Overlord

I just got this achievement and it's not that hard, just frustrating and annoying, especially at the beginning when you have few Minions and tons of enemies. I combined this run along with the Tower Master and Blackest Heart achievements, simply because I needed those achievements to finish the game. If you follow my tips, you'll be doing some sidequests, but it'll be worth it for gold (which is needed for equipment) and minions.

Here are some general gameplay tips to make it easier:
- Become evil. It'll allow you to raid Spree and Heaven's Peak for money, Minion equipment and minions. You'll also get some more benefits, such as Spree's Food (50 Browns). I raided Spree almost every time I got a Tower Object or cleared a part of a dungeon to make sure I always had some Browns early on. It only takes a few minutes. Castle Spree entrance is a good source for Reds early in the game. Kill the big Magma Beetles with your Fireball spell.

- Don't bother with creating and upgrading Steel and Durium equipment (but retrieve the smelters if you're going for Tower Master). Save your money and minions for the Arcanium stuff so that when you get the Smelter, you'll be able to create a good weapon and armour immediately.

- Get used to fighting with your Overlord and turn him into a fighting machine. Even though he's weak at the start, a single fireball will kill a Halfling and a Zombie, setting the fields in Mellow Hills on fire is effective and the second fire spell really makes short work of most other, stronger enemies. Get those Mana Totems!

- Use the Mana Well and Health Pits. Greens and Blues are good minions to toss into there for health and mana. I rarely used those and still had enough minions.

- Smaller Waypoints (like those found in dungeons) and big Waypoints will restore your Health and Mana when they're used to go back to the Tower. The Tower will remember your last Waypoint and can warp you right back in the dungeon where you left off. So feel free to warp out, raid Spree and then return later.

- You rarely, if ever, need to farm for Minions if you raid occasionally. I only farmed before I went after Kahn and I really didn't need to do that because I barely lost Minions in the last stretch. Occasional raids are much more effective and less cumbersome.

- Take your losses, especially in the beginning, but reset if it's too much. In general, if I lost half of my horde, I'd retry. You will lose a lot of Minions because of powerful enemies such as the Trolls and there's no way around it. Just make sure you'll always have enough by raiding villages.


Here's some strategy tips:
- Browns are essential and your main force until you reach the Golden Hills. You shouldn't mingle in the battle, especially when you're weak like at the start. Use a single Brown to lure two-three enemies at a time your way so your Horde can finish them. This takes time, but saves Minions.
During and after the Golden Hills, you and your Reds should become your main force. The Reds can keep their distance from the powerful melee-based enemies you'll encounter and you'll be playing tank in order to distract the enemies.

- Upgrade your Arcanium weaponry to make tanking easier. Imbue your weapon with Browns for a big boost in your attack. You can mix it up with Reds for some extra fire damage if you want, but I didn't need it. Armour is best imbued with a combination of Browns for defense (for when you're tanking) and Greens for regeneration (for when you're about to tank). I had a 65%/35% ratio of Browns to Greens.
Don't bother with your helmet. I beat the final boss with a cap of 37 minions. 2000 minions for +15 horde size is not worth the time and effort.

- Choose Velvet over Rose when given the choice. While Rose will upgrade your Browns for free, the Browns can pack a punch on their own and don't really need that boost. Later on, especially during the Golden Hills and afterwards, when you have 5-6 health bars, it can be a good idea to let your Overlord play for tank and let a massive amount of Reds kill your enemies. When combined with the Beer Kettle, you'll spawn Reds at ~275% efficiency from the get go. At this point, your Reds can kill faster than your Browns and because you'll be tanking, you'll rarely lose a lot of Minions.



I played the game in the following order, grabbing Tower Objects and corruption at the earliest convenience:
- Beat Melvin
- Go to Castle Spree
- Go to Evernight and get the Greens and everything I can until I can't go any further without the Blues
- Clear out Heaven's Peak, kill Sir William and choose Velvet
- Finish Evernight
- Finish Golden Hills
- Clear the Ruborian Desert
- End game


You'll need the Greens to get to the Blues, so I went to Evernight first. If you continue there until you need the Blues (which is when you need to enter the Skull Cave in order to continue), it'll also net you an extra Mana Totem, Minion Spell and Minion Totem, which can be very useful in Heaven's Peak.


