GetDotted Domains

Retro Game Walkthroughs For
"Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II"
(PC Games)

This game is also available on Xbox 360.

Retro Game Walkthroughs for Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II (PC Games)
Submitted By: loneeagle013
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Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle Earth FAQ
Author: LoneEagle013
Version: 1.0.3
Date: 04/17/05
Contact info: [email protected]

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

-DISCLAIMER
-INTRODUCTION
-VERSION INFO
-GENERAL COMMENTS REGARDING THE GAME
-COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS
-GOOD SIDE SINGLE PLAYER GUIDE (MEDIUM DIFFICULTY)
-EVIL SIDE SINGLE PLAYER GUIDE (MEDIUM DIFFICULTY)
-CONTRIBUTIONS (CLOSED DUE TO HECTIC SCHEDULE)


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DISCLAIMER:

1. Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle Earth is copyright of EA Games.

2. All materials here are of original strategies and opinions, unless stated
explicitly.

3. As of the current version, the FAQ is far from complete. I will continuously
update the FAQ (hopefully on daily basis for the next 3 days). For questions
please check the message board in the topic I created, w/ the topic regarding
the writing of this FAQ.

4. Please do not plagiarize. Plagiarism is the worst form of flattery. If you
want to use parts of this guide in your own, you may do so by giving credits
where it's due. I'm not picky like big companies, just stick in my name
(that is, LoneEagle013) somewhere in the credits section, or at the part where
you are using my materials. On top of that, I am not a native English speaker,
therfore my writing flavor is somewhat unique - I can see my writing style
being copied without my permission pretty damn well. At the very least please
paraphrase the ideas if you want to take some parts of this guide.

5. When sending me e-mails, I reserve the right for all the contents of the
e-mail, and reserve the right to edit any parts of received e-mails I include
in this FAQ. I will for the most part leave the messages intact, but I will
edit some of the letters for content and clarity, if it is too confusing or
offensive. Just letting you guys know.

6. Please put subject: BFME FAQ, or something like that when e-mailing me. I
receive craploads amounts of junkmail, so every now and then the filter fails
(hotmail, heh) and your mail might be going down to the junk folder. And
please if you attempt to send me files, be clear on what kind of file
attachment you are sending. I trust that people have good intentions, and that
if I receive viruses, spyware, or trojan from any attachments with the BFME FAQ
subject line on the e-mail, I will put the e-mail address in the subsequent
update of the faq, and hopefully the community will punish you with equivalent
pain and malice.



END OF DISCLAIMER
===============================================================================

NOTES ON VERSION 1.0.3:
- Minor corrections and contributions.
- New section devoted to Doug U., who discussed tons of BFME materials through
e-mail, and gave me a whole lot of positive inputs to make this FAQ even
more awesome than ever.


NOTES ON VERSION 1.0.1:
- Added new privacy statement.


NOTES ON VERSION 1.0:
- First finalized version of the faq, minor updates from now on.
- Updates will be done at slower pace from now on.
- Minor update on Black Gates.



NOTES ON VERSION 0.9:

- Formatting updates for easier reading. 0.8 formatting was converted to a very
weird double skipping for unknown reason, fixed the problem.
- Finished Evil Campaign.


NOTES ON VERSION 0.8:

- More evil missions completed.
- More commentaries and contributions.
- Minor corrections on spellings and grammar.
- Major contribution at the end of the faq, recommended reading.


NOTES ON VERSION 0.7:

- Added some extra notes on Contact info.
- Added some more common questions answered.
- Minor update on mergable batallions.
- Finished Mordor units guide section.
- Added credits section at the end of the FAQ.
- Added more evil missions.


NOTES ON VERSION 0.6:

- Added first four missions of Evil side.
- Finished the Isengard unit guide.
- Added some more commonly asked questions.


NOTES ON VERSION 0.5:

- Added general Ancillary mission strategies.
- Finished Mordor guide for Minas Tirith (Evil final mission).
- Added commonly asked questions regarding the game (always under construction)
- Added contributions section.


NOTES ON VERSION 0.4:

- Minor updates on Aragorn.
- Added my general comment of the game.
- Finished Evil Heroes section.
- Finished the Good Units guide section.

NOTES ON VERSION 0.3:

- Finished the GOOD main missions, with the rest of the ancillary mission
coming up.
- Put a contact info at the top.


NOTES ON VERSION 0.2:

- Fixed/updated GOOD heroes guide.
- Expanded the GOOD campaign missions.

NOTES ON VERSION 0.1:

- Started the FAQ.
- Good side Heroes with their abilities and comments of general usage.
- First few missions of Good Side.


===============================================================================

===============================================================================
INTRODUCTION:

This is my first game FAQ ever, so any inputs and ideas are more then welcomed.
This FAQ is a work in progress, and I will update the FAQ continuously as I
refine my tactics and beat the game. As of this version I already finished both
good and evil campaigns, but currently replaying the good side of the game in
order to write up this FAQ, with the evil side coming up within a week or so.
I will also include my brief version of strategies for important/critical
battles.



As of this version the FAQ covers mainly about the Single Player (SP) campaigns
both good and evil. Multiplayer strategies will be included as people
contribute more stuff to me.

I will cover most of the important missions that are integral to the plot of
LOTR, since these are the trickiest missions in the game. I will not cover
all the ancillary missions due to its similarity between one to another and
the objective is always to destroy all the enemies, so not a very hard thing
to do if you have a powerful army at your disposal to begin with.


CONTACTING ME (PLEASE READ PRIVACY STATEMENT AT THE END):

I welcome any comments, you can send them at [email protected]. If you
have any strategies that you think works better than mine, I'll be happy to
include it in this FAQ. Also, I haven't played all the ancillary missions yet,
so if you have anything you would like to contribute, it is more than welcomed.
Please understand if the replies are somewhat slow because I have a busy
schedule and writing the FAQ is a spare time thing. (CONTRIBUTIONS ARE CLOSED
AS OF 02/17/05, but questions are always more than welcome)

I will try to respond to all the messages sent to me, and update my FAQ along
with answers from the questions I received via e-mail. However, to avoid
redundancy I will not reply to questions already covered in the FAQ, so please
read the FAQ carefully for your questions and if you cannot find your answer
then by all means ask me the question. I will make this FAQ as comprehensive
as possible, and I will edit the contents to make them clearer if people find
my explanations confusing.


Update: I have received quite some e-mails within the few days of posting this
FAQ, thereby confirming my questions on whether people actually read my FAQ or
not. I am happy that a lot of people do, and so far all the mails I received
have been very positive. However, I did notice that there were some e-mails
that were written poorly, and asked questions that has been thoroughly
discussed in other places (GameFAQ message boards, EA tech support, etc).
I don't mind answering your questions, but I mainly focus on the strategic
aspect of the game rather than technical and dollar value of the game.

The message board is always a good place to start for finding information,
and there are plenty of reviews out there in the web or printed media that
asking me whether the game is worth to get or not is a bit of a subjective
issue. Solutions to technical problems can often be found in the message
board, or at the EA official tech support page. I will gladly answer your
questions the best as I can, but I'll be much happier discussing gameplay
tactics and finishing the faq to its final version.

Ultimately, if you're still stuck and no one out there can help you, then
by all means you are welcome to e-mail me and I'll try to help you out the
best I can. Just remember I am just an individual and are not affiliated in
any way with EA or Game developers, only a guy who happens to play the game
and decided to write an faq about it.


PRIVACY STATEMENT/IMPORTANT STUFF (READ BEFORE CONTACTING ME)

Since the release of 1.0 faq, I have been receiving a whole lot of e-mail. Most
of them were good questions and strategies, but some concerns me a whole lot.
First of all, people are starting to instant message me, and add me to their
buddy lists and asking me weird questions. While I do not mind having you in
my buddy list, you will require my permission to do so (send me an e-mail
regarding that topic).

While I can filter e-mails sent at my direction, there is no way for instant
messaging to do that except to block the person. To anticipate this, I have
set up a new mail account exclusively for faq purposes, and set up several
new rules so that hopefully it is easier to deal with the large amount of
e-mail I am receiving because of this faq.

So here is the deal:

1. PLEASE DO NOT ADD ME TO YOUR BUDDY LIST ON ANY INSTANT MESSAGING MEDIUM,
UNLESS I GIVE YOU THE PERMISSION TO DO SO VIA E-MAIL.

2. PLEASE READ THE FAQ, AND ONLY CONTACT ME REGARDING STRATEGY CONTRIBUTIONS,
OR QUESTIONS NOT COVERED IN THE FAQ. (Dumb questions will not be responded,
nor will be questions that I have covered in the FAQ).

3. EMAIL TO: [email protected]. If you have corresponded with me before,
please send subsequent messages to the new account. I will not respond and
block any e-mails regarding the subject that are sent to the wrong mailbox.

4. PLEASE PUT BFME FAQ ON THE SUBJECT LINE. There are tons of junkmail floating
in my mailbox, and I don't feel like fishing your mail every time from the
junk folder. I am doing this out of courtesy, but it is getting troublesome
for me to fish all the messages.

5. PLEASE WRITE IN LEGIBLE ENGLISH. While I am well versed in L33tSP34K and the
rest of internet lingo, please try your best to write something legible. It
helps me to understand better of your questions and contributions, and
saves me time of editing your stuff if it makes it to the faq.

6. DO NOT ASK ME FOR CD KEY!!! I am only writing a strategy guide, a free one
to boot. I agree that often times games are really expensive to buy. So earn
it, like get a job or something. Or you can save up. Before I had a job, I
used to skip lunches and use my lunch money to buy expensive things I wanted
that my parents would not get me for a million years (video games, etc). If
you still want freebies, then search the web for it. They are out there, and
tons of people are playing bootleg games on daily basis. Just don't blame me
when the FBI comes knocking the door on you. Software piracy these days is
a serious crime. Try it if you will, but then buy the game afterwards, when
it is on sale or it is at the bargain bin.



A lot of you are very friendly, helpful and sent me very good questions and
strategies. But trust me, this is only the minority of the e-mails I receive.
A majority of e-mail I received goes back to the questions I have answered
a lot of times to different people who failed to read the faq CAREFULLY. For
those of you who are in my good list, I apologize for the inconvenience and the
new rules imposed on contacting me. I just have to do this before things get
seriously out of control. For the rest of you who sent me some seriously dumb
stuff, I forgive your errors in the past. But I will not be so forgiving, now
that I made the rules clear for everyone.

Thank you, and please enjoy the rest of the FAQ.





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GENERAL COMMENTS REGARDING THE GAME

I have played many other RTS games before this one, and it is definitely a
different experience. First of all the game is much simplified compared to
other RTS games. It is even simpler than its cousin C&C Generals, which is
already a simple RTS game compared to Warcraft III. Units are grouped based
on hotkeys, force move/attack inputs are nonexistent, and the AI is very
simplistic. So simplistic that units under attack often times do not react
and welcome their untimely deaths instead. The game focuses more on large
battles instead of resource gathering, since most resource gathering is done
by building structures and do not require any management at all.

Battles are huge and fun, very faithful to the movies. Units are well
animated, and the background sounds of chaos in battle are also very good.
Some units have death animations that can affect the surroundings, like
Mumakils and trolls.

Balancing of the game is a mixed bag. A lot of people seem to think that
the balance of the game is broken, with the evil side is far weaker compared
to the good side. IMHO the game is SOMEWHAT balanced, but in order to see that
one must understand the mechanics of the game completely. Each faction is
designed for a certain purpose, and if someone plays a particular faction
outside of its specific strengths and weaknesses can be royally destroyed by
a relative RTS newbie. Several times I was humbled by the AI in the single
player campaign mode because I wasn't playing a faction the way I was supposed
to play. So give the game a chance before rattling your sabers and declare the
game is completely broken. I admit that the game is far from perfect, and it
requires a whole lot of polishing before it's completely balanced and bug free.
While I cannot speak for the multiplayer experience, I successfully finished
both sides of the single player campaign at medium difficulty level. Some
missions are designed to be challenging, but given the right strategies it
becomes manageable and surprisingly easy at times.

So what if you keep getting defeated over and over in a specific mission or
against a particular faction? One way is to think carefully about what you
did right and what you did wrong during the game. In one game I made 8 fatal
mistakes, but it turned out that my opponent made 10 fatal mistakes, and I
was able to come out as the winner of the battle of who screws up less. And
on another occasion I was playing the single player campaign and kept on
getting destroyed by the AI. I switched to a completely different tactics
and decisively win the mission. Just keep trying different approaches to a
problem, and eventually you'll come up with a solution that works. Ultimately,
the game is more or less RTS lite, so it is not that hard of a game to begin
with, single player wise. Multiplayer I cannot say because my record is not
that great, and there are truly amazing players out there and I think they
should write an FAQ about the multiplayer aspect of this game. So if you think
you're pretty hot with the MP and would like to contribute strategies and
discuss the contents of the FAQ, feel free to e-mail me.

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COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS REGARDING THE GAME


NOTE: Most of this information is available in the user's manual, or in the
tutorial part of the battle school. Please spend some five minutes on
them before asking the rudiment questions. Watching the battle school
will give you a much more deeper insight to the game, as the manual
skips a lot of details when explaining things.


Q: Will my computer run this game?

