Warlords: Heroes gladiator guide

All of these are done using the orc character, Toldor.

FLAILMAN: The easiest one. They have a severe handicap, in that they cannot hit you if you are on top of them. Approach him, and jump towards him when you get in range of his weapon. Once you succeed and land on him, its over. He will move either left or right and take a swing. When he moves, you move in the opposite direction, turn around, hit him in the back of the head, and position yourself on top of him again. Repeat until he’s dead.

ARCHER: Just require patience. Hold down constantly to keep your guard up, and creep towards him between arrow shots. When your sword is almost touching his bow, take a swing. Don’t use a lunging attack by pressing forward while swinging. Those attacks are too slow.

LONG SWORD MAN (WITH BIG SHIELD): As he approaches, you want to swing just when he is within range of your sword, then back up. Usually, he tries to counter-attack, and hits nothing as you back away. Don’t let him get close. Just keep backing up, and hitting him from as far away as possible.

SORCERER: Same as in the campaign. Keep your guard up. You can even block the fireballs falling from the sky. Hit him when he appears near you. Charge him when he’s launching fireballs into the sky. Block continuously at other times.

DUAL SWORD MEN: Back away constantly. They move slightly faster than you, so just keep using your retreat attack, and he should keep running into it like an idiot. Hit him with a maximum range normal attack whenever he ends up at a distance due to attacking.

LONG SWORD MAN (WITHOUT SHIELD): Block continuously. Right after he swings with an overhead attack, counter-attack. You can finish this fight without ever moving.

HALBARDIER (MOBILE) and WHIRLER (MOBILE): Same strategy for both. Stand in one place and block. He will throw various attacks at you, walk around, and kick you occasionally. You want to wait until he is walking away from you, then drop your guard and kick him in the back. If you throw a normal kick, move towards him while kicking. You want to hit him with a knee kick to stun him. Once hes stunned, move back and hit him with a chest lunge (press towards him while attacking), which is your most damaging move. Then go back to standing in one place and blocking again.

SPEARMASTER (aka MOBILE SPEARMAN): This fight is like a combination between mobile whirler and longsword with shield. When he is close, hold block and wait for him to walk away so you can kick him in the back, then take a swing. When he is at a distance from doing backflips, retreat and try to get some long distance shots at his head before he comes close again.

SPEARMAN (STATIONARY): Like the archer, you need to patiently creep up on him between blocks. When you are blocking, he constantly repeats the same two attacks, middle thrust followed by high thrust. You can advance on him for a split second after the high thrust. While continuing to hold the block key, quickly tap the move forward key. Don’t hold forward at all. Just a tap. This should give you a little stutter step that moves you slightly closer. Continue to creep forward until you are in range to kick him. Give him a kick, a chop, then go back to blocking again. If you get too close, he will kick you first, so you need to learn the range of your kicks. Also, on occasion, you will throw a knee kick and miss, or he will throw a kick at the same time you do. In both cases, go right back to blocking without trying to get a sword slash in. This is a long and tedious fight…

WHIRLER (STATIONARY): And this is a longer and more tedious fight, but the basic idea is the same. When you are blocking, he does three types of attacks, at random: a whirl, a thrust, and a thrust where his blade is turned to point up. The blade-up thrust is his slowest attack, and you can tap forward to advance, or get a kick in, after he uses it. Note I said slowest, not slow. He will occasionally hit you as you advance, but it will be more infrequent as you practice tap-advancing. Kick, chop, back to blocking. I managed to beat stationary whirler as enemy #12 using this method, with over 1/3 of my health remaining, but the battle took over 10 minutes.

SWORDSMAN (WITH SMALL SHIELD): He’s tough. Fight him like a spearmaster, getting slices to his head when he is at a distance, and covering up and waiting for an opening to kick when he gets close. The big problem is his shield bash attack, which breaks through your block, and allows him to smack you with his sword a couple times. Because of this, you are best off trying to distance fight as much as possible.

The enemies come out in a sequence that does not change from game to game. The only thing that changes is what point of the sequence you start on.

