Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders Guide

This was the official guide upload to game sites back in the day on IGN that been saved and back up on some other sites. I wished it long ago to help me out and want to help others out with it.

Intro

Long after the wars of old, a long reign of peace settled upon the face of Bersia. Now a new deadly threat arises from the Eastern lands of Hexter, one that seeks to control a dangerous artefact from an ancient war. You play the role of one of four great generals who have personal stakes in this war. Win or lose, you will partake in the bloodiest hack-fest this side of Bersia since the War of Xok's Knights.


Some of the mission info is to big to group up so I made them there own. like the last mission for Lucretia.

Basics and Main Cast

Strategic Command Basics

KUFTC is primarily an RTS (real-time strategy) game similar to what you'd find in Warcraft or whatnot. Despite what you may think it could be with its tactical level combat, you should engage to play KUFTC as an RTS or you stand to lose (very easily) on all aspects and missions of the game. So how do you play an RTS on a console controller? We can tell you this -- it ain't easy.

First, you need to think like an RTS player -- the mini-map you can bring up by holding the R trigger is your primary means of giving all manner of commands, casting spells, and using map-based abilities (mainly spells but some other unit abilities are non-tatical). If you've experimented with Gerald's or Lucretia's campaign, you'll know that the L and R triggers will also serve to let you cycle through your available (i.e., non-dead) units. What you may find unhelpful is that the mini-map adjusts its size depending how far you move your arrow cursor away from your currently selected unit. IGN can assuredly tell you that for most of the game, you will be focused on the strategic movements of friendly and enemy units on this mini-map.

Tactically, you can only control your personal character (Gerald, hot-butt Lucretia, Kendal, and freakazoid Regnier) while giving strategic commands to your other troop leaders. Only your core troop (the unit under your leader) will have officers. Officers are there to assist your personal leader with his or her attacks in tactical mode. Tactical mode is what makes KUFTC different from your standard RTS. In tactical mode, your leader's level of performance will determine how fast you can destroy an enemy unit -- in single player, that means that you have the opportunity to destroy another enemy unit with almost no losses on your side (some wounds maybe, but your forces can heal wounds -- they just can't raise the dead).

Unit special abilities are best used from the strategic mini-map. Press the D-pad and hold R trigger (L trigger, if you experimented, allows you to set waypoints using the green or yellow keys) and press the green key on the spot where you want to use the ability. Never use the main screen to activate your special abilities, with the exceptions of fire arrows on defenceless villages (once in Gerald's campaign) and opening floodgates with sappers (the floodgate building doesn't show-up on the map, which is a keenly stupid mistake). Other units have special abilities and spells unique to themselves; as they are fairly self-explanatory on the spell effect screen, here's a brief IGN run down:


Scouting (no cost). Creates an expendable "scout unit" that you can move separately around on the map. Scouts can be used to sight for large slow-moving but long range units such as siege units. Scouts can also be used to draw enemies away from your main force or to lure them into an ambush (such as trapped ground). Scouting is the default skill of all your core troops (all four leading characters) so your core troop will always remain as melee/infantry fighters. Scouts can detect traps like sappers, but cannot disarm them.
Fire Arrow (20 SP). Allows human archers to launch arrows tipped with fire to create a blaze within forest terrain or on a preset structure. This use of SP for setting fires is more efficient than the sappers' fire-starting ability, which costs five times more.
Direct Fire (400 SP). Allows archers to fire direct shots at an enemy in one salvo. keenly useful only against units that are weak against ranged attacks and usually a gross miuse of SP unless directed at cavalry charing straight onto your archers.
Set Trap (100 SP). Orders sappers to set-up a series of reusable traps on a patch of ground. Traps remain until removed by enemy sappers.
Remove Traps (no cost). Orders sappers to remove enemy traps from a spot on the ground. Removed traps often generate a small amount of SP for your forces.
Open Watergate (no cost). Orders sappers to open a watergate or dam. This will usually be an objective in a mission. This is one of the few abilities you want to use while on the main screen, since the watergate usually does not appear on the mini-map.
Set Fire (100 SP). Orders sappers to spawn a fire at a location. Usually done in forest terrain, although it may be set on clear terrain (as evidenced in Lucretia's campaign). This may be why the SP cost is higher.
Suicide Attack (5 SP). Lich only. A ghoul is spawned much like a Scout and is sent to a designated target, where it will explode for some damage.
Cast Spell (usually 750 SP). Casts one of the spells linked to the various magic skills (holy, earth, fire, ice, lightning, curse). Each spell is a major chunk of SP, so cast it only on units that are weak against that particular element. Spells range from Meteor to Blizzard and have a wide variety of effects. Curio is one of the few human spells that will heal Hironeiden and Ecclessian units.
Elemental Boost (200 SP). Dark Elf/Vellond only. Imbues troop with "elemental boost" which is a mix of all the elements in one bag. It does less damage than "pure" elemental damage (as from your equipment) but the damage stacks with your weapon's element, making the elves do more damage than they can take.
Tree of Illusion (350 SP). Some menus have it as the "Tree of Healing", but they are the same spell. Basically creates a holographic tree whereby all Dark Elf and Orc units may regenerate life. Mandatory in dedsert or wasteland missions where no natural forest is available. Note that the longer the units stay near the tree, the more healing they recieve.
Enrage (200 SP). Orc "healing spell". Basically the same as curio except for the higher cost and the nasty fact that it cannot "area heal" a unit. However, recipients of this spell will be able to do slightly more melee damage. The spell must be cast directly on a unit (the unit name must be in 'big mode') or it will have no effect. Best thing to cast this out of melee and bring the unit up to full strength than squander it on an enemy unit. It certainly costs less than the tree of illusion spell, so use it on lone Orc units that have suffered some major wounds.
Order Support Craft (no cost). Support units are usually air units, although the Swamp Mammoth is a ground support unit. Support units may attack in tactical combat or be ordered to move to a specific spot on the map. Unlike spells and abilities, support craft will keep attacking or dealing damage until they are killed or ordered somewhere else.

Tactical Battle Basics

In a tactical battle, the goal is to find the enemy troop's leader (the only unit with a red life bar when atacked) and kill it as fast as possible. Since enemy leaders have special abilities that can seriously kill your personnel, you need to quickly find the enemy leader before major damage can be unleashed. Enemy leaders are usually different in appearance -- in some orc troops for example, the orc leader rides a wolf into battle (or the leader is a big ass ogre). In Dark Elf troops, the leader may have a fancier shield. Against enemy paladins, the leader has a full wing helmet.

Only battle experience will allow you to pick out enemy leaders, but the best tactic to find him quickly is to head to a suspect group of enemies and attack them; if no red bar appears under any enemy (denoting the leader), move to another group and repeat the process. Once you find the leader, keep hammering at him or you may lose him. Try to avoid using special attacks from your officers once you find the enemy leader, since the shift in the camera will usually disorient you. If possible, knock the leader out from the center of the battle. This does two things, namely --


Isolate the leader. If you lose track of him or her, there's less people around so you can find the enemy leader easily.
Isolate the leader. There'll be less enemies around to attack you (from the back) to distract you while dueling.

What's more, you should familarize yourself with the o

The Main Cast

So now that you know the basics of KUFTC, introduce yourself to the men -- they will want to know who is leading them into battle, and whether they will see their wives' faces on the next morrow.

Gerald

Gerald Story/Bio:
Gerald has worked his way up to Captain of the Hironeiden Eastern Defence Force as a common foot soldier. An orphan, he was raised as an adoptive son by Hugh along with fellow orphan Rupert, who serves as Gerald's officer. Gerald is a master of the sword and has an effective "brute force" style with few frills. As long as he can get three feet of finely forged Hironeiden steel into his enemies' chunky heads, it gets the job done.

Game Use:
Gerald should be the first campaign you play, if only to familiarise yourself with KUFTC. His forces may seem strange to control at first, but compared to other campaigns, his missions are extremely easy. Gerald's forces can learn the healing spell Curio and allow his forces to heal the wounded, making them quite tough to bring down later. Gerald's moves are simple -- press the blue key repeatedly to bring about his weak combo; press the blue key once then the green key repeatedly while the stick is neutral to do a strong combo. He can combine the two and mix it with his sword thrust as well.

Moves List:
Weak combo: X-X-X-X-X
Strong comb: X-A-A-A-A (stick must be neutral)
Final combo: X-X-X-X-A-A-A-A (stick must be neutral)
Sword thrust: A (stick towards enemy)
Counterattack: B (as enemy strikes)
Knockback: B (if hit by enemy)
Smash (180 SP): Y-Y (stick may be neutral or towards enemy)
Assist (200 SP): B+Y or X+A (depends on officer)

Skill Increase:
Melee - 20+
Scouting - 3

Equipment Upgrade:
Sword that does ice or poison damage, w/ XP bonus
Accessory that does poison or ice damage, w/ HP recovery bonus
Armor w/ melee and range resist; HP recovery bonus

Rupert

Rupert
Story/Bio:
Raised alongside Gerald by Hugh, Rupert has decidedly become the more physical "brother" of the two. Simple and gruff, he has made himself to be Gerald's right hand man when Gerald becomes a great lord or leader down the road. Until then, Rupert has to entertain himself by offering sarcastic jabs at Ellen, cracking orc heads, and getting drunk.

Game Use:
Rupert's ability is second to crap. You may want to upgrade his melee skill to about 10 or 12 and then leave him be, as Ellen's assist attack is more effective. Rupert's only other ability besides getting drunk, is getting killed when you have to escort him in one of Gerald's mission. Rupert's melee score will determine the strength level of his messenger troop in that mission, so don't ignore Rupert's development. Rupert's special attack, the spinning hammer, is good for bowling over enemies near your leader. If he catches the enemy unit leader against the edge of the battlefield, he can keep the leader "hung up" while you turn the guy's brain into chum.

Skill Increase:
Melee - 10 to 12

Equipment Upgrade:
Armor w/ melee and range resist for final mission; otherwise nothing.

Ellen

Ellen
Story/Bio: Ellen joined Gerald's troop two years ago. She has earned a sordid reputation as a deadly swordsman and a level headed tactician on Gerald's staff. Her unexplained hatred of elves, regaredless of their kindred (dark, wood, etc.) and tolerance of dwarves may stem from the fact that Ellen is a half-elf.

Game Use: Ellen's the kinda woman you can depend on; forget those "purty princesses" or "Cetra healers", when you want a group of dead orcs, Ellen is the woman you summon. Increase her range skill to about 12 to 15 (her melee can be left around 8 to 10) and watch that blood fly when you make the call. Upgrade Ellen's bow to further increase her range stat as well. In IGN's campaign, Ellen was taught the holy skill set so she is able to cast Curio on our forces after each battle; if this is your first time playing, it's recommended you do the same. If you do, her holy stat can be left alone at level 1 -- just be sure to look for HP Recover Bonus equipment for your troops and leaders so you can increase her spell effect for the same 150 SP. If you find the time to buy a bow that increases her range, the better her assist attack will be.

Skill Increase:
Range - 15+
Melee - 12+

Equipment Upgrade:
Bow w/ range and holy skill; XP or SP bonus if possible
Armor w/ melee, range resist; XP bonus if possible

Lucretia

Lucretia
Story/Bio: A leader in the Vellond army. Prone to violent hysterics as befitting of Dark Elves. Although approaching middle age, she still retains some of the fiery enthusiasm of her youth. Rithrin, one of the troop leaders Lucretia runs into early in her campaign (i.e., stage 2, so this ain't no spoiler) is one of the hold overs of her rash youth. Like all Dark Elves, Lucretia holds the moon in great reverance, and should be considered one of the many political conservatives in Vellond.

Game Use: Lucretia's campaign will be fundamentally different from what you may be accustomed to from Gerald's warpath. Unlike humans, elves are more frail (dark elves even more so) and cannot withstand repeated or prolonged melee engagements. Lucretia needs to use her people's inherent speed and natural ability to heal wounds in forest to deliver quick decisive victory. Think blitzkrieg and you've got the idea. Lucretia is one of the few leaders who is a joy to play (despite her somewhat difficult campaign) since she can move extremely fast and allows her to seek out enemy leaders quickly. Use an IGN improvised move -- blue-blue-green (stick towards enemy)-blue-blue-green (stick towards enemy) to quickly seek out enemy leaders.

Moves List:
Weak combo: X-X-X-X-X
Strong comb: X-X-X-X-A-A-A-A-A-A (stick must be neutral)
Vault combo: A (stick towards enemy)-Y-Y-X (uses SP if not done correctly)
Haste seeker: X-X-A (stick towards enemy)-X-X-A (stick towards enemy) (custom combo)
Haste attack: A (stick towards enemy)
Haste evade: B
Somersault: B-A
Death from Above (140 SP): Y-Y-X (stick may be neutral or towards enemy)
Assist (200 SP): B+Y or X+A (depends on officer)

Skill Increase:
Melee - 20+
Scout - 3

Equipment Upgrade:
1st Sword w/ ice damage
2nd Sword w/ lightning damage
Armor w/ melee, range or explosion resist; HP recovery bonus

Morene Strident

Morene Strident
Story/Bio: A half-vampire Overseer sent by Lord Valdemar as a political officer in Lucretia's troop. Half-vampires rule Vellond, which used to be Dark Elf territory. Now it is a conglomerate of greenskins, Dark Elves, and other unwanted non-human and non-demihuman humanoids under Valdemar's rule. Morene is to Lucretia as Mr. Spock is to Cap'n Kirk, without the mutual buddy feeling. Since Morene has joined Lucretia's troop, the two females have been at odds constantly, as Lucretia suspects Morene's presence is much more than it appears.

Game Use: Morene's attacks are ranged based, so you may want to increase her range skill to around 12 to 15. However, few troops in melee are weak against range attacks, so you may want to skimp on spending lavishly on her skill and simply upgrade her melee attacks to aroun 8 to 12 and leave her be. Morene's curse skill allows her to cast Silence and Dark Mist on enemies in the strategic map (IGN tried a version of Morene using Ice/Blizzard, which is useful if you do not mind waiting for your SP to build up to 750). Silence allows Morene to deny an enemy from casting spells (useful in Lucretia's last mission) while Dark Mist will obscure a battlefield and make it hard for curse penalized units (Hironeiden or Ecclessian cavalry espeically) to fight at a disadvantage.

Skill Increase:
Range - 12+
Melee - 10 to 12

Equipment Upgrade:
Weapon w/ range skill; SP or XP bonus if possible
Armor w/ melee and range resist; HP recovery bonus if possible.

Cirith

Cirith
Story/Bio: Self-indulgent, air-headed, and a total flesh pot, Cirith serves Lucretia as an officer. Cirith is easily distracted by handsome males of any species, and has an idealistic and naive outlook of most of the world. She also has the temperment of a malicious child, and often follows what she would want to do on a whim as evidenced by her desire to keep a human slave as "a pet". Lucretia's campaign is Cirith's first foray into actual battle.

Game Use: To cut things short, Cirith "pulls an Aerith"; you can read about it when you get far enough in the campaign. Upgrade her Lightning skill to about level 6 to 10 and leave her alone. Cute-butt Cirith's only strong suite comes from casting lightning while Lucretia is engaged in melee, and not much else. Try to get by Lucretia's campaign without investing too much on Cirith, or you'll be sorry. Unlike Final Fantasy VII, KUFTC is a man's game, so getting a vital officer pulled from gameplay can you killed in battle.

Skill Increase:
Lightning - 10

Equipment Upgrade:
None. If you bought Cirith equipment, sell all her equipment and get some of your money back before starting Lucretia's Stage 9, "Posterous Green" (note to Korean/English localisation and translation team at Phantagram -- 'Prosperous Green' may have been what you were looking for).

Kendal

Kendal
Story/Bio: Kendal is the General of the Ecclessian Holy Knights, Second Division. A native son of Azzila, kendal has known only one faith since birth and his adherence to it is often in conflict with the realities of the battlefield. Whether this will bring about a change of his character remains for you to find out.

Game Use: Kendal looks interesting as an oil-painted, Photoshopped computer graphic, but he's extremely big, fat, and slow on the battlefield. Let's say this -- if Astaroth from Soul Calibur 2 could be played in KUFTC, that big ass golem would move faster than Kendal. Kendal's biggest asset is his immense range from his strong (second weapon) attack with his poleaxe. His normal attacks with his mace has a short range for a leader of his speed. Kendal usually cannot run from faster enemies, so using the counterattack and defence is crucial when playing Kendal tactically. Kendal should buy a poison weapon (to fight Dark Elves) and an ice weapon (to fight Orcs). Pick one that chooses your fighting style with Kendal -- remember that Kendal can quickly stack damage by using his cheap charging thrust or strong combo on a single enemy (like Scorpions).

Moves List:
Weak combo: X-X-X-X-X
Strong comb: X-X-X-A-A (stick towards enemy)
Charging Thrust: X-X-A-A-X-X-A-A-X-X (custom combo)
The Shaft: A (stick towards enemy)
Knockback: B (if hit by enemy)
Smash (180 SP): Y-Y (stick may be neutral or towards enemy)
Assist (200 SP): B+Y or X+A (depends on officer)

Skill Increase:
Melee - 30+
Scout - 3

Equipment Upgrade:
Mace w/ ice damage; HP recovery bonus available.
Poleaxe w/ poison damage; HP recovery bonus available.
Armor w/ melee and lightning resist; HP and KO recovery bonus.

Duane

Duane
Story/Bio: A knight from the honorable but disgraced House of Colonock of Ecclessia. Seeking to restore family honor as the last great quest he can fulfill, Duane fights for gold, glory and god. He gives many a sense that he has sold out for gold as a mercenary in the Holy Knights, but with age comes wisdom, and Duane has much of it if one stops to listen. Duane is also the second cousin (one of his parents' cousin's sons) is Patriarch Dimitri of Ecclessia, making Duane some distant relation to the current ruler.

Game Use:
Duane is best used when there is a ton of small enemies surrounding Duane (not Kendal) since the old man only swings his chain mace twice around himself while not moving to your leader's position (like Rupert). It's best to use Duane's special immediately after clashing with an enemy unit (since Duane is on the forefront and is put almost in the thick of the enemy). You may want to consider giving Duane the ability to learn earth spells to fight Hecks (Dark Elves).

Since Kendal (unlike Gerald) can pull a pre-made holy officer into his core troop any time, saddling Duane with another holy skill is redundant. Duane comes pre-loaded with Frontal as well as Melee, so if you need another set of spearmen in a large deployement mission, feel free to spend a few skill points on Duane to change his troop's job. IGN recommends that you place Duane in charge of a mortar and spearmen unit, since it is far easier to swap in Otho the Paladin to take Duane's place, allowing Kendal's unit to use Curio after each battle instead of relying on another unit.

Skill Increase:
Melee - 30+
Frontal - 12 to 15
Range - 15+
Gunpowder - 15+

Equipment Upgrade:
Eyepatch w/ melee, and lightining, ice or fire resist.
Armor w/ melee, and and lightining, ice or fire resist.

Thomas

Thomas
Story/Bio: Thomas is the son of Captain Walter, a friend of Kendal. At Walter's request, Kendal has taken Thomas as a squire in the upcoming campaign. Thomas is young but has attained a quick mastery of magic. It appears as though Thomas tries to please his demanding father, but receives none of the deserving praise.

Game Use:
Thomas starts as a weak fighter and an average magic-user. You will need to decide whether you want Thomas by Kendal's side as a magician or a fighter. It's better if Thomas goes into battle as a magician under Kendal since Thomas is one of the few officers who has a "magic booster" (whatever the hell that is) just like Cirith. This means Thomas can use certain spells other officers cannot when serving under Kendal. You may want to consider ditching his fire magic for the more potent ice magic (at level 5 to 10) since ice does generally more damage to Orcs and Ghouls.

Ice spells do not damage the Encablossa that players face later in the Hard Campaigns, due mostly to the experience levels involved, but the ice spell should be able to put some damage on the Encablossa while you switch back to Kendal to finish the job. If you do stick to using Fire for Thomas, the most damage spell (Meteor) is best cast outside of melee. Since IGN recommends using your own leader to kill enemy leaders, stick with Ice instead to back-up Kendal on his rape, loot, and pillage forays into Dark Legion territory.

Skill Increase:
Melee - 15+
Ice - 15+

Equipment Upgrade:
Shield w/ melee, and and lightining, ice or fire resist.
Armor w/ melee, and and lightining, ice or fire resist.

Regnier

Regnier
Story/Bio: The Lord of Hexter sided with Lord Valdemar in uniting Vellond two years ago. Since then, Regnier has served Valdemar with an amused tolerance unbefitting of a vassal. His command of the various green skins and other unwanted humanoids are immpressive, and those races hold Regnier in a state of awe, fear, and respect. Inevitably, Regnier is much like Yaquinto's Beastlord; he is somehow tied to an artefact that gives him his awesome powers and is doomed to turn into chum-in-a-blender when he dies. If Regnier owes you any gambling debts, it's best you collect on them now instead of later.

