Battle Brothers

Let me tell you about Melvin. Used to be a butcher. Joined the crew months ago, back near the beginning, back when we were scraping by, barely enough money to keep our weapons repaired. But he stayed around, sometimes grousing, sometimes drinking, always fighting. Somehow, through grit and luck, Melvin got himself a big shield and a shiny hammer. Convinced the rest of us to trust him, brave and reliable. Always keeping us safe. And then an orc cut off his head. ... So, let me tell you about Ivar. Used to be a hunter ...
I love Battle Brothers' stories. In this turn-based tactical strategy game, set in a somewhat fantastical medieval world, the player commands a rag-tag band of soldiers, all of different backgrounds, all of randomly distributed skills and traits. Because of the procedurally generated variants–maps, available items, enemy distribution, etc.--the game has substantial replayability.
A fair piece of the game's strategic difficulty comes from selecting and developing one's soldiers. There's never enough money to afford the best mercenaries, those with substantial combat experience, ability, and armor. Instead, the player bolsters the squad with average workers--farmers and fishermen, maybe a barber or tailor--and hopes they live long enough to become useful. Part of that utility comes from shaping the characters' stats and perks, awarded with each level up. These choices help the characters to specialize: before long, the band will have swordsmen and archers, sneak-thieves and heavily armored tanks. Each of these choices opens up different character abilities and playstyles, though not all of them work equally well against all kinds of foes.
At times, the game’s difficulty borders on unfair. On a first playthrough, the player won’t be sure of different enemies’ movesets and weaknesses. Many fights have uneven numbers, and the enemies will often be better equipped than the player’s troop, especially in the game’s first weeks. There’s a lot of unlucky rolls and unexpected deaths. Though the player usually has a choice to abandon battles, these retreats aren’t always successful. More than once, I’ve had a retreating soldier sniped down by an especially accurate bowman. Because each character has been personally selected and developed to bolster the team, each casualty feels awful. Though it would be easy to give up, stomping away from the game’s cruelty, the better path is to recruit someone new and try to rebuild. … or maybe to start the playthrough fresh.
I’ve started so many games of Battle Brothers, each time full of confidence that this time I’ll win. And sometimes I do: sometimes I play so effectively for so long that the game warns me to stop the playthrough. There are no more challenges ahead; it’ll all be trivial. There’s some joy in wandering about, destroying the very characters who once killed your band of brothers. But what I prefer is the beginning, the struggle to survive. And there’s such variety at the start: Battle Brothers has a host of selectable starting conditions, from three mercenaries trying to build a company to a horde of pitchfork-wielding peasants who’ve abandoned their indentures. There are cultists and hunters, gladiators and a wandering knight. These game starts vary in difficulty–some of them feel impossible–but each time I start a playthrough, I’m hopeful to take part in an interesting story of camaraderie. On this front, Battle Brothers almost always succeeds.
Incidentally, if a player prefers not to struggle against a steep learning curve and difficult odds, there are many resources available to help them figure out the best way to play. There are theory-crafted meta builds, ideal weapon setups, YouTube walkthroughs aplenty. I’ve preferred not to use these, because I want my men to survive by the barest margins, not waltz through the challenges as a team of superheroes. Along with these useful guides, Battle Brothers also has a significant collection of useful community-created mods. Notable among these are those that speed up the game’s movement. Despite the adventure of it all, walking from city to city or waiting for enemies to attack can be a downright plodding snoozefest.
Even when I lose, Battle Brothers is a game to which I keep returning. It’s replayable, engaging, and perhaps even a little “addictive.” The hours fly by–one more battle, one more city, one more trade route. There’s depth to the glory and the defeats, and for me, that makes it worth buying.
Recommended. Strongly.

Played nothing else for years! 5500+ hours in and still hooked. I wish for more DLC:s and official content other than mods. re-playability is great!

