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

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

Donkringel posted:

Ugh one of my fantastic main line shield bro's was struck down.

Had 70ish mdef. He still has low 40s with a busted knee so I'll keep him on for a bit, but his Ini is so bad that some of the quicker zombies are beating him. Time for more tryouts I suppose.

Time to let him ~~run into a line of enemies without any gear~~ retire with grace and honor

8 Ball posted:

Update says it fixed the UI freeze at end of combat thank god

Nice! It didn't happen often but every time it did it sucked a lot

# ¿ Oct 21, 2020 15:29

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 09:26

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

I'm wondering about the details of the random camp mechanics. By now it happened a few times that I discovered a juicy undead camp with a priest and honor guards on top of more chaff enemies which should have decent chances for famed loot or lots of treasure. So when I returned some time later to fight it the enemies inside the camp are a lot weaker and of course I get no cool treasures out of it. Why does that happen? Do the enemies just deplete with time due to the patrol spawns?

# ¿ Oct 23, 2020 01:00

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

Thanks for the info. Still feel like I got robbed :v:

# ¿ Oct 23, 2020 01:40

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

What's the skinny on adventurous/disowned nobles and dastards? I think I never hired any of them because I was told they all introduce annoying events

# ¿ Oct 26, 2020 20:55

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

Thx for the info, everyone. I'll broaden my recruitment and will roll on a noble or two when I see them

rideANDxORdie posted:

the cumulative difference in stats can end up being worth 10+ level worth. There's a huge gap between starting with 54 MAtk and 64 MAtk - same with 2 MDef versus 13.

That's really the main reason for picking up expensive backgrounds. I too will continue to roll on farmhands and brawlers(ftw) and such in the late-game but the higher base stats of certain backgrounds just flat out turn into a better package than a weak background with above average stars. Like you usually have to dump more extra rolls than you would like into res/health to get them up to par which gimps their overall stats in the end.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2020 15:14

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

dkj posted:

Just started playing and I’m just hiring the cheapest guys and giving them spears and shields and cheap armor. Is this dumb?

Not exactly. Having some bad recruits die in the process of getting you money&gear and is pretty normal early on but don't lean into it too hard because it will wreck the morale of the bros that you want to keep alive. Imo you want to quickly transition into trying to level a few core bros with good potential in body and combat stats to carry you through the early game. These guys will eventually get ditched during the midgame but you want to quickly be able to take on raiders for the gear drops and those will kill crappy fodder bros too fast. You can use knives/daggers to kill someone with the puncture attack without doing damage to their armor and get it as loot. This works best when you fully surround a panicked enemy since they can't run or attack anymore. Otherwise it can be a dangerous task early on because you'll need to hit a few stabs for a kill. But it pays to get into the mental habit of trying to isolate someone with good gear to maybe dagger them during or at the end of the fight. Flails are also very good early because bandits and raiders often will have no head armor. Killing them with the secondary flail attack also leaves their body armor intact as loot since it targets the head. Grinding raiders for their gear is pretty much basic 101 early game.

The bros that will let you do that are farmers, lumberjacks, brawlers, militia men, and butchers for instance. There are more simple backgrounds that can lead to good stats but those are at the top of my head. You want to be selective here and look for melee skill close to or above 60. Bros with melee at 50-55(without 2 or 3 stars) will be locked to using spears/swords forever to get hits in. Having stars in fatigue, hp, mattack/def or resolve is what you want on your early core. Though resolve is the fringe stat since you can run with 40 ish when fighting humans and having stars here only means that you need to invest fewer points to hit the benchmark of 45-50. I call those bros "early line" and their job is to use a shield+1h weapon and to get good at fighting raiders asap.

Here's the perk flow for them

Colossus
Gifted
Rotate
Recover
Underdog
Battleforged
Indomitable(sort of a flex perk but I like to have it to engage young orcs early)
Brawny
???(this is another flex point and I usually pick something like shield spec, frenzy/berserk or a funky weapon spec here)
Mace or Axe spec

This build doesn't take the common route with student as the first perk and instead ramps up its combat power quickly. The brunt of my early company is made up of theses dudes and they get me the money&gear I need to transition into the midgame where I then look for better recruits to lvl and replace my early hires one by one.

