Northern Rebirth

Strategy Guide for Northern Rebirth

(Doesn't yet cover the optional Evil-Tallin branch you can start from Clearing The Mines. That is still under development.)

Breaking the Chains

All you can recruit in this scenario are level 0 Peasants and Woodsmen so it calls for a new set of tactics. By brute force you can't overpower the orcs initially. Fortunately though, the orcs are fighting amongst themselves so guerilla tactics are called for. Keep your head down, and let the orcs fight amongst themselves while you slip around the edges and grab as many villages as you can - even if you have to sacrifice a few units. If any stray orcs come your way, surround and kill them and try to level a few units. Your units all require no upkeep at this point, so if you play it right you should soon enough have a sizable force. When you are ready, march them out as a whole - isolated units will get slaughtered so keep everyone together - and take out the orcish leaders one at a time.

Also, beware of the tunnel entrance to the northeast for when you move there you will unleash a squad of trolls. Sometimes they attack the orcs (good for you) but other times they attack you. Since they are resistant to your pierce attacks, they can give you a bit of trouble should the latter happen.

Infested Caves

There has been a major strategy change on this one so stay sharp. The strategy up till now has been to immediately send forces up the northern and southern tunnels to take out the trolls. However, they since have gotten their act together so now that will be far to costly, and time consuming. What you need to do is recruit as many units as fast as you can, form up into a tight compact formation and head directly east. At this point all hell will break loose in a three way fight between trolls, skeletons and your forces to the east, while to the west you will have more level 1 trolls hounding you all the way. Cut your way east as quickly as you can, but it is essential to keep a tight formation, leaving as little exposure as possible. You will loose a lot of men - I myself lose about two thirds of my force every time - but try to pull as many men out of the mess as possible.

Move east until you come reach the keep of the orange troll leader. The situation often varies at this point do to the chaotic nature of the scenario, but the general idea is to take out the troll leader and regroup, and heal in the little patch of villages to the north. You may want to send a few units up the tunnel further north, and then slip into the little room to the east and still some more villages. The skeletons are usually too busy with the blue and green trolls at this point to offer much resistance.

To the south, there a tunnel, which may be spewing more skeletons, or - if you are lucky - dwarves. You want to get Tallin down that tunnel and into the dwarven keep that lies at the end. It's a bit of a walk so make sure you have at least 10 turns remaining. If the tunnel is still spewing skeletons, you will have to push through them and take out the leader before reaching the dwarves.

There is also a Arch Mage that you can get at the beginning of this scenario who would provide you with much assistance - both now and later on. To get him, you will have to initially recruit 3 or four footpads and have them immediately dash up the northern troll hole. They should be able to reach the village on the outside of the caves before the trolls clog the tunnel. Have the footpads cover the mage all the way back to your main force and continue on as described above.

To The Mines

This is designed to be more of a breather scenario, letting you get a bit of fresh air and level a few units before you plunge back into the caves. However, stay on your guard because if you get sloppy, you could experience a lot of grief.

The basic strategy is to recruit lots of dwarves and sweep north in a line. You'll lose a few but level up more, which will be your most reliable heavy infantry in later scenarios. Beware wolfriders nipping around your flanks and don't leave any units isolated.

Clearing The Mines

Another tough one which has recently been re-ballanced. This is going to be a long tough fight against enemies with far greater numbers then your own. Your superior tactics, and the strength of your men will be the only thing that will keep you from being wiped of the board.

In the new version, you probably won't have enough gold to finance two proper strike groups as you did in the past. If you can - swell. If not don't give up hope for there is still a way. Recruit one large group with practically all of your most powerful units. Dwarves are favored, for their better defense on cave floors, the resistances and ability to advance to level 3. Send this group to the east and take out the Draug stationed there and take control of the storeroom.

In the meantime, leave yourself a little gold, and maby one or two higher level units, as well as Tallin, to recruit a smaller force to hold the keep. This force will come under heavy attack, and for most of the game the northern passage will be plugged closed with hordes of walking corpses, bats and skeletons. Hold out as best as you can, even if you have to retreat all the way to the keep. You have a slight advantage there as you have some sunlight shining through which the skeletons generally don't like. If all goes well with the eastern team, and the are able to take control of the storeroom, you should soon be having some gold coming in so you can recruit yourself some reinforcements.

Just as you think you have everything under control, things will take an ugly turn. At turn 21, you a horde of Ghouls and Necrophages will rise out of the cannel. You are just going to have to endure as best you can. In the meantime, get your eastern force - regrouped and healed at the storeroom - to move north and take out the next Draug stationed there, and then move on further to take out Malifor. It will by no means be easy, but you have another group of villages behind the purple Draug which will help you heal and get some more income rolling in. You will also have to leave a force at the storeroom to hold the villages there - especially against the ghouls which may be no easy feat. If you are able to manage, send some backup from home base to help them hold out.

