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Kung Fu Gecko's Unofficial Strategy Guide for Myth: The Fallen Lords v 1.0 by Kung Fu Gecko (Garett Choy) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction a Preface b Spoiler warning c Background d Disclaimer e Copyright f Where to get this walk through z Version history 2 The Units a Light b Dark c Formations 3 Missions 4 Tips, Tricks, and Easter Eggs 5 Cheats 1 INTRODUCTION Welcome to this Kung Fu Gecko strategy guide. As a gamer myself, I've often found wanting help to complete a game because I'd rather get a hint to move in the right direction than spend hours scouring the play map/level/whatever trying to figure out what the level designer of the game wanted me to do. Although multiplayer mode is fun, my first goal is to complete the single player mode. Many people have written walk throughs which have helped me in those times where I was pulling my hair out. So with these strategy guides, I (Kung Fu Gecko) am hoping to contribute to the gaming community. You won't find information just transferred from the manual; rather I want to write the gamer's interpretation of the aspects of the game and the single player mission walk throughs. My goal is to add value. Also, I've made this in plain text so that it is easily transferable and simple for me to format. Sorry, I just don't have time or the desire to make it an HTML hyperlinked document. 1a PREFACE Myth: the Fallen Lords is a real-time strategy (RTS) game which breaks through to new grounds. It foregoes the resource management of other RTS, and instead emphasizes the combat and direction of your available units. This is no mechanism for the player to generate new units, so the idea is to direct your unit intelligently to minimize your losses (ideally zero loss) and maximize the enemy's losses. Myth is also a true 3D game where 3D terrain and gravity play an integral role in the gameplay. For example, positioning your archers on a hill will give you a range advantage over the enemy's archers at the bottom of the hill. The player will also need to be concerned with friendly fire, potentially harmful debris, grenade and arrow blocking (and bouncing) obstacles, and many other concerns related to the 3D environment. The battlefield is viewed from a free moving camera which looks at the battle field from a angled low-flying bird's eye view. Units in Myth gain experience as they rack up kills. This experience translates into faster and more accurate attacks; and can even be carried over to subsequent levels making unit preservation a major strategic advantage. Overall, Myth: the Fallen Lords is a great accomplishment and great fun to play once the play gets used to the 3D system. 1b SPOILER WARNING This walk through contains information and tips which may spoil your experience and enjoyment of the game Myth since it reveals information before you experience it for yourself. I recommend that you only use this if you've played it to completion by yourself, or you are stuck and need some hints to move forward. 1c BACKGROUND Armies of undead warriors lead by evil undead known as the Fallen Lords have returned to terrorize and conquer the lands. The races of the Light have been fighting a losing battle against the Dark for many years. Now, at the brink of extinction, you command the units of the Light in a last effort to defeat the Fallen Lords. 1d DISCLAIMER This document is meant for unofficial informational purposes only, and is not for profit. It is not endorsed by Bungie. Company names, logos and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. 1e COPYRIGHT This document is copyright June 1998, Garett Choy. Permission is granted to reproduce, provided it remains whole and intact. No modifications, deletions, or additions may be made without the expressed written permission of the author. 1f WHERE TO GET THIS WALK THROUGH This walk through is available and is most up to date at my Myth home page located at: http://www.autobahn.org/~gbchoy/geckobeach/myth.html It is also available at the Spoiler's Center: http://www.the-spoiler.com If you would like to comment or make suggestions about this walk through, you can email me at: firstname.lastname@example.com Other Kung Fu Gecko Strategy Guides available: Sub Culture, MechWarrior 2. Get them at: http://www.autobahn.org/~gbchoy/geckobeach 1z VERSION HISTORY v1.0 First published draft of this walk through. 2 The Units Every time a unit kills an enemy, it gains experience. The more experience the unit has, the faster and more accurate/deadly the unit's attacks are. The experience of a unit will carry over from one level to the next, provided that the same type of unit is available in the following mission. This makes a BIG difference and can make you feel attached to your experienced men. I was able to carry over 5 archers through 4 missions one time. They were so experienced that they hit almost everything that they shot at. 2a Light Warrior - These are your standard knights in plate mail armor. They have a shield which can sometimes block attacks and swords used for inflicting close combat damage upon the warrior's target. The warriors move at a moderate pace, they aren't quick but they aren't slow either. Use these units in groups to gang up on enemies. You won't have to worry about them accidentally hitting each other with their swords as they hack at the enemy, so let them horde an enemy. Bezerker - I prefer these guys over the warrior. The bezerker moves quickly compared to the warrior, attacks faster, and does more damage with his huge sword. The drawback is that they have no armor and are damaged easier. Just like the warrior, use these guys in packs to surround an enemy. Archer - These are my favorite units as they are great for sniping at your enemies. The archers move slower than the warriors and much slower than bezerkers, and have no armor. They have unlimited arrows to shoot, but keep in mind that gravity affect their effectiveness. They require a minimum distance between them and the enemy, but remember that if the enemy does get too close and there is no where to run, you can have the armor punch the enemy by double clicking on them. It is best to use these guys in packs in a long line (formation 2, oriented towards the enemy) from the highest vantage point possible like hills or cliffs. When the unit has little or no experience, they are lousy shots; but with experience these guys can really cause havoc to the enemy before they get to you. Try to keep them alive as most scenarios tend to have archers, and the experience of a unit carries over to the next scenario. Dwarf - As you play, you'll probably love and hate the dwarves. These guys are short humanoids who wield bottles of explosive liquids (malotov cocktail style). They ignite the fuse of the bottles and throw them at their enemy for grenade like results. Thrown into a pack of enemy units, the dwarf can decimate armies. Units within the vicinity of the blast will also receive damage. Because the grenade is ignited by burning fuse, sometimes the action of throwing the bottle will blow the flame out causing the bottle to drop harmlessly to the ground. Fallen bottles can be ignited by the explosion of other bottles, however, so beware. You can use the dwarf to pick up bottle "duds" (unexploded bottles) or even pick up slow burning bottles and rethrow them. Weather conditions also affect the effectiveness of the grenades; wind, snow, rain, and rivers can blow out the fuses. Dwarven friendly fire is the worst friendly fire you can imagine. It's common for the dwarf to have a tendency to throw his grenade into the enemy at the same time your soldiers are attacking them; blowing up not only the enemy but also your men. Use the attack-ground action when you need to influence the dwarf to throw smarter (the computer doesn't always anticipate the enemies future position very well). Dwarves also have satchel charges (limited number, but they can pick up more) which can be set on the ground to effectively create a minefield. They must be detonated with a grenade though. A good strategy is create a group and line of charges for a domino effect of explosive destruction. Dwarves have the most humorous sayings. They sound like crabby old men saying, "yes, sir!" or "move here, move there, ngyah!" when you direct them and "oops" or "my fault" when they accidentally damage their own units, or "oh yeah!" when they successfully blow an enemy to smithereens. Journeyman - These guys are the healers of your party. They have a shovel to fight with, but they are slow. Since you need them for healing or picking up vital objects in missions, don't use them as a first line for combat. Keep them in the back of your party ready to heal the units that get injured. Forest Giant - You don't get to use these guys very often, probably because they are so awesome. They are tall, fast, strong, and can take a huge beating. In one swat they can slap an enemy out of existence. Sometimes, their swat is so powerful that pieces of the unfortunate enemy can go flying into friendly units causing some damage. 2b Dark Thrall - These lumbering zombies are slow but can cause a lot of unwelcome damage when they get to you with their battle axes. They can hide underwater out of sight. They tend to be bunched up in armies which are perfect targets for the dwarf's grenade. Caught in the direct explosion of grenades, the thrall burst to messy pieces in one shot. Ghol - The ghols are fast nightmare creatures. The computer is pretty good about controlling them to stay just out of harms way, then just when you aren't looking rush in and hack your men to death. Ghols are annoying and deadly pests whole can pick up and throw just about any small object like an arm, a rock, bone, sword, and even wight pieces for use as a grenade. Just like the thrall, a direct hit with a grenade will usually blow these guys apart. Myrmidon - I hate these guys. They are the bezerker counterpart for the dark. They are fast and tough. One grenade hit isn't enough to kill them. Try to weaken them as they approach and then send your warriors or bezerkers on them. Soulless - These are floating purple ghosts who have no limits to where they can go. Cliffs don't stop them so remember that the can move into any territory. They often will retreat to the safety of a cliff side where no hand to hand combat unit can reach them. They wield spears which are thrown at the enemy. They aren't very strong, however, so when your soldiers do reach them they can be hacked to pieces quickly. When you first meet a group of standing soulless, one arrow hit will usually make the hit unit retreat out of range. Use this fact to shoot each one in a group once to push them back. This usually spreads them apart enough so that you can snipe at them one at a time. Wight - Even slower than the thrall, the wight is a walking bomb. They lumber near your men and detonate themselves for an explosion more powerful than the dwarven grenade. Use your archers to blow them up from afar. An exploded wight leaves chunks of explosive body parts on the ground. Both the explosions of the chunks and the wight will spray a puss which will temporary paralyze anyone who gets splashed. Fetch - These are evil priestesses who can cast lightning attacks to groups of men with obliterating results. Fortunately they aren't heavily armored or very strong so a few arrow hits can kill them before they are in range to use their lightning. Shade - The worst. These are evil sorcerers who are slow but have a lot of stamina and the most deadly attack ever. The shade will use a magic attack that will cause the target to explode in green smoke. Anyone in the vicinity of the exploding victim will also explode in the same manner, which will in turn explode any one in the vicinity of that victim, and so on. Use a pack of archers or satchel charges to kill them, or try to avoid them completely. One good thing to keep in mind is that they will not cross water. Trow - The dark's equivalent of a forest giant. These guys are fast, strong, and deadly. Surround these guys to attack and expect to lose some men as the trow kicks your men out of existence. Spider - These aren't really a part of the dark. They really are just animal creatures which attack *anybody* including the dark. The spiders aren't very strong but they are fast and can be deadly when they attack in numbers. They are brown in color. Queen Spider - The big mama of spiders. They are like the regular spiders but bigger, faster, deadlier, and tougher. They are black in color. 