WARCRAFT 2 EXPANSION: BEYOND THE DARK PORTAL WALKTHROUGH
Ver 1.0

by Robert Dent (AKA Lord Xar)	26 Jan 03


CONTENTS

1           Introduction
  1.1       Version history
  1.2       Plot
  1.3       Changes
  1.4       Reasons for writing
  1.5       Legal-ish stuff

2           New units
  2.1       Orcs
  2.2       Humans
3           Walkthrough

  3.1       Humans
   3.1.1    Alleria's Journey
   3.1.2    Battle for Nethergarde
   3.1.3    Once more unto the breach
   3.1.4    Beyond the Dark Portal
   3.1.5    Upon the shadowed sea
   3.1.6    Fall of Auchidoun
   3.1.7    Deathwing
   3.1.8    Coast of Bones
   3.1.9    Heart of Evil
   3.1.10   Siege of Vanguard
   3.1.11   Dance of the Laughing Skull
   3.1.12   Bitter Taste of Victory
  3.2       Orcs                   <>
   3.2.1    Slayer of Shadowmoon
   3.2.2    Skull of Gul'dan
   3.2.3    Thunderlord and Bonechewer
   3.2.4    The Rift Awakens
   3.2.5    Dragons of Blackrock Spire
   3.2.6    New Stormwind
   3.2.7    Seas of Azeroth
   3.2.8    Assault on Kul Tiras
   3.2.9    The Tomb of Sargeras
   3.2.10   Alterac
   3.2.11   Eye of Dalaran
   3.2.12   The Dark Portal
4.0         Tactics
5.0         Acknowledgements


1     INTRODUCTION

1.1   VERSION HISTORY

Ver 1.0   26 Jan 03   Human campaign complete.  Orc campaign to follow

1.2   PLOT

Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal is set shortly after Warcraft 2 and both
campaigns assume that the Humans won Warcraft 2.  In other words, the dark
portal has been closed, but not destroyed leaving only an impassable glowing
rift (see initial movie) and the few orcs that remain in Azeroth have been
scattered.  The humans have rebuilt Stormwind (called New Stormwind) and
constructed the Fortress of Netherguard overlooking the quarry containing the
rift.
Over in the Orc homeworld of Draenor, order has collapsed with the defeat of
the previously all-conquering Horde and civil wars are breaking out. In the
midst of this the Elder Shaman Ner'Zhul attempts to restore order and find a
way to reopen the portal.

All seems well until the Arch-wizard Khadgar detects strange emenations from
the rift and suspects that the portal may be re-opening.  He heads to Dalaran
and sends the Elf Ranger Alleria to New Stormwind to warn them.

1.3   CHANGES

Plot aside, the expansion is, as normal, more of the same.  There are 12 levels
for each side, but they are a lot more difficult that any of the original set
(except some of the 12-14 levels).  Due to the sheer volume of opponents, I
believe the Orc Campaign to be harder than the Human one (except the last
level)

The main change is the inclusion of Hero units.  This was the first time they
appeared and unlike Warcraft 3, when they die you normally lose the level (no
Altar of Heroes here).  The Heroes are tougher than the normal troops and in a
few cases start with a fair number of free upgrades (for example Turaylon is a
human paladin and always starts with Vision, Healing and Exorcism)
In the Human Campaign, you get to pick the Orc Heroes off on different levels. 
In the Orc Campaign you get to meet them as a group on the final level.
The other big change is Draenor itself.  You spend a few levels here with the
Orcs and most of the Human Campaign here.  It looks weird, but nothing is
significantly different.  The dark brown stuff you can build one, the light
brown or green you can't.  The mushroom things count as tree and the green
vines that cover everything are just decoration.

It is very important to note your mission on these levels.  In the original you
could regularly wipe every enemy off the map even when you didn't have to. 
Here you have to be very skillful or very lucky to do the same, so if it
doesn't say kill them all, just complete the mission and get out of there. 
(For example on Human 6 - Auchidoun - you have to return to the Circle after
destroying Orange, but the level starts with Red, Orange, Blue and Black.  Give
kill Red and Orange and leave - you get Red because it is controlling the best
start base area).

"Peasant slaughter" still works (see Tactics), but you will note that the gold
mines tend to have a lot more in them.  Most have 50k plus.  Believe me, you
will need it.  It does mean that "peasant slaughter" tends to take longer to
start and lasts longer, but killing hundreds of defenceless peasants does
wonders for your score.

1.4   REASONS FOR WRITING

The War 2 Battle Net edition was required for the game to be playable on high
end systems or on Windows 2000/XP.  Since the Battle Net edition has just
reached budget in the UK, I have returned to playing the game that I used to
play on my old 486.  I noticed that there wasn't a Walkthrough on GameFAQ for
this and so have endeavoured to produce one.

1.5  LEGAL-ISH BIT

As anyone who has read my other FAQ's will know, the author doesn't care if you
pinch this work in whole or part.  However, since blatant plagarism is frowned
upon, please make reference to my work being the source.  Alternatively may
your guilty concience drive you mad.


