Brigand Pounder

The Brigand 8-Pounder, 12-Pounder and 16-Pounders are bosses which appear in the Weald.

Ancestor's Memoirs: The Brigand Pounder
"Simple folk are by their nature loquacious, and the denizens of the hamlet were no exception. It was not long before rumors of my morbid genius and secretive excavations began to fill local legend. In the face of my increasingly egregious flaunting of public taboos, awe turned to ire, and demonstrations were held in the town square. The wild whispers of heresy roused the rabble to violent action. Such was the general air of rebellion that even my generous offer of gold to the local constabulary was rebuffed. To reassert my rule, I sought out unscrupulous men skilled in the application of force. Tight-lipped and terrifying, these mercenaries brought with them a war machine of terrible implication. Eager to end the tiresome domestic distraction, I instructed my newly formed militia of hardened bandits, brigands and killers to go forth and do their work. Compliance and order were restored, and the noise-some population of the Hamlet was culled to more manageable numbers."

History
When word of the Ancestor's experiments reached the ears of the locals, they became infuriated. In order to keep them in check, the Ancestor hired a band of brigands, who brought a great cannon of immense power along with them. Now that the Ancestor is dead, they continue to use it to terrorize the hamlet and the surrounding lands.

Behavior
The Brigand Pounder spawns on the second rank with an assortment of Brigands to support it in the other three ranks. The most important of these support units is a special Brigand called the Matchman. While the Pounder has no turns of its own, the Matchman's "Fire in the Hole!" gives the Pounder a turn, allowing it to attack the entire party for colossal damage.

As it has no turns, the Pounder cannot perform any abilities other than its Auto-Action "Reinforcements!", which summons additional Brigand units. It will use this ability immediately at the start of every turn unless all other ranks are filled. This attack will ALWAYS summon a Matchman if one is not present.

If the Matchman is allowed to act, the Pounder will use one of two attacks. The first is "BOOOOOOOM!", a ranged attack that hits the entire party for catastrophic damage as well as inflict heavy stress. The second, "MISFIRE!", does nothing but gives the party a sizable stress heal.

As stated above, the likelihood of the Pounder scoring its devastating attack will INCREASE for veteran and champion dungeons.

Trophy
After completing the Brigand Pounder's champion quest, a Matchman will drop his matchstick as a Trophy.

Abilities
* "Reinforcements!" is an Auto-Action the Brigand Pounder will ALWAYS use at the start of every round unless no brigands are downed.

** "Reinforcement!" performs 2 summons, the first will summon a Brigand Matchman. The second is to summon either a Brigand Cutthroat or Brigand Fusilier (and Brigand Bloodletter on Veteran and Champion difficulties). The limit of each Brigand type during the fight is 1. This means that there will be no duplication of Brigands at any given time during the boss fight.

*** The Brigand Pounder will only use BOOOOOOOM! and MISFIRE! after the Brigand Matchman uses Fire In The Hole, and regardless of any status effect (if any). BOOOOOOOM! and MISFIRE! are mutually exclusive. This means only one of them can be performed by the Brigand Pounder after the Brigand Matchman uses Fire In The Hole.

NOTE: BOOOOOOOM! will have an increasingly greater chance of being used by the pounder as the dungeon level goes up. Conversely, it will be less probable that the shot misfires. Here are the exact values, from easiest to hardest dungeon;

Strategy
First and foremost: DO NOT ALLOW THE MATCHMAN TO ACT, EITHER THROUGH STUN OR DEATH! Allowing the Matchman to load the cannon will result in disastrous consequences for your party. Even the Apprentice version can instantly bring a hero to Death's Door. It is recommended to bring characters who can target all ranks as the Matchman frequently spawns in or gets moved to the third and fourth ranks, placing him out of range for some melee classes and skills. Thankfully, the Matchman has ridiculously low speed (he will always act last on a turn) and low health, which makes for an easy kill. While killing him before his turn is the safest route, the appropriate amount of pre-turn bleed and/or blight damage will still keep your party safe, as will a stun, but it's best not to rely on your final character to land the needed stun, as there is always a chance the Matchman will resist it.

As for the Pounder itself, it has a VERY high protection stat and is virtually immune to status effects, so don't even waste time using abilities like this. It is recommended to bring a lot of AOE to the fight, as it can damage the Pounder and take care of Brigands at the same time. Because the pounder is completely immune to debuff and DOT, the only way to destroy it is pure damage; imagining it as having no protection and just pure HP, then the 3 levels of pounder would have approximately 167, 250, and 343 HP (this is how much damage you must do to destroy it, pre-PROT). You will need to be able to survive a long fight, damaging the pounder as often as possible while also dealing with its continually respawning support.

One strategy, albeit slow, is to kill all Brigands and then attack the Pounder while it has no support. This method may take a while as the Pounder continuously spawns new Brigands at the beginning of the turn, but this is ultimately one of the safest ways of dealing with this boss. However, any Hero with a stun can effectively halve the damage output from a particular Brigand while leaving it in play to prevent replacement; simply focus one attack per turn on the Brigand, initially hitting with a stun and then finishing with a normal attack after he is under the influence of the stun resistance buff. This mitigates damage without causing continuous respawns from "Reinforcements!" and allows the party to whittle down the Pounder more quickly by freeing up additional attacks. The Cutthroat is the more obvious target for this strategy, since he will spawn in the first rank, and since his attacks typically do more concentrated damage than the Fusilier, thus decreasing the ability to control distribution of damage through healing.

Another strategy is to ignore the other two Brigands and focus solely on the Matchman and Pounder. It is more dangerous and risky than eliminating all targets, but it does reduce the number of extra units the Pounder's "Reinforcements!" brings in. High Damage and Dodge stats are recommended if pursuing this strategy.

On the highest difficulty level this fight can be quite troublesome, as Matchman's health and dodge are increased, health of the Pounder is doubled and Reinforcement can summon Brigand Bloodletter. Because of high health and damage of the Brigands usual strategies become less effective. For the champion level fight it's recommended to bring a no-healer party to ensure clearing out summoned Brigands every turn and hitting the Pounder on the turns when it summons the Matchman only. A variation of a marking party Hellion-Bounty Hunter-Arbalest-Hound Master works nicely. However, its also more risky to send a party into the Weald without a healer because of Unclean Giant.

Trivia

 * It's possible to surprise the Brigands upon entering the battle, but not the Matchman and Pounder
 * The shields on the side of the Brigand Pounder are from the Town Militia; they include a shield from a Man-At-Arms and a Crusader.
 * The Brigand Pounder features prominently in the Man-At-Arms' story comic; he was the only survivor of a doomed unit that attempted to fight one of the emplacements.
 * Brigand Pounder is the only monster in the game that is used to be ironwork enemy type.
 * Brigand Pounder is the only monster in the game that has an auto-action to initiate the attack of another monster.