Alp Night Ambush Tips

[That One Guy]

Just was ambushed by 10 alps at night before day 100, and (essentially) lost 3 of my 12 bros.

Any tips on how to win this kind of fight? I felt it was going to be tough to come through it any way I fought.

Used dog spam to little effect. Alps just suicidally targeted the same bros over and over until all alps were killed.

Battle outcome: https://prnt.sc/ooKfxLWvIyid

EDIT: To clarify, this wasn't a contract, just wandering alps that attacked me at night before I could hit the spacebar.

[Malarky Enthusiast]

Give everyone pikes and spam wait turn, only attack alps that are in range, ball up, dont move, just spam wait turn or hit alp. Its free cash. Dogs are terrible for apls, they just move the alps all over the place and make a mess.

[LDiCesare]

Use nets.
Throw a net at one alp. Move your whole party away. That alp will never move anymore, so you are now facing only 9 alps. Net another one. Move away. Only 8 alps left.
If you don't have nets, that just makes life harder for you. You should always have a guy or two with some nets in their pockets.

Form a circle-like formation with your polearm and ranged guys on the outer side. Keep in formation. Use the guys in the middle to wake up those outside.
If, for some reason, you need to attack with a non-pole/non-whip/non-range weapon, move, strike, move back, keep in formation.
Dogs might distract an alp or two but they're going to be rather useless.
Also note rally will wake up the bros (at least those next to your sergeant, I didn't check the range). It can be more effective than waking up bros one at a time.

[NM9G]

Looks like your weaponry was very weak (mostly tier 2 weapons, including a spear, which is not effective against alps due to a piercing resistance, pikes I believe fall to this too).
Try fighting more brigand raiders and you should be able to get longaxes or more high base damage weapons that can 1-2 shot alps.
Also having a banner carrier share resolve to everyone reduces the damage the nightmares deal, as well as having decent Hp (don’t have to crazily invest in it or anything, just get 85+ with colossus and a couple levels spending on the hire).

Also a big thing is that you were using shields, which alps don’t melee attack (minus the occasional dire wolf team up) taking away dmg potential from dual grip.

[That One Guy]

Originally posted by Offal Devourer:

Give everyone pikes and spam wait turn, only attack alps that are in range, ball up, dont move, just spam wait turn or hit alp. Its free cash. Dogs are terrible for apls, they just move the alps all over the place and make a mess.

This is a night ambush on ironman (maybe there was lag, maybe I was just slow, but I'm just trying to see "what I could have done" to maximize combat effectiveness, or reduce losses after the fight began)

2x pikemen, 2x polemacemen were available. 2x archers with 1H maces each were available. 2x tanks with sword and shield, then 2x 1H macemen with shields, and 1x spearman with shield, and 1x cleaver with shield were available.

Only 2x nets were carried by backline.

Originally posted by LDiCesare:

Use nets.
Throw a net at one alp. Move your whole party away. That alp will never move anymore, so you are now facing only 9 alps. Net another one. Move away. Only 8 alps left.

LOL, do Alps not break free in nets like Necrosavants do? This could have helped quite a bit.

I killed 1x Alp, and very nearly a second, before the end of my first turn.
Fighting 7 alps instead of 9 would have made a huge difference

[That One Guy]

Originally posted by NM9G:

Looks like your weaponry was very weak (mostly tier 2 weapons, including a spear, which is not effective against alps due to a piercing resistance, pikes I believe fall to this too).
Try fighting more brigand raiders and you should be able to get longaxes or more high base damage weapons that can 1-2 shot alps.
Also having a banner carrier share resolve to everyone reduces the damage the nightmares deal, as well as having decent Hp (don’t have to crazily invest in it or anything, just get 85+ with colossus and a couple levels spending on the hire).

Also a big thing is that you were using shields, which alps don’t melee attack (minus the occasional dire wolf team up) taking away dmg potential from dual grip.

Acknowledged, though this was an "ambush" type scenario, you make a great point that I should have immediately dropped shields on everyone for the +25% double-grip damage boost.

