intro:
STW is a hack slash game made by the Total War RTS series team that decided to make more action arcade game with tactical elements.
In other word its like Dynasty Warriors except enemies are a real threat and can gang on you. with thta being said, evasion and blocking is a must at all times. I had a choice of IL or segemnted run, I picked latter because before every mission you have option of choosing what to level up with tokens.
if it were IL where you choose missions sperately you don't have that option.

tactics:
excluding first level, I use the Blades of Athena mostly because of 3 reasons; 1) connects faster attacks, quicker combo. 2) Rage attack doesn't go in slow mode when trigger. 3) Rage automatically targets enemies near, so I don't have direct the Spartan where to attack.
I attack, build rage. other times I use different weapons lik Achile's spear or Beowulf's hammer on tougher enemies. weapons come with special powers, except 1st default sword & shield, in some situations come in handy.
e.g. I use Achile's flame armor power against Monator boss fight in Death & Circus level making it quick and easy.

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Storm Breaks:
no time to dye your dreadlocks Spartan for the Romans have come. 3 seige towers each contain a Centurian I have to kill, I have to kill the 1st one before the other tower triggers and I do the same for the 2nd tower.
After the Centurians are dead comes the tricky part, protect the sappers. the RNG part in this objective depends on how occupied the Romans are with your Spartan allies. sometimes a group 4 would gang on the sapper which causes delay.
thankfully here there weren't many Romans focusing on the sappers managed to protect all the sappers from hit except last got 1 stab from a sneaky Roman. he was taking care off by my allies while they were being busy idle by I guess.
after the ancient fire works comes a simple but tedious task, wiping the floor the Roman blood.......kill all the Romans. there is also some small RNG depends on how well your NPC allies do, nothing major in here you still are the one doing most of the work.
next objective protect the gates and your king, same with before plus another task. since its on easy difficulty I really don't have to worry the gate breached or king getting killed. the annoying part here is I'm the only one who can open the gate for more reinforcements.
it might look waste of time opening the gate but it does help a lot making Romans occupied with Spartan making it easy for me to backstab them for quick kills. last objective protect the citygate and oil cauldron while firing the catapults. the catapults are set in hidden timer.
so I must wait for it to trigger in order to fire them, while I have to be protective over the gate and cauldron or else they get destroyed and mission over. I stay by the catapults just to be safe and early. finally Sparta is saved but not for long.

Spartan Welcome:
we go special operation mode and sneak in to the invader's camps.....well not that sneaky. anyways under artilery fire I go around since its forced where the trees fall and blocking your path. I rarely get hit by the arrows and here it didn't happen.
first I collect the fire arrows, can't skip this small cutscene, and blow up an entrance. go inside again blow up a door, talk about being stealthy. I take care of the archers becuase they are problem when getting hit from behind causing set backs.
after breaking locks and yet another explosion, might as well wear a target sign that says shoot me! after slicing through few Romans I immediately head for the archers especialy those with red ! on their heads since they can call for back up.
I lure the Romans in to the narrow small bridge to stack them for easy Rage kills. Castor the master of unlocking yet again breaks another lock. here the ballista is a major threat that can kill or reduce your health too low. I try reach the ballista asap while blocking.
after the ballista guy stops firing then I start attacking. I shoot the explosive barrel for quick kill. a slight incovenience here I was expecting Castor to finish the job quickly. after hacking as many Romans there exiting the tent 2 by 2 I grab my bow and shoot last few to shorten the travel.
quickly I go around pick the fire arrows and ambush the legion with the explosive barrel. I empty my arrows on to the remaining few. I immediately kill the archers that go ring the bell for back up. unfortunately there are always few remaining archers in the other side thanks to Castor.
here we meet Electra, did I mention she is cool and awesome shes like ancient thracian ninja, anyways here I get the Blades of Athen and here you get to see how effective this weapon is especially for speedrun this game.
1st use the electric power and Rage attack as many Romans possible. after discharging the Romans, pun intended, we head to rescue the prisoners. here I get knocked off more often than in any of the levels. now its time to protect the POW.
I move on ahead instead of escorting them and kill every Roman I encounter or else they get held back and waste time. I have to be thorough about this because sometimes there will one sneaky Roman that would ruin this run. I have to check on my allies to be sure they are moving.
last objective has timer in it but it doesn't I can be casual here, I must protect the POW and few Romans reaching them easily could mean failed mission. boom goes the bridge what a way to go after all those explosions.