One more important tip is to have 2-3 decent archers in your early company to balance out the numerical advantage human enemies have against you or to counter their archers once yours have some skill. Also enemies will not advance towards you if they have archers and you don't and that sucks since you have to take hits while closing with them. Hunters have the best archer potential on average but are also kinda expensive. Looking for poachers or bowyers early on is fine enough but you can also find potential in some other cheap backgrounds. My 2nd archer in my current campaign was a caravan hand with 2 stars in ranged att and one star in ranged def and he's still around post day 150

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Nov 1, 2020

# ¿ Nov 1, 2020 22:00

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

I just noticed that my current map only has one single blast furnace :argh:

# ¿ Nov 2, 2020 01:23

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

Fabricated posted:

I almost always get a monk banner even if adventurous nobles are better overall because Monks have a ridiculous amount of good events and prevent probably one of the absolute worst ones (Hedge Knight duel).

I've seen the monk=banner sentiment pop up a few times and I can't really agree with that. I mean I get it. Your banner is the most likely role to sit around in reserve because you only really need it against geists and maybe when fighting one or multiple orc warlords. Monks also don't have frontline stats so they need to find a role in the backline. However, since their physical stats often roll badly I can't really use them as banner bros. I want my banner to hit at least 80 matk to consistently land disarm with the whip. Base fatigue is also a concern since rally burns a lot of stam and monks can roll as low as 80 as their base. So finding a monk with 50 base resolve plus two stars in it while also having enough good bases in the physical stats is a very tall order. So my usual monk ends up being on the bench mostly but I still spec them for polearm+whip and pray that their matk turns out well enough so that they can contribute to the fight when I need to swap them in for the mood.

Imo you mostly find your good banner bros on accident while rolling through recruits. Any bro with close to 50 base resolve and 2-3 stars has the potential to become a good banner if the base fatigue and matt is high enough. Adventurous nobles have the highest base resolve but I find them to be too expensive on average to roll on them for a banner. Also the negative base in rdef is a problem because it makes them arrow magnets if you don't sink some points into it. My favorite backgrounds to roll for a banner are squires and beast slayers since they have a good chance to hit all the base stats I want and "only" need to luck out on the stars and their base resolve. Sadly both backgrounds are quite rare and I prefer to find a beast slayer due to some of their events. So usually I pick up a serviceable banner bro in the early game and then ditch them later when I found my real banner

# ¿ Nov 2, 2020 17:33

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

Night10194 posted:

Lindwurm.

What's the strats itt to fight these guys btw?

I've settled on locking them down with 60+ mdef tanks that just shieldwall forever while I kill them one by one with bows+polearms. It works but it is so slow due to the giant pile of health.

dogstile posted:

If i had to choose between crippling and fast adaptation, i'd probably just pick FA every time.

Imagine wanting to pick either of those

:troll:

# ¿ Nov 4, 2020 21:11

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

Night10194 posted:

For me? Don't. Nothing they have is really worth the headache.

See that's the part I don't agree on and why I'm willing to fight them sometimes. The lindwurm treasure has the second highest price of all treasures in the game. And with 33% it has a decent enough drop rate to get 1-2 from a pack. The blood is trash to me but scales and bones aren't. The shields are great alternatives against goblins if you lack famed shields with rdef and the bones speed up the process of getting bone plating for your company pretty well. I'm okay with fighting a group for like every 50 days of campaign time but I just wish they would die faster :v:

dogstile posted:

I find it much harder to get good armour than weapons. Good weapons typically drop even if i'm just murdering everyone. Good armour usually requires some dangerous dagger play.

Yeah, same. I usually end up buying 210 armors(2,5-3k is my buy range) for my line to slingshot into better fights because the game doesn't throw me enough leaders to dagger and loot from

The Skeleton King posted:

I find most low-tier backgrounds to be near worthless as they die too easily and cost me money in repairs. So instead I save up and get raiders, sellswords, squires, nomads, witch hunters, hunters, and gladiators. I almost always start by getting a sellsword as fast as possible because they can carry the company easily. I think it's smarter than having to recruit and equip a bunch of jobbers who break all my equipment and die because they can't land hits.

