As of a few minutes ago, the Tomb of the Dragon King has officially been plundered! Priestesses of Krypta definitely helped. What else did? The following:
1) A level-3 Temple of Fervus and a few Cultists.
2) Warriors of Discord.
3) A Wizard Guild alongside a few towers.
4) A Temple of Lunord, to help speed up everyone involved at times. Most of all, though?
5) Dwarves and their ballista towers.

Once I felt built up enough, I let my heroes destroy the 3 keeps and let the tomb get exposed. The entire flight of dragons that went after my kingdom met their end to a combination of a flurry of ballista bolts and a few Lightning Storms. ;)

In the end, I had 2 Dwarf heroes, a Warrior of Discord, a Cultist and a Priestess (and her skeletons) that ultimate tore down the tomb and destroyed the last few dragons that opposed me. Phew... That was exhausting!

Closing in on beating Darkness Falls. Just need to be able to beat Styx and Stones within rapid succession of each other. As far as heroes, I have 4 Paladins around level 10 with relatively upgraded gear as well as 3 or 4 Rangers around the same level range and gear as well as poison (level 2 Rogues Guild) and Fire Balm, and finally a level-9 Monk. I might want to get a Wizards Guild going for enchanting gear, and I'm questioning if their spells can easily chip away at the health of the bosses. A shame you can't have Dwarves in this mission but surprisingly, Goblins decided to help me. Huh. :o

Nice!

I'd say go ahead and get an upgraded Wizard Guild for enchanting purposes if you have the money. If you have a Sorcerer Abode-3, then you can set a bounty of one of the bad guys, and after your heroes kill that one, you can try setting a bounty on the other guy and also open a Gate to where that bad guy is located. Hopefully that can get your heroes there faster.

Darkness Falls was completed as of last night (Can't find something witty to say, honestly). I had to backtrack and make the following changes:
1) Build a second Warriors Guild.
2) Recruit the Gnomes before the Goblins join up.
3) Build a Temple of Helia and recruit all 4 Solarii.

In the end, Styx and Stones met their end to a bunch of Paladins hasted up by Vigilance from my Temple of Dauros wailing on them in rapid succession. The Solarii helped repel the last wave or two of Shadow Beasts alongside my Paladins and Rangers, who had all smithed and enchanted gear. Rangers utilized poison from my Rogues Guild and Fire Balm from my Sorcerer's Abode to soften up Shadow Beasts. Gnomes mostly helped rapidly repair buildings at the end of waves. Either way, I got that chip off my shoulder.

Now to figure out which I can finish next. Leaning towards "Vengeance of the Liche Queen" or "Brashnard's Ultimate Sphere of Power." In the latter, I'm questioning if I can possibly ditch the Temples of Krolm and pick up Paladins with enough time and money before I'm overrun. Barbarians aren't terrible, but they lack armor and resistance to survive for a long time and Rage of Krolm gets expensive, FAST. =/

About 13 hours ago, The Valley of Serpents was liberated! My strategy?
1) Building a Temple of Dauros, 2 Warriors Guilds, a Rogues Guild, A Wizards Guild and several Wizards Towers surrounding my one surviving Elven Bungalow in my base.
2) Building an Outpost dead center in the map and later on an Embassy.
3) Using the Gate spell from the Sorcerer's Abode to save the original Bungalow.
4) Holding out against several waves of Ice Dragons until backup arrived in the form of high-level Gnome, Dwarf and (finally) Elf champions.
5) Upgrading my Blacksmith, Marketplace, Rogues Guild, Temple of Agrela and Wizards Guild to max level.
6) Researching Fire Balm at my Magic Bazaar.
7) Picking away at the Serpent Dens (namely the ones closest to my kingdom) slowly until the Elf Champions arrived.

My recruited heroes that were MVP in this case? 6 Paladins and one Rogue. Managed to keep all 4 Healers I started with as well as 1 or 2 Adepts.

Took me 37 in-game days but I got it done!

And as of about 10 minutes ago, Brashnard's Ultimate Sphere of Power has been recovered! In this case, the key was the following:
1) Building - and upgrading - my Marketplace and Blacksmith ASAP.
2) Thanks to having a higher gold reserve, both starting and ending the mission, I kept my Temples of Krolm full of Barbarians.
3) Upgraded my Palace to level 2 and recruited Dwarves. Built some Ballista Towers around my kingdom.
4) Built a Rogues Guild and Wizards Guild, upgrading both to max and (eventually) filling those guilds. Also built a Library to help improve my Wizards.
5) Built a few Wizard Towers to back up the Ballista Towers around my two Trading Posts (the latter had to be rebuilt twice).
6) Building a Fairgrounds to help level up my heroes.
7) Put down Explore Flags in various spots as well as Attack Flags for buildings housing the spheres. Also put Attack Flags on very dangerous monsters and utilizing the Rage of Krolm when dealing with them.

Hopefully I'll get Vengeance of the Liche Queen down soon enough. If not that one, then probably Urban Renewal or the Siege will be won next. Either way, I'm on a roll! :D

Woo! Go you!

