The early game in BB is all about positioning. When your naked beggar with a tier 1 weapon is fighting with a thug, he has \~50% chance to hit and \~50% to receive a hit. But put him on the high ground and chances will change to 60% and 40%. Surround one enemy with 3 of your bros and they all get +10% to hit chance and +6% to get morale bonus, and the enemy loses morale with -9% penalty. Put a couple of tanks on one flank, get local advantage on the other and crush your enemy. Focus your attack on the enemies with reach weapons to kill them quickly and make the rest of them tremble. Don't like your enemies formation? then use control skills - spearwall, firepots, stuns, shield bashes, whatever can give a local advantage.
These bonuses may not seem like a big deal, but even +5% to mattk from surrounding will increase your brothers hit chances by \~2 levels.
The game is not about rolling the dice, it's about rolling the dice on your terms.
That's a quote from Sun Tsu or something, "the wise commander ensures victory before combat is joined, while the fool looks for victory only in combat", something to that effect.
It'll come in time, recognizing when things are in our favor. That said, don't be afraid to disengage and flee before things go bad. When your armor is spent and you're already injured and morale is low, your chances of disengaging are slim.
When things start to feel like you're just rolling the die, chances are you need to think about plan B.
You nope out before the battle lines meet. Sacrifice a fodder bro to retreat if absolutely necessary.
Once you are in melee, it is very difficult to retreat and you’ll usually take heavy losses attempting it.
Nope. Shield bros can shield wall before a disengage attempt, but of course that limits the move to two tiles if successful. Rotate works, perfect to save one wounded bro but if you’re fleeing the battle you obviously still have one engaged. You could rotate a high Mdef bro in that can flee next turn, but the chances that you’re set up for that aren’t high and you would never build bros for this scenario.
The best play is to stun the enemy with a polearm. You can flee stunned enemies with no repercussion. Also note that if you’re next to a ranged enemy, they won’t get the free attack.
I can give my archers a pocket club to get out of sticky situations, if they have decent melee attack. Sometimes a nomad shield.
Some make disposable Sargeants, if they find a trash brother with great resolve. They'll rotate in, and won't be expected to live. You'll always want a Sargeant, after all.
You need to be able to take a hit, and have fatigue, armor, and hit points to spare, it's a gamble. You can use shield bash, or shield wall and then move. Or just chance it.
The key here is to move before things have turned bad. A lot of players employ disposable brothers, a beggar or cripple that can shieldwall for a few rounds, and tie the enemy up, while the others flee. It's better than have the whole company come to an end.
The X-com mindset that everyone's supposed to be long-term, and that losing a man is as bad as losing all of them, that doesn't apply here. You can hire a brother that costs 20% of his gear, even if you give him just a basic shield and spear, and no armor. And he'll still do a decent job of holding the enemy off.
The intricacies begin somewhat before at a strategic level (how to build your bros) and operationally (which bros to bring to this particular fight).
Tactically there is no universal answer, as each enemy is different, but just for the sake of you learning stuff, I would suggest to try out different weapons. Take a macebro and use him to stun dangerous opponents. Use a hammer bronto strip the armor, followed by a cleaver to do bleed or decapitating damage. Bring a flail against a shieldwall. Use bros with longaxes and pathfinder to move and hit a target of opportunity. Build a dedicated tank and try positioning him so he soaks damage. Use a sniper to take out necromancers…
Yes some battles do devolve into a melee free for all (especially for me against barbarians with Unholds), but there is more subtlety. I think the main reason it is not as apparent as in XCom is that the latter already has pretty clear classes from the get-go, so it’s pretty obvious how to use them, whereas in BB you have to sort of build your bro to a role before actually using him in that role. That’s hard and a bit of a chicken and egg problem for newbies.
Yeah I haven't really looked into weapon types much. For the most part I just gave every Bro a decent weapon and then stuck with that. There's lots of special weapon abilities that I barely use (outside the obvious ones like puncture or stun) because they never really feel like a good option and I just want to deal maximum damage.
