Peaceful Valley ===
Do not try to solve this level without entering the Swamp. Once you enter the Swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use walking corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with walking corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

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

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your ghosts (the first one that gains any experience?) will go rebel and attack you. Kill him quick. Move a few of your other ghosts up north -- you can get easy experience from killing the dwarves as they wade through the swamp. Your two heroes can kill the enemy bosses with their magic attacks.

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

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

=== Orc War ===

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

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

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

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

=== Return to Hal'al ===

Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A wraith, shadow, or spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another wraith or shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Hal'al townspeople hate you anyway. I found that wraiths and shadows were particularly effective since crossing the river doesn't slow them down at all. After you kill Drogan you need to escape across the river and to the west. So first you need to kill the orcs, which shouldn't be a problem, what might be a problem is that the Hal'al troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

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

===A Small Favor===

====Part One====

As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your shadows visible. And keep Malin and Valk out of sight as well, or else the human leader will recruit an unbeatable number of reinforcements.

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

====Part Two====

You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario. (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack. Darken Volk will operate separately with an army of allied undead. Hmmm, in all previous missions you commanded him directly... could this be foreshadowing?

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

====Part Three====

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

===Alone at Last===

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

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

After you kill Valk, he leaves behind the book, which you want to retrieve and bring to the keep you started the scenario at. Ghosts and bats (and spectres, shadows, wraiths, and nightgaunts) can't carry the book, so you want to have sent at least one unit of this kind with the units you used to kill Valk. In particular, Malin himself is a good choice.

On turn 9 Dela Keshar will show up to the north, set up camp and send forces to attack you as well. This will probably be a turn after you kill Valk, and you can probably take her out with some nightgaunts before she calls any troops. If you can't you'll have to run for it and probably lose some units covering your retreat. If, however, you're lucky enough to take her out before she calls reinforcements, you can probably wipe the map clean before returning to your keep.

===Descent into Darkness===

The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a many passage and two side passages. I'm not sure it matters, but I successfully advanced through the main passage. You will face some high level trolls, including Troll Shamans capable of throwing deadly fireballs at your undead minions. There's no particularly good defense against these things, but I will note that all the trolls also deal impact damage, which your skeletons are weak against, so you may want to avoid recalling your skeletons.

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

===Forever After, Amen===

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

[[Category:Campaigns]]

DescentIntoDarkness

2008-03-25T21:22:33Z

Smenze: /* Descent into Darkness */

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

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

=== A Peaceful Valley ===
Do not try to solve this level without entering the Swamp. Once you enter the Swamp with either Malin Keshar or Darken Volk you will get Ghouls which make the difference between impossible and reasonable to master this level. Bats are useful to capture faraway villages but have little chance against the guards, unless you move two or three of them together. Use walking corpses as placeholders for captured villages and use them on wounded goblins to add more troops to your arsenal. A combined effort with walking corpses and Darken Volk will kill off the leader and relieve a lot of stress.

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

=== A Haunting in Winter ===
You can recruit Ghosts on this level. At one point there's a special event: one of your ghosts (the first one that gains any experience?) will go rebel and attack you. Kill him quick. Move a few of your other ghosts up north -- you can get easy experience from killing the dwarves as they wade through the swamp. Your two heroes can kill the enemy bosses with their magic attacks.

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

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

=== Orc War ===

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

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

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

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

=== Return to Hal'al ===

Your first objective is to kill Drogan, if any other human unit dies before Drogan, you lose. A wraith, shadow, or spectre will probably start with Malin, between this and recalling another wraith or shadow, it should be easy to take out Drogan and discover, oops, the Hal'al townspeople hate you anyway. I found that wraiths and shadows were particularly effective since crossing the river doesn't slow them down at all. After you kill Drogan you need to escape across the river and to the west. So first you need to kill the orcs, which shouldn't be a problem, what might be a problem is that the Hal'al troops will continue to attack you as you flee. Another problem you will have is that if you flee you will lose all the villages you hold south of the river and will probably end up losing a bunch of gold but, oh well.

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

===A Small Favor===

====Part One====

As far as I can tell there's only one way to win this scenario and the requires having at least 4 shadows (or Nightgaunts). Recall these and send them to assassinate the leader at the enemy keep. (after first capturing as many villages as you feel like). Don't capture any enemy occupied villages, however, this will render your shadows visible. And keep Malin and Valk out of sight as well, or else the human leader will recruit an unbeatable number of reinforcements.

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

====Part Two====

You start with the units you recalled at the end of the last mission, but you don't have to pay their upkeep for this scenario. (nor are there any villages, anyway). Since there are no villages, you won't be able to heal your units unless they have a drain attack. Darken Volk will operate separately with an army of allied undead. Hmmm, in all previous missions you commanded him directly... could this be foreshadowing?

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

====Part Three====

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

===Alone at Last===

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

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

After you kill Valk, he leaves behind the book, which you want to retrieve and bring to the keep you started the scenario at. Ghosts and bats (and spectres, shadows, wraiths, and nightgaunts) can't carry the book, so you want to have sent at least one unit of this kind with the units you used to kill Valk. In particular, Malin himself is a good choice.

