Brigand Pounder

The Brigand 8-Pounder, 12-Pounder, and 16-Pounder 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.

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- The Ancestor

Behaviour
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. On higher difficulties, the Brigand Fusiliers summoned by the Pounder have Stealth for 2 rounds.

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 and inflicts heavy stress. The second, "MISFIRE!", does nothing but gives the party a sizable stress heal.

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

Strategy
The Brigand Pounder only takes up one slot, isn't stationary, only has one action per round, and is immune to just about everything under the darkest sun except mark. On its own, it does nothing but summon brigands every round. One brigand will always be a matchman (assuming there isn't one active already), and his turn will always be Fire in the Hole, which prompts the pounder to attack. If it's ever allowed to fire, there's a high chance everyone will reach critically low health, or death's door. There's a small chance of a harmless misfire, but this should never be relied upon to occur.

Obviously, you never want to allow the matchman to act! The Brigand Pounder's cannon is absolutely devastating, and can put your entire party on death's door in a single blast. Combined with the brigand attacks, your party can be wiped quickly. Since the matchman usually ends up in the back, bringing heroes that can hit him anywhere is important. Fortunately, he has a low speed so he will always act last. He can also be stunned, making him lose a turn. A stun will double the amount of time you have to kill a particular matchman, but the stun resist buff prevents it from being spammed. Ideally, you'd cycle between stun and kill, every other round. If you want to stun, the Bounty Hunter has the highest success chance. He also has damage bonuses vs human/mark/stun, meaning he was born for this fight.

The Brigand Pounder itself has high health and protection, so bringing heroes that can ignore protection will greatly increase the speed in which the pounder falls. Consider bringing a Grave Robber with Pick to the Face and the Shieldbreaker with Pierce to increase the damage dealt to the pounder. The aforementioned heroes have skills that can attack all enemy positions, which makes it easier to deal with the matchman. The Shieldbreaker also has the camping skill Snake Eyes, allowing her party to deal more armor piercing damage. Since the Brigand Pounder is immune to just about everything, there's not much else you can do except mark. Mark can be used to boost damage on heroes that use it. Having only one action per round, the mark will persist for a while.

To deal with the regular brigands, consider bringing multi-target skills, which will often hit the boss too, or the Man-at-Arms. His guard/prot combo excels at soaking up incoming attacks so you can focus on the boss and matchman. Consider bringing riposte related skills as well, as they have a higher chance to proc due to the multi-targeted attacks of the normal brigands. Just remember to never allow a matchman to get a turn.

Preferred Heroes

 * Hellion - Delivers great raw damage to the front and still can snipe the enemy rear lines to kill the Matchman.
 * Bounty Hunter - Damage bonus against the Human Brigands. Has skills to stun and shuffle the Matchman. Mark the Pounder and he can contribute to the main objective, too.
 * Plague Doctor - Backrow DoT area attacks can keep the Matchman dead and kill their gunners. Can stun and shuffle the Matchman if necessary, too.
 * Shieldbreaker - Bypasses the Cannon's PROT with Pierce, and has a Camp buff that allows the party a degree of armor penetration. Her long reach lets her snipe the Matchman if needed.

Reasonable Choices

 * Leper, Abomination - Frontline area attacks can check the frontmost Brigand and damage the Cannon over time.
 * Arbalest/Musketeer - Snipe the Matchman before he gets to work. Mark the Pounder for more damage if the Matchman's already dead.
 * Flagellant - His reliance on bleed DoTs makes it difficult to get headway on the Pounder, but it's great for killing the Matchman.

Discouraged Heroes

 * Jester - Limited range of attacks and low raw damage. While his buff is useful, Stress relief is not as big a priority than other fights.
 * Occultist - Not a lot of raw damage, and the Pounder is immune to his debuffs. Can still pull the Matchman into melee range, though.

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

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

* "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;

Trivia

 * It's possible to surprise the Brigands upon entering the battle, but not the Matchman and Pounder.
 * The Brigand Pounder gets its name (and the names of its variants) from the weights of the cannonballs it fires. The Pounder gets more difficult because each time it is a larger cannon that fires heavier (and therefore bigger) cannonballs.
 * 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 is featured 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.
 * When the Brigand Pounder is destroyed all other brigands are immediately slain.

All Areas

 * Brigand Cutthroat
 * Brigand Fusilier
 * Brigand Bloodletter
 * Brigand Raider
 * Brigand Hunter

Bosses

 * Brigand Matchman
 * Brigand Vvulf
 * Barrel O' Bombs