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: Senior Sergeant

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

The remaining Spears from the siege use their pay first at the tavern, naming Sergeant Gander as the new commander since he's now the most senior (experience wise) in the company. Still reeling from the losses at Wiesendorf, he decides to take the company dire wolf hunting first, an easy job - followed by ousting some goblins at nearby ruins.

He doesn't look pleased at his promotion.

Carelessness leads to Fanatic being flanked at taking an arrow through the jugular, so after the victory Gander follows Sahkarov's advice in recruiting more men, gaining Raz the cat like sell sword and Harlech the incestuous bastard (not making that up).

The local councilman then pleads with the Spears to recover an artifact from the North Eastern mountains which might help in the war against the dead. With Majorn's reasoning still in his mind, Gander accepts and the company begins the long trek into House Grimmund territory.

Battle Brothers: The Siege of Wiesendorf

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

By the time the company reaches Wiesendorf, it is already under siege by zombies. Fortunately Sir Donatus Donbert and his men are already there thinning the herd. After the easy fight, Donatus bids the Spears good luck as he has orders to protect another town further East. The Spears and the local militia hunker down to build defenses.

I suppose it's a little like the opening intro for Neverwinter Online.

It's not long till the next wave arrives, skeleton warriors who - while fortunately don't reanimate when slain - are much better fighters than the zombies. Gander's trauma from the earlier vampire encounter flares up here, and due to him fleeing Gillian suffers a broken elbow and a diseased wound while R4W3C is shield bashed off his high ground, right into a skeleton swarm who hack him to pieces.

There is not much of a rest after breaking that wave when the next arrives, even more skeletons who are better equipped. The local militia die in droves as the Spears scramble with armor and shield breaking axes. Kruglov is impaled by an ancient spear man through the heart.

Defeating them only leads to the final wave of undead with even more skeleton warriors and pikemen. With all the militia dead (and re-killed thanks to zombification) the Spears throw everything they have with Sunbro earning his keep in kills. In the battle, Tolik is cut down, Majorn sacrifices himself (bleeds out) to slay the final spearman, and Faltran is disemboweled.

Battle Brothers: The Nightmare Begins

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

After a nightmarish sleep, Gander is woken up at the tavern by Stargazer who says refugees from all over are claiming the dead are rising across the land. Behind him are the new recruits, Agdan, a cultist friend of Fanatic and Sir Erland an adventurous noble and his squires Gillian Laddersmith and Reimund the Secret Son, a bastard child of the King. Not so secret if it's in his name I guess.

Nightmares involving Rome?

They immediately report in to Faltran, who is still deep in his cups, and decides to ignore the undead threat to do training missions instead: catching thieves and escorting a caravan both proving to be easy. They also accompany Sir Erland's friend Sir Siegfried Baranor of House Ruhmolt and his troops in hunting another nachzerer swarm in the swamp which again is relatively safe given the number of allies.

The newbies do pretty well, despite the "surprise" that any slain human raises as a zombie now and a small altercation between Raven and Sir Erland on who gets to eat first - low born or high born. Faltran lets them sort it out with their fists. Unconvinced by their new commander, Majorn has a quiet discussion with him and Gander or the duty of every living person to fight the undead.

His words took root because not a day later the Spears accepted a contract to defend the town of Wiesendorf from an undead horde marching towards it.

Battle Brothers: The Toll of War

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

As the war rages on, the Spears hear that House Folsach managed to retake Wiesendorf village House Grimmund had claimed from them earlier - only to lose the town of Hagenmoors to House Ruhmolt in the East. At the Western border the Spears keep busy by repelling green skin invaders and assisting a House Folsach village against Grimmund soldiers.

The local militia assisting the Spears are killed to the last man, while Pioyer gains a broken knee and Tolik a partially collapsed lung. All these battles are getting to Faltran though who has taken heavily to drinking to ease his pain (and is now a drunkard).

That's some hefty impairment.

On the road the Spears try hand out food to some refugees as well, when more Grimmund soldiers show up and try to claim it. A quick scuffle sees the soldiers dead, but leaves Majorn with an injured shoulder and Kruglov with a maimed foot.

While he isn't losing people Big Mike knows that with all these permanent injuries piling up the Spears are becoming less effective at fighting. He can't bring himself to fire anyone though, not after what they've all been through.

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.

Battle Brothers: Spear Wall

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

With the string of recent victories, morale is high as a banner for the Spears is created. The Nord Craizee is recruited as the company goes to hunt the rampant dire wolf packs roaming the forests.

The large white flags means their morale is breaking.

These critters are fast, but are easy prey as they keep lunging against the front line spearwall. The same tactic works well on zombies encountered at some random ruins, the only difference is - they get back up, making for a marathon battle but one still won by caution.

The company eventually arrives at Wiesendorf who not only have hauntings at the graveyard, but also a fort of bandits raiding their supply lines. With a quick scouting run it turns out the "hauntings" are also bandits, so the Spears set out to rout both locations.

These bandits are wise to the spear wall method, and counter with delays or ranged attacks forcing the Spears to charge. Ultimately this leads to the death of S***A who is piked while spear walling (pikes out range spears), and Moaning Knight (one of the original three) who takes an arrow to the knee... and another to the face.

Coppertopper the messenger and He-Alve the strange, scaled one are recruited as replacements, but Faltran and Bloodfire know they'll never be able to replace their fallen comrade.