Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Good Campaign - Mission 6 - Celduin

Battle for Middle Earth II - Good Campaign Mission 6 - Celduin
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.

Proceed slowly. Try not to trigger the scripted combats before you are ready. Do you best to save archers, especially any Men of Dale with fire arrows as you will not have that upgrade available, and they are remarkably good at destroying structures. Also try to save at least one unit of Phalanxes although their use is specific to stopping the Mumakil that are coming.
In the northeast are two Corsair Bombardment Ships. Ignore them. If you try to take them out with your archers, you are more likely to lose the archers. They will not attack if you do not attack first, and they disappear later.
Just before the docks and hearth, there is an Inn. Your Command Points might be close to the limit, but hire whatever Men of Dale you can. You have very few archers, and when you reach the Docks, the new troops that join you there can push you over your Command Points and make it impossible to hire anything or build any ships. (Although ships are really only useful to grab the treasure at the far east. Most of the fighting happens inland anyway so don't bother with them.) After recruiting all the Men of Dale I could, once the forces at the docks joined my Command Points jumped to 1014/850.

At the docks, move your infantry out of the way; send some to capture buildings. Position your Phalanxes in front and in Porcupine and Guard stances to block the incoming Mumakil. The rest of that position should be King Dain and archers behind the Phalanxes to take down the Mumakil as quickly as possible. If you are hard pressed or if you have no Phalanxes to stop their advance, the Fear Arrows of the Men of Dale can repel a Mumakil briefly, although it may well return with a charge. Protect the Hearth at all costs. You will be notified once the Mumakil are all gone.

Across the shallows are catapults. These are actually not very dangerous if you can keep moving, which is tricky to do with a lot of troops. Go solo with Dain and keep him focussed on one catapult at a time. Follow up with Archers far back to support him if he gets in trouble and needs to retreat. Otherwise, he should do fine for some of the catapults. Only those at the north and south ends, supported by troops, will be tricky without giving King Dain any backup.

Clear the west coast from north to south. Destroy all structures on the perimeter of the fortress using fire arrow equipped Men of Dale. Watch for bombardment from the Fortress and retreat them if necessary. If you move too many troops around, too many will probably come under fire from the fotress, so use small teams or just one Battalion.
When you are ready, swarm the Fortress, preferably leading with Tom Bombadil summonned ahead. Shortly after the Fortress is destroyed you win, so don't worry about troops at this time.

Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Good Campaign - Mission 5 - Grey Havens

Battle for Middle Earth II - Good Campaign Mission 5 - Grey Havens
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 is a tightly scripted mission that could play out the way the developers probably intended, or it can be utter disaster.
Here is how it is probably supposed to play:

1. You recapture the port.
2. You repeatedly build Warships until the blockade is clear.
3. You capture the southern coast, and the invasion event triggers.
4. You lose most of your remaining Warships intercepting the blockade.
5. You rush your probably meagre land forces back to the port and lose most of them defending against the invasion.
6. Dwarven reinforcements show up to replace your land battalions. You've lost enough battalions and ships to build new shps.
7. You build new Warships, Bombardment Ships, and Storm Ships to handle waves 2 and 3. You intercept most of the transports so that what reaches shore can be handled by what you have there.

There are so many ways this can screw up if you do this mission as you are prompted to. The most likely way you will be crushed is through a lack of resources to keep up a steady stream of troops and ships. The second most likely way you will be crushed is if you play reasonably well but end up with too many surviving units. You will not be able to build the ships you really need because you have reached your Command Limit and/or don't want to recycle land units because you need them.
Instead, ignore the insistent prompting to recapture the shipyards and to capture the Corsair shipyards. Take your time fortifying the city and gathering resources.


The initial part of the mission is straightforward, but when it comes time to build ships, keep at least 6 Storm Ships in reserve when you are able to build them. If you don't build them now, your Command Point limit might not support them later when dwarf reinforcements appear.
Do not build any Ents to help you because they are pricey yet useless against the fire-arrow Corsair Warships (and although you can try using Builders to put out their fires, the Builders may come under fire and get killed too) and won't help too much later when the enemy invades the northern shore.

Six fully upgraded Elven Warships should be able to handle the pirates, but you can expect to lose one or two during their attack waves if you don't retreat heavily damaged ships quickly enough. Stay defensive and renew the number of Warships you have until you are told the blockade is broken. Send your ships down and blockade their shipyards to destroy Corsair ships as fast as they are built.
Send one Eagle (from your Elven Fortress) to destroy the catapult further inland, then land troops (or just your two heroes) to capture the south shore and the tavern. Capture only ONE shipyard and leave the other until you are ready for the coming invasion.
When you have secured the southern shore, bring your troops back to the mainland but keep one unit of something here to capture the last shipyard when you are ready to continue. Alternatively, summon Tom Bombadil here to do the same for you; Giant Eagles cannot capture structures.