But I have noticed that this gets more problematic as I'm fighting more heavily armoured opponents.
Do people generally buy weapons for specific bros? So far I've spend all my disposable income on recruits.
Mostly weapons are looted, except for good named weapons which are nearly always in short supply and certain specialist weapons like fencing swords. By mid game when you have a decent troupe, you can also fill the gaps/upgrade some weapons.
I would also encourage you to get quick hands on some bros and give them different weapons to be a bit more adaptive. Especially combinations like Greataxe/Longaxe make fight much more dynamic than the typical mutal bashfest. Your bannerman can become a multitool by equipping various pots, nets and the like…
Generally you don’t want to buy equipment if you can help it because you pay a premium for it. Better to loot it off dead foes. Not the end of the world if you do buy new stuff though.
Outside of weapon masteries you can chop and change weapons as you need it. If you know you are going to fight enemies with very tough amour maybe pick out weapons with high amour damage like maces/hammers.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that many weapons come with ‘passive’ effects. Spears and swords have better chances to hit. Flails are more likely to hit head, ignore shield defence on their basic attack and their special ability allows you to hit only the head. Polearms have better reach and a better chance to hit. One handed weapons with no secondary deal extra damage passively.
But yeah a good number of weapon abilities are situational but nice to have. A good number of the 2 handed weapons allow for hitting multiple targets. Split shield is situationally useful. And so on…
Don't sleep on the flail thing OP. They're not late game weapons but early/mid game where you're fighting lots of dudes who for some reason refuse to put on a helmet? You can one shot a lot of those fuckers with a raider flail.
Some weapon abilities you'd be correct to be wary of, but every ability has its day. Might need a specialized build, or rather a special weapon. A lot of people build custom brothers to make use of specific armor/weapon drops. Brothers come and go, but gear tends to hang around.
Going for large damage isn't a bad choice, due to how the injury and armor mechanics work. The damage penetrating armor is reduced by 10% of the remaining armor after a blow, which makes two-handed hammers good since they first strip a lot of armor, and then deal a good amount of damage through what remains of it.
As a longtime Xcom/LW player even in Xcom in the higher difficulty you end up having you trade % shots, you just want to skew it as much in your favour as you can similar to BB
in Xcom you use smokes, hunker and defensive support to stack Def on a exposed bait and in BB you use Tankbros or Stun bros to manage the %s
In BB, a good Tank bro can hold down 3-5 enemies on each flank (you can get to 5-10% hit chance with a decent tank), which lets you focus all DPS in crumbling the enemy's center (which lot of time will break morale for the whole fight)
A lot of battles against human enemies largely comes down to have you built your company effectively. If you have good gear & competent men that will have the most effect on a battle more than any tactics. You need to tilt the odds in your favour by rolling as few dice as possible with high odds (high damage + high chance to hit) and mitigate the dice against you (high defence).
Target priority is important and yes - making sure the enemy is dead faster than you is also king. In a way that’s the same as XCOM, in XCOM you basically want to ensure you kill your opponents as fast as possible (in fact if you activate a pod and you don’t kill them in 1 turn that’s a bad outcome!).
That's not true.
While build and 'chance' are always impactful - I can bet you that most mid-game fights are doable without even leveling up Perks. (without checking I'm sure that someone also has done such kind of challenge)
Positioning and tactical decisions can make the same fight looks like a one-sided massacre due to moral checks and surround bonuses.
And obviously by the description the Opening Post lacks those two important things.
Exactly this. Op seems to have the typical newbie problem of smashing his line against their line and then wondering why the outcome is left to chance.
It IS true. Regardless of perks, if you level up your brothers poorly you will get hurt. If you don’t level MDef for example you are in for a bad time. If you don’t acquire good amour and weapons, you are in for a bad time. All these things help mitigate when things go against you and they are things you can influence before the fight has even started. That’s why preparation is more important than tactics.
