A Song of Fire Walkthrough

This is a walkthrough for A Song of Fire (ASoF), an add-on campaign for Wesnoth 1.12 by revansurik with 36 scenarios (5 dialogue only), featuring the Elementals, Aragwaithi and Windsong from the War of Legends era. This campaign is the first part of the Dragon Trilogy; the next two campaigns are War of the Jewel and Aria of the Dragonslayer. The forum thread for the campaign can be found here.

This walkthrough was written by Inky based on ASoF version 0.5.8 on Hard. Feel free to make corrections or add your own advice.

Known Bugs

There are a couple bugs in ASoF version 0.5.8 (the latest version as of September 2016), but they're pretty easy to fix/avoid:

• On Hard difficulty only, there are a couple typos with the gold. To fix these, open the scenario .cfg files (located in the data/add-ons/A_Song_of_Fire/scenarios folder - if you don't know where your add-ons folder is, open Wesnoth, go to Preferences -> General and click on the Paths button) in a text editor such as Notepad, but preferably something which displays line numbers, such as Notepad++.
  • Scenario 1: Line 77 of 01_Rain_of_Fire.cfg should be {GOLD 180 160 140} instead of {GOLD 180 160 14}.
  • Scenaro 13: Line 365 of 13_Twilight_Of_The_Kingdoms.cfg should be {GOLD 550 500 450} instead of {GOLD 550 500 4500}.
• In Scenario 11 (Legend of the Water Dragon), you'll be unable to finish the scenario if you move Myra back to her keep before visiting the fountain. More details and a fix here: https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38210&start=240#p580591.

Unit Overview

This is a chart to keep track of the various recalls which change many times throughout the campaign. The campaign is divided into three parts, but recalls carry over between parts. In certain scenarios some of the other races will have their own separate side, but will remain under the player's control.

Race	Playable scenarios The darker shades indicate that while recalls of that race are available, new recruits are not.
	1	2	3	4	5	7	9	10	11	12	13	14	15*	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	31	32	33	35
Elementals
Dwarves
Aragwaithi
Windsong
Hannuks
Humans

*Scenario 15 is unique in that you may not recruit or recall, but start the scenario with every single unit on your recall list.

In the first half of the campaign (up to Scenario 19) you will fight drakes almost exclusively. In the later half of the campaign you will mostly be fighting minotaurs, vampires, and celestials.

Elementals

• Wisps: These are extremely important since they level into your only healers, the Ethereal Orb. Try to start leveling them in the first two scenarios; you'll want several by Scenario 4. The Ethereal Orb's maximum level is 1, but their AMLA (After maximum level advancement) gives +5 HP and +1 damage, so it's worth it to keep giving them XP. Combined with leadership, they can even be extremely potent damage dealers, especially against units weak to arcane such as drakes.
• Brazier Imps: Their fire damage is ineffective against the drakes in the beginning, but they become very useful later against other units such as undead and trolls. It's recommended to level them into Furnace Beasts, which are much more durable than Fire Wisps and can also reach level 4 (Lava Behemoth).
• Kobolds: These (along with Lava Behemoths) are your main tanking units, with extremely high resistances, especially to pierce. However they are very slow since they never get above 4 movement, so their usefulness depends on the map. They are essential in Scenario 3 against saurians, and very useful in defense scenarios (there are plenty in this campaign) such as Scenario 4.
• Razorbirds: These are only good for scouting or village grabbing, but wisps can usually do the job just as well, and without the upkeep costs.
• Sylphs: With their cold marksman damage they are your main damage dealers against drakes, and they also have excellent mobility since they can fly. However they are quite fragile, so they need to be used carefully.
• Tidals: These are water based elementals and have poor movement and defense on land, so they are not very useful due to the general lack of water terrain. (There is one water based scenario, Scenario 20, but it can be completed just as well with flying units like ethereal orbs and leveled sylphs.) While the Ice Crab advancement can move well on land, it is still not really worth using due to its extreme weakness to fire damage, which is very common in this campaign.
• Vine Beasts: These are not useful due to a general lack of forest terrain, lack of durability (they only reach level 2) and a weakness to drakes' fire damage.

Dwarves

Dwarvish units, especially Lords and Dragonguards, are extremely useful for their durability and good movement through rough terrain. In Scenarios 13 and 14 you temporarily gain the ability to recruit high level dwarves, so after Scenario 14 you should have plenty of level 3 dwarves on your recall list. Dwarvish Thunderguards/Dragonguards (which you can temporarily recruit in scenarios 13/14) are also the only dwarvish units which will be available in Scenario 19, an extremely difficult defense scenario against drakes.

Aragwaithi

Aragwaithi Guardians (level 3 spearmen) are probably the most useful unit type, being quite durable and effective against all the drakes you'll be facing in the first half of the campaign. Spearmen can also advance to Ancient Banners which have level 4 leadership. You already get an Aragwaithi Captain hero, Ravyan (and after Scenario 21 Myra gets access to level 5 leadership), but it can be worthwhile to have a second level 4 leader in large battles such as Scenario 19.

Windsong

Leveled scribes (Arbiters/Librarians) with their powerful arcane slowing attack will absolutely destroy drakes. It can be helpful to recruit some savants in Scenario 14 when you can temporarily recruit level 2 Windsong, and level them to arbiters by Scenario 19 (Fires of Hope). However, arbiters/librarians become pretty useless in the last part of the campaign against celestials, which are almost immune to arcane damage.

