Battle for Middle Earth - Good Campaign - Northern Ithilien




Battle for Middle Earth - Good Campaign Map - Northern Ithilien (+20% Resources)
This is a hint/walkthrough post for Battle for Middle Earth. You can find an index of all our Battle for Middle Earth posts here.

The Forbidden Pool can heal units nearby but cannot restore lost individuals in a unit. The EvenStar Heal power can restore units, but at 5 men per unit for Gondor, save this power for a thick firefight when you can't quickly retreat your units. Instead, put the hobbits Frodo and Sam in front to draw fire from the Haradrim Lancers, who have a very strong thrown spear attack. Also Frodo has the Vial of Galadriel that can turn some units away if you are overwhelmed.

Building 3 units of Gondor Rangers enables the Fire Arrows. Taking that upgrade improves the Forbidden Pool to level 3 and you can build Gondor Knights, but I recommend against this early in the mission. They are costly and have no survivability against the very strong Haradrim lancers. They also can't trample effectively -- I was not able to run over and immediately kill even orc archers.
Later in the mission you can establish a camp and build the Stables. A level 2 Stables gives you access to the shield upgrade, so wait for the stables to recruit Knights.

Gondor Archers can be recruited from a level 2 Forbidden Pool. For now they are inferior to Gondor Rangers, but they are a viable alternative as they can have Heavy Armor (which, among other things, gives complete protection against the fire of fire arrows) and Rangers lose Stealth when paired up with infantry (which you may want to do with Tower Guards to give them trample protection and melee support). Until you get a base you have no access to these, so just recruit Rangers. Mordor has no heavy armor, so get the fire arrows as soon as possible.
The Gondor encampment to the south can be activated if you use an EvenStar power in that area but they are cut off from all support, and you may not want to do this early, although there is a trebuchet with them and they can bombard the thick enemy placements.

There are two Mordor camps -- to the north and to the southeast. You can take both early, especially the one to the southeast, but as soon as you build a camp, a countdown starts for a Mordor convoy.
If you take both camps and destroy all Mordor buildings on the plateau (i.e., clear the map of all Mordor buildings), you win the mission no matter when you do it or whether there are unfinished objectives like intercepting the convoy or joining up with the rangers to the south.
The ramps up to the plateau are heavily guarded, but with just six squads of Gondor Rangers, you can take them out without losing any unit in entirety if you take point with heroes and strategically use Cloud Break and possibly Heal.
If you have taken both Mordor camps, you can leave one building on the plateau and continue the mission. Instead of trying to defend both camps, build one with resource buildings and another for your "real" base of operations, with Stables and Barracks (if you want Tower Guards), but not the Archery Range, because the Forbidden Pool already gives you access to everything the Archery Range can provide.

The convoy attack involves whittling down the convoy as it passes. Haradrim Lancers may throw spears back, but overall the convoy moves toward the northern camp. If you have already taken it, you can, instead of attacking from the ambush points, build up that base and attack them there. Retreat your forces entirely into the city and have some sacrificial units at the entrance. As the enemy funnels in through the choke point, your archers cut them down. Prepare the base with Elven Land (before building the Gondor Citadel to initially establish the base), Healing Wells, and Statues.

Before you leave this map, decide on your final Gondor force composition. The Command Point limit for the Good Campaign is 300, and if you aren't there yet you are probably very close. Whatever you choose, I recommend at least a few squads of Gondor Knights in order to rush artillery before they can bomb too many of your units.

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