If you’re just starting play, I’d suggest “Beginner” difficulty, even if you’re a veteran of other strategy games -- “Beginner” here just means pricing is more forgiving and you have a little more time to learn everything before encounter difficulty starts ramping up, but doesn't directly change any combat numbers. I’d also suggest picking “Noble War” as your first crisis (it’s uniquely skippable if you aren't ready yet, plus generally the easiest to deal with) and unchecking "Permanent Destruction" .

Don’t pick Ironman, or at least be aware that a lot of this guide will be a lot less applicable if you do. (I suspect that when the loading screen tells you that Ironman is "the way the game is meant to be played," there is an implied "after you have played it on standard difficulty a lot first.")


You can play on a randomly generated map or enter a seed. You want good traits on your starting bros and a good layout for trade (both of which are explained further below). There's an online ranked-voting database of BB map seeds here: https://bb.frukso.se/rated .


You literally can’t screw up the first fight (it’s scripted; your dudes can’t die). You’ll come out of that fight with three dudes (colloquially referred to as “Axebro”, “Shieldbro,” and “BowBro.”)

Save your game in case you screw up later.

Follow the quest prompt back to the first town, and you’ll be offered your first quest; take it. Your first job is recruiting and gearing up a new team. Don’t be afraid to scout some nearby towns for additional recruits instead of heading straight back; if there’s a nearby harbor, a boat trip for more fresh hands can be worthwhile (though remember the cost of getting back). Farmhands, Brawlers, and Wildmen tend to be good cheap recruits, but any profession can be decent, especially when you’re just starting out (for a more detailed guide to choosing and building recruits, see “Building Better Bros,” below).


Your recruits will come with some basic gear, but it’ll probably be crap, so you’ll have to buy some upgrades. I’d suggest militia spears, round wooden shields, “Surcoats” or “Gambesons” for body armor, and “Aketon” caps. You can save a bit of money by buying partially damaged versions (though you’ll need to buy Tools in town to keep everything repaired). Don't recruit more than about eight folks just yet; it's more important to focus on getting good gear for the guys you have first, and keeping a smaller group will also help your guys level up faster.

Once you have eight geared dudes, go try to pop the Weasel. This will probably be your first “real” fight.

Tips:

• Keep your melee guys in a line, with your crossbowman right behind them so he gets some cover from the frontliner’s shields.
  
  
• If you can, position your line so you have high ground and the enemies don’t.
  
  
• When the enemies are close, have your spearmen go into “spearwall” mode (special attack, #2), and with any luck hoggart’s thugs will all run onto your spears and kill themselves.
  
  
• You’ll probably outnumber them a bit, so try to surround them: each adjacent attacker gives a defense penalty.
  
  
• Your guys won’t have much armor, so be sure to use Shield Wall when adjacent to enemies, and stay next to each other for mutual support; it will make a huge difference in their survivability.

If you’re lucky and skilled, you’ll manage to get through the fight without anyone dying (but the game autosaves at the start of combat, so you can always reroll if you want).

After that, look for work.


Three ways to estimate quest difficulty: The skulls, the crown rewards, and the mission description. More on this below in a separate section. For now, don't take anything harder than a single skull until you have your guys fully loaded out with spears, shields, and aketon-or-better armor on head and body. Don't take anything over 1000 gold until you have 10+ dudes and 100+ durability armor, or you'll be outnumbered or outgeared or both.

As to mission decriptions, some enemies are harder than others. More on this below, but initially, focus on taking missions against bandits (Follow the Tracks and Retrieve My Stolen Thingy) if you can, as those will give the best loot. You *should* also be able to handle “terrorizes town” missions, which will usually pit you against wolves or Nazhrerers (ghouls). “Disturbed Graveyard” quests are risky but doable, and will be either against bandits or undead (ghouls or zombies). For now, you probably want to avoid quests against the Ancient Dead (“retrieve our artifact from ancient ruins”) as your spears will have a hard time against skeletons; save them for closer to Day 20 or so, once you have some flails and maces, and by then those missions will turn into a great way to harvest passable helmets.

By Day 10, you’ll hopefully have a few quests under your belt. Start looking for more recruits (and replace any losses). Aim for having twelve solid, well-equipped guys by Day 30 or so, but that’s more a guideline than a rule. Most of these you want to just be melee guys, but try to have 2-3 Bros with good (45+ and a star) ranged skill, and at least one Bro with a high (40+ and a star) resolve who will later become your Bannerman and Sergeant.

"Well equipped" for Day 30 means, roughly:

• Everyone in body armor and helmets with over 100 durability
  
• You're replacing round shields with kite shields (the ranged defense bonus is really important, and you get more total defensive points from a kite shield)
  
• You're replacing spears with flails (as you find them). The flail does almost twice as much damage as the spear does,the flail's basic "flail" attack ignores the enemy's shield bonus, and the flail's secondary "lash" attack automatically targets the head, which is both an automatic critical hit AND avoids damaging precious valuable enemy armor.

Once you have gear equivalent to the raiders you’re facing, you can start taking harder contracts. Try one of those undead quests (if only so you can loot a bunch of decent helmets).


From here on out, your job is getting ready for the first Crisis, but it's a marathon, not a sprint. It generally hits somewhere between day 70 and day 110, but the exact timing seems to depend on how aggressively you're playing (some players with very, very low Renown have reported it as late as day 200). When it hits, though, you need to be ready. A few general principles will help you prepare:

• Gear Before Recruits. Prioritize getting some quality armor. Reinforced Mail at 210 Durability and Scale Armor at 240 tend to be popular choices. Weapons come later (you'll almost certainly find all the weapons you need from loot, with the possible exception of two-handers).
  
• Work on expanding your roster so you have a few guys in reserve, to swap out when your main guys get too beat up. If you can, try to grab some better recruits than the odd lot of farmers you probably started with.
  
• Work on training up your bros and specializing them into particular roles. Make sure those roles fit together into an overall strategy.
  
• Git Gud. Seriously -- this game takes practice!

The rest of this guide should give you the info you need to get ready by crisis time. If (when) you run into problems, remember that this is a team management game, not an RPG. Nurture and protect your good recruits, but sometimes some Bros are gonna die; just make sure their deaths are a good trade towards your goals.

Towns and settlements will periodically generate Contracts for you to take. Completing them gives money, a Renown boost, and a reputation boost with the questgiver's faction; failing them causes a corresponding reputation loss.

As best anyone seems to have figured out, the game uses three things to calculate the *difficulty* range of quests you're offered in towns (and possibly the difficulty range of world map encounters also):

• The total number of Bros in your warband,
  
• Your Bro's average level,
  
• The calendar date (how many days have passed in your campaign).

No one except the devs seems to know what the actual formula is, but you'll note that the number of Bros in your warband is capped at 20, while levels and the calendar date aren't.

The result is that increasing your warband's size too fast can cause difficulty to spike really badly. If you recruit 20 new guys on Day 6, the game may think you're much stronger than you really are and overwhelm you. Conversely, you can also game the calculator a bit, and ensure you only get offered easier quests, by keeping your warband smaller.

You may have also noticed that party wealth or gear doesn't seem to be on that list. As far as I can figure out (if anyone has better info, please share), while you can't out-level or out-number the game's difficulty slider, you *can* out-gear it.

Importantly, your company's Renown level (visible by clicking on the wreath, handshake screen, top right) does not effect contract Difficulty, but does increase contract Rewards -- the better your reputation, the better offers you're made, basically. ( Source). So you can increase the rewards you get by stomping the accellerator on Renown as much as possible (the best way to do this is by chaining Ambitions, covered separately).

So by keeping your warband on the small side and growing slowly, but stomping the pedal on Renown, you maximize your difficulty/reward ratio. Similarly, by investing heavily in gear over new recruits, you maiximize the effectiveness of the Bros you have, improving that difficulty ratio further.

That said, keep your warband too small and your average level will spike, which can also throw off the calculator, but in a bad way. Plus, eventually, the character-level and calendar-date increments will catch up with you, you'll start seeing nothing but three-skull contracts, and the game will get hard enough that you really do need a reserve of levelled up troopers -- and when that point hits, you will want to have prepared for it.

So the overall best practice is to increase your warband steadily, but slowly. Add a new recruit every so often, but only when you have the gear to equip them and the crowns to support them. The important thing is pacing yourself: don't rush to a full warband just because you can: gear up first, then recruit.

*N.B.: Nobody seems to know what effects the date the first crisis hits, though, apart from Renown possibly being a factor. So keep that in mind too; stomp the pedal on Renown too hard, and the crisis may hit before you're ready. So, as with everything else, slow and steady may be best..


So each town will periodically generate quests for you based on the above criteria, within a degree of randomization. Once you're staring at a contract offer, how do you tell how hard it is likely to be?

The game gives you three ways to predict how hard a given contract will be: the skulls at the top of the quest offer screen, the crown reward offered, and the mission description.

Importantly, all three of these are predictive estimates, not actual descriptions of quest difficulty -- the game doesn't actually roll the actual quest battle until you click the final "Accept this Contract" button.

• 1st. The skulls at the top of the quest screen. The skulls give you a subjective estimate of about how hard the quest will probably be for you. 1 skull means relatively straightforward for you, two means there’s a bit of challenge, and three skulls means there's a very good chance you will find it extremely difficult. Don't take anything harder than a single skull until you have your guys fully loaded out with spears, shields, and aketon-or-better armor on head and body -- remember, the calculator seems to not look at your gear, just your numbers and levels, so if your gear is sub-par, things will be extra hard.
  
  
• 2nd. The crown rewards. The crown rewards give you a fairly objective measure of how hard the quest is period. Higher crown rewards generally means higher difficulty -- either more enemies or harder ones. Under 600 crowns, it's probably going to be basic bandit thugs,Weidergangers (Zombies), or something else fairly straightforward. Over 1000 gold, and you’ll be facing large numbers or enemies with middle-tier gear, so you’ll have to be more careful. Three skulls and 2k+ rewards will kill you in the early game; don’t take them until you're solidly into the mid-game and have a fairly well-established, well-armed company, and even there be prepared for real danger.
  
  
• 3rd. The mission description; some enemies are harder than others. Knowing which to take and which to avoid depends on what you're ready for, how your company is built, and your overall situation. You can find a general list of all the contract mission descriptions here: http://battlebrothers.wikia.com/wiki/Contracts
  
  A few things to be wary of in the early game:
  
  
  • Don't take any contracts against Orcs until you have very solid gear across your whole band, especially armor, and have a reliable way of breaking through tough defenses (daggers, crossbows, warhammers, flails).
    
    
  • Similarly, be wary of contracts against Goblins if you don't have strong ranged defenses (kite shields) and good mobility (pathfinder or wardogs).
    
    
  • Be careful of contracts to secure Cemetaries or retrieve objects from Ancient Ruins until you have a Sergeant, as undead can cause real problems for early-game morale.
    
    
  • Be wary of Escort Caravan or Deliver Package missions, because they'll make time pass but may not give you any combat experience or loot -- as per above, too much of that can throw the game's quest calculator out of whack.Plus, you have to pay salaries that whole time; it's perfectly possible to lose money on a transport contract if your salaries are too high. That said, there's plenty of wiggle room here, so if you've cleared all the quests out of an area, these can be a good way to get paid to go somewhere else you were going to head to anyway.

You can always try to haggle for a higher contract price. You can always get away with asking once; after that, you risk losing the contract entirely (the game will give you dialogue clues as to how angry the quest giver is, but there's a random element).

The downside is that haggling can (slightly) reduce your Reputation with the questgiver's faction, which will impact local prices, so probably a long-term bad move if you plan on doing any shopping there.

In short, the best strategy appears to be: haggle when you're out of your home zone and/or there aren't any good local shops. In your home zone by the good armorer, don't.

The first, and most obvious, way people lose the game is on the battlefield. Behind that loss, though, there’s usually a second failure: a failure to pay enough attention to the game’s economics. Fall behind on the money curve, and your company will find itself unable to afford the gear for safe victories, the supplies to keep fighting, or the recruits to replace losses. In this section, we’ll cover how to squeeze the most out of each Crown like the money-grubbing mercenary you are.