A: Depending what kind of a computer do you have. The computer I use currently
is an AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz, 512 MB PC2100 DDR RAM, and a GeForce 4 Ti4200
video card. I can run the game at 1024 by 768 with the lowest details with
no problems except on very big battles, and even then it's still bearable.

I would recommend a system with at least 512 MB RAM, Pentium 2.0 Ghz or AMD
equivalent of that speed, and GeForce 5200 series and above video cards or
its ATI equivalent of that. Message boards are a good place to research this
question.


Q: Should I get this game? Is it worth my money?

A: Depends on whether you like LOTR stuff or not. If you hate it in the first
place, don't bother. If you haven't seen the movie yet, it might spoil some
of the story, so go watch the movie - it's been out for a year now. If you
are a newbie to RTS games, it is a good place to start because it is more
simple than other RTS games out there in the market.

If you are an expert in other RTS like Starcraft or Warcraft III, then you
might find the game on the easier side, and might be frustrated because the
game does lack more complex features Blizzard RTS games have. As I said
earlier, it is RTS-lite after all, low carbs and all. So don't expect a
revolutionary gameplay. But it does have a seriously fun gameplay at times,
and if you are an LOTR nut, it's probably one of the best LOTR based RTS
ever created in the annals of middle earth history.

In general, the average review on the game is very positive. Not as great
as Warcraft III or Starcraft in a sense of being a classic RTS, but it is
better than most RTS available out there, and it is aimed for mainstream
audiences. For it's worth, I have spent more than 40 hours playing it, and
I still am currently playing it over again because each time I play I found
better tactics beating the AI in the campaign.


Q: My units keep on dying whenever I start a mission. What's going on?

A: This is a built-in anti-piracy measure of the game. If the game detects
any altered files it will self destruct all of the player's units,
effectively rendering the game unplayable. Unfortunately, it happens a lot
to legitimate users such that EA posts a solution for this problem at their
official tech support page.

A quick fix for this problem is to navigate to the games installed folder
and then to the support directory and to load the The Battle for
Middle-earth_code.exe file. Just re-enter the key and all works again.

If that doesn't work, then uninstall the broken version of the game, and do
a clean installation of the game in the default directory, and it should
work just fine.


Q: How do you assign hotkeys?

A: Hotkeys are the numerical keys 0-9 on the top of your keyboard. Select a
group of units, then press ctrl-# (# of key you want to assign the unit to)
to assign the selected units under that hotkey. Pressing the hotkey recalls
the selected units you've chosen under that key, so it is very useful to
access groups of units. Hotkey groups are different than merging units.


Q: What is merging units, and how does it work?


A: BFME has a unique feature for merging different types of units into one
single batallion or horde. A batallion consists of five units for the side
of good an a single horde consists of 10 units of uruk or orcs. A merged
unit, for those of you who can add, consists of twice as many units as a
single batallion or a horde. This merging ability is exclusive and only
certain units can be merged to other specific units.

Here are the list of known possible combinations of merging units:
1. Yeoman Archer - Peasant
2. Gondor Soldier - Ranger or Gondor Archer
3. Gondor Tower Guard - Ranger or Gondor Archer
4. Uruk-hai - Crossbow Uruks
5. Uruk-hai - Pike Uruks
6. Pike Uruks - Crossbow Uruks
7. Elvish archers - Elvish swordsmen (toggle the bow with the sword)
8. Mordor Orcs - Orcish archers
9. Gondor Soldier/Tower Guard - Gondor Knight
10. Rohirrims - Peasants (what's the point, though?)

To merge units, click on a mergable unit, and hover your mouse pointer on
another mergable units. The pointer should change into merge icon. Clicking
the mouse on the unit with this pointer merges the two units together.

Note that merging units are a permanent process: you cannot undo the change.
And merged archer batallions cannot garisson towers. Merging has benefits
because you only pay upgrades for one batallion, so you are paying half the
cost when buying upgrades for merged units. Also new units merged to ranked
up units gain the higher ranks. Some unit mergings are less useful than
others, so use your imagination on how to use them properly, and tell me so
that we can all share the tactics of using the units properly.


Q: How do you garrison archer units to an abandoned tower?

A: Some maps in the game have abandoned towers that can be garrisoned by your
archer units. To garrison a tower, select your archer unit, and hover your
mouse at the tower. The icon should change to the garrison icon, and click
on the tower to garrison your unit at the tower. Note that garrisoned units
are permanently lost, freeing up command points in the process. In this
light it is best to garrison stock (non-upgraded) units and lower ranked
ones, because it will be gone for good.

You can recapture a tower garrisoned by enemy units by sending and garrison
-ing the tower with your own archer. There will be a mini battle fight for
the control of the tower, but the attacking unit will always wins the tower
and garrison it for your side. Just escort the garrisoning units so they
don't get killed approaching the tower.


Q: Help! my unit is stuck on a wall, and cannot get out! What do I do?

A: Blame the game testers for this. Unfortunately there are some bugs that can
make units stuck on some weird places in the game. I had seen several of
them, including stuck reinforcement units in Osgiliath, and someone asked
me how to unstuck his Eomer on a wall.

For Eomer, Gandalf, Theoden, Eowyn and Faramir, you can try mount/unmount
them and try clicking around to see if that dislodges them from the sticky
spot. Clicking around from different angles might dislodge a stuck unit
from its position. If all else fails, you can just win the game without
the hero (sucks), or you can restart the mission if you have the heart to
do so (sucks even more). I hope the patch resolves these problems.

There is one special case where stuck heroes are meant to be. If Lurtz is
lurking around, he has the ensnare ability which pins down your hero to
his standing spot and make him vulnerable to enemy attacks. In that case
you just have to protect the hero until the spell wears off.


Q: How do I turn on the autoset feature for the heroes' skills?

A: Right click on their skill icon. You should see a circular shine on the
edges of the icon if autoset is enabled for that particular skill.


Q: I purchased upgrades from the building, but my units are still not upgraded
yet. What's going on here?

A: After the initial purchase at the building, you still have to INDIVIDUALLY
upgrade your units by clicking on the icons by your units picture at the
bottom of the game screen. You can check the battle school for more details.


Q: In some of the missions, the objective mentions to find friendly units some
where across the map, but after destroying everything and opening up the
entire map, I still couldn't find them. What's going on here?

A: This is probably a design oversight. What happens is that the AI explores
the map continuously and employ search and destroy tactics. That being said,
they sometimes wipe out friendly units (like the giant eagles) chilling
around waiting for you to call them out and play with the bad guys. They
will not defend themselves and will become easy preys for the enemy troops.
The easiest way to deal with this is to send out a scouting unit to explore
the map early on while you build and defend your main base. Sending out the
knights or Gandalf is usually a good idea because they are fast and can
evade enemy patrols without getting themselves killed.



Q: Man, your guide sucks. It doesn't work with hard mode, and I think your
strategy doesn't work in skirmish or multiplayer games.

A: Okay, as I explicitly stated, I based the guide on MEDIUM difficulty, since
most people play in this difficulty mode. I haven't tried HARD mode yet, nor
do I play multiplayer often enough that I become an expert of that. That is
where the contributions section comes in. If you have tips and guides for
parts of the game that I DO NOT cover, please by all means e-mail me some
contributions and I'll be more than happy append them to my guide and give
you the credit where it is due. There might be other faqs out there that
cover hard mode, and I have no intention to cover hard mode strategies
other than from contributions.


Q: Your guide is not complete. What about the other missions besides the ones
they cover in the movie? I need help on mission ,
but you didn't cover it. What should I do?

A: Those missions are called the Ancillary missions. Ancillary missions are
battles not fought or explicitly mentioned in the LOTR main storyline. These
are battles that are either background stories, or creative intepretation of
the battles not covered majorly in the movie or the book.

As such, the missions are more or less skirmish missions with some extra
bonus objectives thrown in it. The basic idea of the mission is the same, to
destroy all enemies lurking on the map. I wrote a section of how to win the
ancillary missions right after the battle of minas tirith for the good side
walkthrough. The tips do apply for the Evil side for the most general cases,
and I will add some more tips and tactics for the Evil side once I completed
all the ancillary missions available for the Evil campaign.

Ancillary missions in general shouldn't be too challenging aside from the
beginning rushes by the enemy. After that it is up to the imagination of the
player to come up with interesting tactics, and that on its own is a huge
part of the game. It kinda takes out the fun when you have someone dictate
you play by play on what exactly to do. It's just a game, not a dinner
recipe or college applications, so you won't die just by losing the mission
several times. I had to rethink my plans on some of the missions I failed
several times before finally succeeding.


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SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGNS (PLAYED AT DEFAULT MEDIUM DIFFICULTY)




------------------QUICK COMMENT PLEASE READ FOR YOUR SAKE----------------------
This is the main course of the FAQ, and occasionally I will revise the contents
to make things clearer and add strategies contributed by people.

NOTE: Always try to accomplish the bonus points, because they tend to help
you win the mission easier than not accomplishing them. And often times they
are part of what you are about to do anyway (upgrading w/ heavy armor, duh).

Accomplishing all the bonus objectives in a misison will give you total victory
status, regardless of your accumulated points. Plus I would think that you are
winning big time if you are indeed accomplishing the bonus objectives anyway.

I based my strategies on medium difficulty, so it may NOT work for hard mode.

Another point worth pointing out is that if you win with a very weak army, that
army will be carried over to the next battle. If it is a tough mission, you
will have a whole lot of pain playing the next mission if the only thing left
in your army is stock (non-upgraded) units, and not much else. So always before
destroying the last enemy building, hang around and build up your army until
your units are maxed out, so you can save time on the next mission rebuilding
your army all over again from scratch. If you are careful, you can get away
with having your original units from the first mission survive the entire
campaign and have tons of kills and maxed out at level 10. These guys are uber
bad ass, so don't lose your units over stupid tactical errors. Good generals
keep their men alive for as long as possible.

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THE SIDE OF GOOD:

The side of good consists of Gondor and Rohan, as well as the heroes of the
Fellowship. A quick info on the factions on the side of good is provided below.
I mainly describe the characters properties in the game rather than an uber long
biography of who's who in middle earth. I'll leave the movies, the books, as
well as encyclopedia of Arda online to give you an exhaustive material on those.

THE FELLOWSHIP:

1. ARAGORN:

Abilities(level obtained):

1. Athelas(1): Heals all heroes within a small radius.
2. Blademaster(2): Aragorn deals 100% extra damage for a short period of time.
Very useful to put on auto-activate mode.
3. Leadership(4): Passive ability, gives bonus to surrounding army with bonus
damage, armor, and immunity to fear.
4. Elendil(5): A warcry that make enemies flee for a short period of time,
while Aragorn can make chase and kill off the slow ones.
5. Summon Army of the Dead(10): Aragorn summons a small legion of Army of the
Dead, lasts for a minute or two before it dissapears.


Comments:

Aragorn by far is one of the most useful heroes in the game, only second to
Gandalf. He can pretty much go solo on his own with his abilities.
He can be the heroes medic, clearing crowds away with his Elendil Shout,
and rack up kills with his blademaster ability. His Army of the Dead ability,
by far, is the most useful one. He can singlehandedly defeat a massive evil
army on himself by summoning the secret service of the king (As I like to call
it myself), protecting his flank while he's retreating. A general strategy
using Aragorn is just to put him on one of the ctrl-# key, and just set him
loose in the action while every now and then check on him. He will level up in
no time that way. He is also one of the heroes you might want to level up the
fastest so you can use all his cool abilities.

If you have the Anduril evenstar power, Aragorn becomes a insane monster. With
his blademaster ability and the Anduril, he can take down defensive towers in
one swing! That's some raw power there. He can take down mumakils in two or
three swings, so use him if there are no nearby fire archers. I wouldn't be
surprised if your top 5 vanguished enemies would include him, Legolas and


Gandalf.


2.. GANDALF:

Abilities(level obtained):

1. Wizard Blast(1): Strikes and knocks back groups of enemies.
2. Lightning Sword(2): Creates a chain of lightning over a radius of area.
3. Leadership(4): Passive ability, gives bonus to surrounding army with bonus
damage, armor, and immunity to fear.
4. Mount Shadowfax(5): Allows Gandalf to ride shadowfax, giving him advantages
and disadvantages of mounted heroes.
5. Light of Istari(5): A powerful light beam that can take most units down in
one shot.
6. Word of Power(10): Most useful spell in the game; creates a massive magic
blast surrounding Gandalf and deals 500 damage to all enemies wthin the
radius (it's a BIIIIGG radius, btw).

Comments:

Gandalf is the most powerful hero in the game, and no one comes close. In the
campaign he's pretty much unstoppable if you use him correctly. The Evenstar
power of Gandalf the White gives 100% extra damage, as well as doubles the
recharge rate of his spells. Wizard blast clears up the area in front of
Gandalf, and sometimes if it is done right it can take out an entire batallion
of orcs. Lightning sword is very useful to clear out a region full of orcs, or
sometimes trolls who are at the right time at the wrong place (trashing your
normal units, for example). The light of Istari can take out big units in one
shot, including the Nazguls (I use this skill exclusively sniping them out of
the skies in the later missions). Word of power, is just pretty much an "Oh
S***" button that literally clears the screen out of bad guys. While it may not
kill all of them, it'll definitely knock out all the weaker units, leaving you
to deal with the strong one. Mounting Gandalf can be very useful in larger maps
so that he can cover a big area in a short amount of time, helping various
sides of the battles.


