Shield based builds powerful enough?

[talino7]

If I wanted to have all my front line bros carrying shields and various one handed weapons would they be effective mid to late game or when meeting the tougher enemies?

[Hades Dragon]

Might work on weaker mobs. But Orcs, will ruin that plan all the way down. Just not enough damage to justify carrying dedicated shield, I only use shields on the flank. Plus any end game material will make that hard to do, more so when outnumbered.

[thebadman]

They can be useful early and midgame but most powerful brothers in terms of damage do not touch shields. That said not every brother needs to deal damage and shield tanks are still useful, just not as main way of dealing damage.

[Beatbeat Goodbeat]

why use shields when you can field 16 great sword? Use the bodies of the enemy fallen as a shield.

[mergele]

Full tanks with shields are quite useful, but you can only have so many of them before you need damage.

[Heron]

For the crisis, yes. For late game camps and legendary locations, probably no. I mean, it could still work depending on builds and equipment, but it would be quite difficult.

Exception being shielded overwhelm dagger masters who spam puncture. You could clear large Orc and Chosen camps relatively easy with a full frontline of those I reckon, but you'd have to avoid ancient dead (and therefore Monolith & library) with that approach. Skeletons are pierce damage resistant.

[turtle225]

Shielded Warhammer bros can deal reasonable damage. Shielded Mace has some stun utility.

Overall though, if you have 5-7 shield guys it will put a lot of demand on your backline to deal damage. It can work, but will probably struggle in some of the biggest encounters.

[UnluckyNoob]

The only strong offensive shielded build is puncture dagger. The problem is it requires nimble(you need godlike stats+gear for BF puncture dagger) and nimble is weak lategame because lategame nimble gear is very rare. There are only 3 nimble helmets and 4 body armours compared to 9/6 BF ones. And on the top of that nimble armour attachments sux after bone platings nerf.

[talino7]

Thanks for you answers. I thought as much.

[The Duck Knight]

you can run without 2H weapons on your frontline just fine on veteran.
Wild mobs and most camps won't be much of a problem. You will just take a few more turns to win combats.
Might have difficulty with certain legendary encounters, but most enemies are fine to beat with that.

In fact, some of the tougher enemies can be easy prey for you.
a crippler with shield and southern 1H sword can fight of 2-3 unholds alone at the same time, as long as they don't throw around their grapple attack too much.
But yes, very possible and honestly: a good way for beginners to learn risk managment in this game.

[Nerdgasm]

The best defense is a good offense when you're fighting the toughest encounters, many of which come down to being a DPS race. This means you'll eventually want to transition those units into becoming 2handers or duelists. You'll lose your shieldwall and some melee defense but this gets offset by the powerful 2handed weapon specific abilities. Doing a 3-tile AOE swing with a 2handed hammer is massively overpowered compared to one or two swings with a one-handed weapon and shield. The hammer blow has the chance to stagger and knock back the enemies plus deal a tonne of damage and cause serious injuries. 2handed mace gets a really good stun, 2handed sword gets a 2 tile line attack etc. The point is that the loss in defenses you get from removing the shield gets overshadowed by the added damage and utility of not using a shield. You'll know when you meet your first orc warlord if you haven't seen one already. I remember getting wiped on my first ever crisis (got the orc invasion) and thinking 'I'm gonna need more damage'.

[rubyismycat]

If you are playing a i dont care who dies the more dead brothers the better way then ignore shields make everyone use two handed weapons in fact why wear armour if your a real man fight naked! If however you dont keep poop where your brain should be shields are super important if you get a guy with poor attack but good mele defence and tons of stamina you got a shield tank give them the best spear you can get and the best shield and heaviest armour and spec them with defensive and surviability skills and they can just shield wall for days taunting and blocking while your DPS guys slaughter the enemies there is a reason people used shields in real life and theres a reason to use them in this game

[Hollow]

No, late game crisis on high difficulty throw hordes of enemies at you, (like vs 26+ orcs) Shield bros simply cannot kill them fast enough. You want about 4 bros to be the tank and rescue. They are the ones who can flank dangerous two hander enemies and use rotate to rescue bro in bad places. But more than that it start to become counter productive.