Battle Brothers 0.5.0.2 - Goblins unleashed! news

‘Goblin Update’ Release Notes and Changelog

We’re thrilled to announce that we just released the ‘Goblin Update’ to Steam! After reading about all the additions we made to the game for the past weeks, you can now finally dive into the game and experience them yourselves.

The changes and additions go way beyond adding Goblins. If you haven’t done so already, you can read up on many of the bigger changes in our dedicated posts linked below. Also check out the extensive changelog at the bottom for an overview of all the new features, balancing changes and fixes.

• Bandit Armors and Worn Armors
• Wardogs, Direct Damage Mechanic and Visual Makeover
• Throwing Weapons and Armor Rework
• Character Backgrounds, Companions and Helmet Rework
• Orc Visual Rework
• All about the Goblin Faction

Please note that due to the many changes with the update, your old saves won't load anymore and you'll have to start a new campaign.

Enjoy!

Changelog

• Added Goblin Faction with 5 different units, 12 usable weapons and shields, their own music track and sounds.
• Added 'Line Battle (Goblins)' and 'Wolfriders' scenarios.
• Added a second music track for fighting bandits.
• Added Wardogs and Armored Wardogs as purchasable items. Wardogs can be equipped in the accessory slot and unleashed during battle to chase and pin down enemy units.
• Added Houndmaster background.
• Added more named items.
• Added lots of background specific clothes and hats. Some more background specific stuff is in the pipeline.
• Added Tree Limb and Cudgel as lower tier orc weapons used by Young Orcs.
• Added Morning Star as a lower tier variant of the Winged Mace.
• Added Throwing Axe and Javelin. The Crude Javelin is now an orc weapon again, as originally intended. These weapons have been added to several types of opponents as sidearms.
• Added condition deteriorating with use for ranged weapons as well.
• Added a variety of worn armors and helmets for use by bandits and as starting items for some backgrounds.
• Added a variety of new armors to be bought at cities and strongholds.
• Added cancel button to levelup screen.
• Added warning icon as status effect when a character's weapon is in poor condition and about to break with the next few attacks.
• Added small animation to using Spearwall skill.
• Added repair icon to all damaged items equipped by a character to make it more obvious that these are repaired automatically and need not be unequipped. This is a purely cosmetic change; equipped items have always been auto-repaired.
• Added new banners to choose from when creating your mercenary company.
• Added three more late game locations with great enemy numbers for a challenge.
• Added ability for the AI to make use of throwing weapons.
• Added ability for the AI to make use of crossbows and added them to the Bandit and Landsknecht arsenals.
• Added lots of other smaller things.

• Changed how weapons and armor interact; weapons now inflict varying amounts of direct damage that may pass through armor (whether by blunt force trauma or piercing through it) and potentially kill a target without destroying every bit of armor first.
• Changed a lot of armor efficiency stats for different weapons that are better simulated with a high direct damage because they aren't necessarily good at actually destroying armor.
• Changed view range to 7 (up from 6) for all characters.
• Changed range of Crossbow to 6 (up from 5) and Hunting Bow to 7 (up from 6).
• Changed throwing weapons to have a range of 4 tiles and a bonus to accuracy on short ranges which declines rapidly with distance.
• Changed 'Battleflow' perk to reduce current fatigue by 30% of the character's base maximum fatigue (before penalties due to armor are applied) on a kill, as opposed to current fatigue, in order to have characters with more maximum fatigue benefit the most from this. This effect now only triggers on the first kill each turn so that it isn't disproportionately effective against low-hitpoint targets (such as Goblins), especially in combination with 'Perfect Focus'.
• Changed 'Brawny' perk to also reduce fatigue penalty of helmets by half in order to make it a more impactful pick for tanky characters.
• Changed name of 'Crush Armor' skill to 'Destroy Armor' to better reflect the idea behind it.
• Changed attribute increase on levelup to use fixed values now per attribute instead of random numbers as before. While we still like the randomized values in principle, they won't work well with planned changes to the perk system, so we dropped them. We'll reveal the planned changes to the perk system in time.
• Changed renaming of a character to change their name also in their background description.
• Changed higher tier equipment to be more expensive but left prices of lower tier equipment largely untouched. This is to reinforce a progression of equipment where the player starts with low tier stuff and slowly picks up better gear. Looting better equipment should feel more rewarding this way and there is actually better equipment to save crowns for and spend on in the later parts of the game now.
• Changed starting funds to be higher on all difficulties, especially on Easier.
• Changed reward for contracts to be slightly higher.
• Changed value of some loot items (werewolf pelts, vampire dust, etc) to be slightly higher.
• Changed quivers to show as empty in inventory if they're, well, empty.
• Changed a few events to take into account how the player needs more crowns now.
• Changed a lot of equipment for AI opponents around for a better progression and less easily attainable high tier weaponry.
• Changed character backgrounds to no longer come with fixed boni and mali to attributes but instead individual min and max values for every attribute.
• Changed starting lineup for the player to always consist of three people with the new 'Companion' background which comes with some decent combat skills, weapons and backstories that may include the player.
• Changed all humans, as well as Wiedergangers, to have a new and overhauled look.
• Changed Orcs to have a completely new look.
• Changed Melee and Ranged Skill for player characters in all scenarios to 65 (up from 60).
• Changed bandits on the worldmap to no longer raid villages and only ambush caravans and travellers now. With the Goblins, Orcs and Undead raiding villages, the guys can relax a bit.
• Changed battle at worldmap locations to always start in line battle formation, regardless of terrain.
• Changed enemies killed by allies (militia etc) to no longer drop loot for the player.
• Changed AI to make better use of specialized skills such as Knock Back, Repel, Hook and Rotation.
• Changed UI to switch faster between characters when ending turns.
• Changed lots of other smaller things.

• Fixed pause sometimes not working correctly after leaving towns.
• Fixed town window potentially opening while an event is shown.
• Fixed bug that prevented event cooldown times from working correctly, potentially resulting in individual events firing either too often or not at all.
• Fixed bug that prevented the AI from using Split Shield skill against better shields.
• Fixed bug that prevented the AI from using the Puncture skill in some instances.
• Fixed issue of individual AI characters sometimes defending a position while others choose to engage, especially if they're far apart. The decision to defend or engage is now always done at group level for consistent enemy group behavior.
• Fixed compatibility issue with Windows 10. Hopefully that's the only one, but we'll see.
• Fixed lots of other small bugs and issues.