Advice for Peasant Militia?

[Hykal]

I'm 54 days in, frontline is in mail, backline is lamellar/gambesson. 16 brothers, couple of lvl 1s but most are 5-6s, veteran difficulty.

I understand the concept of the peasant militia: strength in numbers at the cost of average recruits. Didn't realise the lack of higher quality troops would hurt so much but eh, it is what it is.

Most of my frontline are in the 50-60 when it comes to Melee. My backline are either pikemen or throwers with so-so stats, got lucky with one poacher, but his Ranged won't hit 90. I see literally none of them getting to endgame. Noble war's coming soon.

I'm not exactly struggling, but it is a bit of a challenge. Any advice?

[Whatever100500]

50-60 Matk is utter trash even for militia. These should be your starting values at level 1, not 5-6.
For range you want 2-3 star poachers, for 87-94 Ratk by lvl11.

Hire-fire aggressively for better recruits, they are cheap anyway. And majority of your bros should be nimble by level 7, unless they have truly exceptional fat potential for forged builds.

[Twogun]

my advice is, ride it as far as it goes. min maxing is boring.

there's always a new game.

of course, i say that all the time, cus i'm not all that good.

[turtle225]

Get Nimble on everyone before Noble War.

Fish for guys with 2 melee stars since they will reach 80+ skill. Less then that but if they have good defense then make them a tanky Flail or Sword or Spear guy. If they have poor skill and poor defense then ditch em and find better. If they have high defense and no skill then make them a supertank.

Polearms can carry the day if your frontline has some staying power and your backline is halfway skilled.

Gifted and Backstabber are good.

80 skill Xbows are good enough if you don't find better. Untalented Poachers can reach that.

Buy a lot of dogs.

[UnluckyNoob]

Read my monolith guide. In short, use 6-10 billhooks bros + some frontline tanks. At day 54 militia party faceroll any non-legendary location. And at day 66 I beat monolith. Size 20-30 nobles armies during crisis are just a joke.

Throwers with around 85 skill(at lvl 11) are good, you may even find archer with 90+. Just don't recruit too much of them, 1-2 for early game, 3-4 for very late are enough.

[monkeyshine]

Agree 100% that your matk is too low for your lvl. You will quickly find your company outscaled by high accuracy brigand marksmen and leaders as well as buffed wiedergangers and mass geists. Mass lvl 2-3 nachters. All these become common after about day 80. It will get to a point where any enemy group will wipe your company.


You can get the tryout mod which allows you to see the star distribution. I recommend playing on easy economic difficulty as well.

There are some guides for peasant start. You should look into them.

At this point it is best to retire, look at some guides and do a proper start.

[Korat Grey]

Originally posted by Twogun:

my advice is, ride it as far as it goes. min maxing is boring.

there's always a new game.

of course, i say that all the time, cus i'm not all that good.

I am feeling that :)

[RamboRusina]

50-60 MA at level 5-6? What? Do you not roll bros at all till you find decent ones? Even for peasant militia the starting values you should aim for are at 55-60 range(57-62 being the top rolls depending on background). Do you only use spears, swords and pikes or how do you hit or kill anything? Just toss the bad bros out or use them as meatshields to make sure valuable ones survive.

[Hykal]

My best Melee dude actually has 80 MAtk and while I'd want him to be a 2hander, he lacks the Fat for heavy armour and lacks in R and Mdef. He gets by, hiding behind a shieldbro and uses a billhook.

I am playing Ironman, and I lose a lot of bros. Most are trash mind, I don't weep for them, but my bros that could have gotten to endgame died due to RNG. As in, spawning at the bottom of a hill with enemy archers on top. It is what it is.

50 Melee bros get either swords or spears while higher ones get hammers or axes. Only one bro has a bow, the rest are using either crossbows or javelins. They're all ranged bros, except for a couple of bros who can justify having both throwing weapons and a pike.

@UnluckyNoob I'd love to see a video of you doing just that, might give insight on what I'm doing wrong.