Last Stand:
more ballista and trenches that makes it look like WWI. 1st objective I go through the enemies and blow up the explosives.
I block and shield bash occasionaly to avoid getting hit which stuns the Spartan but the arrows are way more difficult to block than it looks. after the ballistas are cleared, we do an epic climatic charge. I waste no time and discharge electricity powers.
I kill as many Romans as possible while avoiding Medusás orbital stoning ray, sounds so metal, before the Centurians arrive. Centurians are tough to kill so the best approach is back stab them while they are busy fighting my Spartan allies. luckily most of the Centurians positioned near the next stage.
next objective blow up the archer towers. before the last tower collapses swift kill as many as I can before it triggers next objective clearing the area off of Romans. open the gates, get inside and fall to a trap.
but Spartans are always prepared traps. I go for the archers before it triggers the objective of killing archers saving time. the auto aiming can be frustrating because of many targets around before reaching the archers you want.
clear the hall while saving the power for the last stage boss fight. this boss fight is frustrating because of so many factors; 1) Crassius evades almsot every of my attacks and his special stones you almost impossible to avoid unless you have speical in block which I need. 2) Romans surround you and can interrupt you fighting Crassus.
3) Medusa's ray after few seconds pass while in reach is an instant kill. combine all these together and you got a run killer makes this level hard just for this boss fight. my plan is to corner Crassus and pressure him for as long as possible. eventually he breaks free and its best since Medusa's ray can land anywhere where leaving more room for me to evade safely.
I land few hits during the ray before getting to safe distance, risky but worth it. luckily Crassus didn't move to another location after the first ray, I took this advantage and wnet for the last strikes. I gain another powerfull special, Gorgon's shield, stones pretty much every enemy around but takes time stoning few not instantly all of them and it doesn't kill them.

Badlands:
Spartans go on to an Odyssey....and get ambushed by barbarians. I fry these suckers with 1.21 gigawatts of lightening instead of using Gorgon's stone power which takes time to stone them all. plus its bad decision to stone them when you got barbarians coming from hills and caves you can't reach them.
after shrinking the barbarian hordes, cross the bridge to the next stage. burn the camps, don't worry no domesticated yet wild pets were inside those tents. after the gate is burned down, immediately Ihead for the explosives and detonated them. doesn't matter where I position the Spartan before the cutscenes it places him in fixed locatiosn after.
after the fireworks, there are actually more explosins in later levels in this game than any first person shooter games out there I bet, I get fire arrows to make a bridge with the pillar via explosion of course. I ignore the barbarians around even though I'm supposed to kill them later but its way faster when other Spartan allies around making them busy open to backstabbing.
get to the last explosive barrel, I promise its the last, then kill off the reaming enemies. next comes more burning camps, what? I never said burning camps were finished the blowing up bits. I memorised where each flaming pots are saving, then kill off reaming enemies. their locations are RNG ins this part can't do anything except try to be close to the next stage.
I head own the hills and ignore the gigantes and pull the elevator to finish objective and trigger next one. fighting it is tough because occasionaly it can grab you and throw wasting time. so rolling is a must, I don't bother wasting power attack on it since it barely kills it and not much difference in time attacking it normally.
clear the area then go get the key, I kill few on the way especialy the tougher ones with their backs towards for quick kills. rescue the POWs then go back to killing where they start to funnel through the bridge instead of standing there if I had chosen to kill them before saving the POWs.

