Reply To: Character and Company Strategies with the New Perks/System?

[Wargasm]

Well:

— Student is now much more viable, and I’ll give it to everyone as their first (or last) perk

— I’m not going to make too much use of Bags&Belts and Quick Hands any more; I always felt that it resulted in unrealistic actions and that it caused campaigns and battles to become tiresome because of excess item management/assignation, but it was also so helpful to prevail in the old system and so I kept taking recourse to it
— I’m still going to give most people Pathfinder, since battles on tough terrain are a real drag without it, and it’s extremely useful for the advantageous positioning of troops on any uneven terrain
— I probably won’t make massive use of the new Recover perk, because those with the greatest protection from shields and armour can usually forego regular shieldwalls and can usually afford to be patient working away at the enemy with basic, uncostly attack skills that (especially with a weapon mastery) won’t result in a rapid exhaustion of max fatigue (even if it’s not that high to start with)
— Likewise, light nimble fighters with high defence skills can usually afford to avoid costly attack and defence skills and keep working away with basic attacks, and 2-tile fighters don’t build much fatigue anyway (not even shield-splitting axemen once they have axe mastery)

— The new Adrenaline skill could actually be very useful for any type of fighter (especially those pursuing goblin bastards using bows/nets/impalers/magic, and especially anyone with strong attack but weak defence attributes)
— Melee fighters could use it after moving into a midst of friends and foes
— 2-tile fighters could use it after moving into range of a 2-tile enemy
— Skirmishers, ranged assassins and hammer/axe/sword psychopaths could use it after moving into the perfect position for an attack

— The new Backstabber perk is excellent for helping melee fighters (1- or 2-tile) to hit opponents with high defence skills, and is definitely a superior choice to Fast Adaptation for anyone not fighting in isolation
— The new Underdog perk is great for taking cumulative advantage of Backstabber without increasing your own vulnerability, and will of course be very useful for hammer/axe/sword psychopaths or nimble duelists

— With the new injury system, I’m going to give everyone (or almost everyone) the combination of Crippling Strikes and the new version of Hold Out
— Crippling Strikes could be a good way to keep making effective use of accurate, low-damage weapons (swords and spears) against heavily protected opponents (i.e. orcs); this effect could be furthered by also selecting Fearsome and/or Duelist (+25% of damage ignoring armour)
— If high-damage weapons seem to reliably inflict injuries without Crippling Strikes, I might not give it to those who are going to use more murderous weapons
— I probably won’t bother with the revised Executioner (increased damage against injured opponents), since less-effective injured opponents aren’t usually a priority to attack

— It looks like Nimble and Battle Forged (both modified) will be mutually exclusive picks
— Nimble could now work with a bow or (to a reasonable degree) with a 2-hander or shield (so long as the armour is light) or with moderate armour (if there is no large shield/weapon and if Brawny works to reduce the penalty of armour)
— Battle Forged (more generous than before when wearing the heaviest possible armour) and Brawny (less generous than before) would work well together; but, if you choose just one of them, you should choose Battle Forged if you intend to wear the heaviest armour available (which you probably should do)
— Dodge (an annoying/enticing perk) will still superficially inflate the Nimble bonus and it could also work with Battle Forged (I’ve got a pikeman in super-heavy rare armour whose dodge bonus is still higher than +10)

— Because of the colossally increased collateral damage when aiming at enemies in melee, I probably won’t bother with Bullseye for ranged fighters; instead, I shall take Fast Adaptation and shall try to make my ranged fighters devastating in close-quarters combat as well
— The new Lone Wolf perk is interesting; a 10% boost to melee and ranged defence is usually nothing for someone without a shield, but attack skills could be decently enhanced
— Instead of staying and shooting behind the melee, you could send ranged fighters around the peripheries to snipe out foes from afar (more realistic)
— Ranged fighters would be good for doubling up as nimble duelists, since light swords could do some devastating damage with the Duelist perk, or you could take Dagger Mastery and try to take advantage of Fast Adaptation with 3 attacks per turn
— Or you could take recourse to Bags&Belts and give a nimble bowman a kite shield and some spare arrows, in addition to sword and/or dagger

— I don’t plan to use the modified Captain or Rally the Troops perks; I was never a fan of them, since anyone given them immediately became less intrinsically exciting and was used/positioned almost solely to benefit others
— Since Resolve is important for not shitting yourself from big hits and not running away when you loot some exotic distant ruins that turn out to be inhabited by Lost Souls, I’ll probably give most people the new version of Iron Mind

— With no benefit from Bags&Belts, any decent reserve shield will impose a heavy cost to fatigue, and it won’t be possible to carry several at once for fighting orcs or adapting to goblin bow/knife attacks
— Instead I shall loot a variety of light/heavy/durable/rare/protective shields and arm everyone before battle with the most appropriate shield for the anticipated opponent(s)
— If a melee fighter has a weapon mastery and isn’t going to use fatiguing skills too much, it should still be possible to wear lots of heavy armour and carry a large shield and have another large shield (and a weapon) in reserve, and still not need Brawny to go with Battle Forged
— I won’t form that many shieldwalls to take advantage of the elevated bonus from Shield Expert, but the basic bonus should still be significant for some rare and beautiful looted shields, and extra-durable shields will induce orcs to exhaust themselves splitting shields until they can no longer offer much attack
— For fighters with both high melee attack and defence skills, it might be worth taking both Shield Expert and Duelist, so that a split shield puts the splitter into peril
— If a melee fighter develops especially high melee attack and/or defence skills, I’ll probably remove the shield and give them Duelist along with Battle Forged, or remove much of the armour and give them Nimble
— It’ll be interesting to see how the new Nimble perk works with shields, since, although shield fatigue reduces the 50% defence bonus, it’ll presumably increase it significantly to start with, so that melee defence is still higher with rather than without the shield
— If the above is the case, you could use a large and durable kite shield to bolster ranged defence, and dispense with any need for Dodge (and a new protocol for melee fighters would be to bolster intrinsic melee defence and seek out durable kite shields – kind of what I always wanted to do in the past)

— I’m going to have at least one experimental campaign where I try to raise a successful band consisting of a small number of individuals all using the new Underdog and Lone Wolf perks
— This band can consist of (a) heavily armoured hammer/axe/sword psychos using area-of-effect attacks to try to take advantage of the new Reach Advantage perk, (b) nimble dagger masters with kite shields, (c) nimble bow/archer assassins who double-up as duelists, (d) adrenalized jagged pikemen with nets and missiles in their pockets etc. etc.