Kingdoms: General Tips

General tips about Kingdoms mode

Intro

After finishing a few Kingdoms runs, thought I'd share some of the tips and startegies that helped me beat it, seeing that there aren't many guides on Kingdoms yet.

Kingdoms is a new game mode which blends classic DD2 gameplay with a town managment similar to DD1. You have a limited number of days (turns) to complete a series of quests and defeat the final boss. Each day you can move to an inn or a camp, inns can be upgraded, while camps cannot. Between each is a region with a short stagecoach run with about 3 nodes on average (can be up to 5 later on).
You can choose 4 heroes to start with, then 8 more are scattered throughout the map, that you can form 2 more teams with.

Except during the boss battles and sieges There is a retreat button on the top left part of the screen during combat.

Team

A relevant thing to consider is you can get ambushed at camps, so you want heroes that aren't useless when shuffled

Beast Clan

When choosing a team, keep in mind that the beastmen have a high Blight resistance, so blight DoT team might struggle until you give them some blight piercing.
My go-to team was: Crusader, Bounty Hunter, Highwayman, Runaway

Rank 1: Crusader - Good damage, can heal and stress heal, decent tank and has mobility skills
MAA is also a great alternative, so is Hellion

Rank 2: Bounty Hunter - Good damage, best versitality skills, stuns, debuffs, moves. Has the best stun move in the game which can come in clutch vs beastmen to counter Berserk.
MAA or Abomination can also fit in here or just Flagelant

Rank 3: Highwayman - Good damage, steals tokens, usefull in all ranks, hits all ranks, riposte can apply combo. Can respec him into sharpshot, double tap skill is amazing on that path
Occultist is a good alternative, you need someone that removes enemy tokens efficiently
Jester also works applying cleave bleed, blinds and plenty of combo tokens

Rank 4: Runaway - DoT, debuffs, blinds, conditional healer. Smokescreen can be an alternative counter to enrage, applies blind, vulnerable and combo. This team likes using combo.
Could respec her into arsonist for flame DoT piercing, to make her more useful in the Sprawl.
Alternatively can use Plague Doc, but you'll have to give her blight piercing if you wanna go blight with her

The Coven

Any good team will work here, but since Coven uses stealth try to include Highwayman, Runaway or Vestal, due to their stealth removal skills. Lepers Intimidation is ok, not the best, since it needs to be upgraded. Hellions Barbaric Yawp is not reliable enough imo, but can be used if necessary.
Also don't stack all three in the same team, you want your backup teams to be able to deal with stealth too.

My primary team for Coven was: Hellion, MAA, Surgeon Plague Doc, Runaway.
Hearthlight and Bellow skills really shine in this mode. In plenty of Coven battles witches start with up to 2 Dodge+ and stealth skill gives them Crit Token. We can use these skills to counter that without much headache.
You can even use Firestarter on MAA and have him burn the entire enemy team when he yells at them, not as good as it sounds, but a viable strat.
I prefer Surgeon over Alchemist, even tho the latter is more effective than in The Beast Clan, low HP is quite a risk.
Rank 3 is a bit of an awkward spot for this team, since Hellion and Plague Doc can't reach it and they don't have pull skills, but can dish out a lot of damage to front ranks and punish rank 4. This is why Magnesium Rain is essential for a smooth battle. Alternatively, you can fix this by having Alchemist instead.

Secondary team: Crusader, Flagellant, Bounty Hunter, Sharpshot Highwayman
Bounty Hunter in Rank 3 is interesting, he's an excellent back rank disruptor, just give him No Escape and Hurlbat. Mark also removes Dodges entirely and you can even keep Collect Bounty, this setup makes him not care about being shuffled.
This team can have possibly devastating encounters with Death, as she tends to appear at the worst times, but if you play smart it's extra mastery points. The team can handle her, even on escalation 3, bad shuffling being the main threat.

Tips and Strategy

General Tips

- Retreat button has been introduced in this mode, it's on the top left of the screen next to the enemy advantage banner... Use it when necessary, the party will gain +2 stress on successful retreat

- Kingdoms has a new mechanic called Fatigue, which basically drops your heroes max HP (0-20%) after each region or upon hitting Deaths Door. You can use items, hospitals or just rest to heal fatigue. And by rest, I mean you need to skip a day or swap out and station your heroes. Stationing in the inn for a day also gives you a one region buff for +20% HP and damage and +2 speed. Helpfull if you can spare the time.
The No rest achievement is very doable, just a little bit more expensive, hit those hospitals or upgrade a Physician at an inn, 10% heal is 8 baubles (6 at an upgraded inn).
After some 5 or so days or when fatigue is too high (about 20%), I like to switch to the B team for a few locations. This gives the main team time to heal and opportunity to upgrade B team, then switch again when fatigue gets too much to handle.

