LotI Walkthrough-Part1-Chapter05

Part I, Embracing the Darkness, Chapter 5, Hybrids of Steel

Generally

[WD0] I'm unsure how you're supposed to play the start of this chapter. Efraim and Lethalia are so powerful and fast they can literally just walk up to the enemy forts, blow them up and move on while any recruits have barely left your keep. The level 1 or 2 enemy recruits offer little resistance to your leaders, but you could use them to train up some level 1 undead recruits if you want to spend the time but you might end up attacking your own undead later (in We Walk in the Shadows). The idea is probably to get some leveled undead by the time you enter The Dungeon, from which time recruiting is impractical and you probably won't have recalled any of your elites from previous chapters yet (through Soulgate).

Diplomacy

[WHU] Give the Woodland Cloak to Efraim. Drive fast. There's a lot of drops here, and Lethalia can easily take the battle alone to the northern enemies.

Escape

[WHU] Drive fast. Or kill all the mages for XP.

Pirates

[WHU] Send Lethalia north to pound her way into the castle, while Efraim goes northwest to do the same to the other castle. After a few turns, Efraim should have killed everything in defense, have Lethalia kill the northern leader for a gold bonus, or mop up some XP. About this time the third enemy should be starting to attack the forces you left behind. If you're going for XP, pick off his units a couple at a time with your spirits,

[Thrash] I spared the final leader, I believe she joins you in a few scenarios (Into The Shadows).

[WD0] I think this scenario is made to challenge your advancement of skeletal undead as there is mostly impact damage coming.

Again

[WHU] Recruit some fodder to protect Akula, charge ahead with Efraim and Lethalia and take the first castle. Make some holes, recruit some undead to distract the humans, and charge ahead with Efraim and Lethalia until you crush the other human leader. The saurians should only last a few turns, at most, so you can ignore them.

[Thrash] Don’t worry about losing undead, they will be enemies next scenario. Unequip all gear from Akula before scenario end as she turns on you in the next scenario.

[WD0] I find it handy to recruit a bunch of skeletal undead after the first castle to fill up space in the following scenario. Firebombing a whole lot of level 2 undead will give Efraim and Lethalia an xp bonus. :) Unless you are trying to train some undead.

We Walk in the Shadows

[WHU] Woodland Cloaks are handy here. Stay away from the lawful humans, or kill them if you find them alone, as you make your way to the building. Once there, you may want to disable all your weapons for retaliation using the Items menu (don't forget to turn them back on after this scenario), as you want to kill as few of the undead as possible (they will return to you soon). Be careful attacking Akula with melee, as she returns a lot of damage which isn't known by the damage calculation. Slow her and incinerate her if you can.

[Thrash] If a guard spots Efriam or Lethalia without being killed, you lose.

[WD0] Towards the end you will be surrounded by your own undead, aren't you lucky they are all level 2 and ripe for multiple meteor drops from both your leaders to feed their xp. I had played this chapter where I'd gotten an undead I wanted to keep and, as luck would have it, it was positioned right between one of my leaders and Akula so I thought I would lose it (and it's equipment) but it went and got out of the way by attacking a mage instead. :)

The Real Enemy

[WHU] Pay attention to the initial instructions. Leave the castle with both leaders, right click to cast a greater spell and cast soulgate. End your turn to allow the enemy to recruit, and then study their unit stats. Recruit/recall if you feel it necessary (probably not), and advance slowly, relying on your leaders to protect your army.

[Thrash] Can configure Autorecall and to configure recalled units, but they don’t appear next scenario. Beelzebub will be at 18,8 if present. Beelzebub's monolith will be at 23,16 if present. [3.2.8] The enemy units seem much tougher than before.

[WD0] Beelzebub doesn't count as a leader here so make sure you kill it before the humanoid leader in the castle.

[WD0] In medium difficulty the greater spells to summon undead may recruit useful level 3 or 4 units but on hardest you only get low level distractions. If you had spammed a lot of low level units in previous chapters it may be more worthwhile to summon undead instead at this stage.

Into the Shadows

[WHU] Recall some units, spread out, and cast two more soulgates. The orcs can pretty much take care of things on their own if you want to hang back a little initially. There are going to be a lot of items dropped in the mountains, you may want one or two units that travel well there to move up behind the orcs to be ready to loot. Technically, you just need to enter the cave to win, but there's really no good reason to let that enemy leader live.

[WHU] Before you finish this scenario, investigate the right click menu Configure Autorecall. Starting with the next scenario, a number of units will be recalled automatically, for free. You can choose which ones, up to a limit which can be expanded for gold.

[Thrash] This is where Skya joins you if you spared them back in Pirates. You can cast another Soulgate spell here to make more units from your past available. You basically want to keep casting it every chance you get until all your powerful units are available.

[WD0] I think Skya is there so that you know how cool a Shadow Prince / Shadow Princess is, although she has no traits at all so any of your previous units will be better. This is one of the few high-level units that uses a staff as a melee weapon so putting a Townsend Dark Discharge into their hands kills just about anything quickly (especially Beelzebub).

The Dungeon

[WHU] For the rest of this chapter, you will explore a dungeon with many rooms. You are given a map which shows most, but not all, of the rooms (see right click menu at any time). As you explore, you will discover the entrances to other rooms. Entering a new room heals and cures all of your units, and recalls the units on your autorecall list. Before changing rooms, if you have remaining greater spells, make sure to cast soulgate and possibly update your autorecall list. When you enter a new room, leave a unit or three near the entrance in case you need to make a quick retreat, but don't forget about them as enemies will be constantly spawning. In most cases, any bosses you kill will remain dead when you return, so you will likely find yourself entering a room with the intent of only taking out one objective, then retreating to heal and return, often multiple times.

[WHU] As you make your way through the dungeon, you will collect a lot of items and XP, vastly strengthening your army. You can focus on a dozen or so units and advance them until they are crazy powerful, or spread the XP around. Many rooms contain something you can destroy to weaken Akula, your ultimate objective, and/or her forces. You can spend as much time exploring as you like, returning to fight the same enemies repeatedly (as long as you don't kill their boss), racking up tons of XP and items. When you are ready, Akula awaits in the center. Supposedly, if you go straight for her, it's a nasty fight. However, if you explore and conquer each room in the dungeon first the final fight is pretty much a joke. If you need allied help, enter from the east. This is the end of Part I, none of your units, items, or upgrades will carry over to Part II.

[Thrash] You probably won't accumulate a lot of gold but as you do you can use it in one of three ways. Recalling/recruiting is probably the worst option since those units will only last for the current scenario. Adding slots to your autorecall list is probably the best option since those units will be recalled for the all the remaining scenarios. The final option is there are some traders scattered about, so if you really need an item, you can go this route. In the final fight, the language on monolith is Romainian (“Vehicolul meu pe perna de aer e plin cu tipari”) and means “My hovercraft is full of patterns.” The monolith does nothing.

[Thrash][3.2.8] The Amplifiers are much tougher and more interesting.

[WD0] In hard difficulty you can't leave a room/scenario by the way you entered until you complete the mission there nor do your units heal when they move to another scenario. I think you can still cast Soulgate every time you enter or re-enter a room so you can basically recall your entire elites from previously that way fairly easily (you probably won't have enough gold for the auto recall list though).

[WD0] If you managed to get Beelzebub show up for the last time in this part the monolith will be in the Guard's Quarters (north) at 30,20.

[WD0] The monolith on the final scenario does work but you need to try it a couple of times before you will work out what to do (if you think you'll need the help).

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