What two-handed weapons do your Battle Brothers need to be most effective?
In Battle Brothers, success in many combat scenarios comes down to doing as much damage to your enemies as possible as quickly as possible.
Two-handed weapons, often referred to as “2H weapons”, are crucial in achieving this.
In this guide we’ll be giving you a quick run-down of some of the most useful two-handed weapons in the game and how you can get hold of them.
5. Bardiche (Warriors of the North DLC)
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Sometimes you just need a huge axe on a pole.
If you’ve got the Warriors of the North DLC, the Bardiche is a particularly useful weapon for several types of battle.
It combines the “Split Man” ability of a two-handed axe with the “Split” ability of two-handed swords.
“Split Man” is an attack that hits a single target, buttarget but has a chance to hit both the head and body of the target for extra damage, making it a very devastating blow if it lands on both areas. On the other hand, “Split” is an attack that can hit two enemies at once in a straight line. This allows the Bardiche to heavily damage enemies hiding in the back row with pikes or ranged weapons, making it effective against Noble House armies and Southern City State armies.
As a two-handed axe, the Bardiche also offers the ability to destroy an enemy’s shield, if you so desire.
Strengths:
A two-handed axe with the ability to strike the back row of enemies like a two-handed sword.
Combines reasonable armour penetration with high damage.
Weaknesses:
Requires the Warriors of the North DLC.
Not always reliably found on your adventures.
Not as specialised as some other two-handed weapons.
Acquiring the Bardiche:
The Bardiche is occasionally found on enemy Brigand Leaders and Champion-level enemies, as well as Hedge Knights (which will spawn with Brigand groups later in the game).
Alternatively, you can try attacking other Mercenaries (Ctrl+Click them to force a fight when not on a contract yourself). It should be noted that this will anger any town that has hired the Mercenaries and you will also have quite a tough fight on your hands if you’re early in the game.
In general, it’s probably easiest to visit Weaponsmiths you’re on friendly terms with to simply buy the weapon if you’re specifically looking to acquire one.
4. Two-Handed Hammer
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Turn armour into scrap metal.
Sometimes when you’re facing enemies like Orc Warriors or Barbarians and you need a weapon that hits like a truck and goes through armour like it’s paper. An excellent weapon for this very purpose is the Two-Handed Hammer.
As a Hammer class weapon, this club staggers enemies upon hitting them, forcing them to act last in the turn order. This can be very useful indeed for killing enemies before they get to act, ganging up on them and using the hammer blows to slow down their turn.
Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of the Two-Handed Hammer is that you will rarely be able to salvage your opponent’s armour after the battle, since the hammer will usually destroy it completely. It also lacks pure Health point damage compared to bladed weapons.
However, two handed hammers and maces are easily some of the most effective tools against large, armoured enemies in the game.
Strengths:
Extremely powerful against heavily armoured enemies.
Will destroy armour very quickly.
The stagger effect forces enemies to act last in the turn queue.
Can alternatively bbe used to hit three enemies in an “arc” shape.
Weaknesses:
Not as damaging to health hit points as some other weapons.
Expensive to buy from the Weaponsmith.
Unless you are fighting Noble Houses or Mercenaries, it’s rare to see it on the battlefield.
Acquiring the Two-Handed Hammer:
You can get this weapon by defeating Hedge Knights in the late game, or or by attacking Noble House armies containing Knights. Finally, you can also acquire this weapon from some groups of Mercenaries.
As with the Bardiche, you can also get friendly with a city that has a Weaponsmith and purchase a War Hammer. It will typically cost you around 3000-4000 crowns.
3. Two-Handed Flanged Mace
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A mighty forged steel club.
Two-handed maces are an incredibly useful weapon in Battle Brothers. They offer armour piercing damage comparable to hammers and inflict devastating blunt injuries in similar fashion. However, instead of Staggering enemies, they inflict the “Dazed” status on anyone hit with the primary attack. Two handed maces also offer a secondary stunning attack which can take an opponent out of action for one turn.