3. LEGOLAS:

Abilities(level obtained):

1. Hawk Strike(1): Legolas fires a two-volley of arrows with increased damage.
2. Knife Fighter(2): Legolas switches to his knife, gains 125% speed bonus and
huge melee damage for a period of time.
3. Master Archer(4): Legolas teaches archer units within the radius and gives
experience bonus.
4. Arrow Wind(7): Legolas rains massive amounts of arrows within a small radius,
useful to take out small bulidings or a group of enemies.

Comments:

Although I rank Legolas #3 in my list of poweful heroes, by the end of the
campaign, he'll have the most kills out of all your units (In my first game, he
wasted 2000+ units with Aragorn came close to 1200-something). His range of
vision is impressive, and his rate of fire is the fastest in the game in terms
of archer units. At higher levels you can just have him guard a spot, and
unless they bring out a horde to take him out, he can pick off 3 batallions of
orcs one by one that by the time it reaches him only a few are left. Legolas is
best used to scout for shrouded areas, because he can see enemy units before
they can see them. He is also very useful to be the one left at the base
guarding baby-sitting the hobbits while all your other heroes go out and level
up, because he can level up THAT fast on his own compared to everyone else.
Hawk Strikes are best used for sniping big enemies, including Nazguls and
trolls. Knife Fighter is a very useful ability, but almost never used unless
Legolas is completely surrounded by infantry units. Arrow Wind is useful later
on to deny a small choke point of enemies, and sometimes for dealing rapid
damage to small buildings like slaughterhouses, or lumber camps (kills all the
laborer orcs within the camp).


4. GIMLI:

Abilities(Level obtained):

1. Axe Throw(1): Gimli throws his axe at a single opponent; decent damage.
2. Leap(2): Gimli leaps to the air, with a powerful landing that knocks back
opponents away on his landing area.
3. Slayer(5): Doubles speed and damage for a short period of time.

Comments:

Aye, the dwarf. He's pretty useful for crowd controls, but his use is somewhat
limited. Powerful melee fighter, never hurts to put him at the front lines. His
leap attack, which is his most useful attack, have to be abused whenever the
situation calls for it. It simply clears up the area of bad guys, very useful
for leveling up purposes and rescuing heroes trapped among enemies. Beware
though, the leap attack needs to be initated from a set distance, meaning that
Gimli has to actually run until he meets the distance for his leap - which can
be problematic if there's a lot of enemies in the way. Leave his slayer skill
on auto-set, that way you can maximize his damage dealing during the time. The
easiest way is to have him guard an area crowded with enemies while he's on
slayer mode. Prior to that, leave the axe-throw skill on autoset, so he always
have at least one freebie ranged attack at an ugly orc's face.



5. BOROMIR:


Abilities(Level obtained):
1. Horn of Gondor(2): Stuns surrounding enemies for a period of time.
2. Leadership(5): Passive ability, gives bonus damage, armor and immunity to
fear on surrounding allied army.
3. Captain of Gondor(7): Boromir gives experience to the units within the
radius of the skill.


Comments:


Boromir goes to the lower part of my list. Part of the problem is that he did
not really make it very far in the original story, so EA didn't have that much
material to work on his skills. The horn of Gondor is very useful to hold off a
massive wave of enemy going down on your army, giving you some extra time to
regroup your army, or move your heroes out of enemies' encirclements. Aside
from that, Boromir is also useful to pump up your army and give them bonuses,
so it would be wise to put him in the center of your army to maximize his
passive ability of leadership.


6. THE HOBBITS (FRODO, SAM, MERRY, PIPPIN)



Abilities(Level obtained):
1. Throw rocks/use Sword(1): Toggles between attack modes.
2. Elven cloaks(post Lothlorien); Invisible while not moving for a period of
time.
3. Phial of Galadriel(Frodo only, post Lothlorien): Scares away enemies.

comments:



I group the hobbits together in this FAQ because their skills are identical,
and I don't think you'll be using them that much in the game save for leveling
them up or when it is required for missions. The easiest way to keep them alive
is to set their skill on throwing rocks, as it actually gives them ranged
attack and levels them up far faster than their swords alone. Hobbits are so
slow compared to other heroes, often times they don't reach the enemies in time
(the bad guys get wasted by everyone else). I surely wish they have a cool idle
animation (like smoking the pipe), because most of the time they are left

guarding my fort with Legolas baby-sitting them once he leveled up his share,
and the battle is not very crucial. Group them together and they'll last
longer. If you really want them to go to battle, then group them with your
archer units so that way they don't get too much action for them to handle.



GONDOR HEROES:


1. FARAMIR:



Abilities(Level obtained):

1. Wounding Arrow(1): A powerful arrow strike that can kill most units in one
shot, Nazguls losses 50% of the health bar. Ranger mode only.
2. Toggle Sword/Bow(1): Toggles between Sword/Arrow mode for Faramir
3. Ranger/Knight(4): Toggles Faramir between Knight mode and Ranger mode.
4. Leadership(6): Passive Ability. Gives leadership bonus to surrounding army
(bonus damage, armor and immunity to fear).
5. Captain of Gondor(7): Gives 50% exp. bonus to units within area of effect.



Comments:


Faramir is probably one of the most versataile hero given his ability and his
price. He can be an archer unit, and he can also be a knight unit, so next to
Aragorn he can be anywhere in the battlefield without too much problem. While
his archery skills is nothing compared to Legolas, he can still hold his own
ground once he levels up enough, and being a knight with his leadership
ability, you can group him with your knight batallions and have him wreak
havoc all over the place. Think of a merging between Eomer and Legolas,
watered down a little bit and you'll get Faramir. Very good hero overall.



ROHAN HEROES:



1. EOMER:



Abilities(level obtained):
1. Leadership(1): Passive ability, gives bonus to horsemen units. This ability
also allows horsemen to get resource for each unit they kill.
2. Mount/Dismount(1): Mounts/dismounts from the horse, with advantages and
disadvantages on each stance.
3. Spear Strike(6): A poweful spear throw against a single target, massive
recharge time. Make sure it counts when you use it.



Comments:

Eomer is the hero on the Rohan side for most of the mission until you reach
Helm's Deep. He's most useful when you put him into 1 single group, and group
the rest of your rohirrims on another slot. He can lead successful raids on
enemy positions, and strong enough to go around patrolling alone to level up.
I use him mostly to bait enemies out of their camp, and have my rohirrims jump
on the enemies while Eomer holding them off on his own. His resource ability is
somewhat not as useful as the game progresses when your resource gathering
becomes somewhat large.



2. THEODEN:

Note: Theoden is already at level 4 by the time you obtained him in campaign
mode.

Abilities(level obtained):
1. Glorious Charge(4): Mounted only. Theoden and all horsemen in radius of
effect takes 10% of damage while the skill lasts.
2. Mount/Dismount(4): Mounts/dismounts Theoden, with the advantages and
disadvantages of each stance.
3. Leadership(4): Passive ability, gives horsemen bonus (damage, armor).
4. King's favor(6): Increases units' experiences.


Comments:

Theoden comes in during Helm's Deep, and he's more effective being grouped
with the rest of your rohirrim units. That way whenever you activate the
glorious charge (which should be on auto-set for making your life easier),
it reaches the maximum amount of units receiving the bonus. I personally like
mounting him at all times, that way he becomes the hero that is attached to
the my army.



3. EOWYN:

Note: Like Theoden, Eowyn is already at level 4 by the time you obtained her
in campaign mode.

Abilities(level obtained):
1. Mount(3): Mounts/dismounts horse with the advantages/disadvantages of each
stance.
2. Shield Maiden(5): Eowyn gains 55% armor.
3. Disguise(4): Eowyn disguises as one of the rohirrim riders.
4. Smite (built in): Eowyn delivers a very powerful projectile strike. Use with
care and don't waste it at weak enemies.


Comments:

Eowyn is pretty useful in MP, no doubt. Her disguise ability makes her look
like one of the rohirrims, such that you can sneak slowly behind an annoying
enemy hero and smite him in one shot. Her smite ability is so powerful, it can
almost take a Nazgul in one shot. I usually mount her and group her with my
rohirrim archers because of her ability for added protection, as well as her
leadership bonus (that way i have heroes leading each of my grouped armies).



4. TREEBEARD:

Note: Treebeard only shows up at the Isengard mission in the campaign, and he
is already at level 10 when you get to use him. Treebeard does not appear
anywhere else in the game as a playable hero unless you play skirmish/multi-
player mode.

Abilities:
1. Toggle melee/rock throwing: pretty obvious from the name, eh?
2. Grab chunks of buildings: Treebeard grabs a chunk of building and fling it
to his intended target.


Comments:

Treebeard is like the super Ent. Massive Health bar and deals extra damage
compared to other ents. Just like other ents, Treebeard is suspectible to
fire damage, and will have to go to the nearest pool of water to put out the
flames. In the Isengard mission Treebeard must survive, otherwise the mission
will fail.


///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

GOOD SIDE UNITS GUIDE:



ROHAN UNITS


ROHAN PEASANTS

Rohan's basic foot infantry unit. Relatively weak and not much use other than
repairing damaged gates and meat shields for the yeoman archers. Can be buffed
with the arm peasants Evenstar power, but still worthless for the most part.
I would recommend skipping creating these guys as most buildings repair on
their own over time. Nonetheless, arming the peasant upgrade increases
the armor and damage of peasants, making it somewhat more sturdier, but not
by much. Gondor soldiers are much better suited for battling purposes.


YEOMAN ARCHERS

Rohan's basic archer unit. Not terribly strong, but definitely useful for
defending basea or taking down units suspectible to fire arrows. Mostly
useless until it is upgraded with everything. I prefer the elves because
they are more versatile and have superior stats compared to yeoman archers,
although they are more expensive. Archers are very useful when grouped
together and focus their fire against a single target, as opposed to random
aiming of targets.


ELVISH ARCHERS

In the movie, elves came to aid humans during the seige of Helm's Deep. You
will encounter the Elvish units at Lothlorien for the first time, but you
won't be able to see them until Helm's Deep. Far more superior in range and
damage, the Elvish warriors can also switch to their swords to fight melee
against other infantries, but they won't very last long because they were not
designed to go toe to toe with orcs.


ROHIRRIM (RIDERS OF ROHAN)

The Rohirrims are the bread and butter of Rohan army. The cavalry is strong
against most normal infantries, and it can trample over batallions of
infantries, destroying them in a single swoop before they have time to strike.
Be careful, however, for trmapling enemies cost health. You might lose several
units in a batallion if you attempt to trample veteran or upgraded units.

The Rohirrims are vulnerable to Troll attacks and pike units. Nazguls have a
field day against Rohirrims; they swoop down and pick up horsemen and drop
them from a height. It's a sight that's both gruesome and awesome, depending
whose side are you on. Avoid the piked units like a plague, because even a
level 10 Rohirrim can fall against a level 1 uruk pikemen or rhun warriors.

Both the Rohirrim and Rohirrim archers are useful for fast reacting units, they
can be raiding the enemy outpost one instant and return to help defending your
base from across the map. There will be a lot of instances in the Ancillary
missions that requires this due to the small unit cap of the game.

Rohirrims with wedge formation have 125% damage at 25% armor penalty, so use
this formation while being led by a hero with armor boost to nullify the
penalty. With Theoden's glorious charge, this formation amplifies insane
damage to the already excellent raw damage the riders have.


ROHIRRIM HORSE ARCHERS

The Rohan horse archers are great complements to the already awesome Rohirrims.
They are very powerful and mobile, very effective in groups of four. Upgrading
them with fire arrwos allows them to become great counters to pike units,
mumakils, trolls, and nazguls. They are effective because of their ability to
run around slower units while riddling them with arrows. They are somewhat
decent in taking down buildings, too. Horse archers can take down pike units
while your main cavalry army retreats from the battlefield while minimizing
losses.

Just like the Rohirrim's the horse archers are suspectible to piked units, so
keep them far away from the tip of the pikes.


ENTS

Ents are slow, lumbering ancient living trees that can dish out a lot of pain
to the Evil side. Ents are generally expensive, and in the campaign mode are
exclusive units only available through Evenstar powers, special situations and
the Isengard mission.Ents can throw rocks and building chunks aside from their
melee attacks, so they are very useful for destroying buildings from far away.
Ents deal extra damage when attacking lumber camps, because they are enraged
from the destruction of their kinds.

Ents' weaknesses lie on the fact that they are made of wood, and they can catch
fire easily. Fire arrows are the bane of Ents' existence, and orc laborers can
chop up ents faster than the ents can run away, although a smart ent would be
able to kick the orc stupid enough to swing around his axe on a very angry
moving tree. Find pools of waters to put out the fire, otherwise the Ent will
keep on losing health until it either dies or finds a pool of water to quench
the flames. If an ent successfully put out his fire, he'll be royally pissed
and will do more damage than usual for a short period of time.

Ents do not level up in rank in the campaign mode. And last but not least,
just like other siege units, rocks don't discriminate between friends and
foes, so keep your units out of the intended target of angry ents throwing
big chunks of rocks.



