The fifth GWJ Strategy Club is Into the Breach which we'll be playing from June 1 - August 31, 2021.
Description: Control powerful mechs from the future to defeat an alien threat. Each attempt to save the world presents a new randomly generated challenge in this turn-based strategy game.
Looking forward to hearing your experiences!
If you're new to the club, please check out the main link.
Quick reminder that because Into The Breach is on multiple platforms, feel free to play whichever one you're most comfortable with.
I'm using this as an excuse to see if I can clean up a few of the remaining achievements (only 6 to go!) - I've been revisiting this game every few months to knock out a few more, and started chipping away at it on Hard.
EDIT - and down to 5 remaining 'cheevs!
Glad to hear it! Looking forward to playing it again. Loved it, but never finished it.
I picked this up for free from Epic and never dig into it. This seems like a good opportunity.
I've had my eye on this for a while, and this is the perfect time to jump in. I bought & downloaded it to my Switch this morning, and I played the tutorial mission + part of the first mission. Already, I can tell that I'll love this game, and that it'll be the perfect little lunchtime gaming fix.
I'm in. I mentioned this in the main thread, but I grabbed it awhile ago and messed around with it a little, but didn't stick with it. I think I jumped over to Slay the Spire, actually.
Anyway, I'm looking to make more serious progress with it this time. Starting with getting off the first island.
I've taken some time to play this over my lunch break, and:
- In my first attempt, I made it to the Island 1 boss, but then lost. Made a bunch of mistakes as I was learning the game, the greatest of which was leaving two mechs standing in the blast zone for an airstrike. Turns out, that instantly kills my pilots. Whoops!
- Second time, I made it through! And, I got a "perfect island" award! Turns out this is not making it through without taking power grid damage -- I didn't manage that -- but making it through while hitting all the optional objectives.
Really digging the positioning mechanics, I had a lot of fun shoving the Vek around and making them whiff, or bouncing them into walls, using them to burst a dam, etc.
Grr can’t get this game to work on my PC. The background is white and all the mechs are pixelated to the point I can’t tell what’s what. I’ve installed new AMD drivers, restarted my PC, and tried installing the game from both Origins and Epic Games but no dice. Anyone have a proposed fix? If not, guess I’ll pick it up for my Switch.
Grr can’t get this game to work on my PC. The background is white and all the mechs are pixelated to the point I can’t tell what’s what. I’ve installed new AMD drivers, restarted my PC, and tried installing the game from both Origins and Epic Games but no dice. Anyone have a proposed fix? If not, guess I’ll pick it up for my Switch.
Video drivers up to date?
Failing that, try disabling HDR
I'm using this as an excuse to see if I can clean up a few of the remaining achievements (only 6 to go!) - I've been revisiting this game every few months to knock out a few more, and started chipping away at it on Hard.
EDIT - and down to 5 remaining 'cheevs!
Sounds like me. I think I unlocked all but the final team originally. Then I think I went back and did that last summer. But there's still missing achievements. I'll load it up this weekend and check my status. I really do love this game. Almost double dipped on Switch for portable, but I was hesitant to wipe out all progress and start over.
I'm having a lot of problems with Trick Shot, too, which requires killing 3 enemies with one shot of the Janus Cannon - the two sided shot that the Frozen Titans' Mirror Mech has. By the time I've levelled the cannon to get enough damage to do it, the enemies have enough life to not get killed. Like I get the idea that you need to use the push power to knock one enemy into another on one side of the mech killing both, AND kill another with the other bullet, I just can't get that lined up. Maybe I need to focus on getting secondary weapons on the other mechs that move Vek around?
OMG, Dr Google just informed me that you can use the dam to get this one. Push ground-based Vek into the area that's about to be flooded, then pop the damn with the Mirror Mech!
There's a specific visual difference on the mountain. I had a screenshot of it up for the few weeks I was playing last year on my other monitor to help find it but don't think I ever saw it.
Yeah I'm missing that same Janus 3-shot one if I remember.
There's a specific visual difference on the mountain. I had a screenshot of it up for the few weeks I was playing last year on my other monitor to help find it but don't think I ever saw it.
Yeah, but you can only spot the visual difference once the mountain has already been hit once. Prior to that point, it looks identical, so you have to be spamming mountains with shots just to spot which one is the one, then hit it again, then pick up the thing inside it with a mech, then protect the pod which arrives the turn after.
So if you find the visual indicator with only one turn left, too bad.
I binge-played a bit on Wednesday, and actually had an amazing run in my second attempt ever. Managed to perfect-clear the first island, did pretty well on the second, and went right for the final encounter when given the chance. I even managed to clear it -- although I got very lucky with multiple instances of buildings successfully resisting damage, despite only about a 20% chance to resist.
I was really feeling myself after this. Loaded up the game the next morning, feeling some swagger, and promptly f***ed things up, restarted, and f***ed things up again, times in a row. I'm talking accidentally blowing up the Chronocapsules, and leaving my guys exposed to an air raid. Things like that.
Okay, Into the Breach. I see you.
For reference, I've always found the final mission to be easier than the island immediately before it, regardless of whether you're going for a 2, 3 or 4 island clear.
Stele wrote:There's a specific visual difference on the mountain. I had a screenshot of it up for the few weeks I was playing last year on my other monitor to help find it but don't think I ever saw it.
Yeah, but you can only spot the visual difference once the mountain has already been hit once. Prior to that point, it looks identical, so you have to be spamming mountains with shots just to spot which one is the one, then hit it again, then pick up the thing inside it with a mech, then protect the pod which arrives the turn after.
