Shades of Darkness

I completed this scenario as the Hero.

Walkthrough

Raihlag starts with defense and education, I also took logistics, machines, and Summoning. I ran away from the guardians and defeated all the neutral creatures (except for the liches and druids at the beginning). I remember the logistics task: to join a hydra unit in such a way that the guardian wouldn't catch up. I also bought 10 more hydras for crystals; there weren't enough resources for other troops. I defeated Reveran without any problems, with losses of 27 furies, 9 riders, and 1 minotaur. I changed the mentor's skills, resulting in Ballistics, Mentoring, Fire Arrows, and Light (without abilities). Unfortunately, there was no Anti-Magic; I chose the Hive there. The battle against Sarnar was difficult, but I won because he inexplicably cast Berserk on his own Sovereigns, and they started shooting at their own units. When he ran out of mana, he resurrected troops, resulting in losses: all minotaurs and dragons, 10 assassins, and 3 riders. After this, Raihlag gets a town, but the problem is that Vittorio is already running towards us with a high threat level. I trained Letos and bought him Berserk. Letos took 7 archers and attacked Vittorio; Raihlag easily finished off the last unit. This also worked against Talanar, but it was more difficult (he had resistances and Anti-Magic), so I also trained Kifru with Chaos. The game continued like this: Letos and Kifru gradually destroyed enemy troops with hit-and-run tactics, while Raihlag either fought neutral creatures or stayed in the castle. Raihlag also captured the City of the Faceless. There was an interesting moment when Kifru killed Frederick, and he was immediately resurrected with a large army. I fought back and left him alive with only one Zealot. After capturing three human towns and killing all the blue heroes (including Miv), I put Raihlag in charge of guarding the outpost on the road to the elves; even in the tavern, he was already stronger than any elven hero. I captured one elven town and defeated their heroes, except for Orion with a low threat level but an unbreakable (due to Chaos Negation) unit of 450 unicorns. Raihlag went forward, and Orion hid in the castle, where I blocked him. I put Kifru there (Raihlag gave her all his army, except for the red dragons). The elves have a third town, but I didn't take it either, because if you capture it, Ilfina appears with an absurd army and also has Anti-Magic. For some reason, the enemy doesn't hire heroes there. Raihlag changed the mentor's skills (instead of machines and attack, he took Darkness and Sorcery) and broke through the blue outpost with one unit of dragons without losses. Raihlag is now without towns and additional heroes, but he was given a small army. And he must defeat a super creature with huge stats and area-of-effect damage. I thought about what to do and came up with the following: I chose artifacts in a certain way and only put out red dragons. With acceleration, the dragons have 25 initiative, and the super creature also has 25 (and also -4 defense). And this means that the dragons will always survive as long as they are under regeneration, because Raihlag has Ballistics! The dragons used "Destruction," and Raihlag attacked directly and renewed the regeneration. Victory without losses. Then I gathered all the reinforcements, but Saret appeared ahead and positioned himself in such a way that it wasn't immediately clear how to escape from him. But I found a solution: Raihlag must break through the garrison and stay behind it; then Saret will run in the other direction, through another garrison. Then there was a battle with Isabel. I looked at what magic she uses and put on different artifacts. After that, I won the battle, but everyone died except for one fury! The scenario was completed in 284 days, and the statistics show "Battles lost: 62" . And yet, against weak heroes (Iris, Dugald, Vinrael), Kifru usually even won battles!

In the second part, if you play it the way I did... there isn't some extreme hardcore difficulty, although the playthrough turns out to be long. But it's as if it was made for this style of play? Of course, it should be acknowledged that this map is generally more difficult than "Price of Love" and "Path of the Necromancer." In terms of plot and cutscenes, this scenario is, in my opinion, even better than your first two maps! I also liked the gameplay; in the second part, I was constantly coming up with something interesting on the strategic map, and sometimes in battles too (there are many nuances; in the walkthrough, I only described the general ideas).
Thank you very much for the map!