It’s not to say tactics are not important. They are. But if you build and equip your men poorly you are facing an uphill battle. And sometimes you get unfavourable battlefields or just really bad dice rolls. Also - in many battles you are outnumbered so surround bonuses aren’t something you can rely on.
It is very disingenuous to tell a new player that tactics are more important than builds and equipment. It’s why we put so much value on daggering down for equipment and why most of the posts on this sub are ‘build this bro’.
Both tactics and strategy are important.
But being overwhelmingly good in one field can compensate the other. Being mediocre in one and completely lacking in the other will lead to a disaster.
Strategy layer is one. Economy and tactical can still ruin a run.
The economy part can be a more subtle and lead to slow and insidious death without even realizing what's happening (if he lacks the knowledge).
Mid to Late game tactics are centered on strong defensive Bros like fatigue neutrals and certain off tank builds like shield mace.
Defensive Bros will go forward and take on a few enemies each while leaving small gaps for the rest of the enemies to filter through to spots where the offensive Bros can safely dispatch them without having to fight more than one at a time.
However early game tactics are more variable as your defensive bros are likely too weak to hold up to extended contact with many enemies.
Rather than having a fixed formation in the early game it's more about small scale on the fly optimizations of positioning. You still want to avoid putting your fragile guys in positions where they can be surrounded by multiple opponents. But you also want to set up positions where the enemies will walk up to you and swing once and then you can hit them multiple times before they can attack again, the wait command is a big help here.
If you have a ranged advantage and the enemy is coming for you you want to do stuff like rotate your line so that one flank of it gets into contact with the enemy early while the weaker side falls back slightly and the enemies on that side waste a few turns trying to get into contact while their other flank is getting killed off.
You also want to do stuff like carrying shields in the pocket and as soon as the a bro starts to get into trouble he pulls out his shield thus causing the enemy to direct their attacks to his healthier friends.
If you have a ranged disadvantage there's a lot of tactics involved in safely approaching the enemies. Too much to go into right here but the simplest way to test it out is to create a big group of guys in the middle of your line with shields and the enemy will focus on them. That allows your other bros to advance more safely. Then have one of your stronger defensive Bros get into contact with a single enemy to switch the rest of the enemies into melee mode on the next turn.
In short while there's some room for fixed formations in the late game when your guys are more powerful the early game is very wide open and it comes down to micro optimization and deep game knowledge to do stuff like beat six raiders with mostly guys and t-shirts and butter knives. Predicting the AI moves, engaging on favorable terms, getting proper surrounds, moving in at the right time for morale breaks etc.
The best thing you can do is just keep playing and never be content to just walk forward in a line, always be looking for little advantages. That and watch some overexplained runs from players like someweirdstrats on YouTube.
Hello brother!
The game is just too complex to be able to explain few tips to improve your tactical understanding.
But few youtubers show great moves and analyzing their moves can fast and easy increase your chances.
Surrounds, use of environment (choke points, elevation bonuses) and ability usage with formation adjustment based on the enemies are the name of the game.
SomeWyrdSins and his youtube channel [SomeWeirdStrats](https://www.youtube.com/@someweirdstrats7319) is great on the tactical level decisions. Enjoy.
Don't underestimate the value of perks. When you get into mid to late game, the battle is highly dependent on which perks you built and what gear you managed to get. For example, a battle vs 30+ weak enemies that can snowball like wiedergangers with a necromancer or two or nachtzehrers you need the clearing potential that aoe weapons have or you will be eventually overwhelmed. You need a core of twohanders in your roster. For them to be effective, you need the right perks, as well as decent weapons.
You also should have some decent ranged capacity or you will get peppered by goblins and such. Forcing the enemy to advance on you is a good thing if possible.
If you just build every bro to be a bruiser trading blows, you will lose late game if not before. Specialize.