2.0   NEW UNITS (HEROES)

2.1   HUMAN

ALLERIA
Elf ranger with a massive attack and range.  She can still get the basic two
archer upgrades, but not ranger training (she already has it).  Pair her up
with a paladin and she becomes are very potent anti-dragon force.  (She also
has one of the funniest annoyed speeches in the game)
Armour: 5
Damage: 9-28
Range:  7
Sight:  9
Speed:  10
Health: 120

KHADGAR
Human mage who starts with most, if not all, of the spells.
Armour: 3
Damage: 8-16
Range:  6
Sight:  9
Speed:  8
Health: 120

TURALYON
Human paladin.  Slightly tougher than an ordinary knight, but always starts
with all the Paladin spells.  Having Healing available right from the off is
very useful.  (Plus his "survivor-guilt" speeches are quite daft)
Armour: 10
Damage: 3-19
Range:  1
Sight:  6
Speed:  13
Health: 180

DANATH
Human mercenary captain.  He may look like a footman, but his attack outstrips
all the knights, including Turaylon.  He also has the highest health and can be
left fairly safely on the front line.
Armour: 8
Damage: 4-23
Range:  1
Sight:  6
Speed:  10
Health: 220

KURDRAN AND SKY'REE
Dwarven griffin rider.  More damage and more health.  Not much use really, but
you need to keep him alive which can be tricky.
Armour: 6
Damage: 13-25
Range:  5
Sight:  9
Speed:  14
Health: 250

2.2   ORC

Since most orcish units can't heal, each orc hero has more health then their
human counterpart, but is still far harder to keep alive.

GROM HELLSCREAM
Orc grunt leader with high attack and health.  Orc equivalent of Danath.
Armour: 8
Damage: 3-22
Range:  1
Sight:  5
Speed:  10
Health: 240

KORGAN BLADEFIST
Another Orc grunt leader with high attack and health.
Armour: 8
Damage: 3-22
Range:  1
Sight:  5
Speed:  10
Health: 240

TERON GOREFIEND
Death knight who initially starts with only Death Coil.  On one level he gets
to fight nearly alone and you get to see just how useful Death Coil really is.
Armour: 2
Damage: 8-16
Range:  4
Sight:  9
Speed:  8
Health: 180

DENTARG
Orge-magi.  Equivalent of Turalyon.  Initially starts with the Eye and
Bloodlust, later starts with Runes as well.
Armour: 8
Damage: 3-24
Range:  1
Sight:  6
Speed:  13
Health: 300

DEATHWING
Very strong dragon, but prone to getting himself killed due to his slow
reaction speed.  Very useful for town clearing in the final Orc level where
everyone else is locked down in defense (and it doesn't matter if he gets
killed).  Deathwing with Haste and Bloodlust is a real powerhouse.
Armour: 10
Damage: 12-35
Range:  5
Sight:  9
Speed:  14
Health: 800

3    WALKTHROUGH

3.1  HUMAN

3.1.1 ALLERIA'S JOURNEY
Bring Alleria, Danath and Turalyon to the Circle of Power at New Stormwin.

You start in the bottom right with Alleria and a few troops.  Note: you have no
town and so only the reinforcements you find.
The level is in four parts.  Top and bottom are divided by a river.  Right and
left by rocks.  Top left is the Circle of Power.  Top right is Turalyon. 
Bottom left is Danath.  Bottom right is Alleria.
North of your start is a few orcs and a catapult.  Claim it and continue north.
 Claim the peasants and the shipyard, but move the peasants into the far corner
(the orcs shouldn't find them there).  There is a couple of ships lurking in
the water, so lure them into range of your catapult.  Dispose of the other orcs
in this quarter (notice how powerful Alleria is yet?) and continue left.  At
roughly the centre of this level is some more peasants and a lumber mill, but
get Danath first.  At the far left is a way round to a single farm and Danath. 
Recruit him and return to free the peasants.  Get them collecting wood and
return to the Shipyard.
Build a transport and take it across to the top right section.  Smash the
skeletons and recruit Turalyon.  Unlike in the bottom half, there is no land
way between the two parts so return to the transport.  Simply sail round and
head up.  You may run into a Death Knight in here, but with Turalyon's Exorcism
he is more nuisance than threat.  Enter town (run here rather than fighting if
you want) and move the three heroes into the Circle to win.  So far, so what.

3.1.2 BATTLE FOR NETHERGARDE
Destroy all enemy forces.  Danath must survive

You start in the bottom left with the red team above you, yellow in the bottom
right and black occupying the centre (Nethergarde).  Again this level is
surprisingly easy if you are careful.  Note: this is one of the few levels
where the orcs don't have dragons.  Believe me, you will be sick of them by the
time the campaign is over.

Head up and round the circle of trees.  You will notice that this roughly
square area has only two entrances, one across the river and one between the
rocks.  Build you town hall next to the trees and start as normal.  Put some
towers at the river crossing.  The red team will keep running in from the top,
but rarely in great numbers.  Once you have a Keep, start putting towers as
close to the rock entrance as you can (the ground means you can't put them
exactly at it).
By this point the Yellow team may have started "peasant slaughter" (they have
two mines, but rarely use the second).  Provided you have enough towers, this
shouldn't be a problem.  If it is, build more.
I've never seen black make any move unless you enter the fortress, so get rid
of those cannon towers across the river crossing as soon as possible
(occasionally yellow will send a catapult and you don't want to fight it with
two black cannon towers as back-up).
Just through the rock opening, red has two towers and a few troops.  A couple
of mages with blizzard clears that.  (One to attack a tower once, one to clear
the response troops.)  This wasn't reds base, so continue north and take them
out (few troops, a few archer towers).  Watch out for peons fleeing left, black
has a mini-town over there and I've see red try to rebuild next to it.  Now for
black.
Send a flyer across the river bridge.  There is a death knight around
somewhere.  Locate him.  Then send a paladin to Excorcism him.  Sometimes I
send a use peasant martyr tactic, but since it is only one it isn't really
necessary.  Once he's gone, deal with the response (obviously easier to get the
paladin back safe, if he hasn't lost most of his health to death coil).  Now
head up and round to the small black base in the top middle.  Destroy it and
any reds who may have escaped (should only be a few troops).  Black doesn't
normally send anyone up from the main base in response and use this as a
staging area.  Head down and smash black.  Again the anti-retaliation power of
blizzard is very useful.
Finally, since yellow hardly ever upgrades, head back to base and hit them from
the left.  You should be fully upgraded by this point and so should be able to
steamroll right over them.  Locate and pick off any lone survivors (usually
peasants who wandered off and got stuck) and win the level.

