Prologue | Lists The Banner Saga Guide

Game begins in the seaside town of Strand and after finding yourself in a Great Hall you'll be forced to fight the first battle. Playable characters are Shieldbanger and Gunnulf and you have to deal with hostile Chieftain and his three helpers - Enemy Raider.

Note - the entire fight is some sort of extended tutorial. This means that its course is fully directed by the game and you can't lose it. Do not worry about the fact that some actions are blocked by the game because the aim is to test very specific moves and attacks.

Note - battle rules are more detailed described in a separate guide chapter.

Tempest attack allows dealing damage to several enemies at once

Your first task is to move Shieldbanger to the marked spot so he will find himself next to one of chieftain's helpers. Click on the hostile character and accordingly to game hint, choose the fist icon, confirming your attempt to weaken the Strength attribute of your enemy. Shieldbanger should kill enemy with a single attack, gaining first Renown points and ending his turn (the sequence of movement of characters is shown in the bottom left corner of the display).

Wait until enemy Chieftain moves towards your Shieldbanger, dealing minimum damage. After a moment you'll gain control over and once again you have to move this character to the arbitrary fixed place, getting to know how mechanism of spending Willpower points on "extra" actions works. The next element of the tutorial is to become familiar with special abilities of playable characters. Click Gunnulf and choose Tempest ability, which allows you to deal damage to several nearby enemies. Select the Enemy Rider on the right and wait for the action to be completed - it should eliminate both weaker enemies, leaving only Chieftain alive.

Spending Willpower point allows you to use stronger attack

Due to the fact, that only enemy Chieftain is left on the battlefield, the game will start the Pillage Mode, which modifies the sequence of character movements. After you gain control over Shieldbanger, click on the enemy chieftain and select an attack aimed at his strength (fist icon). By default this action would deal only 8 points of damage, but you can strengthen it by spending one Willpower point. In order to do this, click on the star, so the attack will deal 9 points of damage to your enemy, resulting in defeating him.

Battle summary

After each won fight the game will display its summary. You can learn here about advancements of your heroes, as well as the potential rewards. In this case you'll earn 5 Renown points (fame is awarded after each won fight and the number depends on the difficulty level or type and number of opponents among other things.