2c Formations Formation 1: Short Line - This formation is useful when you want to break up your units into teams. Have them for a short line, then highlight the rows to set your presets. This formation isn't that useful for combat unless you want to pack your men together. Formation 2: Long Line - This is the most useful formation for the archers. It spreads them in a long line (hence the name) so they can rain arrows upon the enemy. You'll need to use the gesture click to orient the long line to be useful. Formation 3: Loose Line - This is a wider spaced version of the short line. It should only be used if you need your archers to attack a widely space army (twice as wide as you). Formation 4: Staggered Line - This causes the men to line up in staggered fashion where each row of men is position between the row in front of them. This is extremely useful when you are using several dwarves to lay down a minefield of satchel charges. Formation 5: Box - This formation should be used to bunch up your men when they need to huddle together or squeeze through tight areas. Do not use this when explosives are being hurled at your by the enemy. Formation 6: Rabble - This puts the units in a "random", but approximately equally spaced apart formation. This is good for just keeping your armies in a pack when moving around. Formation 7: Shallow Encirclement - This is the formation of choice when units need to pounce on an enemy. It forms them into a wide arc. It's particularly useful when you need to kill a trow (giant) with a bunch of warriors or bezerkers. Formation 8: Deep Encirclement - This is a tighter angle version of the shallow encirclement. It is good for surrounded and enemy already near your units, but it's not as good as the shallow encirclement because an enemy unit will tend to attack the ends of the crescent first; defeating your ability to surround effectively. Formation 9: Vanguard - This sets up the men in an inverted "V" formation, good for charging into an army of enemies. This is not a defensive formation. Formation 10: Circle - This literally creates a circle with your men. It's good for guarding a unit. It's not good for surrounding an enemy because it takes too long for the men to create the formation. 3 Missions There is so much variation that can happen in Myth, that even if you followed my actions exactly, you would not get the same results. With this in mind, I have written the level descriptions with the general strategy for the level. There are of course, several ways to complete each level; I only present one. Having my real-time Strategy game roots in WarCraft II, I wasn't used to cherishing each individual unit. The goal is always to preserve your men for as long as possible, but Myth makes unit preservation a much higher priority since there is no such thing as unit production. Mission 1: Crow's Bridge Welcome to Myth. This level will teach you the basics of Myth-combat style. Try to keep a mentality of unit preservation and always seeking to use the environment to your advantage. You'll start off with a few warriors on a bridge. Move them off and everyone else with them up the road towards the city and stop at a nice hill. Move your camera to the city and get all the men there and move them to meet up with your other men on the hill. Set your archers up in a long line facing the bridge and split the warriors into two separate groups to protect either side of the archers. Several ghols will pester you so try and use the archers to pester them, but don't lose your position. Use the dwarves to set up a nice minefield safely in front of you. As the thrall approach, set off the minefield as they cross it by targeting the ground of the nearest satchel charge. The archers should weaken the thrall, and then use the warriors to clean up the stragglers. Make sure you tell the dwarves and archers to stop (space bar) attacking when your warriors go in. Ghols will try to flank you so keep an eye on them. Soulless will attack as well so use the archers to kill them. If it's safe, bring the warriors around the side to wipe out the soulless, but don't forget about the pesky ghols. The army will eventually retreat over the bridge. Mission 2: A Traitor's Grave This level will start with a peasant leading the way to the traitorous mayor. Follow him for a bit but keep watch for the pesky ghols. Although the peasant will seem impatient, he will wait for you or even follow you if you don't follow. You will see them around the area of what looks like a dry river bed. To the NE, ghols will watch you from a distance. Try to kill a few before continuing to follow the peasant. Find high ground on the other side of the dry bed and set up your archers in a line facing NE. When some soulless and thrall appear, the peasant will retreat in fear. Use the dwarf to bomb the enemy and the archers to kill the soulless while you use the journeyman to kill anyone who gets too close to your men. Follow the peasant N and NE to what looks like a statue. The peasant will say, "there he is!" Have everyone chase down the group of thrall surrounding the mayor. They are marching NW to get away. Just have the dwarf throw his grenade at the mayor in the middle of the pack to complete the level. Mission 3: The Siege of Madrigal In this mission you need to find a large army and lead them back to your starting point. You'll start off with several archers and warriors near a bridge over a river. You want to try and take the bridge with your archers as soon as you can because it's the highest point in the area. Only a few archers can fit on the bridge so leave a few back on the bank to the side of the bridge. If you aren't able to take the bridge, that's ok, just keep using your archers to snipe at the enemy with preference to kill the soulless. Keep luring them in and then snipe at them. If the army attacks, retreat the archers on the bridge and let the warriors jump anyone who crosses the bridge onto your side of the land. Keep this up until you clean them all out. Move your men into the open area in the center of the village. This will be your first encounter with wights, fat lumbering sewed up zombies which explode with a force stronger than the dwarven grenade. Anyone surviving the blast (on the perimeter) will be covered with puss which temporarily immobilizes them. Because of this, the idea is to surround your tightly boxed warriors with two or three groups of archers. You'll hear the wights' moaning as they approach. The wights will try to sneak up on you where your back is turned so keep an eye on the radar map. Use the archers to detonate the wights from afar. Once they are all taken care of (no red dots on the radar) then leave the slow archers in the village and move your warriors NE up the road. There will be some ghols, but they aren't the army you're looking for. Keep following the road, and off to the east of the road will be many thralls and soulless (tons of red dots on the radar). One of your men will say, "there's the army, let's go back to the bridge." Immediately send all your warriors back to get the archers. Lead all your men back to the bridge killing any wights with the archers. A small handful of thrall and soulless will have shown up near the bridge so kill them quickly. Cross the bridge and the mission will be done. Mission 4: Homecoming In this mission, you need to recover the codex with your journeyman and then escape. He's the only one who can carry it, so you can't let him get killed. When you first appear, your warriors will appear in the world knot. Several soulless are waiting to shoot at you from a high point in a coliseum. Immediately retreat the warriors away and archers will appear in the world knot. Have them shoot the soulless but watch for any ghols; use the warriors on them if they get close. When the archers move out of the world knot, the journeyman will appear. Go around the east side of the coliseum, shooting at soulless as they pester you. Avoid the west side where there is an enemy army. Move southeast where you'll meet soulless and thralls. Use the archers on the soulless, and the dwarves on the thralls, then the warriors to clean up survivors who get too close. The codex is near the ruins (Cathedral) and another party which comes into your possession is being jumped by the enemy, but you'll probably lose them as they get slaughtered. Finish off the murderers of your friends. Use your journeyman to heal everyone until he's out of mandrake roots, as he will go out of your control once you pick up the codex. Get the green/yellow glowing codex. Follow the computer controlled journeyman with the codex to the south east. You will be harassed by ghols, so keep them at bay with the archer until the mission ends. Mission 5: Flight from Covenant This is the first mission you'll encounter the myrmidons that you will learn to dread. They are faster and tougher than the thrall. But, following this walk through, you won't have to fight them. As soon as the mission starts, stop everyone. You'll be here for awhile. Send the dwarves in to blow up the oncoming thrall, then retreat them. There are three attacking armies to contend with so you'll be hear for awhile. Set up the archers in a line to long range and the dwarves to do the initial attacks. Your warriors should be split into two groups to covers the sides. As you fight the thrall, be wary of wights lumbering into your area and use the archers to attack them on sight. Fight the armies until you defeat them. That road ahead of you going east is tempting but don't take it. If you do, you will be ambushed by a huge army of myrmidons who will tear you to shreds. Instead, go due north and make your way east through the swamps. Along the way wights will pop up so use the archers on them. Thralls will also attack; use archers and warriors since the dwarf grenades won't work well at all in the mud. You should always be looking for wights on the radar (usually single red dots) as you trek through the swamp. This trek will have taken you around the big army you don't want to mess with. After reaching land, you will encounter another group of thrall to contend with. Decimate them with the dwarf and the warriors. The road you avoided will be leading ENE at this point so follow it until it forks. The