The Banner Saga 2

The Banner Saga 2

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The Banner Saga 2: Achievement Guide
By Ewig Custos
A guide on getting every achievement in The Banner Saga 2. Unmarked spoilers inside.
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Introduction
You'll need at least 2 playthroughs to get everything: besides difficulty achievements, there are separate achievements for reaching the last chapter with Rook and Alette.

While achievement hunting may be quite fun, I still strongly suggest going in blind for your first run. You won't be surprised by the same turn of events more than once, you know.

This is the last warning you'll get. Every achievement will be described below, spoilers or not.
Guaranteed achievements (Godstones)
You get these simply by going through the story, one godstone per chapter.

Achievement
Name
Chapter
Notes
Aselei
8
Listen to the tale and tug on the rope to get an item.
Irynx
9
Look at the damage Bolverk once caused to get an item.
Baldringr
10
Listen to the tale, then patrol the area for a fight and an item.
Vez'nan
11
Watch miners work to get an item.
Geirraðr
12
Inspect the vines to get an item.
Bygglaerer
13
Break children's stuff to get an item.
Lauga
14
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Game completion achievements
Achievement
Name
Notes
Normal
Complete the game on Normal difficulty.
Hard Difficulty
Complete the game on Hard difficulty.
Hard playthrough should be done together with Challenge, right below.
Challenge
Complete the game on Hard difficulty level without losing a single battle.
Just load a save if your defeat seems inevitable.
Quartermaster
Complete the game without letting anyone in your caravan die to hunger.
Out of the two, this one is easier to fail, since generally it's supplies that go out first and only then morale drops uncontrollably. The most difficult part for this achievement is in the timeframe during (and after) the chasm. Do not dump supplies if you're low, otherwise you would be in a very tough spot. If you load your TBS1 save, there's a high probability that you'll have lots of supplies from the very beginning. If that's the case, you're set for the rest of the game, all thanks to the addition of clansmen forage.
High Spirits
Complete the game without ever getting low morale.
Don't let your morale drop below normal. This means you should have great or good morale at all times in case of sudden morale drop from a random event. Similarly, morale boosts from the very same events are your friends. It's mostly tied to quartermaster goal this time, you can't keep people happy while they die of hunger, but for morale, you have a larger time window to fix everything even if things went wrong. If you imported the save and it has lots of supplies, once again, you're set for the rest of the game. One small exception: if your import save has poor or weak morale, this will follow through and you'll be denied a chance of getting this achievement from the very beginning (yeah, that's what happened to me).
Character-specific achievements
Most of these are going to be kill achievements. They are not difficult to get at all, but remember two things if you have some trouble:
  • Rule of thumb is to leave enemies at extremely low strength (1-2): this will remove an enemy as a threat for those few turns than you ignore him to land a killing blow with a specific character;
  • Kills made in the training camp count! They also count towards promotion score.