On turn 9 Dela Keshar will show up to the north, set up camp and send forces to attack you as well. This will probably be a turn after you kill Valk, and you can probably take her out with some nightgaunts before she calls any troops. If you can't you'll have to run for it and probably lose some units covering your retreat. If, however, you're lucky enough to take her out before she calls reinforcements, you can probably wipe the map clean before returning to your keep.

===Descent into Darkness===

The first segment of the mission is pretty self-explanatory. After you reach the small keep you need to decide which way to send your troops to the large castle, there is a many passage and two side passages. I'm not sure it matters, but I successfully advanced through the main passage. You will face some high level trolls, including Troll Shamans capable of throwing deadly fireballs at your undead minions. There's no particularly good defense against these things, but I will note that all the trolls also deal impact damage, which your skeletons are weak against, so you may want to avoid recalling your skeletons.

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

===Forever After, Amen===

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

[[Category:Campaigns]]

TheRiseOfWesnoth

2008-02-02T02:05:14Z

Smenze: /* Temple in the Deep */

== 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] Agreed, certainly no more than 2 paladins; I got by so far with just one. Important not to be too reliant on horsemen generally, as there are many hard levels underground, in swamps, in water, or against saurians.

Due to the number of levels against the undead, important to level up lots of spearmen to swordsmen. But equally, 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. I went 50:50 on halberdiers and swordsmen.

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 alot 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 reenforcements 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.

===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.

===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 Temperal] 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. One strategy to counter the river ambush is to wait until they're almost there, and then recruit a castle of spear men.

[comment by Pent] I wonder how much gold you had in the beginning. Personally I had only 100, so I could only hold until the 1st ship.

===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.

===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.

===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.

[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.

===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.

====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 sauians 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). 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.

====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.

====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.

This map starts out in shroud, like a cave. 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. Paladins are so effective against undead that you can wade into the water after them. But keep some around for the Chocobones. Just remember, Paladins can't go into deep water and undead can. Once you take an island city, use Silver Mages in support to finish the leader.

When you reach the swamp in the north, tighten to a hedgehog formation. Not only are Saurian skirmishers a problem, but Chocobones move fairly quickly through a variety of terrain, and they have Charge. Defend until the most dangerous enemies are in poor position, then wipe them out. This map sports the least effective Cuttlefish I've ever seen; he was in the water near me but fled. Remember where the keeps are, and advance to the finish.

The cuttlefish appear as soon as you hit the shore. Several additional saurians also appear when you approach the swamp.

[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.

===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 ==

* [[ScenarioDiscussion]]

Liberty

2008-01-19T21:10:30Z

Smenze: /* Glory */

=== The Raid ===

You have enough troops to beat the goblins in a straight-up fight;
your problem is luring the leader to attack you rather than running
straight up the board and into the village (if this happens you
lose!). This means you need to dangle some units in his engagement
range. Spend your loyal footpads, you won't get to keep more than two
of them after you leave the village.

=== Civil Disobedience ===

Bunch up all your fighters and use them to swarm single or paired cavalry
units. Use houses for cover.

=== A Strategy of Hope ===

The orcs don't make a lot of archers, so swarm them with footpads and
outlaws firing slingstones. Detach one or two footpad to go on an
extended village-stealing run in the north of the board while you're
doing this. Your allies are a little better than evenly matched
against the saurians, so by the time you finish the orcs you should be
able to run northwest and take the leader without too much trouble.

=== Unlawful Orders ===

Detach one footpad to grab villages; Lord Maddock isn't going to use them all
anyway. Bunch up your fighters and run them towards the enemy keep while
he's distracted fighting Lord Maddock's troops.

*additional hints: as the story progresses, you have little need for harper to be leveled so using him to grab the villages is a good strategy. using footpads and thugs is recommended here, as you will see once the scenario progesses. i pretty much ran my troops out the east gate (the right hand side) and down. effective use of your troops can get you some leveled up guys.

=== Hide and Seek ===

The moment you get within visual range of an enemy it will attack, and
it's likely you'll be swarmed by its buddies, so attack only isolated
units. What saves you is you can see farther than they can. You'll
need to run down the west edge of the board, then through the center
of the city to the signpost at the southeast corner.

*addition: This is a tough scenario. Just grab your one recruit and head down the west (left side of the map). Once you get around town, be careful to fight the defenders one at a time. It takes a little patience, but is doable. Watch the health of your two main troops here.

=== The Gray Woods ===

This is a fairly easy search-and destroy, with lots of relatively weak
undead so lots of leveling-up opportunities. Grab Helicrom's
villages, he doesn't actually need them. The bad guys are at the SE,
SW, and NW corners. There's a holy ankh in the south center of the
board that will give the unit that finds it an arcane attack.

*addition: You can pretty well ignore the SE village. Helicrom's troops will take care of it, and unless you try to race them down there it is a waste of time and turns. Just head SWish across the bridge and have a quick fight with the green lich's forces that have made it out. Continue on to kill him, and then head south to the other lich. It is an excellent place to level up some footpads to L2 or even L3. While I am not over judicious with my use of the "fodder" units, I still came out with about 8 or 9 L2+ units. as an aside, have Helicrom join you in battle. It makes the last scenario (while frustrating because your allies get in your way) pretty easy.

