Check out this complete guide for The Banner Saga. Learn about classes, combat, abilities, travelling, factions, build your team, promote team members, earn renown and easily earn victories.
The Banner Saga is a tactical role playing game which is pretty different from other games in the genre. It will take time getting used to some of its mechanics so we suggest being patient in order to full enjoy this game.
Classes Guide:
There are six classes in The Banner Saga. Each of these classes differ from each other based on the weapons they carry. For example Raiders excel in shield blocking whereas a Warrior specializes in spinning sword attack. The complete list of classes found in The Banner Saga is below:
- Raiders: They are shield experts and can perform various combination of attacks.
- Warrior: Can cause extra damage and can hit multiple targets.
- Spearman: As the name suggests, they specialize in spear attacks.
- Landsman: Has the ability to grant will power to party members.
- Shieldbanger: They have the ability to return damage using their shields.
- Archers: They specialize in using bow and arrows.
We also have a complete video guide that explains the classes further. You can check it out below:
Combat Guide:
Being a tactical role playing game, combat is going to be a very important gameplay mechanic. Combat will vary based on the class and character you have selected. Check out the video guide below to learn more about the combat:
Travel Guide
Travel is one of the most important gameplay features. It is dependent of three factors: moral, supply and population. Moral is very important during battle and affects bonuses. Supplies are equally if not more important than moral. Once supplies run out, your population will start dying and in turn moral will get affected. Population will make your caravan stronger but will also deplete your supplies faster. Check out the complete video guide below:
Factions Guide
Check out the video guide which explains factions in detail. The video guide explains strength, armor, abilities, walk path and more.
Building your team, promoting and playing your first match:
Check out the in-depth video play list below to learn more about your team and building your troop.
Human Abilities:
Archers:
Archers have common ability called as Puncture.
- Eagle Eye have Thread the Needle
- Skystrikers have Rain of Arrows
- Bowmasters have Bird of Prey
Melee
Landsmen have Light Step, spearman have Embolden and Raiders have Shield Wall.
- Hunters have Mark Prey
- Wardens have Rally
- Spearmasters have Impale
- Thrashers have Bloody Flail
- Grudgewielders have Stone Wall
- Backbiters have Run Through
Mender
- Eyvind have Arc Lightning and Mend
Earning Renown:
Renown is used for buying items supplies for your caravan. It can also be used for promoting party members in your troops to better ranks.Renown points are earned every time characters defeat an enemy.
Easy Victory Guide:
A user on Gamefaqs has shared some amazing tips on how one achieve easy victory in the game. Check it out below.
Step 1: Warrior Slaughter
1. Remove your Shieldbearer and buy a second Warrior for 10 Reknown.
2. Spend your next 100 Reknown promoting your two Warriors into Warmasters(?) (the guys with 17 Strength.)
3. Once they are promoted go into personal stats screen and give them:
Armor – 9
Strength – 17
Willpower – 4
Willpower Usage – 2
Armor break – 1
(You don’t need Armor Break or Willpower when you have 17(!!!) damage)
Why Warriors?
There’s a reason why you can only have a maximum of two giants in your party: They are absolutely vicious when promoted. They are the key to winning your first 10-15 matches. You’ll notice that 90% of the players you fight decide to upgrade an Archer first (bad idea). If you choose to promote a Warrior first you will most likely win against these players. Next, make both of your Humans “Thrashers” and leave your Archer promoting for last. This makes your Archers go LAST in the turn order which keeps them alive and let’s them move into safe positions AFTER your melee characters have already moved. (Promoted Archers move first which is very inconvenient.)
Step 2: Deployment Phase
Place all four of your melee characters as close to the enemy as possible during deployment. Keep your archers one tile behind them. If the enemy spawns within your Warriors movement range then immediately CHARGE in. Your Warmasters deal AoE damage. It’s best to strike while the enemy is clumped together. Always cripple enemy Warriors first. Remember: Your promoted Warmasters have 17 Strength. 17!!! This will reduce almost any enemies Hp to 1-4 in a single swing. Even Shieldbearers will be left with 4-5 Hp (though try and leave them till the end of the match.)
Step 3: The Strategy to Win
NEVER kill an enemy unit. NEVER. Even if its an Archer. Leave ALL enemies with 1-3 HP remaining. Why? You and your enemy take turns. However, whenever the enemy has to move a character with 1 HP left he won’t be able to do any significant damage to you. The more units he has with 1 HP the more turns he ends up wasting. If you kill all of these 1HP units then he will be able to move his unharmed units every single turn.
After 10 or so turns the enemy move order will look something like this:
Turn 10 – Warrior 1 Hp
Turn 11 – Shieldbearer 10 Hp (His attacks will hurt)
Turn 12 – Human 1 Hp
Turn 13 – Human 3 Hp
Turn 14 – Archer 2 Hp
Turn 15 – Archer 1 Hp
In his next 6 turns he will WASTE 5 turns because he has to move all of those 1 Hp units around. However, you get to use those FIVE turns to take out his Shieldbearer. If you killed all of those 1 Hp units near the beginning of the match his turn order would look something like this:
Turn 10 – Warrior 10 Hp
Turn 11 – Shieldbearer 10 Hp
Turn 12 – Warrior 5 Hp
Turn 13 – Shieldbearer 10 Hp
Turn 14 – Warrior 1 HP
Turn 15 – Shieldbearer 10 Hp
That dangerous Shieldbearer with 10 health will be tearing your units apart because he gets to move every other turn as he only has two units left to move. Leave those enemy units alive. Make him waste turns. Two enemies with 10 HP are infinitely more dangerous then one enemy with 10 Hp and 5 enemies with 1 Hp simply because of the turn order.
Step 4: Counter Strategy
How do you stop the enemy from doing exactly the same thing to you? This is why we use TWO Warmasters and TWO Thrashers. A Warmaster has the ability to deal 2 damage and 1 Shield damage to your target AND any targets next to him with 100% accuracy (no matter what your current Hp is.) Thrashers also let you attack four times for 1 damage each attack (no matter what your current Hp is.) Therefore, if the enemy decides to leave your units at 1 Hp you can still deal great damage with these four units that are barely alive.
Near the end of the match you’ll usually have both of your Archers unharmed and 1-2 nearly dead units. The enemy will have 4-5 units with 1 Hp doing 1-2 damage to you or simply missing you completely. Easy win.
Note: This guide will updated once we have more information about the game. You can also check out the complete video walk-through of The Banner Saga here.