I finished the tutorial mission
So the trick I was missing was to hang back farming cognition and to send my servitors to soak damage so I could then unload abilities safely.
Not sure I'm a fan of the zero or 100% LOS cover concept. It's hard for me to work out range of movement plus range of weapons for both sides when moving to engage the necrons.
OK, so I've gotten over the hump with this game and now I'm really enjoying it.
Fun in the first few levels was stymied by my not understanding how the game wants you to play it (i.e. milk the weird LOS cover mechanic, opportunity attacks, cognition farming and how movement and shooting are independent of one another), but also by the newb-ness of my dudes - as I've unlocked a few more abilities and weapon slots, the tactical complexity available has ramped right up into The Interesting Zone.
Found this today and wanted to share for anyone else interested in the lore but still a newb like me.
I got up to the mission where you unlock your third tech priest but I couldn't beat it. The 2 cognition throwaway units (I can't remember what they're called) with their energy melee attacks were pretty strong compared to the starter melee units but it still wasn't enough to carry the day, especially as extra Necron units awakened over time.
This game is rather unforgiving isn't it?
Perhaps I didn't exploit the LOS/opportunity attack thing as much as I could. I don't know, unit movement feels rather janky on my PC, and this one hasn't drawn me in like Battlesector did. Perhaps I'm after more grand scale battlefields than squad?
Sometimes you have an objective - destroy a specific enemy for example - that ends the mission regardless of how many other enemies there are on the map. IIRC isn’t that mission on of those? Just focus on the mission objective. You don’t have to kill everyone.
Not sure what you mean by CPS, but something that just clicked for me was being sure to treat ranged enemies differently from melee.
Ranged: shoot first, then hide in cover. Manage the distance between them and you. If you can get a dude with an axe next to them, they'll have to move away to fire their ranged weapons, triggering an opportunity attack.
Melee: get close and let them trigger opportunity attack when they close the distance. Do this while in cover from ranged dudes.
Obviously you'll need a blended approach if they have both ranged and melee loadouts.
Great overall advice - thanks Jonman! Still trying to figure out the shoot and move mechanics since it’s all or nothing. And just to clarify I’m referring to cognition points that you need for special actions. I’m just struggling to get enough to both engage in melee and shoot the arc rifle the same turn.
There are some litanies that allow you to get more CPs, and some abilities that allow you to take all the CPs from a CP point using one of your little floating skull things.
Some maps though are spectacularly bad at handing out CPs. It goes back to what I was saying earlier about the game expecting you to fail in places so you can learn how to succeed.
CPs:
- milk the skull ability that allows you to fetch CP from far off objects. They should always be on cooldown
- use your crappy bulletsponge servitors who generate a CP when hit
- equip one or two of the litanies that grant extra CP to fill the bar when you really need it.
- park one of your dudes next to a CP generator, they'll automatically harvest it at the start of the turn. Same for moving next to them mid-turn
- remember that a dead enemy will generate a CP. Focus fire to kill rather than wound.
- for 3xCP weapons, get the skill that lets you fire a weapon for -2CP. You won't be able to use it every turn, but it hits hard when you can.
I found the higher end weapons are insanely overpowered in terms of damage but not worth the cognition points.
One of those games where the difficulty peaks about 3/4 of the way through but the end is not too bad as you are overflowing with cognition by then.
I found the higher end weapons are insanely overpowered in terms of damage but not worth the cognition points.
One of those games where the difficulty peaks about 3/4 of the way through but the end is not too bad as you are overflowing with cognition by then.
AS I press through the game I would concur with that - it's definitely a mid game peak in difficultly and then you get your tech priests enough equipment to pretty much take down anything that gets too close.
I'm playing with both the Ominissiah and Heretek DLCs although there's no indication in game as to what difference they bring. I think I've just worked out that the Heretek DLC gives you a load of missions to do on the Spaceship you are on to quell an insurrection. That leaves you fighting other Tech-Priests and Skitarri on the ship rather than down on planet. It certainly adds some tactical difference to the game, and the missions feel a lot harder too - other tech priests are harder to kill than anything else I've encountered so far. No idea what the Ominissiah DLC adds though!
I have to say that once you get over "the hump" of those first few missions, start to build out your tech-priests and understand how it all works, this game has improved considerably and is rapidly reaching the same level I would regard the likes of XCOM, Invisible Inc and Into the Breach for TBS games.
I'm thoroughly enjoying myself.
Installed and diving in tonight!
Similar to a few others, I bought the game a while ago, gave the tutorial a try, and then got distracted by other shiny things.
I'm not a very good at tactical games and therefore I'm playing on the easiest setting so I can still be immersed in this weird world with really cool asthetics and sound design. The soundtrack is awesome.
I'm also happy to see that, at some point within the past year, the Heretek DLC was added to the Switch edition.
I'm still plugging away it every now and again - just popped back into this thread to see when we were moving onto the next game, and as the OP says it's end of March, I suspect I'll roll the credits - I'm 50-something% awakening, with 5 Tech Priests, and am going to boot it up once I put the kid to bed and see if I can't take down my first boss.
EDIT - boss down, that was cake!
I'm afraid I've bounced off it hard. Which is sad, because there's no real reason why I did.
Sadly I bounced off this too. Perhaps the upcoming Grey Knights TBS will reinvigorate my interest? Or it might just be a function of being busy again and not setting aside time and energy to revisit Mechanicus.
Same here. Well, maybe just not in the mood for tactical puzzle games. It's cool though. I'm glad I tried it.
Bouncing off seems fair - for all that I'm enjoying it, it very much feels like a B-tier tactics game, not quite as polished add your XCOMs and Battletechs.
I sort of petered out with this about half way through the campaign I think. I will probably go back to it, but it got very repetitive to be honest. The battles were all feeling the same on the same maps.
This morning I bought Heretek (on sale now) and started a new game on hard.
Is the Heretek DLC standalone content or does it add stuff to a campaign playthrough?
I'm not quite sure if I bounced off of it, or just had too many other shiny things vying for my attention at the moment. A friend got me into Hell Let Loose which I was playing for a bit, and then The Witch Queen released for Destiny2 and my group is running through that.
It's a game I'd like to get to to finish, but I don't want to more than I want to play other things.
I feel like I'm well over the difficulty hump, and and now in the last quarter of the game, my dudes are waaay overpowered. I'm putting out enough healing to basically stay at full health (the ability to heal everyone to max HP is way OP), and took down 3 bosses in quick succession that were easier than regular levels.
Basically romping to the end credits now, and assuming I should have been playing on Hard this whole time.
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