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"By My Hand Alone" Achievement Guide

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2023-08-19 10:10:59
"By My Hand Alone" Achievement Guide

Preface

After many painful hours I managed to get this achievement and wanted to share my learning here.

First, you should obviously play "Back Alley Brawl" in the normal and not the expert mode.

Enemies of different factions will spawn and attack each other. In order to get this achievement, you need to kill every single enemy that spawns up to round 13 by yourself.

Round Overview

Round Enemies in this round Total kills AFTER the round 1 3 3 2 3 6 3 3 + 1 Golden Merchant 10 4 4 14 5 4 18 6 4 + 1 Golden Merchant 23 7 4 27 8 4 31 9 5 + 1 Golden Merchant 37 10 5 42 11 5 47 12 5 + 1 Golden Merchant 53

You also need to kill the golden merchants to get this achievement.

After round 12 you should have 53 total kills. When round 13 begins, the achievement should pop up.

Check your kill count after every round. If you missed an enemy, restart the challenge.

How To Fight

Normal Sword Attack

You can attack Weepers, Watch Lower Guards and Wolfhounds (when not charging at you) with your sword, as they will easily die in 2 or 3 hits. Never get in a sword fight with any other enemy or a Wolfhound that's charging you as that will be way too slow.

Drop Assassination

A powerful method of killing enemies in one hit. Try to use it on as many enemies as possible.

Note that you start the challenge with the "Agility" power, which allows you to make a double jump. When standing right in front of an enemy, you can double jump and drop assassinate them.

Tallboys should always be killed by drop assassination. More notes on that in the guides for rounds 10, 11 and 12.

Crossbow and Pistol

In any other situation, when facing an enemy and not in a position for a drop assassination, you should either shoot them with your pistol or hit them with your crossbow and finish them with a blow of your sword. With the crossbow, either go for a head shot (if the enemy isn't wearing a helmet) or shoot the enemy's leg to break their defence.

Remember to loot the corpses of Whalers (the assassins) for more crossbow bolts and City Watch Officers for more bullets.

Use a combination of these three methods to eliminate enemies as quickly as possible. If you have enough ammunition, you can use pistol and crossbow more often. If you're running low on ammunition, try to use more drop assassinations.

Mana

Try not to waste any mana and Remedies (mana potions) as we will need them to use "Bend Time" in the later rounds. You can use "Blink" to move around quicker, but always wait for the mana to regenerate. I recommend not using "Devouring Swarm" and "Windblast" at all in this challenge.

Whale Oil Tanks

I recommend reserving the whale oil tanks for the more trickier rounds. See the guides for rounds 4 and 6.

Round Guides


"By My Hand Alone" Achievement Guide image 27

Round 1 - 3

Just try to kill all enemies as quickly as possible. You can use "Blink" to get around quicker.

Round 4

I recommend using the first whale oil tank now. Grab it before the round starts, and throw it at the first enemy you see, to instantly kill it. Then try to quickly eliminate the other three.

Round 5

Again, just kill all enemies with the fighting techniques discussed above.

Round 6

In this round, use your second whale oil tank. Again, grab it when the round starts and throw it at the first enemy you see. Then, eliminate the rest.

Round 7

From this round on, we will use "Bend Time" at the beginning of every round. This is what we saved the mana for. Wait for enemies to spawn and use "Bend Time". Eliminate as many enemies as you can while the time is stopped, and then kill the rest.

It can be useful to kill enemies that deal more damage, like Whalers (the assassins) and the City Watch Generals (the guards in red coats), first, if you can.

Round 8

Exactly like round 7, use "Bend Time" after the enemies spawn and kill them. In this round, a Musical Overseer spawns. It is very useful to eliminate him while the time is stopped.

Round 9

After the enemies spawn, use "Bend Time". In this round, the "Torturer", a particularly powerful enemy, spawns. Try to either stealth/drop assassinate him first, or kill all other non-City Watch enemies before he can kill them. If you did the latter, hide on a roof until he loses track of you and then stealth/drop assassinate him.

Round 10 - 11

Immediately after enemies spawn, use "Bend Time". In each of these rounds, one tallboy will spawn. He will be either in the front or the back part of the map. You must kill the tallboy first. Before the round starts, position yourself on the low roof in the middle of the map. If the tallboy spawned in the front part of the map, jump on him from this roof and drop assassinate him. If he spawned in the back part of the map, jump from the roof on the black vent parts, and from there, jump on the tallboy and drop assassinate him.

Round 12

Immediately after enemies spawn, use "Bend Time". In this round, two tallboys will spawn. One in the front and one in the back of the map. You must eliminate these two first, going the two pathways described above. When your first "Bend Time" runs out, you should have enough mana left to immediately cast "Bend Time" again. That way, you should be able to safely eliminate both tallboys first, and then fight against the other enemies. Note that in this round a Musical Overseer spawns too.

Closing Thoughts

This achievement can be frustrating as success is heavily dependent on the random enemy spawns. For example, in round 4, it often occurs that a Thug spawns right next to a Wolfhound and one hit kills them with a thrown fire bottle within the first second of spawning. Don't get discouraged, stay determined and try again and again.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3021967260

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