Onto the (short) guide proper. It'll have some specific tips in how to make it past tricky parts. There will be lots of enemies sometimes and you'll only be able to counter that with, well, lots of Minions. Don't forget to raid in between!

Mellow Hills:
Your first goal is to beat up Melvin 'The Seemingly Invincible with only fifteen Minions and a mosquito for an Overlord' Underbelly. You'll do the first stretch with 10 Minions so you'll need to be careful when facing more than three Halflings. More than three Halflings means a certain death for at least one of your Minions, so picking them off in groups of two-three is your best bet. You won't always be able to do this, though, so have a few Browns to be certain you won't run out of Browns any time soon. Occasional raids are recommended to keep your stock of Minions up.
The Troll right before the Crane is annoying. His punch kills a Minion in one hit and his belly jump will kill a lot of them, so retreat when you see him do this. Same for the Troll right before the Halfling Homes and Melvin's party. Just take your losses and make getting in there your primary goal and replenish afterwards. The Troll is slow, so kill the surrounding Halflings first. The stone throwing ones are easily avoided. The halfling homes aren't particularly difficult, save the room with the ton of Halflings in Halfling Homes (2). For that area, go around the edges first.

When crashing Melvin's party, go in there alone to prevent your Minions from dancing. Kill the dude playing the instrument with a spell and then return with your Minions. The Halfling cooks in the Halfing Homes can be weakened with your fireball spell and finished with your Browns. They are easily defeated with the furnaces in Melvin's Kitchen. Just wait until all four are on the roster.

Melvin himself is... well, have fun. The first half is annoying because his fork swipe is an area of effect attack, so standing behind him hits you and your minions. You'll get hit for a whopping full bar of health. Get rid of the first phase as soon as you can by sending and retreating your Minions. They'll most likely die before the phase ends, at which point it'll come down to you. With a little luck, all you need is to whittle a little bit of health to start the rolling phase, which is a lot easier. The direction in which he rolls is dependent on where the Overlord stands. After he hits a wall, you can abuse his AI and run behind him to hit him. Just as he's about to see you, run behind him to his other side and he'll turn again, allowing you to hit him once or twice. You can loop him this way, making the battle a lot easier.


Castle Spree:
Most of the enemies can be beaten by strategically placing Reds behind barriers. The enemies in the castle courtyard can be defeated by sending enough Browns their way (sorry, I don't really know of a good tactic).
The Overseer can be defeated quite fast by sending five or six Reds to the left side and five or six to the right side. Use the Browns and yourself to take care of the ninja-type enemies, but leave the bugs alive. The Overseer won't summon more enemies and will die pretty quickly.


Heaven's Peak:
The Zombies are pretty weak, so sending a lot of Browns their way will make short work of them. Retreat them occasionally so they can rest up and then send them back in. The Succubus is easily defeated with a small army of Browns. The first serpent can be defeated with a hit-and-run tactic with all Browns. Lure it into an attack, then send your Browns and retreat them all a second later. Rinse and repeat. Same for the second one in the Understreets, but you'll be using Blues. You can try to skip this one, but it has to die if you want the gold.

When facing the Zombie horde right before the Understreets, go back to the Tower and return and they'll be gone. Inside, you'll have to pick off the massive amount of Zombies in groups of five, six if you want to save Minions.

The Blues are immune to the magical attack of the Zombie Lords, so use that to your advantage when trying to get the spoke in the Understreets. When going through the water to reach the Reds in the Understreets, don't bother with too many Blues. Just have Browns waiting on the shore and have them pick off the Zombies.

The second Fire spell is to the left of the main entrance of the City, when looking at the doorway to the Understreets. This is easily the best offensive spell you'll get and quite useful when beating up the massive amount of Zombies you'll encounter.

The Succubus Queen is just a more powerful normal Succubus, so treat her as one. Use the second Fire spell to get her health down fast.

For Sir William and Angelis Keep, use browns. The red-cloaked fellows die easily, but there are so many of them that you'll have to do some hit and run tactics for the second room. When fighting Sir William, it might be an idea to let your Minions clear whatever's left of the crowd. If you break out of the crowd, everyone will chase you so tried to stay in the circle. Sir William himself is easy this time and easily looped. Hit him and he'll fall over. Hit him three times and get out of there to dodge his attack. Rinse and repeat until he runs.
You can severely weaken the two Succubi with your second level Fire spell. Don't be afraid to empty your Mana, saving your Browns is what counts. When facing Sir William for the second time, immediately send in all your Browns until he teleports. After that, retreat all your Browns and stick to the edges and send your Browns on him when he teleports to the edge. Retreat when he does his jump attack. He'll fall pretty quickly and you'll usually have very little red-cloaked fellows after you.


