=====Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Walkthrough
==FAQ written by Aklite
-This guide contains no spoilers.
==================================
Table of contents
==================================
I. Introduction (ROCI)
a. Intro
b. Version History
c. Single player/using the guide
d. Statistics, combat, and basics
i. Damage/armor
ii. Heroes
iii.Structures
II. Races (ROCRX)
a. Human (ROCRH)
i. Structures
ii. Units
iii.Heroes
b. Undead (ROCRU)
i. Structures
ii. Units
iii.Heroes
c. Orc (ROCRO)
i. Structures
ii. Units
iii.Heroes
d. Night Elf (ROCRNE)
i. Structures
ii. Units
iii.Heroes
III. Story mode walkthrough (ROCWX)
a. Basic elements of gameplay
IV. Prologue Campaign: Exodus of the horde (ROCWPX)
a. Chapter one: Chasing Visions (ROCWP1)
b. Chapter two: Departures (ROCWP2)
V. Human Campaign: The scourge of Lordaeron (ROCWHX)
a. Chapter one: The defense of Strahnbrad (ROCWH1)
b. Chapter two: Blackrock and Roll (ROCWH2)
c. Chapter three: Ravages of the plague (ROCWH3)
d. Chapter four: The Cult of the Damned (ROCWH4)
e. Chapter five: The march of the scourge (ROCWH5)
f. Chapter six: The Culling (ROCWH6)
g. Chapter seven: The Shores of Northrend (ROCWH7)
h. Chapter eight: Dissension (ROCWH8)
i. Chapter nine: Frostmourne (ROCWH9)
VI. Undead Campaign: Path of the damned (ROCWUX)
a. Chapter one: Trudging through the ashes (ROCWU1)
b. Chapter two: Digging up the Dead (ROCWU2)
c. Chapter three: Into the Realm Eternal (ROCWU3)
d. Chapter four: Key of the Three Moons (ROCWU4)
e. Chapter five: The Fall of Silvermoon (ROCWU5)
f. Chapter six: Blackrock and Roll, Too! (ROCWU6)
g. Chapter seven: The Siege of Dalaran (ROCWU7)
h. Chapter eight: Under the Burning Sky (ROCWU8)
VII. Orc Campaign: The Invasion of Kalimdor (ROCWOX)
a. Chapter one: Landfall (ROCWO1)
b. Chapter two: The Long March (ROCWO2)
c. Chapter three: Cry of the Warsong (ROCWO3)
d. Chapter four: The Spirits of Ashenvale (ROCWO4)
e. Chapter five: The Hunter of Shadows (ROCWO5)
f. Chapter six: Where Wyverns Dare (ROCWO6)
g. Chapter seven: The Oracle (ROCWO7)
h. Chapter eight: By Demons be Driven (ROCWO8)
VIII.Night Elf Campaign: Eternity's End (ROCWNEX)
a. Chapter one: Enemies at the Gate (ROCWNE1)
b. Chapter two: Daughters of the Moon (ROCWNE2)
c. Chapter three: The Awakening of Stormrage (ROCWNE3)
d. Chapter four: The Druids Arise (ROCWNE4)
e. Chapter five: Brothers in Blood (ROCWNE5)
f. Chapter six: A Destiny of Flame and Sorrow (ROCWNE6)
g. Chapter seven: Twilight of the Gods (ROCWNE7)
IV. Other game types (ROCWM1)
V. Legal
=========================================================================
I. Introduction (ROCI)
=========================================================================
==================================
a. Intro
==================================
If you have any questions about the guide or game or any suggestions, you
can email me at Aklite1@comcast.net
-This is just a brief summary of Warcraft 3, feel free to skip ahead to
section c. if you prefer.
Warcraft 3 is a real time strategy computer game, third in the warcraft
series. It is a game quite similar to starcraft (another Blizzard game
released earlier) in gameplay and tactics but with a completely different
lore aspect. In my opinion Warcraft 3 single player mode if far superior to
Starcraft's single player, which I only found valuable for storyline. Most
missions were pretty straightforward: Either build a base and wipe out the
enemy base, or carry a small group of units through a facility to the
mission objectives. Once you've done one campaign, the majority of the rest
are too similar, in my own opinion of course.
Warcraft 3 however has several elements in the game itself that make
single player a better experience. Top of this list for me is the use of
heroes. Heroes introduce a bit of RPG into the game and level up as you
progress through each races campaign. Each mission caps to one or two
levels though, so you cannot level up too fast. You can also collect tomes
which upgrade a heroes attribute, or collect items with unique qualities.
And finally, if heroes die you can resurrect them (with the exception of no-
base missions which I will cover later) unlike starcraft where a heroes
death meant the failure of the mission. There are also several other areas
of the environment other than mission objectives: these may include creep
camps (creeps are creatures who are part of the environment and do not
belong to a race) which can be cleaned out for hero experience and gear, and
secondary objectives which in most cases have valuable rewards.
Anyway that's just a brief summary of my thoughts. Now, on to the
guide.
==================================
b. Version History
==================================
==================================
c. Single player/using the guide
==================================
In this guide I will cover all attributes of each single player mission.
Single player for Reign of Chaos consists of 4 campaigns, one with each race
starting with human. Obviously as this is a real-time strategy game there
are hundreds of ways to complete each mission and my methods will be as
simple as possible. The majority of missions my strategy will be to
establish a heavy defense and defend your base while you collect resources
and work on upgrading/training units. Please also note, this guide is
primarily geared at single player. The whole game changes in multi-player
and while some tactics for single player may work in multi-player, do not
except all of them to.
Most missions I will play on hard mode. I have not compared normal to
hard extensively but I do know hard mode has more frequent attacks and
possibly more enemies in the missions you complete without a base, so if
there are areas where mobs are supposed to be located but are not there I
apologize. But I figure it's easier to have a hard mode guide cover normal
than a normal guide try to cover playing on hard :)
I will also cover all bonus objectives and item locations (if you find
any extra ones feel free to email me). Bonus objectives are pretty much
always worth the rewards.
If you have never played a real-time strategy game, I will give a brief
summary of what elements there are and terms I will use early on. The idea
of the game is to build a base and train an army. You do this by using
workers to harvest gold as a primary resource, and lumber as a secondary
resource. These are returned to the nearest town hall (lumber can also be
returned to a lumber mill, since as you clear into a forest the distance to
the town hall increases) and added in increments of 10 (gold) and 10-20
(lumber). The most basic units require gold only, while stronger units
require lumber as well. You start most missions with a basic base, but if
you play custom games or multi-player you start with your main building and
5 workers only. Regardless, the idea is to train workers, use workers to
harvest lumber and gold and build structures, and defend your base with
structures and units. As you build basic structures, more advanced
structures become available, and as you will notice during gameplay several
structures have prerequisites (i.e. other structures you need to construct
before you can build a more advanced structure). Additionally, as you train
more units you will use more food. Food is provided by your main structure
and other smaller structures, such as farms for humans. The cap is 90 in
Reign of Chaos. Different types of units use different amounts of food.
There is also an element of the game called upkeep which will deduct a
certain amount of gold harvested when you have a certain amount of units.
When you have 40+ food worth of units, you only receive 7 of the 10 gold
harvested to your total. At high upkeep, you receive only 4 gold of the 10.
Regardless of upkeep you always harvest 10 gold each time from the mine, so
keep an eye on how much gold your mine has remaining.
You can quick-jump to an area of the guide by pressing CTRL+F and then
typing in the lettering in parentheses next to the section and hitting enter
twice (refer to table of contents). This covers all major sections of the
guide.
==================================
d. Statistics, combat, and basics
==================================
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i. Damage/armor
----------------------------------
Every unit, hero, and structure in the game has a specific value of armor,
type of armor, and for applicable structures and units, a specific value and
type of damage. This makes mixing units to have different types of damage
and armor a necessity. Your goal is to have the front line of the attack
group have an armor type that reduces damage from the type of attack mostly
being received. I will give examples near the end of the section. The
majority of attack types do reduced damage to some armor and increased
damage to some armor, and the rest of the armor not listed will receive 100%
damage from that attack type. You can see the effect of a units damage type
of cursoring over the damage icon, and also the effects of attacks on armor
type by cursoring over the armor icon as well. The types of damage and
armor are as follows
++Damage
-Normal: Normal damage deals extra damage to light armor, and reduced damage
to fortified armor. This is a very well balanced attack type, essentially
dealing 100% or better damage to all units except for buildings. The vast
majority of normal mode attacks are melee. Most light armored units are
ranged, so getting your melee up to attack them takes a bit of coordination.
-Piercing: Piercing attacks deal extra damage to unarmored units and heavy
armor, and reduced damage to fortified, light, and heroes. Essentially all
piercing attacks are ranged, and versus the right armor type they can do
tremendous amounts of damage. Conversely, against the wrong armor type,
their damage is feeble. In general piercing damage types have the highest
damage numbers, but this does not mean they are the best damage units to
have. For example, a footman with a damage of 12-13 will do extra damage
versus light armor, where conversely a rifleman with a damage of 18-24 will
do reduced damage to light armor. The footman will deal slightly more
damage than the rifleman (footman deals 18-19, and rifleman deals about 14-
16), and with a faster attack as well. So damage type is leaps and bounds
more important than quantity of damage, so don't be fooled by just high
damage numbers!
-Siege: Siege attacks do extra damage to fortified armor(buildings) and
unarmored units, and reduced damage to light armor and heroes. This attack
type generally has the highest damage value, the longest range, and the
slowest attack speed, intended to be used against buildings primarily. If
you see some unarmored casters in a group also it works exceptionally well
:) Siege units aren't designed to me mass produced, and a few extra ones
are sufficient to help in attacking a base. Any other attack besides siege
(except chaos, listed later), does HIGHLY reduced damage to fortified.
-Magic: Magic attacks are mostly used by spellcasters, and deal extra damage
to medium armor and reduced to fortified and heroes. Damage values of magic
are usually pretty low, and it is really not intended for use by offensive
attack units. However, this is the only attack that does extra damage to
medium armor, which a good number of units have, so it can be somewhat
useful.
-Hero: Hero damage applies to hero units only(obviously), and deals reduced
damage to fortified armor. A little worse than normal attack but still a
well rounded type of attack, dealing full damage to most armor.
-Chaos: Chaos attacks only apply to special units, such as creeps or
summoned units. It is the most balanced type of attack there is, dealing
full damage to all armor types, including buildings. In the rare instances
when you do control units that wield chaos damage, it is very helpful for
leveling bases.
++Armor
-Light: Light armor takes extra damage from normal, and reduces damage from
piercing and siege attacks. Certainly the best armor for ranged units, and
most ranged units have it. Since you will want to keep ranged units near
the back of the attack group, enemy melee with normal attack will need to
bypass your front line to attack these guys. With reduced damage from the
high damage piercing and siege attacks, this type of armor is certainly the
best for ranged units.
Medium: Medium armor takes extra damage from magic attacks. This armor type
is found on several units and is the most balanced armor type. Magic
attacks are not very strong and the extra damage received is likely designed
for balance purposes. This armor is usually found on weaker melee and siege
units, and weaker air units.
Heavy: Heavy armor takes extra damage from piercing attacks. This armor
type is usually found on the more expensive and stronger units. They seem
to take a little less damage from all other types except piercing, so they
are useful on the front lines versus other melee. If they are getting
attacked by piercing, pull them back so enemy piercing focuses more on your
ranged units, where light armor will reduce the damage taken. Enemy
piercing will tear apart heavy armor very quickly if you are not careful.
Unarmored: Unarmored armor type is found on casters generally, and increases
damage taken from piercing and siege attacks. As the weakest armor in the
game, it is designed for units not intended for direct combat. Since
piercing and siege have the highest damage values anyway, you certainly want
to keep your casters back as far as possible and watch their health closely,
since they can get dropped very quickly from range.
Fortified: Fortified armor is found on buildings and a couple units, and
greatly reduces damage taken from anything but siege. Siege deals extra
damage against fortified, but any other attacks value is reduced by about
60%. Because of this anytime you intend to level a base, having siege units
helps a great deal. Enemy defense towers are a high threat to you since
they usually have decent damage at a fast rate. Otherwise fortified armor
usually works in your favor in single player, and establishing a solid
defense is a strategy that works well.
Hero: Heroes armor reduces damage taken from piercing, magic, and siege
attacks. This is a strong type of armor, reducing damage from the usual
highest damage units. Obviously intended for units that are better than
average.
Divine: Divine armor is only found on ""boss"" type enemies, and takes
damage from chaos attacks only. Since no faction units have chaos damage,
it is usually intended for in game characters so that you cannot kill them.
Any damage besides chaos, regardless of value, deals about 1-2 damage per
hit, so killing a divine armor unit without chaos attacks is designed to be
essentially impossible.
----------------------------------
ii. Heroes
----------------------------------
Since I cover each hero in detail in the races section, I will only give a
brief overview of heroes here. Every mission in Warcraft 3 has at least 1
hero that you will play, and in multi-player or custom games, you can have
up to 3 (unless you control more than one faction). Heroes are trained from
the altar of kings, and fallen heroes are resurrected here as well. Each
hero requires 5 food to train. Your first hero is free, and can be trained
once an altar of kings is built. Your second hero requires 500 gold and 100
lumber, and the first upgrade for your main structure (town hall,
necropolis, etc.). Your third hero requires the last upgrade for your main
building, and costs the same as the second hero.
Each hero has a primary attribute. Increasing that attribute will also
increase your hero's damage by 1 per point. Strength increases hit points
by 25 per point and hit point regeneration. Agility increases attack speed
and armor by 1 for every 3 points in agility. Intelligence increases mana
by 15 and mana regeneration. If you have more than one hero, you may want
to focus all upgrades for a certain attribute to a hero who has that as
their primary attribute. I say MAY because some people prefer to completely
deck one hero, which is fine as well. Sometimes heroes in single player are
not present for every mission. When a hero is no longer part of the
campaign their items will be left at your base in the next mission, but any
tomes they received are gone, so it's up to you how you wish to distribute
upgrades for heroes.
Your hero has 4 total spells, and can level up to level 10. The first 3
spells have 3 ranks each, and your ultimate spell has 1 rank. When you
first train or take control of a hero, you can learn one of the first 3
abilities. Each time you level, you receive 1 more attribute point, which
can be spent to upgrade an existing ability, or learn a new ability. The
ultimate ability becomes available at level 6, and is usually considerably
powerful. The second rank of a spell requires level 3, and the third
requires level 5. My suggestion is to pick one ability as a primary, one as
a secondary, and level the last one after you pick up your ultimate. So
level up your primary at 1, secondary at level 2, primary again at 3,
secondary again at 4, and max your primary at level 5. You can build your
hero however you please, but most heroes (in my opinion) have an ability
that stands out as powerful and usually gives good benefit in its final
level.
Each hero can carry up to 6 items. There are 2 item types: consumable items
which can be used by clicking on them or using hotkeys, and passive items
which give a passive benefit. (default hotkeys are numbers on the
numberpad).
These include scrolls to teleport the hero and nearby units to your main
structure (town hall, etc), healing potions, mana potions, damage increasing
items, etc. Passive items may increase attributes, movement speed, armor,
or may have special applications, such as granting splash damage, ranged
attacks to attack air, slowing effect, damage over time effect, etc. Again
how you customize or use your hero is up to you, but having good passive
items can make your hero extremely powerful.
=========================================================================
II. Races (ROCRX)
=========================================================================
==================================
a. Human (ROCRH)
==================================
Humans are first race you will play in the single player campaign. They are
a fairly straightforward and versatile race, pretty well rounded in general.
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i. Structures
----------------------------------
Town hall: Town hall is the main building for the human race and is
required as the baseline for the entire tech tree. The town hall provides
12 food and trains peasants, the workers for the human race. A town hall
costs 450g and 150 lumber to construct, and has 1500 hit points.
Keep: A keep is an upgraded version of the town hall with increased hp and
is a requirement to produce more advanced units. Upgrading to a keep
requires 320 gold and 110 lumber and increases the hit points of the town
hall up to 2000.
Castle: A castle is the highest level of the town hall, required for
advanced structures and units, your third level upgrades, and your third
hero. Upgrading to a castle requires 390 gold and 130 lumber, and will
increase the hit points of the keep up to 2500.
Barracks: The barracks is the most basic training structure of the humans,
and is used to train footman, rifleman, and knight. It also consists of 3
upgrades for those particular units: defend, long rifles, and animal war
training. A barracks has 1500 hit points and costs 240 gold and 80 lumber
to construct.
Lumber Mill: The lumber mill is used as a dropping point for workers
harvesting lumber, and also has 2 upgrades. Lumber harvesting, which
increases the amount of lumber a worker can carry by 5/10, and improved
masonry, which increases the armor and hit points of your other buildings by
20% of base hit points and 1 armor. The lumber mill costs 170 gold to
construct and has 900 hit points.
Blacksmith: The blacksmith contains damage and armor upgrades for all your
regular units. There are 2 classifications of weapons and 2 of armor. In
general these upgrades are segmented by ranged and melee damage, with a
couple exceptions. I will detail these upgrades in the units section. A
blacksmith costs 240 gold and 50 lumber to construct, and has 1200 hit
points.
Farm: The farm is the food provision structure of the humans, providing 6
food. It can also be use tactically to block your defensive towers or base,
but I will get into that later. The farm costs 80 gold and 20 lumber to
construct and has 500 hit points.
Altar of kings: The altar of kings is used to train new heroes, or
resurrect fallen heroes. You can train one hero right off the bat, a second
after upgrading to a keep, and a third after upgrading to a castle. The
altar of kings costs 300 gold and 100 lumber to construct and has 900 hit
points.
Arcane sanctum: The arcane sanctum is used to train the 2 spellcasters of
the humans, the sorceress and the priest. It also provides one upgrade for
each one of those units, and an upgrade which allows your scout and
defensive towers to detect invisible units (costing 100 gold). The arcane
sanctum requires 210 hold and 70 lumber to construct and has 1050 hit
points.
Workshop: The workshop trains mechanical units: the gyrocopter, mortar team,
and steam tank. It also consists of 2 upgrades: a bomb upgrade for
gyrocopters and a flare upgrade for the mortar team. The workshop costs 230
gold and 90 lumber to purchase and has 1200 hit points.
Scout tower: The scout tower is a tower which in its most basic form will
only reveal a certain area of the map, but can be upgraded into two types of
defensive towers, the guard tower and the cannon tower. A scout tower costs
80 gold and 20 lumber to build and has 500 hit points.
Guard tower
Damage: 23-27(Piercing)
Range: 700
Speed: Very fast
Armor: 5(Fortified)
Hit points: 500
-The guard tower is a basic defensive structure with a quick attack speed
and decent range. These work best in groups with each other or with the
support of ground units. Upgrading to a guard tower from a scout tower
requires 140 gold and 60 lumber.
Cannon tower
Damage: 90-111(Siege)
Range: 800
Speed: Slow
Armor: 5(Fortified)
Hit points: 600
-The cannon tower is a defensive tower with a longer range and splash
damage, at the cost of a lower attack speed. It is slightly more expensive
than the watch tower, but is not designed to defend on its own. Cannon
towers are great to use for support of several other watch towers. Using a
few cannon towers with a grid of watch towers allows for a strong defensive
setup. Upgrading to a cannon tower from a scout tower requires 200 gold and
100 lumber.
Gryphon Aviary: The gryphon aviary trains gryphon riders, one of the humans
two air units. It also contains an upgrade for them. Constructing a
gryphon aviary requires 250 gold and 120 lumber, and it has 1200 hit points.
----------------------------------
ii. Units
----------------------------------
Peasant
Damage: 5-6(Normal:melee)
Attack speed: Slow
Armor: 0(Medium)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 220
Food: 1
Cost: 50g
Applicable upgrades: Lumber harvesting (2 ranks)
-Peasants are the workers for the humans, harvesting both gold and lumber
alike. They can be upgraded from the lumber mill to carry more lumber by 5
per upgrade, for a total of 15/20 lumber as their carrying capacity.
Militia
Damage: 12-14(Normal:melee)
Attack speed: Fast
Armor: 4(medium)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 220
Applicable upgrades: Iron forged swords (damage), Iron plating (armor)
-Militia are the combat form of peasants, and can be converted by clicking
on the ability for the peasant itself or by using call to arms at a nearby
town hall. Militia are not strong at all, but this is designed to be used
only as an emergency measure. If your defenses fail and your units and
heroes are all killed, militia can be produced in an attempt to defend your
base.
Footman
Damage: 12-13(Normal:melee)
Attack speed: Fast
Armor: 2(medium)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 420
Food: 2
Cost: 160g
Applicable upgrades: Iron forged swords (damage), Iron plating (armor),
defend (Reduce move speed by 30%, but 30% chance to reflect piercing attacks
and reduce all damage taken by half).
-The footman is the human's most basic combat unit with reasonable HP,
damage, attack speed and armor. In the early missions you will use these
guys quite a bit, and with their defend ability they are a great unit to
lead your attack group in with.
Rifleman
Damage: 18-24(Piercing:400)
Attack speed: Average
Armor: 0(light)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 520
Food: 3
Cost: 240g 30L
Applicable upgrades: Black gunpowder(damage), Studded leather armor(armor),
Long rifles(increase rifleman range by 200)
-Riflemen are a basic ranged unit, balanced offensively. You will want to
have riflemen in the back of your attack group and prevent them from
receiving damage whenever possible. They may have slightly more hp than the
footman, but they will take damage much quicker due to having no armor.
With the upgrade they have a decent attack range and are good to have for
offensive or to attack air units.
Knight
Damage: 21-29(Normal:melee)
Attack speed: Fast
Armor: 6(heavy)
Move speed: Fast
Hit points: 800
Food: 4
Cost: 290g 60L
Applicable upgrades: Iron forged swords(damage), Iron plating(armor), Animal
war training(Increases HP of knights and gryphon riders by 150)
-Knights are the most powerful ground units for general combat. They have
excellent HP, armor, damage, attack speed and move speed. Once you are able
to train knights in the campaign you may consider replacing footman with
them entirely, though a few footmen up front may still be a good idea to
take damage from ranged attackers. Knights are somewhat pricy and replacing
them is no fun. It's up to you.
Sorceress
Damage: 8-10(magic:600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(unarmored)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 325
Mana: 200
Food: 2
Cost: 180g 20L
Applicable upgrades: Sorceress adept training (2 ranks)Stated as rank 1/rank
2, Increases hit points by 40/80, mana by 100/200, mana regeneration rate,
and teaches invisibility/polymorph.
-The sorceress is an offensive spellcaster with several very useful
abilities. It is always a good idea to have a few sorceresses with your
attack group. Their abilities are slow, which slows an enemy units attack
by 25% and movement by 60% for 60 seconds. Invisibility makes a unit
invisible until it attacks or casts, and lasts up to 120 seconds. Polymorph
turns a target into a sheep, rendering it unable to attack. While
invisibility and polymorph are somewhat incidental to use slow is a great
all-ability to have to weaken the enemy and give you an edge. Keep it on
auto cast all the time.
Priest
Damage: 8-9(magic, 600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(unarmored)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 290
Mana: 200
Food: 2
Cost: 160g 10L
Applicable upgrades: Priest adept training (2 ranks)Stated as rank1/rank2,
Increases hit points by 40/80, mana by 100/200, mana regeneration rate, and
teaches dispel magic/inner fire.
-The priest is a defensive caster who's abilities are centered around
helping your units survive. If you have a large non-mechanical attack group
it's a good idea to have a few priests, but you do not need a ton of them.
Their abilities are heal, which heals a unit for 25 hit points. Dispel
magic, which removes all buffs from units in a target area and also deals
200 damage to summoned units. Finally, inner fire which increases a targets
damage by 10% and armor by 5. Inner fire is a good ability to use on
heroes, but I would suggest leaving it off auto cast or you will burn mana
real fast. Dispel magic is an incidental ability but may help in certain
situations. Heal is your main ability as a priest. 5 mana for 25 hit
points is a pretty good deal and it has a very good cast speed. Leave this
on auto cast at all times. Keep an eye on your priests and keep them out of
the fight as much as you can.
Gyrocopter
Damage: 27-32(Piercing:500 AIR ONLY)
Speed: Fast
Damage: 19-21(Siege,melee GROUND ONLY) (requires upgrade)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(medium)
Move speed: Fast
Hit points: 350
Food: 2
Cost: 200g 60L
Applicable upgrades: Black gunpowder(air/ground damage), Iron plating
(armor)
-Bombs at melee range??? Yes this is the gyrocopter. The gyrocopter is a
basic flying unit whose main strength is air to air attack. If you have an
attack group composed entirely of air, it's good to have a solid number of
these for attacking enemy air units and bombing enemy buildings (yes,
despite that low damage and slow speed siege still does more damage to
fortified buildings than anything else). If your attack force is mostly
ground I don't recommend getting these: your siege units are much more
efficient at leveling bases and riflemen and casters can take care of the
few enemy air fairly enough. But if you do happen onto trouble with air,
these are the units to get.
Mortar team
Damage: 52-64(Siege:1000, splash damage)
Speed: Very slow
Armor: 0(light)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 360
Food: 3
Cost: 210g 70L
Applicable upgrades: Black gunpowder(damage), Studded leather armor(armor),
Flare(Reveals an area of the map for 15 seconds)
-Mortar teams are siege unit with outstanding range and splash damage. They
are most efficient at destroying buildings and damaging large groups of
relatively weak units. They are weak though so keep them behind your attack
group. When heading into a base, these are what you want to use to attack
defensive towers out of their attack range, or even some of the regular
structures. They will need to be supported with other ground units though;
undefended mortar teams won't last long.
Steam tank
Damage: 45-55(Siege:192)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(fortified)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 700
Food: 3
Cost: 230g 60L
Applicable upgrades: Black gunpowder(damage), Iron plating(armor)
-It may not look like it at first glance, but I would call the steam tank
the deadliest siege unit in the game...for 2 reasons. First, the steam tank
has fortified armor and a bunch of hit points, so it takes highly reduced
damage from anything but siege. Second, it cannot attack units. It will
only be attacking buildings. I would recommend having 3 or 4 of these in
your attack group when destroying a base, and maybe bring a couple peasants
to back them out and repair them if they get low (keep out of combat
obviously). When attacking the perimeter of a base mortar teams are your
best option, but when you are moving into a base with every intention to
burn it to the ground, steam tanks are the way to go.
Gryphon rider
Damage: 45-55(Piercing:450)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 0(heavy)
Hit points: 750
Food: 4
Cost: 330g 70L
Applicable upgrades: Iron forged swords(damage), Studded leather
armor(armor), Storm hammers(allows gryphon riders attacks to damage multiple
units)
-The gryphon rider is the second human air unit, and is a real good unit in
terms of offense and defense. It's not very effective but if all you want
to do is zerg one unit as your entire attack group, these are the best ones
to use. As they are air units they can go anywhere and avoid the attacks of
melee units, have very good damage (made better by their passive ability as
well) and a decent amount of hit points.
----------------------------------
iii. Heroes
----------------------------------
Paladin
Damage: 24-34(hero;melee)
Speed: Average
Armor: 4(hero)
Move speed: Average
Strength: 22 (primary attribute)
Agility: 13
Intelligence: 17
Base hit points: 650
Base mana: 255
+The paladin is a highly defensive oriented hero, and all abilities are
geared toward survivability of your other units.
-Holy light: A spell that heals a friendly unit for 200/400/600 hit points.
Hands down, I would call this the spell you definitely want to max out
first.
The ability to heal your allies is infinitely useful and can save you time
and resources. It can also damage enemy undead units, but like death coil I
can't really justify using your limited mana for that.
-Divine shield: Renders paladin immune for 15/30/45 seconds. A great ability
for paladin survival, but incidental in my opinion. Personally whenever
I've played survival of my paladin was never really an issue, and if he is
getting attacked too much you can simply pull him back so that enemy units
will start focusing on another unit. And actually in many cases I prefer my
paladin be attacked some, because his survivability is much better than
other units. This really comes down to personal preference: if you like
sending your paladin into a base as a one-man army to harass workers and
deal some damage, its a good ability to get. Otherwise, I consider devotion
aura a better use of a secondary ability. If you have an archmage though,
you might consider just getting rank 1 of this for use with an archmage
ability, which I will detail in the archmage hero section.
-Devotion aura: Increases base armor of nearby units by 1.5/3/4.5. This is
an excellent secondary ability to get. Across the board damage reduction is
a nice thing to have and will help survivability of units as well as the
paladin, and relieve some stress from spamming holy light. I highly suggest
leveling this right after holy light.
-Resurrection: Brings back to life the corpses of 6 friendly units. Quite a
money saver, and a great help in the middle of combat. Like the death
knights ultimate, you want to use this near powerful units as much as
possible. However, you can only resurrect your own fallen units, so be sure
to stand in the middle of..wherever when resurrecting.
Mountain king
Damage: 26-36(hero; melee)
Speed: Average
Armor: 2(hero)
Move speed: Average
Strength: 24 (primary attribute)
Agility: 11
Intelligence: 15
Base hit points: 700
Base mana: 225
+The mountain king is a hardcore offensive hero, with several powerful
offensive abilities. Every ability is offensive, so be careful with the
mountain kings survivability.
-Storm bolt: A hammer is thrown at an enemy, causing 100/225/350 damage and
stunning for 5 seconds. A very powerful ability versus powerful units or
heroes. Whenever you are involved in mass combat though, there are better
abilities to use.
-Thunder clap: Slams the ground, dealing 60/100/140 damage and slowing move
speed and attack by 50% for 5 seconds. This is the ability I would max
first. Overall it will deal more damage than storm bolt when in a group and
help a great deal in fighting enemy units.
-Bash: Gives a 20/30/40% chance that an attack with deal 25 bonus damage and
stun for 2 seconds. I would suggest grabbing this one as a secondary since
it is passive and will not use mana. I prefer to save all mana for thunder
clap since that's an excellent area damage ability to have
-Avatar: Gives the mountain king 5 extra armor, 500 extra hit points, 20
bonus damage and spell immunity. Grab at level 6 of course. This is a good
ability to use, again, right in the middle of combat. I wouldn't call it
the best ultimate in the game, but it does give the mountain king some more
melee fighting power, which is what his main strength is.
Archmage
Damage: 21-27(hero;600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 3(hero)
Move speed: Fast
Strength: 14
Agility: 17
Intelligence: 19 (primary attribute)
Base hit points: 450
Base mana: 285
-The archmage is a spellcaster with a variety of spell types, and makes for
a good support caster.
-Blizzard: Calls down 6/8/10 waves of ice to deal 30/40/50 damage in an
area. Spell must be channeled. A great offensive spell for units or
buildings in an area. Just be careful because it will damage EVERYTHING,
including your own units. However it is a relatively cheap and powerful
spell which can help turn combat in your favor.
-Summon water elemental: Summons a water elemental with 450/675/900 hit
points and 21-29/31-39/41-49 damage. Having another unit to deal damage is
nice, but in my opinion not worth the investment of attribute points early
on. Its good to have if your archmage is traveling only with other heroes
or with a small group, but when in a large group you get better benefits
from other abilities. If you are traveling alone, this can help in fighting
weaker units by taking damage while you hammer with blizzard, but I never
found myself in that situation much.
-Brilliance aura: Increases mana regeneration of nearby friendly units, more
for each rank. Whenever I took this I found myself doing so for the
archmage and other heroes. Your paladin can never have too much mana.
Unless you are hardcore casting the mana of your other casters probably
won't be much of a problem, but having some extra blizzards or holy lights
is very appealing. I would level this as a secondary ability.
-Mass teleport: Teleports the archmage and 23 friendly units (24 total) to a
friendly ground unit or structure. Depending on your playstyle, you might
view this ability as wonderful or useless. When used right it can cause
some serious pain for whoevers base your about to obliterate from the inside
out, but otherwise its just a convenience thing. Anyway if you have both a
paladin and an archmage, probably the best way to use this ability is to run
your paladin into an enemy base alone, pop divine shield when you get low,
and run right up to the enemy town hall. Then, use your mass teleport to
bring the archmage and 23 units into the base and wreak havoc on the main
structure and workers. This makes any combat tactics difficult to use (such
as keeping ranged or siege in back and moving units taking damage out of the
area), but the idea is not survivability; its to "suffocate" the enemy by
destroying their ability to harvest resources or build structures.
==================================
B. Undead (ROCRU)
==================================
The undead are the second race you will play in campaign mode, and are a
unique race in several ways. To start, all undead structures with the
exception of the necropolis and haunted gold mine must be built on blight.
Blight is dead ground which is produced by the necropolis and is spread by
other structures built on it. Additionally, the undead worker, the acolyte,
only needs to start construction for a structure, after which the structure
will complete on its own. The undead also use corpses as a resource.
Corpses can be consumed by ghouls to regenerate health and some undead have
a reanimate spell which can raise units from corpses. Overall the undead is
a race which tends to have more of a focus on high numbers, with fairly
weaker units, and the main idea of the undead is to overwhelm your opponent.
Only 5 acolytes can harvest gold from a mine, and they do not need to return
to a necropolis. However, acolytes cannot harvest lumber. The basic ground
unit, the ghoul, must be used to harvest lumber (the ghoul can carry 20
lumber at a time)
----------------------------------
i. Structures
----------------------------------
Necropolis: The Necropolis is the base structure of the undead and trains
acolytes (workers). As with the humans, the necropolis can be upgraded
twice to satisfy tech tree requirements for other undead structures. This
structure has 1500 hit points and costs 300 gold to build.
Halls of the dead
Damage: 27-33(piercing;800)
Speed: Average
Armor: 5(fortified)
Hit points: 1750
-The halls of the dead is the upgraded version of the necropolis which comes
with an attack, and may be further upgraded to a black citadel. Upgrading
to a halls of the dead requires 300 gold and 150 lumber.
Black citadel
Damage: 33-40(piercing;800)
Speed: Average
Armor: 5(fortified)
Hit points: 2000
-The black citadel is the final upgraded version of the necropolis which has
a stronger attack, more hit points, and satisfies some top tech tree
requirements. Upgrading to a black citadel from a halls of the dead
requires 345 gold and 150 lumber.
Crypt: The crypt trains basic undead units. These include the ghoul, the
crypt fiend, and the gargoyle as an air unit. It also contains upgrades for
all of those units: cannibalize and ghoul frenzy for ghouls, web for crypt
fiends, and stone form for gargoyles. The crypt has 1300 hit points and
requires 280 gold and 50 lumber to construct.
Haunted gold mine: Before the undead may harvest gold from a gold mine, it
must first be haunted by an acolyte. Up to 5 acolytes may work on a haunted
gold mine, and a necropolis does not need to be built nearby in order to
harvest gold. The acolytes simply harvest from the mine and it is then
added to your total. The haunted gold mine has 950 hit points and requires
300 gold 170 lumber to complete.
Graveyard: The graveyard contains damage and armor upgrades for all
upgradable undead units, and is also used as a return point for ghouls
harvesting lumber. It also regularly drops corpses near it. This structure
has 900 hit points and requires 250 gold to build.
Ziggurat: The ziggurat provides food for the undead race in quantities of
10, and can also be upgraded to a spirit tower (undead defensive structure).
This is quite convenient when playing the campaign as you will need to
establish a defense anyway, so having enough food as undead is rarely a
problem. The ziggurat has 550 hit points and requires 150 gold 50 lumber to
build.
Spirit tower
Damage: 27-32(piercing;700)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 5(fortified)
Hit points: 550
-The spirit tower is the undead defensive structure. It has a well rounded
attack speed and damage, as well as a good amount of armor. It also
provides
food. Upgrading a ziggurat to a spirit tower costs 160 gold and 40 lumber.
Altar of Darkness: The altar of darkness trains the 3 undead heroes: the
death knight, the dreadlord, and the lich, and resurrect any fallen heroes
as well. The altar has 900 hit points and requires 300 gold 100 lumber to
build.
Temple of the Damned: The temple of the damned trains the two undead
spellcasters: the necromancer and the banshee. It also includes the adept
training for each one, and skeletal longevity for necromancers. The temple
has 1100 hit points and costs 225 gold 80 lumber to build.
Slaughterhouse: The slaughterhouse trains abominations, the strongest undead
ground unit, and meat wagons, the undead siege unit. It also contains the
disease cloud upgrade which applies to both those units. The slaughterhouse
has 1200 hit points and requires 240 gold 80 lumber to build.
Sacrificial pit: The sacrificial pit can be used to sacrifice an acolyte,
turning it into a shade. It has 900 hit points and requires 200 gold and 80
lumber to construct.
Boneyard: The boneyard trains frost wyrms, the most powerful undead unit and
possibly the most powerful unit in the game (at a high cost of course). It
also contains the freezing breath upgrade for the frost wyrm. The boneyard
has 1500 hit points and costs 250 gold 100 lumber to build.
----------------------------------
ii. Units
----------------------------------
Ghoul
Damage: 12-14(normal;melee)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 0(medium)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 330
Food: 2
Cost: 140g
Applicable upgrades: Unholy strength(damage), Unholy armor(armor),
Cannibalize(consume a corpse to restore 10 hit points each second), Ghoul
frenzy(Increases attack rate by 25% and move speed to fast).
-The ghoul is the most basic undead fighter and also harvests lumber. They
are cheap to train and fairly weak in hit points and attack damage, but do
move and attack decently with the upgrade. Unfortunately they get dropped
too quickly and don't really have any readily usable defensive abilities so
once you have other units you may not wish to use ghouls at all offensively.
Crypt fiend
Damage: 28-33(piercing; 550) GROUND ONLY
Speed: Slow
Armor: 0(light)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 550
Food: 3
Cost: 250g 40L
Applicable upgrades: Creature attack(damage), Creature carapace(armor),
Web(brings enemy air unit to the ground)
-Crypt fiends are a basic ranged fighter, and very well rounded in fighting
capability. They are somewhat weak and as a ranged more designed to stay
behind the front line. Their web ability is infinitely useful if your
attack force is primarily composed of ground melee units, and with enough
crypt fiends you won't need any anti-air units. Their attack speed is not
amazing but good damage makes up for that.
Gargoyle
Damage: 44-54(normal;melee) AIR ONLY
Speed: Fast
Damage: 21-24(piercing;300) GROUND ONLY
Speed: Slow
Armor: 3
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 400
Food: 2
Cost: 220g 30L
Applicable upgrades: Creature attack(damage), Creature carapace(armor),
Stone form(transform into a stone to gain 12 armor, become immune to spells
and regenerate 8 hit points per second, but unable to attack).
-Gargoyles are a basic undead flying unit, and fairly decent for its price
and food. Its air to air attack is outstanding and I could consider the
ghoul one of the best anti-air units in the game. Its ground attack leaves
a little to be desired however, and zerging ghouls probably isn t the best
strategy to use. For an air unit they are not bad though and if you are
facing a lot of melee, they can be of assistance if they can keep away from
getting attacked. If you do get attacked excessively, simply retreat and
use your stone form.
Necromancer
Damage: 8-9(magic;600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(unarmored)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 305
Food: 2
Cost: 170g 20L
Applicable upgrades: Necromancer adept training(2 ranks), increases hit
points, mana, regen of mana, and teaches a new spell each rank. Written out
as Rank 1/Rank 2, increases hit points by 40/80, mana by 100/200, mana
regeneration rate, and teaches unholy frenzy/cripple. Skeletal longevity is
other upgrade, which increases duration of reanimated skeletons by 15
seconds.
-Necromancers are probably my favorite spellcaster in the game for one
reason: Raise dead. They are a purely offensive spellcaster, and all of
their abilities are designed to weaken enemies or strengthen your force to
kill enemies. Their 3 abilities are unholy frenzy which will increase the
attack rate of a target unit by 75% but drain 4 hit points per second for 45
seconds. This is outstanding to use on heroes. Cripple reduces movement
speed by 75%, attack by 50%, and damage by 50% for an enemy unit for 60
seconds. It is way too expensive and I suggest using it only on very strong
enemy heroes or creeps. And finally, raise dead, which raises 2 skeletons
from a corpse to fight. This is a wonderful ability and really in my
opinion is the biggest part of what makes the undead shine. A great way to
attack an enemy base without any real casualties is to create an army of
meat wagons and necromancers, load your meat wagons with corpses, and roll
them out near an enemy base. Then just activate auto-casting for all your
necromancers for raise dead, and send in your newly created army to raise
hell. Skeleton warriors are weak but by shear numbers and continually
supplying them it is very easy to overwhelm and wipe out an enemy. Either
way with whichever attack force you use, you really want to have some
necromancers for support. I would suggest at least 6.
Skeleton warrior (summoned)
Damage: 14-15(normal;melee)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 1(medium)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 180
Applicable upgrades: Unholy strength(damage), Unholy armor(armor), Skeletal
longevity(increases duration of summoned skeletons by 15 seconds for a total
duration of 55 seconds).
-Skeleton warriors are the melee units summoned by the necromancers raise
dead ability. They might not look like much but with a decently sized group
of necromancers you can get a vicious swarm of these things. With their
power coming from sheer numbers, a massive army of skeleton warriors can
level a base very quickly.
Banshee
Damage: 9-13(magic;600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(unarmored)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 290
Food: 2
Cost: 180g 30L
Applicable upgrades: Banshee adept training(2 ranks), increases hit points,
mana, regen of mana, and teaches a new spell each rank. Written out as Rank
1/Rank 2, increases hit points by 40/80, mana by 100/200, mana regeneration
rate, and teaches anti-magic shell/possession.
-The banshee is the second undead spellcaster and has a unique array of
abilities. The first very useful ability is curse, which causes an enemy
unit to have a 33% chance to miss while attacking. Second is anti-magic
shell which creates a barrier that stops spells from affecting a particular
unit. Useful on heroes or powerful units. Final ability is possession,
which is kind of an incidental ability. You can take control of an enemy
unit but there are heavy restrictions and the banshee is lost in the
process. The best application for this ability is to use it to take control
of an enemy factions worker, and gain the ability to use that faction as
well. However maintaining 2 factions can be very tedious and often
unnecessary, so its more something to do for fun. There's one campaign
mission where this ability is easy to use to take control of another
faction, so I will mention it for that mission.
Meat Wagon
Damage: 71-88(siege;1000)
Speed: Very slow
Armor: 2(medium)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 380
Food: 4
Cost: 270g 65L
Applicable upgrades: Unholy strength(damage), disease cloud(creates a
disease cloud with each attack which deals 1 damage per second to enemy
units for 120 seconds.)
-The meat wagon is the undeads only siege unit, but it s got some real good
damage and disease cloud can help turn a battle to your favor. It can carry
up to 8 corpses and you should always turn the auto-collect corpse feature
on after training so it can load up on corpses from a nearby graveyard.
However, this should be turned off during combat so your meat wagon does not
roll into attack range. For a standard attack group keep a few of these in
back like other siege units to bombard enemy attack towers from outside
their range, and keep them behind everything else while attacking.
Abomination
Damage: 33-39(normal;melee)
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(heavy)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 1080
Food: 4
Cost: 280g 70L
Applicable upgrades: Unholy strength(damage), unholy armor(armor), disease
cloud(creates disease cloud with each attack which deals 1 damage per second
to enemy units for 120 seconds.)
-The abomination is an exceptional melee unit with good damage, speed, and
high hit points. It s disease cloud ability is also nice to have for a
little extra area of effect damage. I recommend you keep these on the front
of any attack group (unless you are using an army of skeleton warriors) as
they can take a hell of a beating, and as a bonus are big and not easy to go
around to attack your ranged or casters. A fighting group consisting of
crypt fiends behind abominations is a very effective mix which can win you a
lot of situations.
