The Legends of Arkain: The True Story 7.5 - The Southern Realm 

I think I made this map a lot harder on myself by insisting on using Pechan's leadership boni. It's the only chance to choose it, but his mechanical units cannot be healed by Healing Wards like any other frontline unit. We also can choose the clan of our basic Barracks units and I try to make an odd Goblin/ranged Skullblade composition work here. Dragon Lancers are the Skullblade's Totem units that are quite good, but their melee Bladeswirlers are weaker than other Grunt variants. Between this and Shredders not able to be healed easily, my frontline suffers versus Bull Regiment and the Golden Guard. I think a better, but still unique combo would be Okri's boni combined with Bloodhand Clan Thugs instead. I head south for a blessedly easy gold mine (after the last two maps) and push to secure the ramp where enemy attacks converge. Boar Regiment is hidden all around this map and actually functions as more than just a nuisance this time, while the Redfist also sends in trickles of units constantly. The cinematic with Grella happens, I wait for one enemy attack wave, and move against Bull Regiment first since their base doesn't have a hero to contend with. I want to remove their strong units from the rest of the map. Destroying an enemy base activates the Golden Guard. They mention the Bulls failing, but any enemy base will trigger this event and it tends to mess with attack wave timings. The Golden Guard will immediately send out a large attack and overlaps with one from the Salrian base too, so I halt offensive actions to consolidate and hold off this super wave. By expecting this, I am able to minimize losses and immediately push down the Salrian base before the next attack waves. The Order of the Arcane falls quickly since my Dark Troll ally is focused on it with me, leaving only the Golden Guard. I tower spam my bottom base to absorb their attacks to allow me to complete the Dwarven Optional Quest in both corners of the map. I wanted to clear those as part of a more optimal path through the map instead of having to travel back and forth, but there was too much value in removing the outer enemy bases first to get some breathing room. Even with my odd army composition of Shredders/Dragon Lancers, my allies and I break in and finish up the last base. Remember that walls can be targeted with siege weaponry to open up pathing and unstick clumps of units. I quite like this map because there are so many fun options to tackle it with, but you need to be aware of how the Golden Guard activation can be an inflection point since it tends to create a combined super attack wave you may not be prepared to deal with.

How the hell.. did Jay really record this much without audio? Jebus fair game for not rerecording this much content that would suck..

I guess the reason golden guards x redfist never really team up is that one is too arogant, the other is too Obsess with killing orcs.