Why Your Roster Probably Sucks - Battle Brothers Beginner Guide

My mans just said melee def is useless lmao

I watching this to make sure I did things right😂

tbh, the game is kinda awful at explaining things. I still have no idea what the stars actually do, lol.

bro i finished the game in veteran with roasters worst than the rosters that you showed in the video

Instructions unclear. Did he need to get better Brothers? Please clarify.

Bro if youre still up , how you know the dude's stats before hiring him ? I just can see the background and such with try out button , help !

Im on my end game crisis ( like day 100 around ) in my first playthrough and i dont even have a single bro with battle forge or nimble .... lol.
Yeah and my roaster looks exactly like the one you showcased and its starting to get really rough , atleast dog spamming helps a little.
I think one of my best bros with a flail is like level 9 and has 58 melee skill xD.

i played 10 hours, not well balanced game and 0 instructions. pretty bad experience so far

Look like you need a master degree to play this game 😅

Well, from the beigining i started hiring daytellers, farmers, miners, ocasionally cheap militias (less than 1k) and squires with really bad equipment if i can find them even (under 1k ofc) and usually just pepole who are used to combat or hard work, this video helped me identify who should and should not hire. Thanks!

truuue

This video was very helpful. I watched it while I was deep into my second play through (and realized a lot mistakes that I had made) and for my third play through I applied lessons learned and really breezed through the game. I'm now early in the post game and optimizing my team's gear. I've been playing around with Nimble + Battleforged builds for my frontline especially, picking up battleforged at level 10 or 11 in the late game when I have a lot of crowns to invest. With noble mail (+20 durability werewolf attachment) and a barbute helmet, you can run a solid 180 body and 190 head armor with a total of only -24 fatigue. That's enough armor to make battle forged reduce armor damage by about 20% and still take only about 55% health damage. In combination, that's roughly a 65% damage mitigation. Collosus gives you a bigger health pool (and often saves your life at level 2) which synergizes well with nimble, again without adding fatigue. Because my gear isn't fatigue intensive, I didn't have to put many points into fatigue, and wasn't neccessarily required to get any of the fatigue related skills. Noble mail and a Barbute Helmet are expensive, but you can outfit your whole group with them for about the same amount as outfitting two bros with top tier Battle forged gear. In terms of effective HP, a bro with this build is similarly tanky to a full battle forged character, but there is so little investment in terms of where your points need to go, that you can make a bro with this build do things in addition to tank. And most importantly, because it's primarily a nimble build, you get that extreme power spike in the mid game which you miss out on with a battle forged build. Have you played around with using both battle forged and nimble on characters before?

Strong disagree that all brothers need to have nimble or battleforged by level 11.
I enjoy your content but you have very prescriptive advice.

No YOUR roster sucks!
My starter bros with not enough stats and a couple bad traits are my homies and I will NOT send them away!

I have made a dumb first game by taking the lone wolf start (I have put difficulties in beginner, I don't know how much it affects gameplay tho)

Thanks for that kind of video!! Grabed pen and paper and wrote what you sayed to look on it when i shopping or leveling bros. Really good to know that!! Thanks!

I don't understand the logic behind some stars sometimes, I get merc with no stars on melee attack but every level up they get like +4 there.

I am a gamer since the middle 80ties (Commodore C64...xd), and Battle Brothers is easy one of my alltime Top Ten....the last time i had similar feelings was in the beginning times of WOW...u play for hours and hours...and when u are ending your session...u go on thinking about strategies, mistakes u made etc...while watching movies, while falling asleep, in the bus....etcetc...and u cant wait to play another session....the great thing for me, I am at the beginning of that journey with 20plus hours into the game. So ty very much for your great guides...helps a lot....

Thanks that's actually very helpful 👍

I like to give them nicknames once they reach lvl 10. Gives me extra encentive to keep them alive. 398 days in… only 5-6 deaths.

For the last year I was one of those guys who peaked at raider gear by day 80 and was chronically unprepared for the first crisis. Thanks to you today I took down my first bandit leader by day 22. I know you've been quiet for a bit, but still wanted to give you thanks and encouragement <3

Hello... I m by no means a veteran and i m still learning the game but i have to kind of disagree on your opinion on taking weapon mastery mostly at lvl 11...in early / mid game an stronger armor that you just looted is very valuable and your Bros still dont have much FAT to go around. So even if the mastery doesnt give a great extra benefit i think that 25% fat reduction cost really piles up in longer fights. However so far i dont like or take the spear mastery cause it seems a starting weapon and rather situational ( although spearwall is powerful at zoning out enemies the fatigue cost wears you down fast). So my point is that in every prolonged fight the with a weapon with base attack 12 FAT u are saving 3 FAT per hit ... if u swing that sword 10 times its essentially 30 extra FAT you wouldnt have and in early levels it seems not very efficient taking Recover so there is no way to gain FAT except waiting. My point is that the reduction cost seems small but it really piles up and shows in fights like vs Wiedergangers , Fallen hero mix ... your thoughts ?

me sliding through with my 150 resolve bannerman:
points into resolve? dont bother brothers

I save scum like a mofo and still have a ball. To be honest as I get better I obviously am save scumming a lot less, but 800 hours and I still mostly suck balls. lol Great video.

