Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[jungl]

orc warriors and warlord are dumb. They the only real enemies you have to go out of you way to build around. Need great melee guys with hammers. Also flails are useless weapon for most part. They only good for few enemies that don't wear helmets occasionally like bandits. 1 handed axes also useless if you consider noble sword.

 

[Kayerts]

Okay, there's probably a better guide to this somewhere else, but here's my attempt:

Growth strategy

Early game:

Focus on getting a full band of twelve combat-ready bros. Quantity is much more important than quality at this point, but by the same token, a bro who's naked and unarmed is not combat-ready. At minimum, you want to have a usable weapon, and ideally at least a hat and some cheap armor. Distribute your armor as evenly as you can.

Spears and to a lesser extent swords are the kings of early game fights, since your enemies will have little armor, and your bros will have low melee skill. (Because they get additional accuracy to attacks, and have high base damage but low armor damage.) Shields are very valuable on frontliners. If you can find or buy pitchforks, they'll likely be great, too. If you get a lucky drop of a tier 2 weapon, that will likely be better than anything you can buy, so disregard the prior advice and use that.

Bandit thugs are your preferred enemies at this stage. (Thievery quests are the best ways to find them.) Bandit poachers are dangerous for their ability to snipe, but are manageable in small numbers. Bandit raiders are scary, and man for man, they're usually better combatants than your bros at this point. Engage only with caution and ideally in superior numbers.

Terrorized villager quests will be okay once you've got 8-10 bros. They tend to pit you against nachs or direwolves, both of which are manageable with spears, basic armor, and numerical superiority.

Be careful with artifact retrieval quests. They may pit you against the ancient undead, who you probably can't handle.

Don't attempt to engage orcs or goblins at this point. It won't end well.

After you get twelve bros (which you should've taken an ambition for), you can start focusing on secondary goals, some of which you should've already been pursuing:

1) Get gold. Do this by trading whenever possible, taking contracts with favorable risk:reward ratios, and selling enemy gear.

2) Get renown. Do this by fulfilling contracts and fulfilling ambitions.

Getting renown will increase your gold from contracts. With this gold, you can pursue true objectives:

3) Get better bros. Improving bros through recruiting bros with better backgrounds is not very efficient at this point. (Hedge knights and sellswords tend to be quite expensive, relative to the amount of gold you're likely to have.) So, your main option for advancement is to level up the bros you have, or occasionally replace a cripple with a lumberjack. The former is achieved by fighting. Fighting only under contract helps offset the costs of war, though it can be limiting. If you see a band of raiders, and there's an allied company nearby, it might make sense to lure them into each other, then join the fight. (You get your pick of the loot of dead enemies, regardless of who killed them.)

4) Get better gear. The most efficient way to get gear is to engage bandit raiders in manageable numbers and loot their stuff.


Midgame:

Generally, you have a few things you want to spend money on midgame:

(1) getting decent mid-tier weapons and armor,
(2) getting high-tier weapons and armor,
(3) getting talented bros.

Most of your midgame gear is most efficiently looted from bandit raiders. You can get good mid-tier weapons and low-mid armor from them. The rest, you'll have to buy. There are a few weapons that are particularly good versus certain enemies and unlikely to be dropped by raiders (mostly billhooks, longaxes, and warhammers) that you might want to pick up, if you find a good deal on them. Good deals are likeliest to be found in marketplaces (as opposed to weaponsmithies or armorers), in towns where you've done quests.

Don't be afraid to shell out money for polearms, if you aren't finding enough in a timely fashion. The way most battles go, your front covers a small enough area that having a back line with reach weapons will greatly increase your damage output.

Trade: You absolutely want to establish a gold reserve for trade goods, because trade is frequently more profitable than combat missions, if you've got the capital for it. Figure out where to buy cheap and where to sell dear; if they're clustered, do missions in the relevant towns to further improve prices. Shops restock every 72 in-game hours.

Armor: Apart from those, your purchase priorities are armor and then better bros. (Though investing in an adventurous noble to be your sergeant early can be a good idea.) Good armor is hard to find and thus needs to be bought, hence it being high priority. There's a large jump in price without a reciprocal jump in quality between scale armor (240) and coat of plates (300; fatigue starts to become prohibitive, basically), so scale mail's a pretty good high-end target. The cheapest I've bought it for is at ~5k per suit. It's totally worth it; so are good helmets.

Getting to Allied status with a noble house will get you a full suit of 250/300 armor, which is quite good; however, you'll have to do many missions to reach this point, to the extent that that's unlikely to be your first suit of heavy armor.