GONDOR UNITS

GONDOR SOLDIERS

The basic foot unit of the Gondor Army. Very cheap to produce and takes the
least amount of command points, you can create oodles of these men if you
plan to expand rapidly. They can be combined with the Gondor Archers and
Rangers to become meat shields, so they are very useful and worth the money
you put in to produce them.

Gondor soldiers can form block formations, increasing its armor by 25% but
at the cost of 40% speed penalty. The added armor bonus is useful when they
are defending their position from attacks. The block formation is not a good
retreating formation, however. Just remember to switch formations accordingly
to the situation.


GONDOR TOWER GUARDS

The elite soldiers of the Gondor Army. More powerful and tougher than the
soldiers, but at 4 times the cost and at 15 command points. But the costs are
justified with what can they do in terms of abilities. Tower guards have shield
wall formations, which offers a whopping 80% armor bonus at the expense of 75%
speed penalty. In terms of defense, it's huge. Arrows are basically worthless
against tower guards in this formation. I particularly like the tactic where I
draw enemy fires to my tower guards, while my other units destroy the enemy
and their structures during my assault to their base.

In order for a barracks to produce tower guards, it must produce at least five
gondor soldiers beforehand.


GONDOR ARCHERS

Just like their Rohan counterparts, the Gondor Archers are your basic archer
unit. Archers can be stationed along the walls of a base and become a very
effective defensive unit. They are prone to cavalries and siege projectiles
(ballistas and catapults) if they are grouped together, so be warned.

To level up a Gondor Archery range, it must produce at least 5 gondor archers
before you can start creating rangers and obtain fire arrow upgrade.


GONDOR RANGERS

The elite archer unit of Gondor. Rangers can cloak in forest areas, allowing
them to set up nasty ambushes. Rangers can also switch to their swords if they
are engaged by melee units, but don't count on their swordplay abilities. The
only rangers I respect their swordfighting abilities are Aragorn and Faramir,
and even then Faramir is better with his bow rather than his sword.

Rangers with fire arrows give a lot of headache to mordors, because rangers
can bring down mumakils really, really fast. This is an economic disaster
because rangers are faster to produce than mumakils. A mumakil costs 2000,
an equivalent of 2 ranger batallions complete with fire arrow upgrades. With
their skirmish formation, rangers scatter and deal 300% damage with 75% armor
penalty. Use this formation to set up ambushes in the forrests, and the enemy
will never know what will hit them.

NOTE: Rangers can be detected if enemy units comes too close to them.


GONDOR KNIGHTS

Gondor knights are identical to their rohan counterparts, except they are far
more expensive than the Rohirrims, especially for identical stats. Having
Faramir leading thema around as a knight tremendously boosts their armor and
damage, so if you can spare Faramir to do so, do that. Wedge formation allows
knights to deal 125% damage at a cost of 25% armor penalty.

You need to create at least three knights on a Gondor stable before you can
get the shield upgrade.


GONDOR TREBUCHETS

Trebuchets are awesome catapults the Gondor Army uses. Relatively mobile and
has a decent range. It does wonders of breaking formations and buildings.
The Gondor base defense can also mount trebuchets on the walls. Very useful
to attack big lumbering things coming at your way such as trolls and siege
units.

Trebuchets can be upgraded with fire projectiles to deal more damage. Pay
attention to where the trebuchets are aiming, because often they aim at enemies
that are engaging your units, thus creating splash damage and friendly fire.
Trebuchets can create huge casualties on your army if you are careless, but
there is a bright side to this part. If your command point is at its limit, you
can force fire your trebuches to kill off PARTS of your batallions so the unit
size falls down, just enough to produce another unit so when your wounded
batallion respawns to full strength, you have more units than your normal limit
would allow you to have.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

GOOD SIDE CAMPAIGN MISSIONS:


TIP: ALWAYS SAVE YOUR MISSION AFTER COMPLETING A HUGE OBJECTIVE. THIS IS
ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT IN LONG MISSIONS LIKE HELM'S DEEP, MINAS TIRITH AND
BLACK GATES, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THOSE THREE.


1. MINES OF MORIA (FELLOWSHIP)

First off, Group your units accordingly. Put Aragorn on 1, Gandalf on 2,
Legolas on 3, Gimli on 4, Boromir on 5, and the Hobbits on 6. Then set the
hobbits on rock throwing mode. AFter that, get the evenstar power of elven
gifts to increase your heroes' damage by 50%.

The priority is to level up Aragorn, Gandalf, and Gimli as early as possible,
because when things get ugly, they're the ones that can bail the rest of the
group out. There will be six veteran upgrades, and here are the list of who
should obtain it (in no particular order, but my preference)

1. Aragorn
2. Gandalf
3. Gimli
4. Legolas
5. Boromir
6. Aragorn (again).

Once Aragorn received the upgrade, have him guard the rear flank while the rest
of the army presses forward. As other heroes gain rank, rotate them to the rear
of the line so the other ones can gain a level. I noticed that once a hero
gains a level in a mission, he needs much more kill to level up to the next
level, almost impossible to level up twice for a hero unless you have the
veteran upgrade bonus (only available in moria). The idea is so that everyone
gets leveled up at least to level 2. That way you can use the important skills
each hero possesses. Trust me, you'll be needing them to survive.

At some point you'll find trolls, use the following things to deal with them:
1. Gandalf wizard blast and lightning sword.
2. Aragorn's blademaster ability.
3. Gimli's leap.
4. Legolas' hawk strike.
5. Boromir's horn to hold off the goblins.

don't bother standing toe to toe with the trolls, you gonna get hurt pretty
bad. Speaking of injuries, use Aragorn's athelas ability liberally when one
of your fellowship members is hurt; it regenerates pretty fast, and it will
fill up the health meter to the max. After halfway through, you should buy
the evenstar ability of heal as soon as you can afford it. In general, let
the melee fighters gain level while having legolas chill around for a bit -
he'll have his time of his life picking off goblins during the stairs section,
when no one else can reach them with their swords (but the elf can, har har).

After the stairs, comes the Balrog slugging match. Apparently a lot of people
have problem with this one. I finished this part in one try in medium level.
All you have to do is guide Gandalf around, and make sure the he doesn't get
raped by the Balrog while he's casting his spell. The trick is to click the
spell on Gandalf himself, because that way he'll cast the spell while the
Balrog is walking toward him, eating all the damage by the time it reaches
Gandalf. Then, have that old man run around like a chicken while he's
recharging. If you get punished by the Balrog, use the heal ability and it will
max out Gandalf's health bar. After 5 shots of lightning sword, the Balrog
should go down and the Fellowship escapes the mines of Moria.


2. ROHAN (EOMER)

There are several choices, but I picked Rohan first. The mission is relatively
easy to finish. Just be patient and let the resources flow in. Build farms,
stables, archery range and a well for your units to heal up. Lead Eomer around
to level him up, then have the Rohirrims join him whenever he needs backup.
You should heal up the rohirrims whenever things are quiet so that they can be
at full strength when they really need it.

Here's my unit groupings for this mission, as well as general Rohan missions:
#1 - Eomer
#2 - Rohirrims (Include Theoden here later)
#3 - Rohirrim Archers (Include Eowyn here, she can be at #2 as well)
#4 - Archer batallions, include Elves here.
#5 - Whatever you want to put here.

Some people like to micro their units, then by all means use up the other
grouping keys. I personally like to have all the units within the grasp
of my left hand fingers for quick access.

With your stable, build rohirrims so you have four of them, and build a group
of archers and level them up whenever the situation allows, with priority on
leveling up the rohirrims. Make sure you send the peasants you found to their
untimely death, because you need all the command points given at this point,
and there is simply no room for worthless units.


3. LOTHLORIEN (FELLOWSHIP)

This mission starts on the top of the map, and here are my groupings for this
mission:

#1 - Aragorn
#2 - Gandalf
#3 - Legolas
#4 - Boromir and Gimli
#5 - Hobbits (All 4 of them, set in rock throwing mode)
#6 - Elvish units

Set these skills on auto-set:
1. Aragorn's blademaster
2. Boromir's horn
3. Gimli's axe throw

These 3 sets should always be on auto-set mode for best usage throughout the
campaign.

First off, have Aragorn go forward so he can go medieval on everything evil
that moves, with the rest of the fellowship taking care of business in the
rear. Before you make the right turn to the bridge, clean up the Lumber camp
on the left side first, you'll get bonus resources by taking care of that camp.

Afterwards, enter Lothlorien, build barracks and train elves as soon as
possible, all the while sending the hobbits to take care of the lumber camp
on the top right while Gandalf cleans up the one in the center top part of the
map. It's a good idea to merge knife-wielding elves to protect the archer
elves. Have your trained elvish archers and the rest of the heroes guarding the
northwest bridge from the siege. Gimli should be leaping to the fray often,
and once he levels up have him take care of the trolls (but pay attention to
his health bar). Boromir can blow his horn and take care of the small goblins
and orcs, while aragorn can do whatever and play medic if he needs to be.
Don't forget to bring gandalf to the fray at the bridge. Legolas's hawk strike
can be used to deal with the trolls as well. At this point you can leave the
hobbits gathering resources around the base, or have them fight, but that would
be unwise because if frodo gets killed, the mission is over.

You will then faced with several waves of attack, both of them happens either
at the northwest bridge or at the western bridge. The strategy for both sites
are the same. just use your heroes to thin take care the majority of the bad
guys, with the elves providing fire support and meat shield for the trolls.

Don't worry about losing the elves, they don't get carried along through the
rest of the campaign, so they are expendable.


4. EAST ROHAN (EOMER)

At this point you should have more command points, so start building more
units. Build six farms to fulfill the bonus mission, and whatever peasants
you rescue, send them back to the orc camps so they die and free up the command
points. Also build a well to rejuvenate your rohirrims. Try exploring the map
and build farms whenever possible. Use your rohirrims to wipe out any orcs
dumb enough to attack any of your farms (AARGH!).

After you got enough money, build 3 rohirrim archers, which is enough to buy
the shield upgrade for the rohirrims, and upgrade the four rohirrims you have
through the armory. Upgraded rohirrims are much more durable and can last you
the entire campaign if you take care of them properly. So upgrade them with
the heavy armors, forged blades and banner upgrade if they still at rank 1
(but they should at least level up somewhat if you've been using them all this
time). Also build 2 archer batallions and give them all the upgrades. Save
some room for archer batallions so you can get the fire upgrades once and for
all at when you can get the upgrade. Once you got the army to the max of the
command point, explore the map and wipe out all the enemies, and you're done.


5. AMON HEN (FELLOWSHIP)

This mission can be tricky at first, if you are not careful. You start the
mission with Aragorn, Gandalf, Frodo and Sam, and the hobbits must survive
the mission or otherwise it fails. Toggle the rock throwing for Frodo and Sam,
they can take out an orc for every shot they take. Have Aragorn defend one side,
with Gandalf going to the other direction. Once the attacks are over, the camera
shifts to Gimli and Legolas, and depending on your luck they can level up in
this process. Have your first four heroes run up and meet them, but be ready
for a pair of trolls ambushing you in between. If that's the case, have Gandalf
use his spells on the trolls (the wizard blast knocks those beasts down so you
can finish them off without taking too much damage), and have Gimli and Legolas
come and support you once they finished their share of orcs.

The second half of the mission is a bit trickier. Boromir is stuck against
truckloads of orcs, and Lurtz is among them. Have Legolas take care of the
archer orcs, and the hobbits can help him so long as they are not the prime
target of the orcs (watch their health bar). When rescuing Boromir, use
Aragorn's Elendil ability (he should be at level 5 if you have been following
my walkthrough thus far), Gandalf's various spells and Gimli's leap attack.
Boromir is stuck at where he is standing because of Lurtz's special attack, so
just heal and use athelas if he's dying. Gang up on Lurtz and he'll die within
30 seconds or less. After he dies, gather up the fellowship, and heal the ones
that are injured. The ship is protected by a massive horde of orcs, and several
trolls. Use Gandalf to kill the trolls, and Legolas' hawk strike can take out
the trolls really fast too. It should be a really easy battle so long as the
hobbits don't die. Once you kill everything evil that moves, move Frodo and
Sam to the boat and the mission ends.


6. EASTERN ROHAN (EOMER)

You begin the mission with whatever unit survived last time with Eomer. The
mission begins with a camp already set up for you, so start building 3 farms
and an archery range. Building a well doesn't hurt either, because you'll be
needing that well a lot after the massive barrage of orc attacks. There are
several ways to finish the mission, either way it's relatively easy and
straightforward.

The first way is just to rush the bad guys out to oblivion. With most of your
units intact from the previous mission, you can just rush the orc positions
and win the mission under 10 minutes. However, you would not get the more
powerful unit upgrades like fire arrows and such. But if you feel getting those
upgrades for later, be my guest. The rest of this mission's guide is devoted for
obtaining all the upgrades available at this point.

At this point you should have almost maxed out your unit cap, around 170 or so.
If you maxed out your unit production already, sacrifice enough of your units
so that you can have around 20 - 30 free command points. Build an archery range
and start churning out sacrificial archers. Sacrificial being that you will send
them to scout the map and intentionally send them to their deaths, so that you
can keep churning archers until you're reached level 2 archery range. I think
you only need to make five archer batallions before the building upgrades.