escape tunnel is due east from the point that the road forks. The tunnel is at the base of small hill with trees all around. Move everyone into the tunnel to complete the level. Mission 6: Force Ten from Stoneheim Your mission is to destroy a world knot. In this mission you get to use the bezerker unit, who moves and attacks faster than the warrior. He can't block things but you'll find he's better at killing. At the beginning, a huge group of civilians are headed towards a shrine to pray. One of your bezerkers tries to convince them that it's too dangerous to no avail. Move east to the stone on the hill, the destination of the peasants. Some pesky ghols will be skirting the area so if you get the opportunity, shoot at them. Move everyone down the hill (NE) to the icy river. Form the archers in a line just before the unfrozen part of the river with the dwarves to the left. Keep the bezerkers around because the ghols will try to sneak up on you and kill your poorly armored archers and dwarves. You don't have to worry about the peasants unless you want to. On the other side of the river is an army of soulless and thralls. Snipe at the soulless with the archers. If you retreat a little, the soulless will move back to the edge of the river, then you can go back and snipe at them again. Eventually, you'll be able to whittle down the enemy to almost nothing. At some point the army will attack so keep the archers in a line but not too close to the river. Have the dwarves ready to attack the enemy just as they step *out* of the water as the river will instantly put out the grenade's fuse, rendering them useless. After taking care of this army, cross the river and head NE. Along they way you will meet up with more waves of soulless and thrall. Keep the archers on the soulless and the dwarves on the thrall sweeping up with the bezerkers until you reach the world knot. Ghols will attempt to run in, so don't let the bezerkers stray too far from the party and keep and eye on the radar. Continue onto the knot and set up your forces to be ready for the army of soulless and thrall which will beam in at the knot. Take care of them as you have been. When the coast is clear, set about 7 satchel charges at the base of one of the world knot pillars. Stand back and set it off with a grenade. Alternate route: instead of crossing the river at the north east spot, you can follow it south to a crossing near a waterfall. I didn't use this method, but supposedly it's a little easier. Mission 7: Bagrada You need to discover the fate of the lost camp. You'll start out between two pillars. This is a good place to stay for awhile while several waves of enemies attack you. Keep sniping at them with the archers and use the fast bezerkers to prevent the myrmidons from attacking your flank. The pillars can be used as cover from the soulless spears. Once the myrmidons are taken care of, move the bezerkers back around to your men so everyone is behind and/or between the pillars. Several armies will attack you so try and flank soulless with the bezerkers, while your dwarves and archers whittle the approaching army. Use the warriors to clean up anyone who gets too close and watch your dwarves carefully. After all the waves have been defeated, you can finally start moving east. You may encounter a few myrmidons which will keep their distance if you keep your men together. As you edge towards them, they will run east. Eventually they will come to a point where they will go no further and you can snipe them with the archers. Follow the tracks in the snow past the stone markers. Along the way you will meet four soulless up on a hill which only the archers can reach. Use some experienced archers to kill them and have the journeyman heal anyone who's hurt past half strength. Move E and NE to another hill where two more soulless are. Continue east where some reinforcements will appear from a southern passage, while another army appears to the south west. You don't have to fight the army if you don't move your men near them. Join everyone together and head NE to a wide sloping ramp where a smoldering fire is. Set up some satchel charges in a patch at the base of the ramp and your men in a shallow circle further down. Another army of thrall, soulless, and myrmidon will appear, so you use everyone to kill them but don't let them go up the ramp. When you go up to a certain point in the ramp, you will hear massive foot steps moving very quickly. A huge blue beast called the trow will come down the ramp. Try to set off the minefield of satchels as he enters (remember, he's FAST) and then have everyone attack him at once. Mission 8: Ambush at Devil's Overlook This level is fun and frustrating. You start off with several dwarves and a few bezerkers. Let the two dwarves picking up the satchel in the middle of the frozen lake finish but stop the dwarves who are laying down satchels. Move everybody to the west end of the lake. Make your dwarves pick up as many satchel charges from the satchel pile as they can and use a staggered formation to lay charges in the lake to create an nice even minefield. Do this three times close enough together so they all will go off at once. Create what will be about the shape of an army. A scout will come running in and the first of two HUGE soulless armies will be following. The soulless will be heading for you so make sure all your men are position to lead the soulless over the minefield. Have a few dwarves attack the edge of the minefield and watch the soulless go up in smoke. Use the bezerkers to clean up survivors while your dwarves set up the minefield again for the next wave of soulless which will already be on the radar. Lead them over the field again and blow the second army up just like the first. There will be stragglers so use the dwarves to take them from the hill while you try to flank them with the bezerker. Mission 9: The Five Champions Your goal is to free the captive sorcerer hero Alric. If you haven't learned to preserve your men, this is the first mission where you are forced to. If any of your men die on this level, you fail the mission so watch their health and heal anyone will low stamina. All five of your men are heroes and have the skills to prove it. You start with an archer, a dwarf, a journeyman, and two bezerkers. Just past the archway at the starting point is a soulless to the left. Use the archer to kill him. Your movement into the area will reveal a couple more soulless to the right, so eliminate them with the archer and the bezerkers. Follow the path up north where you'll encounter some ghols. Finish them off from a distance, then the bezerker when they get close. A few soulless will be behind them so use the archer on them. Further north is a ramp going up. Try to set a couple satchel charges before the large army of thrall come down it. Go up the ramp and head back SE along the top of the hill till you reach a ramp skirting the side the wall to the canyon below. Position your archer and the dwarf to over look the ramp, and move the two bezerkers to be ready to kill anyone that makes it to the top. An even bigger army of thrall will start coming up the ramp for a huge massacre! Your dwarf and archer will rain death upon the thrall; very satisfying. But that's not all, a second army of thrall will come up the ramp after the first for yet another event of mass destruction. By now, the ramp is just covered with blood and body parts. Go down the ramp and head north through a valley of smoke holes. Hug the east wall and stop everyone except the archer well before the north wall where a ramp is. Several soulless are atop the wall. Use the archer to hit them with one arrow each to knock them back if possible. If they attack, retreat the archer so the soulless come down off the top and bezerker them to dust. Go up the ramp and follow the top to a north-south bridge, but don't cross it. Position the archer to the left side of the bridge entrance (facing the bridge) closer to the group of ghols across the way. Position the dwarf on the right side of the bridge entrance (facing the bridge). Use the bezerker and journeyman to block the bridge entrance. The archer will be able to hit the ghols running around on the other side. Let him kill them all unless they attack. Return to the formation, but send a bezerker across the bridge and down the strip of land until a bunch of ghols appear on the radar. Immediately head him back to his post with the others and let the archer do his job. The dwarf should take out anyone actually crossing the bridge and any ghol lucky enough to make it to your men should be taken out by the bezerkers. After these guys are gone, immediately send the dwarf to lay 5 or 6 satchel charges in a line down the center of the bridge (starting from farthest to closest) and get back into position. A huge army of thrall will come down the bridge so set off your domino minefield to maximize kills. Clean up and head over the bridge and go east until you reach the cliff to another canyon. Just to the south of you is a land bridge, but don't go there yet. A huge army of thralls which pose absolutely no threat to you are patrolling the canyon below. Just sit on the edge of your cliff and have the dwarf and archer demolish them. Head SE to the land bridge and get ready. Two groups of soulless are waiting to ambush you at the exit of the bridge. Send the archer to hit the left most soulless while the dwarf targets the left most soulless of the right group and the bezerker go for the right most soulless. After the dwarf has blown up a few of the right group, switch him to the left group, leaving a few of the right group for the bezerker. Clean up and head NE. You will see Alric suspended in a magic field surrounded by four bottles. Have the dwarf blow up all four, and the level will be complete. Mission 10: Out of the Barrier Now that you've freed Alric, you guys have to escape. You still only have the five from the previous mission. You start in the hilly desert with ghols scattered around you, poised to attack at the right opportunity. They are very effective when they surround you so don't let that happen. Immediate lead everyone NE towards a single ghol and attack him, stopping only when you are on high ground if possible. The ghols will keep trying to surround you so keep picking off the one at the edge of their "semicircle". They will eventually mob you so you will have to use the bezerkers to clean up. Go to the east between two plateaus. Some soulless will be atop the one to the right. Keep everyone out of range and move the archer in approaching such that only one soulless is in range at a time. You hero archer will always hit the still soulless so have him target the first one. As soon as you hear him fire, target the next one, and so on until all are hit. The soulless will retreat the first time they are hit, so by doing this, you have pushed them back. Again, position the archer so only one soulless is in range at a time and attack till it dies. You will be able to lob your arrows over the plateau to hit the soulless. When they are all dead, move around the plateau where the soulless were and you will see a few ghols eyeing but avoiding you. Pester them with arrows, but don't go too far because some soulless and myrmidons are waiting. Snipe at what you can, keeping your men on the highest ground you can. The group will eventually attack so use the archer to kill the