Other useful units include leveled gatekeepers (for defense) and envoys (cold damage against drakes, and teleport).

Hannuks

• Charioteers: These mostly end up being useless due to their bad movetype (they're extremely slowed down by rough terrain, and only have 5 base movement at level 3), and weakness to fire.
• Horse archers: They have a lawful ranged based advancement (Mangudai -> Tarkan) and a chaotic melee advancement (Raider -> Conqueror), both of which can be useful for their mobility, especially in sand covered scenarios such as Scenario 25 and the last scenario, Scenario 35. The lawful Tarkan is probably the more useful of the two advancements, since the last scenario features a time of day schedule which heavily favors lawful units.
• Wood hunters: These are extremely useful for scenarios with forests, such as Scenario 23 and Scenario 24. They're great damage dealers and despite their weakness to physical attacks, they are quite durable due to their high evasion and ability to slow.

Humans

In Scenario 27 only, you can recruit spearmen, bowmen and infantrymen. By this time you will already have plenty of more powerful veterans though, so it may not be worth bothering with them. Some royal guards/halberdiers can be useful for tanking and lawful damage though. Avoid the chevalier/crusader advancement of the infantryman because their arcane damage is useless against celestials.

Part I: The Last War

S1 Rain of Fire

• Objectives: Defeat the drake leader.

Drakes are extremely weak to cold damage, so your main recruits here should be sylphs. The wisp's arcane damage is also good against drakes. Send a wisp up the right side to grab your ally's villages, since you can put the gold to better use.

Try to get your wisps some XP, since you'll want a +8 healer soon. Try to feed some kills to Veela also, since she'll need the HP boost from leveling up.

S2 A Common Cause

• Objectives: Defeat the drake leader.

The dwarves and trolls start out hostile, but on Turn 2 will both ally with you against the drakes. As usual, sylphs are your most effective unit against drakes. Send a fast unit like a wisp or razorbird to steal the eastern ally's villages. Myra can also borrow the dwarf leader's keep to recruit reinforcements.

During the day when the drakes are strongest, you can back off and let your allies take most of the hits. Your allies will do most of the work in this scenario; just try to sneak in and finish off wounded drakes.

S3 Monstrous Help

• Objectives: Defeat the two enemy leaders in the north.
• Notes:
  • On turn 12 a second saurian leader will show up.
  • On turn 14, Myra will summon a large group of loyal giant spiders in the center of the map. They will not come with you later, so they are expendable.

This is a very difficult scenario; hopefully you have 400+ starting gold, and you'll probably have to spend most of it. However, try to avoid going negative on income, since next scenario is even harder and you will need decent carryover. You'll mainly be facing saurian skirmishers and saurian oracles, which have very high mobility and defense in caves.

The hard counter for saurians is kobolds, which have 60% pierce resistance to the skirmishers and 20% cold resistance to the oracles. In addition, the kobolds heal 5 HP per turn on cave terrain. Your army should consist of mainly kobolds, maybe with some dwarvish fighters mixed in. Leveled sylphs with their cold marksman damage will be useful for killing off those dodgy skirmishers, but they are fragile and have terrible defense on cave terrain so they'll need to be protected. Brazier imps are also very mobile in caves and do good damage against saurians, but they are very weak to cold damage so they need to be used with care.

Try to fight the saurians in the chokepoints, so that the skirmishers can't gang up on you. Also, be wary of skirmishers popping out of the shroud since they're very fast and you often won't be able to see them- if you have an important wounded unit try to cover it from all sides. Once Myra's spiders arrive on turn 14, you can use them aggressively since they only join for this scenario.

You will need some tanks (leveled kobolds, or leveled dwarvish fighters) and healers (ethereal orbs) for next scenario.

S4 Lightning Strike

• Objectives: Survive until the end of turns.
• Notes:
  • On turn 10, the two drake enemy leaders get some major reinforcements (600 gold each).
  • On turn 11, Dvalin will show up in the south with some loyal dwarvish veterans.

This is an extremely difficult scenario, one of the most difficult in the entire campaign. Hopefully you have 400+ starting gold; if not you may need to replay the previous scenario for more gold. Don't worry about gold carryover; you probably can't avoid going very negative and next scenario is easy even with minimum gold. The southwest saurian leader will flee once he is attacked, so if you can sneak a unit next to him you can get rid of him pretty early on.

On turn 1, you can either recall some units to deal with the saurians and then run Myra north, or run Myra straight north to the city without recalling anything. Either way Myra should head straight for the city, since the defenses there won't last long. Once she's there, recall all your veterans (leveled kobolds or leveled dwarvish fighters are essential) and recruit kobold spam with any extra gold. Although sylphs are usually good against drakes, it may not be a good idea to recruit them here since they are expensive and fragile, and your main focus should be on surviving instead of making kills, since there's no way you will come close to getting rid of all the drakes. Zephyrs and djinns can be very useful though, since they are much more likely to survive being attacked by the drakes.

Form lines on good terrain backed by healers, and try to take advantage of the patches of impassible mountain terrain. Put the kobolds in the mountains, and block the northern bridge bottleneck by placing durable units (preferably dwarvish steelclads/lords, because kobolds only have 40% defense in castle tiles) in the castle hexes on either side. Focus only on defense; often it's better to just have a unit do nothing rather than attack and lose HP in the process, especially during the day. It's inevitable that you'll lose a lot of units, even veterans, but don't worry too much because the next few scenarios are quite easy and offer plenty of XP to level new veterans. Just try to keep the loyal dwarves alive, since they'll save you a lot of money in later scenarios.

