wesnoth-1.10-dm 1:1.10.7-1 / usr / share / games / wesnoth / 1.10 / data / campaigns / Delfadors_Memoirs / WALKTHROUGH

This walkthrough describes the Deflador's Memoirs campaign at NORMAL difficulty.

Overture
========

This is a cut-scene.

This Valley Belongs To Me
=========================

Don't split up your forces; the Wolf Riders have more mobility than
you and will chew your units up in detail.  A good recruit mix is one
horseman and then about half mages to half spearmen; you need your
spearmen to block for wounded mages. 

On Easy and Normal, it's actually not a bad idea to just fort up on
Methor's keep; the orcs will reach you about dawn of the second day,
and the fortifications will tilt the kill ratio in your favor.  Once
you've dealt with the initial assault wave, cross the bridge in force
and run north to kill the boss.  Use Methor's lightbeam attack to
soften up opponents so your baby mages can get kills.

On Hard, the AI may very hang back and never attack if you fort up, so
you have to send troops over the river early.  If it looks like the
orcs will make contact befor morning, fort up in the treeline just west
and south of the bridge, as this wioll improve your spearmens' defense.

The Road to Weldyn
==================

Recruit or recall at least two horse units, you'll want them for
village grabbing.  Beware of advancing too far west before you've
lured some wolf riders too far in front of the orcish foot troops and
picked them off, otherwise you're quite likely to get swarmed. When
the orcs have nothing but grunts and trolls left, fort up at night and
pick them to death with magefire during the day, using spearmen and
horsemen to block counterattacks.  Promote to white mages by preference,
they'll be useful for countering poison in the next scenario.

Leollyn
=======

In this more heavily wooded terrain, infantry is king.  Put a couple
of blocking units at the vilage at the riverbank northwest of your keep, 
as the assassins often try to cross there.  Push another castleful-and-a
half (8-10 units up the road north from your keep. 

Council in Weldyn
=================

Just a talk scenario,

The Swamps of Illuven
=====================

Eight units will get you through this, if one of them is a white mage
you can group around to get healing; otherwise recruit two or three
more.  The little tongue of land near map center is a good place to
fort up, as the enemy has to come at you over bridges or by wading
through water.  As long as you can keep from getting swarmed, careful
defensive maneuvering will usually carry the day.

Swamp Fortress
==============

Heavy infantry work well against skeletons, and this is your first
chance at them; recruit at least three.  You need to get a mage onto
each spire to stop them from spawning undead.  A task group of two
mages, with two heavy infantrymen to run interference for them, will
usually suffice to kill the once-per-turn spawns. Ideally one mage in
each group will be a healer.

Ur-Thorodur
===========

The fireball attack of a Red Mage is very effective against Woses;
you can do this scenario with two Red Mages, two White Mages,
Delfador, Lionel, and one random unit.  But don't get too focused on
killing enemies; try to avoid getting Delfador into fights and 
instead move him as rapidly as possible towards Ur-Thorodor's keep.
Shield weakened units in your center; if you put them on a flank
they may get picked off by gryphons.

You'll lose your Wesnothian veterans for several scenarios after this
one while Delfador journeys to exotic places, but regain access to
them when you reach Weldyn again.

Houses of the Dead
==================

Landing on villages spawns allies, which is a good thing since you have no
keep in this scenario and won't be able to recruit. 

There is only one village to the northwest of you; the path out to the
north starts to the southeast of you.  There are five villages along
the path out. Ignore the narrow valleys reaching into the mountains;
there is nothing there. The only exception is that if you bear
northeast then northwest from Sythan's village, you will come to a
mine entrance that teleports you to a chamber with a magic staff of
power in it.

The other way to get to that chamber is to fight your way through the
skeletons, north and east along the road.  The signpost at the north
edge of the map is your exit, but you can't win until you've collected the
staff.  If you approach it from the east (that is, not taking the secret
passage) you'll have to fight your way through a Draug and another skeleton
spawn point.  You may want to do this to level up Delfador before his
confrontation with Iliah-Malal in the next scenario.

In this scenario and the next, sacrifice your recruits whenever it's
necessary to feed Delfador a kill, because you won't get to keep these
veterans and he is thus the only way to carry away experience points.

The Gate Between Worlds
=======================

You'll get to recruit only ghosts and ghouls here.  Ghosts are
expensive, so recruit only two or three for village-grabbing and use
ghouls as your line troops.  You need to recruit just two castles of
units and then push Delfador towards the enemy keep every turn, as the
time limit is a bit tight here.  The units are expendable; you won't
get to keep them when you're back among the living.  Attack
Ihiah-Malal with your Staff of Power in melee, as he can match you at
spellcasting (unless you have already made it to Elder Mage).

Wasteland
=========

Delfador gets a new recruit list, from Elves.  Usually advice for running
Elves applies, fight from forests where you can.  There is only one enemy
keep, in the shrouded area to the southwest; Chantal's elves will probably
be engaged there by the time you get there.