soulless while the dwarf grenades the approaching myrmidons *once*. Stop the dwarf when the myrmidons get close and use the bezerkers to attack them. Heal anyone who's hurt badly after the battle. Go south and look for the entrance to a tomb like structure, but don't go to close to it. In front of it floats a magic bow which when used (special ability) by the archer, it will turn the victim to stone. Have everyone face the entrance head on with the dwarf in range such that his grenade will hit right at the entrance. Position the archer just the side of the dwarf with just enough space for someone to walk between. Send the barbarian to the bow and immediately send them back between the archer and the dwarf. If this was set up right, the dwarf will lob a grenade just as some ghols are leaving the tomb which will blow them all apart. You will be attacked by a small army of soulless and myrmidons. Use the magic bow to stone a few myrmidons to even the score a bit. After killing them, move east slowly. Two armies are blocking two pass ways. Tease the closer (north group) to attack and clear them out. Then hug the wall of the mountain to head north a bit, then east between two mountains. You should be able to avoid an encounter with the second army which is south of the south mountain. Keep moving east around the black-gray mountain until you see a huge army looking away from you to the north (east face of the mountain). When you see them, move forward slowly until Alric says, "let me handle this." And let him. Do not attack or he won't help. Some myrmidons may notice you and line up looking at you, but resist the temptation to "help" Alric. Alric will converse with the evil sorcerer and blow up his army in a spectacular display of magical power. Then he'll engage the sorcerer in sword fight. You can help him with the barbarians. Alric will then say follow me! Follow him or even pass him up the spiral path up the hill to the top. Your radar will fill up with endless forces of enemies. Get very close to where Alric stops at the top of the hill, you may have to control each man individually, and he will teleport everyone out. Mission 11: Silvermines In this mission you have to find the arm and escape through the graveyard. Follow the computer controlled journeyman in a tight group being careful to avoid the view of the patrol groups. As you reach the town, the journeyman will retreat a bit to avoid the enemy. Follow him around the edge of the stream till you reach the arm, at which point you gain control of the journeyman. Have him quickly grab the arm and backtrack a bit into the town. Keep everyone tight and move so that the patrol groups don't see you. You want to head north of the town, that's where the graveyard is. It's good to follow a patrol group that's walking away from you since they're facing the other way. When you reach the graveyard, there is a ramp being guarded by some thralls, soulless, and a fetch. Use the archers to take out the fetch as quickly as possible. Fight the rest just enough to get up the ramp (especially the journeyman) and up the north trail to complete the level. Mission 12: Shadow of the Mountain This is a king of the hill mission where you must protect your flag. You will also be fighting units of the light which have been turned to the dark side; archers and dwarves. You have the advantage because you will be on the hill. The large plateau hill you start on has several ramps up to it: one to the south, a narrow one the east, and two narrow ones to the SE. Setup the archers in a long line at the top of the hill and the two dwarves on either end of the line. Move your warriors back. Several enemy dwarves will attack so try killing from afar. The rest of the army will attack so do the traditional long range fighting till they get close then send in the hand to hand units. After the first wave is knocked out, go to the center with the camera and move more of your units to join the units on the south side. Reposition everyone for the second wave coming from the south again. Although you'll see a trow out in the distance, he won't attack. Soon after the second wave, move immediately to the east ramp where a third wave is attacking. The third wave will first show archers, so use the hill to you advantage by having your archers shoot from as far back as possible. You will have longer range because you're on the hill. An army of thrall and then myrmidons will attempt to come up the ramp so use the dwarves to blow them up, and sweep up any who make it to the top with the bezerkers. Last in the third wave are a bunch of dwarves who you should attack with both archers and dwarves. You'll often end up knocking live grenades out of the enemy hands causing chain reaction explosions. After the third wave, head immediately for the two ramps to the SE. The biggest wave, the fourth, will split into two to cover both ramps. A few enemy archers will climb up the small hill between the ramps to cover their units, but you should use your archers to take them out before the army can start up the ramps. If you have dwarves left, have them cover the left ramp (looking down the ramps, outwards from your plateau) to cover the thrall army coming up and use the bezerkers to kill the thrall that make it to the top. Meanwhile, use your archer group to attack the dwarves that are just sitting to the right of the base of the right ramp. When the myrmidons charge the right ramp, move your archers back and attack them with bezerkers. The last wave will be some dwarves trying to get up both ramps. Use the archers to take down what you can, and if necessary clean up with the bezerkers. Mission 13: Seven Gates This one is pretty fun as you get to watch the enemy kill each other. You'll start in a canyon watching thrall and soulless fight each other. Move the warriors out of the way and line up the archers to attack any enemy who decides you are a more worthy opponent, especially the soulless. Mop up with the warriors as needed, then head up the path to where it forks, but stop just as the fork reaches sight distance. Send two individual warriors up, one to the left fork and one to the right. Once they reveal the two armies at each fork, retreat them to your group. The two armies will clash. If they don't, they keep retreating your men back further away... eventually they will attack each other when you get out of sight and out of mind. One side has fetch which is a serious advantage so before the other army is demolished, send your archers to kill the fetch. The surviving army (what's left of them) will attack you, but shouldn't be a problem. Head up the right fork and stop your archers in a line on the white rock hill. Split the warriors into two groups to cover the sides. Then send two warriors to scout again. There is a less obvious fork ahead, send one warrior to the right into the little swamp to the east until you see the army on the other side of the swamp and the chase you. Retreat your man while you send the second scout up the left fork. Two armies should appear again so retreat the scouts back to your safe position and let them have at it. Again, one of the armies has some fetch, so use the archers on them. After the fight, wipe out the remaining army. Head up the left path and move east. Another two armies are already engaged in a fight, make sure that your use the archers on the fetch. Continue east and you'll see a fetch running away from some thralls. Shoot up the fetch and wipe out the thralls. Go east into the swamp and then NE to the land and stop. Line the archers in a long line and get everyone except for one warriors far far back. There is a shade floating around here and he can blow everyone up with the flick of his finger. Have your volunteered (inexperienced, but very healthy) warrior start from the left and approach the shade. The shade will start to follow that man and have him run for his life ACROSS the range of the archers. The shade will follow as your archer rain arrows on him the best they can to take the shade out. Your lone warrior may even get out alive. Mission 14: Forest Heart This mission starts with some doomed bezerkers and archers getting killed by and army with a trow far off to the east. Don't panic, you can't stop this. The camera will then zoom to where the rest of your men are. Some foolish myrmidon are attacking your big army so end their pitiful lives. Your job now is to find four trow generals and kill them. Lead your entire party NE to a bridge crossing a small river. Split the archers into two groups on either side of the bridge but not too close to the water. A bunch of soulless are on the other side the left and several myrmidons to the right. Put your giants near the archers to the right. Whenever the soulless or the myrmidons get close, your archers will shoot at them so let them pick at the enemy. A trow will cross the river so sic your giants on him to kill him quickly. Use a couple archers to go up the bridge but don't pass the halfway point. You want to take out the soulless if you can. After you done what you can with the soulless, retreat the archers back to their positions and send a bezerker on the bridge and taunt the myrmidons to come attack. Your archers will weaken them as they cross. Use the bezerker to engage and let the giants cross the river to flank the myrmidons. A second trow will eventually attack so use your giants and bezerkers to surround him. Go SE to another bridge and setup as before but this time have the bezerker split into two groups on either sides of the archers. Eventually, several thrall will pop out of the water to kill your archers so don't let them. Instead, pull the archers back and let the bezerkers thrash the thrall. A bunch of soulless are on the other side the left and a pack of myrmidons running back and forth to the right. Peg the myrmidons as they run back and forth until they're gone. If the soulless attack during this time, you can send the giants on them. After the myrmidons are taken care of, move the archers to wipe out the soulless. Cross the bridge and head east. You'll meet up with some thrall and soulless. Always target the soulless with the archers and mop up any thrall that gets close to your party with the giants and bezerkers. The giants are great for this; they can pimp slap a thrall/soulless/myrmidon into several pieces. There is a strip of high ground paralleling the river. It's too steep to climb the edges for everyone but the giants. Send the bezerkers up first heading north, then the archers with the giants just keeping up with them on the side of the high ground. As you reach the end where the high ground lower to the low ground, you'll meet up with some myrmidons. The thick forest will mess up your archer's aim so have the bezerkers help the giants wipe out the myrmidons. Another trow will attack so again, surround him with the giants and then the bezerkers. Move everyone east to meet up with the killers of the scouting party. Do what you can with the archers but send the bezerkers to kill the myrmidons and the giants to kill the trow. As the battle finishes, the victory is cut short as Soulblighter pops in a zaps all your men somewhere (to the next mission). Mission 15: Heart of the Stone Your men have been captured into some magical subdimensional prison called the Tain. To solve this level, you will have to manipulate four towers at the corners of the map to activate a