Welcoming committee
The Norse clans are fighting each other and the heroes must use the Folstag Flag to unite them.
Starting objective: Protect Skult and the Folstag Flag Bearer.
Difficulty levels:
- Easy:
- Receive more tribute for conquering each of the clan leaders
- The clans have far fewer units
- Start with more upgrades
- Start with Flaming Weapons god power
- Hard:
- Receive less tribute for conquering each of the clan leaders
- Titan:
- Receive even less tribute for conquering each of the clan leaders
- Arngrim’s Clan starts with the Champion Cavalry upgrade
- Each of the clans has the Flaming Weapons god power (though don’t usually use it…)
This mission opens on a hill in the center of the map. (1) Our heroes have suceeded in getting the attention of the various clans – but unfortunately it wasn’t the sort of attention they had in mind, and you now have a small army of angry Norsemen bent on killing you. Defeat the attackers to reveal your next objective – this shouldn’t prove too hard.
New objective: Create an ambush – build at least five towers.
You might as well take this opportunity to use the Healing Spring god power somewhere, and heal your units before progressing. You can also return here to heal your units between attacks. (Healing is much, much slower on units that are not idle. Fighting around the Healing Spring won’t provide any real benefits, so forget about it – you’re better off fighting on clear ground where there’s nothing to interfere with your unit pathing.)
Towers are not actually going to prove very helpful, but you need to put them up to progress with the mission. If you actually want to try and use the Towers in completing the mission, then plant them a safe distance from the gates of one of the camps; (not too close – we don’t want the enemy’s attention yet) as there’s no point building them in the middle of the map where you start. That just means you have to lure the enemy units even further.
Once you have five towers, your main objective for the mission will be given.
New objective: Use the Folstag Flag Bearer to lure the clan leaders into an ambush. Defeat all three leaders.
So, what we have to do is kill the chieftain of each clan. (The Hersir. Well, it’s a tougher than usual Hersir.) This is not going to prove too easy, since the chieftains happen to be at the very middle of their respective camps, and getting their attention will require attracting a lot of other bad guys too. However, once you kill the chieftain, all his surviving units will convert to your control. Each time you defeat a camp, the remaining enemies on the map also get additional upgrades. So while you get a larger army as you go along, the remaining enemies get tougher.
Arngrim’s Clan is located to the east. (2) His forces are composed of Raiders, Ulfsarks and Ballistae.
Eirik’s Clan is located to the north. (3) His forces are composed of Huskarls and Throwing Axemen.
Vibald’s Clan is located to the west. (4) His forces are composed of Ulfsarks and a handful of Jarls.
Choose a camp to attack – Arngrim’s Ballistae will prove very useful, so it’s recommended you go for him first.
The first attack is the hardest. You need to use the Folstag Flag bearer as bait to get most of the enemy units out of the camp, and away from your army. Move him up to the camp’s gates. Once you see the chieftain has begun moving, then have him run like hell – in a completely different direction from your army. Hopefully, the enemy units will stream out of the camp after your unit, who is going to draw the enemies away from your forces. Don’t attack yet. Wait for the bulk of the enemy force to get clear of the camp – hopefully still in pursuit of the unfortunate Folstag Flag bearer – and once the chieftain comes out the gates, cast the Bronze god power and order all your units to attack him. (If you have any Towers in range, target them on him too.) It doesn’t matter if your small army get slaughtered so long as you kill the Hersir, since once he goes down, you get control of all Arngrim’s units.
Heal up and head out to the next camp of your choice.
Now that you have a decent army behind you, you don’t have to be quite as subtle. The simplest technique is to use Arngrim’s Ballistae to knock out a gate, then simply try and swarm the enemy chieftain with your units. Lump all your ranged units into one control group and target them on him for additional effectiveness. Or you can repeat the process used in your first attack, and build extra towers to make your ‘ambush’ more effective. Alternately, if you’re really patient, you can just drop Ballista bolts on the enemy chieftain from outside the walls of the camp until he dies – this will take a while since the AI dodges units out of the way of long range attacks.
Once you’ve defeated a second clan, simply rinse and repeat with the remaining camp – which should be even easier with the huge army you have behind you now.
Once all three chieftains are dead, you’ll be rewarded with victory.