Guides for Warcraft III, Hard

The Frozen Throne: Scourge, Chapter 6: A New Power in Lordaeron

You start off with two bases, Sylvanas’s and Varimathras’s in the upper left and Garithos’s in the lower right. As usual when you have to defend several fronts, lower the speed to slow from the start. The key here is taking the map on systematically. Gold is abundant, and thus you will not be in a hurry to expand.

Start by setting up a solid defense in both bases, and sending your Shades to strategical locations close to both the orange and the purple bases, so that you can anticipate their attacks and prepare specifically for them.

The optional quest to save the dwarves is a given. It is very easy to complete, and their siege tanks are an invaluable asset. Start by upgrading your Keep to a Castle, training some Footmen and upgrading as much as you can. After fighting back the first wave, which seems to come from the Green base every time, send Garithos and his units to the north to rescue the dwarves. You will need to do this quickly, since you will soon be attacked by flyers.

Next, build five Siege Engines and as many Knights as you have population for. Send Garithos and his army to the west, in order to secure another gold mine and get one threat off your back. Keep healing your troops and micromanaging the Siege Tanks, and you will have no problems leveling the base. In the worst case, you will have to retreat when your tanks have been destroyed, and attack again with more tanks. Tanks solve everything.

With the Green base out of the game, you can probably defeat Balnazzar’s base already. However, if you want to be on the safe side, get Sylvanas and an army of Banshees walking/hovering southwards. I never attacked the Orange base, but I figure that it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as long as you make sure that you have time to return before Balnazzar has destroyed your base.

When time comes for the last assault on Balnazzar, start by attacking on Sylvanas’s side. Possess everything that you want. After a ten seconds or so, most of the defending units should have moved to the north-western part of the base in order to fight Sylvanas back. Don’t worry if you’re outnumbered, since this is only a decoy. Enter Garithos and a lot of Kights and Siege Tanks. The tanks will make a short story of any buildings, while the knights’ armor along with Lord Garithos’s Devotion aura make your army nearly impervious. Keep silencing and putting enemies asleep with Sylvanas and Varimathras, while maintaining a steady supply of new units. Once you start destroying the unit-producing buildings, the Dread Lord will stand no chance.

The Frozen Throne: Scourge, Chapter 5: Dreadlord’s Fall

This chapter is really easy, as long as your micro-management is at its top. First of all, take the game speed down to Slow. Tempo is too important to play this map on even Medium. Next, divide your strike-force into two parts — Varimathras and the ghouls on one side, and Sylvanas and the rest on the other. You are going to take out every unit and every town hall in every base.

Your base

As soon as you have sent your forces on their way, start training Ghouls and Banshees. Send the Banshees to back-up Sylvanas, and the Ghouls to Varimathras. After a while, upgrade the Ghouls’ attack and defense at the Graveyard. As soon as you have enough gold, summon a Slaughterhouse for Meat Wagons and Abominations. Don’t bother with defense. There will be no forces to attack you.

Sylvanas’s team — Undead bases

On your way to the first base, you will encounter a footman guarding two Mortar Teams. The game hints you to possess them, and this is a good idea. Do so, and proceed into the city. Keep your Mortars away at first, until most of the opposing units have been killed. Have Sylvanas Charm as many Abominations you can. Only use Dark Arrow when necessary (the last few hits on a unit), since you’re going to need that mana for Charming. Make sure to proceed slowly and systematically through the city, so that you do not wake too many units simultaneously.

Do not attack the buildings, only the units. When you have cleaned the first base up, send in your mortars and let them attack the Necropolis. After it has been destroyed, take out the unit-producing buildings, starting with the ones producing the strongest units and going down.

Send your other forces, along with the newly trained Banshees, down to the next base. Charm the Frost Wyrm in the northwest of the base, and then possess Abominations. If you have any Banshees over, take on the Crypt Fiends. Next, focus all of your fire on the Dreadlord. Do not forget to wake sleeping units by attacking them once, or you’ll lose a lot of fire-power.

Once the military units are extinct, hunt down out the last acolytes and destroy the Necropolis. This way, you have effectively destroyed the base, and there is no need to stay there. Take Sylvanas’s army and the mortar teams to meet up with Varimathras.

Varimathras’s team — first Human base

Varimathras and his ever-increasing number of Ghouls will easily destroy the Town Hall and kill the peasants working there. Make good use of the Dreadlord’s Sleep spell, especially on that pesky knight. You can keep the knight sleeping until you are done with everything else, and then kill it quickly by surrounding it.

If Sylvanas isn’t done yet when you are (she’s got two bases to take care of, after all), spend your time destroying all the unit-producing buildings. If you have even more time, take down the towers, too. They will be upgraded when the morning comes.

Position your units outside the last base and await Sylvanas and her squad.