bridge over the lava in the center of the map to the exit. Before doing this however, you should secure the entire map. Your men start in the bottom left side of the map. Begin your sweep in a clockwise fashion hugging the outer walls. Approach the SW pillar but don't enter the alcove that it's in. Position your archers in a long line facing the pillar and cover the end of the archer line with a bezerker group. Have a bezerker enter the pillar area and listen; you'll hear the chittering of the four cave spiders which will drop down. Kill them and continue your sweep. Pass a mound and near the left side of a bowl like crater. A few ghols will attack you from the north, so lay waste to them. Meanwhile, a few bezerkers and an archer are beamed into the tain with you and will appear in the bowl. Have them join you and continue north to the NW pillar, but stop at just before you reach it. Further north, some spiders will appear fighting a few ghols and a fetch; the spiders will lose. Use the archers to kill the fetch first, then kill the ghols. Continue east. Just before you get to the NE pillar, stop at the downward slope. Another group of spiders will be fighting fetch and ghol, so kill any survivors. Stay in position at the slope and have a bezerker go south closer to the center. More spiders will drop down so retreat the bezerker back and take them out with the archers. Sweep all the way south. Along the way, you'll meet up with more spiders and ghols, but they'll be easy to deal with. After reaching the SE pillar, head west. Just as you reach the middle, more spiders will drop down. Kill them and move north towards the center of the map. Just NE from this position is where more spiders will drop, so spring that trap and kill the spiders. Move everyone to the edge of the lava bridge. Choose three bezerkers to go to the NE, SE, and SW pillars to activate them. Send two bezerker and a three archers up to the NW where more spiders are waiting. Kill all the spiders. Send the archers and one bezerker back to the center group. After they reach the center, have the NW bezerker activate the pillar. Spiders will drop on the center group but since you have many men there, they are easily taken out. A bridge has appeared now that all four pillars are active, so have everyone in the center cross the bridge. After they are through, take one bezerker away from the pillar and the level will end. Mission 16: The Smiths of Muirthemne You are still stuck in the Tain, but don't worry, this is the last level in the Tain. Hopefully your archers are veterans from the previous level. This really helps. When the level starts, several cave spiders will be crawling around in front of you. Kill them and get ready for several myrmidons and a couple bezerkers to be teleported in. Send your whole bezerker troop in to kill the myrmidons and hopefully a new bezerker or two will survive to be added to your group. Now you are safe. To the SW of your position is the first of four pillars. As you approach them, they "power up" and begin to glow. Get closer, and they will fry you to charred pieces with fetch-like lightning. Behind this pillar you can see spiders running around. Keep everyone else back and use your archers in a long line to take out all the spiders they can without getting too close to the pillar; the spiders will not pass the pillars. There are three other pillars (SE, middle of the map, and NW of the map) where you can do the same to reduce the number of spiders behind the "protection" of the pillars. Use just the archers to move to all the other pillars to snipe at all the spiders they can, but make sure that no one at the SW corner is activating the pillar there. Once the archers have killed all the spiders near each pillar, have them return to the group in the SW corner. Send a bezerker to the NW pillar and have him activate it, but don't get fried. Now that one pillar is activated, the others won't go on, so send in your archers and bezerkers safely past the pillar. You are entering the toughest of the four pillar areas, so let's get it over with. The cave forks; take the smaller right passage and let the archers pick at more spiders in the cave. As you edge closer, the queen spider (big black spider, can't miss it) will also attack so use the bezerkers to move in once you see her coming. After all the spiders are killed, move north and get ready. A few bezerkers and myrmidons are beamed in and are fighting. If you get there in time, you may be able to save a bezerker. Kill the myrmidons with the bezerkers then move further into the cave. Kill any straggling spiders, and send in a dwarf to pick up the glowing orb amongst the spider egg sacks. For satisfaction, you can blow up the egg sacks with grenades if you want. Send the dwarf all the way up to the NW corner of the map where a bowl crater and two strange pillars are. Have him move to the bowl and he'll throw the orb into the bowl. The strange pillars will activate and between them a shimmering portal will appear very faintly as the dwarf goes, "whoa!" Bring the dwarf and everybody in the SW cave back out to the center area and head towards the SE pillar. Your lone bezerker should still be holding the NW pillar on so your party can pass through the SE pillar. There are a good number of spiders in this cave so work your way with the archers east into the cave. Split the bezerkers into two groups to cover their sides. The cave will turn north, so work your way in killing spiders. Eventually, the queen spider of this cave will attack so swamp her with bezerkers. Clean up the spiders and have a dwarf pick up the glowing orb then send him to the portal. Move to the center of the map and go north to the third pillar. This cave is easier than the first two so move in with the archers killing all the spiders with bezerkers on the sides to attack when the mother does. Have a dwarf pick up the orb and send him to the portal. Remember that a dwarf can only hold one orb at a time, so you'll have to have your dwarf throw the orb he's carrying into the portal's bowl before you have him pick up another orb. Move everyone out again but leave someone to activate this north center pillar. Move everyone up to the patient bezerker at the NW pillar and have him move away so the guy you left at the north pillar is activating the north pillar. Just like the third cave, go in with archers and bezerkers and wipe out the spider colony there along with their queen, get the last orb and converge everyone you have to the portal. Have your dwarves walk up to the bowl and they'll throw in their orbs. Now walk everyone through the portal and you're are free! Mission 17: Sons of Myrgard The light have reached the former homeland of the dwarves, and the dwarves have volunteered to take it back; their personal revenge against the dark. You start off with a hero dwarf who is an *excellent* shot with his grenades. He can really take care of himself so long as he isn't surrounded by several enemies. The level starts with your single dwarf invisible. The ghols running around can't see you but if you make any noise by entering the water or throwing a grenade, you will become visible. You are unable to place satchel charges as the first special ability is to call in the dwarven paratroopers. Subsequent special ability is to call in a satchel charges bombing run (from the air). Head your dwarf to the east until he reaches a ramp where you see some soulless guarding the wooden stake fences. The entrance is a zig zap pattern (right,left,right) and you'll be inside the fortress. Walk up to a hill (the right side is good) where one soulless is and get behind him but far enough away to throw a grenade at him. Grenade the soulless next to you and get ready to kill the soulless that will approach you from the gate. Remember to move your man diagonally away after he throws a grenade. It may help to target the ground instead of the actual soulless. Ghols will individually try to sneak up to you, but as long as you stay on the plateau, you'll be able to kill them before they reach you. To the east is a circular area of wight parts guarded by a few ghols. Stand on a nearby hill and set off the wight parts with a grenade (target ground) to blow up the entire lot. Battle any ghols near you and head south. Another pen is south holding many wights, also guarded by a few ghols. Again, stand on a hill and grenade a wight near the edge of the pen to start the chain reaction of exploding wights. Disgusting... but oh so satisfying. Head north and clean up the area of ghols. There is another set of soulless next to the practice dummies to the north. You can either take them on alone, or call your reinforcements now. To call your reinforcements, you want to maximize the number that come by finding the most open space to call them. When you throw the blue- smoke bottle (special ability, first time) several dwarves will parachute around you. Group them separately and head to the NE corner where another fence is. Behind here are the caves where ghols pop out from. Due to the map design, you will almost always be exposed to two caves, which means enemies will come from both. Don't position your men in between the caves, rather, put them at a triangular angle from both entrances. Coax the enemies out of the cave and blow them up. As you pass the first set (travel in the counter clockwise direction starting south) ghols will sometimes attack from behind, so beware. Work your way around the big hill to battle the caves. When you've killed enough Ghols, the level will end. SECRET MISSION: To get to the secret level, instead of sweeping around the caves to kill all the ghols, go to the SE most cave. It's a little bigger than the rest. If you enter it, you'll be brought to the secret level. Secret Mission: A Long Awaited Party This mission is purely for the satisfaction of the dwarven people. It didn't have a strategic advantage other than possible a psychological one on the ghols; but it sure is satisfying as it's the most blatant slap in the face the dwarves deliver to the dark next to the final missions. There is a huge stone that the ghols worship as their god. They drag it wherever they go, and since they've occupied former dwarven territory for the past years, they've dragged the stone to this location. If Balin survived the last mission, you get him for this one. He and 9 other dwarves will blow up the ghol guard as they exit the cave. As they exit, immediately look to the left (north) and have all the dwarves except for Balin form a staggered formation down the small slope so that the formation is parallel to the mountain side. Further north is a cave with a ghol guard, but there are two ghol patrols circling the hill even further north. The red ghol patrol is moving counter clockwise and you'll see them coming just as your dwarves get in formation. Have them all lay a satchel charge and then run back to the cave entrance and form a long line facing down the slope. Position Balin so he can easily set off the nearest charge with his accurate grenade throws. As the ghol patrol steps over your minefield, set it off and watch them go up in bloody carnage. Your line of dwarves and Balin should then clean up any survivors. Without any time to lose, have the 9 dwarves go setup another minefield in a staggered formation for the gray ghol patrol coming around the far north hill in the clockwise direction, and then