Flail
Longsword\shield
Sword
Two swords
Archer
Sorcerer
Stationary whirler
Mobile halbard
Longsword\no shield
Longsword\no shield (again)
Stationary spear
Mobile whirler
Spearmaster
Repeat from the top

The enemy gladiators get stronger (more health) as you advance, so ideally, you want to sequence it so that you meet the toughest enemies as early as possible. The best sequence appears to be starting with the swordsman, which puts stationary whirler at battle 5, and leaves stationary spear at battle 10 as the only really difficult fight.

Swordsman are basically Aldon clones. He is quite difficult to play keep away as he can catch up fairly quick. Though I did try to focus on jump attack as I retreat, that works, just remember to block often as his moves are quite fast

Whirlers are two types, the regular ones and Ellder types. Regular will run around you, Ellder types will stop and continue the assault while standing up. The Regular, you can kick and attack, they don’t always get stunned, but most of the time, you can get more damage in. Ellder types are a lot harder, so far, I’ve only managed to work it out as Aldon. Use his retreat move to get some distance then stand and block and wait for the whirler to do his heavy attacks that forces him to get very close, then attack him (kick or regular attack) then block again, and repeat.

There are also 2 spearmen types, the regular types (which are spearmaster) and the Elite Spearmaster (as a boss in Ep 3). I don’t need to focus too much on the regular. The Elite one, you’ll notice fairly quickly as his attack patterns are way different, most notably having Aldon’s Shield block charge. What I do here is to wait for him to use that move, and after he attacks, kick and attack, slowly retreat after that and wait for him to do the move again.

thoose people with 2 blades on their ends, they work just like the flailmen, jump inbetween their weapon, because the 2 blades added together makes a circle attack, you being in the center wont get hurt, i find using eiider to attack these type of people is the best, because these whirler-type man usually tries to move around you, but never too out so that you are in their attack range, and any way they move, you can attack them easily with the 2sided weapon eiider has.

I find the only thing stopping you to get the 60 point badge is the people with shields and that actually uses it, most of your attacks they just block, if you jump up and try to attack than they still block, if you kick them than attacking, well, that gives them enough time to block, if you try the retreat attack, well they arnt fast enough to catch it, basiclly all of my attacks he block, and he hits while blocking these attacks, btw i only use aiider, i find him the BEST :( any tips?

I can beat the whirler men with the two hander orc if i block continuously, when he crosses you then you kick him and slash but hold down the block button the whole time so when you finish attacking it goes back to block. I havent died on a whirler guy yet

this badge is super frustrating.

what makes it worse is that all the moves are unlocked. for instance, instead of toldor’s totally awesome double sword spin, you occasionally do that worthless jab. aldon, who would do this badge easily, is totally unable to cope because instead of always doing the shield charge, he busts out that worthless shield bash 50% of the time.

sugarbookbird:

those guys are cake. he’s talking about the ones that stand there and attack you continuously until you let go of block and die.

Ah. Thanks saneiac, the longswordsman sans shield was the main one I was stuck on. Once I get the badge and so am sure my tactics work, I’ll post them here.

I have some major updates to make to this guide tomorrow. As DarthSirov said, there are two types of spearmen, mobile and stationary. Same for the whirler guys. The mobile ones are easier; the stationary ones are horrible. I have a strategy for every enemy at this point.

Also, there is a definite sequence for what type of enemy shows up. I need to get it sorted, but this means that there is an optimum order to fight in, and you will be able to tell if you have it by seeing which enemy attacks first. Ideally, you do NOT want to take on a swordsman or stationary whirler past level 10. They are the hardest to hit without being counter-attacked, and they just take too many hits to kill at the high levels.

Got the impossible badge with the Prince, wasn’t too hard once I figured out how to beat his bad match ups. He has 8 easy, 3 even, and only 2 bad match ups and the 2 bad match ups can be beaten even at level 10+ once you practice against them enough.

You can ask me for some extra info saneiac, I can at least give you some ideas on the often used AI attack patterns and what to expect and move to use against them, though overall, their aggressiveness is the wildcard here, as if you are not careful enough, you will lose too much life.

