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Do you have what it takes to lead them through bloody battles and to victory?

Battle Brothers is a medieval Roguelike Turn-Based Tactics game, best described as a fusion of XCOM, and Mount & Blade, with a healthy heaping of Warhammer Fantasy (or perhaps more accurately the Mordheim spinoff game) and a dash of The Black Company.

You play the role of the leader of a mercenary warband in a procedurally-generated Low Fantasy Crapsack World. It is completely up to you where you go, who you hire and who you fight, what contracts you take, and how you train and equip your battle brothers towards a single objective: keeping them (and you) alive and the coffers full, for as long as you can. The game will put you up against rival warbands of mercenaries, Greenskins, bandits, undead, robber barons, and countless variety of monsters, so the answer is not quite 'when will everything go wrong', it's how.

You might not be able to save the world or save the girl, but you can at least try and save for your retirement.

Battle Brothers was released on March 24, 2017, for Windows on Steam, and the Humble Store after an early access release on April 27, 2015. It then received several DLCs:

  • A free DLC, Lindwurm, was released on October 19th 2017, and adds a new creature (the eponymous Lindwurm, a wingless dragon) and crafting recipes involving its remains.
  • The first major Expansion Pack, Beasts and Exploration, was released on November 29th 2018, which adds a slew of new content, including a host of new monsters, weapons, armor, events and mechanics to the game.
  • Warriors of the North, was released on May 9th 2019 and added a new barbarian faction, along with a slew of new starting scenarios for your mercenary company, as well as Nordic-themed banners and icons and new events, contracts and legendary locations and bosses.
  • Blazing Deserts, was released on August 14th 2020, adding a southern desert setting with Middle Eastern inspirations, three new starting scenarios focused in the south, and a whole slew of new weapons and mechanics, including primitive grenades and firearms, and an arena building available in some southern cities where you can send company brothers to fight against beasts or gladiators for the entertainment of the masses and earn cash.
  • Of Flesh and Faith, a free DLC released on March 10th 2022, adds two new character classes (the Oathtaker and the Anatomist), specific gameplay mechanics and events related to them, and new equipments and general events as well.


This game has examples of the following tropes:

  • Ace Custom: Named equipment. It's a variant of a standard gear, but with slightly (or quite significantly) better stats and a custom name. They have a price to match their special status, but in the same time, they are more likely to spawn in a Well-Supplied settlements, and your own relationship with that place can further decrease the price.
  • Achievement Mockery: Warriors of the North adds an achievement for dying in Ironman Mode against Barbarians.
  • Adventure-Friendly World: A positive of the Crapsack World is that you're probably not running out of work any time soon. Bandits, barbarians, monsters and more are all in constant supply.
  • The Alcoholic: Turning to alcoholism ("Drunkard" trait) is a potential consequence for seeing too many bros dying in battle. It results in a buff in resolve and damage, a debuff in melee and ranged skills, a higher chance of becoming drunk in taverns, and events where the drunkard loses a random equipment piece. In the latter event, choosing to punish him with a whipping session has a 75% chance to cure them from the drinking habit.
  • All Webbed Up: One of the annoying issues when dealing with webknechts.
  • Annoying Arrows: Mostly averted. Shields and heavy armor help considerably, but even then a crossbow can always be pretty devastating. Poorly armored troops are incredibly vulnerable to arrows. A highly skilled archer can butcher entire groups on their own. Crossbows are dangerous enough in untrained hands, but a skilled archer with a good bow is murderous. This is one of the reasons why goblins are considered one of the nastier enemies to fight, and why high-level bandit archers are a feared enemy. On top of their physical lethality, bows and crossbows can also have crucial morale effects, as seeing their comrades getting killed tends to be very bad for morale and carries various combat penalties. Shooting an enemy down before the lines even collide can prove very advantageous in the inevitable melee, particularly with lower-tier enemies who can be ready to break after just a few turns of combat.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • After obtaining a battle standard, it will need to be equipped as a two-handed weapon in order to be brought into battle. The banner is actually a fairly good polearm, being comparable in stats to the Pike, which is the second best polearm in the game. This makes it so that bringing a standard into battle for the resolve bonus still allows the standard-bearer to contribute to the fight.
    • With the "Lone Wolf" origin, the Hedge Knight has a special trait ("Player Character") which exempts him from any event that would result in a brother's death, since losing the campaign from a sudden random event you have no control on wouldn't be fun. He's also excluded from the event granting a bro the "Drunkard" trait, avoiding awkward events where the Captain punishes himself for alcohol-influenced blunders.
  • Anyone Can Die: Can and will. It's not at all uncommon for a new recruit to die without ever having finished a battle. This is not a game where you should get overly attached to your men, and you should never put any one brother's life ahead of the squad. Sometimes you'll need to sacrifice a brother or otherwise allow one to fall victim to fickle RNG to win. It is even possible to lose one of your starting companions in the tutorial! There are a few origins (namely the Lone Wolf and Gladiators) where losing your starting units will result in a game over, however.
  • Appeal to Force: The player can use this in certain events, threatening compliance by sword and shield. Others will certainly try to do the same to you in some instances.
  • Armor Is Useless: Averted, absolutely.
    • Body Armor is usually the difference between life and death, with most attacks striking your armor's "health" before cutting through to the flesh (which takes longer and is more expensive to heal than armor is to repair). Basic clothing offers some protection, but the difference between a basic tunic and a simple gambeson is vastly reduced healing and replacement recruiting costs, and the strongest Coat of Plates is a whole world beyond that. Unarmored units fighting against those with good armor often feels downright unfair.
    • Head protection is even more critical, as head hits can cause crippling injuries and allow for easy kills, especially when flail and two-handed axe users are involved. If you can't afford a decent helmet, even a simple mail coif, leather cap, or tough straw hat is better than nothing.
    • Expansion content added more armor attachments that can be crafted from beast body parts, often with secondary bonuses to the attached armor. For example, a Lindwurm Scale cloak increases the fatigue demand of the armor it's attached to, but in turn it significantly improves the durability and gives you protection from Lindwurm acidic blood when you melee a Lindwurm and damage it directly past its scales. Other similar attachments exist, made from wolve and hyena pelts.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: Daggers can pierce through enemy's armor and deal direct damage to the enemy, at the cost of accuracy. It is very useful for killing a target that has really good armor since it is more likely to be looted if it is not damaged.
  • Army of Thieves and Whores:
    • Banditry is exceptionally common in such a bleak world. Fighting some variety of bandits is one of the most common lower level contracts. The player can also recruit less savory members (which will sometimes trigger events where bounty hunters will come looking for said men). You can also run the mercenary company this way, preferring loot and pillage rather than taking contracts.
    • In the end your world-beating mercenary company will often consist primarily of woodcutters, fishermen, farmhands, homeless wretches, beggars, killers on the run, or weirder options like a man who was going to be tarred and feathered by his neighbours for fornicating with a melon, or a man who was being punished for having sex with a (already dead) horse. If you play the "Peasant Militia" origin, this type of recruits are the only ones you'll be able to hire.
  • Attack Animal: You can buy and deploy dogs to fight in the battlefield. The dogs are individually weak and will likely die due to low HP and armor, but are very useful in chasing fleeing enemies or locking down some dangerous foes. They're relatively cheap to buy and keep around, and don't get stronger over time like Brothers do, so they are very expendable.
    • Barbarians will sometimes have Beastmasters who whip armoured Unholds into fighting for them. Slaying the Beastmaster turns the Unhold hostile against the Barbarians.
    • Far Northern cities have regionally adapted battle hounds instead of the normal war dogs used in temperate regions. They are less swift on the field, but are slightly stronger on the attack.
    • It is possible in a random event for a Houndmaster brother to befriend and tame a wolf. Wolves cannot wear the heaviest war dog armor, but they are faster and stronger than normal war dogs.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: Daggers have the Puncture ability, allowing you to completely bypass enemy armour and directly damage their HP. Using this ability on heavily-armoured enemies is a great way to get high-end armour for free. Many other weapons also have some variety of this, aiming for the head or a similar weak point at the cost of accuracy or extra stamina.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • Most orc weapons are huge, do massive damage, and can hardly be held by your average human due to sheer size. They deal comparable damage to higher-tier swords, axes, and cleavers, but they also impose a huge fatigue penalty on the brother wielding them.