Game Use:
Rregnier is similar to Kendal in that he is big, slow and powerful. However, unlike Kendal, who depends more on assisting attacks from Thomas, Regnier himself is a walking SP munching weapon. His moves are fire and explosion based, making him quite lethal against fire and explosive vulnerable enemies (like Sappers and Mortarmen). Regnier is best used like a walking tank with a wider attack (as opposed to a narrow attack like Kendal's poleaxe).

Regnier has the ability to turn off a "damage plus" mode by simply holding the red button to toggle the power on and off. While the power is on, the damage the man does is increased significantly at the cost of constantly draining your SP. However, when Regnier is faced with odds up to 5-to-1, the extra damage is necessary to decimate enemies quickly before they overwhelm your forces. Another common move to keep in mind is Regnier's overhead chop. Much like Seigfried in Soul Calibur, Regnier may drop his sword lower after the chop, holding the green button, waiting for the fire to build then releasing the button to cause a small explosion. Adequate against leaders when you have them isolated.

Finally, unlike the other leaders you've played, Regnier will not be able to buy any elemental damage weapons since he can summon fire damage using his damage plus ability. Focus on increasing his melee skill and HP recovery added effect for his weapon.

Moves List:
Weak combo: X-X-X-X
Strong combo 1 (60 SP): X-X-A (hold)-A (hold)
Strong combo 2 (60 SP): X-X (hold)-X (hold)-X
Fire chop special (80 SP): A-Y (hold)
Damage plus (40 SP + drain): B (hold) to toggle on & off
Shockwave (80 SP): Y (hold)
Assist (200 SP): B+Y or X+A (depends on officer)

Skill Increase:
Melee - 33+
Scout - 3

Equipment Upgrade:
Sword w/ HP recovery bonus 50% and highest melee
Armor w/ melee resist 25+ and HP recovery bonus

Leinhart

Leinhart
Story/Bio: A vampire sent by Valdemar to oversee Regnier and to insure the freak's (Regnier's) loyalty to Vellond. Leinhart has fallen under the influence of Regnier and has beceome instead his right hand man. However, Leinhart's loyalty to the Vellond throne and to Valdemar has never been questioned, thus Leinhart has been allowed to remain in Regnier's unit for some time. But is more to Leinhart than meets the eye ...

Game Use:
Leinhart is best used like Morene -- i.e., almost never. Hahahahaha. For some reason, all vampires in Bersia can withstand sunlight to some degree (this makes Simon 'I Survived Till Dawn' Belmont one dead vampire hunter). His main attack with his "bat-stream" is rather weak and behaves much like Cirith's lightning. While you may be able to affect some enemies, it is doubtful that Leinhart's assist can do much to improve your situation unless there are a crap load of enemies around and if Leinhart's attack is used in conjunction with Urukubarr's assist.

Interestingly, Leinhart starts with zero in the range skill, making his assist attack next to useless. However, increase Leinhart's melee and curse skills to 10 each, swap him out to lead a unit of ghouls, then immediately reassign his vampire ass to Regnier's unit. This way, Leinhart will be considered level 18 or more instead of level 10, and be able to buy and equip better equipment to add to the whole unit's resistance.

Skill Increase:
Melee - 10
Curse - 8 or 10
Range - 10

Equipment Upgrade:
Armor w/ melee resist
Sword optional, but buy melee or range increases if you do

Urukubarr

Urukubarr
rrStory/Bio: Urukubarr was once chieftain of Clan Gorzanik, the most powerful of ogre tribes. When Regnier crushed the opposition, Urukubarr saw that Regnier was stronger than he, and as ogre traditon demands, the stong rule over the weak. From that day forward, Urukubarr has served Regnier, witnessed the unification of Hexter and in turn, seen its allegiance pledged to an even greater power -- Vellond.

Game Use:
Urukubarr is the uglier, fatter, smellier version of Rupert (not that either greaseballs bathe much in the first place). Urukubarr's attack is similar in that he jumps towards Regnier's spot and delivers a ground smash similar to what you may have seen those Ogres do in Gerald's campaign. Naturally, increasing this Ogre's melee attack is paramount in order for him to do more damage. However, against melee resistant enemies like paladins and knights, this assist attack falls short of effectiveness, requring Regnier to find other methods to "increase his killing power, eh? Hmm..." Urukubarr will not learn any spells as the game progresses. Like the Orc mercenaries, ogres are only allowed non-magical unit advances. The ogre does help in clearing out enemies if Regnier is surrounded and cannot toggle his damage plus mode on. Consider spending 200 SP to bat away enemies, go into hyperdrive and start the killing.

Skill Increase:
Melee - 10 to 20

Equipment Upgrade:
Accessory w/ highest melee resist and melee skill increase

The Art Of War

The Art Of War

If you skip this page, you will land in more trouble than you bargain for! We use the time proven Strategic Operation formula taught to all U.S. Naval officers at War College and apply it to Kingdom Under Fire.

War has been ever present in the land of Bersia since time immemorial. During your campaigns, you will fight enemies in preset battlegrounds, each with their own unique settings, climes, and conditions. In between battle, you may have the chance to use your earned experience and gold to purchase, upgrade, or train your various troops to perform better against increasingly tougher enemies. As the overall force commander, you also have the discretion to hire mercenaries who may have acess to skills your pre-made officers and troop leaders may not have. Here's a run-down of what to do when you come across a barracks situation.

Saving the Game

When you finish a battle and have the opportunity to enter the barracks and modify your force, save the game -- at least twice. Save once to follow your progress through a campaign, and use another slot (usually the top slot) for your "current game". What you do now is basically use the "current save" to save any progress you make while upgrading in the barracks. For example, you lucked out and bought a damn fine sword for Gerald that does ice damage and gives you an HP recovery bonus.

The back-up file (the other save you use to mark your progress through your campaign) should never be saved over until you start another campaign. This way, if you find that you got stuck or happened on a dead game later in the campaign, you won't need to restart from the beginning. You can also use that back-up file for loading your last level complete progress if you made a mistake while upgrading troops or selling the wrong magic item. With a back-up, you can always mess around with a new troop job in the next mission and reload your game if you decide the expenditure was not worth your trouble.

The Barracks

Between some missions, your forces will have the opportunity to stop at a camp, castle, or base to train troops, learn skills, and buy and equip new weapons and armor. Suitable help files are accessed on all difficulties by pressing the yellow key on the appropriate menu. IGN will tell you briefly "whaddup" with some of the options tell you (and occasionally what the game omits).


Take Me To Your Leader

Leaders and officers can have their skills increased at the barracks. The troop's skill is dependent on the leader's skills, not the officers. This means your core troop will always be infantry, heavy infantry, or knights (in the case of humans). A leader's level is the sum of all his or her job-relevant skills. For example, Mike the Barbarian has 7 Melee, 6 Range, and 5 Frontal. As an infantry leader, he will be level 7. However, if he chooses his unit to be an archer or spearmen, his level will fluctuate depending on his skill -- as archer, he'll be at Level 13 (melee + range); as spearman, he's Level 12 (melee + frontal). So when you wander around a map and see a L20, L30, or L40 unit, you needn't worry about being out-levelled -- take a look at the skill requisites in this guide and you'll see that the more skills a unit needs to be that "troop class", it will have a higher level than normal.

What Are Skills?

As a leader, the skills relevant to the troop's current job is denoted by the green smiley face next to the skill. You will want to increase such skills so long as you intend to keep that unit on that specific task. If you intend to change the task of that troop, you should reconsider what skills you choose to invest in. Skill points, once expended, are not refunded when the skill is deleted or if squandered on a non-relevant job skill (such as riding for spearmen).

As an officer, skills are relevant only to the officer or the officer's abilities. For example, increasing Cirith's lightning ability will give the little minx the ability to do more damage with her lightning bolt support ability in tactical battle. Similarly, increasing her melee statistic will let her do more damage when she chooses to attack in battle (the AI, by the way, is not all too bright, so you may want to carefully evaluate investing skill points for officers). Occasionally, you will want to augment an officer's melee to around level 10 -- the cost is relatively small (about 300 XP) and since officers cannot die in tactical battle, they may be able to help out here and there.

By far the most important thing is to upgrade your leader and your troop. If the troop is not strong, it doesn't matter how able your leader or officers are since if the troop is massacred, your leader dies (or is captured and beheaded) immediately. The best way to help out your troop is through good equipment.

What Does Equipment Do

What Does Equipment Do

Equipment is equipped by leaders, officers (your unit only), and troops. As a rule, you want the best equipment for your leader and core troop before you spend money on officers and other units. Equipment is purchased by gold earned in battle (seems to depend on number of kills). Spend your earned gold as you would skill points (or experience points); once spent, the gold you get back from selling unused equipment is rather patchy -- expect about one-third of your investment.

A leader's weapons is the easiest way to see equipment in action. This weapon will be the one you use while fighting in a tactical battle with your leader. Buy the best weapon you can afford at the time (or use the game reload trick on IGN Cheats to re-randomize the equipment until you get something you like) but don't expect to upgrade it after each battle. Instead, use the money to upgrade your other units -- this is one of the reasons to upgrade your leaders' skills before shopping for equipment -- so they can equip the best you can afford.

A leader's armor not only enhances his/her KO bar (the green 'lifebar' under your leader in a tactical battle), but any resistances the armor imparts on your leader is calculated in the troop's resistances as well. An officer's armor is the same thing, meaning that you can combine the resistances of your leader's, officers', and troops' armors and make them tough monsters to crack (in campaign and online. That said, you should consider getting the best equipment for your own troop, leader, and officers. Use caution when equiping another allied unit leader though -- if you change the job of that leader's unit, the leader will change and the equipment they have will need to be repurchased (the equipment from their previous job may be sold, if you like).

Upgrading an officer's weapon is debatable (defensive accessories, like Duane's Eyepatch, act as armor so you should think about buying a decent one). Officers usually do well enough to hold their own, but if you can manage a cheap addition of skill to enhance their support action (i.e., buying a bow for Ellen's multi-shot) by all means do so. Usually, some officers do not have great support attacks to give you that impetus to buy nice shiny crap for them.

Upgrade your troop's weapons, especially with weapons that give them an experience or SP bonus. This way, they earn more experience at the scoring screen and when they attack or successfully kill units, they deliver a small SP bonus you can use to cast more spells or abilities. When you've evolved your unit into the job you want them to do, buy them the best equipment you can afford. Just remember, if you change the job of a unit, the equipment they have will need to be repurchased (the equipment from their previous job may be sold, if you like). This is one of the reasons to buy equipment only for your core troop since they have few job choices and their role is pretty much pre-defined. Some common special effects or "added effects" for your leader and troop weapons (note officer equipment seldom have added effects) include:


HP Recovery Bonus. Increases a percentage of health from Curio, Enrage, or the Tree of Illusion. Useful for all difficulties but on Hard and Normal especially.
KO Recovery Bonus. Increases the speed by which your leader recovers after being knocked out in tactical battle. Somewhat useful, but go with HP recovery on Hard (by the time your leader gets back into action, your troops are usually dead meat).
SP Earned Bonus. Increases SP earned from actions such as defeating an enemy unit but not for doing damage as the leader in tactical combat. Useful for all difficulties.
XP Earned Bonus. Increases XP (experience) earned from enemy kills at the end of each mission. Useful for all difficulties.
Adds XXX To Attack. Adds XXX element to each attack by your leader. Against Vells or "Hecks" (Dark Elves) poison weapons are good; against Pigs (Orcs) and most unarmored humans use ice; against Scorpions use fire; against knights and spear/axe men use lightning. Curse is only useful against human cavalry.
Autoblock Rate. Establishes a chance of your leader performing an automatic block (like the Hestia stone in Rygar). It's chances rarely rise about 30%, so you will need to buy multiple equipment to increase the autoblock percentage. Not recommended ... unless you have more money than God.
Combination Effects. This is a combination of two effects. Very rare. Combination equipment means that a leader who has three pieces of equipment can have up to six different effects and resistances going -- you will want all six when you venture onto more difficult campaigns.

Be sure to save twice (on separate save slots) after each mission. Use the first slot to go back to an early point in the campaign to mess around and use the second slot to save changes to your leader. This is especially true if you found one great weapon and kept it but couldn't find a good piece of armor to go with it (and you have 10,000 gold not going anywhere), save the game on your second slot, reload that same slot and head into the shop to see if any of the newly randomized equipment meets your standard. If keep doing this, you can out fit your troops rather well early in the game.

Job Training and Resistance Tables

Just like Warhammer Classic, jobs in KUFTC define what a specific unit can do. While the majority of troops are infantry, there are other troop classes such as ranged units, mounted units, and specialist units. The five basic types of troops -- infantry, archer, cavalry, sapper, and axe/spearmen -- are covered in the training for Easy and Normal. Both Ellen and Morene do a good job explaining what each troop type can do, so you should focus on the training instead of mentally undressing them while they lecture you.

Infantry
The basic unit that does 80% of the fighting is the infantry. Infantry range from light to progressively heavier units, depending on the race. In order of infantry durability from weakest to toughest, they are elf, human, and orc. Infantry are strong against archers, although they need time to march into melee against them. Wide formation for infantry is best for speed (pursuing a foe) and to minimze damage from explosives and siege weapons. Tight formation is best against archers, and for moving stealthily in the forest to avoid needless confrontations.

Infantry of most types are vulnerable to ice attacks until they start wearing armor (orc and human). Armored troops are vulnerable to lightning. Infantry are also vulnerable to cavalry charges. If cavalry charges infantry, the infantry is about as good as dead. Conversely, you should always try to use cavalry against enemy infantry since you will be outnumbered almost all the time.

Special infantry include Paladins, whose prerequisites allow their leader to cast Curio and Ghouls, who are pretty tough against all manner of attacks except explosives and holy type spells (Bless and Heal, Curio, Holy Explosion).

Archers
The basic ranged unit also serves as your anti-air unit. Archers are average in melee and in a pinch, they can serve as delay troops until your other units arrive. Archers are best used on wide open ground where they have line of sight to almost everything. Arrows are blocked in forest terrain and suffer damage penalties when firing against the sun or onto high ground. If you notice long shadows on your units, try to move the archers so that their shadows point towards the enemy. They have a difficult time against their targets if facing the sun.

Instead of formations, archers can narrow or widen their target area. Wide area is good for harassment fire against a large number of troops or aerial targets (since they are weak against arrows anyway). Narrow fire is good for taking out smaller numbers of troop (you can eliminate them quickly) or against slow moving targets. Some archer leaders have the special ability direct fire (which costs SP) and does incredible range damage if used -- however the cost is usually prohibitive from using it anywhere except in rare circumstances (i.e., right before a cavalry charges into your archers).

Archers are also one of the two units who can start fires on the map to meet certain objectives or to damage certain units who are hiding in forest terrain. Because spear/axe men and archers are usually not engaged in melee, you may consider giving them the holy skill to cast curio on units engaged in battle already. Orc units have no such luxury (all Dark Elf leaders may cast the Tree of Illusion) since orcs must cast Enrage directly on the orc unit (the spell is not area effect), making Regnier's campaign super-freaky hard (as opposed to just hard, as Kendal's campaign).

Special archer units include human mortarmen, whose shots can attack targets in forest terrain (but cannot attack air units) and mounted archers, who may shoot enemies on their left while in motion (having them attack a unit means they remain stationary and attack as normal archers).

Cavalry
Cavalry is the ultimate anti-infantry weapon (until you get the Swamp Mammoth). If left alone, cavalry will be able to charge through infantry units quickly and decimate their ranks while earning the cavalry commander SP bonus (meaning spells get cast soon after). Cavalry can charge through any terrain (except water), even forest terrain. Cavalry are vulnerable to archers and even more vulnerable to spear/axe men.

Because of their speed, you may want to leave your unit selector on cavalry to guide them separately after issuing an "all-unit" command. Cavalry is excellent for use against weak enemies and can be used to entangle archers in desperate situations. The best way to use cavalry is to have your infantry engage the other infantry and use the L trigger to set waypoints that cris-cross the (now stationary) infantry and have your cavalry rampage through them while you handle the tactical battle with your leader.

Special cavalry include the Storm Riders (the cheap flying chicken version of Mercedes Lackey's Dragon Riders) and orc Wyvern Riders. Special cavalry cannot attack ground forces in forest, but may attack them on open ground as well as any enemy air unit (i.e., other Storm Riders, Wyvern Riders, Dirigibles, or Bombers).

Axemen / Spearmen
The other side of cavalry are spearmen. Spearmen are specialized infantry. They are only good against cavalry and have little use outside of repelling cavalry charges (except as lightning rods -- they are weak against lightning). Spearmen are best used in cases when cavalry is present. In cases where you have a unit of spearmen but no cavalry (rare in the single player campaigns), consider adding riding to the spearmen and they will double as your cavalry if you require it.

Spearmen are otherwise perfect as light infantry or as a shock troop to entangle enemy infantry, allowing your leader's infantry to join the melee (the spearmen can then pull away and serve to screen your infantry from cavalry attack).

Because spear/axe men and archers are usually not engaged in melee, you may consider giving them the holy skill to cast curio on units engaged in battle already. Orc units have no such luxury since only Dark Elf leaders may cast the Tree of Illusion. Orcs only have access to the single unit Enrage spell instead for they have no access to any spell skills.

Sappers
Sapper units are the most speciality units in KUFTC. They are basically the Engineer Corps of Bersia. Sappers start with the melee and teamwork skills needed by siege units and monster tamers. Sappers, regardless of race (Dark Elves rely on Orc sappers) may set traps (100 SP), remove traps (no cost), open watergate (no cost), or set fires (100 SP). Sappers are useful to set traps for cavalry and other ground units in narrow passes or areas of limited access. They are mandatory for your survival in cases of trapped ground since sappers can detect and remove enemy traps.

Sappers can also set fires when archers are not available. The sappers' fire ability costs five times more than the archers' fire arrows, but the fire is usually much larger and spreads further out. Sappers are required in stages where river gatehouses and watergates need to be opened.

Human sappers have specialty sappers such as pyrotechnics (not the Magic the Gathering instant) who can set explosive mines as well as regular traps (same SP cost). Human sappers are usually the ones who may convert into mortarmen since their skills with gunpowder also allow sappers to man ballista, catapults and bomber wings, machines which can devastate ground forces and large enemy siege units.

On the other hand, orc sappers can specialize as monster trainers, taking such beasts as Giant Scorpions, Wyverns, and the Bersia-native Swamp Mammoth into battle. Sappers can be used as light infantry if pressed, but with so many skills, sappers are best slotted for other jobs before a mission to best utilize their impressive skills.

Humans

Heroneiden and Ecclessians share the same job tree, except Ecclessians may not learn Curse spells. Note that the majority of Humans are fairly weak against ice attacks, suffering 150% more damage when struck by ice related spells. Although armored humans such as knights, paladins, and heavy cavalry are weak against lightning and some other specialists are weak against fire (mortarmen and pyrotechnics), the very fact is that ice spells can destroy human armies, so be sure to work a magic-user or leader who has a magic booster to have ice spells at your beckon.

Checking for leaders and officers who have magic boosters is easy -- simply access their special ability menu and see if they have several skills listed with an "officer" in parantheses next to it. If so, then chances are that officer has a magical booster (what ever the hell that is) assigned to them. Leaders/officers may not swap magic boosters; it is an innate resource you must exploit to your fullest extent.

Lastly, it should be plainly obvious, but if you're new to the RPG resist/damage thing, here's an important note -- do not make your Human troops resistant to Holy attacks. Since Curio is actually an "attack spell" that heals your human units, resisting its effects will douse your healing factor. Dark Legion units do not have such a bizarre limitation. In any case the Tree of Illusion is classed as a non-elemental spell.

Human Strengths

When playing humans, your strongest asset is the stupid Curio spell. For 150 SP, you can heal most damage for all friendly human units who are in the spell's area of effect. Dark Elves must spend more than double that amount of SP for the same amount of healing. Humans also tend to have the easiest job tree to learn about -- most of what you'd expect in a heroic fantasy action battle game is what's represented in KUFTC.

Human Weaknesses

Humans are vulnerable to ice, and many units aare vulnerable to a great extent to at least one element. Although their job tree is diverse, human commanders must go into battle with only a fraction of what the job tree can muster since the number of troops he can deploy is limited. Humans also suffer from being intolerably little runts, who tend to get shoved around by larger monsters such as Scorpions or Ogres. However, humans come off mostly on top, unlike in Starcraft.

Orcs

Hexter and Vellond forces muster the same troops, except Hexter troops tend to be more Orc oriented and Vellond forces are more Dark Elf oriented. Dark Elves, unlike humans, are more vulnerable to poison and constitution damage, and are more frail over all. Elves are weaker than humans in melee (provided all else is equal). Orcs are similar to humans, being primarily weak against lightning or ice (sometimes both) but possessing resistance to ranged attacks by archers and such.