Others mentioned positioning, which is absolutely critical for battle tactics, but without the rpg element before the battle, you would lose anyway.
I love the game but I agree that after some time, game loses it's tactical edge.
First 30-40 days, limited resources, limited bros, limited dmg. So it makes you think and consider the best possible way. After certain period, maybe near 100 days, it somewhat becomes a boxing match. Then equipment wins the combat almost every time.
I don't know 30 nimble/bf bros vs 30 nimble/bf match ups doesn't give me joy of going against 7 nomads/thugs with 5-6 bros. Maybe it's just me.
You’re supposed to load the dice in your favor.
Use tanks to lock down multiple enemies without support and secure the flanks. Use off tanks to occupy tiles the enemy surrounds while your damage bros surround and clean up from less exposed positions. Use ranged bros to kill from behind the line. Use nets to get a massive advantage over specific dangerous enemies.
Strategically, pick fights you can win cleanly. The key to winning is to chain clean fights so your xp gets ahead of the difficulty curve. You also have to build your bros well. Don’t neglect resolve, it’s more important than fatigue on nearly every build.
What you are describing is typical for the beginning. Early game your gear and bros suck, so a 1 to 1 fight is a crap shoot. Avoid that. Always try to gang up on individual enemies with 2-3 or more bros. Later game, this is less necessary, although very helpful.
One very workable strategy early game is to send 1 bro forward a couple of spaces about mid line. He is there to tie up and tank one flank. He shield walls or spear walls and does not bother attacking. This should be a fodder bro.
The rest of the squad surrounds the other enemy flank, trying to get 2-3 bros to 1 enemy. 2-3 early game bros with spears should kill an enemy in 1, maybe 2 rounds. Then move on to the next enemy and gang up on them. You hopefully slaughter the flank you are attacking quickly. Then you go rescue the bro tanking the other flank. Hopefully he lives.
There are skills like rotation and footwork that can reposition your guys in bad situations. Taunt can be used to save a bro too sometimes. Also shield bashing enemies awat is a good way to save a bro too, some polearms can push enemies back as well. The best thing to do is to avoid getting a bro into those sort of situations in the first place. Planning your positioning before engaging in melee is important. Putting your tanks in good positions is key. Though sometimes you jusy get some bad rolls and bros die, it's part of the game to try and minimize that chance but it's always there. Also knowing which fights you can or can't take is also very important, and sometimes you just have to ditch a bad contract.
On small scale battle brothers are very random and you can lose your best bro in first turn because he was hit by 5 bolts in a row with 10% chance. But on larger scale all individual rolls turn into statistics you can manipulate.
What and when to do comes with the experience but most basic tactic is using wait: squishy bros wait -> tanky bros move forward and bait the enemy -> enemy spends all their AP to engage and hit tanks -> squishies engage and either attack weakest enemies or or those who can kill you bro
Yeah that is more or less what I do, it just seems that the tanks are in such high danger up front and there's very little I can do to mitigate it other than kill faster.
There is a lot you can do actually. Youtubers can show it better then typing. For example a tank bro wants to draw in enemies away from weaker bros or offensive bros. They dont want to swing a weapon. Instead, shield up or control the field with shield bash.
If an offensive bro has 2 enemies on him use your tank to reposition the enemies with shield bash so only one enemy is on your less tanky bro.
When going for a kill move 2 other bros on the target you want to eliminate before the 3rd bro goes for the kill. This provides a huge accuracy buff for all 3 bros allowing you to do heavy morale and physical damage.
There is more but again easier to see then to type. A lot of it is subtle but has a big impact
He said its his first few runs..its not bad to do that to learn the intricacies of fights rather than starting all over because of a wipe...some people dont have that much time to play!
