LotI Walkthrough-Part1-Chapter04

Part I, Embracing the Darkness, Chapter 4, To Destroy the Wesnothian Empire

Generally

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He Came Down from the Mountains

[WHU] The enemy leader will call for reinforcements when you approach, so you might want to make sure you start a turn from a position where you can end up next to him in one turn. Or not, it's not like his forces can stop you.

Into Our Frozen Land

[WHU] Gather villages with Ekrathan, keeping him away from the action. Charge and kill the nearest enemy leader with Efraim. Proceed directly into the lake, ignoring enemies unless they pose a threat to Ekrathan. Pick an enemy leader and kill him. The other will probably die before you can get to him.

[Thrash] If one explores the lake, a bunch of allied undead will appear.

Revolution Begins

[WHU] Efraim can simply charge north and force his way into the castle. Keep Ekrathan alive if possible. When enemies approach, take a look at their stats, they are a lot more dangerous than they look.

[Thrash] I held back and fought enemies as they came to me, then advanced once the secondary leaders quit recruiting. The guards around the city will come alive when you get within their movement range. I triggered them to attack one or two at a time. The scenario ends when Efriam goes into or next to the keep in the center of main city.

Doomsday Omens

[WHU] You pick up a few loyal, level 4 units here, so make sure to protect them. Gear up the overlord and nightprowler and send the gryphon to collect villages. Recruit a druid, a lord, and a sorceress (you won't need them now, but you'll be glad you did soon) and follow the river into the mountains, with Lethalia in the lead. Once you enter the cave, send Lethalia along the river path to the east while your elven units retreat, drawing the undead into the woods (not necessarily to fight, you're just getting them out of Lethalia's way while also keeping the elves alive, and maybe picking up some help from your otherwise worthless allies). Make use of Lethalia's penetrates to force her way into the eastern passage. If she gets way ahead of the rest of your units, that's just fine, you want her to get into the cave and past the initial wave of undead before it gets too big.

[WHU] This scenario is rather difficult if you try to fight your way forward into the cave, as a pack of undead cluster at the entrance to the cave. If Lethalia has skirmisher (and fast, of course), it is more or less trivial as long as you move her quickly enough that she can enter the eastern cave passage toward victory before the undead start to amass above the cave entrance.

Meeting of the Ancients

[WHU] Recall a good healer like a faerie incarnation, and a powerful unit with arcane and a lot of HP. Run. Enemies are coming from all directions, and they are coming fast. Get into the cave to the north, kill the necromancer, and then protect the village and the cave mouth with your strongest units. Once you fight off the first batch to the north, move forward and bring Lethalia to a good defensive position, such as one tile north of the village.

[WHU] After another small batch of undead is dispatched, and your rear is secure, clear the way for Lethalia and send her along the cart path. Remember, your mission is not to kill all the enemies, and you will often be up against the turn limit. You might have time to fetch the item out of the river. You don't have to get all the way to the lich, just close.

[Thrash] According to my notes, I went East hard and recruited at first keep and then split West, North, and East. My memory of this scenario is fuzzy though.

Castle of the Wicked

[WHU] Pay attention to the lit floors. Some enemies will be lawful, and some chaotic, so use the lit tiles to your advantage accordingly. The enemies are powerful, so exercise a little caution with your supporting units, and use corridors to avoid being surrounded. Most of the enemies will be killed by Efraim on defense. Remember that your mission is to move north, not kill everyone.

[Thrash] Main challenge here is not to get mobbed and lose on turns.

Nemesis

[WHU] Easy enough, especially since I knew it was coming and stripped all Argan's gear after the big dragon fight.

An Army Is Born

[WHU] 50 orcs in 15 turns? How's that going to happen? Well, when you kill an orc, it makes an undead that is ready to attack. Use explosive slow on a bunch of orcs, find one that is injured and kill it. When determining what type of unit to spawn, consider its location. For example, if it is right next to a damaged orc grunt (no ranged attack), choose skeleton archer and then kill the orc with your new skeleton archer. Repeat as often as possible. When in doubt, skeleton archer is probably the best choice (though do have some skeletons and ghosts), soulless aren't that useful.

[WHU] Lethalia having skimisher is handy here, having radiation is just too much fun. The first turn is a great time to have Lethalia take the Potion of Authority.

The First Blow

[WHU] Same undead spawning as the last scenario, but much, much harder. The turn limit is not your friend. Hopefully, Lethalia is fast. You want to get her onto the center keep as quickly as possible. Remember, when you kill a unit an undead will spawn, often right where you meant to move Lethalia using her penetrates. Make sure the unit you kill can move out of her way. Ideally, she will kill the unit one tile north of the enemy leader and step into the castle on turn 2. Keep Lethalia in the thick of the battle in the center. When the prince shows up, pound his units with explosive slow.

[WHU] The southeast leader can be troublesome. In a conventional attack, he always takes more troops than I'd expect, and any troops you commit to him probably won't be able to make it to any other battles due to the turn limit. Send a doppleganger to help several skeletons, particularly archers. Once the battle feels like it's going to be a win, start spawning ghosts and send them west. When the leader is dead, send the doppleganger after the southwest leader. Remember the turn limit and your mission, she is needed elsewhere.

