Wulfstan's Defiance - Laszlo

[herb0815]

Just played the mission on hard. I cleared the north map and found the tear of ashar on day 1 month 2. On the same day Laszlo was 1 day away from my casle, so I got back right in time with downportal.



He had 8 Seraphs, 44 Champions, 55 Zealots, 161 Battle Griffins, 240 Vindicators, 791 Brutes.



If he didn´t retreat in the middle of the battle without reason, I don´t think I would have won this. (Protection + Magic Resistance nearly negated my meteorshowers and firewalls)0815
Edited on Fri, May 21 2010, 11:39 by herb0815

[Shimdra]

Normal v2.1



Laszlo assaulted me fairly early and possessed a very significant army. I couldn't risk him chasing after Duncan, who was traveling down the path at 6 collecting stat bonuses with no real army. I had to meet him at the intersection with Wulfstan.



Fortunately I discovered the benefits of the ignite trait and with a small stack of Magma dragons supporting my army, I decided I could handily win using Armegeddon when my troops dwindled. 3 Armageddons later my dragons were ash (since they soon became the favored target) but I found my defenders, of all things, survived all three armageddons and the full force of the remaining army.



Laszlo flattened all but a handfull of Defenders. Considering the lack of significant remaining heroes and the power of Wulfstan's mighty magic, I gathered the following weeks troops and took Horncrest with no resistance.

[cjlee]

Maltz, how do you do it on heroic? I play on hard, Wulfstan had expert logistics and I was making progress as fast as possible. Even so, getting the grail took some time and Laszlo attacked me within a week of the grail. He was very hard to handle. I lost on quickcombat and simply could not win outside my town. His troops also took less damage from my spells. Without the city shieldguard stack, I would have DIED.



It seems some people also have problem on Easy.



I would agree with Yeppados, who found it easier on Heroic than Easy. For some weird reason, I also find some campaigns easier on heroic than easy. Dunno what the hell Nival's programmers do.

[tionitis]

i dunno what you guys are talking about his troops took normal damage from my spells

[Ravenblade]

Thanks for this walkthrough. I am playing the whole HoMM5 campaign series my 2nd time now after years and I remember why this mission was so weird.



In my recent first try I made a capital error by running around with a skeleton crew which could barely handle stuff so Laszlo was magnetically drawn to Wulfstan but quickly switched to chasing Duncan right after I hid Wulfstan in the town. So I left the town again, intercepted Laszlo's army and tried an open field battle. I didn't haven enough troops by then and got my butt handed.

For second try I made sure to get the two gold mines and the tear asap and from then on every engagement ended in the enemy hero instantly fleeing. Including Laszlo...who was once again heading to my town..towards the supposedly hidden Duncan. The end: a cutscene and walking over the rest.



So either the mission is either hard or ridiculously easy. Even with a Week of Festival (halfed income from towns and mines) inbetween. Why they made Laszlo even capable of fleeing is beyond me.

[Wheeler Dealer]

2.1 Hard
Lazlo forced the issue on day one of week three when he crossed the garrison heading for my town. It looked difficult but turned out to be easy. Wulfstan had grown the numbers some in his original army and had added six fire dragons. I hit Laslo just north of the garrison.

I left everything but the 6 fire dragons on the bench. I put the dragons in the corner and used defensive runes on them. My plan was Armageddon, Phoenix, Arcane Armor, but when I saw what the first Armageddon did, I just cast it a second time and it killed all but a couple of his stacks and they only lasted long enough to die from Ignite on their next turn!

Wulfstan had 36 Spellpower, 315 mana, Ex. Dest. Magic, Master of Fire and Ignite. He had also picked up the Phoenix Feather Cape and the Staff of Sar-Issus. Lazlo managed to kill 3 of my fire dragons but I got one back with a Rune of Resurrection so I lost only 2 fire dragons in the battle.

Wulfstan's Armageddon did 1665 damage plus another 550 a turn ignite. I'm sure I could have just proceeded to Horncrest and completed the mission in 2 weeks and 3 or four days using the same tactics.

I wanted to explore the whole map and hit all the stat boosts with both heroes so it ended up taking another month.

It was a pleasant surprise to get to chose the Resurrection Spell for Wulfstan at the start of the mission. It sure made keeping his casualties near zero until he got his stack of Fire/Magna Dragons!

[vil2]

2.1 Hard



Just completed this mission.

Laszlo came quite early for me, the snow area was still in fog of war, and I just dug for the Tear of Asha and built the Anvil.

He chased Duncan as well as Wulfstan and had a huge army, with 30 Paladins and 500+ Crossbowmen. I had no chance.



I Tp'd both Duncan and Wulfstan to the town and tried to hide Duncan in the woods while dragging Laszlo to the town (I felt more confident about defending a town with the Tear of Asha than fighting outside, of course).



The problem was that Duncan was always chased. I reloaded several times and what made Laszlo chase Duncan was that Wulfstan was not visible on the map because he was inside the city walls (because of the town portal spell). As soon as I put Wulfstan just in front of the walls, Laszlo rushed for him and I was able to beat him with his large army, thanks to the Anvil (free Runes, Defense Boost...)



I deployed only about 200-300 Defenders and my 5 Dragons. I cast Armaggedon (for 900-1000 dmg) and destroyed his army but it was still dangerous for me and I had to restart the fight 5 times :



1/ first, because he somehow managed to kill my 5 Dragons, either with his highly-buffed Crossbowmen or with laszlo himself (he could kill 1 or 2 in a strike). That's why I've deployed the Defenders as a target for the Crossbowmen, basically the crossbowmen shot at them instead of the dragons, giving me the time to cast more Armagedons. I had to use Ethereal Form on my troops, I tried to use the Rune of Magical resistance (so that my Defenders would be immmune to the Armagedon) but never got Resistance against Fire.



2/second, because Laszlo had Guardian Angel and he managed to kill me once with his resurrected troops (I was unexpecting that). So before casting another Armagedons, I cast Resurrection on my Defenders once, and so I had enough troops to finish his resurrected troops. I was lucky because I just had 2 Dragons left and instead of killing them, Laszlo buffed his resurrected paladins, and I cast an Implosion on them, end of story.



That way I was able to beat him although he was far more powerful than I was. Rest of the mission was a piece of cake.



Note : for people noticing high Magic resistance from Laszlo's troops, there is a good chance that you loot the Staff of Sar Issus (negates all Resistances). I had mine in the NE corner of the map. I think I would never have beat Laszlo without this artifact.
Edited on Fri, Jul 11 2014, 10:53 by vil2

[Danny]

Some advice for those who might still play this one. I had a hard time with this mission, even with tear of asha Laszlo kept outpacing me with a massive army. But once I encountered him on the field before taking over Horncrest and he had quite a small army. In fact he quickly retreated from the battle so that meant objective complete. Then I conquered the town at the far right of the map, which triggered Lorenzo/Andreas, who was inside Honcrest to recapture the town, so we walked by each other and I walked in on the practically empty Horncrest!