So if you find the visual indicator with only one turn left, too bad.
No, watch this video. At 55 seconds his robots enter the map and the mountain is already showing that spot. That's when he decides to go for the achievement.
Yes you do need to do it ASAP, can't wait until final turn.
Well that's at least one step slightly less BS. 
It took me a couple of tries, but I cleared my first island! It was the green one on the left of the map. Also, I realized that I had been starting on the second (desert) island when I was playing it before. I wonder if that one’s a bit harder, since when I tried to play this game before, I think my success rate was pretty low.
I still have a couple of mech crews unlocked from when I played before, but I'm sticking with the Rift Walkers for now as I figure out what the heck I'm trying to do. I get the high level idea (kill the enemies, move them around to keep them from doing damage or to block up a hole, etc.), but it's not clicking just yet.
I get the high level idea (kill the enemies, move them around to keep them from doing damage or to block up a hole, etc.), but it's not clicking just yet.
In general, choose to take mech damage over building damage (but not to the extent of losing the entire mech (your mech will be available again next battle, but your pilot will die and be replaced with an AI pilot, who doesn't rank up).
You can afford to take grid damage sometimes if there's something better on offer (maybe taking a hit to get a time-pod, with it's valuable upgrade), or to check an achievement box (remember, more achievements unlocks more squads).
You'll definitely want to leverage blocking the vek eruption points. Yes, it'll cost you a point of damage, but that's often worth it for one less vek to deal with on your next turn. When combined with abilities to prevent that damage, it becomes brilliant. I love the Frozen Titans squad because the melee mech can generate a shield (when upgraded), so if you can park it on an emergence point AND make an attack, you can generate a shield to absord the block damage. Likewise, the artillery unit there will ice up itself and it's target, so firing on top of an emergence point not only prevents the block damage, but sidesteps the cost of using the ice power (i.e. having to spend your action healing to get back out of the ice).
There's loads of neat little tricks like that that you can uncover - a lot of the later squads are very gimmicky like that, but in a good way. Shout out to the Flame Behemoths too - my approach with them is to blanket the map in fire and let that do a lot of the heavy lifting.
Looks like I'm 9 achievements short... 7 squad, and 2 global (Distant Friends, discussed above, and Untouchable). I can't believe I didn't get Untouchable sometime playing on easy on the first island. Oh well.
The random squad has Lucky Start - beat the game without spending reputation. Sounds like a quick easy run after 2 islands maybe. Jeez.
Took me a few rerolls before I got a reasonable random squad. Once you're there, it's cake.
Yep, Lucky Start was easy-ish. First game in a while and I got down to 1 reactor health at one point, but got a couple of bonus ones from missions and salvaged it.
Sadly, the mountain showed up for Distant Friends... and I stupidly attacked it with fire, which doesn't destroy mountains. I had 2 fire mechs, and only one that shot cannons, but it was too far away after I realized my mistake.
Who knows when RNG will be kind to me again? Ugh...
Should have save scummed.
And with Flame Behemoths finally got This is Fine (5 enemies on fire) and Global Challenge Untouchable (finish island without taking damage). I was very surprised I hadn't got Untouchable before but I think it came down to blocking enemies. I actually did it on the 3rd island though, which surprised me. I wasn't even planning to do a 3rd but thought I'd keep looking for the mountain after I got This is Fine and didn't really care if I won or not.
From 9 to 6 in 2 runs. And should have been 5. Not a bad start.
Got 2 Judoka achievements I was missing on Sunday, but forgot to post. Down to just 4 left.
Got 2 Judoka achievements I was missing on Sunday, but forgot to post. Down to just 4 left.
I saw you popped the Trick Shot one - any tips?
Stele wrote:Got 2 Judoka achievements I was missing on Sunday, but forgot to post. Down to just 4 left.
I saw you popped the Trick Shot one - any tips?
Hah, that was so damn lucky. They stepped right in front of me and lined up for it.
Where the two smoke things are is where the two enemies lined up, and a 3rd 1-health enemy was NW of the one smoke, against the building, so I bounced an enemy into him.
Best advice is upgrade the damage on that cannon ASAP. I only had it at +1 when I got the achievement, but still that helps finish them off.
I did have Bethany in the frozen support mech, so she never freezes herself because of the shield. Makes that mech a ton more useful, almost OP. But that didn't really help me maneuver into this achievement, it just makes the fights easier.
So 3 achievements left for me. One Blitz, one Zenith, and the stupid mountain that I should have got last week.
Sticking this in as a bump for me!
I think the game remembered my brief shot at it three years ago, so it skipped the tutorial. Even though that meant a little bit of, "how do I shoot, again?" at first. I had a rough time with the starting Rift Walkers (and got my starting pilot killed so I had to start over with nothing), but I eventually unlocked a couple of other squads and I'm having a bit more fun with them. It seems to be 1:00 am as I write this.
When I want more time pods full of goodies, but I'm still making elementary tactical mistakes.
So after struggling a bit to make progress on Normal, I shamelessly turned the difficultly down to Easy while I get a better feel for things. And then got through the first island with basically no resistance. Mission accomplished, I guess. I think the only Objective I failed to meet was when a pod spawned right next to a rocket that was about to launch, and it got vaporized by the take off so I had no chance to save it. Anyway, I’ll try to beat the game at least once on Easy before I bump it back up.
I don't really know why I'm struggling with the game; I like tactics games, although this almost plays more like a puzzle game, I suppose.
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