Battle Brothers: We're on a Mission for Gold

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Battle Brothers: We're on a Mission for Gold

Southpaugh: May 26, 2007; Smokey Bacon

The visual design of BB does take some getting used to but as stated above its super easy to read. Does the enemy equipment look like it loving rules? Yup so it does.

The DLC adds a lot of quality to the base game, expanding on things very well. Blazing Deserts and the northern DLC I would unambiguously say improve the game for the better. The argument seems to be a bit more on the beast and exploration DLC which some of the content is a bit peculiarly balanced. I'd say get a grasp on the main game and then see if you would want the end game stuff which is expanded upon in the DLC.

# ? Feb 12, 2021 17:03

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# ? May 19, 2024 09:09

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Game's pretty good so far! I'm just picking skills that sound cool on level-ups, but I already have a couple of favourites.

One thing that slightly annoyed me, was that the enemies in camps are randomised each time, so I couldn't get my revenge on some fatso with a two-handed sword that kept murdering my dudes on the previous attempt.

E:

Will there ever be a time, where I can hide my bowmen behind my frontline, instead of having to skirmish people with them?

THE BAR fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Feb 15, 2021

# ? Feb 15, 2021 13:49

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

THE BAR posted:

Game's pretty good so far! I'm just picking skills that sound cool on level-ups, but I already have a couple of favourites.

One thing that slightly annoyed me, was that the enemies in camps are randomised each time, so I couldn't get my revenge on some fatso with a two-handed sword that kept murdering my dudes on the previous attempt.

E:

Will there ever be a time, where I can hide my bowmen behind my frontline, instead of having to skirmish people with them?

Put a guy with a spear at each end of your front line and use spearwall to discourage enemies from surrounding you.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 16:51

Fabricated: Apr 9, 2007; Living the Dream

THE BAR posted:

Game's pretty good so far! I'm just picking skills that sound cool on level-ups, but I already have a couple of favourites.

One thing that slightly annoyed me, was that the enemies in camps are randomised each time, so I couldn't get my revenge on some fatso with a two-handed sword that kept murdering my dudes on the previous attempt.

E:

Will there ever be a time, where I can hide my bowmen behind my frontline, instead of having to skirmish people with them?

One of the ways to protect your bowmen is as mentioned to put melee people on the top/bottom of your backline, either with reach weapons (when they have the weapon specialty to let them attack without penalty when based up) or maybe with shield/spear to keep flankers away. Also, making sure your frontline base up the enemy melee is the other way- for most enemy "factions" (with orcs being the exception until mid/late game) another strategy is having a couple dedicated tanky brothers with good shields/melee defense/underdog just base up a bunch of guys and hide behind their shield as you get your hands around the fight. I do not recommend this for orcs early on because an orc with an actual orcish edged weapon is insanely dangerous if they get to swing on you, and even decent low level brothers with a shield won't have enough melee defense to not die hideously in 1-2 rounds if you're not rolling well. Orc Berserkers should be dead either before they base anyone up, or -the round- they base anyone up because if they got a mansplitter you're gambling on someone getting one-shot if they get a single swing.

The sad thing is that bowmen kinda suck until you get better bows and enough ranged attack that they aren't missing like 75% of their shots. It's why crossbows are better early on. The problem with bringing zero ranged is that the enemy AI specifically responds to that- if you have past some ratio of ranged damage vs their ranged damage the enemy frontline will move to melee range, where if you DON'T they'll happily sit back and let their ranged plink at you forever and force you to advance on them.

Fabricated fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Feb 15, 2021

# ? Feb 15, 2021 17:12

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Yeah, I just realised how good spears are. Lost three games so far, every time because I didn't know what the monster classes would entail. Turns out poachers are more dangerous than brigands, who knew.

You also seem to be really careful with whom you hand a two-handed ax. They tend to get winded after 2-3 turns.

E:

Am I completely screwed if I lose half my dudes in an early game fight? Are we playing by X-COM or XCOM rules? Please let it be X-COM, I prefer the meat grinder over dead man walking scenarios.

THE BAR fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Feb 15, 2021

# ? Feb 15, 2021 17:35

Fabricated: Apr 9, 2007; Living the Dream

THE BAR posted:

Yeah, I just realised how good spears are. Lost three games so far, every time because I didn't know what the monster classes would entail. Turns out poachers are more dangerous than brigands, who knew.

You also seem to be really careful with whom you hand a two-handed ax. They tend to get winded after 2-3 turns.

E:

Am I completely screwed if I lose half my dudes in an early game fight? Are we playing by X-COM or XCOM rules? Please let it be X-COM, I prefer the meat grinder over dead man walking scenarios.

Losing guys early on is fairly normal, but if you're mid/endgame and nearly wipe it's a lot worse.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 17:44

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Fabricated posted:

Losing guys early on is fairly normal, but if you're mid/endgame and nearly wipe it's a lot worse.

I might just turn it down to easy next time, I just fear it'll lead to bad habits. Same with turning off ironman, it doesn't sit right.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 17:47

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

THE BAR posted:

Yeah, I just realised how good spears are. Lost three games so far, every time because I didn't know what the monster classes would entail. Turns out poachers are more dangerous than brigands, who knew.

You also seem to be really careful with whom you hand a two-handed ax. They tend to get winded after 2-3 turns.

E:

Am I completely screwed if I lose half my dudes in an early game fight? Are we playing by X-COM or XCOM rules? Please let it be X-COM, I prefer the meat grinder over dead man walking scenarios.

You don�t give guys 2handed weapons (in the front line, back line with polearms is fine) until you can afford to give them good armour (at least 200 top and bottom) and they hit level 7 for battleforged perk.

The difficulty scaling for contracts will adjust to your new body count but if you keep losing guys you will eventually fall behind the curve and find it tough to keep up. You won�t be able to handle
The crisis if you�ve still got a bunch of low level guys in rags.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 17:48

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

So it's better to kit up 6-7 people properly, before hiring more hands for the team? You just start with a lumberjack axeman every time, so I figured they're nice to have. But yeah, I can see that they need to be walking tanks, if you ever want to use their 360 noscope swing thing against nothing but enemies.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 17:51

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

THE BAR posted:

So it's better to kit up 6-7 people properly, before hiring more hands for the team? You just start with a lumberjack axeman every time, so I figured they're nice to have. But yeah, I can see that they need to be walking tanks, if you ever want to use their 360 noscope swing thing against nothing but enemies.

It's far better to kit up 6-7 guys properly than to have a team full of peasants in rags. Number of people in your company is a big factor in the scaling of what enemies you'll face. It starts at 6 iirc (so with 2 or 3 or 4 bros you'll face the same enemies as if you had 6, but once you add a seventh you'll start facing more enemies) and the more you add the harder enemies will become.

