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The final scenario of Bohb's campaign begins in the southwest corner with an Asylum containing a grail dwelling. Nice start. That could mean baaaaaad things down the road. Anytime NWC decides to give you something nice to start with, that means they're going to make you pay for it later. This map had many difficult battles and is nicely laid out. By far the most challenging of the campaign. So let's get on with the walkthrough.
From your starting position, head east. To your south looks to be a school of chaos (that's definitely going to be one of your destinations, as are all the "schools") but it's unreachable from here, so bypass it and continue eastward. You'll soon come to a Black Dragon dwelling. Grab this baby as soon as humanly possible. You're going to want it to start generating Blackies as quickly as you can. After flagging the dragon dwelling, continue heading east. Just north of the gem mine is a small cul-de-sac with a red teleporter in it. Mine was guarded by a band of Bone Dragons. I decided early on that I was going to play this campaign very aggressively...so I went for it and attacked. A few Summon Mantis spells and I was through the Bone Dragons. Inside I found a tome of chaos. Nice. After picking up the goodies, head through the teleporter to the school of death magic. This one is pretty much the same as all the others throughout the campaign. 2 altars of death magic, a university, a conservatory, a library, a tree of knowledge and a few other minor powerups. Clear this out and head back through the teleporter. After flagging some of the local mines, sweep northward to the area above the teleporter and you'll find your second Asylum. This one is going to be your main staging point for your assault upon your enemy Lord Cardonis. After taking this castle you'll notice a large stack of Bone Dragons and Vampires guarding a pass in the north/south mountain range. LEAVE THESE ALONE! This is the only access from your land to Cardonis' land. First things first. Clear out your side of the map and grab all the castles.
There is a lot of tempting prizes to be won if you head westward out of your new castle. Don't be fooled by this. The way to go is north. You'll find 2 gold mines, a Nightmare dwelling, and your third Asylum in short order (all situated along the dividing mountain range). Once you've captured all of these locations, now you should recover any lost spell points (you should be doing this at every opportunity) and head west from your third castle. A day or two's march from your castle will find you at another Nightmare dwelling. Take it. You'll also find 2 more altars of chaos and a decent artifact. (mine was a demonary). Slightly to the west from the Nightmare dwelling is your last Asylum. Take it and recover your spell points. From here, sweep around your new castle to the north and head through the blue teleporter (I highly suggest that you kill the stack of monsters just outside the teleporter entrance. Once you finish with the battles on the other side of the teleporter, you'll exit right next to that guarding stack and by that time you'll most likely be much weaker than when you entered it. So kill them now.). The teleporter exits in the school of chaos that we saw at the beginning of the map to the south of your starting town. Fight your way past the guarding Hydra stack and grab the goodies. (this one's not a true "school" but it's still got 2 altars of chaos and some nice artifacts. Definitely worth the effort)
After you've captured all 4 of your Asylums and visited all the "schools" your next step is fairly obvious. Clear out all the wandering stacks and grab all the nice artifacts, power-ups, dwellings, treasure chests and resources. In my game this task took me until the middle of month 2. (as you can see I wasn't going for a speed record *grin*) Once I'd reached this point, it was time to start shuttling troops to my staging castle near the pass between the mountain ranges. Let me recap as to where I am at the current time of the game. I'd developed a secondary hero early on in the scenario for the purposes of getting a tactics hero. So I'd chosen a Death Knight and I'd been using this death knight to pick up all the loose resources and to take ALL the treasure chest experience that were scattered all over my side of the map. I'd have Bohb fight the battles, take the power-ups and Altar, but leave the rest to the second hero. By the time I'd cleared out my side of the map, my secondary hero had reached level 12 and had decent levels of Tactics and Combat. My castles had all dwellings (levels 1-3) built and my first castle had a dragon dwelling too. After gathering all my troops and my 2 heroes I had a very substantial army ready to sweep across the mountain pass. (mainly composed of Dragons, Nightmares, Medusae, Orcs, and cannon fodder....err...I mean bandits)
That guarding stack of Bone Dragons and Vampires looked VERY formidable, BEFORE I'd recruited my troops. Now they were just a nuisance. After swatting the beasties away like bothersome flies, I continue sweeping eastward. In a days march eastward I'm face-to-face with my first enemy Necropolis. It's defended rather decently but it's heavily outmatched by my forces. So taking it proved to be no difficult thing. After taking the Necropolis, my larger scouting range detected an enemy hero marching southward out of my view. How dare them let me see them. The nerve! I'd better go teach them a lesson. :O)
Heading south to chase down that hero revealed a couple of minor power-ups and in short order another Necropolis. THIS is where he was heading. The protection of some walls. *rolls eyes* Yeah, like THAT'S going to help him. =) Well, upon reaching the walls I check out the defenses and to my surprise...there's Lord Cardonis. Darn. I was hoping to explore this side a bit more with my juggernaut of an army. Well, no point in delaying it. I attack. Boy, this was a FUN battle. Cardonis is loaded. Tons of arti's, tons of troops and he's a level 31 Dark Lord. This battle cost me all of my Dragons, all my Nightmares, all my orcs, my Death Knight and 2 immortality potions. But in the end, those Implosions were a bit too much for his army. Victory is mine...err...well Bohb's anyway. :O)
Here are the final totals for the campaign and how Bohb ended up. This campaign can surely be beaten in a shorter amount of time because I spent a lot of time exploring and sent out very few scouts. Plus, it's sure to put out a much better score on higher difficulty levels. But the general route to victory will still be the same. Now on to "Another Bard's Tale".
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