The next phase of the mission will involve an astonishing number of enemy units coming in three waves if you cannot intercept their transport ships. To be on the safe side, build up your defenses on land before capturing both Corsair shipyards. Using whatever free space you have, plant fully upgraded Fortresses -- yes, multiple Fortresses -- along the shore.
Have no more than 1 Vigilant Ent per fortress to take out Corsair ships -- they can only do so when the ships have stopped moving (because they rocks they throw are directed at the LOCATION of the unit at the time it is attacked, not it's position when the rock is thrown, so the unit will already have moved safely off), so don't build too many Ents. Have towers for the rest of the Fortress Build Points. Goblins can scale walls, but other units often don't try to attack walls (even though they could) and can be shot down by fortress archer towers, or handled with Giant Eagles.
Where there is too little space for a Fortress, you can usually put down archer towers. In front of everything have a long wall. Part of the reason to fight from shore is because you can delay enemy troops with walls and catch them in a crossfire of land defenses and Elven Warships firing from offshore. You could, alternatively, defend at the chokepoint leading to your city (roughly middle north of the map) and plant a fortress and walls there.
Your archers can be put on the plateau in the centre of the beach and the rear guarded by pikemen and/or a short wall to further box it out. Or, mass all your battalions for "firefighting" later (explained below).

When your defenses are ready, capture the second shipyard to start the invasions.
Before each wave, position two Storm Ships spaced apart and directly far south of the northwest shore. Put them as far down as possible on the map. This way, their whirlpool can intercept as many enemy ships as possible as they appear.

Move your Warships to approximately the middle of the map and when an invasion fleet comes, use an Attack-Move to intercept whatever the Storm Ships miss. Continue all the way to the shore to help against any troops that land. It is entirely possible to destroy most of the enemy fleet at sea, if not all. (Against wave 3, a lucky positioning of my Storm Ships meant that just one killed off all the invasion fleet except 3 transports, and those were intercepted at sea -- no land invasion to fight.)

The Corsair run to the north coast happens very, very quickly -- far too quickly for Bombardment type ships with very slow attack rates to truly be useful, if you can even build any due to Command Point limits.
After wave 1 (of 3), Dwarves appear (and my Command Points jumped to 1200/1000 -- no room to build anymore ships), and their builders can build better walls (with weapon emplacements and Postern Gates instead of regular gates). But by then there may be no time to build anything reasonable, however.

If enemy troops actually land, WAIT before sending your own battalions to help the Fortresses there fight them off. Instead, use "firefighting" -- watch for where they are actually making headway or doing significant damage against a Fortress and send them over there. If the fortresses are doing fine, leave it alone and rebuild after the attack.

The Corsair Warships and Corsair Transports eventually leave after troops have been unloaded, and you do not have to defeat them to win the mission even if they linger at the coast -- you only have to destroy the troops that land.

TreeBeard and any Giant Eagles you have summoned count toward the "Heroes Defeated" statistic.

Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Good Campaign - Mission 4 - Blue Mountains

Battle for Middle Earth II - Good Campaign Mission 4 - Blue Mountains
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.

As in the previous missions, you can get through on just the troops you are provided, but starting with this mission, fire support from archers becomes more important to your heroes as the enemy starts with high-veterancy units which, like your own, are fully upgraded.

Drogoth the Dragon Lord can be held off indefinitely in the initial area with your ranged attack troops supported by a Hearth (for healing) or a Fortress. He appears to be scripted with invulnerability and to flee (to heal) whenever his health drops to about 25%. Since this can be quite bothersome, you might as well just do the mission the way it was intended.

Battlewagons are handy to build here as they can be essentially portable Heroic Statues and portable Hearths. But be careful moving them around as other battalions may move out of the way -- and while moving, battalions cannot attack and may move themselves into a position where they are flanked by the enemy.

The cave with spiders and trolls (across the bridge, north side) has a lot of Spiders and Spider Riders, and if both battalions and Mountain Giants come at you all at once, you may lose some battalions. Draw them out with heroes and hope you decimate the Spider Riders before having to direct your attention to the Giants. It is possible to get through this without completely losing any battalions and without powers, but it is pretty tough. It may be easier to handle them inside the dwarven fortress -- there is a southern passage from that cave into the fortress. If you have buildings outside, that can also attract attention and split their forces.

Drogoth the Dragon Lord can be defeated in the final encounter by concentrating fire from your archers (you only need to defeat the dragon to win, not secure the throne room). Once you have secured the area outside the gate, you can also build a retarded number of axe thrower towers to help you fight (although Drogoth can take down one tower per attack). As soon as Drogoth is defeated, the mission ends.

Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Good Campaign - Mission 3 - Ettenmoors

Battle for Middle Earth II - Good Campaign Mission 3 - Ettenmoors
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.

There is actually no urgency to reach the Elven Settlement. If you get there with a lot of troops when Haldir arrives you may be over your Command Limit for a while and not be able to recruit Cavalry or Ents. Without Ents, you can still take down walls with attacks from heroes or troops, or if you build a fortress near them and have Vigilant Ents on the perimeter defenses.

Start by scouting east of your starting position. There are treasure chests.

You receive the Evenstar power to summon Tom Bombadil for free after destroying the Mountain Ogre and the Giant Drum, but this is bugged. See our post on EvenStar powers.

The walls to the Goblin King's compound count as enemies if you use an Attack-Move order.

Glorfindel and Gloin are limited to level 7. Haldir appears at level 10 (maximum).

Losing TreeBeard counts toward the "Heroes Defeated" statistic.

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.

Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Good Campaign - Mission 1 - Rivendell

Battle for Middle Earth II - Good Campaign Mission 1 - Rivendell
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.

If you go straight to the House of Elrond and fight along the way, you will probably lose every Lorien Warrior in the process, and possibly have a hard time keeping Glorfindel alive too.
Instead, proceed step by step and scout your way there. There are scripted events that don't really become active until you are near and you can therefore stop and let your troops recover if they have Veterancy or if you have the Heal power.
Turn the Lorien Warriors on the Guard stance to increase their armor and survivability. Any time you see Lorien Warriors, try to turn that on as soon as possible.
As you head east, you will encounter Lorien Warriors fighting with Goblin Warriors. As soon as you can, set their Stance to Guard to increase their chances of survival while you attack with your own forces. Do NOT retreat them -- the game calculates advantages for flank and rear attacks, so if you tell them to run away, they will definitely be slaughtered.

Furtehr east is an encounter is with goblins cutting down a Mallorn Tree. It's too late to save the tree (the event is scripted so that although the goblins keep attacking the tree while you spy it from a distance, the tree is destroyed shortly after the event is fully activated when you get closer) and if you charge in blindly you will get tangled up in a pretty big fight and could well lose all your units. There's no one to save here, so you can take time to be cautious
Instead, pull back and scout a bit with Glorfindel to find the extent of their forces and pick them off from the rear, starting with the archers. Since elves can hide in trees and you can force them to stay hidden with the Guard stance, you can position them a bit south behind their last rank (archers) and charge in with Glorfindel first. By the time you finish them off, the Goblin Warriors may have turned their attention to you, but this is better than facing all the goblin battalions at once; if not, pull back and wait for your battalions to recover and restore their numbers. Move up to finish the last of the goblins, then head for the bridge.
Once Glorfindel is past level 1, he can handle whole battalions of goblins on his own, especially with his Blade of Purity power, which when activated lets him hit more than one unit at a time.

At the bridge into Rivendell proper, you can get two more battalions of Lorien Warriors if you can save them. Head for the gate across the bridge, but DO NOT move Glorfindel into the light (marking a quest location) yet. The map is now fully revealed to you. Check out what is where in Rivendell first and send your elves to a Mirror of Galadriel. Rivendell isn't yet set to your ally or your holdings, so they won't heal yet. After the scripted dialogue with Elrond, your elves will have been moved to a statue around the middle of Rivendell. Move them back to the Mirror to heal.

The rest of the mission is pretty straightforward. Don't build too many Lorien Warriors to start because you might then hit the Command Point limit and not be able to build archers when they become available.
The second wave beelines for the nearest barracks, and the giants and trolls can trample. Sometimes a troll in the second wave might be in the fog of war and your forces won't engage. The second wave is not finished and the event scripts won't advance. Explore the western pass to reveal any remaining enemies and clear them.
Watch for Elrond and Arwen to be available as heroes and add them to your hero line. Glorfindel and Gloin can level up to 3, while Arwen and Elrond can level up to 5.

The Wyrm's fire breath can set units ablaze, which does some damage over time and can ultimately kill them. If you have a Builder nearby, they can extinguish flames.

Battle for Middle Earth 2 - Good Campaign - Evenstar Powers

Battle for Middle Earth II - Good Campaign - EvenStar Powers
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.

There are a lot of EvenStar powers, and if you played the original The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth, you will want to discard what you know about them because many of the rules have changed. For example, Elven Land lasts a long time, but ultimately expires. Also, many bonuses no longer stack.

Some powers (e.g., the Tier 4 powers) can be placed in the fog of war, which will also reveal the location to you. Elrond has a Farsight power which can reveal the fog of war to find good places to hit the enemy with your powers.

