I have had a lot of good times discussing “character optimization” in the context of D&D and similar games. I usually don’t go in for that with Forged in the Dark games. The implementation varies too much from table to table, the game is just too open-ended, and the character creation frameworks are also usually wide open to such an extent that just reviewing the options would be daunting. Plus in the original Blades there just aren’t that many abilities that really interact with each other to create “combos.”
EDIT: Also, a group of soldiers who train together, it makes more fictional sense to me that the legion would try to coordinate training around a doctrine, whereas I have a hard time imagining most Doskvol Scoundrels trying too hard to deploy a complex combo in-character.
Band of Blades feels a bit different from the others, though. The character building framework is more complex and more codified: two heritage traits, max two veteran abilities, maybe a rookie ability, and then whatever your playbook gets you. It also has a surprising number of abilities that directly add onto or feed into each other. This creates a bunch of cool “themes” you can build around, and then those turn out to plug into each other in some fun ways, too.
Let’s start with “pushing.” There are six abilities I found related to pushing in some way.
Weaponmaster (heavy): grants potency in melee combat when you push
War Machine (heavy): when you push, you may reduce enemy threat (or perform a feat of strength)
Backup (heavy): when you assist someone, they can push for only 1 stress (also grants +resist when protecting)
Sharpshooter (sniper): when you push, you can use suppression fire or shoot at extreme range
Eat Iron, Shit Nails (soldier): when you push, ignore all harm penalties and get +1d to resist consequences
Relentless (soldier): you may spend Grit to push.
The first thing that catches my eye is that it looks like you could combine Weaponmaster with War Machine for a super melee action, or War Machine and Sharpshooter for hyper-effective suppression fire, and optionally throw in Eat Iron, Shit Nails so you ignore wounds at the same time. This makes your pushes very effective, but there’s still a couple of problems. First, pushing is expensive. Soldiers starts with only 6 stress to spend, and only recover 3 per liberty, so you won’t always even get that. Add in the occasional assist or resist and it gets hard to push more than once or at most twice per mission. Talking some other Legionnaires into taking Backup could help, but let’s say we need to be self-sufficient.
One way around this is to take Hardened 1 or 2 times to extend the stress bar to 8 or 10. If you’re doing this you probably want to play a Noble Orite so that you can always boost liberty to get your whole bar back. This is a good build for a Heavy that begins play as a specialist. Weapon Master, War Machine, Hardened x2, and Eat Iron, Shit Nails is achievable in a long campaign and leaves you 1 shy of both the veteran and total ability caps. You could also skip Weaponmaster and take the Vengeful Orite trait instead, which grants potency when you have wound penalties.
Alternatively, a Rookie who starts with Just a Kid can grab both Relentless and Eat Iron, Shit Nails immediately on making Soldier. (You could take Hard Knocks as your rookie ability instead to accelerate your XP gain). Add at least one more dot of Grit for 2 free pushes per mission, then grab the Heavy advances as veteran abilities and/or promote up to Heavy depending on force structure needs and what gear you value. Staying Soldier gives you the option to pick up stuff like Cavalry and ride down the enemy’s key targets. Now you don’t necessarily need to be Orite for stress relief, though the option to boost healing is also very attractive. You could instead go Bartan for the free reliquary, Zemyati for group action bonuses or wound mitigation, or go panyar traveler and run down the baddies at high speed with a big weapon.
Now that we’ve solved the stress problems related to repeatedly pushing yourself to fight elites and the Infamous, the other problem is that this is a good way to take lots of wounds and corruption. EISN keeps you effective as long as you stay pushing, but it doesn’t help you walk away afterwards or get in shape for your next mission. There are a huge number of heritage traits, playbook abilities, and chosen abilities that interact with wound healing, wound penalties, rewards for getting wounded, and so on. These enable several interesting builds in their own right, but lots of them make good add on to a pushing build also. We’ll get there in a later installment, but not the immediate next one.
TLDR character spotlight:
Orite (Noble) Heavy: Weaponmaster, War Machine, Hardened. (Luxury: Hardened 2, Eat Iron Shit Nails, Vigorous, Hard Knocks, etc.)
Orite (Noble) Sniper: Sharpshooter, War Machine, Hardened.
Rookie (Just a Kid/Hard Knocks) -> Soldier (Relentless, Eat Iron Shit Nails), War Machine, Weapon Master. Optionally promote to Heavy or buy Anchor dots.