What makes this scenario much more difficult than it should be is that the allied leader will sometimes charge into danger to attack if a drake is in her range. You can try to prevent this by mousing over her to view her movement range, and then covering the hexes she is likely to attack from with your own units. Try to also leave her some villages so she can heal from them. Hopefully it won't be a big problem, if you are doing a good job of keeping the drakes out of the fortress.

S5 Forest Ablaze

• Objectives: Defeat the drake leader.

This is a pretty easy breather scenario compared to the last two. Units which can move quickly through forest, such as sylphs, dwarves and ethereal orbs will be most helpful here. The main challenge is surviving the initial daytime assault of the drakes. Form a line in the forest along the river's edge with durable units like dwarves in front, and it also helps to have a few expendable recruits for distraction.

S6 Council with the King

Story.

S7 Rise of the Dragons

• Objectives: Kill Shek'har.
• Note: You have control over the allied Aragwaithi side. They do not come with you so they are expendable.

This is a relatively easy scenario, since you can use the allied Aragwaithi units as cannon fodder (just don't get Abhai or Aracyn killed since their death causes a defeat). You'll be facing mostly drakes and a few undead, so spam spearmen with the Aragwaithi and use Abhai's level 4 leadership on them to do tremendous damage to the drakes.

There aren't many villages so don't overrecruit with Myra, and give all the villages to Myra's side. As usual sylphs and their advancements are the best units for damaging drakes. You also temporarily control Maat, an extremely overpowered unit with level 5 leadership, great resistances and very powerful attacks, so use her to lead your units and slow powerful enemies.

Once the main army is gone, you can march into the fortress and kill Shek'har. The other two leaders will just flee when attacked, though Assix will leave behind some high level undead when fleeing. After this scenario Dvalin will leave for a few scenarios and you won't be able to recruit new dwarves during that time (though you can still recall your veterans), so you may wish to recruit some extras now.

S8 The Kalian of Garet-Desh

Story.

S9 Bitter Return

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader.

This is an easy experience gathering scenario, as you will face only level 1 undead. You may now recruit Aragwaithi, but their pierce damage is pretty useless against the undead and trolls in the next few scenarios, and you will have a much better opportunity to level fresh Aragwaithi recruits in Scenario 12.

On turn 1 you can just recruit a wisp or two to village grab, and then move Myra to the center keeps to recall from there. Watch out for the skeleton riders and their charge attack; they are the biggest threats so try to take them out first. Focus on getting some experience for your two new hero units, who do arcane damage for this scenario only. This scenario is also a perfect opportunity to level some brazier imps.

S10 The Wilderness

• Objectives: Kill the enemy leader, then move Myra to the cave entrance in the southwest mountains.

This is another relatively easy experience gathering scenario. Groups of wild animals (wolves, ogres, scorpions and mudcrawlers) will periodically spawn all over the map, and they will all fight each other so will mostly leave you alone. Due to the spawns you will probably lose most of your villages, so don't recruit a ton of units or you'll end up very negative on income. It helps to get a Razorbird for scout out the map.

Head southeast across the river, where you'll encounter a horde of level 1 undead - this is another great opportunity to level fire elementals, which are also the best units to use against the scorpions and mudcrawlers. The enemy leader is far in the southeast; once you defeat him you can move Myra to the exit in the southwest (marked by a red icon), or if your income is not too bad you could stick around for a while and kill some wildlife for the experience.

S11 Legend of the Water Dragon

• Objectives: Find the Fountain of Life (with any unit), then move Myra back to the starting keep. (Note: Do not move Myra back onto the keep before discovering the fountain, or you won't be able to end the scenario due to a bug.)

You'll be fighting trolls and later undead. Leveled fire elementals, dwarves and kobolds will be the most useful units here with their good damage types, high HP and cave mobility.

There are 3 paths from the starting keep:

West: This path will split into an upper and lower path. The upper path curves to the west and eventually leads to a fight with the green trolls (it's a long hike, so send your faster units this way). The lower path is just a dead end with some villages (just grab them with a wisp).

Southeast: This is where the main battle takes place, so send most units this way. You'll be facing green trolls coming from the left and blue trolls from the right.

East: There is practically nothing here, just a village and river in the east leading south where there are some water villages and blue trolls. Just send a wisp to explore.

Make sure you are ready before moving to the fountain (the light blue lake in the very southern edge of the map), because several things will happen:

• High level undead will appear all over the cave. Make sure none of your units are wandering off on their own.
• A powerful saurian leader and some guards will appear in the southwest cave (the one with 5 villages). Make sure your units are not in this area or they'll probably get trapped.
• The blue trolls in the southeast get a bunch of gold; you may want to kill the leader beforehand.
• Your hero units will automatically move to the fountain, and several saurian flankers will appear in the tunnel. Some kobolds will also appear to help you. Slow the flankers with Veela and Alenya, and use Ravyan's leadership on the kobolds and have them pound the flankers.

The saurians and green trolls in the southwest will mostly distract one another, so focus on clearing away the blue trolls and undead so that Myra has a clear path back to the keep.

S12 Burning Revenge

• Objectives: Kill Lados with Myra.

A new Aragwaithi captain, Prince Varthan, will join you, but he'll only be with you up to Scenario 15 so whether you want to take the trouble to level him is up to you.