That's your problem right there. You can absolutely find cheap bros that will have better stats than hedgeknights if they survive and it's not hard imo. Rolling on brawlers(secretely the best early hires imo), farmhands, lumberjacks, caravan guards, milita and such isn't expensive(except when they spawn with too much gear). Just use spears/swords on them until they lvl enough matk, feed them some easy fights and then go for the money. My current campaign is post the second crisis and I still have 5 "trash" backgrounds in my crew that I hired early and they all have endgame stats

The Lord Bude posted:

I’m not sure that I agree. Named armour is very common and has the advantage of being able to be dropped in to anyone with lesser armour as an upgrade. You ought to have 2-3 pieces by crisis time.

I wonder if the new dlc upped the drop % on famed gear? I still haven't bought it and my current campaign is post day 200 and I have four famed items with one of them being bought. And it's not for lack of trying. I'm constantly clearing camps with 20-30% drop chance and I'm just never hitting those rolls

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Nov 5, 2020

# ¿ Nov 5, 2020 15:41

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

I'm starting to believe that the mod that shows you famed loot chances is a lie because I pounced on a big but weak barb camp with 56% chance and didn't get anything after fighting it four times. I know losing four coinflips in a row isn't a huge sample size but it's still uncanny

# ¿ Nov 10, 2020 19:50

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

vyelkin posted:

It is this. Uniques are generated when the camp is created and then won't change, exactly to stop you from savescumming the same camp over and over again to get them.

That is a shame and a crime against gamers tbh :qq:

# ¿ Nov 10, 2020 22:05

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

There's very good money to be made in the noble war and imo you don't want to miss it. The gear you get sells well and if you take contracts for support in a big battle you'll also get solid pay. You should be able to do those with 9 strong bros but 12 would be better because a few of the events involved can pit you against larger groups. The actual big battles are fairly easy since you have a lot of "ablative armor". Just let the AI take the lead and get hit for the first few turns and then identify where your guys need to go to decide the fight. There's also a chance to see champion knights and the noble leader also always has good gear. If you don't really want to do contracts you can still make money though. Support one faction just enough so that another turns hostile to you. Then roam their lands and gank their small patrols over and over. Relation hits don't matter because a hostile house will go back up to "cold" towards you once the crisis ends

800peepee51doodoo posted:

That said, if you're only at 9 bros by the time the first crisis is going, you might not be scaling up enough to take on a lot of the contracts unless you're doing something like a lone wolf or gladiator run and prioritizing leveling ultra strong bros.

Agreed

Also, redreader, if your group of nine does not have at least two strong archers then you're going to miss those sorely. Archers are very good against the backline troops of noble houses and those also deal the most damage to you

# ¿ Nov 11, 2020 00:04

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

Donkringel posted:

This means less killstealing by your "allies"

Tfw you're trying to kill a noble or knight and some rando with a pike gets the last hit......

# ¿ Nov 11, 2020 18:06

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

What's the stance on bone plating vs fur padding when fighting chosen camps? So far I'm using bone to hopefully absorb the first 2h hit but I'm feeling like padding might be better since it increases the time that your bros can hold in a dangerous spot after taking a hit or two. I don't have a second set of 300 armors for my company yet so I couldn't investigate this myself

# ¿ Nov 12, 2020 14:29

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

Fabricated posted:

It owns when you're just doing raider/nomad/non-chosen barb cleanup and your throwers get fully spooled up and just start two-shotting people regardless if they're hitting headshots or not.

Pls share a perk tree for those and what weapons you use tia

# ¿ Nov 13, 2020 15:48

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

Fabricated posted:

https://tumult.cc/bb-calc.html?1-8&2-8&4-12&1-9&6-3&7-3&6-1&7-2&1-5&2-7

Thx I'm now seeing the difference between my build and this. I'm building archers that switch to thrower against chosen camps by having throwing spec and duelist. It's probably time to try a pure build instead

Fabricated posted:

I have no good advice for getting barb throwing weapons because you have to get a barb fight where they have them equipped and kill them before they run out or base someone up and switch to their melee weapon.