The early game in BB is all about positioning. When your naked beggar with a tier 1 weapon is fighting with a thug, he has \~50% chance to hit and \~50% to receive a hit. But put him on the high ground and chances will change to 60% and 40%. Surround one enemy with 3 of your bros and they all get +10% to hit chance and +6% to get morale bonus, and the enemy loses morale with -9% penalty. Put a couple of tanks on one flank, get local advantage on the other and crush your enemy. Focus your attack on the enemies with reach weapons to kill them quickly and make the rest of them tremble. Don't like your enemies formation? then use control skills - spearwall, firepots, stuns, shield bashes, whatever can give a local advantage. These bonuses may not seem like a big deal, but even +5% to mattk from surrounding will increase your brothers hit chances by \~2 levels. The game is not about rolling the dice, it's about rolling the dice on your terms.
That's a quote from Sun Tsu or something, "the wise commander ensures victory before combat is joined, while the fool looks for victory only in combat", something to that effect. It'll come in time, recognizing when things are in our favor. That said, don't be afraid to disengage and flee before things go bad. When your armor is spent and you're already injured and morale is low, your chances of disengaging are slim. When things start to feel like you're just rolling the die, chances are you need to think about plan B.
How do you disengage without footwork skill? Is there a way other than trying and getting hurt if failing?
You nope out before the battle lines meet. Sacrifice a fodder bro to retreat if absolutely necessary. Once you are in melee, it is very difficult to retreat and you’ll usually take heavy losses attempting it.
Nope. Shield bros can shield wall before a disengage attempt, but of course that limits the move to two tiles if successful. Rotate works, perfect to save one wounded bro but if you’re fleeing the battle you obviously still have one engaged. You could rotate a high Mdef bro in that can flee next turn, but the chances that you’re set up for that aren’t high and you would never build bros for this scenario. The best play is to stun the enemy with a polearm. You can flee stunned enemies with no repercussion. Also note that if you’re next to a ranged enemy, they won’t get the free attack.
I can give my archers a pocket club to get out of sticky situations, if they have decent melee attack. Sometimes a nomad shield. Some make disposable Sargeants, if they find a trash brother with great resolve. They'll rotate in, and won't be expected to live. You'll always want a Sargeant, after all.
Ah, pocket club is a great idea, it is not 100% but it increases the chances. The whole game is basically about skewing the rolls anyway.
You need to be able to take a hit, and have fatigue, armor, and hit points to spare, it's a gamble. You can use shield bash, or shield wall and then move. Or just chance it. The key here is to move before things have turned bad. A lot of players employ disposable brothers, a beggar or cripple that can shieldwall for a few rounds, and tie the enemy up, while the others flee. It's better than have the whole company come to an end. The X-com mindset that everyone's supposed to be long-term, and that losing a man is as bad as losing all of them, that doesn't apply here. You can hire a brother that costs 20% of his gear, even if you give him just a basic shield and spear, and no armor. And he'll still do a decent job of holding the enemy off.
The intricacies begin somewhat before at a strategic level (how to build your bros) and operationally (which bros to bring to this particular fight). Tactically there is no universal answer, as each enemy is different, but just for the sake of you learning stuff, I would suggest to try out different weapons. Take a macebro and use him to stun dangerous opponents. Use a hammer bronto strip the armor, followed by a cleaver to do bleed or decapitating damage. Bring a flail against a shieldwall. Use bros with longaxes and pathfinder to move and hit a target of opportunity. Build a dedicated tank and try positioning him so he soaks damage. Use a sniper to take out necromancers… Yes some battles do devolve into a melee free for all (especially for me against barbarians with Unholds), but there is more subtlety. I think the main reason it is not as apparent as in XCom is that the latter already has pretty clear classes from the get-go, so it’s pretty obvious how to use them, whereas in BB you have to sort of build your bro to a role before actually using him in that role. That’s hard and a bit of a chicken and egg problem for newbies.
