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[PrimusRibbus]

Oh, that looks like a far superior upgrade to the garden variety skeletons. Very cool.

Also, as much as graphics aren't a factor for me in turn-based strategy games, I am constantly impressed by your artist.

[Neonivek]

I am secretly hoping for the Fay!

But that miiiiiight be a bit tricky and probably not popular... Given they are unlikely to use bulky armors and weapons... Given they are trolls, dark elves, and Rakshasas (I actually forgot the term for the Celtic evil fairy)... and people will expect Renaissance Fairies.

Can't be the Druagr  as we already have Wights... Doubt it will be Giants...

Witches, Warlocks, and Banshees? Ok definitely cool... but I don't picture magic attacks of any sort.

Might be a singular enemy type... so hmmm

Dulahan? Actually... hmm... Enemies who are walking suits of armor and weapons who essentially drop themselves as equipment? hmmm... Naw...

[Cthulhu]

Unseelie?

Fae might be cool in a sense more along the lines of the fae in the witcher or the eldar in 40k, ancient warriors who've been fighting for millennia and have not an iota of compassion for humans

[EnigmaticHat]

For me Dresden Files will always define the Fae.

Kinda out of tone with the blood and mud of this game tho.

[Tack]

You're mixing up the modern Dresden fae with the ancient "not scared of humans" fae. I see the unseelie as more like Pratchett's take.

Totally wouldn't mind Giants though. 7 square behemoth with an instakill attack to make you actually want to take javelineers.

However I'm mostly expecting the tribes of the wild men.
Could be a big crowd-pleaser, albeit maybe just weaker orcs in principle?


Who's got guesses regarding the new vamps?

[Jaysen]

Will the Ancient Legion be their own faction or will they be teamed up with the typical undead? I don't picture them getting along personally...

I do actually like the concept though. Roman soldiers with their tight formations on dead bodies.

They will be like the Orcs and Goblins who do not mix but both belong to the Greenskin Faction. So Ancient Dead and Wiedergangers will both be part of the undead but usually not mix. Also the necromancer, being a human, will only be with the wiedergangers. The ancient dead will get a reworked vampire and a completely new support unit. We will reveal them this friday

[Tack]

Ooh. Will the "recent dead" faction be getting anything to fill out the roster?

Edit: Nevermind, seems they're already even.

My guesses for Ancient
Auxiliary (skirmish)
Legionary (line)
Honor Guard (Elite)
Bannerman? (Support)
Vampires (Command?)

So the other list is now
Ghouls (skirmish)
Wiedergangers (line)
Fallen Zombie Hero (Elite)
Lost Souls (Support)
Necromancer (Command)

[Jaysen]

A bit late this time but here is part two of the ancient dead faction reveal:

Dev Blog #86: The Ancient Dead, Part II


This week we conclude our presentation of the ancient dead with the reimagined vampire and an entirely new opponent. If you haven’t read the first part yet, it’s recommended you do so here first. Otherwise, read on!

The Necrosavant

As the ancient empire conquered most of the known world, so would foreign and remote lands turn into provinces. What was local custom or cult once, hidden away and not spoken of elsewhere, would suddenly find itself a part of the empire, and sometimes would creep deep into its very heart. From the blistering deserts of the south came a secretive cult that had its followers not worship fertility as they did in the capital, not strength, not humility and not compassion. They worshipped a perversion of death, the promise to transcend mortality, to exist beyond life and death, forever.

When you have nothing but misery, it’s easy to let go, to welcome the warm embrace of the gods that sets you free from all earthly burden and hardships. But it’s those that have everything on this earth, power and wealth, that cling to it at the end of their life, that clutch to it in desperation, that bargain, that curse, that would pay any price to stay. And it is those who would embrace not the gods, for their touch is not salvation for them, but whose touch would tear them away and apart from the earthly things they prize above all, the things that they have chosen to become. It is those who would forsake the gods and turn to the cult of death instead, that would die over and over again, and yet never leave this earth, forever bound to it, forever paying the price.

Whether an ardent cultist once, or a decadent noble seeking eternal life, they have long since become a being that measures time no longer in years but in lifetimes: a Necrosavant. It will wither away and die in time, again and again, but never leave this world as long as it is rejuvenated with the blood of the living.



Mechanically, the Necrosavant is more or less identical to the Withered Vampire it replaces. The new visuals, however, tell a story on their own, and better reflect how this being exists. The less hitpoints a Necrosavant has, the more it will visually wither away, and the more hitpoints it gains again by savouring a victim’s blood, the more it will rejuvenate until its appearance is almost that of a healthy human.

The Necrosavant retains the ability to turn into a flock of bats to quickly position itself on the battlefield, making it perhaps the most mobile opponent in Battle Brothers. However, it doesn’t wear any armor or shield, leaving it vulnerable to being attacked itself, especially if bereft of its major strength by being stunned or immobilized.

The Ancient Priest

The empire had countless religions and cults, and each had priests spreading the word of their gods, performing rites and proclaiming miracles. The ancient priest was one such individual once. Now brought back to unlife, his very existence is making a mockery out of his faith. His work is turned into a perversion of what he once devoted his life to; no longer does he bless acres, he brings foulness and rot, and no longer does he bring comfort, he brings but horrible visions of a world beyond ours.



The ancient priest joins the ranks of the few spellcasters in Battle Brothers, and like all spellcasters fills a support role. He’s of little danger all by himself, but with ancient legionnaires holding the ranks, he can slowly work to rout a whole company. And then, there’s always his ancient honor guard protecting him.



The ancient priest’s first skill is to summon miasma, a thick mist of foulness and rot that is harmful to any living being. Miasma is created in an area of 7 tiles and sticks to these tiles for several rounds. Any living being ending its turn on a tile affected by miasma will lose hitpoints - it’s only a few each round, but no armor does protect against breathing in the foul fog, and it does eventually add up if you don’t move out your men.



