Hack & Slash → Black Sheep

[Grail Quest]

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/212

[Grail Quest]

Like "Driving for the Boots" in the Gem campaign, this map may be impossible at the default "Hard" difficulty because Red has multiple castles and monster lairs. On Month 1, Week 3, Day 7, I hadn't penetrated the border forts yet, and was still moving out of my area with 6 Thunderbirds, 45 Orcs, 37 Wolf Riders, 139 Goblins, and 16 Rogues. On that day, Red came through a one-way teleporter with 202 Halberdiers, 92 Crossbowmen, 31 Swordsmen, 66 Royal Griffins, and 11 Cavaliers. And that wasn't even its only big stack!

Honestly, with maps like this one and Driving For The Boots, I wonder who playtested the map at the default difficulty.

[Grail Quest]

As cash seemed to be plentiful during the early game, I recommend picking the Upgraded Orc Tower instead. It takes resources and gold to build, and even with Tactics, careful use of the Orcs and finishing whittled down stacks with Wolves and Goblins can reduce losses. Do NOT use Automatic Combat! The auto-combat AI tends to send your big stacks forward, whether they will get first strike or not.

[Peredhil]

"Like "Driving for the Boots" in the Gem campaign, this map may be impossible at the default "Hard" difficulty "



...actually those maps could be finished on "Impossible".Just focus in your heroes development on E & A Magic.Gem could get DD in M4,while Crag should rely on speed -you should take over O1(ignore tent,just slip when the enemy hero open the pass)in maybe 14-15 days (if I remember right, cause I've played this 3 years ago-Impossible all the SoD way )
Edited on Wed, Sep 26 2007, 12:18 by Peredhil

[Peredhil]

"Like "Driving for the Boots" in the Gem campaign, this map may be impossible at the default "Hard" difficulty "...actually those maps could be finished on "Impossible".Just focus in your heroes development on E & A Magic.Gem could get DD in M4,while Crag should rely on speed -you should take over O1(ignore tent,just slip when the enemy hero open the pass)in maybe 14-15 days (if I remember right cause,I've played this 3 years ago-Impossible all the SoD way )

[Duuuke]

I may just be lucky to have got the 'walk on water' spell from the previous quest which is perfect for this map. Picked Orc Tower as bonus and managed to take O2 in the second week. The rest is just simple and boring. It is better to cross the river as early as possible so flagged the Tarven, gold and perhaps crystal in the first week. The others had to be ignored to save time and force. In fact I took the wood and ore of A1 after finishing the tour taking O3, O1 and N1. Shame I did not get town portal in any castle

[Hansur]

This map is awful on Hard, but if you have good spells or good professions, it's NP. I've done it many times, on hard too, but I struggled like hell this time. The difference: no diplomacy. The thing I did, was to just **** the red one, wait him out, build creatures, and when he came through the portal, I legged it and just took one castle. Then I ran and killed the guy underground. Level 15 hero, but without some good spells.

Rest of the campaign is easymode, on any difficulty.

[sirvelerad]

clearly doable on "hard" difficulty: the player should concentrate to gather a thick army to slay Marzeth, instead of defeating the red player. i could do the map on hard - visited all the stat boosts, learned all the spells. all the time i had to avoid the strongest hero of the enemy, so i had to sacrifice castles - i ran from castle to castle, caused havoc. this tactic is risky, because you don't have serious reinforcements after the cat&mouse game begins, so you have to pump your army up as thick as you can, and in the end you won't have a single castle, so the defeat-7day counter will in progress, and the enemy will chase you like hounds on bloodlust. that's when i hired a lot of armyless heroes - they were the meatshields in my trail, slowed down the chasers. on defeat-2day i've found Marzeth, killed him, and I've won. all in all: my advice is to ignore the enemy (heroes with serious army) as far as you can, start with being aggressive (to obtain the artifacts and mines), then be elusive, fast, and concentrate on the obtainable spells/stat boosts.



oh and i suggest to choose the orc tower starting bonus.
Edited on Mon, Jul 29 2013, 16:29 by sirvelerad

[Homerrigsbee1]

I was able to beat this one on Hard, although I have no idea how. This is definitely one of the hardest (if not the hardest) levels of the first five Shadow of Death campaigns. There seems to be quite a bit of luck involved as sometimes the computer seems to just be having a bad day and doesn't get you in the first month...

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

I beat this mission with no particular difficulty once. Okay it did take me a few goes , the key is always that although the AI has superior resources it can be lured into fighting sieges and defeated with inferior forces and also it does not deploy it's forces very efficiently.

[Thheo]

blind spell carries this mission. if you don't have it, you need to fight the ai in castle.