And seriously, avoid two-handed frontliners early on. You don't have defence high enough to survive against melee opponents and you don't have armour thick enough to survive against ranged opponents. Giving somebody a woodcutter axe or a longsword at level 2 or 3 is a great way to mark them for death. Early on, especially until you get the hang of the game, you should be aiming for a frontline of guys with shields to keep them alive, and a backline of guys with polearms to kill your enemies. Going without shields might up your DPS a little bit (might--early on you also don't have very high attack skill, and a two-hander that misses does you no good at all) but it cuts your survivability way more, and surviving a fight is more important than doing a little bit more damage in the early game.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 18:02

Fabricated: Apr 9, 2007; Living the Dream

Early on your brothers are so bad that hitting at all is the most important thing. This is why 1-h swords/spears are so good, and why polearms are especially good.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 18:36

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

Ooh, polearms can reach across your own guys.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 20:22

Fabricated: Apr 9, 2007; Living the Dream

THE BAR posted:

Ooh, polearms can reach across your own guys.

Yeah- and pitchforks/warforks/pikes have +10% to hit. Pikes in particular have really good base damage (60-80) and depending on what kind of enemies you run into you can sometimes snag one or two really early.

# ? Feb 15, 2021 20:37

Kobal2: Apr 29, 2019

THE BAR posted:

Am I completely screwed if I lose half my dudes in an early game fight? Are we playing by X-COM or XCOM rules? Please let it be X-COM, I prefer the meat grinder over dead man walking scenarios.

Early game, before you have decent equipment to pass around, your job is to identify which part of the company will be good if they reach high level ; and protect them with the lives of all the other warm bodies you keep getting killed while they exp up. Even then, those "good guys from semi-bad backgrounds" will likely pale in comparison with the "good guys from actually good backgrounds" you'll be tossing 10k at to recruit later on.

Basically the game's curve is : hire whatever cheap dudes, sacrifice them for any worthwhile equipment upgrade because that stays with the company. Stats are all that matters => got everyone in chainmail & tier 3 weapons, now it's time to build an endgame company of complete beasts - stars matter more than starting stats, don't let them die.
This is also the point where you want to put running contracts on the backburner and start scouring the map for camps to plunder (because more money that way, and unique lewt. Just don't take on more than you can chew - but then only experience will teach you what that is)

Speaking of backgrounds, they're not neutral : every bro's former profession has an impact both on their starting stats & stars allocation ; and the random road events. Early game Farmers, Butchers, Thieves, Brawlers, Militiamen and Caravan Hands are particularly good. Shepherds and Poachers can typically use an Xbow well enough (or throwing axes/javs). Priests and Cultists make half-decent sergeants although you'll likely want to replace them with someone who can actually hit with that banner (or a disarming whip) as the game goes on - but just having a guy with stellar leadership quickly to shout at your bros enables you to tackle on ghost and alp fights without breaking a sweat.

Later on, Hunters are the best ranged bar none ; Witch Hunters are good switch-hitters (xbow shots then pike) ; Hedge Knights, Assassins and Sellswords are the go-to poo poo wreckers but Wildmen, Lumberjacks, Squires can also be stellar.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 08:08

dogstile: May 1, 2012; fucking clocks
how do they work?

I remember having a Cultist with 3 stars in resolve, started out pretty high in resolve and came with a bunch of +5 resolve traits.

Was real nice having him about for those goddamn witches.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 14:00

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

So this is my group, 61 days in. Everyone's level 6-7, and my strategy of clonking people with maces and removing shields with axes, then go in for the kill with pikes supported by bows, seems to work against most enemies. The only fight I had no true business doing was against some ancient undead legionnaires, as their pikemen could murder my frontline dudes in a single hit.

I fear that I'm ridiculously behind on equipment, but at least I'm getting an okay grip on the combat system.

E:

Anachronisms aside, this game has some amazing writing.

THE BAR fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Feb 18, 2021

# ? Feb 18, 2021 14:46

Kobal2: Apr 29, 2019

THE BAR posted:

So this is my group, 61 days in. Everyone's level 6-7, and my strategy of clonking people with maces and removing shields with axes, then go in for the kill with pikes supported by bows, seems to work against most enemies. The only fight I had no true business doing was against some ancient undead legionnaires, as their pikemen could murder my frontline dudes in a single hit.

I fear that I'm ridiculously behind on equipment, but at least I'm getting an okay grip on the combat system.

Generally speaking you don't want to waste time and energy destroying shields for two reasons
- that RNG roll you used up might just have landed a HP hit, and a morale roll, and so on. Shield splitting is guaranteed not to do any damage for your fatigue expenditure.
- when they don't have shields, they dual grip their weapon. When they dual grip their weapon they hurt you more.

If your bros can't reliably hit through shields, either a) give 'em flails and call it a day or b) stick your own tanks on their tanks, watch them shieldwall then flail ineffectually at each other, meanwhile use your non-decoy dudes to swarm and kill everyone else.
Or a combination of both.

The ancient deads you mention is exhibit A of this : you don't want to waste your time poking at the frontline legionaries. They have tower shields, they can shieldwall literally forever, they don't do very much damage (mostly. Kinda), they're armoured too (after a point). The back rank pike cunts, or the 2H cleaver cunts, on the other hand, do a lot of damage but are soft targets. So the strat to go with there is to spend as few bros as possible to base their entire front rank and shieldwall as long as they can (1-to-2, even 1-to-3 if you can swing that) while the rest of your company zooms around and swarms the pikes ASAP. Then you can all concentrate on the turtles.
Ancient deads are absolutely a gear/DPS check though - they won't give up, they won't stop swinging, they won't flee because you've focused fire on a few, and you can't outlast or outbreath them either. The *only* strat is to kill them before they kill you. If you can't reliably do that, stay away.

If there are only a handful of pikes you can just taunt them instead, but you won't (and don't want to) have as many taunting tanks as there are pike skellies in "real" fights. Taunt does help making those early minor camps smoother though.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 15:02

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

I just saw shield removal as a group-wide damage buff, but I see where you're coming from.

I've yet to pick a guy for taunt duty, but I'm thinking it would fit my empoverished noble eventually.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 15:17

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

My first impressions are:

Yeah, you're under-geared for sure. I only see one piece of medium armour, the reinforced mail hauberk, while everybody else is still in raider gear. (by my standards, medium armour covers around 150-250 durability) Nobody is using top-tier weapons either.

Those two guys without shields in the front row are going to die or get close to death way more often than you want them to. 100-ish durability armour and no shield on frontline bros at level 6-7 is a recipe for disaster.

Looking at Ragnar's stats since you have him open, his fatigue is really low. At 43 fatigue he's only going to be able to swing that flail a few times before he's exhausted and performing way below his potential. Meanwhile you've got him up to 90 HP, which is good but since he's wearing heavy armour you want to make sure you're not pumping his HP at the cost of stats like fatigue, attack, or defence. High HP is good to have, but ideally you won't need it very often. The lower your attack, defence, and fatigue are, the more likely you are to be tanking hits with your face and eating into that big pile of HP, and vice versa--the higher your attack, defence, and fatigue, then the more often you're avoiding blows instead of absorbing them, and the faster you're ending fights so you aren't taking damage anymore.

Your frontline/backline balance might be a little off as well. With 12 bros, having 6 frontline and 6 backline means your frontline is going to get flanked pretty often. I would probably go for a 7/5 balance in most fights by dropping a ranged bro for an extra frontliner. (of course, you might already be doing this with the military pick guy in reserve)

The biggest thing to work on based on this one image is gearing up. Gearing up is a challenge, but it's one of the things you learn as you go along in this game, because it's easy to get too reliant on looted gear from bandit raiders and miss the moments when you should be purchasing new stuff or taking on a challenging fight in hopes of scoring good loot. Raider gear is a great upgrade in the early game when you're just wearing whatever you can scavenge, but it will level off quickly once you want to fight anybody tougher than raiders, because they're going to max you out at 110-ish armour and 140-ish helmets, and they won't drop top-tier weapons. The occasional bandit leader can score you medium armour and top-tier weapons, but they're not as common as they used to be.