Spam Aragwaithi spearmen and archers (mostly spearmen, since they're much more durable) and fill up the outer walls. When the drakes attack from 20% defense water, use the spearmen/archers backed by leadership to demolish them. Move Myra, Varthan and Ravyan behind your lines to give leadership to as many units as possible. There will be very high casualties but you should also be able to level up several spearmen in the process. Remember to have Myra deal the killing blow to Lados, or he'll just heal to full.

S13 Twilight of the Kingdoms

• Objectives: Resist until the end of turns.
• Notes:
  • Turn 6: Allied elves arrive in the keep southeast of King Dashien.
  • Turn 9: Allied trolls arrive in the keep northeast of King Dashien.
  • Turn 12: Both drake leaders get some reinforcements, and the elven allies also get some reinforcements.
  • Turn 15: Dvalin returns with 400 gold, and you can now recruit level 2 dwarves.
  • Turn 16: Another enemy leader arrives in the southeast.

The easiest way to play this scenario is to just stay inside the city and defend it (if you get too close to the enemy leaders, they will get a large amount of reinforcements). The first thing to do is start stealing all of your ally's villages. Send wisps in all directions to village grab. Try not to recall above your village limit in order to maximize your income.

The allied Aragwaithi will mostly keep the first wave of drakes occupied during the second day; retreat your troops to the inner walls and engage them during the night. By now you should have a mix of damage dealers (leveled spearmen and sylphs) and tanks (dwarvish lords, stone titans) so with the help of the allied elves and trolls acting as cannon fodder the first wave of drakes shouldn't be too difficult.

The second wave of drakes is more problematic because they arrive during daytime and the allied units will be dead by then, but you should have plenty of cash from high income and Dvalin's 400 gold. One approach is to spam dwarvish steelclads and line them up along the walls to delay the drakes - they can take plenty of damage and distract large amounts of drakes even during the day, and the surviving ones can be recalled for only 20 gold next scenario.

S14 The Sky Dragon Descends

• Survive for until turn 22 (18 turns initially), then use Maat to defeat Svarballi.
• Notes:
  • On turn 20 Svarballi will arrive in the southwest.
  • On turn 22 Maat gets a huge powerup, and all of your units will leave except for the shield guards (including Dashien) and Aracyn.

Note that this scenario features an unusual time of day schedule: lawful units get a slight damage penalty during stormy day, a slight bonus during stormy dawn and night, and a huge penalty during stormy night (the reverse is true for chaotic units). So you'll want to be more passive during dawn and dusk, and very aggressive during the night.

This is quite a difficult scenario so some losses of veterans is to be expected. However you should also be able to level up plenty of new veterans in this scenario.

Recruits:

• You also have control of the allied Aragwaithi and dwarf sides, and any veterans from these sides (besides shield guards) will be added to your recall list so they are worth preserving. This is also the only time when you'll be able to directly recruit the higher level units, so it's a good opportunity for getting some already leveled Windsong/Aragwaithi/Dwarves onto your recall list.

• For Myra's side, get plenty of tanking units (Stone Titans, Lava Behemoths) and plenty of Ethereal Orbs for healing (note that your orbs can heal the allied units too). It's also a good opportunity to recruit and level some Windsong Savants, which are extremely effective against drakes. Windsong Envoys with their cold damage are also good, and can reinforce anywhere with their teleport ability. Another thing to note is that after this scenario you won't be able to recruit new elementals for a while (until Scenario 22) so you mainly want to make sure you have enough healers (4-5 ethereal orbs is a good number).

• For the allied sides, Aragwaithi Pikemen and Dwarvish Steelclads / Thunderguards are the most useful recruits (it's more cost effective to recruit the level 2s instead of level 3s, and you should be able to level plenty of them in this scenario). Dvalin may also recall your dwarvish veterans.

The drakes won't arrive for a few turns so you could wait for a bit before recruiting to let your income work. It's better to defend along the moat than the outer wall, because it's less area to defend and the drakes in the water have 20% defense rather than 40% in the chasm. The biggest assault will come from the western side. Try to have the shield guards take most of the hits, since they won't come with you anyway. The biggest threat will come from the Fire Dragons; use Maat to heavily damage and slow them. Form a solid line on the walls and constantly rotate and heal, and the drake assault will eventually die out. It's best to just stay in the city and defend there, because getting close to the enemy leaders will cause them to get a large amount of gold.

On Turn 22, all your units except Maat and the shield guards will leave and you'll have to use Maat to defeat Svarballi. Try to use the shield guards to distract the drakes while Maat hits Svarballi with her arcane attack. Maat can also recruit Sky Crystals now, if you still have any gold left.

S15 Farewell

• Move Jevyan to the land between the two rivers to the east (the area around 45, 19).

Every single veteran on your recall list will be recalled at the beginning. Every few turns, groups of high level drakes and saurians will spawn in the surrounding forest. The most difficult part of this scenario is the beginning, when they'll all come for you at once. Don't advance too far in the beginning, and just stay back and let them come to you. By far the most useful units here are dwarvish lords and leveled sylphs for their mobility in forests.

Once you've dealt with the initial wave, send small groups in each direction backed by ethereal orbs to hold off the new spawns while some units escort Jevyan to the east - there aren't any enemy spawns in the eastern part of the map so it should be a pretty safe trip.

S15b Farewell, Part 2

• Objectives: Move Myra to the city's center (marked by a red icon).

This is mostly a cutscene scenario. You'll get surrounded by a bunch of fire elementals in the beginning, but they won't attack so they're not a threat. Your leaders should be able to kill about one fire elemental each per turn, so they'll soon run out.

