Warsong/Langrisser FAQ 7.2, 5/10/2012 Maintainer: saintly@innocent.com Send comments or questions to the above address. About this FAQ This FAQ answers common questions about the Sega Genesis game "Warsong", published by Treco. Thanks to a number of generous fans, almost all the stats are completed and in now. Things I'd still like to know: - Battle formula for how damage and bonuses are determined - Different strategies for beating the scenarios - "Clear bonus" for each level You can find the latest copy of this FAQ at www.gamefaqs.com What's here/Table of contents [QFZ] Quick-Find codes have been added to this FAQ. To jump down to any section, press Ctrl+F and search for the code starting with QF. To return to the table of contents, search for QFZ. ABOUT THE GAME (QFA) getting a copy new in this FAQ HOW TO PLAY (QFY) moving troops attacking casting spells the scenario map preferences GENERAL ADVICE AND TACTICS (QFT) spell draining formations terrain, movement and defense (QFM) experience (QFE) WALKTHROUGH (QFW) CHARACTERS AND ADVANCEMENT PATHS (QFA) TROOP COMPARISONS player/enemy troop comparisons COMMANDER CLASS COMPARISONS (QFC) discussions of individual classes ITEMS (QFI) SPELLS (QFS) CODES AND CHEATING RUMORS, NITPICKS COMMENTS CHALLENGES UNIT DATA SPREADHSEET (link) (QFX) 17. Thanks & credits --------------------------------------------------------------------------- About the game: [QFA] Warsong is a 1991 turn-based strategy game (sometimes called a Simulation Game/SLG) originally released in Japan as "Langrisser" (or Lungrisser) for the Sega MegaDrive system. It was ported to the Sega Genesis as "Warsong". Although it was hardly noticed at the time, it attracted a die-hard following of fans who found it in bargain bins. It is now considered one of the coolest strategy games to come out on the Sega Genesis platform. The game spawned 7 sequels (at the time of this writing) in Japan, none of which were brought to the US. The Megadrive ROM "Langrisser II" has been fan-translated into English, first by the Hiryuu'Honyaku team and then more completely by MIJET. You can download the translation patch (not the ROM, you'll have to google for that elsewhere) from MIJET: http://mijet.eludevisibility.org/Langrisser%20II/LangrisserII.html During the game, you slowly acquire ally leaders, each of whom can hire up to 8 troops (each troop representing 10 soldiers) to fight in stages called Scenarios. Each scenario starts you out in a defensive position with enemies nearby and a goal to accomplish. Typical goals are, "Protect this person", "Destroy all the enemies", "Destroy the enemy leader (other enemies optional)" and several other types. You chose where to place your troops in the beginning, and the formations you want to fight in. Along the way, you also acquire special items that can increase the power of your commanders. As your commanders gain experience, they can be promoted to different "classes" with new spells, and new abilities. Warsong is a well-designed game for it's time, has nicely drawn 'Anime'-style graphics and one of the best soundtracks for any Genesis game. For strategy game fans, it has quite a lot of re/playability too. Getting a copy Warsong was made by the software company 'Treco', a small company which seems to have published very little, unfortunately. No other Langrisser games were ported to the Genesis (though a few showed up on the Sega Saturn) Unfortunately, Warsong didn't sell too well on the Genesis and is somewhat hard to find. Your best bet for a cartridge is likely to be ebay. A check of ebay at the time of this writing showed several carts for sale at about $15-60. As a 20-year-old game, the battery backup may be dying and you may be unable to save. Your other alternative is a Genesis emulator and a ROM. An emulator runs on your PC and 'plays' ROMs that have been turned into ordinary files. Emulators are available for several platforms (they all run each other's ROMs). It is legal to own an emulator, but illegal to own a ROM without owning the original cartridge. Listed below are popular emulators; PC: Genecyst, KGen, GenEm, *Megasis, *Gens Mac: *GenEm Most emulators now can run Warsong. If you experience trouble, look for Gens and GenEm which I've used to play both Warsong and Langrisser II. For a list of genesis emulators, visit http://archaic-ruins.parodius.com/genesis/emulator.htm or http://genecyst.parodius.com/ or http://www.emux.com or http://www.gens.emuforce.com Sites may or may not be up, and move frequently. It is best to try a google search for "Gens", "Megasis" or "Warsong ROM" New in this FAQ I have added updates to the classes and added other information gained from examining the raw data in the ROM (using a hex editor & Amuseum's guide). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO PLAY (for people without manuals) Warsong is a strategy game. The object of each scenario is to accomplish the scenario goals through killing as many enemy units as possible and losing as few allied units as you can. Each scenario starts in "troop purchase & item distribution" mode. You will see eight boxes (four at the top and four at the bottom of the screen). The boxes will be filled in with pictures of commanders. Don't worry if some of the boxes are "bricked out", you will gain and lose commanders as the game progresses. From this screen, you can assign the items you have collected to each commander. Each commander can only carry one item. You do not have to distribute all the items, but (except for the evil axe) it doesn't hurt. Most items affect the commander's personal attack/defense ratings, but have no effect on the troops. Each commander can purchase troops. Only one kind of troop can be assigned to a commander at one time, although they may have several types (eg, archer, horseman & soldier) to choose from. You may assign up to eight troops to any one commander. You do not have to assign troops. It costs money to hire them, and it is usually better not to have the max. Troops do not carry over to the next scenario, so any troops that never see combat are basically wasted money. It also takes time to move or cycle through the units each turn. 6 troops is usually adequate for a commander you want to promote, 0-4 are better for the others, depending on whether they will be used to soften up the enemy. After you are through assigning troops and items, proceed to the next screen; assigning locations. Here you see a map of the entire scenario, with enemy starting positions as flashing blue dots. You can see potential starting positions as yellow crosses. You must assign all available commanders to a starting location. Place each commander on one of the open crosses (you can't place two commanders in the same place). When all commanders have been assigned, start the game. The main scenario map shows each commander surrounded by his or her troops. The game procedes in three 'phases'. Your movement phase, allied/friendly commander's movement phase, and the enemy's movement phase. The only phase you have any control over is the first one. During your turn, you have several options. You can move troops, move commanders, attack or cast spells. Moving troops This is fairly simple. Select the troop, the cursor changes to a winged boot. The game calculates where your troop can move to (based on movement points and costs, explained later). The squares that are unavailable are darkened. You can move the cursor to any brightened square and select it. The unit will move to the location you specified, and if an enemy is nearby you will have the option to attack it. If you do not attack immediately, you can't change your mind later. You'll have to wait until the next turn. You cannot move through or on top of an enemy unit, even if it is flying. Troops that are next to their commander at the beginning of the main Enemy/Friendly phase are healed up to 3 points. Moving commanders follows the same procedure. If the commander's troops are in formation mode, any troops that were not moved may be moved automatically at the end of your phase. Attacking Either select 'attack' from the troop/commander menu or move the troop/commander next to an enemy unit. The cursor changes to a sword. Select an available enemy and press C, or press B to cancel attacking (you cannot attack later the same turn if you choose to pass; your troop will be Greyed out). The attack procedes automatically, and there is nothing you can do to influence the outcome short of restarting and attacking again. During the battle, the two troops will rush towards each other to attack. The center box shows what is currently being calculated and factored into combat. Adjustments due to the terrain, commander's level and geography are all taken into account. Swords appear on both the left and right side representing how many 'kills' each side has made in that battle. If the opposing unit is wiped out, the victorious unit's commander gains experience. If both are wiped out, both get xp. The green bar representing experience (inside the gold border) gets longer. When it is full, the commander advances a level. When a commander advances to level 10, they can move up a class. (detailed on the advancement paths) They start out at level one in their new class. If they are at maximum advancement, they will stop gaining experience at level 9. It is possible for enemy commanders to gain levels, but none advance to other classes (except through story events). You generally kill all enemy commanders each level, so their advancement is not really an issue. Casting a spell Only commanders can cast spells, and it takes all their actions (they cannot move or attack on the same turn). Select the commander and the spell you want to cast. Now select the center of the area of effect of the spell (squares that are too far away are darkened). The screen brightens the squares that will be affected by the spell. If you are satisfied with how the spell is targeted, continue to cast the spell. Both the distance away from the caster and the area of effect increase when the caster advances past level 5 in their class. Spell ranges and effects are listed in another part of this FAQ. You do not regain MP until the next scenario. The scenario map You can move the cursor on top of a square or unit to see more about it. When you move on top of a commander or a troop, the commander's 'sphere of influence' blinks green, and all the commander's troops have a flashing yellow dot (or blue dot in the case of enemies). Troops with an 'x' in front of them are allied troops; computer-controlled, but friendly to you. It is OK to allow allied commanders to die, they will return later. Troops with an 'E' in front of them are 'Frozen' and can't be moved. Additionally, the commander displays another icon representing which formation mode the troops are in. A sword means 'attack', a shield means 'defense', a boot means 'move' and the finger means 'manual'. All troops belonging to the commander inside the 'sphere of influence' gain a bonus to attack and defense, based on the commander's class. (see the list of classes) Each troop displays a number representing how much 'power' the troop has left. When the power reaches zero, the troop is destroyed and cannot be revived. A troop with at least one power can be brought back to the commander to be healed. If you move the cursor over an unoccupied tile, you will see a picture of the tile, followed by a description and the defense adjustment provided. See 'moving and defense' for more about this. Game Preferences You can adjust the game speed to slow, normal or fast. The default is Normal. In Normal mode, the cursor moves to the enemy, selects each troop, selects the destination for the troop to move to, then animates moving the troop. It also moves to each commander when they talk. In slow mode, it does each of the steps slowly. In fast mode, the cursor "jumps" to each troop and just moves it without stopping to draw its movement path. Hold down "B" in slow or normal mode to make the game behave one speed faster. While many prefer Fast mode, Normal mode gives you more of a perspective of how far away (and where) the enemy is, since you can see it scrolling the screen to them. In Fast mode, you should periodically check to see where the enemies are. "BGM" turns background music on or off. (see the cheats section about changing the background music). In "Semi-Automatic" mode, the cursor moves from troop to troop, opening it's move mode to allow you to set the destination and action for each troop. It's annoying since it usually doesn't select the troops in an order that's helpful. Interruption saves the game mid-scenario. You can only have one "interrupted" state. You are prompted to save the game after each level. It is suggested that you use a different save slot when you are trying to decide which advancement path to send a commander. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENERAL ADVICE AND TACTICS [QFT] It helps to save after each level, then start the new level with no troops (just place commanders in any order) to see where the enemies start and what troops they have. Then reset and pick commanders, troops and placement to match. Once a leader joins your team (ie. you can place them and control them), they will die permanently if they get killed. I would reset or restart the scenario if this happened. One commander is scripted to die (he'll do it at the end of a level after you've beaten it) and another will leave before the final boss. Both of these cases are normal and cannot be prevented. The enemy will not move their troops out of their "sphere of influence" (the blinking green squares). If the enemy chases you, they can accidentally strand some troops. These troops will attack anything that moves next to them, but won't move on their own unless their commander comes back. A commander with troops will almost never attack directly, unless one of your troops is sitting next to them. When all their troops are gone, though, they'll attack the weakest unit they can get to. A stranded troop will still keep commanders from attacking directly. Everyone, even the weakest troop has a chance of doing at least 1 damage to any enemy (if you're incredibly lucky, 2 points), even when the numbers show that it couldn't possibly work. Yes, out-of range soldiers flinging spears can kill (a weakened) Chaos. Cool, huh? To eke out experience, save the game and restart until the soldiers or leader takes out the enemy. Freddie Nguyen points out that Civilians (with an attack power of 0!) can kill barbarians sometimes. Likewise, I've seen them hurt a styrac on Scen 15. It's amusing, but not something you should be counting on. :) An enemy commander at 7 or less HPs will always choose to heal, rather than cast a spell or do anything else. Enemies won't attack with troops lowered to 6 or less. This means that if you hit the enemy with a Thunder or two, you will prevent it from attacking you for a while. This is somewhat bad AI, since the game could win sometimes (particularly on Scen 8) if it would just run for it. Magic is somewhat underestimated by many people. Magic ALWAYS does a certain amount of damage to each enemy within range. That means that even if your troops can't hope to damage the enemies, the combined damage from several thunders, tornadoes and magic arrows in a row can rip the enemy apart. Remember; Damaged troops are weaker and can inflict less damage than they could if they were fully healed. After one Thunder, sic several troops on the enemy even if their odds are low. The enemy won't attack with weakened troops, preferring to heal them instead. One Tornado buys you a LOT of time to regroup while the enemy heals. From Freddie Nguyen: Try VERY hard not to take the full eight units when recruiting, Very rarely will you need all eight. Four is good, Two is even neater. Consider going commando (with no troops at all) on most levels b/c it's FASTER. No moving troops makes the game go lots faster. My note: I have this weakness of buying lots of troops I never use as well. This is a good point, you waste money and the game does go slower as you have to move troops out of the way or spend turns shuffling them around at times. You *can* beat the entire game without ever hiring troops (though it will either take forever or you will miss lots of XP). A commander will use his troops before commiting himself to battle (unless you stand next to him in which case you're expecting trouble). So try to make a picket line between him and his troops so they can't get to him (remenber no to touch him). he won't attack you but his troops will. Cut them off so they can't heal. Cut them off further away and they won't get the bonus. Devious spell-draining: Pick a commander (a Dragon knight if you have one), set all the troops on "manual" and stash them out of the way. Fly solo touching the sphere of influence of an enemy spellcaster (but inaccessible to the troops; Over a high-wall, on a pillar, whatever so that no more than one of the spellcaster's troops can get to you). The enemy will attempt to blast the commander with a spell (and probably also attack with troops if it can). Heal your next turn and keep doing that until the commander is out of magic. Now return to your troops and continue the game. A ranger with the cross or shield is also good for this. Formations: A defense formation is: TTT where the troops totally surround the commander, or try to TCT get as close as possible. Troops will not attack. TTT Attack and Move formation is: T T T Like a diamond. In "attack", troops automatically T C T attack enemies in the sphere of influence. In T T 'Move' formation, troops will attack any enemies T they move next to. What's the point of the diamond? Since the enemy always targets spells at the commander, Magic Arrows won't hurt the troops. Also, if you are attacked, all the "healing" positions are still open to move the damaged troops into and replace them with fresh ones. You can also overlap two troop formations: 12 With the two commanders in the middle. Why? 1212 I have no idea. Move/Attack also prevents damaged 12CC12 troops from getting healed. 1212 12 In general, there aren't many benefits to Formation mode after the enemy gets spells more powerful than Magic Arrows. There is one benefit to 'Attack' though; troops in formation mode usually move after Allied commanders and their troops. If you put your troops in 'Attack', they will attack after the Friendly troops have softened up the enemy. Defense is a useful mode when you want to move a commander over a long distance without any enemies. In "formation" mode, the troops will often leave the positions you set them in a turn earlier. This can be very annoying if you are trying to block a passageway or keep troops away from water or similar. It's usually a better idea to leave them on Manual and only use Formations when you want to go a distance without enemies along the way For a much better defensive position when there's no terrain advantage, consider using a "Picket Line Defense"; have the troops just stand in a line. Only the troops at the ends of the line can be attacked by more than one enemy unit. (From Freddie Nguyen). My note: There are very few times when the enemy can destroy your troop units with only one of their units. You can form a picket line with your "softening-up" troops, let the enemy attack you, then rotate out the damaged troops and kill the heavily weakened enemies with the commander who needs XP. Then you can move fresh picket troops up to cover the troops from the weaker commander. This works best when you can block a passageway. Terrain, Movement and Defense [QFM] Each square on the scenario map has several properties that are important to the game. One is the "movement cost". Each commander and troop type has a set number of Movement points each turn. To move over a square, you subtract its Movement cost from the points you have available. This makes moving over mountains and water difficult (mermen have the special ability to move through water, and flying troops treat all terrain as plains). Some squares are impossible for ground-based troops to move onto. These include the white mountain peaks, and High castle walls. The other property of each tile is Defense adjustment. This is a special bonus added to the DF stat of troops or commanders that end their turn in that square. Troops stationed on a castle wall have a better defense adjustment than troops stationed in plains. If the DF bonus is 40% and the unit's DF is 14, they will have an effective DF of 19. Some troops have additional bonuses that add to the base terrain bonus. When you move troops and commanders, it's usually a good idea to position them to take advantage of the terrain, rather than to use the default formation and move your maximum limit each turn. Your best position is one that offers you a good defense bonus, while forcing enemies to attack you from a weaker position. A Forest tile surrounded by four plains tiles is good. If you are fighting water-based enemies (who get a large bonus when they fight in the water), set all your troops in positions that force the enemy to come on land to attack you. An "X" in the chart means that the square cannot be moved onto using that movement type. Each class has the potential to treat each terrain differently, but there are 5 common movement types (there are 10 movement types total, but the other 5 apply to 1 or 2 monsters each; I note the exceptions below, but for full details you can see my class spreadsheet, listed at the end of the FAQ). Terrain MV Usage by Defense type Land Horse Monst Sea Air Bonus ------- --------------------------- ------- Plains/Cave 1 1 1 2 1 +10% House 1 2 1 1 1 +10% Road 1 1 1 1 1 + 0% Bridge 1 1 1 2 1 + 0% Forest 1 3 1 2 1 +20% Low Wall 4 X X 4 1 +40% Rubble 3 4 3 2 1 +15% High Wall X X X X 1 +40% Mountain 2 3 3 3 1 +30% Mountaintop X X X X 1 +40% Water 3 3 3 1 1 + 0% Deep Water 5 X 4 1 1 + 0% Cast. Floor 1 2 1 2 1 +10% Note: A throne is a low wall, many impassable objects that appear to be decorative count as High Wall. Look at the icon that appears when you move over the square. You will also note that although Horsemen have 2 extra movement points vs. soldiers, they lose it in penalties when crossing any non-flat terrain type. Any class that is riding a horse (and Horsemen) uses the 'Horse' movement type, most other classes (besides swimming and flying ones) use the Land movement type. Grand Knights, Golems, Skeletons and dinosaur-looking classes use the Monster movement type. Ants move as horsemen, except with even worse penalties. Kraken (commanders) and Lizardmen are swimmers, but have no penalties for moving on land. Experience [QFE] There are no optional or repeatable missions in this game (unless you use the cheats to warp backward). Therefore, the amount of experience available for leveling is limited. If you want to get all your commanders to their highest class (and especially if you want two Saints), you will need to be careful not to waste experience, and do your best to prioritize who gets it. If you kill a commander, any remaining troops of theirs will also die. They will add to your gold total, but NOT give any experience. Try to avoid this. These would be my personal priorities: 1. Get Garett to Grand Knight (or King) 2. Get Sabra to Dragon Knight 3. Get Mina and Calais to Saint 4. Promote the rest to their final class 5. Get Mina and Calais to Lv.5 (for better magic) 6. Get others to Lv.5 Once Garett is a GK/King, he can buy archers to help promote the others. Baldarov should also stick to archers. Once any character gets to their highest class they also be used to soften up enemies. Archers are great for helping other commanders. They usually miss at least one shot, leaving the enemy at severely low health. Then the weaker troops from another commander can mop them up. A couple high damage spells, such as Tornado + Fireball can do the same thing. Commanders give more experience than troops do (about three times as much), Royal soldiers give about double what the average troop does. It would be painful to micro-manage every kill. As long as you have an experience strategy in mind and stick to it, you'll probably get there. Avoid killing commanders before their troops are all dead, intercept the monsters on the missions where they try to fight the enemy. Since commanders give so much experience, it's worth it to save them for the person you are trying to promote. However, that person may not be close by when another commander has destroyed all the regular troops. To save an enemy leader for one of your people, surround him with four of your troops (ideally with their commander right next to two of them, like so: T T - Your troops, E - Enemy commander TET C - Troop commander CT This "traps" the enemy. Every turn, the enemy will attack one of the troops, swap out the troop he damaged for a fresh one and let the damaged one heal next to it's commander. This gives you time to heal the commander you want to get the experience, or bring a far-away commander to the enemy without the enemy getting away. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- WALKTHROUGH [QFW] On several levels, more enemies show up as reinforcements on a certain turn (on some levels, they show up after being "triggered"). When they appear, the commander will always try to appear in the same place, with the troops distributed roughly around it in a defense formation. If the commander cannot appear in the same place (like, if you have your own troops there) it will try to appear as close as possible. Troops will try to appear as close as possible within the sphere of influence, if there are not enough spaces, however, the troops that cannot appear close by will appear randomly on the entire map. This means that if you can fill up the entire sphere of influence of an incoming commander (but not the commander's actual appearance spot) their troops will be scattered throughout the map, out of range... When a strategy calls for a commander to go "commando", that means to place them without troops. Scenario 1 - Save Garett Object: Save Garett by moving to the edge of the battlefield Commanders: Garett, Baldarov Placement: Place Garett and Baldarov Allies: Tiberon, Calais, Sabra, Alfador Clear Bonus: 1000g (+650g max killing score) Enemies: Serpent Knight/8 Lizard men Bishop/4 Elementals Lord/8 Dark Elves Lord/5 Soldiers Tips: The easy way to complete this mission is to run away like they tell you to do. You can get to the top of the map in about 2 turns. However, this strategy wastes a huge ton of experience. If you're feeling more adventurous, try this: Give Baldarov one or two horsemen, then Garett as many soldiers as possible. Head left to help Tiberon with the archers, finishing off weakened troops with Garett's soldiers. Baldarov can't help much with his horsemen yet, but when the commander is dead, you can both go south to help out Calais. Sabra will probably die (she'll be back). If Tiberon or Calais die, it's also not a big deal. Hopefully they'll last long enough to do some damage to the enemy commanders so you get to kill them. With luck, they'll also gain some experience. I've seen Calais get to Lv9 on this scenario. When the mage gets to the king with his elementals, sit tight. Garett's dad is a King (with a high defense), sitting on a throne (with a huge bonus to defense). He'll barely take damage from elementals. Get as close as you can without touching the mage's green sphere of influence and wait. As soon as you can attack the mage on two sides, go in with Garett and his soldiers. The mage is weak to physical attacks. You'll win, and they'll say something about going for reinforcements and you'll leave anyway. Scenario 2 - Protect Mina Object: Defeat all the enemies, or get Mina to the castle. Commanders: Garett, Baldarov Placement: Place Garett and Baldarov Allies: Mina Clear Bonus: 500 (+1020g max killing score) Enemies: Shaman/6 Barbarians (x4) Shaman/4 Barbarians Shaman/6 Barbarians (on turn 13) Tips: (revised, thanks to Andrew Luxmore) Get Archers