Prince Brandelis is available in the diplomacy quest the Christian Prince, which unlocks shortly after the completion of either Alliance with Dorset or Alliance with Somerset. He joins the Round Table if offered a total of 20,000 gold worth of gold, food artifacts or ladies (artifacts & ladies are valued doubly by him). He brings his army with him: 1 Lionhearts, 3 Longbows, 3 Crusaders, 1 Tourney Knights
Class/Level: Warlord 6
Traits:
- Faithful Christian
- Spender
- Vain
Ability Scores:
- Leadership 6
- Reign 4
- Adventuring 2
- Fight 2
- Magic 2
Alignment: Rightful 0, Christian 8
Skills (initial):
- Hold 1
- Cavalry Leader 2
- Masterful Tactics 2
- Sanctuary 2
Skills (learnable)
- Cloud of Arrows
- Healing
- Scholar
- Sound of Courage
- Victorious Army
Artifacts: none
Use & Strategy:
Prince Brandelis is in some ways an awkward hero. His Spender trait makes him a worthless ruler, and his Vain trait makes that a serious penalty. Cavalry Leader is a unique skill, but his Masterful Tactics & Sanctuary skills require him to be near the thick of the action - not always the best use of light cavalry. That being said, he offers a large pool of ability & skill points for a level 6 hero, and early access to Sanctuary plus a source of Hold (freeing up skill points on Sir Gareth) are extremely useful. His army is excellent (in particular the Lionhearts mesh well with his 8 Christianity!) - so much so that recruiting it will probably leave you with a strained economy for some time, and if you decide to do so, you should try to acquire Somerset and your stronghold as quickly as possible.
The fact that he values artifacts doubly makes recruiting him less of a bank-breaker than it first appears. The early turns see you aquiring several low-value artifacts which can be safely disposed of: Sir Kay's pendant will take years to save you the 6,000 worth of reduced upkeep that it's worth here; the Cold Iron Sword is of limited use early on while mana pools are small, and the Phoenix Helm's +1 HP/sec is a trivially small bonus, less than 0.05% of most of the heavy units which your Champion's will be attached to. Those three items together are valued at 20k by him, saving you the gold and food you'll definitely need to maintain your armies now.
If recruited, Sanctuary, Masterful Tactics and its upgrades, and Hold should be his main skill point allocations. If he is your main commander rather than Sir Kay, then a level or two of Masterful Strategies will do wonders for your casualty rate. Sound of Courage meshes well with his preset aura buffs as well. Liege and its upgrades should be definitely avoided, as his Spender trait negates the first level, making it a waste of skill points!