The Battle Under the Trees arc is part of Fredius's War of the Ring Mission Map Series and stars the player as Lothlórien defending Mirkwood and Lothlórien against the armies of Mordor. Both maps have a similar skeleton with the objective of first resisting the onslaught of troops and then attacking back and destroying the leader. The leader in the Lothlórien map is the Shadow Lord and in the Mirkwood map is Khamul. The Mirkwood map is the first installment and the Lothlórien map is the second. The last map of this Arc (not released yet) will give the player the chance to besiege the fortress of Dol Guldur, and therefore ending the greatest threat of the Wood Elves once and for all!
Defense of Mirkwood(G)[]
Mission(download)
In this mission map the player controls the armies of Mirkwood with, at its head, Thranduil. Thranduil is level 10 and therefore the player can use all of the abilities. The mission all starts with Mirkwood hyping his troop in the middle of the map, then follows an onslaught of catapult, however the catapult only fire in front of the barricades therefore the player can easily avoid them and even use them against the enemy if the wish. Once a couple seconds have gone by new ares unlock on the sides and you gain additional battalions which are assailed by enemies. You are now fighting a war on three fronts and it only gets worse. Trolls suddenly appear on the map and start running towards all battalions, there are 3 trolls per front and one of them is armored, the key strategy is here is to focus arrow fire on the trolls while the melee units delay them. If you are unable to stop them or let them live too long they will slaughter your army. It is a priority to take the trolls down. The battle goes on and on for a while then a new objective demands that you slaughter Khamul to win. Once all the enemy troops are slaughtered Khamul will begin to make his way, try bringing the units leftover to flank them. Once Khamul and all the enemy units are slaughtered victory will be to the player.
Strategy Tips
A couple strategic points may be helpful for this mission, here they are:
- Keep your archers on aggressive stance while there behind the lines
- Focus fire on the trolls
- Try to use the feast ability of Thranduil, if place it just right you can benefit of the heal while fighting without the feast being interrupted.
- Try to focus fire on Khamul, if you have too many enemy units leftover his Dread Visage could be your downfall
- Use the enemy catapults to your advantage, they are set to bombard fight just on the border so that enemy troops take damage
- Grouping up your starting unit will increase their chance of survival and allow more of them to be affected by the various bonuses of Thranduil.
- Remember: Thranduil MUST survive or you will be defeated
- Have Fun!
Defense of Lothlórien(G)[]
Mission(download)
In this mission you control the armies of Lothlórien and start with at its head Rumil & Orophin, Haldir's brother. They are both level ten which really helps since you can use the full roster of their abilities. You also begin with a couple battalions of elven troops. The first task is to scout for enemy troops, as you go around the map you encounter various Elven battalions under assault by goblin troops, once you rescue them they will join you increasing the size. After a couple of battalions encountered you will be warned of a massive battle to the
north, once you get close to it you will be greeted by a level 10 Celeborn. Since he is level 10 you can use all of his abilities including "Might of the Silver One". Once you have won the battle you will have to position troops at key location to prepare an ambush for the Mordor Host. Once you've done this you will be given 1 minute to prepare the remaining troops into order before the battle. Once the minute is over a mighty host of Mordor and Dol Guldur will arrive, the Mordor orcs will come in through the bottom lane and the host of Dol Guldur will come in through the top lane. This is the second objective, survive the onslaught of the Mordor troops. Once you have slaughtered the first wave a second wave will come in with in addition to Goblins that will spawn from the top left corner, trying to flank you. After a little while of battle reinforcements will come in through the bottom left, along with Galadriel level 10 which has denied the ring, these new battalions are not upgrade but you gain elite units ready for battle. Once the second wave is defeated a third will appear with more units and in addition the objective to defeat the Shadow Lord. Once defeated the Shadow Lord defeated and all the other units killed the mission will be a success.
Strategy Tips
A couple strategic points may be helpful for this mission, here they are:
- Make sure to utilize Galadriel's gift of Lorien to boost your heroes
- Don't rush into to battle, slowly take out as many units as possible before going into battle
- You don't need to keep the units in place once the objective has been fulfilled you can reorganize them as you want
- Creating a bottleneck at the starting area is a great strategy to kill all the units easily
- Remember to put your archers on aggressive stance to deal more damage.
- Remember: Celeborn and Galadriel MUST survive or you will be defeated
- Focusing fire on the Shadow Lord is key since his dread visage can be deadly in the long term
- Have Fun!
Old Forest Road (E)[]
Mission(download)
In this missions the player actually takes control of Mordor, or more precisely Dol-Guldur to fight against the forces of Mirkwood. You also gain access to the Mouth of Sauron and Khamul to aid you. The game starts out with the player at the head of two Dol Guldur Orc Warriors battalions, a battalion of Mirkwood Spiders and the Mouth of Sauron. You are tasked with meeting up with Khamul's force to take the Old Forest Road and drive the Mirkwood Elves from their home.
The map is the BFME 2 Vanilla Old Road Forest Campaign map so any previous experience will help. But for the user who have never played the campaign here is a full tutorial. First make your way south east down the path, there you will encounter a camp protected by a battalion of Mirkwood Swordsmen and a battalion of Border Guards, they can easily be overpowered especially if the player uses the Mouth of Sauron to trample the archers, the player's biggest threat because of the low armor of Dol Guldur Orcs. Once clearing out the camp successfully you will gain reinforcement arriving through the starting area under the form of one battalion of Dol Guldur Archers and of Dol Guldur Pikemen. You must then cross the River and land on the other side, simply go west once in the rive till you arrive at an opening. There you must fight 4 hordes of Border Guard which will decimate your troops if the player doesn't find a way to neutralize them quickly. Once that is done head north to gather 2 more battalions of Mirkwood Spiders. Then head west for more battles, which will greet the player with more Dol Guldur units (2 battalions of orc warriors, 1 battalion of orc pikemen and 1 battalion of Mirkwood Spiders) which the player must save by joining forces with them. Once the player has defeated them he can head down for some additional mirkwood spiders. With that done, the player must head northwest to defeat more enemy forces. The player must be careful this will also trigger a cutscene where The player will see a great army of Dol Guldur Orcs and Mirkwood Spiders under attack by the elves, The player must destroy this great force and then make way for the final camp to kill all remaining elves and slay Tauriel, this will ensure victory.
Strategy Tips
A couple strategic points may be helpful for this mission, here they are:
- Khamul and the Mouth of Sauron MUST survive, everybody else can die if the player wishes it.
- The choice of the power is key in this mission, Mordor has a very good tier one line and you will have the choice with: an XP and Damage Boost (Eye of Sauron), an Armor Boost (Tainted Land) or Regenerating Hordes (Endless Hordes). Picking one and utilizing to the maximum is key.
- You heroes have no powers, because the game links them to the power of Sauron they are level 0 meaning that they can only Mount, utilize that to your advantage and trample the archers behind the lines to spare your troops.
- You heroes are very tanky unlike your units, use them to soak up the damage of the enemy archers.
- Don't rush the game, if you try to rush it you might end up losing. Instead wait for your powers to reload and your troops regenerate.