How to play Northerners2

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Northerner units

Orcish Archer is one of two ranged units of the northerners. While weak, orcish archers might use both classic pierce and fire damage.

• good defense in mountains and hills, but low hitpoints.
• chaotic
• strong vs drakes, horsemen and undead; weak vs ulfserkers, mages and ghouls...
• weak melee attack (blade), strong ranged attack (pierce AND fire)

Orcish Assassin is another ranged units, but very specialised in high defense and using of poison against his enemies. Necessity against anyone except undead.

• great defense in mountains, forests and villages, but low hitpoints
• chaotic
• strong against all living targets; weak against skeletons and ghosts
• weak melee attack (blade), weak marksman and poison ranged attack (pierce)

Orcish Grunt is the cheapest strong unit in Battle for Wesnoth, that can be recruited right away. Costs only 12 gold and very dangerous as a small group during the night.

• good defense in mountains and villages
• chaotic
• strong vs mages, woses, outlaws; weak vs nobody, useful in every match
• strong melee attack (blade)

Wolf Rider is very fast, moving quickly in hills. Good for capturing villages and as a support fighter. Not vulnerable to pierce attacks like other cavalry units.

• good defense in mountains, very fast in hills
• chaotic, can be upgraded into 2 useful units (pillager with fire and slow or strong cavalry)
• strong vs retreating wounded units; weak vs multiple targets and in 1v1 battle
• weak melee attack (blade)

Goblin Spearman is level 0 unit, so you do not need to pay him gold. Cheap, but weak. Can collect villages if they are not far away. Dies quickly if not careful and does not have ZOC (Zone of Control).

• good defense in mountains, but low hitpoints
• chaotic, can be upgraded into 2 stronger units
• strong against drakes, cavalry and mages; weak against almost everyone
• strong melee attack (pierce), weak ranged attack (pierce)

Troll Whelp is a small troll with high HP, but poor defenses, that can heal itself. Keep them in mountains, because they are a good target on open ground.

• good defense in mountains, but with a lot of hitpoints
• chaotic
• strong against skeletons, spearmen, saurians; weak when fighting multiple enemies
• medium melee attack (impact)

Naga fighter is a warrior and scout connected with water. Unlike similar creatures, Nagas fight well also on sand. Only non-chaotic unit in the army.

• good defense in water (50-70%)
• Neutral
• strong on maps with lots of water and swamps; weak on maps with small amount of water
• strong melee attack (blade)

Starting troops

(only 73 gold)

Add Rider on maps without much water

Add Naga Fighter on maps with water

Northerners does not have many good leaders. Troll can be easily killed in battle, but regenerate out of combat. Slayer with good defence and poison might be useful and you do not need to recruit too much expensive assassins. Against undead, Slurbow is very good choice with ability to destroy sketelons, ghosts and ghouls.

General Northerner Strategies

In general, Northerners will win by mass. Northerners are the cheapest faction and need to utilize that advantage. Poison will be a crucial strategic element as Northerners have the only ranged poison at the beggining of the game. Grunts and Whelps will be the meat of your army, but make sure to recruit Grunts or Assassins to hold villages, as Whelps do a poor job of this with 40% defense.

Northerners level quickly on the whole compared to other factions, so try to level any unit as they all grow in power quickly. Nagas upon level actually fare rather well on land, and Trolls will double their damage. Levelling Grunts gains you a great number of hp, but they are a tad slower to level than the other units at your disposal. Wolf Riders also do well as Pillagers to slow your enemy, and Assassins become better than Grunts at dealing melee damage. Try to focus your xp alotment to gain an advantage.

Your lack of ranged combat will mean you will be vulnerable to ranged counter-attacks. Plan accordingly and have some Assassins nearby to help defend against retaliation. Trolls are good for frontline blockers for their Regen, but keep them in hills or mountains where they have decent defense. Your archers are cheap and very good against some enemies, so it is a good idea to combine them with even cheaper and stronger grunts.

Villages

Use goblins or wolf riders to get villages. Defend them with grunts, they are your best unit for this. When not facing someone with magical attacks, use assassins. If assassin is defending a village and he poisons enemy unit, that enemy will have to run a long way to other village, or lose HPs very fast.

Northerners vs Drakes

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Drakes are fast and lawful. Your opposite. It is very likely, that they will attack first. Orcs are strong and resilient - and what is very important, you can have a lot of them. Orcish Grunt cost 12 gold, while for example Drake Burner 21 gold, almost double. When fighting drakes, make sure your reinforcements are coming to the frontline as soon as possible.

Be careful about villages. Drakes love them and you must use your wolf riders to get them. Drakes are stronger than your wolves, so do not fight them and try to get another village. Drakes can take a lot of hits, but they will quickly move to villages.

Hunt in packs. Good orc party is a good match for few mighty drakes. Combine your units, because drake player can use both drakes and saurians. What is good against one is strong against the another. Drake player does not have enough gold to make a lot of the same unit (with exception of saurians).

Against drakes: Use pierce melee and ranged damage (goblin spearmen and orcish archer), poison (assassin) and do not let them take villages (wolf rider). If you do this well, you can expect a lot of saurians.

Against saurians: Saurians are fast, but not very dangerous to your units. Kill them with whelps and grunts. Also, your naga fighters are good in fighting them in marsches and water hexes. Saurians are also vulnerable to the fire arrows from your archers. Remember, that saurian healers are very weak. So weak, that you can kill them with combination of assassin and wolf rider (or with two wolf riders).