Your primary source of revenue will be quests, but proper exploitation of the economy will let you double that basic revenue over and over again, until cash stops being a limiting factor on your Company’s capabilities.


Four, possibly five, things effect town prices:

• The type of town (village, citadel, "large city", etc.) BIgger cities have higher prices, both for buying and selling; everything's cheaper in the villages.
  
  
• The town's world-map buildings. These effect what the town has for sale and how much it costs. A town with a "workshop" will sell tools much more cheaply, for example. .
  
  
• Your standing with the town. If they like you, you'll get better prices, and vice-versa. (If the town has both a local and House faction, it appears to use best-of).
  
  
• The town's recent events (visible in the top right corner when in town screen). A town in "High Spirits" will give you better prices on everything. Importantly, a town with "Ambushed Trade Routes" will have dramatically higher prices on both buying and selling.
  
  
• There may be a small additional day-to-day randomization element.

One good trick to estimate the return rate you’re being offered in a particular town is to keep a standard round wooden shield in your inventory. It's "base" value is exactly 100 crowns, so the price will tell you what percentage the town is offering on sold gear (armor and weapons). You want better than 15%; you'll sometimes get over 20% with good faction standing and/or special events like Ambushed Trade Routes; highest I've seen was 26% with both Allied faction and ambushed trade.


Some towns have special "trade good" buildings; those towns will sell limited amounts of those goods (and will offer to buy them for much less -- it's hard to profit selling lumber in a forest). Those trade goods (Gems, Dyes, Salt, Furs, Amber, Copper, Lumber, Cloth, Peat, in approximately that order of value) don’t have penalties to their resale value in the way that used or looted gear does. So one good way to make a lot of money very quickly is to find a village that sells valuable trade goods (dyes, gems, salt), get a good reputation in that village and/or with that village’s faction, buy all their trade goods at low prices, travel to a large city that has ambushed trade routes, and resell everything -- it's surprisingly easy to make 5k+ crowns per trip if you can get the stars to align.

For this reason, it can often be a good idea to *not* complete the bandit quest that’s keeping a large city locked into Ambushed Trade Routes -- long term, the increased trade revenue is worth far more!

Trading successfully is much easier if your map seed has a good trading route, with lots of trade buildings; OYTDZXDZSO is currently oneexample of a strong trading map.

You don't have to wait for "perfect" prices to make a profit; as long as you're buying in a village, have positive rep in the village, and the village doesn't have any negative events, the resale price on trade goods should be higher in a major city.



The downside of trading is that any trip you make just for trading doesn’t come with a quest reward. If you consider that each quest takes (on average) about a day of game time, each day you spend travelling around with no quest is a day you’ve lost five hundred to a thousand crowns in foregone quest rewards (not to mention lost experience, loot, etc.) Spend all your time trading, and none fighting, and when the crisis hits you’ll be a Company of fat merchants, rich but under-levelled.

So don’t just trade. Trade as you work. Look for quests first, then buy trade goods when quests take you through a particular town. If you see enemy camps or wandering monsters nearby, and you can fight them, do so -- if you don’t, you’re leaving experience and loot on the table. Meanwhile, wherever you go, just keep a "trading reserve" of a few thousand crowns, so that you always have enough to buy the trade goods as they come available in the towns you pass through. Resell as you hit cities with high prices, and roll it forward.


You'll notice you need to buy four different types of basic supplies to keep everyone going: food, tools, ammunition, and medical. The prices on all of these vary greatly from town to town, so it pays to hunt for bargains and stockpile when you find a good deal. Everything's cheaper in villages; past that,

• Tools are cheaper in towns with workshops.
  
  
• Food types vary greatly by town buildings. Each stack of food gives 25 units; the price
  variation mostly has to do with how long it will stay fresh and/or use as a trade good. There is a positive mood event that can fire if your band has a wide variety of food, though.
  
  
• Ammunition will be cheapest in towns with a fletcher or an arrowmaker's hut.
  
  
• Medications are generally cheapest in villages with a Herbalists's Grove.

The biggest single purchases you’re going to be making are for high-end gear. By the time the crisis hits, at day 80 or so, you will probably want to aim for:

• Scale armor or better on your two-handers; Reinforced Mail or better on your shieldcarriers; chainmail or equivalent on your archers.
  
  
• Two to four top-tier two-handers (Greatswords, 2hHammers).
  
  
• War Bows or better on your archers.

You might be able to loot some of that off of bandit leaders or other rare enemies, but most of it, you’ll need to buy. And that will take a lot of money, unless you plan accordingly. A few strategies that will help:

• Make friends with the armorer and weaponsmith. Look over your map, and try to find a city or two that has a weaponsmith, armorer, and “Ore Smelter”, “Blast Furnace,” and/or “Surface Iron Vein” as attached buildings (visible on the world map). Try to focus on running quests for that city and that city’s faction; raising your status to “Allied” can reduce prices on gear by over a third, which really adds up when you’re buying eight sets of three-thousand-crown armor.
  
  
• Similarly, look for a forest town with an “Arrow Maker’s Shed,” this will be a good place to resupply on arrows, and will also be a good place to buy whatever bows you need.

Your other big expense is going to be fresh meat -- in the form of new recruits and soldier salaries. Mostly this was covered above, under "Building Better Bros: Backgrounds," but there's an economic side to it too.

Each new recruit has a recruiting cost (and a salary). Higher level recruits will cost more, but most of the cost is their equipment. There's no guarantee that a high-priced recruit will have good stats and traits, but sometimes you can get high end gear like Greatswords and Scale Armor at a relative discount by recruiting a newbie with topflight gear.

Keep an eye on salaries; the cost for a full company of 20 mercs really can add up. Swordmasters demand the highest daily salaries, followed by Sellswords, Hedge Knights, Raiders, Adventurous Nobles, and then Squires and Disowned Nobles, in approximately that order.

If you aren't seeing any good recruits, you can force turnover. Buy out all the cheap folks in a town and come back later.

Ambitions

From time to time the game will give you a chance to choose your next Ambition. Completing these raises your Renown, which the game uses to calculate quest rewards. It will also give a huge morale boost, and sometimes more material rewards as well.You can find a list of all the ambitions here:

http://battlebrothers.wikia.com/wiki/Ambitions

A few of these will be available right from the start, and the rest will be somewhat randomized. As a general rule of thumb, I'd suggest prioritizing the first few ambitions in roughly this order:

• "We need allies. Forging a bond of friendship and trust. . . . ". This just means achieving "Friendly" status with a town or village, which you can do by successfully completing two quests in a row for that town. Bargaining for a higher quest payout or waiting a long time can cause your faction status to decline, so don't bargain, and try to knock this out quick. If you can, raise your status with a town that has good shops and/or trade goods, to maximize the long-term benefit.
  
  
• "The soles of your feet are itchy for the open road. . . " Visit every town. Depending on the map, this can be either very easy or a real pain. Still, it can be "missed" if you no longer have 3 unvisited towns left, so you might as well knock it out now, especially since you want to wait a bit before #3. If your map is really hard to travel around or doesn't have many ports, though, consider just skipping it.
  
  
• "We need a battle standard . . so we shall gather 2,000 crowns for this". You'll only spend 1,000 on the banner -- the game is just making sure you have a buffer to afford it. The banner is basically a pike that gives a morale bonus to everyone around the banner carrier; it's very useful against undead and worth grabbing, plus it looks cool. This is a good goal in the early to middle game -- between day 20 and 30 or so. While you're saving up, pick a guy with 45+ resolve to be your Sergeant, so you can have someone to carry the thing; he will need the Fortified Mind and Rally the Troops perks
  
  
• ". . .I shall name a Sergeant . . ." This lets you name a dude your Sergeant by choosing the Rally the Troops perk for him; if he doesn't have a title, he'll get "The Sergeant", and you'll get a Sash item that gives +10 resolve when worn. You can pick the Rally the Troops perk even before you get this Ambition -- it'll just insta-resolve if you do, and you'll still get the sash.
  
  
• "We shall get the company strength back to a dozen men!". You don't want to hit this number before about day 20-30 or so, because even if you play very intelligently it'll take you that long to be able to afford enough gear to properly equip that many dudes, and due to scaling, salaries, gear costs, etc., there's some advantages to keeping your band small. So it's a good one to pick 3rd or 4th or even 5th.
  
  
• "Catch the eye of one of the Noble Houses . . ." This is the first of the reputation-based Ambitions and you should choose it as soon as your Renown gets close to around 1,000; the advanced contracts are a lot more lucrative and also make the map much easier to travel (as you don't have to travel as far to find quests). If you're having trouble figuring out your Renown, click the handshake symbol in the top right, then hover your cursor over the wreath symbol.

Past that, the options are a lot more randomized, and the rewards are generally less important. A few ambitions to look out for:

• "We can barely carry any more equipment or spoils of war. Let us save up 7,500 crowns to buy us a cart. . . " You spend 5,000 crowns for a cart that lets you carry more loot, which is really helpful -- you go from base stash size of 90, up to 117. If you have a Caravan Hand bro, you can trigger a further event that will expand your cart's capacity permanently (to 128).
  
  
• "Great Explorers become men of legend. .. . " One of the easiest advanced ambitions, all you have to do is find 8 hidden camps -- not fight, just find. An easy pick that just takes a little wandering. If you don't mind waiting a bit, use this to find goblin, orc, and undead camps, then tackle the ambitions to defeat those camp types later.
  
  
• "Defeat a group of [x] opponents": First one is 12, next is 24. It can be a little challenging to find large groups of enemies sometimes; try raiding camps, or getting the attention of one group and leading them onto another, so that you fight both at once -- six dire wolves and six bandit thugs at once in the same fight will count for the "twelve opponents" goal, for example.
  
  
• "Reach (______) renown" . Be careful picking these because raising your renown takes a while and hitting Ambitions is one of the best ways to do it, so picking this is somewhat counterproductive. Wait till you're close to the listed Renown level anyway, so you don't have to wait long.
  
  
• "Outfit a contingent of at least three men with heavy armor": This is a good goal practically speaking but the game requires three 230+ durability body armors AND three 230+ durability helms, which can require an extremely expensive outlay if you pick it too early. Wait till you have pretty good armor already.
  
  
• "Famed Equipment" -- The easy, dumb way to find these is buying them at Armorers, Weaponsmiths, and Fletchers, but they're crazy expensive. The cheap, smart way takes more effort; buy rounds in Taverns and listen to the rumours. It takes a bit of triangulation and travel from Tavern to Tavern but you can track down named unique items this way; just be ready for a fight when you find them!
  
  
• "Mastery Perk" -- Depends. Do you want X number of guys on your team to have that weapon mastery? If not, put it off; having the team you want is more important than checking Ambitions off the list.
  
  
• "Destroy [Goblin][Orc][Undead] Camps" -- you have to find and destroy four camps of the chosen type, which can take a little doing. Completing each of these gives a trinket reward though, so they're worth it, especially if you're prepping for the endgame crisis. Goblin trinket gives root immunity, Orc trinket gives stun immunity, Undead trinket gives immunity to fear and mind control.

• Reach allied faction with Noble House -- this is a good one to grab before the Noble War starts, as that'll make it very easy in terms of timing. Rewards are nice too -- a decorated special helm, a suit of factional mail armor that's one of the best in the game in terms of fatigue ratio, and four factional shields (two kites, two heaters).
  
  
  When to Skip
  
  The game will also give you an option to "not choose an ambition." Pick that, and you'll have to wait 8-10 days before being offered a new ambition to work on. Only pick this if all the presented options are things you're not planning on doing any time soon (i.e., none of your recruits are going be taking Hammer Mastery in the next few levels).
  
  
  When to Cancel
  
  You can Cancel ambitions by right-clicking over the trophy on the top left of the world map screen. This does result in a mood hit for some of your guys. Only do it if you're genuinely stuck on an ambition -- it'll almost always be faster to just power through.