[WHU] The other doppleganger should head northwest, killing that leader before turning east to take out the north leader. I usually send a handful of ghosts north at the beginning, then west, keeping a unit on the village and just generally harassing the northern forces to keep them mostly out of the fight. If you get lucky, you can storm his castle and sit there so he can't recruit.

[WHU] Making use of rivers is crucial here. When attacking, always consider whether you could move forward first. It's going to be a huge battle with slow units, and overwhelming force is key when you're raising the dead. Concentrate on getting kills quickly over distributing XP and the like. When the prince shows up, check out his units carefully.

Dealing with Trolls

[WHU] You want to reach the troll leader in the northwest corner as quickly as possible, while killing as few trolls as you can. In the items menu there is an option, "Select weapons for retaliation" which may help reduce the number of trolls you kill on defense.

Invasion

[WHU] You will be given the option to trade, as many as possible, one skeletal dragon for five level one undead. I've always taken the option, so I don't know what is best. You will be up against mages with explosive attacks, so you don't want your units bunched up. You will also be up against silver mages who actually use their teleport ability, so you probably want to gather as many villages as quickly as possible.

[WHU] Because of what I believe to be a bug in the game, I have always started by recalling a lot of my most powerful units (mostly doppelgangers, and NOT Skellie as I don't want him getting lost in the crowd of dragons and dying on me) and heading west, while the dragons are left to die at the hands of the mages. I then send a couple doppelgangers and a leader south to defeat the prince, again, while the rest of my powerful units sweep east to clobber the mages.

[WHU] One of these days I'm going to leave a few doppelgangers to defend the dragons and see how that plays out in later scenarios. Sure would be nice to have a small army of loyal skeletal dragons on the recall list.

Bloodbath

[WHU] This is supposed to be hopeless, but someone actually beat it.

[WHU] Send any of your army you care about to the southwest corner. Recruit constantly, there's no gold carryover, and send a wall of defenders to slow the attackers. Chocobones are also nice here, they can hang back and then charge mages or run in to pick up dropped loot. Your new recruits will not last beyond this scenario, even if they survive, so think twice about giving them any gear, and use them to protect the rest. Lethalia can advance and explosive slow the enemy, being just a little careful not to get surrounded. Hold on, keep recruiting, protect Mal Keshar and Stormrider, and it'll turn out okay. Or try to beat it.

[WHU] At this point, you probably have a lot of units on the recall list that you are never going to recall. It's best just to purge them now. You'll thank me later.

The Way of Assassins

[WHU] Spread out, search the map, kill anything that moves. Actually, there's no early finish bonus, so make that kill everything that moves.

The Kingslayer

[WHU] Send Efraim north ALONE. Break the other units into two teams and explore. Once Efraim triggers and dispatches the surprise enemy and the southern part of the map is cleared, the teams can move north and then west, while Efraim heads east. No early finish bonus, don't leave any XP on the table.

The Library

[WHU] If you tend to click through the opening dialog, you might not notice that Lethalia starts on a keep, where she can recall some units to explore the library. It is almost impossible to collect all the items and finish within the turn limit without help. Four or five units is more than enough, send Lethalia west and a couple others north. Block the passage south with a powerful unit backed by a healer, or charge down and kill the leader. Explore everything.

Lost in Space

[WHU] Recruit/recall about three units you want to give experience, low level is just fine. They will go just north of the castle to where a portal emerges. Recall several heavy hitters, including at least one flyer. After Lethalia clears out the initial wave that comes through the portal, surround it with your three junior troops. Send Lethalia and a couple quick support units across the bridge, then northwest, picking up villages on the way. Send the rest of the power troops carefully to the southeast to take out the prince and his forces. The prince's troops are tougher than they look, in part because explosive slow doesn't work on them.

[WHU] Once the prince and his lackeys are dispatched, send one unit to collect all the villages on this section of the map, while the rest head up to the bridge. Advance onto the bridge, standing on the portals so the enemies have to spawn in the air, where you have a 100% chance of hitting them with most attacks. Send a flyer or two around them and follow the bridge southeast, grabbing every village in sight. Meanwhile, Lethalia and company travel through the cave, across a bridge, some water, and then down to the southeast corner. Since there's no early finish, wait until the last turn to approach Efraim with Lethalia. Don't forget to check in every turn with the units you left behind.

Any Means Necessary

[WHU] You actually don't have to kill all the leaders, you only have to touch the mage leader. But that's no excuse for not killing every single thing that moves first. I choose allies over undead, the allies are pretty good at soaking up some damage, and distracting the enemies so that they end up doing most of the fighting in the moat. I might recall a few fast units on the first turn, but mostly I race ahead and do my recalls in the ring around where my allies reside. This looks like a battle you'll want to recruit/recall heavily for, but it's not. You want enough to push back if the enemy happens to start to break through part of your ally's line, but once most of the blood has been spilled you won't need much to roll to victory.

[WHU] On the east side, most of the enemies will be hard hitting melee impact, so recall accordingly. On the west you have mostly pierce, and in the center a lot of arcane. Move forward slowly at first, letting your ally do most of the work. Actually, it would be kind of nice to let all the allied units get killed (so they don't strike the final blow that ends the scenario) and then wait until the last turn to strike the killing blow to maximize gold carryover. I use a lot of explosive and/or whirlwind slow, and incinerate if possible. Just keep pushing forward, dopplegangers are nice for that.

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