for Baldarov. If you give him horsemen, they will almost always completely slaughter the enemy (a horseman with 1hp can destroy a full company of 10 barbarians, if the horsemen is in range). Archers will usually miss one or two shots, and they will still be almost immune to the barbarians attacks. Make a defensive spread of archers for the barbarians to slaughter themselves on during the enemy's turn, then on your turn move in Garett's troops to clean up. Mina has a habit of moving out from behind your protective shield and close to the enemy. If you know where she'll try to move to, you can block the spot to prevent it- you'll need to block several spots to prevent her from moving at all. She will try to move about every other turn. On turns where she doesn't move, she will heal a commander at 6 HP or less within range of her Heal1. If you feed all the experience to Garett (and had not wimped out of Scenario 1), he can make Lv4 of the next class on this level. If you cheat and warp back, a second run through can make him advance to his highest class, either Grand Knight or King. Scenario 3 - Save Mina again. Object: Defeat all the enemies Commanders: Garett, Baldarov Placement: You cannot control placement on this level Allies: Mina, Thorne Clear Bonus: 750 (+980g max killing score) Enemies: Shaman/8 Barbarians Shaman/6 Barbarians Shaman/4 Barbarians (x2) Shaman/2 Barbarians (x3) Tips: Not that tough, remember it doesn't matter if other commanders get killed when they're not under your control. Be an experience pig! Sabra joins and you win the 'Great Sword' after this level. If Garett was promoted on the 2nd scenario, then I'd give Baldarov no more than 2 archers, and Garett 6 horsemen or 8 archers (depending on what he's promoted to). If Garett has not been promoted, then give him 8 soldiers and maybe 4-6 archers for Baldarov to use for softening-up. It is possible to get Garett to his final class here. He has to have gotten to Lv4 of his 2nd class on the previous scenario, and must kill nearly everything on this level. Thorne can't kill more than 4 troops + 1 commander, with all the rest of the experience going to Garett. Scenario 4 - Gesundheit! Object: Survive long enough for reinforcements to show up Commanders: Garett, Baldarov, Sabra Placement: Place Garett, Baldarov and Sabra Allies: Mina, Thorne (turn 5) Clear Bonus: 800 (+410 max killing score) Enemies: Great Slime/8 Slimes (x2) Great Slime/6 Slimes (x2) Great Slime/4 Slimes Tips: Unless you already have a Grand Knight or King (unlikely, unless you went all-out on Scen 3), don't bother bringing troops since they can't hurt the slimes. Head as far left as possible, then position your characters in nice defensive spots (like in a forest with clear plains all around it). Sit around and beat up the enemies with commanders alone. Mina and Thorne show up to "save" you on turn 5. You win if you're still around on turn 10. Mina and Thorne join after you win this level. You also get the Cross item. Alternative strategy, courtesy Andrew Luxmore, is to get 4 archers for baldarov and 8 horsemen for Garett (if he is a Knight). I have never killed all the slimes without cheating (warping back here with a Grand Knight or King). To max out on experience for Mina, head as far left as you can so that she won't have to run to you when she shows up. Scenario 5 - Lance, round 1 Object: Defeat Lance! Commanders: Garett, Baldarov, Sabra, Mina, Thorne Placement: Place Garett, Baldarov, Sabra, Mina and Thorne Clear Bonus: 800 (+900 max killing score) Enemies: Lance (Royal Guard)/8 Horsemen Fighter/8 Soldiers Fighter/8 Dark Elves Knight/ 8 Horsemen (x2) Tips: (revised, thanks to Andrew Luxmore, Freddie Nguyen). The enemy troops come in a good variety on this level, and they'll certainly try to explot type weaknesses. Even so, you don't need a lot of troops to win this level. If you are low on funds, you can get by with just your commanders. Keep them clustered together, go up the middle path to the choke point where only a couple enemies can attack and rotate out damaged commanders. It will work, it will just be very slow. I would recommend that you focus instead on promoting Garett and Sabra. If Garett is going the GK route, I'd definitely focus on him since you will be losing access to Baldarov's archers after this level, and having someone else to fill his role would be very useful. Buy 4-5 archers for whoever will be used to help promote the chosen ones, give the chosen commanders about 6-8 troops TOTAL (so if Garett is almost to level 10, give him only 2 with Sabra getting 4-6. If Garett has a ways to go, give him all 6 and Sabra 2). Don't bother with troops for Mina or Thorne. Charge up the middle path between the mountains with Baldarov (or whoever is softening up the enemies for the chosen ones), with the chosen ones behind them. Bring Mina along, but keep her in the back so she can cast Healing 1 whenever you have a bunch of hurt troops. Then expose a line of archers for the enemy to attack, let them attack and get heavily damaged, mop up with the chosen ones' troops (then cover those troops with fresh troops or more archers), heal up, rinse, repeat. If you do it this way, the commander on the far right (and possibly also Lance) will get stuck. When the other commanders are dead, run over to the right to take out the stuck commander, then finish off Lance last. Baldarov dies. You can't prevent this. Hopefully your replacement enemy softener is already ready. If Sabra got some experience on level 1 and the slime level, she can make Lv6 of her second class (Lord, hopefully) here by taking out nearly all the enemies. Scenario 6 - You can't go home again. Object: Defeat Geryon Commanders: Garett, Sabra, Mina, Thorne Placement: Place Garett, Sabra, Mina and Thorne Clear Score: 1000 (+860 max killing score) Enemies: Geryon (Lord)/2 Royal soldiers Knight/6 Horsemen (x2) Fighter/8 Soldiers (x2) Fighter/6 Dark Elves Tips: You're back at Baltia castle, where it all started. The enemies have thoughtfully beefed up the castle defenses so you can't just climb over the walls and rubble. They've also put up a smart defense, using horsemen, archers & soldiers in just the right order. When you bring in archers to attack the horsemen, the guys with soldiers will come out to defend. If you stomp the soldiers with horsemen, then the commander with archers will be 2 steps behind them. Additionally, the game forces you to divide up your commanders. Of the 4 commanders, up to 3 can start out on one side. All-in-all, this is a tough scenario. You can try to mount two serious attacks. A fully-promoted commander could start alone on one side and try to take out the horsemen and soldiers. A Lord with Archers can also solo one side, if you're careful about sticking to the walls (in that case, give them the full 8 archers) Or, you could hedge your bets and put two commanders per side. If whoever is closest to the bridge has archers, they can hopefully wipe out the horsemen and fall back behind cover of your own horsemen or soldiers. I'd recommend giving up on one side. Place a commander you can do without for a while on that side. Give them no troops, or perhaps 1-2 archers if they can buy them. Place them as close to the top of the map as you can, and then just have them run around the top of the map to the other side where all your other commanders are. They will be chased by the commander with horsemen. For your other commanders, decide who needs to the experience. Give them 6 to 8 troops; preferably archers or horsemen. A Lord's archers are pretty tough, they can wipe out a horseman unit easily. If you get them up onto the walls and force the enemy to attack from below, they can also hold their own against soldiers and other archers. If you don't have a Lord or anyone to soften up enemies on that side, give 2-4 troops to the other commanders. Go on the offensive, stick to the high walls. Mina's Healing 1 can help out if you have a bunch of lightly damaged troops. If Sabra's starts out at Lv4 of Lord, there is enough experience here to get her to Dragon Knight. Alternate strategy (from Freddie Nguyen): Put Garret (commando) on the left, the rest on the right (troops or no, doesn't matter). Now take DEFENSIVE positions OUTSIDE the castle. Yup outside. On the right against the scenario wall is a good block for Garret to sit on. A hill block bordered by another hill, water and a plain. great defensive spot. Now that you have taken your defensive positions, sit and wait. The enemy will rush out of the castle to fight you. ideally 3 to the right, two to the left. Garret CAN take on two whole units if he's a Lord (or if you've been pumping him, a King!) Once the five enemy commanders have died, invade the castle. All that's left is Geryon and his royal soldiers. Take out the royal soldiers and Geryon will step off his throne to kill you. Fool. He's just given up a great defensive spot. Now waste him. Scenario 7 - Lance, round 2 Object: Save Bayard (kill Momus) Commanders: Garett, Sabra, Mina, Thorne, Calias, Tiberon Placement: Place up to 6 commanders Clear Bonus: 1000 (+1235 max killing score) Enemies: Momus (Fighter)/8 Dark Elves(x2) Serpent Knight/8 Lizard men (x2) Fighter/8 Soldiers Knight/6 Horsemen Lance (Royal Guard)/6 Horsemen (3 turns after you cross the bridge) Knight/6 Horsemen (3 turns after you cross the bridge) Tips: Bayard is outnumbered 2 to 1, BUT he has a troop advantage (soldiers vs. enemy archers) AND a defensible position (castle walls). He can usually hold out at least 10 turns, but sometimes he'll get unlucky and take major damage to his troops, or send his troops on suicide missions. You should definitely keep moving through this level and not waiting for the enemy to come to you. A few turns after you cross the bridge, Lance will show up with some reinforcements for the enemy (a bunch of horsemen). If you're quick, you can kill Momus before Lance shows up. This will deprive you of a good chunk of experience and about 350 gold though. My strategy would be to give Calais 8 guardsmen. She'll be fighting the lizardmen on the left. Lizardmen have such weak defense on land that the guardsmen and lizardmen will just kill each other evenly. If you cast a spell so that the lizardmen are lowered to 8 HP or take advantage of the terrain (make them fight you from the plains while you're in the forest), you can tip the scales slightly so your guardsmen will survive with 1-2hp while killing the lizards. Calais can't kill the commander though, so she'll need Tiberon, Sabra or Thorne to help. I'd give Calais the shield in case she gets directly attacked. It doesn't help her much, but she needs all the defense she can get. Team 2 would be someone you want to get experience for. Ideally, they should have 8 Monks or Archers. Another commander can go along with her, to soften up the enemy. They should also have archers. Run along the middle of the bridge, don't let any troops stop on the far right side touching the water. Just keep running to the top each turn. The lizardmen will come up on the bridge and slaughter themselves on your archers/monks. The horseman commander will come down and do the same. Cross the bridge as quickly as you can and run for Bayard. Odds are, he'll either be dying or just running out of troops. Help him as much as you can, but avoid killing or letting him kill Momus until Lance shows up. After you've sent Lance home on a stretcher, finish off Momus. Avoid letting Tiberon do much on this level. He's useful as Croc Knight until Scenario 9. It is possible for Bayard to get to Lv10 if he kills all the troops at his castle and the two commanders. You'll get to choose his advanced class if he does. Supplemental strategy (from Freddie Nguyen): Put Garret far right with archers. RUN over the bridge, You'll meet horseman who'll get slaughtered by the archers. Get Tiberon with mermen on the far left. Circle round the lizard men and target the soldiers on the other side. Keep them occupied and Garret can get to Anzel by Turn 7!! Lance shows up at Turn 14 [I've seen him as soon as turn 10, so I think it's a few turns after you get acroos the bridge] so you have time to mess around with Momus before taking defensive positions in Anzel. That's right. Put Garret on the broken wall and his archers on the walls. Remember archers slaughter horseman :) Scenario 8 - Lance, round 3 Object: Kill the commanders that are running away. Commanders: Garett, Sabra, Mina, Thorne, Calais, Tiberon, Bayard Placement: Place up to 7 commanders Clear Bonus: 1200 (+1090 max killing score) Enemies: Chief Commander (Lord)/2 Royal Soldiers Fighter/8 Dark Elves (x2) Fighter/8 Soldiers (x2) Lance (Royal Guard)/6 Horsemen (Turn 5) Knight/6 Horsemen (Turn 5) Tips: The enemy is retreating? That's precious experience running away! Normally, you don't need to get all 8 troops for a commander. In this case though, I recommend it. There's a ton of soldiers to get through, and a bunch of archers behind them. The soldiers will try to delay you while the archers and the Chief Commander run for the top of the screen. Guardsmen are pretty useless here. If you have a Lord, take a bunch of archers (I'd give them all 8) over to the road in the bottom left of the map. They'll be a nasty surprise for Lance when he shows up. Monks and Soldiers do well against the enemy. If you have some offense spells (Fireball or Thunder), they will do tons of damage to all the packed enemies and make it easy to finish them off with troops. If you can't easily kill an enemy unit on one turn, position your troops in defensive spots and let them attack you on their turn instead. Then your counterattack can finish them off. To keep the enemy commander from getting away, it would be good to send someone after him to try to hurt him. The commanders who can catch up to him the fastest (Dragon Knight Sabra or Croc Knight Tiberon) will get seriously hurt by the archers. GK or King Garett + some archers is a safe bet. Attack the enemy commander to lower him below 7HP, he'll be forced to heal the next turn instead