This time, you start with Ludmilla and Charna who have been sent on a quest to retrieve the Deadwood Staff from some angels who have hidden it in their reliquary. It's not a head-on assult, this, that would be pretty suicidal. So... sneaky it is. Shall we go?

The way I see it, there are two ways of solving this map. What you're supposed to do is gain access

You start as Adar-Malik, on a mission to recover Vein's skull from those pesky wizards. The target is in the northwestern corner of the map, and you're in the opposite end, but since you aren't likely to succeed by simply walking in anyway, let's start by building your town and exploring your territory.

General tips: You should build town portal in your town.

This is a classic Heroes map where you must simply clear the whole map and defeat all enemies. With a couple of side quests thrown in. With Anastasya busy watching from beyond, you play as Zenda at the town of Nar-Heresh.

You have no resources, creatures or spells to speak of, so start moving north to flag mines and

Welcome to the Necropolis campaign. This faction is special. There are no morale effects, so you cannot boost your own creatures that way, but nor will they be affected negatively. You cannot heal your creatures either, such light spells are just too far away from everything these creatures stand for. There are some spells you can use to buff your creatures, of course, but mostly, this faction's strategy involves weakening the

Time is of the essence in this map, so keep tabs on the Quest log. You also have to do several things simultaneously. You find yourself in a lovely shantiri scenery with your three heroes, who have to work as a team in order to complete the main quest. The teamwork involves Kibwe helping Reem in the underground, and then Imani must help them both get back to the surface. The main quest, however, is to assault the main Academy town within 4 weeks. To do that, first the trio must split up and create a distraction;

After the calamities of «the great orc raid» in the previous map, Imani split off from Jengo's orc army as she believes he is a bad leader. You start out in the wilderness with two heroes (Imani and Reem, the centaur) and a town (Kesho), but no money or resources. And I mean none. Zero. The main quest is to kill Jengo, so you should start gathering resources and building the town.

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Welcome to the Stronghold campaign. This faction is about strength; attack strength and bloodlust rather than magic - although you do have some access to that as well. As a general strategy, you can build strong hero attacks and focus on boosting your creatures with lots of attack and defence.

A bit about the creatures: The brutes are your rush units. They have good attack stats, but aren't too good at defending. The

In this map, it's important to conserve troops until you have your own town. In the early game, direct damage spells are great. You're start out once again with Fahada, still rather reluctantly hunting orcs, in the upper northeast corner of the map. After the first battle, your authority/opinions are challenged by Aali. Can't have that, can we. Engage. Aali takes some creatures from your army to fight you with, but you can wipe the floor with them with a couple of lightning

The key to solving this map is doing two main quests at once, and be quick about it; you only have 12 weeks to complete them both. Be careful not to lose troops to all those neutrals you have to fight. I recommend choosing gold over experience, since your main hero will be gaining plenty of that from all the neutrals anyway, but gold is scarce. I also recommend using the «instant recall» spell often, to move faster from one place to another. Those 12 weeks

In this map, you find that your main hero from the previous one is simply not here. In fact, the common denominator in this campaign is not a single hero, but the blue gem.

You start out with Masfar(remember him?), a level 20 hero, and a town this time. Your quest is to find a gem that can bring people back from the dead. Got it? Let's go. Your goal is toward the east, but before you can face what awaits you there, you must build your

Welcome to the Academy campaign.

This faction is all about magic, and on high levels the heroes can both give their armies some pretty insane buffs and also do direct damage to (or weaken) the enemy forces themselves. Many of the units are quite fragile, though, so getting through battles with low losses is more about playing it smart than relying on the defensive stats of your armies. Summoning, troop positioning and maximizing damage output are more important than relying on your sturdy

You continue from the previous map; Tomas now has to consolidate his position from Hammer Fall and build his own country away from the empire. Start out by talking to your councillors around you. Talking to Ella gives you some great artefacts. Also flag the mine and pick up resources around. Then talk to Serguei to send him packing.

This map is a classic big Heroes map with lots of enemy heroes and towns. Head down the stairs and start picking up

This map is about defending the city of Hammer Fall from the imperial troops attacking you. The young Wolf defies his orders from the empire and stands up for honour instead - decipher the hidden message if you can.

You have three heroes: Tomas, Ymoril and Konrad. The latter will cover the retreat from an invading imperial army while Tomas and Ymoril escape and destroy bridges behind them. Konrad has an army of 100 swordmasters, which make mincemeat of

In this map, you are given several small quests. The first is to gain control of the area around your town, flag mines and take forts. Start with resources. Remember, conserve your troops; the minotaurs are quite tough and should perhaps be fought last. The Shrine of the Seventh Dragon is a level-up structure and should be saved for later, when levelling up gets harder. It's not even needed in this map since you can reach the level cap by fighting, so best to save the money.

Welcome to the Haven campaign. This is fairly simple, so it's a natural starting point in the game, even though you can start with any campaign you want.

A natural strategy of the Haven faction is unit conservation; trying to fight battles with as few losses as possible, notably through the use of healing spells and units, but also defensive abilities. Haven units are tough, and those that aren't protect the ones that are. I recommend giving your Haven heroes (the main hero in particular)

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