Frost Wyrm
Damage: 85-105(piercing;300) AIR ONLY
Speed: Very slow
Damage: 84-94(piercing;300) GROUND ONLY
Speed: Very slow
Armor: 0(heavy)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 1100
Food: 7
Cost: 450g 120L
Applicable upgrades: Creature attack(damage), Creature carapace(armor),
Freezing breath(stops all activities on a building for 5 seconds)
-Frost wyrms are a very powerful unit with heavy damage and high hp, but are
very expensive in both terms of resources and food. My suggestion is you
train one or at most two of these and use them to freeze building activity,
because that ability is very useful. Otherwise, while they do have very
high damage and hit points, they attack very slowly and take up a ton of
food, so I really can't justify having more than a couple of these.
----------------------------------
iii. Heroes
----------------------------------
The undead have 3 heroes in Reign of Chaos; the death knight, the dreadlord,
and the lich.
Death knight
Damage: 25-35(melee;hero)
Speed: Average
Armor: 4(hero)
Move speed: Fast
Strength: 23 (primary attribute)
Agility: 12
Intelligence: 17
Base hit points: 675
Base mana: 255
-The death knight is primarily a support hero whose abilities are best
focused on supporting your attack force. A very good choice as a first hero
as the death knight has one ability to heal allies and one ability to heal
himself, so supporting a small attack group is not too bad.
-Death coil: Heals for 200/400/600 hit points. Death coil is by my
suggestion the ability you want to max out first. I am unsure of the
damage. Being able to heal your units is a great way to gain an edge and
save money. I personally do not use it at all to attack enemy units because
you do not have a ton of mana, and I see mana better spent as keeping your
own units up.
-Death pact: Kills a friendly unit to heal the death knight for
100%/200%/300% of its hit points. This is a good ability to have if your
death knight is taking a lot of damage, which may be likely since he is
melee. This is best used on skeleton warriors, since they are not purchased
and easy to summon. Obviously do not sacrifice your higher end units unless
you are desperate.
-Unholy aura: Increases movement speed by 10/20/30%, and life regeneration
rate minorly/moderately/greatly of nearby units. A good all around passive
ability to have if you have a heavy focus on melee. If you are using a lot
of skeleton warriors this may be a good idea to get before death pact so
your warriors can move in to attack quicker. The area regeneration is also
nice to help keep your army alive a little longer. If your death knights
survivability is fine or if you are unsure of what to get, I would suggest
this one.
-Animate dead: Raise 6 INVULNERABLE dead units to fight for 40 seconds.
This ability is incredible, obviously because your units are immune. Best
used next to corpses from powerful units obviously. This affects enemy
units and friendly units alike. Most important thing is MAKE SURE YOU HIT
SIX CORPSES! Nothing is more aggravating than when you only get 2 or 3
resurrects and then have to wait out that long cooldown to use it again.
Anyway the possibilities with 6 immune units are endless. I would suggest
you take them into an enemy base and kill the main structure and as many
workers as possible, or at least as many as you can. If you can manage to
get them all you just need to wait out their resources and you win. This is
certainly a fun one :)
Dreadlord
Damage: 22-32(hero;melee)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 3(hero)
Move speed: Average
Strength: 20 (primary attribute)
Agility: 16
Intelligence: 18
Base hit points: 600
Base mana: 270
-The dreadlord is an offensive hero with several useful offensive abilities.
Which ability you max first depends on your playstyle.
Carrion swarm: Sends bats to damage enemy units for 75/125/200 per unit.
This is a nice basic area damage ability that does very decent damage in its
final rank. If you are indecisive I will suggest leveling this first, as it
makes for some good firepower support.
-Sleep: Puts an enemy unit to sleep for 20/40/60 seconds and 100/75/50 mana.
I personally never really used this ability as I preferred to kill units
rather than putting them to sleep. You can sleep multiple units though and
it can be useful against heroes, so in its final ranks it s a powerful
ability. Attacking a unit wakes it up though, so using this with carrion
swarm can be a challenge. I would suggest that if you chose to max one of
these, you save the other to max till last unless you don't have a problem
with waking units.
-Vampiric Aura: Nearby friendly units gain 15/30/45% of damage dealt as
health. This is a much better passive than the death knight increased
regeneration and with this active, offense means survivability which is a
very nice gap to bridge. I definitely suggest leveling this as a secondary
attribute, if not your primary. However as mentioned before I would save
sleep or carrion swarm for last.
-Inferno: Calls down an inferno, dealing 50 damage and stunning land units
for 4 seconds. Inferno lasts 180 seconds. As with most ultimate abilities
this is great. The infernal is an extremely powerful melee unit with high
hp, chaos damage, high damage and fast attack speed, spell immunity, AND the
infernal deals 10 damage per second to nearby land units. Due to spell
immunity it cannot be healed however, so be careful. While not the best
ultimate the infernal still makes for a good way to wreak some havoc in the
middle of a group of enemies.
Lich
Damage: 22-28(hero;600)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 2(hero)
Move speed: Average
Strength: 15
Agility: 14
Intelligence: 20 (primary attriute)
Base hit points: 475
Base mana: 300
-The lich is an offensive caster hero, and capable of dealing loads of
damage. It is a little fragile so keep in back of course. All abilities
and standard attack are ranged.
-Frost nova: Attacks a target for 100 damage, and deals cold damage to
nearby units for 50/100/150 nova damage. I highly recommend you max this as
your first ability. The only other one to max would be frost armor, but I
consider this much stronger. Dealing area of effect damage and slowing
multiple units at the same time helps a great deal.
-Frost armor: Creates a shield around a target friendly unit which adds
3/5/7 armor and slows melee units that attack it. I don't see a lot of
appeal in this ability. 7 armor is not as much as it sounds like on most
units as each additional armor value gives less damage reduction, and the
ability to slow through a damaging attack rather than defensively is a point
better spent.
-Dark ritual: Sacrfices a friendly undead unit to convert 33/66/100% of its
hit points into mana. Again a great ability to use on skeleton warriors.
Let your necromancers keep summoning warriors, keep sacrificing them and
frost bombing away. This should be your second ability to max no matter
what you pick, as a lich burns mana pretty quick and their power is all in
casting.
-Death and decay: Deals 4% damage per second to everything in the area for
35 seconds. Another amazing ultimate ability. Notice how it says
everything, so you can essentially level a chunk of a base in 25 seconds if
you can maintain channeling of this. Obviously can also be used on a
congested group of enemy units as well, but I personally see this ability
shine more than anything when attacking bases. Either way an excellent
ability.
==================================
c. Orc (ROCRO)
==================================
The orcs are similar to humans in regards to their construction and resource
gathering, and just like humans one worker (peon) must stay to construct the
building. They also gather resources like normal, and peons can gather
lumber. Anyway, orcs are more of a strength oriented race, with many of
their units having higher hit points and damage, at the cost of a little
more food for most units. In my opinion they also have the best emergency
defense in the game, which I will detail shortly.
----------------------------------
i. Structures
----------------------------------
Great hall: The great hall is the orcs main building, used to train peons
and also houses an upgrade called pillage. This upgrade allows peons,
grunts, and raiders to gain resources when they attack enemy buildings. At
75 gold and 25 lumber it is an ability you may as well take whether you use
a lot of raiders and grunts or not. It will EASILY pay for itself. The
great hall has 1500 hp and costs 450 gold 150 lumber to construct.
Stronghold: The stronghold is the first upgrade to the great hall, granting
more hit points and allowing further upgrades and buildings/units.
Upgrading to a stronghold increases hit points up to 2000 and costs 310 gold
90 lumber.
Fortress: The fortress is the final upgrade to the great hall. Upgrading to
a fortress increases hit points to 2500 and costs 345 gold 110 lumber.
Barracks: The barracks trains grunts, trolls, and catapults, the orc siege
weapon. It contains one upgrade for grunts and one for trolls. The
barracks has 1200 hit points and costs 260 gold 50 lumber to build.
War mill: The war mill serves as a dropoff point for lumber, contains all
orc damage and armor upgrades (note that orcs only have one type of armor),
and an upgrade for buildings. This last upgrade surrounds orc buildings
with spikes, causing damage to melee attackers. Also a no-brainer upgrade
at 75 gold and 25 lumber. The war mill has 1000 hit points and requires 240
gold to construct.
Watch tower
Damage: 16-18
Speed: Very fast
Armor: 3(fortified)
Hit points: 500
-The watch tower is the orcs primary defense structure. It has lower damage
than the other races defense towers, but a much faster attack and is
slightly cheaper. As with all defense towers, works very well in groups.
The watch tower has 500 hit points and costs 180 gold 80 lumber to build.
Orc burrow:
Damage: 34-41(piercing;700)
Speed: Varies on number of peons
Armor: 2(MEDIUM)
Hit points: 600
-The orc burrow provides food for the horde in quantities of 10, and is used
for emergency defense for the orcs. The burrow has an ability to summon up
to 4 peons into the bunker; each peon increases attack speed. With 4 peons
it is a little slower than a watch tower. You may consider building these
behind watch towers and loading them up whenever your base gets attacked.
If you can kill the enemy quicker you might save a watch tower or two which
will save you resources. The burrow costs 170 gold 50 lumber to build. Be
careful using them, because they do not have fortified armor.
Altar of storms: The altar of storms trains and resurrects orc heroes.
That's all. It has 900 hit points and costs 300 gold 100 lumber to
construct.
Spirit lodge: The spirit lodge trains the orc spellcasters: the shaman and
the troll witch doctor. It also contains the adept/master training for both
of those units. The spirit lodge has 800 hit points and costs 225 gold 90
lumber to build.
Beastiary: The beastiary trains 3 other orc units, the raider(a basic ground
unit with a siege attack), the kodo beast (a heavily armored ground unit),
and the wyvern(the orcs only air unit). It also contains one upgrade for
each of those units. The beastiary has 1100 hit points and costs 230 hold
70 lumber to make.
Tauren totem: The tauren totem is used to train taurens, a very powerful
ground unit, and has one upgrade for them. The totem has 1200 hit points
and costs 225 gold 90 lumber to construct.
----------------------------------
ii. Units
----------------------------------
Peon
Damage: 7-8(normal;melee)
Speed: Very slow
Armor: 0(medium)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 250
Food: 1
Cost: 90g
Applicable upgrades: God no
-The peon is the orc worker, and also the unit that can fill burrows to
defend the base. They are very weak in combat obviously and can t do much
to fend off attackers.
Grunt
Damage: 18-12
Speed: Average
Armor: 1(medium)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 700
Food: 3
Cost: 235g
Applicable upgrades: Steel melee weapons(damage), Steel armor(armor),
Pillage(gain resources when attacking enemy buildings)
-The grunt is a fine basic melee unit, with a very good amount of hit points
and decent damage. Even in the higher end levels you may consider using
these as your front line. The fact that they also gain resources when
attacking structures is a plus. Overall they are a very well rounded and
stronger than average basic melee unit.
Troll headhunter
Damage: 23=-27(piercing; 450)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 0(light)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 350
Food: 2
Cost: 160g 20L
Applicable upgrades: Steel ranged weapons(damage), Steel armor(armor), troll
regeneration(increases hit point regeneration of headhunters and witch
doctors).
-The trolls are a decent ranged unit, although there range is a little
shallower than other basic ranged units. They also have slightly lower hit
points, but their food cost is lower as well so all in all it more or less
balances out. You will likely want to have even numbers of these and grunts
when running them. Grunts are a strong melee and can take quite a beating,
and the idea is never to have your headhunters getting attacked. They will
get dropped fairly fast.
Catapult
Damage: 82-102(siege;1000)
Speed: Very slow
Armor: 2(medium)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 425
Food: 4
Cost: 260g 70L
Applicable upgrades: Steel ranged weapons(damage), Steel armor(armor)
-The catapult is the highest damage siege weapon in the game, but also the
slowest. It takes a bit longer to fire than other siege units. Otherwise
everything about it comes pretty standard; reasonable hit points, armor,
cost, beverage holder..everything your looking for in your standard siege
unit.
Shaman
Damage: 8-9(magic;600)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 0(unarmored)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 355
Food: 2
Cost: 150g 20L
Applicable upgrades: Shaman adept training(Increases hit points by 40/80,
mana by 100/200, mana regeneration, and teaches lightning shield/bloodlust.
Same as any other caster.
-The shaman provides mainly support abilities. These include purge, an
ability that removes all buffs from a unit and slows movement speed by 5.
They regain move speed over 15 seconds. This ability is also very powerful
for attacking summoned units, dealing 400 damage. Lightning shield
surrounds a target in lightning which deals 20 damage per second to units
around it for 20 seconds. This is great to use on melee heroes in the
middle of the fight. Finally bloodlust, which increases a units attack rate
by 40% and move speed by 25%. This is also great to use on melee heroes in
the middle of the fight.
Troll witch doctor
Damage: 10-14(magic;600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(unarmored)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 315
Food: 2
Cost: 170g 25L
Applicable upgrades: Witch doctor adept training(increases hit points by
40/80, mana by 100/200, mana regeneration, and teaches stasis trap/healing
ward).
-The witch doctor summons wards, objects placed on the ground that wield
some type of effect. Well start with sentry ward, which does NOTHING, but
it is invisible and detects invisible units, and provides vision to an area
for 600 seconds. Very useful to place ahead of your base to warn of
incoming attackers. Second ward is the stasis trap, also invisible, which
activates when an enemy ground unit approaches and stuns any units nearby
for 6 seconds. Lasts up to 150 seconds. Finally is the healing ward, not
so invisible, which heals 2% hp per second for nearby biological units.
This ward is very useful and a good idea to plant near any battle in
progress.
Raider
Damage: 23-27(siege;melee)
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(light)
Move speed: fast
Hit points: 610
Food: 3
Cost: 210g 40L
Applicable upgrades: Steel melee weapons(damage), Steel armor(armor),
Ensnare(nets an enemy to the ground so it cannot move, also grounds air
units), pillage(again, gains resources when attacking buildings.
-The raider is another powerful ground unit similar to the grunt, with a bit
less hit points and a bit more damage. It also has siege damage, making it
very handy for leveling buildings. Raiders do die a bit quicker than grunts
though, but it is useful to have 4 or 5 of them mixed in with melee to help
destroy buildings quicker. Their ensnare ability is also helpful against
powerful melee units. By stopping them in their tracks you can just let
your
ranged pound away scot free.
Kodo beast
Damage: 16-20(piercing;500)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 1(heavy)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 1000
Food: 4
Cost: 300g 60L
Applicable upgrades: War drums(increases the damage bonus of the war drums
aura which the kodo beast emits)
-The kodo beast is good for its abilities only, but they are great
abilities. The first is devour, an ability which consumes a land unit and
deals 5 damage per second to it. Just use this on powerful ground units to
take them out of the picture. The second is war drums, which gives a damage
bonus across the board for nearby friendly units. Very useful passive, and
every attack group should have a kodo beast. You do not need more than 1
unless you are having survivability issues. Kodo beasts should stay back as
far as possible where they can still grant the aura to your attack group.
Wyvern
Damage: 38-46(piercing;450)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 0(heavy)
Move speed: Fast
Hit points: 570
Food: 4
Cost: 310g 40L
Applicable upgrades: Steel ranged weapons(damage), Steel armor(armor),
Envenomed spears(deals 4 damage per second for 25 seconds to biological
units)
-The wyvern is the hordes only air unit, but its a very decent air unit. It
has good damage, hit points, and the poisoned attack ability is outstanding.
Massing an army of just wyverns actually is not too bad a strategy, but if
nothing else you should have one or two in every attack group for their
poison attack. It deals 100 damage over 25 seconds to all biological units,
and is not limited to one target at a time. This couples with the wyverns
already decent standard damage makes it a very powerful offensive unit to
have.
Tauren
Damage: 30-36(normal;melee)
Speed: Average
Armor: 3(heavy)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 1300
Food: 5
Cost: 325g 80L
Applicable upgrades: Steel melee weapons(damage), Steel armor(armor),
Pulverize(gives tauren 25% chance do deal 60 damage to nearby units)
-I would probably consider taurens the most powerful ground unit in the
game. With an incredible amount of hp and very decent damage, plus their
chance for area damage, they can be deadly and real hard to bring down.
They are not cheap however, and can make a pretty big target. But as far as
firepower goes, they hold their own and its definitely a good idea to have a
few of these with any attack group you have.
----------------------------------
iii. Heroes
----------------------------------
Far seer
Damage: 21-27(hero;600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 3(hero)
Move speed: Fast
Strength: 15
Agility: 18
Intelligence: 19 (primary attribute)
Base hit points: 475
Base mana: 285
-The far seer has a decent variety of abilities, mostly geared toward
offense. Certainly a powerful hero in higher levels but a bit slow in the
early levels.
-Chain lightning: Hurls a bolt of lightning dealing 85/125/180 damage and
jumping 4/6/8 times to additional nearby targets. This is a very powerful
offensive aoe ability, and the one I suggest leveling first. It uses quite
a bit of mana but deals a very good amount of damage to groups of enemies,
especially at its top rank.
-Far sight: Reveals a small/large/huge area of the map for 75/60/50 mana.
This ability can have its uses but I personally believe the other 2
abilities are more worth the attribute points. As far as early warning goes
you can use sentry totems to stake out any areas you need to maintain sight
of..for 10 minutes. You could use far sight to scout an enemy base before
attacking, but at final rank you can just as easily run your spirit wolves
in, as they are invisible. In my opinion there are other ways to achieve
what far sight does and I think there are attributes better invested in.
-Feral spirit: Summons 2 spirit wolves with 200/300/400 hit points that deal
11-12/16-17/21/22 damage. The second rank has critical strike, and the
third rank has a better critical strike and invisibility. These wolves can
be very handy in their invisible form for scouting, or particularly in
defense for sneaking out to destroy any incoming siege units. Also good for
sneaking into a base and harassing workers. There are several secondary
applications for spirit wolves and they make a good secondary attribute.
-Earthquake: Causes 50 damage per second to buildings and slows units in the
area by 75% for 25 seconds. This ability when used right is your enemy
factions worst nightmare. Full scale attack aside, if you can find a good
position above a base out of sight, you can just harass the hell out of a
base. I would consider this by far the best ability versus enemy
structures, dealing 1250 damage over its duration. That's enough by itself
to destroy any defensive structures, food provision buildings, and pretty
much any unit producing structure. Very useful for cluttered bases and
defense grids.
Blademaster
Damage: 25-47(hero;melee)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 5(hero)
Move speed: Fast
Strength: 18
Agility: 23 (primary attribute)
Intelligence: 16
Base hit points: 550
Base mana: 240
-The blademaster is one of very few agility based heroes, and is quick and
evasive. He has some great abilities for dealing burst damage and some very
solid defense abilities, and is less geared toward sustained or heavy area
damage.
-Wind walk: Becomes invisible for 20/35/50 seconds and increases move speed
by 10/40/70%. When blademaster attacks from invisibility deals 40/70/100
extra damage. This ability is great for scouting and harassment and
certainly the blademasters best ability early on. I suggest leveling this
one first. It serves both offensively and defensively, offering a good
burst damage and a quick retreat back into invisibility.
-Mirror image: Creates 1/2/3 illusions of the blademaster. Another great
defensive ability. Useful for scouting as well. Your blademaster can be
pretty self sustainable with multiple illusions of himself, allowing him to
do a lot of damage before slinking back into invisibility.
-Critical strike: Gives a 15% chance to do 2/3/4 times normal damage. This
ability coupled with wind walk means an outstanding potential burst attack.
Getting a critical strike out of wind walk means a HUGE chunk of damage.
The odds are a bit low but with as much as you will probably be wind walking
later on, it will happen more often than you think. I suggest this as your
secondary attribute, though mirror images are not much worse. It comes down
to personal preference.
-Bladestorm: Creates a bladestorm dealing 110 damage per second to nearby
enemy land units. Bladestorm is a very deadly burst ability when you can
stay near opponents, but useless otherwise. Just wind walk into an attack
group, wind walk out of invisibility, and pop bladestorm. It does a total
of about 800 damage so whoever you can catch in there for the full duration
is likely dead. Use wisely.
Tauren chieftain
Damage: 27-37(hero;melee)
Speed: Average
Armor: 2(hero)
Move speed: Average
Strength: 25 (primary attribute)
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 14
Base hit points: 725
Base mana: 210
-The tauren chieftain is likely the most powerful melee hero in the game,
boasting very nice base attributes and considerable melee abilities. The
chieftain has a very nice passive ability and a unique ultimate ability, as
well as some powerful area damage capabilities.
-Shockwave: Deals 75/130/200 damage in line in front of the chieftain. A
very nice area damage ability which travels a good distance. Has a
potentially high total of damage when used at the right angle. Remember you
want this to have as many units in a line as you can. Very lethal when
several units caught in the radius.
-War stomp: Slams the ground dealing 25/50/75 damage to nearby enemy units
and stunning for 3/4/5 seconds. This is an excellent crowd control ability.
A 5 second area of effect stun nets you a lot of open season on the enemy
group.
-Endurance aura: Increases move speed by 10/20/30% and attack speed by
5/10/15%. This is a real nice passive ability, and I would suggest this as
your secondary ability. I didn t suggest a primary ability on purpose,
because both the shockwave and war stomp are useful abilities and it really
comes down to personal preference. If you want to deal raw damage take
shockwave; if you want to control the enemy group more then take war stomp.
But as far as endurance aura goes, its a nice little extra edge for your
army.
-Reincarnation: The chieftain comes back to life when killed. Definitely an
incidental ability, since for it to be useful you have to wind up dying. On
the plus side as long as its off cooldown you really don t need to worry at
all about your chieftains life..just send him in and let him get ripped
apart without regard. But I really think ones focus should be on letting a
hero live, and a good player will not let a hero die. Therefore I don't see
this as a very useful ultimate. I would much rather have something that can
level a base or make dust of an army.
==================================
d. Night elf (ROCRNE)
==================================
The night elves are the most unique race of all in several ways. Overall
they do not have the heavy firepower that other races do, and most of their
units appear weaker than average. Conversely to this, I would consider the
night elves to have the best air force you can assemble, as you will see by
their air units later. But on the ground they are certainly more of a
tactical race, not designed to just zerg out an army and annihilate
everyone.
Their resource gathering is the same as the undead for gold..up to 5 wisps
can work at an entangled mine and harvest gold directly. Their lumber
harvesting is similiar..wisps simply circle a tree and harvest lumber
directly without destroying the tree. This makes for some relatively pain
free lumber harvesting, as you will never run out of forest and will always
maintain a solid perimeter around your base.
The archer, huntress, and priestess of the moon also have the ability to
shadowmeld, allowing them to turn invisible while not moving during the
night. This is useful for survivability and scouting, and really is a big
part of why night elves are designed to attack at night (plus their
increased night sight upgrade, and moonwells regeneration occurring only at
night)
----------------------------------
i. Structures
----------------------------------
Night elf structures are unlike any other. When any ancient or the tree of
life are built, the wisp is lost in the process. Any other structures are
built in the same manner as humans and orcs. Night elf trees can uproot and
gain a melee attack with a slow or average attack speed, which is designed
as their emergency defense. Their damage is alright but their move speed is
horrendous. When facing melee this is kind of a moot point, but versus
range you may never catch them before getting torn down. When you uproot
your
armor turns to heavy, so you will be taking a lot more damage than a
standard structure would.
Tree of life
Damage: 41-50(normal;melee)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(fortified)
Move speed: Very slow
-The tree of life is the main structure of the night elves, and like any
other can be upgraded twice. Wisps can be trained here as usual. The tree
is also used to entangle a gold mine so that it can be harvested by wisps.
There is an upgrade here which will increase all ancients movement speed and
armor by up to 5 additional armor. This should most certainly be purchased,
especially if you are so friggin cheap you would rather just move your 10
ancients protectors to the opposite side of a base to defend an incoming
attack, rather than build a separate group. But anyway..the tree of life
has 1300 hit points and costs 400 gold and 150 lumber to build.
Tree of ages
Damage: 49-60(normal;melee)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(fortified)
Move speed: Very slow
-The tree of ages is the first upgrade to the tree of life, and in addition
to the standard extra hit points, it gains a little more damage as well.
The tree now has 1700 hit points and costs 320 gold 80 lumber to upgrade.
Tree of eternity
Damage: 60-74(normal;melee)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(fortified)
Move speed: Yes, still very slow
-The tree of eternity has a little more hp, a little more damage, but the
same horrendous move speed. Upgrading increases hit points to 2000 and
costs 350 gold 120 lumber to complete.
Ancient of war
Damage: 45-55(normal;melee)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(fortified)
Move speed: ...guess?
-The ancient of war trains two basic ground units, the archer and huntress
and the night elf siege weapon, the ballista. It also contains several
upgrades; two for the archer, two for the huntress, and one for the
ballista. The ancient of war has 1000 hit points and requires 230 gold 70
lumber to morph into.
Hunters hall: The hunters hall contains all night elf damage and armor
upgrades, and also an upgrade granting night elves the ability to see as far
at night as they do during the day. You pretty much need to take this..you
NIGHT elf you. This will help you see your enemies before they see you.
The hunters hall has 1100 hit points and costs 245 gold 100 lumber to build.
Ancient protector
Damage: 45-54(piercing...sometimes siege? 700) ROOTED
Speed: Slow
Armor: 1(fortified)
Move speed: He doesn t move yet
Damage: 26-33 (normal;melee) UPROOTED
Speed: Average
Armor: 1(heavy)
Move speed: Now hes crawling
-The ancient protector is the night elves defensive structure..unlike others
due to their slow speed and high damage. These can actually be used
creatively when attacking, just amass an army of them (remember they are
buildings, they don't take food), set them up outside a base, and send in a
regular attack group. You can either draw enemy units to your protectors,
or you can have your protectors follow your group in, root down and attack
the base from inside. Just root them quick..once they get fortified armor
they arent easy to take down. If your health gets low, go eat a tree. No
really..that's an ability. Probably the most useful defensive structure in
the game, for that reason in particular. They can be used offensively very
nicely. The protector has 600 hit points and requires 160 gold 80 lumber to
build.
Moon well: The night elves source of food provision in incriments of 10, the
moon well also has an ability that restores the mana and health of a
friendly target, by using its own mana. Take note the moonwells mana
regenerates only at night. Still a very nice supplement to have. The moon
well has 600 hit points and costs 175 gold 40 lumber to build.
Altar of elders: Just like any other altar..train and resurrect your heroes.
Has 900 hit points. Costs 300 gold 100 lumber.
Ancient of lore
Damage: 41-50(normal;melee)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(fortified)
Move speed: Do they actually seem to be getting even slower?
The ancient of lore trains the night elves caster type creatures, the dryad
and druid of the claw. Also contains a learnable ability for the dryad and
adept training for the druid. The ancient of lore has 900 hit points and
costs 240 gold and 80 lumber to metamorphasize into.
Ancient of wind
Damage: 38-46(normal;melee)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(fortified)
Move speed: He made it all the way across my base in three and a half short
minutes.
-The ancient of wind trains hippogryphs, a basic air unit, and druids of the
claw. It also contains one upgrade for hippogryphs and adept training for
the druid. The ancient has 900 hit points and costs a wisp 220 gold 80
lumber to become one.
Chimera roost: The roost trains chimeras (really?), a powerful air unit. It
also contains one upgrade for them. The roost has 1200 hit points and costs
230 gold 70 lumber to make.
----------------------------------
ii. Units
----------------------------------
Archer
Damage: 19-22(piercing;500)
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(light)
Move speed: Average
Hit points: 260
Food: 2
Cost: 150g 10L
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the moon(damage), Moon armor(armor),
improved bows(increases attack range by 200), marksmanship(increases damage
by 3)
-The archer is a fairly cheap, basic ranged attack unit. Range is excellent
and damage is good, but the archer will die super fast with only 260 hit
points. The obvious solution with such range and low hit points is to keep
your archers in back at all times. When used properly they can do some good
damage.
Huntress
Damage: 15-17(normal;225)
Speed: Average
Armor: 1(medium)
Move speed: Fast
Hit points: 550
Food: 3
Cost: 225g 20L
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the moon(damage), Moon armor(armor),
Sentinel(sends an owl to a tree to grant vision and detect invisibles), Moon
glaive(allows attacks to strike two additional nearby enemies, up from one)
-The huntress is another basic ranged class, with considerably more hp and
shorter range than the archer. Their damage is lower but the glaive attack
is nice for attacking additional nearby units. Still they are not really
considered tanking material though for earlier missions they kind of just
have to do, but not really a huge issue then at least. Later on you will
have more tanking appropriate units.
Ballista
Damage: 56-69(siege;1000)
Speed: Very slow
Armor: 2(medium)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 380
Food: 4
Cost: 245g 85L
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the moon(damage), Impaling bolt(allows the
ballista to attack an additional target behind the primary one for less
damage).
-The ballista has a lower than average base damage, but a slightly quicker
attack speed and the ability to damage a second target. This makes it a
nice siege unit to have. As usual a few of these greatly assist in leveling
a base.
Dryad
Damage: 16-18(piercing;500)
Speed: Slow
Armor: 0(unarmored)
Move speed: Fast
Hit points: 435
Food: 3
Cost: 170g 60L
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the wild(damage), Reinforced hides(armor),
Abolish magic(trains the dryad the abolish magic ability)
-The dryad is more or less a hybrid between a caster and an attacker, and
has only one castable ability; abolish magic. This ability dispels positive
buffs from enemies and negative buffs from friendly units, and also deals
300 damage to summoned units. This has use for heroes if they are getting
cut apart by spells, but I never really focused on it. I used the dryad for
the slowing poison more than anything, which slows an enemies attack by 50%
and move speed by 25% for 5 seconds. Use a few of these in an attack group
to slow your opponent down.
Druid of the claw
Damage: 19-22(normal;melee) NIGHT ELF FORM
Speed: Average
Armor: 1(medium) NIGHT ELF FORM
Damage: 29-44(normal;melee) BEAR FORM
Speed: Average
Armor: 3(heavy) BEAR FORM
Move speed: Average ALL FORMS
Hit points: 430 NIGHT ELF FORM
Hit points: 960 BEAR FORM
Food: 4
Cost: 300g 80L
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the wild(Damage;BEAR FORM), Reinforced
hides(Damage;BEAR FORM), Adept training(Increases hit points by 75/150, mana
by 100/200, mana regeneration rate, and teaches rejuvenation/bear form)
-Druid of the claw are an excellent hybrid unit to have, and the best melee
unit to use for holding the front line. Their bear form makes for just as
powerful a melee unit as any other faction for their hit points and attack
power. The druid form has two excellent abilities; roar will increase
nearby units damage by 25% for 45 seconds, and rejuvenation heals for 400
over 12 seconds. Both outstanding abilities to use and couples with bear
form makes druids of the claw one of the most versatile and fun to use units
in the game.
Hippogryph
Damage: 32-38(normal;melee)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 0(medium)
Move speed: Fast
Hit points: 500
Food: 2
Cost: 190g 20L
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the wild(damage), Reinforced hides(armor)
-The hippogryph in its standard form is an air-to-air attacker only. It has
decent damage and a good attack speed, but whenever using hippogryphs you
will probably pick up archers so they can attack ground as well. If you are
having trouble with air you can just convert your druids of the talon
temporarily to take care of it.
Hippogryph rider
Damage: 19-22(piercing;650)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 0(heavy)
Move speed: Fast
Hit points: 780
Food: 4 (2 archer, 2 hippogryph)
Cost: 340g 20L (150g 10L for archer, 190g 20L for hippogryph)
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the moon(damage), Moon armor(armor),
improved bows(increases range by 200), marksmanship(increases damage by 3).
-Hippogryph riders are a very nice flying unit; one of two for the night
elves. Their damage is a little lower but attack speed is very nice,
comparable to a defensive tower (not night elves obviously). With a good
sum of hit points and very nice range for a flyer they make a good well
rounded use of an air unit. I would consider chimaeras a bit better when
fighting ground, as they have the same food quantity and double attacks, but
are running exclusively air its good to have a few of these to take care of
enemy air units (chimeras cannot attack air).
Druid of the Talon
Damage: 11-13(magic;600) NIGHT ELF FORM
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(unarmored) NIGHT ELF FORM
Move speed: Average NIGHT ELF FORM
Damage: 22-26(piercing;600) STORM CROW FORM
Speed: Average
Armor: 0(light) STORM CROW FORM
Move speed: Fast STORM CROW FORM
Hit points: 300 ALL FORMS
Food: 2
Cost: 160g 20L
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the wild(damage;STORM CROW FORM),
Reinforced hides(armor;STORM CROW FORM), adept training(Increase hit points
by 40/80, mana by 100/200, mana regeneration rate, and teaches cyclone/storm
crow form)
-The druid of the talon is another type of shapeshifter, but not nearly as
handy as the druid of the claw. He has 2 abilities plus a shapeshift.
Faerie fire is probably the most useful one there is, decreasing an enemy s
armor by 4 and granting vision for 90 seconds. With a few talons you can
get this on a good chunk of an attack force, giving you sight all over the
place and lending some extra damage. Can't really go wrong at 45 mana. The
other ability is cyclone, which tosses a target non-mechanical into the air
rendering it useless for 20 seconds. Good versus heroes but an expensive
one, costing 150 mana (over a third of a masters mana pool). Finally we
have storm crow form, allowing the druid to fly and attack other air units.
Useful versus air or for scouting, but not really considerable offensively.
It is nice to have convenience of transport though for scouting purposes, as
you can fly up near an enemy base and cast faerie fire on a worker or other
unit in the base to see whats going on. Otherwise I generally just use
talons for their faerie fire auto casting.
Chimaera
Damage: 67-83(piercing;450)
Speed: Slow
Damage: 45-55(siege;700) BUILDINGS ONLY
Speed: Slow
Armor: 2(heavy)
Move speed: Slow
Hit points: 900
Food: 4
Cost: 390g 70L
Applicable upgrades: Strength of the wild(damage), Reinforced hides(armor),
Corrosive breath(adds a siege attack for buildings)
-The chimaera is an extremely power unit for air-to-ground combat, having a
high damage piercing attack for units and siege attack for buildings. Its
only downside is it cannot attack air units, but all you need are a few
hippogryph riders to take care of that. With some hippogryph riders and an
army of chimeras, you pretty much have all the firepower you need to take
down an enemy base. Once you can get these having an army exclusively of
air works very well for the night elf race.
----------------------------------
iii. Heroes
----------------------------------
Priestess of the moon
Damage: 21-31(hero;600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 4(hero)
Move speed: Fast
Strength: 18
Agility: 19 (primary attribute)
Intelligence: 15
Base hit points: 550
Base mana: 225
-The priestess of the moon has some nice damage boosting abilities and
capabilities a wonderful ultimate, but can drain mana fast if not careful.
-Scout: Summon an average/better/best owl to scout the map for 100/75/50
mana. I would pass on this till the end..there are much better abilities
you want as part of the night elf race. Night elves already have decent
scouting abilities between a talon druids faerie fire, the huntresses owl-
on-tree scout, and shadowmeld.
-Searing arrows: Increases damage of priestess attack by 10/20/30. A very
nice boost to damage and really the only thing that will be draining your
mana besides starfall if you are there. A word of advice: do not just leave
this on auto attack unchecked. You WILL run out of mana damn fast. Keep it
on auto-cast when your mana is full, and turn it off when you get to
fighting some smaller groups. You just want to make sure you always have
some mana in reserve for when you really need this. Anyway this is a good
use of a secondary ability.
-Trueshot aura: Increases base ranged damage by 10/20/30%. Make this your
primary attribute, period. I mean, like, dude, there s only like, ONE night
elf unit that isn t totally ranged. Between your archers and huntresses and
chimeras and hippogryph riders and all that stuff, trueshot aura gives a
beautiful benefit at 30% increased ranged damage. The only thing that won t
be affected are your druids of the claw, but nobody cares.
-Starfall: Calls down waves of stars damaging nearby units for 50 damage per
wave for 45 seconds. Yet another outstanding ability, this lazy-mans
ultimate requires almost no effort whatsoever. All you need to do is stand
in the middle of battle and start the channeling. Stars will fall and fall
for 45 seconds, burning up all enemy units nearby. Certainly the shining
beacon of the priestess.
Keeper of the grove
Damage: 20-26(hero;600)
Speed: Average
Armor: 3(hero)
Move speed: Fast
Strength: 16
Agility: 15
Intelligence: 18 (primary attribute)
Base hit points: 500
Base mana: 270
-The keeper of the grove has all nature-based abilities (strange for a night
elf I know) that range from offensive to defensive. A good hero for crown
control and healing.
-Entangling roots: Brings up roots that cause 15/15/25 damage per second for
9/24/36 seconds to a target unit. A nice and excessively annoying ability,
as its a crowd control and damaging ability all in one. Certainly very
useful against heroes and powerful units. I would suggest this as one of
your first two abilities.
-Force of nature: Summons 2/3/4 treants for 60 seconds from an area of
trees. Treants have 300 hit points and deal 15-17 damage. This is a fun
ability to use...nothing like bringing the forest to life where your poor
opponents peasants are chopping lumber. But I don't consider it as
beneficial as the other two. I would save this till the end, but if you
really want it its not a terrible ability.
-Thorns aura: Returns 10/20/30% of an enemy units melee attacks. Obviously
an excellent ability when your facing heavy melee, and if that is the case,
take this as your primary. If your opponent is not super ultra mega melee,
its at your discretion whether to get this or entangling roots. I would
still prefer thorns aura, as that's quite a bit of reflected damage,
especially for units like taurens or abominations.
Tranquility: Heals friendly units in an area for 20 hit points per second
for 30 seconds. Certainly the best healing ability in the game.
Tranquility will restore 600 health points to all units in the area you are
healing through, which can very easily make the difference in a match. Keep
your units in the area of course.
Demon hunter
Damage: 24-46(hero;melee)
Speed: Fast
Armor: 5(hero)
Move speed: Fast
Strength: 19
Agility: 22 (primary attribute)
Intelligence: 16
Base hit points: 575
Base mana: 240
-Demon hunter is my favorite hero in the game, mostly because of his awesome
ultimate and very powerful solo ability. This hero does really good versus
melee and heroes/spellcasters, and also has good survivability with a very
nice passive ability.
-Mana burn: Burns 50/100/150 mana and deals damage equal to the mana burned.
This is a great ability versus spellcasters and can quickly wear an enemy
caster or hero down. A very incidental ability, but real good to have in
single player particularly to kill powerful creeps with mana.
-Immolation: Consumes mana at a rate of about 5 per second to deal 10/15/20
damage per second to nearby melee. I would most certainly max this
attribute
first. If you are not using or do not have mana burn this essentially is
all you need your mana for, and at final rank can just wreck a group of
melee or even ranged if you get close enough.
-Evasion: Grants a 10/20/30% chance for an opponent to miss. Again if you
do not have much use for mana burn, I would certainly take this as a
secondary attribute. With this and immolation you can deal great damage and
survive for quite awhile like that. If you are having issues with casters
or heroes then by all means take mana burn first, but otherwise if you just
want to unleash your demon hunter on a killing spree, you certainly will
want evasion.
-Metamorphosis: Transforms into a demon to grant 500 bonus hit points, and
ranged chaos damage attack with better damage and attack speed. This really
is a wonderful ultimate for the demon hunter and using this with full ranks
of immolation aura and evasion is a sure fire way to raise all kinds of
hell. You would be pretty surprised at what a demon hunter can solo with
all that capability. An easy way to level a base too, as a full-damage
chaos attack with very rapid attack speed can level buildings faster than
anything.
=========================================================================
III. Story mode walkthrough (ROCWX)
=========================================================================
As mentioned earlier in the guide the story mode for Reign of Chaos has 4
campaigns, one for each race. The very first campaign you will play is the
prologue, which has a couple missions and is designed as a tutorial with
some brief storyline. There are two difficulty settings for the campaign,
normal and hard. I will play the majority of the campaign on hard, which
may cover more impending attacks than may occur on normal, but the technique
is essentially the same.
Here is the biggest tip I can give you for campaign mode: save, Save, SAVE!!
Save NOW, Save GOOD, Save TWICE. You can save as much as you want and when
you load, you start right where you saved at. I would even suggest creating
multiple save files, about 3 or so. Save BEFORE attacking, save again in a
separate file DURING attack if you want, and you can keep micro saving as
much as you want. If you fail, just go back a save; if you screwed up
before that, go back more saves. If you screwed up entirely, just reload
before you attacked. Get into the habit of doing this, you will save
yourself hundreds of headaches and episodes of rage.
==================================
a. Basic elements of gameplay
==================================
-If you are already familiar with the game, you may just wish to skip ahead
to the regular campaign walkthrough. Both the prologue missions follow a
tutorial and don't really require a walkthrough, but I use it as an
opportunity to explain basic concepts in detail and suggest practice for
common game techniques.
Throughout the walkthrough I will use terms for several strategies that you
will use during the campaign. I will detail those here.
As some general directions, north means up, south means down, west means
left, and east means right.
Also, in the prologue campaign, I will go further into detail on things you
should get into the habit of doing during the regular campaign and make some
suggestions for practicing techniques such as micro, shift commands, and hot
keying. During the regular campaign walkthrough I will no longer detail or
specify these points, and assume you will already be doing them.
Hotkey: Hotkey means assigning a group of units, structures, or both to a
specific number key. This is done by selecting a group of up to 12
units/structures, then holding shift and pressing a key 0-9. You can then
take control of that group again by pressing the relevant key that you
assigned a hotkey to. A good idea is usually to hotkey your attack force
according to melee/heroes for 1, ranged for 2, casters for 3, and siege for
4. You can also hotkey structures for ease of quickly units. Also, I will
strongly suggest hotkeying your defensive grid. If there is a hero wreaking
havoc with an ultimate or a steamtank, or something that is going to
annihilate you, you will want to be able to quickly take control of your
defense grid in order to focus fire them. Each unit, structure, and command
also has a letter hotkey, identified by a yellow letter when you cursor over
the order. You do not need to learn all of these, but you may naturally
learn some which will help you build and issue actions faster.
Micro: Micro is the term used to describe pulling your units taking damage
to the back so they do not die and the enemy units will focus on another,
higher health unit. This is a key strategy to use versus computer, as the
computer will not usually re-attack your lower health unit. When playing
against players, however, better players will know to focus fire. Its still
a key strategy in any game, but more foolproof in single player. Its best
to micro units that are either real low, or taking a lot of damage and about
to be real low.
Attack area: This is a command you will frequently use to fight your way
into a base. To use this, select any of your forces you are attacking with,
click to attack (or hit a), and then click the area you wish to attack to.
This can be done on screen or on the radar if you prefer. Your forces will
then move toward the area you clicked, attacking any enemies along the way.
Focus fire: Focus fire means concentrating all your attacks on a specific
unit. When you are fighting heroes that are channeling high damage spells
or defending against attack groups with siege units, this is basically what
you need to do. The faster you can drop a unit, the sooner that their
damage is
negated. It's a good idea to do this with defense towers as well.
