Bellwright Guide | How to Unlock High-Tier Halberds and Billhooks to Counter Brigand Charge

Here’s a detailed guide on how to unlock high-tier halberds and billhooks to counter brigand charges in Bellwright

Game Guide by Imdeadfrfr on Jun 23, 2026

The dense wilderness and rocky corridors of Karvenia offer a constantly changing challenge to any upwardly mobile revolutionary leader. In the first hours of your campaign, there is little strategic cost to defending your borders from small bands of bandits. But the tactical dynamic is very different when your success earns you the wrath of organized brigand cohorts.

These high-level enemy groups don't just walk into your campsite looking for an undisciplined melee brawl. They use a devastating charging mechanic, meant specifically to break open your front lines and scatter your troops. A coordinated brigand charge can easily overwhelm your basic shield bearers and cause immediate panic.

Bellwright Building the Advanced Blacksmith Shop

Letting these high-velocity shock units get past your perimeter will leave your squishier crafters totally exposed to brutal melee strikes. This aggressive forward momentum needs to be countered, and your military division needs a serious tech upgrade to its close-combat arsenal. Normal short swords and primitive clubs have no physical reach whatsoever to keep off chargers.

Advanced Polearms: The Tactical Advantage

And this is where the tactical advantages of high-tier polearms become an important asset to your growing army. As the ultimate defensive measures, Bellwright’s complex sandbox includes the heavy halberd and the curved billhook. These specialized long-range weapons are excellent for dealing heavy-hitting damage before your opponent can close the distance.

Their extended reach means your front-line fighters can safely attack charging brigand groups from a position of tactical advantage. Also, these particular weapons have huge stagger values that can stop a sprinting warrior in his tracks. They are a wall of sharp metal that cannot be penetrated, and when added to your defensive lines, they turn your weak militia into that wall.

One absolutely mandatory step for late-game survival is knowing the exact progression nodes required to craft these massive tools. You can't expect to rule the last provinces without completely reworking your defensive capabilities at the front line. The next step on the road to becoming a true military power is to have dedicated anti-charge weapons.

Tier Three Technology Ascension

Getting past mid-game limits is a long, drawn-out process to unlock the advanced manufacturing schematics for high-tier polearms. When you’re working from a simple tier-two settlement design, it’ll be utterly impossible to view or research military halberds. In Bellwright, the technology tree strictly gates these late-game items behind the third developmental tier.

After breaking through this structural bottleneck, your main goal must be to formally construct a stone Keep. This massive administrative center requires an incredible amount of premium materials, like hardwood planks and cut limestone blocks, to build. To successfully hammer this architectural monument together on your territory, you have to mobilize your entire civilian workforce for many days.

Once the Tier Three Keep is physically built, the final secret chapters of your global technology ledger will unlock. This advanced research branch houses the highly sought design schematics for high-grade steel synthesis, advanced blacksmithing, and elite weapon fabrication. Walking through these dense technological nodes is the required foundation to arm your veteran soldiers.

Building the Advanced Blacksmith Shop

The complex physical head of a heavy halberd cannot be forged on a basic tier-two anvil station. Your growing faction will need to spend a lot of space and money to build an Advanced Blacksmith Shop in your industrial district. The only place for the manufacture of high-impact weaponry and late-game defensive metallurgy. This is a large complex.

When you set this blueprint, choose a very accessible, completely flat patch of terrain near your main warehouses. Good layout planning will keep your material haulers from wasting valuable daylight hours by traveling long distances across camp. So you finish the building. And then you outfit the interior with specialized metalworking bellows and heavy-duty forging hammers.

Your artisans will forge raw steel and hardwood into lethal implements at this industrial hub, the only assembly line. The best-kept secret to mass-producing high-tier armaments for your vanguard in record time is utilizing this facility to its fullest potential. Without it, your raw resources will sit perfectly idle in your storage bins.

Coal and Deep Earth Ore Mining

The manufacture of good halberds and billhooks puts a heavy operational demand on rare minerals, which are not to be found on the surface. No more relying on your run-of-the-mill copper veins or stray rocks on the ground to supply your high-tech crafting queues. These special weapons are to be produced from a standard mixture of high-grade iron ore and mineral coal, as set forth in the production plans.

Your faction must set up heavily fortified extraction outposts near far mountain ridges to make sure of a steady supply line of these critical components. Have your strongest mining companions continue working throughout the day, filling up local storage crates with dense mineral blocks. The issue with these raw resources is that they are incredibly heavy, and moving them back to your main base by hand poses a massive logistical risk.

To solve this distribution crisis, you have to build a perfectly calibrated network of small caravan stations. These automated supply lines will feed raw coal and iron ore directly into your main smelting zones at night without your direct intervention. Securing this raw-material loop is critical to ensuring your weapon production queues never stall.

The Magic of Carbon Steel: Synthesis

When your raw earth minerals arrive safely in your main industrial sector, they have to be chemically transformed in your blast furnaces, a delicate process. Your smelting workers have to mix premium iron ore and charcoal fuel in precise ratios at extreme temperatures to produce carbon steel. If your refiners don’t maintain the thermal levels they need to be at, the chemical fusion will flat-out fail.

This common processing error means that the furnace produces basic iron output, rather than the premium alloy you so desperately need. To avoid this very frustrating bottleneck, you must build specific fuel barns right beside your advanced smelter units. Set these storage boxes to store only large amounts of coal so your workers can refill the burning fires quickly.

How to Unlock High-Tier Halberds and Billhooks to Counter Brigand Charge

Also, you need to change your town management priorities to build single-duty refiners that are permanently anchored to their stations. This neat division of labor guarantees a very stable production of pure steel ingots for your future weapon-smithing efforts. And if you keep your coal consumption nicely matched with your timber cutting lines, your economic engine is running perfectly steady.

