Overview Run is 2:08:35. 11 scripted missions, 9 skirmish missions. Thanks to HotshotWire and ThinksTheClown. Most useful hero power spikes tend to be either AOE abilities or “leadership” abilities, which boost the dmg of your whole army. Army powers route is quite specific for us in certain missions. Some missions will be slowed down a bit in the interest of a faster overall pace. Moria

Grab “elven gifts”, set hobbits to throw rocks. Gandalf pick up 2 level ups, Legolas attack move to Balin’s tomb, everyone else normal move. Bunch up goblins outside tomb and have Gandalf kill them with his “B.” Lightning sword is on a very short cooldown for this mission so use it. Focus down cave trolls with abilities. Once the north wall of tomb is destroyed have Legolas grab level up and move Gandalf to the fight with the balrog. 4 lightning swords kill the balrog. Make sure to pick up the heal powerup Rohan 1

Eomer due south, Rohirrim SE in Flank stance, build a stable. Eomer kills the goblin lair, grabs treasure and kills uruks to lvl 2. Train a unit of Rohirrim. Kill the base with rohirrim. This level is chosen as it allows 4 extra units of elves at Lothlorien Lothlorien

Move heroes to Lothlorien. Stack heroes and the first 90 supply of elves at NW. Use 1 unit of elves to grab treasures. 3 waves of enemies at NW then move Legolas (and Gandalf if he is rank 3) SW to meet up with last 30 supply of elves and kill the wave there, then move all troops NW for last wave. Rohan 2

Build a stable, then move all units NW and kill the base Amon Hen

Move heroes E to kill uruks, have Gandalf kill the 3 uruk units that come from W with his “B”. Mash out a move order to the trolls so the heroes kill them during the cutscene. Fight uruks then wargs. Mash out an attack move toward Boromir so your heroes get there during the cutscene. Aragorn rushes Lurtz at the SE and uses his “B” to kill him. Everyone else moves to the boats where Gandalf, Legolas and gimli use abilities to kill the trolls. Mission ends when hobbits are next to boat and trolls are dead.

Rohan 3 Kill the warg nest at W to afford another Rohirrim. Have eomer draw away the pikemen. Kill the base.

Rohan 4 Draw away pikemen, train a rohirrim, kill the base

Eaves of Fangorn Kill the lumber mills with the cavalry and have the Ents “rush” the base at NW to kill it. After the cavalry have killed the lumber mills have them focus down buildings.

Rohan 5 Eomer kites pikemen and the cave troll. Rohirrim kill W wargs then buy outpost, then an armory then upgrade forged blades. Hold off on finishing off the base until you can upgrade all 8 rohirrim.

Rohan 6 Fangorn for extra 2 power. 2 Rohirrim kill N base with ents. Gandalf kills pikeman at middle base. Remaining troops kill the SW base then converge on the Middle base. Build outpost, then armory, then heavy armor for all 8 rohirrim.

Helm’s Deep Build farms, a stable. Archery Range to lvl 2 then fire arrows. Stable to lvl 2 with rohirrim then shields. Delete stable, build armory and research all upgrades. Kill off yeoman archers and peasants on first warg riders. 245 pop with 5 rohirrim and remainder elves. Elves with fire arrows and heavy armour.Rohirrim full upgrades. Gimli and Eowyn fight outside wall. Heroes with leadership stay near units. First 2 waves no issues. After 2nd wave spawns use Rohirrim call in to wipe out the crossbowmen who spawn the bases. After/during 3rd wave delete buildings in the courtyard for stables then set 6 rohirrim to train. The strategy of building the stables is a new strategy so we don’t have the timing perfect. Part of this is because the level itself is boring to play Catapults can cost time if they are the surviving unit at the end of the mission. With the bases already “destroyed” the level ends when all the units are killed All the stables are set to build a unit at once; this means that all of the units will be ready to spawn as soon as population space becomes available. Kill most of the uruk army then have the elves suicide themselves on the mines. Ideally you want to end the level with 0 units of elves and as many upgraded units of Rohirrim as possible, with proper timing you needn’t lose any time making this transition. Custcene skip is easy on this level.