3.1.3 ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH
Destroy all fortresses and strongholds.  Get Turalyon to the Circle of Power
behind the new Dark Portal.

Note: all fortress and strongholds only.  Not all enemies.  Although by the
time you have got all the fortresses and strongholds, the enemy can normally be
simply mopped up anyway.  You don't have to do it so, it is your choice.
You start in the bottom middle.  A second mine is on the middle left.  Orange
is on the middle right.  Red and purple are on islands surrounding the portal
on the top half (forming roughly an "O" shape).
Your initial start area is lousy.  A couple of farms and your blacksmith are
outside the walls and your mine is fairly small.
At the start turn the middle two and right towers into archer ones (never seen
anyone hit the left side, so ignore it).  Get some more archer towers in the
middle, because the purple team will keep sending dragons.
For the most part keep Turaylon out of the fight since there are no other
healers for a while and he can't heal himself.
At the earliest opportunity, head to the middle right (new mine) and set up a
second base.  You will need a lot of archer towers at the rock entrance to
guard against orange and, occasionally, purple's dragons.
Orange has a lot of troops and a lot of gold, so you might have a hard time
taking them out.  It is possible to wait them out and run a "peasant
slaughter", but it will take a couple of hours of real time (plus a lot of
dragons), so it is up to you.  Anyway you want to do it, smash them.
Build a shipyard, but remember to get archer towers/destroyers, if purple is
still sending dragons (they usually are).  Once you can send a couple of
transports on to the lower half of the "O" (red).  Red's island is split in
half by rocks (there is a way round, but it is narrow).  Take the left side
first and smash everything.  I know you don't have to, but taking the right
hand side can be tricking and it's best not to be distrurbed.  Taking the left
side will also give you a good line for catapulting the ships in the central
water.  Build some archer towers here to stop purple's dragons bugging you then
take the right hand side and destroy red completely.
Now send some transports round and land on the right hand side of purple's
land.  This can take a couple of attempts as battleships sometimes stay out of
range of your catapults until you try this.  If they do, pull back, catapult
them and try again.  Don't forget to bring archers for your assault on purple
as it sometimes keeps two or three dragons hanging around.  Steadly move
inwards.  Purple has a lot of towers and so you need to systematically catapult
them.  Once the fortress falls, you could retreat, but purple will usually only
have a few towers left by this point, so kill them.
Note: you can use blizzard on the back two towers surrounding the portal by
dropping a mage of on the rocks behind it.  You may even get the death knight
that is in there too.
Then simply ferry Turaylon and a catapult or two to the central rock, kill the
cannon towers in front of the portal and run him to the circle.  (If Turaylon
is on full health, you can get to the portal without killing the towers, but
why risk it)
Then it is on to the Orc homeworld of Draenor.

3.1.4 BEYOND THE DARK PORTAL
Build a castle.  Kill all enemies

As soon as you start, a load of enemies will rush in from the right.  This is
more to whittle your troops down than any threat.  Once they are destroyed,
head right and immediately down towards where your flyer has shown white.  Be
careful of the cannon tower halfway down this route.  Destroy white (shouldn't
be too hard) and build you base here.
As a general rule, black (top right) only sends dragons, so most of the troops
you see will be red (middle left).  After the first red visit you will know the
only route I have ever seen them take, so throw in some towers (the below
pattern works well).
     AACC
     AACC       AA = Archer tower, CC = Cannon Tower
    AACC
    AACC
   AACC
   AACC
Also once you see your first black dragon, that tells you their main route and
put a bunch of archer towers in the way (making sure, of course, that you can
reach them all - there will be a lot of dragons, so a lot of damage).
With that done, sit back and concentrate on building your troops up (you may
start with a lot, but by the time the towers are in place many of these will
probably be dead).  To the left of your base is a second mine surrounded by
rocks and guarded by a couple of skeletons and a daemon (those weak flying
things from Human 13/Orc 12).  Black usually has a few peasants working on this
mine from a lone town hall just beyond it.  Destroy the defenders and peasants
and start building towers.  Try to avoid getting the towers in range of the
town hall (so they don't destroy it yet) and you may be able to get an early
"peasant slaugter" (sometimes black simply gives this up as lost).  Leave a
squad here as well because as soon as you move in, red will start sending
troops here as well as along the main route to your base.
After that the easiest way is simply to last them out.  By having peasants
repair towers and keeping at least some gold in your initial mine (if you need
more, start up on the one you took off black), both black and red will
eventually start peasant slaughter.  Remember every gold piece black spends on
peasants is one he doesn't spend on dragons.  To pass the time, you can have
your griffin (you never need more than the original one) tour the map and
eliminate the groups of yellow skeletons and cannon towers.  Just be careful of
meeting dragons while you are busy.  Sometimes after about half of them are
dead (don't know what the trigger is) all the remaining skeletons will head off
to your base.  With all the towers around they will normally be slaughtered
with little input from you.
Once red has started peasant slaughter take a squad with two or three catapults
and a couple of mages (with Blizzard) up through the south entrance and use the
anti-retaliation tactic.  After that red is easy to destroy (with a little care
around the towers).
Oddly enough once black starts peasant slaughter, his peons keep getting stuck
at the rocks south west of his base.  If your feeling mean, send the griffin
in.
Once red is gone, replace any fallen and proceed north then east past where
yellow used to have a squad of skeletons and a cannon tower.  Proceed east to
the edge of black's base and catapult the tower.  If this gets a response, use
Blizzard.  If not send a troop in until you do.  Be ready with the archers in
case there are any dragons about.  The rest will be straightforward.  Then hunt
down any last peasants/skeletons (you have a castle already in order to get
mages) and on to the next level.