What you want to do is find a settlement with an armourer and befriend them. Do lots of quests for them, even annoying ones, to get your relations as high as possible. If you can, do this with a small village rather than a big city. Once you get to very high relations, you can buy good armour from them for pretty cheap (reinforced mail hauberks for 2000-2500 gold, for instance), especially if they have a town status that lowers costs, like safe roads or the one you get from escorting a caravan there that I can't remember the name of at the moment. Then use your money to buy medium armour for your bros whenever you have enough. Reinforced hauberks (210) and scale mail (240) are my go-tos, but the occasional footman armour (190) or sellsword armour (260) are also good. I'll also buy 200+ helmets if I see them for cheap. Do this until most of your good bros are in good armour, and it will make a huge difference in your survivability. In my opinion, it's more important to have good gear than to increase the size of your company. I would rather have a company of 7-8 bros in good armour than 12-13 in raider mail.

Eventually you can stop buying new armour and start relying on loot again (and spending your cash slowly hiring new bros to fill out your company), but that will tend to be loot from lategame enemies (like the noble armies you can fight in 2/4 crises, for instance) and uniques that you get from clearing out camps. The occasional fallen hero can be a good source of top-tier weapons (they often drop the best maces, cleavers, or swords) without being too challenging for a midgame company. Figuring out when to stop buying new gear and switch back to looting top-tier stuff is part of figuring out your play style. But absolutely look into buying yourself better armour whenever possible because it makes a huge difference in getting stuck in the positive feedback loops instead of the negative ones.

vyelkin fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Feb 18, 2021

# ? Feb 18, 2021 15:19

Kobal2: Apr 29, 2019

THE BAR posted:

I just saw shield removal as a group-wide damage buff, but I see where you're coming from.

Yeah, I know, but in a real fight, how many guys do you have swinging on that one dude you're destroying the shield of ? Two ? Three ? How far does that 15% to hit bonus take you, in terms of "swings to kill" vs. the number of times he gets to swing at your guys ? Factoring your axe guy's turns and effort ?

gently caress if I know, to be perfectly honest.
But I trust the math wonks who did the crunch and told me "just don't split shields"

# ? Feb 18, 2021 15:33

THE BAR: Oct 20, 2011; You know what might look better on your nose?

vyelkin posted:

My first impressions are:

Yeah, you're under-geared for sure. I only see one piece of medium armour, the reinforced mail hauberk, while everybody else is still in raider gear. (by my standards, medium armour covers around 150-250 durability) Nobody is using top-tier weapons either.

Those two guys without shields in the front row are going to die or get close to death way more often than you want them to. 100-ish durability armour and no shield on frontline bros at level 6-7 is a recipe for disaster.

They do all have shields, maybe you're thinking of the two.. Hide shields? I think? They don't look like the others.

quote:

Looking at Ragnar's stats since you have him open, his fatigue is really low. At 43 fatigue he's only going to be able to swing that flail a few times before he's exhausted and performing way below his potential. Meanwhile you've got him up to 90 HP, which is good but since he's wearing heavy armour you want to make sure you're not pumping his HP at the cost of stats like fatigue, attack, or defence. High HP is good to have, but ideally you won't need it very often. The lower your attack, defence, and fatigue are, the more likely you are to be tanking hits with your face and eating into that big pile of HP, and vice versa--the higher your attack, defence, and fatigue, then the more often you're avoiding blows instead of absorbing them, and the faster you're ending fights so you aren't taking damage anymore.

Yeah, I didn't realise fatigue was this important until last night. I thought it was all based on their equipment, but I see now that fatigue is sort of their "stamina" stat in this.

quote:

Your frontline/backline balance might be a little off as well. With 12 bros, having 6 frontline and 6 backline means your frontline is going to get flanked pretty often. I would probably go for a 7/5 balance in most fights by dropping a ranged bro for an extra frontliner. (of course, you might already be doing this with the military pick guy in reserve)

My two pikes on the sides tend to poke things away, stopping people from swarming me. Sometimes I have to do a bit of a dance with my frontline, putting them in a 1/0/1/0/1 frontline/backline thing, mostly against wolf riders.

quote:

The biggest thing to work on based on this one image is gearing up. Gearing up is a challenge, but it's one of the things you learn as you go along in this game, because it's easy to get too reliant on looted gear from bandit raiders and miss the moments when you should be purchasing new stuff or taking on a challenging fight in hopes of scoring good loot. Raider gear is a great upgrade in the early game when you're just wearing whatever you can scavenge, but it will level off quickly once you want to fight anybody tougher than raiders, because they're going to max you out at 110-ish armour and 140-ish helmets, and they won't drop top-tier weapons. The occasional bandit leader can score you medium armour and top-tier weapons, but they're not as common as they used to be.

What you want to do is find a settlement with an armourer and befriend them. Do lots of quests for them, even annoying ones, to get your relations as high as possible. If you can, do this with a small village rather than a big city. Once you get to very high relations, you can buy good armour from them for pretty cheap (reinforced mail hauberks for 2000-2500 gold, for instance), especially if they have a town status that lowers costs, like safe roads or the one you get from escorting a caravan there that I can't remember the name of at the moment. Then use your money to buy medium armour for your bros whenever you have enough. Reinforced hauberks (210) and scale mail (240) are my go-tos, but the occasional footman armour (190) or sellsword armour (260) are also good. I'll also buy 200+ helmets if I see them for cheap. Do this until most of your good bros are in good armour, and it will make a huge difference in your survivability. In my opinion, it's more important to have good gear than to increase the size of your company. I would rather have a company of 7-8 bros in good armour than 12-13 in raider mail.

Eventually you can stop buying new armour and start relying on loot again (and spending your cash slowly hiring new bros to fill out your company), but that will tend to be loot from lategame enemies (like the noble armies you can fight in 2/4 crises, for instance) and uniques that you get from clearing out camps. The occasional fallen hero can be a good source of top-tier weapons (they often drop the best maces, cleavers, or swords) without being too challenging for a midgame company. Figuring out when to stop buying new gear and switch back to looting top-tier stuff is part of figuring out your play style. But absolutely look into buying yourself better armour whenever possible because it makes a huge difference in getting stuck in the positive feedback loops instead of the negative ones.

I think this is my main issue right now. I have 13K gold and I don't know what's wise to spend it on. I hope it's not too late to make some upgrades, cause I do have a town with a armoursmith and the Very Friendly attitude.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 15:40

dogstile: May 1, 2012; fucking clocks
how do they work?

Kobal2 posted:

But I trust the math wonks who did the crunch and told me "just don't split shields"

This is correct with on caveat. Split the shield of someone you're about to dagger party. You want your guy doing the constant mace bonks on the head to actually hit the guy and removing a bit of RNG from that is pretty nice.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 15:48

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

THE BAR posted:

They do all have shields, maybe you're thinking of the two.. Hide shields? I think? They don't look like the others.