Isengard Simple level, have the ents destroy the wall then rush the damn. Have merry and pippin level up. There’s variance on the ents due to how they slow down when set on fire. The cutscene skip on this level requires you to wait a really long time, so be patient. Make sure to pick up lush woods to use in the next mission

Forbidden Pool Initially training 2 units of rangers, then archers, then cavalry. Rangers are squad 1 and move NW killing units and buildings. Heroes squad 3 and in melee stance to kill the lumber mills. Mumakil don’t stampede on patch 1.06 so you can ignore them for this mission. After killing the buildings group your troops up and attack the north base. Draw out the army then kill it and clear the base. Meanwhile send your archers SW to meet up with the rangers you recruit using the lush woods power. Use your troops in the SW to kill the unit producing structures and the lumber mill. Rangers and heroes move SE to focus down the base. Ideally you should kill the SE base and the middle structures at about the same time. Easy cutscene skip

Gondor 1 Having fewer elves and more Rohirrim would speed up future missions but you have to use what you have. Rush Rohirrim to the base and kill it. Remember to use Theodeon’ s “Glorious Charge”

Gondor 2 Mount up your heroes and rush to kill the base. Have Eowyn move to the SE outpost to stop the AI from buying it

Osgiliath Garrison the 2 middle bridge towers and move the 3rd archer unit to garrison the north bridge along with the archer who spawns there. Move all your units to the north bridge with the ranged units at the south end of the bridge. Build 3 blacksmiths and a barracks then maintain constant Archer and Soldier production. Send 1 soldier unit over the bridge to lure out the trolls and ringwraith. Once the north base has had all its defenders killed take it out with soldiers and move your archers south. Use the Rohirrim call in the kill the catapults then wipe the Middle and SE base. Sell the production structures and upgrade Forged blades at lvl 2 blacksmith then upgrade the infantry attacking buildings. In general use archers to kill units and infantry to kill bases.

Cirith Ungol Use Sam to kill the spiders, assign 2 soldiers to their own command groups and use them to free their comrades. Use Q to keep your troops together. Move East and then South killing spiders and freeing soldiers. Pull Sam back before the fight with Shelob so he doesn’t get targeted. Send 1 of your soldiers to free the troops at the NW of Shelob’s lair. Take the outpost and build 3 barracks, then churn out soldiers. Thin out the orcs then use archers to kill units whilst soliders kill the buildings. Easy cutscene skip

Minas Tirith Build blacksmiths, a market and 2 archery ranges. Use trebuchets to kill all non Gondor Archer units. Use the ranges to build up to 30 archer units. Have 26 of them sit at the SE crossroad and the remaining 4 on the walls. Upgrade all units with fire arrows, heavy armor and banners. In general you want to kill the Nazgul using Gandalf and the archers on the wall as them dying earlier seems to speed up the mission. Once you have a 300 supply army replace all buildings on the first tier except the archery ranges with towers. Use lush wood on the SE crossroad where you army is to give them bonus armor and stand Boromir in the middle to take advantage of his leadership bonus. Once the bases spawn split your army and destroy them. Use Gandalf and archers on the walls to kill towers and keep at this until Grond spawns. Grond counts as some kind of super cavalry and instakills any infantry he runs over so make sure to move your archer blob out the way. When Grond gets to the gate use Rohirrim call in, Gandalf and trebuchets to kill it and you won’t be in any danger of the gate dying. Call in the Rohirrim army when it arrives, split it in two and put each half next to one of the spawn points for the enemy units. When the Mumakil arrive use the Rohirrim call in to distract them then focus fire them down with archers. N.B: There is potential for an even faster time if you use the trebuchets to weaken your units, thus allowing you to go up to a max of theoretically 1500 supply of damaged units and then buy them banners to have them regenerate. Could potentially save some time.

Dagorlad The maker and breaker of runs: You have to destroy at least 4 camps around the outside of the map. I advise splitting your cavalry in two and having one half go North and the other go East and meet in the middle at the NE. Try and rebuy bases as you go to stop the AI expanding back to them and remember to thoroughly sweep the bases. This level is still very random and honestly needs some proper optimising. However since we don’t know exactly what army composition we’ll have at this point in the run it’s hard to properly practise

The Black Gate Stick your whole army in the NE corner of the map. … … … … … …If you insist Rohan base: all farms East Gondor base: All blacksmiths West Gondor Base: 4 farms, stoneworker and market then market and range when stoneworker has all upgrades. Keep producing archers from the range whenever you have population space. When the “trolls” warning appears delete the farms and the market and build 5 more ranges. Once you have fire arrows simply have all 6 ranges constantly producing archers that you upgrade with fire arrows and heavy armour. After the “Trolls” warning back your troops off until you can use call in troops between them and the enemy. Use the call in units to distract the mumakil whilst you kill them with archers. Then just stay alive until the mission ends.