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Chapter 5:
Dreadlord's Fall
Difficulty: Hard
Heroes: Silvanis, Varimathras
Significant Items:
Staff of Teleportation.
Side Quests: None |
Those of you who played the Brood War campaign
will instantly remember that this level and it shares many
similarities. In the first 8 minutes of the game, the enemy is in
'sleep mode'. Here, you're free to walk through the enemy base,
and when you attack something, only units close to it will
respond. Eliminating one enemy in this phase
Hero Development Guide:
Silvanis
and Varimathras will rise to level 8 on this level
Silvanis:
Level 7: Level 3 Silence, Level 2 Black Arrow,
Level 1 Life Siphon, Charm
Level 8: Level 3 Silence, Level 3
Black Arrow, Level 1 Life Siphon, Charm
Varimathras:
Level 6: Level 1 Reign of Fire, Level 2 Sleep, Level 2 Vampiric Aura, Doom
Level 7: Level 1 Reign of Fire, Level 3 Sleep, Level 2 Vampiric Aura, Doom
Level 8: Level 2 Reign of Fire, Level 3 Sleep, Level 2 Vampiric Aura, Doom
The Surgical Strike:
The first 8 minutes will decide whether you succeed or fail the
mission. therefore reduce game speed down to at least normal and
use every last second of it. Train a ghoul, send it to lumber.
There are two enemies to fight, and on hard difficulty, both of
them together, will overwhelm you. It is imperative for you to
eliminate one enemy forever. I recommend the human race, since
they have Mortar Teams in close proximity to their base. By taking
control of these, you can deal enough damage to end their
existence.
Both bases will rebuild lost structures on this level, so your
goal is to destroy both Castles, and all peasants. In doing so,
you ensure that all the humans can do is rebuild a bit of
defenses.. and then sit idle for the rest of the game.
Send all your forces to B, where there's a footman and 2 mortar
teams. Possess one mortar Team, charm the other, and kill the
footman. With the two Mortar Teams. Go back to base, build a
second Temple of the Damned, and start training banshees, have
your banshees rally at A.
 | | Don't forget their lumber peasants
near the lumber mills! They must die to ensure that the humans
won't rebuild. |
At the same time,
assault the upper base at C. Don't do this the usual way, instead
take a survey of surrounding military units. Use your Banshee to
possess the knight there, and then surgically kill each of the
sleeping footmen. With no one left to bother your Mortar Teams,
kill their castle. Reign of fire is great for killing those pesky
peasants that come to repair. Make sure to kill the 2 lumber
peasants on the upper left of the base! Don't worry about the rest
of the buildings... While this is going on, have Silvanis move
to A, and meet up with your first Banshee. Wait till the Banshee
has 250 energy. Possess one Mortar Team there and Charm the other,
kill the footman. You now have 4 Mortar Teams under your
command.
Gather the rest of your Banshees and other forces (keep training
more Banshees) and move them to K, kill the sleeping footman and
rifleman. The main human base is tougher, with Grand Marshal
Garithos as the guard. You must eliminate this hero, but he has
tonnes of HP, and the dreaded Shockwave ability.
Engage the base with Mortar Teams by hitting the top farms, human
forces will charge out. Sleep the Grand Marshal immediately, and
take care of the forces, don't waste your Charm just yet, but feel
free to possess the knight, if he comes out. Once surrounding
forces are dead, Silence the Grand Marshal, you do not want him to
Shockwave your Mortar Teams.
Surround the Marshal with your Skeletal Minions from Death Arrow,
and attack, keep him Permanently silence for the whole battle. If
he geos avatar, you'll suffer heavy losses. Once the Grand Marshal
is stead.. move a Banshee and Silvanis into the base. Possess
their Mortar Team and Charm their Gryphon Rider. Proceed to
destroy all defences, and the Castle.
Note that there's two more Lumber Peons at L, make sure you kill
them! With all peons and Castles dead, the human base is disabled.
Also destroy the Altar. You may now knock out some key production
buildings, so it'll be easier to take this base as an expansion
later, but that's optional.
If you still have time left, use it to storm the Undead base with
Silvanis and Banshees. You won't be able kill it, but use the time
to steal the Frost Wyrm in Base F, and the abominations in both
bases. This will be serve as great defense. Once the enemy wakes
up, pull your troops out of both bases..
Base Defence:
With only Detheroc
left, things are still not easy. The Undead base will send several
forms of attacks, 3 land based attacks, and one purely air based.
