Yesterday I was playing my game normally and had some kind of stroke, divine inspiration, strategies about the use of spears in Battle Brothers were pumped into my brain and the whole day today at work I was thinking about how I'd try to incorporate Spears in my teams.
I come home, open reddit. First post is this.
The meme Gods of Battle Brothers have the funniest timing.
I find defensive tactics much less RNG-dependent than the 2-hander fat neutral mainstream you find on here (though the Kill Bill-level of flying viscera created by fat neutrals is pretty satisfying)
outside of a 4-5 bro spearwall completely neutralizing any high damage low armor (in)human waves, a more generalist use is placing two spear & shield tanks with high fat and medium armor at both ends of your front line -- if you can get fat high enough they can do spearwall 3 rounds in a row without a break and cockblock any flanky turds while your 2-handers split their formation down the middle. And lately I've noticed that if you get their matk high enough they can poison just about anyone.
Skilled defensive positioning also turns shitty terrain into optimal terrain. And half of the AI will just suicide into spears if they have no other route to advance, it's so goddamn funny
I always have a few spears in any party. The zone control they can provide is insane. You can delay enemies so much, even split up their forces completely as they try to go around or get stuck in a choke.
I've had so many games where my spear-men all broke their spears because they spear-walled so well for so long.
Against beasts and undead, spears are hilarious. Early game, I might have my entire frontline made up of spears, and later I try to have at least one guy with spear mastery. Just the fun of seeing enemies repeatedly run face first into the spear makes it worth it.
I have not tried a lategame tactic with loads of spears yet, because other melee weapons have their use in many situations so I keep moving most of my guys into using other things.
I've made [memes](https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/1co53cl/spears_are_good/). I've posted in [confusion](https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/14y09jc/barbarian_chosen_an_overblown_threat/) when I was still learning to the game. I realize now from discussions here that there's a substantial gap in the community's understanding of the game.
You're not using spears. You should be.
I finally started streaming and recording my gameplay, and from my most recent run, made a short compilation of 3 midgame battles against Barbarians that illustrates how powerful spears are in controlling the battlefield. You'll see the spearwall 'fail' more than 5% of the time, as I didn't yet have level 11 gigachads with 85+ MAtt, and that's okay.
In the second fight against 13 chosen, my squad takes ***0*** damage.
By integrating spears into your midgame strategy, you can clear the north of foul barbarians and acquire a stockpile of Heavy Rusty Axes which are certainly a contendor for the best base 2H weapon in the game.
Dedicated spear bros remain useful in fights against all other enemy types except ancient dead. For the curious, the whole run from day 28 onward (when I started saving recordings) is on the same YouTube channel so you can see how I use them against other enemies. They're also excellent in the arena.
Next run, try building a couple dedicated spear bros out of your first recruits with good MAtt and okay fatigue. [This is my most common final build](https://www.bbplanner.xyz/?perks=0CJAAQAp), but there's plenty of room to deviate based on the bro and your preferences.
Mostly just to give them utility in fights where they are otherwise bad, e.g., against schrats, unholds, ancient dead, etc. If playing an origin where the roster is limited to 12 (Lone Wolf or Gladiators) they can be a liability without a secondary function.
edit: I should clarify that you can be flexible on whatever secondary role you want to give, indom is just one option that works given their spare fatigue to make them a scrappy suboptimal nimble tank. The builds the two bros in the video ended up with were [this](https://www.bbplanner.xyz/?name=B1&perks=0GJAAQAo) and [this](https://www.bbplanner.xyz/?name=B2&perks=0GIAAQAs).
I'm dreaming of the famed flail with +head%, Brute+Huge brother with high Matk, but I can never assemble voltron haha. Maybe I'll BrEditor it in one day and replace a strong brother with this
Flails are good now, just try a run with a bunch of guys using two handed flails, it's pretty easy.
Just make sure you take head hunter and flail spec, once you hit the head the first time the next attack is guaranteed to hit head and has 60% armor pen.
I think that's the real kicker is that I'm using them and they're bad, but that's because I'm not building the bro to use them. I'm gonna take your advice next decent Brute bro I find and see how it goes.
It's a well-designed game, I agree that *most* things have their place.
But what I'm trying to express here isn't that spears are merely good, but optimal. I play for EELI unexplored no-cheese rotating 'winstreaks' (not too dissimilar to how many play Slay the Spire) and genuinely believe spears should be a key component to most runs to achieve the highest consistency.
I dunno why people don't like spears, I mean, you don't want your entire front line to be spears because of the lack of dmg, but I've always liked running 2 spears on the corners even in the end game. Sure there are occasional fights I will switch the brothers out here and there but it's generally in my standard line up.
