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1. I built maybe one synth hacker and that was it. Just didn't seem to need them for the situation I was in (vs dvar and vanguard). Might have built them earlier had I been dealing with assembly.
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I was surprised at how useful the hackers were when i played synth dvar. There's usually at least SOME mechanical around, and even outside that they have good firepower in a different channel and a strong crowd control. That was with the standard hacker CC though, dunno about the vanguard hack-grenade version.
 
TheDeadlyShoe said:
I was surprised at how useful the hackers were when i played synth dvar. There's usually at least SOME mechanical around, and even outside that they have good firepower in a different channel and a strong crowd control. That was with the standard hacker CC though, dunno about the vanguard hack-grenade version.
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Yeah the grenade was some of what put me off them. I didn't have too many arc enemies (fairly safe early game with a small war vs the spacers) and by the time the big wars between vanguard and dvar broke out i was just incaping them.

I feel like right now synth is maybe the most "flexible" of the techs in that each game you're probalby going to have to assess what's most appropriate for the situation.
 
My favorite combo so far is Syndicate + Void ( haven't played through a full tech tree on anything else but vanguard)

Indentured + Phase Field mod + stagger & 20% dmg. arc mod + flanking 25% & 10% dmg. mod w/ the Doctrine that cuts upkeep in 1/2.
These guys have an upkeep of 2, walk through obstacles, are 20% harder to hit, plus 30% dmg, +55% when flanking, range 7, and can go twice per turn if paired with an Overseer.
A mass of flanking Indentured absolutely destroy machines & anything vulnerable to Arc dmg.
Similar build on guild assassins with range 9 makes for brutal overwatch & a fast charge through obstacles to finish.

Psi-melee units & heroes are devastating against everything else, especially a Psi-Gauntlet Commander w/ ruthless killer from Military Tradition.

Both work very well with the Void tech robot's (can't remember name) ability to abduct enemies into overlapping fields of overwatch-fire, or to plunk a psi melee unit down where it can kill one enemy and have melee-overwatch (thus killing another when it acts).

And the fact that the Mirage obscures everyone underneath, while the psi-monks give everyone +2 shield, and the Void commander can give another +2 shield ...

Definitely my favorite ... so far XD
 
Has anyone tried voidtech Dvar yet for some fun hammer times? Feels like it would be an interesting, very different way to play them. Go all in on close combat with a hammer wielding commander and echo walkers (also with hammers), maybe throw in a Ramjet to bring the clobbering to the skies. Flyers would be a problem without them, but its not like you would have to go completely pure and throw away your starting trenchers.
 
Booo said:
I have enjoyed Promethean starting as Kir'Ko . The combination works very well since you can make your psionic attacks deal thermal damage with focus: flames. There's also promethean mods that do really well with the Kir'Ko units, like the phoenix launcher.

Below are the two Kir'Ko units I ended up using the most:
View attachment 504560 View attachment 504559

Promethean and Kir'Ko is probably something of a left-field combination, why I am happy it worked as well as it did. Promethean seems like a strong secret technology in general, more because of its operations and mods than the units.
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Focus: Flame is a psionic tree mod tho, not a promethean one?
 
Phoenix32 said:
Focus: Flame is a psionic tree mod tho, not a promethean one?
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Yes, but the idea I had was to use psionic attacks with focus: flames together with the mods and operations that support thermal damage from the Promethean tree. The combination meant that the Kir'Ko psionic units could hit much harder than they otherwise would, giving me this type of numbers:
 

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Synthesis Kir'ko didn't work out for me -- maybe there's something there, but I couldn't find it.
Now playing Celestian Vanguard, and wow it's great. The punchy light bringers fit great in the Vanguard line-up: they can leap right into combat the enemy's rear and wreck stuff, and the neat shield they get after a jump is just wonderful. The operations are pretty swell, and I have no issue Enlightening my minions and spending a doctrine slot to give them +10% on their attacks. So far, I like it.
 
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I heard them talking on the release stream about the viability of a Vanguard sniper build. But Vanguard has no sniper units, like Kir'Kro do, so I'm not sure what they meant by that,
 
Promethean gets an early (t2?) tech that drops an AOE firebomb that does burning/stagger and leaves burning patches on the ground in its radius. Not expensive either.
Amazon Arborians, also a t2 tech, get a decent-ranged AOE entangle ability that immobilizes and bleeds. Arborians are also frontline tank units.

So you can lead your battleline with a unit that can punish any clustering whatsoever by immobilizing the cluster in a burning hellscape of procs. They are up shit creek without an AOE cleanse. Got 5 units in this combo in a city assault, probably won me the fight (i took about 60% casualties as it was).
 
Just started an kir'ko voidtech game. Its early yet but the voidtech mod to allow you to run through cover with the melee focus of the kir'ko seems pretty sweet for an early combo.

If anyone has some tips for how to tech to carry on these interesting combos let me know !
 
