I am loving this game! I write game reviews for
Triton XP and would love to review Battle Brothers, if that's alright.
Since most reviewers focus on mainstream console games, I feel like its a Bay12er's responsibility to provide exposure for the roguelike and indie genres.
After dying horribly for my first few trial games, and going through each of the scenarios a few times for giggles, I finally "figured it out." I like how every new game has entirely different noble houses, towns, lore, geography, recruitable population, production facilities, and the like. I have a love-hate relationship with swamp-fighting. If you can find a little island to set-up on, and have good heater shields (+range def), you can hold the line while the enemies slog through the muck at a turtle's pace. Hope you're not fighting goblins though. :| Jesus christ on a pogo-stick, I hate goblins. I actually have a far easier time killing wolfriders than a normal pack of goblins with ambushers and such.
Also, damn you to hell, goblin shamans and those crazy ancient undead priests. Also, necromancers.
After losing horribly to a local necromancer and his 13 undead oh, 10 or so times, I finally realized I can just set my rangers at my flanks and nail him twice to completely remove his resurrection (and other !FUN! skills) from the field.
Once you take out the necro, its just a matter of mopping up with the occasional revival. See, this is why I like my guys who perma-kill/behead.
I will admit I save before recruiting (in case of horrid stats/debuffs) and only recruit people under 300-400 price, despite having nearly 10k to my name. I'm still using only what I've scavenged while hoarding all my gold. Got a few level 4-5 guys, including all my starting characters intact.
I'm running one bowman, 3 crossbows, and a motley crew of randoms. A few spears (spears are amazing btw), and a lot of maces, since I found a bunch of maces/flails on some ancient undead.
Mace/flail stunning is GREAT. Spearwall is GREAT. Shieldwall is VITAL. A combination of the two, if effectively strategized with favorable terrain, can create some great kill corridors.
Getting the battle standard completely changed how I play. I now understand how crucial and useful pikes/hooks/halberds can be.
What I love most is, the AI is pretty intelligent. They counter my defenses, flank me, ambush, use high ground to their advantage, form shield walls, cavalry-charge, and much more. Together with procedurally-generated terrain, every battle feels organic.
I officially love this game!
Now, just waiting for a scifi version.