LegendofWesmere

General Note: Throughout this campaign, if your elves need to make a stand and you have a choice of options, choose the one that will put most of them in the woods. Not only will this give you the best chance of survival, it will ensure that the AI playing your allies will do useful things. This matters a lot, because many of the scenarios in this campaign involve allies you cannot control whose death results in your defeat.

Strategical Note: This is a long campaign where you play elves. So take a look at the top level units: There are two units capable of flight! One of them is a curing healer +8, the other one is level 4. Both of them can do magic, and both of them can slow their enemies! If you can team up two shydes and two sylphs, you get a magically hard hitting, regenerating, slowing air force that can ZoC-lock an enemy. As if that wasn't enough, late in the campaign you'll lose access to most of your veteran troops, but not your sylphs and shydes. So it really pays to level shamans. However, since version 1.9.x shamans are not recruitable during the first four scenarios, adapt accordingly.

Loyal troops are even more valuable in this campaign than in most others, partially because they get three traits, but mainly because you'll get to keep them when your other troops are unavailable. With that in mind, you should strongly consider leveling one (or both!) of your loyal fighters into a marshal. His leadership skills will prove invaluable when you are stuck with a level 1 army.

The Uprooting

• Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost
• Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
• Turns: 16/14/12 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and Anduilas

Like the first scenario in Heir to the Throne, this scenario begins with the hero in a forest with enemies preparing to close in on all sides. You might want to simply run away (and previously you could), but you have to kill one enemy leader. On easy / medium you can take out the one directly to the east of your keep, on hard this can turn out tricky. Going to the northwest is an alternative as this puts the maximum distance between you and the troops of the other orcish leaders, it also allows you to use the units of Velon more efficiently (they come under your control after they are first attacked by an orc).

You can only recruit fighters and archers. Use fighters to shield yourself and archers to kill the grunts (warriors). Keep loyals and leaders safe - if only one unit shields them, remember that it can be killed by a single lucky L2 orc. If you manage to level up units choose captain for fighters and marksman for archers.

Hostile Mountains

• Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost or defeat the troll leader
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

The most important thing to do is get the dwarves to fight the trolls. The trolls will go to the east bank without any bait, just take care you don't lure them away or worse anger the dwarves yourself. Even after they fight with the trolls, do not go to the east bank.

Recruit fighters to die, archers to do damage. The trolls will prefer to go for the fighters when given the option. Give leadership to your archers, if you don't have one yet level a fighter to captain as soon as possible. You will need marksmen to kill trolls on mountains, so keep your archers safe (well, at least on reasonable terrain).

Do not, under any circumstances, cross the river—if you do, Olurf will attack you, and the trolls will cut both you and the dwarves to pieces. (You can have units stand in the river if necessary to reach a particular unit, but since your enemies are more powerful than your units avoid doing so if you are likely to be counterattacked.) Instead, send a rider or two out to grab the villages in the far northern reaches of the board while you move your troops onto the wooded island in the middle of the river, directly south of your keep. From here, you can help the dwarves whittle down the trolls while you slowly wend your way southwest toward the troll keep. The scenario will end if you succeed in killing the troll leader. Note: Olurf's death counts as a defeat.

There is a reason the middle island has so much forest. The western bank of the river has a narrow swath of forest surrounded by mountains and hills. This is not ideal terrain for fighting trolls. Trolls move faster than elves on hills and mountains and have comparable defense. A much better idea is to try to occupy the middle island, forcing the trolls to attack from water. Chances are you'll only be able to claim the northern tip of the island at first, so half your army will spill over to the forest on the west bank. The dwarves help by putting units in water and doing other things to distract the trolls and draw fire away from you.

It is preferable to aim to kill the troll leader rather than get to the signpost as the experience is most important.

Ka'lian Under Attack

• Objectives: Survive the initial attack with Galtrid, then defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Galtrid dies or turns run out
• Turns: 5/7/9 initially, then 35/30/25 extra (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

Take careful note of this map; you'll be fighting on it again later.

For the first turns (original turn limit) you play the defenders of the Ka'lian. See all those Orcish Assassins in the water? Make sure they receive as much retaliation as possible when they poison your units (archers). As you can heal only 2 units per turn, make sure they can't poison your fresh recruits as well. So you can as well kill them with some of your poisoned units as long as they have still enough health. Distribute XP carefully, units heal upon level up, rarely is this more useful than in this scenario.