Battle Brothers is not a forgiving game, and a moment of carelessness can get someone killed even in an experienced warband. There are a few general things you can do to maximize your warband's effectiveness, though: use the terrain, make sure your Bros support each other, and exploit morale.


When combat starts, a tactical map will pop up, based on the terrain type you were standing in on the world map when combat began (snow, swamp, plains, mountains, forest, etc). First thing to do, pause for a moment, and take a good long look at the terrain you're fighting in. It matters.

There's a 10% +/- additive difference in hit chance for every z-level you are above / below a target, and an additional +/- chance at a critical hit (headshot). Melee weapons have a limited reach of two z-levels, but bows and crossbows can benefit hugely from taking the high ground (and get added range as well).

If you can find a long stretch of raised terrain, positioning your men along that line will give them *greatly* enhanced attack and defense stats relative to their attackers. This is especially useful in the early game; you may not have fancy armor or gear or a lot of levels, but you can still have the high ground.

In marshes, there's no raised terrain, but there is swampy water; don't fight in it, it gives a -25% penalty to just about everything if you're standing in it. If at all possible, form a defensive line along firm ground, and force your enemies to stand in the muck.

Terrain features like trees and rocks can also be useful, because they provide cover for incoming missile fire (but only if you're adjacent to said rock or tree, and it's directly between you and the archer).

Finally, and you won't always have this opportunity, learn to control approaches and choke points. Especially in forest and mountain maps, clumps of trees and rocks or sheer cliffsides will often mean that there are very limited paths between your guys and the enemy. Where possible, seize those choke points, and set your Bros up so that any enemies coming through those choke points get hit with 2-1 or 3-1 odds. Even without a choke point though, terrain features like cliffs and trees can be useful to anchor your flanks, so that the enemy has to travel that much further to surround your formation.

Below are two screenshots of a fight along a road in the swamp that brings all this together. Note that this is with a fairly young Company whose Bros don't have much fancy gear yet.

In the first (left), our guys are in a bad position. We're bunched up on the road, only three Bros on the front line are standing on solid ground, we're in three ranks so the archers can't support the front line, and the position just doesn't give us any advantage. In the second (right), we've made a tactical, organized retreat to more solid ground (that's why we all took Pathfinder!). Every Bro is on solid ground, and the brigands have gotten stretched out chasing us (some of them didn't take Pathfinder!). Archers and pikeman are immediately behind the front rank for supporting attacks. The road operates as a "soft" choke point , because there are only two blocks of solid ground where the enemy can stand to attack us -- every other hex is murky water and will penalize them.
Note that if I'd been *really* smart, I'd have carefully backed up one more tile, surrounding the exit of the choke point, rather than just blockading it.


Many enemies have strong enough AI that they won't just charge right into your defended, optimally selected terrain position -- unless you force them to by showering them in ranged fire. Sniping enemy ranged units can force the rest of them into making a charge.


The first, basic formation is just keeping your shieldbearers in a line next to each other. There are a lot of reasons for this, some mechanical, some strategic.

Firstly, there's a gang-up bonus for each additional attacker surrounding a given target. Keeping your guys close together helps take advantage of that. Conversely, though, the same mechanic is a danger -- you can also look at it as a defensive penalty for every attacker adjacent to you. Keeping your shield carriers in a tight formation makes it harder for them to get surrounded, and prevents that defense penalty from stacking too high.

Adjacent ShieldBros can support each other, whether by focusing attacks on the same enemy or by using their shield bash (#3 key) to push enemies away from an injured Bro so the injured Bro can make his escape.Keeping close together also helps you use the "Rotation" perk, whether to bring fresh troops into position or to rotate in and replace someone who's injured.

For ShieldBros specifically, the "shieldwall" skill gives added benefit for each adjacent character using shieldwall, and it stacks cumulatively. It has a high fatigue cost, so you don't want to use it until you've closed with the enemy, but its extremely effective at keeping the Bro using it safe (unless, of course, Bro's attacker has a flail, or an axe -- prioritize those enemies!)

Finally, for archers or polearm users, a shieldbearing Bro *directly* in front of them provides cover from incoming missile fire (and if the Bro's shield bonus blocks the arrow, nobody's hurt). Archers can also fire "through" one tile's worth of allies safely (further back, and there is a risk of friendly fire). So keep your archers directly behind your shieldwall, and they'll both be protected by the frontliner's shields, and able to provide supporting fire against front-line targets.


Morale makes a huge difference. Notice all those little flags? A bright blue flag means that character is "confident" and has a 10% (multiplicative) bonus to melee and ranged attack and defense scores (all four!). A tiny little white flag means a 10% penalty, while a big flying white flag means a 30% penalty AND they panic and start trying to run away -- which usually means they get hit with a lot of free attacks, due to the Zones of Control mechanic.

Not all enemies have morale (undead don't), but your band always does, so keeping your own morale up, by raising your Bro's Mood, always helps. There are a few different ways to do this; but the primary ones are:

• Don't let Bros waste in reserve. Rotate them in and out so they don't feel forgotten.
  
• Use the taverns. If you can afford it, buy your guys a round or two in every town. It's worth it to keep everyone happy.
  
• Hit Ambitions regularly. This is easier in the early game, especially if you chain them intelligently (see Ambitions section of this guide).
  
• Learn the world map events. This comes through play experience, mostly, but a lot of them can really boost your company's morale (especially ones sparked by Jester and Minstrel recruits).

For enemies that do have morale, learn to use it to your advantage:

• Morale tends to "break" in clusters, so focus attacks on enemies that are already showing the little white flags, to turn them into big white flags. Try to start a failure cascade.
  
• Big white flags are already running, so they're low priority targets.
  
• If you're standing next to a bunch of big white flags, that's a good time to pop Recover; you'll still get the free attacks.

-- You can't move through the red hexes around an enemy without giving them free attacks (same principle applies to them too)
-- You can use this to lock down areas
-- if you need to retreat a guy, it's not safe to just move him back; if you can, clear the enemy's zone of control first, by killing or pushing the enemy away so your injured Bro has a safe retreat.

One of the hardest things to figure out initially is what stats are "good" and what stats are "bad" -- is a melee skill of 50 bad? What about a Ranged Defense of 15? How much initiative is enough? Is fatigue important? How much Resolve do you need?

The short, oversimplified answer is that most stats have thresholds past which you see diminishing returns, but it's rarely a complete waste to raise any stat a little further.

For a normal game on Beginner or Veteran, for builds maxing at 11th level, those thresholds are approximately as follows, depending:

• Health: You want 60+/70+ to avoid getting oneshotted. Below 60, and especially below 50, bros will just keep getting killed, and even if you’re reloading, that’s wasted time. Higher than 80-100 or so, though, standard brawny/battleforged builds are probably either wasting upgrades, or not wearing good enough armor (due to the injury mechanic, most builds don't want to health-tank damage if it's avoidable). The exceptions here are dedicated "health tank" Colossus + Nimble builds, which want to stack health as high as they can (115+ for a frontliner).
  
  
• Fatigue: You want most bros to have 100+ here when you recruit them. Higher is better, almost without limit. Any gear you wear or carry reduces your Fatigue stat, and as it gets lower, you'll find yourself flopping around in combat too tired to do anything. One of the most common newbie mistakes is not advancing Fatigue often enough -- you want to be aiming for ~135 base fatigue on any endgame Bro, because you'll need it to wear endgame gear loadouts and still do anything. Over 145+ or so you start seeing diminishing returns, though (armor only gets so heavy).
  
  
• Resolve: You will need at least one Bro with maxed-out resolve, to be your Sergeant/Bannerman. Otherwise, for your front line and flankers you want to aim for between 40 and 50 or so minimum, which is enough to avoid breaking morale most of the time against most non-supernatural enemies (the rest of the time is why you have the Sergeant). You can usually get away with a little less on your backline but only because it's generally safer for them to try running away. On the other hand, some enemies have special attacks that trigger very difficult Resolve checks, so in the late-game it's not a bad idea to take it higher.
  
  
• Initiative: This doesn't matter too much for your standard melee bros, because the fatigue penalty from their gear is going to reduce their initiative enough that they'll be going last anyway. If you're building around the Dodge or Overwhelm perks though you want to pump this as high as you can. Over ~70 (after gear) will mean you move before most undead. Human enemies range from 100 to 125, goblins are 120-140, and wolves and spiders are 140-150.
  
  
• Melee Skill: this # is your base percentage chance to hit with melee weapons. A Bro with 50% melee skill has a 50% chance to hit with any melee weapon. Bros who start out sub-50% here will likely never be able to hit anybody in melee. If you're attacking with a melee weapon at all, more of this is better (but it may be less of a priority than you'd think for purely defensive Bros). There is a max hit chance of 95%, but debuffs, bad morale, terrain, and enemy defenses can penalize your score here, so taking it above 100 isn't a waste.
  
  
• Ranged Skill: this # is your base percentage chance to hit with ranged weapons (bows, crossbows, thrown). You want your archers to have 40+ to 45+ here base at first level, with stars, which is about as good as you can hope for from most backgrounds; higher is better (same max hit chance of 95% applies).
  
  
• Melee Defense: This # is subtracted from the Melee Skill of anyone who attacks you. 0 is normal. Starting values of 10+ are *great*. At 45+ there are diminishing returns due to under-the-hood game formulae. Important for any frontliner; aim for 20-30 for endgame melee builds, more if not using a shield.
  
  
• Ranged Defense: Ditto, but for ranged. Again, 0 is normal, anything over 10 is great. Good for ranged builds. Melee builds generally ignore this, either using a kite shield or shrugging off the damage with armor.

Your first level-up is confusing: what are all these numbers? Is a 3 good? What do the stars by some of my guy’s stats mean? How do I know which rolls are keepers and which aren’t?

Below is a picture of the “max rolls” a base Bro can get in each stat at level-up. It turns out, the game rolls a 1d3 for each stat (health, fatigue, resolve and ranged skill get a +1 bonus to the roll; Initiative gets a +2). So a +3 to Melee Defense is a “max roll”, as is a +4 to Fatigue or a +5 to initiative.



What about those stars, though? It's best to think of the stars as a way for mediocre Bros to redeem themselves.

Each bro will have 1-3 stars in each of three randomly chosen stats. One or two stars in a stat mean the bro is more likely to get a “max roll” on levelup, while three stars mean the bro actually gets +1 overall and can have a higher max (i.e., a bro with three stars in melee defense can get a +4 sometimes; a bro with three stars in initiative can sometimes get +6). More precisely, one star means the Bro is rolling 1d2+1 instead of rolling 1d3, two stars mean they will always get a “max roll,” and three stars replaces the 1d3 roll with a 1d2+2 roll (so a Bro with three stars in initiative will always get either +5 or +6).

In short, effectively, each star gives about a half-point per levelup, so you can think of each star as a potential +5 to that stat by level 11. Another way of looking at these numbers: if a Bro raises Melee Attack every level-up, he'll gain on average 20 points between level 2 and level 11 if he has no stars, 25 if he has one star, 30 if he has two stars, and 35 if he has three.


The traits are fairly well explained in-game, and there's not much you can do to control them anyway short of hacking, so this section will be fairly short. You can find a detailed list of the traits here: http://battlebrothers.wikia.com/wiki/Traits

Generally speaking, the traits that give flat bonuses, especially to fatigue (Strong, Iron Lung) are the "best", ones that give penalties are to be avoided (a Bro with "Asthmatic" is almost irredeemable regardless of any other stats). A few interactions that may not be immediately obvious:

• "Paranoid" is generally a great trade despite the penalty; initiative is usually a dump stat.
  
• Some negative traits -- "Ailing," "Fear of [monster]," etc -- can potentially be removed by rare world map events.
  
• "Tiny" is great on an archer, horrible on a frontliner.
  
• "Huge" is great on a backline polearm, not as good on a frontliner unless they can make up the defensive loss with great stats.
  
• Similarly, "Drunk" is amazing on a high-skill Bro that can make up the to-hit penalty.
  
