Elrond is an absolute tank. Defensive Stance + Hold Fast + Elven Cloak allows him to absorb so much damage. He can frontline the black gate on grueling keeping your other units alive. Faramir, Legolas, and Eowyn for high spirit let him spam Defensive Stance + Hold Fast
All valid points! He can certainly tank the annoying archers that keep spamming you, especially when you don't have the spirit points for elven duress, but I find that spamming elven duress is better since the main threat is the sheer number of command points that mouth of sauron generates. If the enemy can't move, they can't hit you XD
Fun tip: The combo of Gandalf + Faramir + Eowyn has the highest SP generation in the game, allowing Gandalf to cast "Inspire" EVERY. SINGLE. TURN! That's an extra 4 (max) units you can move every turn after the first, which is obviously busted, especially given that Gandalf's weapon negates Disorder, you will be able to make the most moves out of anyone else!
I love this game so much I wish we got more Boimir has to be my favorite non main hero. Command points are great and exploiting the AI targeting him is one of my favorite strategies. They will take shots at him that miss or do 1 damage while I target the objective.
A few important data missing from this guide. Saruman has a hidden extra talent: regeneration. Also shagrats sword is glitched and doesn’t increase his damage values
Just beat this game on grueling difficulty with good, and I gotta say, I think Elrond is in a tier of his own. Aragorn’s Curse of the Dead does solve a few fight, but Elven Duress can solve almost all of them - including the Black Gate. A couple of high SP heroes with him means this ability can prov as much as 2 out of every 3 turns, and that’s hard to beat.
Oh for sure! That's why I have Elrond at 1st place. Honestly, he makes the game a little too easy haha. I'm almost always using Aragorn for my good playthroughs because it's just harder.
Saruman is the only character with 2 spoils of war, allowing him to have 7 command points. He also has regeneration which wasn't mentioned here, swarm of crebain can also hit for an insane amount of damage and doesn't count as his move, allowing you to kill any hero from ridiculous range. Curse of orthanc specifically destroys enemy CP in a lane. I personally think that if played well, he is the best character in the whole game. Awesome list though and loved watching content based on one of my favourite games on the GBA.
@@TheAncientNord88 Saruman is definitely my go to and you are absolutely right about all of that! A couple other comments pointed out the things I missed with Saruman as well - so happy everybody is so knowledgeable and having fun with this game! Such an underrated classic
Maybe a tier list for the rest of units of each faction? They are fixed to map but i think they all deserve a discussion. And honorary mention to Isildur, Theodred and the rest of map fixed heros. My favorite grunt is woodsmen due to lore and is kinda useful considering he is not a soldier.
@@LtCommanderTato Yeah, that's a great idea for a next video! I'm currently taking a break from making content, but I'll keep that in mind! I think the mvp for me is uruk-hai. They are ridiculously tanky and have so much range for what should just be a regular unit. Honestly they carry the evil side.
@@MiloGamingCo It makes sense they are kinda op, they are the ultimate mass soldier of evil side. What they lack in cohesion and commanders they have it in bruteforce. Also there are some other different uruks not as effective but still interesting like berserk one. In good side early game you kinda get spoiled with wood elf swordman and high elf archer they are pretty solid combined. Woodsmen is Peter Jackson btw. :D
Man, I have so many fond memories of this game. Glad to see other people that loved it too, I don't remember anyone ever talking about this game back in the day. I have a couple questions though: 1. What does "Shock" do exactly? you mention it as a talent certain heroes have. Does it have to do with breaking the morale of enemies you attack or something? 2. Is there a difference between "Elf Sharpshooter", like what Legolas has, and "Sharpshooter", which Faramir has?
Yeah, this game definitely deserved more love :p 1. Shock makes you have a higher chance of making the unit you hit run away and turn red for a turn. It doesn't work against any unit that is fearless, but for any other morale, it works. 2. Great question! Elf Sharpshooter combines the Sharpshooter trait that Faramir has (allows you to have the same damage regardless of how far away you are ) with Elf Archery (ignores terrain effects), which means Legolas can shoot an enemy anywhere in his range and still do the same damage as if they were 1 square away when they are 9 squares away.
One of the things I think you should have mentioned in this video is items as they can contribute a lot to a hero being busted. Let's use shagrat for instance. With an attack of 8 (because of glitched sword), using rage gives you +4 damage, so that bumps him up to 12 (same as an attack troll) but he also has shelob poison too, which bumps him up to an insane 14 attack. But here's where it gets bonkers, he also has berserker root, letting him attack twice. That's right, 14 attack and he can do it twice. That's enough for him to kill 2 full health gondor soldiers from 3 spaces away with his bow and arrow in ONE TURN. Ludicrous. Max I've ever done with him is I got an onslaught on top of this, so I got him up to 16 attack, which can allow him to do over 32 damage in one turn and even one shot legolas from 100 to 0.
