Battle Brothers Hits Early Access

After the success of our first battle…

Sorry, I went into too much detail

a couple of our men found the time to work on some new skills. Randolph brushed up on his melee defense, meditated to strengthen his resolve, and worked on some techniques to improve his health. Since he was already pretty effective at hitting his target with his spear, he worked on his ability to cause wounds with each strike (crippling strikes).

Ulfert the Dog, armed with his crossbow took some target practice to become more skilled at hitting his target, sharpened his senses to become a little quicker on the draw, and did laps around our camp to reduce how fast he gets fatigued. We told him to shut up and sit down because he was going to draw unwanted attention, but he wouldn’t listen. Then he surprised us. Drawing diagrams into the dirt, he went over the scenarios where he missed his shots and visualized what he should have done differently. He felt he would learn from his mistakes during the battle now and after a bad shot be able to correct for it (fast adaptation).

Before we left the current town, I stopped by and bought some drinks for the local townfolk. They let us know that Tiefenhaven was looking for guys like us to solve some problem, so off we went - after restocking some supplies. It was only around a days journey.

We learned that they were having some problems with grave robbers so we traveled to the site immediately. When we approached, be could’t see anyone there. As we entered the graveyard we realized that maybe we didn’t see anything because we were looking for an ‘anyone’, instead of looking for an ‘anything’.

6 Nachzehrers (ghouls) charges at us from just beyond our vision. They moved quickly. Never having actually seen one of these things I didn’t know how dangerous they were, but I could tell how terrifying they are. They had been feasting on the bodies of the recently buried. I’m proud of my men for not fleeing at that moment.

Ulfert, the man you don’t really want to be left out on his own, was… well… left out on his own. He took to some high ground and missed his first shot (57%).

Randolph took up position between a tree and a rock, plugging a hole to their approach. He had time to ready his spear for their charge (spearwall). Rebe, with his pitchfork, fell into position behind him. Reimond and Hagen also approached but didn’t take the front line.

They moved faster than we expected and closed the distance to Ulfert. The enemies clawed at Berthold’s patched shirt, but met the sharpt end of Randolph’s spearwall on multiple occasions, getting wounded. The rest were ineffective, but did manage to give Berthold second thoughts (wavering).

Ulfert tried to bide his time, hoping that his allies could take care of the enemy that was in front of him. Berthold tried to stun it, but missed his shot. Luckily Hagen split it in half with his ax and left its corpse where it once stood. Rabe wounded another with his pitchfork, but Reimond couldn’t finish it with his bow. Randolph took up the task and felled it while also wounding another. Ulfert was now able to get of his shot without a monster in his face and pierced the hand of another ghoul.

Armor and shields absorbed the enemy’s blows with other attacks completely missed.

Rabe Hagen missed a attacks they should have made. Once again Ulfert has an enemy in his face, preventing a shot with his crossbow. I’m beginning to think that Reimond has never shot a shortbow before, because I could tell he wasn’t comfortable with it. Randolph was able to hit another one. Ulfert was still blocked by the enemy, which had multiple wounds, so Ulfert decided to risk moving out its range. The monster missed. Ulfert moved away and reloaded.

One of the ghouls feasted on the corpse right in front of our eyes. We weren’t expecting that. We also didn’t expect the horns that grew out of his head and his body seemingly repairing itself. The other enemies missed. Their wounds probably reducing their abilities.

Rabe should have stayed on the farm, because he missed again with his pitchfork. Hagen hacked at another, severing some arm sinew. It tried to flee and was rewarded with another blow from the ax. Another feasted. I’d like to say that you get used to it, but you don’t. More enemies were injured, but none fell.

The enemy tore at Berthold, destroying his hat and cutting the flesh on his head. Another ripped through Randolph’s padded leather. Hagen, Reimond and Berthold missed, but Ulfert landed a shot with his crossbow. Randolph struck back and hit another ghoul. Two enemies try to flee and are cut down.

Now that our armor has been taking a beating, blows are more frequently cutting our flesh. Hagen fells one more.

Smooth sailing the rest of the way.

I LOVE this statement as it brings me right back the first several times I encountered them and had a WTF moment when they ate :)

Hagen is awesome. Was your guy called “the dog” or did you name him?

The game named Ulfert ‘the Dog’.

Those enemies were a change from the bandits you get in the first mission. These guys had a fairly hit attack skill and went first in every round until I started wounding some of them.

This was a good example of why I wish I could drill down into the enemy cards for details. I can see they had these injuries, but I didn’t know what the effect would be. I guess I’ll learn them as my guys get the injuries, then I can see their tool tip.

How should I use rotation? Just have a guy who’s equipped for the front line but keep him in reserve until someone gets hurt and needs to be replaced?

Why are you sorry? Details are awesome! =)

Rotation was picked by my guy with horrible Attack skill. I beefed with melee defense and HP’s. He will rotate my attacker(s) out of danger and self-sacrificially put himself into danger.

Just having a couple of them can really help, not all of my people need Rotation. Just people who are really bad at hitting and dont have potential to shine. I feel nothing when I lose them, but when they do their job, it’s awesome.

So in my particular case, my top Melee guy was facing the biggest Nachazer, the one who can swallow. He’s the only one of two out of the motley crew who could hit properly. He’ll get swallowed next turn. So he get’s swapped out of harm’s way.

That makes sense. I’ll find a guy I can bear to part with for that role.