Part II: Towards the Rising Sun

S16 Blood of the Steppes

• Objectives: Defeat the two eastern enemy leaders, Bleda and Denziq.

In this scenario enemy leaders will appear when you get close to their keep, so do not send units scouting too far ahead on their own!

The first enemy leader is directly to your southeast; you'll face Hannuk horse archers and charioteers, which are lawful. The main threat is the charioteers' dangerous charging melee attack, but if you put powerful melee units in front the charioteers will likely decide to use their weaker ranged attack instead. Charioteers are resistant to physical damage but weak to fire, so furnace beasts and their advancements are useful against them. Since the enemies are lawful, just retreat back near the starting keep during the day so that most of the fighting will take place at night.

After defeating the first leader and heading east, the path will split into a northern and southern area divided by the river. In the southern area, getting close to the keep in the swamp will trigger some ogres to appear. There's no reward for defeating the ogres so it may be best just to head north and ignore them. The northern area leads to another Hannuk leader, who should be relatively easy to defeat if you made sure to have most of your units in the area before triggering him, since he has a small keep and can only recruit a few units at a time. Defeating him is worthwhile because it gives you 250 gold, which will help with defeating the last two leaders.

Scouting the eastern part of the map will trigger the appearance of a friendly Hannuk leader, Tarkyn, and two hostile leaders to the north and south of him. Make sure you are ready before doing this, because Tarkyn's death causes a defeat and the two enemy sides will overwhelm him quickly if you aren't nearby to reinforce. Myra can use the keeps in the outer edges of Tarkyn's fortress to recruit reinforcements if needed.

S17 Ashes of the War

• Objectives: Destroy Assix with Myra's arcane attack.

This is a very easy XP gathering scenario, good for leveling Windsong savants/arbiters. Get some leveled dwarves and/or leveled furnace beasts and move everyone into the central mountains. The undead army will reach you at around dawn, and you can then demolish most of them during the day. Use Myra's soul explosion attack to finish off Assix, otherwise he'll just heal back to full.

S18 Besieged

• Objectives: Defeat the two eastern enemy leaders.

This scenario is quite difficult. It's a race against time to kill the two eastern leaders before the hordes of drakes and charioteers from the west catch up to you. On turn 1, recruit some durable sacrificial units (such as Windsong gatekeepers) to block the central bridge for a couple turns, and immediately move Myra northeast toward the keep on the eastern wall. On turn 2 Myra should move to the northeastern keep and fill the eastern wall with cannon fodder mixed with veterans. Fire elementals will be especially useful for dealing with the charioteers from the southeast enemy leader.

The northeastern leader should come out to attack your units on the wall, so on turn 3 you should be able to kill him and most of his units. After that most of your units should rush south toward the other leader, because the western and central armies will be catching up since your units blocking the bridge are probably dead. Hold off the western forces with either some durable units (dwarvish lords/stone titans) or cannon fodder (Hannuk wood hunters have 70% defense in castles/villages, so with luck they can soak up some charioteer attacks), while some powerful veterans like dwarvish lords and lava behemoths force their way south to the last leader.

S19 Fires of Hope

• Objectives: Resist until the end of turns.
• Notes:
  • On turn 5 (on normal or hard difficulty only), a merman leader with 300 gold will show up in the northeast, and will offer to help you if you pay him 100 gold.
  • All drake leaders will receive reinforcements on turns 9 and 12.

This is possibly the most difficult scenario in the entire campaign. But take heart, for this is the last time in the campaign you will see these pesky overgrown lizards! Don't worry about gold carryover - next scenario is extremely easy with minimum gold. Since carryover is not an issue, you might as well go very negative and recall your best veterans. It's recommended to take the mermen leader up on his offer since he will help take the pressure off the later waves of drakes (he will still offer to help if you don't have 100 gold on turn 5; you'll just go more deeply negative on gold).

Recruits: You will not have access to your dwarvish fighters, scouts and advancements for the entire scenario. You also cannot recruit or recall Hannuk charioteers for the first 3 turns, but due to their fire weakness they are not worth using here anyway.

These units are especially useful:

• Dwarvish Thunderguards / Dragonguards - good resistances, and can often kill drakes without taking any retaliation. They do very well in the hills to the north.
• Windsong Arbiters / Librarians - they are able to slow drakes while doing tremendous damage at the same time.
• Aragwaithi Pikemen / Guardians - high damage, and they also act as meatshields. A second ancient banner if you have one will also be helpful for leadership.
• Zephyrs / Djinns - huge damage and mobility; they are very fragile though so you should cover them with durable units like Guardians, or use them mainly at night.
• Ethereal orbs - besides healing, they can also do major damage if you use leadership on them.

It can also help to get some cannon fodder like Aragwaithi spearmen or Hannuk wood hunters to distract the drakes during their initial daytime assault.

The first wave of drakes is the most brutal, since they arrive during the day. Form your lines on good terrain such as the patch of forest to the west and the hills to the north, and slow the drakes with arbiters / wood hunters. Often it's better to leave a slowed drake alone, especially during the day, because by killing it you will only be making room for a healthy unslowed drake to take its place. You'll likely take some heavy losses during the first daytime attack (hopefully most of the losses will be your cannon fodder recruits), but once night comes you should be able to strike back and wipe out most of the initial wave of drakes.

Once you survive the first wave, the scenario becomes easier - the reinforcements which come later will be much weaker than the initial wave, and a large portion of them will have gone east to fight the mermen.