@@Nicole_Auriel That's a great callout, definitely some things I internalized but didn't explicitly call out. 32 is insane! Shagrat is definitely a monster.
One of my favorite games that I’ve completed countless times on grueling for both evil and good side. The most op characters in the game imo are Elrond and Saruman. In terms of playing the game fairly and using their abilities to their max efficiency. I say that because Gandalf is broken with his stealth skill, it’s a cheap trick that beats the game too easily. Elrond is so fun to use from how tanky and agile he is, being an assassin on the field, second coming into that would be Aragorn having the highest damage output to multiple foes, third Mouth of Sauron making most evil heroes a sniper and threat to opposing heroes/captains and even more if you can get himself close to heroes (I’m sure MOS could have the biggest hit in the game when stacking everything including Onslaught) and then Saruman being the evil sides Legolas if Legolas had the strength of a cave troll, plus more. Witch-King is unbearable to play the game with. Something also interesting I found out more than a decade later since playing the game that I never knew about, was if you play multiplayer locally (I forgot what the mode was called) on Gap of Rohan, the match won’t be how it regularly is in campaign. Instead, the map is completely empty with just your captains and selected heroes. Within the 3 flanks where your heroes start at, near them are some ruin tiles you can stand on. Depending on which one you stand on for the 1st turn spawns different units. Ranging from the Undead, Berserkers, Mordor Trolls, Ents, Dark Riders, Rohan Riders and more. It’s pretty cool being able to have a level where you could see such units fight each other lol. If only you could spawn a Mumakil there..
I love that you have all of this knowledge! Everything you said is definitely true haha, and yes, Mouth of Sauron has the highest hit out of all of them. I never had the chance to play it multiplayer locally, so I never knew that! That's a neat easter egg!
Saruman is a lot tankier than you give him credit for. Nobody ever seems to mention this for Saruman, but he actually has the Regeneration talent too. The game just doesn't tell you. You can definitely see it though, him healing over time. With his -1 damage cloak, he can eat up long range arrows with ease. I sometimes move Saruman just close enough to soak up some arrows and have him retreat if he gets too low, but just like with the Gandalf stealth glitch, enemies will try to hit saruman whenever they can, which almost always results in a miss because of his cloak, and even if they do hit him, he just regenerates. Very very tanky.
True! I think Saruman is pretty tanky as well considering the regeneration, defense bonus, healing ability with “On Your Feet!” skill and of course he can attack safely with long range. A lot of times in grueling matches when I’d be overwhelmed and lose matches dues to unfortunate play-outs, like low command points, disorder, etc. I’d always have Saruman as my last man standing, and sometimes I’d clutch with him alone against 5+ units left on the opposing side chasing me down. Willpower, collecting troll meats from kills, wounding targets, or using Swarm of Crebain to temporarily disable units or even kill them in those last turns make the last moments of the match super fun. I really think Saruman is so overpowered lol. The only thing that balances him out is his low morale. He gets wounded very easily, can get killed easily in grueling if this happens. If he’s on a defense tile oh man he is really tanky.
I think it really depends on the difficulty. In normal, your strategy definitely works and he can feel tanky for sure, but for grueling? His cloak doesn't do much when the normal rohan soldier can hit 4-5 with normal arrow
Great tier list! Would love to see special map heroes like Orc Captain, Chief, Gondor captain, merry pippen, Theodred, Isildur, even Sauron (probably S tier lol)
That's a fair point - however, I didn't account for that in the rankings specifically because it's a fairly small consideration and completely rng. In all of my playthroughs, I frankly hardly see a difference and wouldn't be able to tell you if it even proced or not, or if I just got lucky. Really hard to compare or judge consistently with so much uncertainty.