After getting the fire arrow, ideally you can have at least 4 rohirrims, 4
archer batallions, and 2 yeoman archer units. This maxes out at 190 (my current
unit cap at this point if you follow my guide). A trick a lot of people use is
to queue the productions at the stables or the archery range so that when some
of your units are dying, hopefully they open up enough to produce a new unit,
and if you bring the injured unit to a well, you will have more units that your
command point allows you to have. Kinda cool, eh? I finished the mission with
230 points worth of units with a 190 cap.

Once your army is ready, proceed with cleaning up the map, slowly but surely,
and if you can spare extra resource, it doesn't hurt to rebuild the destroyed
enemy buildings with your own, that way the AI has to go and attack them,
giving you extra time to defend your actual base. There will be plenty of bad
guys around if you use this strategy, so use this opportunity to level up your
units and Eomer. Just be careful with the pikemen orcs, because they can
decimate your rohirrims and Eomer before you can say ouch. Use the horse archers
and let them deal with the pikes from a distance, and micromanage them so that
they don't stray to dangerous areas. Before finishing the last building, make
sure all your units get the important upgrades and are at least on rank 2.


7. EAST EMNET (EOMER)

This mission is pretty similar with the previous Eomer missions, just mop up
the area with your units while leveling them up and make sure you don't lose a
single batallion. Just remember to build and rebuild wherever you can find a
location to build, and build wells on outposts so that your army don't have to
return to your base for health recharging.

The bonus mission is to clear out the Warg Rider patrols across the map. It
actually works pretty well to level up your units this way - just leave one
building intact from the enemy base, and explore the rest of the map. When
you come back it may start rebuilding again, but that just means more experience
points for your units.


8. EAVES OF FANGORN (EOMER)

This mission begins with 2 squads of rohirrims and 2 horse archers. Group them
by their type, and destroy the outpost nearby. Build the outpost, and build a
well to replenish the healths of your units, because that's pretty much what
you will have to settle with until Eomer arrives. In the meanwhile, rescue the
ents and have them wreak havoc at the orc formations. At this point the orcs
do not have fire arrows yet, so you can leave the ents alone and watch your base
from any enemy incursions. Just have your horsemen chill around the outpost and
try leveling them up by attacking any orcs within reach, but don't make them
stray in too deep. Once Eomer arrives, regroup your armies and free the hobbits.

AFter rescuing the hobbits, proceed with cleaning up the map. There is an orc
camp at the top, and it churns units like crazy. Best strategy is to have the
ents soak up the damage from the arrows and let them destroy the camp. Your
horsement in the meanwhile can pick the units coming out of the pits and the
rest that survived your prior assault. If you need to level up your units and
Eomer, Destroy most of the base, but leave one uruk pit and one resource
gathering building that doesn't shoot arrows at your direction (or if it does,
just stay away out of its range). You might have to wait for a while, but
leveling up heroes and units are always useful.


9. FANGORN (EOMER)

This mission is the same like the rest of Eomer's mission, except this time you
will have supports of Ents, provided if you can find them. They are on top of
your starting point, but the path can be loaded with bad guys depending on your
luck. Secure the ents' supports, and let them guard the top path so enemies
don't come pouring in to your base while you're securing the bottom part of
the map. The enemy camp is located in the top left part of the map, so take your
time and clean them up just like before, after leveling up most of your units
and Eomer.


10. EASTFOLD (EOMER, GANDALF)

This is a fun mission, because for once you have Gandalf under your command.
Group Eomer with the rest of your rohirrims, and have Gandalf take the usual
Eomer's spot (I usually put important heroes at hotkey #1). The rest is just
normal practice. But before heading to battle, you should level up Gandalf
until he reaches level 5, so that he can mount shadowfax and gains the light
of istari - powerful spell. That thing can take out a Nazgul once you maxed
out Gandalf's rank.

Once Gandalf has a ride (a horse, not a pimp my ride Escalade), go ahead and
proceed with mopping the map of baddies. Sounds like the rest of Eomer's
missions, no?


11. HELM'S DEEP (FELLOWSHIP minus the HOBBITS, ROHAN HEROES)

Build an archery range on the left side of the map, and start churning out
archers as fast as you can from one archery range. Build an armory and start
getting all the upgrades, but the most important one is the banner carrier one,
so fallen units can come back. Put your archers along the wall, and put legolas
among them and have him give out experiences to those newly minted archers.

Group theoden and eowyn with your rohirrims, and have them go out the gate and
save the refugees, and be sure to come back and grab the money at the front of
the gates. After that, have them stand by in front of the main gate and have it
locked shut, after the Elvish reinforcements arrived. Have the Elves stand by
along with your yeomen archers on the left wall. Your heroes should be standing
by the archers and have their own hotkeys so that you can micromanage them when
berserkers and siege ladders start coming in. They're the ones who are
responsible to keep your archers alive as long as possible. Just hold on to the
attacks, and whatever archers you lose, just retrain them from the archery
range.

At the third wave of the attacks, be careful of the mines on the left wall,
because if a berserker runs toward it and lights it up, that left wall will
be history, along with many of your units stationed there. So make sure to
keep a good eye on orcs planting mines, and have all your archers shoot them
down before the mine gets too close to the wall. Occasionally the main gate will
be attacked. Have gimli do his leap from the top of the wall and once he clears
up the space. Afterwards send your cavalries and mop up the survivors, then get
everyone back inside and have the peasants repair the gate.

If the left wall does break, pull all your units back to the inner wall, and
post the archers again at the walls while the rohirrims and heroes cover their
retreat. Leave the buildings as it is, because the uruks will go attack them
before they attack your retreating units.

Once the reinforcements come in, regroup your units, clean up any enemies
lingering by the walls and inside (if they breached in), then slowly take out
their encampments. Once you destroy both camps, the mission ends.


12. ISENGARD (MERRY, PIPPIN AND TREEBEARD)

This mission is relatively easy, if you're careful. Otherwise it can be a pain
in an orc's arse because ents are vulnerable to orc laborers and fire arrows
from the orc crossbows. Group Merry and Pippin together, and hotkey Treebeard
in one of your hotkeys. For every 5 ents make a group of them, that way you will
have one group that's ranged and the other on melee mode to protect the ones
attacking with rocks. Be sure to destroy the cave troll's lair on top of the map
so you will get extra resources. The hobbits can take out the crossbow orcs
very quickly with their throwing rocks abilities, but pay attention to their
health bars. If they're in trouble, make them run toward treebeard's direction
and let him take care of the orcs.

The easiest way to beat this mission is before destroying any walls, destroy
any buildings within the reach of the ents' rocks within the wall. Start from
the top of the map, and slowly make your way down. This way there would be less
uruk pits to produce more crossbow orcs, and preferably if you can take down
the armory, the less likely the fire crossbows will give you hard time. As you
gather resources, build more ents to replace the ones you lost, and to reinforce
your main battle group.

If you have the rohirrim reinforcement summon, it makes this mission much, much
easier. Summon them, and have them trample the armored fire crossbows, and have
the ents take care of the pikes. You should be able to finish this mission in
under 20 minutes if you're careful and systematic enough on cleaning up the
mission.

Saruman is not too hard to handle either. He may flame-broil one of your ents,
but that's just one shot. Have your ents go melee on his old, bony arse and he
will go down faster than he can say ouch. Don't bother with the tower - it has
a really huge health bar, and I don't think it's destructible. Just go for the
dam, and the mission ends once you take the dam's health bar to 50%.


NOTE: If Treebeard dies, the mission immediately fails. You cannot resurrect
Pippin nor Merry if either of them falls in battle, but you can still win
without the Hobbits.



13. NORTH ITHILIEN (FARAMIR, SAM AND FRODO)

This mission introduces us with Faramir, and reunites us with Frodo and Sam.
You start the mission by the forbidden pool and a few ranger units. Group the
rangers together, have Faramir at #1, and group the hobbits together and arm
their rock throwing abilities. Faramir can pick units from far away with his
bow, so abuse this skill royally. He can typically take an entire batallion of
Haradrim Lancers without taking damage because he kills all of them as they
approach him. If you let Faramir do some soloing, he might gain 2 ranks in this
mission, which is good because he is handicapped for showing up so late in the
game but with only rank 1 experience.

Proceed the mission by killing any units and buildings you see. You might want
to build 2 more ranger units, and 4 gondor soldiers to upgrade the pool so you
can buy fire arrows. Any mumakils you see, waste it with the rangers' fire
arrows, but once it reaches critical (red) health, stop attacking and let it
go rampage on the enemy lines. It's pretty fun watching this, actually. But
while you are having fun, don't let Frodo or Sam die, because then the mission
is over. Doesn't hurt to keep Faramir alive and well until the end, too. He's
too important to lose to some careless unit management.

You can also group the gondor soldiers with your rangers, they will become good
meat shields for the rangers, but that eliminates the cloaking ability of the
rangers. Later on it might be more useful to group the soldiers with the archers
because they can get the armor upgrade, but I think the rangers have a slightly
better range and rate of fire (Not too sure, so don't quote me on this one).

After cleaning up the top part, you then move the lower part, where there will
be more ranger reinforcement and a trebuchet. Before this, take out the Mumakil
and make it panic so it tramples the haradrim lancers. Kill anything that moves,
and take out the Mumakil Pen before it spawns another mumakil to worry about.

Build some knights if your money allows you, and purchase fire arrows for all
your ranger units. Lure the patrols to your rangers with faramir, this minimizes
casualties. To retake the camp, bombard it with the trebuchet while your other
units take on the other buildings. Aim the trebuchet at the defensive towers,
but make sure it stops firing at buildings your friendly units are working on.
The trebuchet deals massive damage to your units, and can take out whole
batallions with one volley.

Set up a camp from the destroyed mordor camp, and build 2 blacksmiths, a farm,
a barracks, a stables and one well for recharging units. Prepare for the ambush
by putting rangers at the designated locations, and once you cover all the spots
reinforce the spots at the bottom with your spare rangers. Put the trebuchet
in one of the spots and it'll do decent damage. Have your knights ready at the
top of the incline so it can charge in and clean up the rest of the convoy after
the rangers take out the mumakils, but be careful with the rhun warriors because
they are pike units.

After the ambush, take your time and hold the enemy attacks at the front of your
base to upgrade all your units with the blacksmith upgrades and fire arrows.
Build some soldiers and sacrifice them so you can build tower guards. If you can
build 4 of them and upgrade them with everything, they can take all the arrow
damages and hold the front line from incoming infantries with their tower shield
formation wihtout taking any casualties. The idea is that have all the tower
defenses aiming at them while your other units take out the important buildings.
Also build some knights at your stable (not at the pool) to get the shield
upgrade for the knights, also very important. Leave the hobbits at your base
camp when you're attacking the enemy camp, and everything should be good from
there.


14. CROSSROADS (FARAMIR)

For the next few missions, you should be leveling up Faramir and getting used
to the Gondor army. They're much more infantry based, and their knights aren't
that special compared to the Rohirrims, they are slightly weaker. But they can
still be useful to flank enemies, but expect more casualties from them. Gondor's
bread and butter lies at the tower guards holding the line, supported by the
rangers' fire arrows.

Begin the mission by setting up your base camp. Build 2 blacksmiths and 2 farms,
and start building your unit production buildings. Have your knights explore the
map, and find the rangers close by to your encampment. If you see guard towers,
have your rangers garrison the building as soon as you can, becaues the towers
can hold the area for a very long time and at a very cheap cost. Just make sure
you don't send your uber rangers, instead send the low ranked rangers without
any upgrades, because you're not gonna see them again ever once they check in.

Use the similar strategy used with Eomer's Rohan army, slowly taking buildings
and outposts, and build wells and defensive towers at any outposts you take.
If you find out you're losing units, start churning archers, soldiers, and
knights and send them to their doom until you can get the 2nd rank of the
buildings and you can build shield upgrade, fire arrows, and tower guards. It's
cruel, but that's the only way to repopulate your elite units. So the lesson
is that you have to be very careful with your elite units, if you lose them
it's a pain to rebuild that kind of army once again.

Keep pushing forward, killing enemies, and soon you'll reach their base. Have
the tower guards take the arrow damages, your ranger/archer groups to take out
the buildings, and have the knights cover the flanks of dumb orcs coming in.
If you see trolls, take them out with fire arrows - they work for anything in
this game.


15. CAIR ANDROS (FARAMIR)

In this mission the battles are fought among ruins, so cavalry units have a very
limited role. Instead, I hope your fire archer batallions and tower guards are
in enough quantities that you can take out the enemies without too much trouble.

Build your base, and build an archery range. Churn out archers, and station them
in the towers, they'll be your lookout and defense for a long while. If you man
all the towers most of the important passes of the map would belong to you. Be
careful of catapults when attacking, because they can make a short work of your
uber upgraded units. So send a pair of knight batallions (a pair is enough) to
take out any catapults you see. Have them attack unguarded catapults, and pull
them back once they're destroyed. The knights are so fast that they can duck
under the flying projectiles. To the left of your base there is an enemy outpost
with three troll cages. Destroy them with your fire archers before the trolls
give you more headaches. You can then build more resource gathering buidling in
this outpost.

The enemy have several bases, it is up to your preference which you want to take
out first. If you have rohirrim summons, summon them and let them attack the
bases first so they become the meat shields, while your units take out any
arrow shooting buildings (defensive structures, resource gathering buildings).
After that's been cleared send in your knights because they make such a good
wrecking crew.