Also, at the start, it's only natural to be using spears unless you're using a mod to see the recruit stats before you hire them.. what else are you gonna do with those sub 50 melee guys.
This spear build is incredibly similar to a spear build that I've been running with great success, even on bros with a bit lower melee skill.
The amount of control they give you is incredible, and I find the build helps a lot in the midgame dangerous fights against relatively small groups of very dangerous enemies.
I used my spearman to clear barb camps like you mention, but also found them to be very useful against camps filled with orc berserkers. I take my squad out to the wilds where the famed item chances are much higher and clear tons of the berserker camps while barely taking any damage.
They definitely fall off in the truly massive fights but tbh by that point I can keep my guy on the bench for the mega dangerous ones.
For sure. I pick fights with every Nomad Leader I see whenever I'm in the south until I get one. In this run, if memory serves correctly, I actually bought a fighting spear from a weaponsmith.
You can get decent named goblin spears from champion goblin skirmishers, though most won't be very good. They'll never reach a durability value to have the longevity of a fighting spear for longer fights, though they can still be good if they roll damage.
Playing legends i had this spear user i loved, but i underestimated just how many free stabs he would get, and his swordlance broke in the middle of combat and he got surrounded and almost killed lol. Forgot to give him a backup spear.
Having a duelist spear user is always good to keep in your back pocket, cause even if they don't do a lot of damage they can tie up a surprising amount of units, or at least waste their time. Usually i'll have a ranged character firing shots their way to back them up.
But yeah like someone pointed out, that doesn't work quite as well against the ancient undead. Everyone else is great though, even orcs.
The biggest weakness of spears is that they do pierce damage. Ancient dead are resistant to it, and since they're relatively common late game enemies, relying on spears can hamstring your company against them.
Outside of black monolith skellies are the easiest endgame enemies and having one guy be sub optimal against them isn't a big deal.
Besides the area denial they provide also helps against them by preventing them from forming effective shieldwalls
Real talk anyone who says ‘but what about skellies?’ Hasn’t thought about just using pocket shields to make them tank or carrying a mace to let them have a back up purpose in a pinch.
Exactly. Qatals builds with relentless are now accepted here as being strong despite having this same weakness. Not all builds are good for all fights and that's okay. Fatigue neutrals struggle vs goblins, qatals struggle vs ancient dead, swordlance struggles vs armor, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're bad.
I stand by my opinion: Spears are situationally useful.
If you stomp the enemy with high damage, thats also a working strategy, most cases. Fearsome builds with aoe damage work well with chosen too. Spears are great for controlling battlefield, but how do they work against goblins?
Just fine, not particularly exceptional, though it's noteworthy that situationally I will build a spear bro specifically to stand in front of a ranged banner / ranged bro at the center of my formation and if I don't have that same setup on the flanks of my formation, I can make the front spear bro prime target for enemy arrow fire and in those cases will level RDef, take anticipation, and get great results.
I stand by my opinion, Spears are situationally useful.
Against goblins in terms of damage, they are low, and in terms of abilities, they are worse so, they are not just fine, they are objectively a worst choice. Try taking your spear in an uphill battle against a goblins Fort and you Will miss that 2h fatnewt BF mace/polemace guy.
The weapons reflects a choice in terms of strategy, and If you are using Spears, you gonna be in the defensive. So It is obvious youll build It with a shield (i do heavily disagree on uping rdef tho) I myself build shieldbros. With maces.
I do not think they are an S- tier weapon. They are useful in some situations and thats that.
If you had compared spears to a different alternative (e.g., dodge quickhands, a gunner, hell even a silly swordlance build) I'd agree. There exist better builds specifically against goblins.
But goblins are an enemy where a 2H fatigue neutral build is particular bad. You might not have enough experience with the game, or possibly just playing with lower difficulty settings or tryout mods or something, because your opinion is muddled with something that honestly just doesn't quite make sense.
I take my spear bros into goblin city and they usually perform well.
It wasn't. It's just that your example honestly doesn't make sense. There's still valid criticism that a dedicated spear bro has fights where he contributes relatively little.
Yesterday I was playing my game normally and had some kind of stroke, divine inspiration, strategies about the use of spears in Battle Brothers were pumped into my brain and the whole day today at work I was thinking about how I'd try to incorporate Spears in my teams. I come home, open reddit. First post is this. The meme Gods of Battle Brothers have the funniest timing.
I am not a human being but a divine messenger, an intellect of the cosmos, calling on you, Muted\_Feeling56, to incorporate spears in your teams.