Terror at the Ford of Parthyn
=============================

This scenario is designed to eat your gold.  To win it most
efficiently, run Delfador and Chantal straight down the road south
towards the Great River until you get to the keep at the river;
you must recruit a significant force, as you might be ambushed by
undead cavalry on the way south and are unlikely to make it safely to
the fort before the enemy infantry shows up.  

You'll get some loyalist allies from visiting the burned villages and
the villages to the southeast within the keep. Beware the easternmost
village within the keep, visiting it will spawn an enemy Draug.  The
eastern village touching the riverbank and the western village tucked 
in the woods also have ambushers.

Once you reach a keep on the wall, you'll be able to recruit anywhere
on it. You can use this to plug gaps in the defenses - which is good,
because you're going to be swarmed by bad guys from two directions.

An alternative strategy is to recruit a castleful of elves early and send
them to the forest between the fort and the orc keep at the west edge
of the map; they can ambush the incoming orcs in favrable terrain there,
where they get higher defense than obn the fort walls.

Because the "sighted" condition is not checked for when the loyalists
on the south shore join your side, units get subsumed, you'll need to
send someone to them who was out of visual range of the mage keep.

The Return Of Trouble
=====================

Recruit mainly L2 veterans.  L1 units have poor survival odds in this scenario,

Surviving an orcish onslaught from two directions on open ground is just barely
possible with luck and good tactics, but you are going to take significant
casualties doing it.  Instead of trying to hold the area near your keep, run
for the forest where your elves have better defense. Recruit or recall at least
one horseman for nothing but village-stealing; not only is this good for your
gold balance, but you want to cut into the orcs' recruiting capacity as fast
as possible.

Shadows
=======

This is a fairly straightforward brawl zombies to the left of you,
draugs to the right, and you're stuck in the middle with Kalenz.  Oh,
and there's another opponent generating the occasional revenant south
of the lake; they'll swim aacross by ones or twos but should be easily
held out of your keep by a couple of units in the shore woods.

Recruit veterans and punch out zombie-guy to the west first, he's the
weakest and has the most villages near his keep.  You're more mobile
in the woods than your opponent, so defeat them in detail.  Do not get 
tangled up in a static brawl with the skeletons coming from the east; 
they are sucker bait for their second wave, which includes specters 
with a longer movement range than your elves and is extremely nasty.

Delfador and a bunch of heavy infantry and mages will appear near the
southeast corner on turn 12, but probably not make it north before you
finish off the last opponent because their mobility is poor.

Save the Prince
===============

You don't have time for niceties in this one; you'll need to charge your 
most hardened troops into Zorlan's keep near the center of the map -
Delfador and Kalenz and any L3s you have going first.  One of your most
serious tactical problems will be just deplying to fight because the
country between your keep and the objective is so rough.

Once you've disposed of Zorlan, cross the river to the south bank
immediately.  Not only will this help relieve the pressure on the
Prince, but it's actually easier to get at the Draug by recrossing the
river than it would have been to trek through the mountains between
his and Zorlan's keep.

Guard your white mages carefully. Zorlan's wolves will be looking for
soft targets and they have the mobility edge.  You won't get to keep
these particular mages past this scenario, but you'll need them keeping
your bashers alive,.

Dark Sky Over Weldyn
====================

Talk only.

A New Ally
==========

Don't recruit heavily for this one; a few veterans (not even a full castle 
necessarily) should do it.  Bad guy recruits mostly skeletal undead, so 
impact weapons are good value here.

Portal of Doom
==============

The direct route across the icefield is a trap -- if you try it,
you'll probably get struck there and destroyed by Illiah-Malal and a
phalanx of guard revenants.  Instead, recruit a castlefull of dwarves
and bashers, and run them through the woods around the north end of
the icefield, followed by another castleful of mages if you have the
gold.  And spend gold, because you'll need to -- the opposition is
recruiting all L2s and L3s, which means L1s will drop like flies in
this battle. Even with best tactics, expect to lose most or all of
your troops on the retreat unless (a) you can recruit that second
castlefull of mages, and (b) their aim is true.

Don't bother sending a scout north to grab villages, he'll get
scragged when Iliah-Malal appears on the northern keep.

Showdown in the Northern Swamp
==============================

It's easy to ovrerrecruit for this one and end up painfully broke for the next.
You're going to get Lionel's troops on turn 2, so recruit very sparingly from
hardened veterans.  A few need to be your undead survivors from the otherworld,
if you have any.

The bridges are choke points.  Keep veterans within striking distance
of your end so you can swarm single units comoing off them.  You'll get a
few leakers (undead with Submerge) but nothing your reserves can't handle.

Prince of Wesnoth
=================

The central forest isn't the haven it usually would be for elves; the
humans can recruit enough units to swamp a castlefull of L3s.  Go
carefully, stick to the forest, and don't let yourself get flanked.
Eldred is the bad guy to the northeast.

Clash at the Manor
==================

You need to have blocking forces between the keep and both signposts 
to keep messengers from escaping. Keep a mobil reserve in the woods 
between them to be committed when it becomes clear which gate the
Queen's men will come out of.

The Face Of The Enemy
=====================

As Kalenz says, use strong units to block chokepoints so you can't be flanked.
Othrwise this is fairly straightforward.