16. OSGILIATH (FARAMIR)


This mission is divided into 2 major parts: Holding the bridge until Faramir
arrives and then mop up the rest of the map. We all know the drill. For safety
purposes, do not send anything across the bridge until Faramir arrives, or at
least you have enough fire equipped archer units. First because of it will
initiate the script for the Nazguls to attack, and on top of that there are a
lot of catapults across that provoking them without enough means to counter them
means a suicide.

Once you regain control, start building your base with blacksmiths, farms,
and unit production buildings (barracks, archery range and stables). If you have
enough money get the marketplace and purchase all the upgrades because over time
they'll make you rich a lot faster. Build archers and soldiers, and combine
the batallions together so you have soldier-archer units. Defend each bridge
with at least 2 of these batallions. You can also merge rangers and soldiers
together as well, so to save money you can do that for the surviving initial
defenders. Tower guards are worthed for their price, so build some for later
onslaughts. Garrison the towers on your side to add firepower and reducing
command point burdens. Don't forget to build the camp nearby the southernmost
bridge. If you just wait and defend, the enemy will occasionally send in some
orcs and archers to attack. Waste them and get some experience.

Once the timer runs out, do not immediately call Faramir. Max out your command
point cap with units, then summon him afterwards. You'll have 600/300 units in
this manner. Knights in this map aren't that much useful other than destroying
buidlings and taking out catapults. Let them sit in friendly areas because they
will become Nazgul food if they're stupid enough to participate in the attack.

Begin the assault from the southern bridge, because it's the least defended.
Have the 2 soldier-archer batallions guarding there charge across the bridge,
and hold the other side while bringing in Faramir and the rest of your archers
in from that direction. Leave the archers defending the other bridges as it is.
Attack the nearest camp from that bridge, be careful for trolls, nazguls, and
orcs. You can use your tower guards to soak up the damage by attacking orcs who
are attempting to flank your archers. Have everyone aim at the Nazgul when it
shows up and within range of fire, otherwise your army will be wiped out clean.

Have the knights stand by behind the lines so that if any catapults show up,
they can get to their positions fast. Once you've taken out the first camp, the
other two will be relatively easy, and there are two nazguls total in this map
so don't be so happy when you just dropped only one.


17. SHELOB'S LAIR (SAM)

Frodo's been captured, and it is up to Sam to save the day. The sting glows
whenever there are orcs nearby, so keep that feature in mind. Free the soldiers
as you go, and grab all the loots you find. Not only you'll finish the bonus
missions, you will also need it for assaulting Cirith Ungol. The phial is very
useful to fight hordes of enemies, so remember the shortcut key for that.

Explore the map with Sam, and arm him with rock throwing because he can take out
most small enemies in one throw. He should join the red sox and pitch after he
gets out of this cave, in my opinion. Anyway, do not waste the rescued soldiers
needlessly, because you will need a lot of meat shield fighting Shelob and one
lost troll in the cave. So just use Sam to explore, group the soldiers together
because they are stronger in large groups. Let Sam pick the orc archers at the
north east part of the cave with his pitching arm. There is a lost troll in the
northern part of the cave, so I hope you have enough men to deal with it before
venturing there (at least 8 men total of soldiers/archers).

By the time you reach Shelob, you should have enough men to take her out. Have
Sam stay far away and throw rocks at her, while healing the dying soldiers.
Use the phial if things get too desparate and you need 3 second time-out. After
Shelob's been killed, explore the rest of her cave and get all the loots and
the captured soldiers. You should have more than 10,000 resources if you get
all the loot. On to Cirith Ungol.

There is an orc outpost right before the bridge; bumrush that outpost with
soldiers. Destroy the lumber camp and grab some more loot. build an outpost,
along with a blacksmith, barracks and an archery range. Train 5 soldiers and
5 archers, then upgrade them up with everything, and i mean EVERYTHING. That
means waiting for the blacksmith to go up to level 2. So grab a comic book and
read while you wait, occasionally defending the bridge from orc incursions.
Create 5 soldier-archer batallions, upgrade them, and clean the rest of the
fortress with impunity. Sam can tag along too, as long as he is not in the
front lines. After everything is destroyed, the mission is over.


18. MINAS TIRITH (FELLOWSHIP minus SAM and FRODO, GONDOR and ROHAN HEROES)

If you have been waiting for the largest battle ever taken on middle earth,
this is it. You have to survive for 25 minutes before the Rohans arrive, and
another 10 more minutes until Aragorn and his army of the dead arrives. So that
is 35 minutes of trying to survive onslaught of orcish hordes. Okay, now on to
the strategies.

There are two ways of base building - one where you build your blacksmiths at
the ground level with your unit production buildings on the top, or the other
way around. The former works better in case of things get too ugly and you have
to retreat to the second story of the city, so that you don't lose any upgrades
your unit production buildings have accumulated. I myself prefer the other way
around, because I am pretty confident of holding the line and never got the
gate broken down even once. So it's definitely your call there.

You will need as much as summoning allies abilities as you can get, but if you
can only pick two, get the rohans and the eagles, because the eagles can take
care of the nazguls really fast while your archers worry about the threat
coming from the ground. Otherwise just use Gandalf's Istari light and hope his
aim is pretty decent.

Build trebuchets surrounding your city walls. They will take care of any big
seige units the enemy throw at you from far away. They can also give the trolls
nasty headaches as well. Rebuild any of the destroyed the mounted trebuchets if
you can afford it because it will make surviving the siege much easier, even
more so if the grond (a very big huge seige engine) decides to show up. The
trebuchets will also prevent the enemy from building anything close to your
walls. Don't bother with the farms outside of the walls because you simply do
not have the resource to defend them.

Position your archer units across the walls, and focus them at by the main
gates because the enemy will mostly converge there. Have Boromir pick one side,
and Faramir on the other side to guard the archers from incoming units from
seige towers. Have the heroes deal with the seige tower units, and destroy them
as fast as you can because they can distract your archers pretty badly if orcs
start to board your walls. Use Gandalf liberally to help at the hotspots. You
can also use Pippin in this case to help guarding the walls from incursions by
orcs as well, he does hero damage, albeit small damages, to the seige towers.
The rest of your units such as tower guards can stand by behind the gates, and
they can storm outside if the grond comes in pounding. Open the gates, have
your tower guards deal with the grond, and have Gandalf support them with his
spells.

Gandalf is the single most important factor for victory. Mount him so that he
can move from one spot to another with ease. However, if he is standing by at
the walls by the main gate, have him dismount so he doesn't take so much space
and has an easier time going through the crowds. Keep Gandalf alive at all
costs, because every second without him the enemy can overwhelm you with their
numbers.

Nazguls will show up during the seige. If you can summon the giant eagles, do
so and let the archers focus on the ground assault while the eagles have a big
nice lunch with nazgul meat as the main course. They are much stronger than the
ugly Nazguls, and will distract the Nazguls the entire time. Otherwise you can
use Gandalf's Istari light (instant Nazgul kill), or Faramir with his wounding
shot and have your archers all focus on the Nazgul. Fortunately Nazguls tend to
focus on the trebuchets, so if the ground troops are not attacking, you can
focus all of your forces on taking them down.

Once Rohan shows up, if you have the chance, have Gandalf and your surviving
knights join the rohirrims and attack the first enemy camp. After destroying
the enemy camp the rest of the Mordor forces will focus their assault on the
Rohans. If you are not careful you can lose the entire Rohan reinforcement in
this manner. So just bring the horses out to play in the field, and have the
incoming archer units reinforce the rest of your archers by the walls. Keep the
horse archers safe because they will be essential to bring down the mumakils.
Send Merry to the walls, joining Pippin or he can guard the opposite end of the
wall. You can use Eowyn's smite to take out the witch king, with Eomer's spear
strike to take him out if it's not enough. The horse archers can also
contribute some damages to that creature as well.

Depending on circumstances, it could be the case where the enemy is depleted of
units to be sent at your direction in great quantities. If that is the case,
instead of bringing your rohirrims back to the castle walls, have all your
remaining archers group outside of your castle walls, and begin assaulting the
second enemy camp. This is a risky maneuver, so save the game before attempting
to do so because there are enemy reinforcements coming out from the camp area.
But the benefit is that you would keep pressure on the enemy, and prevent them
from breaching the castle walls. Be prepared to lose a lot of units this way,
but some people prefer this tactics rather than holding the walls.

Regardless of your choice, the enemy will keep on pouring until Aragorn shows
up with his army of the dead. If you survive up to this point, you practically
won the day. The army of the dead is pretty much invincible save for magic
damages, so they can wipe out the rest of the enemies without taking a single
casualty. Let your army rest and be their support while they clean up the map.
After everything is destroyed and killed, victory is yours.


*****************************************************************************
Note: Beyond this point, you are not required to complete the missions
save for Dagorlad, before you can attack the Black Gates. Howefver, I
would recommend to acquire all the Evenstar powers because it would make
playing the final mission at the Black Gates much easier than it supposed
to be, although it won't be as dramatic or desparate as the actual battle
was portrayed. But hey, it's a game and I am not attempting to recreate
middle earth history. I find that the mission is so much easier with all
level 10 heroes, and all the summoning powers. In fact, my strategy is
based on the assumption that you maxed out all your heroes and obtained
all the Evenstar powers.

I will not post all the missions' in depth strategies unless I have massive
request on them because all the missions are a derivative of the same idea:
destroy all evil forces. Not that hard, once you know the trick and if you
are generally careful with your units.

Here are some general tips in the Ancillary missions:

- Make sure you don't lose any high-ranked units, because they are hard to
replace if you lost them due to carelessness. If you build beyond the
unit capacity, the game will automatically sort the units based on their
rank, and will eliminate units with the lowest ranks until it reaches the
optimum number of 300, although I am not too certain how the algorithm works
because at one point I had 350/300 units finishing a mission. On the next
mission my units got cut to 295/300, and I overbuild again to 320/300, and
ever since then it has been 320/300 for the past six missions. Very peculiar,
I should say.

- On captured outposts build 3 wells and have your units guard the area while
they are away from the main base. Since you cannot produce units anyway, it
is better to close down the gates, build decent defenses on your base, and
let it pile tons of resources for higher score at the end.

- Exclusively level up your heroes whenever you have the chance.Have the more
powerful heroes solo on their own (Aragorn is a best candidate for this, so
is Gandalf), and for a fast way to do things is have your archer units guard
in front of an enemy barracks, or a pass where enemies tend to rush. Put your
heroes among the guading units because they get the benefit of experience
without actually entering direct combat. I have my hobbits ranked up in this
manner, killing less than 100 enemies over the period of the campaign. This is
so that you can have an easy time in the final mission, the Black Gate.

- Grouping cavalry based heroes (Rohan heroes, Faramir) among the cavalry units
gives them a lot of bonus and advantages. Leave Theoden's glorious charge and
Eowyn's shield maiden skills on auto-set, and your cavalry can take on hordes
of pike units without losing their health (50% armor bonus and takes only 10%
of the damage from theoden -> fricking awesome). The heroes also level up at
a much faster rate when they are leading units to battle, because they get a
fraction of the experiences the units gain, on top of their own kills. Just
remember to rotate them to the rear if they are injured, because respawning
rank 10 heroes take a long time and lots of resources to pay to bring them
back to the game.

- Always check the bonus objectives, they are really easy to fulfill. They have
only a few different variations. The first one is build specific units or
buildings, and usually it can be done automatically when you set up your base.
Upgrades are usually fulfilled just because I assume by this point your units
are fully upgraded. Ranking up is not a problem too, as long as your units
are always active in combat. Finding reinforcements can get tricky - you have
to be fast on finding them, because often times the enemy's initial rush can
wipe them out before you can actually come in contact with them, so explore
and find them as soon as possible. Finally, destroying enemy patrols and
special units (i.e. Nazguls) requires you to explore the map, but it is not
as urgent as finding reinforcement units. Reinforcements ranging from stray
knight batallions, hidden rangers, and giant eagles.

- On some maps the enemy rushes you with tons of their units. Sometimes it can
be downright difficult, because you barely have the chance to set up and they
come in attacking in very large numbers.Immediately group your archer units
and have a hero with leadership passive skills standing among them, giving
them support. Find a spot where you can bottleneck the incoming enemies so
that your archers can focus their fire, eliminating enemies before they come
in contact with your units. In my case Mordor army tends to rush with their
mumakils, haradrim lancers and Rhun warriors, so keep your knights and riders
behind your archers. You can level them up by having them demolish the enemy
buildings after the initial rush. Heroes should be kept at the front lines,
they can absorb much more damage than your normal units, but pay attention to
their health. Mounted heroes can get hurt royally by pike units, while hobbits
are just weak to begin with. The only hero that is truly safe on his own is
Aragorn, as I have stated in the hero guide earlier.

- After a while the missions can become a chore. This is where you send in your
summoned allies to do the dirty work. Have Gandalf scout the map, and once
you spot the enemy's bases, let your Army of the Dead wipe out the base of
dangerous units and defensive towers, while Gandalf does his word of power to
dish out 500 damage across the screen. Summon the rohirrims and have them
tear down the buildings while taking damage from the arrows. Send in your
knights/riders to support them and finish up the job. It helps to have your
units attack 4 different targets at once (one for the army of the dead, one
with gandalf's lightning sword, one for the rohirrim summons, and one from
your original cavalry). You can always press Q for selecting ALL of your
units and have EVERYONE bum rush the base. I can finish some missions under
15 minutes using this strategy, once I survive the initial rush.