Dark Legion Strengths

Since the Dark Legions of Valdemar are comprised primarily of two main races, we'll address them separately. Dark Elf leaders are typically spellcasters and have learned to haste themselves in battle. All manner of elves -- regardless of kindred -- move exceedingly fast if prompted to do so and can strike in a blink of an eye. Dark Elves also heal naturally in forest terrain, making them excellent units for hit and fade tactics; if a Dark Elf unit suffers only wounds and no losses, the unit can heal back to full strength if nothing else attacks them as they wait patiently in a forest.

Orcs are hardier than humans and can take more punishment in a melee, provided all else is equal. Orcs are resistant to arrows and are basically hardier versions of humans, with different creatures at their disposal. Many of the orc monsters are faster than the siege machines the humans have, but are themselves vulnerable to siege engine attack. The strongest monster under Dark Legion control -- the Swamp Mammoth -- is an unstoppable killing machine if humans have no siege engines, bombers or mortarmen available.

Finally, the Elven Tree of Healing/Tree of Illusion spell heals both Orc and Dark Elf units (for some reason). So long as a unit is classed as a Dark Legion unit, your tree spell will work, making Dark Elves the primary candidates to serve as archers since they can cast a butt-load of spells while hammering away at a distance.

Dark Legion Weaknesses

While Orcs are tough, they are not invincible. Because they are slow footed compared to humans in the same formation, you need to plan ahead with your orc riders and other available units to intercept the taller, faster humans. The weaknesses of the Dark Legion are also prevalent in the Dark Elves. While Dark Elves are comparable to human longbowmen in almost all classes -- being mildly resistant to most elemental magic -- they are also weaker in melee than human fighters (giving a new meaning to the phrase, Elven Bride) so Vellond units need to attack enemies swiftly. Any prolonged conflict usually means Dark Elves come off on the losing end.

Dark Legion units are different in the healing departmen not simply because of the higher SP costs involved, but also the method by which they heal. Dark Elves naturally heal in forest terrain while Orcs must rely on the tree of illusion or use enrage to recover wounds. The cost of the tree of illusion (the healing factor which stacks with being in forest for Dark Elves) is far too large for the novice player to use repeatedly.

However, the prolonged effect of the tree allows Dark Legion units to not worry about incurring wounds for a short period of time (approximately 10 seconds) especially if a unit is equipped with HP recovery bonus equipment. This basically makes Dark Legion units "invincible" for that duration of time until the tree's effects run out. If enough SP is gathered during that time, the spell can be cast again, thus extending the "invincibility" of Dark Legion units another 10 seconds.

Strategic Operation Formula O2S4MEC part 1

The O2S4MEC formula is something taught to all U.S. Naval officers in War College. While many will say that Sun Tzu's Art of War is the final word on any strategy military and domestic, you (A) have to be able to read it in its original language and context to understand and appreciate it, and (B) Kingdom Under Fire involves no diplomacy or spying; hostilities have already broken out, thus the USN's formula is much more appropriate. The formula has nine points, of which IGN will explain and apply to Kingdom Under Fire one by one:

1. Objective
Naturally, all military operations, this is the principle element -- "What is the point of this battle?" or "What does one hope to achieve?". In Kingdom Under Fire, your objective is to fulfill all the listed objectives in the in-game menu. What is not widely known is that not all objectives are listed; what's more, objectives are often scrolled off the menu as new ones are added to the list.
Since this is only a game, expect to fulfill the "kill everything on the map" objective for about 90% of the game. However, as you progress more into the game, other objectives, such as reaching a certain point, keeping a specific unit or location intact, or even making melee contact with a specific unit is the actual objective. Not paying attention to what your object is can mean the difference between an enjoyable mission and a nightmare game session.

Killing enemies is a nice "side-objective" since only with enemy kills will your force increase in XP and gold during your campaign; however, if you really don't need to participate in endless slaughter, then you may want to do your best to avoid enemy contact.

2. Offensive
In every battle, there is the attacker and the defender. Although it usually indistinguishable in deathmatches online, whether you are attacking or defending is of some value in Kingdom Under Fire. Defenders usually recieve no SP bonuses if they simply sit around and wait for the impending assault. Even infantry attacking from "behind" or "the flank" will gain some mild amount of SP instead of merely awaiting your leader to hit enemies to build SP.
In general, you should be on the offensive in most (but not all) stages. As famed Ogre player Phil Rennert so aptly puts it, "the goal of all commanders is the destruction of the opposing player's forces ... once his units are gone, you can go and take his [cities or other objectives] with ease". Although applied to a pre-video game battlefield, that statement is a time-honored fact -- if you can destroy all the enemy opposition, there's usually nothing to stop you.

However, since most stages end once all enemies are dead, that's rather pointless. Instead, what IGN recommends is that you carry the attack against the most dangerous units on the enemy side. For example, when faced with a mixed force of Orc infantry, Dark Elf archers, and a Scorpion, which will you attack first with your core troop of Knights? The answer is simple -- attack the Scorpion first since it can shockwave your troops to death; once that scorpion is dead, you move on to the archers, then lastly the infantry.

So why ignore the archers? Because the scorpion is not only a more deadly unit, but since it is a single unit, you can kill it in a hurry and it will do no more damage to your unit with its shockwave while it is tangled in melee. Taking the time to find and kill the archer leader in a melee will let the scorpion get in more shockwaves; besides, knights also have mild resistance to archery, so you can take some wounds, end the fight, heal and move on.

Lastly, if you can move your units to attack isolated units, that is your key to winning against numerically superior foes. This brings us to the next point, which is ...

3. Superiority at the Point of Contact
"Everybody knows" that being out-numbered in a team event is unfair, which is why rules for organized sports are so verbose and explicit in terms of player eligibility. However, in war, things are not so clear cut since you always want to bring the bulk of your force into play and atomise the other side. During most stages you play in Kingdom Under Fire, you will often come under fire from more than your fair share of enemies. That being said, you will always be out-numbered.
However, you can force events and conditions into your favour -- read our resistance tables we've provided in the guide so you can determine what kinds of spells your enemies are vulnerable to then exploit the hell out of them. Knowing where your officer's assist attacks will erupt will help -- for example, Cirith's and Thomas' assist attacks will mostly occur where your leader is. If Lucretia or Kendal wades into a group of the enemy, unleash a spell to cut down the number of enemies you have to slice and dice.

Also, by simply by moving your whole force from what the programmers want you fight at a disadvantage to where you know you can fight the enemy with an advantage. If you take a look at the steady line of enemies approaching your forces, you would be naive to think that you can march directly into the center of the enemy and emerge victorious (or at least with very few losses). What you want to do instead is to attack the flanks of the enemy line. Not only do you bring the brunt of your force down on a few units with your whole force, but you also force the enemy units on the other flank to move (sometimes slowly) to where the melee is. During this time, you may be able to whittle down the numbers of the enemy soldiers to your favour. However, this requires your units to all move around the same speed -- read the section on movement-mobility for more on this topic.

4. Surprise
Unlike real-life military operations, you can retry a stage over and over again. This allows you to know where enemies spawn, and where to expect ambushes if you do not pick-up all the points in our guide. This means you can often place units where they are needed most on a subsequent (retry) session and not be surprised by the sudden appearance of any unexpected enemy.
However, even with the retry option, the damn Fog of War will obscure most stages unless you're able to defeat it. To that end, all your leaders have the Scout ability which costs you nothing (except time and effort managing the scout). A scout usually will not be treated as an "actual" unit for most purposes, allowing you to move the scout literally within a stone's throw of the enemy encampment. The scout will draw the attention of some enemies though, allowing you to lure them back to your main force and exploit point 3 - superiority at the point of contact.

Aside from remaining undiscovered, scouts also have the benefit of being unaffected by the "move all units" command since it is not really a unit per se. This means you can leave your unit selector on the scout while group moving your force around the map. When you need to engage in battle, you simply leave the scout alone, deal with the enemy and switch back to it. You can even use scouts to spy on enemy units who are engaged in a regular patrol (i.e., Gerald's escort mission for Rupert) so you can pounce on lone units of Orcs and harvest XP and gold.

Lastly, scouts cost you no SP to use and you have an infinite number of them (which is unrealistic, but what the heck) meaning you can sacrifice them for all manner of purposes from acting as decoys to acting as bait.

Strategic Operation Formula O2S4MEC part 2

5. Security
The Naval War College chats up codes, code-breaking and "loose lips sink ships", but in Kingdom Under Fire, we'll be covering another aspect of "covering your ass". Security for your forces and their skill development means simply keeping a continuous back-up of the aftermath of each battle on your Xbox hard drive. If you've never played a PC game in your life and cannot understand how quick-saving works, here's a quick run-down:

1. Gerald Missions Cleared 10 ... quicksave.
2. Gerald Missions Cleared 01
3. Gerald Missions Cleared 02
4. Gerald Missions Cleared 03, etc.

Basically, you have a running record of your unspent XP and money after each battle so you can always reload from there and re-assign your skills and jobs if you mess up. The top slot (the easiest slot to overwrite) is your quicksave. This means whatever changes you are happy with will be saved there (most likely to keep a prized peice of equipment) and it will be overwritten after the next stage is cleared and more changes made. Having this save system allows you to restart somewhere in the middle of a campaign rather than all the way back from the beginning (crucial on Hard difficulty if you have problems with some stages).

When you "mess up", simply reload the data from the back-up save and use the quicksave to keep any progress you want to use for the next stage. An easy and basic concept you can bring to all manner of gaming.

6. Simplicity
In simple terms, this concept holds that the fewer the elements in a plan, the less likely there is a chance of breakdown. In Kingdom Under Fire, you can print this old adage, Keep It Simple Stupid. The sheer number of jobs in the game will tempt you to stray from your tried and true strategy.
There is acually one strategy you can rely consistently on for the single player (not multiplayer) campaigns in the game, which is basically to upgrade your core infantry to the most deadly melee fighters possible (Knights, Shadow Knights, or Heavy Infantry), have a backup "Archer" unit with Holy (or a Dark Elf) to cover your infantry. A third unit of mortarmen (human) or cavalry (or more infantry, depending on the Dark Legion stage involved) will usually suffice, although you can probably beat most missions with infantry and archer units.

When cavalry, sappers, and spear/axemen (the other basic three units) are used, they are often for special missions with special objectives. In general, your sappers can be siege or support units as easily as your spearmen or cavalry can exchange jobs because of the similarities in skills. Don't go out of your way to hire mercenaries (unless you really have the luck of the draw for negotiation), as a well developed force will probably not require more than one mercenary in the most exceptional cases.

The second notion of simplicity is to decide if you are going to attack the enemy or if you are going to lure the enemy to attack you. Naturally, the AI isn't terribly great, but the AI does react faster than you (we've seen an AI unit cast two spells on two widely spaced units in a span of an instant). Naturally, you want to exploit the AI's single-mindedness by isolating blood-thirsty units and destroying them. Usually, when the enemy is attacking, you can set-up defensive "choke-points" to fight them. When you are attacking, you will often be using ambush, scouts, and hiding in forest to get your foes.

7. Movement-Mobility
According to the original formula, this concept is one that you should constantly press your attack, especially once you've come to grips with the enemy. As interesting as this sounds, Kingdom Under Fire doesn't penalize you on time, although in some stages, lingering or delays may make you open to attack from an enemy that defeated an ally unit. What you want to take from this point, is that you should:
(A) Keep your forces together, or as close together as possible. Units in the game are mutally supportive -- your infantry keeps your archers safe from melee while archers kill air troops who harass your infantry for example. Lone units can often be cut down using a "counter-unit" -- i.e., cavalry killing your infantry in the blink of an eye.
(B) Pick your units and formations to move everyone at the same speed (or as close as you can get to it). This way you can bring all your forces down on the enemy instead of waiting for them to move across the map. Cavalry in tight formation travel as fast as infantry in normal and wide formation (depending on the cavalry). Archers and similar range units can never change speeds, so you will need to keep their speeds in mind when moving your force long distances.
(C) Fast moving units like cavalry and mounted archers are great for intercepting enemies or for scouting, but if used in an attack they can out-pace your main force and get cut down by archers and such. When using cavalry, place the unit selector on the mounted unit and press the red button to halt them while moving your slower forces forward.
(D) Being able to move is more important than sheer firepower. All that firepower can be meaningless if enemies can outpace you and then outrange you. For example, Swamp Mammoths are unstoppable, but let bombers, mortars or siege engines in range and you can measure it's life expectancy in seconds. Naturally, slow units either need fast units to stave off attackers, or be healthy enough to kill its attacker before it succumbs to attack. Similarly, your bright shiny infantry is utterly dead against enemy cavalry; however, your spearmen will not be able to protect your infantry if they are tanled in melee, or so far away that it takes them forever to get to the battle.

8. Economy of Force
This is pretty much what's mentioned in point 6 simplicity, whereby players keep their forces in a manageable structure with well-played units like infantry and archers. We can go on to say that economy of force also applies to the hiring of mercenaries and even to the deployment of extraneous support troops.
For the most part, mercenaries are used when your officers or leaders cannot learn certain skills necessary for a particular mission (i.e., need sappers, cannot get sappers for some reason we can't fathom). Leaders like Dwarves, Wood Elves, and Lichs are those specialist leaders who can bring about units like siege engines, ghouls, and other units. However, if you examine your assigned forces, you usually can afford to tune a unit to a specific job.

What's more, the unit selection process is not very pleasant with more units. If you have four active non-support units in battle and activate a scout, you will have five units to scroll through. At that point, you may as well bring in support troops to complicate the matter more. As a general rule, well built units can be deployed three at a time and still achieve victory (this is true, even in several tough stages on Hard). This lets you focus on managing units on the mini-map and not have to worry about support units being shot down, killed, etc.

That's not to say ignore support units; but overusing them for each stage or battle is usually uncalled for. You also have the chance to lose XP if those units kill enemies and then die before the battle is finished. Dead units will not count their experience towards your force at the end of the stage tally.

Strategic Operation Formula O2S4MEC part 3

9. Cooperation (Unity of Command)
This idea behind this is different in real-life from what's in a game. In Kingdom Under Fire, you need to recognize that all other units, no matter how crucial or spiffy their attacks are, if your core unit of infantry dies, your leader is captured and the stage is failed. To not succumb to this result, you need to increas the offensive and defensive abilities of your core troop before attending to the needs of your other units.
Your subordinate units "cooperate" with your lead unit by providing healing or covering fire (archers) or by mounting repeated charges (cavalry) or by screening cavalry (spearmen) or support (siege, mortar, bombers). Additionally, your officers under your leader should be permanent (or relatively permanent) so they can equip armor and weapons that can enhance your lead unit's defences. Since the lead unit will always participate in all the stages, you should make sure the officers you use are of the best quality and ability. Swap out the officers you do not rely on to heal or to cast vital spells (usually heal) and replace him with one that does.

It is best to have one officer who has an attack spell and another with healing. For the Dark Legion, including a Dark Elf officer early on who has access to the tree of illusion may help -- although Dark Legion units are usually best left with archers as the healing since the effect is not instantaneous like Curio. Consider using the infantry fighting/archer healing combination for the Dark Legion instead.

Gerald 001 002 003

Gerald 001 - Greyhampton

Preparation
You may want to put shaky camera to "off" in order to minimize the camera from moving around when you do various things. The view pulls close to your hero when your leader is KO'ed or if an officer assist attack is executed, so pull down on the right stick in order to pan the camera backwards.

Point 1
Head to the two green spots on the map. Once the village cut-scene occurs, you start fighting Dark Elves. Ignore the archers after the archer cut-scene (it's Rithion, if you spied in on Lucretia's campaign) and slay the infantry troop leader (who just spawns after Rithion's smug little intro). Once you do, you can give chase or not, as the mission will end when Rithion retreats.

Point 2
The archers attack from this point, but you cannot engage them in combat even if you order a retreat to pursue the archers.
Gerald 002 - Ravenmeadow

Preparation
This is the first big battle for Gerald. You won't be able to learn any healing spells for Gerald until after this battle, so you will need to conserve your strength by finding and seeking the enemy leaders quickly in battle. If you don't, your troop will quickly become decimated in battle. Hopefully you were paying attention to Ellen's instructions in training and not mentally undressing her boobie-armor.

Point 1
The Paladins who are allied with you will only cast Curio once on your troop, so don't think you'll get automatic healing when you're in trouble. Dispatch the two enemy troops nearby quickly to spare your men the taste of defeat. Orc commanders typically ride astride a hog used by the Orc cavalry; in battle, look for the orc riding a hog and kill it quickly.

Point 2
Although you're ordered to move to the wall to save the sappers, Gerald will always be "too late" regardless if he takes one minute or one hour to reach the wall. Instead, order the troops into tight formation and leisurely walk to this area to fight an infantry and an archer unit. If you can, march around the infantry and clash with the archers.

Should the infantry successfully pursue and enter melee with your troops, quickly defeat their leader and whack the archers, or you may experience some heavy losses from arrows. As an alternative, you can retreat to the forest terrain just north of where you sight the units -- that way, the arrows from the archer unit has less effect on your unit than if you were in the wide open.

Point 3
Well, that's all that sapper captain wrote. Fight the two enemy units who are engaging the archers near the shore. Fight quickly, as the archers cannot withstand prolonged assault without taking severe losses. After you beat both units down, Gerald gets an archer unit added to his force. Now you can switch between two troops using the trigger keys. Be sure to place archers behind your archers -- your archers can fire into enemies who are engaged in melee with your infantry and your infantry will not suffer "friendly fire". When you're done with this mission, consider having Ellen or the archer leader learn holy spells to cast Curio on your forces.

Point 4
Head north -- there are two things to do. First, when the mounted archers show up, switch to your archers, order a wide area of effect and pull up the mini-map to fire on the enemy. Once you click the attack order, sit back and watch your arrows take out the mounted archers quickly. Don't take too long or your infantry will start suffering needless losses.

The second item of note is the enemy unit assaulting the catapult unit. Attack them using the mini-map and Y button. Note your archers will stop at a distance and fire arrows instead of actually engaging in melee. If you want them to combat an enemy, make sure that you order range units to move through an enemy unit (this is applicable for most range units). If your archers are in forest terrain or firing on units in forest terrain, be sure to go to a better vantage spot before ordering the attack. Whack the enemy assaulting the catapults and move all your units across the river and get a cutscene.

Point 5
After the wall comes down, move all your units through and order wide formation. Enemy units move from north to south. Chase down and rack as many kills as possible for experience. None of the units will attack you unless you stumble in melee with them. Now is a good time to order your archers to move to the south edge of the map. Once they get there, order them to move into the path of any enemy unit so your infantry (after killing a few units) can catch up and finish the task.

Gerald 003 - Greywood

Preparation
This is a relatively easy mission provided you took and understand the spearman training offered in camp. Although Walden's spearmen will not join Gerald's forces, the experience that unit earns will be added to your total at the end of the mission. If you haven't bought Curio for Ellen, now would be a very good time to do so in order for your force to have a healing spell available. If you want, you can skip Curio for Ellen and leave it to your archer unit (who is usually available and usually cannot learn gunpowder, so they may as well act as your healing unit).

Point 1
Attack the first two units and try not to wear out your SP totals when the fight is nearly finished (as evidenced by the 'enemy force meter' in the upper right hand corner). When your SP is near the top, you'll be able to use more abilities; however, if you are about to finish a fight and have a partially full SP meter, use the remaining "meat" to build your meter instead of squandering the SP on attacks. After battle, you can use that SP for healing spells.

Point 2
At point 2, order your spearmen to halt and move Gerald's infantry around to slaughter the enemy cavalry. It's best to simply move the infantry directly through the spearmen -- when they overlap, you can even press the B button and stop them so the spearmen will intermingle with the infantry and automatically provide cover when the cavalry draws near.

Point 3
Order both troops to tight formation and move slowly into the forest. After the cutsecene, order the spearmen to go around the clearing and attack the archers by holding the L trigger and setting waypoints that have them hugging the edge of the map. Set the last point to charge the archers and once the spearmen are engaged in melee, have your infantry go into wide formation and charge the remaining units.

Point 4
Chase down the enemy leader in the west by moving both troops in wide formation. Catch them and kill the leader quickly to end the stage. If your infantry is weak, cast curio. If your infantry suffered many dead, have Walden's men go in first to take the hits, then follow up with Gerald. The added padding of Walden's men should prolong your unit's life.

Gerald 004 005

Gerald 004 - Glaucus

Preparation
Upgrade your archers to longbowmen if possible -- that job's small but numerous resistances allow them to survive a smidgen longer. Keep building Gerald's troop to be knights (... of the Round Table, we're in-dee-fa-tee-gable ...) or you may be pushing up the daisies fast. While you don't need to change class each stage, you certainly want to dump a small number of points to increase your skills once or twice between missions. You're going to be joined by a sapper unit, which will serve as your mortar, siege, or bomber support unit if you have the luck to expand those skills (if not, you can always hire a mercenary if you want to mess around with those units). Upgrade Gerald's scout to level 3 before this mission as well.