Wild Bunch:
open the gates and meet Beowulf, except he chickens out and leaves me with his wolverine like henchemen and they are way tougher than fighting Beowulf why I use a power for quick kill.
head back to the village to trigger next phase. come the barbarians and I have to protect the grain storage. they are xtremely vunerable and my spartan allies aren't doing great job gaurding them.
I do the best I can reduce their numbers and kill them off while they are busy attacking the grain store, one of them gets more attention than the other. I save at least power meter for the 2 gigantes that come through the gates. they can easily destroy the grain stores.
once they come I stone them with Gorgon's shield. I also save arrows for next phase where barbarians are scattered everywhere killing villaigers especially for the knife throwers. one claw handed barbarian stranegly avoids my blades that easily. next stage I go through blocking bllasita fires with my blades somehow.
comes Beowulf for a boss fight, he is fairly easy in the beginning. I just roll behind him attack and repeat. later comes two clawed henchemen makes things really difficult plus Beowlf starts to block here. now the big bad wolf is dead I get his hammer.
this weapon is so OP but damn slow, its special however does massive area damage to clustered enemies. comes the horde I stone them and then use the hammer special. equp Athena's blade for quick connected kills.

Ruins of Heroes:
I head for the clustered Romans and do masssive kill with lighting special, the door only opens after I killed a number of enemies. I pick on the weak ones but the tougher enemies get in my way.
get to the other stage ignore everyone heading to the explosive then cross the brigde. here I must shoot targets but there are many tougher enemies around so stone the first wave since the they always interupt me shooting the things. move on shooting the other 2 triggering cutscene.
again ignoring the enemies. just you thought you were safe, suddenly Roman zombie hordes! pull all 4 levers to unlock the gate. the zombie Romans have a long reach attack suprising so it really difficult to avoid their hits, luckily I only got hit once. next stage I head for the explosive to trigger skeleton armies.
I have to kill a number of enemies here before moving on hence I get the skeletons out first so the enemies fight each other. I stay as close as to the locked gate making it shorter distance.
ignore the enemies, go for flaming arrows, here 1st encounter with Roman assassins difficult to evade their attacks so I shield bash them to be safe, head back and make a bridge. next stage I switch to Gorgon's shield
because the weapon does more damage per swing than Athena's. I attacked that 1 skeleton to not interrupt me while hacking the coffin. kill some more skeleton so coffins trigger,stone them, destroy coffin, repeat. next I fill my health and power bars for the boss.
I save power instead of using it on these enemies because I really need them against the boss fight. here comes dark link...I mean dark Spartan! this boss fight is made more difficult health & power orbs that you and the boss can pick up. I made risky roll at the end and it paid off well.

Ghosts of Troy:
thankfully I don't need to protect these sappers. so focusing on igniting explosives. blow up a door Spartan style. here is a very frustrating RNG moment, I have to get a key to the locked lever hidden in chests that are random and can only appear after opening few with fire arrows.
if lucky you can have the key spawn in the chest nearest to the gate which it did. more skeletons and much worse skeleton archers! I pick the fire arrow shoot the explosives making a domino bombs, then stone these skeletons because they can outrun you an dconstantly blocking their attacks slows you down plus coming arrows.
meeting the Spartan allies, I go on attacking skeletons do Rage attacks with Athena's. once clear I go pick invisbile potion which does help against assassins reducing time fighting them, then wreck Romans. next stage; shoot targets, kill skeletons & zombies. I save power bars for later stage I really need.
ignore the skeletons, they seem to give up once I reach the gate, how sad. skeletons vs Romans vs zombies vs Spartans, its a free for all mayhem! I ignite the flaming pots against the zombies stoping the from reanimating. again I save power bards for the next part, here comes assassins and toughest Romans.
I use stoning for quicker hits and safer because these enemies will blcok and evade your attacks.I use the hamme rfor massive damage against the big guys, they can't blcok its attacks. I fill power bar for the final stage.
zombie hordes are a pain to kill if you don't have fire arrows or power for your Achile's special move giving your flame attack & armor. once hit by flame either attacking them or they attack you they will desintegrate after few seconds. giving me room to attack more zombies while in flame mode.

Sentinel:
simple short mission but way tougher than it looks. these hydra heads are have unclear hitoxes and can bite you if not careful. what sucks is I need fire arrows after each power move I use against each head and they run out after time passing by. I use up all my speical bars in th early phase.
once the main head appears things get more harder now that more hydra head start to charge leaving minimum time to take cover from their attacks and the pillars get destroyed after so many hits. I leave at least one power bar for the last hit or it will take more time since the main head tend to use its flame moves sometime.

