Each weapon has a different property and attack skill when equipped.
A mace type of weapon has a stunning attack.
While a Spear weapon's main advantage is improved accuracy but they tend to have lower damage.
Each weapon has different properties and it's important to swap according to the role you want the weapon to perform.
Here's a brief explanation on the character sheet in Battle Brothers
Head Armor: If you are hit on the head, the head armor points will take the brunt of the damage - some weapons can ignore armor. Hits to the head have increased chance of serious injury.
Body Armor: Same as above, except it protects against damage to the torso.
Health: Your maximum health - the higher it is, the more damage you take and the least likely you will get injured when hit.
Action Point: You spend these to move and act
Fatigue: At the beginning of combat, this starts at zero. Every turn you lose 15 fatigue, moving, attacking, and other actions increases your fatigue - your men cannot move if they've maxed out their fatigue. The heavier your equipment are, the lower your fatigue capacity would be.
Morale: The state of morale when combat starts. This is very important - a high morale rewards to hit chances - a low morale will lower them - get it low enough - and your men will flee - and this is fatal if they're locked in melee. Most positive events increases morale - it can happen inside or outside combat - killing an enemy, rallying cry etc. The opposite is true - death of comrades, a serious injury, being surrounded can dampen a morale.
Resolve: This is a saving roll to gain and lose morale when events happen. The higher it is, the more likely you can trigger gains in morale or avoid loss of morale.
Initiative: How soon can this unit move - the heavier your gear - the lower your initiative.
Melee/Ranged Attack: Chance to hit using melee/ranged weapons.
Melee/Ranged Defense: Chance to evade incoming melee/ranged attacks.
Chance to Hit Body/Head: When you successfully hit - the 1d100 roll will determine where it lands.
Vision: How many tiles can you see ahead - important for scouting ahead at night - or for bow snipers.
Background and traits can be varied and it's best explained when we encounter in game. Backgrounds are very diverse and affect the statistic spread. Unique trait like the one you see here affects some skills. Berengar is a 'Battle Brother' this background grants starting bonuses to their combat skills. His trait is 'Pessimist' - a negative trait - The glass is always half full - granting a penalty of -5 resolve.
On the final note - the stars on each attribute denotes favored attribute and grants bonuses when increasing such skill at level up. Berengar, as you can see has 2 stars on Health and 1 star on both Fatigue and Resolve.
Let's look at Robert now
Robert seems like a solid melee character
2* MeleeAtk
1* MeleeDef
1* Resolve
His two traits are both positive and negative - he is bloodthirsty - ensuring that he always perform fatalities if a weapon allows it. Decapitation and other violent finishing blows greatly lowers morale which is good. But he has blurry vision which lowers his vision by 1. No big deal.
Whew. Enough explaining about the game for now, let's go see the world map.
Wow. It's huge, isn't it? Where are we? The white banner with golden cross is our Company's banner. We're just outside Waidhof, where we're about to collect our payment.
Why not? We could use the work.
Off we go then, to recruit fresh bodies for our band.
Well. This is our recruitment pool. As you can see some are rather expensive. The number on the left is the amount of down payment while the number on the right is the daily pay. Arrows denote the level-ups you get upon hiring this man since this one is more experienced than others he demands 2410 gold. A bit too much for me. We need to go lower.
Now here comes the nasty meta for the game: You don't know their attributes until you've hired them. So be sure to pay attention to their background.
This man is a poacher. Hence I'll assume he's a good archer. We'll take him since having good archers can provide us with deadly first strikes. 395 gold is paid, I hold my breath and...
This sonuvabich came with a shitty bow. Hiring cost includes gear as well, so don't always assume an expensive hire is skilled. It could be the gold-plated sword they're carrying! But overall, I'm OK with his stat spread. He even comes with armor and hood. I'll take a closer look later.
For now, we'll head to another big city to find better recruits (hopefully).
Sommersborg is a 'large city' and prices are usually way more expensive there - it's probably a good idea to pick up cheap commodity in outlying villages to unload in bustling metros like this one.
Waidhof, the village we are in produces quality wood, some dried fruit and nuts, as well as venison.
We look at the actual worth of the goods and found the price tag very reasonable.
Our purse slightly lighter, we load our carts and set off towards Sommersborg.