If you reach the point where you're facing either hedge knights or the noble war, or even before, it may be worth investing in daggers on all your frontliners, if they've got 70 melee skill or better. Most of the time, they'll stay in the backpack, but if you encounter a well-armored enemy and you've got an advantage in the fight, you should break his shield (if any), ready daggers, and use Puncture to stab him to death inside it. With ~3 bros hitting him, he won't last long, and high tier armor is more valuable than almost any contract reward.

e: redacted some info on level scaling, per Rap's comments
Enemy Scaling: The enemies you encounter will grow tougher as the game progresses. The exact formula is not known; the devs say: "Difficulty is affected by a lot of factors such as your average level, group size and so on. It is pretty tricky but of course we can fickle a bit with it to align it better."
Speculated additional factors include wealth or gear (probable), number of days (probable), and number of kills (questionable). Rap did clarify that renown does not affect enemy group strength. It can only help you.

If you get underleveled or lose some bros:
Terrified villager contracts will always be available and will usually be easier than others.
The next rungs up are artifact recover and thief missions.
After that, it varies.


Armor mechanics: this is 100% counterintuitive and not explained in-game, but attacks that "ignore armor" have that portion of their damage reduced by 10% of the total current armor on the part of the target they're hitting. This will be relevant versus a few enemy types, but one key point is that it means that battleforged bros with sufficiently good gear completely neuter certain light enemy types, particularly those involving non-crossbow archers.

Leveling strategy: It'll depend on your bros and individual levels, but fatigue and melee defense are the most important stats on frontliners and remain pretty important on backliners. Late game, or by the time you face an undead crisis, you want at least 40 and ideally 50 resolve on your bros, with 1-2 sergeants. 20+ ranged defense on everyone is recommended. Having close to 40 melee defense is ideal and allows you to safely run two-handers, but it's hard to get that much.

All of these stat requirements are fairly demanding, so if you have to sacrifice attack for it, so be it. Defense and fatigue are generally more important.

Late game: Two-handed weapons become very good, if not necessary, because of their damage output and (in the case of the greatsword) ability to bypass the enemy frontline. This is important versus swarms of heavily armored enemies. Two-handed weapons are made viable with heavy armor that lets them shrug off errant shots, so have a plan to transition. The reach advantage perk and a relevant weapon mastery are the two perks that separate zweihanders from other troops. Saving for it can be viable, if at a cost of earlier power.

Enemies

ORCS:

Orcs use straightforward tactics. They like to charge, and their charge can stun you. They don't have great morale, unless they've got a warlord in tow.

Orcs are honestly one of the less rage-inducing enemies to face; they possess very few ways to surprise you. They will always charge directly at you, and they will always try to bonk through your front line.

Orc counters: anything that destroys armored targets, namely hammers, dagger specialists, crossbows, and billhooks. I like a mix of axebros and hammerbros in the frontline. The hammerbros act as can openers; the axebros kill them once they're open, and aren't awful against armor in a pinch. (Don't try to use them to split shields, though, orc shields are too hefty for this to be efficient.) Always prioritize them in this order: berserkers, warlord - young, warriors. (Young may get priority over the warlord based on whether you can expect to kill the latter in a timely fashion.)

Prioritize killing berserkers before they can get off attacks. Unless you are rolling with Johannes Liechtenauer, trying to engage a zerk a length is going to result in an early retirement for your bros. Have a big dumb defensive target distract them while you stab their enormous faces full of billhooks. Same goes for warlords, generally. You want to prioritize them, but trying to surround the supercombatant with AoE attacks is not a game-winning move.

You may notice the warlord's massive armor and be tempted to try to save him for last. This is a mistake; his shout, combined with the general morale risks of fighting orcs, means you need to take him out as soon as possible after he makes contact with your front line. That probably won't be one round.

Always prioritize killing one orc over wounding two; the morale debuff hits them hard. Try to predict the warriors' pushes so that you can either avoid having them contact your backline, or you can concentrate enough firepower to destroy those that break through.

Shields: Orcs eat shields, so if you go with a shield-heavy build (most players do), you'll want to carry spare shields. Their own orky shields in particular are quite good against them, in that they're durable.

Skills: You have a decent chance of getting a bro banged up, so the rotation skill will save lives. Indomitable counters their stun and push.

Orc meta-counter: Avoid orcs until you're ready to take them on. This is more true for orcs than any other enemy in the game. You need dedicated antiarmor on all your bros and solid (I'd say 150+) armor on your frontliners to safely take on a mixed group of ~10 zerks/young/warriors. If you do that, you have a pretty straightforward fight on your hands. If you don't, you're roadkill.

GOBLINS:

Goblins are tricky, and can be very frustrating midgame. They're also pretty rare and fall off sharply in the late game, so one quite viable strategy is just avoid them until you're ready.

Generally, if you're struggling against goblins, you're probably getting wrecked by their archers, so itemize against that. Kite shields, attacking at night, and decent (10+) ranged defense on frontliners help a lot. Heavy armor (200+) and battle-forged helps even more.

