Time for a little character growth for Sybil and for her defense of the temple to take center stage. Sybil’s new squad can hold it’s own for quite some time, but warbows can reach across the water to even the odds a bit and dragon riders can fly over to aid her swiftly. The nephilim ability teleport can also jump a squad across to join her.

The southern path has assassins, so take at least one squad with a fortified rear line. The cavalry squads are clumped up, so have a care with how many you take on at once and/or have a squad with sentinels up front take them on. The forces in the center (sentinel and crossbow squads) will rush to attack Sybil and are not the biggest threat overall. Stefan can ambush on turn one if he is deployed into the top right forest square and help swiftly turn the northern skirmish in your favor.

Prioritize mobility for this stage as the turn limit is actually pretty tight. Another way to beat the clock is to teleport the MC over to reinforce Sybil, so that they are in position to end the stage swiftly. Do ensure you seize Felnamia for it’s huge bonus of 90 faction points!

Jaromir worked wonders with the Skull of Rowdain, boosting my surrender score to 72 for this stage. It could have been even higher if the stage had more turns or I didn’t split my forces up.

Interlude

Sybil’s class change skyrockets her leadership and gives her all sorts of options for a new squad. Fire affinity doesn’t fully leverage the magical abilities of the paladin class, so you could consider lightning, dark or even earth for Sybil, but fire is fine for the melee aspects.

I increased my faction rank again and invested in gunsmithing, so I can finally create gunners, dragoons and cannons. I want Lt Archibald to lead an ambush dragoon/hussar/champion squad, so I researched Advanced Mobile Warfare as well (dragoons are counted as light cavalry). Advanced Flanking (+15% attack power for each squad adjacent to the enemy) and Archer General (all archers are light) rounded out my other tech purchases.

I recruited a sorceress with arcane speed with the intent of adding her to a light squad and keeping her dodge ability up with the rest of the team. Having the mage perforated by arrows while the sword masters all dodge is a huge drawback after all.