Don't just hit Ctrl-R to recruit; you have a massive keep so put your new units in the right place. Don't let the orcs in good defense terrain and you should be fine. When Kalenz arrives - and if you defended the Ka'lian well - the orcs just pile up in the northwestern corner. Control the map, heal your poisoned Ka'lian defenders and let them do some work, close in carefully - you will inevitably lose a number of units but let it be fighters not your L2. You can level a number of units, but don't wait too long, you will need gold for the next scenario. (250+ carryover)

The Elvish Treasury

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Cleodil dies or turns run out
• Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units

There are two ways to play this scenario. The most straightforward solution is to send your army en masse to the keep in the northwest first; that's where the Shyde is. Then turn east to take out the other saurian. Recruit plenty of fighters, use leadership to full extent and try to heal by level up.

It is alternatively possible to kill the eastern leader with rangers/avengers, the AI will completely ignore them once they are in the woods again. This allows to play more defensively in the west.

When fighting the saurians, there are three things to remember: 1) Don't send out isolated units, because they'll be swarmed and killed; 2) Try to keep the saurians on bad terrain 3) watch the day/night cycle (it doesn't affect your elves, but the saurians are significantly weaker by day and you can turn that fact to great advantage). Kill the Augurs as soon as possible with your fighter line. The skirmishers have a lot of movement points; make sure that wounded units are safe or meant to be sacrificed.

The Saurian Treasury

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar or Cleodil dies or turns run out
• Turns: 24/20/18 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

This scenario is much trickier than the last one because here you have to fight the saurians on terrain that's hostile to your elves (desert and swamp). Try and keep on good terrain (or at least keep the saurians out of good terrain) and form a defensive line (against skirmishers) each turn. Woses are very effective against saurians, slow (shamans) limits the damage potential and mobility of skirmishers. Kill the southern leader first.

When you've dealt with the southern leader and the treasury (the single saurian sitting on a village and not moving) you can either take an Elvish Scout to the treasury to pick up the gold and return it to the sign post (you will have only have the movement points after taking up the treasure) or just go kill the northern leader. Killing the leader is preferable. You'll get XP and any loss in gold from early finish is dwarfed by the 1800 gold you get for beating the level.

Keep an eye on the turn limit. The enemy leaders are easily lured out with a scout.

Acquaintance in Need

• Objectives: Defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

This is another leveling opportunity for your shamans, as there is another troll leader to kill. Also you need to make sure that you neither overrecruit nor underrecruit. With too few units, you will take too long to finish your enemies (as always), while too many units won't help you in the fight, and you will need the money!

Start with the green enemy, who's the closest one to you. The dwarves, who are your allies for this scenario, should provide substantial help in doing so. While you finish off the first orc, you should start sending a fair amount of relatively unexperienced archers/shamans west to take on the troll. Then move north over the mountains in a broad line to take out the orcs. A broad front line will help you to quickly overrun the orcs and allow you to finish in good time. Of course, you need sufficient numbers to do this without overstretching yourself.

The dwarves will get a lot of kills/occupy the enemy quite a bit. Their high mountain defense and mobility ensure this. You may need to resign yourself to softening the orcs up and letting the dwarves get the kills.

Elves' Last Stand

• Objectives: Defeat all of the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Galtrid dies or turns run out
• Turns: 35/30/25 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

[NOTE: This scenario gives you the option of choosing to give orders to the AI that controls your allies. Because of bug issues, I ended up playing the scenario through without using this option. The advice that follows is for playing the scenario with the AI making automatic choices.--cathyr19355]

This is the same map as in Kal'ian Under Attack, but with many more enemies. Don't do the obvious thing here—i.e., attacking the trolls first, because they're the nearest enemy—that will just get Galtrid, your ally holding the Kal'ian, killed, causing defeat. Instead, make your stand in the woods just north of the Kal'ian, taking care to assume a position that will let you defend both against the trolls and against Urug-Pir's and Mordrum's orc troops that will be coming east from the other side of the river. (If you have enough troops, this time it will be useful to move some of them to the river bank to attack the orcs while they're still in the water.) If you're careful, you can use the heavy fighting to level units. As you kill off the aforementioned trolls and orcs, move the main body of your army south through the Kal'ian to Grubr's keep, then west and north again to kill the remaining enemies. Meanwhile, recruit/recall a bunch of riders and other fast-moving units, send them directly south of your keep to grab the villages on the eastern side of the board; if they make it far enough south, you can aim them at Grubr's keep to take some of the pressure off the Kal'ian. Even though you have a lot of gold and can recruit a lot of units, your enemies are numerous, and Olurf and his dwarves won't show up until the third day, so don't get sloppy about formation and protecting the wounded.

