WC 2 Mission 6, The Badlands: Meeting Cho'gall

For the next mission, we’ve got an escort assignment. We’re introduced to Cho’gall, the chieftain of the Twilight’s Hammer clan and an Ogre-Mage. Ogres are a race of large, two-headed brutes that generally aren’t very smart, but their enormous size and strength makes them some of the best warriors in the Horde. They’re generally used as shock troops and are the Horde’s counterpart to the Alliance’s Knight unit. Cho’gall, though, also happens to be a student of Gul’dan the warlock and has learned powerful magical spells. In-game, he’s got three spells: Eye of Kilrogg (creates a floating eye that can scout the battlefield), Bloodlust (dramatically boosts the attack value of a friendly unit) and Runes (creates mystical land mines). Cho’gall’s en route to Grim Batol to inspect oil production there, and Horde intelligence believes that an Alliance force is planning to ambush him and his escorts in this area. We need to make sure the Ogre-Mage gets through safely, and the briefing warns us that if he’s killed we’ll be executed for our failure.

Our forces begin the mission in the northwest corner of the map, and our goal is to bring Cho’gall to the marker in the opposite southeastern corner. Aside from Cho’gall himself, we start with an army of eleven Grunts, eight Troll Axethrowers, and three Catapults. It seems like a lot, but we’re actually quite outnumbered by Alliance forces on the map and with no Peons or resources, we have to make each unit count. Luckily, the Eye of Kilrogg spell lets us create expendable scouts, so I have Cho’gall create one and have it move ahead. It finds that the path ahead is protected by a Ballista, so I move one of our own Catapults into position to neutralize the Ballista. The two units are evenly matched and destroy each other, which is alright. Now that the Ballista’s gone, I can move one of our other Catapults into position to attack the enemy Footmen and Elven Archers in the way. The Catapult has a strong range advantage over the Archers and walls prevent the Footmen from rushing the Catapult, so we’re able to clear out the area with no problems. Once the coast is clear, I move our other units forward and destroy the wall blocking our way to the south. We can now continue our advance.

After sending an Eye of Kilrogg scout ahead and finding a few enemy troops, I have Cho’gall cast Bloodlust on four of our units--that’s the maximum he can do before his mana runs out—and then send a full force of nine units to engage the Alliance force. Between our superior numbers and the Bloodlust buff, we easily clear out the opposition with no losses. We now have a choice between continuing to go straight or busting through a wall to the west. An Eye of Kilrogg reveals that going past the wall takes us past a single Footman, then loops around and lets us attack some units blocking the main path. I decide to go through the wall, so I have a full nine-unit attack force destroy the wall and then head past it. We wipe out the opposition with no losses, although some of our units are getting low on health, and then I move the rear units forward to link up with our strike force. We’re now near a coastline, and there’s an Elven Destroyers patrolling it; if we move our forces too close they’ll get massacred. Luckily, Catapults significantly outrange Destroyers, so I have one of the Catapults destroy the enemy ship with ease. I know that there’s a second Destroyer further south, so I move the Catapult forward a bit more. Things go sour, though, as there are two Footmen nearby. The Catapult easily kills one, but the second rushes forward and is able to get too close for the Catapult’s ranged attack. Our other troops make short work of him, but not before he gets in several hits on our Catapult.

I have an Eye of Kilrogg scout out the other Destroyer, and this time we sink it without incident. From there, we simply need to head east towards the Circle of Power, and I send a full nine-unit war party to clear the way. I make a point of choosing our healthiest units for this war party and giving them Bloodlust, so it’s a solid force. That’s important, because the path to our objective is heavily guarded. We’re intercepted by five Footmen and two Elven Archers, and they inflict considerable losses on our strike force. Nevertheless, we win the skirmish and now we have a clear path to our objective. I have several remaining Grunts and Axethrowers reinforce the surviving strike force members, and then move them to the southeastern corner of the map. There’s a small Horde base here, with a Circle of Power that Cho’gall needs to tag. We can’t actually use any of these structures since we have no resources, but that’s okay. With the coast clear, I select Cho’gall plus some remaining troops and move him to the Circle. There are still a lot of enemy forces on the map, but once Cho’gall tags the Circle the mission automatically ends in victory and we don’t need to worry about anything else.