Bad North: Jotunn Edition

Just won this achievement today.

The islands with commanders on are marked with a flag. Make sure if you are about to lose or a commander gets killed that you press home and quit the game, this means you can reload without penalty.

Make it a priority to upgrade at least one unit to elite archers and if you find the ring of command give it to that unit. Devastating against most units and saved my arse many a time. Use them in combination with strong infantry. If the map lends itself to pikes for example if the only attack route is a path up to a cliff pikes can be lethal. But they must be protected from ranged units at all times as they are vulnerable to arrows. Make sure to purchase volley for your archer unit this is great at taking down hordes if used at the right time.

Also be aware that when you end a turn the shadow moves across the map toward you from the left. Make sure not to get caught by it as this is game over. It is fairly easy to avoid but something to bear in mind. It is best avoided by moving mainly horizontally rather than diagonally.

Personally I used two elite archer units and two elite infantry units on most of the later maps with pikes occassioanly if the map was right. A question mark next to an island marks an item, try and collect them and assign them to units, they are essential in the later stages.

The hardest obstacle you will face is the brutes with giant bows, they tear through your units and are a real pain. My best advice is to use an elite infantry unit as a buffer, their armour absorbs most of the damage and allows you to flank them with other units, archers are ideal but if not elite infantry will rip them to shreds at close range.

Finally be careful which islands you select, try to pick the ones with the most buildings on, these are represented by yellow squares. Avoid islands which have few buildings in you can as you want to gather as many coins as possible to upgrade units.

The tiers cost as follows:
- Standard - 6 coins
- Veteran - 12 coins
- Elite - 20 coins

Do not waste coins, try to pour them into the same units so you can make them as strong as possible.

Good luck and please drop comments if you have questions I check in regularly. If you must down vote me please explain why and give me an opportunity to rectify the issue.

As a result of a comment from Anxsighety I am posting two videos demonstrating some tactics on the game. As he quite rightly pointed out, I had not provided specifics on strategies. I hope this has gone some way to rectifying this. Here I explain multiple threats and the use of the elite archers in combination with infantry and pikes. In the second video I explain how to deal with the brute archers which are by far the hardest units in the game.

Keep the feedback coming please I will further improve this solution if needed. I do not take negative feedback lightly and will always strive to rectify my mistakes in order to help you guys.




The latest video gives a detailed guide on how to deal with the hardest units on the hardest type of map. It has not gone unnoticed that I have bad feedback on this solution. I hope my additions rectify this. Please drop comments. I have written many solutions most of which have overwhelming positive feedback. Please give me the chance to improve the solution with constructive feedback

UPDATE 2/10/19
People are reporting a new update and some concerns about a level restart option being checked voiding the achievements. I can confirm that having the level restart option checked DOES NOT avoid the achievements. Some very useful info from one of the devs has been posted supporting this and that the only criteria for the achievement is that the game checks all 8 commanders are alive at the end of the game. Thanks to healtti and seitzz for this information.

For this Achievement, you must play the campaign on hard, recruit all commanders on your way to the end, and finish the final battle without losing any commanders.

There are some good guides and strategies already, but I feel like I have a few things to add, although some things may be repeated.

I recommend playing on easy, and then normal before going for this Achievement (you need 15,000 kills anyway, you might as well...). It's a good way to familiarize yourself with the way the game works, and slowly ramp up the difficulty.



Starting Traits and Items:

Of the starting traits I had available at the time, I chose Heavy Weapons (increased knockback/stun), and Popular (squad size +1).

Of the starting items I had available at the time, I chose Jabena (squad can be deployed twice per turn), and Philosopher's Stone (additional gold from islands you defend).



Final Island Squad Makeup and Tips:

2 Archer Squads (Jabena with Heavy Weapons, and Ring of Command with Fleet of Foot), 1 Pike Squad (War Horn with I don't remember, but it may have been reduced damage, or reduced item upgrades), and 1 Infantry Squad (Mines with Sharp Weapons).

I actually played through Hard twice. When I got to the end for the first time, I found it unreasonably difficult. I tried all different strategies and even tried reloading to change the enemy spawn order. The island was just too difficult to defend, so I played it all again. I didn't mind so much since the game is so fun, and I was still working towards the 15,000 kills.



Enemies:

There are 7 enemy types. The melee enemies are (as I describe them) swords, shields, hatchet-throwers (these are sort of an odd hybrid where each one has a single-use hatchet that they throw when in close-range), ninjas, and brutes. The ranged enemies are archers, and brute snipers.

All melee enemies can safely be taken out with archers before they reach land, and this is ideal, however, it is inevitable that a lot will get to land. In that case, you'll want Pikes and Infantry, in that order. For enemy archers, place at least one infantry between your archers and the enemy archers to block their arrows. You can get additional range from height, but I don't recommend this. I have found that you lose accuracy from the trajectory of your arrows. You're usually better off shooting straight at them from shore.

Pikes must be stationary, and are very effective against the swords, shields, and brutes. They can also take on the hatchet-throwers and ninjas, but are likely to take casualties. Infantry are good to help Pikes in this case. If you move a Pike squad into an enemy squad, they will likely get slaughtered. The Pikes must be in position before the enemy reaches them to be effective.

