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

[Brancaleone]

Have you considered just modding out the 5-95 dice cap? I know it's to simulate a critical failure or lucky break but it always feels like being punished for playing well.

YES, but this:

https://www.nexusmods.com/battlebrothers/mods/26/?tab=posts

Doesn't work anymore and I couldn't find a replacement so far. If anyone can get a dice cap removal mod working, I'll make him a millionaire.

Spoiler

In brofists

And before some genius has the epiphany of a lifetime and tells me "if you don't like Nimble, don't take it, duh!", that's exactly what I do: I play with no Nimble, no Taunt, no Quick Hands, no Whips, no Throwing Weapons, no reserve (only 12 men, everybody fights, and I include at the very least one monk and one historian in every run). But it's still a huge missed opportunity.

Almost a perfect summary of the current BB "meta", you just forgot 2H cleavers. The big Scimitar you get in the south is so fucking busted it's hilarious. My current company (lone wolf start, found an amazing seed googling: VczRNDxEaz) just cut through all the content quite easily. Another "offender" I would point out is the Billhook. Easily the best all-arounder in the game, can be wielded by utterly mediocre bros, very light on the fatigue, two tile range and polearm mastery is a game changer, unlike most specs that straight up suck. My initial company had like 8 nimble bros, but I fazed them out as they died. In the very late game Forge is still better, but Nimble is absurd due to how cost-efficient it became. Quick hands is also a contender for best perk in the game, due to the swiss army knife approach being so effective.

I'm using a mod that adds medium armor spec, but tbh it's not particularly interesting, it just adds a new breakpoint at -37. Also, the two new backgrounds added in the latest update are a nice step forward. Both backgrounds provide characters that are guaranteed to not suck too hard.

At least the Two Handed Scimitar is relatively hard to get, sometimes you can find a 40% durability Billhook for something like 600 gold in a castle (i.e., day one purchase). I think I mentioned the 2H Cleaver-Billhook combo with Quickhands in some other post.

P.S. About the risk/rewards ratio you had mentioned somewhere else: yes, it is all over the place. This, together with the weird way the game scales difficulty incentivizes either playing super-conservately by taking no risks whatsoever (i.e. super-boring) and possibly gaming the system in order to delay the first crisis, or taking big risks at the beginning in order to stay far ahead of the curve (i.e. getting armour/weapons much earlier than you 'are supposed' to get them), which snowballs pretty quicky and makes the rest of the game rather bland. If you play taking, so to speak, 'reasonable' risks (which is I guess is the path that most people take in RPG until they know the game inside-out), you tend to get the worst of both worlds.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I'm back to playing Battle Brothers, AGAIN. I never really gave the Blazing Sands DLC a proper go, so it's fun to explore some of the new stuff. However, after several hundred hours with the game, I'm not sure I've gotten any better at it at all. Still stuck on that same treadmill of lose a couple of bros in a tough fight -> get a bunch of recruits to replace them/spend a lot on repair and healing materials -> strapped for cash -> no money/bros for actual progress.

One thing I have learned, though, is that alps are now fun. Only took them three reworks to figure it out.

 

[Ibn Sina]

Is legends mod good? Or does it destroy the tone of the game?

 

[The Wall]

Looking forward to next Battle Brothers Devs' game

 

[Old One]

Is legends mod good? Or does it destroy the tone of the game?

It's good, mostly. There's some stuff in there I personally don't care for, but you can turn most of it off and just use what you like.

The convenience changes and the control you get over mapgen make it hard to go back to vanilla once you've gotten into Legends.

I don't think it damages the tone.

 

[k0syak]

I'm back to playing Battle Brothers, AGAIN. I never really gave the Blazing Sands DLC a proper go, so it's fun to explore some of the new stuff. However, after several hundred hours with the game, I'm not sure I've gotten any better at it at all. Still stuck on that same treadmill of lose a couple of bros in a tough fight -> get a bunch of recruits to replace them/spend a lot on repair and healing materials -> strapped for cash -> no money/bros for actual progress.

One thing I have learned, though, is that alps are now fun. Only took them three reworks to figure it out.

Have you adopted to the new meta? I haven't played since B&E, jumped in again with the latest DLC and it took some time to figure out what's good. If you're having problems early on, spam adrenaline on everyone, makes the thug/early raider fights a breeze.