Point 1
Hugh will be your ally in this mission. Head to the ambush point at point 2 as instructed by Hugh. To remain undetected, order tight formation and waypoint your force east then south to the deployment area. Use a scout to sight ahead. Scouts are expendable (they cost you nothing except time). If you are in doubt of what's waiting for you, send a scout ahead. Scouts are not "regular units" in terms of being included in the Y button move all unit command, so leave your unit selector on the scout and move it separately from your main force.

Point 2
Wait here with your infantry and archers as Hugh draws them out. Firing arrows into the sun will negate any SP bonus you can earn, while firing with the sun behind you earns you bonus SP. Rupert will yell out "The Signal!" when Hugh gives the signal; it's otherwise a keen waiting game. Once the signal is given, open wide formation and charge the enemy. Depending on where the battle is fought, you may need to manually move your archers into open terrain before asking them to open fire.

Point 3
With the ambush going well, heal your troops and head to the northeast. Kill the infantry and archers attacking the sappers -- if you can manage it, march your archers straight into the enemy archers to stop them from firing on your infantry. Use Gerald to find the enemy infantry leader and then head to the archers to finish the job. Sappers, if caught in the melee, can function as light infantry, but try to avoid wasting them in this manner. Sappers will be added to Gerald's force after this battle.

Point 4
Have your units tighten formation and lead the sappers through the edge of the minefield. Have them disarm all the traps along the west and south edges of the minefield (near the riverbank) so your troops can march through that area unscathed later. If your sappers disarm all the traps near the riverbank, you have a useful landmark of where your non-sapper units can move without needing the sapper unit to sight for you.

Once you reach the watergate, defeat the two enemy units and cast heal (or heal before and once more after -- with all that SP, you should be sitting pretty, like Ellen's platemail butt). Once those two enemy units near the watergate are destroyed, some cut-scene bullcrap will ensue and you will see Hugh's troop being chased by some enemy units. At this point, select your sappers and instead of resorting to your mini-map, move the "white line cursor" into the watergate and use the D-pad special command "Open Watergate" to wipe out the enemies chasing Hugh (confirm the command with the A button). If you use the mini-map, you will not see the gatehouse on the map.

Point 5
Now for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fun with Morene, Lucretia and (hubba hubba) Cirith. Order Gerald's infantry and archers to move along the riverbank where you cleared the mines; you can even move in the river somewhat, although all troops move fairly slowly when wading in water. March to where Hugh is and get in as many kills as possible before Lucretia retreats. Once she does, kill the rest of the lingering units and the mission is over.

Gerald 005 - Woodenshade

Preparation
This may be one of the few missions you may get pissed on if you do not rely on the mini-map to execute all of your commands and special abilities. Upgrade your archers towards being longbowmen (melee 3 and range 7 -- range first) and keep getting experience to increase Gerald's melee and scouting skills. Increase Ellen's range skill to make her assist attack more effective and Rupert's melee. Your increases do not need to be 5+ levels each time, but one or two since the beginning. Leave your sappers alone for the time being (they need high teamwork for the next mission, so splurge later). If you haven't already, you should use the save/load trick to re-randomize the items in the shop so you can equip some bad ass magic items for Gerald and his troops.

Point 1
First off, move Gerald to the edge of the melee and make sure no one is hitting him. You can recover losses in a little while. Switch to your archers and move them to the pre-set retreat point. Once that's done, move your infantry behind the archers by individually ordering the infantry using the A button (retreat only works with single unit commands, not the Y button 'all unit' command).

Point 2
So now your forces have withdrawn, select your archers and D-pad the fire arrow command. Pull up the mini-map and look for the red shaded area on the mini-map to fire your arrows on. As long as the mini-map is pulled up, the cursor on the map is the one that counts, not the one on the main screen. Set the red area on fire -- your archers will go through a rather lengthy preparation animation to fire their arrows and then fire them. If successful, the majority of the units on the otherside will be killed, but Mr. Freak will march right through.

Point 3
No questions Jack, just go! Famous line from Wang Chi, the Chinese guy in Big Trouble in Little China. So no questions Gerald, just go -- and flee to this clearing to the west. Now would be a good time to leave. In fact you can order your infantry and your archers to leave right now, but what kinda fun would that be if you can't do this following exploit?

Point 3 (XP Exploit)
Move all your units except your archers to the glade (once you pass the narrow pass, none of your units can go fight Regnier). Move your archers off a bit and start setting fire arrows and shooting Regnier's unit in general. Although neither Regnier's nor Hugh's unit can be exterminated, you can rack up several thousand experience points simply by firing. If you have something to do, make sure Gerald's unit is safe (sometimes the orcs in point 4 move down to attack) and just turn off your TV for a few minutes while your archers dutifully shoot at Regnier until you grow bored. Come back after a bit and move on to point 4.

Point 4
Once in the clearing, move a scout out and see that you've got at least four orc units in the forest and two Dark Elf units where you need to escort the king. You can set fires to the forest and simply burn out the orc armies with repetitive arson, or if you think you're the king of tactical battle, engage the orcs three or four at a time and hunt down the leader. Notice that orc leaders no longer ride a hog so they are more difficult to distinguish from normal orcs.

Alternately, you can use your scout to lure out each orc unit and engage them both with your infantry and your archer (since archers cannot fire on enemies in forest). If Ellen has curio, the better off you are since you can cast the spell immediately after battle. Get past the forest enemies and either attack the Dark Elves with the last of your strength or simply head to the exit as marked on your map. Once all your units and the king's unit is there, the mission ends.

Gerald 006 007

Gerald 006 - Rose Rain

Preparation
If you have the points, increase the sappers' teamwork skill to level 8 - 10 so they can build traps faster. You will have a time limit in this stage, so you need to work fast. You also get your brand new shiny cavalry unit to work with, so engage in some cavalry training at the base barracks before you start. Gerald's troop should be at around level 10 (or close to it) so make the job switch to heavy infantry when you can. If you can afford it, enhance your archers to longbowmen as well so they can take advantage of their new resistances for the next mission (which you will not have a base barracks rest-section).

Point 1
Move all your forces here, but select your cavalry and put them on wide formation to catch up to some orc scouts. Catch them by engaging them in melee (your cavalry will do cavalry charge dmaage then engage in melee to finish them off). Once you're done here, move all your units to where it is marked "point 1" on the map. Send out a scout to point 2.

Point 2
At point 2, regardless of what unit you use, you will sight about eight (our map marks four, but you get the idea from your own mini-map) orc infantry. After some command officer bull-stuff, take your sappers and start building traps in the five de-marked squares. Don't forget you are still under time.

Once your traps are ready, move Gerald's infantry on the western most trap (you're going to make the stand right on top of it since your traps can't kill you) and move the sappers behind Gerald's men. Use the scout to provoke the orcs; move the scout north then west through the traps (setting two waypoints is best). Proceed to use waypoints for your cavalry to gallop left and right across the trapped area (you can lay about six or seven waypoints before the game stops collecting them).

By setting waypoints for your cavalry, you insure that they are always in motion and do not get entangled by melee -- you also make sure they ride through your enemies as cavalry is intended to do while you are busy controlling Gerald to kill any of the orcs who break through. Deal with this mess and move everyone a bit south of point 2.

Point 3
Two more orc infantry show up at point 3 and will attack your sappers. Move cavalry and infantry to engage them and use waypoints for your sappers to move to point 4 quickly -- you may have only half an hourglass of time left before the transports arrive.

Point 4
While your infantry and cavalry deal with the two orc infantry, set your sappers to wide formation and trap the red marked square of ground with traps (by the way, don't spend too much on assist attacks or healing until you're done with the traps) and the un-marked ground next to the red areas to keenly kill all the transports. If you only trap the red areas, you will have to deal with more foes than expected.

Point 5
When you're done with the enemy units (they must be gone) and set traps in all the red squares (set traps in all the unmarked areas between the red squares before trapping the last red square) and move to the ambush spot. When all units are in that area, a movie will start. Afterwards, you can start setting waypoints for your cavalry to move left and right over the trapped area. You may want to set your cavalry to wide formation to increase their hitting area. Once the enemy units start getting wise to you, move the infantry and sappers south to intercept any enemy units avoiding the traps. Usually, you can entangle them into one big katamari melee (melee ball, as opposed to 'snake jungle mating ball') and wrap up all the loose bastards.

Gerald 007 - Halmoral

Preparation
You will have no barracks rest period, which will explain why there was so much preparation on the mission before. Always have a back-up save to go back on, or you may wind up with a dead game. Take your archers and the new cavalry unit with you.

Point 1
As long as you stay on this side of the river, you will only face infantry (or various sorts). Your infantry and cavalry can take on each of the lone units by sending out a scout to lure each of the enemy units to your corner of the map so you can pick them apart one by one.

If you want to maximize your experience earnings, by all means ignore the leader and kill troops. However, you may lose more men than you bargain for. Your cavalry should have waypoints set through the battle so they can ride through automatically. Keep your archers out of the fray and use infantry and cavalry to fight the enemy. If you lure the enemy out into the open, your archers can rain arrows on the parade.

Point 2
The crucial point is this "hump" in the middle of the river. Move an expendable scout into the middle of the river so the archers on the otherside can be sighted. Move your longbowmen (archers will barely make the cut in range) to the tip of the hump and fire on the two units in the center. Once those units are dead, move to point 3.

Point 3
It's important to move your units to point 3 first before you move to the extraction zone. If you move anywhere into the range of the enemy archers, you start taking massive and unnecessary losses. Fighting four archer units with one infantry is risky and your cavalry will simply get cut up, so the wise strategy is to simply leave. The infantry on the other side of the river should've been enough to give you some XP.

Gerald 008 009

Gerald 008 - Stormdeen

Preparation
Increase Rupert's melee to at least 10 to give his unit a fighting chance. Ellen's range should be around 12 to 15 (nevermind her melee, unless you have nothing else to improve). Gerald's personal melee level should be around 15 or so (his highest ideal level by the final mission is 18 to 20). You won't be taking any other unit, so make sure your core troop is as strong as possible (and that Gerald has an ice weapon). If you happen to luck out and have both poison and ice damage dealing equipment, then you're pretty much set for the rest of the game.

Point 1
Send a scout to look ahead. Your infantry and paladins should go through the breach in the wall and hug it to avoid the majority of enemies. You'll fight a few orc units if you rush ahead, so try not to do that. Remember that tight formation in forest will mean your units are slower, but less likely to be detected. Be sure to re-send that order since the unit formations reset after the cutscene.

Point 2
Your goal is to reach this corner and establish a mini-base here. Using Ellen's spells or the paladins' curio spell (bless and heal restores all units' life to the maximum) you can quickly recover your wounded and fight one or two orc units at a time. Use your scout to both look around and to lure moving units to your corner so you can decimate them. Note that non-moving units are Scorpions and should be avoided at all costs. Scorpions will return to their original post when they lose track of your scout, but not if they sense Rupert or Gerald.

Take your time luring orc units down your "funnel of doom". There are about 20+ orc units, which should give you some good experience (about a thousand or more) if you take the time to milk this map of easy enemies. Send a scout out from here to point 3, then onto the area east of point 4. You should move your scout to point 5 if you can in order to trigger a cut-scene.

Point 3
Now you know what awaits you at the extraction zone. Avoiding the scorpions are easy, but you have to use tight formation and move quickly between them. You want to head into this small forest at point 3 unless you feel like clearing out the whole northern forest of orc patrols. Quickly move your units (together) from one small patch of woods to the next and stop in the woods at point 4.

Point 4
Provided that you sent a scout out to trigger the cut-scene at point 5 (and the meteor shower that went with it), one of the two Dark Elf units (the non-meteor unit) will be patrolling back and forth between the extraction point and point 5. You will want to embark your infantry from point 3 to the forest near point 5 (right between the scorpions) and ambush the Dark Elves at point 5.

Point 5
Ambush the Dark Elves at point 5 and make short work of them. Once you're here, you practically won, provided you know what to do next. Order Gerald's men into wide formation and charge the remaining meteor casting elf unit. Once you are in melee (and the unit cannot cast meteor), order Rupert's men into wide formation and make the run to the extraction point. All you need to do with Gerald now is kill the leader or hold them off until Rupert reaches safety. It would've been awesome cool to fight your way back but then that would've made the mission give your more gold and experience than is was designed for.

Gerald 009 - Wall Defence

Preparation
You will get a unit of paladins (from Rupert's mission) added to your force now. Your sappers should be able to learn gunpowder and range at this point as well, which is awesome, since you can now make them into mortarmen or catapult units. Get either one (mortarmen are more flexible and faster than siege units, but catapults do more damage) and add them to your force. Ellen should ideally have curio, although you can still depend on the paladins for healing (provided they don't die). If you haven't yet, get an ice-damage dealing sword for Gerald and upgrade his troop to knights. Time for some serious ass-kicking ...

Point 1
Enemies continuously pour from this direction. Orc infantry, ghouls, and giant scorpions will continually assault the wall on the west of the map -- once the wall "HP" meter dwindles below one-third (or a timer runs out, which ever takes longer), the stage stops, so you want to get as many kills as possible in order to level up your troops.

Point 2
Move your catapult or mortamen, infantry and paladins to point 2. From here, your ex-sappers can bombard enemies by moving very little and you can fight the majority of enemies at this spot. Mortarmen should use narrow focus for scorpions and wide focus for blasting ghouls and orcs. Note you can fire directly on your own troops in melee, since they take no damage.

Point 3
Occasionally, their will be one or two scorpions who wander far off beyond your range. Move your mortarmen north or south slightly and continue the attack. Scorpions die by the drove under mortar fire (and serves as a warning for Lucretia's and Regnier's campaign!).

If by chance an enemy unit wanders off and you need to chase it down, use Gerald's infantry (since you can control Gerald directly and end fights sooner). Leave your paladins to screen your mortars or catapults, since they can be severely wounded in melee with ghouls and scorpions. The paladins can delay enemies until Gerald can intercept or until the mortars retreat and resume bombardment.

Fight as best you can, regardless of how many units appear -- go after the stray units and stick to the center. Once you fight long enough, the mission will end with a cut-scene.

Gerald 010 011

Gerald 010 - Posperous Green

Preparation
Increase your infantry towards level 20 -- you can stop at around 18 though. Increase your archer's range skill to 12 or 15 (you'll need them in the final stage) and have your mortarmen stick around. If you have experience to spare, you have the option of turning your cavalry into Storm Riders for the last mission (not this mission).

Point 1
Your goal is to destroy ten of the at least one dozen small villages on this map (including the big camp in the south-east). You can stop after destroying ten, but nothing really keeps you here until you decide to leave in the north-west. Each of the villages are approximately located with the red arrows -- although some red arrows are also Scorpion unit locations :-)

None of the units on this map are a serious challenge to Gerald if he has mortarmen -- mortars can finish off scorpions quickly and can bombard units in conjunction with a scout from Gerald's unit. Use archers to set the buildings on fire (don't use the mini-map) and there should be enough SP for the whole job.

Point 2
The scorpions and Dark Elves streth across this thin clearing. Some are near villages, some are not, and some simply attack you if any of your units get near. Work on one end to avoid being out-numbred. Easy.

Point 3
There's a big ass camp in the south-east that counts as an orc village. Burn it or leave it alone, but if you travel this far, you might as well burn it. Note that only the left side of the village burns; the right side is unburnable.

Point 4
After all the villages are burned, the red extraction zone appears in the north-west. You can avoid the final infantry or set up your troops to mortar the sucker to death while you assault with Gerald's men. Mission done.

Gerald 011 - Nymphbarren

Preparation
Assuming Gerald and his archers/longbowmen are well-levelled (18 to 20 fore Gerald, range 15 or more for the archers) you can spend your experience for your cavalry and your sappers. You can take one "support" troop with you in this battle. Your sappers can be bombers or your cavalry can be Storm Riders. With Storm Riders, you can fight off other infantry easily while your archers attack air units and your infantry attack archers (who kill Storm Riders easily).

With bombers, your bombers can bombard infantry and the Swamp Mammoth while your cavalry can run through the area using waypoints. Note that with Storm Riders, you can bring your catapult into play against the Swamp Mammoth so you can start damaging it quickly before the rest of the Ecclessian army is destroyed. Which method you go with is up to you:

Catapults + Storm Riders - or - Bomber Wing + Heavy Cavalry

Point 1
Charge past the infantry and attack the archers. Use your special ability window (D-Pad) to direct your support unit away from the archers (have them attack another infantry group). Curio can restore wounds, but not raise the dead, so if your support unit is about to die from amassed wounds, send them to open ground and recover them later.

Archers should fire on the air units (Dirigibles and Wyvern Riders) and avoid melee so they can provide air cover. Order your allied Ecclessian Storm Riders to attack the enemy Wyverns in order to keep the Wyverns off your troops.

Point 2
Try to move to the east area -- the more you can preserve your allies from being destroyed the better. This is also where some of the enemies appear when the Swamp Mammoth movie cuts into the action. You can catch them one by one quickly before they can mass-up and do major damage to your troops.

Point 3
The Swamp Mammoth is invincible -- except to your siege weapons. The allied siege weapons have infinite range while your catapult has a range determined by your leader's skill. If you can get it into range of the Swamp Mammoth and bombard it, then good for you. Bomber Wings can do a similar job, but may take damage from the archers and get eliminated.

Point 4
If you don't have any method to take down the Swamp Mammoth, head south and guard the ballistas as they make their way north to attack the Swamp Mammoth. Engage in melee any Ecclessian troops who are in trouble, since if all your allies die, you lose the mission. Take a few losses from the Swamp Mammoth if only to keep your Ecclessian buddies alive and kicking until the Swamp Mammoth is slain.

Point 5
Kill the Swamp Mammoth and head to the last surviving Ecclessian unit for a message on where Regnier is. Once you meet up and get some story time, your goal is to head to the south-east and face Regnier.

Point 6
Avoid any stray units and move all your troops to point 6. Face Regnier, get the cut-scene and have a ball. Gerald's story continues in Kendal's campaign.

Lucretia 001 002 003

First of before I start like to say the last mission guide dose work but you may fine it dose not but it did for me after a few trys and fresh start to claim you down. Now back to the guide

Lucretia 001 - Dryglade

Word of Fore-Warning
Do not upgrade Rithion in any skill; do not upgrade Cirith's skills beyond level 10 (lightning). Naturally, do not buy any equipment for either officer/leader. Spend lavishly on Lucretia, Morene, and Lucretia's core troop. Hey, you want a guide, you got a guide. So there's IGN's stern warning. Now heed them!

Also, you may want to replace Morene's curse spell skill with ice, even if you lose out on Silence. The blizzard spell works its magic on almost 75% of the human forces

Point 1
Move the whole troop to the south-east and towards the dragon tower shown in the cutscene. If you can't get any reaction from Morene or the game, move your troops to the southern and eastern-most corner, hug the east edge of the map and move directly north.

Point 2
Some human guys decide to score some Elven booty and attack Lucretia. Remember that elves do not fare well in long engagements (one of the reasons why IGN prefers dating elf chicks) so you need to use Lucretia skillfully to deliver her hasted attacks and strikes. Note that Lucretia can use her special button in conjunction with some buttons to do moves requiring no SP.

Lucretia 002 - Wicktow

Preparation
You won't be upgrading for some time, so you will need to know the limits of your elf troops now. Elves heal naturally in forest terrain, but while in the wasteland, you will need to rely on the Tree of Illusion (given as tree of healing in the special ability menu) to heal your troops. Its cost is 350 SP, which is your current maximum. Don't spend SP on special attacks unless it is at the beginning of your melee, or you may be short of SP after the melee is over and you need a heal spell.

Playing Lucretia adroitly is the key to winning, as opposed to just simple upgrades with Gerald. IGN's custom seeker combo with Lucretia (X-X-A stick towards enemy-X-X-A stick towards enemy) will let you move through the melee quickly and find the leader early. Once you do, disptach him quickly. Remember too that you are fighting humans, so target human units -- not Dark Elves!

Point 1
Fight off the initial batch of enemies and stop under Rumen's tree of illusion. If you don't take much damage from the first fight, you will be sitting pretty for the next fight.

Point 2
Rithion, Border Guard of Osmond, Province of Hexter, comes barrelling down the hill with infantry and archers on his ass. Have Lucretia wait a bit and let some of your allies engage the enemy first. Rush in and move Lucretia to the edge of the battlefield (your leaders tend to stand around and get hit in melee while you are ordering another unit around). When the human archers show up, order a retreat towards the archers. Tighten formation quickly and finish off the archers. Hopefully, you will not have taken many losses -- after a cutscene occurs, more fighting will start immediately after, giving you no chance to cast a tree of illusion in peace.

Point 3
Have all the troops follow Rumen by pressing Y (the all unit key) on Rumen's unit in the mini-map. Leave your unit selector on Rithion's archers (whose unit acknowledgement voice is a naughty little Korean elf-girl for some reason). Widen the focus and attack the Storm Riders when they appear. If the arrows are not hitting the last Storm Rider, try adjusting the focus or moving the archers around slightly to get them at a better angle.