Together — last Human base

You should have about one minute left at this point. If time runs out, you’re going to have quite some problems and will probably need to retreat and fight the battle out the old-fashioned way, defending and using your base. It shouldn’t be that difficult, though, since you’ve made sure that the Undead will not be able to gather any more resources.

Run into the base and surround Lord Garithos. Send Banshees to Possess the Knights, and perhaps a Mortar Team or two. Sylvanas should Charm the Gryphons. Now take the buildings down in just the same way as you did with the other bases.

Destroy the remnants of the bases in whatever way you like. It doesn’t matter wheter it’s morning or midnight if the Dreadlord and his pet Sir Garithos lack resources to train units with. Just don’t let the units trained with the few resources that they do have catch you off-guard, though — just “sending in the meat wagons” does not work, I’ve noticed.

The Frozen Throne: Scourge, Chapter 4: The Return to Northrend

Arthas’s return to Northrend can be very periolous if you attempt to play nice. Do not. This chapter is very easy, as long as you use the correct strategy. Illidan’s servants expect you to attack the first coastal Blood Elf encampment, because when you do attack and set up a base there, they will know exactly where you are. Instead of easily leveling the base, leave a few farms. This way, the Naga and the Blood Elves will never attack you. Now, you will only have to penetrate their defenses without losing your irreplacable units. Leave a few ghouls by the surviving farms, so that you can build up a base in case your army loses a battle.

The first thing that you should do is to kill Sapphiron and have Arthas raise him. This can be done without losses if you only let Arthas, Anub’Arak and the Meat Wagons fight. Use your Crypt Fiends for webbing the dragons to the ground, after which you can let them burrow in order to stay out of danger. Next, go destroy barrels to collect resources. You can also travel to the island that you started on to kill some creep for gold and items. Buy a fleet, consisting of mostly Battleships, from your newfound gold and wood.

You should now just wait, and let your new companion do all the job. Sapphiron can single-handedly destroy every Blood Elf base on the map with his Frozen Breath. It will take some time, but as long as you keep the undead dragon alive with Arthas’s Death Coil, it is the safest way by far.

When only the Naga base is left, you can play it safe and establish a base of your own. The rest of this mission should then play itself. I assaulted the Naga base with my units and battleships, but unfortunately both ghouls died. With only 10 wood I was unable to establish theb ase, but Arthas, Anub’Arak, Sapphiron and two Crypt Fiends are enough for destroying the guardians of the entrance. Just remember to keep your heroes and Sapphiron alive. Sapphiron can easily kill the last guardians, since only the dragons are capable of attacking air, and your dragon is a lot stronger than them.

The Frozen Throne: Scourge, Chapter 3: The Dark Lady

As Lady Sylvanas, you are only able to build Acolytes, Ghouls, Banshees and Meat Wagons. However, those Banshees are upgraded to Master level from the start, which means that you can Possess as much as you want to. You should get all of your firepower from this: Abominations and Crypt Fiends along with Ogres and Bandits.

There is a lot of neutral units to possess in this map. I recommend first going to the gnolls in the West, who also happen to guard a gold mine. Possessing the leader will net you a nice aura as long as you can keep him alive. The gold mine is free to use; it will never be attacked.

Next, attack the ogres in the nort-west. After the stone barricade, Possess the leader immediately to minimise losses. The ogres are great meat shields, and you can replace them with more units from the mercenary shops. Try not to lose the leader, since his aura is useful. Keep a couple of Banshees in your base while doing this in order to impede potential invasions long enough for you to come back with your squad of Ogres.

Now, it’s time to set up an adequate defense. The best place to defend against Varimathras at is just north of your base, between the hill with trees and the river. Place your melee units in that pass, and at least five Meat Wagons on the hill. This will make sure that not even the invasions supported by Meat Wagons will be able to cause damage, since you will shoot their wagons with yours. The purple attacks from the East are never strong enough to be a significant threat. A couple of melee units in front of Nerubian towers and meat wagons will suffice.

Next comes the purple base. Make sure that you have a lot of Banshees and Meat Wagons. If you manage to Possess or kill most their units, your wagons will have a free way to destroy the towers and unit-producing buildings. Make sure that Sylvanas buys a Scroll of Town Portal before every assault, so that she can take the army back quickly in case of an invasion from a certain Dread Lord. After the purple base has fallen, the gold mine is all yours.

You can take on the bandits if you want to. Their units will bolster your army nicely, and after acquiring their leader, you will likely be able to take on the red base without any pause.

The Frozen Throne: Scourge, Chapter 2: The Flight from Lordaeron

Begin by killing off the ghouls, and then move north. Make sure to take every sidepath that you can find, since there are many loyal units to rescue. Your ghouls will probably be mostly in the way, so don’t worry too much about healing them, except for cannibalizing after battles. Your abominations, however, should be kept alive at all costs. These are vital for the final battle.

