If it's any consolation, you do start the mission with a lumber mill and barracks already built. Also, your necrolyte and warlock start with every spell already unlocked. That means you'll get to use dark vision to scan the map immediately. The warlock will be the most crucial unit in the first 15 minutes of the mission because he can summon a daemon to defend your town.
Good luck, War Chief. Go get the pink skins!
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| The beginning of the end. |
Within the first 2-3 minutes, the computer player will attack with knights from the north. Immediately summon a daemon and send it to the northern bridge to intercept the attackers. You'll also face a host of archers and clerics. Once the bridge is secured, have the daemon wander east and uncover as much of the human town as possible. This distracts one of the three towns and gives you some breathing room to build up your town.
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| Try to build warlocks as soon as possible. |
The humans love to send invisible archers to attack your town. It will take time to properly guard the bridges. So in the meantime, train spearmen and leave them in the intersections to protect your town. This way, any humans that suddenly become visible will be shot down. The miners and woodcutters will still be able to move freely through the town.
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| Hold the bridge and let no invisible enemies slip through. |
Secure the northern bridge with a line of spearmen and position your starting catapults along the bank. The catapults will kill any water elementals that try to attack you. Be warned that invisible human units will be able to slip through the bridge corners. The screenshot above shows an incorrect placement that still allows humans to sneak into your town. Move the two spearmen on the edges in so there's five in a row.
Keep the warlock around with a full tank of magic so he can summon a daemon to defend your town if there's an emergency.
Continue using the necrolyte's dark vision to scout the human towns. The northern town is probably still a little bare from the daemon attack at the very start of the mission.
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| The towns are revealed. |
Outside the southern town, you'll find a wall of archers and knights.
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| Ouch! |
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| Block both bridges with spearmen. |
Set up your spearmen as shown in the screenshot above to block the invisible attackers from the south. The catapult can be positioned along the bank to destroy the town defenders to the south. You should also place a catapult to the right of the bridge to counter any archers the computer player may try to station across the river to the right. These archers will be able to shoot your spearmen and open up holes for invisible units to walk through. But due to the difference in attack range, but the spearmen won't be able to fight back. Having a catapult on the right will keep this from happening.
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| Your spearmen move out of the way for the daemons. |
Hold the bridges until you can train four warlocks for each bridge. You'll have eight warlocks total. With the southern group, summon four daemons and send them south into the human town.
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| The daemons slaughter the first human town. |
The four demons should be able to kill any defenders in town that weren't destroyed by your catapult.
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| However, there are still two more to go! |
After the town is destroyed, you should have four daemons low on magic. Get the most mileage out of them by sending them east into the third and largest human town. They'll be able to kill a lot of archers, clerics, and catapults before running out of juice.
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| More slaughter. |
The four warlocks you've stationed at the northern bridge should be ready to summon four daemons. Send them to raze the northeast human town.
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| The humans are destroyed. |
The daemons will be able to kill all the defenders and destroy the town. Then, send any surviving daemons south into the last human town. Your four warlocks at the southern bridge will have recharged their magic and can summon four more daemons. Do this.
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| Stormwind Keep is ripe for plunder. |
Using dark vision, you'll notice that Stormwind Keep is guarded by a lot of knights, clerics, and conjurers.
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| Send more daemons to crush the resistance. Sense a trend? |
The four daemons from the south should have arrived by now. Kill defenders.
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| More daemons come from the north. |
Once those daemons do their damage, summon four more daemons with your northern warlocks and attack from the north. I think you get the picture now. Keep summoning daemons and wear down the human bases. The narrow roads and walls make it difficult for the computer player to maneuver back and forth because archers will block knights and prevent them from attacking your daemons.
As you push through the town, your main target should be human catapults and barracks. The towers aren't very dangerous because newly hired conjurers will not be able to summon water elementals right away.
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| Take your time to destroy the human structures. |
Keep up the pressure and you'll destroy all of the buildings.
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| The humans have no place to go. |
Congregate around Stormwind Keep and destroy it.
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| Stormwind is defenseless. |
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| Boom goes the dynamite! |
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| You win! |
Clean up the rest of the map. If there are human peasants left, they'll try to rebuild. You can prevent this by stationing units over the charred ruins. Otherwise, wait for the peasant to enter the building's construction site and destroy it. When the last human is slain, you will be victorious.
Epilogue:
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| Well, it wasn't that simple. |
Congratulations on a battle hard fought. The orcs celebrate their victory with a big bonfire and marshmallows. But we all know the daemons did all the dirty work.
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| Yeah, a failed invasion to Lordaeron. |
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| Orgrim Doomhammer, minus the hammer! |
The end!