3.1.5 UPON THE SHADOWED SEA
Build three shipyards.  Destroy all orcish shipyards

This one can be real tricky.  You need the lumber, but the trees around your
start base form most of your base defence so you need to keep a close eye of
where your peasants are working.
You start in the top left.  Green is immediately below covering the best base
area.  Sharing the main island (top half of level) is orange over to the right.
 Yellow and purple have islands in the sea (bottom half).  The good news is
that no-one has dragons.
Head down, smash green and starting setting up your base.  It is possible to
smash orange immediately if you are quick, but make sure you still build your
base while you are doing it.
There are two main ways in to your base area, so start putting towers on both. 
Orange (if they are still about) will head through either and yellow will head
through the lower on.  Since yellow starts with a near full town, they are the
greater threat (bloodlusting ogre-magi sometimes show up before you even have a
stable).
Once your town is built up, smash orange if you haven't already and setup a
shipyard in the inlet by orange's entrance.  Make sure you have catapults ready
arpimd the inlet to stop any attackers.  For some reason at this point, yellow
stops sending troops and just concentrates on ships.
If you need more gold, there is a mine in orange's base and one in the top
middle.
Build a fleet of eight battleships, give them a spotter and as many of the
upgrades as you can afford.  Note: there was a lake immediately next to where
you started so build the refinery and foundary there.
With this pack you can tour the sea and eliminate your opponent's naval forces.
 Remember you only need to destroy the shipyards so don't bother taking the
towns.  With their navies gone, simply build a couple more shipyards to win the
level.

3.1.6 FALL OF AUCHINDOUN
Return Turaylon and Danath to the Circle of Power after destroying Orange

You start in the top right.  Your four enemies are light blue (top left), red
(middle right), orange (middle left) and black (bottom middle).  Black has
dragons.  However black and orange share a gold mine, so they run out fairly
fast.
Immediately load your troops into the transports and head south.  Red controls
your base area, so smash them (be careful of the cannon towers) and start
building.  In true pioneer tradition destroy your transports after you land. 
You can't save them.  Put your other ships a little up the channel.  Orange
will keep landing troops next to that oil patch, so you may be able to sink a
transport before they send in ships to destroy you.
Put a load of towers around the entrance to your base (8+) with cannon towers
along the south wall.  Note: Although most dragons will fly in from the south,
occasionally one will appear from the west, so be ready.
Like in Level 3, leave Turaylon on healing duty.
If you need more gold, there are two mines on this island, one halfway down and
one at the bottom.  Note: to get a town hall near the one at the bottom you
need to harvest the small clump of trees nearby.  Make sure you put a load of
archer towers nearby as the dragons will find these places (I think they
normally head right into the bottom corner and then up anyway).
Once the orange/black mine is gone (check with flyer or Vision spell) and you
have paladins and mages, build a shipyard and an armada.  You will have
probably lost the original ships, but there should be plenty of oil to replace
them.  Don't forget to have some destroyers along in case of dragons and a
spotter for the submarines.  A squad of eight battleships, two spotters and
five destroyers will walk all over the enemy.
Remember, you mission is to destroy orange, so avoid black's coast (black's
death knights will start throwing whirlwinds at you if you get too close which
cause havoc with your battleships).
Once orange's coastal defences and armada are gone, get three transports and
send over the usually squad (four paladins, five archers, three catapults, two
mages and, if you want, a peasant).  Destroying orange isn't normally too hard,
but avoid encroaching on black.  Once you are sure you've got them all, send a
transport back for Turaylon and Danath and return them to the circle.  If you
have got them all, the level will end.  If not leave Turaylon and Danath there
and go hunting.  If you are unlucky an orange peasant may have wandered into
black's land, but this is rare.  With orange gone and your heroes in the
circle, the level ends and things really start getting nasty.