of running. Lance appears on Turn 5, in the bottom left. He has a bunch of horsemen with him. To max out the experience on this level you'll probably have to delay the boss a few turns so you can have time to finish off Lance. Scenario 9 - Time to get Kraken (Lance, round 4) Object: Defeat the enemy commander, OR Garett to top row Commanders: Garett, Sabra, Mina, Thorne, Calais, Tiberon, Bayard Placement: Place up to 7 commanders Clear Score: 1200 (+1390 max killing score) Enemies: Serpent Knight/8 Lizard men Grand Knight/8 Soldiers Fighter/8 Soldiers (x2) Fighter/8 Dark Elves Kraken/8 Leviathans (x2) (Turn 6) Lance/8 Horsemen (Turn 7) Tips: If you do nothing but sit tight on your side of the river, the serpent knight will come straight down to attack the commander below him. The archer unit and two soldier units will slowly attempt to cross the river, going about 1-2 squares per turn. On turn 6, the Kraken will appear and head for the nearest commanders. These would be the enemy soldiers in the water. There will be a big fight with heavy losses, the Kraken will probably win and come after you with whatever is left. Since that is a terrible waste of experience, I'd recommend diverting the Kraken down to you so you get to kill the soldiers, archers and both sets of Leviathans. My strategy would be to pick two tough commanders to be bait. They don't need any troops unless you think they can't survive without them. One goes up on the left peninsula and waits. The other goes right, out in the water off the right peninsula. If Tiberon is still a croc knight, this is his moment to shine. Load up with 6-8 mermen. Start as far right as you can and swim across the water to fight the soldier unit that is trying to cross the water. Keep the battle close to their shore. Their soldiers can move at most 2 water squares per turn. Position mermen so that 1 soldier unit can get to a full 10hp mermen on their turn. They will attack and die, leaving your mermen at low health. Rotate those into healing positions and replace with fresh mermen. It is a little slow, but you can probably wipe out the GK and Fighter's units without them getting very far into the water. This should get Tiberon to Lv9. He can lure Lance's horsemen into the water later to get to Lv10, but I'd fall back and wait to do that till the end of the level. If you promote him to Knight (highly recommended) then you want to be close to land when he changes. Pick two other comamnders you want to gain experience. Give them the max of their best troops. If you have some fully-promoted commanders, besides Dragon Knight Sabra, get them 6-8 troops (total, between them) to use for softening up the enemy. DK Sabra doesn't need troops, but is great for damaging high-defense commanders like the Serpent Knight, or luring the Kraken back to your commanders. On Turn 6, the Kraken will appear. Save. Hopefully they will head for the two bait commanders (reset if not). Lead them down toward your side and away from the enemy. Bring them to your waiting commanders. Monks and Archers will shred Leviathans that are on land. Guardsmen can also kill them (but will take heavy losses, so soften up the enemy with other troops/spells first). In my last game, the serpent knight was dead early on. The lizardmen can be killed with Guardsmen, but the Serpent Knight himself has quite high defense and you'll need to gang up on him with high-AT units to bring him down. The left-side soldier, archers and leviathan all got to my commanders at about the same time. They will attack each other, so do your best to get in the middle and make them attack you instead. Run up when you're done and finish off Lance. Ideally, you can promote Tiberon to Knight. I also got Mina to Saint and Calais to Priestess on this level. Thanks, Andrew Luxmore & Freddie Nguyen for suggesting Guardsmen and Archers against the Lizardmen and Leviathans. Scenario 10 - Castle Crashers Object: Defeat the Chief Commander Commanders: Garett, Sabra, Mina, Thorne, Calais, Tiberon, Bayard Placement: Place up to 7 commanders Clear Bonus: 1200 (+1350 max killing score) Enemies: Chief Commander (Lord)/4 Royal Soldiers Serpent Knight/8 Lizard men (x2) Bishop/8 Dark Elves Arch Mage/8 Soldiers Fighter/8 Soldiers Grand Knight/6 Archers (Turn 10) Grand Knight/8 Horsemen (Turn 10) Tips: If Sabra is a dragon knight, this is a great scenario to practice Devious Spell Draining to eat the spells of the Archmage and bishop. Give her the shield to raise her defense past where the archers can really hurt her. Reinforcements (NOT Lance for once) show up on turn 10, from the left as well as the bottom. Save a commander or two to deal with them. The commander on the left arrives with archers, the commander on the bottom arrives with soldiers. Carleon joins after this level, and you get the Wand. Choose 1 or 2 commanders you want to gain experience and give them 8-12 troops (if you only care about one commander, just get 8, otherwise 6 apiece). As always, 4-6 archers are great for anyone who is fully promoted and can help soften up the enemy. Horsemen are not that useful here. A Knight doesn't give them enough of a defense bonus to make them survivable against most of the soldiers, and any other class can use archers. Guardsmen do OK against the lizardmen, as usual, but you'll have to protect them from the soldiers. Supplemental strategy (from Freddie Nguyen): Go commando. Set up two picket lines to face the lizardman. Let Garret be your apex man. He should be a tough King by now. A horizontal Line of 3 commanders, Garret then go down 3 commanders. Leave space for the lizardmen to be disadvantaged. Once again, the pitiful AI will charge out of the castle to get you, except for the Archer Commander and the Chief. Charge in once you're done outside. Scenario 11 - Lance, round 5 Object: Garett to Center well Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Calais, Tib, Bayard, Carleon Placement: Place up to 8 commanders Clear Bonus: 1400 (+1850 max killing score) Enemies: Arch Mage/8 Dark Elves Grand Knight/8 Soldiers (x4) Lance/8 Horsemen (Turn 5) Wyvern/8 Gargoyles (x2) (Turn 7) Tips: If you don't move toward the center of the castle, the flying monsters will head straight for the archmage and all get slaughtered by the archmage's spells. Don't let that happen! Charge for the top/bottom-center wals so they come after you instead and you get the experience. Lance (here we go again) shows up in the bottom-left on turn 5. The Wyverns show up at the top and bottom center on turn 7. Put commanders with horsemen closest to the center when you start, backed up by commanders with archers behind them. Try to have at least one archer company on the top and bottom to deal with the wyverns (and Lance). Sabra can hide in the right-most stair room under the pillar (touching the archmage's sphere of influence) to absorb the spells. The Wyverns can cast Fireball, so be ready. From Andrew Luxmore: Carleon can take out Lance if he is backed up by a Grand Knight Garett. Supplemental strategy (from Freddie Nguyen): Put a Lord in each corner with some archers. (Garret counts as one of these) Don't let the archers fight the soldiers but bring them onto some walls before the wyverns reach the dark elves. Scenario 12 - Warsong! Ambush! Object: Pulverize Pythion Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Calais, Tib, Bayard, Carleon Placement: You cannot control placement on this level Clear Bonus: 1400 (+2050 max killing score) Enemies: Pythion (Kaiser)/8 Royal Soldiers Lord/6 Royal Soldiers Arch Mage/8 Soldiers Bishop/8 Dark Elves Wizard/8 Dark Elves Grand Knight/8 Soldiers (x3) Tips: Well, it looks like your brilliant idea of splitting up and taking both sets of stairs has walked you into an ambush. The enemy has surrounded half your forces, which are cut off from the other half by a second group of enemies. Additionally, the enemy has tried to match up your commanders with troops they are weak against. Garett, Mina, Tiberon and Bayard start on one side (the left side). Tiberon, who is probably a Knight, is facing a squad of archers. Bayard is facing soldiers. On the other side of the wall, Sabra is right next to another squad of archers (bad news for Gryphons!). She starts near Calais, Thorne and Carleon, who are all facing Soldiers. Archers are disadvantaged here. They are still somewhat useful for softening up the enemy soldiers, but will have a hard time killing anything unless it is at 6 or less. They are great against the two enemy spellcasting commanders though. Horsemen are useful if you have a fully promoted commander, but otherwise they don't do much better than soldiers. They will also have a hard time getting anywhere on this level, which is all "indoors". Monks are great for softening up enemies, and can finish off troops that have been weakened. Sabra's side will have the toughest job. I gave Sabra no troops and flew her as far to the left as possible on her turn (over a wall). The Arch Mage next to her spent the next 4 turns launching fireballs and attacking with soldiers. The damage was easily treatable, and this kept the mage's troops out of the bigger fight going on. I got the full 8 troops for Thorne and Carleon, both of whom needed experience. Calais got 6 monks, and ran straight south to assist Thorne and Carleon. Tiberon's horsemen aren't very useful. The wizard's archers on his side will completely murder horsemen, and the GK on his side has some nasty bonuses to attack that cancel out the weak +2 DF horsemen get for fighting soldiers. They also have movement penalties over the whole map. You could just skip giving him troops, or stick to soldiers if you want him to get XP. Give Garett 6 archers and Bayard his full 8 soldiers. If Mina is a Saint, then her Tornado + Garett's softening-up troops should be enough for Bayard to mop up everything. If you don't have much for spells, then give her Monks instead and focus on giving her the experience to promote her. If you're having a hard time on the right side, you could give Sabra a bunch of Gryphons, then kamikaze the Arch Mage, killing him on the first turn, but wasting a chunk of experience. From Andrew Luxmore: Archmage Calais can Earthquake the whole right side and assist in keeping the commanders under 7hp (and not casting spells). Switch Sabra with Carleon. You'll collect Warsong (awww yeah!) and the Evil Axe on this level. Finally some decent equipment! Scenario 13 - Let's NOT get stoned... Object: Defeat the basilisks Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Calais, Tib, Bayard, Carleon Allies: Lance/Gryphons (x8) - after stepping on the box Placement: Place up to 7 commanders Clear Bonus: 1400 (+1340 max killing score) Enemies: Basilisk/6 Styracosaurs Basilisk/4 Styracosaurs (x2) Great Slime/8 Slimes (x2) Queen Ant/8 Evil Ants (x2) Tips: If none of your commanders has died, one of them will have to sit this level out. As it turns out, the enemy troops all have a somewhat high defense; not a problem for your commanders attacking directly, but any troops will get wiped out. I'd suggest leaving all troops behind. If you thought the last level was a bit unfair, then you'll really love this level. The enemy basilisks have a wacky 0MP spell that can turn your commander to stone. They'll be spamming that sucker at every opportunity. If Garett gets stoned it's game over. If anyone else is stoned, they won't be attacked by the enemy but they can't take any actions. You'll have to step on the magic box of buzzkill in the top part of the map to un-stone them (and then nobody else can be stoned). Stepping on the box will also free Lance, who will immediately fly down with his pack of gryphons and try to steal as much XP as he can. Unlike most spellcasters, the basilisks will cast the spell even if you aren't touching their sphere of influence. Since they are all higher than lv6, they can cast their spell 6 squares away. It also will hit neighboring squares. Always keep this in mind during this level. The only way to prevent them casting the spell is to be out of that range, or to lower them to 7HP or less so they'll treat instead. Since they're so dangerous, I would advise against trying to extract all the XP on this level, and just try to take out the basilisk commanders. You will need high offense to be able to hurt them. Only the Queen ants (the ant commanders) and Great Slimes (slime commanders) have a ranged attack on this level. That means that you can give the Evil Axe to a weaker commander and they can hopefully kill most enemies before they can close the distance. It's still a little risky. I didn't use it. Knight Tiberon can slaughter any slimes or ants that attack him; he'll make good use of a defensive item. If someone fireballs the enemy and Tib has a nice defensive spot, he can probably wipe them all out when they attack him. Dragon Knight Sabra is your panic button here. She can wait a turn or two, then fly straight north to sit next to the magic box. If you start flying there on the first turn, the slimes in the north will chase her. If you wait, you can have her fly past them and send another commander up to meet the slimes to bring them down to the rest of your commanders. If someone gets stoned and you want to fix it, Sabra can step on the box. Lance joins after this level. He's maxed out on experience and he'll bail on you before the final scenarios. You also get the Amulet. The Amulet super-sizes the sphere of influence. It doesn't boost your bonuses, but your troops can be twice the distance away. Scenario 14 - 487 Werewolves Object: Save a town from wolves Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Cal, Tib, Bay, Car, Lance Placement: Place up to 6 commanders Clear Bonus: 1500 (+1530 max killing score) Enemies: 1 Were Wolf Were Wolf/8 Were Wolves (x6) (After you defeat the loner) Tips: Three of your commanders will have to sit this one out. Also, the werewolves are pretty strong. They all have a 21 DF and the troops have a murdertacular 31 AT. If you're trying to get experience for someone not fully promoted, their troops will not be very effective. They will have to let another commander's troops take the attack on the enemy's turn, then jump in to finish off nearly dead wolves. The best troops are archers or monks with a high attack bonus. GK, KM, Saint or Arch Mage basically. 