But for starters, as I have mentioned, all the Heroes moveset are in there, and more often than not, they’re hard to take down. Also, if you do come up against an enemy type with 2 potential movesets, assume its the harder one while trying to see if it really is the harder one. Lastly, it would appear to be that Aldon is potentially the best to used here. His shield type attacks are good, esp. his retreat type, his attacks are quite fast, and lastly, his hp is higher than the other 2 (to compensate for his range)

Lastly, it would appear to be that Aldon is potentially the best to used here.

This is personal preference. I got the badge, and wrote strategies, using Toldor the orc. Even knowing what I’m doing, I find that Aldon is my worst character. I played three games with him, and got to stage 5, 5, and 6. His short reach just doesn’t work for me.

Dangit. I killed twelve and then was killed by a shortsword-with-shieldsman.

Must sleep. Here’s a tip: the Orc PC has the same range as whirlers and does more damage. Just hold down the attack key; you’ll get in enough blows to win.

True saneiac, but I did give the reason as to why I prefer Aldon…

Third, often times, that won’t work… enemies do get more and more hp as you go along.

Just got the badge with Toldor. I used similar strategies to the ones Saneiac posted, with a couple differences—I actually found Whirlers to be some of the easiest enemies.

For anything with a polearm, Whirlers included, get in close enough to land a kick, and just keep kicking until they are stunned. Then, get a short distance behind them and attack using your forward+attack. If you position yourself right, your attack should end with you overlapping the enemy sprite. Immediately kick again and restart the process. You will occasionally take hits, but you should be dealing a lot more damage overall.

Before I read this topic I fought the two-handed longswords the same way, but they seem to be more apt to just ignore your kicks and hit you back, so it doesn’t work as well. The strategy Saneiac posted is a lot safer.

Now, Swordsmen aren’t susceptible to this because they will always use their retreating slash when you try to reset the trap. You might be able to take advantage of that by taking a step back and swinging as their attack ends. However, these guys were my biggest problem. Nothing seemed to consistently work on them. I think the only reason I managed the badge at all was I only met one Swordsman, really early.

My best strategy that worked was to block until they attacked me, and immediately retaliate with a kick and a standing swing, then block again. These guys get kicks and that shield bash attack to break your guard, and they seemed to ignore my kicks an awful lot, so it doesn’t really hold up. =/

Just got the badge with Aldon. The strategy for most enemies was to continually use the backward blocking slash, then quickly attack with either a forward attack or by jumping straight up and attacking when the enemy approached. For the two-sword guys, I just did a standing attack, then back to the blocking slash. For the one type of whirler, getting in close and doing the standing attack beat it pretty handily.

The type 2 whirlers are a problem though. They attack too quickly and cancel your attacks, don’t advance into kick range, and their advancing spinning attack is as fast as the blocking slash, so you can’t hit and run. When I got the badge, I met only one of these, on an early stage, and beat it with forward attacks, getting lucky and getting a lot of blocks. YMMV

You know, I have yet to see Ellder being used here… his attacks are far too inconsistent to work properly, though it adds up to either challenge or frustration.

Nice guide! I might use some of that in the official strategy guide if I may?

One minor detail, there is a Whirler gladiator, but there is also an Ellder Gladiator. They are slightly different.

In fact there are great tips throughout this thread. I shall definately be stealing some of it…

I still think we may need to separate tactics depending on the character used.

The whirlers are like… Lets just nuke them. Aswell as madagascar.

Yeah, elite whirlers is what makes it hard. Just play & pray

Ah, I finally got the badge. 14 kills. Here’s an account of my game and the tactics I used.

I chose the orc PC.

(1) I faced an enemy with a sword and shield. I stood at a safe range, hit him, backed out of range of his counterattack, and repeated. Won with essentially no damage.

(2) I faced an enemy with a dagger and shield. I used the same tactics as against the sword and shield. This time I took some damage, since one of his counterattacks is too fast to safely back away from, but I still won with over half my life left. I think which counterattack he uses depends on which range you attacked from; you want him to use the creeping-under-shield-cover attack so you can safely get back away. The PC is just a hair faster than him, so with patience it’s possible to get back to the good range if too close.

(3) I faced an enemy with two swords. I hit him repeatedly with my retreating attack, taking essentially no damage. (Could do this blindfolded, if you had to: just hold down the back and attack keys.)