 

[Eyestabber]

0,23% chance, but hey, why not?

Yep, it's official: I despise RNG. Fuck RNGesus and all his retarded acolytes. Do you know how many times I played the lottery in 34 years in this earth? Zero. I never bothered to learn Poker. I wrote a long rant in the Path of Exile thread about how its crafting system is nothing but a poorly disguised gambling scheme. Idiots still insist "nuh uh, you just have to know shit". No, you don't. It's lolrandom. No luck, no item. Gambling is one of those things normies do but I could never really get it. I got a chuckle reading redditard comments defending the 5% cap "well, but removing that would make the game standardized and predictable, it would be like chess!!!". YES, MOTHERFUCKER, IT FUCKING WOULD. In what fucking parallel universe is "more like chess" a bad thing? Chess is the perfect game, the better player winning every single time is the desirable scenario. But hey, why don't we make Chess: Zoomer Edition™ and add a coinflip whenever you would take an opponent's piece? YAY!!! MORE FUN!!!! Now any retard has a shot at defeating a Grandmaster, because the right move no longer matters if the coin doesn't go your way. YAY, so inclusive, such balance! Fun for the whole inbred family!

For the record, I won that arena fight. I ragequitted shortly afterwards, when I ran into a couple hyenas. At that point they would be no threat at all EXCEPT on turn 2 I only got 2 hits out of 12 bros, all with over 50% chance. Ofc, it was a tank with a flail that got the hit. Every single 2H damage dealer missed. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. I end turn and the first hyena hits a 33% thrice. I didn't bother finishing turn 3, I just alt + f4 and came here to vent. I probably would've won that fight, but what matters is the principle. RNG needs to be kept on a tight leash or not used at all. I read Legends has lolrandom perk selection, HOLY SHIT YOU HAVE TO BE SPECIAL KIND OF RETARD to enjoy that. Bear in mind character progression is already LOLRANDOM in this game adding another layer of randomness means there is no point in planning a build.

OH, BY THE WAY, in every single D&D session I ever DM'ed I always imposed average hitpoints per level and pointbuy character creation. As a player I always felt like there was no point in playing a 13 STR fighter and when that happened my solution to the problem was to intentionally make bad decisions in order to get my character killed ASAP. RNGesus should be banished from character creation and progression, the mere suggestion that a thief might have more HP than the fighter at Lvl 3 simply because LOLRANDOM, MUH LUCK is utterly repugnant and I understood it was my job as DM to never allow it to happen. Players making better characters than other players was perfectly fine by me, never felt the need to teach anyone a lesson like some preschool teacher. Sometimes I would even join the bullying. The weak should fear the strong.

THE POINT IS I want to sacrifice to Davkul whoever thought having such insane variance in combat was somehow good. Add grazes, revise certain cases of armorpen, unbloat the stats of most monsters, REMOVE THE GODDAMN 5% TROLLING CAP THAT I'M STILL TRYING TO REMOVE, improve the algorithm for generating named items (some mods work, but they lean towards making items OP), STARDARDIZE THE FUCKING BACKGROUNDS like it used to be back in EA. Anyone remember? Farmhands had +10 HP, Millers had like +10 fatigue. Traits are more than enough to differentiate brothers, you don't need a roll for every attribute, a roll for stars, a roll for traits AND make it all hidden from the player.

Lastly, I wanna share with you guys a trick I learned while playing cultists:

Proper naming of your bros makes all the difference.

 

[Harthwain]

Chess is the perfect game, the better player winning every single time is the desirable scenario. But hey, why don't we make Chess: Zoomer Edition™ and add a coinflip whenever you would take an opponent's piece? YAY!!! MORE FUN!!!! Now any retard has a shot at defeating a Grandmaster, because the right move no longer matters if the coin doesn't go your way. YAY, so inclusive, such balance! Fun for the whole inbred family!

You need some variables to keep the game interesting, otherwise it's too predictable. That's why I'd recommend A Game of Thrones: The Board Game instead. It has some random and hidden elements, but the majority of the in-game mechanics are predictable enough to enable players to make plans with very high degree of reliability.