The air attack will consist of 8-10 Gargoyles, 2 Frost Wyrms and 4
Destroyers. The land attacks include 3 Abominations + 4 Crypt
Fiends, 2 Meat wagons and 8 Necromancers, and finally a
combination attack including Detheroc, a level 10 Dread Lord.
 | | Detheroc has three spells at his
disposal, Sleep, Shadowstrike and Carrion Swarm. In battle, his
preferred strategy is to keep your heroes permanently asleep,
while he uses Shadow Strike on your clump of air units. On
occasion, he will also Shadow Strike your Heroes or Wyrms. If you
wish to fight him off without losses, its best to keep him silent.
|
Build a line of Spirit
Towers just below your Black Citadel. Against the aerial strike,
Charm a Frost Wyrm and pull him to the safety of your towers, and
when you get it, Doom a Destroyer. Focus fire to kill the Second
Wyrm, and your towers can deal to the rest. During the first
attack, you'll want to Charm a Destroy instead. You can't get
these units, but they're very useful.
Against land attacks, sleep key units, like Detheroc and deal with
the rest of the attack. Silence Necromancers, and Detheroc.
Provided the Dread Lord cannot get off his spells, he is very much
useless. If Detheroc managed to get a spell off, its likely to be
sleep on your heroes. That's why you want the Black Sphinx, his
ability to remove Cripple and Sleep is invaluable. And with it,
he's attack becomes highly damaging.
The Doom Guard resulting from a Doom Spell is also deadly. Always
maintain a Doom Guard. Use War Stomp against enemy mass Ghouls,
dispel against enemy skeletons and use it to Cripple the enemy
Hero. Remember to only use Cripple and Sleep when the enemy does
not have a Destroyer around.
During this time, you'll want to purchase a Staff of Teleportation
for each of your heroes from the Goblin Merchant at H. Doing this
allows you to expand at I. While land forces continue to strike at
J, their air attacks will be diverted to your expansion. Get 3-4
Spirit Towers there, and teleport your heroes over during an
attack. Using a combination of Charm and Doom, as described above,
you can fight them off.
Battle of Attrition:
Mass Frost
Wyrms, it'll win you this level. Get a Sacrificial Pit, followed
by tow Boneyards, mass Frost Wyrms till your on 80 supply. This
should give you around 7 of these beats. Them alone (with a
Destroyer), hovering about your spirit towers is enough to destroy
any incoming attack without losses. Also get a Stature for
healing. You see, the enemy does not research web on this level!
Use that top your best advantage. Upgrade Frost Wyrms to 3-3.
 | | Silence and Rain of Fire works
great on Necromancers |
Meanwhile, by moving a Shade to
what's left of the human bases. Your heroes can teleport back and
forth at will (using their staff). Use this, on conjunction with
Charm and Doom, to slowly take out both human bases while your
building up your forces. You may wish to bring 1-3 Meat Wagons to
hasten the process, if you have spare supply. You'll get a few
bonus units for your work as well!
This free up good expansion spots for later on. Once you have a
full supply of Wyrms, Move them, with your heroes down near the
entrance into the enemy base. (between H and G). Have a shade
hovering just inside their base, so you'll know when they send an
attack. this allows you to get ready, and silence Detheroc.
Without his Carrion Swarm and sleep, your Frost Wyrms can take out
offending forces with little loss. Send badly injured Wyrms and
heroes to the nearby fountain of health at G.
Base securing their base entrance, you can expand to C and D
without fear of a land assault. And air ones can be taken out
using 4 Spirit Towers and your heroes.
The final strike:
The undead base
rebuilds, you need to kill it in one go. They train their forces
at extreme speeds... you have little choice but to get 1000
supply... Once you have a good amount gold (4000), stop
harvesting, go to high upkeep with more Frost Wyrms, this should
allow you to get about 10-11 of the beasts. Along with your
destroyer and statue. Charm Frost Wyrms and Abominations on thier
incoming attacks, you can get to about 110 supply.
Now commence the attack! Use a Shadow to locate Detheroc, so you
can silence him before he cast any spells. Wait for an attack,
destroy it, then send in your Frost Wyrms. Use their breath to
freeze spirits towers and production buildings. Don't scatter your
wyrms out too much, but enough to keep surrounding buildings
frozen.
 | | Have at least 1 Frost Wyrm
attacking each defensive and production structure. Freeze their
base to a standstill. |
Enemy defences will pour out, Doom a Gargoyle... you get a Meat
Shield and save your Wyrms. meanwhile Charm enemy units either
Abominations or Frost Wyrms. if Detheroc attacks, silence him, and
focus fire with your Frost Wyrms that ain't busy keeping a
structure frozen, He doesn't stand a chance. Use Devor Magic to
dispel Cripple.
Black arrow is also very useful for getting a meat wall, but you
want to save your mana for Charm. What you need to do is slow the
game down to slowest, and look for units that are just about to
die. At this time, shoot one Black Arrow at the enemy with 'B', to
get a Dark minion for 6 mana!
Once the primary base is dead, you have no time to lose, gather
your forces and assault F. You should still have around 7 Frost
Wyrms a alive right now. Detheroc will face you one more time, and
with all your Frost Wyrms busy keeping their towers and production
buildings offline, you don't have the forces to face this guy.
Keep him permanently asleep while your destroy his base. Level 3
sleep allows you to do that :)
Once that's dead, it's game over.
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