So, it's been a while since I played custom scenarios. Probably since Echoes of the Void. But as they say, Sandro is enticing. The Necropolis is enticing, and with Sandro, it's twice as much!

Plot. Headcanons will be headcanons. Fine, let's say Sandro is a walking collection of souls, even though in the original lore everything was much simpler; but back then, having just gained access to the powers of the void, wouldn't he have erased the memories of the Faceless and Belket? I recall that Sandro erased the memory of Namtaru's mother by directly destroying her memories in the Invisible Library, pulling off a complex maneuver with a mask. Surely he didn't lose a scroll that could do this effortlessly?) Or why, at the time of Sandro's apprenticeship, Kha-Beleh is only just conquering Shio, even though he clearly ruled it long before then. And demon-worshipping dwarves are something entirely new for Ashan—where were they later, one might ask, when the Empire fell to demons and demons were hanging out in the Seven Cities? On the other hand, there was a demon-worshipping orc... which is an absolute nonsense. So it's quite acceptable. Otherwise, it's pretty good. A solid plot compared to many maps on the forum, with decent cutscenes and a final twist.

Characters and Dialogues. Here, things aren't great. Sandro looks like himself only in the map description. Otherwise, he's just some random necromancer, and a green one at that. Also nervous and schizophrenic. You'd think he's still young, not even a lich yet, but in the finale, Sandro drops a phrase along the lines of "well, idk where part three is, I have enough on my plate," and I realize this isn't that hot void-mancer whose lore I dug into and for whom I even made a large custom scenario for Heroes 6. Unfortunately, due to the need to translate it into English, the map was frozen at 90% completion, but I admit it might still be released. The same can generally be said about everyone. The Faceless aren't Faceless, Sandro isn't Sandro... it's all in the dialogues. The plot is not bad, but the dialogues are quite weak. And it's not because of a couple of typos that remain; those are trifles—it's specifically the atmosphere. When the head of a dwarf clan serving demons suddenly says "forgive me, but I will fight you, because otherwise Bobik from Shio will eat me," and this dwarf once killed another dwarf using powers of darkness so badly that the whole clan was exiled, it becomes at least amusing, at most funny. And that's not good, because the plot and characters are serious. Why would he apologize? He'd more likely be rude to Sandro with typical dwarven hot-headedness. But this is by no means a failure, because there are many maps where things are a million times worse. I just love Sandro and it's kind of disappointing... For the record, Sandro is on the same level as Arantir and Markel for me)

Level Design and Landscape. Everything is spot on here. The map is beautiful. Except that some key points are inconveniently placed. In particular, running to the final portal takes a very long time even with Logistics. A shortcut or something would be nice... And the vampires. I found the vampires very late. Almost at the end of the game. The corner of the map isn't the best place for them. Obviously, if you play the map a second time it's not as critical, but until the dwarves and demons are defeated, it's problematic to run into the corner of the map while they keep rushing your cities at every opportunity. And farming vampires at the end of the game isn't very efficient. I focused on ghosts and skeletons. Moreover, those brave pale bloodsuckers travel many days from their cave to any city. To the Necropolis it's 7-8 days. Also, on the first playthrough, it's easy to encounter a thousand or more dwarven dragons before the final portal. Killing them as a necromancer with summoning magic isn't hard, but it takes a long time...

Gameplay. Overall, it's not bad. Although the map is simple. We kill the first dwarf who comes to us (and he'll arrive quickly on a hero). After that, the dwarves will likely stop attacking on their own. Then we build up the guild in hopes of good t5 spells and slowly, city by city, demon by demon, capture the map. Upon completion, we max out the hero and go try to defeat the final boss. It's quite normal, although after victory over the enemies a boring, drawn-out grind begins, because you can't take down the boss right away. In this regard, Red Haven rules: usually there, you leveled up to the necessary coolness before having the chance to attack the boss; here, you can break through to him with low stats and a couple of Darkness spells. And then spend a long time leveling up to handle a rather serious opponent. In general, the boss is several times harder than the map itself. Playing as Sandro is quite simple: he has an excellent specialty and he's a necromancer, and as someone once wrote to me, it's hard to make a difficult scenario for a necromancer)

Enemies and Quests. Although the dwarves have three cities, only one is fully built, and another is just a shanty town without walls. Yes, the dwarves assemble powerful armies, but they don't have powerful heroes, meaning their danger is exhausted by the early stage of the game. The demons are similar: high-level heroes, but weak themselves with rather sturdy armies. Even if two demons merge their army into one (which happened to me), they won't become significantly more dangerous. The main demon Malik in the side quest is strong in stats but completely devoid of magic, which is very strange. It was only unpleasant that my Sandro had low attack and even with an Offense skill above 16, he never raised his attack. So some heroes with high defense were still annoying. Demons buy heroes, including killed dwarves. This was irritating. I would have banned one-time recruitment for the red player in dwarf cities and written a script to instantly transfer red's cities back to the dwarf. Next, side quests. I already mentioned the vampires: too far to walk. I understand the author wanted to lead the player away from stereotypical vampire gameplay, but if a vampire spell drops in the mages guild (none dropped for me), the same will likely happen where anyone else just replaces the vampires. Ghosts, for example. I never completed the mushroom quest: I was too lazy to look for mushrooms, and judging by the comments, for destroying a huge army of various earls and priests, I would have been given a hundred mummies, useless for my Darkness mage. The quest definitely needs to be easier. The portal quest is not obvious: I thought it just blocked red heroes, but it turned out it nerfs the final boss script. Good thing I completed it anyway, more for fun, since I had defeated the red player long ago. I've already commented on the main storyline above.

Miscellaneous. The final boss is strong but uses useless Chaos magic. Useless because what is his damage against same-month weekly growth, heh))) Nevertheless, a tough guy, and then a strange enemy comes out after him. A heap of knowledge, zero magic. Why does a Faceless need 46 knowledge if he casts nothing? For pathos?))) But overall the boss is very much my style. I have a similar dwarf, except with Light magic and even higher stats. Lots of resists, the Mountain King set is very disruptive. Quite good, but against the rest of the map he might even be too strong. Either he's too strong, or the other enemies are too weak. Depends on how you look at it.

Other trifles. The same-gem mine guard in the player's territory is much more dangerous than all other mines, and gems are far from a top-1 resource for the Necropolis. In general, the underground has enough strangely weak squads with low-level artifacts as rewards and very strong squads with questionable rewards. Neutral balance limps in places.

Most likely the best tactic on the map is to rush. Rush the mages guild, then rush the dwarves using that magic. If you drag it out, neutrals become extremely beefy, but meanwhile the best artifacts are bought either in shops or from the hunter-merchant. If desired, you can simply pull the necessary spells and artifacts from stores. Also, the boss can actually be defeated by numbers thanks to the three dwarf cities. I would even suggest depriving the player of recruitment there, but giving high-level undead weekly for owning these cities. Because Sandro with a bunch of dwarves is a viable way through—at least rune priests are excellent shooters, although you'll have to equip an item for morale.

More trifles: two objects to the left and right of the entrance to the top dwarf city play a cruel joke on the AI: my red player was simply blocked by a caravan and got stuck as the last demon in that city.

Overall opinion: neutral. Not thrilled, but I can't call the map bad either.

6.5 out of 10, because in scenarios, dialogues and plot come first for me

Respectfully,

AstralLein

P.S. my apologies if the review seemed toxic. My manners can be specific, but I never mean anything bad.