[NM9G]

Originally posted by That One Guy:

Originally posted by NM9G:

Looks like your weaponry was very weak (mostly tier 2 weapons, including a spear, which is not effective against alps due to a piercing resistance, pikes I believe fall to this too).
Try fighting more brigand raiders and you should be able to get longaxes or more high base damage weapons that can 1-2 shot alps.
Also having a banner carrier share resolve to everyone reduces the damage the nightmares deal, as well as having decent Hp (don’t have to crazily invest in it or anything, just get 85+ with colossus and a couple levels spending on the hire).

Also a big thing is that you were using shields, which alps don’t melee attack (minus the occasional dire wolf team up) taking away dmg potential from dual grip.

Acknowledged, though this was an "ambush" type scenario, you make a great point that I should have immediately dropped shields on everyone for the +25% double-grip damage boost.

Well if you were to try to win that fight with the sense that your units don't get to swap weapons (given that you can still pocket/drop shields).
Then the general takedown strat for alps is to always use the wait button (when not spending all fatigue) to attack when optimal/burn through sleeps without sacrificing a full turn. Position all your low hp/resolve units (less than 80hp/less than 45 resolve) in the center of your formation before they arrive, as they will focus down your most vulnerable.
Also making sure if you are going to move out of your clumps of units to keep in mind that they will likely teleport to the unit that is isolated the most.
Additionally, try to avoid attacking an alp before they had their turns, as it can result in them all teleporting onto one unit and spending all their attacks in one or two units. This matters the most on round 1, as they are still spending their turn/AP running at you instead of hitting one, and then letting them all get attacks on you.

[eddieballgame]

Stay together, be patient, nets are good (if you have them) & dogs are not useless.

[LDiCesare]

Originally posted by That One Guy:

LOL, do Alps not break free in nets like Necrosavants do? This could have helped quite a bit.

I killed 1x Alp, and very nearly a second, before the end of my first turn.
Fighting 7 alps instead of 9 would have made a huge difference

Indeed Alps don't break free of nets. They need a melee attack to do that and don't have one.
They also don't attack fleeing characters who run past them but that's hard to abuse.

[The Duck Knight]

nets are good, as someone else already said, because an Alp in a net can't teleport away when getting hit AND they CAN'T break free from nets.

[Rat]

main tip:" Dont sleep@- like Freddy krueger, the famous necromancer said yes yes

[SwampDragon]

I know you asked how to win, but also consider fleeing on first turn. Alps will let you leave without a fight (unless something has changed very recently). No need to fight if you're not being paid.

[That One Guy]

Originally posted by SwampDragon:

I know you asked how to win, but also consider fleeing on first turn. Alps will let you leave without a fight (unless something has changed very recently). No need to fight if you're not being paid.

This is also really good to know, thanks.


Do other enemies follow this behavior of letting the player retreat on turn 1, or is it just Alps?

I think I recall Necrosavants not engaging when I retreated against them last.

[SwampDragon]

Originally posted by That One Guy:

Originally posted by SwampDragon:

I know you asked how to win, but also consider fleeing on first turn. Alps will let you leave without a fight (unless something has changed very recently). No need to fight if you're not being paid.

This is also really good to know, thanks.


Do other enemies follow this behavior of letting the player retreat on turn 1, or is it just Alps?

I think I recall Necrosavants not engaging when I retreated against them last.

Necrosavants wont teleport forward if you retreat turn one, that's correct. Undead will always let you retreat, something to bear in mind when you get those missions that ask you to return X artefact from undead location (free money basically). I am not sure of a complete list of enemies that have this behaviour, but others might know?
They'll comment I am sure.

[DWAR]

If you have time to pause before the battle, you can remove all armor and shields, they bypass them anyways. As others said keep your people together and try not to do any attacking until they have all moved for that turn. You can still wake people up though. Also, as nets are good, so is stun, as they lose a turn and cant teleport when hit. Other then that, patience.

[jedi7000nathan/sevenbillionjedi]

My advise around alps. Avoid them like they are the plague itself, not worth fighting in my opinion WAY TOO dangerous.