Hammers of Fate → Ylaya's Quest → The Spy

[ShadowLiberal]

A tip, rush the druids ASAP, as in sometime during the first week before they have time to grow, especially on Heroic.



I took the druids on with a level 3 hero with a nearly useless ballista and first aid tent added to my starting army (I won just enough gold to buy them along the way). My only casualties were 3 witches and 1 minotaur (I left the furies out of the battle)



Also Grail Quest is correct, the all campaigns in TOTE mod is bugged here. I wasn't able to complete the side quest for the big stat gains, so I did a bit of math based on Maltz's screenshot of his stats, and my own at level 12, and figured out that the stat gain is +17 attack (unless it's somewhat random, I recall getting a bit of defense last time around and not quite as much attack). So I gave myself +17 attack power at the end of the mission to fix the bug.



Oh and this mission and the next one CAN be done in Heroic without destructive magic. At higher levels expert war machines can be quite powerful, and you can buy war machines both missions with no towns, especially with triple flaming ballista and first aid tent (I have to admit though I use a mod to give my tent more shots per battle, but even with 3 it would still be quite useful). The ballista is easily more powerful then any of your spells could ever be with the big stat bonus in this mission.



In later missions I had an insanely high attack (40 attack + 14 knowledge by mission #4), which made the ballista far more powerful then any destructive spell, considering each of the 3 hits did over 400 damage each.



I also picked up Dark & Summoning Magic (vampirism works great with high attack stats), and sorcery.
Edited on Sat, Jun 30 2012, 20:10 by ShadowLiberal

[Campaigner]

This mission feels like one of those "be lucky or go THIS skillpath or LOL! Start over!"



I restarted until I gotted Enlightenment from the witchhut. I gotted the best skills to aid me (Expert Attack, Advanced Luck and Basic Enlightenment).



I cleaned out everything except Succubis guarding the tree of Sylvana and the Druid Elders....Needless to say I was smashed....I only used Minotaur Guards, witches and Matriarchs but I can't sacrifice my Furies!



Gotted the defensereducing spell from the Shrine to the west (guarded by Hunters!).



So do I HAVE to get Destructive Magic and Secrets of Destruction early to stand a chance..?

Cause it certainly seems so!



No one joined either....





It's so demoralising to restart until you get the skill you want from a witchhut and getting JUST the skills you want only to be ROFLstomped by a stack at the end since no one joined and you don't have any offensive spells....

[Wheeler Dealer]

2.1 Hard
I breezed through with what I considered a bad setup. I had forgotten this mission from several years ago so I let myself lose several minotaurs and some blood furies before I realized I wasn't getting any reinforcements!

I got no destructive spell until the mission was pretty much over. I refused to take Secrets of Destruction, wanted to go for the ultimate skill. Until I got the Scroll of Resurrection Ylaya's best spell was Vulnerability.

The one good break I got was with the Druid Elders. On Auto Combat I lost only 5 Blood Furies! I tried a couple of times and couldn't do anywhere close to that well!

I took the two shadow witches and split them. Their first two turns in most battles were Slow and Vulnerability. Occasionally I used Righteous Might on the furies. I took experience on most chests to try to boost Ylaya's stats and skills as quickly as possible. She did get Frenzy early on which helped the furies and assassins.

My Witch Hut was Destructive magic which will help in the long run but did nothing for me in this mission. Her first spell was disappointing, Wasp Swarm. I seem to recall that in some version of HOMM that spell delayed the target stack but it doesn't seem to do that any more and the damage is never better than just having the hero attack!

I finished with 28 furies, 24 assassins 8 minotaurs and all my witches/matriarchs. I got 11 attack and 4 defense for completing the side quest!

I do remember now that his mission was more difficult the first time I played it. I recall restarting several times and racing to the first shrine to see if I was getting a useful spell. Maybe I just got easier guarding stacks. I did skip quite a few if the were guarded by shooters.

[hprwhg12]

2.1 Heroic



Nothing joined me to help either with the Druids, so I think you were very lucky for that.



