Airk, I think your talking about Under the Burning Sun? It’s classed as Expert so I’m a long way from playing it.
I’m working my way through Heir to the Throne. I enjoyed the ‘Siege of Elensfair’, although all the thieves died in a feint across the ford which let me get into the city.
I’ve just defeated the Princess’ army and have an undead scenario to work through. I tend to get into trouble when I don’t read the objectives properly (in ‘Crossroads’ I didn’t realise I only had to defeat one leader for instance), or I fail to have enough cannon fodder to use as an ablative shield for my high level units. My recall list is a bit mage and druid heavy, as marksmen and levelled fighters tend to get smashed up. I’ve been a bit careless with the loyal units though, so I have to watch my upkeep.
Oh and the eleven sorceress seems a bit useless compared to the druid. Maybe they upgrade into something cool?
Yeah. That’s the one. I don’t remember why I embarked on that. x.x
Eh.
The sorceress is super handy against Undead, (also to a lesser degree against Drakes and, interestingly, elves, but you don’t fight any of those in HTTK that I can recall.) so you’ll probably want to have some on staff (though it’s less important if you have lots of mages), since Arcane Damage is strong - for example, against a Wraith (which you’ll be seeing soon, I think.) you’re looking at 4 attacks at 7 (or maybe 8 if it rounds up) magical for the Sorceress, and 3 attacks at 3 magical from the druid. And the sorceress actually promotes TWICE more, ending up with a 10-5 Magical Arcane attack. Not that the druid path is in any way shabby, but the sorceress path definitely packs a whallop.
If you want “spoilers” about unit stats, you can always look at units.wesnoth.org for tons of info.
Yes I checked the unit chart after posting. I might try to feed the sorceress more kills rather than just using her as a slower so other units take less retaliation damage.
I’ve been through a few Wraiths already so I have an Archmage and a Mage of Light and another White mage handy. Next scenario is Dwarven Doors which looks to be combat heavy judging by the insane amount of gold I got to carry over.
Dwarven Doors was a lot of fun, I had a core group of levelled troops escort Konrad all the way up, followed by a group of level ones with a Druid and an Elvish Captain to divert attention. It worked extremely well and as a bonus I got a couple of marksmen and heros out of the rearguard.
The cavern scenarios were fairly straight forward, I’m loving the thunderer’s massive damage when they hit and their good survivability compared to the Elvish archers, I came back out to the surface with three thunderguards and a couple of Dwarven Lords as well as a bunch of steel clad guys. I went the Undead route and ripped through all the levels with White Mages and lots of tough dwarven guys. It was a lot of fun one-shotting hordes of corpses with levelled thunderguards.
My recall list has reached a point that I can’t afford to recall all my level threes, and so selectively bring up appropriate Level 2s and only bother picking loyal 3s and what types seem most critical for the map I’m on. If I see hills it’s Dwarves, lots of Forest Elves and so on. I’m on about scenario 20 now I think (the one where you have to race between two clashing armies).
I’ve been playing through a couple of campaigns again, and it’s taking me quite a while to get my ‘sea legs’ back (though I’ve also been playing on higher difficulty.). Tale of Two Brothers was pretty manageable, but The Orcish Incursion has been HARD going.
Building up a cadre of good healers seems to be the key for me. I found things a lot easier once I had druids and white mages. Once I finish HTTT I think I will have a go at one of the campaigns where you play a non healing faction to see if I can make the adjustment.
The thing about HTTK is that you’re not REALLY playing a “Faction”; You’re playing a blob of units that pulls from a BUNCH of places, so you REALLY have a unit for all circumstances.
You get most of the “Rebels” faction - minus the Wose, but you add the Merman Fighter (Loyalist unit) and the Mermaid Priestess (not appearing in any faction), the Horseman (Loyalist unit), all the dwarven units (Knalgan faction) and probably a couple of others that I’m forgetting. (Though I had originally thought that the Mage was a loyalist only unit, but it appears in Rebels too.)
Playing with just the Elven units from Rebels is a good deal tougher, for example. Still though, you may be disappointed in your efforts to play a campaign without healing units, since most of the factions have one - Loyalists can get white mages, elves shamans, drakes have the saurian augur (a lot like the shaman, in that it’s a heals+4 at level 1). Dwarves don’t get one, though if I recall, the dwarf campaign I played (Hammer of Thursagan, I think?) gave me a healing unit eventually. Northerners don’t have one, but hey, orcs are cheap and trolls regen. And undead? Well, they have ways.
But yes, it DOES involve a fairly significant change in tactics. What I wouldn’t do for some better open-field units for Orcish Incursion. x.x
I finished the Hammer of Thursagan and really enjoyed it. It wasn’t too punishing, which was nice, and the last section was enjoyable. I built up more people than I needed, but I kept the same crew together until almost the end. The deaths of a couple of my small team (alas poor Soniver and Tris), was painful, but their sacrifice was noble and we won the day. It was nice that I didn’t have the huge pile of dead companions throwing their lives away to save mine like most of the other campaigns, so I enjoyed that part too.
I think *Hammer of Thursagan *might be my next campaign.
I’ve made it to the final scenario in Heir to the Throne, but lost Delfador to a flank attack by several Lancers and Dragoons on about turn 5 or so. I think my approach will be to buy a lot of Dwarven Guardsmen and maybe thieves to soak up the hits and slowly blob my way towards the Queen in a tight formation, things are a little cramped though and Elves and Dwarves suck on open ground. The waves of dragoons, lancers and halberdiers are pretty intimidating…
Those who liked this game may enjoy King’s Bounty The legend. It also has RPG elements and hex based tactical combat, although the mix is quite different.
I DID enjoy King’s Bounty: The Legend, though Armored Princess was a much better game overall. I’m not sure it scratches precisely the same itch, but they are certainly related.