 

[Brancaleone]

Gambling is one of those things normies do but I could never really get it. I got a chuckle reading redditard comments defending the 5% cap "well, but removing that would make the game standardized and predictable, it would be like chess!!!". YES, MOTHERFUCKER, IT FUCKING WOULD. In what fucking parallel universe is "more like chess" a bad thing? Chess is the perfect game, the better player winning every single time is the desirable scenario. But hey, why don't we make Chess: Zoomer Edition™ and add a coinflip whenever you would take an opponent's piece? YAY!!! MORE FUN!!!! Now any retard has a shot at defeating a Grandmaster, because the right move no longer matters if the coin doesn't go your way. YAY, so inclusive, such balance! Fun for the whole inbred family!

Because otherwise in order to make the game challenging you would need a really good AI (which on top of that would be infinitely more difficult to code than chess AI), and that takes a lot of effort and time. And actually Battle Brothers' AI is not very good: its main trick is that it has a certain chance (I think around 30%) [edit: a weighted chance] of choosing randomly between its options, which means some times it will be self-defeating, other times neutral, and some times it will do something tha catches you by surprise. But since we expect AI to be dumb, we tend to remember selectively mostly the times it appeared 'smart' when acting randomly.

 

[Harthwain]

And actually Battle Brothers' AI is not very good: its main trick is that it has a certain chance (I think around 30%) of choosing randomly between its options [...]

Actually, the chance of performing an action is skewed depending on circumstances:

Dev Blog #27: AI in Battle Brothers, Part 1

[...] Every behavior in the pool could be picked, but the higher the utility, the more likely it is to be picked. Think of throwing a dart on the pie chart below; it’s most likely to hit the Split Shield part, but you could hit any of the other two as well.

Spoiler

This way, we always have an element of unpredictability in how the AI behaves. The AI won’t always do the same in every situation, and it can on occasion surprise you. But it will attempt to do what are the most sensible things to do in the very specific situation it is in.

 

[Brancaleone]

And actually Battle Brothers' AI is not very good: its main trick is that it has a certain chance (I think around 30%) of choosing randomly between its options [...]

Actually, the chance of performing an action is skewed depending on circumstances:

Dev Blog #27: AI in Battle Brothers, Part 1

[...] Every behavior in the pool could be picked, but the higher the utility, the more likely it is to be picked. Think of throwing a dart on the pie chart below; it’s most likely to hit the Split Shield part, but you could hit any of the other two as well.

This way, we always have an element of unpredictability in how the AI behaves. The AI won’t always do the same in every situation, and it can on occasion surprise you. But it will attempt to do what are the most sensible things to do in the very specific situation it is in.

Yes, but it still has a random chance to pick the least useful option: "Then, we pick one by weighted random" (in the part of the Dev Blog post that is not included in the quote). For example, you can see it when it does one split shield against your shieldwall when it would need two, but then instead of doing the second split it simply attacks for very low chances. Or when the AI moves a few tiles, and then moves back: it's not a pathfinder issue (although Battle Brothers' AI has huge pathfinder issues), but the result of randomly picking the least useful option, and then the most useful one (in order to restore the proper positioning) in the resulting scenario as a second move.

I corrected my previous post about the chance of picking the least useful option, I though I remembered it was a fixed chance.

 

[Harthwain]

Yes, but it still has a random chance to pick the least useful option: "Then, we pick one by weighted random" (in the part of the Dev Blog post that is not included in the quote).

Sure, I never said otherwise. I simply wanted to bring attention to the fact that the chance of picking an action is based on the utility the action in question (and that's dictated by the circumstances), not that there is no randomness involved.

 

[Brancaleone]

Yes, but it still has a random chance to pick the least useful option: "Then, we pick one by weighted random" (in the part of the Dev Blog post that is not included in the quote).

Sure, I never said otherwise. I simply wanted to bring attention to the fact that the chance of picking an action is based on the utility the action in question (and that's dictated by the circumstances), not that there is no randomness involved.

Yeah, I remembered the utility-based part (a user had brought the devpost to my attention quite some time ago in this thread, I had no idea it worked this way). For some reason I remembered it as 'AI choses according to utility, but it has a fixed chance to chose randomly'. My main point was that what looks like a 'genius move' by the AI is simply the (occasional) result of said randomness, which results much more often in dumb moves than in 'genius' moves.

