Reply To: [suggestion] Clearly unbalanced enemies

[Meeky]

Berserkers hit hard but are easy to kill. They wear no armor. Focus them first if you can, because if they DO get to your frontline, it can hurt. The one in your picture is using my favorite weapon in the game, a massive two-handed axe that can reduce people to giblets. It has really high damage and high fatigue costs. It hits hard.

Remember, berserkers are SUPPOSED to hit really hard, but they’re also really easy to kill. No armor = you sometimes only need 1-2 good hits from the right weapon to take them out. Well trained soldiers forming a spearwall can actually be really strong against them, but you’ll probably have to shift your archer lines if you use that (a few will try to circle around to attack your archers).

Orc Warriors are only really a threat for a mid/late game army if there’s a bunch of them. The thing you have to do is reduce their morale (by killing the weaker orcs first – orc youngs and berserkers – and then finish the rest off.

Having trouble with orc warriors? I suggest two weapons: warhammers and pikes. Warhammers are good for making a mockery of orcish armor; a few solid hits from them will reduce it to nothing. Then you can use have your other Battle Brothers engage for the kill. Pikemen in the back row will deal high damage and won’t be in melee range, so your shield-bearing dudes can dodge a few hits, soak a few hits, or have their shields broken (which is always better than having your health bar broken).

Basically, my strategy for orcs is “kill the unarmored ones, then shred the warriors’ armor with warhammers, then murder them dead.” It works pretty well. I go in ready to lose one Battle Brothers, but that’s rare… Unless I’m actually outnumbered by the orcs. Then I’m probably gonna lose a guy or two unless I find really terrific ground to fight on. That’s to be expected in a game like this, though.

Also is it normal that an Orc can 1 shot kill the medium shield? (the one you buy at the castle, slightly smaller than kite shield)

That’s a heater shield. And that depends: what is the orc wielding? But yes, I’ve seen Orc Warriors and Orc Berserkers break shields really easily at times, especially berserkers carrying two-handed axes. If it was an orc warrior wielding a Fighting Axe or the orcish axe, I think it HAS happened to me before? But with round shields and feral shields. I normally don’t lost heater shields in one hit.

Goblins are simple to beat, pull them at nite when u they have a 50% less chance to hit, and wear shields, only a rare lucky shot will get you. If you don’t want to chase them down buy a couple wardogs.

I haven’t tried this yet, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this suggestion. Give it a shot.

Nimble in the defense tree is the best way to handle orcs, they are the end game. Invest into mdef every level, get nimble, equip warhammers/dagger, destroy orcs with ease. Only a rare hit will get in with a decent nimble build, theres a 5% to get hit regardless of your mdef atm, but with decent armor u can survive 1 hit just fine.

Nimble is a build that works for niche character backgrounds. Weapon Masters and characters that start with a high melee defense can do it. I wouldn’t suggest it for every character in your army, however.

What I do is I use a Swordmaster (or other high starting mdef character) as a “tank” against orcs. He’ll tie up 2-4 orcs at once with no problem which helps even the odds considerably. He won’t kill any, but he’ll survive. This gives the rest of my army a chance to focus fire the other orcs before rushing over to help the Nimble fellow.

I put my level up points on HP, fatigue and melee offense. What do you suggest i do instead? HP, fatigue and mdef?

It really depends on the character.

HP/Fatigue/Melee Offense is best for most characters, and all archers should be HP/Fatigue/Ranged Offense, or that’s how I build them, maybe dipping into Initiative occasionally for archers. However, you are also going to have Captains and tanks.

I like to have an army setup that’s something like this:

3-4 archers
2-3 two-handed warriors
1-2 captains
2-4 shield warriors
1-2 nimble tanks

So, for instance, a typical composition will be: 3 Archers, 3 Two-Handed Warriors, 2 Captains, 3 Shield Warriors, 1 Nimble Tank.
The Archers exist to pepper dudes with arrows lots and lots of times. I go with Perfect Focus and get the ability to refresh fatigue upon killing people from the Utility tree. Works pretty well.

The Two-Handed Warriors ALWAYS have a hard-hitting AoE melee weapon and a reach weapon, but they often have several weapons thanks to bags and belts. Typically, I’ll have a Two-Handed Sword, either a Pike or a Billhook, a Jagged Pike (the goblin pike that doesn’t use all your AP to attack) or a Warbrand for when I need mobility, and one of those awesome two-handed orcish axes for when I just need to obliterate a dude. With Quick Hands, you can always pick the right weapon for the right situation.

If I only have one Captain, he will have Rally, hands down. Rally is amazing. It gives your guys with Perfect Focus quicker recovery after they spend a whole turn expending their stamina. If I have two Captains, the second Captain has Inspiring Presence. I build Rally Captains with a focus on Resolve instead of fighting ability, and I build Inspiring Presence Captains like normal soldiers and don’t take the Captain perk.

Shield Warriors are built like typical Battle Brothers because they are the MOST typical of battle brothers. They carry a shield, fatigue/HP/Melee Offense with an occasional splash of Melee Defense, and they smack dudes in the head. If they get high enough level, they finish clearing the Offense tree and then go into the Utility tree to get Quick Hands, Bags and Belts, Pathfinding, and that one ability that reduces fatigue cost.

But then you get the Nimble Tank. This guy pumps Melee Defense at every level, and his background is usually Swordmaster. He’s sacrifices HP or Fatigue occasionally to get more Melee Offense because he needs to have a respectable chance to hit things, but his Melee Defense is ALWAYS maxed. His job is to to make a mockery of orcs once he’s max level. That’s it.

The Nimble Tank gets the Nimble perk, which is the focus of his build. He may take other traits from the defense tree, but the most important perk is the Nimble perk. He will only use a shield before he gets Nimble, and afterward will never touch a shield again, but he can have over 100 melee defense. Yes, over 100. That means enemies will only ever have a 5% chance to hit him when fighting him in melee. If you grab the fatigue-reducing perks from the utility tree (-50% armor fatigue, less weapon attack fatigue), he’ll be in a really good spot. Again, though, Nimble comes first. Always. And again, his job is to engage enemies in melee and make them scream with frustration when they can’t kill him.

Don’t let him fight goblins, however. They’ll make him a pretty pincushion real fast. Also note that getting a Nimble Tank to level 5, that crucial level he needs, can be really painful, especially if he’s a Swordmaster.

This was a long post, but this is the sort of army composition I use, and it works really well for me. 1-2 Nimble Tanks = you kick orc butt. Use Spear Walls when dealing with orc berserkers and orc young; it sometimes works against orc warriors as well IIRC. Focus fire orc warriors with warhammers, then kill ’em with hard hitting pikes and such once they’re weak. Encircle for maximum damage when you can, but NOT against berserkers wielding two-handed weapons (because they’ll butcher everyone at once). Don’t use the same stat build for every Battle Brother; change it up depending on what role they serve. This should help you a lot.

Honestly, the only foes that have given me serious trouble once my build starts rolling are goblins (in day time) and vampires (because they love to eat archers for breakfast). I might lose a guy on occasion, but by that point I can train a new guy back to max level without terribly much difficulty (because I’m fighting one-sided battles more often than before).