The Dazed status effect penalises the enemy’s Fatigue and Initiative stats, but most handily it causes them to do a whopping 25% less damage while the effect persists. This can make very hard-hitting enemies significantly less dangerous to your men.
The Two-Handed Flanged Mace is a particularly decent mid-late game mace, and and can be obtained through fighting or purchased.
Strengths:
Good against armour, with slightly more health damage than the hammer.
Effective against most enemies.
Can be used to Stun foes for a turn.
Dazed inflicts a -25% damage penalty on the enemy, very good for weakening dangerous high-damage opponents.
Weaknesses:
Can only attack one enemy at a time.
Some enemies are immune to being Stunned (you can check this when mousing-over them with the Stun attack selected).
Quite expensive to buy early game.
Acquiring the Two-Handed Flanged Mace:
Once again, the easiest way to obtain the Two-Handed Flanged Mace in battle is to fight Hedge Knights, Brigand Champions, Noble House Knights and Mercenaries.
If you have the Warriors of the North DLCyou can get a similar weapon, the Two-Handed Spiked Mace, from Barbarian Reavers and Barbarian Chosen. This similar weapon is more reliably carried by these enemies (although you’re still in for a tough fight).
You can reliably buy the Two-Handed Flanged Mace from Citadel Weaponsmiths if you keep an eye out every time you travel through the area.
If you plan on recruiting a Hedge Knight to your cause, it’s also possible for him to be carrying this weapon when you recruit him. Typically, the price for such a recruit is very high, but the weapon is included in the cost.
2. Man Splitter
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It does exactly what it says on the tin.
The Man Splitter is a fantastic two-handed weapon for two reasons; firstly, it is relatively easy to obtain through slaying Orc Berserkers. Secondly, the amount of damage it puts out is almost unparalleled amongst the other “normal” weapons below “Legendary” level.
This huge Orc-crafted axe offers you good armour damage (160% effective against armour), medium armour penetration and huge amounts of Health damage (90-120 per hit). Additionally, since it uses the Split Man attack by default, it can inflict even more damage if it manages to hit both the head and body of the target.
Unfortunately, all this power comes with a cost. The weapon is very fatiguing to equip, subtracting 34 Fatigue from your character’s stats just for wielding it. Without Axe Mastery it also builds up an additional 25% stamina use per swing, making it unviable for many characters to use without the Mastery perk point. Axe Mastery is also arguably one of the weaker Mastery Perks, so it can be a shame to lock a perk point to that skill purely to use the Man Splitter effectively.
However, if you do have Axe Mastery, the Fatigue penalties are usually not too bad. This is because all you have tomust do is swing the axe once per turn and this is “stamina neutral”. You will recover the 15 stamina needed to swing the axe every turn, so your total Fatigue level is not important.
An overall excellent weapon for inflicting heavy damage on a large variety of opponents, and a weapon to be feared if your enemy is wielding it!
Strengths:
Very damaging, quite effective against heavy armour and also useful against lightly armoured opponents.
Can inflict a lot of damage to many opponents with the “Round Swing” attack, which can be handy when surrounded by Wiedergangers or other enemies that attack in large numbers.
The high damage allows this weapon to inflict very nasty injuries.
Weaknesses:
Very tiring to equip, requires high Fatigue stats to remain effective.
Exhausting to swing each turn unless you have Axe Mastery.
Can only be looted from Orc enemies.
Not a specialised weapon as such. Offers no other advantage except very high damage.
Acquiring the Man Splitter:
Man Splitters are carried by Orc Berserkers or Orc Warlords. Berserkers are the easiest enemy to obtain this weapon from, but they are still extremely dangerous, especially early in the game. Even late in the game, it is best to always treat Berserkers as primary targets and not to underestimate them. As they land hits on your men, they gain a “Rage” ability, which makes them harder and harder to kill.
Combined with the massive damage potential of the Man Splitter, Berserkers with this weapon should be killed as quickly as possible.
