Wiki's and Guides

[4spryt]

New player here. Needing some detailed resources regarding units and stats. So far my campaign unit choices have been trial and error.

I found the guide by DuncanStewart on the Slitherine forums (which explains general concepts and gives the combat formula), but would like something even more detailed (if it exists).

The Wiki or guide I'm looking for would answer questions like these:

It would be nice to know which of the 20-ish tanks are good against what opponents for example. What the evasion chance for the air unit is and how they are best utilized? The two I bought were killed rather quickly by normal (non AA) ground units, making them seem pointless. Should I use a lasergun, a bolter, a flamethrower, a chem gun, etc?

Anybody know some good Wiki's or Guides?

[Ferdy]

The main trick of it is to match units with high armor penetration, the cracked shield icon, to units with high armor, the shield icon. And also make sure all of your weapons are in range when you attack, and/or as many of theirs as possible aren't.

[4spryt]

@Ferdy:

Thanks for the suggestions, it's basically what I've been doing since this question got no response until now. I guess this game must be dead if there aren't many forum posters or people pushing guides/wiki's. Sad, seems like a fun game.

In addition to that guide I mentioned on the Slitherine forums, I found a somewhat helpful guide on Steam for the units in the first campaign. It's basically an opinion based guide rather than the detailed guide I am searching for, everything helps when a person is just beginning. =)

I suppose it could also be that nobody knows the details because the devs want it that way, but that seems so strange. Why have different types of guns (bolters, lasers, etc) if they don't each have some distinguishing benefit?

Anyway, thanks again for your info.

[Mithrandir_III]

Hey mate, I can't help you either regarding a proper wiki/guide and I'm by no means a game expert. But regarding the weapons: Those are taken from the Wh40k games n lore, that's why there're e.g. so many different versions of the Leman Russ tank with different armaments. A lot of them can be approached from a purely logical standpoint: bolter, flamer, autoguns are excellent against infantry and unarmored vehicles but useless against anything bigger, for example.
Stats like damage, damage type and range ofc also are essential.

If in doubt, just look up the weapons or vehicles online, e.g. in the Wh40k wiki where you can get a more detailed description, even if it's not specifically about this game.
Personally I really like using dreadnoughts, they deal lots of damage and are quite the survivors. I wasn't happy with air units either, most of the time.

[Cuddles]

I had the same problem finding these sorts of details, so I've ended up writing a bit of a guide that can be found here - http://steamcommunity.com/app/312370/discussions/0/1458455461491282867/?tscn=1500841349

The details of units and weapons can all be found in the game files, which can be read by a standard text editor (although the files can be quite big, so something like notepad++ is recommended). It's not so much that the devs don't want people to know the details, but rather that there are just too many variations to really list. For the most part, you can split things into anti-infantry, anti-tank, general purpose, and utility units. Anti-infantry fire large numbers of weak shots (such as lasguns and bolters), anti-tank fire small numbers of powerful shots (lascannon, missile launchers), and general purpose units have a mix (eg. Leman Russ variants with battle cannon, lascannon and heavy bolters). Utility units are things like leaders and mortars, which tend to be weaker but come with useful abilities to support others.

To decide which tanks you want, you really just have to look at its weapons and abilities and figure out which category you would put it in. a Shadowsword only gets a couple of shots with a single long-range, high power weapon, so it's clearly anti-tank. A Leman Russ Punisher has an assault cannon firing a large number of relatively weak shots so it's anti-infantry. Most tank variants are fairly general, but lean more towards one or the other. It's really up to you to figure out exactly which ones you want, or best fit with the army you already have; as long as you have units that are effective against all types of targets it's not really possible to make a "wrong" choice, especially if you're playing on easy or normal difficulties.

Aircraft are useless. As far as I can tell no-one has been able to find out what the evasion bonus is, or if it works at all, but they are so weak, slow, short-sighted and short-ranged that it doesn't really matter - they'll be killed by pretty much anything they stumble across. Anti-air is similarly useless since there's simply no need for it; any unit can easily kill aircraft.

