Watch my dumb mass nimble / initiative company vs. a late-game 3-skull barb king contract

[suejak]

Hi friends,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsRErgl7S0U

I've never made a video before and this one isn't terribly exciting, but you guys are my friends so I thought some of you might enjoy it.

Actually, this was really fun, so I'd like some other regulars to make some too. This is not optional.

Spoiler warning: I suck!

This is EELI, strict ironman with no alt+f4ing. No mods. I am apparently a bit of a roleplayer, so I never hire/fire instantly, I never grind, I work with what I find, I make bad bros work, and I rush difficult contracts. I've had maybe 10 deaths this entire campaign, although deaths in BB are fine.

This is a party of (only!) 19: lots of chosen, a barb king, some reavers, and a few drummers.

Feel free to bash my dumb builds or stupid decisions. I'm not pretending like this is the cutting-edge optimal. However, I think these builds have their moments and maybe I'll post another video sometime that actually showcases how they can be good in various situations. For example, they're quite rad versus schrats and hexen :P

I like to talk about my weird builds a lot. I also say things like "bros with bad stats/stars work fine" and "initiative builds can work." I also say I am an amazing Battle Brothers player. Only one of these things is a lie, and this video helps to prove it.

I only have 3 BF guys in this whole party. Only 1 is a BF indom 2-hander. I banned the Indom cycle. Literally everyone else is Nimble in raider-tier armour.

This video does not make my goofy builds look amazing. Obviously, with Adrenaline and -initiative status effects from hammer/mace, barbs should be a recipe for disaster for them.

However, I do use these builds here and everywhere, and nobody dies.

OK, one guy got struck down. But he survived. And his job was to die... I'm sure he understands...

Some of my guys have perma-injuries, generally from super early in the run. I don't discard perma-injured guys unless it truly impacts their role in a meaningful way. It's just the way I am.

Also, some food for thought:

In re-watching my video, I saw some cool opportunities for Overwhelm to have helped protect my BF sergeant, who probably should have died to the Barb King. If I had recognized that my BF sergeant was in as much danger as he was (this was the big mistake, because I had no idea he'd get shredded like that), I had a number of opportunities to zip on over with an Overwhelm guy to help out. For example, at 23:15, I considered running my initiative axe duelist down. He would have 100% gone faster than the barb king next turn, which would have meant 2x OW stacks (and maybe resolve debuff or injury?). Barbs do have Adrenaline, but they don't always use it, as was the case at 23:15 :) The king would almost certainly have died before my sergeant took significant damage if I'd done this, as you can see the barb king only does serious damage to the sergeant when he's down to about 2 hp. I could also have stunned him at 24:50, but I guess that's not OW-related.

I know that this strange video in which my wife interrupts me to do yoga will not convince anyone that initiative builds are good, but I do think it's a fun example of how they can work "well enough" in strict Ironman late-game BB. Mdef is pretty good.

P.S. Here's the "prep" prologue, if anybody's curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQVzhfPsd9k

[Rude$t]

Ooo. This will be fun to see. I'll give it a watch. <3

[Ozymandias]

"This guy died, but ignore him" LOL.

You did a very good job tactically taking advantage of the terrain to break up their formation.
Nobody died, impressive considering some of your guys have perm injuries and ~70 melee.

Lessons Learned: Poopers are more fun than scoopers.

[Scathe]

good job. I never would have thought 1 spearwall once in the middle of the formation could be that advantageous. thanks for sharing the video, it may inspire me to come back and play some BB which I haven't played this game in a few months.

I think you've got more experience in this game than me, and play on higher difficulties, so I am hesitant to criticize, but I don't understand some of your decisions with your spear tank. I think it is cool that you found room for extra bags and quick hands on your tank, but if you're not going to abuse the indom cycle, I don't get having it all over something like shield expert, or maybe you could fit shield expert over fast adaptation? and with only 70 melee attack and no cleaver mastery, I don't get him carrying a whip instead of a second shield or a net or something. care to explain that?