3.1.7 DEATHWING
Destroy Deathwing and his lair.  Alleria, Khadgar and Kurdran must survive.

This has got to be the weirdest level I have ever seen in this game.  You start
with two destroyers, one submarine, two transports, three paladins, Alleria and
Khadgar.  Load them into a transport and head right to where the gnome has just
finished the orc ship.  Unload here and smash the light blues.  Free the
prisoners and start building you base.
You will notice the problem almost immediately.  You can't build a barracks or
blacksmith.  This means no reinforcements, no melee upgrades and no advanced
buildings (except shipyard).
Build the town hall and lumber mill, then get the first archer upgrade and
start building farms.  Dragons will soon start to wander in from the north.
As soon as the town hall is up, put two paladins and Khadgar on to a transport
and send them around the rock coast to a landing point.  Just before unloading,
save.  Unload them a retreat the transport.  Rush them around the mini-lake,
avoiding the tower and throw a Blizzard at the tower once you stop.  (There is
an orc ship that will shot you where you land.)  If you lose a paladin, reload.
 Normally the Blizzard spell will stop the catapult.  Heal your troops and
continue up the gap between trees and rock.  Destroy the skeletons.  Be careful
here as your troops have a nasty habit of wanting to take the long route round
(straight through one of red's bases).  You need to be quick as sometimes one
of the dragons will head up here instead and only Khadgar is ranged (since you
don't have polymorph, you only choice is to take the damage and cast blizzard).
Head north to the fork in the road.  Left leads to the red base (no need to get
this), right leads to some more troops, an ogre, a grunt and a couple of
axethrowers.  Heal to full and smash them (use blizzard if you wish, but be
careful of killing the prisoners.  Note: for some reason while you are up here
the dragons won't attack, so note this place and return for healing/mana
recharges.
While this is going on, dragons will keep visiting your base and should be
destroyed using either the destroyers or your archers.  Use the remaining
paladin to heal any injuries.  Remember Alleria is very powerful, so use here
wherever possible.  Keep building farms and when you have enough wood get the
second archer upgrade.  Since you can't have a keep, you can't get ranger
training, but this is better than nothing.
Once you have enough farms for all your troops, build a shipyard and start
collecting oil.  Note: you can have a refinery, but not a foundary, so there
are no more transports or battleships.  Not that they would be much use
anyway.)  Once you have the resource start producing destroyers and put them in
a double line around your platform.  Destroyers are very good anti-dragon
units.
Back with Khadgar and his new force, heal everyone and send a squad of nine
(including Khadgar) south through the rock opening and west.  By careful
inching forwards, Khadgar (sight=9) will see the towers, before they can reach
him.  Destroy and skeletons you meet and retreat if you see any dragons.  When
you have enough mana throw 200 points worth on the first cannon tower and
retreat.  Wait for the recharge and repeat on the second.  Just beyond the
towers is a bunch of skeletons and a catapult.  Start throwing Exorcism around
and the skeletons should abandon the catapult.  If it does respond, throw a
blizzard spell and retreat.  If it is still around once the skeletons are gone,
destroy as normal.  Head down the rock wall, free the prisoners including
Khurdran (and Sky'ree) then retreat back to your safe point.
Note: you don't have to get your heroes to a specific point, so don't bother
trying to get Khadgar out of there.  Just get him safe and leave him alone.
By this point you should have nine or ten destroyers on close to full health
near your platform.  If not, get them.  Once they are available, head Khurdran
roughly north from the platform and you should find the dragon lair and
Deathwing.  Deathwing acts like a normal dragon, but has an obscene amount of
health (800).  As soon as Deathwing moves, head back to your destroyers and
beyond.  Deathwing will fly straight into the trap and get killed.  Sometimes
when he is on the last few bits of health he will retreat.  If so, send
Khurdran after him.  Then use Khurdran to destroy the lair (retreating north -
to Khadgar - for healing if needed).  Once it falls, you have won this level.
Usually you will not have visited red's main base or had more than one white
kill (the destroyer at the beach head).  Very weird level.

3.1.8 COAST OF BONES
Destroy all enemy forces

This is an odd level.  There is a significant sea portion of this level, but
the only oil fields are in enemy hands.  You start in the top right with a fair
army.  White is in the top left, yellow in the middle on a couple of islands
and purple in the bottom left.
Immediately load up the transports and head left.  Smash white and set up your
base, including a bunch of towers covering the entrance you used.  Every so
often, yellow will send troops and purple will send dragons.  Again the
southern defences are trees, so you need to be careful with peasants.  Again
sink the transports and move your other ships back where you started. 
Basically, bottle up and survive.
When either your mine or yellow's runs low, prepare to expand south.  You will
probably have lost your ships by now.  If so, no real problem.  If not, all the
better.
When you expand, put a town hall south of the mine and a bunch of archer towers
south of it (this is on the normal dragon route).  Just of the coast to the
right of this new area is the nearest oilfield.  Send in the catapults to clear
any ships.  Build a shipyard and foundary up above your initial entrance (the
entrance towers will help keep dragons back).  Build a couple of battleships
(you start with a load of oil) and then oil ships.  Smash the platform (if
there is one) and the cannon tower beyond, then set up your own oil field. 
Build a refinery fairly close as soon as possible and get 3-4 ships collecting
oil and 3-4 battleships guarding them.  Make sure there is a spotter nearby for
submarines.  Build a transport and send a couple of catapults and a couple of
mages with polymorph on the island where the cannon tower was.  Move the
catapults to the bottom of this island (there are no other defenders) and take
out the other oil platform (the mages are in case dragons get involved.  Build
a lumber mill on this island and start on the trees at the north end (it will
give enough room for a town hall).
When your first oil field runs out, use the one of the bottom of the island. 
You will need to keep building oil ships and, occasionally, the platform since
purple keeps throwing whirlwinds at it (it is just in range) and you get the
occasional dragon (mage-polymorph them).  Obviously when the oil field reachs
less than 500 it isn't worth rebuild and you are best off using it as a trap
for yellow.
By this point you should have eight battleships (with spotter) and 4-5
destroyers (for anti-dragon protection).  They should have at least both armour
upgrades (the second attack is a bit steep for a limited oil level).  With this
lot, go and smash yellow.  Their main base in in a horseshoe shape, so you may
lose some ships getting in, but don't worry too much.  Once yellow's navy is
destroyed wander around in here and take out everything you can.  After you
have completed that head round and approach purple from the left.  Now this is
where you will probably lose most of your ships.  Battleships are slow and so
whirlwind will do loads of damage.  Concentrate on taking out everything you
can until you lose your ships (or get them all).  While you do this, get an
invasion force and smash what is left of yellow (shouldn't be too hard).  Once
your ships are finished (one way or the other), send in the invasion force and
clean up.  You may lose some to the death knights, but other than that it is
pretty straightforward.  Once you have them all, you win.