- In hero selection, don't forget to Shift+Click on the heroes you want to be your backup teams, since the Coven update, you can choose who is available. If you don't, it's random.

- You can sell trinkets, stagecoach and some items to the Hoarder, so don't just dump stuff you don't need. There is also Inn storage available from the map menu.

- Always avoid wheel and armour damage if you can, repair is costly and you can use those resources for fatigue heal or trinkets, it can really stack up and hurt your economy.

- It's worth to plan out your route based on inn treasures, they usually give quite a bit of resources and good trinkets. Same goes for contracts, the contract even says whats in store (beast den, lair boss or a fight with an elite).
Inn treasures are more plentifull if the inn is upgraded.

- Buy rumors, they often give good trinkets worth much more. The image on the rumor tells you what region it's in and the text tells you which node. You should aim for those, but don't break the bank over it, trinkets are Inedible (gold) quality, but random.



- Use undergorund pasage carefully once you hit escalation 2, Sluice is esspecially dangerous, the Kingdoms patch buffed the pigs and they deal a lot of damage.
Catacombs I find less scary, but can still get out of control if you're not careful. Slimes will multiply only if there is a corpse adjescent to them. Destroying the corpses gives you a bit of resources too, so it isn't a waste of turn there.

- Save up blight resist inn and combat items in Beast Clan module, two of each will do, they'll come in handy in the endgame. Also, don't dump the slime mold right away, you could get food barrels and a bunny pet. Extra HP is always welcome, but if you don't get the items and lack inventory space, dump them.
In Coven, save up on stun resist Inn Item and try to buy the 100% stun resist trinket (Inert Indicia). Buy the Coven exclusive items too, they are really good. Be mindfull with the mandrake tho, it's a risky item, equip it on a hero with the highest stun resist or with the trinket, it's a budget Oversprung clock combo with the trinket. It's also worth to save up 4 of Mandrakes for the end boss, but only with the trinket.

- The Coven uses a lot of stealth, but there is a mechanic that allows you to hit a stealthed enemy if its the only target on the board. Corpses do count as targets too, so you need to remove them first in order to target the stealthed unit.
So, for example, you got a stealthed piggy with 3 corpses and you can't target it, but you use Magnesium rain to remove the corpses and the next hero will be able to hit the piggy despite being stealthed. It's a niche situation, but can help sometimes.

- Heroes that aren't on the stagecoach (defending sieges) and have a meltdown, "only" lose HP, but not affiliation with anyone

- It's fine to sacrifice an inn if it's too difficult or inconvinent to defend and always choose to defend an upgraded inn. Just don't make a habit out of it, besides being a losecon, every hero gains stress and fatigue when an inn is lost.

Escalation 1: Take as many battles as you can, this will give you much needed resources and mastery (mastery is less relevant here). You have more HP and deal more damage in Escalation 1, so fights will be easiest early on. Keep in mind that boss lairs are still a threat if you don't have your essential skills available and mastered, so don't get too overconfident on those, but having a trophy early on will help make the rest of the run easier (be ready for The Collector surprise). Even if you don't feel ready for the boss, you should still take the lair for the first two fights, you will get resources after escaping before the boss.
Would recommend not to skip days in this phase, use the escalation buffs to your advantage as much as possible to gain resources and trophies.

Escalation 2: Pick your battles or remember to use retreat, you are significantly weaker in this phase, but should still take most of them. Hoard nodes give out more resources though, so take those instead. You should also try to clear out a boss lair if you haven't already. Elites can now appear in resistance encounters.

Escalation 3: Due to a quest in Beastmen module, you'll have to fight road battles in this phase. For the resistance encounters I prefer to mostly avoid them and aim for road battles, enemy damage is high now. Would not recommend to take on lair bosses in this phase, too risky imo, but again take the two battles before it. Elites are more common now.
Stock up on flame items, even with three locations, the flame will go down to 0 by the end and you don't want a random shambler. The purple menace is even worse with all the escalation buffs.
You should focus on the quest, sieges are plenty and veteran militia can mostly defend them, at this point it becomes a battle of attrition.
Rest to full in the final inn before the last location, you'll want your team on 100%

Inn Upgrades

Barracks

You don't need to upgrade barracks in every inn early escalation 1, upgrade barracks on the inns you don't plan on visiting often or are hard to reach quickly. There won't be many sieges and you can defend them either with your main crew or any 4 stationed heroes. When upgrading, go for partisan immediately, basic militia is weak, while partisan can defend most sieges up to escalation 3
Escalation 2 you should have your distant inns upgraded at least to partisan militia and if you can spare the resources go for veteran. Mid to end of Escalation 2, most of the inns you can't defend with heroes should have partisans at least.
Escalation 3 try to have most of the inns on veteran, there will be a lot of sieges and veterans can defend on their own better than un-upgraded heroes. Plus, you'll want to focus on the quest.