Ah, you're right. They blended right in with the armour so I didn't see them there. I would swap those out for something sturdier, those orc shields are very flimsy and you're risking them getting smashed by a single axe which will leave those two bros very vulnerable.

THE BAR posted:

I think this is my main issue right now. I have 13K gold and I don't know what's wise to spend it on. I hope it's not too late to make some upgrades, cause I do have a town with a armoursmith and the Very Friendly attitude.

Sounds like a great setup to buy some armour! Be aware though that armour will scale up in price very quickly. Since you already have 13 bros and they're almost all in need of an upgade, you'll likely get better results by spending ~10k on three or four sets of reinforced hauberks or scale mails instead of on one set of plate mail, for example. It's unlikely that the armourer will have that much in stock at one time, so buy what they have, go do some contracts and fights, and come back when they've restocked to buy more.

Also, never buy from them if the price is too high because of town statuses increasing it, it's a big waste of money that you can probably save based around changing the town status (for example, by doing a quest that will get rid of a bad status like disappearing villagers, or that will add a good status like high spirits). For a reinforced hauberk, which is my go-to early game purchase, you don't want to spend more than about 2500, and never more than 3000 even if you're desperate. For other armours, apply the same kind of scaling: 125% of listed price is a pretty good deal, below 125% is excellent and you should buy it while you can get it that cheap, and try not to ever pay more than 150% because you're losing a lot of money that way.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 15:48

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

THE BAR posted:

They do all have shields, maybe you're thinking of the two.. Hide shields? I think? They don't look like the others.

Yeah, I didn't realise fatigue was this important until last night. I thought it was all based on their equipment, but I see now that fatigue is sort of their "stamina" stat in this.

My two pikes on the sides tend to poke things away, stopping people from swarming me. Sometimes I have to do a bit of a dance with my frontline, putting them in a 1/0/1/0/1 frontline/backline thing, mostly against wolf riders.

I think this is my main issue right now. I have 13K gold and I don't know what's wise to spend it on. I hope it's not too late to make some upgrades, cause I do have a town with a armoursmith and the Very Friendly attitude.

Poorly built bros are going to be your biggest issue - if you haven't been allocating stats correctly and choosing the right perks it's far to late to salvage those guys at level 6-7. Unless you want to use BBedit to cheat a respec; you might actually want to write this run off altogether and start a new one to implement what you've learned.

I forget if you've bought the expansions or not - if you haven't, and you've decided you like the game enough to drop money on the expansions, this is a good time to do it since you'd need to start a new file anyhow.

Many of the guides out there are out of date, but there's been tons of posts in this thread on how people build their companies - some time back I wrote up a pretty comprehensive guide to how I build my guys, if you want to search back through my posts.

edit: saw people talking about taunt. Taunt is not really worth it. The way to deal with ancient dead is to debuff them with mass applications of overwhelm (guns are great at this) and get in there with AOE attacks. Two handed swords/bardiches can attack the back line directly, or you take out one of the front line guys and then get in there with a 2h hammer. Swordlances are a type of polearm that do an AOE attack - 3 hexes in a line, and having 2-3 of those in your back line will help clear out the shield guys. Give your ranged attackers throwing axes, unlike other ranged weapons they do good damage vs ancient dead.

Edit: this is the post where I outlined how I build a company. Note that it's based on having all expansions.

The Lord Bude posted:

To begin with, some background notes:

Since the release of the last expansion, I've played through 4 campaigns. Peasants on Veteran/Veteran till around day 500, clearing all legendary locations except the kraken (I've never fought the kraken and have no particular desire to). Peasants on Veteran (econ)/Expert (combat) - taken till just after the first crisis. Gladiators on Veteran/Expert - Currently in Second crisis, haven't cleared any legendary locations other than both parts of the Ijirok fight. Cultists on Veteran/Expert - currently in first crisis, haven't cleared any legendary locations. So most of my experience is in playing peasants but I've used broadly similar builds/tactics across all runs, with the exception of making a special front line warscythe build for my viper in the gladiator run. My most successful peasant run was on the Legolas map seed in case you're interested.

In 12 man companies I go with a 7 front/5 rear lineup. In 16 man companies I do 9/7. Also a note on stats as listed - where I've put a plus, that means the value is a minimum but I'll keep increasing it past that if I can to get it as high as possible. Where it's just a number, it means I stop increasing that stat once I pass that number.

And the Builds:

1. Shieldbros. I build 2 types of shieldbros. Note that I don't go full tank with them - I expect them to be able to hit stuff and contribute to damage. As a starting point, I like to have a shieldbro for every second bro on the front line (starting at the outermost edge). They have indom to hold enemies in place as needed, rotate to save more valuable/vulnerable bros and also used offensively to help move 2handers into position. When fighting enemies that can knock you around like orcs and unholds, I start off with a staggered line, moving every shieldbro forward one hex and using indom to absorb the charge. Because finding suitable 2handers and duellists is time consuming; in the beginning of the game I hire extra Shieldbros as needed to fill out my front line. As I get later in the game, in many fights I will swap out some of my shieldbros for extra duellists or 2handers.

1a. Midline Shieldbros. Minimum 2 in a 12 man company, 3 in a 16 man company. 2 in a gladiator/lone wolf company. Extra as required to fill out your front line until you find good 2hander candidates.

Minimum stat requirements by level 11 (inclusive of all bonuses from perks/traits/items etc):

HP - 100
Stam - 130+ (I value stam highly and prioritise hires with higher values/strong trait etc.)
Resolve - 60
init - irrelevant
matk - 80+
mdef - more is better obviously but I don't worry about it, I level matk and stam every level, the third stat is split between health and resolve until those are both at the desired levels then anything left over goes to mdef. Some of my shieldbros don't have any extra points in mdef.
ratk - irrelevant

Perks - Student, Colossus, Shield Expert, Brawny, Underdog, Battle forged, Rotation, Weapon Mastery (usually mace), Indomitable, Fearsome, Recover.

Weapon is usually mace unless I happen to find another good named 1hander before I've chosen a weapon mastery. Shield is typically the new round shields that southerners use, or whatever good named shields I've found. They also carry a dagger for discount used clothing opportunities. Armour attachment is additional fur padding.

1b. Outer shieldbros. 2 in every company except gladiator/lone wolf which has 0. These are the shieldbros on each end of the front line. They carry spears in order to use spearwall to funnel enemies into the middle of the line and discourage larger groups of enemies from wrapping around the company. They will also carry a second weapon to swap to once spearwall is no longer useful since spears have such low damage. I typically pick swords for this weapon for the following reasons - a) named swords are common and it's nice to have an opportunity to make use of them b) lower stamina usage - these bros will be heavily fatigued after spearwalling for a bunch of rounds, and they don't have recover.

Stat requirements are the same as midline shieldbros, however when deciding which bros to give spears to, I always pick the ones with the highest stamina, and where possible any shieldbros that happen to have iron lungs, since with iron lungs they can always swing a sword twice and use less stamina than they recover each turn.

Perk list is the same as the midline shieldbros, except they lose recover in order to get a second weapon mastery since they need spears and swords. Armour attachment is additional fur padding.

