Name: Marc Novakouski
Email: bahamut_026@hotmail.com
Game: Warcraft III
Guide: Hard Mode Campaign Strategy Guide
Date: 10-8-02
Version: 1.0
Warcraft 3 is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment. This guide is not
in any way associated or endorsed by Blizzard.
Copyright 2002 Marc Novakouski
Anyone can use this guide (or parts of it) for public or private use,
as long as said use is non-profit and proper credit is given to the
author.
Version History
1.0 All Basic Strategies Complete.
Contact Info
Any serious questions for Warcraft III may be directed to the above
email. Note that I wrote this as a reference for people playing the
game on Hard Difficulty, so I expect (within reasonable limits) anyone
referencing this document to have completed the game on Normal.
Therefore I most likely will not respond to any questions which can be
answered in the normal course of playing the game. I will also not
bother answering anything I specifically answer within the body of the
faq, any insults, flames, or intentionally stupid questions. I Will
answer requests for clarifications or specifics on my strategies, if it
is not clear below. Some areas within the faq, such as the various
secrets sections or the names of specific items you can find, I have
not included as I don't feel it's necessary with those things already
catalogued in numerous other faqs, or I just didn't remember at the
time of writing. If enough people request it, I will go through the
game again and fill out those sections.
I. Purpose.
The purpose of this guide is to provide general and/or specific
strategies for the Hard Mode Campaign missions in Warcraft III. For
the most part, strategies that work in normal mode will work again in
Hard mode; the major exceptions to this rule are the Timed missions,
such as "Dissension", the 8th Human mission; "Under the Burning Sky",
the last Undead mission; and "Twilight of the Gods", the last mission
of the game. Each of these, when played on Hard mode, require some
extra effort to get through successfully. I will provide general
strategies for each mission that will work on all difficulties, and
specific tips for each mission on Hard Mode.
II. Table of Contents.
Section 1: Human
-1. The Defense of Strahnbrad
-2. Blackrock & Roll
-3. Ravages of the Plague
-4. The Cult of the Damned
-5. March of the Scourge
-6. The Culling
-7. The Shores of Northrend
-8. Dissension
-9. Frostmourne
Section 2: Undead
-1. Trudging through the Ashes
-2. Digging up the Dead
-3. Into the Realm Eternal
-4. Key of the three Moons
-5. The Fall of Silvermoon
-6. Blackrock & Roll, Too!
-7. The Siege of Dalaran
-8. Under the Burning Sky
Section 3: Orcs
-1. Landfall
-2. The Long March
-3. Cry of the Warsong
-4. The Spirits of Ashenvale
-5. The Hunter of Shadows
-6. Where Wyverns Dare
-7. The Oracle
-8. By Demons be Driven
Section 4: Night Elves
-1. Enemy at the Gate
-2. Daughters of the Moon
-3. The Awakening of Stormrage
-4. The Druids Arise
-5. Brothers in Blood
-6. A Destiny of Flame and Sorrow
-7. Twilight of the Gods
III. Strategies.
Section 1: Human
-1. The Defense of Strahnbrad
Objectives:
Strategy:
The first real mission of Warcraft III is appropriately simple.
Simply take your troops through the start town, make sure to pick up
the items and the extra villagers that turn into footmen & join you,
and kill the creeps. This should level you up. You shouldn't lose any
units, especially if you make sure Arthas uses his healing spell on any
unit that has life that's getting low. The easiest way to do this is
have all your units selected together, which will make Arthas (as the
Hero) the active subgroup. Instead of moving the mouse between the
units on the actual map, simply watch the life bars in the unit window
(again, have them all selected, with Arthas as the active subgroup),
hit the (e) quickkey for healing, and left-click right in the unit
window on the portrait for the unit that needs to be healed.
Anyhow, once you've killed all the creeps and made it to the town
entrance, kill the orcs waiting for you, and enter the town. Kill all
the orcs you meet in the town square, and investigate all the paths
off from the center LEAVING THE NORTH-WEST ONE FOR LAST. When you go
to the Northwest, you'll meet the last group of Orcs, who will run away
and finish
the mission. You want to scour the town for Experience for Arthas &
items. When you're done scouring, finish the mission.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-2. Blackrock & Roll
Objectives:
Strategy:
The first real base-building mission of Warcraft III. Again, quite
simple. And Uther makes it even simpler for you. All you need to do
on this level is to defend your base against the periodic waves of
Orcs, and then go destroy the Orc base. In order to do this, you won't
need to do much; however it is, of course, always best to build up your
tech tree as far as it will go, so put up every building you can and
upgrade everything you can. Of course, you wouldn't be reading this
guide unless you were interested in Hard Mode Strategies, so from this
point on I'm going to assume that you do that anyways (or at least have
a competent base building scheme). Otherwise you never would have made
it through the normal campaign in the first place.
So-defend your base. 4 towers or so on each of the 2 entrances of
the base should do, especially since Uther, the level 10 paladin, is
gonna help you out. Almost impossible to lose with him around. Still,
back him with the towers, just so that you don't have to camp any units
there for defense.
Offense-first thing you should do is go east, where you'll get the
dragon quest, the riflemen units, and the blacksmith building. Upgrade
everything, then build 11 riflemen, and send them (with Arthas but no
footmen) east into the Dragon area. Kill the dragons. The reason I
say 11 riflemen not 12, is so you can have them & Arthas in 1 unit so
you can easily heal the riflemen using the above mentioned unit window
method. Anyways, regardless of difficulty level, 11 riflemen will make
short work of the dragons. Pick up the Orb of Fire, it's great.
Next Objective-Mass up around 2 groups of fully upgraded units (11
footmen, 11 riflemen should do, Arthas leading each one for healing).
Take them to the top middle of the map, and stomp out the orc
encampment. This should be quite easy with 20+ units. First, last,
only time I'm going to mention this, when you attack an enemy base,
kill the units, then the
unit-building buildings, i.e. barracks, bestiary, magic-user producing
building, etc. I suggest you leave the town hall for last, unless you
need the $, in which case just make sure to kill all the
peons/equivalent. As for towers, I got by without siege units in
normal mode (didn't bother with 'em) but in Hard Mode you WILL need
Ballistas/Catapults/Meat Wagons/Mortar
Teams. When they are available (which is usually by the second mission
in each Race's Campaign, except this one,) you will need them. In the
first mission of each campaign you should be fine without them.
Once you've eliminated the Orc encampment, make sure you've got a
decent force remaining (or take the time to build a new one; there
won't be any more attacks, so take all the time you need) and then go
kill the remaining orcs (should just be the blademaster) in the
northeast. Just for fun, I tried killing him with peasants; this
didn't work on hard mode. Bring in at
least 1 full group and the mission is over.
Secrets:
-Kill the fish creatures in the northwest pond, destroy their
buildings. This should net you some items. This isn't the secret
though; after the pond, to the west, there is a small ramp to the north
which is blocked by a tree. If you take some peasants & cut it down
(the path makes it one at a time, too), and then cut down the (seems
like) billions of trees behind That one, you'll Eventually cut a path
to some Ogres in the extreme NW corner. They've got a neat item.
-Along the south border of this map is a line of trees, all the way
to the mountains that mark the dragon optional quest area. Cut down
the ones closest to the mountains, and work your way mostly south, and
west as needed; eventually you'll find a ridgeline and a down to the
right of it. Keep cutting down those trees and Eventually a ramp that
goes to the left will become available, with yet more trees, but once
you cut Those down you'll meet up with some more creeps, which leave (I
believe) a wand of negation. I wouldn't take it if I were you, but
feel free.
Hard Mode Strategies:
-Give the blademaster a Little respect. Peasant rushes likely
won't work (unless you've got high upkeep because of them).
-3. Ravages of the Plague
Objectives:
Strategy:
Another no-base level. This time, you get Jaina Proudmore, who's
wizard abilities rule. You'll be hard pressed to choose over the next
2 levels what abilities to take-the aura is ridiculously powerful and
useful, but so is blizzard (as long as you don't hit your own troops),
and nevermind the water elementals are a match for nearly anything
you'll meet in this Campaign, never mind this mission. Anyways, just
take your time progressing through this one, and make sure you kill ALL
the creeps and undead. You'll find a Fountain of Health in the Upper
Right corner about half-way through; rest up, then head south. the
path will eventually get up along the west edge of the map, and if
you're going north near the west edge, then you're almost done; look at
the minimap and double-check that you didn't miss any areas for
experience and treasure. Then finish the map.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-4. The Cult of the Damned
Objectives:
Strategy:
Time for a real Human vs. Undead battle. First off, defend your
base. The undead will Only come from the west, so only build towers at
that end. Make sure to leave yourself room to run your units in when
your towers are attacked, so that you're not stuck behind your defenses
ineffectually. The best offense is to engage their units and fight it
out while the towers wear them down, and heal up your guys with the
elves or Arthas after the battle (but you knew that since you're
playing on Hard Mode). Anyways, defend the west end. To your east is
a large area with lots of creeps and a gold mine. When you've got a
second, go clear it out. However, you Should have enough $ to defend
your base, upgrade everything, and build an attack force & wipe out the
undead without ever expanding. If you want to expand before you wipe
out the undead base, just make sure you build towers to the east of the
river crossing (directly west of the goblin store). This will ensure
that you'll at least have time to come & defend your base from the
undead should they choose to attack that way. In my experience though,
they don't bother unless you actually put up a hall at the expansion
gold mine. Once you've got enough $ and are fully upgraded, put your
attack force together. This should be Arthas, Jaina, Lots of footmen
(around 12), Lots of Riflemen(8 or 10 maybe), a few priests, and at
least 2 mortar teams. 3 or 4, if you can spare the upkeep, is better.
When you attack the undead encampment (directly to your NW, big
surprise, that's where they've been coming from), mass everyone
together, then have your ground troops do general attack-ground moves
while you order your mortar teams to specifically the ziggurats/spirit
towers, and when you make it that far, the halls of the dead. Undead
towers are VERY effective, and you need to take them out or they'll
return the favor Quite happily. In any case, your 2+ groups of units
should be able to squash this encampment quite handily. If you have
Jaina's Blizzard, feel free, it'll work great, just be careful as you
can easily kill your own units as well. Water Elementals are great for
this battle too.
Once the base is secure, the mission is almost over. If you
haven't, kill all the creeps on the east side of the map near the
expansion gold mine, regroup & heal your units, then walk into the town
in the north. A few undead will get in your way, but this shouldn't be
a problem until you get to near the end, where a bunch of abominations
are waiting for you. Just let Arthas take the lead, Jaina wear them
out with Blizzard (if she has it; otherwise Water Elementals work great
too) and the rest of the troops should run right over them. At the
end, you'll take down Kel'Thuzad, who is no challenge. Mission
Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-5. March of the Scourge
Objectives:
Strategy:
Ah, the first mission actually made hard by the Hard Mode. You can
get through this level by just building standard footmen & riflemen,
supported by a few priests & sorceresses, with towers blocking the nw &
sw entrances to the town. Some strategies suggest barricading in the
towers with farms & hiding behind them with riflemen. Feel free to go
this route, but leave yourself room to run around and take out the meat
wagons that will come to take down your buildings. Every time they
come with meat wagons, you'll probably end up losing a building or two
even if you've got peasants repairing them mid-battle, as the AI's
gotten good enough to recognize it should kill repairing units. I
didn't notice it doing this in Normal Mode;
this may be a Hard Mode improvement. Anyways, hold out as best you
can, the computer should give you enough time between waves to rebuild
your forces (though mid-battle try to estimate your losses & rebuild
them then, so that they're ready earlier; worst case you go to a higher
upkeep, which you should be able to afford). Near the end of the 30
minutes (last minute or so) the Undead will throw everything at you;
they'll likely break through and you'll almost be wiped out (at least
in Hard Mode); however, since you don't "lose" unless you've lost your
town hall, you should be fine. Just wait out the few seconds while
they take down your buildings.
The optional quest, stopping the plagued grain caravan, can be
completed about as easily in Hard mode as in Normal; just wait until
it's about to move on the last town, and go straight north from your NW
exit (there should be a lull in the action at this point) and you
should meet them right to the west of the last town. Completing that
quest (specifically killing the
units) nets good items. Be doubly warned, though; the path north to
the meeting will pass by the entrances to 2 undead bases, and if you
move-attack instead of move, you may well end up have units go off to
their death into those bases; and secondly, as you finish up with the
grain caravan an attack most likely will be launched on your town, so
make sure you've got towers up and ready to hold them off until your
army can return.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-The last undead wave will likely manage to break through your
defenses. Since you only have to hold on for a minute or so, just
fight it out, let your units die; the undead most likely won't go right
for your town hall, and you'll hold on for long enough.
-If the Undead are taking down your hall too quick, one thing that
Might work (though I haven't tried it) is to build a new hall directly
south of the town, down the path that Arthas came up at the beginning;
I believe what's required for an Undead win is that they destroy ALL
town halls, not just the original; and if you tuck a second away, most
likely it'll double the extra time you have.
-The undead start throwing heros at you in this scenario. The Lich
in particular will come at you quite often. The best way to take him
down, if you've got enough points in your heal spell, is to cast that
on him; since it does the normal healing amount in damage to undead.
Just keep casting it, especially on level 3, and he'll go down pretty
quick.
-6. The Culling
Objectives:
Strategy:
Alright, so you need to perform 3 tasks in this mission. 1. Knock
down buildings and kill 100 townspeople. 2. Prevent Mal'Ganis from
doing the same. 3. Protect your base from the periodic attacks from
the Undead base in the sw corner of this map. There are MANY different
ways to accomplish this. The basis for any strategy, of course, is
upgrading your units all
the way, so as you progress make sure to keep upgrading. I'll list a
few strategies, and then note special considerations in the Hard Mode
Strategies section.