• "Craven" and "Disloyal" aren't as bad as they seem, since that Bro won't mind being in reserve, which can really help with managing morale.
  
• "Eagle Eye" will let archers wear much heavier, vision-restricting armor on their head and still use their bows at maximum range.
  
• "Determined" is, if you're managing morale well, a 10% boost to most everything, roughly half the time. Especially good on ranged units due to the way the game calculates morale boosting checks.

Some traits may trigger world map events[battlebrothers.fandom.com] or give extra dialogue options; for example, "Drunk" will sometimes make you lose a random stash item, and "Brute" will sometimes cause problems in towns.

Every Bro has a background, which sets a min/max range for the character's starting stats. These stat ranges matter: there is a huge difference between adding 20 points to a juggler's starting melee skill of 45, and adding 20 points to a Hedge Knight's starting melee skill of 65.

You'll find different types of recruits in different locations around the map. Farmhands can be found in most villages; fishermen in coastal settlements. Hunters, Poachers, Bowyers, and Wild Men come from the forests, cultists and Witch Hunters are more likely to be found in swamps. Houndmasters show up near Kennels. Almost anyone can be found in the large cities; Hedge Knights, sellswords, and other top-end military recruits are most common in Citadels and the big castles.

Because of the way the game calculates salaries, you do not want too many expensive recruits; you're far better off building your company, not buying it.

You can find fairly detailed breakdowns of the stats distributions by Bro Background on the wiki : https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Character_Backgrounds

From that, it turns out a good farmhand can have surprisingly good stat totals, as can Brawlers and Wildmen. Militia and Squires are usually good at something and fairly well priced. At the top end, Sellswords are fairly consistently strong, while Hedge Knights are a bit of a gamble -- they can be amazing but they can also end up underperforming a bit relative to their cost and salary.

The raw stat totals aren't everything, though -- stat distribution matters too. Depending on what role your band needs, you'll want to prioritize certain recruit backgrounds.

• For archers: Hunters, and to a lesser extent Witch Hunters, start with much higher Ranged Offense than most other backgrounds, so a three-ranged-star Hunter is likely to be a better archer than almost any other Bro you'll find. Similarly, Bowyers and Poachers are both cheap ranged backgrounds, but Poachers are more consistent and have solid initiative as well, which is important for archers.
  
  
• Houndmasters, Thieves, and Messengers tend to have good defensive stats and often have good potential to become solid two-hander berserkers once leveled up. (Hedge Knights do too, but are often prohibitively expensive).
  
  
• Farmers, Wildmen, and Lumberjacks can have high base Fatigue and thus may be very well suited to front-line shield tanking.
  
  
• Monks, Flagellants, Cultists, and Witch Hunters tend to have high Resolve and often have potential to make good Sergeants.

Some backgrounds also give special benefits:

• Masons, Apprentices, and Historians get a +5%, +10%, and +15% exp bonus, respectively. Wildmen get a -15% experience penalty.
  
• Jugglers get a +5% chance to hit the enemy's head, Killers on the Run a +10%.
  
• Brawlers get a (useless) bonus to unarmed combat.
  
• Witchhunters get a +20 resolve bonus vs. the undead (excellent in a Sergeant, but does not transfer through the banner).
  
• Houndmasters get a boost to doggy morale.
  
• Deserters and Cripples have no mood & morale penalty for staying in reserve.

Many backgrounds also have the potential to trigger special world events (some positive, some negative).Here's a partial list of the ones worth knowing about in advance:

• Cultists may help trigger an event that gives a legendary helmet, and another that gives a legendary armor, but which may require a . . . sacrifice . . . in return.
  
• Cultists can also sometimes give an option to convert other Bros into cultists, which will not change underlying stats, so great if it's a wildman, not so great if it's a Historian.
  
• Bowyers sometimes get a special event that crafts a masterwork bow (if you have lumber and 250+ crowns in inventory).
  
• Caravan Hands can upgrade your cart, once you have a cart, to let you carry more loot.
  
• Houndmasters will sometimes recruit a wolf pet that acts like a (unarmored) dog but makes wolf noises.
  
• The Historian and Thief can help you find the Black Monolith, a special location that can give unique legendary loot.
  
• Witch Hunters will sometimes turn nachzehrer teeth into poison antidote.
  
• Swordmasters, Retired Soldiers, Hedge Knights, and Brawlers can sometimes teach your other recruits and give them stat bonuses.
  
• Minstrels and Jesters sometimes give events that can raise party mood and morale.
  
• Hedge Knights may battle each other if you have more than one in the party; one will probably die.
  
• Monks have options to resolve a number of world events more positively (and can keep the Hedge Knights from fighting)

Your New Model Army

Once you’ve looked at your recruit’s basic stats and stars, you can plan out how you’re going to build their perks (presuming they live that long). There are a lot of different ways to do this, and it can be hard to figure out which perks to take in which order and which Bros are best suited for which roles.

In this section, I'll go over Bro Builds for basic roles in your warband, and and a decision template to help you choose Bros for each role. These aren't so much "the best" builds as they are workhorse plans designed to help make the best of the Bros you find and avoid making any major character building mistakes.

The template at the top of this section can be used as a quick-reference level up guide during play. I'll explain the reasoning behind the template in more detail below. Short version:

• Generalist perks first, specialist perks later, when you have more of a clue.
  
• Keep anyone who starts with a base Fatigue of 100 or better.
  
• Everyone takes Student and maybe Pathfinder right off. Then they specialize.
  
• Pick one dude who has 50+ Resolve and 50+ Melee Attack (ideally, with stars)as your sergeant.
  
• If a new recruit has 40+ Ranged Attack with stars, they'll be a good archer.
  
• Everyone else grabs a shield and gets thrown into the front lines.

1st: I like to have everyone take Student at their first level-up. This is probably the most debatable advice in this guide. Upside is, 1) it helps you unlock things (quests, high level perks) faster, and 2) it's a decision you don't have to think about too hard because there's little long term downside.

There is short term downside though. It is mathematically worse than Gifted till about 7th level, and you won't see that perk slot back till level 11 (if they live that long), so this is a long term call (and a better call the more you reload Bro deaths). If you decide to skip it, just take everything else a level earlier.

I generally also suggest that new players take Pathfinder at level 3 (2nd levelup). This will let you move everyone in formation without having to learn the movement cost rules, and is very useful in some specific late-game encounters. More advanced players may want to skip this or take it later, though -- you can work around not having it if you know what you’re doing.


At level four and up, perk choices start to specialize, and we decide if a bro is going into the front or back lines. The back is a little more finicky so we'll look at those bros first.

Archers:

You can make an archer out of anyone with some stars in ranged attack, but most backgrounds don’t usually have good base stats for it (the starting Xbow companion, Hunters, and Witch Hunters tend to be the best choices). Look for 40+ Ranged skill, with stars. They also take Student and Pathfinder and 2nd and 3rd level, but then change paths and take either Anticipation (stack ranged defense) or Colossus (stack HP) at 4th. Next is Bow Mastery at 5th (crossbows are more for hybrids or lowbies). Footwork and Nimble help you stay alive, then Berserk and then Killing Frenzy. Bullseye lets you snipe behind cover. Last two picks are flexible; Recover is useful for long fights, or grab the defensive perk you skipped earlier. Fearsome, Crippling Strikes, and Executioner are decent picks on archers who won’t fight many undead anyway.

Gear: Fairly light armor (no more than -15 total fatigue penalty between helm and torso), in order to keep your Initiative up and maximize Nimble. Watch the Vision penalty from heavier helmets, as that can limit your ability to shoot long distance targets.

Lancers & Sergeant:

You'll want at least one Bro with decent (50+) resolve and melee attack to be your Sergeant and wave the company Banner, which is basically a fancy pike. Ideally, you want someone with high Resolve and Melee Attack for this role. If you can't find a "perfect" Sergeant candidate, that's ok -- just take any bro with decent Resolve and make them one anyway. When you find a better candidate, train them as your primary and keep your original Sergeant as reserve. A 2nd backup Sergeant is worth having for certain undead fights or to rally your line if the primary is out of commission. The non-Sergeant, pure lancer variant brings extra lethality and can carry combat items you don't otherwise have room for (nets, potions, etc.)

Alternatively, A bro who has no good defensive stats at all, but just decent Matk and Ratk, can still be an effective backline lancer.This is a hybrid build designed to open with a crossbow for ranged superiority then shift to a polearm (or, for the Sergeant, the company banner) at close range, taking advantage of the to-hit bonus for pikes (10%) and crossbows (15%). Don't split your points too much -- even as a hybrid, try to specialize somewhat in either Melee or Ranged attack. Colossus/Nimble is recommended because you won't have the stats to spread around for Brawny/Battleforged. They have low defensive stats and thus will soak a lot of fire -- keep them close behind your shieldwall or terrain cover as much as possible. The last few picks are a bit open but Sergeants definitely want Recover, and possibly Adrenaline, to help keep the Rally going on long fights.



Everyone who isn't fit for the back lines trains for the front. A decent melee recruit has, at first level, decent (100+) starting naked max fatigue, a few points or stars in MDef, and, ideally, decent (50+) melee attack also, in roughly that order of priority.

This guide recommends taking seven core perks on all melee bros: Rotation (so you can save each other if a Bro is in trouble), Recover (useful early game, essential in late game), Brawny (essential to wear end-game gear), Battleforged (maximizes the effectiveness of end-game armor), Underdog (for survivability when outnumbered), Indomitable (as a panic button and for certain endgame encounters), and Adrenaline (for fancy tricks I’ll explain later). Bros with weak fatigue, but good base health, can take Colossus and Nimble instead of Brawny and Battleforged, but it usually isn't as optimal for frontliners.

That setup will take you through to level 10. At level 10, take your four top bros -- ideally, they should have over 75 MA, over 25 Mdef, and over 135 Fatigue -- and set them aside for berserkers. The rest become ShieldBros.

ShieldBros:

Shieldbros then take Shield Expertise and a Weapon Mastery. The two with the best fatigue and melee attack should take mace mastery, the two worst axe mastery. A couple of warhammer bros won't hurt either, and even a couple of spearbros can be useful. Bros who didn’t take Pathfinder or Adrenaline earlier can grab it now, or take Colossus or Fortified Mind if they have holes in their stats.

Gear: Armor-wise, try to get everyone in your shieldwall wearing heavy armor (210+ durability) as soon as possible -- otherwise they won't be able to stand up to crisis-level content. Most of the time I prefer kite shields for the ranged bonus but heater shields may be better for some encounters.


Berserkers:

Now back to your four berserkers. Your two best berserkers take Sword Mastery, grab greatswords, and are your heavy hitting damage dealers. The other two take Hammer Mastery and are versatile armor breakers, either getting up close and personal with the two-handed hammer or dropping polehammer hits on enemies from behind the shieldwall.

Gear: this build won't work at all with any armor weaker than Reinforced Chain (210 durability), or without Battleforged. Until then, keep them in the shieldwall. Ideally you want scale armor or heavier; the heavier you go, the less you need Ranged Defense.

There are a few other builds you'll see people discuss, but they're more specialized -- either they fill niche roles or require fairly specific stat setups or gear to make work. Most of these are kinda moving beyond the scope of this guide, but here are a few examples to get you started thinking outside the box.

Take a look at these builds if you have a recruit who doesn't fit neatly into any other box -- say, Bros with high initiative and melee but low ranged scores, or three stars in ranged offense but low base scores, or a massive health pool with no offense.


The first big block of specialty builds are the Overwhelm crew. Overwhelm is a powerful perk that lets you debuff the target's attack scores by 10% -- so long as you attack them first in the round. Importantly, unlike most other debuffs, nothing in the game is immune to Overwhelm -- so long as you go first, it always works. It also stacks with itself if you hit them multiple times, and lasts the rest of the round. As such, it's very effective on high-initiative builds, but useless otherwise.

The chart to the right sets out three effective Overwhelm builds.

