Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters

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Who you gonna call? Daemonhunters!

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters is a Turn-Based Strategy game in the vein of XCOM and a sequel/reboot of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate. It's a pretty good game and provides much of the XCOM feel that was lacking in Chimera Squad and Legends. Just make sure you remember that the lore and gameplay are kept quite separate, otherwise you'll get an aneurism.

Story

The game follows Strike Force Xiphos of the Grey Knights after a long, mostly offscreen crusade against a Khornate cult called the Kaedium that had devastated three sectors before it was stopped, banishing its Bloodthirster leader back to the Warp at the cost of Strike Force Xiphos' Force Commander Agravain and most of its battle-brothers. Brother Ectar appoints you to lead the journey back to Titan, the home base of the Grey Knights, but Strike Force Xiphos was intercepted by an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, Kartha Vakir, who commandeers their heavily damaged Strike Cruiser, the Baleful Edict, to investigate a Nurglite plague called "The Bloom" in the nearby Tyrtaeus Sector, much to the chagrin of the ship's Techpriest Dominus Lunete Ozmarantis and the profound irritation of their immediate superior Grand Master Kai.

Vakir's research reveals the existence of "seeds" that the followers of Nurgle carry with them to spread the Bloom. Her studies into the seeds' origin lead the Knights and the Inquisitor to the ruined Craftworld Usa'rya, which is being used to incubate the Bloom. The Craftworld's still-uncorrupted Avatar of Khaine comes to life just long enough to reveal the existence of five "Reapers" sent to act as the Bloom's vectors, and warns the Knights that if left unchecked it will bring on an apocalyptic event called the Morbus to ravage the galaxy. The Inquisitor's party is then nearly overrun by Nurglite forces led by the Daemon Prince Kadex Ilkarion, but the appearance of Kaldor Draigo buys them an opportunity to escape. Before they do so, the Supreme Grand Master confirms the truth of the Avatar's warning and tasks Vakir with stopping the Bloom before it's too late.

In spite of the Bloom's newly accelerated spread and the Knights' outrage over her perceived carelessness, Vakir has a plan. She kept a piece of corrupted Wraithbone from the Craftworld's Infinity Circuit that can be attuned to the psychic stench of the Reapers, a creation she calls the Codex Toxicus. Should the Reapers be defeated and the Prime Seeds that they watch over be claimed, the strains of the Bloom they oversee will die off.

After collecting three of the Prime Seeds, Kadex attacks the Baleful Edict and destroys the Codex Toxicus. Vakir is able to bind Kadex, but without the Codex Toxicus Strike Force Xiphos has no way to find the remaining Reapers. With no further options available, Vakir volunteers to scour the Daemon Prince's mind for any useful information. She manages to stay sane through the ordeal and discovers the source of the Bloom: a collection of roots hidden deep within the Garden of Nurgle. While she fears that Xiphos will have no way to find the Garden in the Warp, let alone destroy the roots, Ectar reminds her that Draigo still wanders the Warp. He proposes to use the Prime Seeds to generate enough Warp energy to get his attention. From there they can warn him of the Bloom's threat and gain his assistance.

Draigo agrees to help, but as the Inquisitor returns she has a vision: Kadex has warned his master of Draigo's arrival, and an ambush has been set for the Supreme Grand Master for when he arrives. Ectar is enraged and attempts to execute Vakir, but is stopped by Lunete, who proposes that Xiphos move to support Draigo in the Garden. Ectar scoffs at the idea, but Vakir claims that if they banish Kadex they can follow him back to his master. It is only when the purgation ritual is complete that she reveals her true intentions: to allow Kadex to claim her soul so Xiphos may use it as a beacon to find the Garden. Ectar is horrified that she would allow herself to be tormented for eternity for the sake of their mission, but she insists on going through with it nevertheless.

After fighting their way past another one of the Reapers to reach the Garden, Strike Force Xiphos reunites with Draigo to confront the true mastermind behind the Bloom: Mortarion, who is all too eager to pay the "heart-carver" back for his past defeat on Kornovin. He boasts that the first seeds were made from the remains of Draigo's brothers, and with the death of the Supreme Grand Master the Morbus will be unstoppable.

After a desperate battle, Draigo and his allies force Mortarion to flee, with the Daemon Primarch blaming Kadex's incompetence for their failure. While the Baleful Edict goes back to Titan to commemorate the sacrifices their allies have made for their mission, Draigo stays in the Warp, now accompanied by the Knights of Xiphos who fought beside him. Kadex, now a disembodied skull, is shown capturing Vakir's soul, declaring his intent to use her for his future plans for revenge.

