Incline Battle Brothers + Beasts & Exploration, Warriors of the North and Blazing Deserts DLC Thread

[Payd Shell]

Not too impressed with the legends mod. It's nice to have so many different backgrounds that affect your perk choices but it's also a bit tedious with all the different stats people bring into your party, like increasing tool carrying capacity or inventory size. The camping system is nice, however. I'd like to see that one in the main game itself.

 

[Country_Gravy]

The autism mod has been updated to WotN and the latest patch: https://www.nexusmods.com/battlebrothers/mods/60?tab=files

Enhanced Enemies

• Low level enemies added for single character starts.
• Increased variety of spawn options in the mid game.
• Scaling extended out for larger parties and longer games
• Powerful new enemies like hulking orc behemoths
• Legendary versions of all enemies in legendary difficulty mode
• More blood on all damaged enemies, more particle effects

It's appealing, although what this game needs is a sequel turning it into a cRPG and why not managing a faction ?

What about ensnaring nations with necromancy?

 

[Dr Skeleton]

So I've tried short games with different origins:

Poachers - if you start by getting some more poachers and random cheap spear+shield men this might be the smoothest early game I've seen. 5-6 archers plus some random militia/farmers in the first line completely wreck bandits, thralls, goblins without lots of wolfs and low-mid numbers of beasts but predictably sucks vs undead (it's real easy to snipe necromancers though). I haven't fought orcs, which would also be hard once they get warriors. Nowadays I mostly build archers as dedicated ranged support without polearms but here it might be necessary to have a backup weapon on everyone because bows just don't have enough power vs tanky armored enemies. I think there's a lot of potential here. Not sure how you'd handle mass ancient dead or nercosavants though, other than just having a large specialized reserve.

Deserters - after trying this one out a couple of times I think deserters might have the absolute worst cost/stats ratio in the game. Not only do they often have sub-20 base resolve which makes their high melee def completely wasted once they engage the enemy and start running, but they seem to have more bad traits than any background other than cripples and beggars. I don't normally restart unless the map seed is completely fucked but here I had multiple starts with craven, clumsy, dastard and asthmatic on 2 or all 3 starting men. I hired some more deserters but they also had lots of bad traits (one with iron lungs though) and for that cost you can do much better with militia and retried soldiers. My one not-terrible start was cut around day 15 because a noble house unit ambushed me in the forest outside their territory. Oh well. You can raid caravans from your former house for some easy loot. You could maybe make something out of it with a good sergeant and a banner but feels like an uphill battle with no upsides.

Beast hunters - doesn't really feel unique in any way other than you get worse prices. Bonus loot from beasts is very contract-dependent because running around woods chasing wolfs and spiders doesn't pay and there are no beast lairs to pillage (why aren't there beast lairs?). You are not actually better at fighting beasts in any way either. Meh.

Cultists - interesting but gimmicky. If only there was a more reliable way to get more cultists or attempt conversion of other backgrounds.

Lone Wolf - very strong as long as you don't actually fight as a lone wolf but slowly build a small squad of mid-high tier bros.

Raiders - like deserters, but good and fun. The only problem is that it's hard to get more barbarian recruits or gear.


I haven't tried the legends mod yet, I'll probably do when they slow down patching the game and the mod hits a more stable version. A lot of it sounds like a mess (wizards, backgrounds increasing map move speed, camping autism) but then I read

Save your troops into formations to prepare for different battles
Assign anyone to reserves, but they are forced to fight if you're attacked
Different backgrounds can have unique perk trees with entirely different abilities
Ingame sliders to control world size cities, factions, oceans, forrests, swamps (experimental, read the tooltips)
6 new AI Noble house archetypes
Tryout when hiring now reveals stars on attributes

And these seem like they should be added to the base game. Camping stuff might be cool too if they did it right.

 

[Jimmious]

Man, everyone hates Alps or witches... I personally loathe spiders. They are fucking annoying to fight, with their eggs and being always in forests... I most of the time avoid contracts that have them

 

[tindrli]

Man, everyone hates Alps or witches... I personally loathe spiders. They are fucking annoying to fight, with their eggs and being always in forests... I most of the time avoid contracts that have them

beside Alps and witches i hate bounty hunters. especially between 30-50 days

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Reworked alps aren't that bad. Still tedious to fight but if you have the right setup (12 men, any swords/spears + dogs just in case) alp contracts are easy money unless you run into a very large group, but I haven't so far.

Hexen are hard, especially combined with other enemies. Archers and maces are good, high resolve helps but not very reliably in my experience.

Yeah, bounty hunters have crazy good stats and perks for how early you can run into them.

 

[Jimmious]

Spiders are booooring to fight

 

[tindrli]

Reworked alps aren't that bad. Still tedious to fight but if you have the right setup (12 men, any swords/spears + dogs just in case) alp contracts are easy money unless you run into a very large group, but I haven't so far.

Hexen are hard, especially combined with other enemies. Archers and maces are good, high resolve helps but not very reliably in my experience.

