Saturday, April 2, 2011

Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Rise of the Witch-King - Mission 5 - Barrow Downs



Battle for Middle Earth II - Rise of the Witch -King - Mission 5 - Barrow-Downs
This is a hint/walkthrough post for Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch-King. You can find an index of all our Battle for Middle Earth II posts here.

You start with some sorcerers for this mission, but don't rely on them. The range of their spells is very short, so from the time you specify the location to hit to when they actually walk over very slowly to cast the spell, you will probably already need to re-target. And with the number of troops coming at you from all sides in this mission, it will be very hard to micromanage this way.
Also, the enemy has high-veterancy cavalry that can run right through your pikemen to mow down your sorcerers.

For the Thrall Masters, you will probably want to summon at least two units of wolf riders for cavalry. There will be an enormous number of archers and infantry, and if you don't have cavalry to at least delay them (running over infantry causes them to fall even if you don't kill them outright), you will probably be overrun. Also, wolf riders are cavalry and therefore cannot be trampled. If enemy cavalry charge, you can counter-charge them and hopefully get them to stop moving while your ranged units attack. Then set the wolf riders to move to another unit while your axe throwers or other units quickly engage the cavalry.

If you don't head immediately for the king's barrow, you will receive an optional objective to clear out the Dunedain Rangers hiding about the Barrow-Downs of Cardolan. Do that first, and also look around the edge of the map. Around the middle of the north side you will probably come across a couple battalions of lancers, and more from off screen if you engage them. Once the entire map is clear, have Hwaldar stand on the barrow.

When reinforcements come, you will probably not have time to organize them, much less set sorcerer spell preferences. Just select all of them, hotkey them together, and use an attack move behind the nearest enemy wave.

You can move Hwaldar and your troops away from the barrow once the quest-location marker spotlight turns off.

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