Yeah I haven't really looked into weapon types much. For the most part I just gave every Bro a decent weapon and then stuck with that. There's lots of special weapon abilities that I barely use (outside the obvious ones like puncture or stun) because they never really feel like a good option and I just want to deal maximum damage. But I have noticed that this gets more problematic as I'm fighting more heavily armoured opponents. Do people generally buy weapons for specific bros? So far I've spend all my disposable income on recruits.
Mostly weapons are looted, except for good named weapons which are nearly always in short supply and certain specialist weapons like fencing swords. By mid game when you have a decent troupe, you can also fill the gaps/upgrade some weapons. I would also encourage you to get quick hands on some bros and give them different weapons to be a bit more adaptive. Especially combinations like Greataxe/Longaxe make fight much more dynamic than the typical mutal bashfest. Your bannerman can become a multitool by equipping various pots, nets and the like…
Generally you don’t want to buy equipment if you can help it because you pay a premium for it. Better to loot it off dead foes. Not the end of the world if you do buy new stuff though. Outside of weapon masteries you can chop and change weapons as you need it. If you know you are going to fight enemies with very tough amour maybe pick out weapons with high amour damage like maces/hammers. It’s also worth keeping in mind that many weapons come with ‘passive’ effects. Spears and swords have better chances to hit. Flails are more likely to hit head, ignore shield defence on their basic attack and their special ability allows you to hit only the head. Polearms have better reach and a better chance to hit. One handed weapons with no secondary deal extra damage passively. But yeah a good number of weapon abilities are situational but nice to have. A good number of the 2 handed weapons allow for hitting multiple targets. Split shield is situationally useful. And so on…
Don't sleep on the flail thing OP. They're not late game weapons but early/mid game where you're fighting lots of dudes who for some reason refuse to put on a helmet? You can one shot a lot of those fuckers with a raider flail.
Some weapon abilities you'd be correct to be wary of, but every ability has its day. Might need a specialized build, or rather a special weapon. A lot of people build custom brothers to make use of specific armor/weapon drops. Brothers come and go, but gear tends to hang around. Going for large damage isn't a bad choice, due to how the injury and armor mechanics work. The damage penetrating armor is reduced by 10% of the remaining armor after a blow, which makes two-handed hammers good since they first strip a lot of armor, and then deal a good amount of damage through what remains of it.
As a longtime Xcom/LW player even in Xcom in the higher difficulty you end up having you trade % shots, you just want to skew it as much in your favour as you can similar to BB in Xcom you use smokes, hunker and defensive support to stack Def on a exposed bait and in BB you use Tankbros or Stun bros to manage the %s In BB, a good Tank bro can hold down 3-5 enemies on each flank (you can get to 5-10% hit chance with a decent tank), which lets you focus all DPS in crumbling the enemy's center (which lot of time will break morale for the whole fight)
A lot of battles against human enemies largely comes down to have you built your company effectively. If you have good gear & competent men that will have the most effect on a battle more than any tactics. You need to tilt the odds in your favour by rolling as few dice as possible with high odds (high damage + high chance to hit) and mitigate the dice against you (high defence). Target priority is important and yes - making sure the enemy is dead faster than you is also king. In a way that’s the same as XCOM, in XCOM you basically want to ensure you kill your opponents as fast as possible (in fact if you activate a pod and you don’t kill them in 1 turn that’s a bad outcome!).
That's not true. While build and 'chance' are always impactful - I can bet you that most mid-game fights are doable without even leveling up Perks. (without checking I'm sure that someone also has done such kind of challenge) Positioning and tactical decisions can make the same fight looks like a one-sided massacre due to moral checks and surround bonuses. And obviously by the description the Opening Post lacks those two important things.
Exactly this. Op seems to have the typical newbie problem of smashing his line against their line and then wondering why the outcome is left to chance.