Bro, I need to ask, how the heck are you supposed to clear Attack on Fangorn in good campaign (Gruelling)? I hate that mission so much, it's just so unfair (lol) Do you have any advice, or any observations about that mission in general? I'm guessing you "major" hero probably has a massive impact in strategy, **coughGandalfcough** (lol) but still, it's just so RIDICULOUSLY hard. Do you have any strong advice at all? Hey, also, was just going over your video, don't forget that Legolas' talent is a unique ENHANCED version of Elrond's (I think lol) as it appears to combine both Elf Archery AND Sharpshooter together - busted, busted, busted ... lmao
Attack on Fangorn is actually one of the more fun ones if you know how to bait the AI heroes on grueling. First though, if you haven't maxed all of your heroes in mission from rivendell, do it. It is pretty much necessary to beat grueling. As for Attack on Fangorn, your left flank will be overrun - just let it happen. Use your free moves to delay them on the stairs, and when you run out of units, use your main hero to block (all 3 are tanky enough in their own ways). Your main objective here is to delay while you take out wormtongue and saruman. Meanwhile, bring the ent to the middle of the ledge in the middle of the map. The AI will be scared of it and generally avoid it, which will be good. Use ranged attacks until the left flank enemies have overrun the stairs. You should have enough room to slip by them with the ent and make your way down. Around this time, wormtongue will also walk up by himself, and you can usually kill him with the ent. On the right flank, use legolas. Saruman will move all the way to the right and up a little in order to hit your hero if it is in range - use that to bait him out. Once you've done that, ambush him with the woodsman and the elves, and he should go down easily. You may need to use items to heal legolas, but you should be able to kill Saruman before Legolas runs out of items. You will want to bait Saruman instead of just using legolas at further range because Saruman runs away easily due to low morale, and if he runs further left, it will take longer to kill him. He also uses on your feet, which will negate about 1 turn of damage each time he spams it, so you need units to melee him as well. Melee units will also block him from hitting legolas, so you can just stand still with him. This can also be done with Faramir, but legolas is the safer option. Once the evil heroes are dead, just wipe out the orcs and uruk hai and ignore the goblins. Should be pretty straight forward from there. As for Elf Sharpshooter, it's just Faramir's Sharpshooter (allows max damage regardless of how far away you are) and any elf that uses Elf archery (ignores terrain) combined, but yeah, very busted.
@@MiloGamingCo Hey, thanks for the reply =] I don't know, I just think there are too many orcs and not enough command points to deal with them all, and your units start out pretty weak. Do you think that ignoring the goblins is wise? They deal ridiculous damage for their size from mid-range, and are used as a vanguard to blunt the front line. Also, do you think that putting the Ent onto the middle of the central flank is wise? He essentially becomes a lot more vulnerable if the soldiers gain a foothold and overrun the stairs, I've had more luck keeping him close to the other flank to retreat from the inevitable ranged attacks when Orcs and Uruk-hai get close. I don't really think the enemies technically "avoid" the Ent, they do take pot shots at him from time to time, and REALLY focus him down as soon as he's surrounded. I think I totally agree with the left flank. I really think you need to point out that after the mission is done, the enemy will have many, many more troops left over than you. I like the idea of going for the heroes in theory, but you simply can't engage Saruman with the woodsmen, Legolas doesn't have enough CP, and the majority of moves need to be used in the main battle to organize the troops in the middle. On top of this, Saruman has a double Uruk guard that will decimate the woodsmen, and a goblin or two to boot. The heroes don't usually tend to "move up on their own" until they start running out of troops in my opinion, making this very difficult. Hey, if these strategies are viable, do you think you could do a run of this mission as a good hero (WITHOUT abusing the Gandalf stealth glitch lol) I would really like to see your strategies in action Anyway, thanks so much for the reply, I read everything you had to say on the matter, it's really good to know there are still people playing this game =] Do you think you could upload a video of how to do this mission? It would be really fun to watch lol
@@shyguy778 That's just the general strategy of what I remember when I did my grueling runs on all the good and evil heroes, but there's probably subtle things I'm missing in my descriptions for sure, and there is definitely a lot of luck involved. Ignoring the goblins makes them block the harder hitting units from getting to your units, but you might have to kill one or two to get them out of the way. Sounds like your ent is too close. He needs to be like 3 or 4 spaces from the left side of the ledge if I remember correctly. A bit of luck is involved, but the enemy will usually prioritize using command points to overrun your main hero in the middle, which means that saruman's bodyguards don't usually get to move, so you can usually weave your units through them to get to saruman if you can't get him to move (I always manage to make him move out to target legolas though). Legolas cp is definitely luck based, but usually I have enough to do what I need to do with him after a few resets. I'm currently taking a break from making content, but the next content I would do for this game would be grueling runs (my favorite is still Aragorn, despite him being the hardest lol). If you do manage to beat this level on your own and get to the end, I made a guide on doing black gates on grueling with Aragorn at th-cam.com/video/XRgo5C1cW3I/w-d-xo.html By the way, if you are trying to beat the game on grueling to unlock everything, you don't actually have to! You just have to beat the game on normal, and then change the difficulty to grueling in the settings on the title screen for The Black Gates and beat that level to unlock everything.