Northerners vs Knalgans

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You'll want Poison to take these guys down. Take as many hill and mountain hexes as you can, and keep trolls in your front line during day to Regen.

A first turn recruit you'll want a Grunt, 1 or 2 Whelps, 1 or 2 Assassins, and possibly another Grunt, a Rider, or Naga. Don't be afraid to Poison Dwarves even in daytime if you can do so from favorable terrain. If you see Ulfs are nearby, you'll want to take them out with Grunts. You'll want to use Whelps to go after Thunderers, and you'll want to take them out first generally, as they'll be the easiest units for you to kill.

Have your Assassins Poison the Fighters while this is happening. Try to ignore Guardsmen if you can, because they will take too much effort to kill. Don't be afraid to sacrifice a Grunt to take a shot at an open Ulf if the opportunity arises and the CTK is sizable. The 7 gold difference in cost is worth the risk. If you can't finish it with one Grunt, 2 should do the trick. This will be a game of push and pull. You'll have to push at night and prevent them pushing at day with the Poison you plant. You shouldn't need more than 2 Assassins, but you will need to use them a lot.

Outlaws are generally not a threat to you, but they are good in villages. Get there sooner than your enemy with Wolf Riders. Also, your Grunts are effective against them and they are even cheaper.

Orcish Assassin: A necessity against Knalgans. Poisoning any Dwarf will add up. Poisoning Guardsmen will add up faster. A couple of these to annoy and drive back Dwarves from their homes are a necessity.

Orcish Grunt: 12 gold village holders nighttime siege artists. Their damage, defense, and moves are better than Trolls, so having a few of these to search and destroy are a necessity.

Troll Whelp: A good choice against Knalgans for their high hp, 20% resistance to Blade and Pierce, and their ability to Regen. The extra gold will be worth it if you keep these guys on the hill and mountain hexes your opponent will want to take. A rotation of these guys will keep your front line from crumbling, and will keep Thunderer damage to a minimum. Level one of these and your damage will double.

Orcish Archer: Recruiting one of these to poke at Fighters and Guardsmen may prove useful, but more frequently you'll want to spend your gold on other units.

Goblin Spearman: Do not recruit Goblin Spearmen when fighting Knalgans. Their hp is too low for them to deal any significant damage before they die.

Wolf Rider: Your scout unit, you can use these to grab crucial hilly areas before Dwarves can reach them. If you can get him to level, the ability to slow Dwarves may prove exceptionally useful. Recruiting more than one of these may prove too costly though on small and medium maps. They might get to conflict with more costly gryphons on larger ones.

Naga Fighter: Recruit if there are important water or swamp areas you can control. Their neutrality and high defense will serve you well for 14 gold. However many dwarves are resistant to blade attacks.

Northerners vs Rebels

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Fight between Rebels and Northerners is common in Battle for Wesnoth Campaigns, including Heir to the Throne and Son of the Black Eye. Northerners are very different and use your strenghts against their weaknesses.

Rebels are pretty fragile units with low hitpoints. There good defense makes up for that, though. Northerners' classical fight mostly happens on elves' conditions, that is they have 60+% terrain defense (and you have a hard time getting along with that unless you get very lucky).

Grunt is your main fighting force. They do not have ranged attack, so they are easy target for elvish archers. However, they are dangerous during night, very cheap and can take a lot of arrows before falling down. 3 grunts costs less than 2 elvish archers. Also, use grunt to cut down woses. If possible, exchange grunt for shaman.

Whelp is another important warrior on your side. They are good against pierce attacks and also cheap. They need a good terrain to defend against multiple attacks and they need to move back and forth. Still, archers will do only 4-4 damage to them. Also they are interesting in fight with much more expensive woses.

Wolf Riders are needed to get villages. They might be also usable to cut down woses with their teeth (what sound strange).

Archers can use their fire against woses, prierce against scouts and they can also do some damage to elvish fighters. Do not over recruit them.

Goblin Spearman can be killed too fast and they do not have ZOC, what is a big problem against fast elves, who can quickly occupy good terrain. Do not use them against rebels, unless you need to kill mages and few gold is missing to get a grunt.

Naga fighter is melee attacker, good against anyone who gets to the water. They are very useful, but will take a lot of hits from ranged units. They will not die quickly when attacked by a lot of mermen with ranged attacks.

Assassin is your ultimate weapon. People always say "get them out of the forest", but they simply don't leave it... The solution to that is: Make them leave it. Not with the classical approach, but with the strength only northerners have: Ranged poison + high defense = assassin.

The normal situation is that elvish fighters guard the more fragile units like shamans, mages and archers. If the night approaches, you take 2+ assassins and attack the shielding fighters. Chances are high that they both get poisoned and from that time on, time is working for you: either they retreat or they keep shielding and die. Archers will think twice before attacking an assassin as well as shamans and mages at night. If rebels stay and fight, they get owned at night due to poison combined with heavy hitters. If they run, you got what you wanted: They leave the forest.

Despite their defense, assasins die fast to a combined attack. You will probably lose some. But most of the time it's worth the loss, because you turn the fight to be on your own conditions. Woses are an additional problem for assasins.

This is not a trivial to play strategy. The matchup is balanced so rebels have an answer. Poison doesn't make it a no-brainer, but it evens the chances and gives you the opportunity to make the most out of it.

Against classic elvish trio:(fighter, archer and shaman) you can use your own: grunts for raw damage, assassins for poison (and level 1 shaman cannot cure poison) and wolf rider to attack retreating units. Elvish trio costs 46 gold, same as yours. Also you can get some whelps to tank some damage and retreat.