The Overwhelm Archer replaces the standard archer. You'll need a recruit who has good base stats, and stars, in both Ranged Attack and Initiative -- this generally means a Hunter or Witch Hunter, rarely a poacher or bowyer. They stack Ranged Attack, Initiative, and Fatigue as high as possible; instead of Anticipation, Crippling Strike, and Executioner, they take Dodge, Overwhelm, and Relentless. Their role is counter-sniping -- doing unto enemy archers before they can do unto you. Also, unlike standard archers, they also can be effective vs. undead or highly armored enemies that can shrug off the arrows but not the Overwhelm.

The Warscythe Lancer replaces the standard lancer. They are not hybrids, but pure melee attackers, and require high melee attack, high initiative, and a Warscythe, a polearm that can attack in a three-hex-wide swing and which drops from Ancient Honor Guard undead. With Berserk, they can attack twice per round, for as many as six total attacks and five stacks of Overwhelm every round (depending on positioning etc). Extremely effective,they are also somewhat delicate and stat-intensive, so the level 11 choices depend on what stats need bolstering.

The Swordmaster is a build for when you've found that amazing famed named one-handed fencing sword or shamshir or whatever and want to go crazy with it. Again, you want high Matk and Init, but this time you want MDef also -- this is a stat hungry build. This build is excellent for the fencing sword; Recover / Adrenaline is for constant Riposte shenanigans, Crippling / Executioner is the build for going crazy with the Shamshir's Gash ability. Fencing Sword masters may take Recover instead of Footwork.

The final option in the Overwhelm Crew is the Dagger Assassin; build like the swordsman, but take Dagger Mastery; last two picks are Recover and Fast Adaptation; consider rotation instead of footwork. With dagger mastery, the basic attack takes only 3 AP, thus allowing three attacks (and three stacks of Overwhelm) per round (four with Berserk). Net result is that this is a build that excels at single-target dueling and will beat almost any enemy in the game 1v1 (the downside, of course, is that you can't always 1v1 in a battlefield).

(credit & play details for the dagger assassin build here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/63aq6x/troop_builds/ )


The next three builds are just examples of how to get creative with your bro-design.

The Torturer build is designed to take advantage of the new "whip" weapon, part of the Cleaver group. He needs a high Melee attack and a whip; Mdef and Fatigue and Health help. He sits in your back line and uses his whip to disarm attackers; once the enemy line is broken, he Rotates into the front, switches to a heavy cleaver (orc or khopesh), and does brutal damage -- potentially out-damaging a two-hander berserker, though more fragile due to the lack of Indomitable. He's a can opener, very effective at unlocking a number of difficult encounters (Geists, Alps, Hexen, Unholds) that can otherwise be almost excruciatingly difficult. A couple torturers are a great addition for handling DLC content.

The Headhunter is a good build if you have a Jester or Killer on the Run with great stats (as they have a bonus chance to hit the head) or a character with the Brute trait (does more damage on a hit to the head), or a particularly potent rare drop axe or flail. Again, though, like the Torturer, this is a bit of a glass cannon setup -- huge damage, but vulnerable due to lack of defensive perks. Crippling Strikes also interacts well with this build, as head injuries are particularly disabling (but of course won't matter against undead).

Finally, the Hurler is a good choice if you have either a famed / named throwing weapon, or a recruit who has multiple stars in Ranged Attack but relatively poor (30-40) base skill. The short range of throwing weapons means you don't need as much total accuracy to be effective; damage output can be very high. Importantly, with throwing axes, this build can be effective even against Ancient Dead, who are resistant to piercing damage and thus shrug off most other ranged weapons. You'll have to take Bags and Belts to carry multiple throwing weapons for a long fight, but that also adds some versatility in case you want to carry poisons, nets. etc. Downside is you *will* use up Ammunition at a much, much faster rate with this build than with other ranged attack builds.


The AI will usually target the Bro they have the best chance of hitting. It's possible to exploit this a bit by making a human meat wall, so long as your human meat wall has *relatively* less ranged defense than all your other bros. High fatigue and health are must-haves, obviously, as is decently high Resolve or the Death Wish trait (due to all the morale checks on health damage). Iron Jaw is obviously helpful also.

As to Perks, Steel Brow, Colossus, and Battle Forged are requirements. Recover, Taunt, Rotation, Brawny & Hold Out are worth consideration.

Wild Men tend to make good candidates for this build due to their high health stats and naturally slightly lower defenses. Because of the overlapping perks and gear choices, this build tends to combine well with Sergeant builds or with polearm support hybrid setups.

(credit to TheWetFish[forums.somethingawful.com])


Past the above, the game has a fair bit of room for experimentation. Review the section Perks, below and see if you get any ideas, or wait till you find a bro with good, weird stars and see if you can think of a creative use for him. If you make it work, it ain't dumb, and if you don't, well, there' are always more recruits in the next town!

You'll be much better off overall if you plan your team to work as a whole, rather than just a motley grab-bag of whatever you happen to find. You want to shape your team into a cohesive whole.

In this section, we’ll cover the building your company over the long term.


Once you’ve read the “Building Better Bros” section, above, you should have at least a rough idea of what you want to look for in new recruits. Briefly, you’re looking for:

• Bros with solid fatigue and melee defense, and some melee offense, for your front line (Perfect candidates will have Iron Lungs)
  
• Archers with solid ranged attack scores (ideal candidates will also have high Initiative)
  
• A pair of Sergeants with high Resolve and Melee Attack
  
• Optionally, a couple of Lancers with high MA and Initiative (Look for Huge and/or Drunk traits)
  
• Optionally, a few niche bros for whatever odd builds strike your fancy

You will not find all those dudes right away. That’s ok. A lot of your initial recruits are gonna die. Others you can fire as soon as you find someone with better potential. In the time leading up to your first, and perhaps even second, crisis, churn is good. Hire and fire and look for dudes with good stats, stars, and traits in the roles you need. It’s an expensive process but the earlier you can start it the better -- ultimately, time in the company translates into experience, so the earlier you find better recruits, the sooner they’ll be skilled veterans.

When you do find those new gold-star babies, nurture them! Keep an eye on your strong guys and be prepared to spend the lives of your weaker bros to protect the rare recruits with good potential. The AI will specifically target your Bros with the lowest defense scores, so it may be a good idea to keep a new recruit in the backline with heavy armor and a polearm for their first few levels, rather than right out front as an open target in the shieldwall.


One team setup that works pretty well for most of the game is:

• A "shieldwall" frontline of heavily defensive Bros (your shield tanks)
  
• A damage-dealing "backline" of archers or lancers
  
• Spearmen or two-hander berserker "wingmen" flankers on each side (spearmen defend the flanks and force the enemy AI to leap towards your center line; two-hander berserkers swing forward and flank the enemy).

Once you know which group each bro fits into, you'll be better able to specialize them (for example, shieldwall bros don't necessarily need good offense if their job is just to defend) and better able to guide recruiting ("sure, this new Hunter is a decent recruit, but do I really need another good archer?") .

If you’ll look back in the “Building Better Bros: Basic Builds” section, you’ll notice that the recommended New Model Army followed this outline: it ends up with about six shield wall bros, about six flankers (spearmen or berserkers), and a “backline” of about six lancers and archers (including your sergeant). Since you can only field twelve bros at any one time, a 6/6/6 spread makes sure you have two alternates available for each role.

You’ll also notice that a high melee attack score, while nice, is not required for your shield-wall front line, while the back line folks generally have a high attack score somewhere but weaker defenses, and the flankers need both.

The “New Model Army” is designed to work together and coordinate in a few other ways also.

• Everyone takes Student to maximize XP gain, with the goal of having as many top-level Bros as possible by the first crisis.
  
  
• Most everyone takes pathfinder, so that the team can move together in formation without having to worry about stragglers. Moving ahead faster than the rest of the team can be even worse than falling behind -- isolation is the enemy of teamwork.
  
  
• All the frontliners are in heavy armor, all the backline is in light armor with nimble. This means that, generally speaking, your backline will all go first, and then your frontline will go second. This makes safely moving to a strong map position a little easier, and also helps front-load your damage-dealing at the start of the round.
  
  
• Much of the backline has ranged *capability*, even if it’s just crossbows or whips -- the AI counts how much ranged offense it is facing, and ranged superiority can force the enemy to come towards your position.
  
  
• The half of your frontline with better MAtk scores take mace mastery, the other half take axe mastery.They work in tandem. Axemen carve up the enemy shieldwall (the “split shield” attack hits automatically), and then macemen stun or bash the now-shieldless enemy front line, rendering them soft and vulnerable to your backline damage-dealers. Other combos work well too -- axe and hammer, for example -- but you should also have some back-line polehammers, and axes and maces are broadly useful against everything including some specific DLC encounters (Schrats and the Kraken).
  
  
• All the front-liners or flankers take Rotation. That way, every bro can save themselves, and each other, without breaking the line or surrendering strong positions. Teamwork means mutual support.
  
  
• All front-liners or flankers take Indomitable. Many late game enemies (orc warriors, unholds, schrats, macemen) can knock your bros around or stun them into incapacity. If your front line is pushed aside, your backline will get carved up like the meat inside a lobster; Indomitable prevents that from happening.
  
  
• Your frontliners and your Berserkers all take Adrenaline. This has three uses. 1st., it lets them quickly move to seize and hold advantageous positions or chase fleeing enemies. 2nd., it lets them "charge" enemies and quickly attack again immediately, swarming enemies before they have a chance to react or counter-attack. 3rd, it lets them maintain their shieldwall, spearwall, or Indomitable by cycling Adrenaline and Recover (explained in the next section).

So why did all your shieldbros take Adrenaline? So they will never tire and never break. The mechanics of making that happen take a little explaining, though.

Turn order in each round is based on Initiative score, which is penalized by spent Fatigue. This means that, all else being equal, the lower a Bro’s remaining fatigue, the later he’ll go in the round. This is why you’ll often notice your bros going later and later in the turn as a battle progresses; they’re burning themselves out. At some point, often surprisingly early in the battle if they’re using active abilities like shieldwall or indomitable, they’ll tire out completely, and will need to use Recover.

Note, then, a few aspects of the game mechanics:

• Bros who need to take a Recover round are going to usually be going last or near-last in the turn order.
  
• Many defensive abilities (shieldwall, spearwall, and indomitable) all last until the Bro’s “next turn,” whenever that is in the turn order.
  
• Adrenaline takes 0 AP, and thus may be used in the same round as Recover (though you may need to uncheck “auto-end turns” in Options to make use of this).

If you want to keep an “until next turn” ability going as much as possible, then:

• Use it every turn until the Bro is exhausted and *must* Recover. On that turn, he should get full coverage from the ability against most enemy attacks, as his exhaustion will mean he goes last or near-last in the round.
  
• On that turn when you’re going last, pop Recover *and* Adrenaline.
  
• The Bro will then go first in the next round and can re-initiate shieldwall, spearwall, or indomitable before the enemy has a chance to act.

This strategy isn’t perfect. “Near last” isn’t always dead last, enemies can get exhausted also, and enemies who have Adrenaline themselves and weapons with Stagger can both mess up the timing.

The biggest challenge, though, is just fatigue: this strategy is extremely fatigue intensive and unless a Bro has very high max fatigue, they will fairly quickly find themselves locked in a cycle of alternating turns, unable to do anything other than use one skill once on the first turn and then Recover on the second. This is part of why a high Fatigue score is so essential on a frontliner -- ideally, you want a “working” max Fatigue of between 75 ( for axe split shield) and 95 (for mace stun) , after gear, so the bro can still take other actions on their active, non-recover turn. (Iron Lungs can lower those thresholds to 63 and 83, respectively).

(credit for this strategy goes here: https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Adrenaline_Junkie_Company )


The “model army” presented above is just one setup that happens to work with one kind of playstyle. It’s not “the best”, it just broadly functional and reasonably versatile. There’s no one single “best” company model, and there are plenty of other ways to configure your company.

Some people don’t like taking Student at all, because being short a perk in the early game makes those first few weeks much more difficult.