[suejak]

Thanks for watching, guys. I know lots of people post their YouTubes and I never watch unless I know the poster. Plus mine isn't trying to show anything in particular ;)

Originally posted by Rude$t:

Ooo. This will be fun to see. I'll give it a watch. <3

Thanks! I realized that I really enjoy watching people do high-stakes fights in BB with experimental or strange builds that have some logic to them. Some of my favourites are people like Arvius on Twitch, Flickering (the Chinese player I link sometimes), deductor, and other fearless, sometimes creative players. It's great background noise.

Also, I'd love to watch any of you guys do a fight where the stakes are high and/or you were high when making your builds. By which I mean "creative" builds, of course.

I talk a lot of ♥♥♥♥ about constantly taking 3-skull contracts on EELI with weird builds, so I figured it would be fun to film one of my weirdest companies' first big chosen fight. (They were stuck in the south for the entire campaign due to a bizarrely long Noble War.) This is also probably the thorniest fight so far, as they skated through the Noble War, beat big packs of lindwurms, roll Ancient Dead (a lotta duelists will do that), etc.

Originally posted by Ozymandias:

"This guy died, but ignore him" LOL.

You did a very good job tactically taking advantage of the terrain to break up their formation.
Nobody died, impressive considering some of your guys have perm injuries and ~70 melee.

Lessons Learned: Poopers are more fun than scoopers.

Lol, yeah, I guess that's the lesson. Filming this has really made me a better player, I think, because I realized even the things that went wrong in this fight were easily fixable, but I was too passive in trying to save the sacrifice up north (could have safely saved him with a combo of my "real" indom tank and the billion-mdef sellsword) and I underrated the threat to my BF Indom sergeant, who could easily have been rescued a lot sooner by the axe duelist and/or the mace duelist that were not really needed elsewhere -- and I even walked right past him with a 2h mace guy who had bandages (39:23)! Obviously Sir Dankrad needs an armour attachment and Colossus.

I feel like this budget-fencer sacrifice does a poor job of showing off how good this guy could have been in this role if built for it with a couple different perks. Like, imagine I had replaced Duelist and Overwhelm/Pathfinder/Rotation with Shield Expert and Underdog (!), which are major perks he lacks. He still would have been at a nasty disadvantage vs. chosen with their hammers and maces, but he probably would have survived a lot longer. (He also got a tad boned by RNG early on, but so it goes.) He could also have used an armour attachment.

[suejak]

Originally posted by Scathe:

good job. I never would have thought 1 spearwall once in the middle of the formation could be that advantageous. thanks for sharing the video, it may inspire me to come back and play some BB which I haven't played this game in a few months.

I think you've got more experience in this game than me, and play on higher difficulties, so I am hesitant to criticize, but I don't understand some of your decisions with your spear tank. I think it is cool that you found room for extra bags and quick hands on your tank, but if you're not going to abuse the indom cycle, I don't get having it all over something like shield expert, or maybe you could fit shield expert over fast adaptation? and with only 70 melee attack and no cleaver mastery, I don't get him carrying a whip instead of a second shield or a net or something. care to explain that?

No, good job to you for watching it I really appreciate it. You should make a video of you playing sometime, too! I'd like to see the players behind the names in action.

Yeah, your criticisms are definitely sound, especially in terms of the sometimes ADHD builds.

The "spear tank" is IMO more of a high-fatigue Quick Hands character who can also take a serious beating when needed. His build, to some extent, reflects his journey. Early on, I love to take high-fatigue guys with mediocre melee skill and give them QH + flail/mace/spear (pick 2... or 3) so they can swap to the one that makes the most sense for the moment. Honestly, I would love to highlight this early-game build sometime because I think it is an amazing use of a guy who only brings fatigue to the table with few other redeeming features. Flails are amazing early vs. the right targets, but what if you wind up vs. a raider in thick head armour and a 2-hander? Or what if you want to stun a guy for safe armour daggering? In that situation, QH swapping to the mace for a quick one-two FA stun attempt is ace. Or obviously a spear is great for the opening phase of many battles, but once you're in melee range it's generally better to be using something else. For this guy, that generally meant an orc weapon (do not underestimate double-grip FA orc cleaver) or even 2h AOE like greatsword or hammer. The versatility is what I love about that use of a "fatigue guy".

However, you are 1000% right that Shield Expert could (should?) easily replace e.g. Fast Adaptation, especially for this late day count. Although this guy actually is more likely to use an AOE 2h in most fights with a shield in the pocket, I think when the chips are down, I'd rather he have Shield Expert than FA.