Note for directing the AI: Your south-westmost ally is too weak to survive unaided where he is. So it is a good idea to wait until he has recruited as much as he can before telling him to move his leader to Kal'ian. I tried to get both my allies to swarm the sourthern orc, they should be able to defeat him, but unfortunately the AI does not really listen to this kind of order (bug?), so once I had the trolls under control I send a select few units south through Kal'ian to help mop up the remaining orcs there. This should leave you enough time to concentrate on the nothern battle. (At the moment, you will have to debug the scenario before playing it, since Galtrid does not recruit at all. Hopefully it won't take long until a debuged version is shipped with the game.)

Council of Hard Choices

Story only.

Bounty Hunters

• Objectives: Move Kalenz across the river
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

The only thing you gain from defeating the saurians is experience. Since you just left a lot of your troops at the Ka'lian, experience may be worth your effort. Nonetheless, if you are having trouble beating this level just run north as fast as you can. You should be able to cross the river with little trouble. You probably don't even need to recruit.

As for experience, the enemy recruits some relatively low HP level 2s and 3s. You can level units quickly after killing a couple of Saurian Oracles. Of course those Oracles have strong magical attacks (especially at night) negating your high defense. Luckily for you the battles start during the day. Recruit just one keepful of troops. Send a dwarf-heavy squad to the left (closer mountains) and an elf-heavy one to the right (more forest). If you recruit more than one keepful Kalenz will have a much tougher time crossing the river.

Focus on killing the Oracles and Augurs first. They are easy to kill and do a lot of damage. Instead of throwing 3 or 4 units at a level 3 Flanker, just slow it and rack up kills. Try and kill as many units as you can before nightfall, when the attacks become much more ferocious.

You can distract the serpent by having an Elvish Scout make his way to the western edge of the river bank. When the serpent shows up the rider can distract it with his bow.

Cliffs of Thoria

• Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost and defeat the enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 32/28/24 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

There are three tricky elements about this one. First, you have to climb to your destination (the signpost at the top northeast corner of the map) over high mountains, so the going will be very slow for your elves; watch the turn clock carefully. Second, the "fog of war" applies so you won't know much about your enemies until you actually bump into them. Third, some of your enemies are level 4 Yetis. Split your forces, sending one group west. The other group, with Kalenz, goes directly north, deals with the nearest enemy, and continues to the signpost. This group should be large enough that you can peel off 4-6 units once you get most of the way north to take out the enemy in the far northwestern keep. Note: dwarves do well in the mountains, but don't recruit a lot of ulfserkers, not even the second-level ones—they tend to take out the unit they attack but then are very vulnerable to attacks by other units.

Battle of the Book

• Objectives: Defeat Aquagar the drake wizard
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil or Olurf dies or turns run out
• Turns: 30/34/38 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

Your enemies here are drakes and trolls. This is in your favor because the scenario starts at night, when drakes are weakest. Be careful about using archers, since some of the drakes breathe fire and do more damage that way than your units can with their arrows. A good mix of impact and ranged fighters is essential. Split your forces. Send half of your troops east along the road first to Crelanu's keep (if you don't, he may get killed before you can kill off the drakes) to save him and kill the troll leader (whose keep is close by). Take the remaining troops west to kill the drake leader.

For 1.9.x In this scenario, you only have to kill Aquagar. So you just focus attacking the drakes. Send some Steelclads, Pathfinders to aid Crelanu. Marksmen, Rangers, Druids, Thunderguards, Stalwarts are extremely useful here. I killed Aquagar by turn 5. ~~Knyghtmare.

Revelations

Story only.

News from the Front

Story only.

Human Alliance

• Objectives: Survive until the end of turns
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf or Aldar (the human leader) dies or turns run out
• Turns: 18/20/22 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

This scenario is the unofficial final, the following scenarios are pretty much a sequel, and easier too.

The enemy is in three places: the northwest, the northeast (trolls) and the southwest. The northeast trolls will not receive reinforcements, so you should concentrate on eliminating their army first. Your recruits/recalls need to do three things: contain the northwest orcs (this is not that hard due to favorable terrain), aid your human allies to the south, and eliminate the trolls.

The trolls should be pretty easy to kill. Their leader doesn't have much money, so there will not be many trolls to face. Slowing with some shaman and using the forest to your benefit lead to a quick victory. Afterwards, send the units to reinforce your other two fronts.