    • The rather crude barbarian weapons impose similar penalties, being unwieldy and fatigue-inducing for worse average damage than regular weapons. Their saving grace however is superior performance against heavy armour - they deal less damage, but more of it goes through. Averted with the high-end armour and named weapons you can pick up from the Kings.
    • Two handed weapons fall firmly into this in the early game. They may deal more damage and have much more impressive special attacks than their one handed counterparts, but they also demand a much more skilled user to perform effectively. Without high melee attack and defense values, a brother will miss and waste their valuable single attack more often than not, and he quickly torn to shreds without the hefty melee defense boost a shield gives. However, a properly leveled and equipped two-handed brother can dish out levels of damage that are completely unreachable with one handed weapons and still keep themselves relatively safe in a melee, making this more of a case of Difficult, but Awesome come the late game.
    • Some of the alchemical/gunpowder weapons can also fall into this category. Fire Lances, for instance, have the same basic attacks as regular spears, but trade the Spear Wall ability for a once per battle special attack where they shoot a jet of fire, hitting two tiles in a row. It's almost certainly weaker than the Spear Wall ability.
    • Equipping your frontline brothers with throwing weaponsnote  in emulation of Roman Legionaries does give your company considerably more flexibility on the battlefield and can see lower-level enemy parties routed before they've even made it to your lines. The catch of course is that, unless you've been engaging in some highly unorthodox brother-building strategy, your frontline brothers are unlikely to actually be any good with throwing weapons and will probably only score a handful of hits, which is especially painful as throwing weapons are much more ammunition-intensive to use than regular ranged weapons.
  • Badass Army: Your companions can turn into this later in the game, taking on armies of the world's worst and coming out on top.
  • Band of Brothers: Your starting companions from the beginning counts as this trope, even emphasized by "Companion" background.
  • Battle Thralls: Southern Indebted (slaves/indentured servants/bondsmen) can be available to "hire" (buy; once you pay the up-front cost for them, they do not receive daily wages) in any southern city-state in the Blazing Deserts DLC, and be turned into an effective combatant via hard-earned experience like any other lowborn you take on into your company—or be used as an expendable meat-shield, should you want to do so. One new starting scenario in the DLC allows you to take a large mass of Indebted into battle along with a few freemen overseers, who can whip the slaves to motivate them and reset their morale. On a slightly brighter note, any Indebted who you allow to leave the company are explicitly stated to have been given their freedom.
  • Battle Trophy: With the Beasts and Exploration DLC, you can use those parts from monsters you killed to make goodies to improve the prowess of your company.
  • Barbarian Tribe: The barbarian raiders added in Warriors of the North. The "Northern Raiders" scenario gives you command of a small war party of barbarian warriors - they are adept fighters and have increased loot from slain enemies, but the reputation malus you have might make dealing with the civilized human factions of the south difficult. Culturally, they are heavily inspired by Viking Age Scandinavia with some Iron-age tribalism thrown in (see Fantasy Counterpart Culture for more details).
  • Being Evil Sucks:
    • While the player is generally not exactly a paragon of virtue, falling into full-on banditry will make it almost impossible to run the company, as the various well armed and well trained military patrols will quickly hunt you down and put an end to you (just like you used to do). Even if you fight them off, your inability to resupply properly at towns (that now hate you) will doom you.
    • The way the "barbarian raiders" start is set up heavily encourages you to play like a reaver however. Two factions on the map already hate you, and you gain more loot from any battles against humans. Raiding trade caravans can be a mighty lucrative alternative to contracts and trading, as long as you don't overly piss off the nobles...
  • Bestiality Is Depraved: One of the recruitment events feature a man who was caught having sex with a dead horse. He doesn't seem to understand what's the problem, since the horse was already dead when he started.
  • BFS: Two-handed swords are very expensive in shops, very difficult to find as loot and have prohibitively high fatigue costs. They also have some of the highest raw damage potential of any weapon in the game, especially the mighty Greatsword used by Zweihander troops and some Hedge Knights. Barbarians also use a unique weapon called the Rusty Warblade, a massively broad two-handed cleaver that devastates flesh and metal alike. The southern city-states produce curved versions that count as cleavers rather than swords.
  • Black Comedy: The player's dialogue is normally chock full of this, as is the variety of events that occur in your travels.
  • Body Armor as Hit Points: Barring Armor Piercing Attacks abilities or critical hits, most attacks will deplete the armor's hitpoints before affecting the target's health. Note there's two distinct armor slots (body and head) with their own health bars.
  • Break Out the Museum Piece: There is nothing preventing you from using outright ancient weapons, usually taken from slain undead. Majority of them will also be affected by their age, so it might not be the smartest thing to do. The main exception is a khopesh sword, which makes an incredible weapon for any Duelist brother due to combination of its stats and, more importantly, being classified as a cleaver, thus having Decapitation ability.
  • Breather Episode:
    • In between all the vicious fighting and murder, you sometimes get a contract to escort a caravan from one town to another. These trips are self-guided as your company follows the caravan, and while you can get attacked by bandits, if you've been active in the area recently, the chances are low. As an added benefit, your food is paid for by the caravan so you won't consume any of your provisions. These missions are a welcome relief when you need to take time to heal and repair your gear, but still need to keep making money.
    • Arena fights in the Blazing Deserts DLC can also be this. While this will always involve combat, the arena will always let you know who/what you're fighting against, and will only pit three company brothers against a limited number of opponents. If you've got injured men on the roster, need money, but don't want to risk facing unknown foes in a contract, you can send three uninjured men into the arena and keep the cash flow going from the winnings. That said, all arena fights are to the death, so if things go sideways you can easily lose all three men you sent into the arena. Higher-end fights can also end up with you fighting very dangerous monsters, up to multiple Lindwurms!
  • Boring, but Practical:
    • Most players swear in the early game by spears and shields. Even if their damage and performance against armour are not so great, spears give your brothers a nice +20% to hit chance (which they will need, surely) and the very useful Spearwall ability, which can often net you 2-3 free attacks as the enemy is trying (and often failing) to get through. As an extra plus, shields allow the use of the Shieldwall ability which not only gives a big defence boost for the brother who uses it, but confers an additional smaller bonus to any brothers standing next to them also using the ability. Using the two abilities together can create a near-unbeatable defence until archers and heavy weapons come into play in mid-game. And the best thing about spears? Lowly Brigand Thugs very commonly carry them.
      • Along those same lines: the Spearwall ability is very powerful against anything not smart enough to avoid it. Using terrain features to force enemies into a Spearwall will result in them gladly impaling themselves on your spears for only 4 AP and 30 Fatigue, as each attack costs nothing. Noble armies, goblins, and higher tier undead (mummies and ancients) are smart enough to avoid the grinder, but everything else will get shredded.
    • Surrounding a Knight or Brigand Leader or other heavily-armoured enemy with brothers armed with daggers and simply Puncturing them over and over until they die is a fantastic way to get high-end armour for free. And if you take the Dagger Mastery perk, you will be able to stab enemies three times in one turn as they will have a lower AP cost to use compared to other weapons.
    • Along with daggers, the unassuming wooden stick also makes a great secondary weapon. Wooden sticks have about the same damage potential as daggers, but they are much better against armour, and they have an ability that lets you stun enemies, forcing them to forgo a turn.
    • Nets are very often overlooked, great for crowd control and isolating powerful enemies, leaving them unable to move or properly defend themselves while you swing away at them. They are especially effective against Orcs, enemies that will destroy you quickly if you allow them to run rampant. They are also one of the few ways to immobilize Alps so they won't constantly teleport around.
    • Two early-tier perks, Fast Handsnote  and Bags & Beltsnote , aren't very flashy initially but really start to pay off once you've acquired a decent selection of equipment. Being able to carry up to 5 different weapons into battle makes a brother amazingly versatile.
    • Most of the tier 1 perks are incredibly valuable, compared to the tier 8 perks, which are more situational. Fast Adaptationnote , Crippling Blowsnote , Pathfindernote , and Studentnote  are useful in any and every build. The second tier perk, Feintnote  is also useful for anyone.
    • By far the most vital piece of gear for any mercenary, even more than the humble shield, is a good helmet. Even just a simple padded cap is much better than nothing. Helmets Are Hardly Heroic will just get your best man killed.