Yeah, bounty hunters have crazy good stats and perks for how early you can run into them.

just few days back with alps reworked i managed to to get destroyed by 4 or 5 of them. i don't know. now, i just don't fight them without at least 8 dogs

 

[Dr Skeleton]

I give everyone a 1h weapon (preferably spear/sword for the hit chance bonus but any will do for small groups) and slowly creep forward and kill the alps 1-2 at a time. Don't rush too far, don't split into smaller groups, kill the nightmares the turn the spawn, then advance with bros that still have the ap but stay within the reach of your formation enough that others can move far enough to reach the outliers and attack one time the next turn. I sometimes get hit here and there when they just dump all the nightmares into one area but I haven't lost anyone to alps since the rework. Compared to the clusterfuck that was the aoe sleep and counting AP to move and wake, these alps aren't so bad.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Maybe it's time to try Alps v2. I've been rejecting Alp contracts just out of habit.

 

[Reinhardt]

Now i just need to craft snow unhold attachment and he will wear FOUR gold buckles. ULTIMATE SERGEANT!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Man, everyone hates Alps or witches... I personally loathe spiders. They are fucking annoying to fight, with their eggs and being always in forests... I most of the time avoid contracts that have them

beside Alps and witches i hate bounty hunters. especially between 30-50 days

As far I know you can always just give bounty hunters what they want.
Besides winning group of bounty hunters during early game gives relatively good loot.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I haven't tried the legends mod yet, I'll probably do when they slow down patching the game and the mod hits a more stable version. A lot of it sounds like a mess (wizards, backgrounds increasing map move speed, camping autism) but then I read

Mage is well balanced, the wizard can cast a single target missile, same as arrows but less accurate and later has a chain lightning which hits 2/3 adjacent targets with reduced damage for extra targets, also a low damage fire cloud spell known as the Gheist bane.
The warlock can spawn zombies or skeletons (3 perks for each increasing their power and you need ressources that take inventory space and are spawn from corpses after a battle) and use the same powers (perks) as the necrosavants.
Some damage perks for real berserkers, etc.
As far as i know, you can't get more mages.

It adds a lot of re-playability and apparently, with the new version, there's even a new difficulty level if you want more challenge.

 

[tindrli]

Man, everyone hates Alps or witches... I personally loathe spiders. They are fucking annoying to fight, with their eggs and being always in forests... I most of the time avoid contracts that have them

beside Alps and witches i hate bounty hunters. especially between 30-50 days

As far I know you can always just give bounty hunters what they want.
Besides winning group of bounty hunters during early game gives relatively good loot.

i know but i just cant give them the damn head. ITS MINE and maybe its childish but i have never encounter a game where, how to say it.. in battle brothers its something personal. ITS MY HEAD and im not giving it away. if they kill me its because i played bad. and yes its great loot. i would love to see that EARS collar that bounty hunters event tells about it but sadly seems its not ingame

 

[Vault Dweller]

Went for a stroll after a hard day of work and ran into these fine gents:

 

[Covenant]

Man, everyone hates Alps or witches... I personally loathe spiders. They are fucking annoying to fight, with their eggs and being always in forests... I most of the time avoid contracts that have them

beside Alps and witches i hate bounty hunters. especially between 30-50 days

As far I know you can always just give bounty hunters what they want.
Besides winning group of bounty hunters during early game gives relatively good loot.

My only issue with this is that the bounty hunters are supposed to be mercenaries, like you. So sure, they'll try and bully you into giving up your hard-earned loot, makes sense. But once you stand your ground and show that you can actually fight, and kill a couple of them, it seems improbable that they wouldn't cut their losses and split. There's no profit in death, after all.

Instead they'd rather fight to the end, and that end is typically half of my squad down and all of their guys (bar maybe one or two who retreat) dead as well. That kind of behaviour doesn't make sense for a long-running group of mercenaries and bountyhunters. Everyone walks away a loser. Goblins, orcs and undead, sure, I expect them to stop at nothing to kill me, but it seems unrealistic when men who murder primarily for love of coin are so illogical about it.

 

[hivemind]

Went for a stroll after a hard day of work and ran into these fine gents:

did u win

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm now a proud owner of a unique goblin polearm thingy.

 

[hivemind]

nice lol

 

[Payd Shell]

My only issue with this is that the bounty hunters are supposed to be mercenaries, like you. So sure, they'll try and bully you into giving up your hard-earned loot, makes sense. But once you stand your ground and show that you can actually fight, and kill a couple of them, it seems improbable that they wouldn't cut their losses and split. There's no profit in death, after all.

Instead they'd rather fight to the end, and that end is typically half of my squad down and all of their guys (bar maybe one or two who retreat) dead as well. That kind of behaviour doesn't make sense for a long-running group of mercenaries and bountyhunters. Everyone walks away a loser. Goblins, orcs and undead, sure, I expect them to stop at nothing to kill me, but it seems unrealistic when men who murder primarily for love of coin are so illogical about it.