Provisioner

In the central inn or the one you think you'll be using a lot, you should upgrade provisioner to full, buy that capstone ASAP. Cheaper items and more resources is something you want early. And this should be your priority upgrade.
Other inns you can do basic provisioner upgrades if you can spare the resources, but its only worth if you have relics and baubles to spare. Paying additional 5 inn materials for cheaper items is also worth.

Physician

Upgrade Physician to fatigue heal in one of the inns you will frequent, fatigue along with lack of resource will be one of your main issues. Not bad to upgrade early, esspecially if you don't plan on skipping days. Plus, this upgrade heals your stationed heroes a lot more and provides more healing items.
Capstone gives you a positive quirk every time you arrive, it's usefull, but can be a double edge sword if you already have 3 quirks you're happy with.

Mastery

Full upgrade on this one shouldn't be a priority. I like to upgrade mastering in the first inn and then upgrade unlocking skills in the next inn. Just pay up those 10 materials whenever you need skills and don't forget about your other 8 heroes, they can't defend sieges with bad skills.
Once you're comfortable with everyones loadout pick an inn to upgrade stats, similar to Altar of Hope in Confessions. Try to have stats upgrades by mid escalation 2, they aren't essential, but do help a lot. They mostly buff your DoT and Deaths Door resistance and reduce the max stack of fatigue from 50% to 30%. Meaning, that hero can't get more than 30% max HP drop due to fatigue. I would recommend full stats upgrade before the boss.

Wainwright

Priority on this one varies, if you got a good pet or a trophy early it's worth upgrading, but I've had runs without either and didn't upgrade. Also not a priority if you avoid road damage. However, it's worth to pop 10 materials at any inn whenever you need repairs, road damage becomes uncomfortably common in escalation 3. Upgrades allows you to buy pets, but those can be looted in camps and dens, and they aren't cheap. Auto-repair both armour and wheels on every arrival is usefull, but you can't have it in every inn. Personally, this tree is the lowest priority for the advanced upgrade.


Suggested upgrades might be a bit difficult to achieve on Blood Moon or Large maps, but as long as you're not struggling, it's fine. Plus, it takes into account intense fighting early on.
Try the smallest map on Blood Moon, time is short on that difficulty and less inns means less resources needed.

Beast Clan Units

They have a special ability called Enrage, which they can get at the start of the battle in most sieges. Each enemy has a unique condition through which they can gain enrage, it's shown as a permanent buff next to their HP bar. Each stack gives them +1 damage and once they stack 3, they go berserk at the start of the next round. While berserk they have 100% damage resist and +10% DoT resist, but still take DoT damage.
They use a special strong attack while berserk after which they lose the condition and gain negative tokens, mostly vulnerable, weak and daze.
Stun, blind or DoT them to death while berserk or use defensive skills, direct attacks are useless.
They are quite resistant to blight, but with piercing most of DoT still goes through on basic enemies.

Huntsman

Basic and most common unit. These guys can apply weak with every hit and hit like a truck in escalation 3. While in the first 2 ranks, they can hit Rank 1 or 2, while in the back they only hit rank 3 or 4. Their attack applies weak and range attack (rank 3 and 4) also removes a block token. They gain enrage when another huntsman or tribewalker dies.
Berserk attack is a cleave hit. Very dangerous to backline heroes and should be a priority target while in the back ranks.
Rarely they drop a Huntsmans Axe combat item, which is very effective vs the boss, I'd recommend to save it for the boss.

Tribewalker

Another common unit. Tribewalkers like to move a lot and gain enrage when they do. In front ranks they can hit rank 1 or 2 for decent damage and apply blight, while also gaining riposte, which moves them back 1 when it hits. While in the backline they target any rank, deal stress damage and move forward 1.
Berserk attack while in the front is the same but cleaves and while in the back they target all heroes for small damage, lots of stress damage and move forward.
Try hitting them with big damage when they are debuffed, stack DoTs or have defensive tokens, their riposte hurts.