Shift commands: A shift command means you hold shift before you give a unit
an order, and they will complete that order after they finish their current
task. For example, you can tell a worker to build a structure like normal,
then after that hold shift and right click on your gold mine. The worker
will then head back to the mine after the structure is completed. There is
no limit to how many shift commands you can issue to a unit. If you want to
max your food limit quickly, you can dedicate one worker to building food
provision structures. All you need to do is hold shift down before clicking
the structure on the workers build menu, and after the command is issued you
will still have the outline of the structure, and can issue where you want
the next one to be built. Shift commands are also very useful for focus
fire, and can be used by defense structures as well. When you get attacked
or are attacking, you can hold shift down and right click enemy units or
buildings in the order you want them to be destroyed. The units or
structures will then proceed to carry out the shift commands in the order
you issued them. If it is still confusing, practice it a little. Take
control of any unit and just use the shift command to move them around.
Hold shift and right click to the right, then left, then bottom, then to the
top of your screen. You can see little flags indicating where they have
been ordered to move to. This can be used for any regular action you
perform, so use it frequently! It makes attacking, building, harvesting,
etc all so much easier.
Worker harassment: Worker harassment refers to frequently going into an
enemies base and destroying their workers, hindering their ability to gain
resources. This really is more of a multi-player strategy, but I may still
indicate a situation where this would be a good idea. There is also tech-
tree harassment, which refers to focusing fire on base structures (i.e.
structures that are required to be built in order to build more advanced
structures or units) so they need to rebuild the tech tree to repurchase
their units or structures, buying time. I won't suggest using this at all
in single player, but just thought I would mention what it is.
Training/kiting: Training refers to dragging creeps from the area into an
enemy base with a unit you intend on letting die, and then letting the
creeps attack the base. This would really only be useful for more powerful
creeps, and I probably won't suggest this tactic. Kiting means dragging
enemy units toward your base or your attack force, and is a very useful
tactic in reducing an enemy forces numbers before you head into their base
and face their towers and emergency defense.
Creeping: Creeping means using your hero(s) and any necessary units to go
around the map killing creeps (creatures of the environment) for experience,
items and gold. This is a key practice in any game and one reason why you
should have a solid defense at your base.
=========================================================================
IV. Prologue Campaign: Exodus of the horde (ROCWPX)
=========================================================================
Upon starting the prologue campaign, you will watch a couple cinematics and
then start the first mission in the prologue, chasing visions. I will also
include a few of my own personal tutorial suggestions :)
=========================================
a. Chapter one: Chasing Visions (ROCWP1)
=========================================
Main quests:
+Follow the prophet
-Follow the narrator's directions
-Find the prophet
As you start the mission, you are placed into a tutorial. Head to the first
banner, then continue following the path down and collecting the banners as
you go. At the end of the path to the right you will see a couple watch
towers; continue through them to reach the final banner and gain control of
3 grunts.
Hotkey your group to 1 (select the group, hold shift, and press the number
1). Use this to take control of your group from here on out. Continue up
the path to the right, and kill the gnoll in your way. Continue down the
path, and the tutorial will indicate a gnoll camp ahead and instruct you to
attack your way in by clicking attack (or hitting a) and clicking inside the
camp. Go ahead and do that. This is a good place to practice your micro as
well. Once you notice a unit getting attacked, click that unit and move
them back away from the gnolls. You only need to move him back a little
bit; just out of attack range, and that's all you need to do. The unit will
then automatically move back into the fight and start attacking again. You
will want to make sure you master this as to even out damage taken.
After this group is dead thrall will have gained a level. All you can learn
is chain lightning at this point, so go ahead and do that. Continue down
the path to the right to see a group of murlocs. Use thralls newly acquired
chain lightning on them. Practice micro a bit more here, and after the
murlocs are down pick up a mana potion. There are a couple buildings here,
so real briefly practice shift commands. Order your group to attack one
hut, then hold shift and order them in the same way to attack the second
hut. This will give you an idea of how shift commands work.
Continue moving up the path toward the right and up, and kill the murlocs at
the end here. Continue right to capture another banner. Follow the winding
S down and when you are at the bottom, before heading right take a sharp
left off the path and then move down a bit to pick up a potion of healing.
Also if you see critters (non-aggressive creeps with 15 hp) you can click on
them multiple times to make them explode. It doesnt do any damage to
anything, just funny to watch. Anyway head back onto the path and continue
to the right. You will come across an ogre who is sleeping (as creeps do at
night), and thrall will crack at having a fierce battle if it werent
sleeping. But by all means, go right ahead...have a "fierce" battle. Your
capped at level 2 and he likely won't drop loot, but kill him anyway if you
want. Continue to the right and up, and you will see another path to the
right. Take it and kill the golem. You can head left and kill a couple
more if you want, and then down to kill yet another. The one on the bottom
drops a ring of protection, which increases armor by 1. Head back onto the
main road and continue north.
As you head up the path where the trees end on your right, head right. Head
up the small ramp and kill the trolls here to get a manual of health, which
increases your hit points by 50. Before heading to the last banner, if you
want, use your far sight in the upper right corner of the map right along
the top, about the width of the white window (on your radar) worth of
distance away from the right side. Check around a couple times and you will
see a chest up there with the "phat lewt" and a couple pirates. You can't
get it, its just funny to see :)Anyway just head back onto the main path and
head to the last banner to complete the level.
=========================================
b. Chapter Two: Departures (ROCWP2)
=========================================
Main quests:
+Establish a base
-Build a burrow
-Build a war mill
-Build a barracks
-Train 5 grunts
+Rescue Grom
-Find Grom
Once you take control, start by having your peon harvest gold from the gold
mine. When you get 3 additional ones, send them onto the gold mine as well.
Train 4 additional peons from the great hall, and set the rally point for
the great hall to the mine (Newly trained peons will head to the rally
point, and as it is the gold mine, newly trained peons will automatically
harvest gold. This also works for trees so peons can harvest lumber.
Always have one of those set as a rally point so peons are never sitting
around.) Once you have the resources, start assembling your structures.
Start with the war mill, then the barracks, and finally the burrow. Build
your barracks wherever, but build your war mill near the forest to the north
or east. Make sure to shift command your peons to go back to harvesting
after they are done building. Once the war mill is up get 3 peons on
lumber. As you get resources hit the upgrades from the war mill. Once
those are in que take a peon off gold to build the burrow (this is not a big
deal right now, but in regular campaign you will want to keep 5 on the mine
as much as possible). Lumber is a better resource to take workers off of,
but since you didnt start harvesting lumber right away you will have more
than enough gold. Anyway you
can also start training grunts whenever you please. When you have the
resources send a peon off lumber to build a second burrow and shift command
him to return to lumber when he is done. You may as well load up the
training que with grunts, since you can't get anything else. You could
build watch towers or an altar of storms, but you are not going to get
attacked more than once, and I sure hope you don't let thrall die... Anyway
make sure your grunts and thrall are hotkeyed before the cut-scene coming
up. On your fifth grunt, the next mission objective becomes available.
Quickly select and send your group down to where the watch towers are being
attacked, down the path and to the bridge. You can easily send them down
there by clicking attack and then clicking on the radar where it is flashing
red. This will send them to the area and automatically engage them with the
alliance. Continue producing grunts, and have them rally to thrall (select
the barracks, then right click thrall. It will place the rally flag on
him). This will send and grunts coming out of the barracks to follow
thrall. If you want, hotkey the barracks 2 or 3. This will make it easy to
regularly refresh the que of grunts being trained. Then, if you have the
resources, take a peon off lumber duty and shift+command him to build at
least 3 more burrows and return to lumber duty afterward. After all this is
done, you can now simply continue attacking, while grunts regularly come to
reinforce you.
All you need to do is occasionally hit the barracks hotkey to refresh the
grunt que. This is a good practice to get into during the campaign..keep
producing units. Just be sure to regularly apply new units to your hotkey
group.
Anyway, across the bridge head down and then left. Continue left till you
get to the gate. Here you will see two towers and a gate. Destroy the
towers and right-click the gate to take it down. Continue northwest(upper
left) and right click the cage to free a grunt. At this point you may have
more than 11 grunts, meaning your first attack group is full. What I will
usually do in this instance is create a new attack group with any extra
grunts (hotkey it 2), and keep thrall in that group as well. In that way,
whichever group is currently selected, you will still be able to use thralls
abilities. This is very important when using heroes with healing abilities,
but a good idea in general so you can use your damaging and support
abilities. Also once you obtain more than one attack group, you may wish to
change your rally point off thrall to some point shortly behind. You can
regularly advance this as your attack group does. Just hit the hotkey for
your barracks and right click the new rally point. Another tip when it
comes to hotkeying; you can hold shift to add or deselect a unit from an
attack group. So rather than trying to grab your entire attack group in a
window, simply hit the hotkey for the attack group you wish to modify and
hold shift and click any grunts you want to add or remove from the group.
You can also hold the shift key to add a target area of grunts to an attack
group, rather than clicking them specifically. Finally, you can select all
of a certain type of a unit in a group by holding down the control button
and clicking one of that type of unit. You can also add all of a certain
type of unit that are nearby by holding control, shift, and then clicking
the unit when you
have an attack group selected. For example, you have only thrall and a
shaman in a group and you want to add 7 grunts. Just holt control and
shift, and then click any grunt. All nearby grunts will be added to the
group. Anyway that's all I have on hotkeying for now.
Back to the game, continue down and kill a footman. You will find a shaman
here. Add him to group two via the shift add. Remember than when you add
new units to a hotkey group, you will need to resave the entire group to the
hotkey. In this case it is shift+2. Continue moving your group to the left
to kill another footman, and then up to kill 2 rifleman. Head to the left to
destroy 3 more cages and obtain 3 more grunts. Add them to hotkey group 2
again, or if you need to create a third hotkey group, go ahead and do that.
Continue north to a gate and kill the two knights in front. Practice your
micro here some more..pull back any units that's being noticeably attacked.
Pull them back just far enough that they stop getting attacked, and will
return to combat on their own. Once this is done attack the gate and on the
other side will be 3 watch towers. Practice your shift commands, focus fire
and micro here. Assign all your groups to attack the right tower, then the
middle, then finally the right tower. Pull any units taking heavy damage out
to the right away from the tower, and bring them back in if they do not
return automatically. Once the 3 watch towers are destroyed, the mission is
over and the prologue campaign is completed.
=========================================================================
V. Human Campaign: The Scourge of Lordaeron (ROCWHX)
=========================================================================
After selecting the campaign, there will be a brief video after which you
will head into the first mission. Watch another brief cutscene, and after
you will take control of a small group of humans for the first mission.
===================================================
a. Chapter One: The Defense of Strahnbrad (ROCWH1)
===================================================
Main quests
+Defend Strahnbrad
-Travel to Strahnbrad
-Arthas must survive
Optional quests
+Save Timmy
-Slay the Gnoll kidnappers
+Bandit Lord
-Slay Menag, the Bandit Lord
-Return Ledger to Gerard
At the start of the mission, head south and when the path turns right,
continue moving south. Head all the way down to the end to receive the
first optional quest.
You must save poor little timmy who fell down a well..or was kidnapped,
something like that. Head down the path to the right to the end and kill the
three gnolls here. Use Arthas holy light if your footmen get low, but only
use it when they are lower than half health. Otherwise you will wind up
overhealing, which is a waste of mana. After the gnolls are dead, pick up
the potion of healing and then destroy the cage. You will then get a ring of
protection for completing the quest.
Head back down the path to the left to where you took the quest, and then
head up a bit and turn left just past the barn to find some villagers with
an exclamation above their heads. Head up to them and they will convert
into footman that you can add to your group. Roll all the way back to the
main path and head right. Continue along till you see a couple villagers
and some bandits. You will now receive the second optional quest.
Engage the bandits and chase them back down to their camp. Kill them all,
and watch the health of your footman as they will get dropped quickly if you
are not careful. Use holy light mainly but micro if you need to. At this
point Arthas should level; if he hasnt yet he will be close. Once he does
pick up devotion aura with the attribute point, and head back to the main
path. After returning the ledger, you receive a tome of strength,
permanently increasing your strength by 1.
Head r1ight across the bridge and on the other side you will come across a
couple grunts. Kill them, heal up, and then head into the village. A
couple orcs will come by, and the raider will stop and attack. Focus fire
him, them attack the grunt up to the right. Head back south of the fountain
and take the lower path to the left. There will be a few footmen here
fighting a couple grunts. Kill the grunts to take control of the footmen.
Head back out and now head north of the fountain. After heading between the
two houses there will be a couple grunts up here, take them out. There are
some crates in the upper left in this area, break them open for a potion of
mana. Head back south and now take the middle path to the left for a cut-
scene.
After the cut-scene, head forward to engage the grunts and slave master.
Focus fire each of the grunts, and then kill the slave master after to
complete the mission.
============================================
b. Chapter Two: Blackrock and Roll (ROCWH2)
============================================
Main quests
+Establish a base
-Construct a barracks
-Construct 2 farms
-Train 6 footmen
+Blademaster
-Defeat the blademaster
Optional quests
+Searinox
-Slay Searinox, the black dragon
-Bring the heart of searinox to Feranor Steeltoe
Start by assigning your peasants to the gold mine, and train 5 additional
peasants as your resources allow. Rally peasants to the gold mine as well.
After two are trained, change the rally point to lumber. At this point,
upgrade your two scout towers at each entrance of the base to watch towers.
Use Arthas to assist Uther with any attacks. The first attack will happen
fairly quickly. Once the towers are upgraded, train a couple more peons,
keep them rallied at lumber, and pull one off lumber to start assembling one
additional scout tower near each of the watch towers at each entrance.
Upgrade these to watch towers as well. Hotkey each group separately if you
wish to assist in focus firing enemy attackers. This may not seem like much,
but trust me, it helps a lot. Attack the raiders first and foremost,
headhunters next, then the grunts.
Now your defense should be sufficient. Pull a peasant off of lumber to
repair towers as needed, and then have one build a barracks. Pull another
off lumber to build 2 farms. Once your barracks is complete, start training
footmen. I would rally them near the town hall for now. I generally prefer
to keep newly trained units away from combat since defense structures and
heroes can usually take care of that without incident, and letting new units
gets attacked weakens them for defense, or if they die wastes resources.
Once you train the footmen you need, the first quest is complete.
Once Arthas levels, give him the next rank of holy light. After the cut-
scene, assign a peasant to build a few more farms. Maintain at least 3
peasants on lumber and keep 6 on gold: if you need a couple more go and
train them. You probably want 10 or 11 total. It may be best just to keep
one dedicated to tower repair; move him to the side thats getting attacked
and keep his auto repair on. Be careful when repairing during combat, as if
he gets attacked hes probably dead. Just be quick to move arthas over to the
side to take damage and you won't need to repair during combat. Continue
cranking footman, but once you have 6, take them with arthas out the right
entrance and then head right. You will meet some riflemen and a mortar team
out here. Add them to your group and head up the dirt path to the right for
the optional quest. First and foremost, start training some riflemen from
your barracks, which you can now do. Once you have 6 total riflemen
(including those you are attacking with), alternate between training footmen
and riflemen to maintain equal numbers.
Anyway you can bring additional riflemen with you to kill searinox if you
want, but it is not necessary. Head in and use your holy light to heal units
low on health. Your footmen can't do much here, but that doesnt really
matter. Follow the path right, then down, killing the lesser dragons along
the way. At the bottom head left to the end and kill searinox. Just heal
your riflemen and it shouldn't be a problem. After you are done head back to
Feranor to receive an orb of fire, which will add 5 bonus damage and allow
Arthas to do splash damage.
After this is done balance your main attack group with footmen and riflemen
(6 footmen, 5 riflemen and arthas works fine), and head out the left exit of
your base. Continue up until you reach water with some murlocs. Kill all
the murlocs in the water to the left here to receive a claws of attack +3.
There are also some gnolls just outside the base to the left that give a
potion of mana.
Once you have two full groups of units (mix isnt crucial at this point) of
riflemen and footmen, make sure arthas is hotkeyed to each group and attack
each group to the north center of the map. Once there, cycle both attack
groups and heal as needed. Heal footmen as low as possible at this point,
since holy light heals for 400, not much less than the footmens. Remember
avoiding overhealing when possible will greatly help your mana efficiency.
Wipe out the orc base here. This is not necessary but provides peace of mind
and good practice for micro and healing multiple groups of units. Once this
is done head back out and send your groups near the upper right, but don't
move in just yet. Attacking the blademaster will get you good practice on
several fronts.
Chances are you may need to micro multiple units at once here. Between this
and healing you probably won't focus too much on microing them back just a
little, instead just click them back as far as you please. After a couple
seconds, order the group to re-attack up to the blademaster. Anyway with
that in mind, start by sending just one or two footmen in to attack the
blademaster. The idea here is to try to get the blademaster to pop
bladestorm. Once he does quickly run out. If he doesnt pop it after a few
seconds just mass attack. However if he ever DOES pop it, run everyone out.
After that is just focus on healing and micro, and once he uses mirror image
focus on your unit taking damage. Visually look to see which unit taking
damage damage is cooresponding with the blademasters attack, and order all
units to focus that target. Just repeat this process and after he drops, the
mission is over.
==================================================
c. Chapter three: Ravages of the Plague (ROCWH3)
==================================================
Main Quests
+Investigate Villages
-Explore the countryside
-Arthas must survive
-Jaina must survive
+Destroy Grain Warehouse
Optional Quests
+Fountain of health
-Find the fountain of health
First, head back down the path you allegedly came in on, to the right, and
head down at the end. Kill the two ogres here to receive a potion of
healing. Use Jainas water elemental spell as often as you can (just hit tab
while the group is selected to change focus to the next unit down, which in
this case is Jaina. There is another ogre to the right on the way out, kill
him as well. Now head back to where you started.
Head up the path to grab the first quest. Afterward, head left till you get
to the destroyed bridge. After hearing about the bridge head right and
follow the path over until you get to some bandits. Take them out and a
villager will give you a potion of greater healing. Continue north down the
small ramp here and head near the villager with the exclamation mark to
receive the optional quest. Jaina should be leveled by now, so learn her
blizzard.
Continue left, down the ramp into the water and defeat the murlocs here.
Continue forward, kill a couple more murlocs and destroy the hut in the top
right here to get a maul of strength. Give it to Arthas. Continue following
the path through the water to the left, stopping before the turn south to
kill some bandits over to your left. Destroy the hut on the right after they
are killed to receive a scroll of protection.
Head back out and continue south along the path and take the ramp up on your
left at the end. You will see some footmen fighting undead archers, so
assist them in their attack.
After the fight, you take control of the 3 footmen and your footmen learn
the defend ability. Arthas should also be leveled by now, so learn his next
rank of devotion aura. Continue heading left down the path until you come to
a potion of mana. Grab it and fight off the undead here. Summon jainas
elemental and use her blizzard spell. Jaina should have leveled by about
now, so get her next rank of blizzard. Continue up the path and left to
reach the fountain of health and complete the optional objective.
Backtrack past where you fought the undead and take the path south out of
here for a cut-scene. Destroy the infected grainery and the skeleton warrior
and then continue south. Destroy the undead here (jainas blizzard is very
helpful here once again). Once they are defeated head down the path in the
lower right of this area and follow the curve left to meet up with a couple
priests and complete this quest.
Continue heading left and take out the undead archers here. Head south
afterward to take control of a mortar team. Remember mortar teams are
biological, so they can be healed.
Head around down to the path on your left and down the ramp. Pick up the
mantle of intelligence on your left for Jaina. She should have leveled once
again, so pick up the first rank of brilliance aura. This is very helpful
for Arthas healing. Back onto the main road, head north past the fountain
for a cut-scene. Kill the abomination after, then roll forward, take out
the ghouls, and destroy the grain warehouse to complete the mission.
==================================================
d. Chapter four: The Cult of the Damned (ROCWH4)
==================================================
Main quests
+Investigate Angorhal
-Explore Andorhal
+Confront Kel'thuzad
-Find Kel'thuzad
After you take control, start training about 7 additional peasants. Keep 5
on gold and 4-5 on lumber. Grab one as soon as possible and start building
farms. You can shift command to build more than one if you do not have
resources, but the structure will appear with a red outline instead and when
the peasant comes to the point when he will start building, your resources
will be depleted then or he will state there are insufficient resources.
Either way, keep one building farms for a bit then grab another peasant and
construct a lumber mill down at the bottom of your base, in that little
grove in the forest to the left of the right entrance.
You will get attacked soon, but your current units are more than enough to
handle it. Focus fire necromancers when they are present as they will be
summoning skeleton warriors. Use Jainas water elemental and cast blizzard to
drop any skeleton warriors and ghouls quickly. Have one peasant continuing
to crank farms till you have 4 or 5, and once the lumber mill is built, get
the improved masonry upgrade and also be sure to move the peasant harvesting
lumber from the forest on the left down to harvest by the lumber mill. Once
you have the resources, upgrade the town hall to a keep. After this is done
you can now build a few defensive towers.
You will only get attacked from the north path here, so defense is pretty
simple. Set up a list of shift commands for a peasant to build 10 scout
towers; build them going north to south, 2 rows of five. Line them up just
above where the forest on the left ends, center between the north and south
treeline, and you should be in good position to cover any attacks coming
from the path to the west.
Keep your current units in front of the towers for now, until the defense is
up. Upgrade your scout towers to watch towers as they are constructed. You
will probably get attacked again before you have more than 1 or 2 towers up,
so you will need to defend with all your units once again. I would deselect
the mortar team from the group and keep him behind the towers. Have him
hold position back here.
Once you have all the towers building, get the improved lumber harvesting
upgrade from the lumber mill, and get a blacksmith building. When you have
the resources, shift command your peasant to construct an arcane sanctum,
then a workshop. At the same time, have another peasant go back to cranking
out farms until you get to at least 70 food.
Once your blacksmith is built, start grabbing all the upgrades from there.
Once all 10 of your towers are constructed, just keep arthas and jaina in
front; hold everyone else in back. The reason for this is first, because it
is real easy to let units die while defending and you don t want to waste
resources. Second, it makes using jainas blizzard a lot easier as you won't
be attacking your own units. Your heroes are the best to have getting
attacked as they can take a reasonable beating, and be sure to use jainas
water elemental spell as well. Otherwise the towers should be more than
sufficient to provide support for your heroes in killing off defenders while
you upgrade and build your army.
I would suggest keeping one peasant up here with auto-repair for the towers.
If you want you can have him harvest lumber between attacks, just be sure to
pull him back over when you get attacked again.
Once your arcane sanctum is build, get the priest adept training. Start
grabbing all the upgrades you can; get defend for your footmen, and long
rifles for your riflemen, as well as all the blacksmith upgrades. Once these
are all in que, you can start training your units. Train up about equal
numbers of footmen and riflemen, about 7 of each should be good, and then
get 3-4 priests and 3 mortar teams (that's total, so if you still have some
units that you started with just subtract those from the total). However if
you ended up losing a bunch of your units somehow, I would suggest you keep
your unit supply to 40 or less for awhile, at least until you get the low
gold mine worning. The mine will probably run out and if you go into low
upkeep soon, you may need to grab that gold mine to the east to finish out
your group. If you have not lost any units you should have no problem with
resource availability.
Also its a good idea to routinely check and make sure you still have 6
peasants on the gold mine and check your idle peasants. Its pretty common to
just pull one off resource gathering to build structures and forget to
reassign him.
Your next attack may be a group of several necromancers. Use jainas blizzard
spell here. Keep jaina and thrall back near the defensive towers so they
give you some support, but as long as they are attacking arthas you
shouldn't have much problem with repair.
Just continue training as resources allow, and using jaina and arthas to
defend. They should level up real soon, so get arthas final level of holy
light, and jainas final level or blizzard. If you did not give a peasant
several shift order for farms check your food supply, and if you are
creeping up on it have a peasant finish building the farms you need (70 food
supply).Once your army is assembled you should be hovering around 65 food,
and if it hasnt already your gold mine will be collapsing soon. Just in
case of fire or flood, make sure you DO NOT fall below 450 gold. This is
what it costs to build a new town hall in order to harvest the other gold
mine, but you should not need to do that. Once your army is assembled set
up your attack groups.
Group 1 should have arthas, jaina and all footmen. Group 2 should have
arthas and all riflemen and priests. Group 3 should have your mortar teams.
You want to send in group 1 first, then group 2, and keep group 3 near the
back. Anyway before heading out SAVE YOUR GAME. I cannot stress the
importance of this enough. If you want you can also add a fourth group of
just arthas and jaina which I will do from time to time for an easy focus
fire or moving them, but its up to you. Anyway, heres a good tip for anytime
you are planning to attack an enemy base. COUNTERATTACK! Attack them right
after you get attacked; in this manner they have just sent several units to
your defensive towers and you can wipe them out with homefield advantage.
This makes for less units when you head out to attack them.
Anyway when you are ready just head out of your base to the west and then
head north between the tree line. Bear left to the undead base. Send in
group 1 and group 2 shortly after, and after they have engaged bring group 3
near after. Cycle groups 1 and 2 to heal as needed, and after killing any
units that come to defend, order your mortar teams to attack the first
spirit tower here at max range. At this time pull your units back to just
in front of the mortar teams to defend them. After the first spirit tower
is destroyed, focus your mortar teams to the crypt to stop unit production
there. After that is done, order your mortar teams to destroy the left
spirit tower, followed by the right, and then order them to destroy the
temple of the damned. Keep your units out of range of the spirit towers,
but bring them up into range to kill any necromancers or other units that
come out to attack. Once done there focus the halls of the dead with mortar
teams..in the same manner as before. Destroy any spirit towers around from
range after that, and destroy the other crypt in back of the base. Once
that crypt is dead, finish off any other acolytes and finish off the 3
spirit towers in the back of the base and the rest of the base here.
Now with the base gone move groups 1 and 2 out of the former base to the
northeast into the town for a cut-scene. Attack your way through the town
and head down the lower right path to find a cage. Bust it open to find
poor little Timmy again as a ghoul. Put him out of his misery and he will
drop a ring of superiority; give that to Arthas. Continue north of here,
through the gate at the top of the town, and head left out of the gate,
across the water to a goblin merchant. You can sell off any extra items
your heroes don't need here, or purchase items as well. Continue with the 2
groups down the path to the right to come across about 6 abominations. Have
your ranged group focus fire them, and use jainas blizzard spell to catch
them without harming your own footmen of course. After this is done attack
forward and take our the slaughterhouse, and then attack kel'thuzad to
complete the mission.
================================================
e. Chapter five: March of the scourage (ROCWH5)
================================================
Main quests
+Defend Hearthglen
-Survive for 30 minutes
Optional quests
+Grain Caravan
-Destroy the grain caravan before it gets to the last village
Right off the bat form your attack group and pick up the mantle of
intelligence that jaina left behind here. Start training peasants, youll
need about 9 more. After two are trained to fill up the gold mine, send 3 to
lumber, then send the next one out to the bottom left entrance to your base
and after that the next one to the top left entrance. Send the remaining 2
that get trained to lumber as well. You want 5 on the gold mine and 6 on
lumber at all times. If your lumber ever becomes an issue, just build a new
lumber mill further in the forest. This is probably a good idea to do about
8 or 9 minutes in actually. Anyway, keep your attack group between these two
entrances at all times. Now, get your improved masonry and improved lumber
harvesting upgrades done from the lumber mill,and have each peasant you most
recently trained go to the top and bottom left and start building scout
towers. You want 10 at each entrance; try to keep in only 2 rows. Its not
great terrain but it doesn t have to be perfect. Your north entrance will
pose a bigger problem, as its real easy to block off and make getting a
group through to take out meat wagons difficult. Keep towers off to the
side as much as you can; if you need to make 3 rows.
NOTE: From time to time the CPU seems to throw you a screwball and attack
from the northeast entrance also. It doesnt happen often but it does
sometimes. If this happens move your peasants harvesting lumber up into the
forest out of the way, bring your arrack group over there and just kite them
to your defense toward for the upper left. Let them destroy those watch
towers over there, and slowly drag them over to your northwest defense
towers. This should take care of it.
You should be getting attacked at one of the entrances real soon, so send
your group there quickly to defend. You will likely need to use micro for
this mission, as arthas cannot heal fast enough in many cases. Also, I will
suggest just pulling your peasant out when you get attacked, as he will real
easily be killed. Bring him back to repair afterward. Once a bunch of scout
towers have been shift-commanded to be build, start upgrading them to watch
towers. Its pretty obvious, but balance your defense between these two
entrances.
Continue to commit all resources to defense towers for these two entrances
until you have 10 watch towers built. Very soon the meat wagons will start
showing up. Obviously focus fire these down hard. Keep your eye on that
radar and keep your attack group between the two locations always. Getting
attacked by a meat wagon group often does a hell of a lot of damage, so if
you need more help down here, grab a third peasant off lumber to assemble
one or two towers and then shift command him back to lumber while your other
peasant repairs.
Arthas should be leveled by now, so learn his resurrection spell. Once you
are about done with these 10 towers get a workshop building. Build 2 more
scout towers on each side behind your current defense grid. These you will
upgrade to cannon towers. By now your resources should be accumulating
fairly and you will soon get the objective to stop the plague caravan. Get
your blacksmith upgrades rolling, and refresh your attack group so you have
4 footmen and 7 riflemen. If the priest is still around you can sub him in
if you want, otherwise just set him aside. He can be used to heal units
after an attack. For what you are going to attack piercing range is the way
to go.
Make sure you have 10 watch towers and 2 cannon towers at each entrance at
all times.Now the game can get a little more annoying, so save frequently.
The attackers may send a lich to cast death and decay, which will eat your
defense alive. Anytime there is a lich, send EVERYTHING you have out to
kill it, and use arthas holy light on him. I would recommend saving every
couple minutes; if you do get attacked and your defense gets wrecked, reload
and send your units to that side for when you get attacked so you can drop
the lich/meat wagons quick. Use arthas holy light on the lich to get him
down, then focus the meat wagons. Taking down these groups with minimal
casualties can be a bit of a challenge, so heres the best thing to do. Keep
your attack group right in front of your watch towers (on the attackers
side) until the
group with the lich comes in, and wait for the lich to start channeling
death and decay. At this time, FOCUS ALL ON HIM. The reason you want him
to start using death and decay is so he doesnt use frost nova on your units.
Use holy light twice and he should drop. If you drop him quick your towers
should still have about half health. After hes dead send your whole group
back to the towers, and then relay back out to the meat wagons. The purpose
of this is to try to make sure the undead units are in range of all the
towers, which they may not be since they were out near the lich. Near the
end of combat use arthas resurrection spell to get as many deads as you can.
Anyway when you start accumulating more resources, build an arcane sanctum.
Also, start building more farms. Get the adept training for the sorceress
and priest going, then get about 3 each of them. If you do not have all
casters in que I would suggest waiting till you have about 1000 gold before
crossing the 40 food mark and going into low upkeep, so you do not run out
of gold.
Once you have a total of 4 footmen, 7 riflemen, 3 priests and 3 sorceresses,
wait for an attack from purple on the top left path, and afterward save and
send your groups out here. I would hotkey group 1 your fighters, and group 2
your casters. You must be quick about this. Follow the path as it curves
right, then continue up to the left. Watch out for the undead base to the
right here, and a bit further up to the left. Be quick about running through
here so you do not run into an attack group. If you do just reload your game
and wait till they attack before heading up here again. Anyway after passing
this base there is a fork in the road ahead, head left. Continue over a
little and then take the path south. Follow this path as it curves left and
stop before the water. Save again if you want, and make sure your hero has 2
empty slots in inventory. Head across the water, and if you have about 8
minutes left the caravan will be right on the other side. Focus fire the
abominations down first, then necromancers. Use resurrection either after 6
of your units die, or after combat. Finish off the caravan and after it is
down, quickly pick up the medallion of courage and scroll of town portal and
port back to your base.
If you are getting attacked, clean out the attackers and rebuild/repair
defense if necessary. When I did this purple attacked right before I started
attacking and took out all but 5 towers on the top right here, those damn
meat wagons... But you should have a good sum of resources, so pull some
peasants off resources to rebuild your towers quickly, and have whats left
of your attack force ready to defend if necessary. If you were not happy
with how the caravan attack went, you can reload and try again. If your
defense got destroyed, you can reload before you went after the caravan.
Anyway after your to this point, train more peasants if you need to in order
to replace ones you pulled from resources, and assign one peasant to build
no more than 3 scout towers to rebuild your defense quickly (i.e. if you
need to rebuild 9 towers, have 3 peasants taking care of that). Set auto-
repair on them for them to repair after the new towers are assembled, and
start upgrading right as they complete. Just make sure you have arthas and
a group of 11 or so combatants to take care of liches and meat wagons, and
otherwise spend all your resources just spilling towers onto each of those
entrances.
Add more cannon towers if you want. Just make sure you don't block the
entrance, but if you do you can head out the opposite entrance and circle
around back to take out meat wagons. The lich however would not be a good
situation. At about 2 minutes your gold mine will collapse if you've been
consistently harvesting gold. Save at a 1:30 left, and get ready for the
final attack.
They will attack from both locations shortly after 1:30, and possibly from
the third one in the top right. Don't worry about the top right, it probably
won't be much. Take your attack group and kill the lich on whichever side he
is on, spam arthas holy light, and immediately after use resurrection and
retreat all your forces and peasants back to the town hall. If there are 2
liches just kill one; ignore the second one. Wait back at the town hall and
just let them clear your base. Heal your units up as much as you can, and
just wait there in case they do make it up to your town hall. If they do,
use your units to fight off the attackers and order all peons to just repair
the town hall. If you run out of resources use call to arms. Defend at the
town hall until the timer runs out and you will win.
======================================
f. Chapter six: The Culling (ROCWH6)
======================================
Main quests
+The Culling
-Destroy plagued villager houses
-Kill 100 zombies
-Stop Mal Ganis from claiming 100 zombies.
This mission can be a bit annoying. It s a race between you and
malganis..you must kill 100 zombies before he can claim 100 zombies. Strat
by training a few more peasants. Assign one more to gold, and a couple more
to lumber. Build about 5 watch towers near the town hall to take care of any
minor attacks from purple to your base, and upgrade them to watch towers.
Build the rest of your base in the top right area. While that is being done,
build a blacksmith and upgrade your town hall. Get the improved masonry
upgrade from the lumber mill, and after you have a keep get the improved
lumber gathering from there as well. After all that's done take Arthas with
the 2 footmen and 2 knights you started with south and into the town. Start
dropping houses and killing villagers. Kill them as quick as you can in
order to stop them from turning into undead and causing you a fight. A cut-
scene will occur shortly which will indicate that malganis will now start
claiming villagers. You will probably cross malganis down here, and for now
he only has a few ghouls with him so go ahead and kill him. Focus all fire
on him and use arthas holy light to drop him quick, giving you some extra
time to purge villagers. Make sure real briefly that your scout towers are
all upgraded, and start attacking the next house here. While that is
happening get the damage and armor upgrades for the knights from the
blacksmith, get the lumber harvesting upgrade if you haven't just yet, and
the
next rank of masonry. Once you have the resources, upgrade your keep to a
castle. While you are working on your base you can just order arthas and the
group to attack a house and let them auto attack the villagers when they
turn undead; they are fairly weak. But once your base is all set up, you
can focus all your time into killing villagers. You can indicate when a
house has been destroyed when the screen shakes a bit, so keep an eye out
for that. Once the castle is assembling have a peasant start building
additional farms, and shift command him down to your watch towers after and
turn on auto repair. Hotkey your barracks, and that should lay your base
out for now.
Destroy a couple more houses and villagers, then get your second ranks of
melee weapons and armor going. Stay away from malganis for now, just cause
you really don't need to kill him.Once your castle is complete get the final
rank of lumber harvesting, your animal war training for knights, then start
training knights and set the rally point to arthas. Once arthas levels get
your last rank of devotion aura. If malganis comes to attack you before you
have a good amount of knights, just run back to your base and start killing
houses somewhere else on the map. He will waste a little time chasing you
so its just a good way to buy time while you build up a force. Anyway if he
chased you from the bottom, head to the top left. If he chased you from the
top left, head to bottom right, etc. Anyway keep your barracks que full
with knights, and get the final upgrades from the blacksmith for knights.
Also get the final rank of masonry if you want. Now with all upgrades
completed all you need to do at your base is keep knights training, repair
your defense as needed (which isnt too often), and build farms as needed.
Otherwise focus on destroying houses.
Train a few more peasants if you can't produce knights steadily. If purple
throws a meat wagon at you, just grab the nearest knight that is on its way
to arthas to run back to base and finish it off,or wait for one to come from
the barracks. Sometimes purple will default attack your knight instead of
towers if you are at your base, if this happens just run around until your
watch towers kill them and then go after the wagon after. Your knight can
outrun them.
If you find yourself with a lot of resources which you probably will, just
build another barracks and train knights from there as well. Do not worry if
you fall a bit behind, you will have no problem catching up once you get an
army of knights. If you get a second barracks just hotkey both at the same
key, and any knights you order will be evenly distributed between the
barracks. Be sure to regularly update your attack group. Just keep rolling
down houses and alternating back to your base if need be. If you do need to
do stuff at your base make sure your group is attacking a house before you
do so.
Once you get a full group of 11 knights and arthas, you can pretty safely
attack malganis, but do not worry about that unless you run into him. At
this point you have enough firepower that the best thing to do is to just
shift command to attack a bunch of houses at once, 4 or 5 works. The undead
are so weak your knights can drop all the houses in about a minute and then
just double back and kill the 15-20 villagers. This makes the purging go
much quicker. If you run into malganis, just focus fire him down and keep
arthas holy light on healing. His undead don't do too much damage to your
knights.
If any knights die, resurrect them. A group of 11 knights is plenty to
finish the mission with. At this point just focus on downing houses and
villagers. Watch out if you are in the lower left cause malganis resurrects
down here, so if you kill him near here move over to the right side of the
map. Just zerg attack a bunch of houses and clear the villagers a few
times, stay away from malganis as much as possible, and that will do it for
this mission.
====================================================
g. Chapter seven: The Shores of Northrend (ROCWH7)
====================================================
Main quests
+Establish base camp
-Locate a gold mine
-Arthas must survive
+Mal'Ganis
-Destroy Mal'ganis base
Optional quests
+Rescue Muradin's men
-Rescue the Dwarven base
The first portion of this mission must be done without a base. Start by
hotkeying your current units, and head out the bottom left path first. Kill
the wolves that are here, then backtrack to the landing and head out the top
path to the right. Take the first left and attack the wolves here. Focus
down the large purple one first. A scroll of the beast will drop, so grab
that. You should have an open slot from the town hall portal you used near
the end of the previous mission. Continue south a bit and head right once
more to kill a couple more wolves. Continue up the path, head past the path
down your right to reach a camp with some ice trolls. This is a good place
to use your scroll of the beast. Focus down the level 8 first, then take
care of the lesser trolls after that. Grab the potion of greater healing,
and you can destroy the hut in the upper left for a potion of mana. This may
be more useful for you than the healing potion since usually issues with
survivability fall on your standard units, which are being healed constantly
by arthas.
Head left here, and make sure arthas is all full on mana. You will need to
do a lot of healing for this next fight, and may need to use resurrection.
Save first if you wish. Head up to the left and you will come across two
level 5 nerubians and a level 8. The level 8 will cast area damage that
drops your footman pretty fast, so be quick with micro. It may be advisable
to send arthas in first, and all other units after. Focus fire down the
level 5s first, mainly because the level 8 is too far in back to worry about
circling around to grab first. Once one is down, retreat if you need to
refresh, and then take down the second level 5. After that finish the level
8. If some units die cast resurrection shortly after. If a couple die you
may want to just let a couple more die and save arthas mana, then you can
resurrect them at full health. Make sure they are all near each other if you
choose to do this though. After the level 8 is down grab the orb of frost.
This orb allows you to slow enemy units, so it is a decent power up.
Now head back to where you killed the trolls, and take the southeast path
down south a little to kill some more trolls. Now you are done with this
area. Head back north and now take the last path on your right for a cut-
scene and objective completion.
After the cut-scene if you have not already, spend arthas attribute point if
he leveled on his last ability, the divine shield. If he hasnt leveled just
yet he should be real close. Now that you have control of the base, same
drill as usual here. Train about 10 additional peasants in this case; place
4 more on gold, 5 on lumber, and keep one to repair. But right near the
start you should have good gold from killing all the creeps earlier, so grab
one peasant to repair the watch tower and gyrocopter in the lower left, and
have another build a couple farms as you are probably near your food cap
already. After the peasant is done repairing have hhim start building scout
towers, and after you build 2 farms send that peasant to build a lumber mill
by the west forest (near where the barracks is). You will get attacked from
the north and north-west of your base, and my suggestion is to actually
destroy your barracks and move it lower into your base; south of the town
hall just out of the way of the miners is where I placed mine. Its just
simpler to have your units training away from the attack area. Anyway the
way I set up my defense was like a triangle essentially, about center of
where the 2 paths intersect. The farms stick out a little bit but that
shouldn't pose too much of a problem. Anyway mine looked like this:
@@@@
@@@#
@@
@#
With @ being the 10 watch towers, and # being two cannon towers. You
probably don't need that many defense towers but I always like to have a
nice solid defense. 8 watch towers should suffice, but I always recommend
having plenty of towers so your less likely to lose them. Anyway once your
lumber mill is finished, grab the masonry upgrade and upgrade all your scout
towers you've build so far. You may be running low on lumber through all
this but your peons should still be coming out so assign them all to lumber,
and add one or two if you want. Once you have all the peasants you need
upgrade to a keep. For now dedicate all resources to finishing your defense
setup.
You will probably have to fend off a few attacks while you are building, so
keep an eye on your units. Use Muradins thunder clap in groups and use his
storm hammer on the lich if it comes by. Keep everyone else healed with
Arthas. Once the keep upgrades get the improved lumber harvesting from the
lumber mill, and the second rank of masonry.
Once you have at least half your watch towers you should be safe to pull all
your units except your heroes back into the base, so go ahead and do that.
Once your defense starts wrapping up, build the blacksmith so you can start
cranking out your upgrades. You will want full rank of all upgrades here.
I suggest building all non-unit producing structures in that passageway
to the south you came up in, just to save some space in your main base.
After that build the workshop, upgrade your last 2 scout towers to cannon
towers after that is complete (if you are placing them in that is), and now
its time to start constructing buildings. Build the altar of kings(required
for castle), followed by the arcane sanctum. You do not have a lot of space
for your base here but the peasants should have cleared a good chunk out of
the forest on the left side by now, so you can use this area down here for
your workshop and sanctum.
Once the altar of kings is finished, upgrade to a castle. If your
blacksmith upgrades are fully qued, upgrade your sorceress and priest adept
training from the sanctum when it is done. At this time double check your
lumber mill and make sure lumber harvesting and masonry upgrades are going
if available.
I realize there are a lot of resources required for so many upgrades, but
with a solid defense there's not a huge rush. Just complete these tasks in
order (Castle first, masonry/lumber harvesting second, blacksmith upgrades,
then adept training) and complete the upgrades as the resources become
available. If lumber continues to be an issue, build another lumber mill
deeper in the forest to save travel time. Its only 170g and can help you
even out resource gathering. You can build it more north if you want, just
keep an eye out for attackers. Reassign all harvesters to the tree nearest
the lumber mill after rebuilding. Train another few peasants if lumbers
REALLY short of your gold total. If you do fall under attack there, send
your heroes over to kite them to the defense towers.
