Part 60: Haven Campaign, Map Four, Part Two

Okay, so capture the Fort and... another Hero just stepped out of that one-way portal. Hmm, Anton needs two turns to get back to the Fort and Valeska can't quite match up to the opposing Hero. What to do, what to do...



When you have to hire a new Hero and custom build them just to stave off an enemy Hero, it means that 1. Invasions are really getting annoying and 2. Your secondary Hero is not very good at her job.



This fight also took me more tries than I want to admit, especially because I was trying for a perfect win and apparently, Petrification doesn't work on Celestials because it's considered a negative effect, which is blocked by Absolute Purity.

MAGIC HEROES!

I finally managed it in the end though, thanks to a combination of Fire Storm, Fire Ball, Blindness, and Summon Light Elemental (those things are amazing). Eat my perfect win, Magic Heroes! Valeska, start learning some of these spells soon.



Moving on, Anton captures the second underground Inferno town...



And takes out this wandering one soon after.

Speaking of Anton, it should come as no surprise that I consider his campaign to be one of the weaker ones overall. While his campaign isn't exactly easy (you can find problems for a Might Anton every map), most of the supposed difficulity is merely because of Magic Heroes - as we saw, Map 3 is hilariously easy without taking them into consideration, and this map will soon follow.



The final Inferno Fort of the Cultists is captured, and they're essentially wiped out. Anton then heads upstairs, while Valeska picks up where he left off by going through the now removed barrier.



Jezebeth! You, a heretic! You've abandoned Elrath... Why?

I will live forever! And you will simply die!

You know, I was going to go on a rant on how this comes completely out of left field, and it feels like Jezebeth coincidentally 'turned evil' with no hints just because they needed to throw in a mini-boss for this last map. Then I realized I really, really didn't care about Jezebeth and that I'd completey forgotten she existed till I played this game again (and I didn't even remember she betrays you till this map).



So we're going to leave her alone, because she simply stays there and waits for you to fight her (and we can come back when we can squash her). Not before just walking up and stealing that Crystal Mine that she never takes a move to claim back (the territory is considered neutral, so you will still get the benefits).



Meanwhile, Anton heads west. We could go south first to knock out the pesky invasion force, but the west is easier anyway, and we might as well get those reinforcements.

I originally thought, when writing up this post, that I was going to have a lot of bad things to say about Anton's lack of character development. Then I realized that not only is every other Griffin aside from Anastasya guilty of that, but Anton actually improves over the course of his journey.



An easy to claim Fort is to the west (I think it's even undefended), and south is another Inferno town.

See, on one hand, Anton's low point is in his first map, where he drove out the peaceful Orcs and stood by while Salvatore burned out Jorgen's eyes. On the other hand? He doesn't really get any worse after that. Of course, one could just attribute to the fact he doesn't do anything notable after killing Anastasya.



I think this might actually be the largest army on this map. Those Ravagers! I might actually pull out the entire army for this one.



The one-shot Puppet Master awarded by the Shadow Comb is great, as it allows one to take control of one of the opponent's stacks for a round. The enemy will even attack the Puppeted creatures with their own units to break the effect - this allows you to tie up two enemy stacks for a round.



After three levels of Guardian Angel being effective but stagnant, the level IV ability is actually interesting. Aside from providing invincibility, it also heals the stack for 23% of its initial amount. This makes it a possible game-changer when you need it, and makes high-Morale builds even better for the Haven. Taking lots of damage? Guardian Angel fills up faster, too. Luckily the one-use a round prevents it from being too powerful.



MA- oh. This is a Might Hero. We actually had a decent slugfest against a Might Hero.

That is acceptable.

Click here to listen to the conversation!


Michael! There are two legions of undead coming from the south.

Impressive. I suppose your undead Aunt had a hand in that. She lives up to her legend.

Let my army clear a passage to meet up with them. If it's indeed my Aunt, I'm the only one she'll trust.

I need your troops! This will be the final push, and it must be decisive.

Push them towards Sveltana and me once we've established new lines.

That will work. The Unicorn will take your place. We'll drive them right into you.

Must... not... make gay jokes...

Anton! Tell Aunt Sveltana for me when you see her. Tell her to 'keep her point up'.

What?

She'll understand. Now get going before I change my mind.

Hm.



Guardian Angel IV is pretty amazing, yes. Celestials and Intimidation all the way from here!

One strike against Anton is that, well... he's a non-entity sometimes. Aside from that one map, he never really does much of his own till now. There hasn't been a single decision up till this point where he wasn't following orders by or being influenced by Michael, Cate or the Voices. Add in a spectacularly boring cast (Salvatore dies and Michael and Valeska are just... there, and Jezebeth has such little relevance I forgot her), and that first map actually sounds better than it should be, because it's actually polarizing - you're actually driven to dislike Anton. Unfortunately the best they could do afterwards was steer him towards mediocrity.

It seems like Heroes has a hard time making decent, likable Haven main characters. I think maybe Lysander from IV and Godric and Freyda from V are okay, but none of them seem to be big fan favourites.



Hey, what are you doing with a set piece? Give me that so I can give it to Valeska (I guess...).

Okay, let's move onto meet up with the Stag duch-



Oh fudgenipples. Valeska why are you even getting attacked by an enemy Hero? Okay, there's an elegant solution to this.



We lose about 30 Vestals to retreat, but uh... we live! And we can revive her at the tavern afterwards.

And on that unglorious note, we'll stop for today and finish this another day.