have them come back to the long line formation in your original position. Again, have Balin set off the minefield and then blow up the survivors individually. If it looks like you are unable to set up in time for either the red or gray patrols, then just stay back as they won't see you unless you come down the slope. Let them pass, and then setup while they are doing their circle. After red and gray patrols have painted the landscape with their body parts, go to the NW and blow up the guard even though he's minding his own business, then go do the same to the guard at the cave NE of your position. North of the second guard is a slope curving around where several ghols are guarding the entrance. You are at a distinct disadvantage here as the ghols will always be on higher ground. I used this method: keep your dwarves down out of harm's way and send Balin half way up the slope. Have him throw a special ability signal bomb in front of the ghols (hopefully it doesn't roll down the hill back at you). Just before as the smoke starts going out, move towards the ghols until they start chasing you and run down the hill to the half way point (if you run too far, the ghols will turn around and go back to their original position). Hopefully the bombing raid takes out most of the ghols. If not, you can try again. Clear out the survivors and bring everybody up. You will be on a grassy mountain road heading south. In the distance you can see the stone is in the center of a valley and now you understand why the ghols worship it. The stone looks like a huge ghol head. Around the stone are dozens and dozens of ghols chanting and worshipping. Follow the mountain road down and you'll encounter a bunch of ghols and some soulless. The ghols won't attack unless you get close, so don't. The soulless however will try to snipe at you. Use Balin to target the ground just in front of the nearest soulless. It will take two explosion to kill, but this is safer because you are further away. Run Balin in a zig zag pattern to avoid the spears. Once he throws a grenade, don't let him just stand there, retreat in a diagonal direction to reduce his chances of getting hit. After the soulless are gone, have a dwarf try to attack the ghols and retreat immediately. You'll be able to whittle the ghols down this way until they are gone. Continue to the bottom of the map where you can load up on satchel charges. It will curve east. Move everyone in a tight box eastwards cautiously. When you see a slope leading from the mountain road down to the valley, stop. There is a huge army of soulless patrolling in a big circle, you may see them going down this slope. Keep your distance and let them pass without any disturbance, just remember what ground they passed over. After they've passed, send the 9 regular dwarves in a staggered formation to lay a minefield in the shape of the soulless army along the path they just patrolled and then return to their original safe spot. Get Balin ready and speed up time until the soulless come around for the next pass. Slow time to normal and set off the minefield to catch as many soulless as possible. The soulless have a better range than the dwarf, so if any soulless survive here you may have to let them pass and set up another (but smaller) minefield. Don't go down the slope. Instead, stay on the grassy road and continue east. You'll will reach the corner of the map where a soulless is guarding the stacks of wight bombs, satchel charges, and ghol blades. Again, the soulless have the range advantage, but you now have something to even the odds: trees. Use Balin to move towards the soulless but make sure a tree is always between you and the soulless. In this manner, you can cut the distance between you and soulless and be protected from the thrown spears. Go tree by tree until you are at the tree closest to the soulless, then move from behind the tree and bomb the soulless and move back for cover. Another ghol is just north of the equipment piles so you will probably have to contend with him too. Now you have to make a choice. Do you want to be safe and just stealthily blow up the rock keeping everyone safe, or do you want to take out all the ghol worshippers as well most likely experiencing casualties? Let's do it the safe (but less fun) way first. Move your men along the grassy path all the way north to the top of the map. You'll come to the road where the big stone was dragged. Then head west until you are directly north of the stone where none of the ghols can see you. Now where would you put the satchel charges so that it would break the statue? It's obvious weak point is tucked under the "chin" of the rock. Although it's tempting to get under the chin via the drag tracks, instead, just walk four fully loaded (8 charges each) dwarves over the north side of the surrounding short wall and box themselves under the chin. You should be able to do this without the ghols seeing. Place all the charges the dwarves are carrying and head back north. Have Balin stand outside of the short wall and target the ground near the charges to set them off. The explosion will cause the rock to break in half at the "beak". This will piss off the ghols who will start to chase you but the level will end before they reach you. That was the safe way, now for the tough but more fun way. Use the 9 dwarves to place a wide spread of staggered formation satchels charges at the base of the slope from the grassy road. The southern slope is better than the SE slope because it's narrower. Place three groups of charges side by side and another set or two of charges to deepen your minefield. Just make sure you preserve at least 24 charges to bust up the rock later. To be safe, have everyone drop the unused satchel charges in a safe place on the grassy road to reduce the risk of a chain reaction explosion if one of your dwarves gets blasted during the battle you are about to engage in. Line everyone up in a long line at the top of the slop with Balin in a good spot up the slope to set off the minefield. Choose your least experience and lowest health dwarf to act as sacrificial bait. Have him run up behind the worshipping ghols who are to preoccupied chanting to their god and throw a well aimed grenade to kill about 3 if he can and then immediately run back to the slope. He won't make it because he's too slow so after the battle is done, remember his honor. Set off the minefield with Balin when the horde of ghols is on the minefield and begin the gory battle with the surviving ghols. I found that it's best to control Balin for intelligent strikes while your other dwarves are mindlessly tossing grenades. When the fight is over, pick up your stashed satchel charges with the surviving dwarves and place them tightly under the "chin" of the rock. Get everyone to safety and have someone set it off. Sweet revenge. Mission 18: The Road North You will start with 3 archers and 5 warriors with the mission of finding the magic bow and returning to the spot you started. Group the archers and warriors separately and have the warriors form a line or vanguard about a half a screen (when fully zoomed out) ahead of the archers. Have the archers form a line facing the warriors. The paths in the level are relatively narrow and the way to the magic bow is to follow the blood spots. Along the way, you will be attacked by thralls which suddenly appear out of the ground, usually surrounding the foremost group. With the archers trailing far in the back, they can shoot at the flanking thrall while your warriors attack the one they see; the one's in front of them. The first ambush you encounter will also have a soulless which crosses the river. Retreat your warriors after killing the thrall and take out the soulless with your archers. The bow's position changes each time, but the blood stains always lead to it. Keep using the warriors ahead of the archers strategy until you see the bow. Don't get excited and rush to it as there are thralls in the ground waiting to ambush you. Have the warriors sneak up and form a circle. When the thralls appear, take them out with all your men. Have your healthiest, most experience archer get the bow. This bow is even better than that turn-to-stone magic bow of a previous level. This bow shoots bolts of lightning, as well as regular arrows, which can demolish groups like a grenade. It also has far range, too. You'll need this bow now because once you get it, you will be attached by large armies of thrall. Keep you warriors from attacking the armies and try to use the archer with the magic bow (special ability) to lightning the armies to scrap. Don't go crazy though as you only have a limited supply of lighting arrows. If there are a few stragglers left, use the other guys to mop them up while the magic bow guy turns his attention to the next group. Now that you have the bow, head back to the starting point. Again, lead the way with the warriors, but this time when the armies show up, have them backtrack and lightning bolt the thralls. Thralls are slow, so if an army is "chasing" you, you may just want to move forward. They are also stupid so when you reach the ramp, you'll zig zag back and many thrall won't be smart enough to go *around* the corner to reach you. Instead they'll be stuck at the cliffs wondering why they can't get you. Mission 19: Across the Gjol This is the most frantic mission yet. You have a large army standing on a large plateau overlooking a river where the enemy will come from. Split your archers, dwarves, and warriors into two groups (even numbers of types each). The plateau can only be reached on either side by the side ramps so this is where the enemies will be headed. Position your archers and dwarves in a line overlooking the left and right corners of the plateau to rain on the thrall which head up the ramps. Ready the warriors to take out any thrall which actually make it up the hill. Before the enemy shows up, use the dwarves to set up a few satchel charges on the ramp and reposition them in their line atop the cliff. The thrall armies will attack you on both sides at the same time so you'll have to constantly move the camera back and forth or else chaos may happen on the unattended side. Wights will appear after the first wave of thrall so use the archers to blow them up from afar. You'll then be attacked by another army which appeared from land. Use the dwarves to demolish then use the warriors to mop up the rest. During this time, keep an eye on river activity as two fetch will appear on either side. Make sure the archers take out the fetch as soon as possible. Set some more satchel charges on the ramps if you have time as another large wave of thrall will approach from the river from both sides, this time they will have soulless with them. Make sure your archers are taking out the soulless while everyone else is attacking the thrall. Reinforcements will arrive and will automatically walk from their starting position to the plateau, so don't worry about them until they get there. Use them to reinforce your lost ranks and take out the last wave of thrall attacking. Don't worry about trying to keep veteran units to carry over the next level since the next level only has bezerkers. Mission 20: The Watcher This is a really tough mission. It wouldn't be that tough if you were given archer and dwarven units, or at least one journeyman, but you are only given bezerkers. When you start off, head as