[4spryt]

@Cuddles:

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out.

As a new player what I feel like is I am being asked to choose from 20 forks, one fork has 5 tines, this other fork has 2 tines, and this next fork has 1 large tine with a half moon hook on its right side. If unit purpose is basically anti tank or anti infantry, then why have sooooo many useless variations?

The unit cost between "upgrades" isn't large enough to warrant choosing a cheaper model and the "upgrades" themselves are so tiny for some units that I find myself always choosing the most powerful unit of its type. The two tanks you mention are solid, and I haven't figured out a reason yet to use any other type.

Mithrandir_III pointed out that this abundance of unit versions is part of WH40K lore. While that explains its history, I don't know that it really justifies it as a good game design. Cleary they did not stick to Lore for the new Da Orks dlc (at least from what I read in reviews), instead of playing a horde of Low Tek Orks people say you play a small group of High Tek Orks.

Anyway thanks again to all those trying to help. I'll try to give this a game another chance or two (or three... I do want to like it).

[Cuddles]

"As a new player what I feel like is I am being asked to choose from 20 forks, one fork has 5 tines, this other fork has 2 tines, and this next fork has 1 large tine with a half moon hook on its right side. If unit purpose is basically anti tank or anti infantry, then why have sooooo many useless variations?"

Why are there so many different kinds of forks? If all you want to do is shovel a homemade meal into your mouth, pretty much any fork will do the job, but if you eat at a restaurant they'll be sure to give you different forks depending on the meal. Big forks with three tines tend to be for large dry food like meat, four prongs more closely spaced are for things like stew and rice, smaller forks are used for salad and desserts, fish forks are very different from others, and so on. Plus you get soup spoons, dessert spoons, teaspoons, steak knives, butter knives, and plenty more. And occasionally you get really weird things like pliers for lobster which would be basically useless for most meals.

That's essentially the situation with units in Armageddon. Most units are really a spork of some kind; some tend more to fork and some more to spoon, but they can usually be used for either job in a push. The more specialised ones are clearly either forks or spoons, but still have variation on exactly what kind of meal they're best to use with.

The important point is probably that this game doesn't do the common trick of having relatively few units with a strict rock-paper-scissors setup to determine which will always win in a match-up. Instead, there's a continuum of attack and defence whcih means different combinations of different weapons will be more or less effective in different situations. A Leman Russ Annihilator with three lascannon and two heavy bolters at range three doesn't fill quite the same role as a Destroyer with a single, but much stronger, laser destroyer shot at range four, even though both would be described as anti-tank.

Basically, any spoon will do, but you have the choice of picking either a soup spoon or dessert spoon if you think one will be better for your situation. As a beginner on lower difficulties, you just need to make sure you have a selection including some spoony and some forkish things and you'll be fine. Once you start learning more about how it all works, and especially if you play on higher difficulties, you'll find that picking your cutlery more carefully will make your army much more effective.

[4spryt]

I was worried that I might receive a response like this if I used that fork analogy. Shame on me for not listening to my inner critic. =)

Yes, in fine dining there are different forks for different courses; but we both know that is more about etiquette and the procession of table service rather than actual functionality. A salad fork performs it's job just as well as a dinner fork.

While I agree that each unit variation "doesn't quite fill the same role"; I also think this is a technicality that does not reflect actual gameplay. I honestly do not see where or when a slight variation is going to provide more utility than a generalized solution given the costs.

We are given a limited number of slots and limited currency for replacements and required to perform a series of successive missions. A unit with a specialized role ends up being a liability under those conditions. In the gameplay I have encountered so far it has made far more sense to buy the best anti-tank, the best anti-infantry, a few pieces of artillery, and ignore the rest.

If you can share more specific examples of how these specialized units provide a better choice than a general unit I would very much like to hear them. I have played the first 5-6 missions of the first campaign. Currently I am on the mission where I am escorting the lone Titan unit (I think that was its name... its been a week or so since I've had the interest to play).

Thanks for your response.