To be clear, I like the element of randomness in the AI. Of course, I'd prefer a top notch AI, but since we are stuck with a relatively simplistic one, some randomness it is then. And to be honest, even with a top notch AI, I would still like a very small element of randomness, just to keep things a little more interesting.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I swear hiring ranged bros is more difficult than ever. Poachers are complete and utter garbage, and hunters cost a hundred bazillion dollars. I would never savescum to prevent the death of a melee bro, but a ranged one? If I weren't playing ironman I'm not sure I could resist the temptation. After 100 days I've found a total of 3 decent ones, and even that is with a severely revised definition of decent.

 

[Brancaleone]

I swear hiring ranged bros is more difficult than ever. Poachers are complete and utter garbage, and hunters cost a hundred bazillion dollars. I would never savescum to prevent the death of a melee bro, but a ranged one? If I weren't playing ironman I'm not sure I could resist the temptation. After 100 days I've found a total of 3 decent ones, and even that is with a severely revised definition of decent.

Compounded by the fact that there is no trait that raises Ranged Skill (which would open so many crappy background to potentially providing decent archers, whithout having to max roll 42 or close, and getting two-three stars in it).

Since the RNG seems to have some problem of result distribution, at the very least when it comes to recruit spamming: if you cannot find any background of a certain type for weeks and weeks, and all of a sudden you find one, it's time to visit every single settlement, because it's quite likely that it spammed all over the place, plus they will tend to have similar stars/at least one trait that is the same, so if the first ones are decent to good, keep recruiting until you find one that is good enough. If the first are bad ones, it's probably better to save your money.

I know it's empirical, but it's become one of my recruiting rules of thumb, and it's been serving me well.

 

[Eyestabber]

I swear hiring ranged bros is more difficult than ever. Poachers are complete and utter garbage, and hunters cost a hundred bazillion dollars. I would never savescum to prevent the death of a melee bro, but a ranged one? If I weren't playing ironman I'm not sure I could resist the temptation. After 100 days I've found a total of 3 decent ones, and even that is with a severely revised definition of decent.

In the current "meta" aka after the devs shat their own game archers are close to being useless. Hunters cost an unreasonable amount of money, archers are worthless before they get some levels under their belt and once you reach the mid to late game there is like a gazillion enemies that are hardcoded to beeline to your archers, so their only hope for survival is being kept surrounded by other bros, which is highly impractical. So you have a unit that is a dead weight until level 6 or so, cost disproportionally too much for what it offers, only deals decent damage against unarmored targets AND will be the reason for a reload 9 out of 10 times because the AI is hardcoded to assrape your archers. And I won't even bother mentioning Necrosavants OR the six gorillion enemy types that are resistant to either piercing or ranged (or both).

ANYWAY, can I interest you in a farmer wielding a hooked blade, with polearm spec, 60 melee at lvl 5, no stars and otherwise mediocre stats? No? You would rather have your hunter? Ok then...

Another thing: where do you guys play most of your missions, your "base" so to speak? I always focus on the southern side of the map, hopefully with a big port city to dump my shit at a profit and easy connection with Persia by boat. I feel like most of the good stuff comes from the south, barbarians are high risk, low reward while nomads are dangerous, sure, but getting a Polemace or a 2H cleaver out of the fight makes it very worth it.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

I swear hiring ranged bros is more difficult than ever. Poachers are complete and utter garbage, and hunters cost a hundred bazillion dollars. I would never savescum to prevent the death of a melee bro, but a ranged one? If I weren't playing ironman I'm not sure I could resist the temptation. After 100 days I've found a total of 3 decent ones, and even that is with a severely revised definition of decent.

Compounded by the fact that there is no trait that raises Ranged Skill (which would open so many crappy background to potentially providing decent archers, whithout having to max roll 42 or close, and getting two-three stars in it).

Agree. As it stands the usefulness of a dedicated ranged build to a company is very context dependent and they tend to take a long time to come online.

As a folllow up to my previous post re details about the old perks being difficult to find I did a little bit of digging around. Turns out descriptions of the old perk trees were hidden away on the offical website. For everyone's perusal:

Spoiler

- Offense
- Defense
- Utility

The outrageously powerful builds you could pull off remain rather obvious. Big Fs in the chat for the Perfect Focus + Battle Flow snipa backed by Rally spammers.

