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

[Krivol]

Spears are great at the begining - poking light armoured enemies is good. But later are rather useless in my opinion.

 

[Teut Busnet]

Decided to pick the game up + DLC with the sale. I've just been drifting around for the past 5-6h doing 1-2 skull misisons trying to get XP and equipment. I'm not much of a sandboxer but I enjoy the gameplay a lot so I'd like to know what are some long term goals I could be striving for? Also is there any kind of level scaling in the game that I should be aware of, is there any way to screw my game so that it becomes unwinnable? I'm constantly sweating if I'm falling behind a curve or something. I thought I was doing quite well, but then an Orc Berserker humiliated humbled me. I'm just trying out different Perks and weapons. Spears seem to be highly recommended though I didn't really like them much, even with the Spear perk, so I'm probably using it wrong.

Scaling is not too bad. To 'Stay ahead' I would recommend you keep your company around 7-8 Bros and only expand if you can equip the newbies in similar gear. Also: fight, fight, fight!

Spears are recommended because they get +20% to hit for their standard attack. (Swords still get +10%) They are indeed not great, especially against armor, but for low MAtt Bros early on very useful.

Long term goals can be the 4 crises (though you only need to participate vs the 'Greenskin' and 'Undead' ones and even then only if you turned on 'Permanent Destruction') or the 8 'Legendary Locations' that include a fight.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Thanks for the tips, bros. From the sound of it I should just carry on how I've been going already. I was sitting at 7 brothers but extended that to 8, recruiting a 3rd archer like I wanted for a while. Tbh I'm not so sure if going 5 melee / 3 archers is the good way to go since they miss quite often but at least the AI seems to like to come to me more often the more ranged units I have so at least for that it's nice. They do occasionally kill enemy throwers tho so that is nice. One thing I have noticed is that throwing javelins and axes are absolutely brutal. I think I need to start adding those into my retinue at some point, but I'm not sure how to build one. Should I go full ranged or do a melee/ranged hybrid, which seems like it'd put a lot of stress on stat distribution and only would be worth it with some of the better bros you can hire later on.

 

[Teut Busnet]

One thing I have noticed is that throwing javelins and axes are absolutely brutal. I think I need to start adding those into my retinue at some point, but I'm not sure how to build one. Should I go full ranged or do a melee/ranged hybrid, which seems like it'd put a lot of stress on stat distribution and only would be worth it with some of the better bros you can hire later on.

I don't like Hybrids very much - others do though. Unless your origin limits you to only 12 Bros, I'd go with specialists like this one: http://www.bbplanner.xyz/?name=RangedBro&perks=IoYAAKCm Change your specialization from Crossbow to Bow if you like, the only perks you need for an effective thrower are the throwing spec and 'Duelist', though I find 'Quickhands' and 'Bags and Belts' very useful too.

 

[Reinhardt]

I was sitting at 7 brothers but extended that to 8

Don't listen to them. Go full peasant horde.

 

[Hobo Elf]

One thing I have noticed is that throwing javelins and axes are absolutely brutal. I think I need to start adding those into my retinue at some point, but I'm not sure how to build one. Should I go full ranged or do a melee/ranged hybrid, which seems like it'd put a lot of stress on stat distribution and only would be worth it with some of the better bros you can hire later on.

I don't like Hybrids very much - others do though. Unless your origin limits you to only 12 Bros, I'd go with specialists like this one: http://www.bbplanner.xyz/?name=RangedBro&perks=IoYAAKCm Change your specialization from Crossbow to Bow if you like, the only perks you need for an effective thrower are the throwing spec and 'Duelist', though I find 'Quickhands' and 'Bags and Belts' very useful too.

Yea I think Quickhands would be very useful, especially on a thrower who is limited to 5 missiles per stack.

I was sitting at 7 brothers but extended that to 8

Don't listen to them. Go full peasant horde.

I will.. eventually. The possibilities are quite large with all the different backgrounds, or whatever the starter pros/cons were called. Very interesting things, those, and I was quite shocked that they weren't a baseline feature. Playing this game is just.. pure fun, really. I wish it had a more hand crafted campaign since I enjoy Black Company/Myth/Shadow of the Horned Rat-esque war stories, but just for the gameplay mechanics this game is just really fun and I can easily see how many people have sunked in some ungodly hours into this game. Especially with the expansion content that seems at least at a glance, to me, be quite good.

 

[Kalarion]

I wouldn't limit myself to 8 men for now. The purpose of that is to stunt the game engine's clock for your first Crisis and its scaling of encounter challenge (there's no scaling per se, but higher quality enemies start showing up faster once you hit 10-12 men). Imo you want to be experiencing as much of the game as possible as fast as possible, to help get your feet under you as to what you'll be going for in future runs. 8 man engine stunting is something you do once you're confident of the meta and just want breathing room to build your team to exacting specifications. When you're just starting out you have plenty of time to cobble a working team together using whatever backgrounds/skills you happen to have on hand. It's also a great deal of the fun for someone who's just started out. Don't underestimate how excellent the feeling of stumbling exploration is, and how much it will carry you through the doldrums of feeling like you're doing the same things over and over (this won't happen for a good while though).