Powers are made available in the Campaigns based on what mission you are in, and sometimes unlocked by mission events. You begin with 5 Power Points in Mission 1, and can earn 10 more Power Points in each of Missions 1-5, more in later. Leftover Power Points carry over from mission to mission (but see Tom Bombadil bug in Mission 3).
To get a Tier 4 power requires a minimum of (5 + 10 + 15 + 20) = 50 points, which you can accumulate by Mission 5.
You are capped at 164 Power Points by the last Mission of the Campaign.

I recommend aiming to unlock and get all three of the Tier 4 powers as two of them together can wipe out enemy buildings safely from far away. Sometimes one will do (Earthquake) but not always. And because partially damaged buildings repair themselves, it is better to outright destroy them with two powers. For this purpose, the best powers are any of the Tier 4 Powers, and the Tier 3 Power "Barrage".

Mission 1 - Rivendell - Only Tier 1 powers are available.

• Enshrouding Mist - Friendly units within the mist become stealthed. Significantly reduces enemy Armor and Damage. Can hide units from the Watcher in the Water, which cannot then detect and attack them even when it has been attacked.
• Elven Gifts - Heroes gain +50% damage. Passive power.
• Heal - Heals units, replaces 1 dead man per battalion. Use this on ships, not Rebuild.
• Elven Wood - Creates lush terrain that expires when the cooldown period ends. Ally ally units gain +50% Armor. All enemy units lose their leadership bonuses. Does not affect Heroes. The description does not say that this power will not stack, but the corresponding One Ring power, Tainted Land, does not stack, so we can suspect that it is the same here.

Mission 2 - High Pass - First of the Tier 2 powers available

• Rallying Cry - Targeted allies gain +50% Damage and +50% Armor. Does not stack.
• Summon Tom Bombadil - This power is received for free during Mission 3 (Ettenmoors), BUT it causes a bug in carrying over Power Points. Tom Bombadil can trample units (even large units like trolls) without slowing down. He has a small area effect attack. Because he dances around trample things, he's useful mostly as a distraction or if you need a single target taken down. If you plant him alone amidst veteran battalions, he can do lots of damage to non-archers, but unless he wipes out a whole battalion, it will ultimately regenerate all its members.
• Lone Tower - Summons a defensive tower.

Mission 3 - Ettenmoors

• Summon Tom Bombadil - You are given this power after destroying the Mountain Troll and Giant Drum. However, if you get it for free here, you will from this point lose 10 Power Points between Missions (but you cannot go into a negative value). To avoid this bug AND fulfill the Bonus Objective of destroying the Giant Drum, you must purchase the Summon Tom Bombadil power before destroying the Giant Drum.
• Rebuild - Heals structures. Does not work on ships -- they count as units, and so are repaired with the Heal power. Available when Haldir returns with reinforcements at the elven settlement.

Mission 4 - Blue Mountains - All Tier 2 powers now available.

• Dwarven Riches - Selected structure's resource output is permanently raised to 300%.

Mission 5 - Grey Havens - First of the Tier 3 powers available. These are two of the better ones, so try to get both.

• Cloud Break - Cancels Freezing Rain or Darkness. Stuns enemy units. Not all units have a visible indication that they have been stunned, but in general it works on everything. Very powerful if timed right -- That is, the enemy is in position and preferably tightly massed for your arrow fire or artillery bombardment.
• Barrage - Bombard target area with devastating artillery. Very good against non-monstrous troops. Against large monsters, especially those with veterancy, it's generally wasted unless you are already attacking them some other way and can kill them. Also, try to use it in battle because if you use it too early, while the enemy is far away, partially destroyed veteran battalions will heal and recover their numbers faster than your power can recharge. Despite these shortcomings, it is very powerful and useful, and you should get it as soon as possible.

Mission 6 - Celduin - 30 Power Points can be earned in this mission.

• Summon Men of Dale Allies

Mission 7 - Erebor - 45 Power Points can be earned in this mission.

• Earthquake - Creates an Earthquake on an area of terrain, causing heavy damage to structures. Very wide area but random damage. You may need to follow up with another power if you don't have troops there to finish off the buildings.
• Undermine - Not initially available. Listen for the announcement; throughout the Mission, you will also be prompted to use the power to move around. Places a Mine Shaft anywhere on the map. Mine Shaft becomes immediately connected to tunnel network. This is actually a very powerful ability if used properly because with two, you can essentially teleport units from one mine to another. It can help you move troops in an emergency, but you can do the same with strategically placed mines and in any case the recharge is very slow, and you can't always place it anywhere you want. Best used with races who don't normally have a tunnel network.
  When you place Undermine at a legal location, the troops near it are blasted away. If they are allies, they take no damage.

Mission 8 - Dol Goldur - All powers available.

• Flood - Summons a powerful flood to crush enemy units.
• Sunflare - Calls a fiery beam of sunlight to scorch the battlefield. Trolls that are not killed are temporarily petrified.