Get the second void tech unit. It has an ability called Evacuate which recalls one of your frontline units to its position and heals it as well. Very good melee synergy.

Also can abduct enemy units for your melee to beat up :)
 
I tried three factions so far:

Vanguard
Assembly
Dvar

The first and third faction were in campaign play though. My focus in the game is on unit tactics. Let's see what we got here:

Vanguard
Do a gun cluster and your T1 units will mow down a lot of toons with Overwatch. Play style for people who are more relaxed.

Dvar
Put your dude in a Bulwark, hire two more and get those guys with Incentive. A couple of levels later and your chars can get Nitro Battery or something like that. Geez, your suited Dvar will turn into ED-209! That's so far the most fun that I have had with a single stack. DAKKA! DAKKA! DAKKA!

Assembly
Definitely harder to keep your T1 toons alive in early game than in my previous examples. Cel tech mitigates that a bit though. I haven't reached turn 30 yet so there is still a lot to learn.


Best overall ploy
Works with every faction:

Energy Siphon.

The AI always pulls off this trick and spams it till Kingdom come. It's really annoying. Fun fact to this is that the AI does this long before I researched countermeasures. Next time I will focus on my spy defence ASAP.
 
TheGrinningMan said:
Synthesis Kir'ko didn't work out for me -- maybe there's something there, but I couldn't find it.
Now playing Celestian Vanguard, and wow it's great. The punchy light bringers fit great in the Vanguard line-up: they can leap right into combat the enemy's rear and wreck stuff, and the neat shield they get after a jump is just wonderful. The operations are pretty swell, and I have no issue Enlightening my minions and spending a doctrine slot to give them +10% on their attacks. So far, I like it.
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I think I have found a couple of strongs things that works for every faction. Synthesis really wants arc mods to leverage hackers and avatars, but if you don't have that you can at least use these synergies for good effect:
  • The guardian daemon shell is very effective on many units. It's strong when stacked with other hit-chance modifiers, and usually works well on units that get shot at a lot like melee and fliers. Realistically it's just one of the mods that makes any unit you put it on a fair bit more durable, and unlike other similar mods it can be put on anything. It's effectively always one of the best defensive mods to put on fliers. In Kir'Ko's case this is the engulfer, who is also one of your best sources of arc damage with the ionic: infusion mod, whose electrification further reduces enemy to-hit.
  • The network link is a really good support unit. Reset save state demon can be kept up your entire army. It also gets evasive at prime rank, so it's a great unit with guardian daemon, and sort of unkillable with the 33% per turn regeneration from save state demon. There's nothing wrong with making half your army this unit, though you'd probably use something else in front of it.
 
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Booo said:
I think I have found a couple of strongs things that works for every faction. Synthesis really wants arc mods to leverage hackers and avatars, but if you don't have that you can at least use these synergies for good effect:
  • The guardian daemon shell is very effective on many units. It's strong when stacked with other hit-chance modifiers, and usually works well on units that get shot at a lot like melee and fliers. Realistically it's just one of the mods that makes any unit you put it on a fair bit more durable, and unlike other similar mods it can be put on anything. It's effectively always one of the best defensive mods to put on fliers. In Kir'Ko's case this is the engulfer, who is also one of your best sources of arc damage with the ionic: infusion mod, whose electrification further reduces enemy to-hit.
  • The network link is a really good support unit. Reset save state demon can be kept up your entire army. It also gets evasive at prime rank, so it's a great unit with guardian daemon, and sort of unkillable with the 33% per turn regeneration from save state demon. There's nothing wrong with making half your army this unit, though you'd probably use something else in front of it.
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Yes, my entire fucking early game strategy revolves around spamming OWLs with Vanguard using the Strategic Operation (and building them if I have to) with daemon shell and the recon thing, it's one dimensional and it works rather well. Later on I add a single Laser mod just to make them able to kill things a bit easier. It does well on auto resolve too. Problem is that it feels too good so I never want to build the higher tier units till much later - even then it's probably going to be the Network Link or something similar that can stack evasion. Also, Vanguard has the tact ops that drops a healing pod that obscures... and there's also the vanguard tank that has smoke.
 
Assembly, research the claw tech first then reverse engineers. Rush forward in battle and just swarm everything that you can heal on, you can take some pretty lopside fights and win while losing only a few scavengers. Electrocutioners with the static and crit upgrades do great at clearing higher tier structures, static charge can make Arc kill anything.

Also Assembly melee hero, martial + cruel + mark of the dark sun + cybernetic overdrive (+ the operation later), its very easy to get multiple kills, and suddenly almost any hit is a crit as your morale goes through the roof. The Assimilate skill and mod help keep the hero alive while doing this nonsense, its great.
 
The diversity of excellent and interesting builds posted here is a testament to just how great this game is, and just how much potential it has, given the modular nature of its core components.
 
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