Resistance:
this is the second most tedious and frustrating level in the game thanks to one single objective. first part is easy, take out the assassin in fixed locations and fixed order. next simple task escort the SPartans and take out Roman guards where I use the sepcial lightening qucik kills on the packs.
now comes the hardest part, killing a shit ton of spies before reaching their safehouses while sorrunded by guards. at first you can easily memorise where they spawn and be ahead. however later on have 3 that spawn in different areas heading to different locations. whats more the area design all look same with few minr detail difference making it almost impossible to memorise.
there is no maps not even the game walkthroughs text or vidoes help since they also get lost or confusing on this objective. the Gorgon's power sort of helps when tracking spies before they escape but sadly the effect doesn't last long.
after that part is done kill of the remaining guards. final objective escort Archimedes, here I let the Romans get few hits on him since it makes their backs towards me for quicker kills.

Revolution:
I wonder if Spartacus was a spartan, makes sense because of his name but he is believed to be Thracian by historian, I just gave you a histroy lesson hehehe. anyways heading to the main sqaure I use Gorgon's stone on the executioners since the prisoners get killed easily, while at it knock out flame brazier for brief fire wall, the AI is stupid enough to let npc walk to their demise.
counter 2 waves and done with part. next objective save the sisters from harrasement. I did some experiment to see if I don't have to save the women and just go head on stoning them and by passing them but it won't work since the prisoners will get killed no matter what I do. I pick slow motion potion on the way giving me faster edge in fighting.
after they are saved and distract the guards, follow Castor, save the prisoners I get the key. unluckily I got hit by the archer where usuaully it gets blocked by the grate on the balconey. get the potion, sneak through annd set the explosives. just a matter of hacking every Roman as they exit. next I have to clear a way for the Spartans so not to delay their trip.
after they reach Archimedes' crib I go ahead leaving the spartans behind me reach the location to enter check point. Gorgon's shield won't be neough for these purple Romans so use Achile's flame instead. final objective kill off as many Romans as quick as possible to open up the next gates. I have to avoid Sejanu's flame orbs they will kill me in few hits as well leve burn damage.
good thin is it also kills enemies in friendly fire, well not so friendly fire huehuehue. reach Sejanus and level complete.

Eye of Apollo:
I save power bars for later stages thats more needed, I'll explain there. clear area off of Romans, pull lever, clear area again is how the this level is going to be. later I use Gorgon's stoning on the heavy Romans and assassins. also here we get to the encounter Inferni 1st time and if not careful they might kill you when they explode. at first I us this advantage to let it explode in the narrow hallway kill other enemies.
strangely beofre the final stage you get frame drops if your camera is facing your allies. I pull the levers while on the way I let the Inferni explode since they can get me killed later on. I miscalculated when Inferni explode on the 3rd lever, hoping it woudn't effect me during cutscene. I took some damage not a problem, I heal up quickly at the shrines near the EoA (Eye of Apollo) weapon.
WARNING: this part has many flashing effects if you have problem with flashing effects don't see this part. time to fight a skeleton dragon with lighting powered laser artillery in ancient Greece. yes you read that right. self explainatory, shoot dragon. after that its time to fight Sejanus.
Sjeanu's attacks and where he spawns is completely RNG. its only a matter of when to strike him and where. last spawn was unlucky for me but good thing I save one power for last hit without knocing him off and spawning somewhere else.

Gates of Saturn:
the most frustrating and diffcult level in the easily by far. the RNG are so annoying it just kills the run there. first get two loations during the artillery fire. I managed to make a rout where I don't have to wait for Castor to yell CHARGE while avoiding getting killed which sometimes it does happen, thats first RNG moment.
shoot the down the barracades, they all take 3 hits. luckily already one was blown so it saved me some time shooting them all. this part has RNG where sapper might get premature detonation despite have few health left.
I keep using Gorgon's stoning that not only effects enemies on ground but also the archers on top you can't reach. after blowing up, I have to kill the targeted Praetorian before killing the remaining Romans. next stage where the zombie Romans rise from their graves, I use Achile's flame power and set them on fire.
I have to kill number of enemies then the gate opens. then I need at least one power bar to stone enemies once I pulled the lever so i could climb down or else I get knocked off by Romans climbing up and get killed.
here comes the other RNG moment, fighting the Priestesses. I can't hit them until they land and charge their projectile move which I use Athena's, 1st hit they get knocked off then I attack 3 hits and use Rage attack for quickest kill possible. it gets even tougher with later Priestesses where you 2, 2, 3 in mini boss battle.
in between the mini boss fighst I had objectives to do. after second Priestesses, kill Praetorians, escort Castor where I use Gorgon's stoning on enemies so he would move on. before the 3rd Priestess, the gate can only be opened after the 3rd Inferni gets hit not the 1st or 2nd its fixed and not random at all where the 3rd runs and explodes.
last objective also has RNG moment, same as before Sejanus does his moves and spawns different location plus having archers and horde of zombies surrounding you. I save powers last hist on Sejanus before bring his force field up and spawing elswere.