You will probably get attacked a couple more times; the occasional air group
comes in and otherwise the lich with the meat wagons. Remember muradins
storm hammer for the lich, and otherwise just focus arthas and muradins
attacks on the meat wagons. If the gargoyles come in your towers will rip
them apart so no worries there. Keep the towers repaired here. Once
muradin levels up get his avatar ability.
Once the castle is completed and the last ranks of lumber harvesting and
masonry qued, refresh your blacksmith and adept training as needed. After
or while these are being completed, you can start with unit upgrades. You
will want long rifles for riflemen and animal war training for knights. I
would not worry about gyrocopters as they are kind of a wash. They can deal
a lot more damage to enemy gargoyles, but likewise gargoyle air attack is
also very strong, so I would just let your riflemen take care of them.
Gargoyles air to ground attack is not all that great.
So for now its just routine defense and upgrades. Complete all your
upgrades in the relevant order, keep your structures repaired. Once you
start having spare resources have a peasant start rolling out farms up to a
food cap of 90. I suggest building these all the way at the bottom on the
path south of your mine.
Your peasants will probably wind up cutting through the entire forest to the
left of your base. After this happens, build a new lumber mill by the
forest on the right.
Once all your upgrades are qued, you can start training your army. Train 8
knights, 8 riflemen, 3 mortar teams, 4 sorceresses and 4 priests. This
should bring you right up to near the food cap of 90. If you have a few
footmen/the captain left over, just train 1 less knight/riflemen as needed
if you hit the food cap, but keep full amounts of all the other units. If
your gold is low, my suggestion is to hang out at 40 or less food for a bit
and collect gold while you can still grab 10, instead of crossing into low
upkeep and waiting longer to train your army since you will only be getting
7. You can then build a second barracks to train your army quicker. This
is actually a more efficient way to train your army and ensure you are not
waiting a long time between ordering units while sitting at low or high
upkeep. With all upgrades done it should not take long to save a good sum of
gold. For this particular mission the gold mine is plentiful, so whatever
you want to do is up to you, but I would highly recommend camping at no
upkeep and saving a sum of gold. In some missions the gold mine does not
have a lot of gold and receiving only 7 or 4 of the 10 gold from the mine
can kill your resource stability in the end.
If you chose to do this method, just focus your heroes on defense and keep
the towers repaired for the time being. Save up about 4500 gold and build
your second barracks during this time (assuming you need to build from
scratch, your army will cost 6230 gold. I do not include lumber as it is not
associated with upkeep. The remainder of the gold is to be collected during
low upkeep.) I know this sounds like a lot of waiting, but with 4 structures
training your army you will complete your army in less than 5 minutes if you
have all the resources you need by the end. You will spend considerably
longer if you are waiting in high upkeep for that last 20 food worth of
units at a measly 4 gold per harvest. Anyway after you have that gold saved
start training. This won't take long..if you have a full crew on the gold
mine and are only spending on repairs, it will take about 7-9 minutes. You
should then be able to keep units consistently training at each barracks and
the arcane sanctum until you have all the units you need. Just be sure to
level out ques so you do not have, for example, 6 knights in a barracks que
and no casters training from the sanctum.
Anyway, while waiting on the gold you want to be focusing exclusively on
incoming attacks. Take arthas and muradin out to meet attack groups and
take out the meat wagons quickly, then retreat back to base. Once back at
base use storm hammer on the lich to interrupt him and focus him down. The
watch and cannon towers can take care of the rest.
Once you have 4500 gold you will be able to train your attack force fast.
Start by ordering 4 knights from one barracks, 5 riflemen from the other,
your 3 mortar teams from the workshop, and 3 sorceresses and 3 priests from
the sanctum. This will leave about 1700 additional gold to collect while in
low upkeep to finish off your attack force. Be advised, you will move from
low to high upkeep FAST. If you move into high upkeep before all your units
are in que, cancel some structure assembly ques to back out and gather a
little more gold before ordering your final units (just in case you have not
noticed, the food cost for the next unit out of a structure is added to the
total while that unit is being trained). You should not need a whole lot
more gold and if you balanced training, you should only need about 2 max
from any structure. Cap your food off (all the way, you will see why
shortly) and then start hotkeying groups.
Hotkey group 1 arthas, muradin, all your knights and your captain if hes
still around. Group 2 should be arthas and all riflemen. Group 3 should be
arthas and all casters, and group 4 mortar teams. Now we will not be doing
it in this particular mission, but in other missions when in high upkeep, I
will usually instruct to remove peasants from the gold mine when you are in
high upkeep. Reason being because no matter the upkeep, peasants pull 10
gold out of the mine, but you will only be receiving four. So if the gold
mine has 5000 gold left you will only 2000 of it before the mine collapses.
By this ratio it isnt really worth wasting all that gold. This is why you
want to save gold before crossing into high upkeep. The only reason it
doesnt matter on this mission is because the gold mine has a ton of gold and
is very unlikely to collapse.
Anyway back on topic, once you are all hotkeyed wait for an attack, then
send your groups out the north exit of your base in sequence. Stop once you
get to the narrow passageway just before the dead ground, as the undead base
is just ahead. Save here.
Send group 1 in first to engage the units and take the spirit towers, then
send group 2 and group 3 in after. Order your mortar teams shift commands
on the spirit towers. This base is just an outpost, so clear it out
quickly. Your goal here is to let no units die..you will see why.
Once it is cleaned out you will meet up with muradins units and take control
of them. If your food is still capped, you now have about 110 food of units
(nice deal!)
Assign these units into your attack groups; 1 mortar teams and 1 siege tank
into group 4, 3 riflemen into group 2, and gyrocopters into group 1 or 2 (if
you want the gyrocopter upgrade go ahead, but it don't really matter). Now
resave and move out of the outpost down the path to the left here..groups in
sequence as usual. When you get to where the path starts curving south, the
base is just to the left where the blight is.
Same drill here as before: send group 1 in to engage, and once all units are
comfortably on your knights and heroes, send in group 2 followed by group 3,
and assign group 4 to kill the spirit tower just up here. Shift command
them to attack the crypt in the middle following that. Pop Muradins avatar
and use his thunder clap as much as you can. Group 1 will be taking most if
not all of the damage, but that's what you want. Keep your knights macrod
and healed. Once the crypt is down order your siege units to take out the
spirit tower near the bottom, and afterward send them to destroy the black
citadel.
After this the base is pretty much gone; just focus the remaining spirit
towers and unit producing structures..and focus fire the acolytes as they
will be trying to rebuild. Once the base is leveled the mission is over.
===================================
Chapter eight: Dissension (ROCWH8)
===================================
Main quests
+Burn the boats
-Destroy the five ships
-The timer must not reach 0:00
First timed quest, but its not too bad. You do not have a base for this
mission...well not really, you have an altar of kings and a few farms to
limit unit production. In this mission you gain gold from creeps as usual,
and you can purchase creeps from mercenary camps. But I will detail that
when comes the time.
Head down the path to the left, follow the curve up and take out the ghouls
that are here. Muradins thunder clap makes a great ability for these smaller
weaker groups. Continue left and you will spot a spirit tower guarded by a
few units. Order your mortar teams to attack the spirit tower at max range,
and as the units come in to attack the mortar teams send your heroes after
them. Use muradins thunder clap to stun them. Remember you can heal mortar
teams as they are biological so keep them healed up. Clear out the undead
and continue left to come to the first mercenary camp. Just clean them out;
you should have enough gold for the 3 ice trolls the 2 priests and the 3
ogre warriors.
Now that you have an actual attack group, split off your mortar teams and
just use them for attacking spirit towers. Continue left and you will come
across another guarded spirit tower. Order your mortar teams to attack the
spirit tower from the ledge and intercept the defending units as they come
up the ramp near the bottom here. There is another tower in the lower left
of this section that a couple ghouls will come to defend. Grab the ghouls
and take them out of range of the spirit tower. Engage them and at the same
time order your mortar teams to drop this tower. Watch the health on your
trolls as their health total is fairly low. Continue down this path and you
will come across another tower. Use the same method as before; order your
mortar teams on it but this time it is more difficult to pull undead out of
range. Be sure to micro your trolls as they are being attacked since they
will die fast, and watch your mortar teams cause it is very likely they will
get attacked. After this tower and units are down you will spot the first
ship down near the water. Use Muradins storm bolt to sink it.
Continue across the bridge in the lower right and head south, killing the 3
nerubians along the way. Continue south and you will spot a number of
nerubians here. This can be a bit of a fight. Focus down the queen and use
muradins storm hammer to stun her as she will be casting area damage spells.
Use muradins thunder clap also to deal some damage to the skeletons. Use his
avatar here if you want. Keep arthas healing as needed and again keep a
close eye on the trolls.
About this time muradin and arthas will both be leveling. Arthas just has
his divine shield left, and get muradins final rank of storm bolt. Continue
right for the second ship. Use muradins storm hammer once more to take it
down.
Head south for another mercenary camp; purchase the 2 magi and 2 berserkers.
The next area is not too bad, there are just several naga. Use muradins
thunder clap here again to take them out quickly. Attack through here and
head up the path on the left to reach a goblin laboratory. Purchase two
sappers, these will be used to clear the forest to get to the third boat
just below you. Just target to destroy the two trees on the far right of
this portion of forest to clear a path through. Targeting the first one on
the right will drop only the right one, and targeting the one right behind
it will clear the rest of the trees around here. Move through and drop this
boat.
Head north to another merceanary camp. You should have gold for 4-6 units
depending what you buy. I bought out the high priests and maulers and
purchased one trapper. A trapper helps a lot for the next fight. Move down
and right to come across some air. If you grabbed a trapper use the ensnare
to bring one down and have your melee attack it. Now move south and a cut-
scene will occur showing several spirit towers on the side ledges. Take a
hero to the shop and buy the amulet of recall. Arthas works better because
he has divine shield, but muradin works just fine too. Once on the other
side use the amulet to target your attack group (if you have more than 12
then kudos..just take the strongest of them), and drop the fourth boat here.
If you are running real low on time, say a 1:00 or less, just run straight
to the last boat and use Muradins storm hammer. Otherwise, fight through
the last sets of units like normal, but do not worry about the graveyards if
time becomes a factor. Focus down the necromancers first as their skeleton
warriors can overwhelm you. Continue right and up the path here, and
shortly you will come across a large group of undead, including a few
abominations.
Use muradins avatar here again if it is off cooldown, and spam his thunder
clap to take care of the units. Focus fire the abominations, then the rest
of the units. The last ship is right on the other side; take it down to end
the mission.
====================================
Chapter nine: Frostmourne (ROCWH9)
====================================
Main quests
+Frostmourne
-Locate Frostmourne
-Arthas must survive
-Muradin must survive
+MalGanis
-Destroy Malganis base
The first part of this mission is, for lack of a better term, a "split"
mission. You must defend your base and at the same time take Arthas,
Muradin, and a few units through the section on the left side of the map to
retrieve frostmourne. On the plus side, your base is already well
established, fully teched out with a castle, full food supply, and all unit
producing structures (2 bararcks). This is essentially all you need to
produce an army unless you decide to mass gryphon riders..which I will not
go over. This does work as well and if you wish to do so, all tactics will
be the same for the mission except you will not need the damage and armor
upgrades for melees, and will probably want a second aviary. But having a
mixed ground force is more effective, so that is what I will cover
primarily.
Taking care of your base is pretty simple. Start by training 7 additional
peasants: 2 for gold and 3 more for lumber, plus one at each entrance you
will be defending. Also get the lumber harvesting and masonry upgrades from
the lumber mill. Upgrade these all the way as you have resources; this will
be your only initial investment besides towers. Anyway after training
peasants you will cross into high upkeep shortly, and my suggestion is to
just let the footmen die or kill them to drop back down to low upkeep. Grab
all the units in your base (about 15) and move them to where the attack is.
This should bring you back down to low upkeep and you will not need them for
attacking. Building your defense at high upkeep will take too long. The
only units you want to keep alive are riflemen, knights, and priests. Your
gyrocopters and footmen do not have a pressing use during the last attack.
So anyway make sure youre under low upkeep, and then start building towers
at the north and east entrances to the base (10 at each entrance as usual).
You may occasionally get attacked from the southeast entrance but its not
hard to move those attackers toward your east defense towers, and with that
note be sure to build your east entrance defense more to the south so this
is simpler. Your north can just be built in the middle of the path.
Get the peasants assembling scout towers and upgrade them as they come, and
while periodically checking on that, head over to Arthas and his group.
Start moving forward and take care of the 3 wolves here. These creeps will
give you gold so add that to your peasants shift commands and use the gold
to upgrade your defense quicker. Grab the ring of protection +3 and
continue on to see another wolf down the path. He will turn and run and you
can stun him with muradins storm bolt if you want, but I just followed him
back to the pack of wolves. Once here utilize muradins thunder clap and
focus down the level 6 dire wolf. Grab the periapt of vitality +150 and
head left to kill a few more creeps. At this point make sure you have no
idle peasants and if so, put them back to work (they are likely on defense
towers), and double check your lumber mill upgrades.
Double back to the path on the right to head toward a fountain of mana.
From here head north and you will come across some yetis. Focus the level 9
and keep him stunned with stormbolt, and once again use muradins thunder
clap to area damage them down. When he dies he will resurrect so keep
focusing him. After he dies take care of the rest of the yetis. Give the
tome of agility to Arthas. Continue north and take the path right to a
graveyard where you will fight some undead. Area damage works well here
once again, so continue utilizing thunder clap. Make sure you are still
upgrading defense. Continue right and save.
If either of your heroes are critically low on mana, I would suggest taking
them back to the mana fountain quickly. Afterward you will have a brief
cut-scene and afterward, engage the level 10 guardian and focus all fire on
him.
Use muradins storm bolt every time it is off cooldown. He should drop
quick,
after which you will have another video and completion of this objective.
You will now be back at your base and if Arthas was not already, he will now
be level 10. Grab the last rank of divine shield. At this point, the units
you were with during the frostmourne run are now gone and you may consider
making a tactical decision here. If you wish to upgrade quicker, you can
send all the units you do not need on a suicide run into an undead base to
drop back down into no upkeep. This will allow your upgrading to go
quicker.
You may still have some gyrocopters, footmen, or gryphon riders. Killing
those and just keeping your priests, riflemen and knights should keep you in
no upkeep. Again I can understand how this decision is debatable but its
just something I do to speed up upgrading and save gold here as assembling
an attack force from 40 to 90 does not take long, and in my opinion having
the extra 3 gold per harvest speeds things up while preparing. As usual I
suggest keeping all your units you will be attacking with in back of the
base. Arthas is plenty powerful enough to wreck any focus-fire units that
attack your base.
So with that in mind, maintain your two defense grids and start hammering
out your upgrades (all upgrades from blacksmith if you are following my
strategy, iron forged swords and studded leather armor only if you are
massing gryphon riders). Double check and make sure your lumber mill
upgrades are completed first; these are the most important ones. Also make
sure you have peasants on the gold mine, as it is easy to overlook this.
Start grabbing all the usual upgrades as the resources come; all four from
the blacksmith, adept training for priests and sorceresses, long rifles for
riflemen and war training for knights. All the same ones as last mission.
Defending attacks with arthas is a lot easier now; his attack is much more
powerful and he has full rank of divine shield. Harassing enemy bases with
arthas is a great tactic and can ease your life during defense. Just be
sure to save first because you don't want to be getting attacked without
arthas support, nor do you want arthas dying on you. But harassing can be
real effective: your divine shield is a 45 second duration at only a minute
cooldown, so you are immune 75% of the time. Just attack for 45 seconds,
run out during your 15 seconds of cooldown, then reshield and run right back
in.
Anyway we will do this on purples base now. While upgrading take arthas down
the southeast path to the right all the way to purples base. You will spot a
spirit tower out here. Attack that regularly, and when units come to defend
just ignore them. Finish the tower then after it is down run back out of the
base away from the units. If they keep following you that's fine, just run
them to your defense towers. Anyway after that tower is dropped heal arthas
up to full, he shouldn't have taken too much damage.You can let your priests
heal him up as well.
After hes healed fully run back to purples base, saving just before
entering.
Run straight to the black citadel without poping your shield, then after
reaching it THEN pop divine shield. You shouldn't take much damage as you
dropped that first spirit tower and you are outrunning the other units.
Attack the black citadel and use your holy light on any acolytes attempting
to heal it. Once your shield drops continue attacking the citadel and holy
lighting the acolytes, and once your shield is off cooldown pop it again
immediately (should be about 15 seconds and as long as you did not take a
lot of damage on the way in you will be able to get it off before dying).
Finish the black citadel and any other acolytes around here, then retreat
back to your base (its pretty easy to know if there are acolytes left as
they will immediately try summoning a new necropolis. Just keep an eye for
that).
This can obviously be made easier with a healing potion but I don't carry
those because if your like me, you view the passives as much more beneficial
items.
Back at base get arthas healed back up as he is likely pretty low. Finish
off the upgrades; if you have been keeping up you are probably pretty close
to finishing. I will suggest the same strategy as last mission: save up
about 4500 gold and build your whole army after that so you can gather gold
quicker in no upkeep. You may also want to build another lumber mill closer
to trees at this point; it is probably getting to be a long run for your
workers. I suggest building right to the left of the mine.
Anyway you will still be getting attacked by green and purple will send one
last attack at you if you successfully suffocated them (killed all acolytes
and the citadel). Once they attack you take arthas over to purples base and
finish it off. Should only be a few units here and some spirit towers. Have
arthas drop the unit producing structures first, then finish the spirit
towers (the crypts were still producing crypt fiends for me but these were
easily dropped as they came out, so focus those first. The slaughterhouse
was not doing anything). Arthas can regenenerate health almost as quick as
he loses it when fighting fiends. Finish out the base and after that
congratulations; you successfully dropped a base with just one hero. Really
not any hero besides a paladin that can do that...particularly with chaos
attack.
Once the base is leveled you should have just about as much gold as you need
to mass produce your army. You don't have to kill the entire base, just the
unit producing structures (I still like to anyway just for pride :) Just
keep an eye out for meat wagons on the way to your base. Also make sure you
moved your lumber harvesting peasants down to the new lumber mill.
Anyway we will have essentially the same army as last mission: 8 knights, 8
riflemen, 3 sorceresses, 3 priests, but instead of 3 mortar teams we will go
with 3 steam tanks because they are just so much damned more awesomer. (yes,
awesomer). If your massing gryphon riders its a lot simpler; just 2 upgrades
from blacksmith, storm hammer, and about 20 of those things. But I still
recommend mixed ground.
Once these units are all out hotkey, again, the same boring order as last
mission. Knights/captain with arthas in 1, riflemen and arthas in 2, casters
and arthas in 3, steam tanks in 4. Savvy up your defense if you've any extra
resources, and wait for an attack from green. If you get bored you can
harass greens base; just don't try the same thing that you did with purple
cause it won't work here. Just hammer some towers in front and wait for the
attack group with malganis to move out. While your up here though take care
of those meat wagons.
Once your base is getting attacked, its best to head out right now. Your
defense should have no problem taking care of malganis and the rest of the
undead (as long as the meat wagons are down that is) and this will be the
last attack you receive. Stop just outside of the base and save the game.
You want to be outside the southwest entrance (not sure if there are others
but this is where I started)
Send your knights in first as usual to the 2 ziggaurats to draw out defense
units, and engage them. This is a large base, and your main focus should be
in keeping the group together and moving through slowly. Move along the base
straight to the right; do not let your units branch of any other direction.
This is real easy to let happen so watch them carefully. Order your knight
group in first, followed by steam tanks, then riflemen and finally casters.
Move through this row of the base, checking your groups periodically and
healing them as needed. Pay close attention in particular to the riflemen,
as they seem to be the easiest ones to die. Most damage should be getting
taken by the knights if you took them in first though. Move to the right
side of the base and if malganis comes down here, focus fire on him. DO NOT
chase him into the top portion of the base; if he runs back let him go.
Once this part of the base is cleared out if you got dropped into low
upkeep, you may want to reinforce your attack group before continuing. Set
the rally point near here if you do this but make sure its far to the right
or they may go through an outpost just north of your base. The north side
of the base has a lot of spirit towers and produces units fairly quickly and
if you don't have a strong attack force, you risk wiping out your whole
group.
Once you are ready to continue the attack, head north through here, keeping
your steam tanks just behind the knights and the riflemen and casters behind
them. The steam tanks can take an enormous beating so don't worry much if
they are getting attacked, just micro them. Just let them plow through this
part of the base, killing the buildings in order, but keep them and as much
of your group as possible hugging the right side as you advance. Take out
the 2 spirit towers to the left and then the gold mine, and clear out this
upper right portion (don't worry about the 2 far north spirit towers just
yet).
Once this area is reasonable clear send EVERYONE onto the black citadel.
Once that is dead back your group out of here and move back in again in
regular unit sequence. At this point focus your steam tanks on the spirit
towers and let your attack force take care of unit producing structures and
whatever comes out of them. There won't be much left of the base now, but
you
do want to obviously kill the acolytes if they are around and any new
buildings being summoned in. After the citadels dead just mop up the rest of
the base; should be fairly simple and that will do it for this mission.
=========================================================================
VI. Undead campaign: Path of the Damned (ROCWUX)
=========================================================================
The undead campaign is quite a bit of fun; particularly after fighting
against them nearly every mission of the human campaign. Now you get to
experience the combat from the undead side. The missions vary a great deal
in their objectives and you will notice that as you play through the undead
campaign. You will get some good items for your hero early on unlike the
human campaign, which is nice.
===================================================
a. Chapter one: Trudging through the Ashes (ROCWU1)
===================================================
Main quests
+Rescue Acolytes
-Rescue 20 Acolytes (24 on hard)
-Arthas must survive
Optional quests
+Find the graveyard
-Bring Arthas to the graveyard
-Arthas must survive
-I will be covering this mission on hard as mentioned at the beginning of
the guide. If you are playing on normal, you will just need 4 less
acolytes, but the way I wrote it out it pretty much ends at the same time.
There may also be less villagers on normal so if there are not villagers
where I mention them, just skip that part.
The first mission of the undead campaign, and the first mission of its kind
in the game, is essentially a stealth mission. Your goal this mission is to
rescue acolytes in the human town, while evading guards. Most acolytes are
nearby townsfolk, and a death coil will drop them in one hit which is
usually the best method to do. You also have a couple ghouls with you, but
use them sparingly. As with the humans, Arthas death coil can heal your
fellow units.
Now on to the mission. If you are spotted by a villager, he will run to grab
guards. The guards will then return to where you were spotted. If you are
no longer here they will return to their post. Some acolytes it makes sense
just to run to them in the plain sight of villagers, and just retreat quick
enough to miss the guards. Anyway, once you start, head left down the path
and you will meet up with an acolyte. Continue up and you will spot a
townsfolk next to another acolyte. Death coil the townsfolk and run up to
the acolyte to rescue him. Next head left from here and you will see another
acolyte next to a townsfolk between the houses in this area to the left.
This one you can save your mana and just attack regular.
There is a crate with a potion of healing on the right side of this area
next to the 2 guards. Killing the guards isnt really worth the time, but to
get the potion right click the crate below them, grab the potion, and just
run back up the path you came in on till they stop chasing you. This is the
best thing to do whenever you catch attention, since fighting guards is time
consuming and Arthas at level 1 is not that strong. Once you are done here
cross the river to the left to meet up with a shade on the other side.
Your shade will do you well this mission. It is good to get into a habit of
scouting EVERYWHERE with your shade before moving in (obviously). Scout
south of here with him and you will notice a patrol with a captain and 4
footmen running around a barracks in the middle. This path is just a circle
around that. Now it is time to utilize your ghouls. Start by letting the
patrol pass by, then head north between the trees toward the water, kill the
villagers along the way and rescue this acolyte. Head back to the starting
point. Your goal now is to avoid/kill the patrol and kill the two knights
sitting in front of the barracks. Easiest way to do this is to park your
shade on the southwest portion of the path, and try to make it so the shade
provides vision of the entire left path. Now wait for the patrol to head up
the path to the right of the barracks and left, and take arthas and the
ghouls down the path to the right of the barracks and take out the three
townsfolk. The first one can be attacked regularly; the next two will likely
activate at the same time so attack one and death coil one. Destroy the
lumber mill and rescue the next acolyte here. Destroy the crates for another
potion of healing.
I will also provide a strategy for killing the patrol fairly easily. It is a
bit time consuming but the captain does drop a greater potion of healing
which can greatly come in handy Take your ghouls and arthas in range of the
patrol, and once they come to attack you, kite them all the way back to
tichondrius. Stay near them while kiting. A couple of them will usually
split off but you can usually get 2-3 of them back to tichondrius, allowing
for fairly easy killing. It will take tichondrius a bit of time to kill them
so you will need to watch your ghouls. Just run them around and heal as
needed. After this you can either try running the last two back as well or
just kill them; it is not that bad killing only two.
Anyway, back to the barracks. This fight is a bit tough at this level, but
you should still have two or three healing potions (if you did not get the
first one, I recommend doubling back to where the two footmen at the start
of the mission were. Also a greater healing potion if you killed the
patrol). Use your shade to keep an eye for the patrol while up here if you
did not kill them: seat him on the left path. I do strongly recommend
killing it though. Anyway as far as fighting the knights it helps to drag
them onto the path to assist in micro. Arthas can only death coil a few
times so you want to micro the ghouls whenever the knights are attacking
them. This is a much simpler fight with the knights on arthas. Focus fire
one knight down obviously and use your healing potions as needed (you will
probably need both of them). Once one knight is down finish the other one.
If one ghoul is critically low, drag the remaining knight away a little bit
and use cannibalize (granted you are out of mana). If you spot the patrol
coming (if applicable), retreat to the side where the lumber mill was.
Sometimes the knights will follow you, sometimes they do not. If they do
just be ready to finish them. If this fight is giving you trouble, my
suggestion is run arthas and the ghouls in and drop one knight, and then
retreat back up the path across the river until they stop following you.
Heal up or regenerate health and mana and then finish off the last knight.
Either way once the knights are gone, set your ghouls out of harms way and
attack the barracks. If the patrol is still around youll need to watch out
for them. There is only room for arthas alone or both ghouls alone to attack
the barracks, and arthas is best. Both ghouls can attack it but its about
the same rate of damage and arthas can retreat faster and take more damage.
It takes quite awhile to take the barracks down but as I mentioned before if
you want you can kite the patrol back to tichondrius to save time. If the
patrol is dead Arthas has likely leveled and if not, he will shortly. I
suggest the passive for greater move speed and regeneration as your
secondary attribute. Primary is death coil obviously.
With the barracks down kill the horses to the left and one will drop a ring
of protection +2. This is of great assistance this mission as Arthas is
pretty weak. Once all this nonsense is said and done head out of the area
with the barracks and take the left path. There are a couple villagers
here; if the patrol is still around make sure they are on the far side
before engaging; otherwise its open season. Take care of them and continue
left to find another acolyte.
From here head north with your units on the path just to where it starts to
head right, then take a left across the river and on the other side leave
your ghouls here and hug the left tree line and continue north just to where
the tree line ends and some houses appear. Move your shade into the area
just ahead of you and you will see an acolyte right in here and a townsfolk
to the right. Carefully run up to the acolyte to activate him without
agroing the townsfolk. If he does agro just run back into the treeline until
a guard shows up and leaves.
There is also a crate with a greater mana potion to the right of the
townsfolk here that I suggest getting. You will agro the knights though.
Just be quick about it; run over, right click the crate, grab the potion and
run back to the treeline and back down to the river. You should escape the
knights range; if you do not just grab your ghouls and keep running till you
do. Knights do not generally chase far though.
Now back in this little town, use your shade to scout the rest of the area.
As you will notice the left side is basically clear of all patrols but does
have a number of villagers. At this point grab your ghouls and move them
along with arthas up into the village on this left side. Now then, observe
the tree in the upper left of this area, next to the two houses. As you move
forward, a villager will pop out of here; take him out. Next, you will spot
two villagers on the left just past the first house, with another that
patrols to and from here. Wait till the patrol is with these two and take
your units in to clear them all. With all your units blocking their exit you
shouldn't have a problem stopping them from escaping and additionally saving
arthas mana. Head all the way up to rescue another acolyte.
Head right and kill the two villagers that are here. There is an acolyte
just south of here with a group of villagers and a couple guys fighting.
Park your ghouls in the top left and run arthas through the opening in the
trees here right over to the acolyte. Right after the acolyte activates
quickly run back to the top left with your ghouls and wait for the guards
to come over and head back. Move your shade to the right of where the
villager fight is going on. A knight is patrolling back and forth: move
arthas and the ghouls past the night when it moves down and onto the path to
the right. There is another acolyte south of where this path starts: hug the
tree line at the end of the fence as you head down and you will spot the
acolyte behind some houses here.
Head back over to the path, head right and into the graveyard here. Your
army just got a little larger which will be nice to have in due time, and
this completes the optional objective (Yes, falling off the right side of
the path for four free units is, in fact, an optional objective). If you
still have both your starting ghouls you will now have four ghouls and three
skeleton warriors. I will just say this once; MAKE SURE you keep at least
one ghoul alive. You will see why in a bit.
Continue north to the gate, but lets not attack it just yet. Head left and
you will spot a town hall getting attacked by bandits. Jump into this fight
and attack the militia while the bandits and them are engaging each other.
Watch the health of your skeleton warriors. If they get critically low use
death coil. Finish these weak units off and drop the town hall. Head to the
lower left portion of this area to rescue another acolyte. After that head
north of the town hall into the corn field to rescue yet another acolyte.
Now, take the path left and at the fork take the bottom path. Rescue the
acolyte here, and head back onto the path to the top fork. You will come
across more bandits. Attack them in any particular order (focusing the
weaker down first may be better as I dont notice any abilities on the level
4), and grab the healing potion and spider ring that drop. Rescue the
acolyte up here as well.
After this is done cannibalize with your ghouls if they need health. Now
head back to the gate and drop it. You will be greeted by two footmen
chasing an acolyte. Focus fire one and after they are dead pick up the
potion of healing and rescue the acolyte if you have not already. He will be
in front of the gate if so. I would suggest scouting this whole area with
your shade first. I will go over it but its just a good idea to get a
general idea of the layout and patrols.
Your first route here will be the immediate path to the south. Down here is
an acolyte with 3 villagers, and further south a knight and footman. With
such a good size force we will start killing these small groups like this.
Head straight down to them and focus the footman, then the knight. Micro any
skeleton warriors who are being attacked immediately, and micro ghouls after
they have been attacked a few times. Get the acolyte you passed then
continue right. Where the road splits wait here for a couple footmen
patrols. Drop them both and head south. Follow the path over, kill more
villagers and get the acolyte near the tree on the top side of the path.
There are a couple more villagers further up here who will run up to
a group of footmen and a captain near some cages and four acolytes. Try to
kill them but if they get too far ahead just run back to the fork in the
road until the captains group comes and goes.
With this done there is a secret area we will now head into. From the fork
in the road, observe the path to the south you just came in on. When this
path turns to go straight east,there is a small tree between two houses here
on the south side of the road (a small red house on the left and a tall blue
house on the right. This is almost directly south of where you rescued the
acolyte). Use your ghouls and attack this tree. After cutting it down cut
down the next tree behind it, and keep cutting your way south until you come
to a clearing with a rocky hill on the right and a river on the left. Now
bring the rest of your attack group in here. Arthas can require a bit of
space so if he doesnt fit just cut more trees to make the path wider. Once
all your units are in this clearing head right till you come to a rocky
wall.
To the north of this wall are more trees. Clear them out once again so
arthas can fit through. Take your whole group to the other side of this
wall, and once here head to the top right and you will spot three golems.
Attack the level 6 first, then the level threes. Micro any unit being
attacked; these golems will drop pretty quick. After they are dead pick up
the nice gauntlets of ogre strength +3 and head back out to the main mission
area.
Now head all the way back to the gate. This time we will take the path on
the right. Follow it over and you will activate some villagers who will
fetch a footman and knight. Focus the footman again and kill them both.
Continue right past the cathedral and hug the houses on the north. Heal up
real quick and then kill the villager up here, and kill another one just
south. After this head down south and get ready to fight the footmen and the
captain in front of the cages.
Focus the footmen down one at a time, and save the captain for last. If you
still have all or most of your units this won't pose much problem. After
they are dead grab the potion of greater healing and run over to grab the
four acolytes. This will do it for normal.
For hard mode you should just need one more acolyte and he is just south of
the cages in the group of houses here, hiding behind a house near the path.
Go rescue him and that's it for hard mode.
=============================================
b. Chapter two: Digging up the dead (ROCWU2)
=============================================
Main quests
+Recover remains
-Kill the Paladin
-Bring Arthas to Kel'Thuzads tomb
-Arthas must survive
+Establish a base
-Build a Necropolis
-Haunt a gold mine
-Build a Crypt
-Build 3 Ziggurats
+Claim the Urn
-Kill the Paladins
-Recove the Urn
For the first part of this mission you will not have a base. Set up a group
with the ghouls and Arthas, and your meat wagons separately obviously. Make
sure to turn on their auto-gather corpse option. Head down the path to the
right and take out the scout tower here however you please, and then move
Arthas and the ghouls further down the path to take out the footmen. Keep
your meat wagons out of range, as their splash attack will also affect your
units. You can use them to pull the footmen from afar and have your
standard
units intercept if you want, just be sure to pull them back afterward.
Now move forward for a brief cut-scene, and then order your meat wagons onto
the watch towers. Do not worry as no units will come out to defend. Take
out those and the farms and then continue forward. There will be 4 footmen
in formation ahead, a cannon tower on the bottom, a watch tower on top and
two farms in front of each one of those. Get your meat wagons in a straight
vertical line and order them to attack the ground on one of the sides where
the footmen are standing so you get both of them. Attack them just once and
then move your meat wagons way back out of range when the footmen come to
attack you. Make sure arthas and the ghouls stay out of the cannon towers
range. Have them intercept the footmen and focus down the low health ones.
You should be able to do this without losing any. After the footmen are
cleared out order your meat wagons to take out the defense towers, followed
by the farms. Now clear out one of Arthas spots in inventory (healing
potion is probably the best to drop but its up to you), heal up, and move
forward to engage the paladin and four footmen. Be sure to roll your meat
wagons back.
Focus the paladin down first, as he will heal the footmen. He is only level
two so he will drop fairly fast. You will need to micro your ghouls as death
coil will use your mana quick and they will probably die faster than the
cooldown refreshes. Once the paladin dies he will drop a scroll of healing.
Use this to heal up your ghouls as needed and focus down the footmen in any
order.
Once they are down bring your meat wagons back up and kill the remaining
structures if you want, and then bring arthas into the graveyard just to the
southeast of you and to the circle here to complete the first objective.
After the brief video you must establish a base. First thing I suggest doing
is moving your meat wagons to the back of your base to avoid their splash
damage. Have one acolyte haunt the gold mine, and another build a Necropolis
on the northwest side of your base. Best place to build it is right next to
the western forest, just south of the corn stalks there. This reason for
this positioning is so that your upgraded necropolis can help with defense.
You cannot build anything else until the necropolis or gold mine completes
and establishes blight. Once this is done send your ghouls to harvest
lumber, have an acolyte build a graveyard as close to the forest right
as you can, and another one build two ziggurats just to the north of the
necropolis. Remember acolytes need only start the summoning; then they can
move on to other tasks. If you get attacked before you have a few spirit
towers pull your ghouls to help. Once you have the resources build a crypt,
and once the ziggurats complete convert them to spirit towers, and train one
additional acolyte. Rally him to the gold mine and pull another acolyte to
continue building ziggurats on the north side of the base. Eight will be
enough for defense. You will get attacked by a few footmen soon, so if need
be pull your ghouls to help. Once your ziggurats are all build and upgraded,
upgrade the necropolis to a halls of the dead. Leave your acolyte near the
ziggurats for repair.
Now when you have resources get the upgrades from the graveyard, and after
the halls of the dead completes you can build a slaughterhouse if you need
to (if you still have the three meat wagons you do not need anymore), and
build another crypt when you can. After this is done you can start training
ghouls in mass. I suggest training up to 70 food, but no more after that.
You don't need a ton for attacking. A good habit to get into when training
ghouls before attacking is just rally them all to lumber. If you do that
lumber will pretty much never be a problem. It sure as hell won't be this
mission since ghouls don't cost lumber and if you still have all six from
earlier, youll have about 3000 now and a barren wasteland on the right side
of your base, but just for reference. With two crypts you will have 70 food
of ghouls in a few minutes, and after that hotkey your ghouls with arthas
(including all the ones on lumber), should be two full groups and one with a
few. Hotkey your meat wagons after that and before we attack the alliance,
take your two full groups south out of your base. By now arthas should have
leveled, so get rank two of death coil.
Cross the river and clear the three level six golems out of this area.
After that observe the elevated ledge to your right, and follow that to the
south till you come to a ramp. Move up here and a level 9 golem will
emerge. Kill him and pick up the pendant of energy for arthas (This item
helps an enormous deal as arthas mana pool does not allow for many death
coils).
You probably lost a few ghouls while attacking the level 9, so refresh your
attack group and move arthas and all the ghouls back to blight for faster
health regeneration. Between blight and arthas aura they will heal back to
near full once your attack groups are refilled.
Now with your groups set back up again, save and move forward. You can wait
to counterattack if you wish but its not necessary. Take the northwest path
out of your base. Hotkey your crypts if you have not already to routinely
refresh ghouls, and set their rally point to your meat wagons. Follow the
path up and after you head between the fence you will come to the first
paladin. Focus fire him till he pops his shield, then go after the footmen.
Make sure to MOVE your ghouls to the units here;if you attack-move them they
may attack the buildings nearby instead. Once the units are gone pick up the
potion if you have space and move up your meat wagons to attack the barracks
a little further northwest of here. At the same time order more ghouls out
of your crypts to bring you back up to 70 food if you lost any. After the
barracks is dead have your meat wagons continue on the farms if you want and
move your ghouls and arthas south of where you killed the paladin to engage
some more alliance. Take them out in any order and refresh your attack group
a little more if necessary.
Once you have trained all the ghouls you need, refill your attack groups
(the reason I rallied to the meat wagons is so that they are easier to keep
track of for grouping) and continue south down the path through the opening
in the wall. There is a crate on the left with a potion of mana. If you
have any potions of healing I suggest replacing them with this. Continue
down and if you come across more alliance take care of them. Alliance still
regularly
send attacks to your base and this is the route they take so be prepared for
them. Continue refreshing ghouls as needed and keeping your meat wagons a
fair distance behind the group. Remember your ghouls can cannibalize if
they need health to save arthas mana, which he is probably low on.
Anyway follow the path down till it curves to head left,regenerate your mana
and heal up, and head left to engage the next paladin. Focus the paladin
first of course and then the rest of the units after. After the units are
dead move your group back and bring the meat wagons up to take out the watch
tower just northwest of here. Grab the gloves of haste that the paladin
dropped (if you have any consumables I suggest replacing one of those;
healing potion preferred. If you use healing potions a lot though the spider
ring is the least effective passive item you have at this time. Level the
structures in this area. Remember to take care of the barracks in the upper
left. Once these structures are gone watch the the video.
By now you probably have a ridiculous amount of gold, so you can max your
food limit. Just keep a full que of ghouls in the crypts at all times. You
will need a fourth group for ghouls (or you can fill the third group and
leave the other ones following the meat wagons to refresh these groups
with).
Once your food limit is capped get a full que on the crypts and now you will
not need to worry about queing for awhile.
Anyway after the video send all your units (save for the meat wagons) south
to engage uther. He will shield so take care of the other units here. Have
each attack group focus its own unit and after they are dead wait out uthers
shield and focus him down. After he is dead there is a scroll of protection
in a crate near the tents just south of you if you want it. Grab that if
you do and then pick up the urn to complete the mission.
==================================================
c. Chapter three: Into the Realm Eternal (ROCWU3)
==================================================
Main quests
+The Elfgate
-Destroy the High Elf base (blue) guarding the elfgate.
As this mission starts you are thrown right into combat as you level a high
elf outpost. One acolyte automatically begins haunting the goldmine to the
north (confirm this and make sure it doesnt get destroyed), so take another
one and build your necropolis right next to the forest on the south side of
this base, center between the southwest and southeast paths. Turn on your
necromancers auto-cast for skeleton warriors, as you will get attacked soon
by. Once you do focus down Sylvanus first, followed by the rest of the
units. You want your ghouls to survive primarily, but try to keep all your
units alive. Turn off auto-cast for skeletal warriors after the battle.
Once the necropolis completes have your ghouls start harvesting lumber and
returning it to the necropolis for now. Build two ziggurats on each side of
the necropolis as far south as you can and upgrade to a halls of the dead
right away. Your next task will be a graveyard; build this next to the
forest by the gold mine. Build a crypt as well, but you can build it out of
the way as you will not need it for much. Once the ziggurats complete
upgrade them and train one additional acolyte and send him to the gold mine.
Take your construction acolyte back down to the south and build two
additional ziggurats on each side of the necropolis. Build them vertically
on each side as close to the necropolis as you can get it; build one on top
and one on bottom for each side (your ghouls should have cleared the forest
away by now). Upgrade these all when they complete and this will be more
than sufficient for defense.
Now when you have the resources build two temples of the damned and a
slaughterhouse, and get only the damage upgrade from the graveyard. Your
attack group will consist almost entirely of necromancers. You will want
about 6 total meat wagons and the rest of the group necromancers. At this
time turn on your meat wagons auto-collect corpses if you have not yet and
move them near the graveyard to fill up on corpses. Once the temple(s)
complete get the skeletal longevity and adept training upgrades.
If you still have your three meat wagons train three more and if you still
have the five ghouls you started with, kill one or two off to stay in "no
upkeep". You probably have more than enough lumber by now anyway. Order
your ghouls to now harvest the forest next to the graveyard. Have your newly
trained meat wagons collect corpses as well and as a meat wagon fills up,
move it away from the graveyard. Once about three meat wagons are filled up
start training necromancers.
Keep all necromancers auto-cast off of course. Train them up to 70 food and
form them into the first two attack groups with arthas in each one. After
this is done you should have about 18 necromancers. Let your meat wagons
finish filling up on corpses if they need to;you shouldn't have many left to
get. Assign your meat wagons into another attack group and head out of your
base down the southwest path.
Move down to the runes and once you get there bring up your meat wagons and
order them to attack the ground at the trees. After they are cleared out
wide enough for your wagons to fit through,move them through and move arthas
southwest just enough to spot the first defense tower to the elf base. Line
up your meat wagons outside the base (do not attack yet) and save your game.
You may get attacked out here (once the trees were destroyed it opened a
path for your base to get attacked by), so be ready in case that occurs.
Just take them out regularly; do not spawn any skeletons.
