Chapter 12 achievement prep.

[nvmvoidrays]

i'm still in my first playthrough, but i want advice on getting this achievement. what would b the absolute best way to prep to get this achievement on a save that's literally just used to get this achievement and then ditch it?

i know i'll need a lot of "reduce fire arms damage". i remember seeing a legedary item and then the bulwark item, but, are there any other items?

speaking of building this, does multiple thievery in a single squad stack to get even more gold? or is it one per unit.

[Zalugar]

The Temporal Modulator artefact probably a good idea as it lets you attack first on defense. Though I suppose it depends what kind of build you're looking at.
There's a couple Guides you can check out for in the Guides section.

And yeah Thieveries stack for more money. I think the unit has to do damage, so I didn't bother testing it on a healer.

[Big Mad Wolf]

I suspect playing and very low difficulty, at least on Warlord it seemed to be quite impossible, even my tankiest squads got wipe easy by those siege weapons

Maybe if you improve unit placement before the second wave spawns: All forces on one side, though might be hard to kill the first wave in time then depending on difficulty

[Negarretep]

My warlord strategy involved temporal modulator and warbows for cannons and then a sentinel squad to mop up the gunners. I don't feel qualified to say that it's the absolute best though.

[Purple Sauce]

Haven't done it yet but will be doing it on my 2nd playthrough. As stated above you really only need just one thing, warbows, armor piercing, and reduced cannon damage. If you focus on making a ton of warbow units you can decimate them pretty easily. The problem are not the musket units but the cannons murdering you. I killed one entire side of the map on my first try then got murdered by the rest of the cannon units I couldn't kill. You can literally just funnel the musket units or have AOE units demolish them. So just make a couple of bulky frontline anti-musket units that have a lot of heals to weather the storm and a lot of long ranged archers to eliminate the cannons. Keep in mind that cannon units also cannot counter attack. You can kill them off rather easily imo with the right gear and planning. I didn't even realize just how USEFUL archer units were yet as I only had 2 squads of them, with the knowledge that I have now, I would have at least 4 archer squads, they are broken and they are also what kill my units the most sadly.

[FishyFin]

I did it by choosing the easiest difficulty.

Have a squad with as good firearm resistance and durability as you can get and send them solo on the left side. They should hold one of the 2 forts there for a while. Half of your enemy's army will gang up on them which will buy you time.
Meanwhile the rest of you squad should wipe out the other half.

Units that can counter firearm are mage (especially Fire Mage), Dragon, Assassin/Rogue, bow/crossbow, Sentinel, Cannon.

As for tech, I choose tech for survival, different attack methods, tech that allow mage to attack first and some cannon tech.

[The Jason Order]

I completed this on warlord, without any legendary artifacts.

I don't think this achievement is difficult, as you can drop down lower than Warlord, but I felt that it required a bit of planning to achieve.

This was the map process:
1) Clear out every enemy unit on the map before turn 6.
2) Be ready with enough squads to kill or cripple all the cannon units that spawn on the bottom right side of the map the turn they spawn.
3) Have 2 strong defensive units on the left side of the map to hold out until you are finished the right. Have an archer unit on the left walls with lower threat than your defensive units to tank / return fire to the cannons. On the left, you have to move out to kill the units in the forts, then back to the gaps between the walls.

In terms of army composition:
I wanted to field the 15 units, but only had 9 actual units, so I made 6 weaker squads of the weak/useless story characters as leader (Stefan, Cat, Abigail, Sybil, etc) and 4-5 crossbowman. Even just 2 of these weak units would still be able to cripple any unit while staying out of range, or being used as a sacrifice. Leader in the middle, and crossbowman in the corner to reduce damage from cannons. I just bought random archers and used 1 CP book on them to make the crossbow right before stage 12.

For talents, I grabbed everything on the right side, but I think everything in the middle and then all the defensive talents would have been better. My thought process was to get extra Iron and Obsidian to field more tier 3 units, but it didn't work out as planned by the time I had already committed to it. Without the bonus levels from the top middle talent, my crossbowmen needed a CP book AND were very low level (5-6 behind enemy units).

The 2 strongest defensive units were 2 Sentinels and 1 Paladin, 2 Templars, then 3 heavy infantry DPS. I used Champions, but I think Centurions actually would have been better with the unit setup of Chapter 12. I had them with 3 defensive trinkets, 2 dodge ones and 1 -15% dmg on defence. They need enough damage to cripple units in one counter, but not enough to actually kill them, so that you don't get attacked by too many units in a turn. I held out in the 2 forest blocks that form gaps between the walls on the left. These leaders were given all the capture leadership and light affinity scrolls, so they could have 70-80 LDR to field squads of 8 and trinkets.

The other units were MC and Diana with generic units, 2 cavalry squads, 2 horsebow/raider squads, and 1 generic infantry squad. I was unlucky with Sunstones, so I didn't end up going Mages for DPS.

[Vergil]

I dont have much chances to upgrade the team so im asking what to do if they almost oneshot you?

I have few paladins, few upgraded medics and so on, but watching those youtube videos im questioning my ability to overcome this mission.

I need to annihilate at least one side in second part of mission but this seems mission impossible to me.

And since there is like zero chances to upgrade my current squad what can i actually do?

[Big Mad Wolf]

Originally posted by Vergil:

I dont have much chances to upgrade the team so im asking what to do if they almost oneshot you?

I have few paladins, few upgraded medics and so on, but watching those youtube videos im questioning my ability to overcome this mission.

I need to annihilate at least one side in second part of mission but this seems mission impossible to me.

And since there is like zero chances to upgrade my current squad what can i actually do?

Don't worry to much, this is a must lose secenario anyway. I had no Temperal Modulator either and also my units where net that well suited to fight siege cannons either.

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by Vergil:

I dont have much chances to upgrade the team so im asking what to do if they almost oneshot you?

I have few paladins, few upgraded medics and so on, but watching those youtube videos im questioning my ability to overcome this mission.

I need to annihilate at least one side in second part of mission but this seems mission impossible to me.

And since there is like zero chances to upgrade my current squad what can i actually do?

You don't have to 'win' the second phase of the battle unless you're going for the achievement. On a regular playthrough, just do what you can and last as long as possible. Even if you 'win', you lose in the cutscene and the gameplay effects are the same. The story's script has it as a surrender. (Don't worry, everyone gets back together again over the next few missions)

[Bishop]

Just finished it on warlord, actually didn't even know you're not supposed to win this, so didn't prepare :D. Started with 9 squads, with 6 left at the end, took about 2 hours and a lot of reloads.. No legendary artifacts, so they are not needed.

Two mounted archer units on the walls really helped a a lot. Go in, kill cannons from two rows, retreat back. Was able to break like 6 cannon squads with them alone. Otherwise its all about slowly retreating back into the castle without taking damage, then destroying one side quickly and focusing on another.