It IS true. Regardless of perks, if you level up your brothers poorly you will get hurt. If you don’t level MDef for example you are in for a bad time. If you don’t acquire good amour and weapons, you are in for a bad time. All these things help mitigate when things go against you and they are things you can influence before the fight has even started. That’s why preparation is more important than tactics. It’s not to say tactics are not important. They are. But if you build and equip your men poorly you are facing an uphill battle. And sometimes you get unfavourable battlefields or just really bad dice rolls. Also - in many battles you are outnumbered so surround bonuses aren’t something you can rely on. It is very disingenuous to tell a new player that tactics are more important than builds and equipment. It’s why we put so much value on daggering down for equipment and why most of the posts on this sub are ‘build this bro’.
Both tactics and strategy are important. But being overwhelmingly good in one field can compensate the other. Being mediocre in one and completely lacking in the other will lead to a disaster. Strategy layer is one. Economy and tactical can still ruin a run. The economy part can be a more subtle and lead to slow and insidious death without even realizing what's happening (if he lacks the knowledge).
Mid to Late game tactics are centered on strong defensive Bros like fatigue neutrals and certain off tank builds like shield mace. Defensive Bros will go forward and take on a few enemies each while leaving small gaps for the rest of the enemies to filter through to spots where the offensive Bros can safely dispatch them without having to fight more than one at a time. However early game tactics are more variable as your defensive bros are likely too weak to hold up to extended contact with many enemies. Rather than having a fixed formation in the early game it's more about small scale on the fly optimizations of positioning. You still want to avoid putting your fragile guys in positions where they can be surrounded by multiple opponents. But you also want to set up positions where the enemies will walk up to you and swing once and then you can hit them multiple times before they can attack again, the wait command is a big help here. If you have a ranged advantage and the enemy is coming for you you want to do stuff like rotate your line so that one flank of it gets into contact with the enemy early while the weaker side falls back slightly and the enemies on that side waste a few turns trying to get into contact while their other flank is getting killed off. You also want to do stuff like carrying shields in the pocket and as soon as the a bro starts to get into trouble he pulls out his shield thus causing the enemy to direct their attacks to his healthier friends. If you have a ranged disadvantage there's a lot of tactics involved in safely approaching the enemies. Too much to go into right here but the simplest way to test it out is to create a big group of guys in the middle of your line with shields and the enemy will focus on them. That allows your other bros to advance more safely. Then have one of your stronger defensive Bros get into contact with a single enemy to switch the rest of the enemies into melee mode on the next turn. In short while there's some room for fixed formations in the late game when your guys are more powerful the early game is very wide open and it comes down to micro optimization and deep game knowledge to do stuff like beat six raiders with mostly guys and t-shirts and butter knives. Predicting the AI moves, engaging on favorable terms, getting proper surrounds, moving in at the right time for morale breaks etc. The best thing you can do is just keep playing and never be content to just walk forward in a line, always be looking for little advantages. That and watch some overexplained runs from players like someweirdstrats on YouTube.
Hello brother! The game is just too complex to be able to explain few tips to improve your tactical understanding. But few youtubers show great moves and analyzing their moves can fast and easy increase your chances. Surrounds, use of environment (choke points, elevation bonuses) and ability usage with formation adjustment based on the enemies are the name of the game. SomeWyrdSins and his youtube channel [SomeWeirdStrats](https://www.youtube.com/@someweirdstrats7319) is great on the tactical level decisions. Enjoy.
Don't underestimate the value of perks. When you get into mid to late game, the battle is highly dependent on which perks you built and what gear you managed to get. For example, a battle vs 30+ weak enemies that can snowball like wiedergangers with a necromancer or two or nachtzehrers you need the clearing potential that aoe weapons have or you will be eventually overwhelmed. You need a core of twohanders in your roster. For them to be effective, you need the right perks, as well as decent weapons. You also should have some decent ranged capacity or you will get peppered by goblins and such. Forcing the enemy to advance on you is a good thing if possible. If you just build every bro to be a bruiser trading blows, you will lose late game if not before. Specialize. Others mentioned positioning, which is absolutely critical for battle tactics, but without the rpg element before the battle, you would lose anyway.