Your English accent is very good.

me with almost all my frontliner with 52 Matk at level 5

Dis game it's so hard

Learned a few things thanks 😎

gifted is pretty good if you dont play until day 500

This mans opinions is from near 5k hours in Battle Brothers. I haven't played since beginning, but I have been around since the first dlc drop.

And let me share some good advice for anyone who is willing to sit down. Buy a round, shut up and listen. If you're a learned bookworm. Take some notes.

Lesson one: You are a mercenary captain. Leading men to fight for coin, for battle field plunder. And to survive to swing your swords for another day.
Don't get attached to your brothers, all brothers are like pieces and pawns on a chess board. Gotta accept that bullshit can happen at any time and any brother may be felles in battle. The sooner you can come to acceptance of this fact, the better you can cope, learn and move on.

Lesson 2: Money. Throughout your career, money money money is key to your company. You will, if you live. Spend million of crowns on tools, ranged ammunition. Medical supplies, food. Buying various equipment, a half priced mail hauberk at a keep you visited. Or a nice billhook or cleaver for 400 crowns cheaper then at the blacksmith.
But always remember this.

Always way the cost of a contract vs your men's lives and the possibility to loose equipment. That hauber you spent 700 crowns on? Plus tools. Make that 900 crowns. The cost of the brother. Maybe it 1200 crowns. If the contract is only 900 and he gets slain. And you loose both the gear and brother. Thats a big net loss.

And always keep a wooden round shield, a pair of ghoul teeth or a bear head cap from the barbarians of the north.
It sells for one hundred crowns, but those fat fuck merchants only buy at 10%. So for every 100 crowns of worth, its in actuality. 10 crowns. So its best to sell your booty and swag, your haul of gear. When the price is 15+ and more. Thats certain profit. If you can't thats fine.

There are whats considered "Tiers." Different levels of equipment. You have milita spear's, short swords. Gambesons, leather armor. Etc. All that is tier one. Its values arent exactly the most profitable to repair and sell. For price of tool ratio if you pick it off a brigands corpse.

Tier two. Here's where the shiny be at. Chainmail armors, boar spears. Falcions. Handaxes. Scramasax's. Bastard swords. Flails. Military picks n the like. This is your bread and butter, fix it up. And sell it.

Tier 3. This is the higher tier of chainmails. 170+ body armor n head armor. Arming swords.

Tier 4: Big farkin' greatswords, axes n hammers. Warhammers. Fightin' axes n spears. Plate mail. The stuff worth thousands of crowns to purchase.

Repair everything tier 2 and up. You'll thank me one day.
And heres a bonus advice, free of charge. Repair all weapons ork. Goblin. Ancient undead. And ancient undead armor (not auxilitary shit.).

Lesson 3: Fightin' ain't far. Nor should it. You ain't an honorable man. If you was, you'd be in a monestary readin' books and not fightin' for fat merchants 'cause their prized amulet was stolen by disgruntled workers turnt brigands.
Or sent to be meat shields in noble armies.
So learn to cover your men's asses, stick em' close. And not reckless sally forth a brother by himself. If one brother fights one man, stick another brother and make it unfair.
See.. Brothers swing their weapons better when they are side by side. If they have shields. And a brother needs defending. Shield wall together. Makin' it stronger.

And if you got any dogs. Stick 'em on the flanks. Which would you rather get slaughtered by a barbarian chosen? A dog costing maybe up to 700 crowns. Ot a brother whos gear you spent 4000 crowns on. Who gets decapitated or their head 'mashed in?
Dogs are expendable. As cruel as it is, but good poochies are everywhere. Good solid fightin' men. Not so much.

Lesson 4: Recruitin'.
I noticed recruits in fancier, sturdy gear. Tend to be more expensive, so that sellsword in chainmail with a two handed sword? He ain't worth the 3000 crown. Tis the sword n armor. Discuss how much his daily wage is. Thats where ya find if they're worth anything.

(Or you could just save, recruit everyone in a town. And see if anyones got desirable traits/skills. If not, reload and move on. In Ironman mode. enter a town, exit then back into the town. Recruit the towns manpower, check 'em. Alt tab or control delete, alt f4. Close the game without exiting the menu's in the town. then load it back up. Thats how you can save scum.(

I think the bandages on every guy was suggested by some other Battle Brothers You Tube channel some years ago. I remember I used to run bandages on every guy and I probably used them once in awhile. This recent run I've done I've stopped carrying them on my guys.

