Carl's Guides

When the mission begins, so does the countdown. First, I highly recommend you take the gold mine to the east of your base. The big limiter here in making an effective stand is having enough gold to do so. Build several spirit towers and maybe even a black citadel nearby so it can be defended. The black citadel will ensure you can get reinforcements there in time as it will take a little longer to be destroyed. I recommend you build some abominations, maybe a frost wyrm or two and some crypt fiends with the web ability and keep them near Kel'Thuzad because near the end things are going to get crazy. You can also place extra spirit towers around the area where Kel'Thuzad is summoning to ease the demands on your troops. Before too long you are given an optional quest:


Optional Quest: Acquire the Goblin Land Mines
It's hard to say where you should place the land mines. I'd say place them within the borders of the area you're protecting should anything break through to attack Kel'Thuzad. At around 25 minutes until the summoning is complete you will be given command of three hell hounds. I chose to keep them in a fast response group with Arthas. They can work together to defend any direction that may be attacked.

Keep in mind that your base is vulnerable also, and construct some additional spirit towers there. Considering that all you have to do is survive here it's not a big deal to keep blowing your gold on spirit towers. Don't go crazy though. You need to be able to respond should the enemy break through and siege weapons can make you look like a total fool for building nothing but spirit towers. At 20 minutes 'til you're given three more hell hounds. I again kept them with Arthas who was now running with six hell hounds and a frost wyrm. Since you may have to go back and forth to get all the goblin land mines placed you should try to set up the explosives on all four corners of the dais where Kel'Thuzad is working. I set them in a straight line across the entrances so it'll ensure something gets hit.

Continue stifling enemy attacks and at five minute intervals you'll continue to receive hellhounds. However at 10 minutes 'til you'll get a group of infernals which are really tough. Almost like the guardians you fought earlier. I kept them with the ghouls around Kel'Thuzad in case things get crazy as the timer nears zero. And it does. Things start getting a lot harder after that 10 minute mark is hit. Begin building a lot of necromancers, abominations and crypt fiends. If you have to choose between abominations and crypt fiends, pick the fiends. Fliers may be assaulting Kel'Thuzad at the end and you will not be able to do a damn thing about it.

Keep the nercomancers and crypt fiends back for a while until the enemy starts advancing on Kel'Thuzad. Hopefully there are some corpses nearby that the necromancers can automatically raise for you. This really slows the advancing army down and I managed to win by doing this (Arthas died with about a minute to go). I'll admit it took me a few tries. Mainly the thing I did differently on the third try was the second gold mine. Notice when your gold mine collapses with about 5 minutes to go? Yeah. That hurts and I was completely out of gold. Anyway, this is a fun mission and it's not too bad to try it a couple times until you get it right. When you finish it you've also completed the Undead campaign.