    • In the early game, the most boring yet practical tactic is to let the enemy come to you. Against bandits, you will generally have higher initiative, letting you go first, and allowing you to charge the bandit lines, but that will cuase your warriors to get a little tired, and the bandits will have less distance to cover to engage, letting them probably get the first attacks in. Holding your ground and setting up a shield wall while your archers get some shots in, on the other hand, will have the bandits take attrition damage, and if you're able to set up a spearwall, they will gladly impale themselves on your pointy sticks. There is a danger of being flanked if the bandits make an endrun around your line, but it will take at least three turns for them to do so, letting you prepare. This tactic is absolutely not recommended for anything other than bandits, however: orcs, goblins, noble armies and monsters will destroy a line that doesn't adequately prepare. It also works against relatively dumb or aggressive enemies like Wiedergangers, Webknachts, Nachzehrers, and such.
    • In the early game, good armor will seem out of reach when you see the price tags in an armorer's catalogue. This means that utilizing Nimble to reduce health damage becomes a lot more useful, instead of taking Battleforged, which requires sufficiently heavy helmets and body armor to get more damage reduction out of it. Due to the lightweight demands of using such armor for Nimble, you can thus afford to use Dodge to make it harder to hit you since your Initiative will not be bogged down by your armor nearly as much. An early-game veteran bro with Dodge, Relentless, and Nimble wearing a simple Nasal Helm (7 fatigue) and a Padded Leather (8 fatigue) will have the full benefits of Nimble, while having light enough armor that he can exploit Dodge to be much harder to hit.
  • Botanical Abomination: The Schrat is absolutely this. Described as a mythical treant with an utterly alien morality, they're said to stalk the woods to strangle and choke the life out of misbehaving children. As if that description enough wasn't Nightmare Fuel, they're also a pain in the ass to fight. Bring axes. Lots of axes.
  • Breakable Weapons: Chest armors, helmets, weapons, and shields all have their own health bar which decreases as they are used. Once at 0, chest armors and helmets stop granting protection but remain in your inventory, while weapons and shield are destroyed and disappear. Axes (one-handed and two-handed) and greatswords have an ability to break a shield. The party automatically repairs equipped gear over time (twice faster if camping or escorting a caravan) by consuming the Tools and Supplies resource.
  • Burn the Witch!: A random event can involve a woman being tied to a bonfire and you can choose to free her or let her burn. Freeing her will net you some morale boost but some of your mercenaries may get hurt. An extra option involves some of your mercenaries depending on their backstory like one letting her burn if they are are Witch Hunter or a Monk, or free her if one of you mercenaries was a Cultist.
  • Call That a Formation?:
    • Averted, keeping your unit in formation is important. Going out in movie-style combat (i.e- charging into the fray) will get your unit massacred from having no support and exhaust them quickly from initial attack. In addition, getting surrounded is one of the worst effects on morale in the game, with the effect getting exponentially worst for every enemy around a unit.
    • Don't expect Barbarians to bother with formations. Instead, they will throw some spears and axes and then come in a howling mass. Their sheer ferocity and mobility means sometimes it pays off.
    • Subverted with two-handed users who have AOE skills that lets them take down multiple foes and cause morale failure for the enemy if several enemies are struck down in a single blow. In additions, skills like Breakthrough (Exclusive to Orcs), Lone Wolf and Underdog means they deliberately want to be facing their enemies alone so they can decimate a vulnerable flank.
  • Charm Person: One of the signature attacks from the hexen, they can for several turns make one of your brothers turn against you. Hope the one they charmed isn't your best warrior.
  • Chromosome Casting: There are no Battle Sisters, all recruited fighters are male. Some of the retinues are female.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: If you wish, you have plenty of opportunities to betray your employers. Most people even expect you to. There's even an achievement for doing so! It will lower your reputation, though.
  • Combat and Support:
    • The Battle Bros are obviously fulfilling the combat role.
    • The retinues are the support. There's up to five slots (unlocked at renown caps) where you can hire one of 18 special NPCs who offers various passive buffs. For instance, the Drill Sergeant grants higher XP gain, the Cook makes food spoils slower...
  • Combat by Champion: During a contract to drive away a nearby barbarian camp, there is a chance one of the Chosen from the camp will issue out a personal challenge to the company, and you can send one of your brothers to fight him. If your guy wins, the barbarians agree to leave peacefully and the contract is finished. If you lose, you can then choose to leave the barbarians be (failing the contract but gaining substantial reputation) or raze the place (settling the contract and getting paid, but losing reputation).
  • Combat Pragmatist: Naturally as such a difficult game, you should never apologise for fighting dirty whenever you can. Attack dogs, fishing nets, poisoned weapons and arrowheads, surrounding and attacking one poor bastard four-on-one... Hell, goblins are this trope.
  • Continuing is Painful: Even if you win some battles, you'll often leave it just as bad, if not worse, than when you started the game. This is an expected occurrence, such that the tutorial of the game specifically teaches you how to start from scratch.
  • Cosmetically Different Sides: The noble houses generally use the same troops but wearing different heraldry.
  • Crapsack World: The entire setting is a Medieval European Fantasy complete with Orc marauders accompanied by Goblins, assortments of Undead, bickering nobility, and occasional banditry and "grave robbers". The first three elements being part of Late Game Crisis (respectively Greenskin Invasion, Undead Arising, and War), where the players can profit in, also add a topping on the bleak setting. Blazing Deserts adds a new Crisis event, a Holy War between northern and southern factions. The setting makes no pretense that mercenary work while profitable has very little if any glory for the sellswords and recruits, the nobility often could care less about your successes and don't even truly acknowledge you. The Old Witch in the Witch's hut will tell you that when you ask about the False King. In the southern cities, the leadership is shown to be extremely corrupt and decadent, and slavery and gladiator battles to the death are commonplace.
  • Critical Existence Failure: Averted. Most characters can suffer from injuries if they receive a lot of damage from a single hit, which worsen stats and persist for a few days after a battle. In addition, a character lowered to 0 HP may survive the hit, though incapacitated by it. Afterwards, they will receive a permanent injury, which can't be removed at all. And even if they're immune to injuries (Usually animals and monsters), they can usually suffer from morale loss after getting hit, which worsens their abilities and eventually results in fleeing.
  • Culture Clash: As of the Blazing Deserts DLC, if you have both northern and southern brothers in your company, this can occur as occasional random events on the road, with brawls erupting over religious and cultural differences—northern polytheism vs. southern monotheism, northern monogamy vs. southern polygamy, and so on, leaving the participants bloodied and potentially with temporary injuries. The captain will always react with an exasperated "Can't we all just get along?"
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: During crisis events, a lot of roaming enemy squads will end up fighting the invading crisis factions. In some cases, the matchup can be hilariously lopsided, like a horde of undead against an entire pack of Unholds. Since undead legionaries deal minimal damage and rely on their shield walls to pose a threat, Unholds can swiftly tear them a new one as they regenerate health every turn and can scatter formations with each punch. It's very entertaining to crash an ongoing battle between undead and Unholds and see your dreaded undead foes get thrown around like ragdolls.
  • Dark Fantasy: High mortality, monsters everywhere, nobles more interested in their own goals than the lives of the citizens, and the only magic that exists is vile necromancy. Your best hope is not to make the world a better place, but just to retire with enough money and fame to live comfortably.
  • Deal with the Devil:
    • The last ruler of the ancient Empire made a deal with someone only known as the 'Ugly Man' after his child was born stillborn. If he gave the child and paid the price, the Empire would never die and he and his wife would rule eternal. The price was his wife became barren, and the Empire and its legions an undead army.
    • Some contracts will have you working for folk who've struck a bargain with Hexen with promises of their firstborn. Naturally, you'll have to fight the Hexe(n) and any familiars because said schmuck wants to get out of the deal.
    • The player can get in on this as well if one picks the Davkul Cultists origin.
  • Decapitated Army:
    • How the game starts: you serve as the second in command of a mercenary company, where the leader is killed in the first turn of combat (before you get control). You don't succeed at the contract, so much as you fail to lose, because your target runs away, but when the battle is over, you're left in charge of the (three-man) company by virtue of being the ranking officer. According to the tutorial dialogue, the company has fallen a long way before the start of the game.