(4) I faced an enemy bowman. Ignoring his puny arrows, I just walked up and whacked him. He would kick if I got too close, but this wasn’t any more damaging than the arrows.

(5) I faced an enemy sorcerer. I mostly used the same strategy as against the bowman, but I took care to block if he threw too many attacks at me at once, and I kicked if he teleported right on top of me. (I foolishly paused after the fight in order to jot down my notes. Don’t do this: a stray skybolt hit me during the pause, weakening my health against the next enemy.)

(6) I faced an enemy whirler. I just held down my attack key; he picked a range that was comfortable for both of us, and we stood there trading blows until he died. (Another blindfolded win. I’ve had this tactic work against level 9 whirlers, but beyond that it’s probably ill-advised.)

(7) I faced an enemy with a halberd. I kept myself generally in a guarding position, and every time he walked past me I would kick and slice before resuming the guard.

(8) I faced an enemy with a two-handed sword, just like mine. I kept myself generally in a guarding position. Every time he attacked with an overhand swipe, I counter-attacked with a slice. Every time he lunged, I counterattacked with a kick and then a slice. Not hard. (Thanks again, saneiac: I didn’t know how to beat this guy until I read your guide.)

(9) I faced another enemy with a two-handed sword. Same tactics as before, but it felt even easier this time. Occasionally I would swipe twice during my counterattack, just to make the battle go faster.

(10) I faced an enemy with a spear and shield. I jumped in close, and then used a kick-swipe-repeat rhythm.

(11) I faced another enemy whirler. This one moved around more than the previous one. I fought him using almost the same tactics I used against the halberdier: stay guarded, kick as soon he comes within kicking range, swipe, and then go back to guard.

(12) I faced another enemy with a spear and shield. Unlike the previous spearman, this one tended to move around a lot and use somersaults whenever I got in close. This was by far the toughest battle. I managed to squeak through using the same tactics as against the mobile whirler: stay guarded, take opportunities to kick and slice, and then return to guard.

(13) I faced an enemy with a flail. This is easy: just jump in and use a kick-swipe-repeat rhythm, like against the first spearman. The flailer is very slow, so you’ve got a wide margin of error for your timing. I didn’t even take damage except for a mistake with my initial jump.

I got the badge, and the cycle repeated: there are exactly thirteen enemies. The enemy with the sword and shield was still easy (which suggests to me that the best enemy to start with, if just going for the badge, would have been the guy with the dagger and shield; or you could try starting with the mobile whirler). The guy with the dagger and shield defeated me with almost half of his life left; clearly I need a different tactic for dealing with him. I’ve tried blocking his fast counterattack, but that leaves me at the wrong range with no good way to get back.

Great walkthrough, ThirdParty. The enemy pattern seems to follow this every time, just different on starting point. So far I can only beat 8 enemies though, need more practice…

There is definitely a pattern on the enemy spawns. I restarted the game until i got a Mage as the first mob for two games, and the result was identical:

1. Mage

2. Stationary Whirler

3. Halberd

4. Longsword

5. Longsword

6. Stationary Spearman

7. Moving Whirler

8. Moving Spearman

9. Flail

10. Longsword/Shield

11. Swordsman

After checking and confirming this with ThirdPartys list it seems as starting the game vs a swordsman is the easiest route, you would then face stationary whirler as 5th, and after that be home free. I will try this later.

This is the pattern I got after several attempts. It’s been holding true for most times I play.

1. Moving whirler
2. Spearman
3. Flailer
4. Longswordsman w/ shield
5. Shortswordsman w/ shield
6. Doubleswordsman
7. Bowman
8. Mage
9. Stationary Whirler
10. Halberd (died)

1. Halberd
2. Two-handed Swordsman
3. Two-handed Swordsman
4. Spearman (clicked out by accident)

1.Spearmaster(appears after spearman)
2.Flailer
3.Longswordsman w/ shield
4. Shortswordsman w/ shield
5. Doubleswordsman
6. Bowman
7. Mage
8. Stationary Whirler
9. Halberdier
10. Two-handed swordsman
11. Two handed swordsman
12. Spearman(killed me)

Starting again
1.Spearman
2.Moving whirler
3.Spearmaster
4.Flailer