Offensive Strategy 1: Go after Mal'Ganis as much as possible. As
soon as you've got enough units to take his party, find him and hunt
him down. When he dies, cut down the houses in the area as fast as you
can to make up for lost time. Keep building units to keep yourself at
a good level, and as soon as he is resurrected, hunt him right down
again. Rinse & repeat. Note as you keep killing him, his escort of
units gets stronger & stronger; so the quicker that you can finish off
the 100 townsfolk the better. Note that this strategy does not work
well for Hard Mode; see below for why. Offensive Strategy 2: Ignore
Mal'Ganis for the most part. Send out your available units IMMEDIATELY
at the beginning of the map and start racking up kills. Build units as
fast as possible (2 barracks are good) and, as Mal'Ganis starts getting
kills, pay attention to where he is and AVOID HIM. The point of this
strategy is to race Mal'Ganis to 100 and take advantage of your jump at
the beginning. When you start getting close, kill off Mal'Ganis, and
at this point you should definitely have a good number of units on your
side, while Mal'Ganis has either his weak first unit or his secondary
unit (you Definitely shouldn't engage him more than twice in this
strategy). Use the time gained from killing him to spread the lead a
bit and finish off the scenario.
Offensive Strategy 3: A mix of the two. Build up 2 groups of
units. Have both start breaking down separate groups of buildings, and
when you feel is appropriate, have ONE engage Mal'Ganis. They'll keep
him busy as the 2nd keeps up the culling. By getting kills while
keeping Mal'Ganis busy & getting the extra time from his death, you'll
definitely have the time you need to get your quota. Credit to Tryo
(tyro717@yahoo.com) who's strategy is posted on www.ultimategamers.com
is the basis for this strategy.
Defensive Strategy 1: To keep your base undead-free, you need to
know when the undead base is attacking you. Fortunately, for all
strategies outlined above, you have a steady stream of units coming out
of your base and to you. It's highly likely that when the undead
attack, they'll meet up with one of these units. When that happens,
sacrifice that unit by having it continue to run to whatever main force
you have, and you can engage it within the city, thus saving your city.
Defensive Strategy 2: Build a group of units, footmen or knights,
to hold back and defend your base. You can depend that the undead base
will send at least 2 squads at you throughout this mission, regardless
of how quickly you complete it, so you can be assured that the $ won't
be wasted sitting in your base. Alternatively, you can leave a token
force of units
at the entrances to your base and when they're attacked, run to your
main group, thus doing the same as in strategy 1.
Defensive Strategy 3: Build towers at each entrance. With at
least 6 towers, almost any force that the undead throw at you will not
make it through. Leave at least 1 peasant to repair the towers. Any
meat wagons can be cleaned up by the next passing built unit.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-Mal'Ganis's escort, and the dreadlord himself, are much more
difficult to beat in Hard Mode. This is why I suggest the strategy of
killing him over and over doesn't work very well, as after the first
time it's a real challenge regardless of what your army consists of.
Mal'Ganis himself makes good use of the sleep spell in Hard Mode, and
is a pain about making sure Arthas falls asleep; be wary, and have one
of your units wake him up if that happens (by hitting him).
-The times between Mal'Ganis's revivals shortens considerably in
Hard Mode; many times, you'll be focusing on him during the battle,
kill him off, and go into cleanup mode, which takes a decent amount of
time with his escort at this difficult, and when you're done you'll
notice that you've got nearly no time to take advantage of before he
resurrects. Therefore I
recommend either Offensive Strategy 2, or 3 with a focus not on killing
him but keeping him busy. I myself used Strategy 2.
-In Hard Mode, the forces sent by the undead base Aren't the joke
they are in Normal Mode; if they come across your house-killing units
in the town, you might want to consider running. Your best bet to
handle the undead squads are to let them past, use the Defensive
Strategy 3 (with the towers) and do cleanup when there's only meat
wagons left. One positive
note though-if you go towers and have a peasant nearby, have the
peasant repair a damaged tower as soon as the undead attack (auto-
repair is good for this); the undead will ignore the towers and come
after the little guy. The towers will do the rest, and if you run the
peasant around, it's likely he'll live too.
-In Normal Mode I observed the enemy to test both entrances to your
base; however in Hard Mode, it seems that the enemy almost always takes
the most direct route to your base. In this case, it's the southern
route, so only bother defending that entrance.
-It's a small thing, but notice that when you knock down a
building, the occupants are sleeping townsfolk for a few seconds. Your
units will not automatically attack them (since at that point they're
still classified as allies-yellow border and all), but if you give your
units an actual attack command, they'll be happy to comply, and in this
mode it only takes 1 hit to kill them, unlike when they turn to zombies
where it takes several. If you can get command queuing to work (I
haven't yet been able to) it would be quite easy to take them all out
before they morph into undead. The game doesn't penalize you for
killing the sleeping innocents (thankfully); you get the full kill for
each. Doing this speeds up the process quite nicely, instead of
waiting for the townsfolk to get stronger and your units to auto-
attack.
-If you choose to avoid Mal'Ganis as in Offensive Strategy 2, it
seems that he always starts in the middle buildings, and then moves to
the south-eastern ones. When I played the mission I started in the
south-eastern ones, got most of them, then ran into him. If you start
in the Northwest buildings you might be able to avoid him for longer if
you slowly move south. Also, it seemed that after the first time
Mal'Ganis is defeated he usually respawns in the northwest. Use this
knowledge to avoid him.
-In summation: In Hard Mode, Mal'Ganis is quite difficult to kill,
and with his powerful escorts he can take down buildings Very quickly.
The undead base is also quite dangerous. The best way to defend
against the undead base is a fixed tower defense on the southern
entrance of the base with some spare units available to clean up meat
wagons. Since taking down Mal'Ganis is only semi-easy once (and even
then he still puts nearly all your units to sleep) and just gets even
More efficient at increasing his undead total as you kill him, it seems
prudent to avoid fighting him, at least much. Either race him and take
a minute lead by the first kill then race to the end, or keep him busy
and have a second unit racking up the
kills. As suggested in the above-mentioned strategy by Tyro, you can
even get him to chase some units around the board; if you can get them
to run between some way-points as you continue to rack up kills, this
will certainly buy you the advantage you need.
-7. The Shores of Northrend
Objectives:
Strategy:
Your goal in this mission is standard-destroy all of the undead.
The undead are collected in 2 bases-in the northwest corner, and
directly south of the 2nd dwarf base. At the beginning, however, you
must first walk through the forest & mountain paths to get to the half-
destroyed dwarf base. In your way are a bunch of creeps, mainly
wolves, a few trolls, and some Nerubians. The Nerubians pose the only
threat, but are taken out easily as long as you're careful and make
sure you consistently heal your troops. The also drop a ball of ice,
which you may or may not choose to pick up, depending on your current
inventory. Ignore all the other treasure the creeps drop, at least for
now. When you make it to the dwarf camp, you'll inherit a bunch of
(mostly burning) buildings. Ignore their state for now, and build some
defenses; the Undead attack swiftly on this level. Once you have
control of muradin, send him back through the beginning of the level,
picking up the items you ignored on the first trip.
The majority of your defenses should be towers, and they should be
grouped mainly at the northeastern approach to your town. The other
entrance, to the west, is Very rarely attacked by any ground units by
the Undead, at least in Hard Mode (see general strategies for why).
Aside from your northern approach, you should also build towers all
long the trees that border the north of your town-the trees that are
between the 2 entrances-because the Undead constantly attack with
Gargoyles in this mission. With enough air defenses, they will do very
little damage, and whenever they attack have whatever riflemen you have
available help out to clean them out quicker. The main Undead attack
will usually come from the northern approach, and as long as you have
enough towers to slow them down at that entrance (6 is usually a good
number), your ground units should have no problems cleaning up. In
this mission you'll probably be seeing a lot of the Lich hero; make
sure to use Arthas's holy light to help bring him down.
Once you've got defenses up and holding, build your attack force.
By now you've got access to almost all the units; I generally go with
several knights and riflemen, backed up with a few priests &
sorceresses. Your first objective is the undead directly south of the
2nd dwarven base, which is an easily destroyable base. As long as you
have some mortar teams to take care of towers, you should be fine.
Destroying this base will allow you access to the 2nd dwarven base,
where you'll pick up some ready-made units and a second gold mine. At
this point, there's only a few creeps to kill and the final undead
base. Take out the creeps if you so desire, and get your army ready.
You should have more than enough money with the new gold mine, so feel
free to go into high upkeep. For the second Undead base, you should
make sure you've got 2 full groups of ground units, of whatever mix you
want, though I again used the above suggested knights, riflemen,
priests, and sorceresses. You will, however, need a few more siege
units; mortar teams are my preferred unit, since they are ranged,
however siege tanks are Very powerful building killers. The only
problem with them is that they are slow and bulky, so if there's a
massive battle they often can't get to their targets. Only use them if
you can make sure the main unit fight takes place away from your
building targets.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-8. Dissension
Objectives:
Strategy:
This is a fairly straightforward mission. Simply advance along the
only path open to you, destroy nearly everything in your way, and
destroy each of the 5 boats when you reach them. The boats can be
destroyed with either the mortar teams (which will take a few shots) or
with Muradin's Storm Bolt ability, which takes only one shot (and is
therefore the preferred method).
For the first half of the mission or so, just keep moving &
killing. When you reach the mercenary camps (there are 3 or so along
the level), hire as many units as you can from them and keep moving.
The main problem in this level is beating the clock. Don't take time
to stop and think; just attack as soon as you can and move on. The
only consideration is that you should try to be careful with your
mortar teams; there is one boat protected by trees, and you need to use
the teams to knock them down. If they die, you can hire some sappers
from a mercenary camp, but it takes too long, especially on Hard Mode;
just restart and keep them away from the monsters.
The first tricky part in this mission is where you meet up with a
bunch of Drakes, which are flying units. You'll meet them about
halfway through, just after you pass another mercenary camp, the one
that offers the trolls with the ensnare ability. Hire a few of those,
get all of your ranged units together, and attack. Make sure to use
Muradin's storm bolt, as it's powerful and will bring down the drakes
quickly.
The next tricky part is soon after the Drakes, the path through the
ziggurats. If you still have mortar teams, you can destroy them;
however at this point, you're probably running out of time, and that
takes too long. There are 2 strategies you can employ: 1, run through
with all your units, let some die. This is acceptable, but there is a
better strategy. Right by the entrance to the path there's a goblin
shop, where they sell teleport gems. Buy at least one, give it to
muradin, have him go into avatar (I hope you have his Avatar ability by
now) and run through. He'll survive without it, but not as well.
Right after, use the teleport gem, making sure you get all your units,
and at least most should be instantly teleported to muradin. I say at
least most since if you haven't lost any, there may be one or two that
don't make it. Ignore them though, and move on. At this point you're
almost done, there should be 1 ship to go.
The final stretch is full of undead. If you've got the time, go
ahead & fight them, you should have no problems. If not, check the
Hard Mode Strategy section for time-saving suggestions. After you make
your final turn north you've got one more group to kill and then the
ship is right there; kill it with Muradin's Storm Bolt. Mission
Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-You have much less time to complete this level in Hard Mode, which
means you're going to have to move faster. Mainly, this means healing
on the go with Arthas, not losing your mortar teams so you can cut down
the trees immediately, and using Muradin to destroy the boats.
However, the place you can save the most time is at the last stretch,
through all the undead. The only thing you have to do to complete the
level is sink the boat; so after the path lined with ziggurats, move
along the path south and meet the undead. Engage them, then forget
about all your units, put Muradin into Avatar, and get him running.
You should easily be able to get around the final curve north; however
the last group of undead may very well trap you with their numbers, and
you won't be able to get away in time. The way to get around this is
that if someone gets in your way, use Muradin's Thunder Clap to stun
them, and then get moving. If you're completely surrounded, pick a
unit to kill, attack it and keep stunning as often as possible until
it's dead and you can run through the gap. Muradin is near-impossible
to kill in Avatar, so you should be fine. The only consideration is to
make sure you have enough MP to cast Storm Bolt on the final ship.
-If you're really short on time, you may be able to start running
all the way from right before the drakes. Just take Arthas & Muradin
and start going; the Drakes shouldn't chase you all the way down
through the Ziggurats. Right before the final stretch, use Arthas to
heal up Muradin, put Muradin into Avatar, and go.
-9. Frostmourne
Objectives:
Strategy:
The final Human mission. Here, you must complete Arthas's quest to
find Frostmourne, defend your base while he's doing it, and then
destroy the Undead. Don't bother attacking from your base until Arthas
is back. Since Arthas only has to deal with fixed creeps on his quest,
ignore him for a bit while you build up your defenses at base camp.
You should defend your base mainly with towers. You've got 3
approaches-North, East, and South. When the mission begins, you've got
small groups of defenders at each one; don't do this. The Undead only
attack one approach at a time, so you'll never have to worry about
multiple battles. Therefore, take all your units, group them together
in the middle of your town, and when you're attacked, send them all to
the battle. This will end each attack quicker, make you lose less
units, and let you concentrate on finishing Arthas's mission more. At
each approach, build around 6 towers for defense (mainly scout towers,
to defend against the air units). As your units die off, rebuild them
into whatever configuration you prefer for your offense, as you'll be
doing that soon after Arthas returns. Make sure to fully upgrade
everything. As long as you keep yourself in low upkeep, the gold mine
you start with should be sufficient to complete the mission.
Arthas's quest is really quite simply. There are 5 or 6 spots
along the mountain path with creeps; just kill them all. Use Arthas
mainly to heal your units, as you'll need most of them. The only
tricky part is that after you make the turn to the east, there will be
a graveyard; as soon as you see it, back off. Take Arthas & Muradin
only in there, and kill off all the ghosts. If you bring your other
units they will likely be possessed, and you'll need them for the final
battle. Once you've killed all the graveyard units, heal up your
forces, and head to the end. The guardians will put up a decent fight,
but concentrate on killing the head one, and as soon as it dies all the
others will too. After this, you lose all the rest of your units and
Arthas will automatically return to base. Too bad, as Muradin's quite
a good hero.
Once Arthas returns, get your army ready to attack. Make sure
you're fully upgraded and your defenses are set; at this point,
Mal'Ganis will start joining the Undead attacks on your town, and
you'll need Arthas to counter him. As soon as you're set to attack,
wait for the next wave, and assuming you've fought it off with little
difficulty, make your attack.
The Undead have 3 bases on this map, and it's up to you what you
decide to take out. Directly north of your base, there's a very
sparsely defended Undead base with a gold mine waiting for you.
Directly east of your base there is a fully defended Undead expansion
base, from where the Southern attacks on your base have come from. And
the main base is all the way to the Northeast. Cleaning out the base
to your North is quite easy, and will net you a gold mine; however, I
wouldn't start mining it until you've cleaned out the expansion base
and built defenses from the main one.