3.1.9 HEART OF EVIL
Destroy black's fortress.  Destroy the mystic sanctum (Altar of Storms and
Runestones)

You start in the bottom left with a fair sized force and a bunch of skeletons
attack immediately.  Black starts in the top middle, red in the top right,
white in the centre and cyan in the bottom right.  Once rid of the skeletons
head upwards.  Eventually you will find a small area with a few orcs just below
the curve of the rocks.  Destroy the orcs and setup here.
On this level you need to be very careful not to build too close to the rocks
because black has a nasty habit of sending in death knights just beyond the
wall and casting Death and Decay.  You can prevent this later on by exploiting
an AI problem, but for now be careful.  You will note that the mine is blocked
by trees, so setup a town hall and get to work.  Once it is free start on the
gold.  To avoid the death knights it is best to build around the trees rather
than above them and use towers to block both approaches.  It takes longer, but
it beats white showing up just after black has used Death and Decay on your
towers.
Red will send dragons, but you should be adept at dealing with them by now.
After that preceed as normal until you get flyers.  Send a flyer somewhere over
the wall and the death knights will give up on Death and Decay and start
casting Whirlwind on the flyer instead.  When this happens just move him
somewhere else on the wall (not too far, of course, or the knights will lose
interest) and you have effectively stopped the death knights (at least until
you attack black.
There is a second mine in the bottom middle, but cyan is almost on top of it,
so you need to have enough resources to build and defend a bunch of towers
almost immediately.  By later building a town hall here, you can use the mine
after your first runs out and get a peasant slaughter on cyan.  However unlike
normal peasant slaughters, cyan will send troops to clear the blockade so make
sure there are more than just towers there until you can finish cyan.
Providing your flyer is keeping the death knights busy you can put some archer
towers around your first mine and leave it with a couple of thousand in it. 
This will produce a peasant slaughter for white.
After a while of peasant slaughter for both cyan and white (black has a huge
mine, but red will start tapping it after they run out), build up a force a
smash cyan.  Heal and then cycle round to smash white.  White is guarding the
only entrance to the north half of this level so they have to go, cyan is just
to protect your flank.
There is a position just above black's mine where you can place a flyer without
being shot to view the status of the mine.  Once white falls wait until black's
mine is gone (red should be also working on it by this point so it shouldn't
take too long) before attacking.
You can either fall the north side of the wall to the right to get red (I did
because the dragons were annoying me) or head straight in to smash black.  Red
doesn't seem to build many troops other than dragons (fairly consistent for
dragon-attack enemies), so they aren't hard.
Black has a bunch of death knights including a death knight hero called Teron
Gorefiend (see his stats above).  I would recommend the peasant martyr tactic
here to reduce the mana (Gorefiend is still restricted to 255 mana despite his
other enhancements).  Smash them all with your archers keeping the daemons off
you.  Black has few forces other than the death knights so send in your
catapults to destroy the sanctum and the fortress to win the level.

3.1.10 SIEGE OF VANGUARD
Hold out until orcs retreat (they don't, you have to kill them).  All heroes
must survive

This is where things start getting really hard!  This level and the final one
make all the others (including the next one) seem like little more than a
warm-up.
You immediately start under attack from two directions.  Fight the one on the
left that the screen shows you and then rush the forces to the top (don't
forget the catapult).  Once those two are done you can get to work.
You start inside a square-ish set of walls with a bunch of towers and a good
number of troops.  Don't wander outside these walls until a good way into the
level.
Green and white share this land with you and purple have an island to the
north.  However purple never seem to build ships, so their only contribution is
dragons.
You have all the heroes (they start in the bottom right of the base) and you
have to keep them all alive.  The best placings are Alleria and Khadgar to the
top left of your base for normal troops and dragons respectively, Turaylon to
the middle for healing, Danath to the right for main assault and leave Khurdran
since he is little use and you can't afford to get him killed.
For most of this level the assualts will be fairly relentless and require
constant attention.  When a wall falls, build a tower.  When a tower falls,
rebuild the tower, but consider putting a farm in front of it (the enemy will
sit there attacking the farm while getting slaughtered by the towers).
The enemy never seems to attack the bottom of your base, so send the lumber
peasants there.  Get upgraded as quickly as possible without ever letting a
breach remain for long.
Dragons will almost always attack from the north along the left half of that
wall (usually the top left corner, but not always).
Fortunately some upgrades are free (for example paladins get healing and
exorcism free with the paladin upgrade).
Once you can get three mages into the top left (Khadgar counts as one) in order
to get all the dragons.  You will need five or six paladins (including
Turaylon) on healing duty (remember Khadgar and Alleria have priority).
Put towers everywhere from just below the left entrance around the corner and
just beyond the top middle (making sure you can get a peasant in to repair). 
Have at least two peasants just hanging around for tower repair (you probably
won't have time to pull them off other duties before the next attack).  Archer
upgrades are more important that melee since the towers will be taking the
melee damage, but melee is more important than ranger upgrades (since Alleria
doesn't get these).  Since the paladin upgrades are free, you should have
plenty of gold.
The main danger here is death knights.  Since you have so many towers, one
Death and Decay can take out five or six and punch a massive hole in your
defence.  If you see it start, immediately have a paladin cast exorcism into
the dark at the left of where you see it.  The death knight will usually run,
so send a couple of knights after it.
Once you have a bit of free gold, get spotters and put one on the rocks to the
left of your base.  This will allow you to see death knights coming and, oddly
enough, tends to tie up trolls (there is a place on these rocks just out of
their reach).  Just be careful of the trolls when you chase the death knight.
Another spotter should be able to locate the mine just off to the bottom left
of your base.  You should have plenty in your original, so when you have spare
cash put a bunch of archer towers beyond in ready for a peasant slaughter on
green.  Only start mining this if your mine gets to a few thousand.  White will
send their peasants to either the new one or your old.  With enough towers it
is another peasant slaughter.  Usually green will head straight for you and so
never even bother these towers.
When I have four or five towers there I normally send Danath and a couple of
paladins down there.  Danath is then in a good position to take out the trolls
that gather by your first spotter and retreat out of sight before the next wave
(to be healed by the paladins).
On this level you almost certainly have to wait for the peasant slaughters. 
Both white and green are pulling from the same mine (positioned between them),
but it is a big one so expect the troop waves to take a while (not that you
will have time to notice how long it takes).
Once the peasant slaughters begin the assaults nearly dry up, so wait ten
minutes or so of slaughter and then start building a normal force (with full
upgrades) to attack.  Be careful as purple might not yet be out and so you
might still be getting dragons.
Smash green and then white, carefully checking the whole island for
stragglers/positioned troops.  Once you have them all prepare to assault
purple.
You could use griffins, but since there is a single oil patch (that I've never
seen purple touch) just use ships and land troops as normal.  By the time you
have cleaned up green and white, purple has usually run out of money, but to
check look for a peasant build up on the left side of their island.  Move in
and kill everyone.  As normal for a dragon producers purple will have few
troops and probably didn't even upgrade them.
Now for something easier.  Enjoy it while it lasts.

