Carl's Guides

I like Illidan the most of the Elven heroes. He's excellent at killing other heroes and spellcasters with his mana burn skill. He can dodge atttacks while using the immolation ability to deal damage to those around him. Also new in this level is the druid of the claw, who you can now command. Finally, druids of the talong make fine scouts in storm crow form.

Build some wisps and get your base up to where it can produce everything and purchase some upgrades while Illidan stays home and does some defending with his initial party. When your druids of the claw can transform to bears it would be a good time to start exploring a bit. But don't leave your base undefended, as you've seen that can be a deadly mistake and this map has plenty of enemies to attack you. I took Illidan, two bears, four huntresses, three dryads and two archers as my primary group. Leave a nice mixed party like this at home to defend. Make room for a couple ballistas for you'll be sieging bases in this chapter. Head to the east of your base when you're ready to begin gathering some treasures for Illidan, who needs them sorely.

There are loads of giant spiders here and their eggs. Kill off all the spiders and eggs to receive boots of elvenkind +6 (+6 agility for Illidan, nice) and a mana stone. Which is also fairly useful. Now head to the north, killing off some weak sludge monstrosities, and fight the skeletons around the moon well. These are corrupted ancients and there is a base of sorts here. Kill off everything you find from here to the north. When the base is destroyed head to the southwest. Note the path you can take which leads to the north. We'll be needing that later. Call it the infernal passage.

You'll find yourself to the north of your base although there is a river of sorts in your way. Kill the skeletons here (drop nothing) and head to the west, where you'll find a group of Satyrs. When they're killed they drop a claws of attack +6. Illidan should be a good bit more powerful now. Notice we're making a nice loop around to the other side of the base. Just doing some revealing of the map really. Note the gold mine here as I'll use it as a point of reference later. Now go south through the arch and you'll find yourself back at your base. Now go west of the base and do some exploring there. Cross the vile green stream to the southwest and you'll find your party along the bottom side of the map, heading west. Kill off the skeletons and spiders you run into to eventually find a goblin merchant. Now head to the northeast, where you'll find a sludge monstrosity who drops gloves of haste. Perfect for Illidan! Go a bit east and you'll see a murloc mutant. He drops a ring of protection +3. Now go back northwest. You'll find another corrupted ancients base but this one is much, much harder than the first. I encountered a huge army here (I wasn't expecting it) and got wiped out. Illidan lived another day however and I rebuilt my forces and successfully destroyed it with a second attack.

With the second base destroyed you'll see a marked reduction in attacks by the corrupted ancients. Your gold mine is probably running low so I recommend entangling the one to the southwest. Now it's time to take on the demon gate in the northwestern corner. Take the attack force you took before, it's that simple. You don't really even need the ballistas but they can do some nice damage to units with the impaling bolt upgrade. After the initial battle with three doom guards and several felhounds you can go north to fight a group of Satyr. Their leader drops a medallion of courage (+4 str/int) which is a nice item for the demon hunter. With that, head to the northwest and battle the final group of demons which is a bit harder than the last due to the two infernals guarding the skull. Fight them as best you can for, when you're destroyed the gate, the power of the skull of Gul'Dan is yours.

Illidan is a real beast now and could probably do this himself if it weren't for all the units protecting Tichondrius. You'll want to take some big units of your own. I took Illidan, six druids of the claw and five huntresses. All of my units were fully upgraded of course. As a backup crew I also took two ballistas to deal some damage to the demon gates as they will supply reinforcements should my attack fail. They will attack these gates while the others fight for their lives. Since Illidan is the only one who can hurt Tichondrius it's wise to first target the units protecting him. Focus your attack on the infernals as they are definitely the most threatening other than the big guy himself. Then work you way down to doom guards and finally eliminate the felhounds. This will not be easy and may take you a couple tries. Fortunately the entire map is yours and you can conquer gold mines as you like. But still leave a minor defense force to ensure that, should you get wiped out, the enemy won't be able to come and walk all over your base. When you finally kill Tichondrius you're victorious.