Evernight:
Evernight is pretty easy. I didn't have a hard time with this area at all. The giant skull enemies telegraph their attack quite clearly so it's easy to beat these without losing Minions. The reviving enemies are harder but you can overwhelm them easily. The Root Node in the Mother Goddess room is guarded by two Trolls. Go all Greens and place them in two groups next to the doorway and let them handle the Trolls, in combination with your second Fire spell.

Oberon is a simple matter of surviving three waves of enemies and pelting Oberon with Browns in between. There are two spawning pits to Oberon's right.


Golden Hills:
The dwarfs are strong. At this point you probably have enough health to tank for two or three dwarfs while the Reds burn them up. If you don't, you can use Browns as tanks and Blues to revive them. You might have to retreat occasionally, but if you use your Waypoints wisely, you'll make some progress. Your first goal here is the Arcanium Smelter.

For the Arcanium Smelter, clear out the Dwarfs first. When dealing with the Flamethrower Dwarfs, I try to let the Reds get their attention while my Overlord slows them (the spell) and beats them up. Reds are particularly effective against the Slugs and the Dwarfs if you keep the latter at bay. Then, kill the Mother Slug to prevent the slugs from coming out and retrieve everything from the mine.

Once you get the Arcanium Smelter and imbue it according to the tips above, you can definitely ditch the Browns and the Blues and go solo with the Reds, because at this point you'll take much less damage allowing the tank strategy. When encountering the fire arrow dwarfs, solo them if you can. You'll need some Browns occasionally, like when you're retrieving the Kettle.

When fighting Goldo, go in there without Minions. You can circle strafe him to avoid his flamethrower. In my game, Goldo couldn't turn so I could deplete his first bar of health easily. During the second half, just let him turn around and he'll barge into pillars by himself. Just hit him and avoid his attack.
I beat him in less than ten minutes with just Overlord. You can spawn Minions afterwards to save the Elves or the gold.


Ruborian Desert:
You'll be pretty powerful at this point, so stick with one or two Minions solely for carrying the blasterbug eggs. This area is very easy if you're careful with the worms and lure the eggs to the worms, blowing them up with blasterbugs. With a fully imbued sword, you can kill any enemy here in three to four hits, and until you reach the first village you'll rarely encounter more than three or so enemies.
You can tank the first village (you won't encounter any more worms after this point anyway, so no need to have only a few Minions). When trying to blow up the first wall in the first village, use Betrayal to have the bugs fight each other and saving some Minions. Tank the second village and capture Jewel.


Beating Kahn:
The Red Overseer can't be hurt by Reds, so use Greens. You'll only encounter one and that's in Spree. The rest can be defeated with Reds and your second Fire spell.

When warping to Heaven's Peak, ignore the Overseers and head straight for Kahn. For all battles, have a full legion of Reds, pitch them high up where they can hit Kahn. Position your Overlord next to Kahn and in his reach. Kahn will focus on Overlord and ignore the Reds. You can use this tactic all three times versus Kahn.
For the first battle, elminate the Overseer with your second level Fire spell. For the second bout, close the gate. There are two Overseers during the battles which must die first, but the area is wide enough to use the Reds safely to get rid of the Overseers. Using these tactics, I got through this battle with 30 losses.


Wizard:
If you got this far, then the end-game is easy. Wizard is not that different from Normal mode. The tornado is killer, though, so stash away your Minions when he uses it and summon a full legion when you know what colour shield he'll use. His Minions will die when his shield drops, so just focus on the shield. When he goes into tornado mode, put your Minions back and wait for the shield. This battle will be over in no time this way.

Here's a tip by Big Dibs theDog:
"another safe place during the Whirlwind attack is to cringe behind the Spawn Pits with your Minions - Safe and Sound !"
Thanks!

With only browns at your disposal and an overlord that takes very few hits and does very little damage, this difficulty is going to seem almost impossible when you first start out. Getting to and defeating Melvin Underbelly is going to be the hardest part of the game. If you do this you should have no problem with the rest.

