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 noisome 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
The single most important thing to remember is that you must never allow the matchman to take a turn. The Cannon's attack is absolutely devastating, and can potentially put your entire party on Death's Door in a single hit - which can result in a party wipe if the Fusilier follows up with Blanket Fire.

You'll want to bring a party that can hit all ranks, as the Matchman frequently spawns in or gets moved to the third and fourth ranks. Thankfully, the Matchman has ridiculously low speed (he will always act last on a turn) and low health, which makes him easy to kill. It's obviously safest to kill him outright, but in a pinch you could finish him off with bleed and/or blight damage. If you have no other options, stunning him is also viable - however, if you get unlucky and he resists it, you're in trouble.

The Pounder itself has a very high protection stat, and is effectively immune to status effects - as such, you're simply going to have to chip away at it a little at a time while you try to keep the Brigands under control. Expect a long fight and plan accordingly. Attacks that can hit multiple targets, such as the Abomination's Rake or the Leper's Hew, are extremely useful here - they allow you to take out the Brigands while still damaging the Pounder.

Do note that while the Pounder is immune to debuffs, it isn't immune to being marked - an Arbalest or Bounty Hunter can still take advantage of the damage bonus.

It's possible to kill all Brigands and then attack the Pounder while it has no support. This can, however, take a while: the Pounder continuously spawns new Brigands at the beginning of the turn. Alternatively, any Hero with a stun can control the Brigands and buy you time to focus attacks on the Cannon - kill the Brigands once they recover. 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 the Matchman's health and dodge are increased, the health of the Pounder is doubled, and the Reinforcements ability gains a chance to call in Brigand Bloodletters. Make sure to boost your party's accuracy - you really don't want to miss the Matchman.

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 of the ironwork enemy type.
 * Brigand Pounder is the only monster in the game that has an auto-action to initiate the attack of another monster.
 * If the Brigand Pounder is destroyed, but you retreat from battle before all other enemies are killed, the quest will still be completed.