Tribecaller

A support unit that may not appear in every encounter, but still fairly common. Chance to get enrage every time adjescent ally gets hit. Usually casts Invoke Wrath which gives strenghten and enrage to one ally, but can also blight your heroes. Hits Rank 3 or 4 while in the back, any rank while in the front.
Berserk can either buff all of his allies or cleave blight your heroes.
This one should be a priority kill in almost every fight. Not only can he stack DoT on you, worse yet, can buff the heavy hitters and make them gain berserk more often.
3 Tribewalkers and this one is imo the worst enemy lineup, they can generate enrage very fast and go berserk every other turn and by round 3 they all have riposte. Kill the rank 2 walker first, then the shaman, this will prevent them from self sustaining rage. Don't let rank 2 and 3 exchange places, this gives them both enrage every time they move.

Rot Claw

A large bruiser enemy that starts appearing in escalation 2 onwards. While in the front hits rank 1 or 2 for heavy damage and applies bleed and blight. In the mid and back does a slam attack for decent damage and knockback, while also moving forward himself gaining 2x taunt. In any rank can scream at any rank applying 2 vulnerable and horror and gaining 2x block and enrage. When hit has a 33% chance to gain enrage and 66% when he crits.
While Berserk and in the front he does a cleave attack, while in the backline slam hits ranks 1-3 can shuffle, moves forward 1 and gains 2x taunt.
Very threatning enemy that deals a lot of damage and can take a lot of punishment. Should be a priority after the shaman. Try to blind/stun it when berserk and/or have block on your frontliners, he hits hard.
Two of these are surprisingly less threatning, their taunts cancel each other out and mostly can't use the the most threatning front attack. Can still be disruptive if you don't have move skills, since they alternate using slam.

The Coven Units

The witches have an interesting design and are quite synergistic with each other, as opposed to Beastmen that rely on pure power. They use a lot of tokens, including stealth, buffing themselves and copying debuffs on you, but can also dish out considerable damage. This synergy makes it difficult to asses the threat level of each unit in certain enemy comps.
They also start sieges with a dodge.

Dedicant

A basic witch unit and only one with an active stealth skill, when used, she gains 2x stealth and a crit token. All her attacks deal the same moderate damage, but applies or copies debuff tokens on you. She ignores block and steals a positive token while attacking from stealth, so she should not be underestimated despite the lower damage output.
While in rank 1 or 2 uses attack that hits ranks 1 or 2 and gives you a random debuff (except daze), ranks 3 or 4 she copies 1 or 2 negative tokens to an adjescent hero and can reach any rank except 4. This has a strange interaction with Taunt, basically shifting it every time you take a hit, making it less effective. She can use stealth only in ranks 2 and 3. Starts combat with one dodge token and is quite fast, will take turns early in the round.
In a setup with 4 of these, focus rank 2 to avoid them alternating stealth, a single stealthed unit is easy to manage, with 2 you might find your tanks not as effective.

Custode

The bruiser of the Coven and pretty common, she likes being in the front ranks and the skills she uses will move her into position easily. Dishes out a lot of damage, but only targets ranks 1 and 2. She is a survivability test for your frontliners, they need to have a lot of HP or good sustain, like Block, dodge or heal generation.
In the back ranks she will use an attack that does decent damage and gives her speed and regen, so try not to move her all the way back or she will keep stacking regen. When healed, next attack will also deal stress.
In the middle and front will often use a cleave smack for quite the damage and will also buff the staff attack for every negative token you have.
The staff attack is single target, but deals heavy damage and applies Daze, so make sure you have Block, even better if she can miss (blind or dodge). Starts combat with a Block token.
Very high threat if you're using squishy frontlines and should be a priority in that case.

Cauldron

A support unit that doesn't appear in every battle, but is pretty common. Has plenty of HP and targets the entire team. Alternates between buffing witches and burning your team. It's slow so it tends to be last in turn order.
Witches can spend a turn to buff it with herbs, so its actions have an additional effect. If you deal enough damage, that effect will be removed, until a witch buffs it again. The break limit is visible on its HP bar.
Defensive action gives a positive token to every witch + stealth or regen if empowered, so without stealth removal skills you might find yourself only being able to target the cauldron.
Offensive action deals 1 or 2 damage to your entire team and gives 2 burning. If empowered can remove a postive token and applies 4 burn. Sounds weak, but it stacks up, since it targets your entire team.
I like taking these out first most of the time, because it can become quite a nuisance giving strenghten or Block+ and stealth/regen to something like a Custode and you take 30 damage Heartwood to the face. Plus, when destroyed it applies burning and any debuff tokens it had to adjescent witches.