    • The only way to defeat the Greenskin invasion is to slay the warchief heading it, which is easier said then done, considering the warchief is 600 pounds of sociopathic muscle guarded by a horde of powerful greenskin warriors who are almost as big and mean as he is.
    • When fighting undead, if a necromancer is present then he will continually raise more soldiers until killed.
  • Dem Bones: Legions of Undead skeleton warriors are one of the major enemies in the game, haunting the forgotten places of the world.
  • Difficult, but Awesome:
    • A lot of your gear can be scavenged from your fallen foes and repaired at the end of the day. This means that if you're able to ambush a group of well-armed soldiers (brigands or otherwise), and you survive the resulting combat against foes equipped with superior gear, you can save a lot of money on upgrading your troops to better gear. It is strongly recommended to have a full company of experienced troops before you try it, though.
    • Two-handed swords. They provide variety of very useful area-of-attack abilities combined with very high damage and extra bonus for aiming toward head. As a result, they allow killing entire rows of enemies in a single attack. However, they require sufficient melee skill to be of any use, or else they will just keep missing and, more importantly, a brother with high fatigue (or at least with Iron Lungs trait) and melee defense, since they can't carry a shield, while the special attacks of two-handed swords use up lots of fatigue and require proper positioning.
    • Ranged attacks in general: the number of recruits that start with good ranged attacks are few and far between, and usually limited to backgrounds like Bowyers, Fletchers, Hunters and Poachers. Ranged skill is also not a common talent, making it more difficult to level. A good starting archer will have a starting ranged skill of around 45, while a good melee fighter will have a starting melee skill of about 55. This means it's difficult at best to have a good archer, as they likely won't hit anything beyond a few hexes due to range penalties. But if you're patient, and build up the archer while getting lucky on level up rolls, you can have a sniper that will kill three or four units before the clash, and then just run around picking off the weakened enemies with no trouble at all.
  • Dirty Business: Generally the entire modus operandi of your mercenary company. Nobody thinks "murdering for money" is a particularly glorious occupation, but everyone needs sellswords for one thing or another. Many events make it clear that the people of the towns really don't like it when your company passes through, even if you have a good reputation with them.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Experienced bros who have seen several bros dying in battle have a random chance of becoming alcoholic.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?:
    • It is quite clear that mercenary life while profitable is not a respected profession, at best you are treated as fodder for the nobility and made unwelcome in their eyes. At worst, you are living from contract to contract, barely able to make ends meet and one bad contract away from death. This does reduce gradually as your renown goes up and you get better contracts, and when you gain good relations with towns or noble houses they will offer you discounts and much better pay.
    • This is most pronounced when taking contracts in the south. The sultans despise sellswords so much that many of them don't even allow the captain into their manor, only working with him through their servants.
  • Early Game Hell: This game does not pull its punches. You start with a fair amount of money, but building up the company will quickly use most of it up in recruitment costs and gear. The recruits that you can afford to hire are usually not fit for the job, being fishermen, farmers, messengers, or even beggars. The gear that you can afford to buy is usually little better than sharpened sticks or repurposed lumberjack axes, or thick shirts and poorly stitched leather hats. Combat is lethal, with an unlucky hit capable of killing even the few veterans you have in one shot, much less your recruits. Early missions pay only enough for you to maintain, with a very small amount left over for upgrades, if you're lucky. Once you're out of the early game, have some experienced soldiers with better gear, and start getting better paying jobs, you're in a somewhat better position, but a single bad mission can put you back to square one.
    • Each of the new starts introduced in Warriors of the North has a specific form of Early Game Hell:
      • The Peasant Militia starts you with a lot of badly armed peasants. Losses aren't quite as severe ("Dietrich got his skull caved in with a flail? Ahh well, there's more where that came from!") which means your food costs are high from the get-go, and can never hire anyone that isn't a lowborn peasant which means some of the best recruits are completely unavailable.
      • The Band of Poachers starts with three trained woodsmen, characters who are light on their feet but all specialized as archers (so as soon as melee starts, you'll be outclassed), and can't carry as much stuff, which reduces trading opportunities.
      • The Trading Caravan starts with zero renown, which means contracts will be low-paying bottom feeder contracts, and gains renown at 66% the normal rate, which means you'll be stuck with those contracts for a while. Also, the pair of caravan hands you start with aren't the best fighters.
      • The Beast Slayers give you a trio of competent monster slayers. They have good gear, get more drops from monsters and can track things well, but due to the social stigma they face from the rest of society (a la The Witcher) everyone charges you 10% more for everything, which adds up very quickly until you can get some decent cashflow going.
      • The Deserters start with less money and also have a noble house out to kill them, meaning they could get attacked any time they're close to a specific noble house's territory.
      • The Cultists have to randomly sacrifice stuff to Davkul, either money, items or... their own. And Davkul doesn't care if you're just getting started and don't have a lot to sacrifice at the moment.
      • The Northern Raiders start with three barbarian warriors and a monk. Most human factions hate or at least dislike the barbarians, which means fewer contracts and less pay, not to mention higher costs in shops.
      • And finally, the Lone Wolf starts with just... himself - a well-armed, well-armoured knight. And that's it. He can almost handle a lot of early contracts on his own (Truth in Television - armoured knights really were able to fight whole bands of men by themselves and emerge unscathed) but he also starts with less money and his high armor repair costs in terms of tools and time are excessive. Oh, and most crucially of all he is your Player Character, so if he dies then the game is over.
      • Blazing Deserts adds the Manhunters and Gladiators Origin. The Manhunters origin gives you access to a slave master and several indebted and the ability to whip them to a frenzy, however the number of Indebted cannot be outnumbered by non indebted and is locked to level 7. Locking them out of valuable Perks. While Gladiator Origins offers more elite fighters, you are still hardcapped at 12 party members, limiting your auxiliary line to only 9 men at best with all of them being high maintenance unlike the Lone Wolf and demand food variety, higher pay costs and being in a good mood and will leave unlike the Lone Wolf. Like Lone wolf, losing all three ends your campaign.
  • Endless Game: There's defeat conditions but not victory conditions. If you don't suffer a total party wipe and don't trigger the origin's special defeat condition, the campaign last until you choose to retire.
  • An Entrepreneur Is You: Trading can be a source of income, though is normally only a supplement to your other work. Settlements produce specific resources according to what production buildings (vineyards, lumber mills, fur trappers, etc.) are in their vicinity, and you can buy trade goods on the cheap in villages that have such buildings and sell them at a profit in the cities depending on the market. In-game prices fluctuate naturally, with events occurring in the settlement (such as disappearing villagers due to monsters) affecting them further. The southern city-states added in the Blazing Deserts DLC produce different goods such as silk, incense, and/or spices. The goods from the North and the South will sell for considerable more in the opposite regions. The Trading Caravan origin allows you to play a more trade focused game: you'll get bonuses to your buying at selling prices, although you generally won't be as effective of a mercenary.
  • Escort Mission:
    • There's mission consisting in escorting caravans. If the caravan is ambushed, the enemies will attempt to attack the cart themselves, each being represented by a donkeys, and the reward depends on the number of surviving donkeys. The encounters also feature the caravan's guards as friendly AI units.
    • The missions where you must kill a Hexe to prevent her from kidnapping the local mayor's firstborn son as payment for a deal features the son as a temporary party member.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The player character is only referred to by his men as 'Captain'.
  • Evil Pays Better: One of the biggest money drain in the game is paying veteran brothers, who can each demand more than 50 crowns per day (for comparison, basic missions can pay as low as 180). However, you can sidestep this problem altogether by using slave soldiers. Other than a lower-than-average resolve (easily remedied with a good bannerman), indebted can become just as powerful as your normal brothers for a fraction of the upkeep.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Necromancers raising the dead isn't uncommon, and killing them a frequent task.
  • Exact Words: The Ancient Dead Crisis stems from a poorly worded pact that the last Emperor made with an entity known as the "Ugly Man". As his last chance at an heir resulted in a stillborn child and the fate of his line was sealed, he made a deal to ensure that "his empire would never die, and he and his wife would eternal". His wife became barren, and his empire and its legions became undead.
  • Faction Calculus:
    • Northern Houses: Balanced. The noble houses employ fighting men with an assortment of weapons and armour, just like you; whether you face brigands or professional noble troops, you will see a row of men with hand weapons and shields, with pikemen behind to reach out and archers or crossbowmen to soften up before the clash.