@@MiloGamingCo I'm on Gruelling difficulty and I struggle with every level lol. It takes me 2-6 tries to beat. I'm on Moria, Fellowship :/ soo early. I haven't played in years. So any tip would be great, or link me to a video if you have made one
@@IJH-Music Sturggling and retrying every level is normal for grueling. 2-6 times is actually pretty impressive! Just as a heads up, you only need to play the last level (The Black Gates Open) on grueling to unlock rewards - you don't get anything except personal satisfaction beating everything on grueling. You can change the difficulty in the settings before you load your save. Here is a video I made on beating grueling black gates open with aragorn to get the last unlock th-cam.com/video/XRgo5C1cW3I/w-d-xo.html However, if you're trying to beat every level on grueling, I would advise farming mission from rivendell to max out all of your characters first, and then proceed. Moria in particular is very hard without maxed out characters. A cheese tactic for that is to put your main hero on the 2 defense spot on the mountain ridge on the left side of the center flank, and then use legolas, haldir, and faramir in the back to pick off people with ranged. Use Pippin to command the wood elves to help poke the center flank, and just sort of ignore the right flank. Use all of your free moves on the woodland elves. Take out the troll first,then the captain, and then you can basically just destroy everything else (assuming everyone is max)
@@MiloGamingCo You are a legend! TY for the info bro! I chose Gandalf, probably bad idea haha. So I cant use aragorn. I'm sick of all the new games being easy, so I thought I'd go to the GBA and play something hard!
@@IJH-Music Gandalf is actually the easiest if you use his stealth glitch. For some reason,when Gandalf uses stealth, all of the enemies only target him, and if you surround him with normal soldiers, he's basically untouchable, and you can cheese many levels that way. Enjoy :)
Got a question you might have an answer too. So one of Witch King his upgrades gives him 15% ontslaught chance and one of Shagrat his upgrades gives him 10% ontslaught do they add up to like 25% chance cuz that would be op
If they are in the same flank, yes. I wouldn't advise it in regular play though because witch king can potentially give 0 command points while Shagrat can potentially only give 1, so you risk only being able to attack once because onslaught means you don't get a free move. However, this can be really op on maps where you don't have many units like Mt. Mindolluin, and you just need to smack the heroes.
Hey, I’m replaying and realized I never got any of the unlockables when i played as a kid. How do you unlock the new characters? I saw somewhere it said hard mode but you said normal in the video so I want to make sure. I am also playing a Japanese copy of it so the difficulty is “easy, normal, hard” so I am very confused which one I need to do to unlock the characters. Thanks man!
In the english version, the difficulties are normal, hard, and grueling. Easiest way to unlock both characters is to just clear the game on light and evil on the easy difficulty in your game, change your difficulty to normal after you beat easy in the settings, and then beat "The Black Gates" level on normal difficulty on both evil and light. This way, you don't have to play the whole game on normal mode (or hard mode in the english version).
@@MiloGamingCo That helps so much, I thought I had to do the whole thing on hard. Lastly what are the other unlockables? It has to do with grueling and sauron mode?
I actually have a video of all of the unlockables listed at 1:21 of my other guide video at th-cam.com/video/XRgo5C1cW3I/w-d-xo.html The easiest way for you in the japanese version to unlock everything all at once would be to clear on easy with sauron mode active, and beat the black gates on normal for both sides, and then beat the black gates on hard with any side (only need to do it with one side - my guide is using aragorn on light side). That should basically unlock everything.
@@MiloGamingCo Hey thank you so much man I really appreciate it! I subscribed and I’ll check out that video! Great to see someone appreciate the game as much as me and my brother do haha. Cheers!
@@georgiotoufexis7017 To get the Last Alliance, you need to beat the game on the evil side with any difficulty. I have a list of all unlocks in this video at 1:21 th-cam.com/video/XRgo5C1cW3I/w-d-xo.html
![เปิด อาณาจักร หมื่นล้าน "สาระตั้ม" l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3XE0nPF4YkQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Good to see people playing this old game:)
Definitely didn't get the love it deserved at launch, and still isn't today haha
Elrond is an absolute tank. Defensive Stance + Hold Fast + Elven Cloak allows him to absorb so much damage. He can frontline the black gate on grueling keeping your other units alive. Faramir, Legolas, and Eowyn for high spirit let him spam Defensive Stance + Hold Fast
All valid points! He can certainly tank the annoying archers that keep spamming you, especially when you don't have the spirit points for elven duress, but I find that spamming elven duress is better since the main threat is the sheer number of command points that mouth of sauron generates. If the enemy can't move, they can't hit you XD
Fun tip: The combo of Gandalf + Faramir + Eowyn has the highest SP generation in the game, allowing Gandalf to cast "Inspire" EVERY. SINGLE. TURN!
That's an extra 4 (max) units you can move every turn after the first, which is obviously busted, especially given that Gandalf's weapon negates Disorder, you will be able to make the most moves out of anyone else!
I temd not to play gandalf due to the stealth glitch, so ai never noticed that. That's op!
I love this game so much I wish we got more
Boimir has to be my favorite non main hero. Command points are great and exploiting the AI targeting him is one of my favorite strategies. They will take shots at him that miss or do 1 damage while I target the objective.