Anyway when you are lined up, order each group of necromancers to summon
skeletons and they will do so from your meat wagons. After this turn on
auto-cast for them and send your skeleton warriors into the base. Keep your
necromancers and meat wagons out of the battle for now. Let your
necromancers continue summoning skeleton warriors and sending them in as
they come until all the units that come to attack are finished off. At this
point move your meat wagons up just to take out the defense tower. Continue
advancing your skeleton warriors through the base but again leave your meat
wagons and necromancers back a bit. Clear out any additional units and then
order your meat wagons to destroy the defense tower in the middle of the
base near the town hall. Once you have a decent foothold in the base turn
off your necromancers auto-cast and start moving your acolytes that were
harvesting the gold mine down here (it has more than likely collapsed by
now). Order an acolyte to haunt this gold mine once the majority of the base
is leveled. After that with the gold you have (you should have quite a bit
still), refresh your necromancer and meat wagon groups as needed and rally
them down to this area. If you need quite a few of them have every other
meat wagon that comes out collect corpses from the graveyard at your main
base and then move them down to your outpost once they are full. While your
acolytes are waiting on the gold mine to be haunted have them repair your
meat wagons as needed. Build a graveyard down here too, and 8 ziggurats on
the right side of your outpost. After this use an acolyte to unsummon an
equal number of ziggurats from your base. You will get attacked down here so
when you do use arthas and skeleton warriors to fight and keep the rest of
your units back. If you get attacked prior to your defense towers being
established summon skeleton warriors and immediately after move your meat
wagons and necromancers out of the fight. After any fight roll your meat
wagons over to collect the corpses. If you have not already spend arthas
attribute point in unholy aura. Once your groups are refreshed up to 70 food
order your first group of necromancers to summon skeletons, and send the
skeletons with arthas out of the base to the southeast, and take the first
left to reach a fountain of mana. Kill the golems guarding it. Pick up the
potion of healing if you want. Let your necromancers and arthas hang out
down here to restore mana as needed.
Once your groups are refreshed, wait for an attack from blue at your
outpost.
Send skeleton warriors out to kill the ballistas. After blue attacks you
save, collect the corpses, and send your whole group southeast out of the
base. Follow the path till just before it turns to go right, and at this
point turn on auto cast for your necromancers and send skeleton warriors
down to eliminate the units and defense tower to the south of the curve.
After it is down move your group just north of this area, before the river.
Continue summoning skeleton warriors and attack them to the location of the
blue gate as they come out. Keep your meat wagons and necromancers back for
now, and watch arthas health. Slowly advance your units across the river as
the skeletons push into the base, and once you have a decent foothold in
here move your meat wagons back to the back of your group and send your
necromancers in just behind the skeleton warriors. Use micro on ANY
necromancer getting attacked, regardless of health, as you want your
skeletons to be taking all the damage. Focus meat wagons on defense towers
first, unit producing structures second. If sylvanis spawns focus all fire
on her. After you've cleared all the attacking units from the base and your
attack force is all inside, turn off auto-casting for skeletons (it doesnt
matter this mission but its a good habit to get into so you don't use all
your mana). Finish the base off the complete the mission.
Note about this attack method: I will use this method of attack for a good
portion of the missions as it is very effective and really a part of what
the undead are about; swarming a base and overwhelming the enemy. Its also
real cheap since your main combat units are summons and can just die left
and
right without a worry. It takes a bit of practice to get used to
controlling all the factors but once you get it down it works better than
any other strategy in my opinion. It is the same anytime you use it. Get
all your meat wagons loaded with corpses, keep them at the front of the
attack group until you reach the outside of the base, and start summoning
skeleton warriors to send in. Send in only skeleton warriors until any
defending units and structures are destroyed, then move your whole group
forward, skeleton warriors leading, followed by necromancers, and finally
meat wagons. Turn off auto casting once all defending units are dead to
save mana. The biggest problem tends to be meat wagons and necromancers
being attacked: both are fairly weak. If you find this being a problem you
can keep them out of combat for longer or even entirely. Just bring
necromancers in behind the battle to summon more skeletons from the corpses
and retreat them once more. You can have quite a few skeleton warriors
overwhelming the base and can destroy bases using them exclusively.
==============================================
Chapter four: Key of the Three Moons (ROCWU4)
==============================================
Main quests
+Three Moons
-Destroy the three High Elf Altars
-Collect all three mooncrystals
This mission can be very annoying during the transition phase (You need to
tear down your base and rebuild it somewhere else), and I am sure there are
numerous ways to do it. However in this mission you need to attack two
fairly strong bases while being unable to easily run back to defend your
original base, so that is why I adopted the strategy I used here. It is
time consuming but is the safest way to go about it.
At the start of the mission group all your offensive units together and head
southeast of where you started. You will come across a small elf outpost.
Take care of the flying units (the crypt fiends you got should net them
automatically) and once they are done with have one acolyte haunt the gold
mine and another build a necropolis on the north side of your base, directly
beneath the opening in the forest that leads to the river, at the top of the
dirt. This is the best position to use to build spirit towers around for
your defense, which consists of a number of air units. Once the gold mine
completes have all your acolytes on that, and once the necropolis finishes
order your ghouls to harvest the forest near it, upgrade it to a halls of
the dead immediately, and grab an acolyte to build two ziggurats and a
graveyard near the forest by the gold mine.. Build the ziggurats on either
side of the necropolis. What you will do for defense is build ziggurats
(spirit towers) on the left and top sides of the necropolis; about two rows
of 3 on the left side and 3-4 towers along the top. Keep the necropolis
center behind these tower setups. You will be getting attacked very soon.
Keep the ghouls on lumber and activate the necromancers auto-casting. The
crypt fiends along with arthas and these should be more than sufficient to
fend off the first minor attack. After the attack if the graveyard is done
upgrade your ziggurats. If not do so as soon as possible. The halls of the
dead should complete soon after that and when it does, train two more
acolytes. Keep 5 on gold and 1 on building/repair. Also once your ghouls
clear out the majority of forest near the necropolis you can send them down
to harvest near the graveyard. Commit all resources to defense till you
have about 10 spirit towers. After your defense is established again use
only arthas to assist in defense and save your necromancers and crypt
fiends.
When this is done build a temple of the damned, a crypt, and a
slaughterhouse. If you do not have a lot of space just place them where the
ghouls have cleared forest. You should have a ton of lumber by now anyay.
Start queing up upgrades from the graveyard; this time you will want ALL of
them. You have two levels now. When the temple of the damned completes grab
the necromancer upgrades as well. You will be getting routinely attacked by
sylvanus on the ground and air from the north side, so defend against those
as normal. When Arthas levels up get the last rank of death coil.
Continue upgrading and routinely defending and when done with all upgrades,
move arthas out the right exit of the base to find a couple zeppelins. Be
sure to repair the spirit towers on the north side of your halls of the dead
as the air can do a bit of damage to them. Anyway once you have these four
zeppelins you can start building your attack force. Your goal is 11 crypt
fiends, 11 necromancers, and 6 meat wagons. You will cross into high upkeep
by doing this and the gold mine does not have a high limit, so harvest the
entire mine before crossing into over 70 food.If you want more peace of mind
you can just save up all the gold you need while in no upkeep like last
campaign. Assuming you need to purchase all units it is 6240 gold. I would
personally wait till the mine is down to about 3000 before crossing into any
upkeep however, because affording the attack force does not leave a lot of
leeway when it comes to how much gold you will have left when the mine
collapses.
So use your own judgment as far as managing your gold, but if you have any
doubts, I would just harvest the entire mine before building your force
beyond 40. Just make sure to keep your ziggurats repaired if you do this
because you can't afford to lose them. Use arthas death coil on enemy units
to help drop them faster, particularly the air and sylvanus.
Anyway with all this nonsense aside, train your meat wagons first so they
start gathering corpses. If you fall short on gold for any reason leave meat
wagons out, but keep at least three. After that alternate between crypt
fiends and necromancers. After defending attacks roll meat wagons over for
corpses as well.
So after your gold mine collapses spend the remainder of your gold save for
at least 300, and finish off what you can of your attack force. Don't spend
more than a few minutes doing this though because you don't want to keep
spending gold on repairs or new towers as you are not receiving any. Once
you are ready hotkey your groups: 1 with arthas and crypt fiends, 2 with
necromancers and arthas, and 3 with meat wagons. Load into the zeppelins
(if you have the entire attack force,you will be a space or two short but
that's
alright, just grab when you come back for your acolytes shortly), save, head
out the right side of your base just across the river, and drop your entire
force on the runes. Shift command your zeppelins back across the river once
this is done, but make sure all units are unloaded.
You will be dropped into combat quick, but will not get attacked very
strongly at first. Order your necromancers to summon skeletal warriors, and
order the skeleton warriors and crypt fiend groups to attack in. At the same
time, retreat your necromancers and meat wagons back a little bit to keep
them out of trouble for now. Turn off auto casting once you have cleared the
defending units; this base is not very strong so save your mana (I basically
just ordered necromancers to summon skeletal warriors twice, auto cast is
not necessary if you prefer). Once you have formed ranks somewhat you can
move your necromancers and meat wagons in. Once you turn off auto casting
and have a foot in the base, you will want to move your whole base over
here. Go back to one of your zeppelins and load all but one acolyte in.
Take them to where you are attacking and drop them near the gold mine on the
east side of the base after it is cleared out. Start haunting the gold mine
with the 300 gold you saved, and while that is building have your other
acolyte unsummon your whole other base. Then start a necropolis at your new
base (just above the gold mine as far right as you can is where you want
it), and a graveyard on the left forest. At this time move arthas south to
the altar and destroy it for the first piece of the mooncrystal.
You will assemble your defense uniquely in this area, as all attacking units
come through the waygate (with the occasional exception of some flying
units), and you will want to exclusively focus on defense until your food
cap is reached once again. Then you can refresh workers if needed and build
the unit production structures (after defense is upgraded). Once the
goldmine completes have all acolytes on there (upkeep is of no concern), and
after the necropolis completes pull one as needed to assemble ziggurats. If
there are still any stragglers at your old base go pick them up. You may
get attacked a couple times here before defense is up so keep your crypt
fiends and necromancers near the waygate, with your meat wagons back out of
combat range.
Anyway you will want your ziggurats to surround the waygate up here. Build a
couple right in front of the gate, leaving just enough space for your
reinforcements to make it through. Once you have a few building send group 1
through the waygate and take care of the outpost on the other side. There is
not much here so the crypt fiends are more than enough to level this area.
However if you get a full-scale attack from blue or teal run back to your
base. Clear this entire place out, including the defense towers in front of
both waygates (there is one in the top center and one further to the west),
and go back through the gate to your base. Upgrade your ziggurats, and
start surrounding the gate as much as you can with them. Also upgrade to a
halls of the dead as soon as possible. Spend the rest of the resources you
have on defense here. If you are in low upkeep, stay and finish your base
(build at least 10 ziggurats around the way gate and the same structures as
before. After this refresh your attack group, same numbers as before, and
resume attack.) If you are in high upkeep, wait for an attack from either
blue or teal, defend it, and then take your group back through the waygate
and attack the relevant base (if you fall below high upkeep while defending
the attack, use the low upkeep strategy and finish your base. The reason for
the attack with high upkeep strategy is because in high upkeep it takes a
long time to fully assemble your base). Anyway while attacking, if blue
attacked you, take the far west gate. If teal attacked you, take the center
north gate. Continue with your defense if you attack a base, and make sure
you have at least 6 or so spirit towers before attacking in case you get
attacked by the other color. Alternatively; if you get attacked by BOTH blue
and teal within about 30 seconds of each other and have a fair size attack
force (3-4 meat wagons and 7-8 necromancers/fiends), just attack. Its a safe
time to attack as you won't have to defend your base at least till one of
them is leveled.
While you are attacking, always be producing more units for units you are
losing, but just leave them at your base. You will want to be able to finish
off the second base fairly quickly after the first one is gone, as you've
probably had enough of this mission already.
Both the next areas are main bases, and the strategy will be the same for
both. Make sure your necromancers have reasonable mana, heal/regenerate
your units, and move your meat wagons next to the gate. Refresh your attack
force as needed. Summon one round of skeleton warriors and send them in.
Immediately after send your crypt fiend group in, then necromancers, then
meat wagons. Activate necromancer auto casting once more and this time leave
it on the whole attack, or at least until all you have left are farms,
blacksmiths, etc. Order meat wagons onto defense towers, and make sure to
routinely reorder your skeleton warriors to attack into the base. Otherwise
they can end up just sitting around. Focus down sylvanus (at blue) whenever
she is up, and otherwise keep meat wagons on defense towers and your other
units on units primarily. Let your skeleton warriors attack whatever they
find. Clear the base down.
Once the base is cleaned out kill the altar in the area for the second
mooncrystal. You will need to clear another spot out of your inventory
TEMPORARILY to pick up the second and third pieces (after its picked up it
slots into the first mooncrystal). Yes, screw all these inventory slots
lost, I know.
Once you have one base down head back to your base and refresh your attack
force. Wait once more for an attack from the remaining base and
counterattack them. Same methods as the last base, and destroy the altar in
this base for the final piece of the mooncrystal. Congratulations, the
worst is over.
Now your final objective is to bring Arthas to the gate. Just load him into
a zeppelin and drop him on the circle to end this damned mission.
==================================================
e. Chapter five: The Fall of Silvermoon (ROCWU5)
==================================================
Main quests
+The Sunwell
-Defeat the Sunwell's Guardians
-Bring Arthas to the Sunwell
Optional quests
+Sylvanas Windrunner
-Destroy Sylvanas Base
+Silvermoon runners
-Eliminate every runner Sylvanas sends
-Do not alert Silvermoon to your presence
And only halfway through the undead campaign..alas you have a mission where
you actually start with a base! Start by training two more ghouls for lumber
and one more acolyte to build your defense. You will get attacked almost
right after the start of the mission but not with much, so use arthas and
the crypt fiends to defend against the first attack. Arthas should level
from the first attack with the experience from Sylvanas, and you will want
to learn animate dead of course.
Shortly after the first attack you will receive an optional objective which
is an excellent idea to complete; it essentially is just that you do not
allow a runner to alert silvermoon to your presence, and destroy sylvanas
base. Both kind of go hand and hand; once the base is done with she
obviously doesnt send runners any longer. As long as you take care of the
runners you have to defend against one less team which relieves a lot of
stress from you, so make this a priority. If silvermoon is alerted you will
need to further beef up defense on the south side of your base. I can't
stress enough how important it is to save frequently in this mission, as it
is VERY easy to just forget the alert for one runner, and if that happens
your going to have a considerably more difficult time in this mission. Get
into the habit of saving each time a runner is called out.
Anyway when the first runner is running out he will be over near the
southwest area of the map with your gargoyles already attacking. After this
runner is dead I suggest leaving your gargoyles in a versatile position;
this being next to a bridge almost directly south of sylvanas base, just
below a fountain of mana (hotkey them obviously). The bridge is not far
south of the base and goes over the river just before it splits. Be careful
though, because silvermoon is just to the south of here, so don't get to
close. As I said, I suggest saving routinely just before a runner is
released or right after you kill a runner, just in case you let one through.
Order your gargoyles to attack the runner and then shift command them back
to the bridge, and that's all there is to it.
With all that aside, on to defense. You do not get attacked with much effort
from sylvanas so youll just want 6 spirit towers on the north side of your
base, and 6 on the southwest entrance (the one that heads left). Upgrade to
a black citadel once this is done, and start getting all graveyard upgrades.
As resources allow build a temple of the damned and a slaughterhouse and get
the necromancers upgrades as well. Also grab the web upgrade from the crypt.
After a couple attacks sylvanas will attack a little stronger so you may
want to add another 2 spirit towers onto each defense setup.
Sylvanas base is not a big deal, so we don't need an enormous army to
eliminate it. As resources allow during your upgrading, start training
crypt
fiends and necromancers, but stay in no upkeep if you are gold starved.
About 8 crypt fiends, 6 necromancers, and 3 meat wagons will do it; just
stay in low upkeep. Start training them and upgrading. Defend the feeble
attacks Sylvanas sends at you during this time. If you happen to run low on
lumber (which probably isnt very likely, but if) you can grab the ghoul
frenzy upgrade from the crypt to increase ghouls effectiveness at
harvesting.
Sylvanas will start sending runners more frequently, but that should be no
problem Just whatever you do make sure you are saving routinely and don't
get too caught up in defending to forget a runner. If you are in the habit
of rolling up to the runner, right clicking it and shift commanding the
gargoyles back to the bridge its just second nature at this point. As you
get attacked use arthas AND your crypt fiends this time to defend if you
want, just be sure to micro and heal them. Build your army up which
shouldn't take long (remember to load your meat wagons with corpses), wait
for an attack from sylvanas and save your game.
Send your attack group out the north exit of your base and follow the path
west, to the bridge (it was probably revealed while killing runners). Cross
the bridge to the area with the elven farms, just outside the base.
Before attacking this base I would greatly suggest just leaving your
gargoyles down near the bridge. Runners are weak and die quickly but in the
heat of battle one could easily slip out and if your gargoyles are up here
when that happens, you are in trouble. They won't help much during the
attack and your attack force is more than sufficient to take out this small
base up here. Keep in mind, runners can spawn out of any structure still
standing.
Anyway for attack bring meat wagons and necromancers up, summon skeleton
warriors and send them in. Send your crypt fiends in shortly after, then
summon another round of skeleton warriors, and after this turn on auto cast
and send the rest of your army in. Leave auto cast on the whole time; you
have no reason to save mana. After a bit of conflict between you and the
elves after some units have died, use Arthas animate dead and send them guys
further into the base than the rest of your force to take out some units.
After clearing out the sanctum and the defending units move forward to the
castle and focus your meat wagons on that. Necromancers will be what dies
easiest here, your crypt fiends won't be in much trouble so just watch macro
for necromancers. Once the defending units are dead there isnt much more
danger, just focus production structures and grab runners if they are
nearby.
Level the base for a cut-scene and a couple nice rewards.
With the base leveled and if not a single runner got through, you are
basically on cruise control now. You won't get attacked until silvermoon is
alerted to your presence, which will be once you go down there. Train 5
more acolytes and send one to the base you just cleaned out, haunt the mine
and bring acolytes down here to harvest. Upkeep don't matter now since you
have two gold sources.
Anyway first thing to do is add Sylvanas to group 1,grab the hood of cunning
and take group one back to the north exit of your base. Head down the path
that heads right just north of this exit and defeat the golems here for some
gold and a ring of regeneration. After this while you are finishing your
attack group, you can use group one to kill creeps for extra gold if you
want. Remember, you won't be getting attacked if silvermoon was never
alerted. Bring your meat wagons back to your base to reload on corpses.
I suggest killing off your gargoyles as they are not of much use against
ground. You could try zerging them and just rushing straight to the sunwell
and killing the guardians while ignoring other units, but its just safer and
simpler to clear out the base around there. You still need to bring Arthas
in too and its just easier when there is no base here.
Anyway start building up your attack group. You will want 10 crypt fiends, 4
necromancers, 4 meat wagons, and 4 banshees. Without your gargoyles this
should put you right at the food cap. Group your banshees with your
necromancers, and sylvanas with your crypt fiends in group 1.
Not much to be said while building your force as you will not get attacked.
Feel free to get all your units training and go have a beer while you wait
for their mana to cap out. Just take care this and once done save your game
and head out the south exit of your base.
Follow the path until it splits and from here follow it south to the bridge.
Move onto the bridge carefully to see the defense towers on the other side.
Pull back and move the rest of your army down near the bridge.
Park one meat wagon just barely on the bridge, and have group 2 right behind
it. Order the wagon to drop all its corpses and move it back, then order
your necromancers to raise dead. Send the skeletons in, send your fiends in
after, and then bring group 2 followed by the meat wagons in after. Once
your casters are in battle turn auto-cast on for your necromancers.
Your biggest threat here is an archmage with blizzard. When he shows order
all ranged and I mean EVERY ranged to take him down and spam arthas death
coil. His blizzard will clean house with your casters. After cleaning out
the initial defending group use arthas raise dead and move them south with
the rest of your group. Once the castle is in sight order your meat wagons
on it. Turn off necromancer auto cast when you are down near this area.
This area down here should clear out quick. After it is down save again and
move back to the bridge and head north this time.
You probably have way more money than you know what to do with so train more
units if you lost any. Keep auto-cast off and just clear down this path as
normal. All there are in this area are farms and the occasional unit and
defense tower. As you head further west you will encounter a little more
defense, but not much. When the path curves south there is another base down
here; just keep reinforcing and moving south. There's not much down here BUT
if you want to have a little fun as I know that's a possible reason for
playing this game, posess an alliance worker and use him to build a town
hall and an alliance base :) Not much reason to do this unless you want
some alliance in your attack group; just a fun thing to do.
Anyway clear out as much base as you want and when ready take your forces to
any entrance which leads to the sunwell. There are four guardians in here,
each with 1500 health and 61-68 damage, and four defense towers. Pull the
two guardians nearest to the entrance you are at out of the area to kill
them, kill the defense towers near them if you want, then kill the last two
and bring arthas to the sunwell to finish the mission.
==================================================
f. Chapter six: Blackrock and Roll, Too! (ROCWU6)
==================================================
Main quests
+Demon Gate
-Destroy the Orc base protecting the demon gate
Optional quests
+Orc Heroes
-Kill Throk Feroth
-Kill Mazrigos
-Kill Khanzo
-Kill Genjuros
So...youre not upset about me killing you that one time? Just a standard
daily conversation piece in the world of Warcraft I assume (no pun
intended).
Anyway when you start the mission Kel'thuzad will introduce the frost wyrm.
It is a good idea to have one or two of these in an attack group for their
building freezing effect, but otherwise they take a very high level of food
and are slow so zerging them is far from effective. For now however hotkey
him and use him to help in defense until your towers are up, and to take out
siege units during defense. Train one acolyte, two ghouls for harvesting,
and right after upgrade your necropolis to a halls of the dead. Kill off a
meat wagon to avoid upkeep.
Near the star you will be attacked by a blade master and a few orcs. Focus
the blademaster down. Use Arthas death coil and kel'thuzads frost nova for
other units. If he uses mirror image hold the alt key to display health
bars, and take note of what the blademaster(s) are attacking. Whichever one
is taking damage is being attack by the true form so focus that one down.
He will drop a manual of health when he is down; give that to Arthas.
On to defense. You will get attacked from two sides of your base. Build
10-12 spirit towers on the north end of the base. Lay them out so they can
effectively defend attacks from either direction. I built it like an L
around the halls of the dead, in two rows. In this manner there are 8
facing each direction, and four towers are shared for either attack. The
halls of the dead assists in defense too so if you do this it will be more
than adequate.
For the south exit of the base put in 10 here. I unsummoned the south
ziggurat and rebuilt it because it wouldn't line up symmetrically with a
defense grid (OCD). Heavier defense is better here because not only to orcs
have the highest damage siege units, they also have raiders who deal siege
damage. The faster you can drop defenders the less time they have to attack
your towers, and hence the less resources you need to spend repairing or
rebuilding. It will be a slow start this mission as you save resources to
build so many spirit towers, so be ready to defend with your current units.
Don't forget kel'thuzads frost nova; it is an excellent area damage ability.
Commit resources to building your 22 spirit towers and defending stray
attacks first and foremost. Attacks start light so its not too bad. Keep an
eye on attacks from the east side of your base; they will go after your
ghouls harvesting here. You can move your shade out to give you warning for
any attacks coming and move your defense units that way. I would suggest
sacrificing another acolyte and putting a shade at each entrance. If you get
into the habit of glancing at your radar regularly you will catch attacks in
advance and be able to move your heroes over there to keep damage off of the
spirit towers.
Once your defense is established hotkey your towers on each side. The reason
for this is because you want them to focus down raiders who will give your
towers a beating, and sappers who will take your towers down with them. Two
sappers drop a line of towers, and that gets pricy, so focus them at all
costs. Shift command each grid of towers to take out any raiders attacking,
and any siege units if they happen into range. Keep your heroes, gargoyles,
and frost wyrm on your defense group. You will want air to drop catapults as
quickly as possible. You can use your crypt fiends too if you are having too
much trouble with towers dying. After that build an altar of darkness and
start getting the first 2 levels of all graveyard upgrades. I say that
because gold can get scarce near the end of upgrading and the first base to
attack is pretty weak. Once the altar is completed upgrade your halls of the
dead to a black citadel, get a temple of the damned and a slaughterhouse.
You want all the same upgrades as usual: Necromancer and banshee upgrades,
all graveyard, and web for crypt fiends, plus you now have the disease cloud
upgrade for meat wagons. Grab that as well. Once the black citadel is
completed build a boneyard. If you still have the frost wyrm you started out
with you will not need to train anymore if following my attack plan, but you
still want to build it to grab the frost breath upgrade.
Keep an eye on your ghouls at this point. If they harvested the whole
northwest forest they will just be chilling at the graveyard (and not
identified as idle workers as they are not considered workers, very annoying
I know), so send them to the west forest. Build another graveyard here
(south enough as to not draw agro from the west path if they attack from
here) and desummon the old one between upgrades. If you have too much gold
and no lumber get the ghouls frenzy upgrade to assist. After this continue
routine defense and upgrades. Watch out for goblin sappers; they will
embarrass your defense. Death coil them immediately or focus air on them.
When your heroes upgrade, get kel'thuzads death and decay naturally, and
learn Arthas final rank of unholy aura.
Again, at this point keep an eye on your ghouls. They may have harvested
that whole west forest again. Once your upgrades are nearing the final bend,
assemble an attack force up through low upkeep. The first base you will
attack is the one directly west of you, which doesnt do a whole lot but does
have one of the heroes. A good group to attack the first base will consist
of 6 crypt fiends, 3 meat wagons, 6 necromancers, 2 banshees, and your frost
wyrm. Once you get up to around 65 food, kill your gargoyles. With four
ghouls and six acolytes, plus your two shades, this puts you just under 70
food without your gargoyles. As is standard business load your meat wagons
with corpses. Your gold mine may be running low but don't worry too much,
you
don't need this entire attack group. The more the better, but the base over
here is fairly weak and doesnt take much to knock down. Just get whatever
you can. You want to prioritize crypt fiends, followed by necromancers.
Just make sure you save at least 300 gold, I would leave about 500 to allow
for repairs. Assemble your army as usual: Group 1 will have the heroes,
frost wyrm, and crypt fiends. Group 2 is Arthas and casters, group 3 meat
wagons. Hotkey groups and save your game, then head out the west path.
If your mine collapsed have the acolytes ready to build a new one in the
base you are about to attack. Be ready to pull back quickly if needed to
take care of orc siege units if you are attacked. Scout the base with a
shade if you want, and afterward move your units across the bridge to the
other side.
Be careful with the bridge, as it can get clogged up and make it difficult
to control your group. Move group 1 across the bridge and south of the
path, and move up the meat wagons to just off the bridge, with the
necromancers behind. Summon and send in skeleton warriors, and then group
1. You do not need to auto cast skeletons; there is not much over here.
The blade master and a few orc units will come out of the base. Focus the
blademaster using the tactic mentioned at the start of the mission, and the
other units. Give the tome of agility dropped to Arthas. After this all
that is really left down here are defense towers. Level the base and send
your acolytes in to haunt the gold mine. If you see an orc group coming to
your base pull group one out, while leaving group two and three to continue
working on the base. Summon more skeleton warriors if needed. Once all
attacking units are cleared and all that is left are structures and workers,
keep group 1 at your base permanently to defend again. If you are quick on
clearing units out of this base, your defense will not suffer. If you keep
all groups down here during an attack, you can get wrecked by siege units
and sappers. If this happens, reload and just anticipate the attacks. Save
on other sub-files during the attack for more reassurance. Remember, you
can never save too much.
Once the base cleared and a gold mine assembled, start saving gold and
repair defense as needed. If, like me, you were unable to afford the full
attack force, your first priority will be continuing your group up to no
more than 70 food. Fill group one first, then fill group two. If you have
cleared every last tree in your base, start harvesting down by blues base.
You can't get attacked down here without going by your north side defense so
no worries.
Once group one is filled we can clear the dragons outside your base for
items. Save and start by heading north. Right outside your base here are
some dragons you probably brushed up against during defending. Focus the
little guys first, then drop the large dragon. He is immune to magic so all
you will be using are standard attacks, but he will drop pretty fast. Grab
the claws of attack, and now head out the east exit to your base. Just after
passing the small incline to your north is another level 10 dragons with 3
small ones. Again focus the lesser then take down the high level. Pick up
the periapt of vitality, which I strongly suggest for Arthas. Hes probably
been taking a bit of damage. Also kel'thuzad has more than likely leveled
again by now so get the last rank of frost nova.
After taking care of the dragons you probably have a reasonable start on
gold. You will want to cap the last 20 food. This will be with 3 more
fiends to fill group 1, one more banshee and two more necromancers
to fill group two entirely, and 1 more meat wagon to finish group 3. This
totals out to 9 crypt fiends, 8 necromancers, 3 banshees, and 4 meat wagons.
This costs 1540 gold and you probably have more than that already so start
training. You really do not need to pull your acolytes off gold this time,
just make sure you have enough gold before crossing high upkeep. Once high
upkeep is crossed use all of group one in defense if you have not already
been. Use kel'thuzads frost nova on regular units, and focus everyone else
on catapults. Just run out to meet the attack and drop the catapults, then
retreat back into the range of your units if you take too much damage.
Otherwise just drop the whole group with frost nova, which is quite powerful
now. Easiest way to do this in group one is tab-n. This selects kel'thuzad
then the hotkey for nova. This is a good hotkey habit, as you want to be
using frost nova all day long.
Once your complete force is complete save and head out the east exit of your
base. Take the first right, just south of where you slew the dragon. Roll
the meat wagons near the front, but do not let them attack the watch towers.
Summon your skeletal warriors and send them in as usual. Do not use auto
cast here, again this base is minimal. Summon two rounds of skeletons to
start attacking, then send in group 1, followed by 2 then 3 (deja` vu?)
Focusing particular units here is not of much concern, as you have plenty of
firepower. You will however want to order your meat wagons onto each watch
tower here, and your frost wyrm as well. Shift command them to attack the
remaining one after the first one is down. Use kel'thuzads frost nova once
again to take out the cluster of enemies that comes to defend, and just like
the previous base after that is done there is little left to be done here.
Clear it out as regular and retreat group one back to base as soon as
possible. Make sure Arthas grabs the tome of strength from the blademaster.
Clean the base out, resave, and head north back out of the base. After
heading out continue north and take the first right, right next to where the
dragon died. Same drill as last base here. Clear it out as regular. Meat
wagons up, two skeleton rounds, five meters spread, no sound. No AUTO CAST.
The hero is inside the base (far seer), and once he joins battle focus
EVERYONE on him. He drops a tome of intelligence, but again I am going to
suggest giving this to Arthas, though that is kel'thuzads primary attribute.
Kel'thuzad is a secondary hero and thus may not be in all remaining campaign
missions, so I will never assign tomes to secondary heroes. You can if you
want but I would just suggest giving it to Arthas. Anyway back to combat,
your meat wagons are the units you need to keep the closest eye on here, as
the base layout isnt very siege unit friendly. Wagons will need to move in
to take down the structures which leaves them vulnerable to regular units.
Once you have a foothold reinforce any units you need. I did not suggest
that for last base because you probably did not loose very many, if any.
However you may have lost a couple here as white is slightly stronger than
the last two, and the next two bases are the strongest ones. So make sure
your attack force is filling back to full as you are having your way with
white. Once the base is all whited out (hee hee...), move back to your
base as you reinforce your group.
While reinforcing you can use your shade to scout orange, which will be the
beast you will be conquering next. The base is located directly north of
yours. The easiest path to reach it is the north path out of your base, just
to the left of where you killed the dragon you will see the ramp heading
north that leads to it. While reinforcing put your shades in here so you can
see as deep into the base as possible from the left entrance. This is where
you will be attacking from and it helps to have an idea of the units that
will defend.
When ready follow the north path out of your base, head left and north
again. Save the game.
This time we will attack slightly differently. As usual bring the meat
wagons near the front and summon your skeleton warriors, but immediately
retreat the meat wagons back after they are summoned. Place them on auto
cast as well. Send the warriors in and send kel'thuzad right in behind them
to death and decay the area in front of the warriors. Hitting anything with
this is kind of menial at this point, but you want to get the attackers
attention. They will clean out your skeleton warriors and come after kel
thuzad, after which you want to retreat him back to near the ramp. The idea
here is to kite all defending units away from the towers and base to take
care of them in the open. Make sure your meat wagons are all the way back,
and continue sending out skeleton warriors first. Use kel'thuzads frost nova
to kill them quick, and after defending units are dead order groups in to
attack in regular sequence. If the hero came out grab the tome of
intelligence he dropped (again, I suggest Arthas). Once you have reached the
great hall just on the other side of the first two watch towers and
defending units are cleaned out, turn off auto cast for skeleton warriors.
Focus your frost wyrm and meat wagons on the watch towers to your east while
the rest of the group free lance attacks. Be sure to keep the wyrm healed
up as he takes extra damage from piercing, and give him bone armor from
kel'thuzad if he is taking too high of damage. Once orange is almost cleared
out, if you still have 80 food or so with fairly balanced loses, send an
acolyte into the base to repair your meat wagons. Keep everyone else near
Arthas to regenerate health faster, and get ready to attack red. If you
have lost multiple units, head back to base and rebuild your attack group
and build a new mine in browns base in the process if yours collapsed.
(brown was the south center base). When you are ready head back into
oranges base.Scout reds base with a shade and attack in the same manner as
you did orange.
Kite the units out using skeleton warriors, and use kel'thuzads death and
decay in the combat area to weaken them as much as possible. Once they are
cleaned out head in as normal. When you hear the whirlwind sound during
combat GET AWAY FROM THE BLADEMASTER. The blademasters whirlwind ability
deals 150 damage per second and will wreck nearby units in no time. If you
are unsure where he is just retreat your entire force till you don't hear it
anymore, then attack back in. Leave auto cast on the remainder of the
fight.
Make sure Arthas grabs the tome of knowledge when it drops from the
blademaster, you certainly don't want to finish the mission without grabbing
this. Once he has this clean the base out by any means to complete the
mission.
===============================================
g. Chapter seven: The Siege of Dalaran (ROCWU7)
===============================================
Main Objectives
+Three Archmagi
-Slay the first Archmage
-Slay the second archmage
-Slay Antonidas
There isn't much base building to do here, as you already start with a
nicely established base and a number of units. Right off the bat, upgrade
your halls to a black citadel and stick the other three ghouls on lumber.
Build six more ziggurats at the front of your base and get those upgrades to
spirit towers. Just build them in the center of the other ziggurats already
out there. I build four in between the top two and one next to each of the
back ziggurats. You will get attacked soon but your towers will likely not
be upgraded by then. Use your heroes and abominations to defend;
abominations are more than strong enough to survive for defense. Just keep
them healed and, as usual, utilize Kel'Thuzads frost nova. When you get a
chance there is an archmage at a camp west of your base who drops a health
stone which provides faster health regeneration. If you want to get it head
west of your necropolis into the forest and finish off the Kirin tor
structures. Then head up the ramp on the left side of this area to find the
arch mage at an encampment, all by himself. You can kill him just with
Arthas and Kel'Thuzad so do than if you want.
Unlike other missions, we will not be using casters/skeleton warriors this
time, purely due to the damage that undead take while inside most of Dalaran
(10 damage per second which is more than casters can comfortably tolerate).
Start upgrading from the graveyard (all upgrades), build a sacrificial pit,
and once that is up build a boneyard.
If you are running low on gold you may consider losing your meat wagons. I
would suggest this as I do not use them during the attack as they die pretty
quick in the aura at 380 health. I would suggest killing them off now and
getting back into no upkeep as your gold mine is quite limited.
Anyway build those structures and get the graveyard upgrades, plus web for
crypt fiends, disease cloud, and frost breath for frost wyrms. The first
archmage is located right inside the city so whenever you get attacked, use
Arthas animate dead ability and send your immune units in to start picking
off the humans near the archmage. Be sure to focus fire or you will likely
have a hard time bringing them down. Focus the priests down first, then the
sorceresses and finally the infantry. You can also use your heroes to
harass the archmage and the troops here (arthas death coil will one shot
casters and kel'thuzads frost nova can help drop infanty down). Just be
sure to pull them out when they reach half health.
Upgrading won't take very long so once you get most of the troops by the
archmage down wait for the next attack from grayand then take the two crypt
fiends and abominations you started with (if they died just train new ones)
and kill the archmage. Use Arthas animate dead before heading in and try to
get as many riflemen as possible. Order them all on the archmage and then
send Arthas in after to finish the archmage. If you got 6 ranged with
animate and were quick to attack with them, the archmage will be nearly dead
so it wont take long to drop him. Just one death coil should do the job.
And yes as much as it sucks, your damn animated undead DO take damage from
the aura (not like it matters, their duration wears off before they die).
Not really a big deal, I just don't think a unit taking ANY damage can be
classified as "invulnerable"...
Once the archmage is dead the aura will dissipate for this area and you can
bring in the rest of your units to finish off any remaining troops. Once
this is all said and done you can start training troops. Your army will
consist of a total of 8 abominations, 9 crypt fiends, and 2 frost wyrms.
This should put you right around 90. I know I have already said this way
too damn much, but before crossing into high upkeep make sure you have
enough gold, and when you do cross into high upkeep pull your acolytes off
the gold mine. It may collapse before then anyway but if it did you should
have plenty of gold. Stick abominations in group 1 with your heroes, crypt
fiends and frost wyrms in 2 with Arthas. Be advised your food will increase
real damn quick since these units all have a decently high food count
(especially frost wyrms). Defend business as usual as you save gold/train
units. Watch incoming siege units of course. I'd suggest using your
abominations and frost wyrms in defense since they can take a beating (just
keep them out of danger of course). Sometimes the computer will send three
or four mortar teams and you don't want to be caught off guard when those
come by.
Anyway once you have enough gold train the rest of your units; should only
take a couple minutes if you trained evenly. Afterward, save and head back
into the city.
If you get attacked on your way to the first base, reload and handle the
attack at your base. There are two teams here, gray and dark blue. Gray is
the base you are attacking. When ready head up to where you kill the
archmage and then take a left; head all the way over to the end to spot a
couple watch towers. This is a small outpost with a gold mine. Order a
frost wyrm on each defensive tower and just send in your abominations
followed by your fiends. Take out the base here. When you get near the
southwest corner, order a frost wyrm on the watch tower. Order the other
one on the barracks to freeze unit production.
This base isn't very strong so once it is taken out send an acolyte to haunt
the gold mine here and get your acolytes back on gold, regardless of upkeep.
Arthas and Kel'Thuzad have likely leveled so give Arthas his only remaining
ability and give Kel'Thuzad whatever you want. I really have no opinion to
offer on the last two abilities as I use neither, so whichever you want.
The rest of the mission will pretty much be played entirely on offense.
Keep an eye out for attacks from blue as they come by your gold mine up
here. You will probably get attacked when you are about done destroying the
base, so fend off this attack if so.
Anyway once this base is gone and a gold mine in progress, head back out the
entrance and north to find a couple cages. Make sure your food limit is all
capped out before attacking these. Bust them open once you are capped to
get a couple golems (this will put you over 90 food). They will not take
damage from the aura but a word of warning: they are immune to magic so they
cannot be healed by Arthas, so treat them well. Head down the path to the
right, all the way to the end to find a couple units and a poor bastard
level 1 archmage. Take them out and pick up the mantle of intelligence +3
(If you are running low on mana for death coil for Arthas give to him,
otherwise give to Kel'Thuzad.) After that head back to the outpost you
killed, hang out on the blight to regenerate health and wait for an attack
from blue coming from the north path. Take out the units and use animate
dead once again, send the resurectees (sure it's a word) forward into the
aura and take out the units. Start with the priest and then the casters.
If you kill them all before the animates expire start hitting a tower. Once
you take out the units send one frost wyrm on to each tower in front. You
will be in the aura but not taking very noticeable damage; just heal with
Arthas if needed. Watch out for gyrocopters which may come to defend as
they will have a field day with your frost wyrm. When they show up run your
crypt fiends in to ground and kill them.
Once this area is cleared out head down the ramp to the right into the water
and take out the water elementals around here. After this is done huddle
everyone around the fountain of health until all healed up, and then order
your units to attack to the archmage. It can take awhile since you are
fighting the damage of the aura but the fountain heals slightly quicker.
Anyway while attacking toward the archmage you will just come across a few
units up here guarding an item, but don't worry about getting that just yet.
Kill the units and order everyone on the archmage. Once he drops send
everyone back to the fountain of health and give Arthas the boots of
elvenkind. Save and send everyone back to the fountain of health right
away. Heal up and then send your units to the front of the fountain, just
where the ramp emerges from the water. Send the golems to the back side as
they will get attacked first. Wait here for an attack from blue and while
waiting send Arthas back to break open the cage near where he picked up the
+6 agility boots to release an ogre magi. If you haven't lost anyone yet
you will have over 100 food now. Place him in whichever group has room.
Once again wait for an attack from blue. You might get attacked by some
dragonhawk riders from gray which isn't too big a deal, but keep your frost
wyrms glues to the fountain because they drop FAST. Let your crypt fiends
drop them and take them out. Anyway for the attack from blue, the idea here
is to have your front line keep blue away from the fountain of health, allow
your abominations to micro back to the fountain, and keep your crypt fiends
near the fountain constantly. This is easier said than done and it doesn't
have to be perfect; the idea is just to use the fountain to your advantage.
With luck you wont loose anyone again. Once the attack is dead use your
animate dead, send the animates up the ramp and straight east, and send your
group in after them to attack the blue base.
At the front of the base are two cannon towers and another one behind the
south one further back in the base. Order your frost wyrms on the front
two, then once one is dead order him onto the back one. If you still have
your golems be ready to use them to interrupt the archmages blizzard in this
base with their boulder spell. If you do not have them anymore just order
all units onto the archmage once he comes out to fight. Once you get into
the base and the cannon towers are dead order one frost wyrm on each of the
north barracks and let the rest of your force just level the base as they
please. Like light blue, its not much of a base. You do however need to
keep an eye out for more attacks from gray (primarily air). Again send your
crypt fiends over to drop them; they will tear your frost wyrms apart.
Level the base as you please and after its down and gone head back out and
use the fountain of health again. Now, head back out the base the way you
came in and before reaching the water again look to the north to see a gold
vault. Bust it open to drop a tome of intelligence, a pendant of mana +250,
and an item that grants nearby units a bonus to mana regeneration. Give the
PIPE to Kel'Thuzad and the pendant to arthas (Arthas probably has a lot of
good items at this point so you will need to replace something. I replaced
the +150 mana pendant and gave that to Kel'Thuzad.) I gave the tome to
Arthas for the reasons mentioned before as well.
If you kept yourself fairly healthy you are still overmaxed on food limit
and by this point have a hundred million thousand and a half resources, you
can just order everyone to directly attack the archmage for the quick easy
win...if you are indeed that eager and spam arthas death coil on him once
you get there. If you are like me and prefer to clean everything out along
the way, then read on.
For this first part, send group 1 in only. The reason being is because its
not a straightforward easy path to the fountain of health right in front of
the archmage and your crypt fiends have a hard time making it there in 55
seconds, not to mention the extra time spend fiddling trying to actually
compete them with abominations to get in range of the fountain. So leave
them back for now. Take group one and attack your way forward (ignore the
cages for now) to take out a few stray units. After that head left and use
Kel'Thuzads death and decay on the units behind the crates. They will come
out from the crates but that's really the whole idea; once they do cancel
the effect and use frost nova to drop them. Take care of these few units
and head into the area by the fountain of health and heal up. Once you
reach the fountain send group 2 in after, having them kill the cages along
the way to get some drakes and spiders. Take them to the fountain of health
and then order everyone onto the archmage from there. Kill him to complete
the mission...properly.