I would suggest you first attack and destroy the base to your east
(which should be fairly simple), which will net you an expansion gold
mine as well as the ceasing of attacks on your south border. If you
want to use the mine here go ahead, though like I said you should have
enough money to complete the mission. If you choose to set up here,
take advantage of the one approach to the north and put up your
defenses there. The problem is that if the Undead alternate attacks
between here and your main base, you'll have to run your units between
the two to fight them off. Therefore, I suggest you destroy the
eastern base, regroup, then clean out the easy base to the north. At
that point, you can build defenses that will contain any attacks by the
undead, right up against the approach to their main base. There are
two approaches to the main base; the path to the east of the easy
northern base, and a slope up that leads to the south. You can get to
the slope by following the path north from the eastern expansion base.
Build towers at each path for defense and leave your units for defense,
and mine whatever gold mine you so desire. There are several groups of
creeps between your base and the undead one, kill them off if you want,
but this is the last Human mission so it won't do you any future good.
For the final attack, make sure you have as many units as you can
muster, with plenty of air defense and siege units. The undead base
has plenty of units in defense, and most likely you'll have to kill
Mal'Ganis at least twice before you make it to the Altar to keep him
from resurrecting. Use your siege units to kill the towers and the
crypts as soon as you can; there will be more than enough enemies to
keep the rest of your offense busy, and the towers will pick you off.
Use Arthas as much as possible; he's way too powerful with Frostmourne
now. You may need to withdraw and attack again; if so, it's best to
have built the defenses and build expansions. It shouldn't take more
than two waves to take down the base. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
Section 2: Undead
-1. Trudging through the Ashes
Objectives:
Strategy:
This is a stealth mission, as much as that's possible for an RTS.
You've got Arthas, 2 ghouls, and (soon after beginning) a shade to get
you through it. The basic idea on this level is to get Arthas close to
each Acolyte-in-hiding which will "save" them, or transport them to
Tichondrius. Mainly you want to avoid all townsfolk and guards, who
take the form of footmen and knights. The townsfolk, if they see you,
will run and get the guards, who will try to kill you. Your basic
strategy is to scout out the area with the shade, sneak behind the
townsfolk, and play the divide-and-conquer game against the footmen.
The Knights are too strong for you to fight; Arthas is pretty weak now
as an Undead. The townsfolk are best killed with Death Coil-it's
ranged, and takes one shot.
The first area is simple. There's 2 acolytes to get; just walk up
to each. On the second one, you may just death coil the one guy there,
or you can maul him with your ghouls. If any of the townsfolk see you
here, they'll get the footmen (1 on Normal, 2 on Hard) and attack. You
may just want to kill them here for the experience; have the ghouls
take the attacks, and heal them with death coil as necessary. After
this section you'll get a shade for scouting.
The next area has a small base, where footmen are circling
periodically and knights are available if you get seen. Don't get
seen. The first thing you should do is go into the grove to the north
where there's an acolyte; kill the 1 or 2 townsfolk, use death coil and
the ghouls if you need too. Hide up there by the water until you have
enough MP left for a few death coils, and when the guards pass, take
Arthas down and to the right of the base. There's a lumber mill and a
bunch of working townsfolk with one acolyte. Make sure you go as soon
as you can after the guards pass, as you'll most likely have to kill 2
or more townsfolk to get to the acolyte; use death coil as soon as
you're seen, and if you gave yourself enough time you can use it again
to kill the other guy before the guards come around again. Once you've
neutralized any townsfolk who ran, you can hide over in the trees until
the guards come again. Notice that there's a boy in the trees who
doesn't run, but is hidden. Feel free to kill him if you're in a sick
mood; hell you're the undead, might as well play the part. Once the
guards have past, get back to the grove, and take your ghouls over to
the left. To the north is a gate guarded by knights; don't go there.
There's a shallow path over the water to the left which lets you get to
the trees and a path around the wall. Now go back to the south, and
you can either fight your way through the fields with the ghouls and
death coil (there are 3 townsfolk to kill) to get to the acolyte in the
sw corner, or you can follow the guards to the bottom of the screen
after they pass and kill the townsfolk guarding the road there. Either
way be careful not to let the townsfolk get far because you can't take
the guards there; get the acolyte and get back to the trees to the
north.
The next area may be the toughest, especially in Hard Mode.
There's an acolyte just past the wall; get him, then watch out. Right
after you get the acolyte a townsperson shows up behind the tree next
to the building; death coil him, because if you try moving north from
here he'll run out. Next, take your time to kill the 2 townsfolk in
the alley to the north, waiting until the wandering townsperson moves
away, and hide until the wanderer comes back, then kill him. Avoid the
townsfolk clustered around the 2 guys fighting (named after the
characters in Fight Club) and move along the west and north walls.
Clear out the townsfolk up here, and carefully move above the trees to
just before where the knight patrols. When it's clear, move your units
past. Once you're past, head to the graveyard and pick up your extra
units. Now carefully run down the east wall to the acolyte waiting in
the nook down by the camped guards; as long as you're careful they
won't see you. If they catch you though, you'll want to bring down
your units to fight them off. You should be able to win this fight
with few problems.
Once you've gotten all the acolytes in this area, move up to the
gate. Don't bother with it for now, and move to the northwest. There
will be a town hall with peasants who will be attacked by bandits. Let
them fight it out or join the fight, keep in mind you'll have to kill
both groups. With your reinforcements from the graveyard you should
have no problems. Clean out the rest of this area, there should be a
few extra creeps in the form of a bandit camp.
The final area is after the gate. Scout out the entire area; the
idea here is very much divide and conquer. All the guards are in small
groups of no more than 3, except for the last group (on the east edge
of the map) who are looking after the last group of acolytes. Simply
kill any townsfolk, march up to each small group, kill them, and heal
your ghouls with the cannibalize ability. Don't worry about your
skeletons, they're pretty ineffective anyways. The townsfolk don't
summon any extra guards, so if they're hanging around guards (such as
the knight at the church) ignore them and go right for the guards.
Eventually you'll only have the last group left. Wait until Arthas has
full MP and your ghouls are all at full health, then attack. You'll
probably lose a few units, but this is the end of the mission, so it
doesn't matter. Once you've liberated the last acolytes, the mission is
over. If you've only got a few units left and you don't think you can
finish off the guards, then attack them with whatever you've got, keep
them busy, and run over to the acolytes with Arthas. Either way,
Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-In this mode there's an acolyte by the 2 guys fighting. Once
you've cleared out everyone else in the area, take Arthas Only and run
him down to the acolyte. All the townsfolk will run except for the 2
fighters, and a knight or 2 will come up to investigate. As soon as
the acolyte activates and transports himself to Tichondrius, run away,
preferably past the patrolling knight up to the graveyard area. The
knights who came to investigate will hang around the fighters and as
long as you're away you should have no trouble.
-2. Digging up the Dead
Objectives:
Strategy:
Simple mission. At the beginning, all you have to do is move east,
take down the buildings with the meat wagons, and clear out the human
units & paladin with your other forces. Make sure to let the meat
wagons go first and take down the buildings, especially the towers;
keep your other units back until you're attacked, then rush and defend
the wagons. Once you've secured the body of Kel'Thuzad, you'll be sent
to a base. The only thing to do here is build defenses, and when
you're ready, attack to the north.
You'll need a couple of towers to your north to slow down
attackers. The humans don't have any unit-producing buildings to the
south, so don't bother defending it. When you have free time go ahead
and clean out the southern part of the map, pick up some items, watch
Tichondrius kill some townsfolk. When you've got maybe 2 groups of
ghouls with some backup wagons, go ahead and attack the humans to your
northwest. There's a paladin to kill, but other than that should be no
problem. If you need some experience, take the northern path just
before the human base, which leads to some rogue mages.
Once you've killed the first human base, restock your forces, then
make your way through the town. Shortly you'll hit a tower and the
second paladin, use the wagons on the tower & buildings and your ghouls
should run over the rest of the forces.
Once the second base is clear, the mission is almost over; the
humans have no more unit-producing buildings. Feel free to take your
time to rebuild your units, and go ahead and clear out any creeps on
the map you missed or ignored. When you're ready, attack over the
bridge to the southwest, and take on Uther. He's extremely strong
(level 10), but 2 groups of ghouls should be enough. Pick up the urn
he drops. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-Uther likes to use holy light a great deal, and will greatly
extend the life of his forces. Make sure you have the maximum number
of units hitting Uther (even set a full group of ghouls to do nothing
but attack him) as the sooner you take him down the better. Death Coil
will speed things up as well.
-3. Into the Realm Eternal
Objectives:
Strategy:
The secret to this mission is to know the best method of attack.
Your starting base has three paths leading off, 2 to the south and one
to the east, which would lead you to believe that you need three
different defensive positions. This in fact is not true; you need
none. If you follow the paths, you'll see that they are all blocked
off by trees, and the elves have no way of getting at your base if you
don't cut any of them down. The only time you have to defend your base
is at the beginning of the mission, when Sylvanas attacks. Once your
forces defeat her, you mainly don't have to worry about defense. If
you sit around for a while, she may show up again; but the idea is to
not give her the chance.
Your goal at the beginning should be to get your buildings up and
your units upgraded. Get an attack force ready, and once you've got a
good amount of necromancers and ghouls (I usually have 11 of each, with
each group led by Arthas) take them to the east with your wagons. Make
sure your wagons are full of corpses from the graveyard. Knock down
the trees at the end (there's a small group of creeps in a village past
the northern trees here, kill them if you want). Very shortly after
the trees there's an elf village. Drop the corpses from the wagons and
have your necromancers summon up 24 skeletons or so (25 is supposedly
the limit you can have, I never bothered to check). Send in the
skeletons to soften up the village, then follow them in. Make sure the
raise dead ability on the necromancers is turned On, so that you're
always fighting with your full compliment of skeletons. Take this
approach in every base attack from now on; the extra skeletons and
constant new stream of them nearly never fails against the computer.
Once this base has been cleared off, create an expansion base.
You'll have one approach to the base, over the bridge, and you can be
fairly certain (at least in Hard Mode) that the elves will Always
attack this base (not your original). Build some towers for defense,
get the gold mine going, and rebuild your forces. Watch for the elves,
led by Sylvanas, to attack over the bridge.
When you are ready, take the same approach on the next village,
which lies just to the south of the bridge. When that one is gone,
move to the west where you'll find another bridge. Setup your defense
on this bridge, towers preferably, and rebuild your forces. When you
finish the mine at the first expansion move on to the second. If you
want, clear the trees to the north of the bridge and claim the fountain
of health. Fight off the elves whenever they come.
Immediately after an attack by Sylvanas, if you didn't take too
much damage, move on the next base. There's a small group of elves
defending a goblin shop just over the bridge; clear them out, then move
all the way to the west and then south through the trees. This town is
once again easily destroyable. Defend the one approach to the south;
you're close to Sylvanas's town now, which is why you wanted to attack
immediately after you took her out, to give yourself time to recover
from taking the town. Setup a full base here and prepare for the final
assault. A little to the south there's one final very small elven base
before the northern path to Sylvanas's base. If you don't feel like a
full attack, just raise a bunch of skeletons and keep sending them down
there. Also raise the remnants of every attack Sylvanas makes and send
them down there. A couple of waves and that base will fall. You can
also use the skeletons to take out the golems near the fountain to the
south.
Once the final elf outpost has fallen, gather your forces, and make
your attack on Sylvanas's base. Be sure to bring several wagons (4 or
5) on this attack; there are several barracks to destroy, and if you
don't take down the altar quickly Sylvanas will likely show up twice in
the battle. Once you've destroyed the castle the battle is over.
Mission Complete.
Secrets:
-Directly to the west of your original base, behind the trees, is a
raised ridge with some creeps, as your ghouls will find out if they try
to cut down those trees. You can only get to it by going north along
the edge of the map from the last large base on the level (the one on
the western edge of the map). You'll need to bring wagons to knock
down the trees.
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-4. Key of the three Moons
Objectives:
Strategy:
This is a long, but not exceedingly hard, mission. You need to
destroy 3 altars, guarded by 4 elven bases, and take the items you find
to the final area. You'll start by a bridge with a couple of acolytes
and a decent attack force. Take your attack force to the southeast
where you'll find and destroy an elf town. The fiends will use their
web ability to bring down the air units. Make sure this is on
autocast. Once the town is destroyed, build a base. You'll want to
build a line of ziggurats to the north of your base, as the humans will
constantly come at you with flying units and zeppelins. Simply build a
long line of ziggurats, straight east to west, over your buildings and
you should be fine. Send in your attack units for additional defense
when necessary.
When you've got your base up, your units upgraded, and a decent
attack force, get a few extra zeppelins from the goblin merchant to
your east, and stage an attack on the base to your east. You'll want
to first land some wagons with corpses, drop them, then land your
necromancers to raise them and attack. Follow the skeletons with your
fiends, necromancers, and ghouls (if you're still using them-fiends are
So much better and you should fully convert if you have the $). This
base should fall with little effort, so set up your own base protected
by towers by the way gate, as the elves send flying units quite often
at wherever your current base happens to be. They will, however, keep
attacking your old base if there's anything there. Either unsummon the
whole thing and recreate it at your new base (if you've finished
mining), or just keep the towers up until you've finished the level.
Make sure to destroy the altar, and you can either leave the item until
the end or pick it up now.
Once you've recovered from the attack on the first base and have
your defenses up, make a bunch of skeletons and send them through the
way gate. While they're getting the attention, either follow them
through with your regulars or drop them on the coast to your west with
your zeppelins. Either way you should be able to destroy this town
quite easily. Set up an expansion base here if you need the money, or
don't bother and just finish the mission. Either way, retreat to your
defenses and rebuild your forces after the attack is complete.
The final attacks are similar. There are 2 more way gates off the
center island that you just cleaned off; for each, send some skeletons
through to gauge the resistance there. If you've got plenty of room,
just follow them through and destroy the island from there. If the
elves jump on you as soon as you come through, get their attention with
the skeletons and drop off your regular units on the coast of the
island with the zeppelins. Both battles should be fairly easy with
enough fiends, necromancers (who are creating skeletons) and meat
wagons for towers. Once the bases are destroyed, get the 3 pieces of
the key (1 from each altar) and take it to the northeastern island.
