LegendofWesmere

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

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

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

The Uprooting

• Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost
• Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
• Turns: 16/14/12 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and Anduilas

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

Hostile Mountains

• Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost or defeat the troll leader
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

The most important thing to do is get the dwarves to fight the trolls. Send a disposable unit or two to the middle island. Put a unit in the water where a troll will go to the east bank in order to attack. The unit won't live but you'll get a bunch of allies.

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

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

Ka'lian Under Attack

• Objectives: Survive the initial attack with Galtrid, then defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Galtrid dies or turns run out
• Turns: 5/7/9 initially, then 35/30/25 extra (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later.

For the first seven turns you are controlling the defenders of the Ka'lian. See all those Orcish Assassins in the water? You probably don't want to have all your units poisoned to death. Recruit Shamans to sit behind the defenders. They won't be able to cure, but they will prevent the loss of 8 HP per turn. If an Elvish Archer is poisoned, go ahead and use its ranged attack on an Assassin, otherwise try to manage your poisoned units somewhat prudently. Don't just hit Ctrl-R to recruit; you have a massive keep so put your new units in the right place. Don't let the orcs in good defense terrain and you should be fine. When turn 7 is done Kalenz arrives and you lose control of these defenders. If you can, move some units as far west as you can (if the attack has wound down). This seems to help the AI attack the westernmost orc leader, which is useful.

When you take over with Kalenz make your stand in the woods just to the southwest of your keep and to the immediate north of the Ka'lian. Use Elvish Shamans to slow powerful units, and recruit lots of archers. Send some riders to grab villages— it should be relatively low-risk and the gold will be useful for the next scenario (note that you can't cross the river on the far eastern edge of the map). If you manage your troops correctly, you can level a number of them which is a very good idea to get through the next few scenarios.

The Elvish Treasury

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Cleodil dies or turns run out
• Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

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

The Saurian Treasury

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Cleodil dies or turns run out
• Turns: 24/20/18 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Try and keep on good terrain (or at least keep the saurians out of good terrain) and form a defensive line (against Skirmishers) each turn. Kill the southern leader first. See that temple? That's the treasury. DO NOT go in there. When you go in saurians pop out. Wait until you are ready to kill them to trigger this trap.

When you've dealt with the southern leader and the treasury you can either take an Elvish Scout to the treasury to pick up the gold and return it to the sign post or just go kill the northern leader. Killing the leader is preferable. You'll get XP and any loss in gold from early finish is dwarfed by the 1800 gold you get for beating the level.

Acquaintance in Need

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

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

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

The dwarves will get a lot of kills/occupy the enemy quite a bit. Their high mountain defense and mobility ensure this. You may need to resign yourself to softening the orcs up and letting the dwarves get the kills.

Elves' Last Stand

• Objectives: Defeat all of the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Galtrid dies or turns run out
• Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

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

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

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

Council of Hard Choices

Story only.

Bounty Hunters

• Objectives: Move Kalenz across the river
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

The only thing you gain from defeating the saurians is experience. Since you just left a lot of your troops at the Ka'lian, experience may be worth your effort. Nonetheless, if you are having trouble beating this level just run north as fast as you can. You should be able to cross the river with little trouble. You probably don't even need to recruit.

As for experience, the enemy recruits some relatively low HP level 2s and 3s. You can level units quickly after killing a couple of Saurian Oracles. Of course those Oracles have strong magical attacks (especially at night) negating your high defense. Luckily for you the battles start during the day. Recruit just one keepful of troops. Send a dwarf-heavy squad to the left (closer mountains) and an elf-heavy one to the right (more forest). If you recruit more than one keepful Kalenz will have a much tougher time crossing the river.

Focus on killing the Oracles and Augurs first. They are easy to kill and do a lot of damage. Instead of throwing 3 or 4 units at a level 3 Flanker, just slow it and rack up kills. Try and kill as many units as you can before nightfall, when the attacks become much more ferocious.

You can distract the serpent by having an Elvish Scout make his way to the western edge of the river bank. When the serpent shows up the rider can distract it with his bow.

Cliffs of Thoria

• Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost and defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

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

Battle of the Book

• Objectives: Defeat Aquagar the drake wizard
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 30/34/38 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

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

Revelations

Story only.

News from the Front

Story only.

Human Alliance

• Objectives: Survive until the end of turns
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf or Aldar (the human leader) dies or turns run out
• Turns: 14/16/18 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

The enemy is in three places: the northwest, the northeast (trolls) and the southwest. Only the northeast trolls won't get reinforcements. So the only leaders to focus on eliminating are the trolls. Your recruits/recalls need to do three things: contain the northwest orcs (this is not that hard due to favorable terrain), aid your human allies to the south and eliminate the trolls.

