TheRiseOfWesnoth

Scenarios

A summer of storms

At first it's best to hire 2 horsemen and 3 spearmen. Send the horsemen with the king over the brige, and the spearmen should start going over the mountain, to avoid being attacked from behind. Then you should probably hire bowmen and more spearmen. Send them on the "over-the-bridge" road and hire some more troops. Start going with the troops and prince Haldric on the "over-the-bridge" road and by this time the king and the horsemen should have arrived, use the king wisely, he has leadership. When the rest of your troops arrive, you should get to the enemy camp.

[Comments by Easuth] Over the course of this campaign, you will need to level up to some:

• Paladins (lots)
• Silver Mages (at least one, preferably more)
• White Mages/Mages of Light (at least four)
• Royal Guards (lots)
• Assorted other units, maybe some Bowmen and Grand Knights, Great Mages are nice

The Fall

Saving heavy infantry pays off in later scenarios. So it is useful to retreat them south to your other forces. There are two basic strategies to kill the outlaw leader. You can either march west with a large army and use part of it to hold nortwestern orc. Use the rest to fight outlaws and kill the leader. This strategy requires a lot of troops but it can bring you plenty of experience, and can bring a quick victory. Another way is to assassinate the outlaw leader. One way is to wait till orcs have killed all outlaws and assassinate outlaw leader with knights. This strategy is risky because orcs can kill the leader before you. Another way to assassinate the leader is to send mages protected by a spearmen through the mountains to the outlaw keep. Two mages and three spearmen are enough. If you use assassination strategy it is a good idea to fight against eastern orc nearby your keep. This way you can secure your back and earn experience.

A Harrowing Escape

There is Dwarf Steelclad in the village at 8,5. Its not far from your camp, so send Lady Outlaw there. Dwarf joins you because "It has been a long time since he felt the satisfying crunch of Orcs under his Axe."

[this is just my comments after playing it once in medium - Allefant] In medium, simply recruit what you want, and go along the road. You get enough villages to pay upkeep for quite some army, and can give some of them a bit of experience.

Diverging Campaign Path

The Swamp Of Esten

You should kill the eastern enemy quickly. Send Burin with knights, a white mage, and some other mages east at start. Mages are effective against scorpions. Try to attack dark adepts with Burin or horsemen before they have chance to attack you. You can send some horsemen from the second castle you recruit to strengthen the eastern front. There is also a White Mage in the temple at 19,5. After you have killed the eastern leader and eliminated troops there you can send the eastern army south against next leader. Send a second army south with Haldric. Bowmen and shocktroopers are useful on southern front. Bowmen can shoot outlaws and scorpions. They also retaliate against dark adepts so they are good for defence. Shocktroopers survive even if they are attacked with several outlaws. A couple of horsemen and mages are also useful. You can also add spearmen or swordsmen in southern army. If you have a rogue send him also south. An assassin will be very useful later. There are temples in the swamp. Searching them is good. However, some of them contain nasty surprises. So keep extra troops nearby when you enter one.

The Oldwood

[comments by Allefant] This is how I played in medium: I sent 3 knights, 3 mages, Haldric and some spearmen south, and all the rest east (4 knights, 4 mages, some other units). Every group had 2 white mages to heal wounded ones. Both were very slowly (avoid placing knights in the forest, don't attack at night-time) making for the two enemy leaders. It's important to keep an eye also on the middle, sending some units around in the forest, since the orcs will try to kill the tree.

Temple in the Deep

[comments by Allefant] One advice here: Don't over-recruit. Knights are useless in caves. I dragged them all around at the back, doing nothing at all and eating up my complete gold reserves. In fact, I think you can win this with just mages. The dwarf also is very useful, he'll fully upgrade if he hasn't yet.

[comments by Gdou] (on easy mode at least) You can beat this level by recruiting only mages. Give Holy Water to Haldric. use the dwarf to weak at maximum strongest skeletons (lvl2 and 3) with the dwarf, finish them with the mages. At the begining wait for the first wave of skelettons on you side of the lac. Skeletons are less resistants in water, so killing them is easier. Then, use the less experienced mages as cannon fodder, protecting you more important units. The lich can kill almost every unit in one turn with a 15*4 magical attack. I killed the lich in one turn by attacking it with the dwarf, the knight (Sir Ruddy), the Prince (Haldric) and finished him with one or two fireball launched by a freshly upgraded red mage. Some white mages are usefull as there are few places where wounded units can recover healing.

Return to Oldwood

Just story. I wonder what would have happened if the outlaw lady had died in one of the previous scenarios. [She just poofs back in and rejoins the plot at that point. --Anon. speaking from experience]

Clearwater Port

Your allies are useless, unless they do suicide runs, which is at least entertaining. The north leader will waste a lot of time trying to move his units E and then S over the shallows toward your rearguard, no matter how strongly defended you are there. So defend strongly on the coastline and fill the bay with their corpses. You will need to recruit lots of units to fight off the hordes to the W, so don't be a piker. Pikemen are fine, though. Try to get lots of your allies killed early so they don't clog the bridges later when you split your forces N and S.