After melvin is dead will now have the reds which make the game much more manageable. With reds and blues you can lead enemies. That is have them throw a bunch of fire and move them back. Keep doing this till the enemy is dead. If you aren't quick enough the blues will revive lost minions. I normally ran with 15 reds, 10 browns, and 5 blues.

The key to this difficulty is not bothering with pointless objectives and only do things that benefit you. You aren't going to want to bother with enemies that will not give you life force like zombies. Simply run past them and only kill them if you have to. Also you aren't going to want to fight things where you will lose more minions fighting it then you will gain from killing it.

There's a few mission you wont want to bother with either. For example i didn't get the durium smelter and i did not upgrade my steel armor. I just waited until i got the arcanium smelter. I also did not plunder the gold mine or go for gold bags that would have cost minions their lives. Even skipping these things I had more than enough gold to decorate my tower.

As for your arcanium set, i suggest you upgrade its physical defense and its health regain ability. Don't bother with adding to its extra health and mana. I also upgraded the helmet but in hindsight sacrificing 2000 minions to have only 15 more in your horde isn't really worth it. Choose which ever weapon you want. I stuck with the axe and used mostly green minions on it because it was all i really had at the time.

Farming: Before you fight Kahn you are going to want to get your minion count up. The easiest way to do this is to fight beetles in the arena. There are 4 different type of beetles, the battler beetles being the strongest. For all the beetles have all reds except for 5. Make them blues. Set a guard marker and lure 3-4 beetles close to them but stay in front and fight them. You will get 75 life force each wave. Of coarse the more minions you are able to have in your horde and the stronger your armor is the easier farming will become. I went into the Kahn battle with 500 browns, 300 reds and greens and 200 blues. You WILL NOT be able to farm again after beating Kahn and Kahn will kill many more minions than the final boss.

Suprisingly the final boss is very easy. His health seems to go down as fast as it did on normal. I was worried I wouldn't have enough minions left over after my battle with Kahn but I actually lost very few against the wizard.

Final tip: If you have lost a bunch of minions and you feel you could do a lot better in a certain area purposely get killed and choose to restart. I did this every time something stupid happened like all my minions died by a single bomb. That's what I like to call unacceptable losses. The only time i didn't care about how many minions died was during boss fights.

Good luck

First time writing a guide so bear with me.
Learn to love your browns with an obsessively filthy passion. They are the easiest to farm and do the most damage. Farm as many as you can in Spree and the sheep fields near there as early as you can. The single hardest battle in this mode for me was the fat ass Melvin. You can have at most 15 minions, very limited spells and no upgrades to your character which makes this battle complete B.S. Don't be surprised if this takes you several hours and many attempts to accomplish. Just make sure you get his HP down to where he rolls around the room with your minions. After this point it doesn't matter if all 15 die as they most likely will, just be patient and pick at his remaining HP until death arrives on his horse.
I only upgraded my mace which was always imbued with browns, until I got the Arcanium smelter which I made a full set. Imbue your weapon with all browns and armor with all greens. I didn't imbue my helmet at all but you can choose to. Take your time with the bosses and keep an eye out for stronger enimies when sending the browns into battle. My army was always 35 and consisted of 7 Blues, 5-8 reds, and the rest browns, except where greens were needed and only used one at a time to keep deaths low. Before the final battle with the wizard, I farmed 800 browns and 400 greens and only attacked with those 2 types. With the wizard, take 18 of browns and greens that way you can send the ones to attack the enemies that come to you, the bad greens will knock your HP fast if you aren't careful but it shouldn't be a problem if you have 100% regen on your armor.
If there are any better ideas,corrections, comments, or questions, feel free to let me know and thanks and I hope this helps.

A lot of the prior solution have great tips however I found it interesting that they all mention not to upgrade steel armor. My suggestion - maybe because I suck - is to upgrade the Steel Armor with all Browns minus a 100 as soon as you can. Browns are easy to farm in Spree especially if you are Corrupt, also Browns boost your defense which I feel is the most important. The other 100 minions will be Greens - this will give you 10% regen of health. This amount won't save you in a battle but during lulls in the game you can wait for the health to regen instead of going back to the tower because returning to the tower can spawn new enemies and if an area is giving you trouble the last thing you want to do is fight through more guys.