2. 2handed front line. Minimum 2, plus extra as I find them. Between 2handers and duelists combined I want at least 3 in a 12 man company and 4 in a 16 man company. I start by placing them on the inside of the spearman, and as I find more 2handers or duelists I aim at a minimum to have every second front liner as either a 2hander or a duelist. In my gladiator company I don't have spearmen so the 2handers go at the outer edge of the front line. Footwork here is sometimes used to get out of danger but primarily used offensively to get into position for a good aoe.

Minimum Stat Requirements (inclusive of all perks etc):

HP - 100
Stam - 140+
Resolve - 50
init - Irrelevant
Matk - 90+
Mdef - 20+ (peasants) 30+ (most companies) as close to 40+ as I can get (gladiators, I only hire the very best of the best)
Rdef - Irrelevant

A note on mdef - This is going to be one of the most controversial things in this post, but after very extensive playtesting, I've come to the conclusion that although more is obviously better, between the fact that damage is split between a larger front line, and the fact that you've got more units inflicting overwhelm and fearsome debuffs, when playing a 16 man company you can quite happily steamroll any encounter with lower levels of mdef than you would in a regular company. For reference, my peasant army cleared the black monolith first try with no casualties, and the battle was over pretty drat quickly. This is important because it's really hard to find candidates good enough to hit 30+ mdef when playing peasants unless you're prepared to significantly compromise other stats. Even in a 12 man army the extensive use of overwhelm takes considerable pressure off compared to the traditional approach of maximising mdef even at the expense of other stats.

Once again, I level stamina and matk every level (although with 2handers I'll skip minimum rolls in one or the other if it won't put me under the final stat thresholds in order to help boost other stats). The third stat is used to boost HP and Resolve to the required levels and then all in on mdef. I aim to minimise the number of level ups needed to get HP and resolve up to scratch. Ideally between the arena and necklaces I shouldn't have to put any points in resolve.

Perks: Student, Colossus, Brawny, Weapon Mastery, Underdog, Battle forged, Footwork, Beserk, Killing Frenzy, Reach Advantage, Recover

Gear: Hammers are the most important 2h frontline weapons in my opinion and my first 2 hires get those. Subsequent hires that will be placed in the middle of the line get either Greatswords or Bardiches (comparing vanilla weapons I prefer the Bardiche, but If I get a named greatsword then I use that). I'll only use a named greataxe/cleaver/flail if I happen to find an unusually good one; and I never use 2handed maces. 2handed maces flat out don't stack up compared to having a duelist with a 1h mace and they're only good for creating stamina neutral builds for substandard bros - I'd rather just not hire the substandard bro. Armour attachment is additional fur padding.

3. Duellist (non fencer). At least 1, more if I find appropriate hires. Between duellists and 2handers I want 3 in a 12 man and 4 in a 16 man company minimum. Duellists are easier to find than 2handers so I'll often have one before I have a 2hander. Also unlike 2handers where you need to get them in good armour and have battle forged before you let them fight with a 2handed weapon, duellists are perfectly viable to fight with no shield as soon as they have dodge - this makes a big difference early game. I don't take footwork on duellists because I find that my main use for footwork on the front line is offensive positioning to line up AOEs, which isn't relevant for a duellist. I always have my shieldbros with rotate in an emergency, or smoke pots if need be.

Stat requirements:

HP - 80
Stam - 115+ (more is still better if you can)
Resolve - 50 (if you can get to 60 without spending level up points that's a nice bonus but not required)
Init - generally not required but I might take the occasional max roll if I have only minimum rolls elsewhere
matk - 90+
mdef - 20+ (peasants) 30+ (most companies) as close to 40+ as I can get (gladiator/lone wolf)

In general you should be able to get more mdef on a duelist compared to a 2hander due to looser stamina requirements. HP is listed at 80 rather than 100 like other front liners because I can't fit colossus into the build. I find that duelists tend get hit less than plate wearers; and nimble makes the HP go further so to speak so I've never had an issue with the lower health.

Perks: Student, Recover, Dodge, Weapon Mastery, Underdog, Nimble, Duellist, Beserk, Killing Frenzy, Fearsome, Overwhelm.

My standard weapon for a duellist is a mace, but I will make a cleaver duellist or an axe duellist if I happen to find a really good named weapon. Armour attachment is bone plate.

4. Fencer

This is something of a luxury build - if your stars align and you find the perfect bro and a good named fencing sword, fencers have the most insane damage capability. Mine can one shot noble troops. Most of my runs I don't have one, but when the stars align like it did in my gladiator run and then in my cultist run, then they kick rear end. The addition of the reworked relentless perk and the hyena pelt armour attachment in the last expansion makes it much easier to build a top tier fencer.

Stat Requirements:

HP - 70-80. Because they have so much initiative for dodge to work with, fencers rarely get hit in melee, so you can afford to be a bit lax here. More is better, and I'm reluctant to go below 70, but you ideally don't want to be wasting any level up points on health; or at best 1-2 levels worth. In my cultist run my fencer is in the low 60s on the basis that he'll eventually get a decent chunk of health through davkul buffs, and so far it's been fine.

Stamina - 110 - 120. Ideally you want to hire someone who has this right off the bat, or close to it so that you don't have to waste level up points on stamina.
Resolve - 50

Init - The higher the better obviously. The damage multiplier caps out at 175 initiative; taking the penalty from gear into consideration this means you should be targeting a minimum of 195 init, or 185 with the strong trait*. Init should be raised every single level plus the gifted level.

matk - 90+
mdef - 30+
rdef - irrelevant

Ideally you want health, stamina and resolve to be good enough or within a few points of good enough from level 1 so that you don't need to waste points raising them. Resolve you can get to where it needs to be on most hires using arena. Fencers dominate in arena so it shouldn't be hard. It's often better when hiring to look for bros that start with high health and stamina rather than the very highest init backgrounds, since those tend to require you to put more points into getting stamina and health up to scratch. Brawlers, farmers (if their starting resolve isn't too poo poo) lumberjacks and wildmen are often good choices. Best traits are strong, quick and tough in that order

*Note on the strong trait - this trait is super good for fencers because it has a hidden benefit - in addition to giving an extra 10 stamina, it also reduces the initiative penalty from the gear you have equipped by up to 10; so effectively you have 10 extra initiative in addition to 10 extra stamina.

Perks: Student, Recover, Dodge, Relentless, Sword Mastery, Underdog, Nimble, Duellist, Beserk, Killing Frenzy, Gifted.

Gear: named fencing sword obviously, and armour attachment is hyena pelt.

5. Archer/Thrower Hybrid. 2 of them in a 12 man company, 3 in a 16 man (when I'm not using my sergeant, the centre of my back line is either a third archer/thrower or a third swordlancer) . When I did my Peasants run, I had stand alone archers and throwers - 2 of each. This makes sense in a peasant game because it's hard to find really top tier ranged bros and you can make do with lower ranged attack in a thrower vs an archer; and there are mild advantages build wise - dedicated archers get recover, gifted and fast adaptation (which does surprisingly good work on archers, since even the best ones miss more often than melee dudes) and dedicated throwers get bags and belts, which lets you work throwable pots into the mix - but ultimately I found I just wasn't using the archers nearly as often as the throwers, and after trying the hybrid build out of necessity in my gladiator build, and then choosing to do that again in my cultists, I've decided that I much prefer the hybrid approach and I'd do that in my next peasant game as well. The hybrid build doesn't have room for recover, and so far I've been surprisingly ok with that. It does mean however that you need to emphasise stamina in your hires.