Some people find the flat HP bonus from Colossus more generally useful than the maneuverability boost from Pathfinder (especially if playing Ironman).

Some people find Adrenaline more useful than Pathfinder for seizing good positioning (but this requires a little more knowledge of the terrain rules).

Some prefer taking Fortified Mind on all frontliners just for the Resolve boost, which not only prevents routing, but also leads to higher overall morale and more morale bonuses.

Because some enemies do heavy damage to armor, a front rank of Colossus / Nimble tanks can be much more effective for some encounters than the Brawny / Battleforged builds suggested here, and also takes a lot less investment in armor to set up.

Some players have had success with teams of all-berserking two-handers, some with all-duelist teams. Some people like going in really heavily for nets or thrown weapons. How you put your team together is ultimately your call!

This section isn’t intended to tell you what each perk does by the numbers; that data is in the wiki: https://battlebrothers.fandom.com/wiki/Perks

This section is to tell you what perks I’ve found useful and which I haven’t, with a specific eye to the current (July 2019) state of the game.. Many players will disagree with these takes -- as always, I encourage you to read other guides as well, not just this one.

My general operating theory is that I prefer perks which give new tools over perks which just increase numbers -- all else being equal, because most stats have points of diminishing return, you’re usually better off finding a better bro with better base stats instead of wasting a perk slot on pure numbers. Still, every rule has exceptions.

So:


Fast Adaptation:

Increased chance to hit if you miss. Only useful to “fix” Bros with a poor to-hit chance. Don’t pick this; get a better Bro instead, one who can hit things the first time.

Crippling Strikes

Can be effective, especially if the whole party takes it or on builds which use high-damage weapons, but undead are immune to injuries, so that’s a third of the game where this is useless, making it generally deprecated. Can be useful on bow archers who generally aren’t used as frequently vs undead anyway.

Colossus

Pairs well with Nimble (Tier 7) for a "health tank" build.

Even if you aren't building a "health tank," many people feel this is worth taking on every Bro, routinely. I’m more skeptical; generally, a bro that *needs* this, you’re better off replacing with a better Bro with better base stats if you can. That said, on Ironman play this a must take. It also helps prevent injuries by raising the overall injury threshold. Always useful, but often other picks are more useful.

Nine Lives

In the abstract for some builds this will, on paper, be better that Colossus, but in practice it isn’t due to the injury threshold mechanic.

Bags and Belts

Very useful on Bros that have quick hands but often difficult to fit into builds. Worth having a guy or two with it to carry extra consumables -- nets, potions, etc.

Pathfinder

This is a great perk. For newbies, it’ll simplify the movement and terrain rules which helps a *lot* with the early game. At endgame, a number of endgame “boss fight” type encounters take place in terrain where Pathfinder becomes very useful. That said, it’s skippable if you know what you’re doing and don’t mind a bit of movement micromanagement.


Adrenaline

This is an extremely useful perk that has a lot of applications. The simplest is just attacking two turns in a row, quickly, in a charge at the start of combat, by passing your first set of turns, moving and attacking and activating Adrenaline, and then attacking again immediately at the start of the second turn. Similarly, you can sometimes catch fleeing enemies by moving after them in the turn order and then rushing with Adrenaline to catch them at the start of the next turn, before they can escape away.

The more complex use of Adrenaline is in conjunction with the next perk below, Recover.

Recover

This is almost an auto-pick. It lets you rest for a turn and recover half your spent fatigue (in addition to the base 15 points you normally recover per turn). Essential on any fight that lasts more than five or so rounds, which is most of the fights that matter.

You regain half your fatigue, so the higher your fatigue score, the more useful this perk is.

For very high-Fatigue bros, this combos very neatly with Adrenaline and the various "until your next turn" abilities like shieldwall and spearwall: simply keep using the ability till exhausted; once exhausted, you will go late in the turn order due to fatigue; on that turn, use both Recover and Adrenaline; next turn, you'll be refreshed and invigorated and you'll spring into action first in the turn order. Net effect, you've minimized the window where your "until next turn" ability was inactive, making the "Recover" turn as short as possible.

Student

I recommend this for everyone who isn’t playing Ironman.

Mathematically, the bonus from this is worse than the bonus from “Gifted” until about 7th level. However, you’ll hit 7th faster, you’ll hit 11th faster, and you’ll unlock more high level perks faster. Importantly, once you hit 11th, it’s refunded, so this is essentially a “free” bonus pick (if the Bro survives that long!)


Executioner

Combos well with crippling strikes, but has the same issues.

Bullseye

An essential pick on bow archer snipers.

Dodge

A good pick on any high-initiative build, but may be less efficient than Colossus depending on the Bro’s stats and role.

Fortified Mind

Essential pick on Sergeants. Can be worthwhile on frontline Bros too depending.

Resilient

Generally not worthwhile; doesn’t hurt but other perks are more useful.

Steel Brow

Crossbow headshot insurance. Once was very popular; now generally deprecated in favor of new, improved Nimble, which does the same thing (prevents instakills) but does it by lowering damage generally rather than just reducing criticals. Taking both is probably not worth it unless you're going for a pure defense build.

Quick Hands

Can be very useful depending on build. Good for hybrids who want to switch between a ranged and melee weapon.

Gifted

Another good way to patch bad Bros; again, a better solution is taking a better bro. Can be useful for very stat-centric builds, like Sergeants and Archers.


Backstabber

Can be useful but generally in situations where the bonus is available, you don’t need it, because the basic to-hit bonus from surrounding the enemy is enough. You don't need a bonus when you already have them surrounded.

Anticipation

Useful on archers whose builds stack ranged defense. Otherwise skippable.

Shield Expert

A necessary pick on any shieldwall Bro, not just for the increased defensive stats, but even moreso for the increased shield durability. Without this, late game, there's no point in bothering with a shield, it'll just get axed apart by the first Orc Warrior you see. This gives your shields a fighting chance, and can turn some named shields into long term keepers.

Brawny

Generally paired with Battleforged (in Tier 7) for "Armor Tank" builds. Doesn't count for Nimble.

Mathematically, if you wear heavy armor, this is worth at most about 16 Fatigue. Theoretically, you can avoid this perk if you either have absurdly strong stats or wear exclusively named gear, but most of the time for most heavy armor wearing Bros, this is effectively a must-pick, even though it might be worth wiping with an Oblivion Potion in the very late game.

Relentless

Useful in conjunction with the Dodge perk for specific high-initiative builds.

Rotation

An early must-pick for all your front-line troops. The nice thing about Rotation is that you can use it to save someone *else*, so you aren’t relying on the injured bro to save themselves.

Rally the Troops

What makes a Sergeant. You want two to four Bros with stacked Resolve and this perk. Nobody else needs it.

Taunt

Can be useful for managing enemies but overall more finicky and less powerful than you’d like; not a shortcut around enemy AI. Useful enough to be worth taking on one or two dedicated tanks, but don't give up anything critical to do so.

Level 4:

Mace Mastery

A good utility pick for any bro with the stats (high fatigue, Matk) to handle it. Both attacks have a special effect and at least one of the specials will work on each enemy in the game. The two-handed mace is brutal against single targets.

Flail Mastery

Not really worthwhile except on a build with the Brute talent; functionally you’re splitting your damage between the body and head armor, which means you're killing less quickly.

Hammer Mastery

Worth having a pair of (and not just for the Ambition). I generally find a pair of two-handed hammerbros, switching between polehammer and warhammer, more useful than the single-handed warhammer option.

Axe Mastery

Can be very useful on frontline shieldbros to open up the enemy front line, or on “headhunter” brute/jester builds for bonus damage. Can let you one-hit enemy shields if you find the right famed axe with bonus shield damage.

Cleaver Mastery

Works for both whips and cleavers, including the Khopesh, so can be the centerpiece of very strong and versatile Duelist builds; Whips bring great utility with Disarm and are very effective vs. Geists and Unholds while cleavers have the overall highest damage of any weapon type.

Sword Mastery

Very useful on Greatsword Berserkers unless they have absurdly good stats (145+ base fatigue with Iron Lungs) and don’t need the bonuses. Can serve a role on shield-tank retaliate builds. Oddly, not that useful on fencing sword duelists, who get no special benefit.

Dagger Mastery

There’s an artifact dagger in the game so it’s worth building one dude for this. Combos well with Overwhelm for triple-stab debuff action; excellent in 1v1 duels.

Polearm Mastery

Old guides say this is bad, but it got improved in later patches. Excellent on your bannerman, hybrid lancers, or on anyone using a warscythe.

Spear Mastery

It can be worthwhile to have a couple of dedicated spearmen in the late game for holding your flanks and chokepoints, but it’s a niche build and skippable if you don’t have room on your team.

Crossbow Mastery

I generally don’t take this because I mostly use crossbows on hybrids and those tend to take Polearm Mastery instead. Could be a good pick for the right build -- a hybrid with unusually strong ranged stats.

Bow Mastery

The center of any ranged archer build.

Throwing Mastery

Can be surprisingly effective once you have a good supply of ranged weapons for them to equip, but runs into high ammo cost issues. Worthwhile in the late game when you’re filling out the niches in your roster.



Reach Advantage

This is an *ok* pick for two-hander wielders. Two problems with it though. First, it’s only active after you’ve attacked, and unless you’re frequently using Adrenaline, that’s going to leave you open too much of the time, especially given that enemies still have a minimum 5% chance to hit you regardless. Second issue is that due to under-the-hood game formulae, melee defense over 45+ has diminishing returns, and if you pick your berserker candidates carefully they're already close to that even without this perk anyway. Not bad, but not necessarily a must-pick even though it might seem like one. Generally most builds, most of the time, will be better off taking Indomitable instead and tanking the hits more directly.

Overwhelm

Lowers enemy to-hit chance if you attack them first. You don’t have to actually hit them and it works on all enemies in the game. Worth building a few characters around once you know what you’re doing.

Lone Wolf

A strategic fix for a tactical error. If you want to plan on sending Bros off by themselves, have them pick this; but why are you sending bros off by themselves?

Footwork
A must pick on archers, useful but not necessarily required on polearm folks.

Underdog

A must pick for any front-line melee character. Helps any time you're confronted by more than one enemy, which is nearly always.


Berserk

You want this on any Bro whose primary role is damage dealing -- archers, polearms, two-handers.

Head Hunter

Not optimal. The effect of this is to split your damage between body and head armor. Maybe worth taking on specialist Brute-trait or Jester builds, possibly if using high-penetration weapons to bypass armor, but otherwise to be avoided.

Nimble

Pretty much every Bro will want to take either this or Battleforged. Nimble Bros should stack HP and don’t need as much Fatigue. Vulnerable to enemy cleavers and bleed attacks.

This is a good pick for backliners (who typically wear lighter armor anyway) or for Bros who have better HP than Fatigue. Dedicated "Nimble Tank" frontliner bros who stack HP heavily can be especially effective against some of the most dangerous enemies in the game, many of which do heavy armor damage (Orc Warriors, Lindwurms) or have attacks which pierce armor and damage health directly (Goblins, Schrats).

Battle Forged

Pretty much every Bro will want to take either this or Nimble. Battle-forged Bros should stack Fatigue and don’t need as much HP. Vulnerable to enemy armor-breaking attacks.

This is *generally* the better pick for frontliners against most enemies in the game, mostly because frontliners want high Fatigue anyway. Most enemies have a hard time dealing with heavy armor, and if a BF Bro's armor gets beat up, you can just swap it out and jump back into the next fight right away. It's dependent on having heavy armor for the Bro to wear though, so it's not always easy to get a full loadout for a full team of Battleforged Bros by the first crisis.


Fearsome

Generally not worth the perk; either you’re doing enough damage to cause morale checks anyway (in which case you don’t need fearsome) or you’re not doing enough damage for the enemy to fail the morale checks (so fearsome doesn’t give you a benefit). Also suffers from the same “useless against undead” issue as Crippling Strikes.

Duelist

Useful for the right Bro with the right gear filling the right niche in your group; suicide otherwise. See sections describing specific duelist builds.