far north as you can to the edge of a huge swamp to the east. Scout into the swamp. Several scattered thralls will pop out of the mud to attack. Retreat your scout and close in for the kill with the rest of the bezerkers. Sludge through the swamp due east till you reach land. You are trying to avoid an army of ghol and a shade just south of you waiting at the bank. The shade can reduce your men to scrap very easily, so you don't want to mess with him. You'll be at the top of the map, so face the camera northwards and have your bezerkers hug the top of the map and move east as quickly as possible. You'll reach a river running SE so follow the edge of it without stopping until you reach a shallow part of the river which can be crossed. By this time, you may have encountered a few ghols, and you'll see on the radar that an army of ghols is chasing you (and they have a very deadly shade with them). Cross the river and sit on the peninsula and create a shallow encirclement to get ready for the ghol attack. The shade won't cross the river so you are safe. Take care of the ghols and move to the southern tip of your peninsula. In some cases, the shade will teleport to the south bank with some ghols. If this happens, then have one weakened man stand at the bank as a distraction. Otherwise, the shade may be waiting on the west bank for you to cross. If this is the case, then send one weakened man to your bank and stand almost halfway in the river as far north as he can. The shade will follow him as much as possible. Now sneak across the southern most crossable part of the river with small (4 or 5) groups of men and have them hug the river shore (SW) till they are out of sight of the shade. Keep the groups moving after each other as ghols will attack your men along the river. You will have to take care of several ghols at this point. Go around the SW tip end of the river. You may receive reinforcements (more bezerkers) from a hill just NW of the tip; if not, come back later and you may receive them then. Go south. If the shade didn't teleport, mentioned above, then you will encounter him now as he will teleport to this area of the map. Try to retreat back to the north bank of the river you just came from and try to lead the shade up to the peninsula where you first took refuge. Move the weak bezerker to the southern tip to try and get the shade to follow him. Lead the rest of the group back to the SW tip, being careful not to attract the shade's attention again. If you are unable to do this, then you will have to contend with the shade. (In which case, good luck!) Head SE till you reach a large plateau with a ramp at it's SW corner. You may receive more reinforcements along the way if you hug the south part of the map. A line of soulless are guarding this ramp and they refused to be teased into following you so you'll have to storm up the ramp. Once you've gotten up the plateau, split your men into three groups to attack the three lines of soulless. You'll lose a bunch of men in the process of killing the soulless. Behind the soulless lines, is the stone figure, a circle of thrall surrounding it, and a larger circle of ghol surrounded them. The ghol have wight packets to throw at you if you get too close so try not to bunch up your men. Apparently, they have very strict orders to guard the statue. You can send three bezerkers in to kill one single ghol without any of them moving. However, once you hack up the second ghol, all the ghols will attack. After hacking the second ghol, retreat the three bezerkers back to their group and have your troops kill all the ghols. The thrall still haven't moved, and they won't. These thrall are zombie walls. They are tougher than regular thrall, but won't move so hack them up with the surviving bezerkers and then destroy the statue. Bloody battle, wasn't it? Mission 21: River of Blood In this mission you start just outside the entrance of the city walls. Fortunately, you have a variety of men again. The entrance is blocked by wooden stakes, so for now, you can't reach the enemy and he can't reach you. Use your archers to lob arrows at the myrmidons on the other side and they will run away without any casualties. Use the dwarves to grenade the blockade until they it's blown away. The first group of myrmidons is small so send in your giants to slap them out of existence, and bring them back outside the city. In the distance, a trow commander and a bigger army of myrmidons approach from the north. They'll stop and wait though. Have the dwarves setup satchel charges (two rows of four) in a west-east line just inside the entrance and retreat them. Setup another line of charges in the entrance and retreat them back to the archers, leaving just one dwarf at the entrance. Bring one giant in again and tease the army to attack you. Immediately move your giant to the entrance, but don't actually leave the city. Have the dwarf blow up the charges to take out most if not all of the first wave of the second army of the attacking myrmidons. Use the giants to clean up stragglers. The rest of the myrmidons will attack so retreat everyone outside the city and have the dwarf (who now has experience from blowing up the minefield) to set off the entrance charges when they are neared by the myrmidons. With the obliteration of his men, the trow will now attack so surround him with the giants and the bezerkers to finish him off. If you scan the camera around, you'll hear massive trow footsteps in every direction except the right (east) so head that way, hugging the wall. Split your bezerkers into two groups to cover the ends of the line of archers, and have your giants stay with the left bezerkers (farthest from the wall). When you reach some randomly placed lines of stakes, you'll notice another army of myrmidons and a trow just beyond them. Move the dwarves up behind the right most stakes, but not too close. The myrmidons will attack in two groups, one to the left which will be dealt with by your giants and left group of bezerkers, and the right group which will be reduced and hurt by your dwarves and archers and cleaned up by the right group of bezerkers. Look at the wall for an easter egg. The trow will attack so surround him with your giants and bezerkers. Then move to the SE corner of the city and edge your way north. A fetch will head towards you so use your archers to wipe her out. If necessary, use the giants as back up. I almost panicked from what I saw next. That fetch didn't come alone, she came with several other sister fetches. That group would be able to wipe you out with heavy loses to you but they tend to attack only one or two at a time. Regroup your men and head north after all the fetch have been killed. You'll reach the river of blood. Get your men into a westward facing formation with the archers in the center and their sides covered by bezerkers. Edge your way west and you'll encounter a small group of myrmidons and a fetch before you come to the bridge crossing the river of blood. Across the bridge is a big trow, and three fetches surrounded by two armies of myrmidons. Setup up your archers (the low health ones) and dwarves on either side of your bridge entrance, with the dwarves closer to the bridge. Have your giants cover the actual entrance with the bezerkers in deep or shallow encirclement behind them. Send two archers onto the bridge to shoot at the trow from a distance. He'll just stand there and take some punishment before he backs up and the fetch attack. When this happens, retreat your archers off the bridge and let your other archers whittle the fetch. Mop them up with the giants. The trow will attack after, so wait till he gets to your side of the bridge (archers and dwarves attacking from afar) and then swamp him with both giants and bezerkers. Soon after the trow dies, the myrmidons armies will attack one at a time. Retreat your giants and bezerker to a better position just off the bridge and attack them as they reach your side of the bridge. Mission 22: Pools of Iron This is a really fun level because you get to control Alric the avatar. He's about as slow as a warrior, but really fast and deadly with his sword. But the best part of him is his special ability to cast the same spell the shades can. He can only use the spell four times, but he can eliminate an entire army. You'll start out with just Alric standing on a cliff. A few single myrmidons will be running around. Engage them to hand to hand combat one at a time. They'll do minimal damage to you. Walk down the narrow ramp (west) into the desert valley below. Head north west and you'll encounter a few more wandering myrmidons. You'll eventually see a huge army of myrmidons walking in a nice pack towards you. Stop moving, and then cast the spell ("T") on the first myrmidon. The spell works like this: the unit you target will blow up in green smoke, and then the next unit within the vicinity of the blast will go up in green smoke the same way. This causes a domino effect which can potentially destroy the whole army. This domino effect is like a chain reaction, so you want to target the unit which is at the beginning of an imaginary line running through every unit once. If you use this type of thinking, you'll usually blow up the entire army. After killing the army, head due south, but don't go any further west. To the west is a Greek like structure where two trow are waiting, and you don't want to activate them just yet. As you head south, you'll encounter some more individual myrmidons, and then another big army. Use your spell once again on the army. Sometimes the single myrmidons will just run away when you chase them. You want them dead, so stop Alric and have him face away from the myrmidon. The myrmidon will turn around to attack your back; but just as it gets close, have Alric turn around and attack the pathetic undead. Continue south till you see the world knot and have Alric move there. The computer will control him and he'll act as the broken knot pillar and beam in an army of bezerkers, dwarves, and archers. Setup your groups and have them back up against the south wall on higher ground slightly west of the knot. Have a bezerker go to the south west corner until another big army of myrmidons shows up then retreat him back to your party. Have Alric blow the army up with a spell and clean up any stragglers with your men. By this time, another myrmidon army from the north west corner will be reaching you. Again, have Alric blow the army up, but make sure your bezerkers aren't near the enemy when he does this. Again, clean up any stragglers. The trow will attack so swamp them with your men. Alric is now out of spells so use him like a bezerker from now on. Enter the structure and pass through it heading west until you reach the bloody water beach. An army of thrall will emerge from the bloody water. Peg them with arrows for as long as you can and then attack with the bezerkers and Alric since he has no more spells. Further north along the beach is another army of thrall which will emerge from the water. You can attack them in the same manner. Move all your men into the bloody water to end the level. Mission 23: The Last Battle This is the toughest combat level in the whole game. Even with a variety of units, it's not going to be easy. At the beginning, you men will be on a small peninsula in the bloody waters. Bunch up all your units into a box except the archers. Have them get ready