Path of War, Chapter 11, Mission 2

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PATH OF WAR:  LOST KING CAMPAIGN
Chapter 11 
Treachery:Mission 2 

by Sir Hugh

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Mission Briefing:

“Now that I have made a chink in his armor, it is time to take the fight to William himself. Mu heart tells me he may yet still join with me, but my head tells me this will be a fight to the death.”

Objectives for Victory:

  • Kill Sir William

Losing Conditions:

  • Your Lord Dies

Starting units:whatever forces you raised previously in Mission 1, lord
Available units:all barracks troops, engineers, laddermen, all siege equipment, all mercenaries except pictish boat warriors
Map size:large
Starting Date:the previous mission’s end date
Starting Stats:gold carried over | honor carried over | population carried over | popularity carried over
Starting Goods:all goods are carried over
Buildings:all available
Buy/Sell:all goods and weapons
Game Version:1.3.1

WALK-THROUGH:

Aid of the Allies

The Bull will come from the south to help you destroy Sir William at the beginning of the game. But don’t celebrate yet, because Sir Grey is coming to help Sir William, and he has a bigger army.

If you are continuing from the previous walkthrough, you will have a large attack force of ballistae and archers. Move all of them to the island close to the last bridge. They will kill many of Sir Grey’s men with minimum losses to your own forces. You don’t need the Bull to win, but he can be useful in the siege later.

While your ballistae decimate Sir Grey, place a siege camp in one of the newly captured estates. Recruit some trebuchets and/or catapults for the siege, ballistae to reinforce your advancing forces, and cats to protect your gradual advances. Also keep recruiting archers and melee units. As soon as Sir Grey’s men are elimanted, send some of your forces to capture the Shapwick estate to the east. It will divert some of you unit’s fire if it is not taken.

The Bull and his men will start testing Sir William’s perimeter. Sir William’s men may go as far as letting down logs and lighting some of the numerous pitch traps that surround his castle—better the Bull than you. The Bull’s men may even destroy some shields and ballistae with their short-lived assault.

Overview of Sir William’s Castle

Sir William has 5 tower-mounted ballistae, 4 rolling logs, and fire ballistae guarding his gatehouses. His inner wall is surrounded by man traps. His outerwall has a few man traps, but many pitch ditches as does the inner gatehouse.

Our general strategy will be to batter down the outer wall and the inner gatehouse, then take out the tower mounted ballistae, clear out the towers and man two of them with archers, and then go in for the kill.

The Careful Siege

If there are any remaining ground ballistae between your forces and the outer wall, destroy them with your own ballistae force. Place about 6 trebuchets just out of range of the 1st tower ballistae and have them bombard the wall that has the logs. Move your ballistae in close enough to target the ballistae and archers in the tower.

Before you proceed, organize your forces. It’s a good idea to have about 200 archers, 50 melee units, 4 cats, a few catapults, and about 75 ballistae.

When the wall is destroyed, move your ballistae close enough to start bombarding the 2nd wall’s tower ballistae that guard the gatehouse as well as the one on the large tower. While you do this, move your catapults close enough to start bombarding the gatehouse. Be wary of the pitch. If the pitch is lighted in the area of your siege engines, move your forces out!

Move 100 of your archers to the large tower on the Outer wall. They will provide some covering fire and could serve as reinforcements later. After your ballista eliminate the archers and ballista on the larger tower, withdrawal them to outside the castle wall. Sir William’s swordsmen will by sallying forth and your ballistae force will not be able to target them quickly enough to avoid losses.

When the inner gatehouse is down, move your ballistae and protecting cats into the inner bailey. Use them to clear out the remaining archers and last ballistae. Then you can move in archers into the castle to give more covering fire. I recommend sending about 50 archers or more into the large tower. Optionally, you can also send 25 on top of the barracks and 25 to the smaller tower in the northwest corner, but these aren’t necessary as there hardly anymore units to eliminate. You can move the archers from the outer wall’s tower into the inner castle as you see fit.

These archers will: from the large tower, provide general cover fire on enemy units within range; from the smaller ballista tower, will clear out the keep’s archers and crossbow men, from the barracks, stop enemy units from gaining access to the wall.

With your melee units, you can attack Sir William or wait for your archers and ballistae to kill him. If you decide to send in your melee units, pull your ballistae out of range or your own men will learn a lesson in flying. There are 4 killing pits in front of the stairs to his keep, so you may want to send in some cheaper units first. If the survivors are not sufficient, then you can hire some more. Victory is yours! One more chapter to go!

Sir Hugh

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