This company actually lacks a dedicated shield expert right now, and I think this video shows we'd do well to train one up.

As for the whip, you are definitely right. I think he has been carrying a whip by habit since the days when you could do two disarms per turn (sorta good for FA), but in this case he would have been much better served by something else. That's also why he has all the Indom cycle perks... he used to be a dirty adrena-recover cycler (and was much better for it)...

I'm on the fence about taking cleaver mastery only for whip disarm. It seems like a huge investment (one perk) just for a single 5 ap disarm attempt per turn. Do you guys think that's worth it?

Sincerely, sue "wall of text" jak.

[Santo]

Man, every time I think I'm getting good at this game, I come to the forums and you guys put me in my place xD

[Scathe]

Originally posted by suejak:

I'm on the fence about taking cleaver mastery only for whip disarm. It seems like a huge investment (one perk) just for a single 5 ap disarm attempt per turn. Do you guys think that's worth it?

I think you need the right bro for cleaver mastery to be worth it just for a whip. I think if you notice armor has been stripped off an enemy, it can help someone finish that enemy off from a position they otherwise couldn't have. like for example of all the bros you showed off, I think hakon the muscle (was that the name of your crossbow guy?), crossbow guy, could have fit cleaver or polearm mastery instead of throwing mastery. I'm not sure exactly how I would have built him. I may have done both cleaver and polearm over throwing and fast adap. but I think I underrate fast adaptation's early game advantages.

edit - I'm not saying the way you built your crossbow guy was bad either, but you did call your own builds goofy, and I do consider it a bit odd to pursue melee attack on a backline guy and pick two masterys for ranged attack and none for melee attack.

[Leistungsumfang]

Originally posted by suejak:

I banned the Indom cycle.

Just for that I'll give it a look.
I know its a singleplayer game and everybody to his liking. But from an immersion standpoint its totally stupid and easily fixable (Do not allow Adrenaline with 0 AP left - done)

[Abel]

Good battle! And kudos to you for playing it while recording!

I was pleasantly surprised by your fencer with a shield and I thought: 'oh, this is a creative way of using the fencing sword, essentially granting this shield expert Footwork!" And then I understood the guy didn't have the perk! Actually, there isn't a single character in your team who's able to hold the flanks. The loss sustained in the north and the near death in the south result from a lack of shield experts.

Your mixed throwers are under performing due to the lack of Duelist and Barbarian TW. This is a shame because fully equipped throwers are the absolute counters to Barbarians but you probably know all that.
Your pure thrower could definitely have held a net. The Fatigue cost fro throwing it is reduced with TW Mastery.
The spiked impaler is generally preferred to the heavy crossbow here but your arbalester seems to have awful hit chance so probably a better choice.

Overwhelm under performed but as you said yourself, it was to be expected. Nimble is a great match up against Barbarian but yes, Initiative builds do suffer because of Adrenaline.

I would probably have positioned the Spearwall on one of the flank, since Barbarian like to go around. I didn't see him repel successfully.

Most of your characters have horrible Melee Skill so the achievement is real. I really like the weapon diversity. All in all, it's a solid suejak company with just a few things lacking but otherwise well built to face most of the game challenges.

[suejak]

Yesss, Abel.

Also, you need to make some videos too. I'm not sure if I made this clear but it's not optional.

Yeah, as I said, the guy at top was a sacrifice because I had a better fencer in training and 19 guys. In retrospect, I coulda saved him but it's almost like I had already decided not to before the battle started. I also wanted to see how he did. He coulda done better...

Yes, I actually said that the non-duelist throwers were not the best v. chosen. It's hard to not do duelist throwers, honestly. Sorta like Indom. Perhaps a nerf is in order ;)

Sometimes I think that people are carried by duelist throwers in too many encounters. My favourite example is that guy who did BM in 60 days or whatever with mass billhooks -- I feel like his 4 duelist throwers were the real reason he glided through it.

I certainly considered the net on the thrower, but I took it off for two reasons. First, for some reason I was worried about Duelist not proccing, but afterwards I remembered they patched that out in WotN. The second was that I wanted my one and only (!!) duelist thrower to be doing damage the whole time, not bothering with nets. So yeah, you're right. He should have had one.