You'll have to land your forces together on the island as there are
towers and elves defending it. Not enough to make a difference though,
and once they're all dead take Arthas to the circle of power. Mission
Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-5. The Fall of Silvermoon
Objectives:
Strategy:
The idea here is to hold off Sylvanas until you're upgraded, while
you kill off her runners, then to crush Sylvanas herself. The runners
are easily done with the gargoyles you're given; I usually build a few
extra so that there's 6, and that usually does the job. In the mean
time, defend your base until you're completely upgraded. Once Sylvanas
has been dealt with, Silvermoon comes next.
The runners go 1 of 3 ways; west from Sylvanas's base, south from
her base, or east. When they go west, they're completely undefended,
and the gargoyles should be able to take them out easily. When they go
east, they follow the path that goes past your base; simply fly the
gargoyles over there and let them take out the runner there. Be
careful of crossing the middle area with the fountain though;
Sylvanas's attack force often takes that path, and if they do when
you're crossing they'll probably get a gargoyle or two. The final
path, down the middle, is also easy, as long as Sylvanas isn't
escorting the runner. See below for suggestions when that happens.
Bottom line, pay attention to the runner, even when you're being
attacked by Sylvanas, and make sure they never make it.
Base defense is fairly easy; right at the beginning of the mission
Sylvanas attacks you from the north, then mainly attacks your western
approach. Don't worry about the southern approach, Sylvanas will never
come from there. Every now and then Sylvanas will come from the north,
so make sure you have a group of ziggurats at each approach. Clear the
trees near each for easier access for your units.
Once your units are fully upgraded and you have a good attack
force, go after Sylvanas. Taking the base is fairly easy, with enough
fiends, necromancers, and wagons. Follow the skeletons in (as always)
and clear it out. BEWARE: the fact that you're attacking her base
doesn't stop Sylvanas from sending a runner at the periodic rate. Keep
your group of gargoyles from the battle and make sure they hunt down
each runner as they escape the battle. In addition, although the
castle always produced the runner before, if you knock it down, the
runners will keep coming from whatever is still standing until nothing
Is still standing. Once you've knocked down EVERY building, no more
runners will emerge and you can take your time. Build an expansion on
Sylvanas's gold mine, and go around killing off the creeps.
The attack on Silvermoon is quite difficult. From either the
eastern or western approach, there are tons of towers, offensive units,
and unit-producing buildings. Before attacking, build up your forces
as much as you can (with Sylvanas's gold mine you should be able to
afford high upkeep) and then go in all together. Have your wagons take
down the towers and buildings as soon as possible. The problem here is
that there are so many defensive units and buildings your units will
get confused and go off all in different directions. Once you've
defeated the initial defensive group, regroup your forces then attack
in a specific direction. Take down buildings as quick as you can, and
the gold mine and castle are good secondary targets. Whenever you meet
defensive forces group up your units and take them on together. Once
you've cleaned the majority of one side of the city, you can either
rebuild any lost forces, or attack the Sun Well (which has very tough
golems guarding it). Once you've gathered enough forces to take them
out, bring Arthas to the Sun Well. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-Sylvanas will often bring ballistas when she attacks your base,
and with the upgraded forces she brings in Hard Mode, they can cause
major havoc on any towers you have defending your base. It's very
helpful, if the gargoyles are free, to bring them up and have them
attack Sylvanas from behind, taking out the siege units. However do
NOT forget about the runners; they are your first priority.
-In Hard Mode, the runner will often walk with Sylvanas's attack
group down the southern (middle) path and they'll both go to the right
towards your base. When they reach the elven farms after the bridge,
they will split and the runner will continue south towards the bridge
to Silvermoon. When this happens, you need to identify it as soon as
possible; if Sylvanas is travelling with the runner, what you need to
do is cross the middle area before she does and get to the south of the
farms and wait there to ambush the runner. If you realize too late (or
if you run into Sylvanans by accident) retreat as best you can, and
then trail her towards your base. There should be enough time to fly
past her once she's over the bridge and hunt down the runner.
-Gargoyles tend to have issues with following and shooting at a
target. The best strategy is to tell the gargoyles to go to part of
the path in front of the runner, let them attack it until the runner is
past them, then tell them to move once again in front of it and repeat.
Otherwise they'll clumsily follow it and get off their attacks very
slowly, giving the runner more of a chance.
-6. Blackrock & Roll, Too!
Objectives:
Strategy:
A straightforward, if difficult, mission. You must destroy 5 orc
camps. 1 is easy, 3 are reasonably difficult, and the final one is
tough. The name of the game here is defense and upgrading.
When the mission begins, you're given a bunch of units, including
some gargoyles and a frost wyrm. They'll probably survive until the
end of the mission, as the orcs have very few air units or anti-air
defenses, other than towers. Soon after starting, orcs will attack
from the east. Anticipate it and get your units over there to fight.
Now that you have Kel'Thuzad, utilize his Frost Nova spell which hits
groups of units for decent damage, and works great with Arthas as a
one-two punch with death coil, though it takes longer to recharge. In
any case, fight off the first wave of orcs, then get right to defenses.
I find that the buildings on this mission are very much in the way; I
recommend that if you have the money and time, to build replacements to
your south (which is inaccessible to the orcs) and unsummon the
original buildings. Build at least 3 or 4 ziggurats at the north and
east approaches to your base; no one Ever attacks from the west, so
don't bother.
As you reshuffle and upgrade your base and units, you'll be subject
to constant attacks by the orcs. Mainly you should be fine, but the
orcs have 3 building killers on their side, which will get very costly
in terms of new ziggurats. First is the sapper. Learn what the sapper
looks like, watch for them when the orcs attack (they come from both
approaches), and when they do, have Arthas Death Coil them or
Kel'Thuzad Frost Nova them. Both should kill them off (assuming
they're upgraded enough). There may be up to 3 sappers attacking
together, and they hardly ever lead the attack, as to throw your
attention to the melee fighters. With careful watching of the attacks,
though, you should be able to handle this easily. Second is the
raider. They are dangerous in that they move fast and do lots of siege
damage. The best way to defend against them is to know when attacks
are coming and move your units in front of the buildings, engaging them
in combat before they can get to your ziggurats. The best way to know
when attacks are coming is to place shades at the top of the slopes
that are the entrances to your base. The third unit to take care of
are the catapults. When the orcs attack with these, they bring plenty
of other units to keep you busy. The best defense is to keep your
frost wyrm and gargoyles free until you see catapults, then send them
in. The frost wyrm's frost breath will freeze the catapults, which
will help.
Once you've got defense of your base down, are fully upgraded, and
have a good force assembled, it's time to take down some orcs. The
orcs directly to your west are the easiest target; you can nearly take
them down at the beginning of the mission. However, they hardly ever
attack; I advise leaving them until you've cleared out some of the
other bases. The Orange orc base to your north is quite powerful, and
probably should be left until you can concentrate on cleaning it out.
I've therefore had the best success in destroying the brown orc base to
the southwest, which attacks often but is fairly easy to destroy. In
addition, you killed their hero at the beginning so there's no hero to
deal with. I recommend a standard attack, leading with skeletons,
though wait until right after an orc attack on your base to give
yourself maximum time before you have to rush back. Once you've
destroyed that base, the frequency of attacks on your own should
significantly decrease. This should let you recover fairly easily, and
be ready to launch a second one. The next easiest is probably the
light blue to the east, and as they're always coming at you with
zeppelins, it should be quite helpful to take them out.
At this point it'll probably be a good idea to pick up an expansion
base; I generally take out the dark blue next and take their mine, as
it's easy to defend, but feel free to take either of the two to the
east, as the red base doesn't attack until you've destroyed all the
other bases. In any case, ready yourself for a decent battle against
Orange. Wait until after they attack you, so that they're at their
weakest, then attack. With a fully upgraded force, death and decay,
and all your other toys this shouldn't be too tough. The key is to
have destroyed the other bases first so you don't have to break off the
attack and run back.
Now that the red base is the only remaining one, watch out for red
dragon attacks, which is what they send out periodically. Max out your
units, and go destroy the last base. The red dragons are tough, but
with enough necromancers and gargoyles they'll fall soon enough, and
they don't build quick, so you normally don't have to worry about more
after the first clash. Make sure to destroy all the unit-producing
buildings first, and wipe them out. Bring Kel'Thuzad to the gate.
Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-7. The Siege of Dalaran
Objectives:
Strategy:
This mission is actually not too hard, if you know how to take down
the Archmages. As long as Death Coil on Arthas is at level 3 and the
same with Kel'Thuzad's Frost Nova, they are the only 2 units you need
(for the Archmages.)
You start below the entrance to Dalaran. Build some towers and
units for defense, and sit them there. Take Arthas and Kel'Thuzad up
into the town through the aura, and when they get close enough, keep
casting Death Coil and Frost Nova on the Archmage until he dies. Then
run them back to your base. The units the Archmage keeps around don't
do enough damage to you to be a real threat, and you can kill the
Archmages normally in just a couple of castings.
Once the first aura is down, build an attacking force. You'll want
a few abominations now, considering how powerful they are, however
there are plenty of gryphons to deal with, so definitely keep some
crypt fiends around. When you are ready, enter the town, clean out the
path to the north, and go west into the town. Lead with skeletons,
destroy the base, and set up your own. Build some towers for defense.
Once you've got that base up, go back to the east and clean out the
remaining forces in this section.
The next Archmage can be taken out in 1 of 2 ways. To the east of
your new expansion town, there are some cages that can be destroyed and
release golems. Take the golems (as they're immune to the aura) and go
north and east. Destroy the few water elementals, and heal up at the
fountain of health. Be careful though, if you're on the south or east
side of the fountain an attacking force from the next human town might
very well pick up on them and attack them. Avoid the next town, go
north and follow the path to the Archmage. The golems should be able
to either kill or do plenty of damage to the Archmage. If this method
fails, again, send in Arthas & Kel'Thuzad. However, instead of going
around to the right, go up the path to the left that ends in a dead
end; but also is JUST close enough to the Archmage for your 2 heroes to
cast spells on him. The Archmage may run around a bit, but he'll come
back to his original spot, and if you stand all the way in the
northeast corner of the path, you can always hit him. Just keep
casting and eventually he'll die.
Once you've killed the second Archmage and have replenished your
forces, Attack the final human base, to the east of the fountain. This
isn't too bad, so use whatever mix of forces you want as long as there
are 2 groups of them, but be sure to bring 3 or 4 wagons, as there are
several towers to deal with. There's another Archmage to take down in
this base, so be on your toes unless you want blizzard to take out your
troops. Once this base is secure, make sure to get the items out of
the vault you passed, and then ready yourself for the final Archmage.
Feel free to build a third base here over the mine, but you really
don't have to. Once again, all you have to do is take Arthas &
Kel'Thuzad into the aura after him, so there's little reason to
replenish your forces. For good measure, cast Frost Armor on both of
them, and get going. Ignore all human units but the mage. When you
get in range of the Archmage, cast Death Coil and Frost Nova as fast as
they become available on him; Kel'Thuzad might die, but Arthas should
last long enough to finish the job. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-8. Under the Burning Sky
Objectives:
Strategy:
This mission, in my opinion, is the hardest mission in the game.
The constant bombardment of human forces never lets you rest,
especially as they come from different directions, and the final attack
is overwhelming. The name of the game here is towers and tower
defense; the longer your towers survive, the less money you spend on
new towers, the more you spend on new units. Upgrade every time you
think you can.
Your first step in this mission is to send an acolyte down the
passage to your southeast to the other gold mine. You'll need the
money, as being in anything less than low upkeep promises certain
death. Once you got that started, build Lots of Spirit Towers. At
least 6 on each approach-the North, the East, and the Northwest.
Basically what you'll want to do is group as many units as you can
muster together, and keep them under your towers to the north, where
they can get to each approach fast. The only advantage you'll have is
that until the end, the Humans attack separately, never together; so
you can commit all your forces to each attack. Keep shades in front of
each approach (put them there specifically, their patrols never helped
me), and move your regulars out in front of the towers when they are
being attacked.
There are 3 Human bases that are coming for you in this mission.
First, and possibly strongest, is the dark blue to your east. They
come across a shallows of a stream and either come straight at the
platform Kel'Thuzad is on, or they come to the north and show up at the
northeast corner of the platform from the trees. They are the most
dangerous because they have an Archmage hero, who just LOVES to cast
Blizzard all the time. Kill him as quickly as you can every time he
shows up. The other thing to worry about is if they break through your
eastern ziggurats, sometimes they head down to your expansion gold mine
and snuff that out; don't let that happen.
The second most annoying Human base is the one in the northwest
corner, the light blue. They attack with siege tanks, which, if you
let them get to your ziggurats, make swiss cheese of them. The problem
with stopping them is that they have siege armor and way too many hp,
so you can either slow them with frost wyrms, hit them with catapults,
or try to overwhelm them with regular units. The key is to realize
when they are coming and get between them and the ziggurats.
The final Human base mainly employs griffins and knights, and
usually shows up at the north approach, from either side. The griffins
are easily enough taken down by enough ziggurats, but be careful not to
let them team up with knights.
After about 28 minutes of running back and forth between the
attacking units, the humans will commit all their units and attack
together. I suggest saving the felhounds and inferals until now, and
sending them east against that front (the dark blue). The rest of your
troops should be able to handle the other two attacking groups, at
least long enough for the last 2 minutes. When it gets to about 1
minute, or if the humans are breaking through, pull Arthas back to the
platform, and have him do nothing but death coil Kel'Thuzad to heal him
as necessary. Once 30 minutes is up, Mission is Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-First off-put the game on SLOW. If you're good enough to
coordinate 3 different fronts at Fast speed with the kind of offense
they throw at you on Hard Mode, you belong in the goddamn army.
-Upgrade as much as you can think about it. You usually don't get
much of a chance to do so, but when you've got the money do it.
Anything you can do to slow down the humans helps.
-If you're REALLY good, you can destroy one of the Human Bases at
the beginning of the game. Right after the first attack of the mission
(which always comes from the eastern base, so camp it), you can have a
couple of catapults ready, a couple necromancers, and a steady stream
of ghouls. I think the only place that's vulnerable is the
northwestern (light blue) base, and with enough micromanagement I think
it's possible. I've never done it, but I've gotten close. If you try
it, take 4 or 5 shades and block off the main gate out of their base
(by holding ground in the path) so that there's only one way out, and
come up the right side. Good luck. Also, be aware that the white base
will probably send griffins while you're engaged there, so make sure to
have ziggurats up.