Edit: direct links in case the embed is fucked on your end direct links only as the embed is now fucked on my machine

 

[Strange Fellow]

Another thing: where do you guys play most of your missions, your "base" so to speak? I always focus on the southern side of the map, hopefully with a big port city to dump my shit at a profit and easy connection with Persia by boat. I feel like most of the good stuff comes from the south, barbarians are high risk, low reward while nomads are dangerous, sure, but getting a Polemace or a 2H cleaver out of the fight makes it very worth it.

I just run all around the map at random.

 

[Old One]

Another thing: where do you guys play most of your missions, your "base" so to speak?

I just run all around the map at random.

It depends completely on what the map is like. Sometimes there's a good city to use as a home base, but often there isn't any especially good one.

I do try to pick out a noble house I like and build relations with their cities from the start. In that case I stick mostly to their lands.

 

[k0syak]

LOL at ranged being useless, don't make pure archers. Every ranged bro should have throwing mastery and duelist eventually. A stack of javelins is one of the best day 1 investments.

 

[Eyestabber]

LOL at ranged being useless, don't make pure archers. Every ranged bro should have throwing mastery and duelist eventually. A stack of javelins is one of the best day 1 investments.

That's what I do. They are still a liability in most fights. Ranged units are no longer staples, they are more like specialists. I think archers deserve some love, maybe a new perk that helps them early on. Against Lindwurms, for instance, ranged units shine bright but in the very early game your very, VERY limited resources are better spent elsewhere. Rolling Hunters is more of a mid-to-late game kind of thing. The initial archer bro is the exception, ofc, since he grows alongside the rest of the company, thus becoming viable much earlier on. But trying to get a second archer before day 60 or so seems like a wrong move to me.

Anyway, I'm enjoying my Cultist run. Davkul is incredibly based, finally the clubfooted, asthmatic shitstains that dilute the recruitment pool with their worthless existence get the ending they deserve. I had one Shitstain being used as bait against serpents TWICE, he got two permanent injuries and THEN he got to meet Davkul. VERY satisfying, go miss your attacks in hell, Shitstain! Btw, I name my sacrificial pawns as "Shitstain", "Turd" etc. Last thing I did today was take a 3 skull Hexe contract and absolutely demolish the fight without so much as a hit going through armor. The immense resolve of lvl 8+ cultists with some blessings of The Based One completely negate the stupidity of Hexe fights. Really enjoyable seeing the stupid old crone kissing the sky over and over, failing every single attempt. And lastly, NOWHERE ONLINE did I see mentioned that nets completely trivialize Alp fights, to the point where they become FREE MONEY.

AND to top it all of, there's an updated version to the No Hit Chance Cap mod that actually works. Late game is playable, HORAY. After installing a shitload of mods I'm finally having fun with BB again. This game would've been a 10/10 if the devs weren't such butthurt cunts and actually provided mod support.

Davkul awaits us all!

 

[Harthwain]

I think archers deserve some love, maybe a new perk that helps them early on.

Huh? Early on archers are amazing, because they allow you to weaken/kill enemies at range, even with relatively bad starting stats.

 

[k0syak]

LOL at ranged being useless, don't make pure archers. Every ranged bro should have throwing mastery and duelist eventually. A stack of javelins is one of the best day 1 investments.

That's what I do. They are still a liability in most fights. Ranged units are no longer staples, they are more like specialists. I think archers deserve some love, maybe a new perk that helps them early on. Against Lindwurms, for instance, ranged units shine bright but in the very early game your very, VERY limited resources are better spent elsewhere. Rolling Hunters is more of a mid-to-late game kind of thing. The initial archer bro is the exception, ofc, since he grows alongside the rest of the company, thus becoming viable much earlier on. But trying to get a second archer before day 60 or so seems like a wrong move to me.

Anyway, I'm enjoying my Cultist run. Davkul is incredibly based, finally the clubfooted, asthmatic shitstains that dilute the recruitment pool with their worthless existence get the ending they deserve. I had one Shitstain being used as bait against serpents TWICE, he got two permanent injuries and THEN he got to meet Davkul. VERY satisfying, go miss your attacks in hell, Shitstain! Btw, I name my sacrificial pawns as "Shitstain", "Turd" etc. Last thing I did today was take a 3 skull Hexe contract and absolutely demolish the fight without so much as a hit going through armor. The immense resolve of lvl 8+ cultists with some blessings of The Based One completely negate the stupidity of Hexe fights. Really enjoyable seeing the stupid old crone kissing the sky over and over, failing every single attempt. And lastly, NOWHERE ONLINE did I see mentioned that nets completely trivialize Alp fights, to the point where they become FREE MONEY.