Point 4
Order your infantry and archers around to point 4 and attack the infantry -- if Lucretia's unit is wounded and needs healing, have Rithion cast tree of healing on Lucretia's unit from afar. Dark Elves have this advantage of being constantly healed in melee as long as a tree of illusion is cast nearby.

Point 5
Wait until Rumen fully engages the infantry, now run into the archers using your combined force and annihilate the archers. Once done, head north and finish up the stragglers for some extra XP.

Lucretia 003 - Lichenvale

Preparation
The fun don't stop with Lucretia -- no way of powering up until after this mission, so you will need to make the most of your limited resources. Hathiel's cavalry (for some reason, we remember elf girl names, but not anyone else's) will join Lucretia's force. Elf cavalry are the same as human cavalry -- good against infantry, bad against spearmen and archers. Uses them well to entangle enemy troops, or you'll be in big trouble.

Point 1
Evles heal naturally in forest terrain all the time regardless if they are in melee or not. Fight humans in forest (making Rithion as useless as a non-animated marital aid in an elf bedroom) to take advantage of that extra boost. Use the cavalry to lure the infantry and run circles around them to destroy them. Fighting in forest also gives you the advantage of being shielded from arrows.

Cavalry charge the few human units at point 1 and move in the forest while following the mountain ridge south to engage the other two enemy units just north of point 2.

Point 2
There are archers and infantry north of point 2 -- send Lucretia in to whack the archers and the enemy infantry will usually follow into the melee. Adding Rithion and Hathiel to the mix will spread wounds across all three units while Lucretia needs to play "hide and seek" with both enemy leaders to seize victory quickly.

Point 3
Move in tight formation (leave the archers at the edge of the forest) and you can catch the north archer unit by infantry attack. Once Lucretia starts marching towards the unit, move the cavalry and archers to the south unit and have them engage in melee (keeps them from firing arrows). Use Lucretia to kill the north unit quickly, then sweep up the southern unit while retreating your archers and cavalry from the melee. Heal afterwards by hanging around (nekkid) in the forest.

Point 4
Move to point 4 silently and get ready to do the same thing with the knights and archers in the supply base. Lucretia should move north then east to the archers -- the knights usually give chase, but you can lure them away using archers (who will not do much except as delay troops). Once you have the knights distracted, move Lucretia to the archers in tight formation. When melee starts, move your cavalry to waypoint across the knights to charge them to death, or use the archers and cavalry to lure the knights up to the archers.

Point 5
If Lucretia is caught by the knights, move the archers in to attack the human archers in melee (do this by having them move through the archer unit). You can delay archer fire by using your cavalry in any formation to engage the archers.

Either method requires you to finish the knights off quickly, so move Lucretia into the middle of the human rabble and summon Cirith (B+Y) and watch those monkey-heads fry. Seek out the leader and end the mission quickly

Lucretia 004 005

Lucretia 004 - Glaucus River
Preparation
Upgrade Lucretia's troop to melee 7 so they can take advantage of the knight class (same Shadow Knight class in Champions of Norrath without the spellcasting). Horde your experience and treat Morene's range skill to some levelling up. Ignore your archers (i.e., Rithion's troop) and your cavalry for now -- if you want to level up Hathiel, increase her melee to 7. With that kind of skill allocation, you have another troop of Dark Elf knights to spare for another mission down the road.

Cirith, despite her tainted status, should have her lightning skill increased to at least 5 so she can do more damage to knights while she is avaialble.

Head to the equipment screen (be sure you have two saves prior to this, as discussed before in Gerald's campaign). Start shopping around for Lucretia until you get a semi-decent lightning and ice weapon (lightning first). Chances are that you can only afford one at the moment. Since Lucretia has dual-wield, try to have one weapon deal ice damage and the other lightning damage so she can quickly work over enemies in later stages. Lastly, upgrade Lucretia's scout to level 3 now. It's cheap and it's effective.

Point 1
Move to point 1 and find the destroyed orc camp. Fight off the infantry and if you can, move your troops into the trees first before you start fighting to take advantage of yoru elven troops. Move east to point 2 after you're done.

Point 2
Attack the humans who are attacking the orc axemen (they will join your force in a little bit). Remember the exercise with Walden -- have your axe/spearmen stay stationary and in wide formation and move your infantry and other units into the axemen and tell them to stop while intermingling with the axemen to really sucker the cavalry.

Point 3
Your next task is to attack Hugh (as you'd kinda know already from Gerald's campaign) and to give chase to his unit with all troops. You'll lose your new axemen soon enough (although they will be okay for the next mission).

Point 4
Attack Hugh's unit with Lucretia and seek out Hugh (astride his warhorse). Once you start attacking him, Gerald will call on a general retreat and rescue Hugh. Once the dialogue starts, start killing peon enemies, as you will end the mission soon after the other units retreat. Move to the riverbank's watergate if the mission does not end.

Lucretia 005 - Aten

Preparation
You can test out your new Orc ('pig') allies by changing them into Heavy Infantry (melee 9) although it's recommended you simply spend on Lucretia's melee, Morene's range, and Hathiel's melee, frontal, and riding. Cirith, if her lightning is not doing damage you want, can have her magic skill increased to level 6 or 7, but you may want to stop at that point. Bring along Rithion's archers for this mission, if you do not take orcs. Hathiel's cavalry is needed for this mission. If you can buy an ice weapon for Lucretia and found an Experience Earned Bonus weapon as well for her and her troops (we load save files mutliple times to get the best items) then you're better off.

Point 1
Inifinite enemies pour out from the northeast and escape in the southwest. If enough enemies escape, you lose the mission. If you slay enough enemy troops, your gauge goes up. Fill it and you win the mission. Easy? Yes. Bring along a lightning weapon (and an ice weapon if you can afford one).

Point 2
Humans escape here. Try to avoid this area as you stand to lose the enemy as you fight them. If a weakened unit is about to flee, you may want to use cavalry to stop them so Lucretia can catch up and decimate the troop. Remember only wiping out units will increase the victory meter -- individual deaths mean nothing.

Point 3
Stick to this area and use wide formation to chase down troops. In conjunction with your infantry, your cavalry should be used to run down enemies, screen them, and delay other fleeing units. If you have orcs, remember that they have different needs in terms of healing than Dark Elves. Cast enrage on the orc unit after melee, or you will waste valuable SP.

Cavalry can help you take down infantry quickly by doing waypoint charges. Overall, all your units should always be active -- if they are idle, chances are you will lose the mission.

Final tips: avoid archers (cavalry should steer clear of them) since all they do is delay you. If Lucretia can take one out quickly, go for it -- but aim for massive groups (two, three or four) of infantry and heavy infantry.

Cirith's lightning can take down "H.Infantry" and the "Knights" who show up as the victory meter is three-quarters full. One well placed burst of lightning can rip off half a life bar of lightning weak troops (we had Cirith's lighting at level 10).

When possible, journey through forests to heal -- if you need Lucretia's troops to heal while in melee, have the cavalry or the archers cast tree of illusion on the melee. You can amass a load of experience from this mission, so don't miss your chance!

Lucretia 006 007

Lucretia 006 - Esse Wall

Preparation
Time to change the cavalry's job. You will be taking two units of knights along with your brand new Giant Scorpion for a spin. Lucretia's melee should increase slowly towards 20 (one level per mission is usual) while you can increase your cavalry's melee to something equivalent. Orcs are not advised for this mission, since forests are abundant and your elves can heal naturally in them. Buy Lucretia's ice and lightnign weapons now if you don't have them, and look for experience bonus items for your troops (infantry and ex-cavalry).

Point 1
When you start, there are two catapults on the west side who will kill the majority of your Scorpions in two minutes. Order all your forces to charge the enemy while directing your Scorpion to attack the wall with its Shockwave attack. When Lucretia and Hathiel are in melee, quickly take down the leader and move on to the catapults. Once in melee, catapults cannot endanger your forces. If you had Morene's curse skill replaced with ice, you may have the 750 SP (after fighting the heavy infantry screen) to cast blizzard on one of the catapults to end their reign of terror quickly.

Point 2
Once all the enemies outside the first wall are dead, take Mr. Scorpion and use shockwave on the wall to break down a section. Don't move in until you send out a scout.

Point 3
There are two more catapults and two archers covering those catapults, so you can't just assault the siege units with your infantry. Instead, lure out the heavy infantry into the forest near the wall break and terminate the unit. You want to vacate to point 3 and the corner away from the catapult and archers and use scouts to lure all the heavy infantry down towards your way, much like Gerald's messenger escorting mission.

Point 4
When you're ready, you need to attack the remaining archers and catapults quickly before they destroy you. Your skill at playing Lucretia will be tested mildly here -- use her to find and kill each team leader in the archer unit so you can move on to the catapult. Having Morene cast blizzard on either the archers or the catapults will hasten their defeat. Be sure to use wide formation and engage the archers quickly (the catapults do more damage but the archers are faster to kill).

Once you clear the inner wall, have the scorpion destroy the inner wall and move a scout in to look around. Until your "real" units go past the inner wall, your scout can get really close to the enemy. You will be facing Paladins, Walden's Knights, and "Magic Infantry" -- that is to say, infantry with a spell casting leader.

Point 5
Move your Scorpion and one of your infantry into the now empty forests just south of point 4. Use your other infantry to enter the inner area towards point 5 and get ready to move back to your forces when the enemy moves. By luring out Walden's unit, the paladins' healing spells cannot reach them. Suckers.

Isolate and destroy Walden, then use your scout to see what's up. If your infantry and Scorpion are near full health, you can send one infantry (Hathiel's) and the scorpion to deal with the paladins while you send Lucretia to deal with the Magic Infantry. These units tend not to stray apart, so you will have to assault them together. In the off chance you can lure one out, do so and fight in the forest.

Deal with the magic infantry first, since they can cast meteor and other spells which wreak havoc. The paladins can taste Cirith's lightning once you join the melee. The Scorpion should not die in melee -- but in the off chance it is about to, try to heal it (and retreat it) or you lose the mission.

Lucretia 007 - Halmoral

Preparation
You won't get any units except a third orc unit (Viol's Scorpion unit from the Esse siege is your second orc unit). With only two units, you need to find a way to defeat the enemy quickly without fighting. Upgrade Lucretia's infantry and Hathiel's cavalry/infantry's melee. Do not bother spending any more experience if you're around level 16 to 18 melee -- you want the other experience for Viol (the orc handler for the Scorpion) to turn his unit into the Swamp Mammoth. You will also need some experience for Zarvoro, a Dark Elf unit that will join your force after the next mission.

Do yourself a favour and outfit Morene, Lucretia, and the core troop with better armor (melee particularly) and do the same for Hathiel's troop (Hathiel can be outfitted later if you have cash).

Point 1
There are four or five patrolling heavy infantry at point 1. Spend the time to kill them all (one by one) now using scouts and Lucretia's infantry. Not doing so may cause a bug in the game. Retreat to the upper left corner (forested) to do your dirty fighting. Be sure to use your scout to check the right edge of the forest all the way down to the red de-marked area for enemies.

Point 2
Move to point 2 with your infantry; this will trigger a conservation between Morene, Lucretia and Cirith. Morene will then suggest an alternate way of destroying the supply depot. If Lucretia's unit or the orc sappers are attacked while Morene is talking, the alternate objective will not be offered and you will need to set fire to the supply camp using sappers -- this means you fight through ten trillion human knights backed by archers. Not for us. Move back north and retry if you did not get the alternate objective.

Point 3
With the secondary objective, you need to cross the weir from point 1 to point 3. There are two or three infantry patrolling the area, so you need to move Lucretia's troop in tight formation across the river and secure point 3. Your sappers can fight if you want, but they have rather poor melee compared with Lucretia's unit.

Point 4
Use a scout to advance to point 4 and attack the archers and infantry there. Your orc sappers can hassle the archers and prevent them from attacking Lucretia if you melee them. The knights should meet Cirith's lightning and that should be the end of that.

Point 5
There are two mortar units overlooking the watergate and the river. Use a scout to take a look at the traps in the area and steer Lucretia quickly to overrun the southern mortar unit. Mop them up quickly and charge the northern mortar unit (avoiding the traps marked out by the scout). Use Cirith's lightning to cut down the units' life and move Lucretia to the edge of the battlefield. While in melee, your orc sappers should quickly disarm any traps for the SP you want to use Cirith's lightning.

Point 6
Once the coast is clear, place the orc sappers to open the watergate and flood the human camp down the river. Make it quick -- those knights at the river's mouth will come around to attack you if you give them enough time.

Lucretia 008 009

Lucretia 008 - Hironeiden

Preparation
This is a "kill-everthing" mission with a twist. Lucretia will be forced to retreat after reaching point 3. You should take Hathiel as a cavalry unit now and change one of the orc units into heavy infantry. Since you'll be using Viol (the Giant Scorpion trainer) in the final mission, increase his unit's melee attack and slot them as heavies for now. Ghouls sound cool, but the prevalence of humans who know Curio and Bless spells make ghouls expensive to create and maintain. Don't buy any equipment for the orc heavy unit -- the job change will leave the equipment unused. If you want to keep things simple, put Rithion's archers with your forces -- his only ability -- to cast the tree of illusion, can help Lucretia in battle.

Point 1
You can head north or south to either point 1 to attack the enemies and break the wall down. This time, the wall breaks automatically when you slay all the units on your side of the wall. Attack archers first (the human knights can fry when they attack Lucretia due to Cirith's presence), mp them up in a hurry and move about the field helping your allies.

If you can spare them, use the orcs to shock-rush your enemies so you can spare Lucretia her wounded. The cavalry should be waypointed around the map and spread apart to encompass a wide area. The SP they earn can help you end a battle quickly. Morene's range (if high enough) can inflict some serious damage against range-susceptible foes. Beat the magic infantry first if they are in your range; otherwise, break all the units on your side of the wall and head to point 2.

Point 2
Break the wall and enter battle with the magic infantry. If they cast enough spells, your allies will quickly die and leave you alone. Use a mix of cavalry and infantry charges to keep the archers from firing. Constant management of your forces mixed with your melee will help you on this battle. Once the magic infantry are done, work over the knights (the archers can be held at bay temporarily with your cavalry). Remember that if you need healing, use your cavalry (or your archers, if you brought them along) to cast the tree of illusion on Lucretia. Again, the best thing is to fight in the forest to harden your elves against damage.

Point 3
Once you kill a few units near point 3, the bomber wings show up and you are forced to retreat. Have all your surviving units flee in wide formation directly to the extraction zone. The faster you get out of here, the faster the stage ends.

Lucretia 009 - Posterous Green

Preparation
You can drop by the forward base to restock and retrain your troops. You will want Hathiel's cavalry since you will have two other Dark Elf units added to your force roster -- Hathiel (riding Black Wyverns) and Zarvoro's mounted archers. Note we'll talk about Hathiel's wyvern riders as "Hathiel #2". Increase their melee scores -- if you've been increasing Hathiel #1's frontal and riding, you can stop at 10 or so.

Point 1
There will be an infinite number of enemies who will attack your retreating Dark Elf bosom buddies (and what bosoms!) who will want to run from the northwest to the southeast. Either point 1 will have enemies constantly beaming in and attacking your allies. You should have your cavalry criss-cross the map only if the bombers have targetted a unit that's not your cavalry. Your mounted cavalry will only fire when they are in motion and if enemies are in range. Setting way points for them is also okay if you can make their patrol route go northwest to southeast.

Point 2
Keep any unit near point 2 alive if they are being harassed by enemies, or you will not be able to increase your retreat counter.

Point 3
Move in force. Wyvern riders cannot attack ground troops in forest so you may want to retreat into forest only if the annoying bomber wings are not following your infantry (Lucretia's especially). Use your cavalry archers as you would standard archers but with greater mobility -- their ability to attack while moving requires more micromanagement from you than you can spare at this point in the game. Instead, move them quickly from one spot to another to take out the bomber wings on the map and save your friendly units so they can escape.

Final tips: if a friendly unit is too weak or if there are too many enemies, leave them alone so they can be destroyed. More allies will show up once you run out of allies to save. More bomber wings show up when your rescue percentage is increased towards 25% and again towards 35%. It may be beneficial to use Rithion's archers (at range 8 or so) to supplement your cavalry archers if you think you need more air cover. If you do use Rithion's archers, you will have to make sure Lucretia is top when it comes to her skills in melee and to keep her life high.

Lucretia 010 - Holy Ground

Lucretia 010 - Holy Ground

Preparation
Change Viol (the Scorpion guy) into a Swamp Mammoth. Increase the taming skill as high as it can go to do as much damage as possible. Lucretia should ideally be level 20 or more, with Hathiel #1 a close second. Put Hathiel #2 as your officer (might as well) and increase Zarvoro the cavalry archer unit to have a high range skill (about 15+). Now make Zarvoro's unit regular archers (to keep up with your foot units) and put Hathiel #1 as a knight unit just like Lucretia's. Your Swamp Mammoth will be doing most of the killing in this mission (with help of a level 3 scout). The enemies are tough enough that two high-level knight units and a mid to high-level archer unit will barely be enough to do this stage.

Point 1
Notice the very thick fog? This means you can see squat even with a scout. For now, your little corner of the world is safe. But that will change when any enemy unit sights you, since the enemy AI cheats by having siege weapons with infinite range (covers the whole map). What you need to do is to use a scout and your Swamp Mammoth to head slowly (and carefully) to point 2, taking out archers and paladins (who cannot match your mammoth in battle).

Be sure to keep your troops close to the southern edge of the map, or you may prematurely "activate" other enemy units near the center of the map. As long as you hug the edges of the map, you should only face off one ballista unit.

Point 2
There's a ballista unit at point 2 that can kill your mammoth if you let it keep firing. Once you get a sight on the ballista unit (remember the enemies move around, so the red arrows are approximations), move your infantry and archers in wide formation around the paladins and archers (retreat if you get caught) and kill the ballista crew in a hurry.

Once the ballista crew is dead (use both infantry and the third archer units), feel free to use the swamp mammoth to wipe out the rest of the crap. Retreat to point 3, fighting off any Storm Riders (if they show up). Paladins heal constantly, so target their leader (in a winged helmet) first. Archers can be dealt with using mammoth attacks.

Flying units seem to appear when an enemy unit sights your non-scout, non-mammoth units, so be sure to use scouts to see what's ahead. Risk your infantry, archers and mammoth only when you find the coast is clear!

Point 3
SP continuously regenerates, so use a tree of illusion on all your units (including the mammoth) when everyone is together in this corner. Always keep your archers near your infantry (hopefully Morene's range skill is high so you do some damage to paladins) in case a flying unit got missed or if you need to fight a few strays you missed while heading west. Move the mammoth (and scout) up to point 4 and hammer the Magic Infantry first.

Point 4
Magic infantry can cast spells that will destroy your mammoth (hence our recommendation to heal the mammoth after fighting the ballista) but you can expect to lose half of the mammoth's life and expect to win if you make it to point 5. Kill all the units and move all your forces to point 5. This will take some time, but don't leave your Xbox to get a drink as flying units sometimes appear for no reason other than to spite you.

Point 5
Rest here again if you've taken wounds and losses. Watch for enemy air units. Your goal now is to move to point 6 -- the pink arrows on our map denote "warp in" units that appear after a cut-scene with Cirith occurs at point 6. Know about them, but none of your units will be there (they all warp to point 6) after the Cirith cut-scene.

Point 6
There will be a paladin unit fighting some Dark Elves here. Help them (use Lucretia, Hathiel #1, and Zarvoro) and watch for air cover. Storm Riders usually attack here, so Zarvoro is perfect to cover the area here. Lucretia should end the fight quickly, and cast the tree of healing for all units. Watch Cirith's cut-scene and create a scout.

Point 7
Move the scout all the way north to the edge of the map and move forward slowly. When you see enemy units, stop and call in the swamp mammoth to take care of business. Huddle your infantry and archers together in wide formation (in case those damn bombers show up) and be ready to fend off attacks. None of the enemy units at point 7 can hurt the mammoth except the magic infantry, so take care of them first, then the paladins (if they pursue Lucretia, you're in for a nasty fight) and finally the archers (your infantry can tighten formation and attack them easily). The scout or the mammoth will trigger the Rithion cut-scene, after which all you need to do is massacre the units near the north edge of the map and move Lucretia to point 5 again to end the mission.

Kendal 001 - Greyhampton

Kendal 001 - Greyhampton

Preparation
Prepare for the most fun campaign you will ever have access to in Kingdom Under Fire. There's absolutely zero plot to get in the way of the story, but the tactical and strategic flexibility Kendal's forces will give you is invaluable.

