The good news is there’s lots more ambush terrain for your light squads. The bad news? The enemy is perfectly setup in the swamp and you won’t consistently reach them on player phase. At least not without something like a shuffle line to move one squad in close enough to attack, which would leave all the rest vulnerable. Instead, hold your ground just outside the swamp such that the enemy has to change terrain before they attack: this will prevent their ambush attack.

This should draw one skirmisher from the left and three from the right even though the third one on the right cannot attack. Clear the survivors out on player phase (these squads will surrender) and you can safely reach the assassin on the right with a flying unit. The left is more complicated: if you rush the remaining skirmisher and assassin squads then you will draw the two skirmishers and the assassin above them too. My only squads that could reach the two on the left were horse archers that I didn’t want to leave exposed, so I set up another defensive line to draw them in. This time there’s no avoiding an ambush attack, so I’m going to be conservative and just lure the skirmisher in.

On turn 3 the skirmisher squad is easily cleaned up and Jules’s tiara powered raider squad obliterated the assassins and was able to retreat out of range of the three squads above. Beatrix (and particularly her healer, I should replace her with a paladin) is not suited for rear attacks, so she can be the lady of the lake for a little bit, safe above all that water. With a healing assist from two other squads and self healing MC is ready to tank another attack *crosses fingers*. Note that you’re probably better off not risking the MC’s squad like this, particularly with MC in the back row .. I really should have sent Lysander’s squad on this side.

Both skirmishers came down, one attacking MC & mostly wiping itself out. Both are easily dealt with in isolation & then Jules surges forward again to annihilate another assassin squad in one arrow volley. They sure do have low hp and defenses! On the right, I take it slow again, healing the skull squad up and letting them lure the skirmishers down.

One squad attacks Jaromir and the other is just out of reach, but both are easily wiped on player phase. My skull squad is sporting Landis’s Fixed Dice as well (doubles item drop chance) which yielded an imperial battle armor. Inspired by Jules, my generic horse archer squad then charges up to annihilate the enemy assassins.

I recommend another hit and run cycle against the necromancers at the door and then send up a unit in front of the archer. You can also use exemplar on a unit, like I did with the MC to draw the assassin and mage on the left and survive. Ideally you have a different defensive squad nearby or you don’t have the MC in the back to tank assassins, but exemplar does make this quite safe for armored characters.

From here it’s more straight forward with choke points to ensure your horse archers can hit and retreat to safety. Be sure to send the MC to the right, since that’s where the staircase is. You could always use teleport to fix that, but better to save it for the spiral treasure area. That will save a ton of time & ensure you get all the treasures before you finish the right side.

The necromancers are mixed with sorceresses and fire mages, but I didn’t have too much of a problem with them. I just tried to send high health & magic defense squads to lure them out and then cleaned up on player phase. The assassins can either be one rounded with archers like before or lured with armored back line squads if they are grouped up.

Interlude

The Balmung sword is our reward and an amazing sword it is, even with it’s costs. I think it’s best suited for blue dragons: they have huge hp pools so the penalty is mitigated and they benefit from all the bonuses.

I’ve given it to Sybil’s reformed unit for now, but I’ll need another blue dragon or two to make full use of it. Potentially a light squad with a mage that has arcane skill could also benefit, but the penalty to hp would make the mage extremely fragile while they won’t get the armor bonus (requires base armor). Perhaps with arcane shield to mitigate that?

MC also learns a new nephilim power: Terror. You can use it to lower enemy morale for even more surrenders. I gave MC an extra silver tongue trait I found as well, so surrenders should be spiking up even more.

I probably should have done it last interlude, but seeing a cannon mercenary available spurred me to build a cannon squad. Likely horse archers will still be preferred for their ability to retreat, but cannons do insane damage, particularly to well armored targets.

We’re now done with all the optional stages & it’s been quite a boon to my army between two faction rank ups, tons of new artifacts, recruits and some story character advancement too.

It’s only fitting to end this chapter of the war with a look over how my squads stand now.

On to chapter 21..