Came back to rewatch and the beginning of this video has me laughing my ass off.

Good edits and voices buddy! This being Battle Brothers it is a game built on succeeding with a sub optimal company, you are just a bunch of normal Gits trying to make a place in the world for yourselves! However when they money rolls in and you can slowly build up those world eaters it is quite nice. Really he isn't being rude, but it is also ok to have a roster that sucks, it is the beauty of this game having the main characters be ones that you choose and none of them are legendary heroes.

"Margrave...you cannot handle my strongest mercenaries."

What do you mean "don't take initiative"? O_o Are you crazy?! How else can you get Evasion actually work? How else can you get tank with around 100 mdef? How else can you make Overwhelm work? How else can you step in, smash someones face and kick his arse on the next turn before he can retaliate? (Adrenaline, sure, I know - and then you stand there out of fatigue with no Evasion. Yeah... Thanks, but no. 🙂)

Don't know why someone won't understand your point about melee attack being more prevalent over melee defense. Back line will appreciate melee defense but don't actually require it to work, thus depending on the formation - all non-dedicated ranged (only) will need melee attack, while some part of the band (namely, the back-liners) won't need defense.

Additional build for experienced players which can use Shield Expert are the relieve/support brothers with cleaver/whips. Nimble build - shield and whip/cleaver in hand with Dodge, Rotation and Overwhelm - they are good to have in normal sized companies (not limited to 12 recruits) and (for me) a must for the bigger sized such as the Peasant Militia and Manhunters origins.

Nice to hear I'm doing exactly what you'd be doing. Agreed on like every point surprisingly. I'm even too lazy to carry bandages.

Also give almost everyone a knife?

Watched your headhunter duelist build video. Got me thinking, can you use dagger instead of axe? Gotta be good against knights.

Initiative is the stat who needs more experience. At first you can use it with dodge and relentless (always relentles because on round 3 you get nothing from dodge) but later you don´t look for great bros, you look for a great army at your command, and there is when initiave really comes to play.

Better advice i can give is play the game before sees any guide. Experience from erros are the better teacher and you will find new ways to play the game.
Another important thing, BROTHERS DIE. No matter how good he is, one turn you look aside and he is dead. So the decent brothers are the best, don´t scracht your head if you don´t have that 3 stars allmighty. Everyone have his place, at least for a short time if you know what i mean.

Says don't take intuition, then complains about teams low energy bars while also not taking brawny

People might actually think sending a c.v is part of the game XD

I feel like a good thing to talk about is making money, I feel like I don’t have the money to splurge on good items and backgrounds, what am I doing wrong when it comes to making money, or how do you go about making money so hiring good brothers isn’t too expensive.

Great video mate, loved the intro :)

The think is like i know my roster is not good for late game. But you know you want to get a good brother so that you can do harder quests, get more money and get more experience. The problem that i have is that in order to get thouse brothers in a reasonable time you hire from a decent background: farmeheand, squire, militia, thief, and they are not bad characters, at least they are better then what you have so far, but not late game characters and he costed like 80% of you total gold, so for now he remains in the company. They you tray to replace him with someone else but he is not better or worse, so not really a way to pick between ether of them. And it gose on and on untill you find out you have been carieng a team that strugles to get to Matt 70 by levle 7.

Hey Carve, I've been playing a while, 600+ hours, and I've found a couple things you said interesting ( it is a beginner guide and I recognize who its aimed at) However I still wonder A)What is Exponential returns on melee defence, I don't quite get the math, B) As Ive played more and my movements have gotten more refined and efficient I've found I've needed way less fatigue than I once thought I did, even on bers duelists 55-60 works more than well, and without bers 40-50 is just fine, and C) What makes colossus better than nine lives? I have never noticed a situation where colossus would have saved a life that nine lives wouldn't, and while colossus prevents injurys, If battle brothers is a game about getting to hard fights and making it out, I find nine lives gives me more options and opportunity for aggression, which is what wins fights, however I feel I'm missing a spectrum on the argument and was wondering why you recommend colo on everyone? (This is a beginner guide, and some of these statements may be sweep alls that work when your starting out, which I respect progress wise and helping people, however deep seated objective advice stays with players, I've spent A solid chunk of my time playing breaking habits of outdated or overly objective data I got from tips when I was starting.)

That obituary ran into 2 screens. If there was a good bro somewhere, he's likely orc fodder by now.

For a novice player, I can only add that success breeds success. It's one thing to win battles, coming ahead in the exchange is more important. The story of a long obituary page and only noble army tier gear (no golden) means battle results are phyrric.

Killing is part of battle business, more important is taking things with the highest chance to win.

Imagine playing this game to Min max, this game is about leading a bunch of jabronis to glory not fucking eugenics what’s wrong with you people?