LotI Walkthrough-Part1-Chapter03

Part I, Embracing the Darkness, Chapter 3, Shadows of the Night

Generally

[WHU] Recruiting and recalling work differently than normal in this chapter. Be sure to read and understand the introductory material at the beginning of the first scenario. Villages will often provide no income, check the status table (Alt-s, then Scenario Settings) at the start of each scenario.

[Thrash] In a nutshell, recruiting is 10x normal cost, but units are automatically recalled, are loyal, and advance slightly faster. Units can be normally recalled, but you will start some scenarios without a keep so you can't rely on this. Don’t forget about using gems and items on units on the recall list.

Thirst for Adventures

[WHU] Recruits are not really necessary here, and if Efraim and Lethalia are fast, they'll just slow you down. If you do recruit, keep them back and have Lethalia and Efraim protect them from the first batch of wolves and mists. The town "to the east" is actually to southeast, the first time the road forks follow the southeast branch with your fastest leader. North of the town is a swamp, kill the lich. You will be given the opportunity to go on an optional scenario, why not?

[Thrash] The mists and wolves have gotten much harder at the start. Even a group of L3-L4 recalls can have some problems with them and even Lethalia can get killed. L1 recruits will just get mopped up. Note if you recall there are a lot of villages, but you cannot get positive income, only zero. There is however no time limit, so you can recruit, get a bunch of villages and then recall. You do want to carry over some gold to the next level, especially if you choose to fight the bandits. Note there is an enemy bandit leader at 62,63 (south central) who makes for a good fight for L1 recruits. He is only triggered when you get close to him. The enemy lich also apparently recruits without end and doesn't attack, so you can harvest XP form his recruits until you get bored.

Bandits (Optional Scenario)

[WHU] Recruit a couple elves, give/craft them some gear, and try to get them some experience. Use heroes to block enemies to protect your new elves, and Argan to provide leadership.

[Thrash] Note villages provide income and there is 100% gold carry over. If present, Beelzebub's monument will be at 16,17.

Journey South

[WHU] A long scenario, without much opportunity to use low level units. About ten tiles southeast of the mouth of the path through the mountains is a small orc camp. You may want to send a few heroes over the mountains to take it out. I've always chosen to help the woman which gives a nice reward, but I don't know what the other options do. After you enter the cave, there is a lake full of souls to eat. On the west side of the lake is a chest of gold. One leader can easily clear the path on land of the enemy undead.

[WHU] Following the path south you find a cavern. There are trolls to the west, which provide what IMO is one of the toughest fights in LotI unless you can get to the opening where you fight two on one in your favor. It's no place for your junior units, they can safely remain heading south. Fighting the trolls is not strictly necessary if you just keep moving south. If you choose to go west, look for the entrance to a secret passage to the south, there's a piece of loot in there that is weakly protected.

[WHU] Shortly after exiting the cave there is a gap in the mountains to the west which leads to a path to a secret scenario. It is quite difficult, but doable and gives you access to some dwarves, which is nice, especially if you're building up a collection of axes. If you chose not to fight the trolls and only sent a unit or two through the secret passage, this might be their only hope of survival (unless you sent Lethalia alone, who can fly to a tile inaccessible to the trolls). The alternative is just to cruise easily down to the southern border. Either way you should finish at least 100 turns early -- with no early finish bonus.

[Thrash] Only things to add to WHU's notes: If you take the female necromancer's side such that she is an ally and then you fight Beelezebub, you can run into issues with her units sitting on items resulting from Beelezebub's death. There is 200 gold hidden in cave in 2nd mountain range to the east, north of female necromancer; it's easiest to get to from the south side of the range. Income from villages can only bring you to zero income, not take you positive.