Stat Requirements:

HP - 70+
Stamina - 120+
Resolve - 40 (don't waste points here, but feel free to take it higher with arena and necklaces)
Init - Irrelevant
Ratk 90+
mdef - not particularly useful, but if you already have over 70 health feel free to take a max roll here
rdef - not particularly useful, I typically take any max rolls I get here but there's not much point going above 12-15.

Increase Stamina and Ratk at every level up, then use the third choice to boost whichever roll is highest out of health/rdef and even mdef if you have no better options. do try and make sure you take enough health level ups to get you to 70-75 though.

Perks: Student, Quick Hands, Crippling Strikes, Throwing Mastery, Bow Mastery, Footwork, Nimble, Duellist, Beserk, Killing Frenzy, Executioner

Gear: Warbow or named bow, 2x Barbarian heavy Javelins, stack of 14 arrows. Keep 3x Barbarian Heavy throwing axes in your inventory to equip them with in ancient dead fights. Armor attachment is Bone Plates.

Most of the time you want to use your throwing weapons at point blank range for maximum damage, but you can swap to the bow for lightly armoured opponents or high priority distant opponents, or to get a shot in when needed without having to waste time repositioning. The Javelins have a higher chance of hitting than even aimed shot at point blank range so especially early on you want to focus more on them. Having javelins in play against early bandit fights actually makes a huge difference. Crippling Strikes and executioner get a bad rap but they make a huge difference vs chosen.

6. Sergeant. One per company. My Sergeant tends to spend most fights on the bench, only coming out for certain fights where I know I'll need both the banner and rally the troops, or if I want his whip functionality. Mainly that's Hexen, Alps, Geists and some Ancient Dead fights. In my gladiator run I skipped this build altogether and just used the gunner build further down with a greater emphasis on resolve - I never ended up using the banner.

Stat Requirements:

HP - 70 to 80
Stam - 120+
Resolve - 120+ (ideally over 130 but 120 is adequate in a pinch)
Init - irrelevant
matk - 80+
mdef - irrelevant
rdef - not important but it's ok to take a max roll here if you're doing unusually well in your other stats.

Perks - Student, Gifted, Backstab, Fortified Mind, Rally the Troops, Polearm Mastery, Cleaver Mastery, Footwork, Nimble, Fearsome, Recover

Gear - weapons are the banner and a whip. Armour attachment is bone plates.

7. Gunner. 1 in 12 man companies, 2 in 16 man companies. I give my gunners rally the troops so that they can act as backup sergeants. 95% of the time, you can leave the actual sergeant in reserve.

Stat Requirements

HP - 70 to 80

Stam - 100 (you'll never exhaust yourself firing your gun, but it's nice to have a little bit of a buffer so you can get off a couple of rallies if needed.)

Resolve 90 - 100. You can go higher if using him as your main sergeant, or you happen to get lots of max rolls; or you get a ranged bro with unusually good starting resolve - often the case with hunters. Fearsome value caps at 100, but rally doesn't. If you're playing peasants it's probably ok to cut back to 80 if you need to since you have 2 of them and you're more likely to need gifted to boost ratk over fortified mind.

Init - take any max rolls you get as long as you're on track with your other stats. Guns are heavy so your working init is going to be a bit lower than say a duelist; and the higher you can get it the more likely it is you can take advantage of overwhelm. Don't stress out over it though, it doesn't need to be crazy high.

Ratk - mid 80s is acceptable, particularly if you're playing peasants, but try and aim for 90+ if you've got access to hunters.

Mdef - not important; but you can add a max roll here if you've got nowhere better to put it
Rdef - not important; but I usually take max rolls here till I get to 12-15.

Perks: Student, Fortified Mind OR Gifted, Relentless, Crossbow Mastery, Footwork, Nimble, Overwhelm, Fearsome, Crippling Strikes, Executioner.

Gear is handgonne, armour attachment is hyena pelt or bone plate if you have unusually good init. If playing gladiators or lone wolf you may want to keep a crossbow in the inventory to swap out with the gun in fights where guns are bad - unholds for eg.

In 12 man companies I keep my gunner in the middle of the back line. In 16 man companies where I have 2 of them I keep them either on each end of the back line or one in from the end depending on the risk of being surrounded in a given fight. In a perfect world you'll find a hunter with 3 stars in resolve, and you'll be able to get all the resolve you need without taking fortified mind. Most of the time you'll have to make a tough call between gifted and fortified mind.

8. Swordlancer. 2 of them in a 12 man company; 3 in a 16 man (when I'm not using my sergeant, the centre of the back line is either a third archer/thrower or a third swordlancer depending on the fight).

This is one of the most important roles in the company. Aside from applying fearsome and overwhelm to the enemy front line via AOE, they also do substantial damage and will usually have the some of the highest kill counts of any melee bro in my company.

Stat Requirements:

HP - 70 to 80
Stamina - 120+ (try and get to 130 if you can, these guys use AOE a lot)
resolve - 60+ (if your health is in order feel free to take it further with any good rolls)
init - will already be higher than many enemies just because they're wearing light armour, but I still try and take max rolls here when I can
matk - I'm happy as long at I get to the mid 80s when playing peasants but getting to 90 is ideal, and I insist on it in gladiator.
mdef - not super important but I'll add a max roll here if I have nowhere else to put it
rdef - I'll take max rolls up to around 12-15 if I can.

Perks: Student, Recover, Backstab, Polearm Mastery, Footwork, Nimble, Beserk, Killing Frenzy, Overwhelm, Fearsome, Executioner.

Gear:

The Swordlance vs Warscythe Debate. Warscythes are slightly better vs armour; but they don't have enough durability to get you through a fight. One option is to carry both and switch to the Swordlance when the warscythe gets low on durability; but that wastes AP and significantly lowers your initiative making it harder to gain value from overwhelm. Overall; I've tried both ways and I think I prefer just having a swordlance. (obviously the ideal solution is to find a named swordlance or warscythe; but those are rarer than hen's teeth.)

Armour attachment is either hyena pelt or bone plating, depending on how you do boosting init and your personal preferences.

The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Feb 18, 2021

# ? Feb 18, 2021 15:53

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

In addition to what was already said, you shouldn't be using kite shields as your normal gear. The fatigue cost isn't worth the extra Rdef in most of the encounters. Kite shields only come out against goblins and maybe against the odd encounter where you run into a bandit group that has like 10 archers while your own armor isn't good enough to soak. Wooden shields are the baseline because they are good enough and are easy to replace. Later you can upgrade into heater shields but don't use them against orcs because they'll just crush your shields anyway.

You can use Bude's post for orientation but I want to point out that you can also employ different strats and still beat every encounter in the game. For instance I don't use overwhelm, fearsome, guns or swordlances at all and build my late-game company around a wide frontline of 2h weapons in heavy armor with some tanks sprinkled in and a few archers in the back. I change my setup based on encounters but I my baseline is 7 2h bros, 2 tanks and 3 archers.