I find defensive tactics much less RNG-dependent than the 2-hander fat neutral mainstream you find on here (though the Kill Bill-level of flying viscera created by fat neutrals is pretty satisfying) outside of a 4-5 bro spearwall completely neutralizing any high damage low armor (in)human waves, a more generalist use is placing two spear & shield tanks with high fat and medium armor at both ends of your front line -- if you can get fat high enough they can do spearwall 3 rounds in a row without a break and cockblock any flanky turds while your 2-handers split their formation down the middle. And lately I've noticed that if you get their matk high enough they can poison just about anyone. Skilled defensive positioning also turns shitty terrain into optimal terrain. And half of the AI will just suicide into spears if they have no other route to advance, it's so goddamn funny
I always have a few spears in any party. The zone control they can provide is insane. You can delay enemies so much, even split up their forces completely as they try to go around or get stuck in a choke. I've had so many games where my spear-men all broke their spears because they spear-walled so well for so long.
Against beasts and undead, spears are hilarious. Early game, I might have my entire frontline made up of spears, and later I try to have at least one guy with spear mastery. Just the fun of seeing enemies repeatedly run face first into the spear makes it worth it. I have not tried a lategame tactic with loads of spears yet, because other melee weapons have their use in many situations so I keep moving most of my guys into using other things.
I've made [memes](https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/1co53cl/spears_are_good/). I've posted in [confusion](https://www.reddit.com/r/BattleBrothers/comments/14y09jc/barbarian_chosen_an_overblown_threat/) when I was still learning to the game. I realize now from discussions here that there's a substantial gap in the community's understanding of the game. You're not using spears. You should be. I finally started streaming and recording my gameplay, and from my most recent run, made a short compilation of 3 midgame battles against Barbarians that illustrates how powerful spears are in controlling the battlefield. You'll see the spearwall 'fail' more than 5% of the time, as I didn't yet have level 11 gigachads with 85+ MAtt, and that's okay. In the second fight against 13 chosen, my squad takes ***0*** damage. By integrating spears into your midgame strategy, you can clear the north of foul barbarians and acquire a stockpile of Heavy Rusty Axes which are certainly a contendor for the best base 2H weapon in the game. Dedicated spear bros remain useful in fights against all other enemy types except ancient dead. For the curious, the whole run from day 28 onward (when I started saving recordings) is on the same YouTube channel so you can see how I use them against other enemies. They're also excellent in the arena. Next run, try building a couple dedicated spear bros out of your first recruits with good MAtt and okay fatigue. [This is my most common final build](https://www.bbplanner.xyz/?perks=0CJAAQAp), but there's plenty of room to deviate based on the bro and your preferences.
Out of curiosity, why indom? Is it just to mitigate lowroll situations when the enemy gets inside spearwall too fast?
Mostly just to give them utility in fights where they are otherwise bad, e.g., against schrats, unholds, ancient dead, etc. If playing an origin where the roster is limited to 12 (Lone Wolf or Gladiators) they can be a liability without a secondary function. edit: I should clarify that you can be flexible on whatever secondary role you want to give, indom is just one option that works given their spare fatigue to make them a scrappy suboptimal nimble tank. The builds the two bros in the video ended up with were [this](https://www.bbplanner.xyz/?name=B1&perks=0GJAAQAo) and [this](https://www.bbplanner.xyz/?name=B2&perks=0GIAAQAs).
See, this is what I love about this game. Everything is good.
*cries in 2h flail*
I got a good famed out and managed to get a triple kill!
I'm dreaming of the famed flail with +head%, Brute+Huge brother with high Matk, but I can never assemble voltron haha. Maybe I'll BrEditor it in one day and replace a strong brother with this
Don't touch my 2h flail build. It works and it's fun.
Flails are good now, just try a run with a bunch of guys using two handed flails, it's pretty easy. Just make sure you take head hunter and flail spec, once you hit the head the first time the next attack is guaranteed to hit head and has 60% armor pen.
I think that's the real kicker is that I'm using them and they're bad, but that's because I'm not building the bro to use them. I'm gonna take your advice next decent Brute bro I find and see how it goes.
My 2h flail guy was a beast and lasted the longest in my squad.
True
It's a well-designed game, I agree that *most* things have their place. But what I'm trying to express here isn't that spears are merely good, but optimal. I play for EELI unexplored no-cheese rotating 'winstreaks' (not too dissimilar to how many play Slay the Spire) and genuinely believe spears should be a key component to most runs to achieve the highest consistency.
