Hammers of Fate → Ylaya's Quest → The Decoupling

[ILoveMagic]

Oh btw, I never used save in the first two attempts. I saved the game 4 times in the last attempt but I didn't need to load because I made a mistake or failed. I loaded because I went out to get food and had to shut down the comp while I was out.

[CeeBee]

Finally got around to playing the campaign and made it to this final map. I don't have resurrection so I found that trying to take G1 and the first town caused me a lot of losses. I restarted and headed straight for the top and had the orange armies chase me all the way up top. They surely are not dormant in my game. I'm having to rethink what I'm going to do on this one.

[Wheeler Dealer]

2.1 Hard



I played this years ago on 2.0 and just skipped the difficult garrisons until my armies were larger. Then you could get instant travel in one of the missions so as long as one hero got scholar they all got it. This time I had to fight the garrisons as intended.



Sent Ylaya east and Wulfstan and Freyda underground. Ylaya was built with Dark and Destructive magic. The 10,000 red conscripts went easily to Mass Slow followed by a puppet master and some frenzy spells. I lost 1 Grim Raider to impatience. Captured Lostdale and all three Inferno cities by day one of week 3. I had to rush Wulfstan into a battle a bit too tough for him and took meaningful casualties taking the last Inferno city.



As it played out, Wulfstan's Ignite and Fireball weren't fast enough to prevent some casualties, even with the 645 hp Resurrection spell he had picked up and as a mission starting choice during his campaign. He ended up using his Expert Summoning more than his Expert Destruction. He really never found suitable troops to add to his army, at least not without taking some of the Haven troops Freyda and Duncan were using. That didn't seem like a great choice.



Freyda was very good, Expert White and Dark. Her biggest problem was that she was so slow getting around the map.



I decided to fill in some weaknesses in Ylaya's army with inferno troops. She didn't have Resurrection and had took casualties against Enemy heroes or towns. I wanted either cerberus, pit lords or arch devils. I chose cerebus and later wished I had chosen pit lords or devils. The cerebus was great for an open field where Ylaya didn't need any help but worthless in the final siege of Tor Hrall.



After taking Lostdale and the inferno cities I took my time exploring, hitting the stat boost and collecting artifacts. The dungeon city solved Ylaya's attrition problems.



I played the final battle twice, once with Freyda and all the haven troops I could accumulate. In my first time to play, years ago, Freyda didn't have dark magic and I just remember she cast mass something every turn. This time she used mostly dark magic, puppet master and frenzy in particular. I also tried the battle with Ylaya. It was pretty much the same. Losses in both cases, but then it was the last battle.



There were 16 black dragons and 19 archangels in my armies at the end. Tolghar had 30 Lava Dragons and 70 Warlords. I finished on day 3 week 1 month 3, about a week to spare.