    • Southern States: Subversive. The southern city-states employ troops with equipment on-par with the northerners, but also many exotic units like Indebted (naked slave soldiers with minimal weaponry, rely on sheer numbers to win), Assassins (nimble troops with high attack and low armour), gunpowder troops and mortar artillery. However as a consequence of fighting in their desert home, heavy armour is less prevalent among their troops.
    • Orcs: Powerhouse. With their massive weapons and thick armour, Orcs are very hard to bring down, but armour-piercing weapons and skirmishers can exact a heavy toll. They usually fight as berserkers with little regard for good tactics.
    • Goblins: Subversive. Goblins are weak fighters; they employ poison, netting and sharpshooter tactics to bring their enemies down to their level. In melee they are weak, but crafty and hard to hit.
    • Undead: Horde. Not particularly dangerous alone (though they hardly ever are), the trouble with the dead is they keep getting back up after you knock them down, and worse, any of your fallen brothers have a good chance of doing so as well. Ancient Dead are a Powerhouse; a row of heavily-armoured shield bearers with pikemen behind, they are unstoppable as long as the tight formation holds.
    • Barbarians: Cannons. They rarely have armour or shields (barring the odd elite), but forgoing this protection gives them a high initiative and, combined with their Adrenaline and Barbarian Rotation perks, a lot of mobility too. For what barbarian weapons lack in subtlety they make for in sheer heft, and they are often wielded two-handed.
  • Fantastic Drug: Berserker mushrooms, normally used by orcs, can be ingested by your brothers to improve their fighting skills. Frequent use may cause a brother to develop an addiction, however.
  • Fantasy Conflict Counterpart: The "Holy War" late game crisis from the Blazing Deserts DLC is a fantasy version of The Crusades, consisting in the northern noble houses and the southern city-states fighting each others for the control of several holy sites.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
    • It's strongly implied throughout the game that the setting takes place in an Expy of the Holy Roman Empire, which makes sense given how Overhype Studios is based within Germany. Ruled by a privileged collection of incredibly powerful and influential noble houses that vie for dominance of the game map, the lack of distinct kingdoms as opposed to noble houses was definitely not unlike how the Holy Roman Empire was less an absolute kingdom and more of a loosely-allied confederation of city-states that let the nobility vote on whom the ruling regent should be. This is in addition to the regular contests of power held between the Germanic counterparts and their northernly raiding neighbors (just like the rivalry between the Holy Roman Empire and Scandinavia). In addition, the setting has typically "Germanic" armor styles, with nearly all location names and several enemies such as Wiedergänger, Nachzehrer and Lindwurms (or Lindwürmer, to use the correct plural) being named in grammatically-correct German. It also shows up within the names of your mercenaries, of whom the vast majority are named of German origin. As an interesting side note, the setting is, to a lesser degree, strongly Celtic inspired, what with the usage of round shields and tribal tattoos to complement the largely Germanic setting.
    • The Ancient Dead's former empire is heavily based on Roman Empire with Egyptian mummy trappings; in addition to the implications held of such a cultural mix, the auxiliaries within the empire are based around the Germanic and Celtic tribes like the ones the real Roman Empire has conquered and absorbed.
    • The Barbarian Tribes encompassing most of the northern area of the map are also heavily inspired by the Scandinavian viking raiders of the Low Middle Ages, though with a much more tribal and, well, barbaric culture more befitting of Iron Age Scandinavia. Inhabiting the coldest and most northern climes of the map, the Warriors of North expansion pack even adds two new banners with a distinctly Nordic theme to it. Interestingly enough though, one of the banners introduced is actually inspired by the Kievan Rus', implying the extent of the barbarian kingdoms go beyond equivalence to just Scandinavia.
    • The Blazing Deserts DLC adds a southern civilization with Arabic, Persian and some Byzantine/Medieval Greek trappings, made of three city states with Arabic-sounding names. The southern civilization is described as being scientifically more advanced than the northern factions, like medieval Arabic and Byzantine civilizations were more advanced than medieval Catholic Europe.
  • Fantasy Gun Control: Played straight mostly, but the Blazing Deserts DLC averts this by adding some very primitive gunpowder implements. Fire lances are spears that can blast enemies two ranks deep once per battle with an attached powder charge, and handgonnes are early-style hand cannons that shoot like shotguns and are very slow to reload.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • The legions of the Ancient Dead will take a special interest in the Captain in the first skirmishes, pointing him out in battle and declaring that the "False King must die", and that the "Empire shall rise again". It is heavily implied that the Captain is a descendant of the ancient royalty who rebelled and tore down the Empire long ago.
    • A Hexe can also mention your lineage before fighting her and her minions.
    • Various characters will mention that the Greenskins once nearly wiped out civilisation and were only stopped in a massive war that cost many, many lives, and brothers who were veterans of the conflict can be recruited. Many find it odd that Orc raiders are suddenly returning to harry civilisation.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: It is not uncommon to see Northern Barbarian Thralls, Southern Indebted, Young Orcs, and Orc Berserkers charge at you without any armor or clothing on.
  • Game Mod: Battle Brothers has its own category on the Nexus. Beside qualify of life and rebalance mods, one of the more ambitious mods is Legends, an overhaul which adds new origins, a higher headcount, new camping features, new enemies, reworking the AI, reworking the items, allowing to customize armors and helmets' stats by adding layers, and adding female recruits.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: While the "Lone Wolf" Hegde Knight being the Captain's avatar occasionally leads to awkward events when the game treats them as different characters, there's one gameplay feature which takes it in account: he's exempted from the daily wage. In addition, since he's the captain, the game ends when he dies.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • The injury system becomes silly when it involves non-humanoid enemies like Webnechts, which can receive injuries like Ripped Ear and Pierced Hand on something that isn't exactly human.
    • You're normally a Non-Entity General, unless you play the "Lone Wolf" scenario, in which case the starting Hedge Knight is supposed to be the Captain. Some events involve party members referred by name, which means you'll occasionally have the Hedge Knight and the Captain interacting with each others, despite being the same person. That's even more awkward if the Hedge Knight is the only party member.
    • The Drill Sergeant retinue become available once you dismiss a brother who suffered from a permanent injury. His sprite is always a man with a missing hand, regardless of what kind of injury suffered the men you had dismissed (losing a hand isn't even one of the permanent injuries which appear ingame). Not to mention one of the possible injuries, "brain damage", would make someone a poor choice for the task.
    • During siege quests, your employers claim that they are subcontracting the relief effort to you because they're stretched too thin to send their own men. However, it's entirely possible to go to the town you're supposed to be relieving and find a noble regiment already there killing all the enemies for you.
  • Giant Spider: Webknechts.
  • Hard Head: The Steel Brow perk allows your bros to resist head hits up to a point, which can save them from random concussions due to unlucky head hits. It also prevents them from taking critical hit damage from head hits, which can save your bros from getting brained by a headshot.
  • Heavily Armored Mook:Just about every enemy faction has these.
    • Normal humans have knights, seen most often during the War of Noble Houses event. Their high protection comes at the cost of them getting fatigued quickly, though.
    • Only high-ranking Barbarians like the Kings and their Chosen make any use of heavy armour. The descriptions suggest the primitive culture and lack of advanced metalworking leaves this kind of protection a rare status symbol afforded only to the mightiest.
    • Regular Undead have Armored Wiedergangers, though their leather/cloth armor is only good compared to the clothing of the normal Wiedergangers. Fallen Heroes, however, are essentially straight-up Undead Knights, who can reanimate even without their head, and can also be taken over by the controlling Necromancers and get extra attacks in this manner. All of these also suffer no fatigue for obvious reasons, though it's compensated by them being always slow in the first place anyway.
    • The Ancient Dead are far better equipped, with even Ancient Auxiliaries wearing armor on part with Armored Wiedergangers. The Ancient Honor Guard are straight-up encased in armor.
    • Lastly, while Orc Young wear little armour and Orc Berserkers wear even less, Orc Warriors carry ludicrous amounts of metal on their bodies, combined with the enormous tower shields.
  • Heroic BSoD: One of the permanent injuries is Traumatized, which inflicts a huge penalty to their resolve and initiative.