Orc Warlords often carry this weapon (or a Legendary equivalent) and are also high priority targets to remove their morale-boosting effect, which can allow their minions to fight for much longer without fleeing. However, attacking Warlords merely to obtain this weapon is not a good idea earlier in the game.
1. Legendary Two-Handed Weapons
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A Legendary weapon you don't want to be on the wrong end of.
As with any class of items in Battle Brothers, Legendary weapons are generally the best possible loot you can get your hands on, though their stats vary.
Legendary weapons can be obtained from enemy camps or structures around the map at random locations as well as dropped by Champions and other “boss” enemies such as Knights and Orc Warlords.
In addition to being quite hard to find (especially early in the game), Legendary weapons have randomised statistics. This means they can be incredibly powerful, especially if they have a lowered AP requirement (and so allow you to make more attacks) or increased Armour Ignoring Damage.
Particularly good are Two-Handed Cleavers, Axes and Maces which have increased Armour Ignoring Damage. These can very quickly kill or incapacitate even the toughest enemies in the game, and the best examples of Legendary weapons may be worth specifically developing a character around.
However, some Legendary weapons may even be disappointing compared to their non-Legendary counterparts. For example, it is possible to get a very high durability Legendary weapon, but the damage stats are not particularly impressive. In this case it’s worth selling the weapon at a large city for a profit, then going out to try your luck at getting something else!
Of course, one of the big disadvantages of trying to loot these weapons is that you must often kill their owner to acquire them. Fighting a very highly skilled opponent who has a Two-Handed Cleaver that ignores 50-60% of your armour can be extremely dangerous, but the risk is worth it.
An example of a Legendary two-handed weapon you can get early on is the Legendary Two-Handed Barbarian Cleaver. This can be obtained by finding the Ice Cave at a random Northern location of the map and defeating the Mad Barbarian in a 1v1 duel. You will want a man equipped with a two-handed mace or hammer for this fight. The mace is perhaps more useful, as Dazing the Barbarian will reduce his damage.
Strengths:
Random stats can make Two-Handed Legendary weapons better than anything else you can get in the game.
Any type of Two-Handed weapon can be Legendary, potentially giving you a lot of variety in your powerful weapon types.
Some Legendary Two-Handed Weapons, such as a variant of the Warlord’s Cleaver, can be found as part of scripted events.
Weaknesses:
Difficult to get specific weapons due to their random nature of acquisition.
Can only be purchased from Citadel Weaponsmiths on rare occasions, for enormous amounts of crowns.
You must take on difficult battles to get these weapons.
Random stats can make these weapons either fantastic or underwhelming.
Acquiring Legendary Weapons:
As noted above, raiding enemy camps and killing the toughest enemies you can find increases your chances of finding Legendary Two-Handed weapons. Example enemies to hunt include Knights, Hedge Knights and Champion variants of Brigand Leaders and similar enemies. Taking the Bounty Hunter in your Retinue can help you find these enemies.
When raiding camps, stock up on supplies and try to attack camps that are as far away from civilised areas with towns as possible. These camps have the best chances for finding Legendary weapons and armour.
You can also try paying for rumour information in Taverns. Sometimes you will be informed a great treasure, heirloom or rare artifact is in a ruin nearby. This is a good way of finding Legendary items.
Another route is taking Caravan missions that will restock a town with a Weaponsmith with the "Well Supplied" status. This can cause Legendary weapons to spawn at the Weaponsmith.
Be aware that you will normally want to look for these items late in the game unless you are extremely experienced with Battle Brothers, as you will have to fight some of the hardest possible battles to obtain this sort of gear.
Matt was first gleefully introduced to gaming when he beat his Dad at Tekken. Whether it's wearing sunglasses at night in Deus Ex or cursing hit chances in XCOM, it's been his hobby ever since.
Gamer Since:
1995
Currently Playing:
Battle Brothers
Top 3 Favorite Games:
System Shock 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, XCOM: Enemy Unknown
