Grunberg isn’t so bad after all. There’s a Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, and a Kennel. Good variety of people to hire. A monk, bastard, beggar, wildman, houndmaster, flagellant, and militia. Lots of mushrooms (this being a swampy area), ham of course, more venison, and a fantastic array of weapons and armor in the marketplace which can be had cheaper than the dedicated stores.
We head off to the graveyard and find 4 skeletons. They may look easy, but they’re all shielded, and whenever one has a scimitar like blade it is worrying.
… we are able to take them out, but not before 2 of our guys nearly bleed to death. The skeleton with a cleaver… we were right to fear him as he sliced the tendons of our guys with ease. They torn through our armor and now 3 of the men need to completely rebuild their kits from scratch. We now have two front-line soldiers with slashed legs, suffering -40% defense. Ernst is in bad shape.
Back in Tanndorf I’d really like to hire Volmar the Fletcher. As he already has a nickname, “the fletcher”, this can often signify they have some good perks and better-than-average stats. But 2 front-liners out for up to 5 days is bad, worse we can’t afford to heal them in the temple. That leaves us with no choice but to hire at least one tank. That would be the naked Wildman Carsten. We have $800 gold, he only costs 100. We could stretch that to grab Volmar as well, but that leaves us with very little cushion.
I decide to hire Carsten and will decide whether to hire the archer based on his stats…
As expected he’s dumb as a bag of bricks. Wildmen always have -15% exp gain. I’d hoped maybe his other stats would make up for this. His attack is OK, he shouldn’t run away at 50 resolve. But maybe he should try to avoid taking hits? Yikes. Look at this melee and ranged defense. Good thing he has plenty of HP.
Speaking of Resolve. In the last battle I started paying attention to the fact as soon as an enemy draws up, some of my guys start getting ready to run. While hiring and so happy about the other stats, I totally forgot to notice that two of my men have resolve in the 30’s. Every time the surrender flag gets a little higher, their attack and defense abilities get worse. So two of my men don’t even have the current capabilities listed since it only takes 1 enemy engaged to get their panties soiled. Who are these chickens? Konrad the Farmer and Alfred the Apprentice. Dang! The two guys I was praising up and down a little bit ago. Looks like I’ll have to waste a perk to fortify their minds when their level comes up.
Torn as to whether to hire the Fletcher. We have no idea where the next mission may be, so running out of money is possible. But, an extra arrow now, and the fact he’ll be able to craft a superior bow once he hits level 6 makes me want to grab him asap.
We decide to leave without the fletcher. The next 2 villages over did not have missions available, but one on coast apparently does - if the tavern rumors are true. But coastal town of Kaiwader is maybe a full days march away. The fletcher could stick around a week, so maybe we’ll get lucky and when we have more funds, he’ll still be there.
We’ll hit Treiten on the way to Kaiwader just to make sure a mission didn’t pop up. On the way we see some brigands. 7 of them. A poacher and a bunch of thugs. Maybe this battle fill our funds for the next hire?
I forgot to takes stats to show Robin and the newbie came through! Robin took out one guy, and Carsten the Streaker did as well. In fact as Alfred the Apprentice got slashed twice by a Cleaver wielding thug, close to bleeding out from his massive wounds, Carsten ran up and pummeled the guy into the dirt for revenge. Who needs clothes?!
As we pull into Treiten to catch our breaths (no mission there - darn) I see there’s a tailor for hire. Not just any tailor, but a “named” tailor. Once again, he’s one of the special people one may want to grab as he can make cool armor out of wolf hide in a special event. Chances are he’ll have poor stats, but as another body, he can be of use. And he’s cheap. I’ll hire him. Maybe I can give him this bow that’s been sitting in our inventory. Or maybe I won’t hire him and wait to see what’s at Kaiwader. Arggggg. So indecisive!
We did quite well accosting those thugs. Came away with some good stuff.
I decide to hire Alrik. OMG! He has some awesome perks! He’s both loyal and bright, and can actually hit stuff, and is 2-starred on melee, starred in defense, AND fatigue. Not only that, but he starts out at 5 with both defenses. This guy is a dream. I have got to get the money to go hire that bowyer/fletcher. (click the pics if you can’t make some details out very well)
Kaiwader has amber, which if I had money could be traded well at Grunberg Stone Keep. It also has fish and nets as one would expect for a coastal village. But we need the contract to make some money. They have 2 missions. A single star and 2-star. I’ll go for the easy one. It’s a delivery mission to Fuchsberg in the North. Not too many towns to the north and they’re not far so I say OK.
Damn! This isn’t “North” it’s NW and clear across the map, and only for 300g. Should have memorized the map before accepting this. I’ll come out poorer in the end.
On the way to stupidville where we’re going to be broke & starving when we arrive, we stop to check out Kahlenburgh. A mighty, no scratch that. It’s just a couple huts. It does have a surface iron vein though, so that means an armory. Villagers are disappearing so there’s a mission here. Missing villager missions are always good. We’ll hit this lil’ homestead on the way back.
We also stop in Pfuhlwacht to check out their tiny homestead. Some map seeds have none, but we have 2 kennels so far. This town is going to be great for food. Mushrooms, berries, and lots of wheaty things back in Kahlenburgh. Cheap food that doesn’t spoil for a long time. Nice.
We finally arrive in Fuchsburg. The nice thing about a long trip with wounded men, is there’s a good chance they’ve had time to heal. Our entire company is now back to full strength. Fuchsburg is yet another tiny stand of huts with a surface iron vein. Not only another armory, but this also means cheaper tools. I didn’t pick up on this til just now after all my hours in Battle Brothers. Also since it’s got that iron ore vein, there’s a lot of miner’s for hire here. While they are fine for their attack skills, they almost always have low fatigue values so I tend to not hire them if I can help it.