-Screw with the computer with Shades. There are several things you
can try, and if you remember that the only way the computer can detect
them is via gyrocopters, you can enjoy good success. I tried blocking
off the entire shallows the dark blue forces takes to your base;
unfortunately the Archmage blizzards the ground for some reason, even
though he can't see your units. So that doesn't work. Permanently
blocking off the northern passages to the 2 other human bases also
doesn't work, since the light blue base has gyrocopters. However, in
your own base, it can work great. First, the siege tanks sent by light
blue are large and need room to move; take 4 or 5 shades, and block off
the 2 paths to your northwest where the siege tanks usually come by
moving into the paths and holding position. 4 or 5 won't completely
close off the approaches, but well-positioned will only allow small
units to pass; and it's great to sit there and watch the computer
vainly trying to get through. This will stop that attack, and if the
gyrocopters ever try to clear them out, just move them back until the
copters have been destroyed, then camp the paths again. However, the
real value of the shades is in the last 2 minutes when you're being
overrun; note that usually there are no gyrocopters in the final wave;
therefore the humans have no way of seeing the shades. Simply take 4
or 5 and block off each of the stairs onto the platform. The humans
will sit there trying to get by and not get anywhere and not be able to
do anything about it. Doing this is the only way I was able to give
myself enough time to finish the level (on Hard Mode). A similar
approach that I tried was to build a necropolis in front of each
staircase. It slowed them down, though not for long.
Section 3: Orcs
-1. Landfall
Objectives:
Strategy:
This is quite an easy mission, except for the end. All you have to
do is following the one main path from west to east, killing creeps,
picking up items, and saving your forces until you reach Cairne on the
east edge of the map. The main idea is to go Everywhere you can,
finding all the creeps and items you can. Each group is fairly easy to
kill, and eventually you'll have enough forces to take out anything.
Be careful until you win the healing wards, which will be your main
source of healing until you find the fountain of healing. Once you've
got the wards, just lead with your grunts, killing everything. If some
of your units are getting low on hp, simply either retreat them for the
length of the battle, or throw a ward down mid-battle which should most
likely keep them, and all your units, alive for the length of the
battle.
Eventually you'll find the fountain of health, which means you're
close to Cairne. After healing up, head east and then south, where
you'll find him. Kill the creeps attacking, and when protecting Cairne
becomes your new objective, DON'T. First, gather your forces, and head
to the south, where there's a ton of creeps and a few useful items.
Kill them off, head to the fountain to head off, THEN go after Cairne.
The battle at his village won't begin until you show up, which is
helpful. When you are ready, head off to his village.
There's only one thing left to do, which is fight off the attacking
Centaurs. There'll be a couple of waves of them; they aren't too
difficult. By now you should have either the wolf summon or Chain
Lightening; make sure your mp is at max when this battle begins, and
then use them as much as possible. Stay near Cairne to make sure his
taurens take some of the beating, and this should be over quick.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-In hard mode, enemies Often try to take out any healing wards you
might throw down, to deny you the benefit. Therefore, when you go into
battle, try to place the wards behind your own melee units
(grunts/raiders/taurens) to protect against melee units. Against
ranged units you can't do much except kill them quickly. If you've got
witch doctors, watch your wards, and if one goes down, put up another
one. It also helps to have multiple wards going, to have some overlap,
though I'm not sure if wards stack.
-There's a wave or 2 extra of centaurs in hard mode when you're
defending Cairne's village. I took out the first 2 waves no problem
myself, but overextended myself for the last ones, and thus the tauren
didn't absorb any of the punishment. I highly recommend letting the
enemy come to you near the tauren to share the damage, and using
Thrall's abilities as much as possible. Also, make good use of your
healing wards; though save a few, as they'll definitely be helpful in
the next mission. And be alert for the last wave, in which the
centaurs bring a champion. If you're almost dead at this point, but
think you can win, don't bother healing; just spend your units until
the centaurs are dead, to save the wards for the next mission.
-2. The Long March
Objectives:
Strategy:
This is not an excessively hard mission, as long as you don't make
it harder than it already is. There's one main path, and moving along
it will trigger the tauren and kodos to move. The key to this level,
however, is to Keep Moving. There are MANY, MANY groups of creeps off
the main path, and most of them have items that you can pick up.
Problem is, every time the caravan stops, after a set amount of time
(which happens over and over) centaurs will attack both ends of the
caravans. The Tauren can usually hold their own at the end of the
caravan, but if you're off clearing out some harpies or a centaur
village, the Kodos will take a bunch of damage, and the Tauren will get
the crap kicked out of them. As many hp as they have, the tauren seem
to take damage way too easily, esp. in this mission. Often times I end
up with just Cairne at the end. One important note is that if you
saved any of the healing wards from the last mission, you can heal the
tauren with them.
Your first goal is to get from the first oasis to the second. Just
keep moving along the path, and you should be fine. The best strategy
is to spawn some wolves and send them as advance scouts, while your
regular troops follow. This will identify where the enemy is and give
you the few moments you may need to prepare. If you can, take out any
enemies along the path before the kodos catch up with you, which will
keep them from stopping, and keep the level from spawning new enemies.
Whenever you hear Cairne say "The Kodos must be protected", his end of
the caravan is under attack, and usually your end is. When this
happens, rush back and see if there's anyone attacking your end of the
caravan; if not, run back and help Cairne. When the threat is
neutralized, get moving. You'll reach the first oasis soon. At each
oasis, you'll use it to heal first, then Cairne & the kodos will heal.
In the time that they heal, you might be attacked; so be alert. You'll
also get some raiders at this point. This will help if you decide to
kill any of the harpies, but other than that it's pretty useless.
Get moving along the path when the kodos are ready. Be careful of
the cave on the top of the path; it'll spawn enemies if you get too
close. When you turn the corner, there'll be thunder lizards to the
left in a niche and a centaur village to the north. Ignore both; you
only get +3 claws from the lizards, and you don't have the time to take
out the village. Once you've turned the corner, you'll probably be
attacked at least once, if not twice by centaurs, and the next corner
will have harpies up on a hill. I suggest ignoring them, as the
fountain is real close. There'll be some enemies to kill right near
the fountain, and when it's clear, you'll get some catapults; now go
back and make sure the caravan makes it ok (Cairne will probably be
attacked again). Once you've healed, Cairne and the kodos will heal,
and at this point there Will be an attack from the south (at least in
hard mode). Anticipate and take it out, then get moving.
The last stretch is quite easy, as long as you're careful and
protect the end of the caravan. You'll come up on several towers,
which are best taken out with your catapults. The thing here is to
make sure you knock them down out of their range (because you can't
repair the catapults in this mission) and every now and then some
centaurs will come up and try to take them out. Keep a few units (the
grunts, mainly) by your catapults for that defense, but just keep
moving and knocking down the towers. If the catapults don't start
attacking until they're under attack, quickly move them out of range
and attack from there. In the mean time, several attacks will occur on
the kodos from behind, so keep the bulk of your forces back there. You
might need Thrall in the front group to keep the caravan moving,
though. Once the towers are all clear, you're pretty much at the
oasis, so move everyone there and wait for the caravan to catch up.
When it does, Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-Regardless of difficulty, but especially on hard mode, the
periodic attacks on the caravan when you're not moving Really wear on
you. On normal, you have the time and health to take down a village or
two and collect the items; if you try that on hard, though, you'll end
up with half your forces and inferior items. Especially don't take on
the lizards; it takes too long, does too much damage, and the +3 claws
are not worth it. In fact, if you get all the items on mission 7 (The
Oracle) you're gonna end up throwing out almost every item you had up
to that point anyways. So ignore all the creeps on the mission and
keep moving. If you do, you'll get through the level with few
problems; if you don't, and go after the items, most likely the Tauren
will die except for Cairne, you'll lose one or 2 kodos, and may not
have enough troops to make it through the last stretch.
-3. Cry of the Warsong
Objectives:
Strategy:
Time to actually build a base. Here you're going to most likely
end up taking out 4 human bases (though it's not required) because Grom
has anger issues. First things first, move east and help Grom destroy
the human base, establish your own there. After a while, Grom will
attack the 4 human bases in turn, and that causes them to retaliate
against YOU. Fair, isn't it. I certainly wouldn't mind if those
legions of troops went after Grom and wiped him out. Anywise, you'll
have to work fast, because as soon as Grom makes his first attack,
humans will be coming for you. Therefore, you'll need to build some
defenses to stop them; the easiest thing to do is to put up some towers
in the path down the middle of the map, and guard that. Make sure
you're not just defending the north or the south passage though,
because if they can, the humans Will swing around your defenses and
flank you. The best approach I found was to put 2 sets of towers, a
bit more than halfway up, in the following configuration:
\ x \
\ x \ \ = walls of the path
\ TT \ * = divider in middle
\ TT *TT \ T = tower
\TT O * \ x = the group of trees where the creeps
are
\ OOO * \ O = where I kept the orcs
\ O * \
This made it so that attacks that came down the south half of the
path would be stopped by the southern towers, and my units could run up
past the right side of the towers and take them out. Additionally,
attacks that came down the northern half of the path would also be held
up by the northern towers, and the opening between the path divider and
the trees allowed me to rush my units up to the battle just as easily.
Now obviously I didn't have 4 towers on each group and 5 orcs; I
suggest 6-8 towers in each group, and 1-2 full groups of orcs ready for
battle.
Credit to Sean Healey, who posted the following strategy on
Ultimategamers.com:
"The Computer AI seems to be programmed to attack the nearest orc
settlement, which by your walkthrough requires that you defend both
of your bases (main and expansion) with ample troops and towers.
I placed a Town Hall at the purple base before expanding, and the
human attack forces went directly to it. This was helpful for two
reasons:
1) Obviously, it kept pressure off of my forces at the main base,
which allowed me to build forces up steadily.
2) Placing it at the purple base also gave me supplemental forces
to defeat whatever was thrown my way, even if double or triple
teamed.
Since I only now had to hold one point for defense, and not two, I was
able to go in and wipe out each human settlement in turn, without
having to scramble forces every which way. It allowed me to defeat the
mission muchmore quickly, and cleanly."
So either post your own defense along the path, or go with Sean's
strategy. In any case, when you feel you can deal with any attack
fairly easily, are fully upgraded and have an attack force standing by,
it's time to take the battle to the humans. I recommend clearing out
all the human bases, though you only have to destroy the dark blue,
directly to the northwest, to get to the zeppelins. I suggest
destroying the white base, then the gray base, then the green base,
then finally the light blue base. The general strategy for each attack
is simple; just go in as you would in any base attack, but wait until
Grom makes one of his periodic attacks, and follow him in. If Grom
attacks a different base from the one you want to attack, just let him
go and wait until next time. The goals here are to destroy all unit-
producing buildings, then Get Out. In the time you took to attack the
base (especially the first one), the humans are probably massing
another attack on your defenses. Therefore, make sure the job is done
(they can't rebuild), and then retreat to your defenses to regroup and
wait for the inevitable attack.
The white base is the easiest to take down, which is why I
recommend attacking that one first. The gray isn't that hard, but they
use a lot of cannon towers and mortar teams, so make sure you take down
those defenses quickly. You may want a few extra catapults for this
one. Once you've got those 2 bases down, you'll probably need some
cash, so build an expansion at either one. I recommend the gray base,
since there's only one approach. Once you've got an expansion up,
notice that it will suffer the periodic attacks for the rest of the
mission-note above where Sean says that the AI goes after the nearest
base; so you can abandon any other defenses you have, and group all
your forces at your new base.
When you're ready, attack the green, then the blue. Both of these
should be reasonably easy, especially if you follow Grom in. You can
also wait until just after a human attack from your target, at which
point the base will be noticeably weak. In any case, destroy both
bases, recover your troops, make sure you have some anti-air units
(raiders or trolls) and take the northwestern path from the blue base.
This will lead you directly to the zeppelins, which are defended by
some harpies. Take them out, get the 2 zeppelins. At this point, as
soon as you bring them back, the mission is over; if there's still some
creeps on the map, make sure to clear them out first. There's some
along the backdoor path between the white and blue bases, and on the
left side of the path to the green base there's a little area with some
creeps. Once you're done with the map, fly the zeppelins back.
Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-4. The Spirits of Ashenvale
Objectives:
Strategy:
All you need to do to finish this mission is accumulate 15000
lumber. This is current, not total, so if you accumulate 5000 3 times
and spend it all, you'll have another 15000 to go. Fairly
straightforward map. At the beginning, you'll have no gold mine.
Getting gold is your first goal. Group your units together, wait until
the path to the north is open, and go through it. You'll meet some
night elves immediately, who will fall quickly. Move to the north,
where there will be a few more elves, and a gold mine. Kill them, and
set up a hall there. Make sure at the beginning of the level to buy
upgrades or units, but keep just enough $ for a hall. Once you've got
your hall building, you need to hold that area until you've got cash
coming in. When you've got an income, build towers to guard the
northwest approach to this base, as well as the southwest approach.
This is where the night elves will mainly be coming from. I don't
think that, other than the odd hippogriff rider attack, I ever had to
deal with the light blue base to the northeast. Speaking of bases,
there are 3 main night elf bases on this map, the light blue in the
northeast corner, the green in the northwest, and the dark blue in the
southwest. You'll most likely end up only having to take out one of
them.
When you've got some defenses up, go to immediate east of your new
base, where you'll get offered some shredders if you take out some
furbolgs. That'll come later though. Your first goal is to build a
decent set of troops (focus on grunts and raiders in this mission;
shamans are near-useless without bloodlust, and use your towers and
raiders to take out the flying units. Granted purge is a decent
ability, esp. against summoned units, but it's not any good on this
mission). Once you're ready, take the southwest exit from your base,
and go south. There will be a small night elf settlement with a tree
of life. Destroy it all, and for destroying the tree you'll get 3000
lumber. Nice, huh. Now go to the immediate west, where there'll be a
gold mine protected by trolls. Claim it, and get ready to build your
second town there. Regroup your forces (if you want to get the
treasure right by the mine, windwalk Grom so that the creeps defending
it can't do anything), and build a hall down there. Be Very careful
about how you defend it, though. If you build towers, you run the risk
that they'll attack the forces from the dark blue that pass right near
there when they attack, and thus attack your new settlement.
