All the Walkthroughs Are Done!

[winterfate]

Welcome to the forums Baladain!

Well...it's been a while since I've played the original version of H5...and I can't say I ever had any trouble finding the Tear myself. It took me a while, but I found it in my first play-through.

[Rymbeld]

I found the tear without too much trouble, but it did seem harder than in HOMM3, with the 3d graphics and everything, and not knowing what orientation the camera should be at. Mine was on the road newar the Haven outpost, just beyond the garrison.

[akulah]

wakakak***
Edited on Fri, Aug 24 2007, 07:11 by akulah

[Grail Quest]

Surprisingly straightforward and easy mission on Heroic, after an impossible Mission 1.

For the bonuses, I would go with either Cash or Wood. If you start by going the southern path from your castle, you will largely not have to worry about wood at all, so the cash could come in handy very early to buy a few extra troops or a nice artifact.

Skill offerings were very poor, and I didn't develop the Racial skill as much, but you can play a might-based army if you take Master of Ice, as you can delay enemy actions with this, especially with Circle of Winter, to hit ranged units (usually grouped together).

If money is tight, do not bother buying Minotaurs as they are generally useless. In longer fights, they might get to hit something once. In a siege, they are more or less completely useless, as the enemy AI won't bother targeting them anyway. You might try to use them as cannon fodder by fielding them exclusively and winning with Magic. This way, you can conserve your more valuable Blood Maidens and Grim Riders.

Resources were overflowingly plentiful, so don't forget to convert them to cash for buying troops. Your starting castle is almost fully built already, and so will the AI castles. They will also buy a lot of artifacts, so you may want to hold off and buy troops instead, unless the artifact has stellar utility.

If you want to use the Hydra-Regeneration tactic, remember not to take your Ballista with you (unless you can control it with War Machines).

*

The Dragon Utopia and Mage Vault refreshes after a few months?!

[Elvin]

I think all adventure locations are refreshed after one month.

[Abruzzi]

The FAQs from Maltz are much better than those put for the other campaigns, its somehow fun and filled to read them.

[Shad0WeN]

- You can't hire any more heroes from any tavern once you already have 4. It is possible to get 5 or even 6 heroes if you already have the normal maximum when you get Shadya and/or the hero from the prison in the Southwest corner (a level 16 Necromancer Vladimir in my game) -- NOTE that although he comes with 2 great artifacts, the Ring of Sar-issus and Shackles of the Last Man, they unfortunately cannot be transferred to another hero =( he does have expert logistics though



- There is a ton of experience on this map and it is quite easy to hit the level cap with both Raelag and Shadya long before you could clear the entire area



- As far as what order to conquer the enemy castles goes, start with the Northern one first, then the Western one, and finally the last one in the Southeast.



- In my game the Tear of Asha was in the SouthWest corner of the map. To the left of O4 is a sawmill, and right below that a crystal mine. The tear was buried on the road directly between the two.
Edited on Tue, May 11 2010, 04:48 by Shad0WeN

[ShadowLiberal]

Just a tip I didn't see mentioned here. Once you've captured 3 of the 4 towns, just charge towards the 4th.



Once you capture the 4th town all the enemy's heroes just disappear. I beat a barely guarded town #4 on hard when the computer's strongest hero was 1 day away from recapturing the SW town.

[VAMPSVSZOUNDS]

The 3rd town(the one closest to the middle of the underground map) is the only one that's really dangerous.By Month 2 Day 2,when I visited thewm,they had 4 castle troops of tier 1-7 upgraded troops.I was lucky to escape the fight with 2 Deep Hydas,just because the enemy sent 3/4 of his army on a weak Inferno(Deleb) hero,which I defeated with ~10 Hydras left,and another one for which I had no mana left which I killed with 2 Hydras left.To my delight the enemy didn't have any army-full heroes to hire.I probably would have died had the enemy camped in the castle,or even if he just sent his full army with one hero.

[cjlee]

I strongly recommend NOT taking minotaurs. You start out with a nearly-fully built town (with the critical blood fury and deep hydra upgrades) and there is a sawmill within half a day south. You don't need troops and you don't need wood.



As you have an artifact merchant, I recommend you use (and abuse) it to the max. I actually was offered the -2 morale ring of broken will and the +2 luck golden horseshoe first time round. But as they cost 12000 together, I decided to restart and choose the 2000 gold - and was offered total crap instead. Just my luck as usual!

[Zefix]

Lvl 18 and not a single Knowledge-Point besides the one from my Town - Love you "Random Seed" -.-

Even with my luckily bought Dragon-Eye-Ring 30 Mana is ridiculous



Enough of w(h)ine - running out of cheese Thank you Malz for your great work with all that walkthroughs - informative AND fun to read. Great job

[ShadowLiberal]

Just tried to play through this mission on 'Champion' difficulty, in a mod to make the campaign's tougher. Bottom line, DO NOT LET A HERO ESCAPE.



I just lost an entire night's worth of work, because Yellow's hero kicked Raelag's butt with 6 black dragons, 57 Grim Raiders, 200+ assassins, and 21 Shadow Matriarchs.



In order to stop the heroes, make sure you have a hero with a decent sized army ready and waiting, since Raelag will pretty much always lose the race to stop the first hero, because it involves too much travel time.



Edit: Replayed that fight the next day and manage to beat the yellow hero, but he took one hell of a HUGE chunk of my army, as in I literally had nothing but two dozen assassins and 23 Hydras left. It was enough to keep advancing and take out Orange's most powerful heroes though. Still would have been easier to avoid having Yellow spawn in the first place
Edited on Wed, Dec 05 2012, 22:02 by ShadowLiberal

[gsandro1]

Hi, I replay this campaign on Heroic 1.6, for your info the Mage Vault is located underground very near to entrance D and Dragon Utopia underground next to entrance E, they both refresh every few months.

[stachnie]

Patch 1.6, Heroic. My top priority was to get Expert Light. Instead of Warlock Luck I took Enlightenment and Intelligence.



A little advice: take gold, check the Artifact Merchant (I restarted if there were no good arties like Bag of Endless Gold), build Shadow Witches and upgrade them ASAP, clear nearby underground and with a 2,5 week army (starting one + hire at the beginning of the week + 2 next weeks) attack town B. I visited Stables near the beginning of the week and attacked Town B at the beginning of turn, so I had enough time to come back to the crossroads just on time to block the way for enemy heroes.



After Shadya arrived with reinforcements, I had given her all Hydras and Minotaurs plus 1/4 of the other troolps and send Raelag to explore. Unfortunately, I went in a wrong direction (to the empty Utopia) but Shadya blocked the way for enemies and gradually levelled. Once I had to hide her in town B and dispatch enemy hero (Kythra) with Raelag. The battle was very tough, at the end I had only 10 Shadow Matriarchs left, but I got some good arties (Armor of Forgotten Hero, Dragon Teeth Necklace and so on).



Now I am in a good position to win - Raelag is knocking the door of poorly defended Town C, Shadya guards the central crossroads with a huge army of Hydras, Minotaurs plus some reinforcements from towns A and B, the strongest enemy heroes have been defeated - I hired one of them (Eruina) in the tavern... and she had the Ring of Speed!