Yeah, he's definitely a magnet. It felt like a little easter egg from the devs based on how he went out in the movies XD
This guy is a CHAD for playing this game and making a ranking for garbo players like me
Honestly old games are where it's at. New games hardly compare, and I like helping out where I can!
Love to see this game get this kind of love, always spammed Curse of the dead especially on Assault of Osgiliath, just sat back and enjoyed the show
Yeah, curse of the dead is so op!
A few important data missing from this guide. Saruman has a hidden extra talent: regeneration. Also shagrats sword is glitched and doesn’t increase his damage values
Good catches! Not sure about Shagrat's sword as it didn't seem glitched to me, but the Saruman bit is definitely true.
Saruman might also have a form of Sharpshoooter. His damage doesn't seem to be as affected by range as, say, Gandalfs for example
Just beat this game on grueling difficulty with good, and I gotta say, I think Elrond is in a tier of his own. Aragorn’s Curse of the Dead does solve a few fight, but Elven Duress can solve almost all of them - including the Black Gate. A couple of high SP heroes with him means this ability can prov as much as 2 out of every 3 turns, and that’s hard to beat.
Oh for sure! That's why I have Elrond at 1st place. Honestly, he makes the game a little too easy haha. I'm almost always using Aragorn for my good playthroughs because it's just harder.
Saruman is the only character with 2 spoils of war, allowing him to have 7 command points. He also has regeneration which wasn't mentioned here, swarm of crebain can also hit for an insane amount of damage and doesn't count as his move, allowing you to kill any hero from ridiculous range. Curse of orthanc specifically destroys enemy CP in a lane. I personally think that if played well, he is the best character in the whole game. Awesome list though and loved watching content based on one of my favourite games on the GBA.
@@TheAncientNord88 Saruman is definitely my go to and you are absolutely right about all of that! A couple other comments pointed out the things I missed with Saruman as well - so happy everybody is so knowledgeable and having fun with this game! Such an underrated classic
Maybe a tier list for the rest of units of each faction? They are fixed to map but i think they all deserve a discussion.
And honorary mention to Isildur, Theodred and the rest of map fixed heros.
My favorite grunt is woodsmen due to lore and is kinda useful considering he is not a soldier.
@@LtCommanderTato Yeah, that's a great idea for a next video! I'm currently taking a break from making content, but I'll keep that in mind!
I think the mvp for me is uruk-hai. They are ridiculously tanky and have so much range for what should just be a regular unit. Honestly they carry the evil side.
@@MiloGamingCo It makes sense they are kinda op, they are the ultimate mass soldier of evil side. What they lack in cohesion and commanders they have it in bruteforce. Also there are some other different uruks not as effective but still interesting like berserk one.
In good side early game you kinda get spoiled with wood elf swordman and high elf archer they are pretty solid combined.
Woodsmen is Peter Jackson btw. :D
@@LtCommanderTato haha yeah, I always love finding peter jackson cameos. Woodsmen are lowkey tanky too, love using them.
Man, I have so many fond memories of this game. Glad to see other people that loved it too, I don't remember anyone ever talking about this game back in the day.
I have a couple questions though:
1. What does "Shock" do exactly? you mention it as a talent certain heroes have. Does it have to do with breaking the morale of enemies you attack or something?
2. Is there a difference between "Elf Sharpshooter", like what Legolas has, and "Sharpshooter", which Faramir has?
Yeah, this game definitely deserved more love :p
1. Shock makes you have a higher chance of making the unit you hit run away and turn red for a turn. It doesn't work against any unit that is fearless, but for any other morale, it works.
2. Great question! Elf Sharpshooter combines the Sharpshooter trait that Faramir has (allows you to have the same damage regardless of how far away you are ) with Elf Archery (ignores terrain effects), which means Legolas can shoot an enemy anywhere in his range and still do the same damage as if they were 1 square away when they are 9 squares away.
I would love to see more Third Age content!
What would you like to see in particular?
One of the things I think you should have mentioned in this video is items as they can contribute a lot to a hero being busted. Let's use shagrat for instance. With an attack of 8 (because of glitched sword), using rage gives you +4 damage, so that bumps him up to 12 (same as an attack troll) but he also has shelob poison too, which bumps him up to an insane 14 attack. But here's where it gets bonkers, he also has berserker root, letting him attack twice. That's right, 14 attack and he can do it twice. That's enough for him to kill 2 full health gondor soldiers from 3 spaces away with his bow and arrow in ONE TURN. Ludicrous. Max I've ever done with him is I got an onslaught on top of this, so I got him up to 16 attack, which can allow him to do over 32 damage in one turn and even one shot legolas from 100 to 0.