However, I defeated them with only losing 2 Blood Maidens.



From beginning I split my Blood Furies and Assassins. I chose the 21 Blood Maidens and treated them like the Minotaur, by having them hit only if they would kill or chance of not losing one. Except the Druid battle.



Using this battle tactic I lost 1 Blood Fury the entire game due to a throng of Assassins. It is hard to resurrect all troops while poisoned. No matter how many ways I tried. Well the 2 blood maidens too.

Taking money from first chest and gathering first gold piles allowed me to purchase both ballistic and tent. At this point I saved, thinking it is a good spot to determine if I will rush the Druids or gain exp by going slow.



I chose to somewhat rush first, only detouring to get stat boosters. Arrived on day 7 to the Druids. There where 33 split into three stacks of 11. I did not fight them. I waited to see how many more there would be next day. Only two arrived making it 35 two stacks of 12 and one 11.



Thinking only two more is not a big difference. I reloaded back in front of blacksmith and took my time fighting/clearing everything on the way to the Druids but the griffins blocking the portal. They were too tough. Waited for resurrect.



As for skills. I decided to enhance the Attack skill first, no matter what. I chose Frenzy/Adv./Tactics/Exp. Then chose Enlightenment to help gain stats while leveling and because it was either that or Defense.Followed by Intelligence.



After hitting all the luck/moral modifiers. Arrived day 7 week 2 with 14 Attack (+2 sword, so 12 unmodified). 3 defense. 9 power and 6 knowledge giving 90 mana with Intelligence. I was given Ice bolt from shrine. Luck 5 Moral 3. Full unscathed army.



It was not easy. I had to reload several times to set my units properly, there was lots of debris on field. The ATB had my Blood Furies and Blood Maidens go first followed by the two 12 stacks of Druids. Then my two Assassins, Witches, Ballistic, Tent, Druid, Ylaya. With luck the first Blood Fury killed the first 12 druids. With a combo of Furies and Maidens I killed second stack. Blood Maidens received moral and appeared just before Ylaya. Both Assassins got luck and Witch zapped them good. Ballistic, tent whatever. Blood Maidens took the chance and got hit for loss of 2. Ylaya ice bolt and poison killed last Druid. Yes very lucky, but moving the Blood fury that got luck helped tremendously



I then headed straight for the Liches. I won flawlessly now having resurrect and not losing basically nothing to Druids. After that it was smooth sailing except for Assassins and Water Elemental. Took a lot of reloads for them and could not out wait poison to resurrect 1 Blood Fury. After level cap I only fought for stat boosters, spell shrines, or good artifact



After completing secondary quest I had 29 Attack 9 Defense 13 Power and 6 knowledge. Short and relatively easy except for certain battles, but overall fun map.

[TheMeInTeam]

I killed all the secondary mobs and got all the huts, still no quest reward so I just went on without it.



This map is pretty tough on heroic if you don't get something heavy-hitting early. However, if you do then you can get past the druid elders with fewer casualties and it's not as bad. Destructive + secrets of destructive early with blood fury micro is pretty reliable to attain in the first 2 weeks, and with that you can beef through the Druids w/o losing many furies. War machines are definitely an underrated pick if you do get the attack (I don't mind it without even), especially because the first aid tent once leveled up a bit is great for res creeping and the ballista starts to hurt. This campaign features a lot of situations where you can 1) get war machines and 2) the relative strength of armies on either side or neutrals allows them to be a dominating factor.
Edited on Thu, Apr 02 2015, 01:33 by TheMeInTeam

[Sunlover]

Playing again for fun after running into some annoying issues on Heroic with HOMM5 (main) on Warlock...



Just wanted to put a cautionary note out: on this stage, above point 7, there is a magic boost guarded by Wolves. You might think the wolves will join you as they have been helpful in some other scenarios. That is not the case here; they will gladly decimate what remains of your tattered army. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS (at least not before getting the Resurrection scroll). You have been warned.