When engaging the brute snipers, only Infantry should be used. Hide behind the nearest house or rock, and try to time it so that your Infantry can meet the brute snipers when they reach shore. If you can place a mine before they land, you can move in to finish them off before they can recover. Infantry should also be used to supplement the Archers and Pikes as mentioned.



General Strategies:

Don't buy any abilities or their upgrades. Your gold is better spent getting your squads to Elite, so you can defend as many islands as possible per turn.

You don't have to save all houses on all islands, although you should try since you will get more gold. If you can sacrifice a small house for a more efficient strategy, it's not a bad idea (1 Pike squad at the top of a hill can easily defend against all simple melee enemies).

I made it to the final island before equipping items and upgrading them. I recommend this if you are able to. It is the best possible strategy to pair the most powerful items with the most powerful traits.

I found the Heavy Weapons trait very powerful when paired with an Archer squad. They can decimate entire ships of enemies before they reach land because the enemies are so vulnerable to being knocked off the ships.

The Sharp Weapons trait is most efficient for Infantry, for two reasons. More damage, AND less knockback. Infantry have to chase down certain enemies. When there is less knockback, that means your Infantry don't have to run as far to finish off the enemies.

I recommend saving as many islands as possible, and as many houses per island as possible.

There are no penalties for restarting, and you can also view islands that you've unlocked before deciding your strategy.

The Philosopher's Stone is most effective when used from, or near the start. This will maximize the amount of gold you receive from it. I started with it, upgraded it right away (sacrificing skill upgrades early on), and I earned 463 gold according to the end-game stat screen. Before the final island, I had about 120 spendable gold. I used it to upgrade the items I wanted to use, and purchased and fully upgraded all abilities (except one; one of the abilities was at level 2) for my designated squad, even though I ended up not using any abilities on the final island. I had about 15 gold left after that.

From the randomized islands, there seems to be a scale. On one end of the spectrum, there's completely flat which are the easiest to navigate and moderately easy to defend, and on the other end, there are mountainous islands with many height levels and tunnels, making it a maze to navigate and generally much harder to defend. If you find these islands too difficult, find the easiest house to defend, and concentrate your forces there.

If your a fan of Warhammer/tabletop gaming you'll get a fix from this.

Building your army is essential to completing all islands and getting max gold to outfit them.

Depending on difficulty settings having a full four troops to tackle any given island is optimal but many can be completed with less and without certain types of troops until the game throws harder units at you.

I recommend pausing and quitting from the Xbox home screen when u lose a unit and then restarting the island with full units. MANY people forget that troops can be partially refilled by using the replenish command making them go into a building and being unavailable for a period of time. Just as skills must be utilized timely "replenishing" time MUST be considered.

Having a spear men troop from the start can complete some islands by themselves. They have very high offensive and can hold a defensive position in a choke point (which maybe all u need) but lack any sort of defense from ranged damage (ranged enemies don't show up for a bit in hard) . I liked creating a "Sure-footed" trait knock back resistant spear men group with the first two units u can customize so they can withstand a boat coming in knocking them. I like too give this unit three different items, the "war horn" item for instant reinforcements since they lose units quickly too anything but the most toughest units or the "Bomb" or "War hammer" item too attack as a enemy unit lands in front of them. I never bought the "Spear Thrust" skill for these units, never needed it.

Next most crucial unit too have is archers. This unit can damage every unit before it lands but is almost completely defenseless against all forms of damage. From the initial two customizable troops I like too create a unit of archers that have "Heavy Weapons" skill, if u give this unit the "Ring of Command" it will have sixteen archers that can regularly kill entire full boat loads of regular, shielded and larger size troops since its extra knock-back "blows" them into the water. I always recommend having two archer units for larger size islands. Second skill that you can find which is useful for archers is the thorn one that has the troop do more damage.. Buying the extra archer skill volley was at times useful, this is the only squad skill I recommend buying 1st lvl of only , but its really only useful early game when I just couldnt overcome certain islands with limited troops.

Third most important unit are shielded men (I say this only because enemy archers come a little later into the game on hard mode). Having one of these units is essential once enemy archers show up. They are the damage tanks for any ranged damage until the archer units behind them can shoot. Since they are essentially damage absorbs the trait that has a turtle picture providing more defense is optimal. Items i equippd them with were a "War horn" item too replenish lost units quick or "Bomb" or "War hammer" works nice too deal damage as enemies land. I never bought the skill too drop down attack a unit from hill above, its far to specific.

For the two initial commanders you can create I at first went with a knockback resistant spearman and knockback increasing archer troop, but found once you could create a shield troop with the extra defense turtle picture trait I went with that instead of the spearman. A extra defense damage absorb troop has far more utility.

Optimally you want too take too every island a spear men, a shield men and two archers. OVERALL having a ten commander army means u want to have three spear men, three infantry, and four archers too round out your overall army potential. This allows you too take at least two islands a turn, possibly three. Early game the potential too lose islands is there but take all opportunities for additional commanders and items first as they are far more important then just gold which is very important as well.