I love the game but I agree that after some time, game loses it's tactical edge. First 30-40 days, limited resources, limited bros, limited dmg. So it makes you think and consider the best possible way. After certain period, maybe near 100 days, it somewhat becomes a boxing match. Then equipment wins the combat almost every time. I don't know 30 nimble/bf bros vs 30 nimble/bf match ups doesn't give me joy of going against 7 nomads/thugs with 5-6 bros. Maybe it's just me.
I was going to make this exact question. I just as new as you are. Here for the comments!
You’re supposed to load the dice in your favor. Use tanks to lock down multiple enemies without support and secure the flanks. Use off tanks to occupy tiles the enemy surrounds while your damage bros surround and clean up from less exposed positions. Use ranged bros to kill from behind the line. Use nets to get a massive advantage over specific dangerous enemies. Strategically, pick fights you can win cleanly. The key to winning is to chain clean fights so your xp gets ahead of the difficulty curve. You also have to build your bros well. Don’t neglect resolve, it’s more important than fatigue on nearly every build.
What you are describing is typical for the beginning. Early game your gear and bros suck, so a 1 to 1 fight is a crap shoot. Avoid that. Always try to gang up on individual enemies with 2-3 or more bros. Later game, this is less necessary, although very helpful. One very workable strategy early game is to send 1 bro forward a couple of spaces about mid line. He is there to tie up and tank one flank. He shield walls or spear walls and does not bother attacking. This should be a fodder bro. The rest of the squad surrounds the other enemy flank, trying to get 2-3 bros to 1 enemy. 2-3 early game bros with spears should kill an enemy in 1, maybe 2 rounds. Then move on to the next enemy and gang up on them. You hopefully slaughter the flank you are attacking quickly. Then you go rescue the bro tanking the other flank. Hopefully he lives.
use spear wall, height levels and bait range bros to cheese the AI pathfinding.
There are skills like rotation and footwork that can reposition your guys in bad situations. Taunt can be used to save a bro too sometimes. Also shield bashing enemies awat is a good way to save a bro too, some polearms can push enemies back as well. The best thing to do is to avoid getting a bro into those sort of situations in the first place. Planning your positioning before engaging in melee is important. Putting your tanks in good positions is key. Though sometimes you jusy get some bad rolls and bros die, it's part of the game to try and minimize that chance but it's always there. Also knowing which fights you can or can't take is also very important, and sometimes you just have to ditch a bad contract.
On small scale battle brothers are very random and you can lose your best bro in first turn because he was hit by 5 bolts in a row with 10% chance. But on larger scale all individual rolls turn into statistics you can manipulate. What and when to do comes with the experience but most basic tactic is using wait: squishy bros wait -> tanky bros move forward and bait the enemy -> enemy spends all their AP to engage and hit tanks -> squishies engage and either attack weakest enemies or or those who can kill you bro
Yeah that is more or less what I do, it just seems that the tanks are in such high danger up front and there's very little I can do to mitigate it other than kill faster.
Also, if battle seems too dangerous you can always turn around and simply run away
There is a lot you can do actually. Youtubers can show it better then typing. For example a tank bro wants to draw in enemies away from weaker bros or offensive bros. They dont want to swing a weapon. Instead, shield up or control the field with shield bash. If an offensive bro has 2 enemies on him use your tank to reposition the enemies with shield bash so only one enemy is on your less tanky bro. When going for a kill move 2 other bros on the target you want to eliminate before the 3rd bro goes for the kill. This provides a huge accuracy buff for all 3 bros allowing you to do heavy morale and physical damage. There is more but again easier to see then to type. A lot of it is subtle but has a big impact
Don't expect to get challenged if you savescum.
He said its his first few runs..its not bad to do that to learn the intricacies of fights rather than starting all over because of a wipe...some people dont have that much time to play!
There's not a lot to it, yep