Mining (Optional Scenario)

[WHU] Time to recall or possibly recruit some units. The turn limit is very tight here if you don't have overwhelming force. Your enemies, aside from the four liches, are weak, but you have a lot of work to do and a lot of map to cover so you want plenty of troops to clear the way for your heroes. In the northeast you'll be facing goblins, Lethalia and some elf markmen should have no trouble there. The rest will be undead, so arcane and impact attacks are key. While you are in a cave, most of the paths are covered with roads. This is a good scenario to get some XP for lower level units. Spread your forces so that you are advancing along all paths at once, and try to make sure your heroes move as much as possible each turn, while still blocking enemy units from teaming up on your low level units.

[Thrash] You can recruit dwarven fighters now, though the ones you start with will be auto-recalled in future scenarios, so it's worth putting effort into advancing them. I found with some care, you can handle this scenario without recruiting but recalling a healer or two is helpful. You will need to keep an eye on the turn limit.

Siege

[WHU] Gold, or XP? A fast leader can race down and get behind the orc leader, step into his castle, and win around turn 4, picking up a nice early finish bonus, but leaving a lot of XP on the table. On the other hand, your allies are actually useful, so you could join them in a straight up assault and grab a lot of XP. Your allies have healers you can take advantage of by carefully positioning your units.

[WHU] I like a hybrid approach, where I send a few heroes to stand in the orc castle so he can't recruit very fast and then pick them off a few at a time. You don't get much gold that way, but it's safe, especially if you want to distribute XP to junior units, at least until your ally joins you in the castle. I don't think this is a very wise approach, but it's fun, especially if you mix in some explosive slow attacks to really frustrate the orcs.

[Thrash] If you do decide to harvest XP, your biggest challenge will be your ally stealing kills from you.

Entering the Desert

[WHU] Recruit a few mages, protect them, and take advantage of Argan's leadership and Stormrider's burn foes to help the mages advance. Send a couple elves to scout the forest for villages. Send your army south, following the road. Efraim and Lethalia are relatively safe to explore the desert, but watch out for the occasional enemy that petrifies. There are a lot of enemies with poison, so lead with your undead.

[WHU] In the southeast corner is a pit that will spawn ghostly units in increasing number. The idea here is to use those ghosts as target practice for your mages. I just don't find that practical, it's very difficult to protect them. I go for the big early finish bonus. Whichever you choose, Lethalia (or Efraim if you have advanced his movement AMLAs to at least the levitate upgrade) should be making constant movement toward the pit, as the ghosts will surround your leader on every turn.

[Thrash] You can get away without recruiting/recalling, but it is a good chance to harvest some XP. And as WHU notes, you can now recruit mages, so it's a good time to take advantage of that. The enemies with the petrify attack are nearly invisible, so keep a close eye out for them. Petrify doesn’t seem to be curable except by potion? There are two items in SW part of map.

The Pit

[WHU] Send a quick dwarf or other unit that moves well in caves along the north border to pick up an item in the northeast corner. Send your heroes southeast to find the glyph where the ghosts spawn and step on it to stop them. You can leave your low level and/or slow units behind, they won't be much use against the units you'll be up against. If you do decide to bring them, use Efraim and Lethalia together to disable the glyph, keeping ghosts in front of you for the most part, while Delly, Argan, and Stormrider protect the rest of the army from any ghosts that get by.

[WHU] Continue following the path around the glyph until you encounter the next batch of enemies, which may not be the most dangerous you have faced so far, but certainly close. Use the bridge and rotate back to heal/regenerate as necessary until you get the upper hand, then charge forward. If you have given Stormrider a lot of HP and defenses and upgraded his burns foes, he can be a valuable tool on the front line here.

[Thrash] This is the first scenario you start without a keep and hence unable to recruit or recall. Not really a problem, especially if you have some L2-3 dwarves.

Darkest Darkness

[WHU] This one can be a little tricky. You have to protect your troops from higher level ghosts sneaking in from all directions, but you also need to be using your stronger units to quickly hunt down the enemy leaders (north, northeast, northwest, and southeast).

[Thrash] The toughest leader is to the NE. There is an escape tunnels in the SW that end the scenario. (WHU is correct, SE is not an escape tunnel.)

