Battle Brothers: The Green Sea

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Unwilling to lose any more cities, Gander marches the Spears back to the Western front - hiring the sell swords Oghren and Adam Chaplin on the way. Even with House Ruhmolt soldiers, the clash against goblin forces costs Emile and Stargazer their lives. Hakon also has his shield destroyed in the melee and his throat cut from ear to ear. Sid is traumatized by the experience.

Despite their victories, word arrives that Reinbruch - a village just across the mountains - has also fallen, and now the horde marches upon House Folsach's stronghold of Lazenfeste. The Spears are contracted to destroy the orcs forward war camp, gaining volunteers Sigmar the vagabond and Bertram the miller to fill out the long axe row at the back. Ironically, the Spears of the Church no longer use Spears.

Maybe this caught the orc warlords by surprise?

The war camp is easily destroyed, but since it was just one of many Lazenfeste falls under siege and the Spears rush to aid it with a company of House Folsach soldiers. They are terribly outnumbered, but find victory on the field, losing Harlech, Oghren and one of Sid's eyes to orc warriors as well as all but one of the House Folsach soldiers.

Battle Brothers: Many Masks

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

The Spear's banditry continues as they do the same ruse at Kielseng, before moving on to guard caravans and hunt more dire wolves. On the road, Sahkarov convinces a "war" band of children to disperse shortly before running into House Grimmund soldiers who attempt to arrest Emile. Using their legendary renown, Gander makes them back off.

The very next day they are side by side with the same troops, led by Sir Wilhelm Erkenbrand of House Grimmund (previously of House Ruhmolt, guess they pay better up North?) to successfully defend against more marauding greenskins.

Afterwards the Spears do a bunch of easy envoy escort missions, with Harlech taking the opportunity to learn some moves from Arl Eamon. Gander also spends a bit of coin on upgrading the Spears equipment, including a magic helm, and accepts a task to defend Wiesendorf from roaming bandits - who turn out to be undead!

The Spears still honor their contract, and despite Arl Eamon losing an eye and the enemy necromancer having an undead hero who manages to stand up even after Stargazer beheads him, they undead are no match for the mercenaries. Raven gains a few more coins afterwards by using his juggling talents in the village.

Happy times among all the killing.

Fighting a headless foe takes its toll on Stargazer though, who drowns his nightmares with ale. He is now a drunkard.

Battle Brothers: Piecemeal Bonemeal

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

To help them in the war against the undead, the Spears recruit Corynx of the Great Swamp, an elderly witch hunter who has come out of retirement. Two large forces of undead attempt to block them from returning the artifact they took from the mountains, but thanks to Corynx's cleverness - they are led straight into the forces of Sir Wilhelm Erkenbrand of House Ruhmolt and are easily vanquished.

Dead bones, the way they're supposed to be.

Alas the artifact once returned, is found to only be a piece of a whole so the team is sent North again, recruiting the old sword master Arl Eamon on the way. They escort a caravan back up to the mountains and then head off into the snows to destroy a ruin with more skeletons. Corynx suffers a weakened heart in the battle, after finding this was the wrong place. The artifact is in another ruin!

Fortunately the "correct" ruin isn't much farther, and after defeating the skeletons there the Spears head back to the low lands with yet another magical shield in addition to the artifact. There is a small celebration upon their return, and Gander takes the time to play dice with Emile during the festivities.

Battle Brothers: Raiding the Raiders

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

The Spears return to a border village just in time to defend it against a necromancer and his thralls, then Big Mike gets the company back to doing the regular contracts to regain morale. A gem caravan escort tempts Colonel Vodka to simply steal it but Big Mike keeps him in line.

On the same run a large group of scraggly kids are pilfering a dead merchant. Redbeard single handedly scares them off easily, leaving the Spears free loot. The company is then asked to fight back against the green skin raiders, to destroy a goblin and orc camp in the Western Wildlands.