Death & Circus:
I rush through the poisonious steam instead waiting fo rits, I get bit of damage but nothing serious. I wait for the Praetorian to get down since he is the biggest threat so taking him out first. grab fire arrows, head to the explosives blow them up and wait at the other side of the bridge to knoc off Romans for easy quick kill especialy agains the assassins.
next I head ahead and shoot the explosives for quicker killer on the archers. gate opens come 2 Praetorians wher eI ignroe them even at risk of getting knocke off and falling. next come gladiators which I ignore and grab the key.
next stage I have to pick up the potion despite slowing down time for this phase to trigger Romans coming down, I try to ignore gladiators so they could fight the Romans. after that coward Spartan lets me out, I go on kill the Romans ehad of me, reach to the ballista and kock out the gunners. here I don't use Gorgon's stoning since usually there assassins that come late to the party.
reach the lever, pull it, then head to where the next party starts. I have to clear the area for the next stage to open up even before it tells me to. go through, close their drinks, wait for them and kill them off. again do the same clearing the area for the gate to open.
getting some health for later just to be safe. ignoring the party here it totally boring and head to the lever. here I have to kill number of enemies before an Inferni would appear with the key. getting the key, open gate, explode hole, usual routine. I go down being carefull if I fall to high the Spartan dies. take out all the archers before climbing the stairs.
use Achile's flame on the gigantes but sadly one nearly made alive after my power ran out, not much set back. I save at least 2 power bars and fill one more for safe measures for the final stage against the boss. once the Monator stops I go into Achiles flame mode and just keep stabbing the Monator which stuns it in a funny animation getting quick kill instead of following around Monator aimelessly.

Gods of Battle:
final missions, another fair simple one except the final stage with final boss fight. I go save Electra do quick power kill. go save Castor then head down stairs ignoring the enemies on top for a reason.
the bottom eneimes count and clearing it will trigger next stage depsite some remaining up above me. get fire arrows and blow up a door. here comes tricky part of killing all eneimes.
I use th explosives clear the ones out of the center of the arena. then use Beowulf's hammer for areal damage I find fitting in this stage. kill off the remainer with Athena's. next wave armored Romans, since no ally is around the focus is all on me and attack them with Athena's get blocked instead I use Achile's spear attacking them then switch to Athen's for Rage attack.
3rd wave comes Inferni and assassins one of the worst of the mix to have. I use Achile's spear for reach since assassin's have large room to manuever. last wave comes the 2 Inferni anyone of them I attack they will explode near the gate but I go for the left one since the right tends to be glitchy and twhirls instead of exploding.
I head up stairs to trigger the objective and Romans coming out of the door. I have to clear the area before they let me in. next stage I ignore the enemies and break boxes to jump to the other side of the gate.
heading down, I go for the explosives ignore the enemies. after the ceiling collapses I pick some health which really important for the final boss fight. here comes the difficult part of this level fighting Ares.
I can't use Achile's like I did on Monator since it doesn't affect ares. I can't roll behind his since Ares no matter where I roll will jump away from me. add that for every few hits Ares does his grabing move and throws me long distance wasting time which I try avoid as much as possible but can come in hand later on.
after few damage hit Ares will summon duplicates, then most types of enemies from Inferni, sappers to archers that will kill you if I'm not careful as well doing the flame move that causes massive damage to the Spartan if getting hit. thankfully Ares is stuck using the flame moves and grab moves that he doesn't summon enemies. so I use this to my advantage and kill him off.