Achievement
Name
Character
Chapter
Notes
Against all Odds
Rook
8
Prevail with Rook against overwhelming numbers.
Right after the tutorial Rook gets another battle: him alone against the horde of dredge. You have to win in this battle. Sounds scary, but it's not that hard. You need to do something similar to this. Rook is not faster than dredge, however, you have 3 advantages. 1: you have ranged attack. 2: you move more often. 3: you can plan ahead. Look which dredge moves next. You need to be outside its full move radius (will included) + 1. Diagonals are fine, but you can't finish your turn in a turn adjacent to its move radius. But before making a move, check the next dredge in order. You need to move in direction where you won't be hit immediately afterwards, but will have freedom to move to a spot where you won't be hit a turn after that. Careful planning gets you far. Dredge numbers are their main weakness, this means only one thing. DO NOT KILL THE DREDGE. Not until you can dispatch all of them with one hit for each. Do not finish off summoning dredge, either - the more of them, the easier is your task. The only dredge you actually want to kill is the slinger: its ranged attack limits your mobility, and it has a special that goes through armour, and you really need all the strength you have.
Alette's Journey
Alette
14
Meet King Meinolf with Alette.
You get this achievement automatically after finishing the meeting camp event in Arberrang as Alette.
Axe Thrower
Oli
9+
Defeat 3 enemies with an Axe Thrower.
Berserker
Bolverk
9+
Defeat 3 enemies with a Berserk.
Cantref
Derdriu
10+
Defeat 3 enemies with a Female Horseborn Cantref.
Culling Frenzy
Bolverk
9+
Kill 5 in one turn with Cull the Weak.
Laughably easy on easy, quite easy on normal, requires some preparations on hard. Do not finish the enemies, either break their armour or leave them on low strength, the latter is more preferable. After everyone is in cull radius, do the clean-up. Please note that this achievements appears to be bugged and does not always trigger when you fulfil the requirements. During the main missions I did not get it after I culled the entire board, but the same in training camp worked as intended.
Poet
Aleo
8+
Defeat 3 enemies with a Poet.
Rook's Journey
Rook
14
Meet King Meinolf with Rook.
You get this achievement automatically after finishing the meeting camp event in Arberrang as Rook.
Shieldmaiden
Folka
9+
Defeat 3 enemies with a Shieldmaiden.
Slaughterer
Bak
9+
Defeat 3 enemies with a Slaughterer.
Agree to lead his people to the miner town in chapter 9. Bolverk will kill him in a battle if you don't.
Sneaky
Dytch
11+
Kill 5 enemies while stealthed.
The killing blow must be done from track. Take note that it ignores some of the armour, so you don't need to break all of it beforehand.
Teulu
Scathach
10+
Defeat 3 enemies with a Male Horseborn Teulu.
Tracker
Dytch
11+
Defeat 3 enemies with a Tracker.
You'll get this simply by completing one of the Holfi's challenges. Do 2 more stealth kills for Sneaky achievement.
Wanderer
Sparr
9+
Defeat 3 enemies with a Wanderer.
War Bear
Eirik
10+
Defeat 3 enemies with War Bear.
Follow the stone markers in the swamp. Before the next battle Eirik will approach you with his plan of capturing the bear, agree to it. In the battle leave the bear to be the last unit standing, use Eirik's new sub-ability on him. After that the very ability will summon a bear, you have to get kills with a summon. War bear is not a separate character.
Zefr
Zefr
11+
Defeat 3 enemies with Zefr.
Other achievements
Achievement
Name
Notes
Alliance of Convenience
Maintain an alliance with Rugga.
Do not make Rugga mad too much. Do so in moderation. I'm not exactly sure about the size of that window, so be careful. By the text I also noticed that he's way more hostile to Rook than to Alette, but no idea if it actually affects anything. Stuff Rugga does not appreciate: crashing your ships against the barricade on the river; falling for burning village trap on the river; attempting to throw Rugga in the chasm; following the stone markers at the swamp; at the town assaulted by dredge and horseborn - splitting forces and/or charging to save Oddleif or not following with his grand scheme against the dredge; insulting him in the face.
Demolition
Break 30 barricades in a single playthrough.
Easy enough. Get the last enemy to 1 strength, then during the pillage break all barricades on a board while ignoring the last enemy. You can spend supplies for barricades before the journey over the chasm to get this very early as Skogr's party, but I'd recommend against that unless you have a lot of supplies from imported save. You'll get your chance to get it as Bolverk later on.
Fighting Force
Build an army of over 600 trained fighters.
The fighters are... useless. TBS2 has less than 5 WAR! events, and you should never lose those anyway. Training fighters requires time, they do nothing useful, if the game is to be believed, are consuming more supplies than clansmen, and they do not forage. Considering the value your clansmen bring with their forage, especially towards Quartermaster and High Spirits achievemnts, the only time you should train fighters is when the game forces you to do so as part of the tutorial (choose to train 50). What you should do is this: when you have enough clansmen to reach 600 fighters when you train them, do so at the beginning of a new chapter or right after a godstone, then load a save.
Forced March
Reach Arberrang in 100 days or less.
Thanks to revised morale system, you shouldn't have problems with getting this achievement even while maintaining great morale.
Intense Reposession
Witness Eyeless possess 10 fallen units.
If you want, you can get this during your first encounter with her. Generally she'll cast possession on the second turn in her dredge form. On the first appearance get her to low strength so she wouldn't cause much problems on her first turn (be wary of poison). Then just let her do her thing and kill the zombies when she raises them.
Keep Your Wits
Bolverk always acts as the Ravens expect.
Not certain about this one - got this during my first playthrough. I'm certain it's connected to killing the stonesinger, but there may be other things required. Possibilities include raiding the village in chapter 9 and doing anything but helping the villagers in chapter 11.
Leader of Clans
Bring 400 clansmen safely into Arberrang.
Clansmen are way more useful than fighters, so you should have no problem with this. If you're just short, choose invite other families to join your banner when entering Arberrang, this will do the trick.
Master Tactician
See "Master Tactician" section below.
Sundr Slayer
Kill a Sundr.
Defeat Eyeless for the second time, but it's not the end! The game will ask you if you want to go for the second wave to finish her off, accept. There are two really easy ways to do this. First: cast Zefr's wind on Bolverk, which will allow him to move across the entire board to finish her off in one turn with his double-strike. Second: use Dytch (Tracker) for stealth mode, move to Eyeless' body while invisible and finish her off after a few turns when there're no dredge around or they won't get a turn before Dytch's second turn. You'll need two hits = two turns!
Sven's Training
Complete Sven's Training.
Pretty straightforward. You are forced to try the first one, there's one right after the first. Then another 2 will be available after the next chapter, meaning that after you get control as Rook/Alette once again after the Bolverk chapter, there will be new challenges ready. Repeat that, and there'll be the last challenge waiting for you. 2-2-1 in chapters 8, 10, 12. If you have problems, there's a nice walkthrough[www.arrpeegeez.com] for you.
Holfi's Training
Complete Holfi's Training.
Basically, the same as above, but for Bolverk's party. The only difference is that you don't get the second set right at the start of the chapter, but when you get Tracker for your party in the caves. 2-2-1 in chapters 9, 11, 13.
The Saga Continues
Import Save Game from Banner Saga 1.
Treasure Hunter
Acquire 3 rank 10 items.
Items spawning in shops is more or less random, and unlike the first game, you can't find items of max rank during your journey, your only option is to buy them. All rank 10 items cost 20 renown, some shops may have more than one at once. Of course, items bought as Bolverk also count, so use that to your advantage.
Edit: "As Bolverk, right after the godstone Bygglaerer you will encounter a event saying you find a pit. If you send someone down there you will get a rank 10 Clasp of Kyn." (credit to Venceremos)
Varl Dregs
Reach Oldford with at least 20 Varl following Bolverk.
After the caves, there will be a point where you'll see a varl banner fighting the dredge in the distance. Krumr will leave to help. Join him. After your victory there'll be enough varl to get this achievement upon reaching Oldford.
Warmonger
Fight 32 battles in a single playthrough.
Interestingly enough, this achievement was made harder than its TBS1 counterpart, I did not get it in my first playthrough, but I got it in my second just a few fights before the meeting tent. You don't have to fight all possible battles, there is a window, but it's not very big. I suggest doing this on your second playthrough when you know which choices lead to battles and which do not.
Master Tactician
Master Tactician
With 6 Rank 10 units, win a Hard difficulty sparring battle in the Training Tent.