This is a rough recommendation because what makes this game great also makes it a terrible choice for many gamers.
The fact is, this game hates you. Much like Kenshi, Quasimorph and many other games. This game is brutal. That's not the same as being hard. Technically the fail condition of losing all your brothers is a pretty high threshold. But this game makes you feel like you aren't making any progress oftentimes even when you are making a little bit. Doing a contract where you lose 3 brothers all at once for a reward that doesn't feel anywhere near worth it isn't exactly uncommon. The economy is also fairly tight. You can get ahead of it if you know what you are doing, but between low contract pay, mercenary upkeep, equipment repairs, buying overpriced gear, replacing consumable items, replacing dead mercenaries, and settlements giving you terrible prices on your sold equipment, it can feel like you aren't making progress even if you play fairly well.
To top it off, the non-human enemies can actually be frightening to fight even with the art-style divorcing you from the action. Being used to fighting bandits or barbarians, only to switch to an enemy like Unholds (giants) who will literally toss your brothers around like ragdolls and recover health each turn, or lindwurms (poison dragons basically) who will burn your brothers with acid every time you damage them. Even zombies (called wiedergangers here) can be a legitimately difficult fight, with them popping up with around double the enemy numbers, having no fatigue or morale mechanics, and occasionally getting back up again once killed.
That said, the brutal nature of the game can make mastering it feel amazing. You'll laugh your butt off when you are killing gangs of 3 unholds by trapping them in nets and poking them with spears, knowing full well how terrifying they were when you first fought them. Once you start taking on the secret bosses or more dangerous monsters, or even better when you resolve an endgame crisis, you'll think back to how hard everything used to be and realize how much progress you made.
Also the setting is fairly interesting. I hope they return to it someday with a future game. There's actually a tie-in comic you can read on steam.
If you like tactical turn based simulated games and you want them to hurt you until you love it, this is a game for you. Otherwise this is a hard game to recommend.
I also recommend picking up the beasts and warriors of the north DLCs. They add some interesting encounters, different mercenary company types, and actual incentives to fight beasts who otherwise are a fairly low reward enemy type. The Blazing Desert DLC is expensive, and while it adds a lot to the map with many new contracts and enemy types, it's also a region you might very well completely ignore in the average playthrough unless the holy war endgame crisis kicks off or you pick an ambition that rewards you for traveling south.

Although this is a positive review, I feel that anyone considering buying the game should at least read a few of the negative reviews that have over 100 hours playtime
You need to have your eyes open to how this game will play before you buy it or you may regret it.
Do it, read those negative reviews, as well as the positive, they probably accurately reflect the experience.
The time I most enjoy this game is when I want to play a band of deserters in a brutal world where I will eventually get run down and killed and there is nothing I can do about it.
I recommend playing Iron-man mode because a casual attitude will result in a party-wipe followed by either a savescum or a restart with a better attitude.
I prefer the latter because without sorting out that casual attitude a depressing savescum loop is inevitable, and the carefully nurtured immersion and connection with a well managed party turns into just banging your head against RNG, repeatedly, until by chance you live, which is not fun.
I have played numbers-based war-games since the 1970's, I have played so many tactical and strategy games, I love poker, I get statistics. I love rogue-likes and prefer playing perma-death games because I like challenge and risk. I like learning how to win when a game is stupidly hard. I like learning how I lost.
I have deeply learned the mechanics of this game and, really really, it is impossible to prepare, plan loadouts, evolve a team over time and manage skills in a way that will guarantee preventing your team getting totally wiped.
Although,,, and this is the kicker - it SEEMS as if the game wants you to learn, think, consider , generally skill your way to an invincible party, the actual gameplay and the mechanics mean that this effort will mainly result in you having a team that maybe survives a bit longer, that you are heavily invested in so you can feel that pain when they all get killed in ways you could not have prepared for.
Having said this, when through a combination of good preparedness, and understanding the mechanics and really considering every decision, your gang survives for a a while longer, and you KNOW they could have died to RNG or a bad choice so many times, you do feel like, wow, these guys are really lucky to be alive! And it feels good.
That feeling won't last long, they will die. Maybe you made a mistake, maybe not, but really, It was only a matter of time. These guys live by the sword.
If you get to the endgame. Well done! you were very good at the game, and you were really really lucky.
It is a brutal world and it is brutally fair.
I have discovered that this is a unique experience that I only get from Battle Brothers.

If I had to choose three games to take with me to a desolate island, knowing I'd only be allowed to play them for all eternity: This game would be one of them....
It is one of possibly 4 or 5 games that I've played for hundreds of hours. I've owned this since it's initial release and seen all DLCs release over time. The game just kept getting better and better. And still I want to play more. I cannot recommend this enough. The graphics are the bare minimum needed - although I love the artstyle - and the game does not do a good job at explaining itself to you. That being said, the game just has the most balanced and polished mechanics I have ever seen in game like this. The worldbuilding and writing are fantistic. And the story of two brothers deciding they want to make a game that they want to play but noone seems to be willing to make sums it all up: This game just feels like someone had a clear idea of where to go, and just made a very, very good implement of it. It just feels good all around..
I still haven't beaten the late-game content - it's just too much fun to start from scratch every time. I guess that is the point of the whole game...so, give it a shot.

Hubert The Stallion uses Slash and misses Brigand Thug (Chance: 95; Rolled: 97)
Hubert The Stallion uses Slash and misses Brigand Thug (Chance: 95; Rolled: 100)
Brigand Thug uses Stab and hits Hubert The Stallion (Chance: 27; Rolled: 1)
Brigand Thug uses Stab and hits Hubert The Stallion (Chance: 27; Rolled: 7)
Brigand Thug has killed Hubert The Stallion
Brigand Thug is confident

I keep uninstalling it and then reinstalling it. I hate this game so much that I love it, mainly due to the fact that I have to play ironman and can't accept losing a single soul.