Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Good Campaign - Mission 2 - High Pass

Battle for Middle Earth II - Good Campaign Mission 2 - High Pass
This is a hint/walkthrough post for Battle for Middle Earth II. You can find an index of all our Battle for Middle Earth II posts here.

This mission is very easy except possibly for the rescue of Haldir, if you are not ready for it. You can trigger that encounter very early by being too close to the south side of the plateau he is battling on because it ends up in your building's fog reveal radius.

Before you explore too much, hold the chokepoint to your base with your heroes and have 3-5 fully upgraded battalions of Lancers. When the Haldir objective comes up, have the Lancers ride to his position, just past the goblins fighting him so they trample them. Stop for nothing -- if you have to ride past giants or trolls throw stones at the lancers, the fact that the lancers are moving will probably protect them because they won't be around when the stones land. Follow up with heroes to take out giants and trolls.
If you ever exceed your Command Limit (e.g., with troops from Haldir who join you), some objectives disappear (e.g., to build a barracks).

If you want your melee heroes to defeat the Watcher in the Water, you can use the Enshrouding Mist power to hide them while they attack. Sometimes this works, sometimes it isn't reliable. Make sure the Mist covers the area where the attackers will be in melee with the Watcher. If you are at or have exceeded your Command Limit but did not build archers (e.g., you built Lancers instead, and combined with Haldir's troops are now over 600 Command Points, the limit for this mission), you can have a Builder construct an Archer Tower near the Watcher. You do not need to have researched SilverThorn arrows in order to upgrade the Archer Tower with them. If you move Haldir inside to shoot, his arrows do more damage.

Glorfindel and Gloin are limited to level 5. Haldir appears at level 8 and cannot advance.