Okay, I consider this the most difficult achievement in the game, so I'll describe this one more thoroughly.

This boils down to this: you need to get 510+ renown on your Skogr party. With a very specific list of characters. With a time limit. Yeah.

Bolverk? Forget him, he is not going to help you with this one.

First about the time limit. There's only one deadline set in stone: meeting camp in Arberrang, but your character roster may bring it closer. If a character leaves earlier than you get this achievement, your renown on that character was basically wasted. For example, choosing Ludin and Yrsa for your "elite 6" sets your deadline to right before arrival to Arberrang instead of the meeting camp. Choosing Eyvind and Iver brings that down even earlier - to arrival to the fishing village, and so on.

Then the renown itself. How to maximize your renown? Battles, of course! Almost every main-plot related (set in stone) map event has a way to start a battle, and battles give a lot of renown. In battles, you should let summonner dredge (big dredge with fork-like weapons and small dredge slingers that throw black crystals) do their thing, more corpses = more renown. In battles with a specific win condition (usually kill specific minion), kill all other enemies first. Spend renown only on "elite 6" units and units from Bolvark party. Do not buy items or supplies as Skogr party. Try to get renown from random events if possible.

Note that you don't have to play on Hard to get this achievement, you can just switch to Hard before clicking on the training tent.

There are some tricks that may make this easier.

- first playthrough bonus;
- suboptimal party bonus;
- horseborn solution;
- import solution;

First playthrough bonus

So, the idea is simple: you get this achievement on your very first playthrough. Why? Well, you get significantly more renown during your first run, because every achievement you get will award you some renown (usually 5). Trust me, this can make a huge difference, without the other methods on my first run I came short on ~40 renown before the character split.

Suboptimal party bonus

So, Eyvind, Iver, Ludin and Yrsa leave early? Mogun, Bersi and Krumr leave after the first chapter? Well, this means one thing: you don't use them! Well, at least do not promote them, Eyvind is too good even at rank 5 to pass him up. Make your "elite 6" from all other characters. This will yield you a couple more renown-events and 2 battles at most. Not much, but can still give you an edge.