Fallen Lich Point

The Orcs will be busy with the Yetis, so you can walk with a big group (best to use mostly wizards for that) south and kill the Lich-Lord. Move Haldric over the stone to de-petrify him. It may help to post some wizards around the undead before doing so. After that, head north and walk into the sewer enrance, and possibly kill the Orc leaders before.

Sewer of Southbay

As always, don't recruit a lot of units in underground, and don't recruit units which can barely move their. Only wizards is probably best, maybe some thieves. If you have enough levelled up wizards, you can divide into two groups and attack both brothers simultanously - else do them one after the other, and then look for the exit.

Southbay in Winter

Just plot.

A Final Spring

For the south land area, do a counter-clockwise sweep with mounted units. Move slower units to defend the walled city, which you would think your allies could do a better job of. Take their villages; they don't do anything useful with the money anyway. When your mounted units complete their sweep, you can break the remaining southern forces against the walls in a hammer and anvil. Then your united forces can move north.

Treat the island boss as a separate effort. Do not use assassins. Assassins have relatively weak defense in water against Sea Orcs and Nagas, they're very weak against blade, which is all Sea Orcs and Nagas use, and their relatively slow movement in water makes backstab hard to use reliably. Instead, wait until your first combat, after which you can recruit Mermen. Maybe send a white mage into the water with the mermen for healing purposes, and when you get to the island's cities, you can bring in Silver Mages (hopefully you have at least one by now) to help finish off the boss.

Peoples in Decline

Pay attention to the day-night cycle in this scenario. Drakes will be strong during day, but become very weak in the night. I found it best to play a bit defensive, taking advantage of the mountains. Most of the drake leaders were careless enough to fly near enough to me that I could kill them outside their bases. Make sure you get the Storm Trident in the middle of the sea, but be certain that you've cleared most of the drakes first, since a sea serpent will appear. It's best to have some strong units ready to kill it in 1 or 2 turns. You can give the trident to Lord Typhon, but since he leaves a bit later, you may want to give it to another Merman.

[Comments by Easuth] Movement over land is important for Mermen in the campaign as a whole. If the Merman you give the storm trident to has the Quick attribute, you can make him a Hoplite when he gets to level 3. Otherwise, make him a Triton.

Rough Landing

Recruit just mermen and thieves (you should already have some assassins to recall at this point as well). Maybe a white mage or two for extra healing. Try to level up the mermen, they can be useful in another scenario later. I went first for the right enemy, keeping all my troops together and moving straight east. The other two leaders sent all their troops towards me as well, so after the southeast leader was finished, there weren't much enemies left. I sent all remaining mermen to the northwest one, and a group of assassins to the northeast one over the long isle.

Also, beware of sea serpents, make sure to surround them and kill at once. The trident from the previous scenario will come in handy as well.

A New Land

In case you find the map looks familiar, it seems to be from "Bay of Pearls" from HttT. This scenario is mainly story though.

The Ka'lian

Story, with your choice of four battles next. You have to beat them all in whatever order. The amount of gold you have should be the factor in deciding when you choose to play Cursed Isle (the undead problem).

Diverging Campaign Path

All four scenarios have to be beaten, but in whatever order you choose.

The Dragon

There are a lot of Saurian enemies in this, and they all have the [i]skirmish[/i] ability. My strategy to win was to recruit a lot of units, and then move the whole army as one big bulk. Keep healers in the middle (I used four), rotate stronger units outwards, and make sure you leave no gaps. The Saurians will slip through the tiniest gap and kill your weak units. My route was to start off straight east, towards the green enemy, but I was surrounded about half-way, then camped their and fight a huge onslaught of Saurians until around turn 10. By that time, there were much less Saurians left then in the beginning. And the green leader foolishly placed himself next to Haldric's Sceptre and was killed as well. So I now split up my group, sent one half back to the blue leader, and another south. The southern group first killed off the yellow leader, and then met the dragon. After that I also let the west group who had killed the blue leader finish of the SW leader. The key really is the beginning turns, if you can survive the initial onslaught without half your troops dying already, the map is won.