3.1.11 DANCE OF THE LAUGHING SKULL
Destroy all enemy forces.  All heroes must survive

This is an unusual one.  Here you get to lead a bunch of orcs with a few human
heroes and troops as back up.  Fortuantely you have three paladins (including
Turaylon), so you get the ferocity of orcs with the capacity to heal (all be it
slowly).
First up head north to the yellow base.  Go near the town hall to gain all the
yellow forces and immediately head left where blue is attacking you.  This will
be the main attack route so defend it accordingly (6-7 towers).
Immediately build another lumber mill and start defending the south of your
main base (3-4 towers).  There is a lumber mill and tower beyond this, but I
don't think they can be saved, so don't worry about them.
Start churning out towers and upgrades.  Note the human heroes also get these
upgrades.
Once you have all of this in place and a bunch of ogres to deal with the
catapults coming in from the left, start exploring.  You will have probably
lost the first lumber mill by now.
Leave a spotter somewhere near where it was because white has a couple of death
knights and you definitely want rid of them.
Once you have death knights yourself, put a skeleton in the small indent to the
north of your left towers.  The catapults will always take it first, giving you
more time to react and (potentially) smaller tower repair bills.  Don't bother
trying to dump runes in the catapults path as the computer seems to have a
suspicious ability to move around them.
To the south west of your base (beyond the rocks) is another mine.  Get some
troops and towers around it as soon as possible.  Blue's mine isn't that large
so it will come here fairly quickly (compared to other levels at least).  Note:
blue will sometimes send troops here.  Not many and not often, but have a
peasant nearby for repairs.
There is another mine to the right of white's base, but for some reason white
can't find it.  Wait until you can see peasants build up on the lake shore at
the top of white's base before building towers at the mine as it sit directly
on white's approach route and any towers will be destroyed to early to be of
use.  However when you start assaulting white, the peasants sometimes suddenly
find the mine.  Even without that, if you attack white from the north (after
smashing blue) you can drive them into the towers.
To pass the time until the peasant slaughter is complete, try a couple of
dragons with Haste and Bloodlust.  They will decimate white's defences without
chasing peasants to the other mine.  When the spells wear off, retreat. 
Dragons are only really good with at least one of these spells.
When you mine starts running low, start hacking trees near the mine off to your
south west and build a town hall there (so your peasants don't wander through
the battle lines back to your main one).
After that it become fairly routine.  Smash blue, then turn and smash white. 
Mop up any survivors and get ready for the hardest level in the game (even
harder than the final orc level).

3.1.12 BITTER TASTE OF VICTORY
Destroy the Dark Portal.  Only Khadgar can destroy the Dark Portal.  Khadgar
must survive.  (In other words, only Khadgar can harm the Portal, but the other
heroes are expendable.)

As soon as you start, gather all the troops that are in the middle and head to
the bottom right.  You can't hold the fortress against the horde so don't
bother trying.  Their efforts just give you time to prepare a defence (not much
time though).  For now ignore the heroes in the top middle, they are blocked
in, but safe.
Get a second mage, paladin upgrade and a bunch of peasants immediately.
You may not have time for the second mage before the horde arrives, but start
using Blizzard with whatever you have.  Most of them will come pouring round
the top lip of rock so aim there.  The less who make it to your troops, the
more who survive.  The success or failure of this level can hinge on what
happens now.
Once you have cleared them (including the trailing catapults) start building
hordes of archer towers along the rock wall from your front door to the tree
line in groups of two or three.  Loads of dragons will show up at any point on
this wall very regularly (usually in twos) and you normally can't abandon the
front door to stop them.
With tower building underway and paladins healing troops from the first
assault, go to the heroes and use the dwarves to open the rock door and then
rush them to your little base.  This shouldn't be a problem so if you lose any,
try again.  Although only Khadgar needs to survive, the others are so much
better than normal troops you should try to keep them alive as long as
possible.  Put Alleria with the archers on the front door, Khadgar with the
mages on anti-dragon/Blizzard watch (every dragon polymorphed is faster tower
repairing), etc.  Since Khadgar must make it to the endgame, he is a healing
priority.  He shouldn't get damaged much, but if he is get him healed before
anything else.
Always keep at least one peasant near the towers (not close enough to get
fireballed, of course) since like level 10 you probably won't have enough time
to pull them off other tasks.
Note you have a town hall (despite the church and mage tower), so get that
upgraded as soon as you can in order to increase the lifespan of your gold.
Just like level 10, troops will keep coming and you have to just improve your
town in the gaps.  Since you have so many archer towers, melee upgrades
(especially armour) is the most important here.
All three enemies (white, red and black) have huge mines and there is a second
mine between white and red (just north of your base).  You can't secure it for
a peasant slaughter as it is on black's dragon route, so don't worry.
Occasionally black's dragons will try to head along the sides so be ready with
mages.  This is rare so beyond paying attention you don't need special
precautions (like wasting gold on a horde of archer towers in the area) - just
polymorph them if they show.
As ever one of the main dangers is death knights.  Your front door is so
crammed with troops and towers, Death and Decay is a real disaster.  Have a
paladin ready to throw an exorcism into the dark if you see it start and pray. 
I got four death knights come at me at once and only two ran from the exorcism.
If you lose your front door for any reason, may sure you have a strong troop
defence by that point.  If you lose it without this, reload and try again.
When you mine gets to a few thousand left, leave it.  When white runs out of
gold from the second mine it will try for yours if there is any left.
Even without spotters you will know when white runs out of gold at the first
mine as they usually stop sending troops and concentrate on peasants to the
second mine.  This is where things get a lot easier.
Here is where Khurdran comes into his own.  The second mining operation is
usually unguarded (a couple of towers to the north, but they are out of reach),
so move Khurdran over the mine.  Pull him back whenever the dragons show up,
but other than that let him shoot white's peasants.  The second mine isn't very
big, so it shouldn't take too long.  After it falls, the peasants from the
original town hall will head for yours and, if they built one, the peasants
from the second town hall (by the second mine) will head for reds.  Your towers
should sort out those head for yours and Khurdran should sort out those heading
for red.  Remember to keep Khurdran healed.
By this point, red will also have drastically reduced its troops numbers, not
sure why since it still usually has gold.  Black however will keep sending
dragons.  Send some spotters to keep an eye on black and red's mines (they were
huge, so there is no rush).
If is possible to take out white as soon the second mine falls (or even the
first) since there town isn't normally well laid out, but given what you had to
go through on the level you don't want red and/or black interrupting at a
crucial moment so I recommended erring on the side of caution.
When red's mine falls (it ususually falls before black's), red's peasants will
start gathering along the rock wall (trying to find a way to yours presumably. 
White's remaining peasants will now all be trying to run your tower gauntlet,
so move Khurdran up to play with red's peasants.  Black's dragons will usually
not bother him up here, but if they do simply retreat, heal and return as
normal.
When black's mine falls, the endgame begins.  Build your normal force and
attack white.  Without mines, red and black normally won't respond.  If they do
it is usually just some more black dragons so have mages along to head that one
off.  Clear the area around the portal (I couldn't afford catapults by this
point so I used Blizzard) and then have Khadgar attack it.  Since his attack is
so weak and no-one else can apparently harm it this will take about 15 minutes.
 Use this time to either defend him (if you move early) or smash the other
teams (if you waited).
When the portal falls, you win.