[WHU] I never noticed that the objectives say that escape is also an option. There is only one tunnel that leads to escape, however, in the SW.

[Thrash] No starting keep, though there are ones to be had. If you don't have enough troops, probably pushing SE is best.

End of all Hopes

[WHU] Efraim and Lethalia, working together, can accomplish the main mission, though it helps to remember that is to escape and not to waste time with the enemy leader. Send everyone but Efraim and Lethalia north, and defend the one tile gap, keeping the undead trapped underground. Watch out for chocobone charges. You can also send some units into the narrow passages in the southeast if you want to spread the XP around, just make sure to have some healers and leave enough room to rotate troops back to heal.

[WHU] Use Efraim and Lethalia to draw the bulk of the undead to the northern part of the underground, then race around to the south and west, waiting near the exit until the orc leader goes down, which will allow you access to cheap bandit recruits. Or draw the undead to the northern part of the underground while sending a unit with lesser nightstalk (Nighwalker) and darkens (Deflector of Light) to sneak to the exit. There is no early finish bonus, so you may want to milk some XP at the end.

[Thrash] No income from villages. If you kill the orcish leader outside, you will gain the ability to recruit chaotic human units. I split my troops, sending the elves outside along with Stormrider, the dwarves west, and split my mages as most useful. Good time to consider recruiting/recalling some low-level mages.

Lost

[WHU] Send Efraim and Lethalia south and take out the drakes just for being drakes. Then head west and turn south to kill a dragon and pick up a new toy. I used to think Efraim should take it, but I now prefer to give it to Lethalia. Head back north, turn west. In the southwest will be a bunch of goblins. North from there on the western edge of the map about halfway up is the exit. There's no early finish bonus, so you may want to explore areas to the north.

[WHU] Meanwhile, you can move the rest of your army generally southwest. There will be a detour heading north, but just keep aiming south and west as best you can. You should meet up with Efraim and Lethalia shortly before they reach the goblins, which can be used as XP for lower level units or to run up your soul eater count for Efraim and/or Lethalia. Alternatively, you could use your army to explore north, or just leave them at the start, Efraim and Lethalia can easily finish this scenario in about 50 turns by themselves.

[Thrash] No income from villages. Your four main heroes are basically invincible, so you can split into four groups with a hero leading each and effectively divide and conquer this scenario. Send some fliers north to fight the bats and kill the bat leader in the NE. The big room to the SE seems to be empty.

Ambush

[WHU] There are a couple ways to get through this scenario without losing units. My choice depends on how my units are initially positioned, what strengths and weaknesses my army has, and which and how many potions I have in my inventory.

[WHU] Option one, move any junior units you aren't will to sacrifice to the center and hold a solid formation. This assumes you have good defensive units and a handful of healing potions.

[WHU] Option two, pick a direction, clear it with your heroes, and run for it so you can shield your junior units mostly with terrain and keep the fight away from them. Hit and run, or greater healing potions will probably be necessary here, so your heroes can attack and then assume defensive position.

[WHU] If neither of these options are available, and you can't come up with an alternative, you could always remove any gear you care about from some expendable units and position them to slow the enemy. They'll almost certainly die on the first turn, but the units that kill them will have to expend their turn to kill them. Immediately go on offense with your heroes.

[Thrash] The biggest threat is the necromancers, try to kill them before they attack while tolerating other enemies.

Gehenna

[WHU] First you need to defend against a short wave of relatively powerful enemies. Lethalia can easily defend the southern entrance, backed by a couple junior units who are just there to pick up an easy kill or two when available. The northern entrance will probably require the rest of your heroes and a few senior units to rotate in and out. The initial defense (in the north at least) is more challenging than most of what you have encountered so far, but it isn't really difficult if you keep a good defensive line so an individual unit doesn't get ganged up on and rotate the front line out to heal.