- Attack regions that yield a lot of powers, because that saves time to buy
the Evenstar powers. Harad and Rhun gives oodles of power, +4 for each of the
land if I am not mistaken. If you feel like your resource is not gathering
fast enough, by all means get the resource multipliers. But in my experience
you can summon so many allies that they thin out the attacking waves such
that replacing your army became unnecessary during the last battle.


******************************************************************************

FINAL MISSION: THE BLACK GATES

You will begin the mission with two bases on the left side of the map: Rohan
base on the top and a Gondor base on the bottom part. Start building farms,
blacksmiths and all the basic unit production buildings (barracks, stable, etc).
I recommend building 2 gondor farms and 2 blacksmiths with a marketplace
upgrade, they're very efficient. Just leave them be because they'll produce so
much money, and most of the time you would be maxed out to your unit limit that
the money is not that important anymore in this mission. Once the resources
start coming in, build all the appropriate base defenses to counter the
occasional orc raiding parties.

Units wise, group your units accordingly, with cavalries in one group, and the
archer units in another. The rest of your hotkeys are reserved for the heroes.
Group boromir and gimli to the big army, they'll be fine among the crowd.
Aragorn, Gandalf and Legolas are important enough that they can get their own
hotkeys(1, 2 and 3 for easy access). Set all the autoset abilities on before
things get ugly. Also, mount Gandalf and group Faramir with your knights.
They will be the quick response units: their job is to clean up the orc raiders
attacking your base and flanking the orcs while your archers stand their ground.
Last but not least, keep Pippin back in the gondor base and have him sit there.
Merry can join him when he comes in with the Rohan reinforcements.

Position your army relatively in the center of the map, but keep a good distance
from the gates because there are orc archers stationed on top of the gates and
they have fire arrows that can waste anything that comes close. You will be
enduring 4 waves of attacks, and during this 4 you want to minimize casualties
because the last wave can be really troublesome.

I hope at this point you have bought all the Evenstar powers available, because
you'll be needing all of them at this point. The summoning powers are useful
to water down the incoming waves of enemy heading at your main army's direction.
Save the Army of the Dead power until at least the fourth wave, because they
are almost worth like a "get out of an attack wave free" card. If you don't
have this power by this point, I suggest reload and finish the other missions
first.

Summon Rohirrims in front of your main army, and have them charge at the
initial orc hordes marching at your direction. Then summon the elvish archers
again in front of your main army, and have them set up so they soak up the
damages coming in from the horde. Summon the ents besides the summoned elves
and have them pick the trolls with their thrown rocks, or just have them go
medieval, it doesn't really matter at this point - use your imagination. Save
the eagles until the Nazgul appears at the 2nd or 3rd wave of attacks. If done
right, the summons alone can take out 80% of each wave, leaving your main army
to clean up the rest with very minimal casualties. Just remember to use gandalf
and have him use the word of power right as the first few orcs comes in contact
with your front lines to maximize the effect of the spell.

Once the Rohan reinforcements come in, merge the rohirrims with your knight
batallion, and send faramir down to his ranger mode and join the archers crew.
Have all your elvish and yeoman archer units and merge them with your previous
archer units. The horse archers you group them together, and they become an
additional reactive unit, they can be anywhere and support anyone that needs
extra firepower. Merge Eomer, Eowyn, and Theoden in your main cavalry group, and
set their skills on auto-set so they can use them consistently.

By this point the fourth wave should come soon, and Frodo's 5-minute timer
should be activated. Summon the Army of the Dead and have them clean up the
4th wave (summon them at the mouth of the gate to maximize their time and usage)
. By this point, you should have so many units, that you can take a bathroom
break and still win the battle til the very end. Just make sure to keep ALL your
heroes alive until the very end (no respawning at all) to win the bonus mission.
This part is actually harder than the actual mission, I only have done it once.


Heroes that are prone to death in this mission:
1. Gandalf - because everyone want a piece of him. Use his spell, then pull him
back.

2. Hobbits - if they wander to the front lines too far ahead.

3. Any heroes that happen to get stuck at the front lines and go further than
they are supposed to go, because of careless management (Even Aragorn can
die if you are too careless with him).

4. Giant Eagles are considered heroes, so if they die you won't get the bonus
objective. Don't let them fly in too deep and get killed.


Once the timer is over, you win the mission, and thus the Good Campaign ends.
Enjoy the credits. This mission should be far more easier than Minas Tirith
or Helm's Deep, because your units are maxed out and you can use all the
hero's amazing powers to its maximum potential.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

THE SIDE OF EVIL

The side of evil requires a completely different approach in playing compared
to the side of good. Evil units are far more weaker than Good units, therefore
their strength are in numbers. On top of that, healing for evil units are very
rare, only heroes and mountain trolls can actually do explicit healing. On the
other hand, evil units respawn faster compared to the Good units, so banner
upgrades are a must for all evil units.

The lack of heroes makes the Evil side even more complicated. Isengard have two
heroes, Lurtz and Saruman. The Mordors have the Nazguls, but they do not show up
other than at the critical battles. So get used to not seeing very many heroes,
instead more of your normal units in action.

The evil side has advantages in resource gathering. Many of the one ring powers
amplify the already efficient evil economy system. Notice that Evil bases do not
have any walls and have only very minimum defensive network. Just like the
movie, the Evil side is always on the offensive, continuously producing units
and replace the ones that fall in the heat of a battle.


EVIL HEROES


ISENGARD

1. SARUMAN

Abilities:

1. Wizard Blast (1): Similar to Gandalf's Wizard blast, knock-back attack.
2. Fireball (2): Saruman fires a huge fireball at the direction of enemy.
3. Wormtongue(4): Controls enemy units for a short period of time
4. Evil Speech(5): Saruman gives experience points to friendly units.

Comments:

Saruman is the evil version of Gandalf, and no where as powerful as Gandalf.
So you must be more tactical when using him. One advantage Saruman has is that
his recharge rate is relatively fast for a hero unit, he can dish out a lot of
damage in a very short period of time, making him quite versatile in helping
out your troops. Wizard blast is very useful for quick leveling up and cleaning
out dangerous units in the way. Fireball is the most useful spell against ents,
and can bring down main gates' health to 50% in one shot.The wormtongue is best
used when he is surrounded by enemy units. Use the spell and suddenly you have
a lot of units under your command, ready for a suicide attack. Evil speech can
be used sparringly by your unit production centers so they can gain a bit more
experience.


2. LURTZ

Abilities:
1. Toggle Bow/Sword: Toggles between sword and bow attacks.
2. Cripple(1): Pins down heroes in their standing spot for a period of time.
Ability only works in bow mode.
3. Berserk(3): Lurtz receives speed and damage bonus for a short time, and turns
red while this spell is active. Ability only works in sword mode.
4. Leadership(4): Passive ability. Gives bonus damage/armor for friendly units.
5. Pillage(6): Passive ability. Lurtz gets resources for destroying enemies.

Comments:

Lurtz is the other Isengard hero. He is exceptionally good against heroes, but
he needs to be protected among other units at lower levels because he is very
prone on dying. His bow attacks are not very far compared to Faramir (let's not
even talk about Legolas), and the damage is not that great. His sword ability
is not that bad, but not very powerful either. At higher levels he can later
pick infantries one by one with his arrows, but until then keep him safe among
the other Uruk units while he is attacking. Too aggresive with Lurtz and you
will lose him fast in the heat of battle.

Lurtz is the uber counter-hero unit that complements any evil army. Cripple
locks down a hero to its place, and you can riddle the hero with fire arrows.
This strategy works really well for taking out Good heroes without taking too
many casualties from your army. Be warned that crippled heroes can still
attack, so with a level 10 Gandalf beware of his word of power if he hasn't
unleashed it already.



MORDOR HEROES


NAZGULS/THE WITCH KING

Ability: 1. Scream(10): Frightens enemy units. Enemy units affected will flee
and be vulnerable to attacks.
2. Leadership(10): 200% damage bonus. Passive ability only for the
Witch King (only available at Minas Tirith).


Comments:

The Nazguls are very powerful heroes, they start at level 10 when you receive
them. They are pretty useful as scouts because they can open up the map and
attack any good heroes that are at a wrong place at the wrong time. They can
destroy seige weapons in a single swoop, but not very powerful in destroying
buildings. Nazguls can take out cavalry units and batallions in a single swoop,
so use them as flankers taking out enemy units with highest threat to your
attacking army.

Nazguls are very vulnerable to fire arrows, so be very careful when using them.
They are often under attack by massive rains of fire arrows, and sits there
doing nothing, so keep a good eye on their health bars. The witch king is a
beefed up nazgul unit, with a better attributes and leadership passive ability.

You can group the three nazguls together in Minas Tirith, and deal a lot more
damage in this manner according to EA. But I haven't seen the results very
clearly yet, so please take this with a grain of salt.


EVIL SIDE UNITS GUIDE (under construction)


ISENGARD ARMY


ORC LABORERS

Orc laborers come free from lumber camps. They can also be produced from the
lumber camps as well for very cheap cost and fast production time. They do not
have much use except for resource gathering and taking down ents, even though
ents have the talents of playing soccer with orc laborers as the ball. So make
sure you attack in a big horde, and have fire arrows supporting them if you
want to make use of this special ability.


URUK-HAI

Uruk-Hais are dirt cheap base units and very fast to produce. On their own they
are not very useful, because they die way too easily. Putting them on the
defensive formation makes them last much longer than normal. They are best when
they are merged with pikemen or crossbows because they are very effective at
becoming meat shields for other units. They also tear down buildings better
than other uruk units, but fire arrows does the job too.


URUK CROSSBOWS

You'll be using a lot of Uruk crossbows playing the evil campaign. But unless
they are sufficiently protected by merging them with Uruk-hais, they won't last
long and you will be losing a lot of resources upgrading them. Upgrading uruks
are an expensive investment, so make sure that you don't lose them over some
careless management. Properly used, the merged uruk crossbows can last from the
very first mission until the final showdown at Minas Tirith.


URUK PIKEMEN

Uruk pikemen is the sole salvation against cavalry charges. They can take out
tons of cavalries without taking damage, but they are very vulnerable to
everything else out there, especially fire arrows. They are not fast either,so
they are best when merged with uruk-hais or uruk-crossbows. Fully upgraded,
all the uruk units can last forever with proper usage and careful tactics.


BERSERKER

Berserkers are crazy Uruks that do insane damage and can kill a lot of things
with their massive damage dealing potentials. They can also perform suicide
attacks by jumping to an armed mine and blow out walls that way. They cannot
rise in ranks. I often build enough of them because they are fast moving and
versatile enough to be deployed on any battle situations.


WARG RIDERS

Warg riders are the only cavalry unit the evil army has. Not very powerful
compared to the good cavalry units, warg riders can do fast raids and run back
and forth across the map supporting assault while at the same time defending
your base from attacks. They are also very efficient at tearing down buildings,
as expected from cavalry units.


BATTERING RAM

The uruk battering ram is a very important unit. Considering all Good bases
have a main gate that always need to be breached, you will need at least one
battering ram to break the open before your uruks can rush in and destroy the
base inside out. Unfortunately they die rather easily, so usually you might
need a pair of them when approaching gates because one will draw the fire while
the other does the dirty work.


BALLISTA

The uruk Ballista works well agaisnt archers stationed at the walls. It can
also be used in breaking up enemy formations. But it is expensive and does take
up command points, so I didn't find very much use in them.If anyone has good
strategies using the ballista, I would love to hear it.


SIEGE LADDER

I didn't use siege ladders much, but they are basically a portal to have your
units climb the walls and attack the base from the walls without breaching the
front gates. My strategy always involves breaching the main gates, then slowly
clean the base with my uruks flowing in from the front door. Any tips for this
part is also welcomed.


ISENGARD MINE

Now, this is da bomb, quite literally. Very powerful against buildings and
walls, but if the enemy has heavy ranged defense, it might explode before it
reaches the intended target. Keep your units away from the mine because things
get ugly when it explodes prematurely. Another thing someone pointed out at me
is that once the mine is deployed, it doesn't have take a berserker to light it
up. Any fire source damage would do the job. So you can use your fire arrows or
Saruman's fireball attack to detonate the mine safer and more certainty than
a suicidal berserker.



MORDOR ARMY



ORC LABORER

Same deal with the Isengard Orc Laborers. Scroll up to read my comments because

I want to save some space here. (Although on the second thought, my ramblings
kinda waste more space than me just copying and pasting it down here... meh).


ORCS

There are one cool thing about orcs: they are FREE!!! That's right, I say this
again, free. Kinda like instant rebates at Fry's electronics (A Walmart version
of electronics superstore common in the Western part of the US, they give out
insane deals sometimes), no hassles and no problemos, it's free. But as it is
in this world, all free things has a catch or two. What's the catch? Read on.

Orcs are free to produce, but they do still take up commang points. On top of
that, orcs take a while to produce, sometimes lagging up your unit production.
Always a good idea to create two orc pits, so the other one can produce orc
archers (you need them more) while the other constantly churns out orcs. You
should fill up your spare command points with orcs, because they are insanely
weak and die really really fast. Orcs are the weakest units in the game, so
you get what you paid for.

