LotI Walkthrough-Part1-Chapter01

Part I, Embracing the Darkness, Chapter 1, Ascension

Generally

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[WHU] Your recruit/recall lists, as well as available gold, are going to vary widely. Some units will rarely be available for recruiting, potentially preventing you access to their high level advancements. You may want to recruit at least a couple of all the basic unit types, particularly when you are flush with gold, so that they will (usually) be available on the recall list.

An Orcish Assault

[WHU] A classic frontal assault is difficult and time consuming. I will send one or two units west to collect villages, and Delenia (Delly) south along the east edge. Send a couple other units, perhaps rogues, west then south going around the Orc forces to eventually meet Delly at the Orc keep for some glorious backstabbing. While keeping Efraim protected, allow the orcs to enter the city, at which point Lord Redain's troops will become active.

[WHU] Pick up dropped items and store them or give them to your leaders, your troops are too junior at this point and if you give them items and they die the items are lost.

[WHU] Steal all your ally's villages, he doesn't need them.

[WHU] If you recruit any loyal units, they should probably hide behind the lines for future service.

[Thrash] One strategy is to hold a line and then push South on turn 8, in the morning. Time will be tight. The Orcish leader is hard to kill.

[Thrash] Mario, the peasant leader, appears to be very hard for the enemy to hit and his death is not a loss. However, he will stay in your recall list if he survives and can be advanced to a duke (w/leadership), but it's a slow process.

The Assassination

[WHU] Recruit or possibly recall (Mario) very lightly, the fight will be quick and in close quarters. Grab all the villages, you have plenty of time. There is usually a nice item to the northeast, but it's covered by a unit that doesn't die easily, and by the time you kill him either the scenario has ended or some very bad dudes have come up behind you. Travel northwest, then south. Make sure all of your units are in place with full movement before you step into the chamber. Usually Mario will be one XP from levelling up, so give him the first hit. On lower difficulties you can make great use of backstab here, but even on hard Redain should go down in a turn or two.

[dwarftough]You can backstab Redain on any difficulty, you just need to place your unit on the stabbing square when swords are in the same team and don't block your way. The fight is trigger only when you step on a hex adjacent to Redain

[Thrash] I found it was not worth recruiting a second unit to get villages, just grab a couple on way into castle. Efraim and Delly can kill Redian in one turn using Delly’s back stab.

Banished

[WHU]Start with a couple recruits/recalls, focusing on speed. Send Delly west (assuming she still has the Twinkling Sword and its +2 move), and the rest of the units generally following the course of the road but a few tiles to either side, finding and taking villages. Do not get too close to the river until Efraim can get across and into the keep in one turn. Recruit lots of bowmen and poachers depending on time of day, and be aggressive about moving them out of the castle so you can recruit more. Any loyal recruits and seriously injured or poisoned units can be sent north across the river for healing and safety. Efraim should find plenty of cheap kills, keep him protected and he can probably level a couple times (I focus on advancements that make him hard to hit). Once the initial wave of enemies are beaten back, charge south for the easy finish.

[Thrash] Per WHU's comment, this is all about timing crossing the bridge, which triggers the main battle. Make sure Efriam can get into position and start recruiting the same turn he starts crossing the bridge as the orcs will be on him quickly once he crosses. The lack of villages/healing will make the fight tough, especially due to the enemy assassins, be sure to recruit some fodder. As an alternative to sending Delly west, I recruit a few thieves as the start to harvest villages. [3.2.8] The number of assassins seems to be lower now which makes this noticeably easier since the amount of poisoning has gone down.

Paradise Lost

[WHU] The turn limit is tight here. You are probably going to lose some units as the trolls and orcs come across the river, so initially recruiting fodder is helpful, but save some gold for additional recruits and possibly recalls after you take the central orc keep (you don't want a bunch of units getting bogged down in the river). Pay attention to the terrain at the river bank.

[WHU] Lethalia generally needs at least a little help, so at a minimum send Delly west and then south, picking up villages along the way. Once you take the central orc keep, you may want to recruit/recall more than you think you would normally need, as the villages are hard to get to if you need to heal, and any units you had healing north of the river probably won't have time to reach the other castles. If you haven't already, send a couple quick units to assist Delly, even if it's just picking up dropped items.