    "This character has been to the other side. Faced with his own mortality, the experience of dying and coming back has left him a broken man."
  • Homage: The entire setting is one to Warhammer, but with no magic or Steampunk firearms to save you from monsters, savage greenskins, burly war-loving men from the frozen north and ancient undead looking to reclaim a world-spanning empire usurped from them.
  • Horrifying the Horror: There's a random event where your company comes across a young alp, one of the possible choices is to send a flagellant brother to scare it off, he accomplishes this by whipping himself while staring it down until it flees in terror.
  • Humanoid Abomination: The Alps are a species of creatures which bring nightmares on sleeping villagers to feed on their fear. They look like ghastly emaciated humanoid creatures with exposed teeth and no lips, eye sockets and no eyes.
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: Since you are mercenaries, it is not uncommon that your armors and weapons are pilfered from the spoils after a battle.
  • Kraken and Leviathan: The Kraken is one of the late game things you can attempt to fight, although there is a few things you have to do before you can summon it.
  • Land of One City: The civilized areas controlled by the new civilization added in the south by the Blazing Deserts DLC solely consist in three city states each belonging to a different faction.
  • Legendary Weapon: If you're determined and badass enough, you can get Reproach of the Old Gods. A one-handed sword that hits harder than the usual ones you have and on top of it summons lightning strikes on up to three nearby enemies.
  • Low Fantasy: As the Word of God from this post, your focus in the game is about "managing a group of human mercenaries in a low power fantasy world". This statement was emphasized by the low presence of magic (exceptions include Goblins and Undead) and focusing on mundane military tactics. In fact, early in its development, the game was barred from any fantastical elements, being just endless grinder against brigands and barbarians (who didn't even have a separate mini, just name) — the greenskins and later undead and monsters were added simply for enemy variety.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: One of many important equipments in the game, the shields come in many varieties and provide better protections. Also, the game also averts Call That a Formation? with the viability of forming a defensive line based on Shield Wall ability.
  • Master Swordsman: You can recruit old sword masters to your company. More importantly, you can make a master swordsman, by building up a recruit that specializes in the use of bladed weapons.
  • Medieval Morons: The infamous "Melon Thief" event.
  • Mêlée à Trois: If you're being chased by a stack of whatever, you can lure them to an enemy camp and start a 3 way between them, your brothers, and whoever occupies the camp.
  • Morale Mechanic: Every character on the field of battle has different levels of morale, from Confident, to Steady, to Wavering, to Breaking, to Fleeing. Confident characters are more likely to resist mental effects (like Charm), while Fleeing characters will ignore all orders in an attempt to run, even to their detriment. Morale is affected positively by defeating enemies, and negatively by taking bad hits, seeing allies killed or wounded, or being surrounded by too many enemies. In addition, seeing an ally suffer a morale penalty and start Fleeing is a great way to suffer a morale penalty and start Fleeing yourself, which can cause a severe Disaster Dominos situation. Some skills, like Rally the Troops, can reset morale back to Steady, and other skills, like Fearsome, can force morale checks at unusual times.
  • Mugging the Monster: There's an event in which a bunch of small-time robbers disguise themselves as prostitutes and ambush the company. Even with their pants literally down, the brothers are able to kill all twenty of the assailants because the robbers are not used to their victims actually fighting back.
  • Multiple Endings: Five, depending on certain choices made before retirement.
    • Defeat: Get the company wiped out. You are killed to the last man, and the Battle Brothers fade into myth. A true Downer Ending.
    • Early Retirement: Retire before fulfilling the Make Nobles Aware ambition. The company dies out peacefully, never making notice of the lords or making an impact. Most of your men go back to normal lives, having failed to make it big. Not quite a downer ending, but close.
    • Bitter End: Retire after signing onto the nobles, but before you resolve a Crisis. The company slowly fades away after having made a name for themselves. Your men retire comfortably, with enough riches to start a new life however they please. Some go missing, some die, but you made your fortune and can enjoy your life. A Bittersweet Ending.
    • Making a Mark: Retire after solving a Crisis. Your company becomes renowned for your hardiness in battle. While you retire, the company carries on without you, and will continue to persist for some time to come. The Battle Brothers march on, heroes of the land. A Happy Ending.
    • Making a Legacy: Solve two endgame Crisis events and have greater than 6000 renown. The Battle Brothers go down in history as one of the fiercest group of warriors the world has ever seen. The company goes on without you, but you retire rich and are confident that the company will survive without your leadership. The Golden Ending.
  • Necessary Drawback: With such a wide variety of weapons on offer and an even wider variety of enemies to use them on picking the right tool for the job is central to this game.
    • Daggers are cheap, light and non-tiring to use but have poor damage and are terrible when used directly against armor. They do have the Puncture ability to alow them to completely bypass armor, but this is tiring and hard to hit with.
    • Swords are accurate and have respectable damage but are expensive and perform poorly against armor. Their two-handed varients however are some of the most well-balanced weapons in the world - with a price tag to match. Northern style straight one-handed swords have the Riposte ability where the user can automatically attack back at enemies who fail to damage him in melee (especially dangerous when used by a brother with high attack stat and the proper mastery), while southern curved blades have the Gash ability which, at the cost of higher fatigue, has a better chance of inflicting a temporary injury on the enemy.
    • Maces have poor overall damage but are good at bypassing and breaking armor. Stunning an enemy with a blow to the head is also possible - one-handers stun for one turn, two-handers for two.
    • Spears are very easy to hit with but have low damage that really suffers against armor - this makes them excellent weapons for poorly-trianed brothers fighting early enemies. They can use the ''Spearwall" ability to attack and repel anything that moves into an adjacent hex potentially attacking several times a turn.
    • Axes perform similarly to Maces, albeit being more about destroying armor than ignoring it, but have particular utility when it comes to destroying shields. This makes them (funnily enough) very effective at fighting the heavily-shielded Schrats.
    • Flails have unpredictable damage but partially (or entirely, with the mastery perk) bypass the defensive bonuses provided by shields. They get the worst of the Axe/Mace statistics when it comes to fighting armor but can make up for it by being able to target the enemy's head directly.
    • Cleavers have noticeably less damage than swords in exchange for being slightly better against armor but inflict a stacking bleed on anything they hit. They can also go directly for the head with an attack that guaranties a decapitation on a kill - this is very effective at breaking the enemy's morale and is a guaranteed way to keep a Wierderganger down.
    • Hammers lack overall damage but are truly devastating against armor and are always guarantied to get a small amount of flat bonus damage through it.
    • Two-handed weapons are generally more damaging and often have area-of-effect abilities or inflict crippling status effects, but are tiring and can only be swung once per turn (most one-handed weapons can be swung twice). Polearms trade off some of this damage for extra range and the occasional utility ability.
    • Bows have good range and can be fired twice in exchange for accuracy while Crossbows do more damage and are better against armor and allow a brother to make a single tile move under normal circumstances. Throwing weapons have a smaller amunition pool and a much shorter range but are even more effective against armor and can be used one-handed. Slings have unlimited ammo and can inflict Daze on head hits, but have more strict range scaling penalties for accuracy and are very fatigue-intensive to use.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • A child in a tree can ask the company to help him get a ball off the roof of a nearby building. You can send one of your brothers to do it, but there is a chance the idiot will decide to throw it at the child, who will then fall off the tree and break his back to the horror of everyone. Your character even asks him what the hell he was thinking.
    • It is entirely possible the only reason the dead are haunting the lands and trying to destroy all of mankind is because you went around looting their tombs while being descended from their arch enemy.
  • No Plot? No Problem!: There is no actual plot, and the goals end up at fulfilling the current contract. Even the late-game crisis is an event that might not affect you in the slightest. And the only end of the game is either letting your avatar die in a "Lone Wolf" company origin or, far more likely, getting bored with current map.
  • Non-Entity General:
    • The player character never personally participates in combat encounters (despite presumably being a seasoned mercenary) due to the wound he got in the prologue battle.
    • As of the Warriors Of The North expansion, averted with the "Lone Wolf" company origin, in which you start out with one single high-leveled and well-armed (but nearly broke) hedge knight who explicitly is the player's avatar. Even if you hire more men, this character will remain on the field and be able to participate in battle, but if he -i.e. "you" - dies, the campaign is instantly over.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: The player can retire at any time, and will get a variety of endings anywhere from living in luxury to freezing in the basement of a tavern, homeless.