S20 Ring of Fire

• Objectives: Defeat all three naga leaders.

(Note: If the weather effects in this scenario are causing lag, unchecking "animate map" in preferences can help.)

This is a very easy scenario. You'll have to cross some mountains to the south, and the main battle takes place in the water, so don't bother with land units at all. In the beginning, just recruit some ethereal orbs and zephyrs/djinns, and don't forget to send a flying unit to grab the water villages north of starting keep.

Heading south past some simian enemies, you'll come to a large lake with some naga enemies and friendly mermen. There are three naga leaders: one in the northeast of the lake, on in the southeast, and one way in the south. There are some small keeps in the water where Myra can recall reinforcements such as water elementals or other flying units such as Windsong couriers. The ally is actually quite powerful and should do a good job weakening the enemies for you to finish off. It's possible to finish very early for a huge gold bonus.

S21 The Will of the Naiad

• Objectives: Move Myra to the whirlpool in the center south, then pick up the trident.

This is another easy scenario. You can't recruit/recall, but most villages will spawn friendly water elementals when you occupy them (even the already flagged village in the north where you start!) The elementals don't come with you, so there's no need to manage experience or try to preserve them. The main difficulty is getting through the tight bottlenecks - try to lure the enemies to places where you can attack them from multiple hexes.

Myra should constantly be moving toward the center south. Once she reaches the whirlpool (at 15, 35) she'll teleport to an area with a trident. Simply move to the trident to end the scenario. You will now have one of the most overpowered units in Wesnoth!

S22 Where the Sun is Born

• Objectives: Defeat Bagrar, the orcish leader in the south.

This is a relatively easy scenario. You'll probably have extremely high starting gold, but 2-3 keeps of recruits/recalls should be enough. It's a good opportunity to level some Hannuk horse archers and wood hunters (charioteers are not really recommended because you'll have to cross some rough terrain to reach the southern area, including some shallow water where they have 5 movement cost).

There is a minotaur leader directly to the south. He only recruits level 1 units but they can be very damaging especially at night - watch out for the boar riders (charging melee attack) and behemoths (berserk melee attack) especially. Form a line in the woods/hills south of the keep with durable units like dwarves on the hills and wait out the night, then strike back at day.

When you scout the area directly west of the minotaurs, a carapace leader will appear. Carapaces are extremely hard to kill, and they will mostly stay clustered near their keep, so it's probably most convenient to just ignore them and send everyone south across the river. For most units the fastest way to cross the river is to head southwest from the minotaur keep, going left around the big swamp.

When you start scouting south of the river, a friendly orc leader will appear as well as a hostile orc leader to the south. Defeating the enemy orcs shouldn't be too much of a problem, since the allied orc is quite powerful. Hannuk wood hunters and Alenya do very well in hunting orcs in the large western forest, while your orcish allies will mostly hold off the right flank. Myra is also almost invincible now, so you can send her in alone against hordes of orcs at night and they will usually ignore her.

S23 Holy Fire

• Objectives: Defeat the southeast leader, Liliel.

Start by stealing your ally's villages, since you can put the gold to much better use. The minotaurs in the southwest are the weaker enemy and you don't have to defeat them, so it's sufficient to send some powerful units to defend the orcish fort's western walls. The bulk of your army should head southeast and try to wait until night to engage the lawful celestials. Celestials are extremely resistant to arcane damage, so don't bother with arbiters/librarians. Akashia's berserk melee attack is great for instantly killing the lantern archons.

The large forest in the southeast is perfect for Hannuk wood hunters and their advancements. The celestials are quite powerful so it helps to recruit some expendable wood hunters to slow as many units as possible. Dwarvish lords also have good forest mobility and are very durable, and as usual Myra can act as the ultimate blocking unit.

S24 The Sun Path

• Objectives: Explore to the east, then defeat the eastern leader (Garmo) with Myra, then move any unit to the southeastern river edge.

The main battle in the first part of the scenario will take place in the northern mountains, so you mostly want to use dwarvish and flying units. About 2 keeps of recalls should be sufficient. There are some minotaurs to the southeast; if you are very fast you can fight them and mostly wipe them out in the first few turns during the day - if you send Liliel straight southeast on turn 1, she should see the minotaur camp and trigger them to start recruiting at dawn.

After defeating the minotaurs everyone can head northeast (you can just send a wisp or something to grab some villages south of the river; the mountains far to the south are mostly empty). You'll come across a vampire leader in the mountains, who mostly recruits very weak units which are absolutely no match for dwarves in the mountains. Attacking the vampire leader will cause another vampire leader to show up nearby to the northeast. This leader has much more powerful units, but you can take advantage of their terrible mobility in mountains to only engage them at favorable times of day. Once you start fighting the northeastern vampires, an allied dwarvish leader will appear in the keep to the south, though since he's so far away his troops will likely not reach the battle until it's already over.

Once you get rid of all the vampires, the allied dwarves will leave, along with Dvalin and all your dwarves, so you'll probably have to recruit some reinforcements since there's one more enemy leader to fight. The fight will mostly be in the forest, so wood hunters and their advancements will be very useful. When you scout the island to the east, an enemy warg leader will appear. Wargs are quite powerful especially at night so just try to form a defensive line in the forest. Myra can venture out on her own though (even at night) and blast about one warg per turn, so they should run out pretty quickly. Once you defeat the Warg leader (make sure to have Myra finish him), just send any unit south along the river to the southern edge of the map.