No, I'm not giving up just because circumstances aren't favorable. I'll grit my teeth until things get better.

@Turtle I know there is a meta on MAtk=weapon but I'm not so sure on what is what. Low MAtak gets swords and spears yeah, but who gets the 1H axe, maces, hammers and flails? What is the best range to give someone a pole weapon?

[Drewsko]

scum like uve never scummed b4

[UnluckyNoob]

Originally posted by Hykal94:

@UnluckyNoob I'd love to see a video of you doing just that, might give insight on what I'm doing wrong.

Builds are in the end. For real game replace couple billhooks with throwers(they help vs shieldwalls and barbs) and throw away gifted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R1mKKt_vEs&feature=youtu.be

[turtle225]

Originally posted by Hykal94:

@Turtle I know there is a meta on MAtk=weapon but I'm not so sure on what is what. Low MAtak gets swords and spears yeah, but who gets the 1H axe, maces, hammers and flails? What is the best range to give someone a pole weapon?

I'm not sure if Meta is the right word, just some guidelines people like to throw around. People have different preferences individually.

1H Axe, Mace, Cleaver, and Hammer I would reserve for bros who will reach 80+. If they have high defense they can use Duelist or a 2hander. These weapons have no + hit chance.

1H Sword/Flail for bros who cap in the 70's. The + hitchance will help them.

Pole weapon talent is easy to find because all you need is skill. 80+ works though of course the higher the better. Any bro with high skill but poor stats otherwise can do it. Pike has +10% hit and Bill has +5%, and the damage is good.

Backstabber is a bit stronger in Militia because you are more likely to have the numbers advantage for extra surround bonuses. It can help a ton in the early-mid game and is still helpful later.

[UnluckyNoob]

There are couple other good shield builds for militia start. They are not so good in standard 12-bro start, but very strong for militia.

Dagger bro:
Recruit with high melee attack (85+, better 90+) and high fatigue. Huge is great (it increases injure chances vs orc warriors).
http://tumult.cc/bb-calc.html?1-9&1-8&1-6&1-3&3-3&4-7&6-3&3-1&1-2&2-1
One free perk for gifted/rotation/berserk. Not sure which is better yet.
Better use 2 of them simultaneously.

Thrower with shield.
Recruit with high ranged attack (80+ or better 85+) and high melee defense.
http://tumult.cc/bb-calc.html?1-9&1-6&1-8&1-3&4-12&3-3&6-3&7-4&6-1&1-5&5-4
Use indom when engaged in melee, throw heavy axes while not yet. Bring mdef, rdef and high durability shields for all kind of fights. Compared to common thrower he deal less penetration damage due to lack of duelist, but don't have to hide in back row.

[ChemicalBacon]

You really need to put a few points into gift on some brothers, backgrounds like refugee, beggars, vagabonds, etc. are pure trash and will never amount to anything.

Farmers are core, they tend to have pretty good stats, very high HP and FAT but normally lacking in resolve - but that can be said for most non-professional backgrounds.
Thieves are good for Mdef and Rdef and Ini but lack everything else - but they do have some worthwhile encounters.
You will have to admit that you may have some decent throwers but no good dedicated ranged brothers due to this. Issues like morale will be one of your biggest challenges.

Any professional backgrounds like raider, sellsword, squire, etc. is out of reach. Sadly this also extends to wildmen, monks, minstrels, etc. The minstrel you start with is unique in that way - if he dies you can't get another.

The biggest threat you'll face is resource management. Yes, you can carry a few more items than normal. However your food, tools and medicine will deplete at a much faster rate due to all the men you have.

My advice? Go north. Take quests to clear barbarian camps.
Some of them will have a dilemma to recruit a barbarian after the battle. They have great stats all around - the only place they fall flat is their Rdef and Mdef but thats nothing that can't be fixed.
They can also sometimes harass civillians in towns (similar to bloodthirsty) so be alert for that.