Tag Archives: Introduction

Tacticus Tuesdays – Characters

A mobile game based on Warhammer 40k

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Last week I wrote a short article introducing Warhammer 40k Tacticus, a turn based strategy game that I have been recently playing on mobile.

This week I wanted to explain how characters work.

Librarian Varro Tigurius

I’ll be using Chief Librarian Varro Tigurius to explain the character card. As I’ve been playing for a bit he is a ‘few’ levels above where he is when he first appears with the players but the principle remains.

Anatomy of the Character

  1. Name and role / unit type
  2. Rarity & Ability
  3. Power & Permanent Ability
  4. Experience Level, Shards & Orbs
  5. Health, Armour, Damage, Movement
  6. Attack(s)
  7. Equipment and upgrading Equipment

1 – Name and Role / Unit Type

It’s the name, and unit type… obviously! Get to know your character and get invested in them! They will be your key to beating the more difficult levels.

2 – Rarity and Ability

Characters are Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic & Legendary.

Ascension is a change in rarity which will increase the level cap and give boosts to the character’s abilities. Within rarities there are at least 2 level increases which increase the generic statistics of the character. (see below)

This area also shows the character’s special attack (in a circle). They are used once per game, but are often essential to victory. You’ll want to ensure you know what they do. These can be upgraded with medals – don’t expect to get enough of these as with all the resources in the game – you can’t do everything you want. Upgrading doesn’t change the ability but it gives it more damage, or summons more health, or healing more healing!

3 – Power & Permanent Ability

The power is an indication of how good a character is, although this is not necessarily a fair representation you can be pretty sure that a 1,000 power character is better than a 500 point one. Your playstyle will determine if a 600 is better than a 500 though!

Characters will also have another ability although this seems to be unavailable at the lower levels of experience & rarity in characters. In the case of the chief librarian it gives friendly characters the ability to block damage, and reduces Psychic damage. There’s also an upgrade cost in common with most other aspects of a character.

4 – Experience Level, Shards, & Orbs

Experience is gained from participating in missions and from reading tomes. As mentioned above there is a cap depending on the rarity of the character and common characters will hit their cap very quickly.

Above the experience bar there are the number of shards needed for promotion (the small picture of the character). If the next promotion is a change in rarity there will also be a cost in Orbs… which are difficult to get so don’t expect to be swimming in them!

5 – Health, Armour, Damage & Movement

Health is the amount of damage the character can take; armour reduces the damage of incoming attacks; damage is the standard damage and movement is the number of hexes the character can move. The first three increase with most level increases and can be increased by equipment (see below).

6 – Attacks

This shows the type of attacks. The fist is close assault which is standing next to an enemy. The other attack (if present) will be a ranged attack. It details the type of damage (useful to know for some battle tactics (more on this in a later article). and the number of attacks per attack. (this isn’t the number of enemies attacked, but the number of times your damage is applied to the chosen target). Multiple attacks are good against swarms (Scarabs & Rippers) but armour is applied to each attack so they can lack damage against large enemies.

7 – Equipment & Upgrading Equipment

There are 3 pieces of equipment available – weapon, armour & other which can be upgraded with scrap. They provide bonuses and most equipment can be used by multiple characters, so you can unequip and switch them to a different character.

The other section here is 6 pieces of more basic equipment which are added to a character for a permanent bonus but then unavailable to other characters (ie they are spent). When you have added all six pieces of equipment they disappear, and you get to assign another 6. There is a limit to the number of times you can do this based on the rarity.

Woehammer articles

I’ll be bringing you regular articles on the game as I progress and learn more; with the first articles being about some of the concepts of the game including the large number of resources available. I hope you’ll join me; and let us know if there’s anything in particular you would like me to cover.

I may even be joined by Woehammer Peter as he also plays so expect the occasional second opinion.

Linking up

If you think this game may interest you, follow along this series of articles. I have been playing for a while already so some of it will based on what I know from further down the process. Woehammer isn’t receiving any sponsorship for this article (it’s just Declan and Eeyore – and Peter – having fun), but if you want to support me on my Tacticus exploration then please use my referral code: LIT-20-RAP

See you all next week!

