Act III : Mission 9 HERETICS

[FlowBlaq]

Hi ! I just finish this mission and i must say it a true spike in the difficulties of this campaign. But I was wondering if it was possible to successfuly complete all objectives? After I destroyed the 3 church i went for the shield around hector and i had less than 5 minutes left when I began to truly commit to it (with all the way back). In the meantime i found a very strong keep on the corner north east of the map. And god it feel impossible to conquer without tremendous loss and quite a bit of time that we don't seem to have. Am I missing something? I try there with 4 impaler and a pretty good army but that was clearly not enough and timer was ticking (I had to reload to the checkpoint and ignore it to have enough time. I tried a second time and try to rush there since there is many ressource. But it's inaccessible before the hector's timer goes on. I can't see a way to do it in the time impaired. Someone have tips or some advise that would help?
I will try to do it without destroying the churches and just kill the Elosian in their bubble, but i'm not sure how much time you save with this method or try to block them with wall but I'am not certain it can work. (Can we build there?) but still it feel that the timer is quite short and doesn't solve the fortified position in the keep.

[Pyroknight64]

I was wondering this as well, only thing i can think of is setting up the impalers to just shoot at it, send in hunters as well with a few shield men and micro them to distract the grand balistas so they don't shoot the hunters, maybe set up a triage tent to save on some troops but to do this AND kill the keeps AND actually complete the mission idk. I think it might just be meant to be a source of constant troops to threaten your keep but that doesn't mean we can't try to get in all the same.

[Crypto Gamer]

Yeah, I killed all 3 keeps and had like 20 minutes left.

This mission used to be harder so got nerfed.

Once you know where the enemy can attack you, ballista it up with walls so you do not need to bother with defence.

Micro your units so they do not spend too much time on killing walls.

Always kill units making buildings.

Catapults you can also kill with a Crackfire so mind the AOE dmg.

Edit: Hidden timer is global so save Edwin ASAP.

As always have a triage Center near sell and move it close to the frontlines if needed hero, units can recharge hp, and armor fast.

You can also place 1 close to the boss area and stay in that location to regen hp faster.

At worst clear 2 keeps and make sure to have a small army to repeatedly kill the sacrifices.

You can avoid most Grand ballistas but if not send Edwin there with the flame shield and then hunters shoot at it.

IF Edwin is low hp back to the triage center and let Aleis tank bolts with her royal guards.
If any royals are alive she will not die.

[5chneemensch]

Originally posted by Crypto Gamer:

The Hidden timer is likely on from the moment Edwin is saved.

Been there done that. It's a global timer and doesn't care if you saved Edwin or not.

[madocato]

I can also confirm that the 30 minutes timer is global. I thought I can hold the timer by delaying to save Edwin, but it still started while he's in jail.

[Crypto Gamer]

Hmm in that case best to save Edwin ASAP as you can use him for extra dmg.

[Lord Quinton]

I did it on my first playthrough, not even realizing there were 3 keeps you had to kill at first. a good defense to the SE of your keep is absolutely necesary, you don't want to have to waste time micromanaging that. expect them to throw the occasional ballista or catapult at you down there but only rarely. as for killing the keeps, tank with edwin and aelis. if you let them take most of the incoming fire while troops support them you should be able to roll through the mission without too much difficulty. I didn't really build any research facilities, just focused on spamming pikemen and archers and chewed stuff up pretty easily.

[5chneemensch]

If you move down-right they will start attacking from there. Same with up-left. So you want to clear down-right first as all keep entrances are locked until you meet the pope. The middle entrance is the only one that attacks you iirc. It can be hold with medium walls and a few archers (starting archers are enough). Your starting units are enough to clear almost the entire map on time, but it gets dicey and ballistae make it a metric ton easier and faster so tech towards them and spam them. If you don't tech towards ballistae, you still need a bunch of units to get the shield down. Careful, nightmares spawn 4 times iirc.

Knights and ballistae are tanky and deadly respectively, but you can use old guys fire cone to oneshot them. Use old guy to round a few up, then nuke.

[Wubbinz]

You mean 9 goes harder than 8? *gulp*

Took me like an hour to get through 8.. D:

[Fluffy Newfoundland]

I actually got Edwin glitched on this map lol.

On the last keep, i had only Edwin and the other hero to destroy it, so to avoid unit i had Edwin behing the keep, and when it exploded, the building became a decor entity that you couldn't attack, and Edwin was stuck behind it lol.

Had to destroy the shield without him.

[sthao3]

Originally posted by FlowBlaq:

I will try to do it without destroying the churches and just kill the Elosian in their bubble, but i'm not sure how much time you save with this method or try to block them with wall but I'am not certain it can work. (Can we build there?)

You cannot build walls to block the bubbles, I've tried LOL I thought I was so smart when I thought of it and then when I tried to build walls, I discovered I couldn't.

[ToucanSafari]

It was an easy map, use your heroes to blast through all 3 keeps defenses and only build monks. send about 5-10 to destroy each keep while your two heroes destroy the next area, rinse and repeat.
at ceremony area, build a few ballista towers and an aid station adjacent to the southwest wall and just spam monks into the shield. finished it with about 15 minutes left on timer.

[tankdasso]

Originally posted by ToucanSafari:

It was an easy map, use your heroes to blast through all 3 keeps defenses and only build monks. send about 5-10 to destroy each keep while your two heroes destroy the next area, rinse and repeat.
at ceremony area, build a few ballista towers and an aid station adjacent to the southwest wall and just spam monks into the shield. finished it with about 15 minutes left on timer.

What is a monk?

[ToucanSafari]

Originally posted by tankdasso:

Originally posted by ToucanSafari:

It was an easy map, use your heroes to blast through all 3 keeps defenses and only build monks. send about 5-10 to destroy each keep while your two heroes destroy the next area, rinse and repeat.
at ceremony area, build a few ballista towers and an aid station adjacent to the southwest wall and just spam monks into the shield. finished it with about 15 minutes left on timer.

What is a monk?

Sorry, I meant rogue.