New player, bunch of questions about the game

[flupo42]

1: Grim Darkness difficulty - does it change anything other than enemy reinforcements spawning? Are the reinforcements endless?

2: What is maximum level a unit can get upgraded?

3: Are there anything like turrets or bunkers in the game that infantry could man? I see there are some transport vehicles in the game but only got to play with one of them so far - is it possible for loaded units to fire from inside the transport?

4: Any guides as to the math of combat mechanics: like who are attack power, pierce and armor related? I got my first upgrade on Bloodclaws where it was a choice of regeneration vs. extra attack power - but I don't know how much 20 attack power actually matters and what it affects. Chance to hit? armor penetration? chance to crit?

5: I am finding some units inconsistent with whether they are able to move after taking both shots and also why sometimes my units can or can't move when there are enemy units adjacent.

6: the tactical view shows green/yellow/red firing ranges - what is the damage drop off at those ranges

7: Sometimes units will counter-attack when I shoot or melee them and sometimes they don't - chance action, or is there some rule about counter-attack that I missed. Or does it use the same 1 reaction?

8: Not sure about this, but it seems like some units are not consisted about how they provoke reaction fire... I had a battle where Flash Gits were waiting around a corner. If my squad of BloodClaws stepped out into the open, it would get mowed down. But a hoverbike unit coming in from a side entrance showed only green tiles on the way to those Flash Gits even though the last 2 tiles it had to travel was directly in front of the gits face.

9. What's the point of the one dude unit that costs 100 point, with sword and bolter. He is like a cheap hero unit except his attacks do almost no damage. His bolter rounds seem weaker than Bloodclaw shots, he barely did any damage to a single Ork Boy in melee. I've been trying to use him like a spotter because it says that his shots make it easier to hit the enemy unit with ranged fire on same turn, but haven't really noticed a difference...

Does the accuracy buff his pistol shots are supposed to give stack if I use both of his shots on same unit? Does it only increase chance to hit or also chances to crit/go through armor - any point plinking away with him at enemy tanks?

10: in first skirmish mission, an Ork Wierdboy plopped down some huge green aura/cloud on an area - what did that do?

11: Are there any 'must-have' abilities I should be on the lookout among unit upgrades?

12: One of my units leveled up on last kill, mission ended before I could pick the upgrade and I had another unit that leveled up on a reaction shot and I forgot to pick the upgrade before I made the kill - are those level ups lost?

13: How necessary are level ups to get through campaign? On my first skirmish mission in first campaign I lost like 2/3rds of the units playing it on Grim Darkness difficulty, only 1 unit actually got a level up from that...

14 are there cheat codes for this game?

[[E]mbodiment]

1: For Grim Darkness I think some of the damage modifiers are changed. Enemy units don't die quite as fast and your units die a bit faster. Overall the biggest difference is the presence of reinforcements.

2. I believe Level 4 is max level as that is where hero units are. However, Each unit has 6 upgrade slots. I will have to test.

3. Units cannot "use" any turrets or vehicles but they can be transported by vehicles and they can take cover inside some structures.

4. I believe there is a guide to this math on the Slitherine Forum.

5. Fast attack units can move after an attack. Standard units lose movement by making an attack. I believe each action takes half the standard movement. Also melee units provide a zone of control unless they are shaken/ broken. Hovering over a unit will show if it exercises zone of control. You also can see visually the adjacent squares which would trap an entering unit.

6. The damage drop off for the ranges mostly has to do with accuracy. It varies from unit to unit. Best to do some testing with various units. The attack popup will tell you the accuracy for the different ranges.

7 - 8. Counter attacks are based upon the unit(some units like the wolf flamer do not have a counter attack). They also depend on the speed of the unit. Fast attack vehicles have a chance to move through an overwatched area without triggering the reaction I believe. Unit morale may also make the unit not give a reaction. There should be a reaction zone in red outlined for enemies capable of a reaction.

9. I don't know if you are talking about egil redfist or the other unit with the grenade and axe, Heingist or something like that. Egil is quite useful with his melee regen ability and decent damage. Heingist has a powerful grenade ability. I agree these aren't the most powerful units but they are not useless on small point value matches.

10. The weirdboy drops a bubble which reduces the accuracy of incomming shots. Basically it grants a 50% cover bonus to any units inside of it. Load up a skirmish and you can read the ability effect on the weirdboy. Also I think there is a game manual on the splash screen of the game.

