TheEasternInvasion

This is a discussion of The Eastern Invasion, the campaign featuring Gweddry General of Wesnoth.

Perhaps this will provide grounds for trenchant criticism from more experienced and abler players. These descriptions are aimed at the "medium" difficulty level (as "easy" lets you get away with sloppiness and "hard" is for people who are comfortable with Advanced Tactics). Please improve these and add your own for later levels.

Warning: spoilers ahead!

1. The Outpost

it is probably best to recruit 5 heavy infantry and 1 mage on this scenario. The heavy infantry can flag the villages surrounding you by turn 3, turn 2 if they're quick, and the mage can flag the northern forest village on turn 2 if quick.

Sending 2 HI south, to the revenants, is a good idea because you can usually get both of them a 2nd level kill without having either die. The other ones should stand and fight against the enemies coming at you from the north and east. Use the HI most of time, and use the mage when they are in forest and it can get a killing blow. By the end of the scenario, you should have 2-3 shock troopers and 1 half-advanced mage.

It is sometimes a good idea to recruit another mage on turn 10 or so, since you will probably end the gold with less than 100 gold anyway, so you save money by buying in advance. (mathematically this does make sense). Also, you can get them about 10 experience along the way.

2. Escape Tunnel

Don't bother recalling HI, they go too slow in caves. Go for a group of mostly mages, and a couple of spearmen. If either is quick, have it get the holy water. Use it and dacyn against the undead, and use the mages against the trolls. Since you have allies they shouldn't die. Send Gweddry with a (hopefully) quick mage southeast to avoid the trolls and go to the finish. Send the mage to get the gold, and get gweddry to the end of the tunnel for a victory.

3. An Unexpected Appearance

What you do in this scenario depends on which way you want to go. Going east is harder, but brings you more reward, such as the chance to go to Mal-Ravanal's Capital (which eventually will be worthwhile, but probably isn't now).

Obviously, first kill Mal-Tar. To do this, shoot him with Dacyn and attacking him with Gweddry's melee. It probably won't kill him the first turn, so second turn kill the vampire bat he recruits with Dacyn and finish Mal-Tar off with Gweddry.

Then, recall 2 shock troopers and 1 half-advanced heavy infantry on the side of the castle you are going (so if you are attacking eastward, recall them on the 3 eastern castle hexes). This gives them a headstart in that direction. Dacyn might be wounded, so send him to a village. Don't worry, he can fend for himself, since the bats usually arrive one at a time and he can kill one per turn.

Recall any mages with a lot of XP and the spearman you gave the holy water in the previous scenario, then go whichever way you are going. You might want to recruit one throw-away cavalryman to go north, since he gives you income and draws away enemies that otherwise would attack your main force from behind.

4a. Elven Alliance

The Orc's warning about the assassin is overrated; Volas can probably take care of it himself, although you might want to leave ONE unit near him to make sure.

Recruit / recall a wide assortment of units, mostly mages, spearmen and cavalry. Send mages and spearmen up to fight the opponent, send cavalry down as scouts. Any heavy infantry should go up to fight also; they will probably arrive late, and be good for reinforcements when the first troops are wounded.

Align the troops in the forest, so that the enemy will be on grass; this gives you a tactical advantage. Use Dacyn to heal those who need it most - those on the corners, and any mages who are on the front lines.

There is a village at {20,8} that can prove very tactically useful, because the elves usually fight somewhere near it. The elves are defeated most of the time, and the orcs claim this village; it is crucial to kill the orc on this vilage and take it over with a resilient spearman, or a HI.

Once you have gotten past turn 6, it will be day, and the orcs will be very easy to defeat. When the assassin appears on turn 7, ignore it unless you have a cavalryman still down there. In that case, use it to fight the assassin. Keep pressing up. By turn 9, the orcish leader should be dead.

4b. The Undead Border Patrol

This scenario also depends on which way you want to go. If going NW, it is fairly straightforward. The enemy is relatively weak. Do the same as in Unexpected Appearance - recruit 2 suicide cavalrymen to distract the bats. One will probably get enough XP to be worth recalling.