Imo you should get up to 12 as fast as possible every game until you know exactly how you want to shape each of your runs (what backgrounds, what MAtk/RAtk/MDef/Fat targets you want to hit for each bro, what type of bros you want and what composition etc). Once you have those set in your mind, staying at 8 men to build your core becomes more preferable.

Having said all that, if you're set on staying at 8 men right now, 3 archers is probably too much. You'd be surprised how much that one extra frontliner or polearm bro gives you. 2 archers is plenty while you're at 8 men.

 

[Reinhardt]

Imo you should get up to 12 as fast as possible every game until you know exactly how you want

And then you can start getting 20 men as fast as possible.

 

[Stavrophore]

Is peasant horde viable early game? I remember it wasnt a good idea to just hire a guy, throw him into grinder, and if he lives he lives to die in another fight. Good armor is so important in this game.

 

[Mysterious Stranger]

Early game frontliners should all be trash imo. Let these guys take the hits while your decent bros kill from the back. So, yeah, peasant horde is the way to go for me.

 

[Stavrophore]

This is assuming you already have desired squad with peasant only acting as support role. What if you want to move some peasant meat shields into your permanent squad. You would need to give them some better stuff to not die as easily. Or maybe give yourself a rule that if peasant live by third battle he is promoted to the permanent squad, until you hit 12 and then shuffle weakest chars to better ones like dedicated fighter background.

 

[Mysterious Stranger]

You start out with 3 decent guys (assuming the standard company background) the rest can safely be bums for the first 20 days or so. I go for 7 or 8 guys at the first day and start the murder-journey with a numerical superiority for most fights. Just equip the frontliners with spear+shield and the best armor you have at that moment and throw them in the meatgrinder. Backliners ( equipped with pitchforks/bow/one-handed with nets) are ok with rags on if you watch out. Naturally, you'll pick up some brawlers or similar along the way who can also be put in the front. Early game most guys you hire are worth less than the dudes you start out with so it'd be foolish to place them in the frontline.

 

[Reinhardt]

Is peasant horde viable early game?

Yes.

 

[oasis789]

Peasant horde can definitely give you scaling issues early game with your starting party outsizing your stats and gear but its a self-resolving problem since outscaled enemies will end up wiping out half your squad anyway, bringing you back down.

 

[Old One]

I've become addicted to Band of Poachers. It's hard to give up faster movement on the map and better pre-battle scouting. Smaller inventory becomes negligible as soon as you buy a wagon upgrade.

 

[agris]

Bros share a good map seed plz

You know about the 'Seed Generator'? https://wlirareddit.github.io/bb_calculator/seed_search_gladiators.html

rapsdjff do you see this? This is a great idea for an end-of-support patch, a final hurrah to the community around your game. Lock it behind completing the game once (with an easy ini flag to enable, for the power user), so that your vision of play remains intact for a players first complete game.

 

[Alienman]

Had a really silly battle against southerners. I was attacked by a 23 strong army, they had a mortar, several gunners, officers and gods know what more, so I was as good as dead. OR SO THEY THOUGHT anyway. What they didn't know was that I lured them into a trap. They didn't have to kill just me, they had to kill 16 serpents as well. So while they were battling me, the serpents came into their flank from the top, kidnapping man after man to quietly snack on them a bit above the fighting line. It was hilarious to see until the endless hunger of the serpents turned to me. I managed to fight them both off, but lost 4 men in the skirmish, 3 came back traumatized. Not that I blame them.

 

[Brancaleone]

Bros share a good map seed plz

You know about the 'Seed Generator'? https://wlirareddit.github.io/bb_calculator/seed_search_gladiators.html (I'm apparently too dumb to create a proper link.)

My favourite is 'VczRNDxEaz'. It has good North - South connection and an Arena port.

Am I missing something, or it only works with five origins?

 

[Teut Busnet]

Bros share a good map seed plz

You know about the 'Seed Generator'? https://wlirareddit.github.io/bb_calculator/seed_search_gladiators.html (I'm apparently too dumb to create a proper link.)

My favourite is 'VczRNDxEaz'. It has good North - South connection and an Arena port.

Am I missing something, or it only works with five origins?

If you want to look for specific Bros, you only can do that with the five origins, yes.