3 groups of were wolves will appear on each side of the city. The top-right werewolf will head for the top-right civilians. The bottom-left werewolf will stay in their starting spot if you don't come out of the city on the left. The civilians are supposed to run to the center building, but may get bugged and stay in their starting positions for the whole scenario. You will have to send someone north on the right side to try to intercept the wolves who go for the top bunch of civilians. You can try this without troops. Have your heroes take shelter in the buildings and let the werewolves come to you. Rotate out damaged leaders, and use spells to lower the wolf troops down to 8 points. You lose the civilians this way, but it is easier to win. - (Thanks Abacrombie) Alternate strategy (from Freddie Nguyen): The civilians WILL move towards the very center building and hide there. half of your commanders defending the doorway will nicely stop off the werewolves. Pick another building somewhere for the other half of your commanders. Scenario 15 - Killer pot Object: Save the town from the great dragon. Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Cal, Tib, Bay, Car, Lance Allies: Fire Element (after defeating the shaman) Placement: Place up to 4 commanders Clear Bonus: 1500 (+1340 max killing score) Enemies: Great Dragon Gorgosaur/6 Styracosaurs (x2) Shaman/8 Barbarians Tips: Again we continue the trend of making you leave commanders behind. You can only bring 4 this time (don't worry, this is the last level where your commanders have to sit it out). 5 of your commanders will be warming the bench this time. You must take Garett, as always. I'd also recommend taking Dragon Knight Sabra (or Lance, if Sabra is not a DK). The main enemy here is Styracs, and they have a nasty 24 DF, even harder than the werewolves from the last level. A Saint + Monks would be useful here. The high offense bonus, plus Tornado would be great. The Gorgosaurs can't turn you to stone, but they aren't shy about chucking fireballs at you. Each one has 3 fireballs, and the Dragon will also cast a special fireball that goes out 4 squares (twice as far as most fireballs). The Great Dragon itself is a special problem. With 35/35 stats, only the Ranger class can hurt him without a boost. A fully promoted Garett + the Evil Axe can do it, as well as a Dragon Knight/Knight Master with Warsong (or the Axe). It is still vulnerable to spells, but with only 4 commanders you can't really unload on it. You have an ace in the hole, however. If you run (preferably fly) straight north, you'll see a shaman and a bunch of barbarians. If you kill the shaman, you'll get a temporary ally: A genie with 41/34 stats. He'll help you stomp the dragon. If you want to give it a try on your own first, you can send Sabra up there, wipe out the barbarians and leave the Shaman alone. Whenever you need the Genie, whack the Shaman and the Genie will teleport down to the dragon. Don't assume the barbarians will be pushovers- Gryphons have such a miserable defense that they die pretty much 1 to 1 with barbarians. Sabra can sit on a post and let them attack her first. Your "allies" are 3 fighters with 8 civilians each. On turn 2, the top and middle one will start running for the city. On turn 6, the bottom one will also realize that's a good idea. Scenario 16 - Revenge of the Guardsmen Object: Kill the dragon. Again. Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Cal, Tib, Bay, Car, Lance Placement: Place up to 8 commanders Clear Bonus: 1500 (+1980 max killing score) Enemies: Great Dragon/8 Styracosaurs Gorgosaur/8 Carrion Crawlers (x2) Queen Ant/8 Evil Ants (x3) Great Slime/8 Slimes (x2) Tips: One commander has to sit out, but I don't really think of Lance as one of my commanders. I didn't invite him to any of the remaining scenarios. They say the dragon is badly injured, but he seems fine to me. Its stats are still 35/35 and now he has an army of styracs to defend him. Start anyone with guardsmen on the left to waste the slimes. It's payback for getting stomped on while they were clerics or warlocks. You don't need more than 6 guardsmen total. Even out-of-range guardsmen can still wipe out the slimes without getting hurt. Wait one turn before moving left of where you start though; otherwise the queen ant in the bottom right will come up with the slimes. If you get the queen ant, the ants can easily kill guardsmen. Send you guardsmen away, lower the ants health with spells, then let them attack your commanders. Nobody else needs troops, but if you want to bring them, horsemen do OK. You will be fighting the dragon again, and this time there is no genie to bail you out. Instead, you have all 8 commanders and a chest with a sword for whoever steps on it. The sword gives +5 AT/+3 DF and temporarily replaces the item of whoever opened it. I'd give it to someone with a high AT (GK Garett, KM Tiberon). When you get to the dragon, beat it up with all your commanders. I had a bunch of spellcasters (magic knights and saints), so hitting him with several thunders, tornados and blizzards will make quick work of the styracs and lower the dragon down to where it can be killed by a commander with good equipment. I'd give someone with high AT the Evil Axe as insurance. Sabra or Garett can make use of it, since you can keep them out of combat unless you need them. Give the sword to someone else with high AT if it will help them get over 35. Give yourself some options. Sabra can help a lot by flying along the cave walls down to the Gorgosaurs and letting them use up their fireballs on her. Then she can do the same to the dragon. If she's not a DK, then Lance can do it. The sword disappears at the end of the battle. Scenario 17 - Dinosaur Duck Hunt Object: Kill everything in sight Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Cal, Tib, Bay, Car, Lance Placement: Place up to 8 commanders Clear Bonus: 1600 (+2880 max killing score) Enemies: Gorgosaur/8 Styracosaurs (x2) Wyvern/8 Gargoyles (x6) Tips: 3 sets of flying enemies will fly down each side. They will arrive one turn after each other. The flyers are all weak to archers, even out-of-range archers can do a lot of damage to them. One magic knight with 6-8 archers could easily handle all the flyers on one side. Set up in a nice spot with your archers in defensive positions, make sure that you are not touching the incoming wyvern's sphere (so that it won't fireball you), then let them fly in and attack. They won't manage to kill anything, but will have a few nearly-dead units. Thunder the rest (hopefully taking the wyvern to 7hp or less), rotate out the hurt archers and wait. Next turn they'll attack with a bunch of injured gargoyles against your full-strength archers and wipe themselves out. Rinse, repeat. Part 2 of the stage will be the Gorgosaurs. At least they're not basilisks. The styracs have high defense, so make sure they don't get defense bonuses on top of that. Make them fight you in the plains even if you can't get a good defense bonus yourself. Otherwise your troops will barely hurt them. Hopefully you still have some spells left. Archers aren't great against styracs, but styracs weakened by some spells can be picked off by anyone. They styracs usually strand 4 of their troops in the mountains. If you want that XP, Sabra can fly up and get it. Beware of the gorgosaur fireballs; they hit a large area. If you want to be done with this level quickly, bring Lance. He and Sabra can start flying up to meet the styracs on turn 6 (when the last of the wyverns is fighting your other commanders) Scenario 18 - Somebody call for an exterminator? Object: Kill Naxos Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Cal, Tib, Bay, Car, Lance Placement: Place up to 8 commanders Clear Bonus: 1800 (+1480 max killing score) Enemies: Naxos (Conjurer)/8 Golems Living Armor/8 Skeletons Queen Ant/8 Evil Ants (x3) Great Slime/8 Slimes (x3) Tips: This is the last time you'll be seeing slimes. If someone with guardsmen needs experience, 4 guardsmen should be enough to wipe out the top two groups of slimes. You'll just need to protect the guardsmen from the ants and skeletons that are in the way. This is also the last time you'll get to use Lance. If Sabra is not a DK, then bring Lance to eat Naxos' blizzard spells. If you want a cheap and quick win, bring some gryphons. Naxos leaves himself open to attack from the air, so you can kill him in 3 turns if you like. You can also use an Earthquake early in the level to damage the wall, then climb across it to fight Naxos and skip all the ants. I'm going to assume you'll take the free XP and fight all the enemies. There is one group of Skeletons that starts close to you. Monks will trash these guys like archers murder gryphons. Monks also do OK on all the rest of the enemies. It looks like attacking Golems is pointless: they have 20 AT/42 DF, which puts them out of range of everything but a ranger + attack item, or DK/KM with the Evil Axe. However, somehow your horsemen can still do 1-2 damage without getting hurt much. Your best bet is to save some spells on several commanders for the end, then unload them all at once. Once you can get to Naxos, he has pitiful stats. Out-of-range troops can kill him. You get the Orb (halves MP cost for spells!) and lose Lance after this battle. I'd call that a good trade. Scenario 19 - Death to Mortimus Object: Kill Mortimus Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Calais, Tib, Bayard, Carleon Placement: Place up to 8 commanders Clear Bonus: 2000 (+1600 max killing score) Enemies: Mortimus (Sorceror)/8 Skeletons Bishop/8 Dark Elves Wizard/8 Dark Elves (x2) Lord/8 Royal Soldiers (x2) Fighter/8 Soldiers (x3) Tips: You will have to circle around the enemy's castle. There are two ways around, and if you have troops you should probably go both ways since they are so narrow and congested. The enemy spellcasters will attempt to harass you with fireballs and blizzards along the way, Mortimus will try to use Confusion or Sleep to mess you up. Soldiers do pretty well here. Monks are great against the final skeletons. Horsemen are OK against the weak soldiers, but tend to lose against the royal soldiers and skeletons unless they have a numerical advantage. The spellcaster AI is fairly simple. They will head for the closest commander (even though they are on the other side of the wall), then cast their spells on you. Their spells do a fair amount of damage and hit a wide area (especially the Bishop's powered-up dragon fireball). I would suggest sending commanders solo to be spell-bait. Anyone can do it, though Sabra is best at it. Just move so you are touching their sphere of influence and make sure no other friendly troops are close. When the spellcasters run out of spells they'll just wait around until you get close to them inside the castle. Scenario 20 - Chaos Object: Kill Ganelon, then Chaos Commanders: Gar, Sab, Mina, Thorne, Calais, Tib, Bayard, Carleon Placement: Place up to 8 commanders Clear Bonus: 2000 (+930 max killing score) -- not that it matters Enemies: Ganelon (Wight)/8 Styracosaurs Living Armor/8 Skeletons (x6) Chaos/8 Elementals (After you kill Ganelon) Tips: There's tons of skeletons on this level, and monks rip through those like there's a free prize inside. As an extra, monks also get bonuses against Ganelon (he's got a 34 DF and is tough to hurt otherwise); they can do 2-3 points of damage on him, even when he's sitting on his throne. Give Warsong and the Great Sword to whoever you have to so that you can have an AT higher than 35. You might also give out the Evil Axe. Chaos is 35/35, the same as the great dragon. He's not immune to magic though. Horsemen and horse commanders suffer movement penalties over the whole level. Even with a +8 AT bonus from a GK/KM, they still can't hurt the styracs. Archers with a high AT bonus can do OK against the skeletons, and can also extinguish Chaos's elementals. There are three groups of Living Armor/Skeletons on each side. If you have two classes that can use monks, I would form a picket lines on each side and let them come to you. DK Sabra can drain their blizzards. The top two groups tend to get stuck and unable to get to you. This is DK Sabra's shining moment. First, she can fly up to the probably- stuck skeletons and lure them back down, soaking up their blizzards. Then she can head for Ganelon and let him use up his VERY NASTY thunder spells. On top of that, bring a bunch of Gryphons. Ganelon's styracs are boosted to 30 AT/30 DF. Only Gryphons can hurt them, though other troops may get lucky. You'll most likely need to use some magic on Ganelon and finish off his troops with Gryphons. After that, you only have to worry about Chaos. Chaos's elementals are easily splattered by archers with a high AT bonus. Most other troops can at least do even damage to them. Gryphons will still get slaughtered though, so don't use them if you can help it. If you save at least 1 spell on a bunch of commanders, you can defeat him that way fairly easily. For fun, you can trap Ganelon for a few turns and have everyone else surround the central area in the empty north chamber. You could beat Chaos without him ever getting a chance to move. Enjoy the ending! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHARACTERS AND ADVANCEMENT PATHS [QFA] Here are the hero characters in the game, along with their name in Langrisser and their recommended advancement path (marked with *). Their name in Langrisser is given in parentheses. Garett (Ledin) - Your main hero. If you lose him, your game is over. Garett is a decent fighter through most of the game (as a fighter class, he also gets a few bonuses), but really shines as a Grand Knight or King. GK has better troop bonuses and personal attack. King has some weak spells (Healing 1 & Arrows). King sounds cooler, though. I recommend GK, but it's really your pick. (thanks, Andrew Luxmore) Advancement: Fighter -> *Knight or Lord Lord -> King or Magic Knight Knight -> Knight Master or *Grand Knight Baldarov (Volkov) - Garett's bodyguard. Can't advance or gain exp.! Plus, he dies later (this is not preventable.) His troops are practically invincible though with his +9 to defense. Try to use him as little as possible, and only for softening up the enemy (by either attacking first, or letting the enemy come to his troops). Advancement: Sword Master Mina (Kris) - A travelling cleric Garett meets on the road. Mina and her troops are really weak until she becomes a Saint, however, once she does then she'll really start toasting the enemies. Feed her experience. (azheem@beaches.net) As a Cleric she has some large bonuses when she personally attacks slimes, but loses this bonus when she promotes to any other class. Advancement: Cleric -> Warlock or *Priestess Priestess -> High Priestess or *Saint Warlock -> Bishop or Wizard Wizard -> (same as Calais) Calais (Jessica) - The court mage of castle Baltia Arch Mage sounds cool, but the spells aren't as useful as the Saint's. It will take a lot more work to get to Saint though, and you'll be weak and without good spells for your team until you get there. If for some reason you want Calais to become a Bishop, she can advance to Cleric (taking her to Mina's Cleric class), then become a Warlock again and THEN become a Bishop. I can't think of any reason why you would want to do that, unless you really really want the cool-looking fireball spell that has dragons. Advancement: Warlock -> *Cleric or Wizard Wizard -> Arch Mage or Magic Knight Magic Knight -> Ranger Cleric -> *(same as Mina) Sabra (Nahmu) - Commander of the Baltia troops Sabra is the only full-time member of your team that can become a dragon knight and fly. Do it, it's well worth it. She's even a decent fighter up until then, too. Advancement: Fighter -> Knight or *Lord Lord -> *Dragon Knight or Magic Knight Magic Knight -> Ranger Knight -> Knight Master or Grand Knight Tiberon (Tiira) - Reformed pirate & navy commander Unless you want him to be left far behind your party in later stages of the game, DON'T make him a serpent knight. He's better as a Knight Master, even though it's not a great class. Andrew Luxmore comments that having a serpent knight or Croc Knight is a fairly big advantage on the stages where it is useful (7-9). I agree, but wouldn't want to make him so crippled after that. Still, if you never plan to really use him again (especially to move anywhere), then you could make him a Serpent Knight. A good alternative would be to intentionally keep him from promoting until the end of Scen 9, then make him a knight. Advancement: Crocodile Knight -> Serpent Knight or *Knight Knight -> *Knight Master Thorne (Soun) - One of Lord Carleon's Knights Generic fighter with no outstanding abilities. I prefer Magic Knights to Knight Masters generally, but there are benefits to either I suppose. As a fighter, Thorne (and Bayard/Carleon) has a very slight defense bonus when personally attacking slimes. He loses it when promoting to another class. You probably won't make use of this bonus except on the first stage where you see slimes. Advancement: Fighter -> Knight or *Lord Lord -> *Magic Knight Knight -> Knight Master Bayard (Albert) - Commander of castle Anzel A clone of Thorne with a different picture. Advancement: Fighter -> Knight or *Lord Lord -> *Magic Knight Knight -> Knight Master Carleon (Hawking) - Friend of Garett's father Another Thorne clone. Advancement: Fighter -> Knight or *Lord Lord -> *Magic Knight Knight -> Knight Master Lance (??) - One of emperor Pythion's commanders Another dragon knight is fun to have, except this guy will eventually abandon you, and can't gain experience anyway. Advancement: Dragon Knight Note: If you follow the recommended advancement paths, you will have 1 Grand Knight, 2 Saints, 1 Dragon Knight, 1 Knight Master and 3 Magic Knights. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TROOP COMPARISONS [QFU] Troops can't usually do more damage than they have points; that means that a troop that is at 7 HPs can usually only do 7 points of damage. All hand-to-hand troops can get a counterattack on any other hand-to-hand troop that attacks them and misses. So if the enemy usually misses, the troop can completely destroy them. This shows up best when scores are drastically different and the enemy has weak defense (so your counter-attack succeeds), like Baldarov's Horsemen vs. Barbarians. It does not apply when fighting Archers/Monks or when your troops are using a distance attack (fighting someone on a wall when you are on the ground, etc..) For example; one of Baldarov's horsemen with 1hp fights the barbarians with 10hp. The horsemen's revised stats (with Baldarov's +9 defense bonus) are 21/24. The barbarian's stats (the shaman gives no bonus) are 19/14. Each of the 10 figures will attack the single horseman unit and miss (19 vs 24), the horsemen will get a counterattack (21 vs 14) and kill the figure that attacked it. All 10 figures will attack the lone horseman, all 10 will probably die. The horseman gets 1 attack of it's own as well. This is why it is better to bring Archers for the commander doing softening-up for other commanders. The archers only get 1 attack, and usually miss at least 1 or 2 shots. Archers don't counter-attack their attackers, and no-one can counterattack their arrows. Archers The weakest offensive and defensive stats, but they get to shoot first (before the enemy can get to them) so they may destroy many of their opponents. When fighting in a forest, they get a 40% bonus to defense (vs the normal 20%). They always seem to miss 1-2 shots, even when their offense stat is much higher than the opponent's defense. If, however, you soften up the enemies with a spell or two, then set your archers in good spots to wait for th enemy's attack, they can work wonders - wiping out several companies of enemies without even getting hurt. When fighting flying or horse-mounted troops, they get +4 to attack and +2 to defense. They do NOT get this bonus against enemy commanders riding horses, but DO get it against flying commanders. Good against: Horsemen, Mermen/Lizardmen, Elementals Weak against: Soldiers Soldiers The basic, average troops. If they can't physically reach the enemy, they fling spears like archers (without archer bonuses). They get +2 AT/+4 DF when fighting archers. This is a pretty weak bonus, so unless they get a high +DF from their commander they're probably going to lose a few people. Good against: damaged Archers, Barbarians Weak against: Horsemen Horsemen Mounted troops. Somewhat stronger Attacking, but vulnerable to ranged attacks. Although stats are highest overall, this type of troops suffers movement penalties on all terrain types except regular plains and roads, making them *slower* than soldiers and archers. On flat terrain, their +2 movement range is a help though. Keep them on it when you move. Against soldiers and most enemy commanders they get +4 AT/+2 DF Good against: Soldiers, Barbarians, Evil Ants Weak against: Archers Mermen Aquatic troops. Strong offense, but also easily killed. They can move quickly through water, and get a +50% defense bonus in it. This raises their defense to a pathetic 11-12 (if in range of their commander). Against archers, their miserable defense gaurantees they'll die... like shooting fish in a barrel. Against other troops, you can expect to some mutual destruction (so you'll win if your troops start out with more health). Against DAMAGED commanders, any mermen that aren't killed by the range attack have a good chance of doing some damage. They're also a little expensive. Their shining moment comes in stages 6-9 (with a lot of water), and then the rest of the game is fought inside. Good against: damaged Commanders in the water Weak against: Archers Gryphons "Mermen of the sky" With their cruddy defense, even barbarians can walk all over these troops. Their main advantage is their high offense score 31 and the ability to fly, making them your most mobile troops. Since they'll get badly hurt by any enemy, don't buy them unless you have an enemy with a strong defense that you want to use them for. Good against: Carrion Crawlers, Styracosaurs, damaged Commanders Weak against: Archers Guardsmen Weaker Holy troops, temple acolytes. They have low scores but get special bonuses vs. slimes. They are good for attacking Lizardmen or anything with a low defense score (they come out about even, but are cheap and expendable). Against slime, they get an insane +14/+18, raising the stats of even out-of range troops to 30 AT/28 DF. Even a Great Slime (Commander) only has 19 AT and 28 DF. A 1 HP guardsman can usually wipe out a 10HP slime. They also get +2 AT/+4 DF vs Archers, just like soldiers. However, their defense stats are too weak to survive attacking archers with high HP. Good against: Slime Weak against: Pretty much everything else Monks Slightly stronger Holy troops. They use a ranged attack like Archers and are a little stronger defensively. Consider them a flip-flopped archer; good against solders and bad against horsemen. (thanks Andrew Luxmore) They get +6 AT/+8 DF against undead. However, the only undead in the game are Skeletons (troops) and Ganelon. Good against: Soldiers, Undead Weak against: No major weaknesses Citizens Cannon fodder. Speed bumps. They are only useful to temporarily slow the enemy down. Don't rely on these troops to last long enough for you to waste your time. They are almost gauranteed to be completely wiped out if they are attacked. They will never attack anything themselves. Oddly enough, they get +2 AT/+4 DF vs. Archers, just like soldiers do. Player/Enemy troop comparisons Key: Cost - Amount it costs to buy 1 unit for 1 battle AT - Attack Power DF - Defense Strength MV - Movement points Attack - Attack type Special - Notes Typ - Type of enemy (for determining bonuses to hit) $$ - Amount added to your killing score for destroying 1 unit XP - Experience gained for killing it Class Cost AT DF MV Attack Near/Far Special ----- ---- -- -- -- --------------- ------- Soldier 40 20 14 6 Fight/Spears +2/+4 vs Archers Horseman 60 21 15 8 Fight/Spears +4/+2 vs Soldiers Archer 70 19 14 7 Arrows/Arrows +4/+2 vs Horse/Flyers +20% DF in Forest (+40% total) Monk 60 20 13 6 Spears/Spears +6/+8 vs Skeletons/Wights Merman 80 24 6 *7 Fight/Trident *Sea Movement +50% DF in Water (+50% total) Gryphon 100 27 13 *9 Fight/Fight *Air Movement Guardsman 30 16 10 6 Fight/Fire +14/+18 vs Slimes +2/+4 vs Archers Enemy Class Typ AT DF MV XP $$ Special ----------- --- -- -- -- -- -- ------- Barbarian S 19 14 6 3 15 weak vs. Horsemen Slime L 19 20 6 3 5 weak vs. Guardsmen Dark Elf A 20 14 7 3 15 +20% DF in Forest Soldier S 20 14 6 3 10 Horseman H 21 15 8 3 15 weak vs. Archers Royal Soldier S 24 18 6 5 20 Leviathan W 23 17 8 3 10 (sea movement, +50% def. in water) Gargoyle F 27 14 8 3 20 (air movement, weak vs. Archers) Styracosaur S 23 24 6 3 20 Evil Ant M 19 16 8 2 5 movement penalties Werewolf S 25 17 6 3 10 Carrion Crawler M 20 24 6 3 20 Skeleton U 24 21 6 3 5 weak vs. Monks Golem M 19 40 6 8 50 Elemental F 23 20 8 2 10 (air movement, weak vs. Archers) Lizard man W 23 6 8 3 5 (sea movement, +DF in water) +40% def. in deep water, +50% in Shallow water, +10% DF in Forest Types: S -> Soldier, weak vs Horsemen H -> Horseman, weak vs Archers/Dark Elves A -> Archer, weak vs Soldiers F -> Flying, weak vs Archers/Dark Elves U -> Undead, weak vs Monks/Priests L -> Slime, weak vs Guardsmen/Cleric W -> Water, +50% to defense in water M -> Monster [no weaknesses] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMMANDER CLASS COMPARISONS [QFC] Commanders max damage depends on their HP level: HP 10: 10 damage HP 8-9: 9 damage HP 6-7: 8 damage HP 4-5: 7 damage HP 2-3: 6 damage HP 1: 5 damage (Thanks *****) All commanders have a special ranged attack against all enemies. They can get bonuses from terrain, but they do not add their troop bonus to their own stats. They do not get counterattacks like melee troops. Key: Adv - XP Needed to advance a level XP - XP Given when killed AT - Commander's attacking power DF - Commander's defense MP - Magic points MV - Movement points R - Sphere of Influence range A+ - Attacking bonus to troops in range D+ - Defense bonus to troops in range Troops - Type(s) of troops commander can get Spells - Spells available to commander * - Enemy commander class $$$ - Amount added to your killing score for destroying it Class Typ Adv XP $$$ AT DF MP MV R A+/D+ Troops Spells ------------------------------------------------------------------- Archmage S 40 10 - 31 17 32 6 4 9/2 SAG A,F,E *Archmage S 32 10 150 31 17 16 6 4 7/0 F,To *Basilisk M 32 15 200 27 27 1 6 4 3/2 STONE GAS Bishop S 48 10 - 27 20 16 6 4 4/6 SAK F2,H2,C *Bishop S 32 10 120 27 20 16 6 4 6/4 A,F2,H2 *Chaos M 32 10 100 35 35 40 7 4 4/4 Th,E,H2 Cleric S 32 7 - 23 17 8 5 4 0/4 G H1 *Conjurer S 32 10 44 19 20 16 6 4 1/2 B Croc. Knight W 16 10 - 28 20 0 7 4 2/2 SM - Dragon Knight F 48 12 - 34 24 4 9 4 4/2 F B Fighter S 16a 7 50 23 21 0 6 3 2/2 S - *Fighter S 16 8 50 23 21 0 6 4 2/2 S - Fire Element (b) M 64 45 - 41 34 16 8 4 0/0 F *Gorgosaur S 32 20 200 31 28 12 6 4 5/0 F Grand Knight H 48 12 - 33 28 0 6 4 8/4 SHA - *Grand Knight S 32 10 80 31 25 0 6 4 6/4 - *Great Dragon F 32 25 244 35 35 16 3 4 5/4 F *Great Slime L 24 9 50 19 28 0 6 4 2/2 - High Priestess S 48 10 - 27 32 32 6 4 4/8 SGK H2,H3,S *Kaiser S 32 15 244 32 32 12 6 4 4/4 B,H1 King S 48 15 - 31 28 12 6 4 6/4 SHA A,H1 Knight H 24 7 - 31 20 0 8 4 4/2 SH - *Knight S 24 9 70 31 20 0 8 4 4/2 - Knight Master H 48 10 - 34 24 8 8 4 8/2 SHA L *Kraken W 32 17 150 29 26 0 6 4 0/2 - *Living Armor S 32 10 50 32 30 8 6 4 5/4 F Lord S 24a 10 - 27 24 8 6 4 2/4 SA H1 *Lord S 24 10 100 27 24 8 6 4 2/4 H1 Magic Knight H 48 10 - 31 25 16 8 4 6/4 SHA Th,H1 Priestess S 40 7 - 27 24 16 6 4 2/6 GK H1,H2 *Queen Ant M 24 12 100 31 20 0 8 4 6/5 - Ranger S 64 20 - 