The goblin camp in the mountains is easy, with Faltran throwing the last goblin wolf rider off a cliff. The orc camp in the swamp is much more difficult as it has berserkers and heavily armored warriors! Redbeard and Colonel Vodka are cleaved to death while Pioyer and Big Mike are beheaded. Emile is lucky all he lost was an ear.

That armor is tough to get through.

Left as defacto leader, Faltran the Drunkard immediately brought the survivors back to the nearest tavern to find better morale at the bottom of many, many jugs of ale. It's surprising they could still fight so well when a band of orcs which had followed them attacked. Fortunately the town militia were on hand to assist and while four militia men perished, no more Spears were lost that day.

Battle Brothers: The Western Wildlands

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Hearing about their planned expedition to the wildlands, the hedge knight Redbeard Reborn joins the Spears just before they head out. Their first stop isn't even on the border though, it is at the newly built tomb of Sir Magnus, which was already crawling with zombies and geists!

The living will never outnumber the dead.

The banshees terrify Kruglov and Emile who abandon their position like cowards, leaving Bes to be surrounded and torn apart by the zombie hoard before the others can clear them out. Despite the loss, the company continues Westward and find themselves in green skin lands - careful to avoid combat this far out.

On their travels they find a great goblin city, a massive orc war camp, and beyond... a black monolith which Sid, Sahkarov and a few others claim to be the "Wish Granter". Curiosity gets the better of them and they approach, only to find it defended by an army of ancient skeletons led by vampires!

There are simply too many so the Spears retreat despite Majorn's blood lust to destroy them. "Another time," assures Big Mike as the disheartened company makes their way back to civilized lands - their objective of finding 8 new locations complete. With low morale, a question about the Sun from Emile leads Sahkarov and new cultist R4W3C into a brawl based on beliefs. Big Mike is too tired to stop them.

Battle Brothers: Relative Peace

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

The days after the war are peaceful, with the roads patrolled by various House soldiers once more. The Spears help clean up the wandering brigand and orc groups, getting paid per head as well as hunting more direwolf packs.

In their down time, Mole helps a boy get a ball out of a tree, Raven's juggling entertains the troops, Big Mike plays more dice with Pioyer and Emile, Faltran manages to break his nose while training and Fanatic converts R4W3C to the cult of Davkul. Majorn also keeps busy burning random witches he finds in villages.

Sir Donatus Donbert of House Folsach then invites them to go on a nachzerer hunt with his legion and showcases how overwhelming numbers can handle even a swarm of over 20 of the ghouls. Big Mike is impressed.

I love the large scale battles!

Afterwards the company holds a meeting about what they should do next, and Emile comes up with the idea of exploring the Western wild lands, since some maps he's been stealing this whole time are not sufficient for cartography purposes. As maps might be valuable to the right person, Big Mike agrees and the Spears begin purchasing supplies for their adventure.

Battle Brothers: Davkul is Coming

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

Finding another necromantic ruin in the swamp, Majorn is pleased when he and the Spears wipe out the zombies and their necromaster while suffering only minor wounds against a force twice their number. While camped, Fanatic converts Kamots to the cult of Davkul which leads to blows against Sahkarov who still had hope for the poor fisherman. Not anymore.

I'll beat the heresy out of you!

By happenstance the company also runs into a blood sacrifice to Davkul on the way back to town. The man, another cultist named Mole, is bleeding and speared to the ground but not yet gone. Gander removes the spears while Fanatic urges him to join the Spears so he does.

To combat the growing number of cultists in the ranks, Big Mike recruits Raven Fatbastard - a merchant business acquaintance of Sid as well as Emile the thief and Bes, a retired soldier. Together they defeat more bandits and wolf packs. On their journeys Faltran notices House Grimmund forces taking Wiesendorf village from House Folsach. Mike reminds all of them to march on and to not get involved.

Luckily they run into a troupe of traveling performers whom Sir Julien convinces to perform for free. This greatly raises in the morale of the troops.