[Comments by Easuth] Fighting Saurians requires a disciplined formation. If you're used to stringing out troops to move them into position as they get there, that won't work after Turn 2 or 3. I use a "healing hedgehog" of ten troops--two white mages next to each other and eight troops completely encircling them. If someone gets badly injured, move them to the inside and put a white mage on one of the long edges, fighting as you go. If you're trying for the big bonus, you'll need two hedgehogs. Try to keep reserves back a bit in cities. If the terrain favorably protects you, or the wounded is a fast unit, you can try moving wounded back to cities too. Once the main wave of Saurians is broken, you can string non-wounded troops out a bit in the rush for the leaders. If you have a Lancer in position, rush in to the cave after the Dragon leaves to grab the gold, though that's nothing compared to the Hero bonus for defeating all the Saurian leaders. So focus on killing all of them first.

Lizard Beach

That's the scenario where I found the mermen from earlier useful. Sent a bunch of them along the river west, and my main army towards the SW leader. The basic idea of this, fight the SW leader while being shielded from the north. I ended up all in one big bulk again, with mermen in the water/swamp and the other units right south of them. When the Saurians got less, it was the time to finish off the remaining green Mud Crawlers and the leader. Be careful to not send mermen out west into the sea, since enemy reinforcements appear there around turn 10. From the south leader, my whole army went north, and with rather little resistance killed off the north leader as well.

[Comments by Easuth] A Silver Mage is worth at least three regular troops here. You can't recruit Mermen this time, but hopefully you have plenty that you can recall.

The Troll Hole

There are 4 castles, and two of them (randomly placed it seems) are the troll leaders you need to kill. It's underground time again, so as before, mainly recruit mages. The trolls are strong, so hopefully you have lots of levelled up mages. Try to use the narrow corridors to your advantage, so the enemy can only place one attack against a strong unit of yours, but you can kill a troll at a time with two mages or Haldric. Also keep an eye at your back since they will try to surround you. And resist the temptation to send single units wandering around in what seems empty caves - they will all die. I had to restart just to save the dwarf, who had happily wandered off alone searching for gold, right into the lair of a giant spider.

[Comments by Easuth] Try to arrange it so one troll can enter to be attacked by many troops. Have regular troops in front initially. Move mages forward to finish the troll, plug the gap where the troll was with Burin or a Royal Guard or an Iron Mauler, and reset the trap on the next turn. When you've whittled down the enemy, go the direction they came from and kill the leaders, ignoring spider keeps.

Cursed Isle

This can be the first or last map you choose, depending on how desperate you are for cash. If you can wait, do it last. All you really need is a Paladin or three to rush the temples, one of which contains a Vampire Lady. Defeat her, and the scene is over just like that. One of the other temples has some gold; grab that too. Ignore the holy water. No one will ever use it effectively in time.

A Spy In The Woods

Plot only???

The Vanguard

My strategy was to seal of all the gaps in the canyon. So, recruit a lot of units, you will need them. When the onslaught begins, wounded units can retreat back into villages or being cared for by healers. Or actually both, since soon you will be out of non-wounded units.

[Comments by Easuth] This map is smaller than fog of war and canyons make it appear. Rush the NW gaps with mounted units, but slow & strong will carry the day once the sun rises and the odds are in your favor. Don't forget the cash, which you can see even in fog.

Return of the Fleet

Welcome to the "kitchen sink" defense. You've made it this far; now the game will start to throw things at you, whatever it has left. The effect is mostly psychological, but it could be a problem if your initial assessment causes you to drastically under-recruit. Time is money.

This map starts out in shroud, like a cave. You just haven't been informed of it yet. So while you're still amazingly able to see, note the key terrain features and castle and city locations. Also, physically explore the avenues of approach you want to be able to see later.

It would be very useful to bring a storm trident into the water. It'll take a few turns, but the undead trying to reach shore will take even longer. Paladins are so effective against undead that you can wade into the water after them. But keep some around for the Chocobones. Just remember, Paladins can't go into deep water and undead can. Once you take an island city, use Silver Mages in support to finish the leader.

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

Rise of Wesnoth

It's the final battle: be patient, recall everybody, the early finish bonus doesn't mean anything. Some Mermen would be useful here, but surprisingly, they're not really necessary. I started by sending mounted units around both sides of the forest to your SW. Whichever troops the orange guys go after, slam into their rear guard with the other forces, making an orc sandwich. Ewww. I thought I would have to sneak the Paladins back to the E for the undead troops, but once the first east bridge collapses, the undead want to follow the path that doesn't leave them floundering in the water. So leave the W bridge intact, playing Catch the Sea Orc on the north shore with Haldric & Co., and you can send a large force down the E side practically unopposed by the second wave of Jevyan's troops. You'll need at least two Paladins in the E to kill Jevyan himself; nothing else is half as effective. Don't forget to sacrifice Aethyr to Jevyan. If he doesn't want to come out and play, march up to Jevyan and use a crossbow attack. When Jevyan is dead, the yellow and green leaders will probably still be alive. You'll have to kill one, leaving at least one orc leader alive. You pick. Congratulations! Enjoy the ending!

See Also

• ScenarioDiscussion