Hateful Virago

Getting flashbacks from DD1 with this one and is just as dangerous in DD2. Deals heavy damage, stress, burning, shuffles, starts combat with Dodge+ and has 2 Death Armour. Absolute number 1 kill priority, this one can ruin your day and is not easy to kill, take her out ASAP.
While in rank 4 can only use Putrefying breath, which deals no damage... But gives you 6 blight, 2 stress and Blinded. In ranks 2 and 3 will use a heavy damage Hex that hits 2 random heroes, applies 2 stress, Vulnerable and shuffles. Ranks 1-3 can use a curse that also does heavy damage, gives weaken and burning.
Don't let her take too many turns or you won't either.

Necrotic Fungus

Another DD1 throwback, the fungus replaces a witch corpse, appears only in escalation 3 and disables ALL healing sources. It doesn't take turns, but takes DoT damage on round end.
It doesn't even count as an enemy, so if you clear out the rest of the witches the combat ends.
Kill if you need to heal, ignore otherwise and focus enemies.
There can only be one fungus at a time.

***Spoilers: Here be monsters, Boss spoilers ahead***

Bosses

Beast Clan

Rot Claw Alpha

Once you collect 20 hide, an unavoidable lair will appear on your next region as a last node, be prepared, he is basically a lair boss and you will fight 2 waves of beastmen before the Alpha and it's all a single fight like a beast den. Recommended to have a fully rested party.
The Alpha is a stronger version of the rot claw with the same moveset and abilities, but with more HP, resistance and damage. Takes two turns per round
Enrage cleave does a ton of damage, so be prepared to blind/stun him and have block/dodge on your frontliner. Having smoke bombs or smelling salts also helps, less hits he connects the better.
Use blight/bleed resist items and pack DoT heal items

Most of the threat from this encounter comes from the previous two fights, if you clear them without taking too much damage, the Alpha shouldn't give you too much trouble.
When defeated, a trophy is dropped and a boss location will be revealed. This location always goes through the mountain region. You must equip the trophy before entering the boss location and before reaching the boss itself, you will have two beastmen fights.

Meat Hook

The big bad boss of the beast clan, this boss is all about token managment and damage mitigation, he hits hard. He also has 100% blight resist, so if you have blight DoT heroes, give them piercing, trinkets, death cap spores, hero paths, etc or they'll be uselses. Bleed and burn are more reliable, resistance on those is 30%. Has a high stun resist of 70%, so blinds are more reliable counters to his berserk.
The battle is long and on par with Confession bosses, but if you manage the tokens well and prepare, it's not too hard. Rest to full and upgrade the inn with region combat bonuses, like the dexterity training from mastery tree.
He deals a lot of blight and bleed, so use resistance inn items and pack some items that counter blight.
If you got huntsmen axe item, this is the perfect time to use, the item is really effective vs this boss.
Make sure to have good token removal skills like Highwaymans Highway Robbery, Double Cross or even Double Tap works (only on sharpshot path), Abominations Manacles or Instinct, the Beast form has a few skills on wanderer that ignore defensive tokens, Bounty Hunters Mark, Oculltist Curses etc.

The fight starts with an invulnerable totem that has a bunch of tokens on it and generates more at the start of every round. As its last turn every round if not berserk, the boss will take multiple tokens from this post, you need to manage those, which is why we want skills that straight up remove them. You can use cleave skills to remove the tokens from the post so the boss can't steal, but if there is nothing to steal he will gain 2 enrage... Which is worse, so focus the boss. The post will move during the fight, but the boss is size 3, you should always be able to target him
Has the same moveset as the Rot Claw, with an addition of a backline move, that hits rank 4 and pulls 2, his scream debuff also pulls 2, so having some movement skills is good.
Gains enrage on crits and misses with normal attacks. While berserk in addition to using the empowered skil, instead of stealing tokens he heals 10% as his last turn. Takes three turns per round, so DoT is very effective if it sticks.
Tokens and moving your heroes is most of the threat... well, pure damage too, but it is a final boss after all. If he pulls your backliner and then smacks him with strengthen+crit token, it's not gonna end well.