Killing Frenzy

A natural pairing with Berserker.

Indomitable

Old guides will generally ignore this perk, but new ones universally recommend it. While useful in the base game for dealing with Orc Warriors, it becomes a near-mandatory pick for your frontliners for dealing with DLC enemies like Unholds, Schrats, Barbarian Chosen, etc. Not completely mandatory -- there are ways to work around not having it -- but it sure helps.

Weapons are the closest thing the game has to a class system; each weapon has a different set of abilities and fills a different role. (details are on the wiki here: http://battlebrothers.wikia.com/wiki/Melee_Weapons). In this section, we'll go over what each weapon type does and how and when they're best used.

Each weapon type has several “quality tiers” . For purposes of this guide, I’m just going to assume you’re using the highest quality versions of each weapon you can find.


With the exception of some specialized builds, all one-handers can attack twice per round (once if you move a short distance) and should be used with a shield.

At first, you probably want to give everyone a spear and shield, at least until you have figured out what end of the spear you hold and what end goes into the enemy. After about the first ten days or so, though, you’ll want to move everyone with melee skill over 60+ or so to other weapons.

#1: The spear’s basic “thrust” attack doesn’t do much damage, but it gets a +20 chance to hit. Spears are thus *great* for low-skill or newbie Bros. Once you have a high melee skill, though, this bonus becomes relatively worthless, so you’ll want to switch to higher-damage weapons.

#2: “Spearwall.” Hit #2 with a spearbro when no enemies are next to him and he’ll go into a defensive crouch position with his spear ♥♥♥♥♥♥ at a low angle. If any enemies move in next to him, he’ll get a free attack (no to-hit bonus, though), and if the attack lands, he’ll knock the enemy back. Put a bunch of spearbros in a line and their free-attack zones will overlap, making for a very powerful defense against anything dumb enough to run right onto a wall of spears (dire wolves, undead). Even if enemies do get close, you can use pikes or sheild-bash to knock them back, and then they’ll have to charge your line again. This tactic has a few downsides though:

• it’s very fatiguing, so don’t couch your spears until the enemy is within closing range,
  
• if the free attack misses, the enemy gets close and you stop getting free attacks,
  
• each attack doesn’t do much damage, because it’s still just a spear, and
  
• smarter enemies (bandits, soldiers, etc.) are smart enough to avoid charging your spearwall unless they have no choice, and will either move to your flanks or sit back and throw javelins.

After the first few days, you’ll want to shift most of your higher skill guys to other weapons, but it can still be useful to have a few spearmen guarding your flanks; they’ll act as a “funnel” and encourage the AI to attack the center of your line rather than leaping into the spearpoints.

From about day 10 to about day 20-30, you’ll want to shift most of your dudes from spears to flails. By that point, you should be mostly fighting bandits, and flails are almost a win button against bandits, for two reasons:

#1: The basic “Flail” attack can do a great deal of damage -- almost twice as much, potentially, as a spear thrust -- and it *ignores the defense bonus of shields*, which can be huge against shield-bearing enemies.

#2: The secondary “Lash” attack does not ignore the shield bonus, but it *automatically hits the head*. Hits to the head do extra damage, and many bandits won’t even wear head armor, so you can often one-hit-kill enemies with this (especially those who don’t have shields).

Flails can be a good choice into the endgame (especially if your endgame crisis is Noble War and you face a lot of shields), but they’re a little more fatiguing than other choices, and other weapons are worth using too in the right situations.

These are a specialty weapon, but everyone should carry one. They’re lightweight (and thus less fatiguing to carry in your pocket) and they can ignore armor completely, making them a great way to kill enemies without damaging their valuable gear.

#1: Stab. Just your basic attack, but very low fatigue cost; you can attack twice with this and still gain a point of fatigue back for the turn.

#2 Puncture: this is why you want everyone carrying a dagger. When there’s an enemy wearing pricey gear, surround them, whip out the daggers, and Puncture. This attack has a to-hit penalty, though, so it’s best used either by high-skill Bros, or against targets that are already at low morale and thus easier to hit.

These give another way to get around that pesky shield bonus: destroy the shield.

#1: “Chop.” This is a basic attack that has an extra damage bonus if it hits the head (basically, extra damage on a critical hit).

#2: “Split Shield”. This doesn’t damage the enemy, just their shield. A buckler or roundshield typically goes in one hit, a kite or heater may last a couple more. If the rest of your line isn’t using flails, this is a great way to carve an opening for everyone else (but you won’t get to loot the shield).

These are *great* against Orcs and pretty good against other highly armored opponents (ancient dead, noble house soldiers). When the endgame crisis rolls around, you’ll probably want a couple hammermen. They only do moderate damage, but they do bonus damage against armor (225% for the top tier).

#1: “Hammer.” Basic attack. Always does some damage to Health even through thick armor; great for inflicting morale checks or injuries if you have the Fearsome and/or Crippling Strikes perk.

#2: “Destroy Armor.” This can take out even high end body armor in a single hit -- incredibly effective against highly armored enemies, and something to avoid getting close to with your own heavy-armor guys.

These are the most damaging single-handed weapons in the game, but do limited damage to armor; they’re best against targets in light armor and pair well with warhammers (either via Quick Hands to switch weapons, or adjacent hammerbros).

#1: Cleave: This attack, if it hits meat, will do extra “bleeding” damage over time. You can use a bandage to stop the bleeding or tough it out, but a few bleeding cuts left unattended can kill even a very strong Bro.

#2: Decapitate: This is a very high damage attack if it hits meat; it’s *extremely* useful against Weidergangers (zombies), as decapitation will prevent them from rising up again.

These are a great choice for bros with high (70+) melee skill and high Fatigue. They do the same max damage as a flail, but higher minimum damage, so overall you’ll hit harder with a mace than with a flail. Their real role, though, is as crowd control.

#1: “Bash”. This does 10 extra Fatigue damage to the target with each hit, and thus can be a great way to immobilize highly-armored enemies (Knights, Orc Warriors) by tiring them out. Undead don’t have fatigue though, so no bonus there.

#2 “Knock Out” This is your crowd control option. Does fatigue damage & has a 75% chance to stun the target for a turn. A skilled macebro can consistently lock down two enemies per turn while also fatiguing them (and the Stun *does* work against undead, one of the few things that does).

Oh, yeah, those. Swords are a good intermediate step between spears and flails, or good for some specialist dodge builds.

#1: Slash: a basic attack with good damage, low fatigue cost (though not as low as a dagger), and a +10% chance to hit. If you take the Weapon Specialization, you can actually attack twice and gain fatigue rather than lose it!

#2 Riposte: Hit back when someone attacks you, with a reduced chance to hit. Kindof a poor man’s shieldwall, this can be very effective if you build for it (Taunt, Dodge, etc.) but it’s a specialist build, not for every bro.

Greatsword


The Greatsword is many player's favorite choice of weapon, to the extent that a lot of people end up fielding all-greatsword teams in the late game. It's main strength is versatility, with three separate attacks. Each is useful in different circumstances, but each costs 6 AP.

Overhead Strike is a standard single-target attack. It costs 15 fatigue (i.e., the base rate you recover every round anyway) and it gets a +5% bonus to hit even without specialization.

Split hits the target (which must be adjacent to the Bro) and anything standing in the hex directly behind the target (friendly or otherwise).

Swing hits three hexes -- the hex you target and two hexes to the left / counterclockwise around the attacking bro. As such, it's great for using on your flanks (see Right) but if used in the center of your formation could damage your allies.

Note that if you use at the top of your formation, you can target the hex directly in front of your Bro (as at right, above) but to use it at the bottom of your formation, you'll need to target the hex below your Bro (right, below)

Split Shield. Auto-hits and is very useful against Undead and weaker orcs with flimsy shields. Not as valuable against humans or orcs with heavy shields. Generally axes are better at this since Axe Mastery gives a bonus to this and Longaxes do it at range.

Downside of the Greatsword is that it has lower armor penetration than other 2h weapons (only 25% on the standard variant) ; it pays for its versatility with a lack of power against armored up enemies.

There are two lower-tier versions of the Greatsword, the Warbrand and the Longsword. The Warbrand gets the 4 AP "swing" attack instead of the 6 AP "overhead swing."

Greataxe

Split Man
Very effective single target damage. It *can* critical but will not automatically do so, despite doing some damage to the head.

Round Swing
Hits all six hexes around the Bro. I really dislike this because using it well requires splitting off from your support. Some players have success with an all-Round-Swing team, though, so it's partly a matter of playstyle.

Split Shield
Same as with Greatsword.

Bardiche

Like the Greataxe, but has the greatsword two-tiles-in-a-row "Split" attack instead of "round swing." Very high damage and more useful in formation. Found more commonly in northern weaponsmiths and less commonly in southern ones.

Two-Handed Mace
Single target, no AOE attack; does very high single target damage though, especially against armor, can Stun like the basic mace, and has a "stagger" effect which knocks the enemy back in the initiative order. One of the best options in the game for taking out single high-value enemies, but less useful vs. large numbers of enemies.

Two-handed Warhammer

Lacks the two-tile strike of the greatsword, but has powerful single target damage and a three-tile-clockwise knockback. Very strong on the flanks or against armored targets; good complement to greatswords. Uses hammer mastery. Good alternate for polehammer users.

Polehammer

Like other polearms, strikes from a two-tile distance, does heavy armor damage, but uses hammer mastery, not polearm mastery. Good alternate weapon for warhammer users.

Orc Special: Berserk Chain
A two-handed flail. Primary attack ignores the defense bonus to shields, does extra damage, has a bonus chance to hit the head, and a small chance to stun. Secondary attack hits every hex around the Bro, including allies, with a small chance to stun.


Pike

Good solid damage in formations and the Push attack can be very useful in the early game or with spear formations, to help support Bros in danger by pushing enemies away so they can retreat. Does piercing damage though so less effective vs undead. Basic attack has +10% to hit.

Billhook

Does strong damage and is effective against armor, but the pull attack is very rarely useful.

Undead Special: Warscythe

Only AoE polearm but it's awkward to use well; It's #2 attack, "Reap," is basically the Greatsword's Swing, but for 3/4ths damage and a tile further out from your Bro, so it describes a larger hexagon and in the right position can hit a straight line of enemies. As such, it's great for fighting in close formations, and can be AMAZING with Overwhelm and Berserk. Problem is, you can't buy it, only loot it from Ancient Dead (either advanced enemies or very rarely from special quest events). Worth building a br


Longaxe

Longaxes are technically under Axe skill,not Polearms, but they're grouped here by use -- they're two-handed, two-tile-striking-range, single-target weapons. The neat thing about them is that they have a shield-breaking function that is auto-hit. It can therefore sometimes (such as against skeletal legionnairies) be a good idea to give your back-rank archers all longaxes instead, and have them do nothing but break enemy shields -- their lack of melee skill won't matter.


Bow

Higher max range, more attacks. A high end specialist archer can killsteal a whole battlefield. Very important late-game for countersniping enemy crossbowmen, or murdering unarmored enemies before they reach your lines.

Crossbow

Crossbows have an inherent to-hit bonus of 15%, and they have a lot more armor penetration than bows, but they can only attack once per round (or twice with Berserk). Very useful early game to augment initially low starting Ranged Offense scores, good for hybrid builds that can't dump as many points into ranged. Nice to have a couple around even late-game for the armor penetration against Knights, Orc Warlords, and similar highly armored enemies.

Javelins, Throwing Axes, & other thrown weapons

Thrown weapons consume 3 units of "ammunition" from your supplies; arrows and bolts one. Throwing Axes do "slashing" damage type, so can be a decent alternative for your ranged guys against Ancient Dead.

I dawdled a bit too long on this section and other people covered this topic in better depth than I think I would have been capable of, so I'll crosslink them here.

The tactical guide I referred to when doing my initial playthrough of the game is here:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/365360/discussions/0/527273789700319036/

It is slightly outdated however (for example, I believe that when it refers to "overwhelm", it's referring to an old name for the surround mechanics, not the Overwhelm perk, etc).