41 28 16 9 4 0/0 - E,C,S *Royal Guard S 32 15 100 35 21 4 8 4 6/4 L Saint S 48 12 - 31 24 24 6 4 9/4 SGK F,To,H2 Serp. Knight W 24 12 - 32 24 0 7 4 6/2 SM - *Serp. Knight W 24 12 80 31 24 0 7 4 4/2 - *Shaman S 16 10 80 25 15 4 4 4 0/0 A *Sorceror S 24 15 100 27 20 16 6 4 3/2 H2,C,S Sword Master S 24 15 - 25 22 0 6 4 0/9 SHA - Warlock S 8 7 - 27 13 10 6 4 3/2 G A *Werewolf S 32 10 150 29 21 0 6 4 6/4 - *Wight U 32 20 50 31 34 16 6 4 7/6 Th Wizard S 24 7 - 27 15 16 6 4 6/2 SG A,F *Wizard S 24 8 100 27 16 16 6 4 4/0 B *Wyvern F 32 15 200 31 24 8 7 4 3/2 F NOTEs a: Garrett as a fighter gets +1 to defense and an +4/+2 bonus to troops instead of +2/+2. b: The Fire Elemental joins for scenario 15 as an ally Troop codes: S - Soldiers, H - Horsemen, A - Archers, M - Mermen K - Monk, G - Guardsmen, F - Gryphon Spell codes: A - Magic Arrows, F - Fireball, Th - Thunder, To - Tornado L - Lightning, E - Earthquake, B - Blizzard, F2 - Fireball (Dragon) H1 - Healing 1, H2 - Healing 2, H3 - Healing 3 C - Confusion, S - Sleep CLASS DISCUSSION Archmage The Archmage sucks. So what if she gets Earthquake? It usually does a puny 2 points of damage, and can destroy walls. The Saint gets Tornado, a righteous kick-ass spell that rips the enemy to shreds! Send Calais the Saint route. Andrew Luxmore disagrees with me about this; here are his comments on the usefulness of the Archmage: ------------------------------------------------------------------ Now I agree with what you say about the saint and tornado... and earthquake is annoying because it's so expensive, but I don't think it can be so easily disregarded! First of all, the orb makes for an extra use of it, and then you still have room left for fireball - the small spells shouldn't be underestimated. Often, only one or two damage is needed to make the enemy weak enough to kill with any commander. This is excellent for promoting weaker commanders. Without the orb, argemage has 8 uses of fireball, with the orb 15. Every turn she is able to knock down every single troop by 1 or 2, for 15 turns! It doesn't have the impact of a tornado, but it's still impressive. ----------------------------------------------------------------- After trying this out, I've upgraded the Archmage from 'sucks' to so-so. If you are using archers or solo commanders and the enemy is can all get to you on their turn, an earthquake could lower every enemy into the sweet 8-9 HP zone so that they'll all suicide on your ranged attackers. Bishop Strike 1: Confusion. A totally useless spell, but D.Fireball and Heal2 are fairly good, if not outstanding spells. With the ability to use Archers AND Monks, and with a nice defense bonus, you could say this is a versatile class that could be good at filling a support role. However, the low MP means you won't get many spells, the stats on the Bishop aren't good enough to attack things directly, and I'd probably never use the Archers over the Monks. On the plus side, it doesn't take much experience to get here. Now if they'd replaced the Archers with Elementals like the enemy Bishops use, we'd be getting somewhere. Cleric Well, for a starting class, it's okay I guess. Keep it and it's crappy soldiers in the back and save them for mop-up duty on badly damaged enemies (or mermen on land). After you're done beating up mermen who come on land, you have to hover around other commanders like vultures, swooping in to pick off the 2-3hp troops they leave behind (with your full-health guardsmen). It can be considered to be the defensive counterpart to the enemy Shaman class. They both have only a 5 movement range and similar stats. With the MV range of 5, she can't keep up very well with other commanders on the move. Cleric commanders get bonuses when directly attacking slimes. Croc. Knight It has the special advantage of being able to travel on water and have swimming troops. This makes it a useful class until Scen 9, after which there is no more water to really fight in. Your only starting class with these kind of special advantages, though. Nice to have around for the while you have it. Dragon Knight Woohoo! This class rules once you get it. The commander and their troops can zip around the map, heading to trouble spots or out of danger. Their troops have fairly nasty attacking power and can do serious damage to any non-archers they attack. Not to mention the devious spell-draining tricks... The spell does suck, and you can only cast it once. This class is well designed for taking out commanders with strong troops. Use gryphons to punch through the troops and wipe out the commander. It's tailor-made for Basilisks and Gorgosaurs, each of which come with styracosaurs. Fighter Hey, well... what did you expect from a starting class? Garett gets some advantages, but other than that... the class bites. The only one with a measly 3-square range on the sphere of influence instead of 4. Grand Knight Not one I had ever considered (I considered it's lack of any magic capabilities to be too much of a drawback), but Andrew Luxmore points out some interesting possibilities: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Garrett, even though he should be king because it fits in well with the story, makes for an interesting Grand Knight. Knights are better than lords, especially early in the game, and he gets promoted to Grand Knight before Baldorov dies; he replaces his purpose, which is to weaken enemies for promoting commanders. ------------------------------------------------------------------- This... was an awesome idea. I tried it out, and the game seems a bit easier after that. GK's extra attack bonus + archers make it a piece of cake to weaken enemies. The extra defense is reassuring if he ever gets attacked. I also hardly ever cast Arrows or Heal 1. NOTE: Although it looks like it is riding a mount, this commander uses regular Monster-based movement (instead of horse-based movement). You can't move onto castle walls though. High Priestess Starting off at one wasted spell: Sleep, this class would have to be *really* good to make up for the loss. Guess what? It isn't! Your only other spells are healing ones, making this a pure defense class. Most of your troop options are specialized (Guardsmen and Monks). I wouldn't recommend this class unless you know what you're giving up by not choosing the Saint. King Only one hero can become a King; Garett. It's a fairly well-rounded class too, and fits in with the story. It doesn't shine in any seriously outstanding way. It's somewhat hard to kill, and can help out in a minor way with Arrows and Heal1. With archers, it is decent for helping other commanders gain XP. The GK is overall a better class, with better bonuses and easier to keep alive (due to it's higher personal defense). Sacrificing the spells is not a serious loss, since your other commanders can make up for it. I'd say the only reason to become a King is for the story. Knight It's nice to have Horsemen. They do some decent damage in the first 2/3 of the game. The Knight has a tough time moving over anything but plains and roads. Knight Master If Magic Knight didn't have the awesome Thunder spell, Knight Master wouldn't look so bad. KM has the second-highest attack bonus, behind Saint and Archmage. This makes their troops great for softening-up enemies or taking on high DF enemies and bosses. The personal AT for the commander is tied at second-highest as well, same as Dragon Knight. Unfortunately, not having access to Thunder means you can't use the strategy of Thunder + letting the enemy destroy itself on their turn. Your lightning spell is a more annoying version of Magic Arrows. You'll hit about as many people for about as much damage (using twice the MP), but they all have to be in a straight line from you. Tiberon should be the only one of these you make. Lord Lord-based classes have higher defense at the expense of offense, but get nice spells as well. You get a weak, but handy spell (healing 1) and can use Archers. Odds are, you won't want archers as much as you wish you had horsemen (for being a Knight), but there are several times they come in handy. Magic Knight A decent final class, and hands-down better than the Knight Master. Thunder gives you a chance to nicely soften up the enemies before your troops finish them off. Take advantage of your defense bonus to sit in defensive spots and let the enemies come to you when you can. If you can get 2 MKs together, 2 thunders can lower all the enemies to 4 or less and make them easy cleanup for any commander. If your MK gets to level 5, Thunder becomes even nastier. I've seen a single Thunder do 6 damage to troops. Priestess At first it doesn't seem like a big upgrade to the Cleric, and the experience bar is huge. Then you notice that your monks, combined with your hefty defense bonus, do well against nearly all enemies. About the only thing they don't do well against is horsemen. You also get an upgraded healing spell that comes in handy. Feed this class experience and you'll be rewarded with the most powerful class in the game: Saint! Ranger Wow, check out the stats: 41/28!! There's only three downsides: the spells are complete crap, you don't get any troops, and you had to give up becoming a DK or Saint to get here. If you give her a defensive item, she can drain enemy spells fairly well. She's not weak against archers like a DK, but can't fly over a wall to get the 40% defense bonus. If you make one, they're great to have against several enemies that have a high defense: the dragon, golems, Ganelon and his styracs, and Chaos. This is the ultimate class if you are doing a "no troops" playthrough. If someone casts an offense spell to lower the enemy, they'll happily fling themselves against the wall of death that is the Ranger. Saint I don't see what's so Saintly and peaceful bout this class, but it rules nonetheless. Since the alternative is High Priestess, the choice is a no-brainer. The High Priestess could have been a nice class, but the Saint is *way* better. This class is revenge for the fairly weak Cleric/Priest classes and makes it worth slogging through them (IMHO). You get pumped troop bonuses (+9!/+4) to allow your troops to take on enemy commanders and hurt them. You get a versatile selection of spells: Tornado (the game's nastiest spell to deal lots of damage to a fairly wide area), Fireball (to soften/weaken troops) and Healing 2 (to allow you to play a support role as well!) The Saint is good for taking on full-health enemies and ending the battle quickly. Launch a Tornado and dive right in. If your troops are evenly matched, you'll kill almost every one you attack (assuming you start with full-health troops). Best of all, the enemy troops will still be damaged and just starting to rotate into healing position; your second attack wave can kill them all off. To capitalize on this, attack the troops that are next to their commander on the first wave, so *none* of the troops get to heal on their next turn. If you have one or two other commanders to back up your Saint, you can probably wipe out a full-health enemy and all their troops on the same turn. You don't get as many Tornados (3 without the orb), but that translates almost directly to 3 or more entire groups of enemies destroyed. You do have to hold the Saint in reserve for the occasions where you need her, whereas with the Archmage you may as well keep her constantly chucking fireballs around, since she's not good for much else. The major disadvantage of the Saint for Calais is that she'll have a longer experience route to get there. Unfortunately, the Priestess experience bar is longer than the Wizard bar, meaning you will take quite a bit longer (at least several scenarios more than it would take to become Archmage) to advance to Saint. I think it's ultimately worth it to have a better commander, but I'm also a perfectionist. Serpent Knight As the advanced version of the Crocodile Knight, it comes into it's own Scen 7-9 (with lots of water), then *ROYALLY* sucks after that. If you still have it post-scen 9, only use it when the enemies are willing to come to you, and get soldiers. Otherwise, the battles will be long over before Tiberon can drag his stupid serpent there. You are making a big sacrifice (the last 11 levels, more than half the game!) to have a short-term advantage in 7-10. If you are stuck with this class after scen 9, there are little patches of water on scen 13 - 15 that are cool to fight in (vs. styracosaurs) if you can get to them and convince the enemy to come to you. From Freddie Nguyen: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't bag the Serpant Knight. He has great stats, even if he IS slow, just find a pool of water and he RIPS. Out of water, he ain't so great, but he's still good. The Knight/Knight Master path is quite horrible. Tiberon as a Serpant Knight holds my record for consecutive kills. 89 werewolves in the same enemy phase! He looks better than the Knight too, and you don't have to give him much EXP to get there. Any pool of water and Tiberon is full power! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sword Master For the short time you have one, this class serves one purpose: weaken the enemies enough so that other commanders can get the experience. The huge defense bonus + archers is your ticket. As long as the troops are in range, they are practically invincible. Warlock Hey, it's a starting class. And not *that* bad either. Guardsmen and magic arrows. You have to follow the same strategy as the cleric; beating up really weak enemies (like mermen out of water) and scavenging the rest of your kills. With the game's shortest experience bar (only 3 enemies to go up a level!) you'll won't be a warlock very long. Wizard It's a competent class; fireball can come in handy a couple times. But your main objective is still to get through it to the more advanced classes. If you're fairly evenly matched against the enemy (say you have guardsmen vs. lizardmen), let them come to you and leave a bunch of their 1-2hp troops close together after fighting yours. Then one fireball can wipe out a bunch at a time, racking up the experience for you. On the plus side, you can use Soldiers, which are a whole lot better than Guardsmen. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ITEMS [QFI] Name - Attack adj./Defense adj., special effect Amulet - +0/+2, doubles radius of sphere of influence Cross - +0/+2 Great Sword - +2/+0 Wand - +2/+0, increases max spell damage by 1-2 points Shield - +0/+4 Evil Axe - +8/-10 Dragon Slayer - +5/+3, disappears after the battle Warsong - +4/+4 Orb - +0/+0, magic cost reduced by 50% The Orb is one of the more interesting items. It cuts the cost of the spell by 50% *WHEN IT IS CAST*. If you don't have enough points to pay the full cost of the spell, you can't cast it even though you should be able to. (bug?) So, you can't cast that last 'Lightning' with only 2 MP left. This way, it doesn't quite double the number of spells you can cast. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPELLS [QFS] Spells are great. It doesn't sound that useful to do only 1-3 damage or a little bit of healing, but it can mean the difference between a complete wipeout of the enemy or heavy losses for your side. A full 10HP archer vs. a full 10HP enemy will usually miss a couple shots and end up taking damage. If the enemy was lowered to 8HP by a fireball or magic arrows, then you'll wipe them out without taking any damage at all. So if you were to launch a fireball, place a line of archers and wait, the enemy will likely slaughter themselves completely on you. In other matchups like guardsmen vs. lizardmen, or soldiers vs. soldiers, the outcome is usually a mutual destruction. Both sets of troops are lowered to 0-2 hp, If you set a line of troops for the enemy to attack, then both your troops and the enemy are lowered to 1-2 hp, a fireball can wipe out all those enemy troops, leaving yours to rotate into healing positions. Troops killed with magic DO give experience to the casting commander. Spell Name Cost - Distance away, Effect Radius, Effect -------------------------------------------------------------------- Magic Arrows (2mp) - 6, 1r, 1-2 Dmg Healing 1 (2mp) - 4, 2r, 1-2 Recover Healing 2 (4mp) - 4, 2r, 2-4 Recover Fireball (4mp) - 5, 2r, 1-3 Dmg Thunder (4mp) - 5, 3r, 2-5 Dmg Lightning (4mp) - 7, Straight Line, 1-3 Dmg Blizzard (4mp) - 5, 3r, 1-3 Dmg Sleep (4mp) - 4, 2r, 25% chance of putting enemies to sleep D.Fireball (8mp) - 5, 3r, 2-4 Dmg Healing 3 (8mp) - 4, 2r, 5-8 Recover Tornado (8mp) - 5, 4r, 2-6 Dmg Confusion (8mp) - 7, 1r, Enemies in area might attack each other Earthquake (16mp) - 4, 11r, 1-4 Dmg (also damages walls) Stone Gas 0mp - 5, 1r, turn enemy to stone [Used by enemy Basilisks] After the caster reaches level 5, the max distance away and effect radius of all spells increase by 1, the maximum damage (and possibly minimum damage) also increases by 1. Confusion and Sleep are really useless, you get the most bang for your MP out of Thunder and Tornado. Earthquake can destroy walls, making them passable. Destroyed walls are NOT saved if you do an Interrupt, so you can make some wierd strategy out of casting Earthquake, running across the wall, interrupt, reload and the enemy cannot get to you... :) This is probably a bug. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CODES AND CHEATING All items - On the troop purchase and distribution screen (after you have chosen commanders and Garett is highlighted), press and hold LEFT + UP + A + B for about 10 seconds (you will be highlighting the last commander in the list). The music will start over, your gold will be set to Zero and you will have all items except for Warsong (if you already have Warsong, you won't lose it though).This code gives you all the items in the game except for Warsong! It's existence has been a rumor for quite some time, since the Warsong box shows the item-distribution screen with a bunch of items, including the Dragon Slayer! A code like it existed in Langrisser but was reportedly removed. It has now been verified and works in both the ROM and the cart. Thanks *VERY MUCH* to Joseph Teo for reporting this one! Level Select - Go to the Upper-Left square in wide-screen mode (icons are smaller, press A to switch between wide and normal). Then go Down 1 square and Right one square. (Exactly 1 square diagonally from the upper-left). Press B for 5 seconds or so. Pick the level you want to go to. Warping ahead is suicide - you often miss characters you would have gotten, and you'll be a lot weaker than you're supposed to be. If you feel lucky, take on Chaos with just Garrett and Baldarov! This is more beneficial if you warp backwards to pick up extra experience. Good levels to visit are 13 (the Basilisk level) and 16 (The Great Dragon's lair). Note: If you pick up Lance on level 13, you can warp ahead to 20 and he won't leave! NOT that he's all that great... Caveat: If the scenario you warp to gives you a new character at the end (and you already have the character), their class will change back to what it was at the time (usually setting it back to Fighter or Lord). They keep the level and experience they had before they got changed back, though. If you warp back to one of the really early scenarios where you had Baldarov after you have already lost him, then Baldarov will be replaced with one of the other characters you had before you warped, usually Calais (She won't die if you warp to the stage where you lose Baldarov and beat it though, although it will do the Baldarov-dying dialog). It's usually best to warp to a stage where your party does not change and wasn't smaller than it is now. Sound Test Same as the Level select, just do it in Normal screen mode. You can change the background music (lasts until end-of-turn). There are a total of 63 sound "slots", many of which are silent. I've tried to identify all the sounds I could. Ones marked with a '*' are never used in the game, as far as I can tell. Numbers which aren't listed are silent. 1 - Opening theme, part 1 2 - Ending theme 3 - Victory theme * 4 - (Annoying battle theme) * 5 - (Battle theme) 6 - Good side battle theme 1 7 - Good side battle theme 2 8 - Enemy side battle theme 1 9 - Good side battle theme 3 10 - Enemy side battle theme 2 11 - Game over 12 - Enemy side battle theme 3 13 - Character select music 14 - Battle over tally music *15 - (Happy music) 16 - Opening theme, part 2/Final Battle music 33 - Battle figure dying 1 34 - Battle figure screaming 1 *35 - (blob sound) *36 - (fart siren) 37 - Battle figure dying 2 *38 - (buzz) *39 - (chirp) 40 - Battle figure miss 41 - Spell Explosion 1 42 - Spell Explosion 2 43 - Spell Explosion 3 44 - Battle unit annihilated 1 *45 - (buzz) *46 - (chattering) - repeats *47 - (horseman noise) - repeats *48 - (explosion noise) - repeats 49 - Spell Explosion 4 50 - Lightning spell *51 - (buzz) 52 - Battle figure dying 3 53 - Battle figure dying 4 54 - Menu cursor move beep 57 - Error Buzz 58 - Battle unit annihilated 2 *59 - (buzz) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- RUMORS, NITPICKS and COMMENTS Move Garett to Bottom-Left corner on Level 2. Supposedly maxes out experience. This doesn't seem possible. Could it possibly be the Top-Left or right? At any rate, Garett can max out on experience in only a few more scenarios. An interesting note (Andrew Luxmore) is that the outcome of the battle is determined as soon as it starts. If you save-state and restore during a battle, the outcome will always be the same. This is due to the way the game determines random numbers. This is often based on the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since the game was turned on. Since that information is also saved when you use a state-save, the outcome will always be the same. So will the next battles as well if you do not do something to alter the timing (like hit B to speed up the selection of the next troop). Nitpicks We start each scenario by buying troops (presumably hiring mercenaries for a one-shot battle). At the end of scenario 11 we end by going up the stairs to Pythion's throne room. Where do we hire the mercenaries from for scenario 12? Does Pythion have mercenary-hiring depots in his stairwells? People in the game seem to recognize artifacts with no explanation: A soldier points out Pythion's axe to Garett, Garett just says something like "Oh, yeah - that's the Evil Axe." without commenting on it. The unstoning mirror in level 13 doesn't un-stone the villagers (the statues that are laying around) From Freddie Nguyen: Has anyone noticed that Baldarov hasn't got that good stats? With his bonus, his troops have a better def than him! Scen 2: What's a traveling Cleric doing with 60 Civilians? Scen 3: Why in level 3 are there only 80 civilians? Did Mina bring the Town 75% of it's population? Were there only 20 people living there before? Why is it that when commanders join you. That they die and that's that. They're dead. When you kill Lance the first 5(!!) times you meet him, he comes back, just as good as ever. As soon as he joins you and dies, he's permanatly dead. As with the other commanders.. It's like they join you and they're allowed to pass through to the other worlds. Why is Sabra the only one to escape the fall of Baltia? She gets smashed by two groups and she'll probably die first but she escapes to meet with you whilst Tiberon and Calis get captured. We can assume that Alfador died between level 1 and 6. How come then, after that no one calls you King Garret? You are the King since Pa's bought the farm. Why does Carleon come much later and weaker than Thorne? Carleon is Thorne's BOSS. [In my last game, Thorne hadn't gotten any XP, so Carleon showed up at Lv9 while Thorne was still Lv2-3] When people evolve, where do they get thier stuff from? Do they pull horses, serpents and dragons out of thin air? Scen 12: how did you get surrounded and split? Did those four run forward like charging idiots? and did those four enemy commanders let them pass before cutting them off? [ My note: Actually, there seem to be stairs above Garett and below the commanders on the right side. Presumably those two staircases in Scen 11 end up at those separate stairwells... ] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHALLENGES I've played the game through many times now (at least 5), and I still enjoy it. Once you get the AI down and can predict what the computer will probably do and how to make it fight the way you want, the scenarios become a lot easier. Still, there are many ways to make it even easier; using a dragon knight to drain all the enemy magic, using the interrupt/reset to gaurantee a perfect result, warping back to earlier stages to beef up your characters... This section is here to provide self-imposed rules to make the game more difficult for people who want a challenge... - Don't warp backwards (25 points) - Don't use interrupt/reset or state-save on an emulator (25 points) - Don't use the Dragon Knight draining trick (5 points) - Self-defense: Try to complete the scenario objectives without attacking any enemy troops (just enemy commanders; 'Allied' commanders don't count against this restriction) (20 points) - Don't use items at all. (10 points) - Don't buy troops at all! (You can beat the game with just the leaders, especially after you get defensive items. Tip: Place as few commanders as the game will let you) (15 points) Try to beat the game while breaking as few challenge rules as you can, then add up the points after each rule and rate yourself: 100 points - Supreme master! 95-99 points - Master 90-94 points - Expert 65-89 points - Pro 50-64 points - Amateur 25-49 points - Beginner 0-24 points - Wuss (Note: By this scale, I only rate 'Master' since I like to use the dragon knight draining trick. Maybe next time I'll just make Sabra a Magic Knight instead and try for the max points) Tips: Everyone should be able to beat the game without warping backwards or using interrupt/reset. It's not *that* hard or terrible when you do not achieve the perfect result. I don't count saving/loading at the end of the level to be breaking this rule. If you don't get troops, your best bet is to also just take out the commanders when you have a chance (losing XP as well). Your scenarios will take a *long* time to beat. It doesn't count if the enemy attacks you (self-defense!) so you can still let the enemy come to you and wait for your turn to strike. Some stages are *REALLY* hard this way, especially 7 and 8 for me. Try to make Calais a Ranger, since it is the best Solo class. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIT DATA SPREADSHEET (link) [QFX] I have compiled the class & unit data straight from the ROM and assembled it into a spreadsheet. You can view it here: http://goo.gl/DWWnJ It shows all the bonuses, terrain movement penalties and other data. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THANKS AND CREDITS Darin Mackiewicz - For working out the advancement paths and commander relative strengths! Abacrombie - Strategy tips ****? - Somebody sent me an AWESOME text file (warsong.wri) listing a lot of stuff about the different scenarios, spell damage and a bunch of other bits. If you can tell me who you are, I'll happily add you here. Nelson - Several class stats and some tips for playing Mina and Calais. Mark - Stats for Garett and moving power consumptions. Also for the entry times for reinforcements in scenarios 7, 8 and 9. Guy H. - Grand Knight stats and for pointing out that Garett and Sabra can become a GK from Knight. Eric Karl - Telling me about Megasis (one of very few emulators that correctly run Warsong ROMS!) Levi Banker and James Kohos - for pointing out (on the same day!) Gens, the other emulator that runs Warsong Roms. Andrew Luxmore - Comments on several of the classes, many alternative scenario strategies, corrections to the monk class. Suggestions for different advancement paths. Joseph Teoh - The "All Items" code! Freddie Nguyen - Tons of strategy suggestions for a lot of levels, also plenty of general strategy tips and ideas for other levels, not to mention quite a lot of fun Nitpicks. :)