Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness Hints

Attacking units on land

• Quick Tip: when something gets attacked (a voice will say "We're being attacked!" or something to that effect), you can tell what's taking damage by looking at the map.  Whichever of your units is flashing red is being attacked.
  
  Once you have an adequate defense set up, the time is right to get to work making an offense.  Early on, all you will have is Footmen and Archers.  In my opinion, Archers are good at defense, but their attacks aren't powerful enough to make a good offense (on the contrary to Warcraft 1, where they were more powerful).  Even with full upgrades, Archers can't fire repeatedly at a good rate.  There is a few second delay between shots, where enemies can get in a lot of hits.  Because of this, I mainly focus on making land units such as Knights, Footmen, Mages, Dwarven Demo Squads, and Ballistas.
  
  Most enemy towns are protected by a couple of Guard or Cannon Towers.  Make sure you have two or three Ballistas to take out Towers.  The range of a Ballista is only 1 more than a Cannon Tower, so make sure you don't positon units in front of the attacking Ballista, or the Cannon Tower will kill them.  Upon first sight of of an enemy approaching you when you are attacking a Tower, have your Ballista(s) retreat and move Knights to intercept the approaching enemy.  A lot of the time the enemy will simply go right for the Ballista, no matter how many Knights you have defending it.  Make sure you protect your Ballistas, because if you lose them, you will not be able to get into the base without heavy losses.  It is much better to wait and make more Ballistas before attacking than to just send in your troops against a Tower.
  
  If for some reason you need to get past a Cannon Tower without killing it, remember that, like Catapults, the Tower will overshoot its initial target.  A Tower will usually attack the closest thing to it, meaning that you can attack it with Archers, and keep a Knight constantly running around the Tower.  The Tower should go after the Knight, which is constantly running so the Tower will over-shoot him, and you might only suffer light losses. It is still much easier to attack it with Ballistas, though.  Also, Blizzard spells from Mages works rather well against Towers, as does Death and Decay for Death Knights.
  
  Dwarven Demoliton Squads are great!  If you ever see a group of enemies such as Grunts or Ogres (it is important that the enemies do not have a ranged attack, because they will not walk up next to the squad) just send a Demolition Squad up right into them.  When the enemy has gathered around you, detonate your explosives and the explosion will kill orseriously damage all of the enemies.  Demolition Squads are also helpful in destroying Towers.  Two squads can kill a Tower by detonating themselves next to it.  BE CAREFUL YOU DON'T HAVE FRIENDLY UNITS CLOSE TO THE SQUADS AS THEY DETONATE!  You will just end up killing your own units.
  
  Once you get into the town, immediately attack the Barracks, only stopping to kill enemy units that could harm you.  Once the Barracks is gone, you are pretty much home free. Attack any additional Towers, and then go for the Peons.  Once the Peons are eradicated (the Great Hall will continue to make more) then attack the Great Hall.  Attack any Peons attempting to repair the Great Hall (or Barracks too, for that matter).  Once the Hall is destroyed, MAKE SURE you have killed EVERY Peon.  If you don't kill every Peon, they'll build a new Great Hall, and you will have to do everything over again.  After the Great hall, the Barracks, and all the Peons are dead, go for any other building that has the capability of making new units, such as Temples of the Damned, Shipyards, Goblin Alchemists and Dragon Roosts.  Depending on what the enemy is attacking you with, you may want to destroy the Dragon Roost first, or the Shipyard, or anything else.  Save the Pig Farms for last, since they don't do anything to kill you.
  
  When using Ballistas, have them attack something different than any close range fighters (Footmen, Knights, etc) otherwise misfired shots from one may hurt your own guys.  If an enemy bring a Ballista your way, either take some Knight to get rid of it, or have one of your own Ballistas get it.
  
  When trying to approach the base, you can usually find a few lone guards.  If you don't want to lose much health in an attack, you can attack the enemy with a Ballista (the enemy won't see you coming). You can surprise the enemy and get an easy kill.  As always, though, make sure that the Ballista is guarded by Knights when the surviving enemies charge it.
  
  An an excellent tactic that's used many times in the scenario walk-throughs is to weaken the outer defense of a town (or find a hole in the defense) and then build a Barracks.  That way, you can churn out guys as you need (provided that your Peasants or Peons back home are working hard enough!)
  

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