Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos/The Long March

Two days later, upon the desolate plains of the Barrens....

Mission Objectives

 * Main Quest - Three Oases
 * Lead the caravan to the first oasis
 * Lead the caravan to the second oasis
 * Lead the caravan to the third oasis
 * Thrall, Cairne and the caravan must survive

Overview
This scenario is quite easy, as long as you don't mind losing a bunch of troops. If you try to keep everyone alive, it becomes much harder.

In this scenario, it is important to realize that your main enemy, the Centaurs, have an awful lot of missile troops, and they like to pick on your weak units. Furthermore, you don't have any instant healing, which was a major feature of the first two parts of this campaign, and not much healing capacity at all, really. Therefore, your Trolls can die very rapidly unless you take special precautions. What you should do is keep your Grunts and Thrall where you expect to be engaged, keep your Trolls back a bit, commit your durable units to combat early, and only commit your Trolls when the enemy units are already engaged.

Because you will generally be fighting at least three units at a time, Chain Lightning is quite useful. It is probably best to use your wolves only occasionally, and primarily for scouting.

Strategy
Cairne's caravan moves automatically on its own schedule. It moves fairly slowly, but it does move. Your best bet is to sweep the area in front of the caravan. If you do this, the caravan will only have to deal with fairly weak attacks that randomly teleport in from any direction, usually from behind. The caravan has several powerful guards. Half of them are liable to be dead by the end of the march, but Cairne himself and the supply beasts should be fine.

Alternatively, you could use your forces in the close escort role. If you do this, you will probably lose less troops, but you will gain less experience and collect fewer items. This means that you will be trading performance in this scenario, which has no long-term effect, for campaign performance. However, experience gets cut off in campaign scenarios, and you are liable to earn far more experience than you can use, so it really comes down to just the items.

Start by selecting all your units, and send them to the left (west). Group your troops - one group for the Grunts, one for the Trolls, and one for the whole force. Near the first intersection, you should be attacked by a bunch of enemy units. Waste them, and then deal with the scattered enemy units in the near vicinity. This will likely be a good time to cash in a Healing Ward.

There is a Centaur base in the SW map corner. If you ignore them, they will ignore you. However, you should have the time to clear out that corner, gain some experience, and collect the Potion of Mana and the Scroll of Healing that can be found there. Since Thrall's pocketses are full, you can't carry these items with you, so just cash them in immediately to get back to full health and mana.

After dealing with the SW corner, head over to the first oasis (Pool of Health). You get three Grunts as reinforcements when you arrive there, and you really shouldn't have lost anyone yet. Heal all your units, but don't block the oasis, because Cairne's units probably want to heal, too.

After healing Thrall's forces to full strength, head north east a bit from the first Oasis. Thrall can choose to fight some Murlocs up north and gain some experience points or continue eastward. While moving east Thrall will find some boxes with two marauders guarding them. One of them will contain a mana potion, so pick it up if Thrall needs it and continue to move east. After reaching the end of this path, go north until some Kodos are spotted to the east and a separate west path. Thrall can choose to fight the Kodos to get claws of attack +3, but they do hit Thrall's forces pretty hard. Put up a healing ward and take them down as quick as possible. After picking up the claw of attack +3, continue by heading west. When the caravan reaches the Goblin Merchant, the caravan will suffer more frequent attacks of the marauders. Ensure the health of Thrall's troops is in good shape, if not use a Healing Ward. From the merchant shop, head north until Thrall is able to travel northeast towards the second Oasis. Rest Thrall's troops here and obtain a few Catapults.

Continue by heading east from the Oasis. Keybind the siege weapons and troops. This can be done by selecting just the siege weapons and press Ctrl1. Select Thrall and his troops without the siege weapons and press Ctrl2. Now it's easier to alternate between the two teams without having to mouse over them. Soon Thrall will see two towers and a few centaurs. Drag the centaurs out away from the tower, bring up the catapults and destroy the two towers, make sure the siege weapons aren't taking damage. There will be a tower north on the right side from the first set of towers and another one north leading to a small centaur camp. There you can find the Pendant of Energy, which gives the hero 150 extra mana. If Thrall wants the Pendant of Energy, Thrall and his troops will have to fight a hero centaur who has an AOE (area of effect) stun and will resurrect when he is killed the first time. Take out the other centaur that is with him first, then take the hero out. Just make sure to use healing wards. Also, have some of the siege weapons attack the hero and this fight will be a breeze. After picking up the Pendant, head west and follow the path, taking out towers along the way until you reach the third Oasis.

With the caravan at the third Oasis the battle is won.