I would use mostly heavy infantry and spearmen with holy water on this level, because mages will only get a +10% to hit from magical. However, as in most scenarios against undead, white mages are very useful.

Try to get the opponent to fight you from the sand. This gives you something like a 70% CTH. >)

4.5. Mal-Ravanal's Capital

5. The Northern Outpost

There are two enemies in this scenario that you must defeat - the undead and the outlaws.The undead are fairly straightforward to defeat, and in any case Owaec usually does most of the work. Just aid him with a few well-placed shock troopers (1-2 should do). That was the easy part.

The main challenge is the criminals. They appear randomly in the villages you flag (One of the villages has assasin that is outlaw leader), but not in those Owaec flags. So don't worry about him uncovering enemies for you. Since when you capture a village the outlaws surround it, you should surround each village before you capture it, so the enemy surrounds you. This makes it so they can't gang up on one of your units with more than 3 people. Also, when you capture a village, try to kill as many enemies as you can before they get a turn.

Faster units are good on this level, since you need to run quickly around from village to village. Probably 1-2 cavalrymen, and 1-2 horsemen, plus some advanced mages and spearmen, will make large enough force. Don't take any heavy infanry along bandit-hunting, although they're useful, as stated before, in fighting the undead.

6. Two Paths

There is a choice to be made here, whether you want to fight the undead or the orcs. The orcs will be harder to defeat, because their leader is level 3, but it might pay off later to kill him. It depends on how large an army you have by now. If you can't take the orcs, you should recall what holy and impact units you do have and attack the undead. You should set up a barrier so that the orcs can't attack your white mages and such. The orcs like to use assassins, so you might need a white mage to help support the barrier, or just put a HI on a village. The orcs might go for him, not around him.

If you want to go for the orcs, remember, there are only 12 turns, so you have to go straight north. I used lots of level 2 and 3 mages I had from the previous maps, then sent the 2 strongest west to fight off the (very weak) undead creatures, while everything else went north, killing the orc warlord just in time at turn 12.

7a. Undead Crossing

Nicknameless person thinks that this is easier choice, because you're facing lich. Lich is turned to undead so its weak to fire, impact and holy attacks, unlike Necromancer. Just get all those units with holy water, recruit lots of heavy infantry and mages, get everyone over river, to the east coast of island the lich is in. Wait there until its daytime, and then simply CHARGE!!!

7b. The Crossing

I had only 100 gold, so recruited some units and went straight north from turn one on. The fighting in the water was quite hard, with some orcs coming down from the north. The un-dead only appeared when I was in the middle of the river, so no encounter with them, and the ogre's helped get rid of the orcs on the north side. (Allefant)

8. Training the Ogres

I made it 5 turns with 2 ogres remaining by killing two of them right at the start with Gweddry, then letting the other two chase Dacyn and Owaec.

Note: Whether or not to use ogres is a matter of playing style. Once they level up, Ogres are quite a tough unit that deals middling damage, but unfortunately can't advance beyond level 2. Their upside is that they move at normal speed on hills and cave floor, which makes them your most mobile unit in at least one scenario (Captured). And as they are of neutral alignment, they can sometimes be handy to have around at nighttime.

9. Xenophobia

This one was pretty easy. I recruited as much as I could, then went straight west to the elves, since they looked weakest. Then from there I went north, letting Owaec grab the holy water. When I arrived at the orc castle, orcs and dwarfs had almost killed each other - so I went with a huge army to the dwarven castle and finished around turn 25. (Allefant)

Another strategy is to go for the dwarves first. They start out by sending my of their troops to fight the orcs, leaving their leader unguarded. When you kill him, start going west. When you get to the orcs, they and the elves should have reduced their numbers drastically, allowing you a relatively easy victory. Then, head south for the elvish leader, who will probably not have much to recruit. Although it is forest, a few mages will make sure a little bad luck doesn't hurt you.

The main strategy in this scenario is staying out of the fighting as much as possible, picking off the weaker sides, and in general letting your enemies kill themselves.

