The Banner Saga created by Stoic.
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Chapter Six

Main Walkthrough

Boersgard

- Finally! The great city of Boersgard! If you brought Sigbjorn along you'll have no trouble getting inside the city. If you didn't, you'll have to prove your worth by fighting the dredge at the gates.
  • Enraged / Vicious Grunts
  • Dredge Spark / Inferno / Sun / Blind Slingers
  • Dredge Stoneguards
Not that bad a fight, though it'll get a bit spread out by the end. Keep your pack tight, whittle down Strength scores, and don't kill the dredge too quickly. By the end you'll have a huge number of utterly-wimpy combatants failing to chew through your superior Strength.

- Conversation. Things sound grim 'round these parts.

- Now you can access the city. You have the standard assortment of options - though, curiously, no option to Rest. Hm. Upgrade your men, buy items as you see fit, and head for the Docks when you're ready.

- After a depressing conversation, check with Iver in the city. He'll offer his suggestions as to what needs be done in Boersgard. He'll mention afterward that they'll lose fighters and varl every day they have to defend the gates of Boersgard against the dredge.


The Defence of Boersgard

Now comes the reason you've been (hopefully) saving up fighters and varl all this time. Boersgard is under threat, and you need to hold off the dredge while the boats are being built. You need to choose between finding a safe place for your caravan, helping defend the walls (which will cut down on fighter and varl expenditures), helping at the docks, or looking for supplies. Each day you'll lose fighters and varl if you don't help defend the wall - but you'll get into trouble in the city if you don't help out there, either.

Your options each day are as follows:
  • Find a safe place for the caravan to stay - Look for buildings where your clansmen can hunker down in safety. Abandoned homes are the best place to go. If you ignore this option any Supplies you have left will probably get nicked by thieves. Your caravan will also splinter and break up at the end of the siege, leaving you with, well, basically no clansmen.
  • Join Iver in defending the walls - Participate in battles. This seems like a no-brainer, but if you have lots of fighters and varl from your travels you can get away with ignoring this for maybe a day or two. This is your last major chance to earn Renown, so if you want to level up your characters before the final battle, fighting is the way to go.
  • Find a source for supplies - Look for supplies in a city that has none. If you go searching Oddleif will receive a note from a mystery person who will, if you follow it up, offer to trade you supplies for a horn he's lost. Take him up on this and he'll send you to Low Town. Here you can steal back the horn (looking for a back entrance works, or you can break in the door and face a fight against a bunch of weaklings - mind that only Rook and Oddleif participate) and either return it to the man or keep it yourself. Return it and you'll receive 20 Renown, as well as access to the Market - where you can buy supplies at a rate of eight per point of Renown! Yikes. Keep it and you'll gain Ash Mead instead.
  • Help down at the docks - Get to work on the ships. You can assist yourself, have your clansmen come in to work, or simply keep onlookers away from the docks. There will eventually be riots; you can attend to this by firing arrows into the crowd.
  • Put Krumr in charge of leading the warriors - This will lessen your losses, but ultimately Krumr will die in this post if you don't bother to defend the walls yourself and lose all of your fighters and varl.
  • Try to get some rest - Really the only way for your heroes to recuperate after battles. Unfortunately, a lot of bad stuff will happen while you're resting. Try not to use this option more than once, if at all.
If you brought Sigbjorn along you can also speak to Bolvark, leader of the Ravens. In exchange for the ale you brought he'll give you a healthy amount of supplies, which will greatly raise the spirits of your caravan.

Note that if you fail to provide adequate amounts of men to protect the walls, the dredge will come plowing through. You'll have to face off against them in the streets, and you'll probably lose a lot of clansmen in the process. If you brought few fighters and varl to defend Boersgard, you pretty much have to defend the walls each day.

- On the last day, when seemingly all hope is lost... Hakon! Yays! One more battle to fight before the caravans are united!
  • Slag Slinger Veterans
  • Dredge Fire Slingers
  • Flame Slingers
  • Enraged Grunts
  • Stoneguard Defenders
  • Stoneguard Destroyers
  • Dredge Scourges
Not as difficult as the last, but still tricky in its own way. Swapping out their beef for range, these dredge start off with a distinct disadvantage: they're a fair distance from your troops. Press forward immediately and wipe out the first few large dredge that come in at you, as they're the greatest threat. Ignoring the Slingers for a few rounds works nicely, as the big guys won't get many chances to attack your lines. Once you've dropped the Defenders and Destroyers, go for the Slingers. They're ever annoying, but they just don't do enough damage to be a significant threat.