11. Yes, the teleport ability on dreadnaughts is simply ridiculous. It takes a unit which is powerful but slow and make it powerful and one of the most mobile units in the game. Wolf-rage for Hammer terminators is a must have. They are almost impossible to kill without having their morale broken. Gene-seed is also very solid. On long range units the camo promotion is pretty good. Both grenade promotions on blood claws drastically improve their effectiveness. I don't have much experience with the Ork level- up abilities

12. Yes, there is an outstanding bug that the last kill of a mission will screw up a unit that would have been promoted by that kill.

13. Level ups are very helpful so try to keep your units alive as much as possible. Though The campaigns don't have perma-death so units will come back after a few more missions with the xp they had before the mission they died on, I believe.

14. Not as far as I am aware of

[Fosil]

to add to what [E]mbodiment wrote:

1. the reinforcements waves are limited (in maps without a turn limit they will end after certain turns) and they spawn less if you lose units and maybe if you lose certain amounts of hp too. I don't think that damage modifiers are changed.

2. lvl 4 and 3 upgrades but some hero units start with several upgrades (some start at lvl 4 with 6 upgrades for example.

3. you can only stay behind cover to get a cover save (improved change to not get hit) or ride in a transporter to be save from damage / move faster. no firing out of vehicles. if a transporter is destroyed and there is no space around it for units to disembark, they auto-die. units that leave vehicles have only one action and a bit more than half their maximal movepoints for the turn they disembark.

4. each attack has a damage value that gets modified by a random roll and the power and AP stats of the weapon. high power stats increase the chances for critical (double damage) damage. this damage gets reduced by balistic armor and even more by heavy armor. high AP raises the chance to do extra AP damage. this damage gets only reduced by heavy armor (see: http://steamcommunity.com/app/502370/discussions/0/2119355556485665123/). chance to hit is only affected by range, accuracy and cover (and the upgrade master forged weapons, that ignore range). range accuracy-loss is different for units. press 1 while having a unit selected to see its range bands. units lose AP and power over longer range (activate detailed tooltips to see that in-game).

5. stormboys, deffkoptas, landspeeder and skyclaws ignore ZoC. I believe knights and gorkonauts ignore it too. using some special skill attacks and all melee attacks don't reduce movement points.

6. accuracy and there is a AP and power drop-off. it's different depending on the weapon a unit has. use detailed tooltips in the options menu to see AP and power drop-off in the attack pop-up.

7. nearly all ranged units have a overwatch reaction fire area. you can see it, when you click on the unit and start to change facing. only the first enemy unit moving into this area triggers one ranged attack. you can trigger the attack too by shooting at the unit, while standing in the overwatch area. you can always move safely out of the area. an unit can only overwatch, if no enemy units with ZoC stands next to it or move next to it. reaction fire will not trigger for a unit too, if you move any unit into one tile distance next to the unit with reaction fire. but the reaction fire should still trigger for other units, if your unit with one tile distance has no ZoC (needs testing, I am not sure about the last point).

units with a melee attack will always try to counter-attack if melee attacked. each front facing model, that took no damage from the enemy melee attack, will counter-attack. blood claws for example have three or two front facing models (depending on attack direction) and can counter-attack with up to three or two models (counter-attack is a regular melee attack, that provokes no counter-attack).

8. there are no units that ignore overwatch areas afaik. I would guess, that the swift bikes moved into one-tile distance to the gitz (ZoC).

9. egil redfist has a powerfist not a sword. he is not very popular in MP. against the AI, he can regenerate quite well with each kill and has a low chance to ignore ranged attacks. he has some nice upgrades in the campaign that makes him tougher. I don't think his ranged attack buff stacks (have not tested it though). It is only an accuracy buff.

10. the bubble has three tiles range counting from the weirdboy when activated. I think the cover-bonus works only against units shooting from outside the sphere at units in the sphere. I got slaughtered trying to rush into the sphere with space wolves melee units once and last match I had dismal hit chance with a warbike outside the sphere shooting at a bloodclaw three tiles away in the sphere.

11. everythink that reduces armor (ballistic and especially heavy armor), regenerates health or stasis grenades is imo top-tier. after that accuracy buffs (ranged or melee) and utility (grenades, teleport). the next expansion will have "a new abilities progression tree!", don't know, if they change stuff from the existing factions.

12. units should stay at the lower level in the next mission, so you should have not lost an upgrade permanently.

13. the campaigns are doable without any upgrades and the first skirmish missions are the hardest missions on grim darkness. if you can win them, you won't have problems with the rest of the campaign. matter of fact: any level ups for the first three skirmish missions is a good start. the next story mission is really easy in comparison, because you get access to the better space wolve units.

14. you would have to mod the game files. lots of stuff is easily accessible.