Field of Strife (Good) – Champions: Return to Arms

This guide will walk you through the Field of Strife in the Plane of War as a good-aligned player in Champions: Return to Arms.

Summary

Description

When you first enter this area you will encounter Engineer. Since there’s no “the” in front his name, it must be more than just a job to this elf. He will tell you of a secret entrance into the next area, which would be better described as “well defended” than secret. Ahead are three bridges that he will get you across as long as you make it safe for him to do so. Basically, that means you have to go everywhere and/or kill everything in this area to get to the exit.

This area is straight up with branches to the left and right that loop back towards the main trunk line with something you need to do at the end of each one. Unless you are playing a cleric or wizard, you should buy the best ranged weapon you can afford for this area. Thrown weapons are both cheap and effective especially at low levels. Chests in this area appear as lean-to tents, and they blend in to the background if you aren’t looking for them.

To lower the first bridge you have to kill 13 orcs, which means every monster before the bridge. Many are on a higher level than you so many spells will not reach them and of course if you want to melee you will have to take the long way around. If you are far enough away from the stakes in ground, thrown weapons and arrows will be able to hit them. Run through this section until you reach the bridge before you start fighting, then draw the melee orcs away from their archer support before killing them. If you are good at avoiding the archer fire, you can use ranged attacks to kill the archers from below closer to the save point. This way you don’t have to worry about fighting both the melee orcs and the archers on the higher level at the same time. Once all the orcs are dead, Engineer will advance, open the bridge and tell you the next thing he is scared of…

The “Evil Shamans” that Engineer is scared of are only dangerous if they can resurrect allies. There is one each at the two dead-end branches that circle back towards the save point you can’t get to yet. As with all mini-bosses you will know a shaman is close because their name appears at the bottom of your screen. When you see the hit bar appear, lure their bodyguard orcs (four each) back with the other corpses away from the shaman so he can’t resurrect them. The shaman’s ranged spells look impressive, but they don’t do that much damage. The spell effects are easily dodged, but they are so weak that it doesn’t matter if they hit you. The shamans are much more dangerous in melee where they can actually deal damage, so use ranged attacks against them.

Now Engineer wants you to deal with two catapults before lowering the last bridge. The raining fire and rocks up ahead looks intimidating but this is really the easiest part. When you see the catapult fire, wait at each of the bottlenecks that leads into that “room.” There are orcs up ahead and fighting them while fire is raining down on you is a bad idea. Fire some ranged attacks into the area to get the orcs to come to you, even if you can’t see them.

Tip: If you zoom in your camera and position it properly you can actually see further ahead than if you zoom out your camera all the way.

Fight the orcs outside the catapult zone while the orcs are still inside getting fire and rocks rained on them. It’s very likely that the orcs will be killed by the catapults even if you don’t hurt them. When the coast is clear, pick a wall to hug and advance and repeat at the next bottleneck. To the left is a path that branches in two directions. There is a catapult at the end of each branch. Ignite each ammo wagon and get out of the way and soon Engineer will open the last bridge. He says it leads to Drundar, but that area is only accessible if you are on the evil path. The hole in the ground exits to the Armory / War Room area.

Most Efficient Route

Hug the left wall.

Fastest Route

Same as above. In the shaman area you can choose to ignore the paths down at the end of the left and right branches. But basically you have to go everywhere to access the exit to the next area.