8 - Dol Guldur

Objective: Locate and capture the Northern Signal Fire. Locate and capture the Southern Signal Fire.

This mission is long but not overly difficult if you take the time to prepare defenses, upgrade your units fully, and maximize your command points before launching the attack against Dol Guldur. There’s no rush. As long as you can fend off some meager attacks from the goblins, you can take the necessary time to prepare your forces for the assault on the enemy stronghold.

Your initial objective is to capture two Signal Fires, one in the northwestern corner of the map and the other in the southeastern corner. These Signal Fires alert ally reinforcements, which will arrive in mere minutes after capturing the Signal Fires.

You begin in the southwestern corner of the map. Your first goal is to erect a tightly packed set of defenses so you can train units and acquire upgrades without worrying about the threats from enemy raids. Construct a few Mallorn Trees around your base to fund your war machine. Ideally they should be close to your defensive structures so you can adequately defend the trees but they are cheap to replace should the structures be demolished by enemy attack.

Construct an Elven Barracks, Green Pasture, and Eregion Forge. Select the forge and upgrade the structure then purchase all of the unit improvements. As resources become available, upgrade your melee, cavalry, and ranged troops with their respective improvements.

Enemy raids arrive from the north, northeast, and east. Position your towers along these angles and place a Fortress in its center. Upgrade all towers with Silverthorn Arrows and place archers inside for increased firepower. Place Heroic Statues to aid your units and don’t forget a Mirror of Galadriel to heal your units in between battles.

You’re in no hurry. Defend in the southwest corner while you build a huge, upgraded army.

Be patient. Leave some command points for Ents. Construct an Ent Moot and train Treebeard along with an Ent. You’ll receive some more Ents in reinforcements but the more the merrier; the Ents are extremely helpful in bombarding Dol Guldur’s ridiculous amount of catapult towers.

When enemy raids arrive, lure them close to your Fortress and towers then engage with cavalry with support from archers. After the short battle, retreat to the Mirror of Galadriel to restore your hit points. You’re led by Elrond before reinforcements arrive. He offers Leadership to nearby troops, can summon a Whirlwind against enemy troops, can reveal map locations with Farsight, and can heal nearby allies and restore their abilities with the Restoration ability. Later when you have more heroes in the mission, use Athelas to heal nearby friendly heroes.

Continue to defend the southwest corner of the map until you have maximized your command points and constructed a Fortress with a mixture of Ent and Axe Tower emplacements as well as four to six Battle Towers to the north and east of the Fortress. When ready, gather Elrond and your battalions of archers, warriors, and cavalry units and proceed east. You can leave behind a few battalions but your defenses should be able to handle anything that attempts to overtake your base.

Bonus Objective: Destroy all Spider Lairs.

Proceed east toward the southeastern corner of the map. You’ll encounter four Spider Lairs along the way. Defend the spiders populating the lair then demolish the lair. Mordor won’t give up the Signal Fire lightly. Expect to face towers, catapults, warriors, archers, and trolls. Counter the catapults, tower, and trolls quickly then focus fire on the warriors and archers. Finally level all of the enemy structures in the area before capturing the Signal Fire to trigger the arrival of Erebor reinforcements.

Return to the base then proceed north to the second Signal Fire in the northwest corner. Destroy four Spider Lairs along the way to complete the bonus objective. Expect to face similar defenders at the second Signal Fire. Eliminate the catapult quickly then towers, trolls, and remaining units and structures. You can use powers (and new powers if you’ve acquired Flood and Sunflare) but you should be able to handle the defenders easily. Capture the Signal Fire to trigger the next set of reinforcements.