[Thrash] Two strategies I've used: (1) Recruit one keep and then push for western fort. Efraim gets to the fort around turn 6 (note that Delly can’t recruit). Looks like elves and woses will just about beat SW and central Orcs on their own, but then enemy from the SE will charge in and they will need help. I finished on turn 21. (2) Hold the river and then take out Northern orc. Lethalia was under a little pressure, but elves managed to take out SW orc. Send a unit that way to pick up items. Need to send Efriam straight for SE orc leader to avoid time crunch

Shatter the Defilers

[WHU] You have a bunch of elves in the forest. There's a river. Not real difficult. Send the elves east of the river south to gather villages, then west. Send a couple elves west and then south gathering villages. Recruit/recall heavily from the second keep, you're going to have a lot of income and a nice early finish bonus. Kill the orcs in the river, then finish off the leaders.

[WHU] The next scenario is not difficult, but it is useful to have a decent number of troops and you won't be able to recruit, only recall, so you may want to recruit units now that you don't actually need if your recall list is sparse.

[Thrash] Your elves will get to and hold the river in time. I don’t bother recruiting other units for the main fight, unless units can move quickly through the forrest they won't get to the battle in time to matter. Consider transferring items to the elves instead. One reason to recruit however is for the next scenario, which has no recruiting. I do recruit a couples thieves to go south and west to harvest villages. Work hard to promote Lethalia, as it will be useful for her to be a Seer by the Where the Sun does not Shine scenario. [3.2.8] With a Seer being an option at level 4 now, this is fairly easier to achieve.

The Ruins of Lost Empires

[WHU] The in-game walkthrough says something about killing the SW leader to get the other factions to fight. I've never seen the point. Recall a couple castles worth of troops. Send half north of the river to fight orcs, half across the bridge to fight trolls. The orcs will go down easily, find the gap in the mountains to the west and encounter the elves. No reason to send many troops to help the elves, there are bottlenecks that will limit the fighting. Send most of the northern forces south along the river, then southwest following the road, while the southern force heads southeast to take out the trolls then southwest to take out another orc leader.

[WHU] When you kill the northwest leader, send those troops south. When you spot the southwest leader, send some troops northwest into the mountains. Yes, you did just finish about 60 turns early, with a nice fat bonus. Also, early finishes like that will eventually add up to unlocking a secret boss fight.

[WHU] I have always found that I need a substantial amount of recalls to defend against the orcs in the north and the trolls approaching from the south. Once those two threats are neutralized, I have a lot more units on the board than I have any use for. I might be beneficial to determine if there is an approach to the early game that allows for far fewer recalls. It looks like fighting the northern orcs while a small force defends the bridge may be promising.

[Thrash] No recruiting, only recalls, so hopefully you recruited everything you want in the previous scenario. Not much to add to WHUs notes, just will emphasize the tougher fight will be to the south and continue to work on promoting Lethalia, as it will be useful for her to be a Seer in Where the Sun does not Shine.

The Return

[WHU] Pay attention to what Delly says at the beginning, in the Items menu there is an option to remove and store all items which you will want to use here. Recall a few units, high HP and impact resistance and/or ranged units with marksman . Stick together and stay on the path as much as possible. As you move forward you will trigger packs of bandits, so do not run ahead. There are not a lot of turns, but enough to kill one pack of enemies at a time as long as you keep moving slowly forward.

[Thrash] As WHU says, Delly leaves at the end of turn 1, so be sure to de-equip any items from her. Ideally you will get Lethalia to be a seer by the end of this scenario, as it will be useful in the next scenario that she can both fly and heal. You can pump a lot of experience into her, I've gotten her from just below level 4 to level 5 by targeting L3 bandits.

Where the Sun Does not Shine

[WHU] Head south, east, northeast, east, then southeast. You have plague, use the walking corpses to distract the bats and keep moving. You will come to a corridor where you will start to head north. You can leave Argan there in a one tile wide passage to block the bats. Send someone northwest to pick up an item, though your true target is the passage that starts northeast and then quickly turns southeast. When you come to a deep water river, if you can send someone south to pick up an item, while the rest head northwest and then southwest.

[WHU] This scenario has no early finish bonus, and as long as you keep moving and do not get surrounded by bats before you start heading north you should finish with around 30 turns left. You could spend a couple dozen turns farming XP from bats, but since they are often level 0, I like to finish early to help attract the previously mentioned boss instead.

[Thrash] It will be very useful if Lethalia is a seer with healing and flying. It will also be very useful if Efriam has skirmish, pentration, or whirling to help prevent getting bogged down. If you create 3-4 zombie bats and leave them in the big chasm, they can kill off new bats as they are spawned. Watch out for the invisible L3 night gaunt in the north passage past bat chasm and watch out for the Dragon when coming out of caves on east side, send out a zombie as bait. There is an artifact hidden in the south spur in water-filled caves in SW.