================================================
h. Chapter eight: Under the Burning Sky (ROCWU8)
================================================
Main Objectives
+Archimonde
-Kel'Thuzad must survive for 30 minutes
I would offer an opinion of this mission...but I don't usually like to use
that many "four letter" words. With that said this is probably the hardest
mission in the game; considerably more so than the 30 minute defense in the
human campaign. You will be surviving against a much heavier onslaught than
before. Anyway the biggest tip I can offer for this mission is save all the
damn time and once you get to the final attack, you may have two or three
save files. You want to have a permanent save file before the final attack
and then save every 30 seconds or so as you successfully defend.
As the mission starts first and foremost round up the crypt fiends and
Arthas from the middle, and hotkey them. Kill off the necromancer to drop
back into low upkeep: you want to stay in this pretty much the whole
mission. Right after that send an acolyte to the gold mine in the southeast
corner of the summoning area to start haunting it. You start with an
acolyte at each entrance to the summoning altar but you should be fine with
two there so send one to build a gold mine, and train four more and rally
them to this gold mine so you don't need to worry about it anymore. You may
need to kill off another crypt fiend or shade to remain in low upkeep.
Once this is done start upgrading your creature attack and carapace from the
graveyard, and straight after that start building ziggurats at each
entrance. Start with 15 in front of the north and east entrances, and 15
just north of your base. You wont have enough gold to do this just yet so
start with 5 in each of these areas, and add more ziggurats as resources
allow. I would suggest unsummoning the spirit tower out in front of each
entrance (except west) and starting your defense back as close to the altar
as possible. You will be getting your first attack shortly, so be ready
with Arthas and the crypt fiends. These are mainly only to take out siege
units but keep them defending at any area getting attacked.
Upgrade the 15 total ziggurats and after that upgrade your halls of the dead
to a black citadel. Keep an eye out for attacks. Your biggest threat are
those steam tanks so focus everything on them; I mean towers, units,
EVERYTHING. You will receive a secondary objective for goblin land mines
which will help a ton at the end, but you have plenty of time to retrieve
those. Your first priority is cranking spirit towers out at each entrance.
Also if you lose crypt fiends, train more back up to 40 food but do not pass
that. Most of your resources will go to towers.
Once the first row of ziggurats are built and upgraded, get the next level
of crypt fiend upgrades from the graveyard and once the black citadel
finishes, get ghoul frenzy (for improved lumber harvesting) and train two
more ghouls. You may need to kill off a crypt fiend to get back into no
upkeep (you definitely want to stay here). After that build another 5
towers at each entrance and get those upgraded. Keep an eye on the gold
mine in the southeast and if it gets attacked, kite the attackers to your
east side defense. Around about 24 minutes you will receive three
felhounds. Add them to your attack group and MAKE SURE THEY SURVIVE at all
costs. Save before each attack and if they die, reload and do it again.
These are your greatest weapon against steam tanks and also do not take up
food, so you want these guys to stay alive till the final attack.
Anyway keep an eye on your resources, particularly lumber. If you find
yourself with a lot more gold than lumber build another graveyard closer in
to the trees. You do not really need anymore than 6 ghouls, just utilize
where you are harvesting to stay efficient. Be sure to reorder all ghouls
onto the nearest tree to the graveyard. Unsummon the previous graveyard
once the new one is built. Once you have a chance get the final upgrade for
crypt fiends.
You will get attacked a few more times in this period. Your north and west
areas are primarily attacked by steam tanks and air, and east by blue which
has general infantry and an archmage. North/west focus down steam tanks
first, and gyrocopters second. They have siege bombs which also do work on
your towers so keep an eye on those. Watch out for the archmages blizzard
as it can do some decent area damage to your towers and units. Focus your
units and towers on him to drop him quickly. Once you start getting 2-3
steam tanks at a time attacking is when you will need to start worrying
about rebuilding. Once you get a foothold on defense it may help to hotkey
your towers on each side to focus steam tanks and heroes down.
At around 20 minutes you will get 3 more felhounds. Keep them alive, same
as before. Once you have graveyard upgrades in progress and 10 spirit
towers on each entrance, build another row of 5 at each entrance for a total
of 15. So far you haven't been getting attacked very strongly, but it will
be coming soon. Start getting in the habit of rallying your group of crypt
fiends and felhounds back to Kel'Thuzad so they can easily meet any incoming
attack. If you need another acolyte to help with ziggurats or repair and
are at 40 food, you can either pull one off gold temporarily which I would
recommend, or kill off a shade which would make it harder to prepare for
incoming attacks. If you are excessive on lumber you can kill a ghoul but
you probably are not very heavy on that and will need 6 still.
At around 15 minutes you will receive another 3 felhounds. At this point
you will probably need another attack group so group your felhounds in group
1 and crypt fiends in group 2. At this point only worry about healing your
felhounds; if the fiends die they are easily replaced.
Your next priority will be building another three towers on each side of
your defense grid which will make a total of 21. Do this with spare
resources after all towers are upgraded and repaired, and replaced as
needed.
As the game progresses attacks will get slightly more frequent and heavier.
Pay real close attention to the west defense as it gets attacked by steam
tanks pretty often and you WILL lose towers with those; your goal is just to
lose as few as possible. Focus all towers and felhounds on one tank till it
is dead, then refocus a new one and they will drop before they can do too
terribly much damage. Check your ghouls and make sure they are still
harvesting lumber. Build another graveyard if needed.
Once you have 21 towers at each entrance start cranking out more crypt
fiends after that. Build another crypt if you have a lot of gold. Do this
up to 70 food. Just pile them next to Kel'Thuzad. If any towers die
however make sure they are replaced as the priority.
At 10 minutes you receive infernals. Leave them next to Kel'Thuzad for the
final attack and just continue using your felhounds and a few crypt fiends
for defense. Once you have a chance free 4 spots from arthas inventory and
go grab the goblin mines to the northwest of your base. Take them to the
altar and plant four at each entrance right at the front of the ramp leading
up to Kel'Thuzad. Once you reach about 7 minutes attacks become very heavy
and almost constant sometimes and it is hard to keep up with each attack but
just prioritize. Make sure you stay at 40 food with acolytes: train new
ones regularly and pull from gold as needed. What I did was rally acolytes
to the gold mine in the base and pull off of there when one was needed.
Just keep them trained and at this point you will probably need one near
each entrance. Give one a bunch of shift commands to rebuild lost towers,
and have at least one repairing at entrances recently attacked. If you are
too busy doing this do not worry too much about focusing down on current
areas getting attacked: that's why there are so many spirit towers: to make
a hell of a barrier for enemy units to plow through. Your top priority is
to make sure your acolytes are busy fixing up areas just attacked, and right
after that to focus down units on areas being attacked currently. You will
lose towers, the idea is just to be able to rebuild them quickly. Use
Arthas and the felhounds to rebuild whenever possible.
At 5 minutes you will probably lose a few felhounds, but that is alright;
just make sure your infernals remain right next to Kel'Thuzad and that your
land mines get planted. Use Arthas animate dead to help out on defense. If
he runs low on mana run him to the fountain of mana south of Kel'Thuzad.
At 3 minutes rebuild all your towers one last time. Spend the rest of the
time before the last attack repairing them up. After this spam any
remaining resources you have to get as many units as possible from your
three structures (Crypt, slaughterhouse, temple of the damned). Spam
necromancers from the temple, abominations from the slaughterhouse, and
fiends from the crypt. The idea here is just to have as many units near
Kel'Thuzad as possible for the last attack. Just use the rest of your
resources and make a permanent save at 2 minutes remaining. Replenish
Arthas mana.
At 1:30 remaining, every base attacks with everything at once. Do not even
worry about trying to stop it because you wont; you just need to survive
until the timer runs out. Keep Arthas and all units back right in front of
Kel'Thuzad until your spirit towers are dropped. Once they are dropped make
a second save file here. As long as you make it to 30 seconds with your
towers you should be able to keep Kel'Thuzad alive for the rest of the time.
If you had 15-20 towers at each entrance this wont be much of a problem.
Anyway if they do make it past your towers wait for them to cross your land
mines and then after they have send all units to that entrance to defend.
If more than one entrance is breached keep all units just in front of
Kel'Thuzad. Once some units die (either theirs or yours, doesn't matter),
use Arthas animate dead and just cramp all the units into Kel'Thuzad (this
is just to stop melee). If you get to this point and still getting attacked
move Arthas as far south as you can to death coil Kel'Thuzad as he takes
damage. If you had a solid number of towers at each entrance it should not
get this far, but this is just in case. If Kel'Thuzad ends up dying just
reload and try again. The tactic will be the same, but you can try moving
acolytes around to draw fire or sending just a couple units out in front of
your spirit towers to slow them down. This really is just a failproof
method if Kel'Thuzad dies which he should not come even close to as long as
you have most of your towers at each entrance, the mines set down, and your
infernals and Arthas back near Kel'Thuzad. Either way once the clock runs
down the mission and undead campaign are over.
================================================
VII. Orc Campaign: The Invasion of Kalimdor (ROCWOX)
================================================
In general, the Orc Campaign is a nice break from the Human and Undead
campaigns; much more relaxed overall in both the mission content and the
lore. You will complete a couple new unique missions which I won't spoil at
this time. None of the missions are horribly difficult and it just has a
real easy going feel to it.
=================================
a. Chapter one: Landfall (ROCWO1)
=================================
Main Quests:
+Rally the Horde
-Discover where the other ships have landed
-Thrall must survive
After playing as the Orcs in the prologue campaign, you once again take
control of the faction and Thrall. Most naturally, DO start by hotkeying
your units with Thrall. It will be pretty weird getting used to not being
able to heal your units with a hero, so macro is ever more crucial here than
before. Fortunately, the orc units in general are more enduring.
Start by busting the crates to your right open to reveal a potion of mana.
Head north up the path to come across a small group of murlocs. Use Thralls
chain lightning on the larger one once and then let your units take care of
the rest. Thralls mana only allows for two chain lightnings to be cast in a
row (it has a much higher mana cost than the heals in previous campaigns),
so you will certainly want to use it sparingly. Continue up the path to the
fork and head left to find another group of murlocs. Use chain lightning
once again and after killing them off grab the healings wards that drop.
Head back out the path and take the right path at the fork this time. Break
the crates for a scroll of protection. Continue north past the burning
buildings and take the curve left at the end to see a tauren getting fought
by centaurs. Chain lightning the centaurs then drop them as normal. Head
back down the path to the burning buildings and take the southeast path out.
Take the path immediately to your right and follow it to come across some
more mobs. Use chain lightning one time again and drop them as usual. Keep
an eye on grunt health now as they will probably be getting somewhat low.
After the fight is a good time to use a healing ward, unless you have not
taken much damage. Place it down and gather everyone around it. Grab the
additional healing wards dropped from the mobs you just killed.
Take the path right from here and south. Keep going south through the open
area down the path with the torches to come across some more mobs. Use
chain lightning twice this time (use the potion of mana you grabbed at the
start if needed). After they are dead grab another potion of mana and move
slightly south to get a couple more troll headhunters.
Head back up the path you came in on and make a right at the front. Follow
the path east to witness another fight with a tauren. Kill the creeps, use
a chain lightning on them (if you need mana use a potion), and watch your
grunt health closely again. After the fight use another healing ward if
needed (both grunts below 50%). Follow the path south from here, heading
east along the water line to come across a few more murlocs. Just one chain
lightning again. Head back out to where you killed the creeps attacking the
tauren and head right to find another grunt and two more headhunters.
Take the path to the north, and at the fork (yes its like the 47th one so
far) make a right. Head north and kill the harpies for a scroll of the
beast (if you need space I would use your last healing ward, assuming you
have units that need healing. Otherwise you can use a potion of mana, but I
wouldn't recommend it unless you have very low mana). Now head back out and
make a left this time. Kill the thunder lizard directly north of you for
another potion of mana (if you are full on inventory, burn a potion of mana
this time.) Continue left afterward, up the ramp to the north to come
across some more centaurs. These are ranged so your trolls may wind up
getting damaged, in which case micro them immediately. Use a chain
lightning and continue forward as normal.
Follow this path as it curves right and shortly after you will come across a
fountain of health guarded by some centaurs. Keep your grunts in healing
range of the fountain (make sure they have the green glow on them) and kill
the centaurs. Afterward Thrall should be leveled so learn his feral spirit.
I do not recommend far sight as it has no real combat value (except for
detecting invisibles which can really only passively remain undeteceted,
this isn't starcraft after all). The wolves are also a nice addition to
your group and makes Thrall's solo capabilities much more adept, and at the
final rank they can do all the scouting you would use far sight for anyway.
Pointless rambling aside, heal your units up and continue heading east down
the path.
At the end make a quick north (yes, a quick north) and kill the harpies
here. It is best if they are attacking Thrall as the grunts cant reach
them, and they will want to attack the headhunters. After they are dead
head south till you reach the water, then take a path that heads north just
right or where you came from. There are some murlocs in this small area
which drop a manual of health for Thrall. After this follow the water line
all the way south. You will grab another few units and fight some centaurs
straight after. Start summoning Thralls wolves as your primary spell and
have them get attacked as much as possible. After the centaurs are dead a
cut-scene occurs.
After the scene if no one has died you will have too many units for one
group, so segregate the grunts and headhunters into separate groups. You
don't need to keep up the Cairne; he will stay in the village until you
reach him. Once you are with Cairne in the village the attack commences.
Use the rest of your healing wards this fight; keep them around your grunts.
Keep one up all the time and fight near it to assist. There are four waves.
The first two are easy, the last two are a little heavier. For the third
one use your scroll of protection if you still have it, and use scroll of
healing if healing is needed. Otherwise just macro to the healing ward.
For the fourth wave use your scroll of the beast, focus all units on the
champion, and at this point use your chain lightning if you have mana. For
the other waves just use spirit wolves. If you have any more potions of
mana use them all as needed. Once this last wave is cleared out the mission
is over.
=======================================
b. Chapter two: The Long March (ROCWO2)
=======================================
Main Quests:
+Three Oases
-Lead the caravan to the first oasis
-Lead the caravan to the second oasis
-Lead the caravan to the third oasis
-Thrall, Cairne, and the caravan must survive
Another no-base mission. You must protect the caravan (the four kudos under
Cairnes control). At least two (on hard, may be different on normal) must
survive but obviously it is more beneficial to let all of them survive, if
possible that is. You will get attacked regularly so exploring must be done
carefully, and it is safe to save anytime before leaving the caravan. This
mission can get very tedious, particularly on hard difficulty and it is not
easy to grab the items in this area as the caravan always gets attacked.
Also the taurens, which are the biggest part of caravan defense, pretty much
NEVER heal except when briefly coming into range of the oasis, so that is up
to you but chances are most of them will die through the mission. However
as far as finishing the mission and grabbing all items I wrote out exactly
how I did it and to my knowledge is the most effective way to get it done.
With that said at the start of the mission hotkey your grunts and
headhunters with Thrall and head left down the path. You will intercept a
group of centaurs right off the bat, so take care of them and continue on.
Once the path curves north kill any centaurs out in front here, and down the
path to the left are two centaur, but leave them be for now. Stay ahead of
the caravan, intercepting all attacks from the front. Let Cairne and the
tauren take care of the attacks from behind. Stay well ahead of the caravan
so it keeps moving to the oasis before tauren get low on health and die off.
Keep your spirit wolves ahead of your attack group, and your attack group
ahead of the caravan. Micro CONSTANTLY as your units can die quicker than
you can realize. If a unit gets real low on health I suggest just ordering
them to follow the first kodo of the caravan (just right click on it) and
removing it from the hotkey group. You can heal it when you get to the
oasis and following the first kodo is the safest place to be (cairne and
tauren will intercept attacks from the back, and you will be intercepting on
the front). Anyway move quickly up the path, then as it curves right follow
it all the way northwest. Along the way, about halfway between the curve
and the oasis, on the north are some more centaur, so take care of them on
the way up. To get to the oasis hug the south side of the path and head
around the right side of the fountain. The idea here is to avoid attacks
for units that are probably real low on health. If you got here quickly all
four taurens should still be alive. Save the game once here and add the
grunts to your group.
The caravan should be fine under the protection of the healing fountain, so
now you can go back and take care of other centaur. Just keep an eye on
cairne and the tauren occasionally. Anyway Thrall should have leveled by
now or be close, so grab either chain lightning or spirit wolves. This
really comes down to preference and I can't call one better than the other.
Chain lightning is an excellent multi-target spell in its higher levels, but
uses a lot of mana. Spirit wolves are pretty cheap on mana and at later
levels can easily hold their own against weaker ground units. I went with
the wolves mostly for mana reasons, and also because in final level the
wolves make great punching bags for combat or defense in later missions.
They also make Thrall a very versatile solo hero, as the wolves pack a very
hard punch with their critical strike ability and thrall can do high damage
at safe range.
Heal up your units at the fountain and once healed head back down the path
you came in on back to the curve. Where it curves south there is a path
heading northwest. Send your spirit wolves in, then your attack group
thereafter. Focus the centaur nearest to you down here one at a time, then
take care of the higher level back in the base. Grab the scroll of healing
and destroy the crates to the left for a potion of mana. Now, if any units
are below half health deselect them and send them back to the oasis. Watch
out for attacks from the back on the way. After that send the rest of your
units directly south to find another couple centaur. Defeat them then head
back to the caravan. Heal your units all the way up. If cairne and the
tauren wandered away from the fountain, now is the best place to use your
scroll of healing. Before continuing, send Thrall and your attack group out
northwest and take the first right. Kill the murlocs here and destroy the
huts for a potion of mana and ancient figurine +1. Head back out and now
send thrall and the grunts/trolls down the path to the west, and at the
curve kill the centaur near the tunnel north of the curve. Destroy the
crates on the left for a potion of mana. Continue south and around the
curve till it heads back north. Kill the centaur here, then quickly
continue north. Kill off the centaur along the north side of the path, then
continue east to find a shop and some raiders.
Load up every slot on your inventory with scrolls of healing and mana
potions. Use the scrolls of healing around the taurens, and potions of mana
on Thrall obviously. You will need a lot of mana as you continue hammering
chain lightning to drop units quick. Burn all your scrolls on the taurens
as they likely need health, then head north of the shop and right to find
some harpies. Drop them with the raiders ensnare and kill them, then just
make a straight bee-line to the oasis. Once here some catapults will emerge
from the trees. Keep them following one of the middle kudos.
Once at the oasis save and set up your catapults behind the fountain of
health, and hotkey thrall separate from the rest of your attack group. Make
sure EVERY CATAPULT SURVIVES. You will need them. The next part you will
do with only Thrall while the rest of your group protects the caravan (best
way to do it from what I see). Use up all of Thralls group items (scrolls,
wards, etc) here to heal up or protect cairne and any remaining tauren.
Your drill with protecting the caravan is select your regular units and send
them out to defend anytime the caravan falls under attack, and then order
your catapults to attack. Micro back units with low health to the fountain.
The attacks are fairly weak but frequent while you are here so just make
sure your units are taking the damage and not taurens or the caravan. They
will all attack from the south here. Between each attack replenish your
health completely. As for Thrall, send him back to the shop and load him up
with mana and healing potions; two and two should be good. After this head
down the path to the left till it curves south, and here at the curve are
some thunder lizards in the corner. You may consider waiting till just
after an attack to use thrall so you aren't trying to split your focus.
Summon your spirit wolves, send them in to attack the level 6, and send
thrall in after and focus him on the level 6 as well. Spam chain lightning
as often as it is up, and mana potions as often as you need. If you get low
on health use a potion. Grab the claws of attack +3 after the lizards are
dead.
This next group does not drop any passive items, just a greater potion of
mana and scroll of healing, so you can skip if you want. Reload thrall at
the shop as needed, make sure he is fully healed up, and then head back left
slightly but this time head through the opening to the north of the path
here. Summon and send in your wolves, and thrall after, just as before.
This group may take a couple attempts. The first time you head in spam
chain lightning and drop a sorcerer, then retreat if you are getting killed.
If you don't have a bunch of gold left send Thrall back to the fountain of
healing to replenish. Afterward grab more mana potions with any gold you
have (you will be getting it regularly as you defend against centaurs. You
can pretty much do it forever as long as your catapults are not getting
wrecked). Get more mana potions as you can and head back into the same
area. Your goal this time is the rest of the group (1 more sorcerer and a
few lessers). Spam chain lightning on the sorcerer and focus the wolves on
him, and once he dies the rest of the lesser should be just about done with
as well. If you need to you can head back to the fountain of health to
replenish and return, but otherwise just take them out and grab the potion
of greater mana, and destroy the north hut for the scroll of healing.
After this is done send thrall back to the caravan to replenish his health.
Now that Thrall is back here use his spirit wolves to assist in defense.
Your last group to kill are the harpiest just south of the fountain of
health. If you still have a good amount of units, you can attack them full
on and use the raiders ensnare to bring them to the ground for the
catapults. Otherwise, the easiest thing to do is just use Thrall to pick
them off one by one. Start with the two level 1s, then the level 3, then
the 5, then the 6. Run back to the shop to get more mana/healing potions if
needed to help here. The level 5 can be very annoying due to the heal, so
its best to have a mana potion or full mana to use chain lightnings to help
drop her. After this all that is left is the level 6 which is a pretty easy
solo, just drop her as regular and grab the totem of might +1.
I suggest saving constantly for the end part here. Heal up and add the
raiders to group 1 once again. Move down the path to the left, and follow
it north. Proceed cautiously through here, as there are watch towers. When
they are in range, you will need to drop them with your catapults and attack
the centaur that come to defend. You may want to leave your raiders at the
back of the caravan to pick up centaur attackers if the caravan is weak,
otherwise they will head right for the kudos and kill them quick. Use your
spirit wolves to draw fire and thrall to attack at range. Once defending
centaur are down head back to the caravan, defeat any attackers, and retreat
back to the oasis to heal up again. Routine attacks only happen from the
back now, but make sure to intercept them while you are at the fountain,
otherwise they will pass right by to the caravan. Using your catapults,
clear all the watch towers here at safe range, then head north, take out the
one on the north side of the path, and follow the path left. Once you have
cleared everything up till but not including the watch tower to the left of
the path after it curves south, have Thrall drop two spirit wolves and run
thrall and your raiders back to the caravan. The computer was only sending
two centaur at me from the back about every 30 seconds, and the spirit
wolves could take care of them alone if you have rank 2. If so just let the
wolves handle it, otherwise you will need to bring back thrall or raiders to
defend against attacks. Anyway hit the watch tower on the left of the path
once to draw out a centaur, and take him out. Next there is a tower south
of here guarded by two centaur. I suggest sending thrall in first to draw
centaur and tower fire (he wont take much damage) and assigning the catapult
after. Remember at all times to keep spirit wolves in the back of the
caravan to defend against the routine two attackers.
After this tower and two centaur are dead, you have one final group of
centaur to kill. It consists of about 5 lessers. When ready head left with
thrall and any remaining units and just attack them as regular. Thrall can
pretty much solo them if you are dry, but you cannot use spirit wolves
(those need to stay in back to defend). Use any remaining mana potions or
healing abilities (scrolls, wards, anything) on this fight. After it is
over summon one final group of spirit wolves to the back of the caravan and
run thrall over to the last oasis. Wait up for the caravan (make sure not
to let any other centaurs through) to finish the damn mission.
It is not unusual to loose pretty much everything by the end of the mission.
After completing it I had a half health thrall, cairne, and two kudos; one
of which was at about 15% health. Between the endless attacks and lack of
healing capabilities, death is fairly common, which is a primary reason rank
2 spirit wolves help a lot.
=============================================
c. Chapter three: Cry of the Warsong (ROCWO3)
=============================================
Main quests
+Establish a Base
-Build a Great Hall
-Thrall must survive
+Secure Zeppelins
-Destroy all hostile units at the Laboratory
-Return two Goblin Zepplins to your base
Optional quests
+Pacify Humans
-Destroy all the Human bases.
You start the mission just outside of combat where Hellscream and his team
and dropping a human base. Take your offensive units and focus down the
town hall first, then build a great hall in its place. After the fighting
subsides order your other peons onto three additional buildings: a barracks
wherever, a war mill next to the southern forest, and a burrow north of the
great hall. While these are building observe the numerous paths out of your
base; take the far left one and follow it north until you see a small yellow
patch of land to your right with some trees and a couple razormane scouts on
the right side. Take them out for a little extra gold, then head slightly
more north to kill a couple thunder lizards. Remember to use your wolves to
take as much damage as possible.
After this is done reassign the first two peons who finish their structures
to each build one additional burrow. Once the last one finishes, have him
help finish the great hall or if that is done have him start on gold. Once
the burrows are up start training more peons; you want 12 total so train 8
more. Just south of the small patch where the razormane scouts were is
where you will build your watch towers. You will be attacked immediately
after hellscream attacks each human base (total of four), so observe this as
a warning and be ready for the attack. Once you have 3 peons on gold pull
the next one out to start building watch towers. You will want 12. As for
the rest of the peons, assign every other one that gets trained to lumber,
then once you have 5 on gold assign the rest to lumber. Have the last one
out start helping build watch towers up north, as this needs to get
assembled quickly. Keep thrall up here with your units to defend attacks
until watch towers come out. You may get attacked before they are out and
wind up losing a good portion of your attackers (yeah, it sucks without
healing abilities) but fortunately thralls spirit wolves help quite a bit.
Don't overuse chain lightning as it will burn mana. Once you defend the
first attack of humans (focus down the archmage first in this group), you
should have some towers up by the time you get attacked again. Shift
command your peons to assemble two rows of six each. Keep Thrall in front as
they are getting built and summon spirit wolves during attacks. Use chain
lightning sparingly.
Once the peons have all the watch towers on their work que, get the spiked
barricades upgrade from your war mill, and the pillage upgrade from the
great hall. Commit all resources to defense for now. Once Thrall defends
the first attack he will probably upgrade, so grab the second rank of chain
lightning or spirit wolves: whichever you still need. Thrall levels up
twice this mission and for the next level, I got the last rank of spirit
wolves. They help a lot for scouting and defense so that is what I will
recommend.
Once hellscream attacks another base be on the lookout for mortar teams for
the second attack. When you spot them use your wolves and any mana you have
for chain lightning to bring them down quick as you are probably still
building watch towers and cant afford to lose any defense. If the peons
current building is being attacked, cancel his que and assign him to repair
till the attack is cleared out. Then resume building.
Focus all energy on getting your watch towers up after the second attack and
make sure if you have spare resources, they are being used to build towers.
If you are behind on towers and have a ton of gold pull another off the gold
mine to help build towers; if you have a lot of lumber pull one from there.
You can only have 5 on the gold mine, but if you find yourself with a ton of
gold and shortage of lumber I suggest moving some peons over to lumber
temporarily. Once Hellscream attacks the third base there is a good chance
you will get attacked by two bases simultaneously, and that takes a good
chunk of watch towers to defend. Once you have 8 watch towers you can
reassign all but the original two peons up here back to resources, and once
all towers are built, leave one up here for repair. Keep 5 peons on gold
and the rest on lumber.
After you have your 12 watch towers up, upgrade your great hall to a
stronghold and start getting regular war mill upgrades, and pull a peon to
build 5 more burrows. As resources allow pull another peon to build a
beastiary (granted the stronghold is complete). Once the stronghold is
complete get the troll regeneration upgrade from the barracks, and the
raiders ensnare upgrade from the beastiary. I also suggest building a
second barracks. After this that is it for upgrades and structures and you
can start building an attack group.
Train 9 grunts, 10 troll headhunters, 3 catapults, 5 raiders, and a kodo
beast. With 12 peons this puts you at exactly 90. Save up a few resources
before crossing upkeep if you want to assemble the group faster. While
waiting you can use Thralls wolves (rank 3) to scout out human bases since
they are invisible. We will of course be destroying all human bases; it
just makes going after the observatory so much more peaceful.
Just defend routinely while assembling your group and screw with the wolves
as you please. Be advised, blue has sentry towers. Don't worry about
pulling peons from gold at high upkeep; just make sure you have enough gold
to build the remainder of your force before crossing into it.
I would rally your units to just behind the watch towers in case they need
to help kill mortar teams. The humans almost always attack this route
anyway, unless they decide to attack hellscream. But nobody cares about
that.
Once your group is full, hotkey group 1 grunts and Thrall, group 2 raiders,
group 3 headhunters and kodo beast, and group 4 catapults. After that, ride
out with Hellscream. Ride out and meet them. Just follow hellscream in to
whatever base he is attacking (except the first one) and attack into the
base in regular sequence: group 1, then 2, then 3...sorry if I bore
you...but seriously, after that is definitely group 4 and must be ordered in
as well. The first base you will attack is light blue, just to the left of
your base here.
This base is pretty weak so just head in and clean it out. Build a great
hall here and once your gold mine collapses, start harvesting this one.
After this base then follow hellscream into the green and grey bases on the
right side of the map. Ignore if he attacks blue.
All bases except blue are not terribly strong, but they are guarded by a
couple watch towers in front. I recommend saving blue for last; you don't
want to be spending forever beating down this base while you are getting
attacked by others. Get the raiders and catapults on those watch towers.
Otherwise let your units hit whatever they get their hands on. Raiders are
the most likely to die so keep an eye on them. Once you are established
inside any base replenish your units. Once most of the base is cleaned out
you can retreat your catapults and just use grunts and raiders to attack for
resources from pillaging. Keep an eye on your newly built great hall, as it
can be attacked by blue from time to time. My suggestion is to keep a unit
on the top area of the base to kite attacks from blue to your watch towers.
Once the bases functionality is cleared out from whichever base you are
currently attacking send thrall back to your base to defend against
attackers. If a base sends two or three mortar teams at you without any
units down to take them out, they can wipe out the entire defense grid in a
couple minutes so be prepared for that. You can just forego your defense
and keep your attack group replenished to fight solely on offense, but that
can get a little chaotic so I just suggest leaving a defense.
Anyway once one base is down replenish lost forces and wait on Groms next
attack. Follow Grom in once again with your attack group and repeat the
process for the next base. After destroying the first three bases you
probably lost a good chunk of your attack group, but that is alright. If
you fall into no upkeep just save gold while you roll through the attack as
usual. Be ready to run back to defend with Thrall though. You will only be
defending against one outside base at this point though so odds of being
attacked decrease quite a bit.
Anyway with just blue remaining I suggest counterattacking. Save up gold
while remaining in whichever upkeep you fell into from last attack and
rebuild your attack force at once. Same thing. Keep an eye on where you
are harvesting gold in the lower left again. You need only worry about blue
at this point so you should be able to rebuild relatively in peace. Just
watch out for attacks with the archmage; focus him down whenever he shows
up. If they go after your newly build great hall, once again kite them over
to your defense towers. Keep attacking them and slowly running over to draw
them in range.
Once your force is rebuilt it is time to attack blue. Wait for them to
attack you and then quickly run over and attack them. The archmage should
still be dead so make destroying the altar of kings a priority. Order your
catapults on the watch towers in front first, then on to the altar.
Fighting against a blizzard is not fun. After that shift command them onto
the barracks. Let your other units take care of the stray defenders around
here. After the barracks is down focus down the town hall, and from here
just kill whatever you please. Now send a peon to build a third great hall
in any base that you have already leveled while you are still cleaning out
this base. Train more peons to harvest this one as well. This is just to
quickly rebuild for the last part of the mission. You don't need an
enormous army so the ability to quickly build units is more efficient and
really makes sense since you no longer need to defend.
Before you head into the pass, take the path that heads out of blues base to
the southwest. A short ways down are a group of centaur; kill them and the
sorcerer will drop a potion of greater mana and a tome of intelligence. Now
back to blues base, take whats left of your attack group up the path to the
northwest of the base.
All that is in this pass are two groups of centaur, and a group of harpies
at the end. Just bring whatever is left of your attack force and as
catapults and raiders die off, replace them with headhunters or grunts;
about even numbers. Rally them to blues base. If you still have high
upkeep you probably wont need it though. First group is usual attack
whatever suits you this evening and grab the potion of healing from it,
second group focus on the level 8 with the aura around him, and after he
dies he will resurrect, so kill him again. Grab the gauntlets of ogre
strength +3 and scroll of healing if you have room. The last group down the
path to the right are the harpies, who dies fast as all hell but can suck in
all their airborneness. Ensnare them with raiders if you have them;
otherwise its mostly up to thrall and headhunters. You can train more if
needed, but you don't need a ton as long as thrall has mana. Use that
greater mana potion now and spam chain lightning; they will drop quick.
Kill the level 6 first, then focus on the lesser. After they drop clear a
spot for the very nice circlet of nobility +2, purchase the two zeppelins,
and roll them back to your base to complete the mission.
==================================================
d. Chapter four: The Spirits of Ashenvale (ROCWO4)
==================================================
Main quests
+Slash and Burn
-Amass 15,000 units of lumber
Optional quests
+Destroy the Trees of Life
-Destroy the Trees of Life
+Furbolg Chieftain
-Slay the Furbolg Chieftain
-Return to Neeloc Greedyfingers for your reward
All you need to do for this mission is amass 15,000 lumber. No problem
right? Fortunately there are a couple methods of assisting you in
accumulating this enormous pile of wood. Defense is not really critical and
having a group of attacking units is fairly sufficient for defending against
the newly introduced night elves. Just build a few watch towers next to the
gold mine up north, but for the most part you will be on the move.
First off, take note that your base has no gold mine. Your peons are
already clearing the northwest portion of the forest which will clear a path
out of here to the gold mine you need. Once some trees drop head through
the clearing to get greeted by a couple night elf archers and a huntress.
Kill them however, and be sure to take advantage of hellscreams windwalk as
much as possible. Continue north and you will come across the gold mine
guarded by two archers. Kill them and pull a peon to build a great hall.
Select the stronghold in your base, train four peons and rally them here.
In another short minute you will be attacked by a couple air units. Use the
raiders ensnare to drop them down quickly and use wind walk once more.
Once the great hall is assembled and you are collecting gold, train any
raiders you need to get a total of four, a kodo beast, and then train grunts
up to 40 food. Get the spiked barricades upgrade from the war mill, and
while training build a few watch towers near this great hall (mostly to keep
attention off the peons if you are away from your base). I just build a
brick of four. Pull a peon from lumber for this; we do not need to worry
much about lumber harvesting just yet as getting lumber will come much
easier once we start exploring this area. You will be receiving some light
attacks while working on these tasks, but nothing too serious. If blue
attacks and heads for your main base, kite them to your watch towers if they
are out of range of them.
Once units are training and towers building, start getting the steel melee
weapons and the armor upgrade from the warmill. Also grab the pillage
upgrade from the stronghold. In your spare time head slightly east of your
gold mining outpost to come across a goblin shop and receive the first
optional quest we will do. Once you have all the raiders and grunts you can
get in the 40 food range (should be 3-4 of each) and your kodo beast, attack
the furbolgs for the optional quest. They are located in the revealed area
of the map in the middle on the far west side. Just attack to them, there
is nothing in the way. There are 4 level 4's and a level 6 with very decent
damage who will rip your raiders apart in the first section. Agro the
group, pull them out of the area to the right a little bit, and focus the
level 6 down first. Use hellscreams windwalk constantly to drop him
quickly. Try to make sure hellscream or grunts get attacked by the level 6,
not your raiders. If your base falls under attack run back to defend real
quick if necessary. Make sure your peon is automatically repairing your
towers. Once the first group of furbolgs is down hellscream should be
leveled or close, and I suggest the second rank of windwalk. The other
alternative would be critical strike but I consider wind walk just a little
better. These two abilities really go hand and hand though so getting
critical strike isn't a bad choice. I wouldn't recommend mirror image
solely for purpose of mana; I prefer to see all mana committed to windwalk.
It makes soloing with the blademaster great but we don't need to do much of
that.
Now for the second group of furbolgs. If you want to regenerate some of
hellscreams mana that's not a bad idea. There are two level 4s and a level
8 chieftain. Focus the chieftain down first and then the level 4s after.
Again with the windwalk. Once they are dead collect the health stone and
head back to the goblin shop for a couple shredders. These will make work
of the forest in a hurry.
Now with the furbolgs dead you probably lost a few units and have a
stockpile of gold. Replenish your group, but fill it this time. If your
raiders are dying way too fast you can skip them once you have headhunters.
You will be in low upkeep from the shredders anyway (4 food each). Stick
with three raiders and the kodo beast, and get grunts for the rest. Get
upgrades going again, second rank of melee weapons and armor and first rank
of ranged. Also grab the troll regeneration ability from the barracks.
Once group one is filled train headhunters for group 2 to up to 70 food and
assign a peon to build two more burrows. Just pull one from lumber.
Compared to the shredders they are pretty silly to have on lumber anyway.
While training send a peon north of the goblin shop and build a war mill
right next to the forest here for your shredders to return lumber to. Be on
guard for more attacks now; they will be a little heavier and contain
ballistas (night elf siege unit). Use your attack group against them but
make sure they are in range of all your watch towers. Your gold mine will
be running low but you should still have a fair sum of gold and we will grab
another gold mine shortly. Once Grom defends an attack or two he will hit
level six. Get the awesome bladestorm. Once he has this defense is a
breeze; just blow this and ride through the group of night elves. Don't
auto attack with it, all you want to do is just run around bladestorming
everything.
Once your gold mine is about to collapse is has already collapsed, send
group one down the southwest path from your gold mine outpost (where blue
attacks from). Head due south just after heading down the path and follow it
down to the small blue outpost with some units, a couple moonwells and a
tree of life. Kill the units but forego this tree, just for now. From here
head west to see a group of trolls. Kill them and destroy the huts, pick up
the potion of greater healing and the crystal ball, and bring all five of
your peons that were on the last gold mine down here. Build a new great
hall for harvesting. As you can see this gold mine will not be going
anywhere.
NOW head back east and chop down that tree of life. Once it drops you get
3000 lumber. There are more of these, but we really don't need them as they
are all part of a solid night elf base and its quicker and easier just to
harvest lumber directly. At this point build another war mill closer to
the treeline where shredders are harvesting, and build more shredders if you
want. Now keep all your units down here to defend against attacks from
blue, and it's a good idea to build four watch towers again to assist in
defense, but these are best built in a straight horizontal line just above
the great hall. Your other outpost does not need to be defended anymore but
its still a good idea to leave it there for attacks from teal, as if they
bypass this they will probably head to your main base. For defense just
split groups one and two into equal groupings of grunts/headhunters for each
outpost, and use hellscream wherever the attack is. With windwalk he moves
fast and can get to a base being attacked quickly. If towers do get
destroyed at your first outpost they can be rebuilt in a straight vertical
line, as blue will no longer attack this base.
If you haven't already you should be real close to hitting the 15000 lumber
you need. For the remainder of the mission just defend against blue down
south, teal up in the middle, and rebuild war mills closer to the tree line
as needed. If you have spare resources you can use them on watch towers,
but the night elves do not threaten them too bad. Once you hit 15000 the
mission ends.
===============================================
e. Chapter five: The Hunter of Shadows (ROCWO5)
===============================================
Main Quests
+The Chaos Well
-Discover the source of power
-Destroy the Satyrs guarding the pool
+Cenarius
-Slay Cenarius
Right off the bat you have four bases, but the three on the west side of the
river will be cleaned out by Cenarius so your main base is in the southeast.
You also have the 15000 lumber from last mission so this poses no problem
for lumber. You will be busy at the start of the mission.
Right off the bat train 3 more peons, grab the two harvesting lumber from
the southwest base and bring them to harvest gold at the main base, and pull
both of the peons off the gold mine. Order each to assemble 2 watch towers
at each entrance to your base: southwest where the river comes in, and same
on the northwest. Lumber is not much of an issue obviously. Do nothing but
build towers for now. For the west, build 12 watch towers vertically in
front of the tower already assembled. For the north, build 12 watch towers,
again, in front of the ledge with the two already assembled towers. Once
your peon on each entrance starts building a third watch tower or when you
have resources, pull a peon off gold to assemble a fourth one. You do not
have time to wait for the one peon at either entrance to try to complete a
bunch of towers. Anyway your goal is four new towers at each entrance for
this attack.
Once your other bases are gone you will get attacked at both entrances
simultaneously. When the last base is almost cleared out save your game and
load the burrow at each entrance with ALL your peons. You should have 7
total peons for 4 on the north burrow, and 3 on the south. Trust me, you
will need the firepower. Finish up any watch towers you have but if you
already have four at an entrance don't build anymore; you wont have time.
Roll peons into the burrows as they complete their tasks (once you have
resources allow the gold harvesters plenty of time to get to a burrow).
Occupy the one on the south end of the path for each entrance. Send your
regular units just in front of the south towers and keep hellscream on the
north side.
Once the attack occurs, get hellscream into the middle of the north attack
and use bladestorm. Run around and get into the middle of the ground units
as much as possible. Once hes done with this order your watch towers up
here to focus the chimeras (big two headed flying units that spit acid) as
they rip your towers apart. Once the south attack is cleaned out roll and
surviving units up here and order them onto the chimeras as well.
The attack is a pain which is why I suggested to save your game. If your
defense gets cleaned out reload and move your units around or try to be more
effective with hellscreams bladestorm. This really is the wildcard here and
a properly used bladestorm will wipe out the night elves entire ground
force. Regardless after the attack reorder 5 peons onto the gold mine,
order one to build a great hall near the gold mine on the north side of the
base, and order the last one to repair and rebuild any of the towers that
were destroyed at either side. If any on the ledge got destroyed just leave
them and build like regular in front.
Train five more peons as gold comes in, and build more watch towers until
the great hall up north completes. Rally the peons to the north gold mine,
and keep one peon at each entrance building towers. Keep hellscream between
the entrances to defend an attack from either side. If a side does get
attacked head up and bladestorm it out if it is decently sized; otherwise
just save it for next attack. The first few attacks from the standard bases
are nothing compared to teals massive initial attack so you are probably
good just defending as usual.
Once the great hall is completed you will have very good income and can
start hammering out upgrades while the peon on each side assembles watch
towers. There is no huge hurry to get these up so one peon is enough for
now. Just be careful, again, during attacks when they are building to not
let the tower under construction be destroyed before you can cancel it.
For upgrades, grab the ensnare and war drums from the beastiary, upgrade all
weapon and damage from the war mill, and also get the adept training for
shamans and witch doctors, berserker strength for grunts and troll
regeneration from the barracks. Also grab the spiked barricades as usual,
and pillage from the great hall. There aren't many melee night elf units
but its still a pretty cheap upgrade and good to have in the case that night
elves do send melees.
Since you are doubled up on gold mines and have a ton of lumber you can
start training your attack group while upgrading. You will want 11 grunts,
6 headhunters, 2 catapults, 4 raiders, 1 kodo beast, 2 shamans and 2 witch
doctors. With 12 peons this will put you right around 90. Get your
barracks units training as soon as possible as you have a lot coming out of
here. A second one is not entirely necessary if you start training early
but if you have a ton of gold to spend get a second one by all means. Just
keep the upgrades going and get the master training for each caster once the
adept one is complete. You should have more than enough resources to stay
on top of these.
Crossing into low upkeep is of little concern since you have so much income,
so just train away. Slow down once coming up on high upkeep however and
save gold before crossing as usual; 2500 gold should be more than enough
regardless of what you need to train. It shouldn't take long to get the
necessary gold since you are getting double but high upkeep doesn't give
much more than low upkeep so hang out here until you are saved up. Once you
hit high upkeep pull your peons off of each mine.
You will continue getting routinely attacked but the only real threat you
should have are the chimeras with their siege attack. Focus down ballistas
too of course, but chimeras take priority for watch towers. Grom will level
up after some routine defense and I suggest the final rank of windwalk.