As of 11:08 PM EST last night, Urban Renewal was completed, much to the dismay of all lowlifes in the kingdom. My strategy?
1) Building a Temple of Dauros, Temple of Agrela, Warriors Guild, Rangers Camp, and (when I had enough gold) two Trading Posts. Didn't build a Blacksmith until pretty much the end (and even then, didn't really get a chance to use it. Also didn't bother researching potions at the Magic Bazaar because enemy heroes would use them against me. Didn't build a Wizards Guild for the same reason.
2) Abusing Market Day with my Marketplace until I had enough gold to purchase what I needed, namely Paladins. Once I got much of the map settled, I started researching potions and Rings of Protection at the Marketplace and upgraded it to max level. Then I really started getting a sound financial state.

Paladins were once again MVP here, even without improved gear. I also managed to recruit 2 Healers and one Monk, who stayed alive to the end. Rangers without Healing Potions and improved gear are too squishy, sadly. Healers would just as much help keep Palace Guards alive as they fended off enemy heroes or monsters later on alongside healing my Paladins and Monk. My offensive against enemy heroes actually started by accident. A monster attacked my kingdom, a rival hero got involved, and then for whatever reason, both kingdoms started fighting each other.

So that leaves the following left.
Original game: Vengeance of the Liche Queen and The Day of Reckoning.
Expansion: Rise of the Ratmen, The Fortress of Ixmil, The Siege, Legendary Heroes, Balance of Twilight, The Spires of Death, and Vigil for a Fallen Hero.
Downloadable Content: The Wrath of Krolm.

This is shrinking more than my waistline did about 3 years ago (Not saying I was significantly overweight, but I still lost about 20-25 lbs in 2018 and have required slightly tighter jeans since then! XD ).

At 12:04 AM, the Fortress of Ixmil was destroyed! I went back to my most successful save and did the following:
1) Upgraded my Blacksmith, Marketplace, then recruited Dwarves. This let me build Ballista Towers. Monsters + Ballista Towers = pincushions. 3 towers in particular guarded my Trading Post.
2) Built a second Warriors Guild and filled that up with Paladins. Also built a Temple of Agrela and recruited 2 Healers.
3) Upgraded my Temples of Agrela and Dauros to max when possible. Also had a Rogues Guild, Wizards Guild, Library, and (later) Temple of Helia upgraded to max by the end.
4) Kept a 1000 gold Attack Flag on the Fortress to both keep track of it and to get my heroes clearing around it.
5) Put Attack Flags on various monster lairs to stem the flow of random monsters. Used Petrify on Daemonwoods and any Yeti I found. A little expensive, but it turns them into sitting ducks.

In the end, most of my heroes swarmed the Fortress when it teleported close to my kingdom and overwhelmed it before it could warp away. Man, that mission was a headache...

11:38 P.M., The Rise of the Ratmen was rendered obsolete! My strategy here?
1) Turning off repair and taxation icons for the outlying clusters of buildings. Wish I could've saved that Royal Garden, though. :(
2) Building my own Blacksmith around my kingdom. Subsequently, I improved that and my Marketplace so I could afford to recruit Dwarves. I had Rangers from that initial guild I started with but they proved too foolhardy (and squishy, even with smithed gear and healing potions) to keep alive (and their guild was subsequently destroyed).
3) Built Temples of Agrela and Dauros, and subsequently, a Warriors Guild. Healers, Monks, Paladins and Dwarves all proved crucial to this mission.
4) Eventually, I built a Trading Post and surrounded that with a few Ballista Towers. That deterred many attackers and allowed my economy to improve.
Eventually I built a Wizards Guild to at least help enchant the gear of my Paladins and Dwarves. Also built a second Warriors Guild so I had 8 Paladins total. Improved my Temple of Dauros to level 2 so I could cast Vigilance, so my Dwarves, Peasants, Tax Collectors and Trade Caravans could easily get places.

In the end, I lost 1 of my Monks who still managed to put a small but significant dent in King Rodhen's health before he was killed. Put a 500 gold Attack Flag on the Rat King's head as he wandered towards my kingdom and the rest of my heroes tore him apart in seconds. Then just had to destroy one last Broken Sewer that popped up and then, "We are victorious, Your Majesty!"

Hmmm... I wonder which one's next? I'll bet The Siege.

I suggest saving the Spires of Death for one of the last missions. It is going to be a long one (my fastest runs are over 60 days).

At approximately 10:30 PM on June 8th, The Vengeance of the Liche Queen was turned into a victory! My strategy?

1) Building a second Warriors Guild prior to finding the one that joins you if you find it. In total, I had 3 of those pumping out Paladins, which made short work of various waves of undead, namely Vampires.

2) Upgrading my Marketplace and building a Trading Post ASAP. This map can be very costly, namely if you build a sizable force. I built two Guardhouses around the Trading Post to protect it until I found the Dwarven Settlement and could therefor build Ballista Towers. After that, I started being able to protect practically every vulnerable building.

3) Destroying all but one of the random monster lairs. I don't know if said lairs were responsible for the various waves of undead but it seemed like after I destroyed them, the waves seemingly stopped.

4) Eventually, I found the Liche Queen's Tower. My heroes swarmed that building and destroyed in rapid fashion. When the Liche Queen herself was there, I placed an Attack Flag on her just to maintain where she was in case she teleported akin to the Witch-King (much to my relief, she didn't). Though many of my Paladins ran off in fear soon after, my best one maintained her composure and soon after (with enough healing), the Liche Queen met her end at the tip of said Paladin's sword.

And now... the Day of Reckoning is at hand... Gods help me get through that. I hear it's a real crapshoot. =/