Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Chaos Campaign - Chapter 1, Mission 3

Here are general tips for playing the Chaos Champaign in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, on HARD Difficulty. A list of all our Warhammer: Mark of Chaos articles can be found here.
We won't be hand-holding you through absolutely everything, but instead just give tips on situations that we found tricky or that you might not have considered.

Chapter 1: The Will of the Gods

Mission 3 (optional): Reclaim the Relics

• You cannot double back for this optional mission, so you will have to do it now.
• It is possible to use the same units as the mission before and win on Hard difficulty. Again, the key is the Sorcerer's vampiric healing ability. The only tricky part is the Empire hero who accompanies the final and largest caravan. If you let him engage your units for too long, he could single-handedly kill your sorcerer and his attached regiment. There are a few things we can do:
• As soon as that unit comes into range, hit it with everything you have. This is why we have three units of Axe Throwers -- every model gets to shoot, instead of slowly grinding the battlefront with melee units. And we can focus fire early on dangerous regiments.
• Don't let your sorcerer get duelled since he is much more useful outside a duel. Flee him if he can't win.
• If the sorcerer's health drops dangerously low and you can't Steal Soul soon enough to keep it up:
• Have Thorgar initiate a duel to buy him some time.
• Retreat the sorcerer and his regiment (especially out of the range of the handgunners) and let some other regiment take point. We can resurrect lost models from that regiment after.
• If Thorgar can't win the duel, Flee him out of the duel and finish off the Priest with your regiments.
• To be safe, go into the mission with all Axe Thrower regiments fully filled out.
• Areas of the map with smoke can be dangerous (fire damage, presumably), although you will not get any notification.
• The actual fights are basic with no real change in tactics.
• The enemy comes down a path. Just block it with the sorcerer's regiment in the front and the remaining Axe Throwers in the back.
• Keep Thorgar in a space between the Axe Throwers so he can throw his Axe of Doom without hitting your own models. Otherwise, keep him safely in the back unless you have no choice, since you are likely going to duel the enemy priest.
• Don't set your force far enough ahead that they draw fire from the Handgunners in the dugouts. But not too far behind either, since you need time to chase down the carts, which continuously move ahead and which will push through your units rather than simply get stuck.
• The mission is complete only when you pick up all 5 artifacts -- the "Item" drops. You can pick up everything else (gold and potions) and not trigger mission completion.
• If you need to drop an item or have a different hero pick it up, just drag it from your inventory out into the map. It should the drop from your character and be present on the map ready to be picked up.
• If you like, leave a couple of items on the ground and clean out the Empire forces on the hilltop for extra experience.
• The hilltop has two large units of Handgunners(2). They will not move, and your sorcerer's Steal Soul and Wind of Death have more range, so use your sorcerer while out of their shooting range to clear them without them ever firing a shot.
• .For Steal Soul, you do not have to click on the banner, just any one model. You will still get the full number of attacks against that unit even if all the other members of that unit are outside your range.
• After this mission, the next map location is the Ring of Champions, which will change your store. Any artifacts you didn't buy will no longer be available.