Orc Campaign: Map 5

Since Blackhand sent you on a pointless mission to the Dead Mines to kill his daughter, a key orc town is now under attack. Boy, someone should really assassinate that guy.

To the rescue!

You start with four spearmen, four grunts, and four raiders. Grab the units, four at a time, from top row to bottom row and send them west. It helps to lower the game speed to minimize the damage done by the humans while you're fighting with the game controls.

The humans are attacking our outpost!

You generally want the troops to arrive at the town at the same time. That's why sending the raiders last is a good idea. They'll catch up with the grunts and spearmen along the way and all three groups will arrive at roughly the same time. If you send the raiders first, they'll get slaughtered while the grunts and spearmen struggle to keep up.

The orc army arrives in time to save a few buildings.

Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough and the humans managed to destroy both the blacksmith and kennel. Once the town is secured, immediately build a peon and send him west to mine for gold. You'll want 5-6 peons mining gold and 1-2 chopping trees.

Explore the immediate area with your grunts or raiders and get a feel of the map layout. The humans will station clerics around your base and use them to heal the archers and knights. Watch for red dots on the minimap. Find the clerics and kill them.

A second mine lies to the east.

There is a second gold mine east of the town. Secure it early by stationing some troops around it. Once you've amassed a good amount of resources, invest in a temple and train necrolytes.

The necrolytes can cast dark vision to reveal the shroud.

The raise dead spell should already be available and won't need to be researched again (even if you didn't research it in a previous mission). Use the necrolytes' dark vision spell to uncover the human town.

I see you!

The human town is revealed.

You'll notice that the human town is guarded by archers and knights. Sending in raiders will be costly. You'll need to draw out the knights somehow.

There are two bridges leading to the town. If you can take control of both bridges, the humans will not be able to attack your town. The computer likes to cluster troops just north of the western bridge.

Hold the bridge and cut off all further human invasions!

Secure the western bridge with spearmen to kill footmen and knights. Archers are more annoying to deal with because they have longer range than spearmen. They'll always attack first and ruin your formation. Keep a raider or two to engage the archers. Gradually push north and set up a wall of spearmen from the trees to the river. You can use the raider to lure troops from the human town to your spearmen deathtrap.

Meanwhile, you should amass units on the eastern bridge. As you kill the knights with the wall of spearmen to the west, send in the army from the east and attack the rear of the town. Then, close in from the west with your spearmen.

The Red Ridge Mountains belongs to the orcs once more!

If you still have necrolytes sitting around, raising skeletons can be handy in that they serve as fodder for enemy archers. Your wall of spearmen will have killed many humans, so there will be ample corpses to raise.

Next Time: Learn why there's no town of Sunnyglade in WoW!