As with most enemies with powerful combatants who typically prefer to stay at range, a false retreat may confound their AI. (This is true in almost all games. It's easy for game developers to generate starting positions that are pretty solid and difficult to charge at. It's hard for them to generate scripts to advance a complex formation over variable terrain in a way that protects them from every conceivable player strategy.)

Arming all your bros with crossbows and just trying to outgun them can be a viable tactic.

Goblins who aren't backed by overseers have very weak resolve; hence, if you can take out a few quickly, you can cause a death spiral of morale checks.

Nets counter wolf-riders. They will try to wrap around your flank and harry your backline, so carrying backpacked shields and 1-handed melee weapons on your backliners may be wise.

It's probably obvious that in any fight with overseers and shamans, you want to take out those units ASAP. This should be pretty doable. The reason squishy support casters work for the undead is that they are being escorted around by 30 brain dead assholes covered in layers of metal, who don't care how many of them you kill, as long as they slow you down. Whereas goblins are squishy as hell and break ranks at the drop of a head.

Overseers are the goblins' only good solution to a well-armored company. They also are the only way goblins maintain okay morale in the face of the devastation any late game company will do within one turn of touching their front line. Kill them quickly.

They do have other solutions, i.e. lots of armor-piercing knives with puncture on their (frequently many) archers. This is not a *good* solution, but given enough time and enough goblins, you will eventually get unlucky and have some level 14, 300/300 armor ubermensch named Hjalmar the Dreadnought get stabbed to death by little green dickheads, and you will rage. The main solution here is to not approach archers unless you have good odds of killing them before they can counter. Alternatively, you can attempt to outgoblin them with ranged superiority.

Weapons: If you've got scale mail, two handed weapons destroy their squishy asses. Having 1 or 2 zweihanders let you cut them down at a hilarious pace, and their morale cannot withstand that. Otherwise, shield walls and slow advances are tedious but effective. Swords and spears are particularly effective due to bonuses to attack and the goblins' low armor.

Dogs can tie up their archers, though the retirement prospects for those dogs are not great.

Goblins have a lot to deal with, so facing the full range of their forces is hard and generally requires good gear to appropriately counter; however, you're unlikely to face all of them together unless you're in late game content. Scale mail+, comparably good helmets, and battle forged mostly neuter goblins; they can't do enough damage to really hurt you through it. If you're really struggling, one solution may be to come back with heavier armor; in most of my games, I just avoid them until I hit the inflection point where my armor's good enough to steamroll them.

ANCIENT UNDEAD:

The recovery perk is generally a good perk, but since the undead try to attrition you down, it's particularly good against them.

Nets are generally good against most enemies that are difficult to otherwise counter, and the undead have more of those than other factions (I think), so stocking up on them may be a wise investment.

Flails ignore shields, and the undead have pretty low HP, so flails are good. Legionary shields are powerful but brittle, so axes can chop them right up. In particular, longaxes on your back rankers are useful, because ranged weaponry is borderline useless against them.

Hammers and especially greathammers are also good, if you've got the offense skill to actually hit things with them. (You usually won't against an enemy shield wall, so this is a late game solution.)

Against the 2-deep legionary formation with polearms in the back, be aware that the polearm users will be doing the vast majority of the enemy's damage and plan accordingly. Greatswords are the recommended solution, especially with Reach Advantage. If you can split through the frontliners and hit the backline in the same swing, that negates the impact of the big dumb meatshields.

Larger masses of legionaries start to cause you to run into efficiency problems, i.e. they're very tanky, and you need to take them out before either your morale or armor break. This is hard to do without good armor (200+) and good damage output.

Honor guards are fairly similar to legionaries. Their armor is heavier. Their frontliners are more dangerous. The main difference is that they've got warscythes, which are AoE polearms that target three squares. Shiledbearing tanks help distract them, and you want to position your bros so that they aren't having their armor whittled down by multiple warscythes. Ultimately, though, not much changes vis-a-vis legionaries; it's just that their stats are better. Yours need to be, too.

The main body of the undead are tractable late game; if you have trouble, it'll come from their special units:

Undead priests are support units, and outside of one specific optional superlair, you won't face more than one of them at a time. The miasma is annoying but probably doesn't change too much: in most engagements against legionaries or honor guards, your bros should finish the group they're engaging in 2-3 turns and then move on, so the damage done by miasma should be pretty low. Your HP is not so relevant versus groups backed by priests, i.e. if your 240+ armor cracks while you're facing 5 honor guards, your bro is probably dead regardless of whether he has 40 HP or 60 HP. The more concerning issue is their fear spell, which forces morale checks in a 7-hex AoE and can paralyze for one round. Ideally you want 50+ resolve; if you've got less on some bros, make sure they stay within 4 hexes of your sergeants for the duration of the main melee.