10. Lake Vrug

A dragon and a gryphon caught me by surprise, but I had way over-recruited so both were slain on sight. Later some trolls attacked along the way, which I chased to get some XP. On this scenario, don't recruit too much, since there aren't many enemies.

11. Captured

In version 0.9.1, there's some things that were confusing me at first:

To open a door, attack it with someone.
To see who's inside a cell, it's not enough to open the door, but you need to move inside.
Dacyn tells you of a secret door right outside his cell - but only Gweddry is able to open that door, this

time by moving near it, not by attacking it.

Once you find the key in the barrel, the door you can open is the strange green thing near the starting point.

Besides that, there's no difficulties in this level. You have enough turns, and the other inmates will help you against orcs and trolls. The city has some villages, but I discovered it too late to get >100 gold. I guess it's better to try to finish with few turns and earn bonus.

This scenario changed a lot in 0.9.3, so if you have that version don't pay attention to the above.

12. Evacuation

In version 0.9.1, this one seems to be a bit unbalanced (i.e. too easy). I recalled all my strong units because of the messages that you have to move everyone you want to keep south and then destroy the bridge. But instead, I could kill all three enemy leaders in just a few turns and no losses (I had only level 2 and 3 units). First I moved my whole army to the eastern Orc, then to the southern, then to the Troll, and was done in 6 turns. That way I didn't have to blow up the bridge (which isn't worth seeing - I expected a big explosion, but the bridge just disappeared) and could keep all recruits, not just the ones I recalled.

13. the Drowned Plains

In this scenario, every time you move there is a chance that undead will spring out of the ground a few hexes away from the moving unit. So, you should try to conserve moves, and not recall too many units. Also, it is important that the Skeletal Dragon is not weak against holy, but he IS weak against fire. Thus, Red Mages are better than white on this scenario. The dragon is just wandering around, and won't attack or go for you until you get near it, so make sure you have a powerful enough force ready to kill it before you move within range of it.

14. Approaching Weldyn

This scenario is fairly easy, and should only take 6-8 units. The first turn, recall any mounted holy units you may have (paladins, or any other who have picked up an amulet), and some advanced mages. Don't get heavy infantry, they are too slow, and a rush strategy is most appropriate. Rush the Dark Sorcerer closest to you; since he only recruits level 1 units, he should be easy to defeat. If you are good, he will be dead around turn 5. Then, just run south with Gweddry, and defeat against any undead coming at you from the west with your other units. Since the other two enemies are more powerful than the one you killed, and Konrad II acts, well, stupid, they might start beating him. So, send some of your quicker units (the mounted ones) to help him out. Just make sure the undead archers don't kill them.

15. the Council

Only plot in this. You see the inside of the castle.

16. Weldyn Under Attack

Luckily, you have a lot of allies, but they tend to act rather stupid, and their units are level 1 while the enemies' are level 2 or 3. So, they will serve as distractions, but won't win the battle for you. The northern enemy is one of the strongest, so don't attack him first, just send a few units to form a defensive wall. He tends to recruit a lot of Spectres, and a group of 4 of them can kill any first level unit in one turn. You should try to kill the enemies on this level, not just survive the night. Send rather large forces to attack the south-eastern and south-western enemies, making sure that your ally puts his units on the front line - that way, the undead will kill his units, but have no one left to attack you. Advanced mages are very useful, since they tend to kill revenants and ghouls in one attack. Once the other enemies are defeate, advance on the northern enemy, killing his spectres with mages. You should be able to level up a few. After the secenario, there is a choice of going to The Duel, or to Weldyn Besieged. In The Duel, you can only use your 6 best units, and Weldyn Besieged is just another big battle.

17a. The Duel

I recalled 3 great mages, and 3 mages of light (yes, that's who I still upgraded in the previous scenario), then assassinated Mal-Ravanal at daylight. Seemed much too easy (version 0.9.1, and medium difficulty).

17b. Weldyn Besieged

I had hoped for a big final battle like in Heir of the Throne - but instead I could assassinate Mal-Ravnal in just 5 turns. Apparently, the later scenarios in "Eastern Invasion" aren't balanced yet (version 0.9.1 here, medium difficulty).