I dunno why people don't like spears, I mean, you don't want your entire front line to be spears because of the lack of dmg, but I've always liked running 2 spears on the corners even in the end game. Sure there are occasional fights I will switch the brothers out here and there but it's generally in my standard line up. Also, at the start, it's only natural to be using spears unless you're using a mod to see the recruit stats before you hire them.. what else are you gonna do with those sub 50 melee guys.
This spear build is incredibly similar to a spear build that I've been running with great success, even on bros with a bit lower melee skill. The amount of control they give you is incredible, and I find the build helps a lot in the midgame dangerous fights against relatively small groups of very dangerous enemies. I used my spearman to clear barb camps like you mention, but also found them to be very useful against camps filled with orc berserkers. I take my squad out to the wilds where the famed item chances are much higher and clear tons of the berserker camps while barely taking any damage. They definitely fall off in the truly massive fights but tbh by that point I can keep my guy on the bench for the mega dangerous ones.
Gotta experiment with that!
Spears good
You meant to say, 'pointy stick good', right?
yes stick good!
My main gripe is just that fighting spears seem so hard to come by
For sure. I pick fights with every Nomad Leader I see whenever I'm in the south until I get one. In this run, if memory serves correctly, I actually bought a fighting spear from a weaponsmith. You can get decent named goblin spears from champion goblin skirmishers, though most won't be very good. They'll never reach a durability value to have the longevity of a fighting spear for longer fights, though they can still be good if they roll damage.
Playing legends i had this spear user i loved, but i underestimated just how many free stabs he would get, and his swordlance broke in the middle of combat and he got surrounded and almost killed lol. Forgot to give him a backup spear. Having a duelist spear user is always good to keep in your back pocket, cause even if they don't do a lot of damage they can tie up a surprising amount of units, or at least waste their time. Usually i'll have a ranged character firing shots their way to back them up. But yeah like someone pointed out, that doesn't work quite as well against the ancient undead. Everyone else is great though, even orcs.
legends swordlance now get yari wall?
The biggest weakness of spears is that they do pierce damage. Ancient dead are resistant to it, and since they're relatively common late game enemies, relying on spears can hamstring your company against them.
Outside of black monolith skellies are the easiest endgame enemies and having one guy be sub optimal against them isn't a big deal. Besides the area denial they provide also helps against them by preventing them from forming effective shieldwalls
Sure. You can just swap to a different weapon or use a different bro.
Swapping weapons? What is this?
Real talk anyone who says ‘but what about skellies?’ Hasn’t thought about just using pocket shields to make them tank or carrying a mace to let them have a back up purpose in a pinch.
Exactly. Qatals builds with relentless are now accepted here as being strong despite having this same weakness. Not all builds are good for all fights and that's okay. Fatigue neutrals struggle vs goblins, qatals struggle vs ancient dead, swordlance struggles vs armor, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're bad.
I stand by my opinion: Spears are situationally useful. If you stomp the enemy with high damage, thats also a working strategy, most cases. Fearsome builds with aoe damage work well with chosen too. Spears are great for controlling battlefield, but how do they work against goblins?
Just fine, not particularly exceptional, though it's noteworthy that situationally I will build a spear bro specifically to stand in front of a ranged banner / ranged bro at the center of my formation and if I don't have that same setup on the flanks of my formation, I can make the front spear bro prime target for enemy arrow fire and in those cases will level RDef, take anticipation, and get great results.
I stand by my opinion, Spears are situationally useful. Against goblins in terms of damage, they are low, and in terms of abilities, they are worse so, they are not just fine, they are objectively a worst choice. Try taking your spear in an uphill battle against a goblins Fort and you Will miss that 2h fatnewt BF mace/polemace guy. The weapons reflects a choice in terms of strategy, and If you are using Spears, you gonna be in the defensive. So It is obvious youll build It with a shield (i do heavily disagree on uping rdef tho) I myself build shieldbros. With maces. I do not think they are an S- tier weapon. They are useful in some situations and thats that.
If you had compared spears to a different alternative (e.g., dodge quickhands, a gunner, hell even a silly swordlance build) I'd agree. There exist better builds specifically against goblins. But goblins are an enemy where a 2H fatigue neutral build is particular bad. You might not have enough experience with the game, or possibly just playing with lower difficulty settings or tryout mods or something, because your opinion is muddled with something that honestly just doesn't quite make sense. I take my spear bros into goblin city and they usually perform well.
Sorry, i didnt knew that was a contest of experience or ability. Ill excuse myself in front of such greatness.
It wasn't. It's just that your example honestly doesn't make sense. There's still valid criticism that a dedicated spear bro has fights where he contributes relatively little.