The biggest difference from Normal is that enemies have more "Magic Infantry" that you first met in Lucretia's campaign. Kendal's forces will meet similar units -- be on the look out for Ghoul units (their Lich leaders are usually spell-casters) and Archer units (their leaders are Rithrin look-a-likes with spells). They will cast more of the 750 SP spells on your forces than you are accustomed to on previous campaigns.

When you see a spell message on your screen, it is usually too late to counter or cancel the magic; instead, you should look for red units on your mini-map that aren't moving to attack you, but standing to the sidelines laughing at you while stones the size of big babies rain down on your forces. Those are magic infantry, and should be slaughtered first.

Point 1
Move Kendal, the Paladin (his name's Otho, but we'll refer to him as paladin dude), and your archers with any nearby allies towards either the north or the east. You can only help one flank, so aid only one advance. In fact, you should make every effort to either engage archer units and evade infantry units so you can strike at the Scorpion units teeming around point 1.

Your own archers can serve as light infantry if Kendal needs healing and the paladin leader (his unit are infantry in this mission) is in melee. Have your archers rush into melee, pull out your second unit of infantry and cast curio.

As soon as this mission is done, the above strategy will be changed to what IGN recommends as "Kendal's sure-fire kick-ass way to beat the game" through unit and leader reassignments.

Attacking with allies is quick to bring victory since you can outnumber troops. Allies are also healed by the Curio spell if they are in the same area.

Point 2
Attack the Magic Infantry in the north, east and north-east to decline enemy of magic-users (they cast Darkmist, which inhibits units' accuracy and damage). Leaving them alone to regain SP from slaying your allies and your forces is not a good idea. Best head them off now instead of later.

Always locate and find leaders quickly for faster victory. If Lucretia's campaign has taught you a damn thing, it is that the faster you kill the leader, the better off your forces are. Until Kendal's units are properly set-up (along with armor) to survive repeated beatings by level 30 infantry, you will need to be quick with your handling of your leader to get fast victories.

Getting used to Kendal's fighting style is crucial. Unlike Gerald and Lucretia, Kendal is slow. He's also fat. Kendal's fast attacks are short range while his strong attack is slow and narrow. However, he can do a lot of damage using X-X-X-X-A-A ... repeatedly since the A-A strong attack hits and drags enemies towards Kendal. Kendal's strong strike can be aimed using the green key and the joystick. The stick should be moved according to the orientation of the screen, not to Kendal.

Retreating temporarily is a valid choice if you're trying to shoot past screening infantry to get at Magic Infantry. You probably learned it the hard way already in Lucretia's last mission, where she needed to retreat from paladin units and strike at the ballista in order to keep the Swamp Mammoth alive.

If you are seriously not very good with the mini-map, you can try to keep your paladin leader out of battle. Definitely pull the paladin's ass out of a fight (always lead the charge with Kendal's unit) since you cannot afford to lose your only unit capable of casting Curio. Your allies occasionally cast curio, but their SP and their abilities are hidden from you. If you must preserve allied units, fight with other paladins and keep them alive. Scorpions can be taken down easily if the head is hit by Kendal's towards + A button attack. Lichs can be killed using Kendal's long string combo. Clean up the rest of the units and use forest for cover against archers while mopping up infantry.

Kendal 002A - The Holy Ground

Kendal 002A - The Holy Ground

Preparation
There are a number of changes IGN recommends you make to Kendal's force to make it more lethal. First off, discharge Duane from Kendal's staff and make him a troop leader. Replace him with Otho the paladin leader from the first mission. Note that if you do this, Thomas will be summoned with the X+A keys and the paladin officer with the Y+B keys.

Kendal's forces will consist of multiple units doing multiple jobs. At no point in this campaign will you need to buy or purchase any mercenary, as the five units you start with will be enough to bowl over anything you meet. In fact, your three units you will rely on will be: Kendal's infantry, Tyrone's archers, and Duane's mortar/spearmen unit. Those three units, if properly upgraded, will serve as the core of your whole Kendal campaign with the other two units (the sappers and the spearmen) will fill out the siege and cavalry support.

Upgrade Kendal's scouting skill to 3 before moving onto modifying Thomas. Thomas should dispatch the fire magic he has and learn ice instead. Ice spells are generally more useful against the orcs you're fighting against (and moderately useful against Dark Elves, despite their mild resistance to cold). Since you will be fighting primarily ghouls and orcs early on, ice is a logical spell choice for Thomas.

Next, have your archer leader acquire Holy for remote healing. Since your archers are only useful when firing their bows anyway, having them cast heal on your fighting infantry is sensible. If you've done this for Gerald's campaign already, this is pretty much second nature.

Duane has the frontal skill already (at level freakin' one -- whoo-hoo). Duane can serve as both a spearmen unit (there are more cavalry units than you can care for on Hard) and as a mortar unit. While your archers attack air enemies, your mortarmen can devastate anything on the ground, up to and including the dreaded Swamp Mammoth. Add range and gunpowder to Duane's skill list as you get to it. For the first few missions, Duane will be your extra "shock" infantry or spearmen. And by shock infantry, we mean use Duane to rush the enemy first before Kendal to preserve your core unit's health.

Leave your sapper and spearmen unit alone for now. If you need another batch of infantry (who are always stronger than spearmen in melee), change one unit into light infantry and take them along. This mission is recommended first since there is no cavalry to deal with (only air troops, the occasional magic infantry, and tons of archers).

Lastly, depending on how much money you have, use the save/reload trick on our cheats page to get an ice weapon for Kendal. Whatever you buy, you'll be keeping for the rest of the campaign, so buy the best mace or poleaxe you can find. Ice is better since you will be facing orcs a lot, although keep in mind you will need to buy a good poison weapon prior to subsequent missions.

Point 1
Kendal starts on high ground, which means your archers can have an SP bonus if they attack any of the enemies who get in range. All forces will start to move forward as enemies draw near, but it's advised you loiter back and send a scout out to move around the battle so you can spot enemy air units coming.

Choose north or south group to assist; the other group will die bravely for the honor of Ecclessia. With three infantry units and a curio casting archer unit, you can probably wipe the floor against anything coming your way. The Black Wyverns who assault your troops can be dealt with using your archers; with three infnatry attacking, your archers can afford to attack the Wyverns with little trouble. However, your archers should stay near Kendal's infantry to cast heal, although Kendal's paladin officer can also do the same thing if Kendal is not in melee.

Attack all the enemies with allies, focusing on archer units and scorpions before returning to destroy the remaining enemy infantry. When fighting orcs, remember to summon Thomas for 200 SP when Kendal is in the middle of a lotta orcs. The results will be satisfying, often cutting enemy troops strengths in half with one attack (at level 5+). Without scorpion or archer support and with all the SP you earn to cast Curio, your troops will be able to survive the onslaught with very few losses while mopping up enemy troops.

Enemies come forth as old units are destroyed; use Curio when your units are grouped tightly together since one Curio spell can affect multiple human units. This way, your 150 SP can go affect your entire force (not to mention your allies) and allow you to heal back up to full strength with little problem. Assist allied archers if you can or move your infantry near them and keep them away from melee if too many Wyverns are giving you trouble. Allied archers shoot at Wyverns before they shoot at enemy ground troops, so you can gain some benefit from your dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks allies.

Lastly, widen your infantry formations against Wyvern attacks. There is no place to hide on the map, so you need to reduce the amount of damage the Wyverns do against your troops if you are relying your archers to down them. Mop up and go back to base.

Kendal 002B - Colonock

Kendal 002B - Colonock

Preparation
Read the previous page about how to prepare Kendal's forces. Additionally, your sapper unit should be built as an engineer/siege support unit with skills in melee, teamwork, range, and gunpowder while your spearmen unit should double as cavalry support with melee, frontal, and riding.

Use the save/reload trick on our cheats page to get ice and posion weapons for Kendal. Whatever you buy, you'll be keeping for the rest of the campaign, so buy the best mace or poleaxe you can find. Ice is for use against Orcs while the poison weapon is for Dark Elves. The mace serves better as poison and the poleaxe as ice, although if you're good with Kendal, having either of the elements on either weapon doesn't matter.

If you do not feel like upgrading Duane's frontal skill, you can use the pre-existing spearmen, but getting the mininum of frontal for the spearmen job is easy. You only need about 3 to 5 points in frontal (for now). Plow the rest of the points into Kendal's melee, Thomas' ice skill, the paladin officers' holy, the archer's range, melee, and holy, and leave it at that for now. Naturally, Kendal should aiming for a core unit of knights, your archers should remain as longbowmen, and any excess should be used for upgrading other skills such as Duane's gunpowder and range or an officer's melee (you can usually stop at 10 to 20) so they can lend you more killing power. Holy should be increased slightly to give you spells more power -- although the HP recovery equipment (it is possible to have +150% HP recovery from Kendal w/ the right equipment) gives a much more quantative gain.

Point 1
When you start, move your troops southeast to increase the amount of time the enemy need sto get to you. Any fast units that reach you can be attacked first while the slower units can be attacked later. The enemy randomises which unit(s) move out first (the lich usually, but not always). Sending a scout to provoke the enemy is not advised.

Your goal is to arrange your forces with the infantry in the front, the spearmen to the side and the archer behind to cast Curio. Before long your troops will be hit by lightining bolt -- the time you've spent making the enemy come to you will let you cast two Curio spells in quick succession to recoup your wounds before you attack the ghoul unit.

Once melee is engaged, enemy cavalry spawn and attack you from the north and west. You need to be quick about moving your spearmen (faster in wide formation) around the melee and stopping in front of the cavalry so they can be chewed up. Your archers need to alternate between casting curio on Kendal and firing on cavalry who survive. Remember that ghoul leaders are the floating lichs; enemy archer leaders are the Rithion/male elf in red pants rip-off. Scorpions are easy if you target the head and press stick towards and the green button.

Point 2
After wiping out the enemies who first appeared, move slowly and cautiosly to point 2 to meet the rest of the enemies. Infantry should march in tight formation while spearmen should march in wide formation. This allows your spearmen to move around the infantry (who are always targetted by cavalry) while your archers can move (in normal speed/formation) around to avoid melee.

Meet each of the enemy's ghoul units w/ Kendal, kill their leaders quickly and watch for more cavalry attacks by using the spearmen judiciously. If you need your archers to fight scorpions hand to hand for a while (prevents them from doing the shockwave attack) so your spearmen can stave off cavalry, do so. One of the reasons why you want Kendal and the archer unit with Curio is that either unit can cast the vital spell on one another if the need arises! Mop up the rest of the forces and head back to base.

Kendal 003 - Nymphbarren

Kendal 003 - Nymphbarren

Preparation
Read the previous two pages about how to prepare Kendal's forces. By now, you should have enough XP and gold to outfit Duane as a mortar unit, as well as get some pretty damn nifty equipment for Kendal. Speaking of equipment, you can probably give your core unit of Knights near immunity to melee attacks (or at least a heckuva lotta resistance). Here's how: Kendal's armor should offer some sort of melee and range or lightning resistance (along with the HP recovery and KO recovery bonuses). Otho, the paladin officer, can have his armor similarly upgraded along with Thomas' armor and shield. Assuming that you get an average 20 to 40 increase in resistance per item equipped, you can have a 120 resistance to melee if your leaders and officers are so equipped. This doesn't take into account the troops' armor, which can also be increased in a similar fashion.

Otho the paladin officer can also take advantage of a "Level bug" in the game. Simply make him the leader of a palading unit (Melee 15, Holy 6) and then reassign him as Kendal's officer. Now, instead of Otho being level 15 (as infantry), he will be at least level 21, giving him better access to higher grade weapons and items.

Duane should have the minimums for the mortar unit -- go and make his troops mortarmen. If you want to buy equipment for Duane, be sure to change his troops' job type to infantry before you buy equipment -- this way, you can keep using that equipment regardless of Duane's units' job (I am your father's brother's cousin's former roommate ...). Naturally, to get the best items, you'll want to moderately increase Duane's melee skill. His final melee score in IGN's campaign was around 20, although we've been able to get away with less early on.

If you are not able to create suitable mortarmen from Duane's unit, consider making his unit either heavy infantry or knights and schlupping them along as a second unit of infantry so you can have them lead charges on enemy positions -- the spells will hit them (and kill a few men) but Kendal (following up) can cast Curio before both infantry teams clash with the enemy. Your archers can then follow and cast Curio and shoot arrows while providing air cover.

Point 1
There are infinite ghouls coming out from the north western hill; this is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your world view. Your best method of attack is to charge the southwestern hill and destroy all enemies there (keeping in mind meteor or lightning storm will be cast on your troops). Obliterate the southwest and take stock of your forces. If you are still in good shape, consider sitting on the southwest hill for fifteen or twenty minutes and deal with the dribble of ghouls coming out to attack you. With archers casting Curio to heal your infantry and to damage ghouls, and with Duane's extra unit, you can really clean up on some experience. When you grow tired of the ghoul killing, move up and exterminate the stationary ghoul unit (the one casting spells) and end the ghoul threat.

Point 2
More enemies in the form of Dark Elves (with magic) will appear from the east and point 2. Your goal is to annihilate the remaining enemies, and you can do that with relative ease because for some reason, allies will spawn miraculously and start lumbering towards the battle. Your best best is to slow your advance (or stop altogether) and wait for your allies to catch up while you shoot down the Black Wyverns that appear.

If you've managed to squeeze off Duane as a mortar unit (chances are their melee will be the minimum for the job if you did so), you can place Duane on the high ground overlooking the valley below and sucker enemy units into wandering near so your mortars can devastate them. If you do this, be sure the mortarmen are in range of your archer's arrows since the Wyverns may attack the mortar unit instead of Kendal.

If you do not have mortars, then it is a simple infantry and archer operation -- mop up and head back to base.

Kendal 004 - Woodenshade

Kendal 004 - Woodenshade

Preparation
Read the previous three pages about how to prepare Kendal's forces. By now, you should have enough XP and gold to outfit Duane as a mortar unit, as well as get some damn fine equipment for Kendal and his core unit. Take advantage of the level bug in the game and get some nice stuff for your troops -- melee resistance will make your troops last quite some time. Kendal's scouting skill should be 3 by now.

Duane should have the minimums for the mortar unit by now. There is no doubt about it. However, you should not expend experience on Duane's unit since you will be using archers and sappers for this mission. Increase the teamwork skill of the sappers to at least 10. You can then be sure that your sappers will disarm traps and such quickly rather than slowly.

For your archers, consider getting XP and SP bonus bows for the troop (not the leader), as well as some armor to increase melee and range resistances.

Point 1
There are more ghouls in this stage, just like the last one. However, the presence of mines (traps) in the forest make it dicey to fight freely without meeting some nasty explosion. Both your sappers and scout may detect traps, but only sappers may disarm them. Sappers can set-up traps, so keep them in tight formation when moving around. The lich is near point 1, but will move to point 3 in order to lure you towards more enemies.

Point 2
Disarming all traps in the forest will yield bonus XP, but the mission ends as soon as all enemies are dead. You may want to consider leaving an enemy air unit alive while your units are under forest cover. Use that time to find and disarm the remaining traps. In any case, disarming traps earns you SP, which in turn is used for Curio as Orcs and ghouls fall on your forces.

Point 3
The last enemies are here, as long as you make it past the mine fields. Black Wyverns will show up and attack -- stay in forest terrain to make them stop attacking. Your archers can down air units while in forest. Luring all the enemies into the cleared areas is one way to beat this mission, but you can also lay a few traps yourself with your own sappers (at 100 SP per trap) and then sitting your infantry on the trap. When the enemy gets into melee with your soldiers, your traps and your soldiers will do damage. Note that your own traps will knock down your men, but will not deal any damage to them (much like friendly fire in Dynasty Warriors).

Kendal 005

Kendal 005A - Raven Meadow

Preparation
You have the opportunity to create and deploy a support unit here, and the most obvious two support units are the bomber and the storm rider. You do not need either, but you may want to consider using bombers to replace your mortarmen as you will need spearmen to repel cavalry in this stage. Duane's unit is perfect for spearmen duty.

If you decide to go with Storm Riders, know that they will not be able to attack cavalry in forest terrain while bombers can harass them regardless of terrain, although Storm Riders can attack the Wyverns in the stage.

Point 1
You have allies in this mission. Find a side to support -- left side or right side -- and keep the ally in the game by casting Curio and attacking with Kendal's whole force. Any cavalry will spawn randomly over the map, but will make way for your infantry quickly if your allies are not attacked. Keep your spearmen out of any melee (have the retreat through Kendal's melee to hang them up if necessary) and your archers and bombers buzzing the battle with arrows, curio and bombs.

Black Wyverns will attack your ally Storm Riders and units, so keep your bombers away or in range of your archers who can both shoot down the Wyverns and cast Curio to heal the bombers. Note that your bombers move on the "all unit command" so redirecting them may be necessary if you are moving into enemy territory.

Point 2
Moving the fight to the forest means that your ground troops can ignore Wyvern attacks (not so your air units) while your archers down their riders. The forest terrain is sparse on this map -- you will need to either overlap units (have one unit march through another then command it to stop when the units overlap) to keep your troops safe. Unless you are inept at moving your troops around using the mini-map (a true Command and Conquer exercise), you should have little problems with this mission.

Kendal 005B - Osmond

Preparation
If you believe 5A was a hard stage, by all means finish this stage for more XP and gold. 5A unlocks the path to the next town faster, while Osmond is a rather extra mission. It is by no means easy if you lack mortar units of your own. Use Kendal's infantry (with healing), the archers (with healing), and Duane's mortarmen.

Point 1
More idiot allies. It'd be best to assault the eastern side, even though that brings you closer to the wall archers than you care for. The reason is that the mortar units on the right are more easily guarded in the dense forest from archers and they can work over any nearby enemy while your forces are nearby acting as screens.

Point 2
Sadly, none of the units on the west side near point 2 will survive long without Curio. They do buy you enough time to destroy half of the wall archers while fending off enemy units. Look out for magic infantry -- a single casting of meteor will wipe out your mortarmen if they do not have sufficient health. Additionally, ghouls keep appearing from point 2 (behind the wall) and lend a constant trickle of reinforcements to keep your units busy. Curio time!

Point 3
The wall archers are out-ranged by your mortars. If you killed all other mobile enemies, hang back and let Duane's mortarmen decimate the units. Take your sweet time and enjoy the carnage you can wreak. Once all the wall archers are dead, the mission is over.

Kendal 006 007 008 009

Kendal 006 - Essex Forest

Preparation
You'll be able to bring two support units in for this mission, giving you some heavy firepower. Consider using Storm Riders and Bombers. Be sure to remember which one you added to the roster first, as that will be the first choice on your special ability menu. Also know that the Curio spell will be shuffled down a notch and will be on a different window than what you're accustomed to before if you have more support troops.

Point 1
A simple kill everything scenario. With infantry, archers, mortars, Storm Riders, and Bombers, you should be able to dominate the map. Attack the air units with archers and Storm Riders (but keep them away if enemy archers are able to cover their air troops). Your infantry, mortars and bombers should be able to decimate the ground forces easily while your archers cast Curio.

As always, move in force and your enemies will be weakened too far to be of any threat to you. Your Bombers and Storm Riders, if in danger of being killed, can be moved to the corners of the map until your infantry can rush the archers (it will then prevent them from firing arrows). Bring back your support troops if no archers can fire and use your own archers to cast curio on your troops. Damn this is an awesomely easy mission!

Kendal 007 - Brimstone

Preparation
By now, your units should be bloated with XP and gold (compared to what was available in Easy and Normal). However, spending frivolusly will still result in your defeat. All units regardless should have 10 or more in all their skills. However, if a skill is not "pertinent" (meaning it doesn't have the green smiloid face in the leader skill menu) to your unit's job, then do not increase or upgrade it until you actually change the job that uses that skill in battle.

That signature waste of points to make the skills "look equal" on your leader's skill resume is foolish and a mark of a real amateur.

Notice that this mission is one of the first missions where you can bring along six units. IGN's advice is stick with the five units you have. If you need more units to win a mission, then you're in trouble, since most missions do not allow you to deploy four or six units at a time. Instead, focus on working with what Kendal already has (which is enormous, according to his wife).

Bring all the units around and if you are good with cavalry, bring active cavalry; if you are good with traps and like fighting on friendly trapped ground, bring pyrotechnics. However, IGN used the infantry-archer-spearmen etente with Bomber support. With two spearmen (one Duane, the other the starting unit) units, you can cover more area from cavalry while the bombers serve as your "mortar" -- just like the Luftwaffe Ju-87 Stuka, dwarf bombers are great against ground forces if no anti-air defences are around.

Point 1 / Point 2
Bring the fight to point 1 or point 2. The reason is that you want to remain under cover of as much forest as possible if air troops arrive. With infantry and spearmen, it is possible to shrink your formation to fit in the small copse of trees in either point.

