Wartales: How To Capture Animals (2024)

Wartales sees you leading a band of mercenaries across a low-fantasy open world and interacting freely to help people or fill your own pockets. One easy way of bulking up your company is by taming some animals to assist you in combat.

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The big advantage of taming animals compared to hiring mercenaries is that they don't need wages, only food. This allows you to take several animals into your company without worrying about your finances. There is also less upfront cost, as hiring mercenaries takes not only wages but a hiring bonus.

How Animals Work

When you bring them with you into combat, the animals are given their own turns and are controlled by the AI.

If your party contains an archer, they can learn the Beast Master ability at level five, which provides you with full control of animals. A team that relies heavily on animals should aim to have a Beast Master archer as quickly as possible.

Different animals can fill out different roles in your team, both in and out of combat:

How To Capture Animals

The first thing you need to do is purchaserope. This can be crafted in the camp by a tinkerer using hemp, purchased from shops, or looted from bandits.

When you have rope in your inventory, a new option will be unlocked in combat against wild animals but only when you meet the other conditions. You need to reduce the animal below half health before trying to capture it and make sure it is engaged in combat by hitting it with a melee attack.

Approaching the creature from behind while it is injured and distracted by another soldier will show a new option on the toolbar to attempt capturing it. Selecting this skill will show a percentage chance over the animal. Without any modifiers, it will normally be around 50 percent. Failing the capture uses the character's action but does not prevent you from trying again on a future turn.

Some animals have unique capture conditions:

• Ghost-pack beasts can be captured only using the items provided during a specific quest in Ludern. They cannot be added as permanent team members.
• Mosquitoes cannot be captured with rope, and instead use a special item acquired in the Ludern region. You can learn the recipe for Harag Concoctions, a thrown potion that captures mosquitoes, in the cursed village of Cirse. This is situated in a forest to the west of the Ludern region, South of the Tule's Glade.
• Alpha wolves and bears both require the use of multiple pieces of rope to capture. Alpha wolves require three, while bears require five.

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How To Build A Beastmaster

If you're planning to build your overall strategy around animals, the Ludern region should be a priority for you to unlock and explore. The region has animals not found in the other areas, including Crocoswine and Cardinal Mosquitoes. It also provides access to large amounts of equipment that improves your animals and allows your human mercenaries to more effectively support them.

For example, theHunter's Bow is a weapon dropped by trackers in the area. It has a 100 percent critical rate against enemies engaged by an allied animal. Another powerful bow for beast masters is the Sleuth, which has a normal attack that causes all animals adjacent to the target to make attacks of opportunity. This unique weapon can be won in the Nairolf Arena in Ludern and upgraded at Brotherhood Training Grounds.

As explained before, the archer class is able to specialise into a Beastmaster, which grants further abilities to benefit animals fighting alongside them. The first of these is the Attack command, which for one valour point causes all animals adjacent to an enemy to make attacks of opportunity, similar to the Sleuth bow's special attack.

A tinkerer is able to craft an assortment of accessories that can tailor the performance of an animal:

• The infused collar heals animals for ten percent of their health each turn, improving the already formidable survivability of bears.
• Wolves meanwhile benefit from a tooth collar that increases the damage on their frequent critical hits.
• The protective collar can be equipped on any animal to allow it to survive one lethal blow.
• The bacon-bound collar allows for an animal to be controlled directly even without a Beastmaster on the team.
• Saddlebags provide a bonus to carrying capacity for ponies or any animals not involved in combat.

With the exception of the pony, animals cannot wear armour and will take injuries more often as a result. Having an apothecary in the group provides cheaper access to medicines to treat these injuries.

Lastly, animals do not have access to skills that generate valour points, the team currency used for special moves. This means that teams with large numbers of animals will want to carefully ration the valour points generated during a rest.

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