Orcs are not without uses. They can be combined with your orc archers (also
very weak but somewhat more useful), and they are very expendable for taking
on exploring the maps, or attacking archer positions. In a big horde orcs are
effective at taking out rangers and archers who are quite the threat for the
rest of mordor units. You can also level one group up with their ability to
consume fellow orc hordes, so you might have some elite orcs and they are much
more durable than stock orcs. Trolls can feed on orcs to replenish their health
so keep this option in mind as well.


ORC ARCHERS

Orc archers are the only fire arrow capable units of Mordor. They are weak like
their non-bow orc counterparts, so merging them with the weaker orcs are always
a good idea to give them some extra meat shield while they do their dirty work.
You will be using these guys often because they can be garrisoned in abandoned
towers and mounted inside the mumakils.


HARADRIM LANCERS

Haradrim Lancers are the more robust projectile units of the Mordor Army. They
are classified as archer type units, even though they throw spears and not bows.
Their range are pretty decent, and they can take out basic infantries usually
before the infantries come in within range, so they are pretty effective units
to produce in large quantities. Cavalries take heavy damage when trampling
Haradrim Lancers, so you can use them as meat shields in front of your orc
archer batallions, though the Soldiers of Rhun are better suited for this job.


SOLDIERS OF RHUN

The Mordor Army version of pikemen, the soldiers of Rhun are very efficient
cavalry killers. Their porcupine formations are nothing short of deadly, and
sometimes people get confused between them and Haradrim lancers because they
look very similar at a glance. I've seen people charged at them in error and
lost their entire cavalry battle group in online battles. If you go against
them pay a careful attention on which is which so you don't make careless
mistakes that can cost you the game.

Fire arrows deal no damage to the Soldiers of Rhun, but normal arrow does,
albeit at very little damage (I think it's around 25%, but not so sure yet
until I see the number breakdowns of the units). You can use them to lure
fire arrows attack, while your other units deal with the archers without
taking too much damage on their part.


MUMAKIL


Mumakils are huge elephant type units of the Mordor Army. Super strong against
building and Rohan riders, but very suspectible to fire arrows. Mumakils can
have panic attacks if they are attacked by fire arrows before they die, thereby
trampling any units within its vicinity. Also when a mumakil perishes, units
mounting them and any units under the big creature will be crushed and killed,
so don't have your infantries hanging under these giant beasts, even when it's
raining outside and they hate to get wet (hmmm, elephant hide... works better
than an umbrella).

Seriously though, mumakils can do trememndous amount of damage against horse
units with their charge attack, and buildings can go down fast with a group
of mumakils attacking simultaneously. Mounting Haradrim Lancers or orc archers
on top of a mumakil is always a good idea, because they get more protection and
rank up differently than the mumakil they are mounted upon (the mumakil ranks
up based on its own attacks, not along with the archer units mounted on it).

The charge attack has its drawbacks, however. The mumakil needs to be in a
roughly straight line with the intended target, and if there are obstacles in
between, the skill might be used up, but the attack is never initiated. It may
be a game bug that is causing this, so be warned.

When a mumakil dies, units mounted on it dies along with the mumakil, so get
them out when the mumakil has 25% of health left, so they have enough time
to get away from the beast when it actually falls.


MOUNTAIN TROLL

Mountain trolls work wonders against buildings, cavalries, and basic infantry

units. Trolls have a hard time against heroes, fire arrows, and pikemen. Fire
arrows kill trolls really fast, and pikemen get double damage when dealing with
trolls. Heroes got their own set of power attacks depending who the hero is, so
trolls shouldn't be dancing too close with them. Trolls are also great against
siege units, so send them out because they can run underneath the projectiles
fired at them.

Trolls can pick up rocks and trees to augment their attacks, but I think it
might make them more vulnerable to attacks, albeit it enhances their attacks
by a lot. So it's a win-lose situation, use with discretion. Trolls can regain
their health by eating orcs, so have some orcs handy in case your trolls get
hungry. Trolls that picked up trees permanently holds on to the tree, removing
his normal abilities to eat up orcs and pick up rocks. They also do less damage
against buildings and non infantry units, so be careful when using this skill.

Veteran mountain trolls turns into Attack Trolls, and these guys are tough.
Try to not losing them because as they rank up, they gain a whole lot more
damage and armor bonuses, as well as more health.


DRUMMER TROLL

Drummer troll emits 300% leadership bonus to all mordor units. They are
substitutes for heroes because the Mordor Army lacks of any decent heroes save
for the witch king (and you don't get to use him very often either in the
campaign, which is a shame). Drummer trolls can hold their own ground and can
attack using their giant drumsticks, but while doing so it loses balance and
stops emitting the leadership bonus. So try to keep them busy beating drums
and let the other units beat up the enemy real good.


CATAPULT

Catapults are the main siege unit of the Mordor Army. Capable of shooting
fire based rocks, catapults work best at taking out defensive structures that
are attached to the walls (guard towers, trebuchets etc). Catapults can also
fire skulls to make enemy units run in fear and panic. They are vulnerable
to any other units in the game, so keep track of their whereabouts.

Catapults do not rise in rank, just like any other siege units.


BATTERING RAM

Same deal with the Isengard Battering Ram, a big door knocker device.


SIEGE TOWER

Same idea with the Isengard siege ladders, except these are pushed by trolls
and much more durable than the ladders.


GROND

Gronds are the uber battering ram, available only at Minas Tirith in the single
player campaigns. Gronds have insane health bar, and can take a lot of damage.
Gronds do massive damage against buildings and gates, but cannot attack ground
units. Have orcs escorting the grond while moving and attacking buildings. Just
give the other units distractions while the grond is delivering mucho pain to
your foes.



EVIL SIDE CAMPAIGN MISSIONS

TIP: JUST LIKE PLAYING GOOD CAMPAIGN, DON'T FORGET TO SAVE THE GAME AT
IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF THE MISSIONS.

NOTE: The evil side is more challenging than the Good Side, because of its
reliance on quantity versus quality. Therefore your resource gathering basis
must be really sound, otherwise your army production will suffer. The fun part
is that once your Isengard army is ready to rock and roll, they can trample
over anything the good side can throw at you. Both Saruman and Lurtz should
have the same identical army, because aside from the evil heroes, you are still
commanding the same types of units.

Here are my Isengardian unit breakdowns:

Uruk-Hai - Uruk pikemen combined horde (build at least 3, ideally 4):
Works really well for taking out builidings and holding against cavalry
charges.

Uruk-Hai/Pikemen - Uruk crossbows (build at least 3, ideally 4)
Works for taking out practically anything.

Warg Riders (build no more than 4) -> efficient at taking out buildings,
rachers, infantries, and siege units.

Upgrade all the units with all the necessary upgrades, and you're set to beat
the rest of the evil campaign with impunity. Leave some command points to
build siege units, berserkers and isengard mines because you will need them
to break the gates or overcome the walls of enemy bases. A lot of the evil
missions deal with Ancillary missions. These missions are indicated by the
option to choose either Lurtz or Saruman to lead the attack. The missions
which I only list one hero are main missions that are integral according to
the main storyline. You can take either Lurtz or Saruman to the ancillary
missions, but my suggestion is to alternate between them so they level up
evenly, and gives you the chance to build each of the armies equally. This
way you will have a powerful reinforcement when attacking Helm's Deep with
either hero.

Strategies between Lurtz and Saruman are similar, only Saruman gets to solo
and level up on his own faster, whereas Lurtz are much better with the horde
backing him up.




1. ISENGARD (SARUMAN)

This mission introduces us to the beginnings of the Isengardian Army, how they
came to be and how they cleared out the forests around the tower. The best way
to complete this mission is by completing all the bonus objectives available,
because in a way they work like partial credits on a math test problem. Getting
the bonus objectives make the actual mission much, much easier.

Build 16 buildings, but that should consist of 1 Uruk pit and 15 lumber camps.
Since you have a limited unit cap anyway, you don't need that many uruk pits
to cover your army production. Just take things slowly, and have Saruman
explore the map a little bit to level him up. His fireball attack is unlocked
at level 2, and I think it is the most useful skill Saruman can have. It lights
Ents in a single shot, and it has massive damage against buildings. Hopefully
you'll get this power before the ents come down knocking your walls.

For your army, merge the two given uruk fire crossbows with uruk-hais so they
have some extra meat shield when things get ugly. You'll need them to take down
the attacking ents. I also should mention that by this point you should have
a whole village of orc laborers - they can chop up ents faster than a japanese
restaurant chef making sushi rolls. After the ents and elves are gone, build
your uruks until you have at least 100 of them, but the more the better.

Prepare your fortress against a Rohan attack. The Rohans are pretty vicious
against stock (non-upgraded) uruk units, so bottleneck the main gate with your
other normal uruk-hais, with any available uruk crossbows behind them. This is
a very important point - have your uruk-hais stand in the defensive formation.
They will gain armor bonus with speed penalty, which is very good considering
they are fast enough in this formation and make them last longer compared to
their line formation. Save the fire crossbow - uruk batallions by the walls
destroyed by the ents earlier up north. You will have these two units flank the
Rohans as they breach the main gates. As your army taking massive casualties,
do not panic and just queue more uruks at the pit - you should have enough
money from all the lumber camps to build a whole new army in case yours is
wiped out. Have Saruman fire his spells at big crowds - he can take out
batallions of riders in a single properly aimed fireball or wizard blast.
once the Rohans are pushing daisies by the ground, you win the mission.


2. FANGORN (SARUMAN)

The attack of Fangorn can get a bit tricky, because depending how much uruks
survived from your previous mission, it can be a rough start if you have too
few uruks at the start. Prepare for an attack by elves. Once the attack is
over, move Saruman to a campsite to the right of your starting point, and
have uruks escorting him. The moment you unpack the camp, there will be some
more elves (not too many) ambushing your new camp. Waste these foolish elves.

Build one pit, one armory, and have the rest of the slots filled with resource
buildings (slaughterhouse and furnaces).Get the banner carrier upgrade from the
armory so your surviving orc hordes can regenerate. Once you have a decent army,
start attacking the elvish base up top of the map. Bring your fire crossbows
because there will be two ents chilling with the elves, and they can wipe out
your army if you are not ready for them. Don't forget to level up Saruman all
this time during the attack. Have him participate in the attack and he'll rank
up in no time. Remember to put all your Uruk-Hais on defensive formation before
any battles.

After the elves are gone, build the outpost near their base with more resource
gathering buildings. Now you need to produce at least 4 hordes of the merged
crossbow uruks - uruk hai combos, equipped with fire. We gonna be hunting Ents,
and you'll need the firepower. Across the river there are more elves ambushing
your army, so teach them a lesson not to do that anymore. Toward the East you
will see the Entmoot with several ents standing around. Have your main army
wait outside the range of the ents, and have Saruman himself approach the ents
as a bait. Have him use his fireball spell on one of the ents, and retreat as
the angry ent chases after him. Lure him to your main army, and have them take
the ent down, rinse and repeat. If for some reason the ent is stupid enough to
be burning and went back to his poker game, just have Saruman recharge his mojo
and fire at another ent, and rinse and repeat. Eventually they all will burn
to their death.

For Treebeard, prepare for some comedic combat scene. Have Saruman shoot his
fireball at Treebeard, and have him run around like a chicken while Treebeard
tries to catch him. From the sidelines have your army watch the spectacle while
firing fire arrows at Treebeard. If Saruman has his fireball spell ready, turn
and fire at him again. Keep doing this until Treebeard goes down. He has a huge
health bar, so it might take a while. Wipe out the rest of the ents using the
same strategy, and tear down the Entmoot. It has a really powerful armor, so
tearing it apart might take a while, but you will have all the time in the
wrld once all the ents are gone.


3. GAP OF ROHAN (SARUMAN)

Set up your base and get your economy going. Start exploring the map with
Saruman, and leave some of your army at your base to defend against
occasional Rohan raids. Make sure you build some defensive towers because the
cavalries will eat your uruks for breakfast, lunch and dinner, minus the salt.

To the top of your camp lies the refugee camp. Destroy it and you'll get some
loot. In fact, there are a lot of creature caves and random farmer buildings
that drop loot when they are destroyed, so grab the ones you can find. Build
4 lumber camps on the spots that used to be Rohan farms, to fulfill the bonus
objective. The main base lies to the southeast of your base, so attack them
once your army is ready. Make sure you have all the upgrades from the armory
before attacking to make your life easier.


4. AMON HEN (LURTZ)

This mission is by far one of the most trickiest throughout the entire game,
mainly because you don't have any resource gathering building, and you have
no way of resurrecting Lurtz if he dies. You do not automatically lose the
mission, but without the ability to churn out tons of uruks, without Lurtz
the army wouldn't stand a chance against the Fellowship heroes. This mission
also needs the one ring power of devastation. It gives you instant resource at
the expense of destroying surrounding trees. But since you're evil, it's a good
thing. If you are finding yourself hard-pressed, do not press on and attack,
instead camp and wait until you can use this power to generate more money so
you can build more new units. You can get 2000 resources per usage easily if
you aim for the maximum amount of trees within the radius of the power.

Start the mission by building two uruk crossbows, and