  • Not Afraid to Die: This is why Barbarians have such high Resolve compared to other human enemies. In their culture it is believed that dying in battle means they get to meet and revel with their heroic ancestors for all eternity.
  • Off with His Head!: Bladed weapons like swords and axes can behead an unit; cleaver-type weapons (barring whips) even have a specific skill that increases the chance of this happening. Beheading can be detrimental to you as it means your units will stay dead and not have a chance of surviving the battle with a permanent penalty. On the upside, landing a beheading hit on a human enemy whose armor was relatively intact beforehand may allow you to loot the armor post-battle, and beheaded wiedergangers (barring Fallen Heroes, who'll come back as headless Fallen Heroes) cannot be resurrected. Characters with the Bloodthirsty trait and a slashing weapon have a very high chance to decapitate enemies upon landing a killing blow.
  • Old Soldier: Old veterans from the last war with the Greenskins can be recruited, complete with him telling your other brothers war stories around the campfire. Focus on the old part of their origins - they might have significant combat skills, but their fatigue and health are lower than average.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: Geists have exactly 1 HP. Land a hit on them and they dissolve. Just make sure you aren't trying to shoot them, since they have 999 ranged defense, being incorporeal and all.
  • One-Man Army: The Lone Wolf hedge knight at the start of the campaign. Since most enemies are still poorly armored and poorly armed, the hedge knight can easily cut down three of them every turn while barely taking any damage.
  • Onesie Armor: There are only body armors, that protect the bearer from all hits on their body and extremities, even if there can be temporary and permanent legs and arms injuries too, and helmets that protect from more serious hits on the head.
  • Only in It for the Money: You and your merry band. No matter what's the current contract, your interest comes only in form of the cold cash you will be paid after fulfilling it. Doing something heroic or, just as likely, downright evil, is inconsequential for your company.
  • Organ Drops:
    • Some of the "Trophies" droped by monsters are this. Lampshaded by flavour text for Nachzehrer Brain.
    The greasy brain of a slain Nachzehrer. What could you possibly want with this?
    • The heart of an Unhold can be combined with wine to produce Fermented Unhold Heart, which can then be eaten by your men. It has the longest time-to-spoil of any provisions in the game (20 days).
  • Our Dragons Are Different: The Lindwurm DLC brings the titular wingless dragon that is the only unit that used two tiles (representing head and tails). Furthermore, its tail can swath away anyone in the back while the head can bite a man in half. Finally, its corrosive blood can dissolve through armor but can be collected in vials to be used as weapons.
  • Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Nachzehrer note , a type of ghoulish creature that likes to eat corpses. They'll often do this when battling your company, eating either their own dead or yours and growing bigger and bigger and more powerful as they do so. At their biggest extent they can swallow one of your men whole, and if you fail to kill the creature your comrade will die in its stomach.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: Battle Brothers Orcs are basically Expies of the Greenskins from Warhammer - big, green, nasty to face in close combat, and possessing little in the way of culture beyond Might Makes Right and War for Fun and Profit. Orcs in battle are simple but devastating - you have a green tide of younger Orcs (usually armed with hardly anything) charging head-on to wear the enemy down, Orc berserkers with little armour but a lot of fury tearing into the flanks, and a big warlord clad head-to-toe in heavy armour standing in the back, bellowing out orders.
  • Our Trolls Are Different: Unholds are giant monsters that regenerate each turn, make a hole in your formation by throwing a guy out of it, and throw a mean punch capable of hitting multiple people when they're surrounded. Comes in 2 flavors: the weaker swamp version and the stronger winter yeti like ones.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Necrosavants fulfill the role of both vampire and mummy. The vampire part comes in its ability to move across the battlefield, virtually reaching anyone on practically the first turn, making it impossible to pin them down. They also suck blood. The mummy part comes in their appearance and their equipment, mainly khopeshes.
  • Permanently Missable Content: If the "Permanent Destruction" option is enabled, settlements destroyed during the undead or orc crisis will never be inhabited again.
  • Private Military Contractors: The player has to manage this through contracts and battles.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Your jobs might involve such things as putting down a Slave Revolt, peasant rebellion or hunting down escaped serfs. The game might or might not offer an option to let the rebels go, but that means breaching your contract, meaning no money and tarnished reputation.
  • Quantity vs. Quality: The game by default is build around this trope. Plus two of the new starting scenarios in Warriors of the North present this dichotomy:
    • In general, your company of 12 hardened mercenaries can end up facing a peasant or slave rabble of up to 30. Their sheer number can overwhelm your troops, but in the same time, the better equipment and training of the brothers can make short work of chaff units and force survivors to flee in panic.
    • "Peasant Militia" gives you twelve men to start, allows you to take up to sixteen into battle and allows you to maintain up to twenty five in the company. However the starting men are woefully equipped and you will never be able to hire nobles or professional troops, only lowborn dregs.
    • "Lone Wolf" gives you a single hedge knight to start with, who has great equipment and plenty of experience right off the bat. However, the company is limited to twelve men, and if the knight dies then the campaign is over.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The men you can hire are of a broad spectrum of backgrounds, ranging from adventurous nobles, disinherited noble sons, hedge knights and other blue-bloods, to professional soldiers and assassins, various tradesmen, and even refugees, cripples, and beggars. In terms of geographic origin, with all expansions installed, these people can range from a northern barbarian warrior to a southern caravan hand or nomad. For one reason or another all of these people are now trying to make it as sellswords. Excepting perhaps southern Indebted (basically slaves), who are all but stated to have been bought rather than hired, and may not necessarily be there by choice.
  • Rainbow Pimp Gear:
    • Because most of your weapons and armor will be scavenged off the field from dead human opponents, this trope is in full effect for your company. Armor can be repainted in uniform colors of your choosing, but spending money on paints and the like is often not an option, especially early on. This can result in oddly mismatched armor rather representative of the motley crew you've assembled for your company.
    • The Blazing Deserts DLC makes this especially pronounced, as southern, Middle East-inspired armor styles and northern, European-styled ones can be mixed in any combination, worn by company brethren of either cultural background. This results in such sights as a northern hedge knight wearing a bucket great-helm over brassy southern plate lamellar, or a southern nomad archer wearing barbarian bear hats and furs.
  • Randomly Generated Levels: The worldmap is created at campaign start from a seed randomly generated in the new campaign screen; it's possible to manually enter a seed.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking:
    • The Hedge Knight from the "Lone Wolf" origins is the Captain's avatar and starts with a few levels, fight-oriented skills, and high level gear; right at campaign start he's able to defeat low level encounters while he's alone and outnumbered. He remains the party's most powerful unit for a while.
    • The default captain has his moments as well. Though he doesn't fight on the field, there are many events where he cut down thugs left and right alongside the bros.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: You can find two during the Barbarian King event. First, if it turns out he has assembled the tribes to fight against an undead legion and not to attack settlements, he will offer you to join him to secure victory. If you accept, after defeating the undead he will disband his horde telling you he would gladly offer you a place in his tribe, but that he knows and understands you would refuse. And the second one is the man who hired you to kill the king, as he will tell you that his spies informed him that you did not fulfill the contract... but given the danger is over, he will pay you anyways.
  • Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: A best solution against the undead as they cannot raise back from the dead. However, Fallen Heroes can be resurrected, even if they are decapitated.
  • Resources Management Gameplay: Your company runs on rations, medical supplies, equipment to repair your gear, and most importantly, gold. Running out of any of these things can bring a variety of problems.
  • Royal Blood: Events imply the player character is descended from ancient royalty.
  • Sexy Discretion Shot: When hiring a group of prostitutes on the road:
    She sidles up real close now and goes low with a hand.
    "Well then."
    Well then indeed.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran:
    • The "traumatized" permanent injury is basically PTSD. Like other permanent injuries, it's randomly acquired when being left for dead in battle but surviving the encounter. It results in a huge permanent malus in the Resolve and Initiative stats, which translate has low willpower/morale, worse than average attack dodge, and a late position in the order of turns.
    This character has been to the other side. Faced with his own mortality, the experience of dying and coming back has left him a broken man.
