Liberty

Footpads are the core unit for this campaign. High defense, mixed attacks, and cheap makes them handy in all events. You get Harper in all scenarios, plus two loyal Footpads; level these up, plus any others you recruit with good traits.

The main problem in this campaign is finding units to deal damage; Footpads are great for swarming and pinning enemies, but even swarming an enemy from all sides they might take less than half its HP off in one turn. In daylight, or even at dawn/dusk against enemies with resistances, none of your L1 units cause much damage. It's important to level up a couple each of Thugs and Poachers; you then use these as first strike against an enemy unit, followed by the Footpad swarm to finish them off or at least pin them so you can finish them next turn. In particular, you want a Huntsman by scenario 7 so you have decent marksman damage for busting enemy commanders.

The Raid

• Objectives: Defeat the goblins
• Lose if: The goblins reach the village or Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
• Turns: 24/18/14 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Baldras, Harper and other bandits

You have enough troops to beat the goblins in a straight-up fight; your problem is luring the leader to attack you rather than running straight up the board and into the village (if this happens you lose!). This means you need to dangle some units in his engagement range. Spend your loyal Footpads, you won't get to keep more than two of them after you leave the village.

Running Harper and one other Footpad north works well; provided the other draws the goblin leader off of his run north, Harper can then either join in fighting him, or complete the run north (where you get a couple of thugs for free) and return with them, depending on how far north you get before he breaks his run.

Civil Disobedience

• Objectives: Defeat the army captain
• Lose if: Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
• Turns: 14/13/12 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Baldras and Harper

Bunch up all your fighters and use them to swarm single or paired cavalry units. Use houses for cover. Remember to keep recruiting in those early turns, even if you have to forgo attacking enemies from good cover to make the space for the recruit to stand.

Poachers are useful for getting damage into the enemy cavalry and have decent defense when in your castle or in villages, and then use footpads to take positions in the open (they have good defense in the open) to wrap around enemy units. Ideally you want the enemy to wrap cavalry around units in your keep, and you then wrap around the ones behind your keep with Poachers and Footpads. The enemy commander is a tough fight, since he often meets you in daylight and has good melee and ranged attacks; ideally get him next to your keep so you can have your commander and two Poachers hitting him from relative safety, and then put a Footpad or Thug on the other side to pin him there.

A Strategy of Hope

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Baldras, Harper or Relnan die or time runs out
• Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Baldras and Harper

The orcs don't make a lot of archers, so swarm them with Footpads and Outlaws firing slingstones. Detach one or two Footpads to go on an extended village-stealing run in the north of the board while you're doing this. The saurians are much weaker than the orcs so concentrate your forces against the orcs. Your allies are a little better than evenly matched against the saurians, so by the time you finish the orcs you should be able to run northwest and take the leader without too much trouble.

Unlawful Orders

• Objectives: Defeat Asheviere's general
• Lose if: Baldras, Harper or Lord Maddock die or time runs out
• Turns: 30/22/16 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Baldras and Harper

Detach two Footpads to grab villages, one in the town (Lord Maddock isn't going to use them all anyway) and one to the north. Move your commander onto Lord Maddock's keep at the first chance you get, so you can recruit more and closer to the action.

Lord Maddock's throws his troops away early. Your force should be a few Thugs, a couple of Footpads and perhaps 2 Poachers to hold the south bank of the island; let the enemy come to you here and fight from in the water. Then send an Outlaw and Footpad strike force out the east gate and down, which will swarm enemy stragglers and late recruits and then hit the enemy commander.

Hide and Seek

• Objectives: Get Baldras to the signpost (preferably without being seen)
• Lose if: Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
• Turns: 34/30/26 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Baldras and Harper
• Other: You will be seen if you end your turn within visual range of an enemy unit

The moment you get within visual range of an enemy it will attack and all the other enemies wake up also. What saves you is that Harper can see farther than they can. Don't run ahead with him, you need Baldras to the exit point; Harper scouts the way, he follows.

The safe route is south-east, using Harper to eye a way between the soldiers. Head between some others through some mountains and head all the way across to the east edge of the map. Then head south through a lake and then southeast until above the exit and down. Also avoid the temptation to grab a village. This will trigger an attack even when not in range of a soldier.

If you still need to level either Harper or Baldras, go ahead and kill one or two of the soldiers when you are right near the signpost.

The Grey Woods

• Objectives: Defeat the Lich and the other two enemy leaders
• Lose if: Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
• Turns: 50/44/42 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Baldras and Harper

This is a fairly easy search-and destroy, with lots of relatively weak undead so lots of leveling-up opportunities. Grab Helicrom's villages, he starts with a ton of gold anyway. The bad guys are at the southeast, southwest and northwest corners.

You could almost ignore the southeast village, Helicrom's troops will take care of it; just send say an Outlaw and a Footpad to maybe sneak some XP, and to scout and grab villages below the southeast enemy. Your main force, Footpads plus a few Thugs/Marauders should head southwest across the bridge and have a quick fight with the green Lich's forces that have made it out. Continue on to kill him, and then head south to the other Lich. It is an excellent place to level up some Footpads to L2 or even L3. While I am not over judicious with my use of the "fodder" units, I still came out with about 8 or 9 L2+ units.

At the end, choose to have Helicrom join you in battle (you only get this choice if Helicrom is alive). You probably don't need the gold and being able to recruit Rogue Mages isn't that helpful (they don't heal). It makes the last scenario (while frustrating because your allies get in your way) pretty easy.

The Hunters

• Objectives: Defeat all the enemy forces
• Lose if: Baldras or Harper die or time runs out
• Turns: 36/31/26 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Baldras and Harper

The trick in this one is that your Outlaws fight better in mountains than Heavy Infantry do. So bean them with missile weapons from the mountains at the north edge of the road, then clump your guys and go west towards the keep. Swarm the cavalry units as they hit you; they probably won't concentrate enough to be more than a nuisance to L2 and L3 characters.

Glory

• Objectives: Destroy all four towers
• Lose if: Baldras dies or time runs out
• Turns: 48/45/40 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Baldras and Harper
• Other: Move a unit onto the trap door to destroy a tower

The only genuinely difficult puzzle in Liberty, because the Wesnoth army is tough to beat if you have to try to take them inside their fortress (and they get reinforcements every afternoon). You have to lure as many as possible out of the fortress -- dangle bait just within their engagement range. It's the final scenario, so don't worry about money, just recall all your L2 and L3 recalls and recruit until you are out of gold.

If you chose to have Helicrom join you in battle, he appears in a camp to your right at the start. While his troops get in the way a lot, they do kill some units and help if only by diverting some of the opposing forces.

March them straight north and hang out around the first village there. It will be a nice pitched battle for a few turns, but eventually your numbers will overwhelm them. Then you can split your forces a bit to the west and south entrances. Remember that your Outlaws and above fight a lot better in the mountains than your opponents (offsetting the garrison bonus).

[Comments by cph] At hard, I played it a bit differently. Helicrom's units throw themselves at the south gate and clog it for a day or so; the riders attack the west gate and tie up the enemy there. So I marched my entire force into the woods southwest of the fortress; once both gates were clogged by the allies, I moved my forces closer to both gates, and then lunged into the fortress with all the Footpads, Outlaws and Fugitives I could fit in. Fugitives on good defensive tiles are great for holding the flanks of the thrust, and Footpads are expendable. Bash away throughout the night on all the enemies you can, moving as much as you can into the fortress; seize the central fort with outlaws, and rush Footpads to the 4 towers as soon as you get an opening. The orcs went down the east side of the level, so they ran straight into the reinforcements, and I didn't have to fight either.