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Wartalessees you leading a band of mercenaries across alow-fantasy open worldand interacting freely to help people or fill your own pockets. One easy way of bulking up your company is by taming some animals to assist you in combat.
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The big advantage of taming animals compared to hiring mercenaries is that they don’t need wages, only food. This allows you to take several animals into your company without worrying about your finances. There is also less upfront cost, as hiring mercenaries takes not only wages but a hiring bonus.
How Animals Work
When you bring them with you into combat,the animals are given their own turns and are controlled by the AI.
If your party contains anarcher, they can learn theBeast Masterability at level five, which provides you with full control of animals. A team that relies heavily on animals should aim to have aBeast Master archeras quickly as possible.
Animals are able to level up and have their own skill trees, but unlike your human party members,will die instantly when reduced to zero hitpoints. Increasing their willpowerto 15 will prevent them from dying once per battle.
Different animals can fill out different roles in your team, both in and out of combat:
Combat role
Utility Role
Wolf
Strong damage dealer against unarmed opponents that gain bonuses if the troop contains at leastthree wolves total.
The utility abilityGuard Wolfmakes your troop immune to the surprise debuff while resting.
Bear
Large HP pools and anactive ability that taunts enemiesinto attacking them.
They are vulnerable to effects that deal percentage damage such aspoisonandbleeding.
Canincrease valour generation while campingbut has the highest maintenance cost at 12 units of food each day.
Can forage formushroomsto offset their food consumption.
Ponies
The only animal that can wear armour, they also level up more quickly than other animals when paired with thehitching post-camp upgrade.
Large amounts ofcarrying capacityand the ability to increasemove speedon the world map.
Mole-rats
Inflict bonus damagewhen fighting in darknessbut are weakened in light.
They are easy to replace so can be used as more disposable than other units.
Once you have two mole-rats at level five they unlock the ability tobreedwhile camping.
Cardinal mosquitoes
Stronghealing abilitiesand the ability toignore armourwhen attacking.
Their low HP pool means theycan die from a single lucky critical hit.
Assigning level-up points to theirmovementallows them to duck in and out of combat.
Cannegate theirfood upkeepby biting your mercenaries.
How To Capture Animals
The first thing you need to do ispurchaserope. This can be crafted in the camp by a tinkerer using hemp, purchased from shops, or looted from bandits.
Prisonsoften sell large amounts of rope, along withchains for capturing humans.
When you have rope in your inventory, a new option will be unlocked in combat against wild animals but only when you meet the other conditions. You need toreduce the animal below half healthbefore trying to capture it and make sureit is engaged in combat by hitting it with a melee attack.
Approaching the creature from behind while it is injured and distractedby another soldier will show a new option on the toolbar to attempt capturing it. Selecting this skill will showa percentage chance over the animal. Without any modifiers, it will normally bearound 50 percent. Failing the capture uses the character’s action but does not prevent you from trying again on a future turn.
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How To Build A Beastmaster
If you’re planning to build your overall strategy around animals,the Ludern region should be a priorityfor you to unlock and explore. The region has animals not found in the other areas, includingCrocoswineandCardinal Mosquitoes. It also provides access to large amounts of equipment that improves your animals and allows your human mercenaries to more effectively support them.
For example,theHunter’s Bowis a weapon dropped by trackersin the area. It has a100 percent critical rateagainst enemies engaged by an allied animal. Another powerful bow for beast masters is theSleuth,which has a normal attack thatcauses all animals adjacent to the target to make attacks of opportunity. This unique weapon can be won in the Nairolf Arena in Ludern and upgraded at Brotherhood Training Grounds.
As explained before, thearcher classis able to specialise into aBeastmaster, which grants further abilities to benefit animals fighting alongside them. The first of these is theAttack command, which for one valour point causes all animals adjacent to an enemy to make attacks of opportunity, similar to the Sleuthbow’s special attack.
Since it is the animals that will be striking killing blows, the archer won’t benefit from anyon-kill effectswhen using this ability. This does allow the animals to activate their on-kill effects, such as a wolf’sCarnivore Dietability, whichheals half of their maximum healthwhen they kill an enemy.
Be careful with how you position your animals in melee combat to avoid your archers accidentally shooting them.
Atinkereris able to craft anassortment of accessoriesthat can tailor the performance of an animal:
With the exception of the pony,animals cannot wear armourand will take injuries more often as a result. Having anapothecaryin the group provides cheaper access to medicines to treat these injuries.
Lastly,animals do not have access to skills that generate valour points, the team currency used for special moves. This means that teams with large numbers of animals will want to carefully ration the valour points generated during a rest.