The Coven

Mothers Familiar

Once you complete the Witchblade, the Lair will be the first node in the next region. You will get your standard Lair monsters in the 1st wave, the 2nd wave will be 3 Spitters and the Familiar.
This battle plays out like a standard spider fight, except that the familiar will move forward 1 when it attacks and make the spider behind it stealthed at the end of its turn. The familiar is immune to damage until you use the Witchblade to remove all of its special tokens. The Familiar will focus whoever has the blade, taunts do not work on it, haven't tested guard, so don't put the blade on a squishy hero.
Use combat items or cleave skills to remove their dodges and then focus one. If you have DoT users like Runaway, PD Alchemist, you can hit a different target with them, let the DoT kill it. Then move on to the next one.
Having an item to clear blinded with helps a lot in this fight, otherwise have blinded heroes target spiders with Dodge, this will clear both tokens, unlike block, Dodge gets removed when targeted, not hit. If you think you are lucky (skilled) you can ignore this advice.

Mother of Threads

The Mother is a pretty straightforward boss and not too difficult if you prepared, it is mostly a DPS race boss.
I'd advise to give Witches herbs to the whole party, equip the stun immunity trinket (Inert Indicia) AND full stack of Mandrake to your heavy hitter (Hellion in our case). If you didn't get the trinket, don't use Mandrakes. Give stun resist Inn item to the rest of the party, if you have them.
If you have The Generals Dream trophy (Full party Immobility) equip it, probably the best trophy for the fight. If you don't, give any move resist buffs you can.
The Mother deals decent damage and can move your heroes, as well as giving you negative tokens and burn with each attack. She has a passive ability that's dependant on a minion on the board with her.
She is accompanied by a spider minion at battle start that behaves like a normal Spitter. My advice would be that you ignore and control (Blind, Taunt, Dodge, Stun) this spider and DO NOT kill him, focus the boss. Reason being is, if killed, The Mother will summon a shroom in rank 4 that not only blocks all your healing, it gives Mother the ability to steal your regen. This is far worse than a spider, just focus the boss.
Her first attack hits rank 1 or 2 and knockback 2. The second attack will hit your entire party, apply Daze and Stress, along with her passive. Her other phase (the mushroom) the attack that hits the full team will apply Vulnerable and Stress. Kill her quickly or she will nuke you.
Use Mandrake whenever possible, we don't care about stunning the boss, it's a nice bonus, we just want the tokens from the trinket. This makes the fight much easier, esspecially if you roll Strenghten or Crit, since she doesn't really generate defensive tokens.

Beast Clan Questline

The quest mostly involves equiping items and reaching specific nodes hinted in the item description.
Importaint to note is that once stagecoach quest items are equiped, they cannot be unequiped and are removed once that phase is complete. After completing the quest phase, you will gain rewards, mostly mastery, but some give quirks and resources.
Some quests cannot progress until the escalation event. I assume this is to prevent speedrunning the mode while on easier escalations... The boss would be quite trivial in escalation 1.
While quest stagecoach items are equiped the required nodes are guaranteed, this way you can manipulate the nodes to your needs to some degree.


Once you reach the first inn you will gain a spyglass stagecoach item, equip it and it will require you to go to the watchtower. Once you do you will gain a Handdrawn Map, which you only need to deliver to an inn.
Would recommend to skip the watchtower in the first region and take battles instead, you need to turn in the map at an inn anyway and you'll gain more resources with fights.

Delivering the map will give you Ambulance Designation stagecoach item, equip it and you will have both hospitals and hoarders in every region while equiped. You need to visit each, twice, then go to an inn thats under siege.
This phase of the quest isn't bad to prolong a bit, especialy if you have the hoarder map item. It will allow you stock up on trinkets and stagecoach items, if you can afford it. Also, the hospitals can heal your fatigue, allowing you to press on with your dedicated team.

Breaking a siege while having 4 items each, from hospital and the hoarder, will give you childs plea, which is not equipable, and you need to deliver to a hospital gaining Pungent Offal.
This is a combat item that you can equip to a hero.
While you have it, equiped or not, the next region will have a beast den, go to it and the second wave will be replaced with 4 huntsmen, use the Offal on one of them. You will get a Wounded Survivor that you need to deliver to an inn
Try to do this in escalation 1, 4 huntsmen can be a challenging encounter.

Escorting the survivor to the inn gives you a Survivors Tale, which is an inn item. Once you use it, you will get Cold Storage stagecoach item.
Use the survivors tale on your main team, it will give the party Beast Hater Quirk, which gives 20% damage bonus dealt to Beastmen and take 20% less damage from them. You should lock this in if you don't have a better quirk or it might get replaced, it's a powerful buff vs Beastmen.