I'll go and dig up my last post about my builds and will edit it in here

E: Here are my last builds. But keep in mind that they are for the full DLC game. Pathfinder for instance is a pretty crappy skill in the vanilla game but becomes much better with the increase in biomes with the DLCs

Tin Tim posted:

Early Line

Student
Colossus
Gifted
Rotate
Recover
Underdog
Battleforged
Pathfinder
Brawny
Mace or Axe spec+shield expert

This is my standard 1h+shield early game build that's meant to fight+farm raiders for their gear and those bros usually get phased out once I'm in the midgame. Farming raiders is the basic 101 for the early game which you should focus on btw. Pretty much every bro that's better than what I would consider "trash that will die" can fill this build. Farmers, brawlers(great background!), caravan hands, lumberjacks, butchers, masons, and messengers are where I look. Militia also works but is often too expensive early on and may have potential to be something better. Wildmen can also work but have some crappy stat ranges after their nerfs so I usually don't bother trying anymore. This build wants stars in melee atk, defence and stamina if possible but health is also helpful and resolve is too but it's the least important stat for a star in the early game. I level as much mAtt/def and fatigue as I can while aiming for 71 health(without colossus! The bonus is retroactive btw so you don't need 71 before you pick the perk) and go for resolve between 40-50 which can also be met with a resolve trinket. These guys are meant to farm raiders and to hold the line! They aren't huge damage dealers and never will be. They use flails early because raiders often have no or crappy helmets and then switch to axes later or a tier 3 mace if I managed to loot that. They also get a dagger in their pocket asap to farm raiders with good body+head armor. Their perks are mostly set in stone for me but I guess recover isn't 100%. I use it to offset the fatigue cost from the alternate flail/dagger attacks but you can sorta get by without it if the fatigue pool is good enough.

Hybrid/Early Game Crutch

Student
Quick Hands
Gifted
Anticipation
Polearm Mastery
Berserk
Frenzy
Nimble or Battleforged (depends on the fatigue)
Footwork or Rotate (depends on taste though footwork is better for the build I guess)
Bow Mastery and Bullseye

I use this build rarely and it mostly happens when I find an early bro with stars in melee and ranged attack that's overall too good to just trash him. The role of this build is to be a damage dealer/force multiplier early but imo they don't hold up past the midgame. But if I struggle early then this build can do some good work and it sorta allows you to punch a bit above your weight if you run like two or three behind your line. Because the dps from the polearms has some weight in early fights and the extra arrow shots also help. I level m/rAttk and fatigue with a bit of health(around 70 since they don't run colossus but can catch a hit sometimes) and some rDef. Resolve can be ignored in the backline if you don't use fearsome. I don't really search backgrounds for this build but sellswords make the best versions imo. There is a variant of this build which uses a whip instead of a bow and that can hold up past the midgame imo because the whip disarm is the best control skill in the game. That build takes cleaver mastery as the fifth perk and polearm+recover as their last. I still don't like it that much but it's a solid build.

Archer+Thrower Hybrid

Student
Bullseye
Anticipation
Bow Mastery
Recover
Nimble
Berserk
Frenzy
Quick Hands
Duelist+Throwing Mastery

This is my ranged build and I usually end up with 4-5 of them in my company because I want some extras for certain fights. Their role should be pretty clear. Shoot stuff and have decent odds to snipe high threat targets behind other stuff. They switch to throwing weapons against heavy armor humans like chosen or when I expect the dps to matter more than the range. And they stay on the bench against orc warriors and ancient undead because their damage doesn't help against skellies and orc warriors break your line and chop them up. I level rAtt/def and stamina with some health(60-70ish). You pretty much want their rAtt to be 90+ in the end if possible. The two vanilla starts give you one good archer to use but backgrounds that work are basically only poachers(shepherds early too) and hunters. And hunters are the targets for your mid-late game company when they come with 2-3 stars in rAtt. There are some outliers where a bro can have 40+ rAtt and two stars but it's not something you can really hunt for. Some advice is that you pretty much always should have archers in your group against enemies that also use ranged weapons. If the AI thinks that their ranged is much better than yours then they will not advance towards you!

Banner Bro

Student
Fortified Mind
Rally
Gifted
Cleaver Mastery
Nimble or Battleforged (depends on the bro but forged without brawny is hard to justify since rally burns a lot of stam)
Recover
Colossus
Rotate
Quickhands+Pathfinder( Pathfinder is a flexspot for now since I'm not certain what is best here. Polearm, Footwork, Brawny, Berserk and even Underdog can all be argued for)

The banner is kind of a sad build. It looks cool to have on the field but is only needed in very few fights. That's why most people use a monk that just sits on the bench 90% of the time. I try to go a different route by having it also be my main whip user. Reminder that disarm is the best control skill in the game! Basically any bro with 40+ resolve and 2-3 stars can be your banner but squires and beastslayers are prime backgrounds to roll on imo. Adventurous nobles have the best resolve stat range in the game but they're also expensive and need some points sunk into their rDef. You obviously want to level resolve everytime and pump stamina often but the rest depends on how you use the bro. I also level some rDef and try to go for a good chunk of health(around 80+ without colossus) and try to get mAtt in the range of 80+. The whip disarm is hard to hit(even with the bonus from cleaver mastery) so good mAtt is mandatory for me. The health pool is due to me using my banner as an emergency tank that can rotate a dying bro to the back and then eat a few hits. This strat pairs well with nimble btw. As said, the banner is a sad build and everyone needs to figure out how they wanna handle it

Tank!

Student
Recover
Rotate
Brawny
Underdog
Battleforged
Indomitable
Pathfinder(used to be taunt but I moved away from it)
Colossus
Shield Mastery+Gifted, Fortified Mind, Steel Brow (The second choice depends on the final stats of the bro and if I need to shore something up)

This is one of my favorite builds and gets used all the way through the game. This bro doesn't deal damage well but can stand in the middle of a bunch of enemies and laugh about it while your other bros do the killing. It's all about being defensive and locking enemies down so that they can't pressure the rest of your dudes. Very helpful against lindwurms and unholds btw and a good magnet for orc young stun attacks. I always run with two of them(one each on the edges of my line) and have two more on the bench that I bring in for certain fights. Early on you can sorta use any background with 2 stars in defense but later on you want to look for more expensive backgrounds with better bases in mAtt. 60 mAtt with a spear/sword is fine early but sucks after that. And while the bro is built towards defense you want them to be able to contribute at least some good hits over the course of a fight. Finding good tanks for the lategame can be hard because the build is sorta stat hungry. You want mDef on every level(target around 30 without a shield), health at 71+(around 80 if possible) before colossus bonus, resolve around 60(without a trinket), fatigue at 140 or as close as possible and then also mAtt between 70-80. Getting that on anyone but hedge knights is a tall order imo but with some luck in stars and traits it can be done. That's why I also have several possible picks for the last perk since I need those stats! But as said, early game tanks are much less stat hungry because you ignore mAtt after 60 but I don't like that later on.