A Good Place

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

As we trekked down a lonely road we passed multiple anomalies, some moving around. Larger mutated dogs prowled the streets here, and I took note that even my heavily armored companion was sniping them from as far away as he could. Eventually I saw where we were headed, a small village on the outskirts of the metropolitan area. Smoke from the chimneys were a tell-tale sign of life. Came across a poison anomaly on the road first which Pioyer pointed out had an "art". He instructed me to learn to pick it up which was quite painful, but I managed to get out before dying. With a short congratulation we continued to the village which boasted every single type of shop I've seen so far - what Pioyer called "the city". He explained that selling "arts" was the best way to make money and after selling the one I got for 30k, I really believed him.

He then took me to the local outfitters and got me to buy a backpack which allowed me to carry 10 kgs more weight. After advising what armor I should buy next when I had enough funds, he took his leave - having to rest up for future adventures. Alone again, I decided to explore the surroundings during the day, finding more brownies in houses and learning the big dogs had a bigger aggro range (nothing the AK couldn't handle though). Also found some small boars and a "small" spider (not very small) that Emile was talking about before as well as a line of guild houses nearby. Most importantly I bagged another artifact, this one selling for 50k! At night I explored the village more, and noted there were much fewer stalkers out here (counted around 4 separate people) which made sense.



Yeah, I'm not going out there at night.

Figured that since I was in pretty good shape equipment wise, I went for minor repairs then headed out to explore this region. Started my journey with the nearby burnt forest, taking down a couple of young boars on the way to a broken part of the wall. After crossing the rubble and climbing a rise I found myself on a road! I checked my map and saw that I could go anywhere from here so since old habits die hard, I decided to follow it North but soon got side tracked off it to explore some buildings I could see in the distance across the plains. 

Looks much better in the day.

Journey to the City

My journal through Stalker Online! You can follow the rest of the story here!

There was a lot more traffic at the station today as I counted seven other stalkers talking amongst themselves, doing business or just passing through. Loaded up some ammo then took a task to find out what brownies eat. Fortunately for me, it's not people - as a wandering one managed to knock me out after my gun jammed. After getting it repaired and getting healed up I was running quite low on money and ammo so I thought I'd try go for an ammo stash I heard about hidden somewhere in a nearby warehouse. The place now acted as a giant dog pen though, with those mutated mutts all over the place. Killed a few before the sound of a heavy rifle scared the bejeezus out of me. It was a polish pro-stalker named Pioyer and he was showing an american "newbie" called Emile the ropes. I asked if I could loot the heads since they were leaving them behind and he said it was fine. He also said that I should tag along - I didn't find the ammo stash but I did find a teacher.

A teacher with a heavy machinegun.

He took us to a field near the police station to show us anomalies, explaining the whirling death ones were very dangerous and how to retrieve "arts" (artifacts) - suggesting we purchase a magnetic grip when we are able. He offered to take us to the next part of the city (which he called "the city") but Emile refused, wanting to train up first. I was game to do so, but he took one look at me and said I needed gear first. Emile left us to return to hunting dogs while we returned to the station where my new benefactor outfitted me with 10k rubles, leggings, a vest, a hat, and most importantly an AK47 with 700 rounds of ammo! Just as we were preparing to leave my old frenemy, Null25 showed up, having been similarly outfitted by someone else and now belonging to the "Last Light" faction, and asked if he can tag along. I had previously told Pioyer of my last encounter so he knew I wanted to avoid him. This didn't stop Null25 from following us though, leaving me somewhat uneasy.

The trip took us past the police station and a graveyard to another guarded building. This one had stairs down which we took into some spooky looking tunnels. While we were at it Pioyer taught me how to sprint. The tunnels branched out into a bloody labyrinth in the next section and Pioyer pulled me aside down one tunnel and made us wait for a few minutes. We could hear Null25 calling out for our position and in truth I felt bad leaving him out there but I would have felt worse bringing him along. I can only hope he simply turned around and went back to the station. After many turns we eventually came to stairs going up which led us to the middle of a field in an apartment block complex, and the bright sunlight was a good change from the mists of the first area. "Ready your AK," said Pioyer - confirming that we had come to a dangerous place; however this wasn't "the city" Pioyer was referring to.

Those aren't just ordinary dust devils.