[Thrash] A flyer can kill the orc north of your starting position and also take a shortcut around to the north, but I see no obvious advantage to doing these things.

Escape from Oblivion

[WHU] As long as you don't get unlucky and get bogged down by bats in the beginning, this one is pretty easy. Follow the path until it starts to head northwest, then be careful. When you get to a certain point, the undead will start spawning and you need Efraim to get to the keep in time to start recalling. One thing you definitely do not want to do is have Lethalia fly over the lava, skipping the path entirely and triggering the undead long before Efraim can catch up.

[WHU] Recall some Elfish Sorceresses and Druids and Heavy Infantry, or other units that do impact and arcane damage, and some good archery units to take out walking dead. If you position your units well around y=21, with powerful units up front and healers and leaders just behind them and rotate out the injured, the wave of undead are pretty easy to deal with. Then just carefully move forward and kill the leader. There are quite a few areas that are lit which will negate the undead's advantage here, though I've never really felt the need to make use of them.

[Thrash] If you cover the spot where bats appear north central, it will block them from appearing. Or situate 3-4 zombie bats to kill arrivals. Don’t send flyers ahead into SW part as it will trigger undead spawning, which can make getting bogged down possible. Looks like there is no upkeep on units. Can only recruit simple undead. You should have lots and lots of gold at the end of this scenario.

The Poison

[WHU] This one can be tricky due to the time limit if you try to stand and fight. You need to be moving ahead. When you finally get to the dragon, he'll often fly away, so you'll probably need a few turns to chase him around. A fast, flying, Lethalia can help pin him down.

[WHU] Chocobones are good at charging drakes. They may seem a little expensive, but you should have plenty of gold at this point. I'll use (okay, waste) a couple castles worth of them, often doing almost enough damage to leave the XP for the kill for units I actually care about. I don't worry much about rotating them out to heal, they are simple fodder to pound forward.

[WHU] This would be a good time to equip Efraim with a crossbow and Lethalia with an essence that provide benefits which are not weapon-specific, like bonus movement or extra resistances.

[Thrash] Fairly straight forward with a couple of keeps of high-level units. Villages produce income, but I seem to have more gold than I know what to do with at this point.

Ascension

[WHU] Sit on a village and kill ghosts. Once you have injured one, it will join your team if it dies. Use zone of control to trap your enemies so they can't heal.

[dwarftough] I always wonder if it's possible to use ghosts in the middle. I usually just sit in the village near the starting spot or around and enslave everyone who attacks me. And those ghosts in the middle just wail at each other and destroy each other usually not affecting the battle of yours.

[Thrash] On turn 4, Hephaestus, a Spectre (L3), appears. You need to have 2-3 ghosts on your side by then to handle him.

Toxic Sun

[WHU]Efraim and Lethalia have a new unit type and abilities, make sure to check them out, in particular penetrates. Every time they get a kill they will receive a soul eater point. When they get enough points, a new AMLA will be unlocked.

[WHU] Welcome Skellie and Ethiel! Protect them and they will become valuable allies. Get moving with your heroes right away, no need to recruit. Leave a few of the level 1 units to collect villages and generally trail behind. Kill the troll leader, then send a couple low level units north and northeast to collect villages. Drive south, relying mostly on your heroes, then about halfway down the exit is to the east. There are some decent items available to the south and southwest, but you probably won't have enough turns to collect them. Watch out for shadows sneaking up behind you and killing your weaker units.

[Thrash] Per WHU, don't recruit, just push NE, get through the bottleneck in the initial tunnel quickly and kill the troll leader so you can use their keep to recruit/recall. You will probably need 2-3 keeps of units with some high-HP units. Send one unit to grab villages to the NE. You need to be fairly aggressive or you will get bottled up at the entrance to the caves to the south. Note that trolls and undead will fight each other and also note that any unit can trigger the exit, so you can leave a unit there when you come to it and keep pushing south to have the option to exit if you run low on turns. The undead leader will become a lich after death, so be prepared to kill it twice.

Twilight

[WHU] Recall units that can do fire, arcane, and maybe impact damage AND move well on frozen. Elfish Sorceresses work well. Note that all of the icy enemies have frozen aura, so you're going to be spending a lot of time slowed, anything that is already slow on frozen terrain is probably useless here. Having enough units to rotate in forces which are not slowed helps. In the beginning, be very wary of gryphons with their extreme range. Once the initial gryphons are killed, you won't need to worry about any more or the leader.

[WHU] Send a unit south to collect villages and the loot dropped from your ally's battle with the icy monsters and yeti. He normally will not require any help, and if he does you probably won't get there in time.