Occasionally the night elves will attack with an ancient protector which, im
not going to lie, is pretty damn funny. Continue defending routinely and
upgrading/training units until you have your whole force. There isn't much
more to be said for this; the attacks are not very serious and easily
defended by your 12 watch towers on each end. Just keep the towers repaired
and replaced as need be.
Once your group is trained hotkey them up: grunts and hellscream in group 1,
raiders, kodo beast and headhunters in group 2, casters in group 3, and
catapults in 4. Save and head out the north path of your base, just to the
left of the top gold mine. Follow this path all the way straight north till
you reach the runes, and use your catapults to drop the trees here. You
will come across a few wolves on the way but that's no problem for your
force. If your base falls under attack your towers should be able to handle
it, just make sure the ballistas come in range of your watch towers. If not
use hellscreams wind walk and just run back real quick to defend it. He
rolls down their quick with windwalk up.
After the trees are down head through, group 1 first and groups in sequence
thereafter. Make sure your shamans bloodlust is on auto-cast, and move
through this area killing all the furbolgs. They give gold too in case you
need it for repairs. Drop healing wards with your witch doctors around your
units to help with healing and also use micro as needed. Clear the area and
pick up the anti-magic potion and claws of attack +9. Head left across the
river to come across some satyrs. Use hellscreams wind walk to deal some
heavy damage to them, and again drop a healing ward on the front lines. On
the other side head southwest to the riverbed to come across more satyrs;
deal with them in the same manner as before. Pick up the greater potion of
healing. At this point you are a long way from home so if you get attacked
some more wait for your watch towers to clean out regular units and order
all 12 of your peons to attack the ballistas after that. This is actually
more effective than it sounds...
Anyway continue down the path left and then north to come across more
satyrs. Kill the level 9 first, then the lesser. Continue forward for MORE
satyrs. Drop another healing ward and kill them as you please. Head right
to discover a fountain of health. Heal up then continue down the path right
as it curves north to discover the pool guarded by more satyrs. Defeat
them; if you have not used hellscreams bladestorm yet this is as good a spot
as any. Kill them and grab hellscream the ring of protection +3, and watch
the cut-scene.
After the scene run all the way back to your base, and refresh your group as
needed. If you need more gold order your peons back on to gold, regardless
of upkeep. Leave them on gold now. Refresh your defense grid as needed as
well. You shouldn't have lost too many units so once you are full up once
again save and head out the southwest path of your base toward night elf's
light blue camp. Notice your shamans are now chaos warlocks with different
spells as well.
Light blue is not a huge deal; just drop a healing ward once fighting
commences to keep your front line healed up. The base gets dropped fairly
quick from your grunts and raiders chaos attacks. Level the base. After
the base is dropped cenarius and a few units will come down to engage you.
Order everyone on cenarius and use hellscreams wind walk as often as
possible. With high upkeep he will drop like a rock and that will complete
this mission.
===========================================
f. Chapter six: Where Wyverns Dare (ROCWO6)
===========================================
Main quests
+Stonetalon Peak
-Destroy the Human base guarding the peak
+Wyverns
-Find the Wyverns
-Save the Wyverns from the vile Harpies
Optional quests
+Defiled Fountain
-Kill the Centaur Khan
-Return the Glyph of Purification to restore the Fountain
Right at the start of the mission Thrall will be level 6, so grab the
earthquake spell. Also I am going to suggest you main Cairne your main hero
from here on out, as he has some outstanding melee abilities and damage and
can become very powerful. If you want to stick with thrall however that is
fine; just give all the better items and upgrades to him. I will still
recommend all intelligence tomes go to Thrall.
With that said start by training 7 more peons. Put 2 more on gold, 4 more
on lumber, and use one to start building towers. Get your watch towers
going as soon as the first peon comes out. Build them slightly south of the
path heading north out of your base; a couple watch tower lengths to the
left of the watch tower already assembled up here. Take out the thunder
lizards with your heroes to the left of here to get some gold and keep them
from attacking while building. Some footmen will attack soon so dispatch
them by any means. Remember to use Cairnes excellent melee abilities as
well. Start with war stomp and then use shockwave after that. Use Thralls
chain lightning as well. Together Cairne and Thrall have very good
offensive capabilities.
Anyway build about 10 more towers for a solid defense, and get the spiked
barricades upgrade as soon as possible, followed by the second rank. Keep
Thrall and Cairne in front of the watch towers while building, as the two of
them can take care of the majority of any attack group alone. Get the witch
doctor you started with to plant a sentry ward further up the path to give
early warning for incoming attacks; around where the path inclines up
slightly is a good spot. There may be a cut-scene with the harpies after
which they will attack your witch doctor, so if this happens just run him
back and use thrall to take agro. You don't need to kill them yet but if
you do, all for the better. Anyway run out and take care of mortar teams
and whatever units you can during defense.
Once most of the towers are assembled and the rest qued up, start getting
the ranged weapons and armor upgrades, and the war drums upgrade from the
beastiary. This is probably the only mission in the game I will suggest
zerging, simply because it is much easier to do since the base is up on a
cliff. Build an altar of kinds and upgrade to a fortress once that is done,
and after that get the final rank of spiked barricades. Also build a
beastiary once you have the resources. Use Thrall to kill off the harpies
just northwest of your defense between attacks: with rank 2 chain lightning
they don't have much chance. Kill the lesser first and the level 6 last.
Grab the pendant of mana and give that to Thrall.
Once your defense is up grab all units you have, save and head out your base
and take the first left, following the path to the southwest (just to the
south of where you killed the harpies). Train a couple extra grunts to take
care of mortar teams. Kill the quilboars and trolls along this path, grab
the health stone from the second group, and continue north. Don't worry
about losing units here, as you wont be using them anyway. You will come
across more quillboars to the north; kill them off and take the periapt of
vitality. At this point go back to your base and make sure your ranged and
armor upgrades are still rolling. Grab the last rank of barricades here too
if you did not yet. After this group Thrall and Cairne should both be
leveled or close, so I would grab the last rank of chain lightning, and
Cairne's last rank of shockwave. At 200 damage in a cone, this is a hell of
a lot of damage.
Now continue up the path and right. Next group are some harpies. If thrall
has a mana potion he should be fine; otherwise you will probably want some
mana for this fight. 3-4 chain lightnings will drop the harpies without
incident. Drop these, grab the scroll of protection, and then continue up
the path to the left. The next group of harpies is weak so 2 chain
lightnings will do it. Just watch out for sleeps. After this group heal up
Thrall and regenerate enough mana for 3 or 4 more lightnings, then take out
the last group of harpies up here. Defeat the lesser first, and save the
level 5s for last. While waiting check your upgrades and make sure you are
getting the final ranks of range and shields, and also grab pillage. After
the harpies are down the optional objective is complete and you may now
train wyverns from the beastiary. This will be our entire attack force save
for one kodo beast; just mass them till you hit the food cap. Train the
poisoned spears from the beastiary, then start training them. You probably
have thousands of gold by now so don't worry about upkeep. Use a peon to
repair the zeplin when you get a chance, get one to build 5 more burrows,
and leave Thrall and Cairne up front for defense again. Build a war mill in
closer to the forest to increase lumber harvesting if needed. Keep your
wyverns back from the front line to avoid getting them killed and let your
defense take care of any incoming attacks as usual.
Once you get to around high upkeep make sure you have about 2000 gold, then
pull peons off the gold mine and train the rest of your wyverns and kodo
beast if still needed. You should have around 18 wyverns plus your kodo
beast once you are capped out. Group your heroes and kodo beast into group
1, and wyverns in groups 2 and 3. Once you get a chance send a hero over to
the defiled fountain just west of your base for another optional quest, and
then send your heroes north up the path past the gold mine, and take the
right fork here. Kill the centaurs, and head right to find the khan and a
few other centaurs here. Now grab a group of 12 wyverns and shift order
them to kill the 6 lesser centaurs in any order, followed by the khan.
Right before the centaurs arrive, send Thrall and cairne in to mitigate
damage as much as possible. Use war storm exclusively with cairne, and
summon Thralls feral wolves and use earthquake in the area that your feral
wolves draw the centaur to. Micro wyverns as needed. The centaurs all drop
very quickly and the Khan drops in two attack rotations from wyverns, but he
will resurrect so be ready for that. You should be able to keep all 12
wyverns alive, but if one or two died just train some more. Head back onto
gold temporarily if necessary, but you shouldn't need much since you got
gold from the centaurs. Anyway once the Khan has died run back to the
fountain and send your wyverns back to base as well. Heal everyone up at
the fountain, wait for an attack from blue and then load your heroes and
kodo beast into the zeppelin. Air or ground doesn't really matter, just any
attack helps thin out the base a bit.
Anyway save the game and send all your wyverns and zeplin on the ledge just
south of blues base. This is just north of where you just killed the
centaurs. Send the wyverns in first as there are gryphon riders patrolling
the south ledge. Order them to kill them by any means, send the wyverns
just onto the ledge, and then unload your heroes and kodo beast as far on
the south of the ledge as you can.
It is very easy to control what wyverns attack as they are air, so here are
your priorities. Start by attacking into the base and taking care of any
units that come to defend. After that kill gryphon riders and gyrocopters
first, watch towers right after that (theres just a couple), then any
riflemen attacking you third. Once these units are cleaned out order your
wyverns onto the gryphon aviary first (there are two of them), and workshop
second. The workshop is in the northwest of the base guarded by another
watch tower, so focus it down then take out the workshop. The second aviary
is in the far northeast corner of the base. Once these structures are taken
care of move the wyverns and heroes to the center of the base and let them
attack at will. Keep an eye on Thrall and Cairne. Use Thralls earthquake
once you are solidly inside the base if you want, and just get as many
buildings as you can in the radius. You should clean the base out pretty
quickly and relatively stress free and after the base is done with the
mission is over.
=====================================
g. Chapter seven: The Oracle (ROCWO7)
=====================================
Main Quests
+The Oracle
-Seek out the Oracle
-Thrall must survive
+Enchanted Gemstone
-Find the Enchanted Gemstone
-Bring the Enchanted Gemstone to the Spectral Bridge
-Cairne Bloodhoof must survive
+Heart of Aszune
-Find the Heart of Aszune
-Return the Heart of Aszune
In this quest you have both Cairne and Thrall, but they split up before
entering the cavern. You will control each group at a separate time. You
start out with control of Thrall. The mission also contains several
outstanding items, so be prepared for a little aggravation in having to
decide which wonderful items to keep.
Right off the bat bust open the crate just below the gate for a potion of
healing, then attack and break the gate. Your spirit wolves are your best
friend in this mission, and you should make a habit of sending them in first
for ANY attack. Once the gate is down summon your wolves and send them into
the group of a few undead here. Send thrall in and use a chain lightning,
then send in the rest of your group. Bust the crates here again for a
potion of mana and scroll of healing. Continue south, take out the lone
archer, and summon your spirit wolves and send them east into another attack
group. Send thrall and your units in directly after, and use Thralls chain
lightning once again. Use your witch doctors healing ward to heal damage as
needed.
Keep an eye on your raiders, as piercing attacks love to rip heavy armor
apart. Micro them as needed, but be diligent about it as most attacks are
ranged. Resummon your spirit wolves if needed and send them down the path
east a bit more to come across another undead. Your wolves can take care of
him alone. Once again I will suggest if a single unit is low on health that
you leave him out of the group till he regenerates health. It is better that
he be temporarily out of the group rather than dead. Once you get a few
units down to low health, then its best to use your healing ward. It is not
worth spending the mana for one unit. In furtherance, be sure to save often.
You want to keep as many units alive as possible.
With all this said, after the revenant is dead, resummon wolves and break
the gate to the north of you. Once its down make sure your wolves head in
first, and start picking off the undead up here. Use Thralls chain
lightning as needed; I suggest no more than twice though. Once they are
done give Thrall the mantle of intelligence +3 (If he needs space, use the
potion of mana, or if he needs health use one of those), and now would
probably be a good time to use a healing ward. More than likely, a few
units have taken a beating at this point.
Once you are all healed up head south from here till you get to the ramp,
and resummon your wolves. Send them in first as usual, focus them and all
units on one of the bigger acolyte type undeads, and then focus the
remaining one right after. Use chain lightning once here. Once they are
down kill off the weaker ones. After they are dead send your spirit wolves
while still summoned up the path to the right to take out a couple skeleton
warriors. Once that is done send Thrall and your units up this path,
killing all the crates along the way. One on the left contains a level 6
wraith, so be ready to take care of that. A scroll of healing and potion of
greater mana drop from these crates, and if you have any potions of healing
still in your inventory I suggest losing those and grabbing these two
potions. You can dump your health stone if you need space for one of these
too, as 1 hit point per second is not very good for a ranged hero. Thrall
probably has not been taking a lot of damage anyway so its not all that
useful.
Regardless, lets continue. Send your wolves up the path and bust the gate
here to reveal a couple archers and a revenant. Once the gate is down send
in all your units, kill these guys by any means, and bust the crates in here
to reveal a tome of agility and a scroll of animate dead. This is a good
scroll to have and if you still have a lot of mana (which if you haven't
burned chain lightning like no other you likely still do), use a scroll of
healing and place this in its spot.
Also, Thrall will have probably leveled by now, but if you followed my
advice on speccing you will not have a point to spend. Far sight is not
available this mission. Back out on the main path, we have a powerful
revenant to fight. Before charging in like a ballistic psycho, we want to
pick off those weaker units with your wolves. There are two archers and 3
skeletons in here. Summon your wolves to kill the first archer just in
front of the revenant, the second one near the revenant, and the skeleton
warriors to the right. Resummon your wolves as many times as necessary to
do this. It may take some time, but it is the safest way to go about
killing this revenant without losing any units. Just be sure to keep Thrall
and the rest of your units safely in back.
Now, for fighting the revenant. If you dropped a health stone or potion of
healing, the easiest thing to do is just to summon your wolves and send
Thrall only in to assist in killing. Do not worry about using chain
lightning, just save your mana. Engage the revenant so he attacks Thrall,
and allow your wolves to tear up the revenant unchecked. He will drop
pretty quick, and after hes down head back and use that health stone or
potion you dropped, if you did. If you used them already its not too big a
deal; there is a potion of greater healing just ahead.
Now we need to free yet another spot for this orb of fire. I just used my
second scroll of healing. Another alternative is that ancient figurine that
grants 1 intelligence, but I pretty much never get rid of passives that
grant stats; particularly the heroes primary attribute. You can bust these
crates open up top for a potion of greater healing and potion of greater
mana. Good luck finding space for those. I would just remember where they
are and backtrack if you run out of mana or low on health.
Ahead we have a couple more archers. Send your wolves in and deal with them
by any means. Ahead is another death revenant and lesser undead. Do the
same drill as before; send in your wolves to pick off the lesser. Archers
first, then skeletal warriors. Just a tip for these guys; make sure your
wolves are in proper position before breaking stealth. The wolves are
friggin big and can easily get blocked out of attacking the target you are
intending to. Once the lesser are down send in Thrall followed by all your
units this time. Just keep an eye on their health and macro as needed.
Unfortunately, the door to the treasure room is locked. Send your wolves up
the ramp to the right. Take out the 4 lesser skeletons at the bottom of
this area before that unholy skeleton rips you apart. Once they are dealt
with resommon fresh wolves, send them in to attack the skeleton, and send
everyone in right after. Micro any unit right after they get attacked, as
this 130 dmg attack rips you apart, slow as it may be. After the fight drop
a healing ward and head back out and bust the gate to your south. Send
thrall and the wolves in here, bust the second gate on the right, and take
out the lizards. Drop an item you are willing to part with to make room for
the blood key in here and run back up to the locked door you encountered
when first reaching this area. Inside head right and bust all the crates.
In here we have a scroll of protection, scroll of healing, scroll of mana,
and the incredibly powerful crown of kings +5, which grants 5 to all
attributes. I dropped my last potion of mana to make room for this, so at
this moment the only consumable I had in my inventory is the scroll of
animate dead. The best thing to do with the scroll of mana is use your
trolls healing ward on your units, then drop an item temporarily to pick up
and use that scroll. I just left the other items, but if you feel need for
that scroll of healing you can drop that ancient figurine if you still have
it. 1 intelligence gives a lot of stuff but is fairly menial in the grand
run. If you prefer consumables then go for it. I personally prefer
passives though.
Anyway head back where you defeated the skeleton warrior and bust the gate
on the right side of this area. Take the way gate to reach a new area.
Start by busting the gate to the south and move toward the statue in the
middle of this area. After hearing what is has to say, head back out and
bust the north gate. Inside are three peasants that will arm themselves as
footmen, so send your wolves in first and deal with them regularly. Send
your already summoned spirit wolves right till you reach an area with three
gates on the north side. Behind the first gate is a taskmaster, and your
wolves should be able to finish off the majority of his health. Afterward
send the rest of your units in if needed to finish it off. Behind the
second gate are some headhunters, so bust the gate and grab them. Now move
all your units back and take thrall up to the third gate and bust the gate
down. After this summon your wolves and kill the salamander that spawns
here. You want to keep your units away from here because he has powerful
area attacks. Once he is dead you have yet another great item to make space
for, the sobi mask which regenerates mana 50% faster. NOW is a good time to
drop that figurine if you still have it, but either way you definitely want
this.
Continue east and bust the crates along the way. There is a potion of
greater mana, scroll of healing, and scroll of mana here. If your witch
doctor or shaman need mana, burn the scroll, and if your units need health
burn that scroll. Otherwise just leave them. I won't refer to these items
again, but if you do run out of tricks and need health or mana just run back
and grab any items you left behind.
Slightly south of here there are some sheep that will become footmen. Take
care of them and continue up the path to the right to come across the
sorceresses. One chain lightning will pretty much do them in. Continue up
the path, bear left, and head all the way up until you see some harpies and
a dragon fighting. Just watch until the dragon dies, then send Thrall and
the wolves in to finish the harpies and sludge off. Use one chain lightning
and that should take care of them.
Now...and yes this is WAY too aggravating...you need to make a spot for that
heart, but only temporarily. Since all your passive items are probably
wonderful by now, drop your scroll of animate dead and pick up the heart.
Head north to the waygate, take it, and return the heart to the statue you
originally came across. This completes this objective. Now send Thrall
back up to where the heart dropped and retrieve your scroll.
After the objective completes, you now have sight of Cairne and his three
taurens. This is a little tougher since you have neither spirit wolves nor
any healing abilities. But you DO have reincarnation so you can just let
Cairne die whenever soloing. But we do not need to be doing that. That is
simply a "just in case" maneuver.
Anyway hotkey your units and start by heading south. Take out the mobs down
here and pick up the scroll of healing. For fighting you want to make sure
war stomp is ALWAYS on cooldown; use it constantly. That stun will buy you
a lot of time. Use shockwave between stuns. Destroy the crates in the
lower left as well to reveal a potion of greater mana. This is something
you absolutely will need, but if you do not have a spot I suggest taking
this over that scroll of healing. You can always come back to use that if
needed.
Head back up the path and right, and to your north you will see a rock
formation blocking a chest. Destroy the rocks to engage a stronger rock
golem. He is not much match for your taurens and Cairne however, so drop
him and afterward use your scroll of healing (or head back if you need to).
Its best to pick up this stone token and use it right away since you are
probably low on space. Just be ready to move quickly with the golem, and
keep him in front all the time.
Anyway summon the golem, pick up any item you dropped, and head south. You
will see a couple humans but only need to fight one footman, so kill him and
continue south. Send the golem in first to an attack group slightly south
of here, and then the rest of your units. Send Cairne around back to get
into the middle of the fight, and use his war stomp. After they are dead
head right and some more mobs will come out to attack. Handle them by any
means. After all this is said and done a scroll of the beast, potion of
mana, and talisman of evasion drop. Before we figure out what to do with
all this though, send one tauren down the path heading south, just to the
right of where you are now. At the bottom you will see a hungry hungry
lizard eating mushrooms. DO NOT attack this guy; let him clear out the
mushrooms. You just need someone down there to trigger it and watch it.
While that is going on, We DEFINETELY need to make space for that talisman
of evasion. Drop the totem of might +1 if you need to, because you still
have another powerful item coming up very soon. If you are low on mana just
burn off a potion to make a spot as well.
Once the forest down on the south is all cleared out, a lion horn of
stormwind is revealed all the way at the end of the forest which will grant
+1 armor to all nearby units (The horn, not the forest). When all this was
said and done Cairne had the talisman of evasion, claws of attack +3,
circlet of nobility, gauntlets of ogre strength +3, Peripat of vitality, and
this lion horn. They are all very good items so I didn't have any space for
passives. You may have built Cairne differently which was fine, but I
personally shifted all the most useful items to him in the last mission.
Anyway we are finally done here. Head back up the path and move east until
you see a bunch of razormanes around an enchanted gemstone. Head north and
take the right path to reach a switch. Run up to it to trigger a trap
around the gemstone. The gate is still invulnerable however, so we will now
head north up the path to the left of here. There are a few undead archers
and warriors here. Send Cairne in first followed by your tauren. Shockwave
is your best friend here, since they are all basically in a line. Once they
are dead some healing wards drop. I suggest using one right now since your
taurens probably need healing. After using one drop them again and grab
whatever item you dropped to use them, then head north and hit the switch
here.
Head back south out here, to the invulnerable gate at the bottom right of
the area where you spotted the enchanted gemstone. It is now open, so head
through. Head down to the fountain of health, heal up again (if you need
to), then head right and kill the razormanes here. All to obviously, micro
back to the fountain if any of your taurens are dying. Once they are down,
a claws of attack +12 drops, and it is probably best to just replace your
claws +3 with this. Cairne has probably already upgraded as well or is
close, so I suggest grabbing the second rank of war stomp, or next rank of
shockwave. Whichever one you need to get still.
Now head back to the fountain and from here head back north near the gate,
and take the path to your right. Follow it east till you spot a stream
patrolled by a salamander lord. Drop the salamander lord for
a...*sigh*...belt that grants +6 strength. Yes, by now you have a headache
from having to give up so many decent items already. It is best to get rid
of your periapt of vitality. Remember that strength gives you health
anyway, and this 6 strength gives you the 150 health that the periapt gave
you, plus the attack damage and health regeneration.
Anyway head up the path on the right side of the steam, and follow it south
and east. There are a couple mechanicals here that will come to live and
attack you. Save your mana, as they are immune to magic. Focus them down
one at a time, and afterward if need be, head back to the fountain to heal
up. Continue right to come across a stronger golem. Again, immune to
magic. Drop him and make a temporary spot for the key that drops. Grab the
key and head north to the locked gate. After it is unlocked, head all the
way back and grab the enchanted gemstone, which is up a path to the right of
the gate, back near the fountain of health. Take that back up through the
gate you unlocked, and take it to where the bridge is dropped to the right
of the statue. Now you can head back and grab the item you temporarily
dropped.
Thrall and Cairne now have full access to each others areas, so you can head
back down either path and grab any items you left behind with one hero that
you may still want for the other hero. I won't detail any of this, its just
personal preference. If you are making Cairne your primary hero as I am,
however, I will suggest you swap the crown of kings to Cairne for one of his
lesser items. I just gave the circlet of nobility that Cairne had to
Thrall. Once you are done itemizing, head across the bridge for a cut-
scene, which will complete the mission.
==============================================
h. Chapter eight: By Demons be Driven (ROCWO8)
==============================================
Main Quests
+Hellscream
-Capture Grom in the Soul Gem
-Bring Grom to Jaina's Ritual Circle
Right off the bat for this mission, notice that Thrall has a soul gem in his
inventory and wound up dropping one of his items to obtain it. It is just
sitting right below where he starts out at, so if it you prefer to drop a
different item swap that out now. Also learn Thrall's far sight or
whichever ability remains for him. Despite the fact that you have Jaina
"helping" you, having this base here can easily turn into more of a
liability than an asset, which you will learn.
With all this said start out by training 5 more peons. Pull the first two
to start building towers at the north and east entrances of your base; rally
the rest to lumber. Get a couple towers building at each entrance, and get
the first rank of spiked barricades as soon as possible. Since you are
fighting orcs, there will be a number of grunts and raiders sent to you and
the spike barricades assist greatly in defeating them. You will also want
to get them down as fast as possible, as these two units have chaos attacks
and will deal full damage to your towers.
With all this said, produce towers with one peon at each of the entrances
mentioned, get the spiked barricades upgrade, and upgrade to a fortress as
soon as you are able to. The main reason for doing this so soon is so you
can max out the spiked barricade upgrade quickly. Anyway have 10 total
towers at the north entrance, and 6 on the east one (8 and 4 more, since
each entrance already has two. The east entrance is rarely attacked, so it
does not need to be as strong).
So for now your priority is just to build towers and get spiked barricade
upgrades. Use Cairne and Thrall to defend as needed, and move the rest of
your units back. You can also send them to Jaina's base to help with
defense and gain experience as well if you want to speed up leveling. Just
be sure to be ready to defend your own base when needed. Jaina will whine
and cry about being attacked, but she has no problem defending...at least
not at first. Later in the mission it becomes an issue.
Occasionally you will get attacked from the path between your base and
Jaina's, and in this case its best to use your heroes to either kite them to
your towers or into Jaina's base. I do not consider it worth the investment
to build towers here since your north towers are fairly close to this path,
and Jaina's base is right next to here as well. Just make sure you keep
them off of your Fortress. It is best to keep Thrall and Cairne here
between attacks for that purpose. Once your defense towers are all qued and
spike barricades upgrades moving, start getting all weapon and armor
upgrades, and the shaman and witch doctor adept/master training. The
remainder of upgrades come from the totem and beastiary which have not been
built yet. If you want you can get the troll regeneration upgrade for witch
doctors, but they shouldn't get attacked anyway. As resources allow, grab a
peon off of lumber and que him to build three more burrows and a bestiary.
Build these near the back of your base, near where you are harvesting lumber
to keep them relatively protected by your defense.
Shortly you will get a cut-scene which shows infernals coming down. These
will drop anywhere on the map, and often right in the middle of your base.
When they do show up just use your heroes to kite them over to some towers.
They get ripped apart by piercing attacks. These come routinely for the
remainder of the mission, and you can tell when they are coming by the sound
and noise/screen shake that occurs when they hit the ground. Briefly look
at your map when this happens and check for any green targets. Just
remember they are immune to magic, so don't bother with any hero abilities.
Continue upgrading and repairing towers, but make sure spiked barricades
take priority if they are not yet finished. If your towers are having
trouble surviving the chaos attacks, build a couple more to help. The
majority of attacks seem to come from the north, so keep that in mind.
With your watch towers repaired, make sure your upgrades are still going and
the burrows/bestiary are assembling. Once the beastiary is up you will want
the war drums and envenomed spears upgrades. Once the beastiary is done
build a tauren totem. Our attack group this mission will consist of fewer
numbers of more powerful units. Taurens in particular, which have 1300
health, get a very strong effect from the witch doctors healing ward. Soon
enough the orcs will start attacking with catapults, so you want to make
sure to send Thralls/Cairne and your spirit wolves out to take care of them.
Spirit wolves work very well since they are invisible until they attack, so
they can run straight out to attack the catapults unchecked.
Anyway once Thrall and Cairne level, Thrall should only have far sight
remaining, but Cairne may have a couple abilities. I recommend maxing war
stomp and shockwave first (max whichever is highest rank first), and then
the aura last. Once your tauren totem is up, get the pulverize ability.
Double check your upgrades and make sure they are still rolling. If lumber
is an issue, build another war mill further down into the forest. You
should have 5-6 peons on lumber; if you don't train some more or reassign
idle peons. You don't really need one at the east towers, but keep one up
north.
Once your upgrades are all complete you can get rid of your grunts and
trolls if you have any left, but keep the shaman. Also with Thralls far
sight, you can start getting a look at the area around Grom. Just keep an
eye out for attacks at your base whenever doing this.
Anyway once all upgrades are complete start training Taurens and Wyverns.
You want 6 taurens, 6 wyverns, 2 catapults, 3 shamans, 2 witch doctors, and
a kodo beast. This puts you near the food cap if you have 12 peons. Place
Taurens with Thrall and Cairne, Wyverns in their own group, your shamans and
witch doctors in a group with the kodo beast, and your catapults separate.
I mention this way too much, but manage your upkeep in regards to your
resources. If you are starved, don't cross into upkeep, and pull your peons
off harvesting before hitting high upkeep. Also Jainas base may be falling
apart now, which makes no friggin sense since she usually has 5 figures of
both gold and lumber as well, so help out there if needed. Despite the
relative uselessness of that base, you lose if it gets destroyed.
Anyway send your heroes over there if needed. Otherwise continue building
your force. Once you are capped out, before even worrying about hellscream
we want to get rid of these bases. Hopefully you have had a chance to scan
out the majority of the map by now. There is an outpost on the east side of
the map, and the main base is right above where Jaina is. We want to take
care of the base just above Jainas base first, as she can get wiped out and
if she does, the mission is failed.
Once ready, save and head into Jainas base, up to the north entrance. From
here, head straight north and up the ramp. You will come across a watch
tower up front. From here, all hell will break loose. Order your catapults
onto the watch tower, and send your Taurens and Wyverns up here as well.
Keep your shamans and witch doctors behind them. Once you start attacking
the watch tower, in a short time a bunch of units will come to defend. From
here drop a healing ward, spam Thralls chain lightning and Cairnes shockwave
and stomp. After the defending units are dealt with, attack your way into
the base on the lower left and clear it out. Immediately after that, head
back out and head north to the front of the main base.
If you cross into low upkeep which you more than likely will, get your peons
back on gold, but don't retrain back into high upkeep. After the small
outpost here is down, drop a healing ward and group up all units to heal up,
then head into the base. Attack in the same sequence as before. Your
biggest threat here are the watch towers; if your catapults are still up
order them onto the towers, and order your taurens and wyverns as well.
Thrall and Cairne can handle any straggling units that are training with
their abilities fairly easily. It is very important to clear you way along
in this base; don't let your group get separated. Destroy all structures
along the way, starting with watch towers, then unit production. Clear up
to the fortress, and then use Thrall's earthquake on the fortress and focus
all remaining units on it. Whenever other straggling units attack, use
Cairne to slow them down. This is a very difficult base to drop,
particularly on hard mode, and you can easily lose the majority of your
force. Your goal is to drop as many unit production structures as possible,
and drop the fortress and all peons to stop production. With you occupying
the base that routinely attacks Jaina, she will now start sending units up
here to help you occasionally.
Anyway once you drop back down into no upkeep, start rebuilding your attack
force (if you do that is). Keep your heroes up here as long as possible
harassing the base if you lost your force (which is too likely since purple
is so strong). Take out the watch towers in between units, and then focus
unit production afterward. Remember to use Thralls wolves to help. If you
get the gold mine running low warning, your best bet at more gold is the
gold mine just north of Jainas base, which is where you took out the small
outpost just below the main base you just cleared. You will need to keep
your heroes up here though to defend and rally all units you train to here
as well. Your watch towers can take care of any attacks that come from
purples other base without much problem. Once the north base is cleared out
though you can harvest gold without much problem here; just be sure to have
some wyverns ready to help if infernals fall around here.
Anyway with all that said retrain until about low upkeep with equal amounts
of tauren and wyverns, then finish off this base here if you still need to.
Otherwise, retrain your force as needed, the same as before. Just in case
of an attack from the other purple base, be ready to help Jaina defend, but
the majority of her attacks came from north. Whenever she needs helps its
usually against grunts or raiders though, so just send your wyverns down to
help. Retrain back up to full food, and rally to your gold mine up north,
but watch out for infernals along the way. I suggest leaving your wyverns
down at Jainas base to defend. If you defend for her she will train a
decent enough group and attack with it.
Once you are ready be sure to find the purple outpost if you have not
already; it is just south of where Hellscream is, around the northeast
portion of the map. There are two portions of this outpost, one on the
south that we will hit first, and one to the north that is elevated a little
higher. Move all your units back through the base you just leveled, out the
exit to the east. Follow this passage all the way east until you see some
red ground and come across a couple doom guards and felhounds. Take them
out as normal, then immediately head down the path to the south, and follow
it as it curves right into purples other base. Drop a healing ward, focus
your catapults on the watch towers, and just level it as usual. Its pretty
small and not nearly as bad as the other base, but it still is powerful
enough to require a full attack force. Use Thralls earthquake on the
fortress just as before. Once this base is taken out head out the east exit
and south to take out the bottom portion of this base. As you loose units,
just retrain as resources allow. After this base is down the rest of the
mission is very easy; you just need a small group of units with your heroes
to take care of hellscream. To keep it simple just use a group of wyverns
with your heroes to take out the units guarding hellscream. Their piercing
attacks will do good damage to the doomguards heavy armor and they can evade
ground attacks as well.
With this last base down, the only attacks you need to worry about now are
the infernals, which are fairly weak anyway. Get a small group of your
heroes and wyverns, and head back to the area where you killed the
doomguards and felhounds. Head northeast down the path and start by sending
your wolves in, then heroes, then wyverns. Focus the wyverns on the
doomguards, and be sure to stay back a bit as to not agro the group of
warlocks and raiders just behind them. Once the doomguards and other units
with them are down, continue forward and take out the raiders and warlocks.
Use Cairnes and Thralls abilities to make quick work of them. Now run up to
Grom for a cut-scene. Afterward use the soul gem on Hellscream, and take
out the two doomguards here. After hellscream is trapped, run Thrall all
the way back to the ritual circle, just south of Jainas base to complete the
mission and the orc campaign.
===================================================
VIII. Night Elf Campaign: Eternity's End (ROCWNEX)
===================================================
At long last, after coming across them in only ONE mission in the entire
campaign so far, you are introduced to the night elves. As the last
campaign of the game, some of the missions are fairly difficult, and the
night elves are a unique race to adjust to. It takes some time to get used
to their play style, but when used properly they are a very effective race.
==============================================
a. Chapter one: Enemies at the Gate (ROCWNE1)
==============================================
Main Quests
+Night Elf Base
-Entangle a gold mine
-Construct a Moon Well
-Construct an Ancient of War
-Train 5 Archers
+Invaders
-Slay the Paladin
Optional Quests
+Furbolg Village
-Locate 10 Missing Furbolgs
-Return Tyrande to the Furbolg Shaman
This is the first time you start a races campaign by assembling a base.
Start by moving your tree near the mine, and then using the entangle gold
mine ability from the tree. While entangling train one more wisps, and send
your current wisps onto lumber for a few moments until the mine is
entangled. Night elves have a very efficient method of harvesting lumber,
which is nice to have. Once the mine is entangled, send all 5 of your wisps
onto the gold mine, and train three more wisps from the tree of life. Use
the first wisp to create a moonwell, and send the next two out onto lumber.
Once the moonwell is complete, train 5 more wisps and send them all onto
lumber until you have enough lumber to build an ancient of war, then use a
wisp to build that. Once you have decent resources, start building more
moonwells, and once the ancient of war is constructed start training
archers.
After your 5 archers are trained, you get the next main quest to slay the
paladin. However, before we do that, head down the southeast path out of
your base and head south just a bit until you see a furbolg path to your
left. Run up to the furbolg the the exclamation point to receive an
optional quest. We will do this first. Head back to your base and continue
training archers up to 70 food. Build more moonwells as needed.
While building, head out the left exit of your base and take the north path.
Follow it up and make a right at the fork to discover three more archers.
Bring them back to your base. While you are training you can start
searching for the missing furbolgs. Take Tyrande and 11 archers out the
west side of your base to start searching. You will get attacked by the
humans and orcs, but the archers you are training can handle it.
Start by heading north just outside your base, and follow the path as it
curves left. At the top of this curve are the first two furbolgs. Now,
head back to the front of your base and head southwest from here until you
reach the water. Turn right and follow the waterline southeast until you
reach a path to cross. Follow this path down across the river to locate two
more furbolgs. You can also break a crate here next to the huts for a ring
of protection +1.
From here, head out the left exit to this area and head north along the
water. After crossing the water take the path that heads up northwest, past
the fountain of health, and briefly while you are here head into the small
outpost on the northeast side of the path and take care of the orcs here.
Tyrande should have leveled or be close to it, and she has two very good
abilities, and...one very useless one. Yes, you guessed it. That owl scout
is the most incredible ability ever to walk the face of the earth. Its
offensive power is unmatched by any other. But in reality, I laugh at you
if you level up that owl scout first. My suggestion is trueshot aura as
your primary, and searing arrows as your secondary. The across the board
damage buff for ranged grants a lot more damage than searing arrows, and
costs no mana. But searing arrows is still a great ability to level for
secondary, and it is pretty much all you will use your mana on.
All that aside, head out of the outpost and move west. When you reach the
water, head along the path to the north and take out the small human lumber
post here. Continue all the way north and make a right up the incline at
the end, kill the raiders and rescue three more furbolgs. Head back out and
move west across the river, and on the other side head north to find two
more furbolgs. Your gold mine may be running low or collapsed by now, but
nobody cares about that. If you feel so inclined, you can start harvesting
the gold mine south of your base near the furbolg camp, but its not
necessary. You probably have more than enough gold by now.
Anyway after these two furbolgs, head south out of this area and follow the
path into another small outpost. Take it out, cross the river to your
south, and head left at the end to find the final furbolg. Send Tyrande
back to the furbolg questgiver to receive a few furbolg units to use to
attack the base with.
After this is done, send all your archers and furbolts with tyrande
southwest to the front of the human/orc base. You want two full groups
between your archers, Tyrande, and the furbolgs. The most convenient
entrance is the east one, so attack command your way to the river where that
entrance is. Once your units are all here, send one solitary archer into
the base to attack the paladin once, and get him to pop his shield. Right
after this, send the rest of your units in and focus down the paladin. The
shield may have a few second left on it, but just keep ordering your units
to attack the paladin until it drops. Once it drops focus him till he dies
to complete the mission.
=============================================
b. Chapter two: Daughters of the Moon (ROCWNE2)
=============================================
Main quests
+Escape into Shadow
-Bring Tyrande to the Night Elf town
-Hide from the patrolling Doom Guards
-Tyrande must survive
This is a unique baseless mission. Not only are you without a base, but
Tyrande is all alone. You must move here to the teal base undetected by use
of shadowmeld.
Anyway you can agro all you want, but make sure to use the "I" key to
quickly hide when needed. Start by heading left and forward across the
river. There are a couple doomguards here; wait until they are off to the
right and move Tyrande through quickly. If you get attacked, shadowmeld
once you cross the river and wait for them to return to patrolling. On the
other side of the river you will notice two more doomguards- one up top and
another to the left. There are also two items here you will want to grab,
the claws of attack +3 and slippers of agility +3. Start with the claws of
attack; wait till the north doomguard patrols to the left, and quickly run
in to grab the item and back out. As he patrols to the right, slip into the
left and grab the slippers. Remember, if at any time you pull agro, just
run back and shadowmeld.
Leave this area by the path to the southwest. There is a doomguard that
patrols the area here, so just wait for him to head as far north as he goes,
then quickly slip behind him and take the path south. Cross the river and
break open the crates on the other side to reveal a potion of greater
healing. Be aware that the doomguard patrols all the way down here, so be
careful. Next, head left from here, and watch out for another doom guard
who patrols up this area. When he comes up here, follow him down the ramp
on the left side until you get to an area with some crates and a little hut,
after which the doomguard continues patrolling right. Bust open the crates
for a scroll of healing, and break the cage to free a furbolg, who will run
down the path to the right. Follow him down and let him create a diversion
for you to slip through. Just ignore the doomguard he is fighting and run
right past. Continue up along the path and follow the curve right to come
across another doomguard. Wait until he patrols south and follow him down,
but take the path to your left briefly when he gets to the end. Once he
patrols back up north, move down into that little area he patrolled to and
break open the crates to reveal a druid pouch +1. Now quickly move out and
back down the left path, following the doom guard that is patrolling here.
At the end, head across the bridge.
On the other side you will come across a crate barricade and a single
footman. Kill the footman before breaking the crates, then break the crates
and head into the area to take control of some archers. Bust open the crate
here to reveal a potion of healing and pick it up if you have room.
Otherwise continue east, across the river to notice some humans fighting
undead. Let them fight it out, and while they are fighting each other break
open the crate on the other side of the river near the tents to reveal a
ring of superiority. Make space for that (probably best to drop the greater
healing potion if you still have it) and once the majority of the footmen
and ghouls are dead, move in and finish the job.
Head down the path to the east just a bit to come across some more undead
attacking an orc encampment. Once again, let these units fight it out and
once most of them are dead, move in and clean up the rest. After the fight
use your scroll of healing and run into the orc base with Tyrande only to
grab the mantle of intelligence +3. Just ignore the watch towers. After
grabbing the mantle and escaping, go back and use that healing potion you
just dropped if you took a lot of damage. After that head southeast into
the waygate.
On the other side is a fountain of health and a few huntresses fighting a
shade. Move up to them and once the shade is defeated add the huntresses to
your attack group. Destroy the gate next to you, head north, and attack the
shade just ahead in this area to the left. After it is dead, quickly
shadowmeld. Wait for the doomguard patrolling here to head north, and run
to the right side and kill the shade here as well. You can bust the crates
here for a scroll of healing, and it is best to just burn this now as you
will need space for the gloves of haste just ahead. I suggest dropping the
ring of protection to make room. Anyway, run north with only Tyrande with a
spot open, grab the gloves of haste at the top of this area between some
gargoyles, and quickly run back to the middle right side and shadowmeld
again. From here, follow the bottom path of this area west, past the
doomguard if he is patrolling. Stop and shadowmeld about halfway to the far
left side, in the spot where the doomguard heads north. Wait for him to
move away, then again send Tyrande only to the west into the spiked area
that contains the ring of protection +2. I recommend dropping the druid
pouch +1 for this, as you are already getting very good items.
Once you have the gloves, wait for the doomguard patrolling the bottom left
of this area to patrol back to your attack group, and once he heads back to
the left, follow him at distance. You are probably getting close to morning
now, which means no more shadowmelding, so after following this doomguard up
north kill the shade, and immediately run past the doomguard more north and
head left to kill another shade. From here, shadowmeld to lose them.
Tyrande likely has leveled by now or is close, so I would grab the next rank
of trueshot aura. Anyway from where you are continue north to reach a gate
which will open, and on the other side pick up some more archers and
huntresses. Now briefly backtrack to the other side of the gate and make a
right to come across some footmen fighting a doomguard. Let the footmen
kill him down as far as they can, then use Tyrande to finish him off and
pick up a tome of strength from the doomguards corpse. Back to the mission,
if you have not lost any units you have too many for one group now, so
segment huntresses and archers. Keep archers in the second group, as they
have half the health of huntresses. Take your groups right, past the spirit
tower until you come across some ballistas. Hotkey them into group 3 and
use them to drop the spirit tower. Daylight has probably come already or
will be soon, but fortunately you have plenty of units to fight now. Anyway
south along the path next to the spirit tower is a small area with some more
doomguards and a manual or health and mana stone. Send Tyrande in alone to
grab the manual of health, then quickly run back out. Now we have a base to
get past. Move to the far right and save your game.
This base consists of relatively few units, but a lot of spirit towers.