One of the key contributors to over confidence is simply forgetting that some of our men are horrible at hitting targets and overreaching by signing on missions we cannot handle.

The defense bump from Thugs to Raiders for exsmple will mean a lot of the men who can hit the Thugs are now continually missing. The 50+ Attack Skills just cant make it anymore. It’s a simple trap to fall into because the game hidea a lot of information like this from players.

Facing raiders does not just mean thicker armours and contending with a shield. But the points they have in melee defences will mean you will miss a lot more.

Rather late reply but there is a wiki which explains basic game/combat mechanics and enemy types and capabilities, which functions as a rough unofficial ‘manual’ of sorts. It doesn’t really tell you what to do and what to fight, but as you’ve stated that’s not what you’re looking for, it should serve just fine. Indeed part of the charm of the game (at least for me) is figuring out battlefield tactics vs different opponents and devising a viable approach to managing men and resources.
Of course there are also external links on the wiki to some guides if ultimately interested.

I generally give it to men who have good Fatigue. 25 Fatigue per use is heavy, but definitely a good skill to have to rescue men from an unexpected unlucky spate of hits. IMHO the man ‘kept in reserve’ should also be active to optimize damage output every round. Having a 2-tile reach weapon helps in that regard and being able to put up a shield fast via Quick Hands once swapped to the front, may enable him to take a little less damage.

I like discovering the new enemy types and being surprised, but maybe the wiki would be useful to look up things like injury effects. The mechanics themselves seem pretty straight forward. I’m still early in. I didn’t play this at all today, choosing some Civ VI and Gloomhaven.

The motley crew of brothers struggled for weeks. The company seem to be always staring at potential financial disaster, with funds hovering around 1-2K.

It took really long doing small jobs, first they were the 400gp paying ones, then later 600gp paying ones. The long climb back up was patience testing.

And dangerous, 2 of the vets who could actually kill stuff ended up with permanent injuries. Our chief archer got 2 of them! Ended up with a debilating 50% reduction to his fatigue.

But we trudged on.

With experience and levels under their belt, the men started to hit and kill things for a start. But the turning point came when the team of 9 hit level 5 and above.

We started taking on 1000+gp jobs sometimes facing up to 20 Nachezers. But the experience of the men and smart footwork helped demolish groups like these. Even the once feared raiders who raided towns and villages are just target practice for our brothers.

It is day 87. We just hired 2 new promising recruits (Militia and Squire) and is resting on a pile of 10k in gold. 3 of our top men are level 9 with the rest lagging behind around 5-7 variously.

But rumours are floating that a dark and forbidding event will soon happen.

The captain looks at the mails the 11 men are wearing and is wondering how in the world will he afford to get the scales that are need to survive in the coming dark…

Fortunately, 50 days in at beginner difficulty, I’m not being thrown at 20 nachezers. But I did have my best archer’s eye shot out. I paid him off so he could live out his remaining years in retirement. Maybe it’s for the best. At least he’ll die in his own bed as an old man.

You, my dear captain, are far more generous man than me. =)

Sounds like you’re having a successful game cicobuff.I’m only around 3 days in so I have a long time before I see the big event - or I may never see it if all my guys die.

It’s still too early to tell. If the event hit and the dudes are still in low mid-tier equipment, unless it’s the noble war, the game will probably get impossible.

I think my priority will be to train up some seriously skilled brothers. It’ll be hard as Ironman mode precludes save scrumming to examine recruits. The 10K gets burned up really fast just “interviewing” the better backgrounds.

Oh! Fortune smiled and it’s a Noble War! That means that I’ll be able to survive and hopefully stab my way into some nice armour!

Edit: It’s day 112.

The band avoided the war of the nobles, sure that a 3000gp paying job is beyond their pay grade.

And attempted to complete an ambition of theirs from a long time ago. They spied an enemy camp with raiders and marksmen and a leader and decided to evict them from the makeshift headquarters from which they base their operations from.

The battle was evenly balanced. The brothers withstood a withering barrage of bolts and arrows and closed into the ranks of the raiders. Our archer was almost killed, with less than 5 health remaining. So was the squire who was in the backrow.

But the steely resolve of the brothers held and decimated their ranks. We focused on their helmless compatriots first, killing them and demoralizing them, by focusing on the weakest members and killing them, we routed the more heavily armored soldiers. Seeing your men collapse around you is never good for morale, and even their leader started running. The mop up was a massacre.

But fortune’s favour was really upon us when we found a treasure in the fields of the fallen!

004

An amazing piece of armour! Who shall have it? The seniors draw lots…

Proudly wearing the Dragon’s Hide, the brother strutted around. Envious eyes turned upon our team even as the men basked in the admiration of the villagers.

It must have been the hubris that brought upon what came next.

We were walking on the roads when 3 groups of raiders surrounded us! Engaging the 1st group injured us more than usual. A lucky shot almost killed our archer, who seem to invite death just by breathing…

With his 4th permanent injury… he looks a horrible mess…

It is a testament to his will to survive that he can go through such punishment and still remain a useful member of our team!

But after clearing the 1st battle, we are still looking at 2 more groups of ambushers!

002

The captain ordered everyone hurt into reserves and ordered retreats… thus preserving the team.

With heavily injured members, there was no way the team could have limped off the map and survived. But the healthy teammates were able to make a dash to the edge of the battlefield and the brothers lived to fight another day.

Sounds like a close call - nice job holding it together!