[WHU] Send the bulk of your force southeast. Try to make sure you are always advancing while you fight. The enemy leader has a high income, so hit him hard with Lethalia, and when he runs to the village to heal plant a defensive unit on his keep (in the snow on the bank of the pond).

[Thrash] Not much to add to WHU. You can send Lethalia south and she will get there in time to help your ally and still be able to make her way back north to help with the enemy leader. Note the Gryphon leader will run if wounded so you may need to hem it in to kill it.

Shadow Empire

[WHU] This scenario is deceptively easy, if you don't screw up one little detail. Immediately send several wraiths and shadows with Lethalia southeast then south to come up behind Zorox. The key here is that you want to kill him on the same turn you first hit him. If he lives, he'll move off his keep and you will have to fight your way through his forces. If you kill him (with Lethalia!), all of the generals will become allies and the fight becomes trivial. Obviously, you also want to do this as quickly as possible. Use Lethalia and your ghosts to clean up the units that make their way to this castle and gather up villages. Then send Lethalia around the map picking up dropped goodies.

[WHU] Meanwhile, Efraim and the rest of the army head south down the road, across the bridge, and kill the two necromancers, grabbing every village along the way. Move quickly, there's a huge early finish bonus.

[Thrash] I found it can be interesting to wait until later, say turn 12, to kill Zorox because then all the various troops get intermixed and the resulting batter is more chaotic and yields lots of opportunities to pick up kills. I found gold will quickly go negative, so recruit/recall away. I do second WHU, you need to kill him on the turn you attack him or be prepared to for a battle to get to him.

[Thrash] Getting bottled up at the bridge is a big challenge. You may want to send some faster units west and then south across the ice to break this bottleneck. Also, depending on how Argan has advanced, he may be able to cross the deep water and jump into the city at an opportune moment.

Long Way Home

[WHU] Argan warns you he's leaving, so strip his gear. Recall a handful of units, ones that can take a punch and a healer. Fight a small pack of orcs, then a few trolls, and then visit the trader and see what he has to sell by moving next to him. I like to buy lots of pearls to craft Mastadon items. You can leave a unit here, especially one that does not travel (well) in mountains, to buy more items later. At this point, Efraim and Lethalia can easily handle the rest of the fighting, and there will be plenty of villages to provide incoming, assuming you recalled lightly. If you decide to forgo the early finish bonus so you can keep buying items, be aware that while the objectives say to move Efraim to the southern border of the map, you really only need to get close, and at least one of the southern villages you might be tempted to take is close enough to end the scenario.

[Thraash] Agran leaves at start of turn 3, so de-equip all his items. Recall two keeps of strong units - OK to recall some level 2s. Note that units need to be able to cross mountains eventually. I saw my first message about Beelezbub warning at end of this scenario.

The Battle for Ogira

[WHU] Recall elves with Lethalia, other units with Efraim (though his group will probably want a druid or two). Moving Skellie to a village near your castle is usually enough to keep the purple orcs in check, while Efraim takes out the white leader. Note that he starts with a lot of gold, so killing him quickly will shorten the fight, but you will forgo a lot of XP. Once white is vanquished, head into the city. A couple strong units should be enough to take out purple. The city guard won't move, even when poisoned. The nice thing to do would probably be to send some healers into the city to aid your ally.

[WHU] Lethalia's force moves west through the woods to take out the orange and then green leaders. It's worth sending one or two units north to collect villages. Normally, Delly won't need any assistance, but you may want to send a handful of units into the city, if nothing else than to collect dropped items and pick up some XP.

[WHU] Argan will arrive soon and pretty much take out one team on his own. Nice to have a great sword, and be invincible.

[WHU] White is your main enemy here, so if you are limited on gold or recalls, emphasize troops for Efraim. By the time you finish with him, the rest of the battle is probably about over except for the sweeping up. This scenario starts like an epic battle, but it's pretty much all fighting downhill.

[Thrash] You will end up totally negative in gold, so recall/recruit until the gold is gone. Argan appears in NW at the beginning of turn 4, controlled by AI. He seems invincible. He may also kill enemy leaders, so be aware of that if you try to milk some XP towards the end of the scenario or have Beelezbub to fight. Pressure on the city hits peak around turn 10, from NW and SW. Not clear if it is sufficient to actually break through ally's defenses or not. If you got a Beelezbub message at end of the previous scenario, you will see the obelisk at 24,25 (west of city).

[WHU] Note that you have a chance to recruit Horsemen here. You may not need them for this battle, but if you want them now is a good time to grab some.

Main

On to Chapter 2