2h

Student
Pathfinder
Rotate
Colossus(can be gifted if the base health is huge and has stars)
Underdog
Battleforged
Recover
Brawny
Frenzy
Berserk+2h Weapon Mastery of choice (kinda any except swords since they suck later. And axe is questionable since the aoe skill is hard to set up but okay if you have a good famed one)

This is the other build I really like to use but it's not really something you can pull of well early(one of your vanilla starter bros can be built to be an okay 2h sword user though). I transition into these bros during the midgame and my lategame strats need them. They are dps builds that are meant to get rolling after their first kill and then snowball through the enemies until their fatigue is spent. There are variations of this build which don't use berserk to stay stamina neutral or builds that use quickhands to juggle 2h and reach weapons. But this is what I use and I'm not sure if I switch it up anytime soon. Though I use one "variant" that specs into cleaver(there is an event for a famed 2h cleaver in every campaign btw) to also use a whip. My 2h build is very stat hungry and you pretty much want stars in mAtt+def and fatigue. My targets are 85+ mAtt, 25+ mDef, 71 health without colossus bonus, 50 res and 140 fatigue or as close as possible. Fatigue is a point of contention I guess but I run my 2h users in the heaviest armor possible. You can mitigate the fatigue with famed armor but you also can't really count on that. Seeing how high my demands are you can probably also guess that not many backgrounds can fill this order. Hedge knights are the prime targets to roll on but sellswords can also do it with some luck and even cheap backgrounds like lumberjacks and brawlers can work. Those need some luck with their stars/traits and level up rolls though. Finding my 2h users is usually the main effort of all my campaigns but when I get them they clean house against almost everything and I love them dearly

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Feb 18, 2021

# ? Feb 18, 2021 16:36

dogstile: May 1, 2012; fucking clocks
how do they work?

Kite shields go on my brand new brothers that I want to keep, as well as the heaviest armour, even if they can't quite wear it yet :v:

.

They'll get xp by just being in the fight and it means man with crossbow won't oneshot the poor bastard.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 16:37

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

I'll speak out in defence of kite shields simply because until the southern metal shields got added with the recent DLC, they were the most durable common shields that offered good protection. Heater shields are objectively better protection but too flimsy to withstand much of a beating from enemies with axes. That extra durability on the kite shield made a big difference on bros who didn't have durable uniques or schrat shields, and imo it was worth the extra fatigue cost. The added ranged defence was just a nice little bonus.

Now that you can easily get very durable metal shields that offer good all-round protection there's no reason to use anything else.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 16:48

Count Uvula: Dec 20, 2011; ---

I love taunt and always have at least one tank with it late game. Don't think I've gotten much use out of it against the ancient undead though, they're so limited in what they can do that if they kill one of my dudes it's probably just them getting a lucky streak of hits against somebody already heavily armored.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 17:12

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

I also used to run taunt on my tanks but that was before I knew that its effect isn't 100%. A taunted enemy can still decide to attack another target in range and make you waste the action. And on top of that I just noticed that I'm not seeing enough cases where I wanted to use it and so I ditched it from my build. Didn't miss it since then tbh :shrug:

The one fight where it is great though is against necros because they always have an unobstructed path towards the taunter so they pretty much always go for it

# ? Feb 18, 2021 17:42

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Imo the trick to necros isn't taunt, it's knowing who their preferred targets are and what will cause them to move versus staying put. If they're surrounded by 3 or more bros they will always move. If they're going to move, they will move to somewhere where they're not surrounded, and preferably to somewhere where they can surround a bro with other necros. If you get somebody in rough shape during a necro fight, you can protect them by making sure they don't meet those criteria, or by moving bros in to surround the necros fighting the injured bro so that they teleport away instead of continuing the attack. Conversely, you can get necros to attack who you want them to attack by isolating your heaviest armour and highest defence bros on the corners of your formation, where necros see that they can surround them and teleport to do so.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 17:45

Tin Tim: Jun 4, 2012; Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Yeah agreed I was just saying that necro fights are the only fights where I would get consistent use out of the skill not that it was some kind of pro-strat against them :v:

# ? Feb 18, 2021 17:54

Toozler: Jan 12, 2012

Kite shields are fine if that's all you have, just know the benefits of each type.
Taunt owns.
Level MAtk and MDef every level for bros that use them. They are by far the most important stats.
Overwhelm can be useful (archers, daggers) but Fearsome is a meme trap.

# ? Feb 18, 2021 20:48

Southpaugh: May 26, 2007; Smokey Bacon

Fearsomes good on AOEs. Particularly since the morale changes.

# ? Feb 19, 2021 02:22

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

Toozler posted:

Fearsome is a meme trap.

This is absolutely, provably wrong after the changes to fearsome in the last expansion. It is insanely powerful.

# ? Feb 19, 2021 05:03

Upsidads: Jan 11, 2007; Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/battle-brothers-a-turn-based-tactical-rpg-switch/

# ? Feb 19, 2021 05:14

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

Junkie Disease posted:

https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/battle-brothers-a-turn-based-tactical-rpg-switch/

Now give me an iOS version.

# ? Feb 19, 2021 05:28

Sjs00: Jun 29, 2013; Yeah Baby Yeah !

This title itself is making me consider getting a switch. And I would if I wasn't actually really loving bad at Battle Brothers.
.
Case in point Slings have become far and away the best ranged option for me lately bar none and I never expected that or maybe my rng is just cursed

# ? Feb 19, 2021 05:49

Southpaugh: May 26, 2007; Smokey Bacon

I think slings overperform past expectations because... We have very low expectations of them. The basic ranged bro is a poacher/shepherd/militia with a crossbow, any crossbow and any stars at all in ranged. Keep him alive, keep him firing, give him his own personal tank with rotate on hand if you get rushed unexpectedly. Take advantage of higher ground. Within a few levels he'll be hitting reliably with the crossbow which you then upgrade. Take fast adaptation if you still find their attacks too variable. This type of bro will get you through the first crisis.

High end archers on the other hand very much need very high base ranged attack. You still coddle them even more in the early days but you will get a lot more mileage out of them once you have bow mastery.

# ? Feb 19, 2021 17:04

The Lord Bude: May 23, 2007; ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE

Throwing weapons like javelins have the highest chance of hitting at point blank range. I always say even if you don't intend them to be throwers long term, spend the first few levels with them using javelins and aiming at guys 2 tiles away. They'll hit more often and do more damage than they would if they were using something like a light crossbow.

# ? Feb 19, 2021 17:51

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# ? May 19, 2024 09:09

Sjs00: Jun 29, 2013; Yeah Baby Yeah !

Acknowledged that javelins are better damage wise but consume more resources.
Slings seem to be so strong to me because they
A. Never run out of ammo, nor consume ammo, so I can use them anytime without mucking with ammo stacks or quivers etc, plus I dont waste actions swapping stacks in combat. The ultimate easy ranged weapon
B. Inflict dazed, or crack skulls entirely which are both really good debuffs
C. they're really good in theory in some legendary locations but I have never gotten to the Library myself.
D. And finally with the recent further nerf to disarm that 2-3 tile close range needs more options which, again throwing weapons.
I think my issue is my bros never have enough stamina for throwing weapons plus a shield and thats my fault probably. Slings are my crutch; actually I dont know how you would engage uphill bandits marksman with just throwing weapons or few bows.
I always reload until I get good terrain to draw the enemy out of the fortress and defeat their archers first . Maybe I could do that with throwing weapons and shields but it seems beyond my skill level

Sjs00 fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Feb 19, 2021

# ? Feb 19, 2021 19:41

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