Necrosavants have a very distinctive attack pattern: wait until the end of the second turn, then start warping in. They teleport behind a random weak backliner, attack, teleport away when you start to react. The general way you deal with hit-and-run enemies is to deny their ability to run and then clobber them, so, do that here. Like all undead, they're susceptible to stun, so that's a quite strong counter. Otherwise, nets are good. You can also try falling back and seeing if you can bait them into attacking ahead of their supporting troops, which typically results in easy stakings of off-brand vampires. Lastly, in past versions, you could adopt the hilarious tactic of having your badass melee bros carry a crossbow and wait for them to warp in and try to murder them, then switch to maces and swords and execute the bloodsuckers. It might still work; I haven't checked.

The late game solution to significant numbers of necrosavants assassinating your squishy backliners is to not have squishy backliners. It doesn't make sense to bring archers to an ancient undead battle to begin with, which means your squishiest troops should be polearm users. Those can wear scale or better, which gives you some time to take care of the bloodsuckers.

OTHER UNDEAD:

You generally need a plan versus necromancers. Range, dogs, or a dedicated lone wolf assassin are all options. So's falling back and baiting them forward. Having several two-handers in heavy armor who can hack through the horde faster than they can rise up is a plan. Trying to beat through the horde without great weapons and maybe get lucky and kill the necromancer at the back is not such a good plan; try to avoid this plan.


It's pretty niche, but weapons that decapitate or destroy heads, or bros with Bloodthirsty, are good versus necromancer-led companies, to prevent the dead from rising again. So is looting the weapons of the fallen.

Fallen heroes can rise despite the sudden loss of their head, so with them, there's not much of a solution beyond "win."

Geists are a large part of why resolve isn't a dump stat. Stay within the 4 hex rallying range of your sergeants. (Adventurous Nobles have the highest base resolve of any background, and thus are good candidates for sergeants / standard bearers.)

Geists have high defense but die in one hit to almost any weapon that manages to hit them. Good solutions include nets and Adrenaline on a particularly talented killer with a sword or spear (+accuracy) and a stout heart. Their touch ignores armor completely and can be quite deadly, so when you close to melee, make an effort to kill them before their next turn.

BANDITS:

Thugs are chaff and can be handled early game by spearwalls. Use anti-head weapons (they frequently are unhelmeted) and prioritize the ones with two-handed weapons.

Raiders are a more serious problem, and you'll probably want a decent back rank and a few anti-armor weapons before you take on large numbers of them.

Marksmen are the most dangerous part of facing bandits. Kite shields, ranged defense, and protecting your backline with positioning are important here. Trying to outgun them by taking out the marksmen with archers and thereby forcing the raiders into a charge is a viable tactic if you've got the archers for it.

Most of your midgame equipment will come from bandits, so advising you that stacking armor against them is a good solution is kind of dumb, though it is also true.

NOBLES:

Nobles are like elite bandits, in Battle Brothers as in life.

They are probably the hardest and most rewarding faction to deal with, so, key meta-point about the noble war: you can safely ignore it. Seriously. Some settlements might lose some outlying buildings, but that is the extent of bad things that can happen. The world won't end. Moreover, if you run non-war contracts with noble houses and get to high positive relations (dealing with greenskins, patrols, envoys, etc.), you will get credit for helping "your" side(s) win the war, even if you take no action against any faction. It is very possible to take a contract and realize you're in way over your head, so, if it looks like an imminent disaster, run.

If you get involved, it's best to take contracts from two houses against a third, but not against each other. Which house you choose to target is up to you; ones with more settlements offer more opportunities for sieges, which pay the most, but ones with fewer settlements will result in fewer settlements being pissed at you during the war. You should try to stay on good terms with the houses with the most weaponsmiths and armorers, and with good trading partners.

Generally, versus nobles, you'll get allies to aid you in most battles. Your allies are motivated by honor and are willing to die honorably for their cause; you should let them follow their bliss. While they are doing that, you will be able to kill a lot of the enemy. Hence, crossbros and billbros are even better here than they are versus orcs.

Knights get destroyed by dagger specialists, and it can be quite profitable to do so; claiming a 7000g+ suit of armor will at least double the value of any related contract. Otherwise, treat them like orcs.

Billmen and to a lesser extent arbalesters are the biggest problems when facing nobles. Arbalesters can be handled with dogs, armor, and hiding behind the idiot meatshields who work for your allies. Billmen are more dangerous. Greatswords are good here for the same reason that they're good versus AU polearm users.

Enemy zweihanders and sergeants are high-offense, relatively-low-defense melee mooks. Sergeants are helmless, so either take them out with headshots (flails) or, if that's not feasible, go with concentrated attacks. Zweihanders *can* hit your billmen through their meatshields. So, when engaging them, it's best to either commit resources to take them out that turn, or to avoid engagement.

BEASTS:

Direwolves are countered hard by armor and spearwalls; they will keep running into them until they break or die. They might be able to reach you before you can move or spearwall, so, kill those with your backline, then spearwall up. Spear mastery is helpful versus them, but the spear is not a great weapon generally, and I'm not sure investing a point in it is wise. Otherwise, swords and cleavers are good.