Your allies can hold their own against the first wave of southern attackers but after that they'll be toast. A much better course of action is to team up with them and crush the first wave. When the reinforcements come you should be in a good position to defeat the orcs (especially with your victorious anti-troll army coming to help).

The northwest orcs are numerous but should be kept in check by strong units in the bottlenecks. You'll need some tanks (Champions/Marshals or Steelclads) and healers. When the orc reinforcements arrive you may get swarmed. By this time you should have some help coming from your anti-troll army. Also, three elves will arrive along the western edge of the map. Have them come and help out.

You may want to recruit a scout or two at the beginning. Along with the horseman you get, they can capture a village almost every turn. Don't bother leaving villages for your ally. The money is better in your hands.

The Treaty

Story only.

The Chief Must Die

• Objectives: Kill the orc chief then return to the signpost
• Lose if: Kalenz or Landar dies or turns run out
• Turns: 32/32/32 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz and Landar

You get no keep, and no chance to recruit, in this one. The only units you have are Kalenz and Landar, and their only task is to assassinate the Orc Sovereign (in the middle) and then return to the signpost at the southwestern corner of the map. Your units will have special attributes (invisible, 80% dodge) for this scenario only that will make this fairly easy, particularly if you have managed to get Landar to level 3. When Kalenz takes the potion he changes into an Elvish Lord. You should easily be able to get him to level up during this scenario.

You should have plenty of turns. The only units that will attack you are the Wolf Rider line. They don't pose much threat thanks to Landar's bow and your 80% dodge. Go to the orc leader, kill him and return to the signpost. There is no point in grabbing villages as you get no income from them. There is also no point in finishing early so go ahead and level Kalenz.

Breaking the Siege

• Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf or Uradredia (the elf leader) dies or turns run out
• Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil, Olurf and any surviving loyal units

Stick to recruiting units with lots of mobility, since the map is large and mostly snow-covered, hampering most of your unit types (don't even bother to recruit dwarves—they won't get to the scene of the action in time to strike any blows). Slyphs and Shydes are best, of course.

It is essential that you reach your ally quickly. Otherwise he might be dead before you even see him. Despite the fact that fog of war is turned on for this scenario, it's pretty simple to figure out from the geography which keep belongs to your ally (the one in the middle of the forest). You will want to finish this level quickly or/and to grab as soon as possible all the villages to have lots of gold for the next scenario (on medium you'll probably want at least 500 gold). Send some fast units north to keep your ally alive and send the rest straight west. The western units can sweep up after taking out the southern orc boss. A bunch of Direwolf Riders come as reinforcements when you get to close to the southern orc, so be careful. Alternatively just send everyone north and fan out from there.

With good units this level shouldn't be tough to beat. Just make sure you beat it in good standing for the next scenario.

Hour of Glory

Story only.

Costly Revenge

• Objectives: Defeat all enemy units and destroy all enemy villages
• Lose if: Kalenz, Landar dies or turns run out
• Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Landar and any surviving loyal units
• Other

This is the same map as The Saurian Treasury, but with most of the terrain snow-covered. Since you're fighting the saurians again, most of the advice from that scenario still applies. Mobility is not a great issue, even though one of the enemy keeps is near the top northeastern corner of the map, because by the time you can dispose of your southern enemy he will have already sent most of his troops south after you. Numbers are an issue, however. So, whatever you do, do not underrecruit! (You don't need more than minimal gold in the next recruiting scenario.)

The best place to make a stand is probably near the patch of forest in the middle (high casualty approach) or the forest with the big ice plain in front of it (low casualty approach).

High casualty approach:

You have to put units in the swamp to keep the saurians out of there. The only poor-defense terrain for the saurians is the ice, so keep them on it. The Oracles/Soothsayers will use their ranged attack on your melee units and the Skirmishers/Flankers will use their melee attack on your archers. You will take heavy losses but this is actually good (more on that in a second).

I like to send Kalenz and a couple of fast units (Scouts/Riders) along the northern forest and then have them cut across the top of the map. This accomplishes three things: one, you torch some out of the way villages; two, you can distract the northern saurians long enough to keep your main force (in the middle of the map) in control; three, you can move them over to kill the northern leader at the end.

There is a weird twist to this level. After this the elvish civil war breaks out. All your units except loyal ones defect and serve Landar. So, see that Elvish Champion racking up the kills? Next time he's in battle he will be killing your units. After the tide of the battle has turned try and get the non-loyal high level units killed (attack those last two Oracles with ranged attack, etc).