Therefore, you can either run your units between your first and second
bases for defenses, or put up towers, bring units down from your first
base for cleanup, and prepare quickly to destroy the dark blue, which
is your next goal.
When you've got a few catapults, are fully upgraded, and have a
good attack force (again, mainly raiders and grunts), attack the
southwest night elf base. Use the catapults to take down the ancient
protectors first thing, and you should be fine. The night elves in
this mission don't stack up well against an orc melee force; this
should be quite easy. Again you'll get 3000 lumber for the tree of
life. When that attack is complete, get back to your first base, where
you'll probably be attacked soon from the northwest, if you weren't
during your offensive. From now on, the only defense you'll need at
your 2nd expansion is towers, as only hippogriff riders will go there.
Your (optionally) final task is to kill the furbolgs for the
goblins. Although this is an optional quest, it's the easiest way to
complete the mission, so head pretty much directly west from your first
base, or north from the dark blue base. You'll find the furbolgs
easily enough; destroy them, return to the goblins, and 2 shredders
will be yours. At this point, you can either take out one of the other
night elf bases, or let the shredders rack up the lumber you need. The
shredders are ridiculously quick, so I suggest that; however you're
welcome to launch another attack. I took out the northwest base for
fun; but be careful if you decide to do that, as they've got a large
hippogriff force. Bring lots of trolls or raiders, or you can also
ring their base with towers while they're not attacking. Once their
air force is depleted, it's simple to take out the base. Another 3000
lumber is yours. If you need even More, there's another tree of life
in the northern middle section which is not well defended; but if you
haven't destroyed the northwest base, expect reinforcements if you
attack it. In any case, it should be easy to defend against attacks
from anywhere from the time you take out the dark blue, so accumulate
the lumber however you want. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-5. The Hunter of Shadows
Objectives:
Strategy:
You've got a full base for this mission, on both sides of the
river. However, Cenarius takes care of that quite quickly. First
thing you should do is set the game on Slow, to give yourself more time
to build defenses, as the initial attack is Quite hard to take. To
begin, look at each of the 3 orc settlements on both sides of the
river, and you'll find 3 or 4 peons that are not attacked initially.
Take them all across the river, and use them to build towers at the 2
paths across. The southern path has a few towers and burrows; I
suggest lining up the towers in front of the burrow that's closest, and
when the attack comes, hide the orc in the burrow. Have just 1 orc
building towers down here, as there already are defenses; have all the
other peons build towers up at the northern approach, and build as many
as you can. In the mean time, your units as much as you can; if you
can have bloodlust or healing wards by the time the attack comes,
you'll be real good. In any case, as soon as Cenarius fully destroys
your bases across the river, he'll build a night elf base there, and
send all his forces across the river. I've had the best success with
grouping all available units at the southern approach, which should be
able to take out the attackers there (with the help of the towers),
then sending them north. The idea is to have 6 or 8 towers up at the
northern approach before the attack comes, which will hold off the
majority of the attack (and possibly kill most of it) until you can
send Grom and his remaining forces up there. Once you've beaten off
the attack, a random witch doctor will tell you about a "Power Source"
or some such thing, which will be your next goal. Take the significant
breather here to rebuild your defenses, but don't worry too much as all
other attacks until you've finished the power source objective will be
much weaker, and at one approach at a time. A good number of towers
with some cleanup forces for ballista and such will be sufficient for
most attacks.
Build up a good attacking force (I prefer a full group of orcs with
a group of 4 witch doctors and 8 shaman, which gives me plenty of blood
lust and healing wards), upgrade them fully, and head north. You'll
kill a few creeps, find a line of trees to cut down (use catapults or
peons) then a bunch of furbolgs to take out. Eventually you'll reach
some satyrs and a way gate. Use it, follow the path, kill the creeps
along the way, and reach the power source. Kill the satyrs and
"upgrade" the orcs. When you've completed the objective, Cenarius will
send a large force at you; either run back or use a scroll of town
portal to return (which can be bought from the goblin merchant along
the way to the power source). Once you've fought off the attackers,
prepare for a final invasion; you can finish this mission right now if
you want. When you're ready, attack from the southern approach, which
will lead you to a lightly defended base. The upgraded orc units are
actually great against buildings, so for this attack you don't need
catapults unless you want them; once you've cleared most of this base,
Cenarius will come from the north, usually alone, so cut him down.
Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-The periodic night elf attacks on Hard Mode often include
Chimeras, and thus are usually a bit more than a bunch of towers can
handle. If your units are off on the power source quest, make sure to
have Grom buy a scroll of town portal or two along the way so he can
run back and help out if necessary.
-6. Where Wyverns Dare
Objectives:
Strategy:
The key to this mission is figuring out How to defend your base
before you're ready to attack. You're up against the right side of the
map, with a path to your northwest that leads north. Humans will
attack along the ground with an Archmage from that direction, as well
as drop off units in the un-buildable area directly to the north of
your hall. To combat the ground units, clear out the lizards to the
immediate west, and build towers to defend that approach. You should
also be able to build a line of towers just above your hall stretching
from the gold mine 6 or 8 towers to the west. Since I'm definitely not
an artist, here's a non-artist's conception of the 2 setups:
Ground approach:
ttttt | |,\,_ = edge of the mtn
ttttt | t = trees
tttttTTTT \ T = Towers
ttt TTTT \______ O = Orcs
OOO
OOO
Air approach:
| |,\,_,/ = edge of mtn
| _____________ x = unbuildable
\ /xxxxxxxxxxxxx\ T = Towers
\_______/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\_________ H = Great Hall
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx M = Gold Mine
xxxxx xxx xxxx
TTTTTTTTTTTT
HH MM
HH MM
This setup will allow you to hold off the humans from wherever they
attack, until you can rush your units over to clean them up. As you
hold off their attacks, build up your base, upgrade your units, and
prepare for an offensive. Once you've got a decent attacking group
ready (I suggest melee units led by Cairne, and ranged/magic users led
by Thrall) wait until the next attack, fight it off, heal yourself up
(gotta love the shaman's healing wards) and go north along the path.
When you find the harpies yapping about the wyverns, kill them, then
you'll notice a path up to the left; take it. Go along this path until
you're almost at the wyverns. If you're quick you won't have suffered
an attack on your base yet. The harpies that defend the wyverns can
only be hit by ranged units; so at this point, send Cairne and your
melee units home to fight off any attacks, and go in with thrall. With
enough Chain Lightening, bloodlust, and healing wards, this battle will
be over quickly. Return to base with the wyverns, though be sure to
destroy the harpy buildings for the items that are left.
Once you've regrouped, go along the path to the north until you hit
the centaur village. Destroy it and build an expansion there. In hard
mode, this means all attacks will now be centered on this base, so
build some towers for defense. When you're done there, go to the
northeast (around the corner to the right) and take out the remaining
centaurs. Get the glyph from the centaur khan and return it to the
defiled fountain, clearing it (though it doesn't get you anything).
When you kill the Khan, an attack from the humans usually materializes;
so defend your new base and fight them off. When you're ready,
preferably soon after that attack so that they are low on troops, go to
the northwest and destroy that town. If you've got catapults you
shouldn't have too hard of a time.
Your final objective is the destruction of the northeastern base,
which is inaccessible from the ground. Take the wyverns you inherited
from finishing that objective (or if they're dead build 5 or 6 new
ones) and fly to the southern edge of that base, where the landing zone
is protected by a few gryphons. Your wyverns will cut through them
quickly. I suggest that once this is clear, kill off your remaining
wyverns and invest in ground troops and catapults, which you will
really need to take out this base. Buy as many zeppelins as you'll
need from the goblin lab near your expansion, prepare yourself, and
attack. Drop off the catapults LAST, having all your normal units hold
ground until everything is down; as soon as your catapults are landed
they have a tendency to attack, so you want to have your units
available for defense. Join the battle and destroy the humans. This
isn't too hard, except that they have a lot of unit-producing
buildings, and tend to attack your catapults first thing. Go for the
buildings as soon as you can, but don't worry about your catapults if
you lose them; as long as your troops take out theirs, you should have
enough of an advantage to clear out the rest of the base. Make sure to
take out the towers as well. The main thing to worry about here is
that your units tend to wander away and attack different targets;
periodically group them together on one target to avoid this.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-In hard mode, the zeppelin attacks on your main base are frequent
and often include a mountain king hero. When you see the zeppelin come
in, select all of the towers in the line and have them attack the
zeppelin. Chances are it won't get most of the units unloaded before
it is destroyed (with enough towers you can destroy it in one grouped
shot) and while the units not unloaded won't die, they Will be dropped
stunned for several seconds. With this advantage it's a whole lot
easier to fight off this attack.
-7. The Oracle
Objectives:
Strategy:
There are plenty of ways to get through this level; by exploiting
them you'll have little trouble. Your first goal is to get Thrall
through his section. I won't describe each and every room, as that'll
take way too much time. Your general strategy is to 1. Summon your
wolves (by now I hope you have level 3 wolves, if you don't, this level
will be much harder, as only level 3 wolves are invisible). 2. Send
them to scout the next room. 3. Have them attack any enemies in that
room. Repeat the above 3 steps until a. the enemies are dead or b. the
enemies are weak enough that you feel you won't lose any units by
attacking them. If a, move on. If b, lead with your wolves and attack
with all your units. The only thing you must do in this mission is to
explore EVERYWHERE (as there is a TON of items in this level, most of
them quite good). Eventually you'll get to a way gate. When you fight
some level 8 or higher creeps, (there should be 3 of them) you're
getting close. Go through the gate, which will lead you to a more
castle-like area. Still underground, though. Go to the north and
follow the passageway, killing the creeps and freeing your units.
You'll reach an area where your wolves are automatically unsummoned if
they advance; simply attack, you'll fight off a bunch of humans. After
that, explore with your wolves; you'll find a dragon fighting a bunch
of harpies. Let them fight, pick off the winners, and take the heart
which is left. Go forward to the way gate, which will take you to the
beginning of the castle area, and go south to statue. End of Thrall's
section.
Cairne's area is much harder, as he's only got himself and a few
Tauren, who once again are killed way too easily. First off, if you go
south, take only Cairne, as you'll get mobbed by creeps. Use his stomp
ability (which I hope is level 3) to fend them off. You'll get a
scroll of healing. Take your tauren and travel northeast. Do NOT
destroy the blocks protecting the visible treasure; otherwise you'll
have to deal with a rock golem, which is almost too powerful for all 4
of your units together. The treasure is just a summon item anyway, it
doesn't do you much good. Simply travel along the trail; you'll kill a
few humans, kill a few creeps, and eventually come to a pit overlooking
treasure guarded by a bunch of creeps. Go to the north, activate the
trap, kill them all. Go to the northwest, kill off the creeps, pick up
the healing wards (which will help immensely) and activate the panel
which opens the door. Through the door is more creeps and a fountain
of health; take full use of it. From here, pick up the treasure
guarded in the trapped pit (don't worry it won't activate on you) and
follow the path to the castle area. A few destroyed golems later, and
you've met Thrall, activated the bridge, and are at the end of the
level. If you want to pick up any of the items you either missed or
didn't have enough room for before, go ahead and do that now;
otherwise, cross the bridge. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
-Along the way on Cairne's section, you can take a southern path
and find a "Hungry Hungry Lizard." Don't attack it. It will, if you
sit and wait, eat it's way through the forest of mushrooms. When it's
cleared a path, it will explode, letting you pass and pick up an item
that gives your hero an aura like Arthas's devotion aura, which gives
all nearby units a defense bonus. Great when combined with Cairne's
endurance aura.
Hard Mode Strategies:
-There's simply more and harder enemies for each hero on Hard Mode.
Use Thrall's wolves to scout, and send Cairne in alone into each area,
followed by the Tauren, as he can soak and heal damage much better than
the Tauren.
-8. By Demons be Driven
Objectives:
Strategy:
This is a somewhat challenging mission, especially if you're not
careful. You have to deal with 4 threats here; luckily 2 you can
ignore and 2 can be defended similarly. First, there's the infernals.
Them attacking your base is threat number 1, and attacking Jaina's base
is number 2. Then there's the orcs. Them attacking your base is
threat number 3, and attacking Jaina's base is number 4. Luckily, for
the most part, you can ignore all attacks on Jaina's base, at least for
a while; she can defend herself for quite a long time. As for
yourself, there are 3 main points at which the orcs and infernals
attack: The forest path to the northwest, the approach to the
northeast, and the approach to the east/southeast. At each one, build
at least 6 towers, and preferably a burrow with a peon within it.
Infernals are, luckily, torn to bits by towers; when they attack, let
the towers kill them, pop out the peon, and repair. The orcs are
another matter. When they attack, they will probably tear down a few
towers, and perhaps the burrow, so make sure to counter them with your
own units. Using sentry ward at each entrance will give you a good
warning system.
Like I said, don't worry about Jaina, for the most part. Until she
runs out of resources, she will almost never be overrun. A few towers
might fall from her north defenses, but until she runs low, she should
be fine. The only time you might think about helping her is if the
orcs and infernals are attacking her together and you can run over
there quick. Regardless of if you help, though, she'll be constantly
begging for help; check your log at the end of the mission, there'll
probably be 20 or 30 requests. Anyways, once you've got defenses up,
your units fully upgraded, and a good attack force (I still suggest a
group of melee units, and a group of spell casters), it's time to
attack. The question is where, and the answer lies with your own
resources. If you spend some time in no upkeep and never go over low
upkeep, even in Hard Mode you'll have enough money to wipe out the
orcs. If you squander your resources, or if you get caught by a
surprise attack by helping Jaina or something, you might need another
gold mine before you attack. I prefer to wait until the orcs are wiped
out so that my expansion only gets attacked by infernals, but it's your
call. If you need the money, take the northeast exit, go up the hill
to your right, and clear out the gold mine there. Build a hall,
immediately build a bunch of towers right there, and be prepared to run
back and forth fighting off orc attacks on both camps.
In any case, get ready for an attack. There are 2 orc camps; one
in the northwest, and one in the northeast. The one in the northwest
is the best defended, and harasses Jaina the most. Once you've
destroyed that one your job is infinitely easier. You can also attack
the less-defended northeast one. I suggest you completely ignore the
small bases scattered throughout the eastern side of the map unless you
need the gold, and as I've already said, you really don't.