- After this fight, Hakon and his caravan will show up and join the troops at Boersgard. You'll gain everyone in his party, including Ludin, Yrsa and Bersi, even if you kicked them out much earlier in the game. Juno, who has also appeared, will insist Rook come with her out of the city. Hrm.

- DECISION. Things will happen. Spoilers! Rook will get the chance to climb a godstone; you can either try to wrench a piece out of the base of the stone, climb higher where it'll be easier to remove a chunk, or give up entirely. If you climb high you can pry away a maximum of two pieces of metal before giving up and climbing back down. You'll gain Stravhs' Wetstone for taking the risk and getting the second piece of metal.


- Once you're back in camp, you may want to combine the best of the two groups who have now joined as one. May. Hakon's group didn't get that many items while on the road, so equip the best of what you've got if you use any of them.

- IMPORTANT DECISION. Head to the Crafters when you're prepped. Alette and Rook will have a conversation regarding the arrow, and who's going to shoot it. You can either let her do the honours or insist that Rook get the shot at Bellower. This is quite important, as the shooter, uh, won't be around for the final, final battle. Choose wisely.

- Afterward, speak to Juno to get the ball rolling. Once she's said her peace you can begin the fight with Bellower. Be warned: both Rook and Alette must participate in this battle, regardless of which one of them holds the silver arrow.

  • Stoneguard Defender
  • Scourge Warrior
  • Vicious Grunt
  • Blind Slinger
  • Flame Slinger
  • Slag Slinger Veteran
  • Bellower
If it weren't for Bellower this wouldn't be that bad a battle. As it is... ouch. There are two rounds to this fight. First, you need to hit Bellower with the silver arrow crafted previously. This means whittling down his Armor to single digits and having whichever character you gave the arrow to (Alette or Rook) unleash their shot. Only when you're assured a hit can you use the arrow.

Create a line of varl and focus your all on bringing Bellower's Armor down. Don't approach, don't bother with the other dredge (unless you need something to do, anyway), just protect your archer of choice and wait for Bellower to come into range. Once he does, pour all of your firepower into bringing that Armor stat as close to zero as you can. Bellower will regain a big chunk of his Armor on his next turn, so you have exactly that long to loose the arrow. Mind that losing the archer with the arrow will result in an immediate Game Over, so... yeah.
  • Scourge Warrior
  • Scourge Defender
  • Flame Slinger
  • Stonesinger
  • Bellower
Double ouch. You thought the first part was tough? This is worse. You're down a fighter, for starters, and though Bellower has fewer dredge than before he's no weaker. Worse, whenever you hit Bellower he immediately moves up to the next spot on the initiative order. Clear out some of the weaker dredge, notably the Stonesinger if you can move someone up that far, then go for Bellower. His Strength is quite difficult to whittle away with all that Armor on top, so make beating away at that your first priority.

If possible, use ranged attacks to hit Bellower - this will prove safer than sending up your melee warriors and watching them get knocked out on the very next turn. Bellower almost never bothers with Armor attacks, so Eyvind's Mend won't be a whole lot of use in this fight. Note that even though Bellower no longer regenerates to full each turn, he does still regain a bit of Armor each time his turn comes up.

Still having trouble? Assuming he's still alive, Egil is your man. If you've levelled him to four or five his Stone Wall special ability will be able to ward off Bellower's attacks nicely, especially if you've given him something that increases his Armor, such as the Godscale. Get him wedged between some dredge so Bellower can't walk by and the big dredge will almost always attack Egil. You can then hit Bellower, knock him back to the top of the initiative order, suffer whatever lame hit he offers to Egil, and essentially neuter the other dredge for the rest of the fight. Woo!

Sadness follows. Still, you've seen (most of) the caravan to safety. Congrats! You've completed The Banner Saga! For now, anyway...

Main Walkthrough