@@Nicole_Auriel That's a great callout, definitely some things I internalized but didn't explicitly call out. 32 is insane! Shagrat is definitely a monster.
Awesome list, I love using Gandalf but find my self not using him as much anymore because the glitch takes away from the win
I know right? He has the best ranged animation, but using him feels like cheating haha
i would kill to see a TAS on this game, would be so satisfying
Haha that would be nice,but I don't think anyone will. I don't have the skills to make one unfortunately
One of my favorite games that I’ve completed countless times on grueling for both evil and good side. The most op characters in the game imo are Elrond and Saruman. In terms of playing the game fairly and using their abilities to their max efficiency. I say that because Gandalf is broken with his stealth skill, it’s a cheap trick that beats the game too easily. Elrond is so fun to use from how tanky and agile he is, being an assassin on the field, second coming into that would be Aragorn having the highest damage output to multiple foes, third Mouth of Sauron making most evil heroes a sniper and threat to opposing heroes/captains and even more if you can get himself close to heroes (I’m sure MOS could have the biggest hit in the game when stacking everything including Onslaught) and then Saruman being the evil sides Legolas if Legolas had the strength of a cave troll, plus more. Witch-King is unbearable to play the game with.
Something also interesting I found out more than a decade later since playing the game that I never knew about, was if you play multiplayer locally (I forgot what the mode was called) on Gap of Rohan, the match won’t be how it regularly is in campaign. Instead, the map is completely empty with just your captains and selected heroes. Within the 3 flanks where your heroes start at, near them are some ruin tiles you can stand on. Depending on which one you stand on for the 1st turn spawns different units. Ranging from the Undead, Berserkers, Mordor Trolls, Ents, Dark Riders, Rohan Riders and more. It’s pretty cool being able to have a level where you could see such units fight each other lol. If only you could spawn a Mumakil there..
I love that you have all of this knowledge! Everything you said is definitely true haha, and yes, Mouth of Sauron has the highest hit out of all of them.
I never had the chance to play it multiplayer locally, so I never knew that! That's a neat easter egg!
Saruman is a lot tankier than you give him credit for. Nobody ever seems to mention this for Saruman, but he actually has the Regeneration talent too. The game just doesn't tell you. You can definitely see it though, him healing over time. With his -1 damage cloak, he can eat up long range arrows with ease. I sometimes move Saruman just close enough to soak up some arrows and have him retreat if he gets too low, but just like with the Gandalf stealth glitch, enemies will try to hit saruman whenever they can, which almost always results in a miss because of his cloak, and even if they do hit him, he just regenerates. Very very tanky.
True! I think Saruman is pretty tanky as well considering the regeneration, defense bonus, healing ability with “On Your Feet!” skill and of course he can attack safely with long range. A lot of times in grueling matches when I’d be overwhelmed and lose matches dues to unfortunate play-outs, like low command points, disorder, etc. I’d always have Saruman as my last man standing, and sometimes I’d clutch with him alone against 5+ units left on the opposing side chasing me down. Willpower, collecting troll meats from kills, wounding targets, or using Swarm of Crebain to temporarily disable units or even kill them in those last turns make the last moments of the match super fun. I really think Saruman is so overpowered lol. The only thing that balances him out is his low morale. He gets wounded very easily, can get killed easily in grueling if this happens. If he’s on a defense tile oh man he is really tanky.
I think it really depends on the difficulty. In normal, your strategy definitely works and he can feel tanky for sure, but for grueling? His cloak doesn't do much when the normal rohan soldier can hit 4-5 with normal arrow
Nice seeing a game me and my mom love.. getting this much love. I just wish i was good at this game.
Everyone get good with a little practice. Keep trying!
Great tier list! Would love
to see special map heroes like Orc Captain, Chief, Gondor captain, merry pippen, Theodred, Isildur, even Sauron (probably S tier lol)
Haha Sauron is S tier for sure. I didn't include them because you use them so infrequently, but I'll think about it!
Who else comes to these tier list videos and skims to the end to not waste time and get the true results?
@@Ledzepisbest1 I certainly do that for other tier lists. Just means you won't know what they said and can't debate it.
my dude Aragorn & Legolas is S tier nothing else matters nice list like the point system
Hehe very true
item passives like aragorn's 10% chance of a rally with anduril equipped should count as a talent (not that it would change his ranking lol)
That's a fair point - however, I didn't account for that in the rankings specifically because it's a fairly small consideration and completely rng. In all of my playthroughs, I frankly hardly see a difference and wouldn't be able to tell you if it even proced or not, or if I just got lucky. Really hard to compare or judge consistently with so much uncertainty.