Nachzehrers are also countered hard by spearwalls, but in their case you should try to advance over the bodies of the already-slain so that they can't devour them. Generally, prioritize killing tier-2s before they can turn into tier-3s over killing tier-1s before they can turn into tier-2s, but always prioritize the ones about to feast over all others. Swords and cleavers are particularly good against them due to their high damage versus nachs' lack of armor.

Late game, encounters with lots of tier 3 nachs at the start of the battle are some of the more dangerous encounters. The strategy then becomes counterintuitive: focus all attacks on the tier 3s. Actively avoid killing the tier 1s; maim the tier 2s if you can, but don't kill them. Killing produces corpses, which produce scarier nachs. A late game company can handle any number of tier 1s as long as they are not backed by tier 3s, so, take out the tier 3s, cut any eaten brothers out of their bellies, and then handle the rest.

Perks (work in progress)

Tier 1:

Student is not going to be worth it on most early recruits. It's probably good on Apprentices, or on late game recruits who you want to level up quickly, but otherwise the main reason to take it is if you want to delay committing to a build until later, while unlocking higher level perks. (Or if you want an extra high-level perk when fully built, I suppose.)

Adrenaline's really good in a ton of situations, offensive and defensive:
* Really good in fights where you can take out a portion of the enemy line in two rounds. (Advance, hit, adrenaline, hit twice again. Recover next turn; it's totally worth it.)
* Good against elusive enemies (geists and Necrosavants), especially on a mace master or netbro who can lock them down.
* Good on assassin specialists to take out the enemy Necromancer or disrupt their archers.
* Good as an insurance policy to enable aggressive rescues of injured comrades by bros with rotation. (Lets you first try to rescue the injured guy by killing his assailant, and then rotate him out if that doesn't work.)
* Good on backline polearm users with Overwhelm, especially if you decide to start giving them somewhat heavier armor.

Recovery's quite nice in some midgame fights, and becomes nicer in prolonged late game slugfests, especially against undead. Agree that it's not too useful early and probably shouldn't be a tier 1 perk.

Bags and Belts was a lot better when the slots didn't cost fatigue, and also when it was part of the utility tree. (RIP) Agree that it seems really bad now.

Colossus is supposedly good because the injury threshold is calculated as a percentage of total HP, but I'm skeptical. In theory HP is the counter to armor-piercing weapons, but the 10% reduction to armor-piercing from armor means that the real counter to armor-piercing on frontliners is MOAR ARMOR. (Because it's more efficient to level up fatigue and wear heavier gear.)

Nine lives is scary on enemy Necrosavants, but they can get their health back up. Your own tanks are going to be relying on either armor or dodge, both of which are neutralized by the time you're near death, so I don't know. Maybe pick it up on backliners if you don't know what else to do.

Fast adaptation is a very niche perk. The corner case where it's probably good is on bros with return attacks who prioritized defense over offense, so spear or sword specialists. Seems really bad on everyone else.

Tiers 2-3:

Perks are well-balanced, as befits a game endorsed by the Hierophant of Balance himself. Nothing is too awesome, but everything's decent. A lot of perks' value can be quantified in how many stat-up points you'd have to spend to get a comparable benefit. E.g., Gifted is clearly 9-10 points. Fortified Mind will end up being 10-12 on most bros, more on your sergeant(s). Shield expertise is 8-10 passively (to your defenses, which are typically the most important stats on frontliners), and 16-20 with the active, though you only want it if you're not going to become a twohander or duelist. Anticipation's 8-10 points. Backstabber's usually 10-15 points on polearm users and 5-10 on frontliners. Underdog's 10-15 on flank guards. Brawny will be 13-18 on fully geared heavy armor frontliners.

You need rally on one bro with high resolve for late game undead and warlord fights; this seems obvious.

Rotation lets you extract injured bros from situations without dying. Picking it up on a few bros will save lives.

Tier 4:

Weapon mastery choice is tough because it's tied to everything else about how you build your warband. Generally, you'll be taking these perks for the fatigue bonuses; the other benefits tend to be not so impressive.

