We are releasing the first content update in about a year, but we can hopefully increase that pace a bit in the future.
Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters!
We'd also like to take a moment to say thank you for playing Battle Brothers, and we hope you enjoy this update! If we could make a simple request, we'd love it if you could take a moment to share your thoughts, feedback, and ideas in a Steam review. It's an awesome way to let us know what you think, whether positive or negative, especially as Battle Brothers continues to be updated.
Now let’s take a look at the new content and the bigger balancing changes that come in this version:
New Weapons: Pollaxe, Executioner’s Sword, and Estoc
New toys to play around with are always appreciated, and some of these might even enable new builds to try out.
Pollaxe
To start off, the name of this weapon really is “Pollaxe” and not “Poleaxe”. The word is derived from the late English “Poll” meaning head. So the name basically means “Head-Axe”.
The weapon itself is a wooden haft with a mounted two-sided head with one axe side and a hammer side on the back. It is a versatile weapon that is mainly used to fight heavily armored enemies. The hammer part can stagger enemies, while the axe part can be used to quickly finish off incapacitated enemies.
The weapon typically comes with a shorter haft than similar weapons to make it faster to use, so its range is 1 and not 2 like other polearms.
Smite: This heavy hit with the hammer side of the weapon can stagger enemies.
Run Through: A quick hit with the axe side of the weapon that has reduced damage but triggers a second free attack if the target is staggered.
Split Shield: This weapon is very effective at splitting shields and can one-hit many lighter variants.
Executioner’s Sword
The executioner’s sword is a very heavy and broad blade with a round tip. It is specifically designed for beheading a delinquent in one swift strike and is not commonly a weapon seen on the battlefield.
It is heavier than the other two-handed swords and comes with a hefty fatigue malus, but is versatile and powerful in the right hands.
Overhead Strike: The basic attack with a slightly increased hit chance.
Split Shield: Due to its sheer weight, the sword can also be used to split enemies' shields.
Decapacitate: The signature attack of the weapon inflicts bonus damage based on the target's missing HP. This makes it a perfect weapon to finish off high-hitpoint enemies.
Estoc
The Estoc, also known as “Panzerstecher”, is a two-handed sword with a dull blade that is designed solely as a powerful thrusting weapon. Its main goal is to pierce through gaps and joints in heavy armor. It is basically a two-handed dagger if you will.
This is reflected in its stats and skills. It has not the highest damage but already comes with a high ignore armor stat.
Perforate: This attack is two quick thrusts with a slightly increased chance to hit, best used against agile or less armored enemies.
Skewer: A powerful attack aimed at weak points in an enemy's armor. This attack has a decent damage bonus, can hit the head, and most importantly, has its armor penetration scale with the user's initiative.
Brigand Marauders
The enemy faction players engage with the most in the early game, the Bandits, fall off pretty steeply in the mid and late game. The Brigand Raiders are formidable enemies in the beginning, but offer no real challenge to better-experienced and equipped mercenaries. To keep the faction more viable through the mid-game, we added a new tier of Bandits, the so-called Brigand Marauders.
These are well-experienced bandits that not only come with better stats and more perks than raiders, but they also bring a whole new set of worn-down but still powerful armor.
The Marauders will start showing up as sort of leaders of brigand parties and will eventually roam the wilds in full groups, posing a new challenge to players.
Noble House Men at Arms
To get the northern noble house troops more in line with their southern counterparts, we are adding Men at Arms to their unit lists. The Men at Arms come with much better armor than the classical footmen and also have a two-handed and a shield loadout:
Smaller changes and additions:
- Distributed Armor attachments to more enemies if the appropriate DLC is installed
- Changed Riposte to cost 2 AP
- Lowered AP cost of Split and Swing to 5 for Warbrand and Romphaia
- Changed Bucklers to work with Duelist and added a new Named Buckler
- Added various color variations for Heraldic Mail, Named Coat of Plates, Named Sallet, Bascinet with Visor, and Named Sellsword Armor
- Fixed various bugs
1.5.2.2 Changelog
- Added a new bandit unit, the Brigand Marauder
- Added a new noble house unit, the Man-at-Arms
- Added a new character background, the Executioner
- Added three new weapons, the Pollaxe, the Estoc, and the Executioner’s Sword
- Added named Bucklers
- Added an additional ‘Very Fast’ world map speed setting.
- Noble house Knights can now spawn with armor attachments if Beasts and Exploration are installed
- Certain noble house units can now spawn with armor from Beasts and Exploration if that DLC is installed
- Noble house Knight Champions can now spawn with named helmets
- Added various color variations for Heraldic Mail, Named Coat of Plates, Named Sallet, Bascinet with Visor, and Named Sellsword Armor
- Added Rachegeist’s Helmet as guaranteed loot to the legendary location
- The ‘Duelist’ perk now works while equipping a buckler in the offhand
- Lowered AP cost of the ‘Split’ and ‘Swing’ skills for the Warbrand and Romphaia to 5 (down from 6)
- Lowered AP cost of the ‘Riposte’ skill to 2 (down from 4)
- The Goedendag’s ‘Knock Out’ skill now does 75% of normal damage (up from 50%)
- The ‘Disbanded Troops’ settlement situation can now potentially add Duelist’s Hats and Zweihander's Helmets to the marketplace
- Fixed wardogs sometimes not taking their turn immediately after release as intended
- Fixed crash when the ‘Voice of Davkul’ skill is used, and guest units are present.
- Fixed a rare crash when a bro with a warwolf in his inventory dies
- Fixed Drunkard Loses Stuff event, potentially affecting unintended items like the company banner
- Fixed Fire Bombs setting Murky Water on fire unintentionally
- Fixed various typos
- Fixed various other minor issues
Mods and Reverting to a Previous Version
As always, if you are using mods, we strongly recommend removing or disabling them before updating the game, as they may cause issues and make it harder to tell where a problem is coming from.
If you do not want to update, for example, because the mods you are using are not compatible, you can return to version 1.5.1.8 by following these steps:
- Open Steam
- Right-click on Battle Brothers in your Steam library.
- Select Properties.
- Go to the BETAS tab.
- Choose "1.5.1.8" from the "Beta participation" drop-down list
- Wait for the game to update the files (if nothing happens, restart the Steam client)
- Launch the game
Battle Brothers Community Links
You can find us on Discord, BlueSky, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit for discussions, updates, and feedback.
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/10991/Battle_Brothers_Complete/