But then again it doesn't really make sense for brigands to fight you later on, either. Except the groups that have a leader and a hedge knight maybe, but the rabble shouldn't be that eager to break themselves on your famed 2handers before the folks that have the gear to actually survive a swing or two aren't engaged.

 

[Covenant]

Spoiler

My only issue with this is that the bounty hunters are supposed to be mercenaries, like you. So sure, they'll try and bully you into giving up your hard-earned loot, makes sense. But once you stand your ground and show that you can actually fight, and kill a couple of them, it seems improbable that they wouldn't cut their losses and split. There's no profit in death, after all.

Instead they'd rather fight to the end, and that end is typically half of my squad down and all of their guys (bar maybe one or two who retreat) dead as well. That kind of behaviour doesn't make sense for a long-running group of mercenaries and bountyhunters. Everyone walks away a loser. Goblins, orcs and undead, sure, I expect them to stop at nothing to kill me, but it seems unrealistic when men who murder primarily for love of coin are so illogical about it.

But then again it doesn't really make sense for brigands to fight you later on, either. Except the groups that have a leader and a hedge knight maybe, but the rabble shouldn't be that eager to break themselves on your famed 2handers before the folks that have the gear to actually survive a swing or two aren't engaged.

Agreed. It'd be better if, once your company became better skilled and equipped, bandits and raiders changed tack - rather than simply rushing headlong at you like giddy children they play more intelligently, stalking you like a pack of wolves. Trying to stay out of your immediate range and waiting for an opportune moment - say, right after you've had a difficult battle with a large force of greenskins or undead and most of your guys are wounded - to make their move. That's when they strike. It allows bandits to remain a threatening enemy without using the boring and predictable route of just bumping up their numbers to Assault on Precinct 13 levels of kamikaze cannon fodder.

It'd need some counterplay though - something like splitting off a small, fast-moving band of your most elite units to catch and decimate the raiders - otherwise it'd just aggravate people, and the strategic map doesn't really allow for that kind of thing currently. If they do continue to expand this game (or work on a sequel) I really hope they pay more attention to that aspect in the future. Different units and weapon types can only add so much.

 

[Payd Shell]

Yeah, well, the overmap gameplay is rather barebones one way or the other, there's nothing really happening other than moving from point A to point B. I mean the AI is smart enough to realize when they're outmatched, though their calcualation seems to be entirely based on numbers. I'm pretty sure that 40 thugs would still attack your company at day 500. I'd like more interaction with the different factions as well that goes beyond 'me smash you' or 'me like you giev more moneys'. They were already hitting the limit with what's possible with the B&E expansion, Battle Brothers isn't a very deep game per se. I mean how many factions are there that utilize the 'netted' effect? Goblins especially with shamans, spiders, Kraken and mercenary companies. Nachos are the most unique enemy in the game for the sole reason that controlling the battlefield actually matters beyond moving on highground or utilizing chokepoints in forests if you play lone wolf.

The barbarians don't really bring anything new to the table other than being an anti-player faction. Which they achieve by being given a cheap rotate, silly stats that aren't reachable by the player even with the best of recruits, extra fatigue regen like any other NPC and having armor piercing weapons and a buttload of perks + armored unholds. A chosen has the tankiness of an orc warrior, the damage output of an orc zerker, highest morale of any human opponent and the offensive mobility of a goblin.

 

[Reinhardt]

Walking bone still bone

 

[Lios]

The barbarians don't really bring anything new to the table other than being an anti-player faction. Which they achieve by being given a cheap rotate, silly stats that aren't reachable by the player even with the best of recruits, extra fatigue regen like any other NPC and having armor piercing weapons and a buttload of perks + armored unholds. A chosen has the tankiness of an orc warrior, the damage output of an orc zerker, highest morale of any human opponent and the offensive mobility of a goblin.

Well I haven't met armored unholds yet so I can't have an opinion about them. Also, I faced 2-3 chosens among other barbarians only once yet, and they did wipe the floor with me, but then I wasn't prepared to face higher tier enemies yet either (day 40 or so) so I can't comment on how I would fare against them with higher level bros + better equipment. As for thralls and reavers, they stop being a serious threat when you get heavy armor, better weapons and level up a bit.I give them a taste of their own medicine mostly, I adrenaline and bleed them to oblivion. I also like drummers, it's like they bring this whole "necromancer! snipe him snipe him snipe him!" critical vibe into a bandit raider-like encounter, only less frustrating than the necromancer's constant resurrection schtick in my opinion.

I'll have a more informed opinion about the barbarians in the future, sure, but so far I'm content with them as a faction: they act differently than other human enemies, you can plan specific strategies againts them like with every other faction, and they have their faction specific events, which is already more than bandit raiders.

And, for 9 euros, I'm very content with the DLC as a whole. Here's hoping that the next DLC (he he he) will focus on endgame/crisis content too, among other stuff.

 

[Reinhardt]

I faced 2-3 chosens

They usually don't walk by "2-3".