Necro Campaign Mission 5: The Traitor

[Jorgen]

Not a bug. Godrik starts with a secondary haven army which consists of a base level of troops + whatever defects from Isabel. Thus don't let Isabel have any troops to defect (if you want, turn them into necro troops at the other castle) and preserve your spellpoints so that you can still summon phoenixes/whatever after the first phase of the battle.

I am at his castle in about three weeks (week 3 day 4 to be exact). The only troops that defected were the 2 starting angels, the 2 paladins and some clerics.

What joins him is 67 angels, 250 foot men, etc. They seem maximized. Maybe something went wrong in the calculations of his reinforcements. I have played every map on heroic so far and this map would have been an easy victory had he not received that kind of reinforcements. Godric is very powerful in his own right too, so it's tricky.

I guess I'll have to wait many weeks in order to assemble an army that can match 67 angels + followers (- I guess the base level is 65 angels + company if playing on heroic). Unfortunately, my hero can't cast summon phoenix, so I rely on different tactics.

[Psychobabble]

What joins him is 67 angels, 250 foot men, etc. They seem maximized.

That sounds about right. I can't remember exactly, but attacking him in week 1 on Hard he had about 30 archangels, 50 paladins and a bunch of footmen/marksmen (no defections). It's meant to be a tough battle! I found it fairly easy by wasting his spell points in the first battle (cast random curses iirc and he'll clear them) and then using the invicible summon phoenix to win.

[Rapier]

Jorgen, what level is your Godric? (you played him on level 2) he's a carryover from then.

Mine was level 22! He had expert light magic and ressurection, divien guidance, guardian angel, mass clensing... really, I built him better than my Markal and the fight took me 5 hours of reloading :p

You need to attack earliar than you are, no later than week 2 day 1, otherwise his army will be larger than yours because his town starts higher and he gets a second army which is based on the week you're in more than the creatures that defect.

You want mark of the necromancer to get you more mana. With frenzy unbugged you should be able to win with raisedead + frenzy/puppetmaster if you didn't go with summoning magic. (I had to fight it with Frenzy bugged, and that sucked... added about 20 reloads to my attempts).

If you're expert dark magic, you can puppetmaster the angel stack, but make sure you kill the paladins, on heroic they get unlimted use of lay on hands. Kill the archers last. As long as the archers are alive the haven troops should stay in the castle, where you can raise dead and Puppetmaster without much damage.

Obviously if you have summon Firey chicken of doom you can win wih your eyes shut...

[Jorgen]

Jorgen, what level is your Godric? (you played him on level 2) he's a carryover from then.

Mine was level 22! He had expert light magic and ressurection, divien guidance, guardian angel, mass clensing... really, I built him better than my Markal and the fight took me 5 hours of reloading :p

You need to attack earliar than you are, no later than week 2 day 1, otherwise his army will be larger than yours because his town starts higher and he gets a second army which is based on the week you're in more than the creatures that defect.

You want mark of the necromancer to get you more mana. With frenzy unbugged you should be able to win with raisedead + frenzy/puppetmaster if you didn't go with summoning magic. (I had to fight it with Frenzy bugged, and that sucked... added about 20 reloads to my attempts).

If you're expert dark magic, you can puppetmaster the angel stack, but make sure you kill the paladins, on heroic they get unlimted use of lay on hands. Kill the archers last. As long as the archers are alive the haven troops should stay in the castle, where you can raise dead and Puppetmaster without much damage.

Obviously if you have summon Firey chicken of doom you can win wih your eyes shut...

I noticed his army went from several titans to 10 titans between week 2 and 3, but figured it did not make a big difference.

He' only lvl 18, but as far as I remember I made him an expert in light magic (with 90 spell points and some mass spells like mass haste, cleansing, etc), expert attack (and archery), expert defense (with evasion), expert leadership, expert counterstrike and he has 2 in luck, making him a competent commander.

Mark of the Necromancer ... I don't have that spell, I'm not sure if it is a standard spell or a spell gained through an ability.

You're right about puppet master ... I was thinking about using it on the angels, but I had not expected his forces to get a boost like this (- it was the first time I tried the map, and it was a surprise to see that happen ... I guess the map maker wanted to have some fun and show that you can bring about reinforcements through a script on the actual battle field). My spell points were not going to last more than for 4 puppetmaster castings at maximum at that stage and Godric knows dispel, which he used to counter my first attempt at puppet master (against his 22 rajas). The thing about puppetmaster is that it is a little unpredictable whether the troop will be pushed back in the initiative bar or not. If the troop is pushed behind Godric, then the spell is wasted.

What kind of boost would he get if I go at him in week 2?
I'm thinking of maybe clearing out the map before restarting and getting a bit more knowledge to Markal (maybe build level five guilds and hope I get something useful), and then go in there again and by that time I'll have a greater amount of Archers and troops in general.

Thanks for the tips.

