The Guard Update: Archers, Battlemages and a Captain Join the Watch

The Guard Update

Every guard post has its own kind of guard, and the banner on the post tells you which before you spend a coin.

Four kinds of guard

• Swordsman (yellow banner). Sword, shield and a taunt. He drags whatever is on you onto himself and cuts a gnoll down in about two swings.
• Archer (green banner). Twenty-eight metres of bow and no taunt. He thins a charge while it is still crossing open ground, and when something closes on him he backs off just far enough to start shooting again.
• Battlemage (blue banner). A Storm Lance and a Searing Bolt, about four spells' worth, and then the staff. One Storm Lance can finish a gnoll on its own.
• Captain (red banner). The best soldier the watch has: plate, more health than any guard you can hire, and he mends his own wounds.

Every post costs the same 20 gold, whatever stands on it. The archer and the battlemage are not better than a swordsman, they are different: less health, more reach. Only the captain is simply better, which is why there is one of him and why he is where he is. Talk to Sergeant Bordin at the town gate, or press Garrison on the world map, to hire a post.

The wall holds now

Kill enough of the Ashmane Clan and they muster a column to take the gate. Each guard now takes a besieger nobody else is holding, so every post you man holds a lane of its own.

Also in this update

• Bristle, a tamed boar, waits at the gate beside the hound and the bat. Greet it and it follows you: the most health of the three animals, and a taunt of its own.
• Greeting a companion no longer sends it home. It serves until you take on another or it falls, and one that gets wedged on a rock is put back at your shoulder.
• The upgrade tiles and race portraits are repainted to match the class crests.
• VR: a staff is held head up in the hand.

Post it in the discussions here. I read all of it.

Hold the gate yourself

Play the free demo on Steam, and if this is your kind of descent, wishlist Ashburrow to hear when the full game launches. Thank you for standing a watch.