The Challenge in Dwarven Land

[maltz]

I am talking about the isolated surface area, where a dwarf lets you fight your own army. I thought it is just for fun but I lost half of my precious inquisitors (DOH). Took a long time to sacrifice them back.

It is quite amusing that in the 2nd fight you fight the older you. That army is just insane, though. (I was playing on normal, warrior, lv 20). I had to carry a disposable army and suffered ~70% casualty to win it. I wonder what good strategy people use for this 2nd challenge?

This is my strategy:

1) Lina's ice barrier in the middle. This leaves two narrow barriers for the AIs to cross. I have two melee stacks (royal snakes + horsemen) to block it. The royal snakes are eating up whatever that comes. The horsemen is not winning at all.

2) Hypnotize (had mana for 2). This removes some annoying stacks - they die very quickly form the insane army, though.

3) Black Hole -> Ground Spikes -> Ice Orb

4) Blind the worst shooters (beholders) whenever I have mana.

Eventually the army was thinned down and my snakes (with the Snake King Ring and Frog wife) wiped out the field for the win.

[Ryastar]

Easiest strategy (basically garunteed no-loss):

Dryads + level 1-3 non-mind immune troops. With this build, you can use dryads + phantom to keep ALL enemies asleep ALL THE TIME. This leaves you free to kill them off, one stack at a time.

Other general hints (for minimal losses):
-Don't use level 5 units, trust me, you will regret it when you face 2x your number of them
-another good strategy is a few ranged stacks, and the rest slow melee types. Kill of the opponent's ranged asap with spells/rage/your own ranged troops (onslaught makes this easier) and then slowly whittle away at the opponent's troops as they slowly approach you. However, this does mean that the opponent will be able to cast spells at you.
-all slowing abilities are essential, even if not using strategy from above. These include: (spells) slow(duh!), blind, pheonix (distraction!), demon portal (also distraction, though with time delay), hypnosis (only after you've weakened a stack), trap (careful placement is needed), necro call (if you manage to kill an enemy stack quickly). (rage) rock wall, ice thorns, ice ball (again, distraction), glot's armor (if desperate), any applicable troop + time back. (creature abilities) dryads' lullaby and summon thorns, shaman's totems, etc

[BuffaloX]

I was level 14 mage when I hit this, I went back to kings castle, bought a bunch of useless units, I ended with only a few commanders so I had to use invisibility.
but guess what, then he just cast geyser, and that worked on my lonely invisible stack, only 4 survived, but luckily he was out of mana, I had my 4 commanders run away like h... and took out the remaining stacks with fire arrow.
I suppose next time I have to use slightly more clever strategy.

PS I only one on my third try, got totally smashed the first time.

[BAL_Hawk]

What is the reward for this quest anyway?