Just grind some barb patrols/camps and you'll get them. Also yeah get in melee with their throwers asap to speed up the process

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Nov 13, 2020

# ¿ Nov 13, 2020 18:42

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

I assumed they were talking about polearms

# ¿ Nov 23, 2020 21:37

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

The Lord Bude posted:

I�ve done more unholds than that before with no trouble; but only with a super late game company (I had cleared the monolith for eg).

The key for unholds is to use shieldbros with indom to hold them in one spot - they won�t be able to knock them around.

Almost same. I did groups of 9 with a fully leveled group in plate/scale coats for the front but without serious famed gear or legendary locations under their belt. Early late-game if that makes sense? :v:

Aside from needing to lock a few of them with indom tanks you also need the damage output to kill the free ones in a reasonable amount of time. For me that means 2h swords and maces. Their attacks also aren't too much trouble if you're rocking 300 armor. Their push mostly saps your fatigue in that case and you get few broken bones from their hits. What helps is that you don't want to base them with a 2h without being able to attack. That just means they get to push you away and you have to approach again. Try to stay one tile away and then move+hit on your next turn

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Nov 26, 2020

# ¿ Nov 26, 2020 16:33

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

I could use a bit of info about how random events in the world trigger. I haven't gotten the kingsguard event in my current run because I have a very small area with roads on snow. I tried to get it by traveling in that area a lot while doing contracts and such but it didn't happen. So now I wonder if I can sorta force it by sitting on a snowy road for a few days? :v:

# ¿ Nov 26, 2020 22:11

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

What are your thoughts on weapon mastery for 2h users? I usually end up with mace mastery because that's like the general 2h weapon I use when I don't switch in hammers or swords. But it feels kinda wrong to handle it like that even if I can't really explain why. I mean when you find a famed 2h weapon you mostly want to use it and getting the mastery for it then makes sense but that seldomly happens early enough for me. I mean I could just sit on the last perk point unitl I find a famed weapon but that also isn't a real solution :v:

# ¿ Nov 28, 2020 22:48

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

Pretty sure that balance changes are applied to the core game. I do not have the newest dlc but my farmhands still have awful res for instance

# ¿ Nov 30, 2020 18:33

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

I get the feeling that the map generation could have used a tiny bit more love. I've been rolling a few maps to start a fresh run with the new dlc( :toot:

) and the north often ends up weirdly squashed with very little snow in the areas you care about

# ¿ Dec 4, 2020 00:30

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

I said this a long long time ago but I think the engine would be good enough for a story driven campaign in the style of the fire emblem games :allears:

# ¿ Dec 5, 2020 14:28

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

There are many depressing situations in this game and while you gradually become used to most of them it never stops to sting when you check a smith in the early/mid game and see 3+ famed items in their shop :negative:

# ¿ Dec 5, 2020 21:06

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

Nomad outlaws are pretty hard to hit, huh? Took a three skull contract that turned out to be 17 of them with a leader and I barely got it done without deaths. Had like 5 people on death's door at the end with most of them running around the map to not get sniped in the last couple of turns. Tbf I haven't transitioned into 2h dps yet so that probably made it worse than it needed to be but those guys surely are a step above raiders :gibs:

# ¿ Dec 6, 2020 22:57

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

What are your picks for the retuine? I'm just rolling with the scout for now because I don't really see much reason to spend the money for the other effects I could get right now but I'm looking to the future so to speak.

Also is there a good strat for getting the sergeant? I haven't had a permanent injury so far and I'm closing in on day 100

# ¿ Dec 8, 2020 00:49

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

Thx for the input on the retuine. I think I can now see who I want to get. And big ups for the survivor=sarge strat. Feeling a little daft that I didn't think of that one myself :v:

Qubee posted:

I also wish the armourer / weaponsmith allowed you to quick repair gear your bros were wearing. Sometimes I'm in a rush and don't have time to wait for normal repairing.