Horseborn solution

You abuse the game. Hard.

The reward is limited only by your determination.

In the woods there's yet another town assaulted by horseborn. You may intervene or you may go forward. Obviously, you should check it out.

Prerequisite: 1 character with very high strength and at least moderate armour; item with 1 strength damage resistance or better; item with 1 will per turn OR item with 3 will on rest.

Resistance item goes to your damage dealer, will item goes to Eyvind.

The battle is a bunch of horseborn with a huge horseborn leader. The battle ends when you finish off the leader. What happens if you kill all other horseborn before that? More arrive. Do they end? No. Endless horseborn. Endless XP. PETA will want to kill you, though. Oddleif also would not approve if it was scripted.

You get 3 other horseborn in your party by default. Just throw them on the big guy, you need to get him on low strength so he wouldn't be able to do anything to your main fighter. They have low armour, so other enemies will target them first, and for the better. Once they're all dead, there will only two of your units left: your fighter in the front and Eyvind in the back. Fighter kills horseborn. Eyvind mends his armour. You need str resistance item because enemies have at least 2 skills that do direct strength damage: javelin throw and stampede. They do just 1, so resist basically negates all str damage. And Eyvind repairs the break damage.

Repeat until you are satisfied. If you want to calculate how many kills you need beforehand, every kill gives 2 renown.

Any unit with high stregth will do for the job. Tempest ability does wonders, but be careful: characters with tempest usually have "damage adjacent units for 1" passive, so you should be careful not to kill the chieftain earlier than you want.

EDIT: Import solution

It turns out "free" renown is also rolled over when you import the save from TBS1, so another easy solution would be to stockpile it in the first game to import the save and have no renown problems in the second one.
Secret achievements
These are "secret" in-game achievements, they show as usual achievements in-game and provide renown when you first get them, but do not have their Steam counterpart. Feel free to ignore.

Achievement
Chapter
Notes
Show dominance
9
Defeat Mogun's party without any losses. To fight Mogun, tell him that the cart is his if he manages to go past you.
Break through
9
Destroy all barricades during the village raid. Obviously, to do so you have to decide to attack it in the first place.

There may be more, if you find them, leave a comment, I'll add them to the list.
34 Comments
上杉 謙信 29 Dec, 2023 @ 5:23am 
There's also one secret achievement in Chapter 14, according to the files. "ch14_hunting_fast". Has anyone managed to find out anything about it? Probably requires to take down splinters in the very first turns?
alpasy 31 Jul, 2017 @ 12:35pm 
'Keep Your Wits' doesn't require to kill the Stonesinger (looks like The Ravens are more tolerant than they seem). :crow:
pgann 21 Nov, 2016 @ 9:05am 
Question:

for "Challenge" achievement, is it lost if you fail a training mission at the training tent?
Darklord_bg 26 Oct, 2016 @ 9:41am 
Yes, it's strange. I've been watching some online play-throughs and they give double the renown for what I got for the same battles (the battle with the dredge in Lundar for instance gave 58 for them and only 29 for me).

Maybe it was changed with a patch or something like that.
Ewig Custos  [author] 26 Oct, 2016 @ 8:36am 
I'll check it out when I finally get to survival mode, but at the time of writing this guide it gave 2.
Darklord_bg 24 Oct, 2016 @ 3:02pm 
If you want to calculate how many kills you need beforehand, every kill gives 2 renown.

This is false, every kill actually gives you ONE renown. Time to start over :(

It's not worth it, killing 200 centaurs for this achievement, killing 100 took me about an hour and a half.
Darklord_bg 24 Oct, 2016 @ 4:34am 
I tried to get "Intense Reposession" the way you described it and it did not work. I lowered both of her strength and armor ASAP, but then instead of possessing fallen units, she kept burning her willpower to do 7 break damage to my characters. Soon, she was out of willpower, and all I could do was kill her :(
Slim000 22 Oct, 2016 @ 3:07pm 
thanks for the guide:steamhappy:
Deckard 20 Aug, 2016 @ 6:35am 
Sure it's not intended that way, but you can get the Culling Frenzy with Bolverk by simply killing barricades, got it with the village where you run at them from three sides, wasn't expecting it only reason I was even hitting them was for the 30 barricades in a playthrough achievement.
Ewig Custos  [author] 24 Jun, 2016 @ 12:46am 
I'll update the guide next week when I'll get a chance to check out the update.