Once you take out Malifor, things should be a little easier. As more of his units die out, the tide will start to gradually turn and what follows is a general mop up of the remaining leaders.

The Pursuit

Once you get past the revenants, run a veteran to cover each passage mouth; this will buy enough time for you to raise troops to plug them more securely. There are three healers captive in a dungeon off to the southwest of your camp; you'll need them, because the undead just keep coming, but you have to fight your way past a skeleton boss and some guards first. Also captive is Krash the dragon, who will be an ally in later scenarios if you liberate him. The southeast passage leads to another character; bear left at the lake to find Alfred the friendly specter. Northwest is a treasury that can be looted for large amounts of gold, but you have to kill the revenants guarding it first. The lightning-throwing Rod of Justice is in the northwest corner past the roomful of nasty giant spiders.

Old Friend

You don't have to defeat the Orcs to win this one -- and a good thing too, as there are huge numbers of them. If you lurk just inside the two-hex-wide aperture of the cave only two orcs at a time will be able to get at you; it's not hard to fend them off until time runs out. Spend as little gold as possible and level up some troops.

It's worth recalling one dwarvish steelclad and run him round to the eastmost village in the northern mountains - this one has impassable mountains on 2 adjacent tiles, so it can be attacked from only one tile, so a steelclad can easily hold out here & gain some XP doing so.

Settling Disputes

Tactics in this one are pretty straightforward but time is scant; your biggest issue may be getting to the enemy keep in the southeast with enough time left to take out defenders before the clock runs out. There's a ford in the middle of the map, and the enemy will slide trolls and ogres over it to try to cause trouble in your rear; if you mean to prevent this, it's best to place some blocking troops right on the shoreline where they can hit enemies still in the water.

Elvish Princess

In this one it's best to go straight at Bitterhold with a small group of hardened veterans -- you need to be in there fast (Camerin and the Rod of Justice will be particularly helpful here). Your objective, getting a unit onto the cage at the center of the castle, may be best accomplished with a flyer or skirmisher once you've chewed a few holes in the inner ring of defenders.

Introductions

Standard dungeon-crawling tactics should work fine in this one -- minimize your exposed front, and cycle wounded units back to the healers before they get killed. The destination signpost is in the northwest corner. There is nothing interesting in any of the side passages.

Stolen Gold

You'll have two problems in this scenario. One is lots and lots and lots of trolls. The other is that Krash is going to fly off and recruit level-one drakes to help you, but if they get swarmed by all the level-two trolls they're not going to live long. Krash's camp will materialize in the mountains near the map-edge west of your camp; the house at edge of board will be one hex NW of his tent square. Recall nine or ten veterans, go there and laager up around where his camp will appear. Hold off the troll swarm until the drakes show up, then bust out of the encirclement and clean up.

The spectre can be extremely "sturdy" against the trolls; place him in the village on the northern tip of the eastern island, and he should be able to safely defend against one to three trolls each turn.

The elvish shyde and sorceress, as well as the two liches can be put to better use if you move them into the forest on the eastern island in the beginning of the scenario. Stay within the forest and lure in trolls one or two at a time to level up the sorceress and create a distraction.

After Krash's camp is set up, you will be controlling both Tallin's and Krash's troops. Krash's team will take its turn after all the trolls, and before Tallin. The trolls will probably be still swarming in front of Tallin's defense, but you can create opportunities for the drakes to level up by withdrawing one of Tallin's units, and defeating the two trolls next to that opening, so that the trolls will not be able to get into the opening due to zoc. The drakes will have the advantage that after they attack, they can be healed by Tallin's healers, before the trolls retaliate.

Eastern Fortress

The mistake to avoid in this scenario is exposing level 1 drakes to being swarmed by the wolfriders and assassins that head north. Keep your drakes in line, close the gap between the east end of the drake line and the west flank of the human troops, and anchor the west flank of the drake line on a board edge. Recruit lots of drakes so you can cycle injured ones out of the line before they get killed. Use mages and the Rod of Justice to blast the defenders off the walls; you'll need at least six units of heavy infantry to follow through.

Get the Gold

Don't recruit a lot for this one; if you have enough level 2 and 3 units to fill your starting camp, you can probably take out the orc leader with those. Krash and friends aren't likely to be able to fly over in time to do much.

Showdown

Pull out all the stops, because this is it. You'll want to draw the Orc Warlords off the walls before engaging them, they're dangerous enough as it is without the fortification bonus; hanging a unit our two just within their engagement range will do it. Because there are so many orcs, you need to be especially careful about neither leaving units isolated nor presenting unanchored flanks for them to swarm around (the drakes, in particular, should fort up in the northern camp until they've thinned out their attackers considerably).

Epilogue

This is just a plot wrap-up.