AND to top it all of, there's an updated version to the No Hit Chance Cap mod that actually works. Late game is playable, HORAY. After installing a shitload of mods I'm finally having fun with BB again. This game would've been a 10/10 if the devs weren't such butthurt cunts and actually provided mod support.

Davkul awaits us all!

Have you tried indebted for sacrificing? Can leth them sit grumpy in reserve awaiting their turn without possibility of desertion.
Also, finding perfect archers might be hard, but you don't need perfect for early game throwers, rolling on cheaper poachers/militia/deserters in the north and shepherds in the south usually nets one or two passable ones. And a stack of javs for 180-250 makes your bowbro immensely more useful right away.

 

[oscar]

The main advantage of having a few archers is you can goad the AI into abandoning the high ground if it occupies a good position (making the enemy come to you also saves your men some fatigue, what can be a big deal on some terrain types). So even having a few idiots firing away at 5% to hit can make a huge difference by provoking the enemy to come to you.

The occasional crossbow critical to the head is nice too but yeah melee will definitely be your companies bread and butter though mixed bros are very viable.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

LOL at ranged being useless, don't make pure archers. Every ranged bro should have throwing mastery and duelist eventually. A stack of javelins is one of the best day 1 investments.

That's what I do. They are still a liability in most fights. Ranged units are no longer staples, they are more like specialists. I think archers deserve some love, maybe a new perk that helps them early on. Against Lindwurms, for instance, ranged units shine bright but in the very early game your very, VERY limited resources are better spent elsewhere. Rolling Hunters is more of a mid-to-late game kind of thing. The initial archer bro is the exception, ofc, since he grows alongside the rest of the company, thus becoming viable much earlier on. But trying to get a second archer before day 60 or so seems like a wrong move to me.

Anyway, I'm enjoying my Cultist run. Davkul is incredibly based, finally the clubfooted, asthmatic shitstains that dilute the recruitment pool with their worthless existence get the ending they deserve. I had one Shitstain being used as bait against serpents TWICE, he got two permanent injuries and THEN he got to meet Davkul. VERY satisfying, go miss your attacks in hell, Shitstain! Btw, I name my sacrificial pawns as "Shitstain", "Turd" etc. Last thing I did today was take a 3 skull Hexe contract and absolutely demolish the fight without so much as a hit going through armor. The immense resolve of lvl 8+ cultists with some blessings of The Based One completely negate the stupidity of Hexe fights. Really enjoyable seeing the stupid old crone kissing the sky over and over, failing every single attempt. And lastly, NOWHERE ONLINE did I see mentioned that nets completely trivialize Alp fights, to the point where they become FREE MONEY.

AND to top it all of, there's an updated version to the No Hit Chance Cap mod that actually works. Late game is playable, HORAY. After installing a shitload of mods I'm finally having fun with BB again. This game would've been a 10/10 if the devs weren't such butthurt cunts and actually provided mod support.

Davkul awaits us all!

Have you tried indebted for sacrificing? Can leth them sit grumpy in reserve awaiting their turn without possibility of desertion.
Also, finding perfect archers might be hard, but you don't need perfect for early game throwers, rolling on cheaper poachers/militia/deserters in the north and shepherds in the south usually nets one or two passable ones. And a stack of javs for 180-250 makes your bowbro immensely more useful right away.

Worth mentioning that Dessies have a low ceiling as archers without 3 Ratk stars. +7 to minimum Ratk but an unchanged maximum. Bit annoying. Maybe an attempt to balance the always content in reserve trait they get? Otherwise it would be quite easy to have a competent archery team with no mood management concerns on the bench.

Current run will try out a Headhunter crossbow/2handed flail build I thought up. Might be a useful archetype for those annoying bros with Matk/Ratk/Mdef stars and reasonable rolls but that aren't good enough to be Duelist/Thrower hybrids. Crossbows & 2handed flails both love headshots AND are very usable at moderate Matk/Ratk scores. Intended use is sit them up front, plink away at the enemy, QH into single target 2 hander when they reach your lines.