Head forward with your huntresses followed by your archers and ballistas and
engage the ghouls sitting in front. Some more ghouls will come to defend,
so micro as needed. Order your ballistas onto the spirit towers as you head
into the base, and keep other units out of range. Whenever an undead comes
to attack your ballistas, move them back out of range and use your
huntresses/archers to take care of them. Then resume attacking. Repeat
this pattern until the front spirit towers are dead. Once they are send all
remaining units to the south end of the base and attack the gate. Once it
breaks send Tyrande through to complete the mission.
=======================================================
c. Chapter Three: The Awakening of Stormrage (ROCWNE3)
=======================================================
Main Quests
+Furion Stormrage
-Reach Moonglade Isle behind the Orc base
-Slay the Primal Guardians
-Bring Tyrande to the Horn of Cenarius
-Slumbering Furion Stormrage must survive
This is a regular base mission, but it is timed. On normal its pretty
standard, but on hard mode its one of the most difficult missions in the
game. You need to reach Furion Stormrage before the trees are all cleared
out (listed in the top right of the screen). On hard mode this is a very
short amount of time, about 15 minutes. Start by training 6 more wisps.
Assign 5 to lumber and use one to start assembling moon wells near the front
of your base.
Once all the wisps are trained that you need, upgrade your tree of life to a
tree of ages. While this is assembling, use resources to get the hunters
hall upgrades, including the night vision upgrade. You will want them all.
After this start training units. Train 11 huntresses and 12 dryads. You
only have one rank of upgrades to complete so those will be done quick and
you can start cranking units. Just make sure to keep a wisp building
moonwells; you need a total of five more for food cap. Once your tree of
ages is complete assemble an ancient of lore.
Anyway you do not get attacked very heavily so you need only focus on
building your attack force. Just be sure to utilize your moon wells. You
need to get your force assembled quickly and allow time to get to the horn
and defeat the guardians before the trees are all cleared out.
Anyway once there are about 35 trees remaining, as long as you have 70 food
in units, you should be good. Start by heading up to reds base. Just south
of the base is a fountain of health. This is where you want to do all your
fighting. Doing this correctly is tricky, so be sure to save often. On
normal you have considerably more time, so you can probably destroy the
whole base if you want. On hard however, you don't have that time, but this
tactic worked for me after a few shots.
Start by killing those raiders near the fountain. Now, send your group of
huntresses up to the watch tower and attack it once. Now run back to the
fountain of health, taking a bunch of orcs back with you and fight them from
here. The idea here is to kite orc units back to the fountain. Once you
draw one group send everyone back to the fountain to heal up.
Save a second file and once group 1 (huntresses and Tyrande) are healed,
send them right into the middle of the orc base to draw fire and units as
much as possible. Right as they reach the inside of the base, send your
dryads past the orc base to the far north side, taking your huntresses with
when they dryads reach them. The idea here is to keep as much attention on
your huntresses as possible, as they take damage a lot better than dryads.
Anyway, on the other side make a third save file, and immediately keep
running forward, as orcs may be chasing you. Take a quick right and focus
down the fire elemental here. Make sure Tyrande's flaming arrows is on
auto-cast if you have it. If you don't you should after this fight. Once
he is dropped kill off the adds and reform your group. The orcs should not
be chasing you but if they are, I would suggest reloading and trying to get
away from them. Try running past the fire elemental first before attacking
him. The crates to the top right here contain a jade ring, but your current
items are better. Anyway, back to the next elemental. Once the fire is
down move up the path around the corner and follow it left. The ice
elemental is just ahead here. Save again if you still have a good number of
units left from the first elemental (14 or 15 is good) and sending your
huntresses in first, focus the ice down quickly, followed by the adds.
Immediately after the ice is dead focus the stronger add with him, followed
by the two weaker ones. These shouldn't pose too much of a threat, but the
lightning elemental is annoying. There is an anti-magic potion for Tyrande
in the crate to the right of the horn which you can use if she is having
survival issues. Anyway theres not much to say for the lightning, but focus
him down first followed by focus firing the three adds after. They are all
stronger adds so macro is crucial here as the fight lasts a decent amount of
time. After these adds are down move Tyrande to the horn to complete the
mission.
If you are playing on normal you have a lot more time to build an army and
even take out the orc base, but in hard mode I just cannot see it. I
started training units about a minute into the mission, got a total of 11
huntresses and 9 dryads, and by following the strategy I used had about 5
trees left at the end. It is a hard pressed race and I actually had to redo
the whole mission once, but hopefully this strategy works out alright for
you. It may take a number of reloads to get it just right; just be patient.
The key is to get as many units past that orc base as possible as once they
are past there, that is all you will have. And as I mentioned earlier, SAVE
LIKE MAD!! Once you do something well, save there. If you are unsure, save
a separate file. If it doesn't go well, reload and try again. Redo and
save good progress at each point to get yourself to the end of the mission.
===========================================
d. Chapter four: The Druids Arise (ROCWNE4)
===========================================
Main quests
+Awaken Druids
-Reach the Barrow Dens
-Destroy the corrupted Night Elf base
-Bring Furion to the Barrow Dens
Optional quests
+Crazed Furbolgs
-Kill the Furbolg Warlord
+Cursed Glade
-Kill the Death Revenant to restore the forest All
Just a brief note on heroes. You now have Furion Stormrage under your
control; however I still recommend you leave Tyrande as your main hero
(giving her the better items). Neither of these heroes are very offensive
oriented, but Tyrandes attack can be made much stronger by use of flaming
arrows, so attack speed items or items that grant agility are of great
assistance. Once she hits level 6 her ultimate is possibly the best in the
game, but that is not for awhile. I will however recommend that you give
and mana or intelligence items to Furion. Really the only mana Tyrande will
use comes from the flaming arrows, so she does not need to be very mana
strong. Furion, however, has some very useful abilities.
With that said, on to the mission. Start out by grouping your heroes with
the three archers you are given to start, and move up the path north until
you reach the gold mine. Root your trees here and entangle this measily
excuse for a gold mine (2000 gold). Root your protectors right in the
middle of your base. Until the mine is entangled, harvest lumber.
Afterward, harvest the gold mine (it only takes 3 minutes 20 seconds). If
you prefer you can harvest some lumber with a couple wisps, but do not train
more. That is a waste of resources.
Anyway you will receive some light attacks here. Keep Tyrandes flaming
arrows on auto fir, and if any units take damage send them back to the moon
wells, just west of where you started the quest. Now as far as training
more units goes, I will suggest equal numbers of dryads and huntresses.
Archers are far too weak in my opinion, and really only become stronger
later in the game when they can get better upgrades. For now, they die way
too fast though. You should be able to train about 6 huntresses and 5
dryads. They will need to be separated. You will probably need to build
another moonwell so go ahead and do that, but do not cross 40 food until the
gold mine is completely harvested. Build it next to the other moonwells as
you will be moving again shortly. The orcs may attack you down here; they
attacked me but only destroyed the hunters hall and altar of elders, leaving
the moonwells alone. You may also get the occasional air attack on your
moonwells, but if it is just gargoyles send your dryads down to handle it.
They can easily outperform gargoyles. If wyverns happen to attack you may
need heroes.
Anyhow the orcs and undead will routinely fight each other, and from time to
time attack you with a few units; nothing too serious though. Once you have
your huntresses and dryads, head north and slightly east from here, all the
way to the top of the map to come across some trolls. Kill the first couple
small groups however, and for the stronger troll in the upper left, use
Furions entangling roots. Make sure Tyrandes flaming arrows remains on auto
attack. It's basically the only thing she uses her mana for. Once the
trolls are dead you should have enough gold for one more huntress and one
more dryad, so train them. Also grab the ring of protection +2 and take
note of the fountain of health here. Also be sure to bust the crates just
above the high level troll here to reveal a tome of strength. Give it to
whichever hero you want; I gave it to Tyrande.
Keep an eye on your base as well, and repair your protectors whenever
needed. They are enough to take care of the small attacks that come to you,
but make sure they do stay repaired. Once you are done here, head south and
follow the tree line on the right side till you head down the small incline,
and from here head directly southeast. You will come across the next gold
mine, followed shortly by a fight with some furbolgs. Use Furions
entangling roots on the high level one, and take care of the rest as normal.
Keep your dryads from getting attacked.
After defeating them move your base down here and get the gold mine
entangling. If you have a food cap of 50, build one more moonwell. If any
units need healing send them up to the fountain of health briefly, but make
sure to defend your trees while they are still moving. Once your trees and
protectors are landed you should be fine for now. Once again, keep the base
cluttered and land your protectors right in the middle. Make sure you have
5 wisps still and if one accidently dies, retrain another one.
Anyway start training more huntresses and dryads, plus two ballistas.
Before building them evenly, balance out the ones you already have; equal
numbers as much as possible. Before crossing into low upkeep however,
harvest the entire mine. While waiting on the mine, send your units just
southwest of your base and take out some trolls for extra gold and an
ironwood branch +1 as well as a potion of healing. Furion and Tyrande
should be nearing level up by now and I recommend the passives for each of
them. Furions passive deals back 10/20/30% of a melee attackers damage back
to them, so this is very useful against all other races who use several
basic melee units.
Back at your base, you will get attacked a little heavier now, so it is a
good idea to start using Furions treants. Use these to take out siege units
that come down to your base. Anyway while producing more units head
northeast out of your base toward the defiled fountain, and from here head
east to pick up a couple more huntresses. You will likely need another
moonwell now, so build that. After grabbing the huntresses head straight
north. Summon your treants along the right forest, and use engtangling
roots on the level 7 furbolg here. Focus him down, and then take care of
the two lesser. After that kill the two furbolgs on the left side of the
area. After this is done finish up your unit production if you haven't
already, and uproot your trees and move them all to the fountain of health.
Root them here and be ready to come back and defend if necessary. It is
best to keep them at the fountain of health so your units can heal while
they are defending.
Anyway you got some gold from killing the furbolgs, but it is best to get
some upgrades at this point. The most important upgrade is reinforced hides
(defense for dryads) since they are so vulnerable. Next you want the moon
armor, and then the weapon upgrades after that. Spend whatever gold you
have on upgrades, and get ready to attack the next wave of furbolgs up here.
There is a potion of mana in the crates on the right of the area you fought
the first fubolgs.
When ready head north up the ramp and take care of the furbolgs here.
Again, treants and entangling roots on the level 7. Now, head left and get
ready to fight the warlord.
Summon more treants and send them in first. There are two level 7s and the
warlord, a level 9. Here you want to focus down the level 7s first, but use
entangling roots on the warlord. Take out the lesser furbolgs followed by
the warlord and pick up the claws of attack +6. This will conclude the
optional quest. Now, run back to the fountain of health and heal up, and
while doing that spend more gold on upgrades. Remember; prioritize defense.
After you are healed, head back to the defiled fountain where you picked up
the huntresses, and from here head slightly southeast to reach the human
base. Hang out in front for now, save, and send your ballistas to take out
the two towers in front. Once units come to defend, retreat ballistas back
to your units, and allow your units to intercept. Keep all units out of
range of the watch towers. If the paladin comes and turns immune, it is
best to just "shuffle" your units around and make him chase you, then
surround and kill him when his shield drops. After defending units are
taken care of, move back in and drop the watch towers. Once the watch
towers are down kill the remainder of the units out front, and before
heading in uproot your trees and start moving them down to the front of the
base here. After that, then zerg into the base. Order all units onto the
tower cannon first, then the altar of kings after that. After this you want
to drop the next cannon tower a little to the lower right of here. After
that is down head back to the right side of the base and drop the barracks
and town hall. Once these are out the only unit production structure left
is the arcane sanctum, but there are two watch towers down here, so take
your time with that. Casters are easy kills anyway. Once the town hall and
barracks are out move your trees in and start entangling the mine.
Let your heroes manage the base area, and send your huntresses and dryads
back to the fountain of health to heal up real quick. Take Tyrandes flame
arrows off for now, as you don't really need it for clearing the base. Now
use your heroes to take out the sanctum, while staying out of range of the
towers down here. Once that is down clear out the other structures around
here, but you can leave the watch towers for now if you want. Just stay
away from them. They can actually help to defend against undead which is
nice too.
Anyway root your tree of war and lore in the back of the base, and your tree
of life near the mine.
Once you are ready, take out the watch towers guarding the gate in the
southwest of the base, and destroy the gate. You will get some units after
destroying the gate which will carry you back into low upkeep if you have
about 30 food or so, but it doesn't really matter because you will get a lot
of gold from the next area, and you have one more mine to harvest. Spend
any gold harvested on upgrades again.
As for the next area, keep your heroes in front at all times to take out
Ghosts before sending the rest of your units in. Use Furions treants spell
as needed and turn Tyrande's flaming arrows back on again. Remember you can
have more than three treants at a time.
Anyway as you are clearing this bottom area out, get all upgrades and if you
finish those, build 4 ballistas and after that continue building dryads and
huntresses. If you get to 70 food, just stop there. You want to stay in
low upkeep, but you do want those ballistas so train those first, or at
least as many as you can if you are at 54 food or more. If you get attacked
by gargoyles, send your dryads back to handle it.
Continue clearing the south area eastward. Units respawn in this area, so
be advised. If you need gold you can farm these though, as they grant about
80 gold apiece, but with an attack force this will more than pay for your
replacements. You will likely have a lot of gold saved up on the other
side. Anyway follow it all the way until you are almost south of the gold
mine, and you will come across a small area with several undead and a death
revenant. Clear out all the lessers here, but before killing the death
revenant, if you want more gold, go back and farm some more undead. If or
when you have as much as you want, kill the death revenant to restore the
forest and complete the second optional quest. Now start moving your trees
down here.
Send your regular units to the fountain of health to heal up and bring your
trees to where you killed the revenant. You can land them here briefly to
train more reinforcements. Leave your ballistas here for now as well. Once
you are healed bring all units back down here, and head out from where you
killed the revenant and straight north for a cut-scene.
After the scene move over to the gold mine, killing any corrupted units
along the way. Order your tree of life to entangle the gold mine here, and
root your other trees as well. To the north of this area is a little bundle
of trees in the middle of the path with the route to the corrupted elf base
just behind them; this is where you want to keep your units at. However
before we stay here, head up the path to the right of here with a couple
corrupted protectors and take them out. Bring your units up to draw out and
kill the defending elves, and then use your ballistas to handle the
protectors. Once they are down, position your ballistas along the edge of
the cliff to overlook the night elf base.
From here taking out the base is fairly simple. Reinforce as needed; around
55 or 60 food should be good enough. Attack the corrupted protector right
in the front of the base once to draw out some units, and run back to the
base of the cliff and let your ballistas help you take out the defending
units. They cannot target your ballistas since they are higher elevation.
Once defending units are down, send in your whole attack group and send the
ballistas in behind. All you should have to finish off is another protector
and a few stray units so its pretty straightforward. Wipe the base out, and
afterward bring Furion to the Barrow Dens to complete the mission.
==============================================
e. Chapter Five: Brothers in Blood (ROCWNE5)
==============================================
Main quests
+Awaken Druids
-Discover the location of the Barrow Deeps
-Bring Furion to the Cave Center Circle of Power
-All Druids of the Claw must survive
-Tyrande Whisperwind must survive
-Furion Stormrage must survive
+Free Illidan
-Locate Illidan's Prison
-Defeat the Watchers
-Tyrande Whisperwind must survive
Optional quests
+Bear Necessities
-Get water from the Fountain of Life
-Return the filled vial to the Furbolgs
Yet another mission without a base. Start by grouping all your units,
turing on Tyrande's flaming arrows, and heading south and taking the right
fork. Follow the path right and as it curves north, attack the two furbolgs
up here for a scroll of healing. Head back down, back near the mission
start and head left this time. Follow it straight left and kill the kobolds
here. Grab the potion of healing and head back out, and now head south.
Kill the cave spiders (they are enormous) and continue south. Once you
emerge into the opening, kill the next spider down on the lower left. This
one is also enormous. Head down the path on the left and take the fork that
heads up. Kill the undeads, pick up the potion of greater healing up top if
you need it, and kill the rest of the undead down here. Head back out into
the opening and now head to the other side of the clearing and take out the
level 4 spider for a spider ring. You can see an area behind the wall here,
so go around the large rock formation to the right and circle up, kill some
spiders, and kill the eggs here for a scroll of healing. Remember that
these take priority over healing potions.
Head back out of this area and as it curves south, look to your right for a
cluster of mushrooms. There is a path behind here we want to access. Use
Furions treant ability twice on these mushrooms to clear a path through (or
as much as you need to). On the other side is the largest panda ever (that
is actually the name of it). He packs quite a punch but does not move very
fast; you can drop him before he ever reaches you. Anyway send the treants
you summoned in first, then bring your units up and drop him. If he gets
close to your units just pull back a bit. Once he is down pick up a
necklace of spell immunity. This is very useful for using heroes to solo.
With this done head out of this area and follow the path straight down. On
the other side of the formation in the middle of this area is a path that
leads down to an area with a defiled fountain and some spiders. You will
have a bit of a fight on your hands in this area. Start by summoning
treants from the mushrooms on the left side of the path (there are three
here) and sending them in. Following that, send the rest of your group in.
Focus the brood mother spiders first, then the lesser after that. Use
entangling roots on the stronger spiders. Micro is important here as your
units will take a good amount of damage. Anyway continue south out of this
area and follow the path as it curves left to reach a furbolg with a quest.
You will need a spot in inventory for the empty vial, so if you need to drop
an item, just do it here.
Continue up the path and at the curve head north. Take care of some undead
archers, and ghosts. Head back out to the path and follow it left as it
curves northwest. You will reach an area with some thunder lizards. Start
by killing the one on the left; careful not to agro the rest. Its best to
pull it back a bit, away from the other lizards. After this, pull the first
one on the right side back and kill him as well. That will leave 3 lizards.
Send Furion to the left side to create treants from the mushrooms, and send
your treants in. Engage the lizards, and kill the level 9 first. He will
devour one of your units, but he will die quick enough that you can get it
back without incident. After the level 9 is dead kill the other two and
move up to the fountain to fill the vial. The fountain also heals your
units, so get your group healed up here. Head back to the furbolgs to
complete the optional quest. You receive a talisman of the wild which will
allow you to summon furbolgs to aid you. Tyrande and Furion should have
also leveled by now, so grab their ultimates. These are both amazing
ultimates to have, particularly Tyrandes. Together they raise hell on your
enemies and relieve hell from your allies.
Now head back down this same path, follow it as it curves south and take it
all the way down to the bottom for a brief cut-scene. It would appear you
have...lost someone. No matter; after the scene head back out of this area
and take the path south. Follow the path right, then up and kill the sludge
here. Continue heading right to encounter some more undead. Watch out for
that stupid possession here; use Furion and summon treants from the
mushrooms near where you killed the sludge. After that send him and the
treants in alone and take out the ghosts. Entangle the level 6, and kill
off the level 3s. After they are dead then finish the level 6. Once the
ghosts are down send the rest of your units in to eliminate the archers.
Continue right, and before heading into the circle kill the mobs up top of
this area. After that head into the circle to summon a bridge, and cross
it. On the other side are some ancients that you will need to kill. Summon
treants from the mushrooms and send them in first, use entangling roots on
the level 8, and focus the lesser down first. After they are down kill the
level 8. Grab the claws of attack +9, and take the path south. A scroll of
mana drops from some undead archers here, but you don't really need it
unless you have space. Mana up Furion while you are here and head back out
to the area you just fought the ancients in, and take the north path this
time. Follow the s-curve and once you reach the bridge some flying units
will attack. Focus down the level 6 first, then the other. If you need
healing, remember Furion has tranquility now so use it as much as you need.
It is pretty cheap mana-wise and has a very quick cooldown. Continue up the
bridge and follow it all the way north for a cut-scene.
For the next portion of the mission, you will get attacked by druids of the
claw, but may not kill any of them. Use your talon druids cyclone to
immobilize them if they are giving you trouble. Anyway from here head left
over to the ramp leading into the lower area, cyclone the druid, and take
out the spiders up here. Continue north and take out some more spiders.
Cyclone the druid here if needed, and after this is done head to the far
left of this area and take the southwest exit into a small pool with a
fountain of mana and some sludges. Dispatch of the sludge to find a wand of
the wind, which Furion can use to cast cyclone. Take it if you want, but
its not utterly necessary. Back in the main area, take the north exit under
the archway, bust the gate, and head through to come across some sleeping
druids blocking the pathway. Use cyclone on just one, run through, and
follow the path down to take out some more spiders. Head up the right path
from here and follow the curve, cyclone the druid, and take out the sludges
in front of the next gate to the left. Use entangling roots and focus fire
on the higher level first. After that is done move Furion up to the circle
of power to complete this portion of the mission.
On the other side of the cut-scene you are in control of Tyrande and her
units. This place is a bit of a maze. After killing the guards in the
initial fight, take the south path down, kill the sentry and bust the gate
at the bottom. Kill the golem that escapes, then head right and kill the
mystics. Head back out of the area and continue left down the path. At the
end kill the guards, and break the gate along the bottom. Inside there is a
crate that you can bust to reveal a skeleton archer, but he does not drop
anything. Head back out, forward and through the gate on the left. Head up
the ramp up top to activate a circle of power, then bust the gate at the
south end of this area to free some more units. We are now done on this
side, so head back to the entrance of the prison where you started.
Take the north path this time. Follow the path up as it curves left, and on
the other side of the bridge reside some guards. Pull them over, and now is
a good time to use starfall if you want. On the other side of the bridge,
bust the crates up top to reveal some healing wards. You may not have space
to carry them, but you should definitely equip them to use as needed. Use
one now, then head south to activate the second circle of power.
Head back to the entrance and follow the center path west as it heads
through the gate you just opened. Follow the path as it heads south, and at
the end head south into the small room here. Notice the guards in this room
are sleepers, and not watchers...until they wake up anyway. Just an
interesting note. Kill the sleepers and then bust the gate on the left and
head in to grant your huntresses the moon glaive ability.
Head back out of the area, continue following the main path left and then
head through the archway near the end. Move forward to kill another
watcher, then bust the first gate to your right. Kill the spiders in here
to free 3 more archers, then bust the gate to your left. Inside is a ring
of regeneration which is a very useful defensive ring to have. Free a spot
if you have any weaker items which you likely do for this. I dropped the
claws of attack +3. If your units start running low on health, remember you
have those healing wards back in the other section that you can use to heal
up with, unless you brought them with you. Continue following the path
north, kill the guards on the right, and then bust the gate on the left to
free two more units and a dog, Loki. If you haven't lost any units you will
need two groups now; good for you. Huntresses and the dog with Tyrande and
archers separate. Also be sure to bust the crates in here for a peripat of
vitality. Its up to you if you want to try to make room for this; its not
the greatest item there is but it does help.
Continue forward and the treants will move to block your path. Only a
powerful druid could command such creatures. Drop them and head through the
waygate at the far end of this passage. On the other side head south to a
fountain of health, heal up, and continue left. Make a south (yes, make a
south) at the statue and kill the undeads down here. Bust open the gate to
reveal some goblin land mines. Drop some items temporarily, pick them all
up, and head back out to the main path. Follow it left and then north, just
before the path slopes down. Plant all 6 mines here, then send Tyrande down
the slope to pick up guards. There are 5 that patrol this area here, so
grab as many as you can. Once you have a bunch drag them back to the mines
to kill them instantly. Then head back and grab your items.
Take all your units and head up either side of this path until it circles
around and hits the statue. Kill the units here, and any extra guards you
missed with the mines. Head north up the path until you get a cut-scene.
After this, kill the level 3 hero first, followed by the high level watcher,
and then the lesser. Once they are down the mission is complete.
=======================================================
f. Chapter six: A Destiny of Flame and Sorrow (ROCWNE6)
=======================================================
Main quests
+The Skull of Gul'dan
-Destroy the Demon Gate guarding the Skull
-Bring Illidan to the Skull of Gul'dan
+Destroy Tichondrius
-Destroy Tichondrius
Right as the mission starts, start training wisps from the tree of life and
pull 2 wisps from lumber to build ancient protectors in the northwest of
your base. There is a path that heads up and one that heads left up here;
these are the two you need to defend. Rally wisps that get trained to
lumber, and pull them as quickly as you can to build protectors. These need
to be assembled fairly quickly. You will get attacked at the start; when
you do, bring your units over and turn on immolation aura for Illidan. Move
your units up the path so your assembling protectors do not get attacked, as
these are the preferred target. Use mana burn on the stronger creature and
focus fire him till he is down, and turn on your moonwells auto healing.
Use your druids roar ability to grant extra damage as well.
Once this attack is taken care of, turn off immolation aura. This easy to
forget to do. Now, move your ancient of war up to just below the hunters
hall. This is just in case of occasional attacks from this entrance here;
they will be just about in range of your protectors when they come in. They
are usually fairly weak though, so a defense down here is not necessary.
After you have about 4 protectors assembling or completed, get 6 wisps on
lumber to even out resources, then resume building protectors. Build 8-10
up here; best thing to do is to make kind of an arrow shape to cover attacks
from both directions, and build them a bit back from the entrances. Just
behind the moonwells should be good. Build a row of four down and four
across, with three behind. It doesn't have to be perfect; as long as you
have 8-10 protectors up here that can reasonable cover attacks from both
sides, you are good. You will get attacked from the southeast occasionally,
but if that happens just draw them up to your protectors. Since you moved
your ancient of war anyway, you should be good. Once about 5 protectors are
up pull back all units except Illidan. After all your protectors are
assembled or assembling, build an altar of elders, again, above the tree of
life, and start getting upgrades from the hunter's hall as resources allow;
you want all of them, including ultra-vision. You will also want to grab
abolish magic for dryads and the adept/master training for druids of the
claw from the ancient or lore.
Send Illidan out to help defend attacks whenever they happen by, and
activate your immolation aura for the duration. ALWAYS remember to turn it
off! As far as other upgrades you will want, grab the impaling bolts from
the ancient of war for ballistas, and from here you also want Archers
improved bows and marksmanship, huntresses moon glaives, and if you want you
can get the sentinel ability and place owls on trees outside your base to
help with defense. It is not necessary though. You cannot get all these
upgrades just now as you need the last tree of life upgrade. With the altar
of elders completed, upgrade your tree to a tree of eternity. Make sure you
still have 6 wisps on lumber first though. With upgrades rolling, get a
wisp to start building your remaining 5 moonwells.
Continue keeping your hunters hall upgrades qued, and also grab the natures
blessing upgrade from your tree of life if you have not yet. We will have a
bit of a diverse attack force here. If you find yourself with an abundance
of gold and shortage of lumber, train a couple more wisps for lumber. For
your attack force, we will want 8 druids of the claw, 3 dryads, 4
huntresses, 6 archers, and 3 ballistas. You will keep 2 druids in druid
form, and the other 6 in bear form. Start training until you hit 40 food,
then make sure your upgrades and moonwells are finished before going any
further.
Attacks will become stronger, and occasionally some doomguards will show up.
Beware of these guys, as they will mana burn illidan. Use your mana burn on
them as well, and if Illidan takes too much damage it is easiest to just run
around your protectors. They will usually chase you as enemies usually
prefer to attack units or structures in assembly, so just let your
protectors do work in this case. There are also a couple doomguards just
out the north path of your base that you can kite back to your protectors
when you get a chance.
So for the time being, let your upgrades finish and once they are completed,
start building your units.
Eventually Illidan will likely level from defending, so grab the final rank
of immolation aura. If you have around 4000 gold before crossing upkeep,
that's about all you need for your entire attack force so if you happen to
hit that before upgrades and moonwells are finished just start training.
There is no need to get started super early though, as your force trains
real quick. You can leave wisps on gold when you cross high upkeep, but I
advise that you have enough gold to finish your force before doing this.
Once you are all trained hotkey your units; place 6 bear form druids and
your huntresses in group 1 with Illidan, your archers and dryads with the
two druid form druids in group 2, and your ballistas in group 3.
Once you are ready save the game and head out the north exit of your base.
Attack your way north until you reach the gold mine, and then head northwest
from here. Follow the path all the way until you reach a fork, and then
head straight north at that point. Follow this path up as it curves back
northwest, and here is where you will have a decent fight. Turn on
Illidan's immolation aura and use your standard form druids to cast roar.
If Illidan gets low on health, use the druids rejuvenation on him. There
are several doomguards and corrupted elves in this area, so utilize macro as
needed and keep an eye on your ballistas in case you get attacked from
behind. Fight your way up to the gate, and then destroy it and make sure
Illidan is up here to complete the first objective.
After this objective is complete, Illidan now has permanent metamorphisis
for the remainder of the mission. Send all your units back to your base,
and reinforce your attack force. Your gold mine may be running low at this
point, and once it collapses you will entangle a gold mine southwest of your
base, which we will discover shortly.
For the remainder of this mission, I suggest saving CONSTANTLY as you have
heavy attacks coming from a lot of different directions. While you are
rebuilding, we will use Illidan to get some items and extra gold. Send him
out the west exit of your base and take the second left, following the path
down to the southwest. There is another gold mine here, which is the new
one you will entangle. You can build a new tree here which I recommend
because you may need to train more wisps to replace protectors at your base.
Kill the creeps around here for a potion of mana, and then continue west
into the green water and kill some spiders for a scroll of the beast. Head
further west to discover a shop guarded by more spiders. Kill them for more
gold.
Now from here head northeast. Along the Cliffside up here is a sludge that
will drop a gloves of haste. After this follow the cliffline down as it
curves east to come across a murloc camp. Kill the murlocs for a ring of
protection +3. Now send Illidan back to your base, but be ready to defend
your tree next to the gold mine down south.
You will get attacked a little heavier by felhounds and infernals at this
point which have chaos damage and tear your protectors apart, so keep an eye
on your base. Protectors are a little obsolete now, and its best to have a
few to assist with attacks (a line of 5 or 6 is good), but bear form druids
of the claw cost about the same as a protector, have a lot more armor and
damage and are more versatile and defendable, so I suggest maintaining the 8
of these with Illidan for defense. Micro them as needed and between
attacks, shift and heal. Try to keep all enemies attacking illidan though,
and if he needs healing shift a bear and use rejuvenation. If you want more
healing, you can build more moonwells. Whenever the south tree gets
attacked, kite them back to your main base.
Our first order of business will be to destroy greens base. You must be
quick about this as getting attacked at your main base by red without
Illidan or units can result in some serious destruction. Orange is not a
serious threat though, and protectors or stray units can handle it fine in
most cases. With Illidan and your 8 bear druids, heal them up and head
northwest out of your base. Continue all the way up; greens base is in the
left center of the map. It is just to the upper left from where you killed
the sludge. Anyway, the base itself is small but considerably strong. What
you want to do is send Illidan in first, engage, and once units come to
defend activate immolation aura. Send your bears in at this point. Illidan
will get mana burned but that is not a huge deal, you just want him to take
all damage. While fighting, shift bears one at a time into druid form to
cast rejuvenation on Illidan to keep him alive. Micro bears as they get
attacked as well. After about 10 seconds, shift another bear and cast
rejuvenation on Illidan again. Keep it up on him at all times to outheal
the damage of the guys here. Repeat this until all defending units are
dead, and then heal up your bears themselves. After all units are dead this
base drops very quickly due to Illidan's amazing attack power. Once it is
dead immediately head back to your own base.
A small tip on shifting and healing with druids: the best way to go about
this is to look in your group window to the druid that has the highest mana.
Select him by clicking him twice, order him to shift, and then reselect the
whole attack group by hitting 1. When he shifts, he will be higher in the
ranking que than your bear form druids (just behind Illidan), so all you
need to do is hit tab to select him, then hit rejuvenation and click
whichever druid in the group needs healing. If a druid has 300 mana or
more, he can shift, cast rejuvenation on two targets, and have enough mana
to shift back right away. This is a good habit to get into, and is a very
effective tactic to use.
With green dead, you no longer need to worry about defending your tree of
life harvesting gold; your only severe threat remaining is red. Rebuild
your attack force just as before. In between attacks from red send Illidan
out the southeast exit of your base, but leave druids up here to engage red
if they do attack to give Illidan time to get back up. Kill all the spiders
down here for some gold and a mana stone. You can also kill the cocoons
here to reveal more spiders for more gold. Follow the path north, kill some
sludges, and then take the ramp up to your left. Up top is a moonwell and a
couple skeletons. Orange will come to defend once you attack here, so be
ready. Use Immolation aura while fighting the skeletons, and then turn it
off after to save mana. At this point if you get attacked, just use your
bears. Remember to micro them while fighting; if one gets very low send him
back to the moonwells or out of combat to heal. You might lose a few but
should be able to defend against an attack from red relatively well. Just
remember to save! Anyway send Illidan up the path to the right and north,
and continue north into oranges base. Illidan can take care of this base
alone, as it is relatively weak. Just follow the path up and left, killing
everything along the way. Keep building your force while killing orange,
and again its no matter if you cross high upkeep, but it helps to make sure
that you have enough gold to finish your force before doing so.
Once the relatively small orange base is dead, send Illidan back to your own
base. Continue defending, finish up your force, then head out the north
exit. Make a right at the gold mine this time, following the path to the
northeast. Follow the path up, kill the creeps alone the way, then send
Illidan ahead to engage the infernals and felhound up here. Send everyone
in after that, but keep Illidan in front.
Your first priority up here is to destroy the demon gates, but do NOT attack
units coming out of them with your regular units. Doing so will engage
Tichondrius. After engaging the units up front of this area, some more will
come to defend. You want to prioritize doomguards in any attack, followed
by felhounds after that. After defending units are down, order just your
ballistas straight east to destroy the demon gate over here. There may be
an infernal in front, but he did not attack me until the gate was down. At
any rate, after the gate is down, order your ballistas over to the other
side to destroy the other gate; just outrun the infernal. The gate is
northeast of where the first one was, on the other side of the area
Tichondrius is in. Drop that gate with your ballistas ONLY, again if you
attack with units Tichondrius will come out. Destroy the gate, but do not
kill any units coming out of it. This will agro Tichondrius. Once the gate
is down just let your ballistas die.
Anyway keep your units back until both gates are down. As your ballistas
are killing, reinforce your group but get more archers instead of ballistas.
Shift your druids to heal up your units up here. Once you are ready to
attack, send Illidan in ahead of the rest of your group, then order all
units to attack the first doomguard, followed by the second one. During the
entire fight, keep Illidan mana burning Tichondrious. Focus the doomguards,
then any infernals that were summoned, and after that focus Tichondrius.
You want to get rid of his mana as soon as possible, as his abilities will
deal a lot of damage to your units, so mana burn him as much as you can, and
once he is out of mana he doesn't do much else. Once he drops the mission
is complete.
================================================
g. Chapter seven: Twilight of the Gods (ROCWNE7)
================================================
Main quests
+Delay Archimonde
-Delay Archimonde for 45 minutes
-Archimonde must not reach the world tree
This is the final mission of the campaign, and it really is a fun one. The
undead will attack their way up to the summit, but the humans and orcs are
further down the path than your base. The idea is to make each of these
bases survive as long as it possibly can. The best way to do this is by
creating an enormous field of ancient protectors in front of each base.
At the start, max out your wisp que, and make sure your tree of eternity is
hotkeyed as you will be back here constantly. Pull two wisps off lumber,
and send one to each additional gold mine next to your base. There is one
to the northwest, and one to the southeast.
Get all your units hotkeyed together, and send them down to the front of the
human base. Rally all wisps down here for now as well. Use Furions
tranquility for EVERY attack. For the first few attacks use your units up
ahead while protectors are building; I'll get to that in just a second. You
want to make sure your heroes and Shandris (the improved archer) survive,
but you can lose some other units to take and keep you out of upkeep.
Anyway, on to defense. You will want to build a row of ancient protectors 4
wide on the top and bottom, and just build it as deep as you can. Leave a
path down the middle. Build it behind the entrance of the human base; right
in front of the castle. Whenever the lich shows up, focus everyone on him
and activate Tyrande's flaming arrows. His death and decay wreaks havoc on
your protectors. Once your trees are completed and entangling mines, train
5 wisps from each one to harvest gold from the mines, and then train 3 more
from each to harvest lumber in the area. This will conclude your resource
harvesting, and at this point hotkey all 3 of your trees together to train
wisps to assemble protectors with. Rally to the human base.
As for attacks; for the first three keep your heroes and units at the
entrance of the base, and use tranquility each time. Tyrande and Furion
also have a point to spend, but they will be level 10 in no time so the
order of grabbing stuff is not a huge deal. I suggest thorns aura for
Furion primarily, as this makes ghouls much easier to kill. Anyway stay at
the front and as long as you use tranquility every attack, your units can
survive for awhile. Also use your druid of the claws roar to help with
damage. You will want to stay in no upkeep however, as protectors are your
main means of defense.
For the first so many waves up until about 39 minutes, keep your heroes and
units forward of the humans towers, while building a plethora of protectors
in back. Your protectors are not necessary for the first portion of the
mission, and Jainas units along with your heroes can defend just fine. Just
don't forget tranquility; this is key.
With about 12 wisps on lumber and 15 on gold gold, have all trees rallying
to the human base, and just go nuts with protectors. Make sure they are all
hotkeyed and producing wisps. You will probably wind up in low upkeep just
with wisps, but with 3 gold mines it doesn't have a terrible effect. If
gold really becomes an issue, stop or slow production of wisps and hang out
in no upkeep for a wave to get a bunch of gold, then resume. You will lose
towers a lot, but you should be reassembling them just as fast. Once you
are down around 35 minutes, build towers all over the human base; it doesn't
matter where. Just around buildings or wherever you can land them.
Remember to use Tyrande's starfall every other attack. Keep her in front
with Furion and keep auto-attack with arrows on. With Jaina's mana
regeneration aura, mana rarely becomes an issue for heroes ultimates.
At 33 minutes, stop building protectors here once the next wave comes.
Rally all new wisps to the orc base, but leave your Heroes down here to
assist in defending against that attack. Once that is done, retreat your
heroes back to the orc base.
As long as the human base lasts until about 30 minutes remaining, you are
good. For orc defense, surround each watch tower with ancient protectors.
While you are doing this, start getting the hunters hall upgrades for
hippogryph riders, and the two archer upgrades from the ancient of war.
Pull 4 wisps to build 2 more ancients of war and 2 more ancients of wind as
well. Once you have about 20 ancient protectors down here, start training
archers and hippogryphs in equal numbers. Head up to about 85 food with
these, and as gold allows after that build more protectors. Keep this
attack group maxed out as a priority, however. As long as you use
tranquility every wave, these should survive without too much problem. Keep
your upgrades rolling for them, and continue training wisps to create more
protectors with. Keep all your units back near the front of the orc base
for each attack so the orcs support you. Order your hippogryphs to attack
the lich hero first if he attacks, and then meat wagons second. They can
drop a meat wagon with one wave of attack, so meat wagons drop quickly and
this greatly helps the survival of your protectors.
Anyway what I did was kept a group of 10 riders with Tyrande and Furion, a
couple for replacement, and dedicated the rest of food space to training
wisps to assemble more protectors with. At about 17 minutes remaining stop
producining protectors, and at 15 minutes left, defend the next attack as
your last one and retreat back to your base.
For your bases defense, there is one ancient protector in front; you want to
build protectors right around the fountain of health here. Make sure you
maintain a group of 10 hippogrpyh riders with your heroes, and leave a small
path leading to the fountain so your heroes can get in to heal if needed.
After assembling your initial protectors, focus exclusively on hippogryph
riders thereafter. Watch out with your heroes, as melee units can only
attack them so they will get dropped quick if you are not careful.
Once about 6 minutes remain, move Tyrande and Furion back into your base
permanently. For the last attack before crossing this mark, use Tyrandes
starfall. Keep your riders at the fountain of health to distract and
dispatch units as they can. You can essentially keep a cluster of undead
units here all the time and occasionally units will slip into your base, but
as long as there is not an army back here it is not a big deal. You should
be approaching the end anyway. As far as your hippogryph riders at the
fountain of health go, keep them there to attack units that can attack air,
then send them in to your base to focus units that can only attack ground if
they are there. Focus infernals before anything. You can get pretty
creative at stopping Archimonde in the last 2 minutes or so. Make a
permanent save at about 5 minutes, and another at 2 and a half minutes. As
long as you have at least 10 hippogryph riders, the last 5 minutes is not
too bad. You can let your whole base get destroyed but as long as you have
one structure of any type alive, you won't fail the mission. Anyway for the
last 5 minutes, you have a few options. As for security, down at your
southeast mine, there is a path that heads south into a furbolg camp. Just
outside this camp, keep a wisp down here on lumber and when you are about to
lose your last structures, allow time to complete a moonwell down here.
Also, take your tree of life and eat trees and dig your way into the forest.
I lost my entire base and still completed the mission by doing this.
Anyway starting at about 4 minutes your base will likely be getting
attacked. Once again this is not a huge deal, as long as you have all your
hippogryph riders and a backup means to make a structure. Just keep your
heroes back at the gate, and unless the units attacking you are relatively
weak, just keep them here. Don't pull them to attack heroes. You can try
uprooting your trees and running with them (versus chaos damage that is) or
kiting around with your wisps to buy time; anything to slow the destruction
of your base. I would also suggest creating treants and sending them in as
well to keep units off structures.
Anyway all that will happen up until about 50 seconds is a few units
routinely coming in. Send your hippogryph riders wherever you need to in
order to slow destruction of your base, and make sure your tree of life at
the bottom mine is dug into the forest. At around 50 second, Archimonde
will attack his way in. All you need to do is slow him down. Easiest way
to do this is to scatter your remaining riders between Archimonde and the
circle of power. He will stop and attack each one, and as long as you have
3 or more riders you will buy more than enough time to complete the mission.
So to summarize, your goal in the last 5 minutes is only to survive your
base by slowing however you can, digging a tree into the forest, and
building a backup moonwell as far from the fight as you can. As long as a
structure is secure and your riders survive, you can skate to the end of the
mission without too much trouble. After the mission is over,
congratulations, the campaign is complete! Now enjoy the final videos.
==============================
IV. Other game types (ROCWM1)
==============================
Custom games: Custom games are generally freelance single player games where
the only objective is destroying the enemies bases. You can chose your
race, up to 11 additional computers, and select teams. These games are
enjoyable to play because they are not structures or limited the way that
campaign missions are; namely with heroes and tech trees. Heroes in custom
games require 5 food each and the first one is free. You can then creep
with him in order to gain experience and items. This is a good experience
to try out heroes that you were not introduced to in the campaign, in which
the dreadlord is the only one that you did not play as far as I remember.
However you can also train heroes from mercenary camps, so this is a good
way to get experience with that.
Multiplayer: Multiplayer is the online version of the game in which you log
onto Battle.net and face other players. If you played starcraft, these
games are a lot more structured than those, and the only way to gain wins or
loses on your record is by playing arranged team games. With certain
numbers of wins you can also unlock icons that you can use for your profile;
the type of icon depends on your race selection. Random has icons for naga,
which were not really introduced in the campaign. The top icon requires
1500 wins for that race selection. When you win enough your rank increases,
and you are matched against tougher opponents.
There are also custom games, which are games that do not count on your
record. Most of these are map settings games, where the objective is
completely different such as defense games (games where you are required to
stop a group of units from reaching a certain point, but they do not
attack), defense of the ancients (a game which is basically centered around
an RPG), or games which are just battles between units. There are several
types of games and they are quite fun to try out.
=================================
Legal
=================================
Copyright (C) 2013 Daniel Halverson
This guide may not be used for any other reason other than your own personal
and private use. It may not be published on other websites, magazines, or
publicly distributed in any way.