You get a nice little movie and rank of "Designer".  A story thread that leads
straight into the Scourge from War3.

3.1  ORC (to follow later)

4.0    TACTICS

Apart from the obvious ones like get upgraded and try to have at least one
upgrade level before getting a Keep/Stronghold that you needed to complete the
first game, there are a few that are far more important on this game than the
last.
a)  Ever piece of water may have submarines/turtles in them, so make sure every
armada has a spotter unit.
b)  Dragons/griffins are on most levels, so make sure you have a fair number of
archer towers on their lines of approach as soon as possible.  (You should know
the main line of approach after the first run.  They rarely use more than two.)
c)  Strong defense.  Since you are drastically outnumbered on nearly every
level, there is no such thing as too many towers (provided you have enough
gold).  I usually have at least five guarding my main door, plus four guarding
the main dragon/griffin route.
d)  "Peasant slaughter" or equally peon slaughter.  When the computer finishes
a gold mine, it will send it peasants to the next nearest mine regardless of if
it is defended or not.  If the peasant fails, it will send more and more. 
Rarely will it send troops to find out why no-one is coming home.  This is
especially useful in the orc campaign as the death knights can use them as free
skeleton troops.  (Use them mostly on defence, every blow a skeleton takes is
one an normal troop didn't)
e)  "Blizzard"/"Death and Decay".  Very useful as anti-retaliation weapons. 
Wait outside the enemy town with "Stand Guard".  Send one knight/ogre in until
you see a response then retreat.  Return to the main troops and start casting
"Blizzard" or "Death and Decay" on the route you retreated.  The enemy will run
along that route regardless of the spell and get slaughtered.  At the very
start of the final Human level, you get about a hundred enemies immediately
rush you.  Using three mages casting Blizzard on the approach route, only about
10-15 actually made it to my troops and they were badly wounded.
f)  "Blizzard"/"Death and Decay" (2).  Destroy the first tower in an enemy town
with "Blizzard"/"Death and Decay".  Just use two or three bursts and the
computer will send a load of peasants/peons to repair.  Then send another
couple of bursts and watch the tower and peasants get destroyed.  You can get
eight or more peasants with this one if you time it right (and the computer has
that many after "peasant slaughter")
g)  "Polymorph" is a very good anti-dragon weapon.  Unfortunately it has a high
mana cost, so have 2-3 mages handy to get them all.
h)  In true pioneer tradition, if you start with transports destroy them after
you find your start base area.  You usually can't save them, but by destroying
them yourself, no enemy gets the kill point (deducted from your score) and you
reduce the food requirement.  You normally have plenty of resources to rebuild
them again when needed.
i)  "Peasant martyr" is a trick to use against mages/death knights.  Since
peasants are fairly cheap (and so don't affect your score much) send them into
a mage/DK area.  The AI can't resist using Polymorph or Death Coil on them. 
Then send in the normal troops before they can recharge.
j)  SAVE and save often.  This is far, far more important than in the original.
 It is also best to keep multiple save games as things may already have gone
wrong before you know it.  Also, always keep the "end of level" saves since it
is not always obvious how to start a level (such as Human 8).
k)  A modification on the save trick involves spotters units.  At the start of
the level send them to locate the enemies and their relative strengths and then
reload.  May sound sneaky and underhanded, but any normal army would do some
reconnaisance before sending troops in, wouldn't they.

5.0     ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Blizzard for writing this great game and releasing a Battle.Net edition so I
could keep playing it.