There’s a mission available here for a personal delivery - to Tanndorf. I ask, “How much are you willing to pay?”
He responds, “200 gold”.
I shake my head, “We need to be paid more for this. Way more.”
He says. “nope”.
I say, “Screw that, we can take a mission back in Kahlenburg.”
We head off to Kahlenburg after refueling on berries.
@sillhouette I can rename them. Just tell me what you want if it helps make them more memorable. Just remember, they’ll probably die just as we think they’ll be the permanent anchors of the story :p
On the way to Kahlenberg one of the men pulls me aside and says, "Hey, I hate my name! I want to change it to ‘Sillhoeutte’ "
“If it makes you fight better I’ll call you anything you want” I reply. “You’re who again? Cause I’m bad with names”
Alfred/Sillhoeutte gives me a dirty look and puts on his fancy bag hat.
“Better hope you sleep with one eye open sir”.
As we’re about to camp we see a group of brigands, lead by a Raider, tumble out of the forest onto our trail. I can’t quite tell if they’re attacking us or stumbling by, but the thought of some nice juicy armor off their lead pulls us into action. (by the way I never noticed they show the coat of arms up top for each battle)
We do our best to finish off the men so we can gang up on their leader. He’s got some chain-mail and a cool green helm, but he absolutely hammers Dan the Streaker. The sinew of his arm is sliced clean through and it looks like just a tendon left holding his forearm to his elbow.
We rush to surround and gut him before he finishes the Wildman off. A few stabs and he tries to flee. Question is, is enough of his armor intact to salvage?
We don’t get the chain mail - too many holes I guess. But we get that sweet green helm. Sillhouette wanted a cool hat and he’s got one! Robin looks on jealously…
Alrik pulls me aside, “Ummm sir. You know how everyone’s changing their names? Well scissors are pretty sharp, and I’m a tailor, so could you call me ‘Sharpe’ from here-on?” I don’t bother to tell him “sharp” doesn’t end with an “e”, but scribble the new name on his armor’s tags anyways.
“OK guys, we still haven’t made it back to Kahlenberg yet. Is there anything else?”
Ernst sheepishly raises his hand. “I don’t know what my name is really supposed to be. I think my Mom was drunk when she told the mid-wife. Was I supposed to be called Earnest? So, can you call me Scott instead?”
That transition makes no sense whatsoever, but whatever. Ernst speaks up feeling my confusion, “I always wanted to have a name that didn’t start with a vowel.”
“Sure. You probably won’t be around long to enjoy your vowel-less starting name, but you’re now Scott.”
“Konrad” to “Konrad the Canuck?” got it… scribbles in book
“No Robin, you can’t change your name. And no you’re not getting the green helm. You’re lucky I don’t put that bag on your head. If it didn’t hurt your vision you’d be wearing that.”
We finally arrive and talk to the town’s mayor. He offers a sparse 370 crowns to find what terrorizes their city and kill it. We find tracks SE of town in the marsh. Swamp battles are the WORST.
Damn. Direwolves attacked me a split second before I clicked on them. Being on the defensive means my line is thrown into disarray at the battles start. They’ve zero’d in on severely injured Dan, who thankfully has some clothes on. He would have been in the back row had we done the attacking. He has a pitchfork just for that purpose… and no shield since it’s a 2-handed weapon. Can I retire before this goes bad?
Whoa. We almost lost Dan and Canuck. What saved us was Lancelot once again beheading something. As soon as the first wolf’s head fell off, the others started to panic. The loss to their defense saved us, as we were missing nearly every time we swung. In the swamp, unless you’re on solid land, you suffer both attack malice and can barely move. Sharpe finished off the wolf biting at Dan’s ankles, and though bleeding profusely, Dan did manage to hit with his pitchfork.
We take a 220 Crown pack mule mission to Tanndorf. It’s not much, but we want to go there anyways to see if the Fletcher is still there. It’s a bit confusing as it’s a 2-star mission, but not for much money.
On the way we find out why it was not a single star contract. We are beset by Brigands… and more than one Raider. The last battle against them went fine, so maybe no problem right? Not when there’s this many raiders with adult weapons and armor.
At least I spelled the name wrong, so now it’s time for the real Sillhouette to show up. What a rough battle. At least we can hire that awesome fletch… nooo! Where’d they all go? A Eunuch and a priest? Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Compare this to post #20. Bah!
We hire Gerlach the Monk. He’s got awful stats, but with 1 man gone and 2 of the front-line with crippling injuries we need another body. We put a bag on his head, a spear in his hand, and shove him into the middle of the line.
The village was raided and had their routes ambushed which is apparently why all the good recruits ran off.
I take a mission to help clear the baddies. Hopefully by the time we get there some of the wounds will have healed and the battle will go better. It’s a 1-2 days march. Not much money for such a task it seems.
The game has quickly gone to the dogs - and not the ones I could have bought from the kennels.
The mission was a mess. What a bloody, bloody mess. I’d hoped that by the time I got there the critical wounds would have healed. They did not and still had up to 4 days before they could be fixed up. Camping that long would sap all our food and money, so when I saw the battlefield I knew we’d either do very well or it’d be a - something.
I didn’t see many shields on their men, so if we hit they’d go down quick. That did not come to pass.
This is how things looked when the carnage was almost complete. We won, but we lost Scott in the process. Lancelot beheaded yet another enemy, and took his rage out on a few more.
For our next adventure we head to the another town to see if we can hire someone better than a Eunuch, rest our guys in a camp, and seek revenge on those petulant, rotten raiders.