Greens are easy to gather the moment you get to where the green hive is. 5 greens will jump in the spawning pit, after this you will want to go back to the tower. Immediately return to the Viridian Caverns and 5 more will jump in the spawning pit. Continue the cycle until you have as many Greens as you want. (Later you can do the same thing with Blues) With the health regen from the Greens you will not need to waste minions at health shrines. I also farmed enough Browns to upgrade my axe to increase damage making things easier when in a pinch. This should be enough to get you to obtaining the Arcanium smelter. The Arcanium armor I upgrade in much the same ratio. If you get all of tower health and mana objects you won't need the extra in the armor.

I found fighting with the Reds the most effective because their fireballs have a decent range. It is easy to get Reds into a position that they can attack with being attacked. Another thing that makes minion fighting easier is moving the 'flag'. If you hold left trigger and target the flag you can move it with right stick. This will allow you to creep the Reds into a range that they can attack and usually not alarm the enemy so they wont be swarmed. Worst case pull the flag back to a safe distance. I found this much easier then sending and recalling the minions.

Browns can be farmed in lots of places. If you are corrupt Spree is a good place and if you are not then you should have returned the food which means there should be plenty of sheep to farm. A good place to farm reds is Castle Spree by the first spawn pits, you can get some browns here also. A good place to farm greens is the beginning of Evernight forest to the left of portal - you can get 40 orbs easy just be mindful of the ogres. I never found a great place to farm blues but I didn't really use them.

I suggest to be evasive until you understand your enemies movements. A lot of enemies have a tell that lets you know they are going to attack. Typically just after the attack they are the easiest to hit but only if you are not stunned from an attack. Use left trigger to target an enemy - this will keep them in your view so that your eyes are always on them. Tapping right trigger will center the camera behind - and might send a minion on a wild goose chase, and pressing the right stick will give you a more top down view. Another thing is being mindful of your enemies weakness and exploiting it. This is great for fighting Melvin because is tell is easy to spot and if you exploit his movement during the second half of the fight you can beat him without using any minions - just the overlord. Another example is the flamethrowers in the golden hills. These guys will eat up the health fast so going in with your overlord is a bad idea but if you use your red minions to keep him distract the flames will be on them, which they are immune too, add give the overlord time to attack the tank - just make sure to back up so the explosion doesn't take out your army.

Kahn and the wizard are going to be the toughest. With Kahn set your reds on a ledge where they can hit Kahn. Move the overlord to Kahn's feet. Attack him and backup. Continue this until your reds kill him. This works all three times because Kahn focuses on you instead of your reds. For the wizard I used all reds again. There are three places you can move your minions to avoid the whirlwind attack. Behind each spawn pit and by the door. Sit back until he spawns a red shield and don't move. Most of the time only a few minions will venture to attack you and your reds should be able to pick them off. By waiting this will give your health a chance to regen between attacks. When the red shield spawns take the time to kill the minions before attacking - your minions will get slaughtered other wise. I took 270 reds with me and had 188 when I was done.

Hope all of this helps.

This is not a solution for this achievement specifically as the other guides do a great job of detailing what to do nicely. With one exception however. Malcolm.

Malcolm on legendary is actually, I'd say fairly... easy... when you know what to do. I did struggle until I figured out a nice method that took him down to half his health relatively quickly.

After the cut scene that play out when you enter the room, run either side of Malcolm, and start smashing the tables and chairs to creat a bit of room. Once one side is fairly clear pop your minions under a banner and run to the opposite end pulling 5 minions by tapping 5 times.

Other guides suggest doing this bit alone, which takes a long time and makes you susceptible to mistakes. You only get three chances here, mess up once too often and you have to restart. Instead, use the same stick and move tactics, but with 5 minions. Attack Malcolm from behind. Keep behind him, don't let him face you at all. After he swings his fork, that's when to move in and swing your axe. About 4 to 5 times depending on how close Malcolm is to facing you.

Your minions should also get in at least one hit each, and they do a lot more damage than you do at this point. Malcolm will occasionally do his belly flop move and I found that there wasn't enough time to pull out all of your minions. If this happens pull some more minions from the banner.

As long as you survive until the rolling section, you'll easily kill him. This boss isn't as terrifying as people are saying.