Recruiting the Master Weapon Smith

A mountain of refined steel ingots and a fully operational advanced forge mean nothing if your villagers are not professionals. A standard, self-taught town artisan hasn’t got the advanced technical knowledge to properly balance a long-reach polearm. To bypass this strict human limitation, your revolutionary movement must actively recruit a specially trained companion known as the Weaponsmith.

You won’t find such legendary artisans resting in humble early villages or meandering down the lesser dirt roads of Karvenia. If you want to get their incredible services, you must agree to fully liberate the most advanced, heavily guarded regional capitals on the world map. Only by completing their complex personal quests and reputation goals can the elite masters win their loyalty.

After the Weaponsmith is officially in your main fortress settlement, the manufacturing restrictions on high-tier pole weapons will be gone for good. They have a superb knowledge of steel tempering, structural edge alignment, and shaft reinforcement, and every weapon they make is a masterpiece of destruction. You must make sure this companion is kept safe and well-fed within your borders.

The Complicated Phase of Weapon Making

The master sees to the physical crafting of high-tier polearms at the main anvil. A military halberd requires a complex blueprint that combines a number of steel ingots, pre-made hardwood planks, and high-tensile leather strips. Your craftsmen must carefully carve the long shafts of the weapons from the densest hardwood timber available, so they do not snap under mechanical pressure.

The billhook has a somewhat reduced metal footprint, but demands considerable carving precision to create its distinctive hook-tipped blade shape. Then the metal weapon heads are heated to very high temperatures. They are hammered into shape and then quenched in cold oil to achieve maximum structural durability. After completion, the weapons need to be routed immediately to dedicated armory containers to protect them from environmental degradation.

If you want to avoid serious manufacturing delays in your armor sector, build several advanced anvils and run them simultaneously. The apprentices work at high speed and are always helping the master smith. This smooths out the distribution of components on your workshop floor. In Bellwright, the basic requirement to outfit an elite division is a perfectly organized workspace.

Battle Tactical Bracing Formations in Bellwright

Developing first-rate front-line features

And a finished steel halberd in your primary settlement inventory is a major achievement, but a unique challenge for humans to put to good use. These massive pole-mounted items are incredibly cumbersome and have some of the most stringent physical attribute requirements in Bellwright. Wielding a halberd well requires an extraordinary mix of high physical strength, deep stamina pools, and advanced two-handed combat skill.

Take a look at your average pool of local peasant conscripts, and you will quickly see that your typical laborers are in absolutely no physical condition. Trying to make an untrained or weak companion carry a heavy halberd will significantly penalize their movement speed and attack speed. It requires a deliberate process of physical training and regular drills to equip an entire anti-charge vanguard squad.

Get your companions into regular hunting parties or active patrol rotations, and you will steadily boost their core attributes. During peacetime, you can increase your soldiers’ stamina pools by constructing certain training grounds in your camp. This phase of character development can also be immensely sped up by purchasing specialized combat manuals from rare wandering merchants.

Battle Tactical Bracing Formations

Also, when you bring out your high-tier halberds and billhooks in your field tactics, it really does change the way your army approaches hostile locations and bandit strongholds. The longer range of these polearms allows your soldiers to strike enemy vanguard units long before they can close into melee range. The structural reach advantage is the absolute key to completely neutralizing the dangerous forward momentum of a charging brigand.

A hostile shock squad rushes your position, and your braced halberdiers can deliver high-impact thrusts that induce immediate structural stagger animations. This localized stagger will instantly interrupt an enemy’s active sprint attack, leaving them wide open to follow-up attacks from your front line. The billhook builds on this tactical utility further, with its curved tip used to hook around shield rims and pull opponents off balance.

However, using these huge two-handed weapons means accepting a complete lack of passive shield cover for your polearm squad. A halberdier is not able to block incoming ranged arrow volleys or rapid crossbow strikes as efficiently as a heavily shielded vanguard footman. The best plan is to form your polearm fighters in a line directly behind a wall of interlocking tower shields to form a very flexible defensive phalanx.

Automating the Armory Supply Chain

Having a big, fully equipped anti-charge division is an enormous long-term economic burden for your growing settlement. Leverage the powerful village management panels in Bellwright to automate your weapon upkeep loops and material distributions. Lock in tight production limits on your crafting queues to prevent your blacksmiths from accidentally burning through precious steel reserves.

You can assign your high-level gear presets to your military squads, and when a soldier breaks a polearm, he will automatically equip a fresh one. This way, you don’t have to go through the tedious process of micromanaging each companion’s individual inventory slots before a big battle kicks off. A fully automated armory means your front lines are utterly unbreakable, no matter how many reclamation parties the crown throws at your borders.

Every time you block or strike in a big territorial fight, some obvious wear and tear is done to your soldier’s combat gear. Build a central tool repair station near your main armory, and your workers will be able to repair broken weapons on a regular basis, using basic scrap materials. This disciplined approach to equipment maintenance will save your faction thousands of raw mineral resources over the long-term rebellion.

Achieving Complete Regional Supremacy

The official entry into the final stages of military sovereignty is the perfect integration of an advanced network of polearm units into your standing army. No longer will you be forced to stand by helplessly as marauding brigand forces smash through your defensive lines and slaughter your hardworking civilians. Your finely-tuned tactical phalanxes will bounce off the very worst physical shocks the crown can dish out to you.

A fully automated weapon pipeline gives you immense peace of mind. You can shift your personal focus to grand geopolitical strategy. You can march your elite steel-clad divisions into heavily fortified royal sectors without fear of enemy vanguard shock units. Your automated caravans and industrial outposts will feed the war machine forever, so your independent empire can survive generations of conflict.

Also, check out our Bellwright Review and other guides: