Battle Brothers: The Can Opener build

What it’s good at:

• This build WINS arena fights, and it wants to go to the arena for the Veteran trait to empower Fearsome. I don’t yet know about tournaments, i imagine depleting 3 throwing nets can be an issue.
• Most champions
• Human enemies except barbarians; tough cans require some setup
• Fallen Heroes, Geists
• Beasts, but NOT Serpents or Ifrits
• Orc Warriors and Berserkers without cleavers. It’s best to taunt ones that have cleavers, if possible.

Decent to underwhelming against, from best to worst:

• Goblins: You should mostly fight comps with many Ambushers at night. If you do, Dodge will help with survivability a lot
• Taunted Lindwurms
• Hexen (dont know about the comp fought at Witch Hut): Equip a shield to disable Duelist; consider using a spear. Fearsome is a risk-reward situation: the more you’ve invested in Resolve, the less likely that the Can Opener is possessed, but if he is, his Fearsome procs can mean trouble for your Nimble brothers. If not possessed, fearsome is quite helpful against the accompanying beasts.
• Barbarians: A lot have cleavers, AND Adrenaline. Risky situation. I like to use the bird virtually every fight after i buy one: if you do too, you may have an easier time getting this bro on maces and hammers and not cleavers. Make sure to always use the wait command to negate potential Dazed and Staggered status effects, and if you didn’t know: you have to disable Auto-End Turns in the gameplay settings to do that.

Bad against:

• Ancient Undead
• Ifrits: Fairly useless, but has the sturdiness; unequip knife.
• Serpents: Hard counter the bro with their guaranteed Staggering, and for his lack of Underdog

Similar to what is shown on the screenshot:

• At least 80 HP with Colossus
• At least 100 stam – good to have a buffer above that
• At least 50 Resolve before Arena Veteran trait for proper Fearsome application
• Need to cross the 140 Ini threshold to reliably outspeed all non-Adrenaline human opponents (except for archers and arbalesters) even as the fight drags on and stam is accumulated
• At least 85 melee accuracy – always leveled
• Melee defense – as much as possible, but rolls of 1 are best redirected to a good roll in some other stat. Dodge will compensate.
• Craft a Hyena Fur mantle.
• Obtain a Qatal. Though expensive, hiring an Assassin with one can be a good idea – in one package, you may get the dagger, a useful grenade, the best non-named Nimble body armor (Assassin’s robes), and potentially a good recruit.

The build is relatively demanding, but not insanely so. I think in the Caravan origin its possible to get a starting bro with good enough stats for this build – either that, or i hired a very cheap, well-rolled bro like a Ratcatcher or a Brawler who fit the requirements.
Oathtaker is the best fit for this role, but for early game – Ratcatchers, Brawlers, Fishermen, Gamblers, Graverobbers. Besides that, generic cheap backgrounds like Farmhands can also be good enough on occasion. Just don’t have less than 85 accuracy.
If lacking in key stats, consider patching with Gifted instead of Adaptation or Pathfinder, or even just run Gifted regardless if you’re that kinda guy.
Using the Tryout option, look for nice traits – the build uses many stats, so you are pretty likely to find some redeeming qualities, like Strong or Quick, that’ll let you redirect levelup rolls elsewhere. Huge is a sidegrade – i personally like it.

• Root the tough opponent who’s ended his turn with a throwing net. Walk up, then the next turn gingerly kiss him on the cheek three times. If you know beforehand you’re fighting someone whose gear you might want, make sure to equip the regular dagger beforehand – my version of the build saves a perk point on Quick Hands. If somehow caught with the Qatal in hands – make the 4 wasted AP points somehow fit in your strategy: walk 2 tiles back with the team, or keep him in the backlines on turn 1.
• As with any nimble bro, try to stay away from cleavers that arent taunted. Bird helps a lot – on him or some other high INI team member. Don’t forget to equip 1 or 2 bandages on someone in the backline.
• If not locked in melee, can swiftly come to help a teammate with overwhelm and fearsome at the start of next turn – most of the time, with at least one proc of each.
• Always use the wait command against stuns, orcs, nomads, except maybe when he is fighting a cleaver user – getting hit would mean sooner bleed ticks.
• In the bags, store a dagger for puncturing some unexpected armor or last enemies left alive, and a throwing net for random chimp events like a mercenary attack.
  Early in the game and/or while leveling a bro while he doesn’t yet have good INI – bagging a shield for added security can be a good idea.
• Have some other guy with quick hands carry an additional throwing net or nets just in case.
• Do NOT have him surrounded by 3 full health, dangerous opponents. Two will mostly be okay
• If your team is reasonably sturdy and holding the line well, don’t be afraid to leave him idle in the backlines for a while if that means he will be able to promptly get on the tough opponent when it finally makes contact. Strategize properly in advance: leave him a spot next to the miniboss, preferably 2 tiles of walking away. Bird helps.
• If not bird, equip a Resolve trinket for improved Fearsome procs. Armor with the Hyena attachment is a must – it is worth an entire 3 good INI rolls. Don’t only obtain it super late in the playthrough. Direwolf attachment is useful also – on a general backup nimble armor, perhaps.
• Other than these special cases, the bro plays like a normal melee guy who acts before almost anything else.

• Quick Hands: In my mind, competes with Fast Adaptation and loses a little.
  My thought process is that quick-handing to a second net and throwing it costs a lot of stam, especially without throwing mastery. Many complications arise: Now you have less less MDEF from Dodge, less Initiative (largely irrelevant: the opponent will most often be fatigued and slowed down, too – that is, if it even gets out of the net), and eventually you wont be able to triple Deathblow.
• Fast Adaptation: most valuable when rolling low chances like 50-ies, which you will sometimes have to rely on against that Champion Swordlancer in the arena and other enemies like him. Unlike lowering the enemy’s Mdef with a throwing net, does not cost extra stam.
• Recover: pretty much not needed. With a regular Qatal and uninjured, your 15 recovered stam will let you Deathblow + normal stab, or double normal stab – 2 attacks is fine, but i rarely ever stam out on this bro in the first place.
• Killing Frenzy + Zerk: I want the single target elimination power instead. Pathfinder saves stam, INI, and makes the takedowns reliable; Fearsome is simply overpowered. Let other soldiers do the swing-a-lot jobs. You can run it and it will be a good build, just a totally different one. You can drop Pathfinder and cram Fearsome together with KF+Zerk – now your bro is better than mine in the Arena where doesnt need to walk as much and only on Sand tiles, but worse as a 1v1 assassin on any difficult-to-traverse terrain.
• Underdog: I find large Dodge+Overwhelm value and careful planning to be adequate compensation.