Maces: Good versus elusive enemies, particularly with Adrenaline.
Flails: Good versus ancient undead. Flails seem like they'd be good if you commit to everyone having them, possibly with headhunter (thereby yielding more armor drops), but I haven't actually tested this beyond the midgame, and potentially the damage numbers mean that it's just not worth it.
Hammers: Shreds armored targets, which are the core high-end units of most factions (orc warriors, fallen heroes, honor guards, footmen, knights), mediocre against everything else.
Axes: Good against destroyable shield-users (AU, nobles, some bandits), second best way to destroy armor. Longaxes are great.
Cleavers: Great against lightly armored targets and zombies, especially during the Undead Crisis. Orc cleavers can be used for specialist duelist builds, if you know what you're doing.
Swords: One-handers are mediocre. Two-handers are some of the best and most flexible weapons in the game, and are one of the best counters to enemy polearm users. Also good against the lightly armored. If you've got the noble crisis, you have a pretty good chance of ending up with some cool unique swords, which are likely to be strictly better than other non-specialist weapons. (E.g., great against unarmored targets, and better against armored than any weapon but hammers.)
Daggers: Hardest counter to armored targets. Dagger specialists do generally require you to commit to the build from beginning to end, and don't shine until mid-late. Simply putting a dagger on your bros as a backup weapon is usually sufficient to get cool armor from the occasional hedge knight.
Polearms: The weapons are needed on all backliners who aren't using longaxes as their reach weapons. The skill's good if you've got a warscythe.
Spears: Great in the early game and against lightly armored, hard to hit enemies; bad against armored targets. One of the better mastery perks. Potentially good on flank guards even late in the game, but only with the perk.
Bows: Cross- are for armored targets, conventional are for range. Both masteries are worthwhile if you've invested in ranged attack.
Throwing weapons: I'm not a fan. In most cases, you'd want quick hands for these to be effective, and even then you're probably better served by walking toward the target. Maybe on difficult terrain, if you've got general ranged superiority.

Tier 5:

Reach advantage: Must-have on two-handed frontliners; still nice to have on polearm-using backliners (i.e., all of them, if you're listening to me).

Overwhelm: Good on anyone who's lightly armored, especially those with multiple attacks. Since late game enemy groups tend to rely heavily on massively armored troops (orc warriors, honor guards, footmen, knights), you can armor your bros fairly heavily and still get mileage out of it. Very good on warscythe users.

Lone wolf: Good on melee assassin specialists, bad on everyone else. Only take it if you know what you're doing.

Underdog: Very good on flank guards, pretty good on all other frontliners, too.

Footwork: Near-mandatory for melee assassins. For defensive use, rotation is better in most circumstances, since it lets you save yourself or some other bro (as opposed to just yourself).

Tier 6:

Berserk: Great perk on everyone who kills people, so, ideally everyone. Particularly good on two-handed weapon users, since the upgrade is greater (100% increase in attacks vs. 50%).

Head hunter: Not sure who this is good on; the issue is that most threatening enemies wear head armor comparable to their body armor, and ideally you'll want all bros attacking a target to be hitting the same part of him. Multistrike weapons do increment the counter. Maybe some mass flail or zweihander team could make good use of this.

Nimble: It's an extra layer of protection to make lightly armored bros who are meant to dodge the vast majority of attacks more viable. No good unless you're making one of those, and even then, I question its value.

Battle-Forged: Great on everyone who wears heavy armor.

Tier 7:

Fearsome: Useless versus undead. Good versus everyone else; particularly good on hammer and dagger users who don't need to break armor to start damaging health.

Duelist: For specialists. If you want to go for this, you probably have a specific weapon in mind, cleavers and throwing weapons being the likeliest candidates. Offers impressive single-target damage at the sacrifice of two-handers' AOE and shields' defensive bonus.

Killing frenzy: Like berserk, good on everyone who kills people.

Indomitable: Good on frontliners versus orcs; occasionally good on frontliners versus huge masses of other enemies that you can't easily clear. (E.g., it's good at the flanks versus large numbers of ancient honor guards.)

e: redacted some incorrect info per rapsdjff

 

[rapsdjff]

Nice guide. One correction, though;

The renown growth will cause the world to level up, and you can easily end up outmatched.

Renown doesn't cause anything to level up, except for the contract payments you'll receive.

 

[RK47]

rapsdjff is it possible to make ambition as a list of achievements your company can fulfill instead of setting one goal at a time?
And is it true that the Day counter is the one responsible for setting the world to 'level up'?

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey

 

[Alienman]

Nice guide. One correction, though;

The renown growth will cause the world to level up, and you can easily end up outmatched.

Renown doesn't cause anything to level up, except for the contract payments you'll receive.

You mean there is still group of bandit thugs wandering around the world at day 80? Poor them

 

[RK47]

Wish we can buy two banners

 

[Andnjord]

You mean there is still group of bandit thugs wandering around the world at day 80? Poor them

Yeah, I can confirm that. Day 100-105, in the middle of an orc invasion my band stumbled upon 15 thugs and they decided it would be a nice relaxing experience to lob some heads off for some casual fun. Needless to say after round three the greatswords, crypt cleavers and warbrands had left a few poodles of blood and guts on the ground and a lonely poacher running for his life. Then they went back the hammerin' some Orcs

 

[Salvo]

This game is sick! Even though necrosavants keep kicking my ass.


Have translations in other languages been considered?

 

[Agesilaus]

Nice guide. One correction, though;

The renown growth will cause the world to level up, and you can easily end up outmatched.

Renown doesn't cause anything to level up, except for the contract payments you'll receive.