    • Alcoholism ("Drunkard" trait) is a possible consequence for experienced bros who see too many comrades dying in battle.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Shows Damage: Bruises and wounds appear on the units' faces the lower their health is. Also, armors look more and more battered the lower their condition is, and hats and helms will vanish from their sprite when damaged to the point of uselessness.
  • Slave Revolt: Southern cities can occasionally suffer from an Indebted uprising, and such cities will offer contracts for your company to put down the revolt. Resulting battles can end up seeing ten or so company brothers facing a mass of Indebted up to 20-24 strong, hence why these contracts tend to be marked "hard" by the game; fortunately, the rebelling slaves tend to have poor weapons, practically no armor, and bad morale.
  • Status Effects: There's a number of statuses, besides the entire medical catalog of temporary and permanent wounds/injuries, that can be inflicted. The Resilient perk makes characters shrug these statuses off faster by ensuring the effects only last a single turn and always start at their weakest state.
    • Stunned characters lose a turn outright, two turns instead if they were stunned by a two-handed heavy Mace.
    • Dazed characters become much slower to take action and unable to aim straight, often inflicted by a two-handed Mace or a head hit from a Sling.
    • Unsteady characters have been knocked off-balance and are vunerable to cheap shots while they try to regain their footing, usually because an Orc Warrior/Warlord, a two-handed Hammer, or an Unhold attacked them.
    • Bleeding characters lose health every turn for a few turns, and such wounds can be inflicted by Gashing attacks from Southern Swords or whip and cleaver attacks. A more persistent version of this status comes in the form of the Arterial Damage wound that causes a character to bleed out constantly for the rest of the fight if you don't immediately apply a bandage to them.
    • Spider Venom and Goblin Poison inflict different kinds of poisoning. Spider Venom causes the afflicted to lose health every turn for a few turns, while Goblin Poison instead reduces the afflicted's maximum amount of Action Points, with the effect weakening over a course of several turns.
    • Lindwurms will have acidic blood spray from their wounds when you inflict health damage to them. Bros caught in melee by the spray will be afflicted with the Acid-splashed status, which inflicts armor damage to their helmets and body armor every turn for a few turns. A similar effect can be caused by the player using Acid Flasks on enemies to shred their armor.
    • Nets, Webknechkt webs, and Goblin Shaman spells can Root characters and prevent them from moving from their tile until they struggle free.
    • Another spell that Goblin Shamans have besets bros with Flies that annoy and distract them.
    • Southern Nomad NPCs can throw pocket sand at your bros to Distract them.
    • Southern troops associated with the Cities have Artillery that can inflict Shellshock on anyone caught in the blast of their shells.
    • Ancient Priests can scream to inflict the Horrified status on bros, which is a unique status effect instead of the Morale check that a Geist scream inflicts.
    • Fire Pots inflict On Fire status to a cluster of tiles when thrown. If you're trapped on a burning tile, you'll take damage at the end of your turn. This can also be used by the player against enemies, and is especially effective against the wooden Schrats.
    • Player-controlled Bros can use Holy Water to inflict a special version of burning to undead enemies. This is especially effective against Geists, which are difficult to hit.
    • Southern Embalmed zombies aren't any more dangerous than the Ancient Dead, and are in fact easier to kill as they don't have any special long-ranged weapons, but when they die, they inflict the Curse of the Mummy status effect, which results in the afflicted brother taking 25% more damage from all sources for two turns, and being much more likely to be targeted by other mummies. Even a brother with heavy armor will find themselves faltering from the onslaught if you're not careful.
  • Suffer the Slings: Staff Slings are a ranged weapon in this game. While they require no ammo and inflict Daze on the target (basically causing a concussion) on a hit to the head, they are fairly stamina-intensive and have significant accuracy scaling at a distance, requiring a strong Ranged Skill investment.
  • Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Each weapon does more damage to certain types of enemies:
    • Unarmoured - Swords, pikes, spears, bows, flails, maces, cleavers.
    • Armoured - Hammers, bills, javelins, crossbows, daggers.
    • Mixed - Axes.
    • Skeletal enemies like the Ancient Dead tend to take more damage from blunt weapons than edged weapons or ranged weapons. Wiedergangers, on the other hand, take more damage from edged weapons and arrows than blunt weapons.
  • Testosterone Poisoning: If there's multiple brothers with the Gladiator background (from the Blazing Deserts DLC) there are random events showing them engaging in weightlifting competitions and form tests as they squat.
  • Token Heroic Orc: A random event gives you the possibility of recruiting a barbarian warrior. If you took the barbarian raiders starting scenario, the chances of this event triggering are increased, but any warband can get it.
  • Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Black Book from Blazing Deserts is acquired from a southern dungeon (Sunken Library) after defeating a party of undead led by a boss referred as The Lorekeeper. Carrying it in the party inventory eventually results in an event where a bro with either the Cultist or Historian background reads it and becomes mad.
  • Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: A large component of the game are the implementation of "realistic" mechanics to the combat.
    • Decent armor and a shield dramatically increases the chance of surviving an encounter with an enemy. It is highly recommended that your entire frontline be equipped with good armor and a shield at minimum, else they get cut down by a random strike.
    • Helmets are necessary to survive combat in this game, as even a single hit to the head can instantly kill a brother. Even a hat or head wrapping is better than nothing.
    • Bladed weapons tend to be mediocre against armor, which often needs heavier weapons designed to punch through armor to be effective. Once the armor is broken however, swords become extremely deadly, as their high accuracy and low fatigue cost make them easy to kill enemies with. Meanwhile, the anti-armor weapons lose effectiveness, as their lower accuracy means that they will likely not land a hit.
  • Universal Ammunition: Any arrow, bolt, and thrown weapon consumes resources from a single generic ammunition pool. Replenishing the ammo requires to buy an item described as a bundle of several ammo types.
  • Villain Protagonist: The "Davkul Cultists" origin consists in playing as a party of cultists worshipping an Eldritch Abomination and occasionally performing human sacrifices.
  • Warrior Monk: Regular, non-warrior monks can be recruited and quickly converted into regular warriors.
  • We Work Well Together: Variety of abilities work better if more than a single brother is performing them. The most obvious one is forming a Shield Wall as an actual wall, since the ability provides bonus to surrounding brothers that also used the ability, essentially doubling its effectiveness.
  • When Trees Attack: Schrats, ambulatory and angry trees that carry two "shields" for protection and will mutilate your brothers if you're not careful.
  • A World Half Full: Despite the grim state of things and the general dour mood of the early game, it is more than possible for your crew of motley militamen to grow into a real force for good. You can end an invasion of the undead or orcs, assist in ending a brutal war between nobles or religious factions, slay all kinds of terrible beasts and brigands, among the many other small events that can help the peasantfolk. This even extends to your company, who go from a group of disassociated rejects into a united company at arms with their own banner and history. The world of Battle Brothers might be awful to live in, but it doesn't have to stay that way.
  • Working-Class Hero: The various events and contract negotiations paint the company's captain (your avatar) as a rather unrefined man of lowly origins. He also makes a variety of low-class blunders, but gets away with them due to being a crude simpleton being considered in-universe as part of being a mercenary. Perhaps best exemplified when talking to a noble who offers a glass of wine: the Captain chugs it immediately and sets the glass down, surprising and annoying the noble, who was about to extol the virtues of the superior vintage as a method of class dominance.
  • You Are in Command Now: The main player, The Captain, gained control over the mercenary company after the previous leader along, with many soldiers, were killed in an ambush. The starting battle in the tutorial campaign is the waning aftermath, with the target of your contract running away and your few remaining soldiers cleaning up the remnants of the brigands. The rest of the tutorial is the determination of the company to continue on despite the setback, with the player taking and learning the reins of leadership as you go.
  • Zerg Rush: Battles against bandits in the southern regions almost always have your soldiers outnumbered. Fortunately, the vast majority of southern bandits are slaves, who are poorly armed and armored at best, have weak skills, and are cut down by anyone with even a basic capability with their weapons. This will cause problems when it comes to looting, as slave gear is terrible and not worth much, but you generally won't have trouble taking them out. Unfortunately, higher level southern bandit groups increase in difficulty by reducing the number of slaves and increasing the number of veterans and bladedancers.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: The dead find no rest in Battle Brothers, and bands of zombies will raid the countryside. And you may find the Ancient Dead rise to reclaim their old empire.

As brothers, we fight; as brothers, we die.

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