Bro, I need to ask, how the heck are you supposed to clear Attack on Fangorn in good campaign (Gruelling)? I hate that mission so much, it's just so unfair (lol)
Do you have any advice, or any observations about that mission in general? I'm guessing you "major" hero probably has a massive impact in strategy, **coughGandalfcough** (lol) but still, it's just so RIDICULOUSLY hard. Do you have any strong advice at all?
Hey, also, was just going over your video, don't forget that Legolas' talent is a unique ENHANCED version of Elrond's (I think lol) as it appears to combine both Elf Archery AND Sharpshooter together - busted, busted, busted ... lmao
Attack on Fangorn is actually one of the more fun ones if you know how to bait the AI heroes on grueling. First though, if you haven't maxed all of your heroes in mission from rivendell, do it. It is pretty much necessary to beat grueling.
As for Attack on Fangorn, your left flank will be overrun - just let it happen. Use your free moves to delay them on the stairs, and when you run out of units, use your main hero to block (all 3 are tanky enough in their own ways). Your main objective here is to delay while you take out wormtongue and saruman.
Meanwhile, bring the ent to the middle of the ledge in the middle of the map. The AI will be scared of it and generally avoid it, which will be good. Use ranged attacks until the left flank enemies have overrun the stairs. You should have enough room to slip by them with the ent and make your way down. Around this time, wormtongue will also walk up by himself, and you can usually kill him with the ent.
On the right flank, use legolas. Saruman will move all the way to the right and up a little in order to hit your hero if it is in range - use that to bait him out. Once you've done that, ambush him with the woodsman and the elves, and he should go down easily. You may need to use items to heal legolas, but you should be able to kill Saruman before Legolas runs out of items. You will want to bait Saruman instead of just using legolas at further range because Saruman runs away easily due to low morale, and if he runs further left, it will take longer to kill him. He also uses on your feet, which will negate about 1 turn of damage each time he spams it, so you need units to melee him as well. Melee units will also block him from hitting legolas, so you can just stand still with him. This can also be done with Faramir, but legolas is the safer option.
Once the evil heroes are dead, just wipe out the orcs and uruk hai and ignore the goblins. Should be pretty straight forward from there.
As for Elf Sharpshooter, it's just Faramir's Sharpshooter (allows max damage regardless of how far away you are) and any elf that uses Elf archery (ignores terrain) combined, but yeah, very busted.
@@MiloGamingCo Hey, thanks for the reply =]
I don't know, I just think there are too many orcs and not enough command points to deal with them all, and your units start out pretty weak.
Do you think that ignoring the goblins is wise? They deal ridiculous damage for their size from mid-range, and are used as a vanguard to blunt the front line.
Also, do you think that putting the Ent onto the middle of the central flank is wise? He essentially becomes a lot more vulnerable if the soldiers gain a foothold and overrun the stairs, I've had more luck keeping him close to the other flank to retreat from the inevitable ranged attacks when Orcs and Uruk-hai get close. I don't really think the enemies technically "avoid" the Ent, they do take pot shots at him from time to time, and REALLY focus him down as soon as he's surrounded.
I think I totally agree with the left flank. I really think you need to point out that after the mission is done, the enemy will have many, many more troops left over than you.
I like the idea of going for the heroes in theory, but you simply can't engage Saruman with the woodsmen, Legolas doesn't have enough CP, and the majority of moves need to be used in the main battle to organize the troops in the middle. On top of this, Saruman has a double Uruk guard that will decimate the woodsmen, and a goblin or two to boot.
The heroes don't usually tend to "move up on their own" until they start running out of troops in my opinion, making this very difficult.
Hey, if these strategies are viable, do you think you could do a run of this mission as a good hero (WITHOUT abusing the Gandalf stealth glitch lol) I would really like to see your strategies in action
Anyway, thanks so much for the reply, I read everything you had to say on the matter, it's really good to know there are still people playing this game =]
Do you think you could upload a video of how to do this mission? It would be really fun to watch lol
@@shyguy778 That's just the general strategy of what I remember when I did my grueling runs on all the good and evil heroes, but there's probably subtle things I'm missing in my descriptions for sure, and there is definitely a lot of luck involved.
Ignoring the goblins makes them block the harder hitting units from getting to your units, but you might have to kill one or two to get them out of the way.
Sounds like your ent is too close. He needs to be like 3 or 4 spaces from the left side of the ledge if I remember correctly.
A bit of luck is involved, but the enemy will usually prioritize using command points to overrun your main hero in the middle, which means that saruman's bodyguards don't usually get to move, so you can usually weave your units through them to get to saruman if you can't get him to move (I always manage to make him move out to target legolas though).
Legolas cp is definitely luck based, but usually I have enough to do what I need to do with him after a few resets.