Even though you are periodically attacked from behind, you shouldn’t rush this stage. The attacks are all weak, and you will probably survive all of them without losses if your Death Coiling is good.

It is worthwhile to assault the Dreadlord and his golems in order to rescue your two meat wagons. They are useful, not only against Nerubian Towers, but more so as fire support. Just make sure that you do not leave them too far behind; the attacks in the back might damage them, and your only way of repairing them is waiting for them to regenerate.

There are no real traps in this mission, and so your Shades will not work well for scouting, especially considering there are three or so hostile Shades who can spot them. Your Shades will do more good if you leave them beind in crossings, so that you can spot rear-attacks early on.

When you face the huge abomination in the end (I don’t remember his name — Bloodfeast?), you have two options. You can either just attack-move against him, which should work unless you’ve suffered major casaulties. The other option is using the Staff of Reanimation, which you should have picked up earlier in this mission, Arthas’s Animate Dead and the Necromancers’ Raise Skeleton in order to create free minions, which you can send in indefinitely.

The Frozen Throne: Scourge, Chapter 1: King Arthas

This is a really long mission. Start by pulling the speed down to Slow, since you’re defending or attacking at three fronts simultaneously. Now, start making units. Arthas needs only abominations, Sylvanas needs Banshees and Kel’Thuzad needs Necromancers. In the beginning, though, build some ghouls in Arthas’s and the lich’s crypts to get up an army quickly.

Unless you are very skilled, you will only be able to attack at one front at a time. Arthas will do a good job defending his side by himself as long as you put a ghoul near the Circle of Power, but Kel’Thuzad will need some help from you. His front is the most difficult one to defend. Cast Frost Nova as much as you can, and set Raise Skeleton to auto for the Necromancers. Cripple some units, too, since you will have more than enough collective mana. The skeleton warriors should be kept as a shield around the lich and the necromancers.

The key to fighting with Sylvanas is possessing everything stronger than a Footman, especially the Knights. On the other fronts you have the problem of Paladins healing the knights, but guess what happens if they have no knights to heal — that’s right, they can’t heal them! Using this strategy, you should be able to destroy all the bases on Sylvanas’s side quickly. No more villagers will try to escape through Sylvanas’s mountain pass any more, so therefore I just did a suicidal attack with the units I had left on the center and made sure that Sylvanas slipped through to Kel’Thuzad’s side. Her Life Drain and fire power was a considerable aid.

With only two fronts to defend, you can attack simultaneously. The key is not to attack the old-fashioned way. It’s not hit-and-run either, it’s more of a hit-and-die. As soon as you have slaughtered some villagers and raised them with your Necromancers, send the skeletons on a suicidal mission to destroy a farm. Even if you only damage it once, you will have won, because your skeletons are free and the farms are never repaired. You can do the same with Arthas. Just send him and some Abominations to destroy farms. Animate Dead to get them up again and do even more damage.

When only the centre Paladins are left, it is easy to destroy their base through a combined assault, since you now have 90 food to play around with.

Notes:

• Put your Shades at important crossings in order to warn yourself of escaping villagers.
• Killing your own Shades will not help, since they do not count against the food limit in this mission.
• You can get nice items by seeking out and killing some heroes — Arthas has a Mountain Giant, Kel’Thuzad has an Archmage and Sylvanas has some archer with Starfall.
• Make sure to always be stocked up with healing scrolls, since you have almost unlimited cash.
• When all the villages on one side have been destroyed, there won’t be any more attacks. You can keep pushing units to the center, or get them over to another side to help.
• Your units prioritize combat units over peasants, and might let them slip through fighting. To avoid this, let one or two ghouls stand closer to the mountain pass.
• Human units become Invulnerable as soon as they touch the circles.
• Don’t give up. This is a hard mission on par with the timed missions in Reign of Chaos, but it is possible.

The Frozen Throne: Alliance, Chapter 6: Lord of Outland

If you take your time on this mission, it is very easy. I finished it without using any of the gold at all, and had no problems.

First, choose which party to push and keep to that. I recommend Vashj’s Naga, since Vashj can destroy one of the generators in case you don’t want to risk your assassins. The fact that Kael and Illidan are periodically attacked is irrelevant, since they can be fended off without any casaulties as long as you micro-manage the damaged spellbreakers and firestorm all over the place.

Lady Vashj and her army should make it to the Mistress of Pain without any losses, too. Make good use of the turtles’ digestion systems and their siege attacks against buildings. Also, don’t be afraid to cast Crushing Waves and Frost Bolts with your Naga Royal Guards. Those Frost Bolts look really nice on Battleships. Do not attempt to take on the Mistress of Pain alone. Instead, activate the bridge to the west of the last Orc encampment and wait there for Illidan’s and Kael’s army.