Equip Cold Storage only in escalation 2, it will not progress in escalation 1. This item requires you to go to each of the 5 regions (Sprawl, Tangle, Tundra, Shroud, Foetor). The first combat encounter in every region, location or road battle, will give you 3 body parts for a total of 15... Each using one stack in your inventory.
Because this quest bloats your inventory I'd recommend to plan out your route to include each of the unique location in minimum time, possibly without going through a region twice. The longer this quest takes, the more items you will have to get rid of... Or have extra slots, even then it's tight.
Once you have all 15, you need to deliver them to an inn, below is a screenshot of the full collection:


Delivering the bodies to an inn will give you 4 Rotting Dead stagecoach items. Do not equip them until escalation 3, otherwise the quest won't progress and you lose stagecoach slots.
Once equiped, it will replace all road battles with Beastmen encounters, awarding 4 hides once defeated. You need to collect 20 Hides.
Once you do, the next region will have a beast den as a last node with an Alpha fight.
As suggested earlier, do this phase as fast as possible, do not linger in escalation 3, especially not on Blood Moon dificulty.

Defeating the Alpha will give you an Alpha trophy required to enter the Boss location. It has no additional effects unfortunately. Equip it in an inn before the boss and good luck.

The Coven Questline

The Coven questline is much more interactive with the faction in a way you try to reveal witches hidden in our midst. They will mix in with normal enemies, you will need to decide if the civilians are truly civilans or witches in hiding (the infamous Suspicious Few).

You start With the Academics Keyring, no need to equip it, you will just need to visit an Academics Study, but like with the Beast Clan, I'd advise to get to it in the 2nd region for the same reasons. In the Study you will have a choice of fighting the witches and progressing the quest or just take the classic reward. Defeating the witches will give you a Witchfinder Map.

Witchfinder Map you will need to equip and then get to a camp, where you will get a Scrying Dust combat item.
Equip Scrying Dust and use it on an enemy with a greenish mist around them. They spawn on road battles. This will reveal it to be a witch.
She will always spawn with full HP, cured DoTs and a Dodge token, so don't waste turns damaging the misted enemy if you plan on using the dust. Any humanoid enemy can be a witch, most often a Dedicant, Custode if 2 slots are available, and Virago for the final encounter.
Killing her will give you a Witch Finger at combat end, you need to collect 5 in total. Every time you arrive at a camp you get more Scrying Dust, just remember to equip it, esspecially if you swap teams.
Below is a screenshot of a witch in disguise (rank 2) that you need to use the Dust on:

Once you have 5 fingers, arriving at an Inn will give you a Finger Bomb. This is another combat item, used on a Cauldron. Using the item will insantly destroy the Cauldron and give you a Boiled Head.
You will need to find a siege, since the witch encounter is only available in a siege at this point.

Boiled Head is a pet, but can only be progressed in escalation 2, so don't equip it until then.
Once you do, Boss Lairs will start spawning in every region and defeating them will give you Wooden Tokens.
The objective is not collecting these coins, this is currency with which you buy witch exclusive items and pieces of a dagger, each item costing one token.
These pieces are the objective, there are a total of 3 and each piece is in a different shop, that being an Inn, Hoarder and Hospital... So you will need to visit these 3 shops as well as defeating strong enemies beforehand.
Lair Bosses are not the only source of Tokens, but a single boss will provide 3 Tokens, enough to purchase all pieces of the dagger.
Other sources of Tokens are Sieges and any mini-boss, like the Collector, Warlord, Chirurgeon etc. Sieges, Chirurgeon and Antiquarian give 1-2 Tokens, all other sources give 3, but Boss Lairs and sieges are the most reliable. You will still gain Wooden Tokens after this quest from these sources, so you can keep purchasing witch items. Inn treasures can give tokens too, but they started appearing in escalation 3.
This phase is how you can complete Trophy Case achievement more easily without stumbling around and hoping to hit a Boss Lair. Just be prepared to fight the bosses you are missing basically back to back, unless you play on standard or radiant, should be plenty of time then.

Once you have all three pieces, deliver it to an Inn and you will get a Cursed Dagger and Gagged Boiled Head. You will need to re-equip the Head as a pet and bring it to an Oasis. This will give a Purified Skull, clear all stress form a selected hero and give them a Witch Slayer/Hater quirk.
You will hold onto to these quest items until escalation 3, and gain Blade of Fire in the first Inn.
This is where the Suspicious Few questline starts.

