Trouble on the final mission of HoF Campaign 2

[bobbobinson]

Playing on normal difficulty I've come across a red hero with an insane stack of doom which is proving unbeatable. I've taken my time exploring the map which may be the problem. Any ideas how to beat him? ie: do i need to beat him, can i avoid him, should i just ignore levelling up etc and get down to red's city ASAP

any tips would be greatfully received.

Mod note: clarified topic title. GC

[The Mad Dragon]

What version are you playing?

[bobbobinson]

On HoF - (no patches). Its the final dwarf mission

[The Mad Dragon]

Ah, can't help ya then.

[Sir_Toejam]

yeah, you might have waited too long to take on laszlo (yes, you need to defeat him as one of the mission requirements).

did you get the tear? that will help you build up quickly.

also, flag the creature dwellings as quick as you can.

If you have armageddon, use your fire dragons and that to take out many stacks with no losses.

take the human town to the SE if possible, to give you even more troops.

looking at what the AI gives the SW town for spawns, it looks like it gets the same number of critters as if it had the tear itself, but with two towns and all the mines and creature dwellings at your disposal, you should be able to still outrecruit the AI.

also, if you don't think one army is enough, build up a 3 hero (or a fourth, even), and give them some armies to whittle his down with before you attack with your primary army.

on the previous map, my Wulfstan learned the dimension door spell from one of the "cache" buildings, so i bypassed the garrison after the first month and started taking all the mines and resources on laszlo's side of the fence... just stay out of range of his castle until you are ready to face him, as he WILL come and attack you.

I beat him with armageddon and 12 magma dragons, in the 9th week (he left his castle to attack me).

lost 3 magma dragons. Note that I focused Wulfstan on spellpower artis and powerups for most of the campaign, and the phoenix cloak was on this map too, so he could do massive damage with his fire spells.

also, the preparation skill helps out here quite a bit.

[tumorbane]

To answer one of your questions, yes you have to defeat him (?Lazlo).

I did it last night a more defensive way.

In the field, he crushed me but I tried again and lured him to attack me in my castle. Given that I had the Tear with it's various upgrades, rune magic, and the simple advantage of being in a castle (didn't have to worry about the walkers while dealing with the swarm of griffins...ranged attacks were much less damaging) it was a massacre in my favor. Then, all that was left was mopping up....both red castles were barely defended.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

To answer one of your questions, yes you have to defeat him (?Lazlo).

I did it last night a more defensive way.

In the field, he crushed me but I tried again and lured him to attack me in my castle. Given that I had the Tear with it's various upgrades, rune magic, and the simple advantage of being in a castle (didn't have to worry about the walkers while dealing with the swarm of griffins...ranged attacks were much less damaging) it was a massacre in my favor. Then, all that was left was mopping up....both red castles were barely defended.

I used the same strategy. In town you get the free defender troops too (asuming you build the building) which are quite nice.

Also don't forget all that wonderful rune magic for etherealness, resurrection, ect.

GOW

[tumorbane]

Yes, the free defenders were quite nice. Good to see I'm not the only wimp who ran back to hide in the castle. Beating that army in the field would be most impressive, but I'm sure I'd have to restart the whole map to have a prayer at that, and I'm skeptical I could even do it.

[Simira]

SPOILER!!!





I didn't fight Laszlo.
What I did, was to send Wulfstan pretty early (2nd week or so) with all available dwarven troops, south. Crossed the Garrison with Instant travel, and took the town to South East (where Laszlo is also hidden in the corner).

Then I returned to have some more (and upgraded) troops, and took the other town (also scenario goal). After a week, Laszlo died of himself.

[Mytical]

Also lazlo is rather silly. With town portal you can (with care) lead him arround by the nose. Since he is not at his towns to recieve those reinforcements you can let another sit in the town and gather a rather large force. Then just go with your strongest hero and even on the field you can stomp him into the ground. This is how I defeated him . It is cheap, but it works.