A fun distraction. It's too bad there is no hill->valley terrain like other RTS to actually build a keep-wall. That said, its probably as food as I would expect a LOTR Helm's Deep to translate to this engine.

I managed to make it to the end with the center outpost still standing and only loosing one guild (a Bungalow in the north) with a victory at 21 days. Of the original trio only Gimli survived (Aragon made it but I could not keep up with healing him at one point, Legolas died at some point but i missed it). Gandalf is basically invincible once he arrives so that is no issue. An interesting challenge would be to keep all of the trio alive. This would involve healing them and casting the frost spell on them probably, perhaps getting blessing or even resurrection, but gold and Sorcerer casts are limited.

6) As Rouge and Ranger guilds filled I started getting Healers and Elves (always replaced the Rouges and Rangers first)
7) I found one of the encampments before the major waves came and gated into it, placing reward flags on the buildings and using whirlwind to keep heroes alive as waves spawn long enough to hollow out one encampment and take the burden off of one outpost (RIP the brave souls who gave their lives taking out the outpost).
8) Placed 100 gold rewards on the strongest monsters in each wave
9) If an outpost was getting overrun I would whirlwind in front of the most attacked building to give it a chance to repair, goblins will oftentimes run into the same whirlwind multiple times.
10) Occasionally place 100 gold reward flags on Ratmen, Trolls, and sewer mains that spawn behind the front line

I beat the map with the following strategy:

1) Immediately focus on upgrading the palace to get higher tick income and recruiting Rouges and Rangers
2) Researched fire balm (only fire balm to make sure as many archers get it as possible) and started upgrading the Marketplace and Blacksmith to max
3) Spent no gold whatsoever on Adepts or Warriors until after the Paladins come to the rescue
4) Deleted the 2 statues just north of the marketplace and built a Sorcerer's Abode, started upgrading for gate
5) Upgraded one Temple of Lunord for whirlwind

I got crushed the first attempt at this map. I spent lots of money on arrows at the guardhouses and that didn't help me much.

The way to win is to keep the outposts up as long as possible to boost gold gain and extort the gold from the houses as needed with the Lv 2 Rouges Guild, while avoiding spending money on melee heroes that rush in and die. My full strategy can be found in my other posts.