— Declan and Eeyore

Tacticus Tuesdays – Introduction

A mobile game based on Warhammer 40k

As regular readers will know I’ve been struggling with time to get Hobby done due to real life distractions. One of these means I can’t spend a lot of time on an activity. To counter this I’ve been painted scenery and Hobgrots to itch the painting bug, but I also needed something to help with my gaming itch as well.

So, something short, that I could do on the go, and that I could put down when interrupted with no impact (or minimal impact) on the gaming experience. To solve this conundrum I went searching for mobile games in the Play store and came across Warhammer 40k – Tacticus, a turn-based-strategy game based in the 40k universe (Indomitus era mostly).

Price

As with most mobile games, this is a ‘free’ app with in-app purchases. So you can spend as little or as much as you like. I’ve currently spent nothing and had fun, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t spend a lot. Just remember that it’s only digital assets so if you do want to pay some money in the App make sure you’re happy before pressing ‘yes’. The packs in Tacticus seem very expensive to me (£40+ for a set of three characters), but maybe it’s at the normal mobile pricing point.

Format

There is an introduction series of combats which you have to run through which team the basics (movement, fighting, winning a Campaign game etc…) and after not to long you have a few Space Marines and are fighting a Necron character.

This is mission 15, which is the first appearance of the first enemy character (you can get him later). The screen simply lays out which units you are fighting, the difficulty of the mission and what you might expect in rewards. (The first time you play these you’ll get more rewards but I’m replaying the mission here for a screenshot!)

The money is a guaranteed item if you win, and the character icon has a random element (the dice above it), which you can click on to see the odds of getting it from playing the mission. This is important because you can replay missions to farm for the items or characters you need. (In this case we could get a shard for the Necron and we’ll need multiple shards to unlock (or upgrade the character)

Gameplay

It’s a turn based strategy game on a hex grid, and the entire game is based around this. In order to fit on a mobile screen the maps are small and your force is never above 5, although the enemies can be higher especially if they lots of weaker units.

A battle in action

Each character had a once a battle ability which is unlocked quickly. In this case I’ve selected my Sister of Battle (one of the early characters) and aim to move her and fire her more powerful flamer blast. The pink hex with a tick is where I’m moving and the pink hexes over enemies is where I can shoot.

This all means the GUI for the battles is nice and simple, the characters have at most 3 ways of causing damage (range, close combat, special), and there’s not a lot to remember. This definitely isn’t X-Com the computer game!!

Winning

Once you’ve killed the enemy you win… well done!

You’ll get some Experience (XP) to level up your characters (there are level caps depending on the type of character (Common, Rare etc…), some money and possibly some items or character shards.

With that you’re ready to progress to battle number 2.

Tutorial

The tutorial is a one time only affair so you’ll need to pay attention, but it is set up to ensure that you get first five Imperium fighters (4 Ultramarines, and a Sisters of Battle). It’s well paced gives you most of the information you need (although there is a bit of info overload), and ensures that the first couple of hours of playing have a lot of progress attached to them.

Going Forward

Once the tutorial is over you take your Imperium fighters and make more progress through the Indomitus Campaign, gaining Necron characters and other resources along they – making your characters more powerful, or gaining new ones. In fact there are so many different resources that I confess to getting a list lost initially.

Woehammer articles

I’ll be bringing you regular articles on the game as I progress and learn more; with the first articles being about some of the concepts of the game including the large number of resources available. I hope you’ll join me; and let us know if there’s anything in particular you would like me to cover.

I may even be joined by Woehammer Peter as he also plays so expect the occasional second opinion.

Linking up

If you think this game may interest you, follow along this series of articles. I have been playing for a while already so some of it will based on what I know from further down the process. Woehammer isn’t receiving any sponsorship for this article (it’s just Declan and Eeyore – and Peter – having fun), but if you want to support me on my Tacticus exploration then please use my referral code: LIT-20-RAP

See you all next week!

— Declan and Eeyore