Illidan and Kael should not lose any units, either. It’s a good idea to go slaughter the butcher for some nice tomes.You will probably lose some Spellbreakers there, but you will get them back when he drops his Rune of Resurrection. Don’t forget to attack the units just north and south of the well first, since you’re really going to have problems if they attack your priests and sorceresses from behind.

The Orc bases should be no problems, either. If you feel that you want to be on the safe side, you can walk the assassins in and have them Hide on strategical positions. In the last base, you can catch all of the Orcs, including the hero, behind their own buildings while picking them off with your ranged units. The Master of Torture can be beaten easilly if you just attack-move your units in there.

Probably the same thing can be said about the Mistress of Pain, but her Charm is nasty, and so I decided to hit-and-run until she and all of her units were dead. To do so, first place your army well away from her, e.g. by some well — her units don’t give up easily. Next, summon two Sea Elementals (Naga Royal Guards) and two Spirit Wolves (the Draeni assassin hero) and send them up to the attack one unit. Your goal is to kill at least one unit with every wave, since you don’t lose anything but the Mistress cannot replace her units.

Let Kael, Illidan and Vashj go behind the units. Illidan should survive going melee and mana-burning while you micro Vashj’s Forked Lightning and Kael’s Banish and Firestorm (or is it Firestrike? I don’t remember). You should be able to kill them all without any hero dying in a few waves.

Next is Magtheridon. He’s a little harder, and brute force won’t break him. I used the same tactic as against the Mistress of Pain, and it worked. It just took a lot more time. Remember not to waste time attacking the Infernals, since they are temporary summons.

The Frozen Throne: Alliance, Chapter 5: Gates of the Abyss

This mission takes a lot of time. First, move all of your units to defend Illidan; they will be needed. Also, start training some peasants for lumber harvesting and even more units to defend Illidan. The Orcs won’t attack your base in the beginning.

I recommend destroying the Orc bases before attempting to close the portals, since you will need all of your population to defend them. Attack the bases in counter-clockwise order. This way, your allies will help you all the way. Try to coordinate your attacks with theirs. Don’t rely too much on them though; they’re more temporary meatshields than backup. Make good use of the Naga Myrmidions’ Ensnare. It can be used on the spell-immune dragons.

Only the last portal should be a problem, and therefore I recommend closing it before closing the others. After a while, Succubi will descend from the gate and Charm your units, turning them to their side. You must do everything you can to avoid this. Start with using the Rune of Shielding which can be found in the barrels close to Illidan’s position. When shielded, two Charms are required to convert a unit. Nuke them with Lady Vashj and Kael as much as you can, too.

At first it will seem like you have an excess of gold, but don’t spend it too easily. You will probably have to save it after the last Orc base has fallen in order to maintain your army while closing the gates.

The units that I chose where Spellbreakers, Priests and Naga Myrmidions for the gates. The Spellbreakers’ spell immunity is very handy, and the Myrmidions’ Ensnare is required for the nether dragons. Remember that you can also interrupt channeling spells with Ensnare. Use it on demons casting Rain of Fire. For the Orc bases, add a couple of turtles for siege.

Reign of Chaos: Alliance, Chapter 3: Ravages of the Plague

With Jaina by your side in this mission, you should have no problems. I recommend leveling Jaina’s Brilliance Aura, Blizzard and Water Elemental in that order, since Brilliance helps Arthas’s healing a lot. It also lets your priests going. You should have almost no casaulties if you remember to heal as much as you can and micro-manage damaged footmen away from the battle while Holy Light is cooling down.

Make good use of your footmen’s Defend ability. Note that Defend only slows their move speed and not their attack speed. This means that you can start defending as soon as you have reached the enemy units without any real drawbacks. The A.I. is not clever enough to hit-and-run defending footmen.

Don’t miss the Mantle of Intelligence +3. It makes Jaina even more powerful.

The Frozen Throne: Alliance, Chapter 4: The Search for Illidan

In this mission, you can only control your two heroes. You can either try to beat this map as quickly as possible, or wait a while in order to let your heroes level up. Lady Vashj can reach level 7 in this mission; use that. I recommend the latter, since it’s a fun map and you want to play it for as long as possible.

If you go by the first strategy, you can just start an offense as soon as your allied units start moving. Nuke Maiev with Banish + Firestrike + Forked Lightning, and she should fall quickly. Recover the cage as soon as possible, and then just help hold the front with your heroes.

If you prefer leveling your heroes, simply wait and use the strategy detailed above when you have reached the maximum levels for this mission. Take caution not to exhaust your heroes’ mana, or your base might be overrun.

You might want to buy the Sobi Mask from the goblin merchant, since it is an over-all good item.