Heroes II: hex tactics, large creatures and spells
Eight detailed situations and twenty-four steps with original illustrations. Explore retaliation, Ranger double shooting, dragon breath and Skip, Lich clouds, Blind, Fire areas, resurrection persistence and two-hex Mirror Image.
A1–E5 coordinates belong to the local diagram rather than full battlefield indices. Numbers identify stacks rather than creature counts. Steps may compare alternatives, conditional preparation or a later round; they grant no free actions and calculate no complete battle.
Ordinary retaliation is once per round
The attacker hits first, then an eligible surviving defender retaliates. A later friendly stack can exploit spent ordinary retaliation; actual action ordering must be checked.
Pikeman attacks adjacent Swordsman. Counts are unspecified: the hit may kill, weaken or barely affect the target. The next step assumes the target survives.
If the response is neither prevented nor otherwise disabled, surviving Swordsman retaliates. Retaliation is not a new voluntary action; this step does not guarantee Pikeman survives.
Later in the same round Goblin can exploit the spent ordinary response. Other stacks may act in between; the picture does not freeze them for free. Reassess the rule in the next round.
Check in the actual battle
Griffin has unlimited retaliation, while Hydra and Rogue prevent ordinary enemy retaliation. This is not Heroes IV’s simultaneous resolution. The first hit can reduce how many creatures remain to respond.
Ranger’s double shooting is not a double melee strike
Ranger fires twice during a ranged action, but an adjacent enemy restricts shooting. Ordinary shooter melee penalty halves damage unless the creature has an explicit exception.
Goblin is distant. The two-shot annotation indicates Ranger’s ranged-action trait rather than two independent actions regardless of target survival, ammunition or other conditions.
Conditional later situation: Goblin reached adjacent B3. A melee attack against it has the ordinary half-damage shooter penalty. Double shooting itself adds no second melee strike.
The example assumes the blocker actually moved away later and no other enemy remains adjacent. Shooting can be planned at a later valid friendly opportunity rather than as an immediate free action.
Check in the actual battle
NO_MELEE_PENALTY and double shooting are separate abilities. Reference Ranger has twenty-four ammunition rather than Archer’s twelve. This diagram calculates neither ammunition expenditure nor exact damage.
Green Dragon occupies two hexes and attacks two cells in a line. The second stack need not be hostile. Skip does not preserve the dragon’s action for later in the same round.
The dragon’s head is at B3 and its other hex at A3. Breath through C3 continues into D3, occupied by friendly Archer. Orange hexes are attack cells; the dragon’s green background marks its body.
Conditional preparation: the dragon forfeited its current action with Skip, and Archer later spent a valid action moving to D4. This is not Wait or a promise both immediately attack again. Enemies may act in between.
If the position remains at the dragon’s next valid attack, Archer no longer occupies the second breath cell. Still inspect every occupied hex and target survival; no casualty-free result is guaranteed.
Check in the actual battle
The dragon’s two body hexes differ from the two cells hit by breath. Reference Skip marks the stack as having acted. If you forgo an action for safety, the next attack requires a new actual opportunity rather than an automatic later slot in that round.
The primary Pikeman stands at D3. Its surroundings contain friendly Swordsman and Skeleton. The highlight shows the local cloud rather than predetermined damage to each stack.
Swordsman spent an actual action moving to B1, but Skeleton remains at C3 beside the target. Its undead portrait is not an automatic exception in the reference branch.
A valid shot evaluates the primary target and affected surrounding stacks. The arrow is not advice to always fire into this dangerous layout. First compare another repositioning or target.
Check in the actual battle
This explicitly follows the pinned fheroes2 code. Do not import Heroes III’s protection for nearby undead. Hydra’s separate adjacent-melee branch instead filters enemy color; different area attacks do not share one universal recipient rule.
Blind disables an eligible target. Against a waking attack the reference permits retaliation at half damage; these are not Heroes III’s Blind school ranks.
Swordsman is under valid Blind. The example assumes an eligible target and an actually learned spell; undead, resistant creatures and protective artifacts require separate checks.
Pikeman attacks the adjacent target. If it survives and meets response conditions it can retaliate with fifty-percent reduced retaliation damage. Half damage does not automatically mean half as many casualties.
The damaged target is no longer blinded and the reference engine marked it as having acted this round. The next round follows its new order and statuses rather than permanent disabling.
Check in the actual battle
The code distinguishes waking a previously hero-cast Blind from blindness just inflicted by an attacking creature’s ability. After damage it marks the stack as having acted in the current round. Do not automatically grant it another ordinary action.
Both Fire spells have a reference base of ten times Spell Power per affected stack. Fireblast’s greater base price buys a larger area rather than automatically a larger damage coefficient.
The center is C3. Seven highlighted hexes contain nearby enemies but neither Archer at A3 nor Ogre at E3. This is a comparison option rather than a mandatory first cast before the following pictures.
Fireblast’s nineteen hexes add the distant Ogre but also friendly Archer. Decide using both additions’ actual value and available mana rather than the number of highlighted cells alone.
3. Moving before casting requires another opportunity
Conditional Fireblast preparation: Archer spent an actual action moving to A1 outside the area. The hero then needs a valid opportunity to cast. Enemy actions in between are not assumed to stop.
Check in the actual battle
Fireball has nine base mana and radius one; Fireblast fifteen and radius two. A large stack occupying two affected hexes is not automatically hit twice. Cold Ring instead excludes its center: that ring is another shape.
The same fifty times P health does not mean the same persistence
Resurrect, Resurrect True and Animate Dead differ in persistence or target eligibility. The three pictures show alternative uses rather than tripling creatures beyond original stack size.
Living Swordsman is eligible for temporary Resurrect at twelve base mana. Returned combat reinforcements do not automatically remain after the fight; the portrait does not promise permanent recruitment.
Alternative Resurrect True costs fifteen base mana for the same living troops. The distinction is retaining eligible returned creatures after combat if they are not killed again, rather than an automatically higher HP coefficient.
Skeleton instead uses Animate Dead at ten base mana with permanent restoration. This differs from living Swordsman targeting: belonging to the friendly army does not make the spells interchangeable.
Check in the actual battle
The base restoration budget is fifty times P health before other bonuses and caps. At P two this is one hundred HP rather than one hundred creatures. Original stack size and creature health limit count; the opponent can kill returned units again.
Mirror Image needs space and cannot withstand damage
A copy of two-hex Cavalry needs two free neighboring cells. Its offensive potential is not an ordinary health pool: taking any damage removes the image.
Real Cavalry occupies B4 and A4. C3 and B3 are free for the proposed copy. Roles distinguish the original from the future image rather than adding permanent creatures to the army.
After a valid cast the image occupies C3 and B3 without overlapping the original. The Mirror Image label matters: its Cavalry portrait does not make it another ordinarily durable stack.
Conditional later state: an enemy actually hit the image and caused damage. Both occupied image cells are free again while the original remains. This does not guarantee every planned attack passes targeting and protection.
Check in the actual battle
Reference placement searches a suitable neighborhood of the original and checks both large-creature cells. The example does not promise placement anywhere on the map. Losing the image does not automatically kill the original Cavalry.
Game portraits and icons are original files with separate rights; coordinates, colored areas and explanations are original editorial diagrams. Artwork rights and individual sources.
These examples use pinned reference-engine revision e397b1f, matching this site’s creature and spell catalogues. This does not claim identical behavior in every historical DOS version or modification. Lich-cloud recipients are explicitly identified; Heroes III Wait and school mastery are not imported.
