Brigand Pounder

* Brigand Pounder
* Brigand Matchman

The Brigand 8-/12-/16-Pounder is a Boss which appears 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.*

## 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.

(\* In military history, cannon were once referred to by the weight of the ball they fired; the heavier the ball, the bigger and more dangerous the cannon. But if you want to think of it as something that brigands use to "pound" on you, that works too.)
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 biggest threat of the fight is the Pounder shooting. If the Pounder is never allowed to shoot, the fight can be completed with a decent level of ease. If the Pounder shoots, the fight suddenly becomes very, very dangerous. The Pounder does high, party-wide AoE damage. This can easily drop squishier heroes to death's door and allow a Fusilier to wipe them out within just a few unlucky turns. To prevent the Pounder from shooting, you need to kill the Matchman as soon as possible every turn. Since the Matchman can spawn in every Rank and is a very high priority target, it's important to be able to hit every rank. Because the Matchman can dodge, the heroes can miss or roll low for damage, leaving the Matchman alive. As such, it's very important to be able to hit the Matchman multiple times. Having multiple options on different heroes to hit every rank trivialises many of the fight's biggest risks. Stunning the Matchman might be a good idea, since it gives the heroes multiple turns to deal with other Brigands or deal damage to the Pounder.

After the highest priority target, the Matchman, is dealt with, two other enemy groups remain: the Pounder itself and any other spawned Brigands.

The Brigands are usually what you try to deal with first. All of them can be stunned pretty easily and don't pose lethal threat with single attacks. If the Brigands and the Matchman are consistently dealt with, the fight poses no threat at all. Depending on the current state of the party, it might be better to focus on the cannon to end the fight quicker instead of focusing on a Brigand.

After dealing with the Brigands and Matchman, all of the heroes' actions should be going into either hitting the cannon or recovery. The fight is usually very very long, since the Cannon has Prot and a -damage taken buff. This fight will likely be one of the longest fights of the entire run. Simply kill the Matchman and the Brigands while slowly whittling down the cannon.

## Team Selection

All heroes are good for this Boss. It really depends on your party how good the heroes will perform.

* Abomination - Can't hit Rank 4 and Transform is very risky since the fight is so long. Though Rage can be used to deal a final push of damage to the cannon and his human form provides good control against the spawned brigands.
* Antiquarian - Flashpowder can de-stealth Gunners and lower their ACC, taking them out of the fight for potentially multiple turns. Festering Vapors can hit any rank for decent damage, allowing her to deal finishing blows to the Matchman.
* Arbalest/Musketeer - Can hit all 3 back ranks for good damage. Similar to Flashpowder, Suppressing Fire can lower the offense of brigands immensely. If a Mark is on the Cannon, she can deal a lot of damage to it.
* Bounty Hunter - Flashbang is one of the only two stuns that will be able to Stun the Matchman in Rank 4. Furthermore, he provides good control against the brigands, solid damage and reach with Finish Him and a Mark to allow others to deal more damage against Cannon.
* Crusader - Can kill the Matchman very consistently with Holy Lance. Provides good recovery and damage against the Cannon as well.
* Flagellant - Can always hit the Matchman with either Punish or Rain of Sorrows. If the Cannon does manage to shoot, his Heal upon entering Deaths Door will automatically get the rest of the party off of deaths door, serving as a nice safety net.
* Grave Robber - Can deal damage to any Rank with either Poison Darts or Thrown Dagger. Pick to the Face is a decent option to deal damage to the Cannon, as it pierces Prot, however Lunge will still deal more damage.
* Hellion - Can hit any Rank for good damage. She's one of, if not the best hero to bring against this boss.
* Highwayman - Can hit any Rank and has Riposte to help clean up Brigands. His Riposte has a very high chance to trigger, since most of the Brigands have cleave attacks, though you have to plan around him moving forward and potentially not being able to hit the Matchman if he's stuck in Rank 1.
* Houndmaster - Can hit any Rank with Hounds Rush and set up Mark. He also has a Stressheal or Stun for the long fight to either recover or control Brigands.
* Jester - Though he can't hit Rank 4, Battle Ballad will allow you to increase your offense immensely, allowing other heroes to kill the Matchman more easily. Slice Off can still be used to deal damage and help kill Brigands, deal damage to the Cannon or kill the Matchman if he's in rank 2/3.
* Leper - Deals immense damage to whatever sits in Rank 1/2. He can either kill whatever brigand sits in the front or use Intimidate to lower the offense of brigands by a lot. He might not be able to kill the Matchman by himself, but he can still help with Intimidate. Having a Revenge boosted Leper hit the Cannon every turn will make the fight go by very quickly.
* Man-at-Arms - Bolster gets a lot of value for this very long fight. Crush has decent damage into Rank 3, Rampart and Bellow can be used to control Brigands, his Riposte can help against the AoE effects of Brigands and Command can boost the parties offensive power.
* Occultist - Can take out a Brigand or the Matchman out of the fight with stuns for multiple turns. Can Mark the Cannon for other heroes to hit it and deal decent damage with Sacrificial Stab. Although his Heal is unreliable, the fight is so slow that him having to heal multiple turns in a row isn't usually a problem.
* Plague Doctor - Has the second stun that can be used to stun Rank 4 in Disorienting Blast. Blinding Gas only has 3 Uses, making it prone to run out in this fight. She can Blight Brigands or the stunned Matchman to kill them over multiple Turns and remove the Brigands DoT's with Battlefield Medicine. She doesn't deal great damage against the Cannon without Incision though.
* Shieldbreaker - Can hit any Rank with either Pierce or Puncture. Pierce can also pierce the Prot on the Cannon. Still lowered damage, but essentially a +damage on Pierce.
* Vestal - Judgement can hit any Rank and her Stun might be able to catch the Matchman in rank 3. She is one of the two chars that can get the entire party off of deaths door (the other being Flagellant), but she is usually too slow to out-speed the Brigands to use her heal.

## Trophy

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

* +10% DMG to ranged skills
* +6% CRT to ranged skills

## 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;

 BOOOOOOOM!
 MISFIRE!

## 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.
* The Brigand Pounder used to have a very high PROT of 40-50%. After the introduction of Armor Piercing attacks, its PROT has been reduced but it now has a permanent damage reduction buff, reducing the effectiveness of Armor Piercing against it.

## Related Enemies

### All Areas

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

### Bosses

* Brigand Matchman
* Brigand Vvulf
* Barrel O' Bombs