You mean there is still group of bandit thugs wandering around the world at day 80? Poor them

Andnjord is right, they're out there wandering about.

They can also be involved in contracts. My party had the shit kicked out of it again, so I needed to level up. I went to a bunch of small villages and took those "follow the footprints and recover the relic" quests that are pretty easy to complete and give experience. One of them involved 16 thugs and a couple of poachers. It was amusing, to say the least.

Any tips for getting about level 7 or 8? I can get my party to the point where everyone is between levels 5 to 9, but then progress is too slow and attrition too high. Does anyone use the training school for high level guys? Is the level 1 +xp perk vital?

 

[Skittles]

Any tips for getting about level 7 or 8? I can get my party to the point where everyone is between levels 5 to 9, but then progress is too slow and attrition too high. Does anyone use the training school for high level guys? Is the level 1 +xp perk vital?

I always take the XP increase perk at level 2, since it winds up making your guys more resilient faster. Since you get the perk back and there's not a lot of still competition for perks at that level (I think it's that or Pathfinding), it's an easy call for me.

It sounds like survivability is what you're after, but without knowing more about why you lose most of your guys, I only have generic advice, like: hit max fat. and one defense skill nearly every level, prioritize buying better armour over weapons, don't abandon shields until at least level six, etc.

 

[Kayerts]

Any tips for getting about level 7 or 8? I can get my party to the point where everyone is between levels 5 to 9, but then progress is too slow and attrition too high. Does anyone use the training school for high level guys? Is the level 1 +xp perk vital?

Beyond what Skittles said (talk to us about what's killing you! ), if you feel like you've fallen behind in progression, the way back is fulfilling easy contracts until you've got levels and equipment. Levels can be had from easy contracts (terrified villagers, artifact recovery, anything with a sufficiently low payoff) and equipment comes from easy gold (the above, plus trade and cheeseable contracts, like the nobles' marauding greenskin contracts where you can lure 2k orc bands to castle companies).

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

I have to say, after finally opting into the beta, the game is so fucking cool now. The map looks so nice now, the new gen makes cool passes and harbors, the undead Romans are sick, and so much more, honestly. I love it.

 

[lili]

Out of interest graphed the +20% XP perk. And +30% if you give it to an apprentice.
Black arrows are basically times where you lag 1 perk behind. And with just the +20%, its pretty sad until you reach 12500 XP.
Of course you have a level lead with the perk. The line when not black should be all 1 levelup lead, ie about +3 attack, +3 def, +3 end/hp (or +1 +1 +1 if you are extra lucky...).
The Question now would be if you want to lag behind ~half the game in perks (out of total time) just so that you get that green lead ending? I dont think the levelup lead makes up for it. Most perks are better than levelup numbers.

Now the great stuff happens with an apprentice. He actually reaches level 9 and 8 perks (parity!) just before a normal merc would hit level 8 and 8 perks! And afterwards teh apprentice falls behind a bit (I dont think its a mistake on my part though...). And before that the perk lag is mostly tolerable combined with early game.

The math is simple:
at 100% XP gain you hit level 7 at 5000 XP
at 120% XP gain you hit level 7 at 4167 XP' equivalents , eg 4167 * 1.2 = 5000

There is a little mistake here, cause I counted XP from 0, but you can only grab the +20% perk at 100 XP, its a small error. Too lazy to fix.

In conclusion, I actually dont know if I would give a non-apprentice merc the XP perk... Trending towards Nope.

 

[Visperas]

I don't understand that graph. Intuitively, it makes sense to give the XP perk to every Bro because they will always level up faster, right? Why wouldn't you give the perk to non-apprentice bros?

 

[lili]

A normal merc will have 1 useful perk more half the game time.
Like, at 2000 XP a normal merc has 5 useful perks.
But if you gave him +20%XP at first level he will only have 4 perks at 2000 XP and only get his 5th useful perk at 2917. So all the time ingame when a "clean" merc is between 2000 to 2917 XP, the +20%XP merc has 1 perk less, which hurts. He does have a levelup lead but perks are mostly a better option.

 

[Kayerts]

Also bear in mind that veteran levels require 5k XP each and the rewards are small, so the progression after that is going to be slow and not very significant.

I think there's a meta-game case for Student, viz. if you want to reach higher-tier perks with less commitment to a particular build, which is a pretty reasonable way to be in your first game or two. (Or after that, since the weapon mastery perks are placed pretty awkwardly.) It's a way of deferring the decision until later while still continuing your unlock progression. Probably not optimal unless you're playing on non-Ironman.

 

[Skittles]

In conclusion, I actually dont know if I would give a non-apprentice merc the XP perk... Trending towards Nope.