[WHU] After the initial assault has been beaten back, pick a leader to send to the northwest corner of the map where there is a bunch of loot. Send the rest of your heroes, split into a couple teams, to the west. You will meet light resistance until you approach the perimeter of the enemy defenses. Punch a hole through the front line, and relentlessly move forward. The leader looting the treasury should be starting to fight southward. The rest of your army will be relatively safe back at the castle, just expect a few bats to drop by.

[WHU] When you see the enemy leader, check his resistances (click on the unit, mouse over the HP values on the right side of the screen). He is easy to kill, but only if you hit him with the right attacks. There's no early finish bonus, so once you reach him you may want to spend some time killing his underlings.

[Thrash] Beelzebub's monument will be at 10,9 if present.

Achilles' Revenge

[WHU] Still have that Woodland Cloak? Good. Put it on Efraim and send him through the woods. Take your time, there is no early finish bonus. While the objectives say killing orcs is optional, it's also a lot of fun. Force the orcs in the east to come at you through the river, or pound your way into their castle so that you control how much they can recruit. If you've advanced Lethalia to have chill tempest with explosive slow this is a great time to make use of it (this is why you sent Efraim with the Woodlands Cloak).

[WHU] This is a great opportunity to level up some of those dwarfs you recruited in Mining, standing in the mountains to the east of the first orc castle pounding away at slowed orcs and trolls.

[Thrash] Lots of XP harvesting to be done here and villages do produce income. Any unit reaching the western edge is sufficient for victory. Beelezbub's monument, if present, is at 29,20, nicely central and en route to the orc leader.

Bitter Swamp

[WHU] Send Efraim and Lethalia to work together to carve through the saurians and kill their leader. Protect weaker units in the castle from saurians appearing out of the swamp. After several turns, Efraim and Lethalia should draw the undead coming from the northwest to them, allowing a couple units such as Delly and Stormrider to advance easily up the path and kill the lich. There is a trader north of your castle. You might as well spend most of your gold now.

[Thrash] Watch out for two nearly invisible Fog with petrify attack. I ended up wanting about 800 gold to spend at the Trader.

First Confrontation

[WHU] The obvious approach here would probably be to stand on the bank of the river and slaughter a bunch of drakes. This will work, but will probably be costly. A simpler approach is to send Efraim and Lethalia forward at full speed, right through the middle of the pack of drakes, while defensive units surround the castle protecting weaker ones. The drakes will concentrate almost exclusively on Efraim and Lethalia, sending only a handful south that you can easily dispatch.

[WHU] There's no early finish bonus. The drake leader has a lot of gold and a healthy income. If you want to milk drakes for XP, you will want to consider whether or not to kill him early (less danger if you want to get XP for your army) or not (more drakes to kill).

[Thrash] Beelezbub's monument, if present, is at 15,7, nicely central and en route to the drake leader. If Beelezebub is present, I recruit a Faerie and two seers for extra firepower. I find I want to carry ~700 gold over into next scenario.

Chasing Dragons

[WHU] Send someone into the cavern in the mountains and touch the obelisk. The instructions are more or less written backwards. Or don't, it's not like you'll need the help.

[WHU] Send Efraim and Lethalia separately at two of the nearest dragon leaders. Send the rest of your powerful units along the path and across the bridge to assist your allies. Your allies can pretty much take care of things, so don't put any units at risk.

[WHU] As dragon after dragon attack Efraim and Lethalia and basically bounce off, try not to laugh. It's not polite.

[WHU] The end of this scenario is probably a really good time to strip Argan, Delly, and Stormrider of any gear.

[Thrash] Note four units to recall in Chapter 4. This is the last time you play Delly and Argan, so unequip them of any items for certain. Other units won't be available in next chapter, so you might want to unequip them as well. Those units here won't be available to you again until Chapter 5, when you can recall them with Soulgate; this picks them randomly, so it's not a bad idea to go through and clear up your recall list, getting rid of weaker units.

Nightmare

[WHU] After all the fun we had with dragons in the last scenario, might as well go after them again.

[Thrash] I generally recruit a bunch of units to distract the enemy and then flee to a corner or other area with limited access. If needed, use some healing potions.