You can actually quick-repair stuff with alt+right click when you're at an armor/weaponsmith in town. The stuff just has to be in your inventory and it's obviously more expensive

Qubee posted:

My guys are really coming together but I'm having an absolute bitch of a time finding new worthwhile recruits and not having them die in their first 3 battles.

Give new hires a pike and stick them in the back if you can. It's safe and they'll have an easier time getting hits because pikes have +10% cth and their targets often have other brothers next to them which also increases cth.

For recruits/general advice I'm just gonna quote a previous post of mine

Tin Tim posted:

Imo you want to quickly transition into trying to level a few core bros with good potential in body and combat stats to carry you through the early game. These guys will eventually get ditched during the midgame but you want to quickly be able to take on raiders for the gear drops and those will kill crappy fodder bros too fast. You can use knives/daggers to kill someone with the puncture attack without doing damage to their armor and get it as loot. This works best when you fully surround a panicked enemy since they can't run or attack anymore. Otherwise it can be a dangerous task early on because you'll need to hit a few stabs for a kill. But it pays to get into the mental habit of trying to isolate someone with good gear to maybe dagger them during or at the end of the fight. Flails are also very good early because bandits and raiders often will have no head armor. Killing them with the secondary flail attack also leaves their body armor intact as loot since it targets the head. Grinding raiders for their gear is pretty much basic 101 early game.

The bros that will let you do that are farmers(used to be better all purpose, now mainly tanks), lumberjacks, brawlers, militia men, and butchers for instance. There are more simple backgrounds that can lead to good stats but those are at the top of my head. You want to be selective here and look for melee skill close to or above 60. Bros with melee at 50-55(without 2 or 3 stars) will be locked to using spears/swords forever to get hits in. Having stars in fatigue, hp, mattack/def or resolve is what you want on your early core. Though resolve is the fringe stat since you can run with 40 ish when fighting humans and having stars here only means that you need to invest fewer points to hit the benchmark of 45-50. I call those bros "early line" and their job is to use a shield+1h weapon and to get good at fighting raiders asap.

Here's the perk flow for them(updated for the new dlc)

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

The brunt of my early company is made up of theses dudes and they get me the money&gear I need to transition into the midgame where I then look for better recruits to lvl and replace my early hires one by one.

One more important tip is to have 2-3 decent archers in your early company to balance out the numerical advantage human enemies have against you or to counter their archers once yours have some skill. Also enemies will not advance towards you if they have archers and you don't and that sucks since you have to take hits while closing with them. Hunters have the best archer potential on average but are also kinda expensive. Looking for poachers or bowyers early on is fine enough but you can also find potential in some other cheap backgrounds. My 2nd archer in my current campaign was a caravan hand with 2 stars in ranged att and one star in ranged def and he's still around post day 150

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Dec 8, 2020

# ¿ Dec 8, 2020 16:01

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

What's the best way to fight alps? I guess you want to be naked and have swords/spears for the +cth? Beyond that I can never figure out how to properly exploit their movement patterns

# ¿ Dec 9, 2020 00:42

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

Thanks for the input! For some reason I didn't really think about going with reach weapons against them. Probably because I use them so rarely once I'm out of the early game. Will give it a try when I find the next alp contract

The Lord Bude posted:

Also the more resolve a bro has the less damage they take from the Alp.

That is something I did not know about :monocle:

Also I've found my drill sarge. A houndmaster with "lucky" as his nick was hired, stripped and thrown in front of some direwolves. His nick actually turned out to be true because he only lost a finger

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Dec 9, 2020

# ¿ Dec 9, 2020 16:15

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

Veryslightlymad posted:

This is a big one. If nothing else, just wait.