The ancient priest’s second skill is called ‘Horror’, and as the name implies, it brings horrific visions to it’s unfortunate victims. It’s an area-of-effect spell, like ‘Miasma’, but targeted at people and not tiles. Anyone affected will have to make a morale check - the higher the resolve, the higher the chance that they won’t be affected at all. If a character fails the morale check, their morale will drop by one level. Additionally, if the character fails critically (meaning with a dice throw higher than 140% of their resolve, subject to change) they’ll be affected by the new ‘Horrified’ status effect for one turn and be unable to act.

While ‘Horror’ can be quite powerful against a company of weak-willed and deserters, it can be countered by investing into the resolve attribute of your men, picking certain perks, and making use of the ‘Rally the Troops’ skill. As mentioned last time, the ancient dead are the missing puzzle piece to make the resolve attribute worth investing into, and together with some general rebalancing, also to make morale management in battle a more interesting and active part of gameplay.

[Tack]

Will Necrosavants be found fighting alongside the rest of the ancient dead?
That's a terrifying thought.

[Neonivek]

Ok... I definitely was never going to predict Mummies.

Yet alone for the developer to make Non-Zombie Mummies (which is something that bugs me in fiction)

[ThtblovesDF]

Now we just need priests of our own or more likely, weapons that hate on EM, from torches to blessed masterworks

[Jaysen]

Here is the last rework that we had on the list, the Ghoul. New looks, new skills, new threat

Dev Blog #87: Ghoul Rework

With the rework of all things skeleton done, we’ve moved on to do the last enemy rework announced in our roadmap to the finish line - that of the ghoul. He’s got new looks, new mechanics, a few lore changes and even a new name. Let’s find out more!

The Nachzehrer

The what now? A Nachzehrer is a creature based on German folklore, and it’s going to take the place of the old ghoul in the world of Battle Brothers.

The peasantry tells stories of men and women coming back to life after the sin of committing suicide as horribly shaped monstrosities, turned into a Nachzehrer. They’re said to resemble grey-skinned devils that dig up graves with their claws and devour fresh corpses, even devour parts of themselves and their funeral shrouds, and to grow in strength as they do so until they inevitably prey on the living. Others may claim that they are but wild beasts, merely scavengers drawn to fresh graves like seagulls to fishing nets. Whatever their true nature, they bring misery and disease upon any village they bedevil.

The old ghoul had a good thing going with its unique mechanic of being able to feast on corpses and thereby growing in size and strength, which in turn had the potential to provide a different experience from fighting other opponents as you defended the fallen from being consumed. We still like it, and we’re keeping it, but we’re doing some changes to put this mechanic more to the center and to give you more incentive to prevent the Nachzehrer from growing.



The creature known as Nachzehrer can grow up to two times as it gorges itself on a corpse, and it’s not shy of cannibalizing its own kind. Each time it does so, it increases in size and strength significantly. At its largest, when it’s become a hulking behemoth of grey flesh, it gains the ability to swallow a man whole. Anyone devoured like this isn’t dead, but in the belly of the beast and removed from the map. Slaying the Nachzehrer will free that character again, albeit covered in goo, but retreating while a character is devoured in this way will spell certain death for him.

A Nachzehrer has long claws that they use to dig through the earth in search of food, and which can tear grievous wounds in combat. The larger the Nachzehrer, the more dangerous the claws become. On the bright side, a Nachzehrer doesn’t have any armor, which favors swords and cleavers, and it gets easier to hit with ranged weapons, the larger and less nimble it becomes.



We want all opponents in Battle Brothers to provide unique challenges and require different tactics to beat reliably. With these changes, each time a Nachzehrer grows should be more impactful, and unless you want to have to fight towering giants that can devour your men whole no matter how fine their armor, actively preventing a flock of Nachzehrers from feasting on corpses has become a much more integral part of fighting them. Additionally, Nachzehrers should now also scale better beyond the initial stages of the game, as later on in your campaign you may meet specimens that have already feasted and grown once or twice.

[Tack]

Awesome to see the ghouls have a progression.
Not that the devs come in anymore other than to drop their latest copy-paste, but I love what you've done so far and will be sad to see the project come to an end.
(Can't access the BB website on mobile so I assume it's coming up)

Would absolutely pay hand over fist for an expansion if any of those "big ideas" you'd sadly cut ever set off the creative fireworks in the future.

I guess Germanic > Nordic means no draugr after all.

[Jaysen]

Still reading every post though i don't answer that often

Most difficult thing with making a game is to decide which features to put in and which to leave out. Every idea you have to cut really hurts. But let's hope the full release runs well and we will be able to keep building the game with expansions!

[PanH]

Started to play again, and it's pretty good. I'm having a hard time making a good start (either getting wiped early or dwindling after reaching 10-12 brothers). Not sure if I should go for plenty of cheap spear-shield at start or if there's a better strategy. I used to do pretty good on Veteran/Expert, but it seems pretty hard to get started in Veteran now.

I got a good start recently, but I'm afraid I'll have to scratch it. I had a caravan escort event, and after a battle, I had an event where a noble was prisoner of the caravan and asked me to free. I did so, and took him back to his city (earning a lofty 3000, pretty good for that early). The issue is that the city which issued me the caravan mission is now hostile, and that I took a patrol mission (from the city/guy I rescued) and now that I'm trying to go close to the city the militias are attacking me. It's kinda nonsensical that the faction which controls both cities asks me to check them out and then the local guys on a city attack me.
Is there any way to complete the patrol mission ? Or to make the city not hate me anymore ? Having a boost with a faction but having one of its city hostile isn't very useful.