Help! Final Sylvan Mission *Spoilers*

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Hey all. I've been playing the final Sylvan Mission: The Vampire Lord for quite some time now. It seems that Nicolai's goons have way too many units by the time I gather a formidable force. By the time I defeat a couple of them, I am too weak to continue. Hence I get more troops- and so do they. It's like an endless loop. I'm open to any tips for this mission, as it is really getting on my nerves. I'm playing it on normal difficulty, as it is my first time. I captured all the underground Towns and have flagged almost every underground mine, so money is the last of my worries. Furthermore, I completed the Seer's Quest only to find out that he offers me five measly Phoenixes. I don't think it's worth sacrificing all those Dwarven artifacts for such a small number of creatures. Am I making a mistake? Do more Phoenixes magically appear when I fight Nicolai? I defeated Nicolai once before (much before I got the Dwarven artifacts and completed the Quest), only to discover that he makes an esape. Completing the Seer's Quest seemed like a trigger of some sorts, but I am not sure. Again, any help would be appreciated.

PS- Some of the enemy Heroes flaunt well over 5K Skeleton Archers. I used spells such as Endurance and Mass Deflect Missile, but can only shave off a couple of thousand by the end of the battle! He/she then uses phantom forces on his legion of Zombies and Archers. Utterly ridiculous.

[Gaidal Cain]

If you don't want to give up on the dwarven arties, defeating all Spectral Dragons on the map will also allow you to kill Nicolai. As for defeating Necromancers: Avenger is your friend. Make sure to select skeleton archers as your favored enemy, and with some luck, you should have killed off most of those stacks with the pre-battle volley of Findan's. When it comes to spells: remember that your archers are powerful, but fragile. You need to kill the archers, not withstand their attack. Thus, Mass Haste first, then Mass Righteous Wrath. Or Phantom force your Master hunters yourself. You might even wish to split you hunters in two stacks and let one take care of the liches and one of the skeletons, or have both target skeletons and let druids handle liches. Once those two are dead, your archers are safe.

If the enemy uses phantom forces, you can either let findan dispel it with a direct damage spell, or let your Druids do it. if you're really desperate, or have plenty of time, Hunters are OK as well with their double attack= two chances to connect.

[vicheron]

The 5 Phoenixes are actually very poewrful. They're extremely fast and they have 100% rebirth so you can afford to get them all killed off once.

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Thanks for the advice Gaidal. I might just try defeating the Spectral Dragons to see what happens. I'm gonna have to dodge some enemies though. Hopefully Instant Travel will bail me out. Sadly, I do not have Summoning Magic, so I can't use Phantom Forces. I'll hang onto the artifacts and give it another shot. Fingers crossed...

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The 5 Phoenixes are actually very poewrful. They're extremely fast and they have 100% rebirth so you can afford to get them all killed off once.

Hmm, I guess it wouldn't hurt to try. I really thought the Seer would offer atleast 10-15 (minimum) for all those artifacts. Oh well...

[sumalmamus]

As long as you have one left even if they have all been killed off once they still replenish themselves upon your winning the battle. At least that happened for me once. I had totally killed them off in a different battle so had reloaded, because I didn't think I could kill Nicolai just from completing that part of the quest. I never did get any particular magic except dark offered to me that didn't seem helpful, but I did have highly developed enlightenment and sorcery that seemed to be just as effective overall. With phantom arrow and having summoned about 550 master hunters to me I just kept phantoming the archers who could wipe out a monster stack of his with one volley. I also had gotten an ability called mana burst that keeps the enemy from using their magic as every time they try someone on their side blows up. Quite cute. I had gone to the center of the dungeon area an defeated an enemy who had a massive army and the unicorn bow (on my map it wasn't behind the cerberi and evidently he had gotten it). The first time I fought him my huge army was decimated and I was down to a couple of druid elders and 10 treants. So I reloaded. I fought about five times gradually getting the hang of what was effective and took him out basically with the 250 master hunters I had at the time. I had to keep my 20 dragons off the battlefield so they wouldn't be the primary target. Counterintuitive, non? Later I saw Nicolai fleeing into a monolith near me and hightailing it to that castle and taking it back but then their would still have been no troups there. Not knowing where he was (and I didn't think I was pumped up enough to take him on) I was still exploring up the left side of the map and ran into him at the castle on the upper NW of the map. I had done a final summon creatures from my home city (taking my other city's creatures over to that one to also be available) and ended up just beating him up, I had over stocked up so ironically the dungeon battle was the more challenging. I played only on normal level however. Now that I've built my confidence up maybe after I play the regular maps I'll go back and play the campaign on a higher difficulty. I'm having too much fun building up Zehir right now on the second mission of 6. I think with Findan artifacts are especially crucial. While this was a very interesting character build Findan is pretty damn annoying, but the puzzling out of strategy was fun. I had no clue what was the best stratgy for skills but I seem to have bumbled my way through satisfactorily. But I still miss grand elves from 3.