Another, more recent Steam guide has great advice on setting up your formations for fighting ancient dead and orcs (the suggested formation for raiders is not what I'd use):

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1185230449

vs. Nobles:

Remember your goal is not to win the war; it's not your war. Your goal is to profit from the war.

-- You can ignore the whole thing if you want.

-- let the AI allies move forward first and absorb as much of the enemy offense as possible

-- Rotation is extremely helpful in large formations

-- a few skilled bow archers can be extremely helpful to counter-snipe enemy arbalesters

-- Lots of loot pinatas; learn to throw dagger parties; warhammers effective but disfavored because you'll lose a lot of loot; hats and shields with factional art available from conquered enemies

-- You can catch the attention of enemy groups and lead them back onto allies for easier fights

-- Faction with opposing groups will reset to "cold" at the end of the war (presuming you have at least one friendly Noble House faction).

-- Keep some extra suits of quality armor and some folks in reserve in case you have to fight multiple large battles in quick succession.

-- even if you don't get quests, you can still shift the course of the war just via world map interactions. The game simulates battles between the factions; intervene on one side or another, you can save the day or clear the way to conquer.


Vs. Orcs:

-- Morale is their weakness
-- Armor penetration helps
-- Wear the heaviest armor you can
-- Kill berserkers before they reach your line if at all possible
-- archers help a lot -- slaughter the berserkers and the young to break morale -- but will need Footwork
-- Warhammers are GREAT, as you can't loot orc armor anyway and the punch-through will cause morale checks.
-- Spears have a use because it can help break the Orc's charge, but won't do enough damage by themselves, so it can be a good idea to Quick Hands to a different weapon once your line breaks.
--Mace "Stun" won't work on Warriors, but the basic Bash can tire them out with fatigue loss.
--If you can hit with them, Daggers can be surprisingly effective against Warriors, as they hit meat and bypass armor.
-- If nothing else, Nets work really well against Orc Warriors.
-- Terrain is less useful because they can push you around but you can't push Orc Warriors back
-- Indomitable is a requirement for your front line, and the fatigue to sustain it.
-- Orc Warriors and Young have 8 AP/turn. Their specials take 4 AP to use, so they can only move 2 spaces and still use them.

Vs Undead:

-- mace stun works on ancient dead
-- decapitation helps vs zombies; snipe the necromancer
-- split their formations, flank them
-- shields flimsy and easily broken
-- going toe-to-toe in formation is high risk as they have no fatigue and *will* outlast you
-- archers can damage armor but otherwise pointless; swap for polearms or throwing axes

- stepping one step back on the first turn will break up their initial attack a bit as they won't have the AP to raise shields when they engage.
-- Similarly, back up four spaces on the first turn when facing Necrosavants to buy some time.


[Under Construction]

This section is a general list of tips and tricks that I haven't yet fit anywhere else:

You can quicksave,while outside of combat, by hitting f5.

You can attack peaceful units with ctrl-click (so long as you have no active contract). There are generally repercussions for this, though.

Mouseover shows hit chance! Use it! (The enemy sure does).

Mouseover does not show the chance your arrow will hit a nearby or intervening target instead, though, just the chance of hitting that specific target. So aim at a crowd, odds are you'll hit something.

You can repair gear in your inventory by alt-rightclicking on it. This is useful for suits of spare armor or weapons you’re keeping in reserve, and if you have the spare tools, can also increase resale value significantly.

It's often cheaper to buy damaged high-quality gear and repair it, instead of buying it "new." This is especially true for higher-end armors; a good way to boost yourself at the start of the game is to buy damaged mail and repair it.

If you don't damage enemy armor, you have a much higher chance of picking it up at the end of the fight. There are two good ways to do this:

• The first is to use Flails and focus on getting headshots, so that you leave the body armor undamaged. This works well for medium skill Bros.
  
  
• The second is throwing a dagger party. The #2 "puncture" attack on Daggers (and the Goblin's Notched Blade sword) will bypass armor without damaging it. It's therefore a good idea to have everyone carry a dagger or knife in their pocket slot; if there's an enemy wearing particulary nice gear, once enemy morale breaks, have everyone pull out their knives, surround, and stab -- if you completely surround someone with "Fleeing" (White Flag) morale, they'll just stand there passively till you bring them down.

Get a pet Falcon and keep him on your highest-initiative ranged guy to wipe fog of war from large battlefields.

Dogs have many uses beyond chasing fleeing enemies. Drop a dog in front of an enemy spearman to break their spearwall, or drop a dog and Rotate with it to make a protected escape.

Of course, if you feel bad about sacrificing dogs to get away, there's always Daytalers instead.

Give your ranged characters Throwing Axes if you want them to do full damage vs undead with their ranged attack skill.

You can always haggle one time for a better quest reward, BUT each haggling attempt lowers your reputation slightly in the town. (You can check this by comparing prices for goods before and after. Asking for more time to think doesn't though).

You are much more likely to start combat in formation if you are the attacker. If you're attacked, you're much more likely to start the combat out of formation and disorganized.

When on an escort caravan mission, you can stop at the towns you pass through by clicking on them quickly as you pass by.

Use the barber and the renaming options to help you remember what roles everyone has.

Good archer candidates often start out with higher base melee scores due to the way base stats work; it can be worthwhile to have them use a polearm for a few levels while their melee skill is higher.

Always visit the tavern when in town; you get one free rumor just by visiting, and it might be a clue to nearby unique loot.

You can pick up dropped items in combat (visible as the little bags) by standing over them and opening the inventory screen. Useful for disarming zombies before they get up again, or grabbing weapons you want to make *certain* you keep post-combat.

The Duelist perk works with thrown weapons.

Caravan trips will give the "well supplied" buff to destination towns, which can increase the chance of unique items appearing in their shops.

[More To Come -- This Section Under Construction!]

-- Because God loves us and wants us to be happy, someone has written a save editor for this game, so you no longer have to teach yourself hex editing if you want all your bros to have Iron Lungs or whatever. Reddit thread for it is here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/a1yc2t/bbedit_110/

--You can use Retreat to whittle away enemies in most fights (this may not work for some specific endgame fights). Kill a few, retreat from the battle, rest, re-attack.

-- alt-f4 during combat for the cheap man's retreat

-- the game "rolls" your quest type (i.e., is that "Terroriizes Town" mission wolves, ghouls, or bandits in direwolf armor?) at the moment you take the quest, not when it's first generated, so you can save immediately before taking the quest and reload to ensure you get preferred quest types (though there are some restrictions; direwolf armor bandits, for example, seem to rarely if ever generate before day 20 or so).

-- Save before you recruit bros and you can reload if they turn out to be crappy (reloading won't fix the Bro, but it will save your recruitment fee).

-- To cheap-out your start, kill all tutorial enemies using only the "Puncture" attack from your XbowBro's knife. Tedious, but mamizes your starting loot (since your Bros can't die during that fight anyway).

--In the past, you could get a second Battle Standard by selling your first one, re-completing the Ambition again for a second standard, then buying the old Standard back again. The bonuses from the two Standards do not stack, but you can get wider coverage. Unfortunately, this was semi-patched, and buying your old standard back again now costs a million coins.

-- You cannot savescum level-up points, they're all rolled preemptively when the Bro is first generated by the game.

-- hex editing: see https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=598903989

-- Dire Wolf Leather and Mail

-- Orc and Goblin Gear

-- Finding unique gear by triangulating on the map: listen to drunk people ramble at you in taverns. They'll sometimes give you hints on the approximate direction and distance of unique gear, with more details the closer you get. You can triangulate on an exact location by asking in multiple taverns, but if there aren't any taverns near the unique, you'll just have to trudge around.

-- If you get a quest that takes you to an enemy camp or fortress with unique loot, you may not get the unique loot (sometimes it seems to be replaced by quest enemies and quest reward instead).

-- Black Monolith (Emperor's Armor), Goblin City (Emperor's Hat),

-- Davkul armors (Cultist events)

-- cursed crystal skull : comes from cargo delivery mission gone bad (choose not to destroy it afterwarads). Bearer cannot have confident morale; all enemies adjacent have -10 Resolve.

This guide was partly based on my own observations but is derived to a far greater extent from a wide variety of posters on the Steam forums, Reddit, and the Somethingawful.com forums. Thanks to everyone. Thanks in particular to Wafflecopper[forums.somethingawful.com] for the Blind Brother branding image.

Final note: the above strategies are just one approach to playing the game. I encourage you to read other guides besides just this one; BB is a complex and deep game and there are a lot of different effective approaches and strategies, some of which may suit your personal playstyle better than those above.

Please let me know in the comments below if you have anything to add, think I got something wrong, or just want to share your perspective. Good luck, and thanks!

Unholds - Treat them like big strong humans. Just focus each one down so you reduce the numbers you're fighting. As you add more unholds, or frost unholds, make sure your guys are strong themselves. Lots of melee defense to avoid the injuries. Indom cancels the throws.

Schrats - A good axe attack will break their shield thing in one hit, so just get everyone into position but spacebar till the axe guy can break their shield, then murder them. Their little ground attack thing is still affected by MDef so same thing, have strong guys, and mostly avoid ranged if you can because the schrats tend to attack them as a priority, meaning they're likely to take a lot of damage and will force the schrat attack through several other dudes. They spawn little saplings when taking real damage but can only do so in open spaces around them, so surround the schrats as best as possible. The schrat attack is a line so you want to fully surround them anyway.

Lindwurms - Theres 2 different possible strats here, one is to kite with polearms+archers+whip guys, always staying 2+ spaces away from the heads. Tails have no ZoC so you can dance with those just fine. Can take a long time but a reliable way to kill a lot of lindwurms without taking much to any damage at all. The kiting part is more important than damage to avoid losses. The other is to either use very competent shieldbros who don't attack, or get guys with lindwurm acid immune armor to tank them as best as possible, still leaning heavily on ranged and 2-tile range weapons to do the meat of the damage. The lindwurm immune armor strat is very good if you have it on a guy with an AoE 2h, he can do damage to multiple lindwurms per round this way. Attacks to both the head and body don't seem to double the damage. Also polehammers remove almost their entire armor bar with 1 destroy armor (this goes for a lot of enemies), so bring those if you have them.

Hexen - High resolve can resist the charm really well, get archers or free bros to the witches as fast as possible. Use spacebar to time out when they don't have a hex on a friendly so you don't kill your own dudes. Don't go naked, they always have help now. Bring whips to disarm bros if you're worried about the charm.

Webs - Webs are really only annoying early game, keep your dudes grouped up so they can support each other, and try to use terrain to limit the directions of the spiders approach. After a while they will become literally no threat and its just how long it takes you to kill 25 spiders and break the morale of the other 5-8.

Direwolves - There are 2 kinds of wolves, normal and frenzied. Frenzied is basically the normal but has more HP and applies overwhelm with each attack. Can be dangerous early, but die fast enough and morale shock each other on death that they'll become pretty harmless like Webs in time.

Nachs - Try to spread out damage so you kill many at a time for morale shocks, and advance to stand on the corpses so they don’t feast. feasting is both a level up and heal, so it’s very important to control as much as possible. If you see a level 3 Nach very early in a game, just run away, they can be stupid dangerous to low level bros.

Alps - If you don't feel like running away just give everyone swords+spears for the hit%, and have dogs on everyone (another general rule but specifically good here). Other 1h and AoE 2hs like greatswords are okay too, but you want quantity of high hit% attacks here, quality is irrelevant because all targets are fragile as ♥♥♥♥. Get the dogs out ASAP, try to get to the alps ASAP. Support bros in pairs but move outwards fast so the alps have multiple targets and don't just surround groups with too many nightmares. Once you kill 1-2 alps the free bros can move quickly to help other groups and you snowball. High resolve reduces the nightmare damage.

[alps got changed again!]

This copy/pasted from here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3814346&pagenumber=184#post497047367

See generally https://www.nexusmods.com/battlebrothers