Your units naturally should move together so your archers can cover your bombers and cast heal. Your spearmen, if Walden's el-crap-o suck-o unit taught you anything way the hell back in Gerald's campaign, is that they can be used as light infantry with a serious weakness to ice and lightning (esp. lightning). Unless you really need the extra melee attacks, use your spearmen to ward off cavalry on either side of the melee; Kendal using his weapons and the bombers can take out the rest of the trash. By pressing the D-Pad in melee and hitting the green button quickly while the curosr is in the middle of the screen (usually at Kendal's feet), you call in your bombers in to join the melee. Mop up and head for base.

Kendal 008 - Bronzewood #1

Preparation
If you haven't realised it already, you can backtrack to earlier base camps to access the barracks menu. Change Duane back to mortarmen if you used his unit otherwise earlier. The set-up of infantry-archer-mortars plus the Bomber and Storm Rider support works somewhat here. If your support units are having too much trouble from the archers and what not here, do not bother to deploy them at all.

Point 1
Your dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks allied AI will surge forward here to reveal the enemies and the Swamp Mammoth at point 2. Let them draw the Mammoth's fire first then move your mortarmen in. Narrow the field of fire and unleash mortar hell (gunpowder 15+, range 15+) on the mammoth. It should succumb within a minute real-time. If you want to have more fun killing the mammoth, bring a catapult; however, know that you will have to screen your siege unit from infantry, archers, and air units.

Point 2
Your biggest threat is the Swamp Mammoth. If it manages to draw a bead on any of your personal units, consider restarting the stage. Let your allies suck up the damage, then use Curio on what's left of them so they can help you mop up. Once the Swamp Mammoth is gone, you can go back to using your old tricks to wipe up the whole map. Mop up and head for base.

Kendal 009 - Bronzewood #2

Preparation
By now, Kendal's unit should have equipment with SP and XP bonuses in their weapons, good armor for the troops and leaders. Kendal should have his weapons and good HP recovery items (remember combination effects are rare but possible to find). Thomas and the paladin officer should have good armor for boosting melee, range, lightning, and earth resistances.

Duane should have various equipment to boost his unit's melee and explosive or fire resistances. The archer leader should have a bow with increased range and holy. The archer troops should ideally have SP and XP bonus bows (the swords can have them, but we're not sure if the SP bonus is earned from melee or ranged combat -- better stick with the bows).

Your sapper and cavalry/spearmen units should avoid buying equipment since they change jobs frequently. If you have the cash and the desire to do so, make the leader an infantry leader and pick up some good items to increase melee and some other skill (remember that melee is the base skill for all units so you can change back to the 'high level' jobs and still equip the item).

Bring along a ballista or catapult for this mission. It'll be fun. Your Storm Riders can come along with your infantry-archer-mortars if you want some peace of mind.

Point 1
Enemies outnumber you by almost 4-to-1 odds here, but you can slowly take out their pre-set numbers by using scouts to find isolated troops and remaining hidden in the forest where you start out. The reason you want to bring a ballista along is apparent when air troops start looking for your forces and wondering why their buddies' body parts are littering the forest. However, your archers and Storm Riders can serve just as fine and your mortars and catapults can devastate ground forces long before they attack your infantry.

As an alternative, you can skip the catapult and simply mine the whole forest with your pyrotechnics, although the SP cost will be rather high at 100 SP per mine or trap.

Point 2
Enemies are numerous, but they are finite. Sooner or later, you will have to move slowly north to point 2 to trigger more enemies. Chances are you can fight in the small patch of wood once the majority of the enemies are dead and you out-number the enemy. Whatever your forces are comprised of, make use of them and concentrate on one side or you may face several damage units instead of fewer overall units.

Kendal 010 011 012

Kendal 010 - Norwart

Preparation
This is a big operation, but you will only be able to bring a few units along. Bring your standard entente of units (infantry-archers-mortars) and bring your bombers as well. When the second part of this mission starts, you may want those bombers instead of storm riders, although I hear those women storm riders are the flexible kind if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Continue to upgrade your units -- Kendal should be at 25 or there abouts for melee. His officers can remain at level 10 to 20, with their spell skills recieving priority over melee. Duane being around level 50 as a mortar leader is not unusual at this point.

Point 1
If the patriarch's unit dies, it's over, so protect it. Unlike normal units, wounds cannot be healed on the patriarch, but there's an extra bar on the bottom right to show you that unit's health. Don't worry if the patriarch is attacked by one unit of infantry, but worry if you leave the patriarch's unit alone to deal with it. There is a gauntlet of enemies at point 2, so instead of rushing out to your doom, carry the war north into the forest and decimate each unit in turn. Get the scorpions and magic infantry, then archers, lastly infantry.

Point 2
If you can cut across this plain without a sweat, then you are an RTS god. However, most of the game's players are not, so we're going to kill everyone the slow and steady way at point 1. You also get a tons of XP and gold from doing so.

Point 3
Your ultimate goal for the first part is to reach Walter's unit and engage him in melee. Restore all your units' health to maximum with Curio just in case (except the patriarch). Note that Walter's unit is invincible (leading us to think an invincibility code is somewhere, but accessible only by developers). Use Kendal's unit to engage Walter, watch the cut scene and then get ready to run for your life.

Norwart Escape

Point 1
The reason why this map was re-used is because you will be on the same map, with the same units, but fighting a whole new breed of enemy -- das Encablossa! You start in point 1 in the middle of your allies fighting off a horde of monsters you've never seen before (not even the extensive AD&D Monster Compendium covers anything similar). Don't wait -- that means you die. Instead switch to wide formation while running all your units directly southeast to point 2.

Point 2
Chances are that your archers or mortarmen may die; not an entirely big loss, but you should keep them alive if possible. Use your bombers to harass the Encablossa and avoid the Encablossa Spitters (which are their archers). Make your way to the extraction point in point 2 by running and retreating -- if all your other units die but Kendal is in the red zone, the mission will end.

Kendal 011 - Ecclessia Wall

Preparation
Time for a defence mission. Somewhat like Gerald's mission 9, but with more enemies. Instead of mortars, take some cavalry (meaning your Storm Riders change jobs yet again), infantry and archers. Give your cavalry some frontal and riding somewhat to 15+ each and build your archer's range stat to 20+. Kendal should be over melee 30 by now.

Encablossa have three basic units: Encablossa (infantry), Spitters (archers), and Flyers (self-explantory). Flyers can attack ground units like bombers, so you will want archers with you all the time. Spitters are like archers and should be fought exactly as such. Encablossa infantry are simply tougher; leaders are also difficult to find -- keep an eye out always for the red bar, and use hit and run to locate the unit's leader quickly. However, do not ignore Thomas' ice attack when there a lot of Encas around Kendal.

Point 1
The wall here is simple and protected by three infantry units. Your archers should endeavour to stay near, but away from the infantry, since the Encas will attack the gate and the infantry before it with some rudimentary AI. Kendal should support any infantry nearby (paladins preferred since they can cast Curio if the AI is not in melee and has SP) while the archers should be moved away from all melee. Survive for about 800 seconds and you win.

Point 2
Way point your cavalry between both points 2. You need not go out that far, but having them run across the area in front of the gate is a good idea in normal or wide formation. Be sure to set their last way point somewhere east or west of the gate so they will not be accidently left alone for Enca food. Survive for about 800 seconds and you win.

Kendal 012 - Jungsburg

Preparation
Here is a show-stopper stage. If you forget that spearmen can stave off attacks if motionless, then you are at a loss to beat this stage. Change Duane's unit and the cavalry unit into spearmen and up their frontal to about 12 or 15 -- that should buy you just enough time to escape with your very life.

Point 1
You start with two Encablossa units converging on point 1. If you move south to point 3, you die. If you stay, you die. Easy? Yes. Provided you know what to do. Your two spearmen deploy on either side of Kendal. Widen both spearmen units and leave them stationary. Shrink Kendal's unit and send a scout directly south to point 3. This should trigger the mass of enemies that will kill you.

By now, the two initial Enca units will clash with your spearmen and they will be held at bay temporarily while Kendal's unit makes its escape. Head to the northeast or northwest. IGN head northeast on a whim -- plus most the enemies seemed more sparse on that map edge. Your scout will also have died unless you took the effort to program in some waypoints and moved it directly up north to draw the main body of Encablossa.

Point 2
Once Kendal reaches the corner, the key now is to avoid enemies by switching to wide formation and running along the map edge. Feel free to way point the path to the southern corner and then to directly point 3 for Kendal.

Point 3
If any spitters are sassing your unit, ignore the hits and keep moving. Stopping only means that the Encablossa in the center may detect you when you start fighting the spitters (who will kill you anyway) and swarm you. The spearmen die a horrible, grisly death, but are returned to your forces at the end of the mission. The spearmen's fighting will also attact the attention of the main body of Encablossa, luring them away from the south edge of the map. Once you are in the red zone, you can breathe easy and pick up your 30,000 XP.

Kendal 013 - Funero

Kendal 013 - Funero

Preparation
This is the last mission. What ever you have is what you can do. Kendal may or may not reach melee 40 (it is not necessary). Buy all the equipment you can to increase Kendal's unit's melee resistance -- you'll need it to survive. Also, be sure to have HP recovery bonuses on all of Kendal's equipment (it's rarer on the officer's equipment).

If you have extra money and would like to outfit Duane's mortarment with better mortars, feel free to do so. Chances are your other units may or may not need to be upgraded much. IGN took infantry, archers, mortars, a ballista, and Storm Riders for this mission, but you can take two mortar teams (moves faster than siege engines) instead. Conversely, you can also trade the ballista for a catapult for use later.

Just remember that this is a two part mission -- fail the second part with poor planning and you need to redo it from the beginning. Beware that siege units may move too slow in water and suffer "drowning damage" in the second half of this mission. Mortars are also a better choice since they move more or less at the speed of your infantry in tight formation. Don't forget the movement-mobility concept in the O2S4MEC formula.

Point 1
You will have an Ecclessian Battaloon, which isn't very cool -- it's mainly a scout that flies. If you were hoping for a Battleship-Balloon (which would make more sense), you're out of luck. You need to keep the Battaloon alive by not moving over any place that's in range of spitters. Unfortunately, your "move all forces" button will also move the Battaloon, so be sure to re-command it to move elsewhere.

Start by moving towards point 1. You will face an endless stream of spitters and mixed infantry (about level 50). Don't worry -- you can kill them in this level. You simply have to have one mortar team fire concentrated fire while the other team fires a broad range. Your archers need to move close to cast curio (closer than their maximum arrow range). Your Storm Riders can help out in battles with odds as bad as 6-to-1. However, with curio and melee resistance, you should notice that Kendal's men will takevery little damage -- anything over one-fifth can be (and should be) healed by Curio.

When the first wave of respawns die off, move up ahead -- if you remain, you squander time and victory since more spitters and Encas come down the valley.

Stop when you come to the southeast corner, as a flyer will be present. Move your forces out slowly and let your archers take down the flyers. Chances are you will be in another melee here. It's tedious, but you must use mortars, curio, and Kendal to forge a path to the alien citadel.

Point 2
Depending on what you bring along, you may want to leave some units here. The siege engines in particular will have a hard time reaching this spot if they move too far to point 3. When your Battaloon touches point 3 and triggers the movie, all your forces need to move to point 2's red extraction point to be taken to part two of the mission. It is otherwise a straight up hack-fest when more spitters come down the valley.

Point 3
If you are able, move a scout out to point 3 to trigger the rest of the spitters. You only need to lure them away from point 3 so your Battaloon can make a run to the northeast corner. Once it reaches its destination and triggers a cutscene, you need to move all your surviving units to point 2 to move on. Yes, this includes your remaining support units (except the Battaloon).

Encablossa

Point 1
Holy flurking schnit! Your forces are dropped into the middle of hostile territory. It is up to you, but it is best to head out of the center where a beam is constantly damaging your units. Additionally, there is a river running east to west where you should expect to lose some men because the spitters are waiting for you at point 1.

Make a rapid decision to move your troops directly north to the map edge and take out the spitters following you. Use curio on Kendal (spitters tend to attack your core unit; if they are attacking someone else, heal them instead). Your archers and mortars should attack the spitters quickly. Be sure to re-adjust their area of coverage, as they reset after the map change. If your battaloon gets shot down here on this alien map, don't worry about it -- you won't need it anymore.

Point 2
Once you've secured some peace and quiet, you need to select one of the four corners (one of the northern corners is best) and attack the spitters using your mortars. Assuming you have at least one mortar team, have them inch to the closest spitter and attack while your infantry and archers stand by to screen them from ambushes. Use a scout to sight for you (forward observer) and you will never have to venture close up.

The spitters are no match for your mortars -- in fact you out-range them to the point where they cannot even return fire (or detect you) unless you stray too close. That's the reason why you use a scout. Destroy all the spitters in the corner and new stalks will emerge to "protect" the big Encablossa stalk. Fighting them in melee is detrimental to your health -- instead use archers to kill each one in a few salvoes.

New spitters emerge from point 1 occasionally, so you need to watch for them with mortars or arhcers (who ever is not attacking the point 2 at the moment). Kendal definitely needs to be in top shape for the whole fight. If your units are being hit by the red beam from the center, move them towards the map edge to safeguard them. You can ill-afford to misuse SP now. New spitters definitely appear when the Encablossa stalks are destroyed, so keep a look out on your mini-map.

The battaloon and storm riders will not do anything (the storm riders can attack the spitters, but is suicide). However, they can spot for you -- this gives you three "scouts" for this map instead of one.

In the off chance a spitter is alternately casting Curse-related spells (Darkmist is a favourite) on your units and moving away when you chase it, dont' fall for the ruse -- it is to lure your units to one of the corners to be slaughtered. Instead, chase it slightly to keep it out of spell range and then move your infantry or archers back so the spitter spell unit falls under the mortar umbrella once more. Go back and forth until the spitter spell unit dies.

Hug the map edges to reach each corner. Again, repeat your mortar, screening, archer attack on each corner. A quick note about the river in the middle of the map -- it will do damage to your units if they linger in it, so move everyone off the water as quickly as possible. Micro-management will let you get the range on your enemies. Use scouts and mortars exclusively to target and destroy each corner. It takes a while, but this solution is almost fail-proof.

Point 3
When the last big Encablossa stalk "dies", ten more stalks grow in the middle of the map at point 3. Fight off the remaining spitter reinforcement (it's true that they just 'spawn out' in the middle of the map and attack you). There should be no more enemies on the map excep the red beam and the stalks. Move your archers with infantry casting heal to destroy each stalk. Once all ten stalks are gone, you've finished the Human Hard campaign.

Regnier 001 002

Regnier 001 - Holy Ground

Preparation
Infantry, archer, cavalry units will be Regnier's core since his units are comprised differently. Kendal used infantry, archer, and mortar for a defefnsive strategy since the mortars can bombard units before they are even in firing range. However, the short range of the Dark Elf archers mean that they need to rely more on cavalry; Kendal players who use the infantry, archer and cavalry core miss out on being able to bombard enemy units while they sit back and eat popcorn.

Point 1 / Point 2
Move all units north, through the enemy, then west (avoiding the red zone where the Altar of Destruction is at point 4), north again following the cliffside to point 2, and over to the for-now empty north east corner at point 3. This will pull apart the paladins, infantry, archer, and mortarmen who are at the beginning and allow you to hopefully attack and kill the infantry and archers before the mortarmen can arrive to support them (remember that mortarmen are slower than normal). While your infantry and archers are retreating (use waypoint movement if they are safe from melee), use the cavalry to charge the infantry to build about 700 to 800 SP. You want to be able to cast the tree of healing twice when fighting in the northeast corner.

Point 3
Use the first tree of healing to recoup losses during the retreat. With the infantry and archers in the corner, engage the first enemies who come down the valley. Your archers will also be on high ground to shoot the enemy, but their primary goal in all your battles in Regnier's campaign is to cast the tree of healing on Regnier's unit so he can survive long enough to do damage. Your cavalry can be recalled to run through the melee several times giving you SP needed for Regnier's special moves, which will need to be mastered if you want to be successful.

Unlike Kendal, Regnier's moves all are highly SP dependent and require you to time holding the blue or yellow button after a previous key press. Alternatively, if you are not very technical, hold the red button to activate Regnier's damage plus mode. One activated, all of Regnier's moves do more damage (about 50% to 100% more) in addition to imparting elemental fire damage. However, this constantly drains SP (not mention the SP cost to activate it in the first place). To completely deactivate damage plus, hold the red button until the flames dissipate from Regnier's weapon or you can simply wait for the SP to run out. While in damage plus mode, Regnier's "earthshaker" move will not function, since that move puts Regnier in damage plus temporarily.

Paladin leaders are like the ones you faced before with Lucretia -- basically the guys with the fancy winged helmets. However, magic-user leaders are also present, as well as dwarf leaders for the mortarmen and wood elf leaders for various archers and infantry units. If you have a game from any of the human missions, head to the pub and look over the mercenaries who are there. Many of them are simply reproduced as enemies for the Dark Legion campaigns.

Point 4
Once all the enemies chasing you to the northeast corner are dealt with, hug the cliffside as you make your way cautiously to the southwest corner. If you send out a scout, you can see that there are several units who gave up chase when you fled. Those are usually the magic casting units. Surprisingly, none of them will notice you unless you draw in close. Your archers can still fire on them just at the limit of their range. Do so now, since you want to reap as much XP and gold as early as possible. You can use your cavalry to mop up the units if they are about to die (about 1 pixel of life left). Before heading to the red area, consider heading to the southeast where you started (use your scout). You can even clean up on the enemies there using your cavalry.

As soon as Regnier's unit enters the red area, another cut-scene will occur and a unit of air troops will appear at point 2 with more enemies in the northeast at point 3 that will need to be defeated to clear the stage. This is why you want to kill everyone on the map before those conditions spawn new enemy units. Stack your infantry, cavalry, and archers together and down the air troops. Use your scout to provoke the northern unit (chances are it will be moving as soon as it sees any of your units -- line of sight is mutual across this flat piece of ground). Head in and destroy it.

Leave your main force in the center of the map. Move your scout to point 3 where a continent of patriarchal guards (basically paladins in gold armor) are waiting. The scout should provoke them into moving to the middle of the board where your forces can meet them and destroy them. Remember to keep the archers out of melee so they can heal your units. Your cavalry builds the SP you need, and the infantry should rely on Regnier's moves to wipe out leaders and the general opposition. Once all the units are dead, you can finally save your progress.

Regnier 002 - Colonock

Preparation
Now that you get a chance to see what your forces are made of, consider upgrading them so that they do their job highly effectively. Regnier's unit will always be heavy Orc infantry. The cavalry unit will always be cavalry (of some sort), while your archers should remain archers for sake of avoiding micro-management as mounted archers. A fourth unit of orcs are made available for you to modify and train; it is advisable to make them monster trainers by adding the bare minimum for teamwork then increasing the training and melee necessary for a Scorpion. Just like tanks, Scorpions can be used to chew up infantry and archers. Your ultimate goal is to make the Scorpion unit a Swamp Mammoth, but consider using a Scorpion when no support units may be deployed and you have extra slots to fill.

If you intend to add effectiveness to Urukubarr's or Leinhart's assist attacks, you may be disappointed to know that Leinhart's attacks are rather ineffective (much like Morene's) and that it would be best if you stop increasing their skills around level 10. Leinhart's assist attack will not even do much damage as he even lacks the range skill on which his attack is reliant on. Urukubarr's melee may be built up to about 20 later, but Regnier's officers' attacks are rather disappointing considering the amount of damage Regnier can do on his own. Consider upgrading Urukubarr, but you may want to leave Leinhart's skills around level 10 (per skill; it will not cost more than 1500 XP to attain those totals) since we will be exploiting the oofficer level glitch with Leinhart after the first few stages.

Point 1
This stage is straight forward -- kill all enemies. Enemies being paladins, archers, and mortarmen. Stay away from the sides indicated by the points, as they tend to mess up your cavalry as they make their turns to charge the enemy once more. Isolate the mortars first and decimate them. Then make your stand there with archers and cavalry backing you up.

With your allies, seek out the mortars first since they do the most damage. Once they are dealt with, attack the archers. Use Regnier's SP skills to cleave through the opposition quickly. Enemy infantry will be vulnerable to your infantry, acher, and cavalry combination once no other units are around to support them. As with Kendal, be wary of units that do not seem to move and have the blinker circle swirl about them. The rapid blinker circle swirl denotes units that have just cast spells.

Regnier 003 004 005

Regnier 003 - Raven Meadow

Preparation
Continue to build your forces as mentioned on the previous page. If you want to have a change of pace, you can turn your cavalry into Wyvern riders and have your free slot occupied with a Scorpion. However, you will need to be wary that Scorpions are also vulnerable to bomber fire. If you do bring the Swamp Mammoth along, then it is a testament that you "know what you doing" and have planned accordingly.

Point 1
Remember you can use forest terrain as cover from archers and Storm Riders, but not mortars and bombers. Use infantry to meet all the attacks and to keep your archers clear of any melee so they may cast the tree of illusion to heal your units. If you brought along a Swamp Mammoth, any wounds it incur may be healed fully since it is considered a single unit in the game and cannot be incure any "deaths". The Swamp Mammoth's range and firepower should be brought to bear on any archer or infantry units being attacked by your allies.