S25 Wings of Rebellion

• Objectives:
  • Defeat all enemy leaders (early finish bonus).
  • Alternative objective: Resist until the end of turns.
• Notes:
  • If you kill the southwestern or southeastern orc leader (Erudush or Garag) before turn 16, the southern orc leader will get 1500 gold.
  • Otherwise (if Erudush or Garag are both alive on turn 16), all orc leaders will receive several hundred gold on turn 16.

Recruits: Aragwaithi are great in this scenario for their good movement and defense on sand. Fire elementals also move well on sand and regenerate 5 HP on sand terrain. Hannuk wood hunters, horse archers and their advancements are also very mobile on sand, though their terrain defense is rather low. As usual, zephyrs/djinns are also great for damage and high mobility.

It's best to just move Myra straight south to the large castle and do your recalling there (most of the central castle is made of keeps which you can recruit from). Focus most of your recalls in the northeast so you can deal with Zaal first (the allies should keep the southern orcs busy for a while), and also recruit some wisps/orbs in the west to grab your ally's villages.

Zaal's celestials should arrive around the first night, when you should be able to almost completely wipe them out. Most of your units can then rush back to the fortress while a few units go to kill Zaal. The orcs should arrive at the castle around dawn; you can move Myra to the castle and recruit more reinforcements directly into the southern walls of the castle to hold them off (veterans mixed with some cannon fodder recruits works well, and you'll probably even manage to level some of the recruits). Then during the day, your entire army can focus on aggressively wiping out the orcs (use Myra's level 5 leadership as much as possible). The orcs should mostly be gone by the second night (turn 11).

It's recommended to defeat the orcish leaders early on (before turn 16), because not only will the early finish bonus be helpful for next scenario, you will also avoid the second wave of orcish reinforcements on turn 16. The southern orc leader will get 1500 gold when you kill one of the other orcish leaders, but he can be lured out of his keep (for example he will come out to use his ranged attack on a Guardian), so it's possible to kill him before he spends most of his gold. Ideally your assault on the orcish leaders will take place during the day, on turns 14-15.

S26 The Conquest of the Promised Land

• Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders.
  • On turn 4, Dvalin shows up in the southwest with about 500 gold and you can recruit/recall your dwarvish veterans with him.

The loyal wargs and nymph only join for this scenario so don't worry about leveling or preserving them. The most difficult part of this scenario is surviving the first night, when the army of high level vampires and minotaurs will likely reach you. Get some durable tanking units (Stone titans, Lava behemoths) and plenty of healers, and head straight south towards the hills; this way Dvalin's huge army of dwarves can reinforce when they show up in the southwest. The carapaces are extremely resistant to damage types besides arcane and cold, so some djinns or librarians can head south to help the dwarves deal with them.

Try to stay back and hold the line for the first night. You can put Myra in the most dangerous positions, and also use the wargs and nymph as cannon fodder. During the next day, strike back hard with the help of Dvalin's massive army of dwarves which should have reached the front lines by now. Focus on the vampires and minotaurs since they are the biggest threat. During the next night, you should mostly just have the carapaces left to deal with.

Part III: Raging Skies

S27 The Rise of Maat'Kare

• Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders.

In this scenario only, you may recruit infantrymen, spearmen and bowmen. The enemies here are mostly level 1, so you can use this opportunity to recruit and level up some humans. You'll be fighting vampires and minotaurs so the main challenge here is surviving the first night. You can send everyone towards the large clump of forest/hills to the northwest, and use Myra and a forest bane to block the minotaurs coming from the north while a durable unit such as a lava behemoth holds off the vampires in the south.

Once dawn/day comes you should easily wipe out most of the enemies - the human recruits do tremendous damage under Myra or Ravyan's leadership. Then you can split your army in half to take care of the two enemy leaders.

S28 Embers of War

• Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders.

On turn 3 the fog will lift to reveal the map: you'll be facing vampires in the north and orcs in the southwest, and there is an allied orc leader in the central fortress. Myra should move to the fort to recall some veterans to help defend the ally, though he should be able to take care of himself for a while. You can wait on the fortress walls initially and defend there until it is safe to venture out and counterattack.

Try not to let your income go too negative, since next scenario is difficult so it will help to have good gold carryover. The southwestern orc leader will immediately flee when attacked.

S29 Forging Alliances

• Objectives: Defeat the southern leader (Ronak) with Myra.

This is a rather difficult scenario, so hopefully you have something like 350+ starting gold. Don't worry about gold carryover - it's probably unavoidable to go deeply negative here, and minimum gold is sufficient for next scenario. You'll be facing wolves (goblin knights and pillagers) and lots and lots of goblins, so units with resistance to blade and especially pierce damage will be essential for holding the line at night. Stone titans and halberdiers have especially good pierce resistance, and lava behemoths are quite durable as well. Djinns are excellent for quickly taking out enemies which enter the hills and forests.

One way to form your defensive line is to make a solid arrow formation along the southern edge of the hills just south of the starting keep, so that the enemies will attack from flat terrain. Myra or a stone titan works well for holding the southern tip of the formation which is exposed to attack from 3 sides. Just rotate and heal there until the number of enemies becomes manageable - this will probably take quite a while because the enemies keep arriving in waves.

By turn 20 most of the enemies should be gone and your army can start heading south and splitting up to take out the enemy leaders. (It's not necessary to kill every leader but it's probably easier, to stop them from constantly recruiting.) Make sure to use Myra to finish off Ronak.

