Hammers of Fate → Freyda's Dilemma → Duncan

[King_Roland]

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/669

[King_Roland]

Quote: "AI heroes here are again dormant in this mission"



This wasn't my experience. A somewhat strong AI hero attacked my Town A at end of week 2 while Freyda was away attacking Town B.

[Corribus]

Agreed, they were mobile in my play as well, though they weren't really a problem.

Duncan, however, was quite a problem. I had the town# advantage, so I knew I would win eventually, but I decided to go try to go after him early. The battle looked something like this:

Duncan:

~550 marksmen
~250 conscript
~30 cavalier
5 paladin
~80 Imperial Griffin
~175 squires
~25 priest guys

Me:

280 squires
9 cavaliers
65 Vindicators
45 red marksmen (whatever they're called)
10 zealots

Yeah sadly that's all I had. But I managed to win by splitting the zealots into three stacks so I could continually blind Duncan's marksmen. I focussed on pumping up my enormous squire stack with spells (Mass Light Spells) and also deflect missile. Since Duncan has very few spell points, my beefed up, enraged squires destroyed everything, as long as I carefully positioned them so that Duncan's cavaliers couldn't join in on the pounding until the end. It was a close battle but I managed to win with about 50 squires remaining.

Probably the most exciting HoMM5 battle I've had yet.

Btw is it just me or are the new red Haven units totally overpowered? They have some cool specials but if these are the alternate upgrades in the new expansion, they're going to have to do some rebalancing. Nobody would take the normal upgrades over these except maybe the griffins.

[Grail Quest]

For (very) early victory, the key seems to be to collect the various free peasants and upgrade them to red haven brutes. They become the primary damage dealers and blockers, jamming Duncan's units at the gate while your ranged units attack.



There was a very fast "special award" note when you win against Duncan, but I didn't catch it -- anyone see what it was?

[Grail Quest]

Er... maybe scratch that. The words were obscured by +____XP text. Might have been spell learned. Not sure anymore.

[Grail Quest]

On Normal, if you rush at the very start for Duncan and catch him before the end of week 2 day 1 (before he has 2 weeks of troops), even playing so-so you can defeat him and take his nice castle, all built up except for monk upgrade, Cavaliers and Angels. I recommend taking the damage sponge vindicators to do this, especially as you start with so many (for mines, I assume). Some tricky maneouvering at the gate, but even if done badly you can win. You'll get 11 zealots immediately after, which should be enough to mow down the other Teal heroes.

Using AutoCombat all the way there and no-magic AutoCombat against Duncan, all that were left of the initial troops were 64 Vindicators, 1 Crossbowman, 5 Priests.

[cjlee]

I did find Duncan very powerful. He seemed to have way more troops than expected, given that I conquered his castles pretty fast.

[Wheeler Dealer]

Hard 2.1

I've played through this campaign at least twice years ago. A couple of things I didn't remember. No heroes for hire until the second month. The creatures in the towns gradually disappeared if not hired.

I gave Freyda both dark and light magic, She had both mass haste and Mass slow. what with her special ability and benediction the enemies hardly got any turns after the first round!!!

[Wheeler Dealer]

Duncan, Max 21, Heroic

This mission is just developing your hero and her army until you a ready to take on Duncan.

I took the vindicators; I had already reached Expert Leadership and Expert Luck.

Week 1, Captured Greystone. Hired one of the two available heroes. Small neutral stacks are appearing and disappearing at random. Took Forkriver in the SW, should have gone NE first.

Week 2, No heroes available in the tavern. Started the underground passage to the NE.

Week 3, One hero in the tavern.

Week 4, took a third haven in the NE.

Week 5, hired Elaine for her skills with peasants.

Week 6, I may have had an opportunity to take the last town before fighting Duncan. That probably would have been easier. Instead, I went back to defeat the two garrisons for the xp while my other heroes brought me more troops.

Week 7, Defeated Duncan @ 2,3,3. I ended up fighting him in his castle. It was very close. Freyda made L21 in the final battle.

Freyda's army was 73 Imperial Griffins, 12 Battle Griffins, 50 priests, 11 Zealots, 54 crossbowmen, 274 marksmen and 67 enforcers. I could have made a couple of better choices.