=== The Hunters ===

The trick in this one is that your outlaws fight better in mountains than
heavy infantry do. So bean them with missile weapons from the mountains at
the north edge of the road, then clump your guys and go west towards the
keep. Swarm the cavalry units as they hit you; they probably won't
concentrate enough to be more than a nuisance to L2 and L3 characters.

=== Glory ===

The only genuinely difficult puzzle in Liberty, because the Wesnoth army
is tough to beat if you have to try to take them inside their fortress
(and they get reinforcements every afternoon). You have to lure as many
as possible out of the fortress -- dangle bait just within their
engagement range.

*addition: This scenario was realitvely easy assuming a few things. First, you chose to have Helicrom join you in battle. While his troops get in the way (ALOT), they do kill some units and help if for nothing else to divert a bit of the opposing forces. Second, it is the final scenario so who cares about money anyway? Finally, you should have a fair number of leveled up units (10 or maybe more), but if not never fear you can recruit L2 units (well Outlaws the upgraded footpads). Don't worry about the money just recall the L2 and L3 units you have to start. March them straight N and hang out around the first village there. It will be a nice pitch battle for a few turns, but eventually your numbers will overwhelm them. Then you can split your forces a bit to the West and South entrances. Remember that your Outlaws and above fight a lot better in the mountains then your opponents (offsetting the garrison bonus).

=== Epilogue ===

Storyline only, no combat.

Liberty

2008-01-19T21:01:14Z

Smenze: /* The Gray Woods */

Liberty

2008-01-19T20:57:32Z

Smenze: /* The Gray Woods */

=== The Raid ===

You have enough troops to beat the goblins in a straight-up fight;
your problem is luring the leader to attack you rather than running
straight up the board and into the village (if this happens you
lose!). This means you need to dangle some units in his engagement
range. Spend your loyal footpads, you won't get to keep more than two
of them after you leave the village.

=== Civil Disobedience ===

Bunch up all your fighters and use them to swarm single or paired cavalry
units. Use houses for cover.

=== A Strategy of Hope ===

The orcs don't make a lot of archers, so swarm them with footpads and
outlaws firing slingstones. Detach one or two footpad to go on an
extended village-stealing run in the north of the board while you're
doing this. Your allies are a little better than evenly matched
against the saurians, so by the time you finish the orcs you should be
able to run northwest and take the leader without too much trouble.

=== Unlawful Orders ===

Detach one footpad to grab villages; Lord Maddock isn't going to use them all
anyway. Bunch up your fighters and run them towards the enemy keep while
he's distracted fighting Lord Maddock's troops.

*additional hints: as the story progresses, you have little need for harper to be leveled so using him to grab the villages is a good strategy. using footpads and thugs is recommended here, as you will see once the scenario progesses. i pretty much ran my troops out the east gate (the right hand side) and down. effective use of your troops can get you some leveled up guys.

=== Hide and Seek ===

The moment you get within visual range of an enemy it will attack, and
it's likely you'll be swarmed by its buddies, so attack only isolated
units. What saves you is you can see farther than they can. You'll
need to run down the west edge of the board, then through the center
of the city to the signpost at the southeast corner.

*addition: This is a tough scenario. Just grab your one recruit and head down the west (left side of the map). Once you get around town, be careful to fight the defenders one at a time. It takes a little patience, but is doable. Watch the health of your two main troops here.

=== The Gray Woods ===

This is a fairly easy search-and destroy, with lots of relatively weak
undead so lots of leveling-up opportunities. Grab Helicrom's
villages, he doesn't actually need them. The bad guys are at the SE,
SW, and NW corners. There's a holy ankh in the south center of the
board that will give the unit that finds it an arcane attack.

*addition: You can pretty well ignore the SE village. Helicrom's troops will take care of it, and unless you try to race them down there it is a waste of time and turns. Just head SWish across the bridge and have a quick fight with the green lich's forces that have made it out. Continue on to kill him, and then head south to the other lich. It is an excellent place to level up some footpads to L2 or even L3. While I am not over judicious with my use of the "fodder" units, I still came out with about 8 or 9 L2+ units.

=== The Hunters ===

The trick in this one is that your outlaws fight better in mountains than
heavy infantry do. So bean them with missile weapons from the mountains at
the north edge of the road, then clump your guys and go west towards the
keep. Swarm the cavalry units as they hit you; they probably won't
concentrate enough to be more than a nuisance to L2 and L3 characters.

=== Glory ===

The only genuinely difficult puzzle in Liberty, because the Wesnoth army
is tough to beat if you have to try to take them inside their fortress
(and they get reinforcements every afternoon). You have to lure as many
as possible out of the fortress -- dangle bait just within their
engagement range.

=== Epilogue ===

Storyline only, no combat.

Liberty

2008-01-19T20:52:39Z

Smenze: /* Hide and Seek */

Liberty

2008-01-19T20:49:34Z

Smenze: /* Unlawful Orders */