[Squishy_BearZ]

Ummm... I cant go beyound that stack of Rakshasas in this mission... They always spawn in four for me, so Puppetmaster wont work... How can I force them to spawn in one-two groups?

[theGryphon]

I completed this mission on day 6!
I was playing heroic, and I did not have summoning magic! So, no powerful raise dead and no summon phoenix. Even worse I had only 90 mana. I had to reload twice though, first I did not know I had to fight two powerful armies, second I screwed up in casting Puppet Master. Yeah, that was the life-saver.

I had 22 Wraights, 155 skeleton archers, 96 zombies, 6 liches, 5 Vampires and 1 Spectre. That's it. Godric's first army had 5 Titans, 14 Rajas, 21 Sultans, 28 Archmagi, 5 Magi, 120 Master Gremlins and 9 Steel Golems. Second army had 17(!!) Angels, 6 Paladins, like 130 Footmen and 70 Archers. At the end of the battle I had 10 Wraights, over 100 Skeleton Archers and 80 Zombies! How I did it? I casted Puppet Master on Rajas which have no retaliation ability. They did most of the work , killing Archmagi first, then Titans. In the mean time, my Wraights took out Sultans and after two Raise Deads I was ready for 17 Angels. Man, with Markals stats (12,15,25,9) and luck , my 21 Wraights took out all the Angels! Wraights rock with high stats! In the mean time I had Puppet Mastered Paladins, who dealt with archers. Then with two more raise deads both Paladins and footmen were over. Btw, my skeleton archers had used up their shots in the first army, and I used Zombies at the very end.

So, what I mean is that Necro faction is not weak! I cannot imagine the slaughter with Summoning magic, Summon Phoenix spell and Raise Dead at expert. By the way, Markal had Attack, Defense, Luck and Dark Magic, and he rocked!

PS: Godric was level 19 with Expert Light, Expert Dark, Expert Luck and Advanced Leadership. Stats were 9,13,4,7.

[cornellian]

I didn't know that this was a hard map, all you need to have is either Phoenix, Frenzy or Puppet Master.. I had Phoenix with ~1050 life and insane attack/defence so I wiped out the rakshasas on the second day (logistics) with a single phoenix summon, before the end of the week I cleared out everything around, second week cleared out the rest of the map just for fun, third week prison, angels, and Godric, who despite my good leveling in Haven campaign, couldn't stand against sheer spellpower of Markal. I don't think that I bought any creatures from the town besides Vampires and liches.

So, if you have one of the aforementioned spells, then use them dammit! If you don't however, I would advise attacking the rakshasas with Haven troops around start of the third week. Just keep everyone in the town, recruit and attack on the same day. Haven stands better chance cause if you build Isabel well enough, you can Resurrect your paladins, works better than raising vamps. And be sure to get into very hard battles and lose as much troops and as soon as you can before they desert you.

[Peralta]

there are many rakshaka, between isabel and markel, markel needs to kills them to get to the prison where the daughter is.

[Imperial Knight]

I would like to dedicate my first post on these forums to all those who think this scenario was "easy" and think to bluster to those who learned painfully otherwise. I offer evidence that this chapter was in fact the hardest in the Necromatic Campaign after Undead Mission 3: Invasion for one very simple reason: Godric's insanely inflated horde of haven creatures. They appear the instant the last of the more reasonably sized Wizard troops are ground beneath the heels of your (somewhat lessened) legion of undead.

I completed my fight with Godric rather painfully on my second attempt on heroic with the unpatched v1.0 of the game.

My form of Markal is broken down as follows:

Markal
Level 30 Necromancer

Attack 21
Defence 29
Spellpower 29
Knowledge 20
Morale 5
Luck 3
Mana 202/300

Expert Necromancy: All three
Expert Enlightenment: Scholar - Lord of the Undead
Expert Logistics: Pathfinding - Death March
Expert Leadership: Diplomacy - Recruitment - Herald of Death
Expert Dark Magic: Master of Curses, Mind
Expert Attack: Battle Frenzy, Tactics, Archery

Godric
Level 20 Knight

Attack 15
Defence 21
Spellpower 5
Knowledge 10
Morale 3
Luck 2
Mana 2/100

His Skills are irrelevant - Consider his army after the Wizard force is left lying down on the job (The following is with Zero Defections from Isabel's Army - She roamed the map with a Knight shadow to babysit her minions between battles to reclaim the mines lost to Godric's Invisible Special Ops Forces generally at a rate of one per week)

185 Angels
74 Paladins
925 Archers
~2400 Footmen

The aforementioned undead horde was strengthened by the killing and animation of every single living creature on the map plus collecting every dead body lying around at Lorekeep. I suggest waiting on Godric to exhast his mana pool and waiting for the one-eyed brainless undead catapult crew to (accidently) level the center and secondary towers. My forces at that magical moment (cast Blind those last few enemies left in the last surviving wizard unit and Reanimate Dead like crazy) are as follows:

82/85 Archliches
69/70 Wraith
93/93 Vamp lords
345/353 Zombies
2,677/2,677 Skeleton Archers
1/15 Spectrum Dracos (Godric loves killing these guys)

As large as my force is, his is vastly superior on that glorious day (Month 3, Day 2) I struck him given the fact that his is not a haven town, he never left his post in Hikm, never received even a single conscript from Isabel, and that I literally sucked the lives out of every neutral creature on the map.