Suspicious Few

Start by equiping Blade of Fire, I'd suggest to give it to the slowest hero, the reason being is the blade has to be used on a witch that has Burning, so you need to apply DoT first. The blade ignores stealth, dodge, guard, so it always hits, and you have to use it whenever you have a burning target (non-optional).
The Blade instantly kills a witch and then transforms the blade. This works only in a suspicious few encounter, it will not transform or even be usable in a siege battle. On a normal enemy it works like Cause of Death skill from Plague Doc, deals all DoT damage instantly and cures it.
Blade of Fire will transform into Blade od Blight, then into Blade of Blood, every time you kill a witch with it, each works the same but with their respective element.

Once the Blade is equiped it can only be unequiped in Inns and camps or until it transforms. This also make Assistance Encounters more common and it is how we "feed" the blade. You must make a correct decision if the civilans are actually civlians or witches in disguise. Wrong decision will cost you at least 15 torchlight.
Entering the assistance encounter you will hear a witches laugh, don't be baited by it, it happens every time, the clues are visual. The imposters will have mushrooms growing on them, some are easier to spot than others, but once you know what to look for it becomes easier.
Making a correct decision every time will grant you True Sight achievement.
Also, getting imposter witches is purely RNG, in my 1st run I got this done in 3 regions, in my 2nd it took 7+ regions, kept getting civilians.

Below is an image of real civilans, you can always refer to it if you're unsure, these are civilians


Below is an example of imposters, these are witches
That small shroom on the top of the head is the only clue.

Shrooms on the shoulder of the woman to the left. Similarly, the woman on the right can also have shrooms on her shoulder.

Shroom on the back of the old mans helmet

If you make a correct decision about true civilians, you will gain some food and combat items with the same element as the current form of the blade. This covers you if you don't have anyone that deals DoT with skills.
If you make the wrong decision, you fight conscripts... They deal more emotional damage than being an actual threat.

After you transform Blade of Blood, you will gain a Witchblade, equip this on your fast hero that can take hits, whoever has the blade will be focused by the next boss. The blade triggers automaticaly every round and applies 3 debuff tokens. Equiping it also makes the next region have a Beast Lair, where you will find your next objective, Mother's Familiar.

Go to the Lair and the 2nd wave will be 4 spiders, but the last one will be purple, with 3 Tokens that make it almost immune to damage, this is the Mother's Familiar.
The Witchblade will remove a token and once all are removed, the spider can be defeated. This is why we want the blade on the fastest, so that at some point all other heroes can target the familiar.

Once you defeat the purple spider the Coven boss location will be revealed, but first you need to deliver the spider to an Inn. As long as you have it, every battle will have at least 2 spiders, so no lollygagging.
Equip the spider to a pet slot and you can fight the Boss... good luck!

Final words

RNG will mess you up, the hero you invested a lot in will get focused and will fail 80% death resist first hit, you will get annoying quirks and your 66% retreat chance will fail 5 times in a row.... All part of DD experience

But, as the Academic wisely put it: "Persistence will overcome even the greatest of threats"

Hopefully this guide has been helpful, will update for Crimson Court

If you have any more tips, do share!

[卑鄙的外鄉人]

I know how to get this achievement,When the war level is 3, the quest will ask you to find the witch in disguise.You must make the right choice of all.[It is best to back up the save file because it is easy to make the wrong choice]

[Ebertron]

I haven't played the Coven yet, but I will update the guide for it once I finish a run or two.
I will try to figure out the achievement, then I can include it in the guide.

[卑鄙的外鄉人]

Bro do you know how to get [trus sight] this achievement?

[Ebertron]

Mostly wanderers, I like Sharpshot for Highwayman, Arsonist for Runaway and if I have Plague Doc - Surgeon or Alchemist, but preferably Surgeon, that path has more survavability in the endgame.
Wanderer is good for most heroes, so i like spending resources elswhere. Double Tap on Sharpshot is just amazing for Executions and clearing double blocks and dodges, while the other two heroes gain DoT piercing

[Le Mulet]

Thanks you. And what are the path you use ?

[Ebertron]

Thx, glad to help.
For Crusader: Smite, Inspiring Cry, Tenacity, Battle Heal and Bulwark of faith, but Bulwark or Tenacity I swap for Holy Lance when I expect shuffles

Bounty Hunter: Collect Bounty, Uppercut, Mark for Death, Come Hither and Caltrops/Flashbang

Highwayman: Wicked Slice/Open Vein/Duelist (any one of these work, whichever you like most) Pistol Shot, Double Tap, Highway Robbery, Take Aim.

Runaway: Firebomb, Smokescreen, Cauterise, Controled Burn and Dragonfly/Hearthlight

Depending on the expected situation I swap out skills for specific encounters or regions

[Le Mulet]

Nice guide. What is your skill on your main team ?