The trolls should be pretty easy to kill. Their leader doesn't have much money so their aren't a lot of trolls. Slow with some shaman, use the forest to your benefit and you should defeat them soon. Send the units to reinforce your other two fronts.

Your allies can hold their own against the first wave of southern attackers but after that they'll be toast. A much better outcome is to team up with them and crush the first wave. When the reinforcements come you should be in a good position to defeat them (especially with your victorious anti-troll army coming to help).

The northwest orcs are numerous but should be kept in check by strong units in the bottlenecks. You'll need some tanks (Champions/Marshals or Steelclads) and healers. When the orc reinforcements arrive you may get swarmed. By this time you should have some help coming from your anti-troll army. Also, three elves will arrive along the western edge of the map. Have them come and help out.

You may want to recruit a scout or two at the beginning. Along with the horseman you get they can capture a village almost every turn. Don't bother leaving villages for your ally. The money is better in your hands.

The Treaty

Story only.

The Chief Must Die

• Objectives: Kill the orc chief then return to the signpost
• Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
• Turns: 32/32/32 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz and Landar

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign (in the middle) and then return the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes (invisible, 80% dodge) for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Landar to level 3. When Kalenz takes the potion he changes into an Elvish Lord. You should easily be able to get him to level up during this scenario.

You should have plenty of turns. The only units that will attack you are the Wolf Rider line. They don't pose much threat thanks to Landar's bow and your 80% dodge. Go to the orc leader, kill him and return to the signpost. There is no point in grabbing villages as you get no income from them. There is also no point in finishing early so go ahead and level Kalenz.

Breaking the Siege

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Slyphs and Shydes are best, of course.

It is essential that you reach your ally quickly. Otherwise he might be dead before you even see him. Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally (the one in the middle of the forest). You will want to finish this level quickly to have lots of gold for the next scenario (on medium you'll probably want at least 500 gold). Send some fast units north to keep your ally alive and send the rest straight west. The western units can sweep up after taking out the southern orc boss. A bunch of Direwolf Riders come as reinforcements when you get to close to the southern orc, so be careful. Alternatively just send everyone north and fan out from there.

With good units this level shouldn't be tough to beat. Just make sure you beat it in good standing for the next scenario.

Hour of Glory

Story only.

Costly Revenge

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

You have to burn all the villages (don't capture them with Kalenz) and the shamen have abandoned you so you have no healing. The best place to make a stand is probably near the patch of forest in the middle. You have to put units in the swamp to keep the saurians out of there. The only poor-defense terrain for the saurians is the ice, so keep them on it. The Oracles/Soothsayers will use their ranged attack on your melee units and the Skirmishers/Flankers will use their melee attack on your archers. You will take heavy losses but this is actually good (more on that in a second).

I like to send Kalenz and a couple of fast units (Scouts/Riders) along the northern forest and then have them cut across the top of the map. This accomplishes three things: one, you torch some out of the way villages; two, you can distract the northern saurians long enough to keep your main force (in the middle of the map) in control; three, you can move them over to kill the northern leader at the end.

There is a weird twist to this level. After this the elvish civil war breaks out. All your units except loyal ones defect and serve Kalenz. So, see that Elvish Champion racking up the kills? Next time he's in battle he will be killing your units. After the tide of the battle has turned try and get the non-loyal high level units killed (attack those last two Oracles with ranged attack, etc).

If you have enough gold your main worries will be getting to the villages in time (scouts come in handy), getting to the northern leader in time and leaving as few good units for the civil war as possible.

Council Ruling

Story only.

Elvish Assassins

This is another running game, on the same map as the first scenario; since Landar has betrayed Kalenz, most elves' hands have turned against our hero. The Landar and Olurf units gone, and so is most of your recall list. Recruit enough units to screen Kalenz and Cleodil and run for the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map.Because most of the units ranged against you will be second level or higher, this will take a bit of ingenuity unless you can recruit a lot of units for guard duty. The best choice is probably to recruit Elvish Scouts. You are using their ZoC to keep the attackers away from Kalenz. Don't try and be fancy.

Northern Battle

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. If you have been building a formidable "air force" (shaman line) you can beat this level very easily.

• The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any Slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. If you can't kill him or ZoC him in turn 2, slow him. That will prevent him from getting to back to the keep to recruit. The battle is over as soon as one of your units moves next to Landar, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts (or quick units) and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

If you don't have enough units from the shaman line for the quick kill, try this:

• Because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Remember you don't have to kill all the enemies. Just kill the southeast leader and then sneak a fast unit in next to Landar.

End of War

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

Epilogue

Story only.