Yeah I'm deffo guilty of rushing after alps too often and getting bros to the brink of death that way :v:

Also I just wanna say how incredibly nice it is to have a sarge and not lose mood on your bench. I always hated to juggle my bros in and out while I'm leveling replacements for my midgame crew

# ¿ Dec 9, 2020 17:26

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

Yeah at day 150 such a battle shouldn't give you much trouble if you're not playing very slowly on purpose but pretty much everyone ends up with lovely choices on their first run so no worries! I would start off fresh but you can still salvage your run if you want. Imo it's mainly about knowing your target stats and builds that are successful for your style. I'm saying it that way because there isn't really one perfect strategy. For instance, a lot of posters itt swear that fearsome builds or lot of backline dps are they way to go whereas I don't use either but we're still all successful with our strategies.

I'm just gonna make a wall of text and describe the builds I use and what my stat goals are so that you can take some directions from them. Though keep in mind that not all of my builds are fully optimized for the new DLC yet

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

The one build I'm gonna exclude here is the duelist which uses a 1h weapon(famed if possible) and no shield because my old builds suck rear end and I'm still working on a current one

Phew, words huh? :v:

I'm sure the other posters itt will have lots of things they don't like and think are better but as said before there isn't really one true strat for this game imo

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Dec 10, 2020

# ¿ Dec 10, 2020 17:05

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

The Lord Bude posted:

I would go so far as to suggest that maces should be the default choice for anyone using a 1 handed melee weapon (both shield using bros and duelists) unless you have a good reason not to.

I've never gotten into the number crunching but is the +10% pen really better than the higher armor damage on axes?

# ¿ Dec 11, 2020 15:56

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

Thanks for the breakdown!

I do agree that it's good to have some sources for stun in your line but at the same time I think people tend to overvalue it a bit. Like aside from a certain portion of the enemies being stun immune you also have to keep in mind that stun requires you to pass two rolls without the mastery. You need to hit and then get the 75% to stun. It's likely but sometimes it's better to just kill asap. Also the fatigue hit only really counts against thugs/raiders/basic barbs and maybe nomads(not enough playtime for me to gauge that) I think? Because the AI "cheats" with stamina per round and the total pool on other enemies. Like I dare you to stam out a chosen :v:

# ¿ Dec 11, 2020 19:38

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

Night10194 posted:

It isn't that you can stam them out (you absolutely can't on Chosen and even if you could you need them dead or broken faster than you could wear them down) but it will slow them down in Init as they take hits.

Ah, you're right. I always forget that init is a thing because it's completely useless for the player

# ¿ Dec 11, 2020 19:57

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

Thanks again for the "all reach weapons" strat against alps. Just tried it and it worked very well! Easiest 3k I've ever made in the game :v:

Sadly they didn't drop any skin so now I have to travel with two screaming faces in my inventory until I find the next alp fight

Btw I'm gonna rectract my tip to be nude for the fatigue boni. They can actually spawn with some direwolves and those will gently caress up your nude bros

# ¿ Dec 12, 2020 18:57

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

Bude I would appreciate it if you would post your exact builds at some point to run a campaign with them myself. The only way for me to buy the fearsome hype is to see it first hand

# ¿ Dec 13, 2020 02:47

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

Thanks for the effort! I'll tuck it away into a txt file and give it a whirl in my next campaigns

# ¿ Dec 13, 2020 20:03

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

I swear the rng on famed item drops is wild af. My current camp is in the second crisis and I've found one single shield so far. Also two helmets(one light, one heavy), one 2h cleaver, one warbow, one gun, and gently caress all otherwise :shrug:

E: After bitching about it I just scored a famed 1h mace let's see those stats baby!

+1 dura, +10% armor damg, -1 fat per hit....wtf :qq:

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Dec 17, 2020

# ¿ Dec 17, 2020 20:21

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 09:26

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

The 2h mace also is a good option (contrary to what bude thinks :cheeky:

). Very solid penetration, stun is handy for a solo, and dazed is a helpful effect too imo. The damage reduction should be even more relevant for a lone wolf. Only downside is that 2h maces are sorta tricky to find and you won't see a flanged one on enemies outside of getting lucky with bandit leaders/hedge knights I think

Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Dec 18, 2020

# ¿ Dec 18, 2020 14:29

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