If you have enough gold your main worries will be getting to the villages in time (scouts come in handy), getting to the northern leader in time and leaving as few good units for the civil war as possible.

Low casualty approach:

1.10.1 (hard): It is not necessary to get your units killed consciously and this scenario is possible with fairly low gold (220 gold for me) by recruiting mainly veterans and exploiting the horrible saurian movement / defence on ice (low casualty approach). As the turn limit isn't very long, it is useful to send some rangers/avengers behind the saurian lines to start burning villages, as soon as they hide in a forest they are invisible to the AI.

Council Ruling

Story only.

Elvish Assassins

• Objectives: Move Kalenz to the signpost
• Lose if: Kalenz or Cleodil dies or turns run out
• Turns: 20/16/12 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and Anduilas

There's no need to recruit - Kalenz can make it to the signpost with just the units you're given.

Northern Battle

• Objectives: Defeat all enemy leaders or survive for six days
• Lose if: Kalenz, Cleodil or Uradredia dies or turns run out
• Turns: 40/36/32 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and Anduilas

This is the same map as Breaking the Siege, but since it's not winter, most of the board is grassland and woods, and much easier for your elves to fight on. Landar, now one of your enemies, will be in the far southwest, while another enemy elf has a keep in the far southeast. If you have been building a formidable "air force" (shaman line) you can beat this level very easily.

• The AI leader southeast of your starting keep will make a severe tactical blunder, capturing the only village in range on turn 1, leaving him utterly exposed with enemies nearby. With the select group of loyal troops (and any Slyphs available for recall) and proper positioning on turn 1, it is trivial to eliminate the enemy leader on turn 2. If you can't kill him or ZoC him in turn 2, slow him. That will prevent him from getting to back to the keep to recruit. The battle is over as soon as one of your units moves next to Landar, so let him march his troops north to attack your ally. Recruit a squad of scouts (or quick units) and send them west, timing it so that they reach Landar's keep the turn after he moves his troops out of range. Reach Landar's keep and you'll have plenty of gold to finish the game.

If you don't have enough units from the shaman line for the quick kill, try this:

• Because of Landar's betrayal and the loss of most of your veterans, you will be working mostly with first level units. Consequently, don't try to take on either enemy on the naked grasslands where their keeps lie; recruit as much as you can, then head for your ally's keep in the north central region of the board, taking as many villages during the process as possible. If necessary, leave a few units at the river bank to slow the brown elf units that will pursue you; there is a village on a peninsula in the river near your keep that may be useful in this regard. If you need to, make a stand in and about your ally's keep, though depending upon how well you delay the brown enemy you may be able to pick off your enemy a few at a time in the forest long enough to survive until the end of the scenario.

Remember you don't have to kill all the enemies. Just kill the southeast leader and then sneak a fast unit in next to Landar.

[On version 1.8.2, all my levelled shaman-line had also disappeared - some for my ally, other for Landar. I could only recruit some shaman about to level. And some of my warriors had gone to my ally, not to Landar. With only first level units, killing the south-east level at turn 2 or 3 is not possible... but you can still buy some second-level warriors who will do the job. After that, most of Landar's units will go toward your ally's keep, which makes you able to reach Landar and end the scenario. Careful, he will be able to deal a final blow to the unit who assaulted him ! ]

If you have some experienced woses (highly resistant against pierce damage!), you can as well crush all the traitors frontally - as long as you engage them outside the forest - for an early finish and large bonus.

End of War

• Objectives: Defeat Landar
• Lose if: Kalenz or Cleodil dies or turns run out
• Turns: 24/21/18 (easy/medium/hard)
• Starting units: Kalenz, Cleodil and any surviving loyal units

Recall any remaining veteran troops, then recruit an army of level 1 elves. Send out riders to grab villages early, and form up your line of battle at the edge of the forest to maximize the difference in defense (70% vs. 40%, while trying to hold the shore is only 40% vs. 20%). The forest defense bonus also means that your level 1 troops stand a good chace of surviving at least one round of two level 2 attacks (which they are unlikely to survive on open ground). If any enemy elves make it into the forest the best approach is to use magic attacks to smoke them out (a slyph works wonders). Once Landar's army has been dealt with, sweep your troops down to the enemy keep to deliver the coup de grace.

[version 1.8.2 : on medium, you can just buy loads of level 1 warriors, and keep - most of the time - in the woods. Landar start with about the same money as you do, but doing this, you just suffocate him under numbers.]

Again experienced woses dominate your enemies outside of forests.

Epilogue

Story only.