The spearwall got one repel off. I agree it probably wasn't important and actually this BF utility tank felt like dead weight. Chosen do flank a ton, but it's also not uncommon to get straight-up line battles where the chosen are 2 deep and free to rotate anywhere they want, which is what I wanted to try to avoid. Ultimately, the terrain did it for me so I agree the BF indom tank should have gone up top instead of the sacrifice.

Did Overwhelm really underperform? I'm not sure. Certainly it's stronger in other fights, but it got plenty of procs off and there was even more unused potential on the Barb King v. the BF sergeant (who got shredded way faster than I expected, partly because of the unclear initiative difference between him and the barb king meant he had one useless Indom use).

You can't judge an mdef effect like Overwhelm by whether the enemy hits or not, so you can only go off of whether the procs were useful. I think there were enough useful procs that I was glad I had it over any other option on those bros. There was at least one situation where a chosen with 3x Overwhelm stacks tried and failed to swing into two targets because he had hit chance of like 5% and 10%.

"A solid suejak company" is high Abel praise :D Thank you!

As you say, these brothers are mostly bad and some of the builds have multiple dead perks that stick around like a vestigial tail. Still, despite "terrible melee skill," we didn't have that much trouble. That's partly why I filmed it, I think - even with all that, everything was fine! I'm not even sure anybody but the sacrifice would have taken damage if I'd recognized the Barb King threat!

[deducter]

Always nice to see other interesting BB content. If this is your first video, you've probably noticed it's a lot harder to record commentary and play at the same time. And it's even harder to stream and interact with an audience. I tried streaming a few times and I played noticeably worse. So really, we should cut streamers slack when it comes to mistakes.

The skill ceiling in BB is extremely high. I have played almost 1.3k hours and I still see room from improvement in my tactical plays. I also just enjoy doing some really silly things on the strategic layer. I recorded an entire run that ends with an (unplanned) day 99 Black Monolith with no adrenaline/indom combo with a focus on making my bros look fashioanble. I really want a game mode with super endgame crisis that starts at day 100 and just throws insane number of enemies of all combos at you. Barbs + gobbos. Ancient dead + schrats. Geists + orcs. Completely insanity and guaranteed to kill your company eventually.

Is there any interest in doing a "co-op" type BB stream? I would like to join another player and commentate on a run together, so as to compare decisions. This is also a great way to improve tactical play, because that's something that is almost impossible to describe at a high level with writing.

[turtle225]

Face reveal when?

Good and interesting battle. I think you overcommitted on the south which left the north in some trouble, but since you didn't care much about saving the Fencer he did a fine job of buying time for the bros at the bottom to come help.

You had two bros who could have bandaged the Banner and moved both away. The hammer guy (or mace, I forgot now) even walked right past him. That clutch Indom though was great.

Can confirm that acid can hit your own bros. I got Sikker killed that way in the community run Monolith battle.

Never made a video before, but I very much expect that trying to commentate while playing would make it harder to play well as it diverts your focus. I've heard many content creators say that.

Throwing nerf wouldn't be crazy if you ask me. Ironic since I wanted it buffed pre WotN.

[Estieukua]

Spear Mastery on everyone (almost):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sElXrcfUV6A

The above was an experiment and not from a real campaign. In a real campaign, the two lone-wolf shield tanks (a beggar and a bowyer!) would very probably have died long before they attained a state of usefulness.

[Abel]

Originally posted by suejak:

Also, you need to make some videos too. I'm not sure if I made this clear but it's not optional.

Haha, well, we'll see about that!

Originally posted by deducter:

Is there any interest in doing a "co-op" type BB stream? I would like to join another player and commentate on a run together, so as to compare decisions. This is also a great way to improve tactical play, because that's something that is almost impossible to describe at a high level with writing.

That's a great idea! In the same vein as the community challenge.

Originally posted by Estieukua:

Spear Mastery on everyone

Boring but efficient strategy! I see you upgraded your computer from last time :) !

[Abel]

All right, I made my own video!
To illustrate the power of shield experts, I doubled the group size to 40 enemies:
https://youtu.be/b_xF0eQIh1E
https://youtu.be/Xpoe-jqMHco
Note that the character builds were tailored for this challenge.