But if you only care about the map and not the starting Bros, search for 'Map Criteria Only'. The map stays the same, regardless of origin.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Had a really silly battle against southerners. I was attacked by a 23 strong army, they had a mortar, several gunners, officers and gods know what more, so I was as good as dead. OR SO THEY THOUGHT anyway. What they didn't know was that I lured them into a trap. They didn't have to kill just me, they had to kill 16 serpents as well. So while they were battling me, the serpents came into their flank from the top, kidnapping man after man to quietly snack on them a bit above the fighting line. It was hilarious to see until the endless hunger of the serpents turned to me. I managed to fight them both off, but lost 4 men in the skirmish, 3 came back traumatized. Not that I blame them.

So, your clever plan misfired?
You forgot to equip your psi-amps to fight-off the snakemen serpents?

Most (if not every time) of the time, the extra assailants come from the north, so, depending on the battlefield, you could have just retreated (just 2 hexes back and 2 hexes south) for one turn and wait before acting on the second one before flanking them from the south and suffer no losses.

 

[Alienman]

Had a really silly battle against southerners. I was attacked by a 23 strong army, they had a mortar, several gunners, officers and gods know what more, so I was as good as dead. OR SO THEY THOUGHT anyway. What they didn't know was that I lured them into a trap. They didn't have to kill just me, they had to kill 16 serpents as well. So while they were battling me, the serpents came into their flank from the top, kidnapping man after man to quietly snack on them a bit above the fighting line. It was hilarious to see until the endless hunger of the serpents turned to me. I managed to fight them both off, but lost 4 men in the skirmish, 3 came back traumatized. Not that I blame them.

So, your clever plan misfired?
You forgot to equip your psi-amps to fight-off the snakemen serpents?

Most (if not every time) of the time, the extra assailants come from the north, so, depending on the battlefield, you could have just retreated (just 2 hexes back and 2 hexes south) for one turn and wait before acting on the second one before flanking them from the south and suffer no losses.

They did split off some of their men, and the biggest help was that they aimed the mortar at the snakes before targeting me, so I wouldn't say it misfired, it actually helped me, until I had to kill the snakes

Snakes coming for the rest of us.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Shieldbros everywhere...
Where are your DPS bros?

Sling... I would rather have an archer, 2 quick shots can wound enemies or easily kill unarmored ones and gimp enemies morale.
Or a crossbowman which can sometimes fire twice a turn with berserk.
Or even a gunner.

 

[Grunker]

Had a really silly battle against southerners. I was attacked by a 23 strong army, they had a mortar, several gunners, officers and gods know what more, so I was as good as dead. OR SO THEY THOUGHT anyway. What they didn't know was that I lured them into a trap. They didn't have to kill just me, they had to kill 16 serpents as well. So while they were battling me, the serpents came into their flank from the top, kidnapping man after man to quietly snack on them a bit above the fighting line. It was hilarious to see until the endless hunger of the serpents turned to me. I managed to fight them both off, but lost 4 men in the skirmish, 3 came back traumatized. Not that I blame them.

So, your clever plan misfired?
You forgot to equip your psi-amps to fight-off the snakemen serpents?

Most (if not every time) of the time, the extra assailants come from the north, so, depending on the battlefield, you could have just retreated (just 2 hexes back and 2 hexes south) for one turn and wait before acting on the second one before flanking them from the south and suffer no losses.

They did split off some of their men, and the biggest help was that they aimed the mortar at the snakes before targeting me, so I wouldn't say it misfired, it actually helped me, until I had to kill the snakes

Snakes coming for the rest of us.

Considering how far you are gear-wise, is the decision to use shields a self-imposed restriction? Otherwise I heavily suggest some two-handers.

Sling... I would rather have an archer, 2 quick shots can wound enemies or easily kill unarmored ones and gimp enemies morale.
Or a crossbowman which can sometimes fire twice a turn with berserk.
Or even a gunner.

tbh I much prefer thrower hybrids on the current patch. Even if I build an archer he'll typically have throwing as well

 

[Darth Canoli]

tbh I much prefer thrower hybrids on the current patch. Even if I build an archer he'll typically have throwing as well

To be fair, i never played a specialized throwing build nor a remotely competitive one and barely touched the thing.

All i know is the ranged enemies i fear the most are Master Archers and crossbowmen, sling users can be dangerous on a crit but they're by far the less reliable, aside from the throwers.

I would probably have tried a good throwing build had i found some great named throwing weapons but i haven't.

 

[Alienman]

Shieldbros everywhere...
Where are your DPS bros?

Sling... I would rather have an archer, 2 quick shots can wound enemies or easily kill unarmored ones and gimp enemies morale.
Or a crossbowman which can sometimes fire twice a turn with berserk.
Or even a gunner.

I like shields, and I got one front-line two-hander, with a bunch of dudes that throw javelins and use 2tile-reach weapons. And the sling-guy is just a personal meme thing, he have used that thing since the beginning but I'm really I'm starting to like it. He does some serious damage to people without helmets, and a hit usually has a stun effect too.

I don't really meta in any game, so I don't follow the best optimized killing scheme.