On to the Battle! First, Puppet Master (PM) or cast Frenzy on those Paladins since their lay hands ability will cure any unit and cleanse the effects of your special touch from their souls. Have them attack the Angels. Let these groups kill each other. The Angels will win. PM Angels and sic them on the 2400 footman. Frenzy the footmen and let them kill the Angels. Use your ranged units to advantage here: Kill the Archers first, Frenzied superhorde unit of your choice second. Don't attack a unit with PM or the effect goes away (mass curses are ok, just no damaging spells); furthermore don't leave Godric with any Mana or he'll see to it the effect goes away faster than you can blink and you'll lose your advantage. One last thing, take an Ammo cart with you and keep it safe. Your ranged strength allows you to keep killing them while they are Frenzedly killing each other cum mucho gusto and you can't kill without regret unless you've got unlimited ammunition. It is likely that once the Angels have been forcibly recalled to the heavens, you'll be left with 1000+ footmen with nothing else to do but charge your positions. With March of the Dead and your horde virtually intact it should be relatively simple to ground those last few surviving grunts into fertilizer paste and claim Death's final victory over this old prodigal Knight.

Edit: Here is a screenshot of Godrics and my Army squaring off the moment the last Wizard minion fell: Month 3, Day 2.

[Bonzer]

I like to explore some maps and take my time. I also had Godric at high level from previous scenario, so it wasn't a cakewalk.

One tactic I did use was that as soon as I had Haven forces beginning to desert, I only recruited them to take them to the Necropolis, where they were turned into undead of the equivalent level. They didn't desert then!

Having opened up the entire map, I had an an interesting and successful fight at he end to complete it.

I do believe that the enemy only begins to appear and disrupt things once the daughter is captured, so perhaps it may be best to leave that until you are ready.

[wimfrits]

185 Angels
74 Paladins
925 Archers
~2400 Footmen

I faced a similar amount. The only exciting battle in the entire campaign, which is quite a disappointment imo.

Somehow Godric's army kept on resisting my PM's. Sacrificing vampires, shadow dragons and wraiths until the archers were dead and blocking access to my skeleton archers with ghosts (incorporeal); raising them when they fell, proved a good alternative.

[maltz]

If Markal gets spirit link (dark magic), then theoretically he is entitled to unlimited mana. Unlimited raise dead = unlimited army. And if the player can keep his/her ammo cart intact (quite likely as the AIs don't target it purposely), then ghost + 1k+ skeleton archers should be able to win this fight.

[DaemianLucifer]

I won the last fight with just skeleton archers+phantom force+raise dead.My ammo cart was destroyed,but the phantom forces still could shoot

[Lady Farquad]

I won the battle because of the ammo cart. At the end (more than 30 rounds and my computer starting to "hiccup" the animation), Godric's archers came out of the castle with no shots left.

My skeletons, down from 1k+ to a few dozens, killed them before they could do any harm. If Godric had an ammo cart by then, I would have lost.

[DaemianLucifer]

My skeletons, down from 1k+ to a few dozens, killed them before they could do any harm. If Godric had an ammo cart by then, I would have lost.

Really?I had over 2k skelies when I entered the combat,and he killed less then half of them,so I had over 1k when his punny squires started pounding me,but in vain

[Lady Farquad]

Really.

2k? You went through the whole island? I didn't bother with the southern part (titans and magis).

And yes, at the begining of the battle I did made a few mistakes. But won any how

By the way, is there something wrong with your post count? Just curious.

[DaemianLucifer]

Really.

2k? You went through the whole island? I didn't bother with the southern part (titans and magis).

And yes, at the begining of the battle I did made a few mistakes. But won any how

By the way, is there something wrong with your post count? Just curious.

I went to every corner of the map,including the islands.Im a very thorough player

Nope,its perfectly fine.Resets to 0 every day at 8 am sharp,just as its supposed to

[Lady Farquad]

I thought I had to fly to Godric as soon as I had the wings... So I can delay that as long as it takes to review the island... Why mi post count doesnt resets?

[maltz]

Got 2 pictures here: (1.2, heroic).
This battle was taken on Day 6, Week 3, Month 1.

(1) Apparantly Godric has much more Haven army to call up.


(2) And look at that insane footman stack!


With spirit link and some desperate use of raise dead and summon phoenix, Markal out-run Godric's 180 mana and won in the end. This is probably the most exciting battle I've had with HoMM5 so far. Great!

[Lady Farquad]

Jesus! What level did Godric have? 95 angels... On first sight I would have thought the battle was already lost.