Campaign Creations

Does anyone have any strategies for this mission? You get limited resources based on whether you let your melee units kill buildings and you got to defend against 2 factions + ridiculously powerful Doomguards spawns. On Hard Mode it seems like you don't even get to trade lumber for gold.

I think I've tried this mission like 7 times whether trying to rush certain events (e.g killing the portal) or "turtle" but they pretty much all failed. I'm curious if it's possible, since I'm pretty crap at W3 but I've managed to complete all the other maps on Hard up to now except the Book 1 mission Revolution.

I think I played the Hard setting on new game+ mode so I don't know if this will help for sure

What I did was I had Shizuka go rush to and solo Vadis with repeated use of Mirror Image.  In fact, Mirror Image was my primary weapon in this mission. I built a bunch of towers for defense and units as necessary to survive while Shizuka was away.  You might have to take out Ebon just before you go for Vadis (I remember her infernals being a real biatch, but they disappear upon her death, so ignore the infernals and focus fire on her towers and all.).  You pretty much need Vadis and the Trolls or you're not going to last in the long run though. 

Pillage is your primary gold source, so don't kill those oddly placed enemy buildings, but save them and have spiderlings attack them slowly for money once it's safe.  A good idea would be to have a couple follow Shizuka.  If I remember there were a couple lone buildings on or near her path to Vadis.  Just make sure the ones they pillage are not on the path the Doom Guards take,  But with the exception of the Doom Guards, all enemy units travel South and East through the Satyr base to attack the Nerubian base - something to keep in mind to help you safely pillage.

For the Doom Guards, use your units + towers.  I upgraded my town hall so it could attack them too.  Once Vadis is defeated, fly him back to help defend and have Shizuka return to Sazabi asap. Now you have Vadis, Sazabi, and extra army and a gold mine making your life will be much easier.  I massed towers at the top entrance of the Troll base which easily took care of the Doom Guards until I could deal with the gate.  I moved Vadis and  Make good use of the Troll's casters too.  I believe one of the casters had Firebolt which I build a bunch of to stun and nuke the crap out of Ebon.  Her infernals are the real threat, and dead Ebon means dead infernals.

Next assault the Satyr base and retrieve the Dragon Horn.  Mirror Image + Starfall is great for this.  Remember to to draw out the enemy carrion birds and kill them if you're going to assault with Vadis.  Chain Lightning works wonders since they have so little HP.  Afterward you can build a Dragon Roost and train dragons to help you take out everything else or defend while you scour the map for goodies.

Hope this help!

Thanks for the help. Reading the post, I realized that's probably how I won the stage back in the RoC version.

Unfortunately, in the TFT version, I used Shizuka's 2nd class which is normally quite good, but in this particular case is completely unsuitable to winning due to factors such as Dragon spell immunities, health attrition (since you can't trade mana for health through Mirror Image tanking with her other class) and other factors, so I had to cheat my way through.

Yeah I was afraid that you might be using a different class.

I just took a look at the map again, and there's a neutral Green Dragon Roost that you can hire units from.
The hard part might be clearing the Furbogs.  There's also buildings for safe pillaging next to the roost.

3 units are available:
Whelps are 170g, pretty frail with 340 HP, piercing 30ish damage.
Drake are 290g, and have a very respectable 950 HP, piercing damage in the 40s.
Green Dragons are 595g, and have 2200 HP with Chaos Damage around 80ish.

I don't remember lumber costs, but you should be able to get plenty of it.

The Green Dragons are not available immediately, but you should only need to wait for 1 to use as a tank.  They're not all that much weaker than Vadis himself statwise.  With a Green Dragon, and Shizuka, you should be able to take out Vadis.  You can use Drakes to help defend or put them on the Vadis quest.  Another option is to turtle a while and wait for the restock and grab 1 or 2 more Green Dragons.

Shizuka's class doesn't really matter that much. Even though Vadis himself is spell immune Cone of Frost still does way more damage than Chain Lightning and it gets rid of Vadis's entourage a lot faster.

On Hard mode I relied on towers a lot, and setting aside some Pillaging groups to gather resources on the free hit buildings.

1.24 version here. Normal difficulty... seems that there is no trading post any more. Is this even possible without being able to trade?! On top of practically not being able to build anything at all, you can't ever leave your base because of Ebon the Crimson Flame and her "hi, here are 4 Infernals in your face. GAME EFFING OVER" stupidity.

Whosyourdaddy looking more and more enticing by the moment.

Eh... OK... so back to select custom campaign screen and select WoS book 2... and trading post is back now... *puzzled look on face*.

Infenwe wrote: 1.24 version here. Normal difficulty... seems that there is no trading post any more. Is this even possible without being able to trade?! On top of practically not being able to build anything at all, you can't ever leave your base because of Ebon the Crimson Flame and her "hi, here are 4 Infernals in your face. GAME EFFING OVER" stupidity.

Whosyourdaddy looking more and more enticing by the moment.

Eh... OK... so back to select custom campaign screen and select WoS book 2... and trading post is back now... *puzzled look on face*.

Uh, UltimaRaiden has a pretty good post on how to beat the mission but it really comes down to taking Vadis ASAP, so you can the trolls and dragons on your side. All the neutral dragons will fly to your base to defend it once you're done with the quest and even if your undead base is beaten half to death, the trolls and dragons will do fine in finishing the mission.

As for Ebon, there are two tricks to know in every map she appears in to make her much easier. First, her infernals all die when she does, and second, as soon as she is attacked she will drop her infernals straight away so keep a throwaway unit way in front of your base so she won't be able to use the stun and damage effect of Rain of Chaos right in the middle of your base.

I just replayed this map with the 1.24 version and I have a few observations

- Neutral Dragon Roosts are actually randomly generated, being only 10% for each spot, which means if you're trying to wait for a Green Dragon to use, it might not be possible if you don't get a Roost generated.

- Ebon's Infernals no longer die upon her death, which makes her a lot harder to handle. I'm not sure whether this is intentional or a patch change, but you should expect your undead base to be extremely beaten up by the end of the map, especially because the Dragon patrols aren't exactly smart.

- The Demon Gate was nerfed, seems like only 1 Doom Guard is spawned and possibly at a lower interval. It's almost not a real threat anymore.

My new personal strategy is to just rush Vadis ASAP, after you get a few good ranged units with Web. Make sure you load up Shizuka in the Book 1 with tons of summoning items such as Book of the Dead/Ice Shard/Amulet of the Wild and micro your units so that they take as little splash damage from Vadis attacks as possible.

Once you get Vadis and the trolls, attack the Satyr base but don't charge a gigantic army in, just lure out the hero "Mongrelthod", starfalling if you need to get rid of the Satyr army, kill him and take the Dragon horn, then abuse Dragon Roosts to win the mission.