Gentlemen, hold your horses!
I believe it is possible to kill elven Shelter guardian no loss, with original settings and army that is, but everything has to work like a clock. You will need a) specific strategy for current battlefield , b) flawless running around c) no luck during battle actually, everything makes sense and no lost turns in round1 via Diversion are needed d) unfortunately tons and tons of tests until you get specific conditions before and during battle.
Now I have for you 2 screenshots. One at the round 1 so you can see the stacks, trap etc. and two is at round 9, when battle becomes trivial. More on that later.
- using codes i tried good few times a journey from beginning of the game to just before Shelter battles. You always end up either end of level 4 or early level 5, assuming skipping one big spider stack in catacombes.. It is interesting to note though that there is some variability in total gained experience from early battles ( meaning leadership of stacks in catacombs where most of battles take place). I tried skipping spider stack near dwarven castle and not using Clot of darkness at all, and still got to level 5 without dwarven battle on one occasion. Or I played using the Clot and fighting this stack and ended up level 4 only. It seems to me, and people confirm as well, that dwarven battle is mostly just mouse clicking exercise, you can always make it to level 5, so that is not a concern here.
- I tried all sorts of skill combinations at level 5. The best combination of skills looks to be Concentration 2, Meditation 1, Diversion 1, Distorsion 1. It gives whooping 33 starting mana, so although it is only level1 Poison skull, you will be casting it for quite a few rounds, occasionally squeezing in slow spell if needed. On the side note - I never played any of the starting battles leading to Shelter with Vampire. Although more challenging than with demoness, they can be all done apart from big spider stack. Correct me if I am wrong.
- you play with one stack of 2 vampires only. Other units would die miserably
-it is absolutely imperative to start the battle with vampires standing not in the middle , but only on the left spot in order to attract the werevolves from the right side to chase you through the left side - see screenshot 1.
-the first elven shot, which is critical, does almost 10dmg per elf. So once the starting amount of elves is 8+, one vampire will die. 6-7 is fine.
-battle consists of three phases. Phase 1. Dealing with shooters, which has to be done first. You melee attack is weak, survivability is low as bat, so nuking shooters with spells (and trap) is primary concern. Phase 2. Dealing with Fairies. They have the same speed as werewolves, but can cross the middle "non-hex" part of battlefield and are therefore much more dangerous. Phase 3. Dealing with werewolves at the end. Now Phases 1 +2 are not that difficult, if the werewolves in Phase 3 did not have regeneration ability both in elf and wolf shape. You just cannot do with 2 vampires 55dmg in one round. Hence the necessity of magic spring spell and bringing down werewolves with poison skulls. Now I really did not want to go with Distorsion 1 route, much rather Chaos 2 for bringing down stack down quicker, but it just does not do enough damage by the time you run out of mana. I even considered getting trapper medal for 2 traps before shelter, it is still not strong enough. You must have distorsion 1.
-important note: everything you do on battlefield, affects the damage of poison skull you are about to cast . Keep that in mind, because the spell damage can vary greatly. Sometimes moving 1 hex forward or left makes a massive difference. Believe that I calculated various branches of moves and corresponding spell damages up to round 5.
-now i can only describe what I have done in my battle from screenshot 1 in beginning of battle till round 9, which is screenshot 2. Start with vampire to the left as described, let the elves shoot, you will heal damage anyway. no need for diversion to incapacitate anyone, but observe the location of trap. Poison skull on elves, 1-2 down. vampires stay in its form, 1 step forward, no sidestepping yet. Round 2, elves shoot, you heal, 3 stacks will almost reach you, transform vampires, cast poison on elves again, and move 3-4 hexes to the left. And here it comes - single most important point in this battle = Fauns, you are still far away from them to receive full damage from their ranged attack. They have speed 4, so they move forward 3 squares and are about to shoot, but there is your trap. It does not end here for battle to be easily won. You have to leave standing ideally one, at most two 2 fauns standing. The trap can kill anything between 10-12 of them I think. The reason for leaving one alive is twofold = it will get in other units way, and secondly it will be used for mana spring triggers later on. Also, as you noticed you just saved yourself 2-3 spellcasts of poison skull right there. Do not underestimate the importance of 1 faun. Since you poison skull is weak you will have to run around the battlefield for about 9 rounds before pretty much only werewolves are left. First 4 rounds = 3-4 poison skulls on elves, 5-9 rounds poison skulls on fairies. If you get cornered, use occasional slow. Screenshot 2 shows the beginning of Phase 3. Just move through the middle, use mana spring and bit by bit destroy werewolves. Unfortunately, I do not have final victory screenshot, since I did not have mana spring, was just testing my theory, but i believe it is rather elementary at this point. All you have to avoid is werewolves coming from both sides.
So you are going to need this :
1) mana spring scroll from Clarissa
2) only 6-7 elves in your Shelter Battle
3) position of placed trap close to Fauns as you can see in my screenshots or similar, you know what I mean (this is probably the hardest to achieve)
4) follow the above
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