GWJ Strategy Club Game 8: Warhammer 40K Mechanicus

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.

Bfgp wrote:

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?

Yeah this game is fun but brutal for sure. I equipped one of my tech priests with the arc rifle and gave him the +4 range skill which let me take out the far right Necrons from range. I was then able to concentrate my skiitari troops on the left side while using the cheap servitors to draw fire in the middle. Seemed to work pretty well but you need to hang back and let the far Necrons come to you.

Also, I’m still struggling with CPS so if anyone has suggestions on that would love to hear them.

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.

Jonman wrote:

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.

jdzappa wrote:

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.

Concave wrote:

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!

I’m now in the end game - at 85 percent awakening and doing the hard missions now. The jump in difficulty is considerable but I’m surviving. What I hate though is it seems all the missions offer weapons and trinkets I don’t need. I really need either expanded troop slots or extra CP points.

Also, how hard is the final fight without too many spoilers? If I have four priests all between level 16-20 do I have a chance? I also have the big robot units which kick butt and level 3 skiitari.

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.

Last night I beat the last mission on normal. I hadn’t taken out the leaders one by one because I thought I could still do all the assassination missions when the timer ran out. Wrong - taking them all on at once was interesting to say the least. Had to scum save a couple times but made it through.

This morning I bought Heretek (on sale now) and started a new game on hard. Whoah boy what a jump in difficulty. It feels like an actual 40K tabletop game where I’m hugging terrain and praying I get max damage on a hit since I’ll die otherwise. The heretic missions are also no joke. I may not finish this run but I’m having fun.

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!

Jonman wrote:

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!

Congrats!

Yes I'm keeping it rolling through end of March given all the over stuff that's coming out in the next few weeks. I've been busy with CK 3 and Warhammer 3 so I'll probably open nominations around March 18 or so.

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.

Moggy wrote:

I'm afraid I've bounced off it hard. Which is sad, because there's no real reason why I did.

Sad to hear that Moggy. I found the game to be uneven where the beginning is pretty hard and the ending is a bit too easy so I can see it being a bit tough to finish. You'll still get credit for playing FYI.

jdzappa wrote:

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.

Jonman wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

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 restarted so not sure. It basically adds an extra few levels, new weapons, and a new skill tree. You are fighting on your own ship so missions don’t raise awakening. Bad news is the missions are pretty hard.

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.

Last few hours if anyone is finishing up their campaigns!