For the northwestern base, you'll probably have to attack twice to
finish the job. If Jaina's got a moment, she'll launch an attack
against it, and if you can, follow her troops in. You'll approach the
northwest corner, go up a slope, and then attack a secondary encampment
to the west. Since there's unit producing buildings here, tear it
down. However, be very careful; your melee units will take a lot of
damage from the spikes on the buildings. Watch their hps, and
periodically group everyone at the entrance together, and heal with the
healing wards. Once the unit-producing buildings are down, ignore the
rest of the buildings on this part. Instead, march north up the slope,
where you'll find the main encampment. There are many towers, unit
producing buildings, and defensive forces. Marshall your forces, and
take out all the important buildings that you can. You very well may
not be able to take this all out in one try; destroy what you can and
retreat if that's the case. Rebuild your forces and attack again.
This time victory should be assured. Your main goal is to destroy the
stronghold and the peons mining and building buildings. Once that's
done, you can regroup at your leisure, as the orcs from the other base
won't send any peons to rebuild. Either march in when you feel ready
and clean up the remaining buildings, or let Jaina's forces slowly pick
off the remains.
The northeastern base is much easier to destroy. This is because
you can skip past the secondary encampment. When your forces are
ready, work your way to the northeast, clear up the fountain, and from
there go to the right edge of the map. Go north, and you'll encounter
orc forces, but not buildings. Once the units are dead, you can march
right past the buildings to your west up to the plateau with the
stronghold. Again, focus on the towers, unit producing buildings, and
stronghold. Once this is clear, regroup and destroy at your leisure.
Once the strongholds are destroyed, the mission is almost over.
Feel free to build an expansion at any mine you wish, as only infernals
will attack (though some few orc attacks may occur from the scattered
unit-producing buildings on the remaining gold the orcs have
accumulated). Defend all expansions with towers, gather your forces,
and clean out all remaining orc forces and buildings from the map.
When the only thing left is the demons that are guarding Grom, march up
to the entrance and kill the guards. Go right in and attack the final
set of demons as soon as you've healed, use the crystal on Grom, and
march Thrall back to the circle. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
Section 4: Night Elves
-1. Enemy at the Gate
Objectives:
Strategy:
Very simple, if perhaps not easy, mission. You get archers, and
only archers, on this mission. Again, you won't have to build an
expansion if you don't want to. Mine out your original gold mine,
build 2 groups or so of archers, and get going. The subquest is to
rescue furbolgs which nets you a few strong furbolgs for the final
attack. Use Tyrande's scout ability to look over the entire map for
the furbolgs you need to find. There are more than the requested 10,
so if you want to pick and choose which ones you get go ahead. While
you scour the map, leave at least one group of archers at your base, as
the humans and orcs will make periodic attacks on you. Have them
backed up against a bunch of autocasting moon wells, and they should be
fine until your main force returns to finish the job.
In any case, scour the east side of the map for furbolgs and
human/orc encampments. Destroy any small ones you find, but don't
attack the main southwestern encampment until the end, and you don't
have to attack the main northwestern one unless you want to free the
furbolgs behind them, which you don't need to do. Once you've got the
furbolg warriors, group all your archers with the furbolgs at the
northern approach to the human/orc southwester base, and attack. The
furbolgs will take the brunt of the attacks, letting your archers
attack until the paladin shows up. Order all your archers to attack
him, and he'll go down pretty quickly. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-2. Daughters of the Moon
Objectives:
Strategy:
There are 3 main sections of this mission. First, you need to get
Tyrande to the way gate. To do this, you'll need to sneak through the
demon defenses. Use your scout to watch them, and when you can sneak
past, go. You'll want to go to the northwest corner first to pick up
the 2 items first, then head to the south. Any time a demon sees you
and turns toward you, hit the h key to hide. The demon will get
confused momentarily then walk away. Avoid them in this way until you
reach the human and orc camps with the archers. Let the undead and the
humans, and then the undead and the orcs, fight to the death, then
sweep in and kill the survivors. During the orc/undead fight, have
Tyrande only run in and steal the treasure. By this time the night is
probably almost gone, so run everyone by to the way gate, where you'll
get a fountain of health and a bunch of huntresses. If the orcs follow
you, either hide to avoid them if it's still night, or use the
huntresses to kill them.
The next section is to fight your way through the demons,
gargoyles, and shades to the door. The game assumes you are going to
try to sneak through; don't bother. Keep all your units by the
fountain of health, send Tyrande out and have her attack one of the
doom guards, and lure him back to the fountain. By having all your
units fight the guard while being healed by the fountain, you can
easily defeat all of them. Once they're gone, have your units go after
all of the shades and gargoyles; if the doom guards are gone, they are
easily defeated. Take all the items you want. Move to the northwest,
where you'll find some humans that run right into a doom guard. They
can actually almost kill the thing, but will fail; finish the job and
get the item he drops. Go through the door to the northwest.
The final section has you destroy 1 or 2 groups of undead. You get
a couple more huntresses, a fountain of health, and as you move east,
some ballistas show up. As you travel east, you'll find a small area
enclosed in trees which has some doom guards, a few ziggurats, a shade,
and some items. If you want the items, line up your units outside the
entrance, lure the doom guards out one at time and destroy them, then
send in the ballista to take care of the ziggurats. The final goal is
to destroy a full undead encampment that appears to the south once
you've gone all the way to the east. In the northeast corner, there's
a second fountain of health with some more reinforcements; gather your
forces and attack. Make sure to attack only with the ballista at the
ziggurats and buildings, and have your regular units hold ground in
defense around the ballista. The undead units will come to you and get
cut down, and you'll work your way down through the base. Destroy the
whole thing if you want, or make it to the door, break it down, and run
through. Once you've passed through the door, the Mission is Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-3. The Awakening of Stormrage
Objectives:
Strategy:
One of the hardest missions in the game, due to the limited time
you have. The goal here is to build up an attack force as soon as
possible, destroy the orc town, and kill off all the guardians to the
north. In normal mode, you have enough time to build up a full force,
upgrade them, and send them in on the orcs. I'll discuss specific
build strategies for hard mode below. Once you're ready to attack, go
in; don't waste any time. If you want any chance of completing this
mission, you should attack by no later than 40 trees left protecting
Furion. The key here is to take out all of the unit-producing
buildings and towers as soon as possible, but NOT destroying the whole
town. This leaves the question; once you're almost through, should you
just run through? No, because the orcs will follow your forces,
harassing you as you go, and you won't be able to get any
reinforcements. Once you're through the orc encampment, the guardians
are not that hard to kill, providing you still have a decent sized
force (15-20 units). Kill the guardians and move Tyrande to the horn
(she should already be there, but whatever). Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-You have a whole lot less time in this mission on Hard Mode. I
think the computer has ghoul frenzy on Hard Mode and doesn't on normal.
So you need to streamline your building processes. Once again, use
slow game speed. First thing, spend NO GOLD until you have enough $
for another tree of life. Send a wisp to the east down the slope, and
the moment you've got enough gold, build a tree. Group all your forces
to the east of the tree, up in the water path, so that the orcs don't
sneak past. Your next priority is 1 or 2 extra wisps on the trees for
lumber; you need to walk a delicate line between gold and lumber until
you're almost done on this mission. So if you took a wisp that was on
a tree to build your second tree of life, replace it and build at least
one more. The next thing to buy is the upgrade for the tree of life.
From that point on, build units and upgrade them as soon as the money
comes in. Spend your money on archers, huntresses, maybe a few extra
dryads, and ballistas near the end. By 50 trees or so you should be
almost ready. The orcs will attack one time during the day, and once
near the end of the following night. If you're ready before the 2nd
attack, wait for it, then go. The first thing you'll find is a group
of raiders and a fountain of health; the dryads will take care of
anything that was ensnared. Don't bother with the fountain of health,
it takes too long. I hope you've got at least 2 ballistas, if not 3 or
4. Let them lead the attack and kill the units that attack them.
Focus your units on the buildings, except to protect your ballistas.
Once the towers, burrows, and unit-producing buildings are all down, go
north past the town and regroup before the first set of guardians. As
long as you've got about 20 trees and 15-20 units left, you should be
fine. If you've got a scroll of healing or 2 that'd be helpful here.
-When you attack the orc encampment, you're obviously going to lose
some units. So constantly switch between the battle and your base,
building new units which you rally on Tyrande. When you hear the unit
complete notification, hit the spacebar to jump to them, add them to
the group, and re-order the group to attack. Otherwise they'll just
follow Tyrande and not attack. By constantly reinforcing your army,
you should have plenty of units available for the final battle. To
make sure you've got enough money for this kind of production, I highly
recommend building the expansion I mentioned above.
-4. The Druids Arise
Objectives:
Strategy:
This is definitely one of the more interesting missions in the
game. The idea here is to keep moving, mine out the individual mines
as fast as you can, and fight off the periodic attacks from the undead,
humans, and orcs. Once your take the human base, you're done with the
periodic attacks, which is nice.
First thing, move to the north with your units and clear out the
local creeps. Entangle the mine and drain it as quickly as possible.
When you're not mining in this mission, I suggest leaving your wisps
near the beginning on some trees, where they'll rack up plenty of
lumber while you're not paying attention. I also suggest upgrading
your troops with the hunters hall at the beginning location as fast as
you can. Other than that, simply build troops to fill out your ranks.
While your first gold mine is draining, take your units as far north as
you can, and clear out the creeps by the fountain. You can then move
all your units and buildings up to the fountain as a safe haven away
from the undead/orc/human battles while you plan your next move. When
you've done that, and when you've cleared the way to the second gold
mine just past the trees to the north of the undead base, go mine that
one. While that's mining (and wait for the first orc/human attack to
come) go after the furbolgs to the north. They're not hard to kill,
esp. with the help of the treants Furion can summon.
When you've finished the second mine, get some ballistas ready, and
attack the human base. It's quite easy to kill, just be careful your
ballistas aren't overrun by the human response. Clear out the base and
make your own; drain this mine. Optionally, you can wait until now to
kill off the furbolgs, as the periodic attacks cease at this point.
However, enemy units will often fly over the western wall of your new
base, so keep all your troops on the east wall to keep them out of
trouble. When you're ready to move on, destroy the wall, pick up the
reinforcements, and move into the forest. I suggest moving through
here to the final base before completing the optional quest to destroy
the undead who've corrupted the forest, since it's a much shorter walk
from the final base to the graveyard; until you cleansed the forest,
undead and corrupted enemies will pop up randomly whenever you walk
through it.
Therefore, when you're done with the human base, move everything
together through the forest, following the north forest wall to the
east. You'll be attacked by skeletons, treants, and ghosts; beware the
ghosts as they will possess you. You'll reach the end of the shallow
river; cross it and keep moving east. Keep all your units and
buildings together as to not lose too many. Once you climb the slope
out of the forest, you'll have to kill a few satyrs that guard the
entrance to the corrupted night elf base. Be careful not to fight too
close to the base, or reinforcements will arrive, which is what you
Don't want to deal with after just crossing through the forest. Set up
your new base at the gold mine (there'll be a few more creeps to kill)
and replenish your forces. Cut down the trees between you and the
entrance to the corrupted base; they just get in the way. When you're
ready, follow the left forest wall back into the corrupted forest and
kill off the undead. It shouldn't be too hard if you're at full
strength. This will allow you to walk through the forest at will;
before you take on the corrupted base, go to the southwest corner of
the former corrupted forest, and observe that there are some thunder
lizards behind some trees (use scout). Cut down the trees, kill the
lvl 10 creep, and pick up a sobi mask (+50% magic regeneration speed).
When you're regrouped and are ready, attack the corrupted base.
First, send some ballista up the path to the right to attack the
protectors; follow them with some archers to protect them. Once you
begin the attack, forces will stream from the main entrance. Take them
out, and when the protectors on the hill to the right are no more
thanks to your ballista, bring everything back together and attack.
This base is actually really easy to destroy as long as you have a few
ballista; huntresses are very effective against satyrs. Clean it up,
take Furion north to the barrow dens. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
None for this level.
-5. Brothers in Blood
Objectives:
Strategy:
Fairly simple mission. First part is Furion and Tyrande together.
I recommend for this part, leave your non-hero forces behind, and for
each room simply summon up some treants with Force of Nature, and send
them in with the heroes for the battle. This works for nearly every
enemy group except the large group of spiders around the corrupted
fountain; you can either pick them off, or bring in all your units for
a full battle. In any case, slowly proceed to the south, checking
every other path first. Once you get past the corrupted fountain,
you'll meet some furbolgs that want some help. Take your heroes to the
north, the first passageway has ghosts so only bring in your heroes;
the second has thunder lizards which Can be taken by your heroes,
though it will be close; bring your main forces for this battle. When
the way to the fountain of health is clear, bring the furbolg's vial to
it and return. Follow the path south and split up.
Furion's section should be handled in the same way. Call up some
treants, send them in, then come in behind them with the rest of your
units. This method should save you most of the trouble. Eventually
you'll cross a bridge, kill some strong creeps (entangle works good
here) and hear tell of the "bear gods". By now you should have
tranquility; you'll probably need it. Go to the south to the fountain
of mana where you can restore hp with tranquility and mp with the
fountain. When you're ready, head to the north. You'll fight through
a bunch of black dragons, which aren't too hard. The section with the
druids is next. Make sure your druids of the talon have full mp, then
go into the pit. Entangle the druids when you can, fight the non-druid
creeps, and make your way up and around to the left. You'll have to
cyclone a few druids along the way. When you see a fountain, go down
to it, and fight the creeps there. Use Tranquility to heal your units,
the fountain is another mana one. When you're ready, go to the north,
break down the door, hold down the druid there, break down the next
door. Cyclone the 2 druids blocking the path. Fight the creeps around
the corner and go up the slope. There's only a few creeps guarding the
last door and one more druid to avoid. My favorite tactic is to have
Furion entangle the creeps from across the chasm, then run away; do
this enough and they'll die. Or cyclone the druid and take them head
on. Break down the door and go to the circle; this section is
complete.
Tyrande's section now starts. Make sure she has starfall. My
approach for this section is to save your units, use Tyrande
exclusively. Start killing your attackers. Take Tyrande to the south;
go through all the rooms killing the enemies, picking up all the items.
You'll save a few elves on the way. When you've activated the panel
above the main door, go back to the beginning. This time, go to the
north and clean out the creeps up there. You'll probably need either
starfall or the support of your forces to kill the creeps up here.
Clean out the area and activate the second door panel, opening the
door. The rest of the area is fairly simple; take all your troops, or
optionally just Tyrande, and clean out the level room by room. Make
sure to do the room with the sleeping watchers, as that will give you
the huntress glaive upgrade. If you reach the way gate, make sure
you've cleared out everyone before moving on.
Through the way gate, you're almost there. Heal up at the
fountain, kill the creeps to the south. Go to the west and up to the
corridor with the circling watchers. You can use the goblin land mines
you just found to kill them, or just kill them the normal way. When no
more circle into view from the left, follow the corridor in either
direction and go up into the fountain area. Kill the creeps and move
to the north, where you'll meet the final watchers guarding Illidan.
Use starfall and finish them. Mission Complete.
Secrets:
-In the first area, explore to the east and north as much as
possible. The easternmost passage in this section (go straight north
from the spider area to find it) will have the east wall made of
mushrooms. Cast Force of Nature 5 or 6 times to clear them all out,
and follow the path. You'll find an enormous panda ("The World's
Largest Panda" or something). Kill it, it'll give you a necklace of
spell immunity.
-In Furion's area, to the north and south of the bridge that Furion
activates are small areas blocked off by mushrooms. Cast Force of
Nature many, many times to clear these all out, and you'll find creeps
behind both with treasure. However, to the south, once you clear out
the first set, there's a very small niche which is easy to ignore/miss
that's further south instead of to the west where the creeps are; open
That up, and it will take you to a teleporter that will then take you
to a hidden area with some creeps which drop an item that gives you a
+6 to intelligence.
Hard Mode Strategies:
-6. A Destiny of Flame and Sorrow
Objectives:
Strategy:
Once you have a good defense setup, this level is actually not too
bad. From your base, there are 3 approaches: the northwest, the west,
and the east. No one EVER attacks from the east, so don't worry about
it. Set up a few protectors to the west (which will also catch
attackers from the northwest) and some moon pools for healing; but the
main defense is your units. Build a strong force of huntresses, druids
of the claw, and a few druids of the talon. Archers aren't too useful
here. When you're attacked, select the druids of the claw, have one
use Roar (just hit r with them all selected, only one will cast it) and
put them in bear form, which is a much better attack form for them.
When you're attacked by doom guards, this is when your druids of the
claw pay off. Cyclone them. This will get them out of the battle for
30 seconds or two (which is a lifetime in an RTS), and is worth it's
weight in gold if they're attacking with other units. If there's just
2 guards, go ahead and cyclone 1 to separate them.
Once your defense is up and holding, attack the corrupted base to
your northwest. I recommend waiting until right after an attack
(assuming you have full moon wells for healing purposes) and then
taking the northwest exit, going north, killing the creeps at the mine,
then going east. With a full attacking force of what I mentioned
before and some ballistas, you should have little trouble with this
base. If it's a problem, focus on the buildings, get the tree of life
down, cyclone the giant skeleton creep there, and when you need to,
retreat. As long as they can't mine anymore gold you can go back and
finish the job at your leisure.
Once again, I feel there's no need to set up an expansion to finish
the mission, at least until later. If you need the money, go ahead and
take the gold mine you just liberated; otherwise, regroup for another
battle. Your next goal is the corrupted base to the west. Go west
from the liberated gold mine, careful not to hit the demons in the
northwest corner. There should be a tainted stream you go around, and
a slope to the southwest to go up. The base is up the slope. Attack
with your forces and make sure your ballista are in range to get the
protectors. If you can keep the enemy forces busy long enough to do
their job, you should easily be able to take this base down.
At this point, you only have to deal with incoming doom guards, so
feel free to build the expansion base. When you've regrouped once
again, head up to the northwest and take on those forces. There's only
a few corrupted protectors to take out, along with a bunch of demons,
so you may not care to bother with ballista. When you've fought your
way up to the demon gate, destroy it, and Illidan will morph. At this
point, the demons will start coming from the northeast, where
Tichondrius is. Replenish your forces and attack. When Tichondrius
attacks, set your forces to attacking in general and Illidan to
attacking Tichondrius. Even if you lose all your other forces, Illidan
should get the job done. Once Tichondrius falls, the Mission is
Complete.
Secrets:
Hard Mode Strategies:
-Tichondrius really has a lot of Infernals and Doom Guards guarding
him on Hard Mode. The best thing to do is build a bunch of dryads, and
send one unit up towards Tichondrius while the rest of your units wait
nearby. You'll pull out several doom guards and infernals. Take care
of them normally by cycloning the doom guards and using abolish magic
(dryad) on the infernals. That will clear up most of the Demon Lord's
defenses. Once you've recovered from that, attack, and Tichondrius's
defenses should be reduced enough to allow you to get the job done.
-7. Twilight of the Gods
Objectives:
Strategy:
Ah, after days of writing this faq, we finally come to the reason
WHY I decided to write it in the first place. I was toying with
writing another Twilight of the Gods guide instead of a whole Hard Mode
faq. However, as you've seen above, there's plenty to say, so I went
ahead and said it. Now, the reason why I wrote this faq. Twilight of
the Gods can be, if you play it right, one of the easiest levels in the
game. I'd like to give credit right now to Scott Sandlin (aka Pixel)
and James York (aka Red Skin) who's strategy posted on GameFaqs is the
inspiration for my strategy. They had the right idea, however they did
not take it far enough.
The approaches to this mission:
-You can either attempt to actually hold out for 45 minutes against
the undead hordes, retreating between bases as necessary, or:
-You can attempt to destroy the undead base as it transitions from
the original base to the new base, which is built over the human or orc
bases, thus ending the undead march and letting you sit back and relax
for the rest of the time.
Clearly the more efficient way is to destroy the undead base, as if
you succeed you will guarantee victory on this mission. Attempting to
hold out is always a risky proposition as you need to be completely
focused for 45 minutes and even then could get unlucky, especially on
Hard Mode.
The Undead base transition:
The heart of the strategy lies with the specifics of the
transition. Watch it. What happens when the undead transition to a
new base (at least to the human site, I've never let them take the orc
site) is:
1. All undead units except for the heroes disappear.
2. 3 Acolytes appear in the middle of the area.
3. The gold mine is instantaneously haunted (there is no build
time-one second it's not, then it is).
4. Archimonde starts wandering around destroying whatever's left of
the human/orc base.
5. The Acolytes wander for a bit, as the AI tries to decide who
will mine and who will put up the base.
6. Once the Acolyte who will summon is decided, the buildings are
summoned in the following order.
-Necropolis
-Crypt
-Crypt
-Graveyard
-Altar of Darkness
-Ziggurats
... and then some more.
7. Once the buildings are complete (and notice that they build
extremely quickly) the crypts start summoning the units for the first
wave of attacks, which are ghouls.
The Key:
The Undead will start production on their units ONLY WHEN THEIR
BUILD CYCLE IS COMPLETE. What this means is that if you can disrupt
the build cycle, THEY WILL NOT, AND NEVER, PRODUCE ANY UNITS. You'll
only have to deal with killing off the heros, who, if there's no altar
of darkness, will never come back.
How you exploit this:
When the Undead overrun the Humans, have some units waiting outside
of the base (you don't want them teleported away). As soon as the
transition takes place (the cutscene plays), hit escape to get right to
the action, and send in your units. KILL THE ACOLYTES. If you can
kill the Acolytes before they get any farther than putting up the Altar
of Darkness, YOU HAVE WON. The build order has been disrupted, and the
crypts will never start producing units. The most effective way to
kill the acolytes is this:
1. Build 9-12 hippogriff riders.
2. When the human base is about to fall, move them to the east of
the base (up on the mountains; click up there, the riders will move so
high you can't see them, but they're there.
3. When the base falls, immediately get to the action by skipping
the cutscene. Move your riders in and kill the Acolytes AS SOON AS
POSSIBLE.
Problems to be overcome:
1. As you may notice when you immediately move your riders in, the
Acolytes are invincible. So Archimonde will beat on you for a while,
while you make no progress. The solution: the Acolytes are all
invincible UNTIL JUST AFTER THE 2ND CRYPT GOES UP. Have your riders
hold ground outside the town until the first crypt is built (with them
there you should be able to see the action, but if you can't, simply
have Tyrande put a scout in the middle of the town), and when the 1st
crypt is going up, move them in to the map, but don't attack just yet;
as the acolyte is putting up the 2nd crypt, start MADLY clicking on him
to attack, and as soon as the command goes through, get find the other
Acolytes, who should both be on the mine. Watch the first acolyte, and
as soon as he goes down, attack the other 2. If you can get command
queuing to work, do that, it'd be perfect. Attack the next 2 acolytes
as soon as you can, as Archimonde is constantly attacking you during
this time, and possibly the lich too. Note that most of the time, the
2 acolytes that are mining went to the left 2 slots on the mine, and
the one that will build next is the top one. Always attack the builder
first, because if the build sequence completes it's business as usual,
which is what you're trying to prevent. Once you're done, RUN, as
Archimonde is tearing great chunks out of your forces.
2. So you've killed the 3 acolytes, and are celebrating and went to
the kitchen for some pizza. You check back 2 minutes later to find
that yes, the undead buildings are indeed building nothing, and the
game is over. You write some email, watch some TV, and then hear 3
minutes later that you're under attack, and that a full undead wave is
attacking the orc base. What happened? Well, as you might have
expected, the necropolis spit out another acolyte, and he finished the
build order, beginning the attack. Of course, you would have expected
this from the beginning when the necropolis finished, but it Doesn't
happen then; it happens about 5 minutes after the Undead started their
new base, as long as you disrupt the build order. So what do you do?
Well, there's one objective left-the Necropolis. After taking down the
3 Acolytes you've got about 5 minutes to destroy the Necropolis before
a new acolyte is spat out. The key to this one is that Archimonde and
the other heros DON'T DEFEND THEIR BASE. Once all the human buildings
are down, they just sit at the entrance. Simply heal up the riders you
used to kill the acolytes, maybe take a few minutes to build a few
more, and as long as you've got 2 minutes to spare or so, fly them down
the side of the base (either side), come in from behind, and take down
the necropolis. Archimonde and his heros Won't interfere. That is, if
you are careful and make sure you come around the side. If you get in
range of the lich (who has the largest range) he (alone) Will come
after you. If this happens, take him out so that you can destroy the
necropolis unmolested. Once the necropolis is down, the build order
will Never be finished, and so the undead will NEVER rebuild and
attack. Just deal with the heros as they come at you individually, and
you're done.
Update: if you take too long in healing your units or rebuilding your
riders, and haven't knocked down the necropolis by the time it produces
an acolyte, the computer will build a steady stream of as many acolytes
as necessary to finish the job. What this means is if you have the
necropolis half dead by your riders and the necropolis spits out an
acolyte, you can kill it and go back to shooting at the necropolis, but
it will continue to build acolytes at that super-fast rate. I let the
undead start building acolytes, and let the build order get continued
before I killed the acolyte and destroyed the buildings; the build
order was not completed, no new waves were built, but every 2 seconds I
had to kill another acolyte. Eventually I finished off the necropolis,
which ended the threat; in the time it took me though, I shot down
probably 20-30 new acolytes, and destroyed the altar of darkness 10
times or so. So if you are late in finishing of the necropolis, it is
still very much possible to stop the build order from completing; you
just need to be careful of the acolytes.
Suggested Strategies:
1. The most Honorable strategy you can use (though this is a game,
who cares if you treat the computer with honor) is to faithfully
protect Jaina as well as you can, and hold out as long as you can.
Spend your money on combat units like druids of the claw and
huntresses, and upgrade for said units. When you're about to be
overrun (around 30 minutes left is a good goal), withdraw your forces,
hopefully you've got some riders available, and move just outside of
the human base to the north. Wait for the undead to finish it, and
when the cutscene hits immediately attack with all your forces. Your
ground units should keep the heros busy while any units you can get
through and your air units go after the acolytes. Kill them off, and
take the 5 minutes or so to build a group of riders and heal the ones
you have, and go in and take down the necropolis. The risks to doing
this is that you may very well not have a sufficient air force to get
the job done.
2. The next strategy would be the same, except you fight mainly
with riders, and when your rider force reaches 10 or 12, withdraw and
let the undead finish the job. Using this strategy you'll probably
make it almost to 30 minutes, if you're serious about defending Jaina.
Use the accumulated riders to kill the acolytes, withdraw immediately,
rebuild and heal your rider force, and send them down to finish the
necropolis.
3. The easiest strategy would be to ignore the human base, except
on the most trivial levels. Send all your starting units down there,
but build nothing but riders for the entire time, and spend your gold
on nothing but the riders and their upgrades. Buy the damage upgrade
first, and the armor upgrade next. Have Tyrande and Furion defend the
human base as they see fit; use tranquility and starfall a lot to hold
off the undead since you're not reinforcing them; buying a few potions
of invulnerability will help you out with that. You should be able to
hold out for about 4 or 5 waves; somewhere around 36 or 37 minutes
remaining. Do not send your riders down to help defend. The second
you have 12 riders, move them down to the east of the human base
(directly to the right of the mine) and have them hold ground. If your
heroes are still alive, have them withdraw. However, they're likely
dead. You should, though, have enough time to get 12 riders up before
the human base is overrun. Of course, Jaina will yell at you again for
not helping her; if she knew what you were doing, she'd accept the
sacrifice. Ah well. When the transition takes place, as above wait
for the 2nd crypt to go up, then send in the riders; when the acolytes
stop being invincible, kill them, then run. You should be able to get
out of there with maybe 9. If so, just run them up to the fountain of
health or the moon wells, heal them, and send them back down to take
out the necropolis. By doing this, I had over 30 minutes left where I
did nothing but watch as the undead heros slowly marched up to the orc
camp to be slaughtered. I even left the 2 crypts standing; they
produced nothing for the whole mission.
Final Note: I've read from the above mentioned Twilight of the Gods
strategy by Scott Sandlin and James York that it IS possible to kill
Archimonde though it's very hard since all attacks do 1 point of
damage. With the 3 gold mines available to you, and over 30 minutes to
try if you use strategy #3, I believe you've got a decent shot here,
though I never bothered trying. Good luck if you try.