S30 Old Friends

Story.

S31 Night Fire

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader.
• Notes:
  • The gold carryover from Dvalin's side will be the starting gold for Akashia's allied Windsong side (which you will control) next scenario.
  • On turn 7 the vampire leader will get about 500 gold.

Despite the enemy's massive amount of gold, this battle is not as hard as it looks. Vampires do very poorly on frozen terrain, so if you block the bridge most of them will end up fighting from the ice (though some will spill over into the mountain area to the west).

For Dvalin, 1-2 keeps of recalls (mostly dwarvish lords) is sufficient. For Myra, you can recall some flying units such as ethereal orbs and djinns (and maybe recruit a wisp or two for village grabbing), and then move her to the 2-hex keep in the north to recruit closer to the battle. This scenario is perfect for ice crab recruits which move and defend well on ice. They are very weak to the vampires' fire damage though, so expect losses, but this is the only scenario where they'll be useful anyway. Let the ice crabs and allied wargs do most of the dangerous work on the frontlines, while your ethereal orbs and djinns zap vampires from safer positions.

It's possible to finish quite early (before turn 20) for a large gold bonus for both sides, which will make next scenario quite easy.

S32 Fading of a Flame

• Objectives: Resist until the end of turns.
• Notes:
  • The gold carryover for Akashia's side will be added to Alenya's AI controlled allied side next scenario.
  • Getting close to the enemy leader's keep will cause him to receive about 800 gold.

This is a relatively easy scenario, so it's possible to spend very little gold with Myra's side. Akashia's gold carryover is unimportant since Alenya doesn't need the extra gold next scenario (the suicidal AI will waste the gold anyway) so you can do most of your recruiting with Akashia and give all the villages to Myra's side.

Get some tanks (stone titans on the mountains, Windsong oathkeepers, etc.) and try to focus on killing the mystics since they are by far the biggest threats. Warmongers such as Akashia are good for killing mystics, and Myra can also zap one per turn. One good place to form your defensive lines is on either side of the 3-hex patch of impassible mountains in the center south of the fortress.

With your defensive advantage it should be easy to survive since the turn limit is quite short. Recruiting some cannon fodder units such as kobolds or Windsong gatekeepers will help with preserving your veterans, especially during the stormy dawn/dusk. Since the fortress is so large you can even recruit directly into the enemy lines.

S33 The Valley of Silence

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leader.
• Note: On turn 6 Alenya will leave, and her units and villages will come under Myra's control.

This is a relatively easy scenario; for Myra, about one keep of veterans should be enough. For Dvalin, one full keep of Dwarvish Lords (preferably quick ones) is plenty to win with, though his carryover is irrelevant so you could spend all his gold if you don't mind the tedium of moving all those slow dwarves to the battle. Note that there are already several dwarves in the south which are under Dvalin's control.

A good place to defend against the initial assault is behind the large patch of impassible mountains south of Alenya's keep. The dwarves can attack from the western mountains while Myra's troops hold them off in the east. Alenya's sprites which join Myra's side will not come with you so go ahead and use them on the front lines - they are especially effective when under Myra's leadership. Once Dvalin's huge army of dwarves arrives, the battle will be over quickly. It's possible to finish very early (around turn 13) for a large gold bonus.

S34 Last Revelations

Story.

S35 Wrath of the Heavens

• Objectives: Defeat Grigorius.
• Notes:
  • On turn 5, Tarkyn will arrive and you may recall your Hannuk veterans. The gold for Myra's side will be set to 500.
  • On turn 7, Ravyan will arrive and you may recall your Aragwaithi veterans. The gold for Myra's side will be set to 500.
  • On turn 8, Grigorius will appear with about 1000 gold in the southern part of the large central castle.

This is the final battle! This scenario has a unique time of day schedule: lawful units gain a tremendous bonus during dusk/dawn, and during the stormy day they get a small bonus instead of a penalty. The stormy night is unaffected.

For your initial recalls, units which move quickly over sand such as lava behemoths, quick dwarvish lords, ethereal orbs and djinns are best. You can wait until you get to the keeps in the south to recall the slower units. The enemy units will mostly stay where they are until you get within their range. Since your gold gets set to 500 on turns 5 and 7 it's a good idea to spend all your gold before then so it doesn't go to waste.

With all your veterans it should be easy to win the battle in the traditional Wesnoth fashion of hacking through Grigorius' army before converging on him.

Alternate leader assassination strategy: It is also possible to win quickly and almost completely skip the battle with Grigorius' army, though it is risky. Recall your most powerful veterans for the first two turns, then rush south and start recalling directly into the large central keep on turns 6-7 using the extra gold. When Grigorius arrives on turn 8, immediately surround him from as many hexes as you can and begin whittling him down with Myra and other strong units. Some of these units will likely be killed, but you should still have some hexes available next turn during Sacred Dawn. You can then begin chain attacking Grigorius with djinns led by Myra, since Grigorius now has a very high chance to kill them on retaliation. If he is not dead this turn he should be dead the next.

Once you defeat Grigorius, he will transform and everyone except Myra will leave the battlefield. Just keep attacking him with Myra's ranged attack - Myra is much weaker so she will quickly reach 0 HP, but she will then transform into a much more powerful unit. She will now have a powerful berserk magical attack which has something like a 99.9% chance to kill Grigorius, and in Wesnoth, it just doesn't get much better than that!

S36 A New Legend Rises

Story. Enjoy the ending!