I'm currently taking a break from making content, but the next content I would do for this game would be grueling runs (my favorite is still Aragorn, despite him being the hardest lol). If you do manage to beat this level on your own and get to the end, I made a guide on doing black gates on grueling with Aragorn at th-cam.com/video/XRgo5C1cW3I/w-d-xo.html
By the way, if you are trying to beat the game on grueling to unlock everything, you don't actually have to! You just have to beat the game on normal, and then change the difficulty to grueling in the settings on the title screen for The Black Gates and beat that level to unlock everything.
Very interesting! I just started a playthrough on the Hardest Difficulty, and I need tips haha
Nice! Any particular level / part you're stuck on?
@@MiloGamingCo I'm on Gruelling difficulty and I struggle with every level lol.
It takes me 2-6 tries to beat. I'm on Moria, Fellowship :/ soo early.
I haven't played in years. So any tip would be great, or link me to a video if you have made one
@@IJH-Music Sturggling and retrying every level is normal for grueling. 2-6 times is actually pretty impressive!
Just as a heads up, you only need to play the last level (The Black Gates Open) on grueling to unlock rewards - you don't get anything except personal satisfaction beating everything on grueling. You can change the difficulty in the settings before you load your save.
Here is a video I made on beating grueling black gates open with aragorn to get the last unlock th-cam.com/video/XRgo5C1cW3I/w-d-xo.html
However, if you're trying to beat every level on grueling, I would advise farming mission from rivendell to max out all of your characters first, and then proceed. Moria in particular is very hard without maxed out characters. A cheese tactic for that is to put your main hero on the 2 defense spot on the mountain ridge on the left side of the center flank, and then use legolas, haldir, and faramir in the back to pick off people with ranged. Use Pippin to command the wood elves to help poke the center flank, and just sort of ignore the right flank. Use all of your free moves on the woodland elves. Take out the troll first,then the captain, and then you can basically just destroy everything else (assuming everyone is max)
@@MiloGamingCo You are a legend! TY for the info bro! I chose Gandalf, probably bad idea haha. So I cant use aragorn.
I'm sick of all the new games being easy, so I thought I'd go to the GBA and play something hard!
@@IJH-Music Gandalf is actually the easiest if you use his stealth glitch. For some reason,when Gandalf uses stealth, all of the enemies only target him, and if you surround him with normal soldiers, he's basically untouchable, and you can cheese many levels that way. Enjoy :)
Got a question you might have an answer too.
So one of Witch King his upgrades gives him 15% ontslaught chance and one of Shagrat his upgrades gives him 10% ontslaught do they add up to like 25% chance cuz that would be op
If they are in the same flank, yes. I wouldn't advise it in regular play though because witch king can potentially give 0 command points while Shagrat can potentially only give 1, so you risk only being able to attack once because onslaught means you don't get a free move. However, this can be really op on maps where you don't have many units like Mt. Mindolluin, and you just need to smack the heroes.
Hey, I’m replaying and realized I never got any of the unlockables when i played as a kid. How do you unlock the new characters? I saw somewhere it said hard mode but you said normal in the video so I want to make sure. I am also playing a Japanese copy of it so the difficulty is “easy, normal, hard” so I am very confused which one I need to do to unlock the characters. Thanks man!
In the english version, the difficulties are normal, hard, and grueling.
Easiest way to unlock both characters is to just clear the game on light and evil on the easy difficulty in your game, change your difficulty to normal after you beat easy in the settings, and then beat "The Black Gates" level on normal difficulty on both evil and light. This way, you don't have to play the whole game on normal mode (or hard mode in the english version).
@@MiloGamingCo That helps so much, I thought I had to do the whole thing on hard. Lastly what are the other unlockables? It has to do with grueling and sauron mode?
I actually have a video of all of the unlockables listed at 1:21 of my other guide video at th-cam.com/video/XRgo5C1cW3I/w-d-xo.html
The easiest way for you in the japanese version to unlock everything all at once would be to clear on easy with sauron mode active, and beat the black gates on normal for both sides, and then beat the black gates on hard with any side (only need to do it with one side - my guide is using aragorn on light side). That should basically unlock everything.
@@MiloGamingCo Hey thank you so much man I really appreciate it! I subscribed and I’ll check out that video! Great to see someone appreciate the game as much as me and my brother do haha. Cheers!
I think the guide you got this from showed max HP for Haldir. I'm pretty sure he starts with 20. Didn't check the others, tho
U can’t use haldir right ?
You can! He is unlocked after you beat the black gates open with the good side on hard mode
@@MiloGamingCo so to unlock the last alliance you need to win the next level?
@@georgiotoufexis7017 To get the Last Alliance, you need to beat the game on the evil side with any difficulty.
I have a list of all unlocks in this video at 1:21 th-cam.com/video/XRgo5C1cW3I/w-d-xo.html
Moar plox
XD