"Several generations passed, and the kingdom which Jarkonas had established grew and prospered freely. But then, in the east, the kingdom of Harondale grew to power, and a bitter rivalry over the borders began."
Border Towns is the second scenario of the Descendants campaign in Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty.
Your rival, the Kingdom of Harondale, is attacking weak towns on your border! Recover from their first strike and crush them completely!OffBck
After Harondale's initial attacks on their towns, the kingdom of Jarkonas gathered their armies and beat back the forces of their enemies.
Walkthrough[]
The kingdom of Jarkonas has a single warlock castle and hero, and three towns: a necromancer, a barbarian, and a sorceress town. Their foes, Harondale, has one wizard castle and four heroes, but on their first turn, three of those heroes will take the player's towns. Only one of them can repel the invasion, and that is the sorceress town. Upgrade it to a castle, then recruit sprites and/or dwarves to protect it.
The player should take gold as the reward, unless they plan to use a Warlock as a starting hero.
Restarting until a Barbarian hero is available for hire can be a good idea, due to the rough terrain at the Wizard castle in the far northeastern corner. Plus, the combat attributes will really help increase the shelf life of the mighty Warlock troops. Use the Warlock as a secondary hero to capture the mines to the west, then send the main hero to the bottom right and attack the stack blocking the sawmill (don't forget the sulfur mine southwest of sawmill!). Once done, send the secondary hero to collect resources, then back to the main castle, so that he can transfer troops to the main hero. The player will be able to access hydras by week one. Now head north from the sawmill, then west to capture the ore mine. If possible, defeat the creatures guarding the gold mine. If not, transfer hydras from the castle to your main hero.
Let the main hero continue to collect resources nearby. The player should be able to access green dragons by the third week. At the start of the third week, send the hero eastward, until they reach a town (that formerly belonged to the player), then northeast. Pass through the rough terrain (thankfully, wizards don't have pathfinding by default, so they move alot slower compared to barbarians) and capture the Wizard castle. The player should be fast enough to capture it without facing a single giant.
Now with the toughest castle out of the way, what remains is the 2-3 towns that was captured by the enemy. Even if they manage to upgrade them to castles, they will still be weak compared to the might of the player's forces.