as several fetch from the waters will attack. After killing several fetch, head everyone down the peninsula and then west on the land until you reach another Greek like structure. A lone myrmidon scout will be north of the structure, but he'll run away to warn his buddies once he sees you. You won't be able to catch him so don't worry about it. Follow where he goes till the land curves northwards to a slope. You could chase the myrmidon down with bezerkers until he is trapped, but don't bother. Go up the ramp a bit and you'll see a bezerker unit waiting for you. He'll tell you, "hurry! Balor is coming!". Follow him up the hill and you'll receive more units. You'll also see Alric, but you can't control him. You'll also see the standard erected behind Alric. Get everyone away from the standard for now. Balor will come and engage in a conversation with Alric, then Balor will blow up with standard and anyone standing to close to it. Move the archers into a long line at the edge of the hill where Alric was standing and set up your dwarves to the left and two bezerker group right and left of the archers. A huge army is waiting at the base. The thrall will attack first. You should be able to take most of them out with the archers and dwarves. After the thralls will come the myrmidons. You'll probably have to mop up with the bezerkers. Two fetches will arrive so put priority on them with the archers. After that's clear, Alric will say, "we mush follow him!" and head over to another structure in the desert valley. Keep your men where they are, but set up their formation again. Send one bezerker next to Alric just to get him to move to the next destination; the structure. Balor and Alric will talk again and Balor will shower Alric with bloody dwarf heads telling him that the rest of the legion has been destroyed. Alric will blow up the line of myrmidons and retreat. You'll then be attacked by the armies of fetch and thrall. Again put priority on the fetch with the archers and kill the armies. Make sure you don't lose too many bezerkers because you're going to need them. Alric will again say, "we must follow him". Group your bezerkers into two groups of three, and a third group with the rest. Alric will go up to the top of a hill looking into a bowl like canyon with a pool of blood. Fetch are in a semicircle along the opposite edge of the bowl. Have the archers form a long line on your edge of the bowl, have the two 3- man bezerker group form to the left and right of the archers just inside the bowl, and have the dwarves go just below the archers. Put the last group of bezerker behind the archers. As soon as your party arrives at these location your specified, Alric will walk into the base of the bowl and talk to Balor once again. Don't wait. Have the archers target the nearest fetch to the right and move the 3-man bezerker groups down a bit. After Balor and Alric finish talking, the fetch will enter the bowl and surround Alric in a semicircle and pound on him with lightning. Alric is tough, but not invulnerable so while this is happening, have the left 3-man bezerker group start killing fetch from the left, and the right 3-man group from the right. Have the archers and dwarves shoot at the last fetch the bezerkers will reach (the fetch in the middle of the semicircle). While they do this, move the third bezerker group down straight through the pool. Once the fetches have been killed, myrmidons will attack so clean them out with the bezerkers. After the myrmidons have been dealt with, move what's left of the bezerkers the left away from Alric, and move what's left of the archers and dwarves up the bowl to the right a bit. Now the climax of the battle! Balor will come and attack Alric but Alric will surprise him with a magic device which freezes Balor. Alric will scream, "kill him!" Only your bezerkers can do damage to Balor so send them in and surround him to hack him up until his head falls off. Alric will teleport you out and you'll hear Alric get ready to blow up several huge myrmidon armies. Mission 24: The Great Devoid This is the last level of the game and isn't really that hard if you play it safe. You'll start with four dwarves, some archers and bezerkers, and a journeyman. Choose one dwarf (preferably the most experience) and have him drop all of his satchels, and then have him pick up Balor's head. Have the other three dwarves pick up the satchels. Explore to the east. You'll pass through the open area, a forest, and then come to a river. There are two sections to cross: north and south. Don't cross the river just yet. Explore along the river through the woods till you get to the north crossing point. Someone will say, "I've got a bad feeling about this." Once this happens, immediately move everyone back to the clearing where you started from. Bunch everyone up into a box except for the archers. Split them into two groups and have them form a line on each side of your men facing outwards. Wights will lumber in so use the archers to blow them up from safe distances. After the wight attacks are done, go to the north river crossing area. You can see where the water is too deep, so set up two groups of four archers in a line on the bank (up hill a little) of the river. Move the useless dwarves back out of harms way and put the journeyman between the archers, and back a little. Move the bezerkers back as well. Use one bezerker to step foot in the muddy water and retreat. This should have caused an army of soulless with two fetch to approach. The fetch will stay on the opposite bank, but the soulless will attack. Your archers should take them all out. Some more wights will probably attack from the river, so blow them up. Then a group of archers to kill the each of the fetch at the same time. Hopefully, they will kill them before being fried. Reposition your archers at the bank in a line again and send a bezerker to the middle of the river, and retreat him. A second wave of soulless and fetch will approach. Again, use the archers to wipe out the soulless, and heal anyone near death with the journeyman. This time, more wights are attacking from the rear so use the archers to kill them safely. The fetch won't cross the river, so don't worry about them. After taking care of the wight threat, go kill both fetches with the two archer groups at the same time and then have the entire party cross the river. Move east and quickly position a long line of archers on a thin hill with white color tone just past a crater. More soulless and fetch will be approaching, and this is the best vantage point to be in when they arrive. Shoot the fetch first, then the soulless, making sure to heal any weak archer with the journeyman. Make sure you conserve one mandrake root of the journeyman, as you will need it later. Move everyone due east till you reach a hill with a few trees on it. Face south, and move down the hill just a bit. When the ground starts to look rocky, you are reaching the area of the great devoid. Do not enter the rocky area. Wights will shamble in from the west and south west so use the archers again for them. At one point, you'll see 6-8 wights walking in a line towards you. Blowing the first one up causes a nice chain reaction. But the nightmare is ahead of you to the south. Guarding the great devoid are some soulless, wights, fetch, and Soulblighter himself. Soulblighter is extremely fast and tough and he can chop up all your men easily. There is a trick though: the journeyman's heal spell with the mandrake root does the opposite to undead. With the journeyman, you can kill Soulblighter with one spell. The problem is, before you can finish casting the spell, Soulblighter will have chopped your journeyman, completely breaking his concentration. To do this right, send two bezerkers with the journeyman. Have them line up in a shallow encirclement with the journeyman on the right. Slowly edge them up to Soulblighter and when he runs at you select the journeyman and push "T". Just as Soulblighter is about to reach the first bezerker, target him. While he's hacking at your poor bezerker volunteer, your journeyman will sneak up and cast the spell. During this time, the first bezerker will die and Soulblighter will hack up the second one. After the completion of the journeyman's spell, Soulblighter will freeze and turn into ravens which will fly away. There are two fetch patrolling together around the mouth of the hole. Pull your bezerker and journeyman back and send in the archers to kill the fetch. Three soulless will get into the act so kill them too. More wights will show up but again, they are easy targets for your archers. Move the dwarf carrying Balor's head to the edge of the hole and he will automatically throw the head in. Hurray! You did it... then the dwarf will go, "uh oh..." and powerful magic energy will nuke the whole place. Man, what a depressing ending. The sense of dread goes on and on... but what a great game! 4 Tips, Tricks, and Easter Eggs - Always use archers and dwarves from high ground if possible. This increases their range and reduces accidental bounce back of grenades. - Learn the formations - Learn to use gesture click to orient your formations - Don't forget that your dwarves have satchel charges. Using a minefield on the enemy really can make or break a battle. - Don't have your dwarves toss grenades in the same spot at the same time. Grenades go off at slightly different times and the first explosion will send the other soon-to-explode grenades flying in random directions; sometimes into you. - Always try to long range your opponent. Cut them down a bit with the dwarves, then peg them with the archers. Finally, as what's left of the enemy nears you, send in the warriors and/or bezerkers to finish them off AND tell your archers and especially the dwarves to STOP attacking. - If an enemy is running away from you, stop your men and have them look away (with the gesture click). The enemy will probably try and take advantage of this and move to stab you in the back. As he nears, attack him. - Veteran units are extremely valuable. Build up less experienced units when it's safe and easy pickings. Veteran units will carry to the next level so long as the next level scenario has those units. If the next level does not have those units, then the veteran experience is lost. Use the mission guide in section 3 of this guide to determine if your experienced units will carry over. - The journeyman's heal spell also instantly kills undead. - Targeting the ground near a stationary enemy with the dwarf often will not cause the enemy to run and so you can kill them by surprise. - You can select and direct your units while paused! - Look for the trailer and peasant easter egg in the SW corner of "A Traitor's Grave" - Look for the graffiti on the SE corner inner wall of "A River of Blood" - The fastest units are your giants, bezerker, and warriors, in that order so use them as scouts or taunts. - Use programmable presets. Cover your archers with a group of warriors/bezerkers on each end of the archer long line. 5 Cheats CTRL and "+" : Automatically win the single player level CTRL and "-" : Automatically lose the single player level To access all 24 single player levels: Hold down the space bar on the title screen and click on "New Game". To get stronger warriors: During a level, type PizzaParty to make your warriors more powerful.
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