You're ignoring the fact that there's only one other good perk you can take at level 2 and it's one that is less useful in the early levels than in the later levels, at low levels you're usually advancing only slowly, if at all, across the battlefield. The benefit of being ahead of the level curve by only a handful of battles isn't huge, but 1) every little bit helps when you're training raw recruits up, 2) there's not a lot of competition for decent perks; do you actually feel behind a perk?

To illustrate what I'm saying from the lens of melee combatants:

Fast Adaptation: The CTH bonus is almost inconsequential and this perk becomes more useless the better your bro becomes. It'll be utterly useless at level 11, but Student gives you a perk back, at least.

Crippling Strikes: I like this one as a higher level debuff perk, but your lower level guys aren't going to benefit from it much and it doesn't contribute to their survivability.

Colossus: A trap. It's terrible if you have low health. It's okay if you have high health. If the latter, why waste a perk on health? Besides, more than 60-70 health is redundant.

Nine Lives: I guess it improves survivability, but 9/10 when it triggers, your guy's going to go down anyway. It's very, very rarely useful. I guess it's nice for people who are frustrated by archers?

Bags & Belts: Hahahaha. Fatigue over everything. 2 slots is loads already.

Pathfinder: A solid perk, but it's not so necessary for low level guys who'll be fighting in formation and moving little, if at all, during a line battle. Much more useful on 2H troopers and as such can wait a bit.

Adrenaline: Costs too much and is only useful in limited circumstances. You're better off stunning the shit out of targets rather than trying to jump them in the initiative queue.

Recover: Another trap. Most useful for guys with low fatigue, but the lower your max fatigue, the more useless this is.

I have trouble coming up with 3 essential melee bro perks by level 5: Pathfinder, Brawny, and Weapon Mastery? Others are occasionally useful, but not so good as a straight level advantage in a few battles per level after level 3, none that can't be delayed a level, and none that refund at level 11.

 

[Visperas]

I've been taking Colossus for all my frontliners and I think it's good. The protection against injuries is good and that extra amount of health can be the difference between life and death.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Is it just me or is the number of unique items you can possess artificially limited? They just seem to stop appearing completely after a certain point in the game.

In the first half, it's rather easy to visit a few shops and see some, even if you can't afford them, but later? Nothing.

 

[Agesilaus]

Nine Lives: a god-send that has saved my bros about ten trillion times.

Colossus: helps you avoid injuries, which given the price of medical treatment... still, I only put it on bros who reach around 70 health naturally.

Crippling Strikes: don't know, never use it.

Fast Adaption: I have started experimenting with it because I fucking hate skeletons. If I can increase the odds of landing one shot each turn around those shields, then it's very valuable.

Bags & Belts: I don't use it much (if ever), but in previous versions it eliminated the fatigue penalty for carrying extra items. Which is quite valuable when you want to bring a bucket of throwing axes or whatever.

Pathfinder: agreed. solid perk. I hate Swamps/Snow/Forest.

Adrenaline: Don't know, rarely use it. I guess if you have a person out on the wings in the smaller battles, it would be helpful for racing towards the archers/necro with a lone wolf bro.

Recover: I have started giving this to a couple of bros in order to survive the long battles against the undead. Sometimes my bros just get tired, not every 200 gold scrub is a professional athlete.

 

[Salvo]

Is it just me or is the number of unique items you can possess artificially limited? They just seem to stop appearing completely after a certain point in the game.

In the first half, it's rather easy to visit a few shops and see some, even if you can't afford them, but later? Nothing.

Considering that you can potentially face more than one Endgame Crisis I find it very unlikely for the devs to artificially limit the number of obtainable Uniques, keeping in mind the fact that they are randomly generated and can come in an infinite amount of forms.


It's unplausible, so you just might have had bad luck.

 

[lili]

do you actually feel behind a perk?

I used to disregard Student perk completely, thinking it garbage but after people here said they use it, I tried it and yeah I kinda did miss early perks, thats why I looked at it a bit closer.

I would pick Pathfinder blindly over an average levelup of +3+3+3 always.
I havent played into the Undead Endgame but Crippling Strikes + Executioner for every merc works pretty good.
Colossus is about +15 HP which would let you survive up to 2 extra strikes in early game, as well as crossbow headshots... Might pick it over levelup.

I think the next levels also sport a perk that I would prefer over 1 levelup tbh.

 

[Agesilaus]

Is it just me or is the number of unique items you can possess artificially limited? They just seem to stop appearing completely after a certain point in the game.

In the first half, it's rather easy to visit a few shops and see some, even if you can't afford them, but later? Nothing.

The undead invasion has started, I have defeated one siege, and... I have not seen a single unique outside of the weaponsmith. At the weaponsmith I saw... wait for it... one unique cleaver on sale for ten trillion gold. The end.

 

[Skittles]

Some of my preference might come down to playstyle. I play pretty aggressively, at least a battle a day and a dead bro every other day. Student is invaluable when it comes to getting recruits back in action. Having a guy hit level five two to three battles early is phenomenal.