Point 2
While doing so, dispatch your infantry and archers to hunt down mortars. You can ignore archers for the most part if you stick to the forest. You can also protect yourself from enemy Storm Riders as well since they cannot attack your troops while under cover of thick forest as seen in this map. Beware of light woods in your map briefing -- that is a strong signal that there will be little or no cover from air troops. Light woods also do not heal Dark Elves very well.

Mortars penetrate the forest canopy (much as the Viet Minh learned during the Vietnam War) so you need to chase down the mortars before they decimate your units. If you are adept with Regnier and make use of his stick towards and green button attack, you can build SP as quickly as cavalry and not over-rely on your Orc riders to get your share of SP. Systematically wipe the map clean and head for base.

Regnier 004 - Ethindel

Preparation
If you haven't been able to get a Swamp Mammoth by now, get one for this stage since you can basically destroy all the enemies in the stage without even moving from where you start. Bring along infantry, archers, axemen, and a Swamp Mammoth. Your cavalry can serve as axemen here since they will not be moving anywhere.

If you need an extra "cushion" unit, consider releasing Leinhart and assigning him a ghoul unit. Ghouls do very little damage, but they are fairly resistant to melee attacks. Since none of the enemies in this stage has Holy magic, you can use ghouls with no fear of them being slaughtered or "turned" (to use an old D&D term). Afterwards, place Leinhart back under Regnier's command, as the extra melee resistance his armor can lend to the unit will be necessary for you to survive later stages.

Point 1
When you begin, move the Swamp Mammoth out past the mouth of the pass. Your infantry unit(s) should be behind it slightly, but not beyond the pass' exit, since you want to funnel all the enemies to one spot. Your axemen should barely have enough room to move past the infantry if there's a melee. Your archers naturally should be behind the infantry (intermingling with the axemen is OK).

Your enemies here are all Dark Elves -- meaning the five basic troop groups on Lucretia's job table (the sixth slot, Cirith's private pull-toy, is already taken). This means your Swamp Mammoth is pretty much invincible unless they start casting spells on your mammoth repeatedly (not likely, since the AI also as an SP limit). Send a sscout out and try to keep it out there. Don't worry if your scout is killed as the enemy will appear in waves, giving Regnier other chances to send out scouts. The reason you want a scout is to have early warning of air troops who will come to harass your units.

Additionally, cavalry may randomly arrive and charge your units. This is the reason why you want to hole up in the mountain pass here, so the enemy cavalry, even it they manage to charge through your infantry because you failed to see them coming, will have nowhere to turn and run to when your axemen slaughter them. Your archers will probably be able to heal the majority of the wounded infantry using the tree of illusion spell before returning to attacking any air troops. With the Swamp Mammoth and all your units covering one another, you will be able to mop up and head back to base with ease.

Regnier 005 - Essex Forest

Preparation
A stage where you will fight patriarchal guardsmen. You will have only three units, so bring your infantry, archers, and cavalry once more. Your preparation should always include an increase of Regnier's melee skill -- consider spending up to a third of the XP you gained in the previous stage to increase your core unit's skill. Leinhart, after his stint as a ghoul leader, can consider bein reassigned as an officer with his level now being melee plus his curse skill. This allows Leinhart to capitalize on his new totals and get better equipment.

If you haven't done so yet, consider looking into a weapon and armour for Regnier that yields HP recovery 50% as well as increasing the melee resistance of his troops. Unlike Kendal, Lucretia, and Gerald, Regnier will never be able to find a weapon doing elemental damage since his weapons can be imbued with the fire element at the expenditure of SP. So look for HP recovery and the highest melee score (or resistance) you can afford at the time. Anything approaching 8 to 12 is a good catch provided you can afford it.

Point 1
Attack the humans here using your basic three units of infantry, archers, and cavalry. Always meet all enemies with infantry and heal them using the archers. Then waypoint your cavalry over them to reap the SP so Regnier can damage plus enemies to death. Any archers or mortars giving you trouble can be temporarily run down and attacked with cavalry until your infantry is free to retreat and fight them. Cavalry can be healed at the same time as infantry if they are instructed to charge through a melee after a tree of illusion is cast on the melee.

Point 2
Is here on the map as an extra point. You can support your allies on the east or the west. The most basic thing to know is to attack from the west or east instead of the direct center. Being in the center will place your units in danger of being overrun if the enemies on the other side kill your allies and start looking for a fight. You also subject yourself to the entire enemy army's mortars if you attack the center. Instead, save your strength and attack from the sides.

Regnier 006 007

Regnier 006 - Brimstone

Preparation
Despite the presence of siege engines in the next mission, take a Swamp Mammoth. Your Dirigible will get turned into butt-sauce just as fast by archers and siege units, so you may as well stick with a sturdier mammoth. Refer to the previous pages for upgrading your other non-mammoth units.

Point 1 / Point 2
Here's a stage similar to Lucretia's final mission (down to the catapults), except for the all-concealing fog. You face standard paladin, magic infantry, archers, mortars, et al. at the beginning, but two catapults will spawn (at points 1 and 2) after the first wave of enemies is wiped out. Use a scout to keep watch on enemies while you work on one side of the map. Head to the middle are on the west or east side of the map -- since your Swamp Mammoth is slow, you want to be as near to the catapults as possible when they appear in the middle of the map (one on the east, one on the west).

Your Swamp Mammoth can take care of the majority of the enemy soldiers, but will require your non-mammoth units to attack both the air troops in the first wave, and the catapults as soon as the second wave appears. The forest is rather thin and will not cover your units successfully from the air -- keep your units fairly together (the Swamp Mammoth is an exception since it is so slow, your troops may run to it for cover instead). Your archers can down fliers quickly if directed to do so.

Apart from the catapults, there is not many surprises in this stage that you haven't seen before. Fight well, and head back to base.

Regnier 007A - Bronzewood

Preparation
This is the stage west of Ecclesia, with no mention of the patriarch. It should be finished first since it will give you more XP and gold to upgrade your forces before you face increasingly difficult missions. Since you can only bring three units for this and the other stage 007 mission, take along your archers, infantry, and cavalry. A note about upgrading your archers and cavalry -- increase their primary skill (range and frontal, respectively) and leave their melee at around 10 to 15. The reason being that they do not engage in melee all the time, increasing melee is only needed to have them survive brief contact with the enemy before they can flee, heal and let the infantry take over.

Cavalry can increase their riding to about the same level of proficiency as their melee since most stages have enough space for them to make a turn. Lastly, your archers will seldom cast Meteor considering the high cost of the tree of illusion (and its short effective duration) so you may want to skip out on increasing the pre-set fire skill for your archers beyond 10.

Point 1
Do not start marching your cavalry over the map, as there is a unit of spearmen right at point 1 that can chew up your cavalry and spit it out. Instead, head east and north to point 2 to attack the mortars from the sides. Once they are gone, your infantry can attack the spearmen and then the cavalry can be let loose on the rest of the field.

Point 2
Attacking from the edge has the merit of placing your archers behind your infantry with nothing to attack them. This way, they can cast heal on your infantry and rain down arrows without abandon. Clean up on XP and gold, then mop up and leave for the base. The patriarch mission requires some strategic action than this simple exercise.

Regnier 007B - Bronzewood

Preparation
The patriarch is seeking to escape the map in the northeast. If you let him reach his exit point, you lose. Catching up to the patriarch is easy, but surviving the map initially is difficult unless your units can bear some losses while your cavalry chases down the patriarch. Your equipment should always be examined after a few levels (say from 25 to 29, or every three to five levels) to see if you can improve equipment marginally for Regnier. Buy equipment for other units only if your core unit is out-fitted as best as possible and you can improve them no further.

Points 1 / 3 / 4
For starters, change the infantry to wide formation and march all the units either east or north to flank the patriarch at point 1. Not getting the patriarch to turn away from point 2 now will usually result in him escaping.

Using cavalry to charge the patriarch is impossible, since an archer and spearmen unit lead the column and three infantry act as the rear guard. Additionally, more troops are on the sidelines hidden by the fog of war (points 3 and 4). What you need to do is to move the cavalry to engage in melee with the patriarch. Since cavalry slow down when they approach their destination, they will not be at full gallop when they meet the spearmen; in any case, you will be avoiding the spearmen if possible.

The patriarch is a chicken-schnit and will run at the first opportunity. As your forces near, his unit flees while other enemies advance on you. Ask each of your units to retreat and to pursue the patriarch. Your cavalry in wide formation will be able to catch up to the patriarch and deal him damage. Since the patriarch unit is always fleeing, your cavalry will decimate his troops as he continually flees. Your infantry and archers will simply need to heal and out-last the patriarch. When a cut-scene occurs between Regnier and the patriarch, you will be beamed into another map for a "hallucinatory battle".

The hallucinatory battle basically pulls from an early memory of Regnier -- he must best Urukubarr in battle. Regnier will be able to gain SP rather quickly by simply using his sword stab move (stick towards and green button) before he can resort to damage plus to find and kill Urukubarr (figuratively speaking). Once Urukubarr bites the dust, reality sets back in and the mission is over. You will gain XP and gold from the deaths you're reaped during both real and hallucinatory fights.

Point 2
If you need to fight near this area, you're almost at a loss -- once the patriarch sets outside the map boundary, you lose. Avoid this by placing your troops in the path of the patriarch or chasing him north. If your cavalry attack the patriarch while it is in the river, you can stand to do some serious damage.

ir troops will be shot down using the archers you have. The mortar units tend to show up i

Regnier 008 009

Regnier 008 - Norwart

Preparation
If you remember Kendal's "big surprise" at Norwart cave, don't work yourself into a frenzy preparing for the Encablossa, although you should realize that any units you bring into this mission will be the same ones for the next mission, with no barracks in between.

By now, Regnier should be near or above melee 30. His support units -- the archers and cavalry should have range and frontal at 25 plus. Additionally, no units' melee score should be under 10; although it does not need to be unnecessarily high, 15 is ideal.

The reason for such over preparation is that this stage will be the stage for Regnier's forces to gain all the XP and gold you can for the rest of the campaign. The sheer number of Encablossa will be tremendous, and the risk to the objective will be great; but if you can pull off this killing spree, you will have enough money for a well-earned spending spree. You should bring infantry, archers, cavalry and the Swamp Mammoth. Dirigibles tend to be weaker and they are shot down with alarming regularity.

Point 1 / Point 2
Regnier will have as huge ally force for this stage to deal with the huge enemy force he now faces. Bring all four of your starting units and be sure your Swamp Mammoth is along for the ride. It will be the standard cavalry hunt, infantry/archer advance with the Swamp Mammoth bonmbing the crap out of the mortars and archers.

Hunt down the three to four human mortar units and your Swamp Mammoth will simply be unstoppable while your troops retreat under it. Any air troops will be shot down using the archers you have. The mortar units tend to show up in pairs, so once you kill one unit, expect another unit to appear shortly from the west. Use your allies with ruthless calculation and try to work with the strongest ones to augment your meager force.

With luck, you can save a few to have them linger on at the end of the battle to help you head west. Even if your way west is clear, be sure to wipe the map clean of enemies for the XP and gold you'll need later. Once you do, simply move Regnier's unit west to the map edge to trigger the cut-scene.

Regnier 009 - Cloud Boroune

Preparation
You can only prepare for this mission before the start of the previous mission at Norwart. Hopefully, you brought your infantry, archers, cavalry, and Swamp Mammoth at top status, because this is Regnier's big ticket to cashing in on Encablossa slaughter before the end.

Point 1
The goal is to "rescue" Gerald's unit from the Encablossa, a task easier said than done. What you will want to do is march the Swamp Mammoth straight for Gerald's position as indicated in point 1 (and by Leinhart in the briefing). At the same time, move your forces there from the sides (retreating individually if necessary). The Swamp Mammoth is tough and cannot be hurt by anything the Encablossa throw at it except for spells (which work at a reduced effectiveness due to the mammoth's resistances).

Point 2
Gerald's unit is tough but not invincible. You do need to hurry the infantry and archers into the melee to thin out the limited number of enemies in the melee ball. More enemies do spawn out from the sides of the map as indicated at point 2, but they have a limit if you move away from the sides.

Your cavalry is best used to waypoint charge the enemies in melee at wide or normal formation while you use Regnier to engage in slaughter. Keep an eye on your archers on this map, as Encablossa may appear from any map edge and prevent you from casting the healing tree spell at a crucial moment. Thin out the crowd towards the south (your archers may want to follow the Swamp Mammoth since enemies do not appear from the southern map edge) and Gerald will follow Regnier's lead.

When the enemies in the melee ball are weak, consider telling Regnier to retreat fully near the red evacuation area (but don't leave just yet). Your cavalry and Swamp Mammoth can keep attacking the Encablossa units for XP and gold (although you should know that each unit can only earn a maximum 7000 XP in each battle, regardless of kills). When you're satisfied, or suitably threatened with extermination, move Regnier to the southern map edge and when Gerald's unit moves in, the mission is over.

Regnier 010 - Cremium

Regnier 010 - Cremium

Preparation
Upgrade your infantry, archers, and cavalry in their prime skills -- melee, range, and frontal. Levels from 20 to 29 are not uncommon, although Regnier should be melee 35 or higher. Leave your Swamp Mammoth's taming skill at 25 or so, since you are primarily using it as a damage sink and unstoppable juggernaut. Don't upgrade your mammoth until after this mission however, as you will not be using it.

Point 1
There are ten dragon tombs to find. However, you will need to hit them randomly as they are placed in several limited spots on the map. Your immediate goal though, is to move your infantry up to point 1 and engage the Encablossa so you can choke them in this valley. Your archers will be supporting your infantry and not going anywhere.

Point 2
Inifinite Encablossa appear from the edges of the map and trickle down to attack you. The game's designers wanted to trick you into doing forced retreat like in the first stage, but you're smarter than that now -- hold the Encablossa at bay using your infantry and archers while you direct your cavalry in wide formation to search the yellow areas in this map. Be sure to waypoint them to search the edges as well as the center of each plateau.

Your cavalry in wide formation will be able to discover the tombs simply by heading through the valleys and making a patrol sweep of all the plateaus. Don't miss the tomb(s) at the beginning of your starting area either, as there're a few in the southeast depression.

If you forgot what a dragon tomb looks like, Lucretia's first mission has you finding a dragon tomb.

Point 3
Once all ten tombs are found, a bone dragon appears and you will have to command it to avoid having it shot down (what a crappy dragon). When you heal all your infantry and archers, move them individually to retreat to point 3 while using the bone dragon to lure spitters and your cavalry to subdue the Encablossa. Your infantry can run in wide formation, but your archers may be caught sometimes.

Remember that your formations reset to normal once you exit any melee from victory or retreat. Set waypoints for your units and head to point 3 while avoiding the Encablossa. Depending on the enemies you may face and the amount of clear ground you have, you may take a variety of routes to point 3, but the easiest way seems to be to head west, then north. Your cavalry can run through pursuing enemies to give all your units the time they need to flee.

Regnier 011 - Funero

Regnier 011 - Funero

Preparation
So now you're going to be doing the same mission as Kendal in his campaign. Regnier should be as bulked as possible, with his equipment in top shape, as Urukubarr and Leinhart. As the Encablossa do not use very good spells, focus on melee resist armors to make your infantry tough to kill in battle. Weapons with SP bonuses (not 'SP earned' bonuses, which is a different bonus) may help since Regnier and the tree of illusion uses a lot of SP.

The archers should have a range stat that approaches 40 with modified equipment and the cavalry with medium riding and high frontal (again approaching 30 or 40). The Swamp Mammoth should be around taming 25 or so. Bring it along and your force is complete.

Point 1 / Point 2
The initial part is the same as Kendal's campaign. If you haven't played it, you're basically moving through the valley with a load of Encablossa spawning and constantly attacking your troops from point 2. Keep your bone dragon back until you teleport to the next map; you'll need it for a little while. Use your infantry and archers to forge a path and your cavalry to mow down the opposition. We'll check back with you in 30 minutes.

When you reach the corner of the map, you will need to do a "battle turn around" where by you place your archers to the west of your infantry in the second valley without losing too many troops. The Swamp Mammoth cannot take out the three spitters near the Encablossa (on the map as a big red X) since the spitters cast spells and the Mammoth is rather slow. Instead, you need to get your troops up to good health, and make your break when the Encablossa you are fighting are about to die. While you are waiting for this to happen, move your Swamp Mammoth away (meaning you will have nothing to help you for a while) to the big red X to start the bombarment of the spitters there.

Point 3
As soon as you make the "battle turn-around", retreat/run to the big red X and slaughter the spitters there. If you need a safe spot for your bone dragon to hide while you are doing all this mini-map clicking, place it in the northwest corner and fly it in right after the spitters are cleared from the big red X.

Once you can move the bone dragon to the big red X, have it stay near the "Encablossa Level 37" special unit and the bone dragon will bore the hole into the monster after a while. While you wait for the Bone Dragon to do this, move your troops slowly to the summoning zone at point 3.

IGN noticed an odd thing -- that once the Ecclessian battaloon shows up and enters the Encablossa after the second cut-scene, your units seemed to be invincible from the enemy until all your units (support and otherwise) are in the red summoning zone. Use this odd glitch to heal your units to maximum health -- SP is not carried over to the next map, but your health and losses are.

Encablossa

Point 1
Your forces are dropped into the middle of hostile territory just like the other hard campaign. It is up to you, but it is best to head out of the center where a beam is constantly damaging your units. Additionally, there is a river running east to west where you should expect to lose some men because the spitters are waiting for you at point 1.

Make a rapid decision to move your troops directly north to the map edge and take out the spitters following you. Use the infantry to shield your archers while they down the flyers and your cavalry and mammoth to mow down the Encablossa. If your bone dragon gets shot down here on this alien map, don't worry about it -- you won't need it anymore.

Point 2
Once you've secured some peace and quiet, you need to select one of the four corners (one of the northern corners is best) and attack the spitters using your mammoth and cavalry. Assuming you haven't lost about half your forces to the enemy when you landed, charge your cavalry staright through the spitters when the mammoth (using a scout to observe) has wiped out half a unit. Your cavalry can move at medium or full speed to avod being shot down by spitters. By doing this, you will never have the spitters draw a bead on your core infantry and archers. Your cavalry can also stop by your archers to heal using the tree of illusion spell.

The spitters are no match for your mammoth and your cavalry -- the mammoth takes almost no damage from the spitters and the spells they cast are negated by a tree of healing. That's the reason why you use a scout. Destroy all the spitters in the corner and new stalks will emerge to "protect" the big Encablossa stalk. Fighting them in melee is detrimental to your health, but Regnier's A (hold), A (hold) move will kill one in a few blows. Cast a tree of healing on the stalk you instructed your infantry to attack and kill it quickly. Your cavalry, mammoth and archers should stand nearby in case spitters are spawned to attack you while attacking the stalk.

New spitters emerge from point 1 occasionally, so you need to watch for them with mortars or arhcers (who ever is not attacking the point 2 at the moment). All your units need to be in top shape for the whole fight, even if it means using yoru mammoth to suck up some hits. If your units are being hit by the red beam from the center, move them towards the map edge to safeguard them. You can ill-afford to misuse SP now since the tree spell costs a load and Regnier needs 60 SP to start his combo against the stalks. New spitters definitely appear when the Encablossa stalks are destroyed, so keep a look out on your mini-map.

The bone dragon will not do anything. However, it can spot for you -- this gives you two "scouts" for this map instead of one.

In the off chance a spitter is alternately casting Curse-related spells (Darkmist and Lightning are favourites) on your units and moving away when you chase it, dont' fall for the ruse -- it is to lure your units to one of the corners to be slaughtered. Instead, use your cavalry to mow down the spitters. Go back and forth until the spitter spell unit dies.

Hug the map edges to reach each corner. Again, repeat your mammoth and cavalry attack on each corner. A quick note about the river in the middle of the map -- it will do damage to your units if they linger in it, so move everyone off the water as quickly as possible. Micro-management will let you get the range on your enemies. Use your cavalry and mammoth exclusively to target and destroy each corner's opposition. It takes a while, but this solution is almost fail-proof, leaving Regnier in good health to weather the last part and the archers free to cast tree of illusion spells.

Point 3
When the last big Encablossa stalk "dies", ten more stalks grow in the middle of the map at point 3. Fight off the remaining spitter reinforcement (it's true that they just 'spawn out' in the middle of the map and attack you). There should be no more enemies on the map excep the red beam and the stalks. Move your archers with infantry casting heal to destroy each stalk. Once all ten stalks are gone, you've finished the Dark Legion Hard campaign.

[Kaelis]

Thanks a lot awesome work !

[Lord Frederick]

you are welcome there is one for heroes to I am working on. but yeah it dose help was on ign and gamespot back in the day and I know it help out other

[duppleganger2win]

This is amazing. =)