The Banner Saga 2 created by Stoic.
Images used for educational purposes only.
Main Walkthrough

While meandering your way along the sad, sullen path that is The Banner Saga 2, you'll have multiple opportunities to use the Training Tent in your camp to complete challenges. The challenges of the Training Tent are meant to hone your combat skills and force you to think strategically about a variety of situations, and how to apply character abilities to those situations. They are challenging, of course, and it can sometimes be difficult to complete them. Hence, this walkthrough.

Challenges are unlocked early in Chapter Eight, though you can only perform so many before the game shuts you down and forces you to progress through the story to unlock more. You get a random amount of Renown (between ten and twenty or so) for completing these challenges.

Chapter Eight

First Challenge

In this initial challenge you have Hakon, two Raiders, and one Archer up against five Spearmen. You need to complete the following tasks:
  • Form a Shield Wall. Have one of your Raiders cozy up beside another character. Easy.
  • Kill an enemy using Puncture. Let your foes move in close, knock one around a few times, and then kill him with your Archer. She cannot move for this to work. Again, pretty easy.
  • Use Hakon's Heavy Impact to damage three enemies at once. This is the challenging task, as your foes have spears and don't like to snug up against one another. Move the two Raiders up against Hakon, then move Hakon up a space once he's faced by two Spearmen. A third should move into place. Make sure you hit the middle Spearmen when targeting your enemies in order to hit all three.
Second Challenge

The second challenge is specific to your main character.
  • Rook needs to use his Mark Prey ability to have four characters hit a single target. Wait for a Varl to step forward, send all of your units to surround them, leaving room for Rook, then send him in and use the move. Not too difficult.
  • Alette needs to 'thread the needle' by hitting two out of a large group of opponents with her Thread the Needle ability. This challenge is pretty easy. Form a wall in front of Alette with your Raidmaster and Shieldmaster and keep resting as your opponents slowly move towards you. Once two are aligned, send Alette in and use Thread the Needle quickly to end the challenge. It has a range of five, so you have plenty of wiggle room.

Chapter Nine

Third Challenge

The third challenge gives you some practice with your three new characters against a mob of characters. You must complete the following tasks:
  • Use Bolverk's Frenzy ability to kill two enemies with one attack. Tricky, but not that difficult. Weaken a few enemies in close proximity, then send Bolverk between them and let him loose. Aim for the stronger unit first, as you can only apply Willpower to the first attack. Going after Archers makes this a bit easier.
  • Use Folka's Champion ability to protect an ally from an attack. Easy enough, though mind that a protected character needs to be attacked to fulfil the prerequisites.
Fourth Challenge

The fourth challenge involves Oli, Sparr, and Folka, and will pit you against, among other people, Bolverk. Ow. You can't trigger this challenge until you've recruited Oli, and even then you need to continue a little ways down the path before it unlocks. (Try after the godstone.) You must complete the following tasks:
  • Get three hits with Oli's Axe Storm. This involves whittling down a character's Armor to a significant degree but not their Strength. Not too bad, though you may want to wait until Oli's been hit once or twice so his Axe Storm won't kill an opponent before reaching the third hit.
  • Insult Bolverk with Sparr. Easy enough.
  • Prevent Bolverk from taking a turn. To do this you'll want to have Sparr Insult Bolverk constantly, not doing anything else. Whittle his Armor down with Folka and Oli, then perform Axe Storm until you get your three hits. Do not kill too many characters, or Bolverk will almost certainly get his turn before Sparr can Insult him. Once you have your Axe Storms, kill off Bolverk. You can try to kill Bolverk with Axe Storm, but it doesn't seem to work too well on him.
This battle seems to be bugged to a degree, and the folks in the comments suggest doing it as early as possible to prevent the challenge from becoming impossible.


Chapter Ten

Fifth Challenge

The fifth challenge sticks Iver and Oddleif together. You must complete a single task: use Iver's Battering Ram to knock an enemy into Oddleif's Rain of Arrows. Separate the two, drawing units towards Iver, and wait for a melee unit to get right in front of him. Sweep behind the unit, hold a turn, set up Oddleif's Rain of Arrows, and have Iver Ram towards the spot you've trapped on the next turn. Pretty easy.

Sixth Challenge

The sixth challenge gives you Iver and Eyvind, and your single goal is to use Eyvind's Arc Lightning attack on three enemies. Keep Eyvind back while Iver draws units forward, minding the diagonal positioning of your foes. Arc Lightning requires diagonal spacing to spread, and to an extent you need some luck to get three or more people in that order. Iver can help a bit with Battering Ram, though it usually throws opponents a few squares too many to be of great use.


Chapter Eleven

Seventh Challenge

The seventh challenge will put Folka, Dytch, and Zefr together. You must complete the following tasks:
  • Have Zefr use Runic Gale four times. This does not mean using the ability four times - your characters need to walk across four runes with any of your characters. Easy.
  • Have Dytch use Track to defeat three enemies. This can take a while, but it's not too difficult. Send Folka out front to give each of them one good whack to their Strength, then use Dytch's Track to finish them off. Might take a while, but not very tricky.

Chapter Twelve

Eighth Challenge

The eighth challenge, and the last for Sven, puts seven of your characters - Alette, Oddleif, Hakon, Iver, Aleo, Eyvind, and Tryggvi - in the ring against a comparable force. You must complete the following tasks:
  • Use the War Horn to recover Willpower. Easy enough - kill an enemy or two, then click the War Horn at the top of the screen for a Willpower boost. This gets a bit harder if you have bonus Willpower from high Morale.
  • Use Tale Worth Telling for a +5 damage bonus. This is the trickiest one, as you need a character to target an enemy with ten Strength more than their current total. You can do this with damaged enemies, but you may have an easier time using characters with naturally low Strength stats, such as Eyvind, Oddleif, or Alette.
  • Do ten or more Strength damage in a single hit. Not too difficult - drain one enemy's Armor entirely, then send one of your two powerful varl in for a kill hit. Your humans might be able to handle this much damage, as well, depending on what they have equipped and how many times they've been Promoted.
  • Defeat all enemies. Self-explanatory.
In addition to a bucketload of Renown you'll also earn the Sven's Training achievement, which gives you more Renown on top. Pretty danged good.

The Banner Saga 2 created by Stoic.
Images used for educational purposes only.
Chapter Thirteen

Ninth Challenge

The final training challenge of The Banner Saga 2 sees all of the compulsory Ravens - Bolverk, Folka, Sparr, Oli, Zefr, and Dytch - fighting in tandem. You must complete the following tasks:
  • Cull the Weak on three consecutive enemies. This is the hardest one. You need to whittle enemies down, then let Bolverk administer the killing blow. You'll either need to hold back on killing for a little while or save Bolverk until the end, tucking him away behind your other characters so he doesn't get hurt too often.
  • Use the War Horn five times. Just... use it. Yep. Bolverk himself should be draining the War Horn as he runs around using Cull the Weak.
  • Do ten or more Strength damage in a single hit. Whittle down Armor on one character, then go to town with a hard-hitter like Bolverk.
  • Defeat all enemies. Yep. Zefr's Runic Gale ability helps in weathering the storm, as your guys are not only outnumbered, they're rather outgunned by the sheer number of varl (usually - nine times out of ten for me) wandering around. I recommend reloading until you're not fighting a ton of varl, as humans just don't hit as hard, but that's just me.
As with the eighth challenge you'll earn the Holfi's Training achievement.