Characters

• The Commander: You. The second most senior member of Strike Force Xiphos left after Ectar, and since he can't lead, command falls to you. Originally heading up the incredibly simple job of getting back home without dying (OK... It's 40K, it's not THAT simple, but you have a Grey Knight ship with you, that should be fine right?), you're then interrupted by Inquisitor Kartha Vakir to help her deal with a mysterious plague, which graduates into fending off a systems-wide chaos invasion. So now it's up to a noob commander, a nearly dead ship and a depleted strike force to take on an incursion of a Nurgle horde. No pressure, right? Generally portrayed as professional and level-headed unless you pick certain dialogue choices.
• Brother Ectar: Your head advisor. A Purifier, he was a skillful warrior but his lack of confidence in his own command combined with the machinations of a handful of Inquisitors trying to use a rebellion instigated by a Lord of Change to topple a corrupt planetary government led to disaster. As penance, Grand Master Voldus decreed that he must deny himself the opportunity for an honorable death in battle and a position of command in lieu of supporting Xiphos' commander aboard the Baleful Edict. As a result, he appoints you (the player) to take command of Xiphos after Commander Agravain's death in the tutorial. As befitting his order, his general response to any form of chaotic taint is to purge it with extreme prejudice, which often puts him at odds with Inquisitor Vakir, who sees merit in studying the enemy to defeat them.
• Inquisitor Kartha Vakir: A Thorian with a grudge against Nurgle after the death of her parents to one of his "gifts", she is the one who first sets Strike Force Xiphos against the Bloom and takes it upon herself to study ways to combat it. Cocksure and prideful in her abilities, her methods are borderline heretical and come across at haphazard at times, but it works out. Combined with her attitude, she is constantly at odds with the rest of the crew since she is after all endangering the Edict by collecting and researching daemonic material, opening herself and the vessel up to chaotic corruption. Ultimately, her willpower and sheer resolve to end the Bloom manages to impress even Ectar.
• Magos Dominus Lunete Ozmarantis: An ancient Tech-Priestess (we know, it's hard to tell with that many implants) who has served for centuries aboard the Baleful Edict and is old enough to remember when Draigo was a Justicar. She very bluntly expresses her lack of concern for anything beyond the Edict, and butts heads with Ectar and Vakir if the Edict's safety is put into question. However, she's also the voice of reason whenever the two are squabbling, breaking up their arguments to focus on the matter at hand. She's rather progressive for a Techpriest, willing to modify Servo Skulls to help Vakir collect blight seeds and expressing a scientific interest in xenotech like Wraithbone.
• Grand Master Vardan Kai: Grand Master of the First Brotherhood and Steward of the Armoury who once did battle with M'Kar the Reborn and Tyranid forces at the same time, and the Grand Master Strike Force Xiphos answers to. Kai serves as the Councilman in this game, reviewing and judging the Strike Force's performance every 60 days. As Steward of the Armoury, Kai offers a selection of battle-brothers and wargear you can redeem using Requisition for completing missions, and you can upgrade your armoury access during his reports (also with Requisition) so that better armor and troops show up as potential mission clear rewards on top of the usual servitors, grimoires, and Requisition. Don't piss him off unless you want to lock yourself out of new equipment for a couple of months. He is initially unconvinced of the threat that the Bloom poses and would very much prefer that you be reassigned to more important warzones and, coupled with a major beef with the Ordo Malleus, constantly berates Inquisitor Vakir for seemingly wasting his troops on simple grunt work. Later on, he begins to recognize the threat posed by the Bloom but is prevented from helping in any measurable way by plot contrivance. Voiced by the famous actor Andy Serkis.
• Supreme Grand Master Kaldor Draigo: Though he only appears in a few scenes, he plays a critical role saving Inquisitor Vakir on the infested Craftworld, and becomes the key to ending the Bloom when it's discovered that it originates from the Garden of Nurgle itself, where only Draigo can reach. Despite not being written by Matt Ward this time, he preserves his Mary Sue status by kicking Mortarion's ass once again, with only 4 of your Knights backing him up, upstaging Dawn of War II's final battle where you're fielding all of your characters plus Gabriel Angelos against a giant Hive Tyrant.

Gameplay

Like how the original Chaos Gate was inspired by the original X-COM, Daemonhunters take many cues from the modern XCOM games, with some elements from other successors like Phoenix Point and Gears Tactics. The strategic layer lets you select some research for Inquisitor Vakir to pursue that will aid the fight against the Bloom, select which part of the Baleful Edict Dominus Lunete should prioritize repairs, and wait for a mission in the Geoscape galaxy map to defeat the servants of the Plague God (does this sound familiar to XCOM players already?). Certain story events will have your crew butt heads over the mission, and picking sides will grant bonuses or maluses to their department, such as faster research times for supporting Vakir or increased exp gain for supporting Ectar.

Across the sector, each planet has a corruption meter that increases all sorts of nasty shit that can happen as it rises, usually in forms of buffs for enemies and debuffs for your dudes. Missions will appear randomly on different planets and you have a limited time to race across the Warp to do them before they expire and raise the planet's corruption meter, which means you can't save every planet. Most missions have objectives like killing every enemy or specific ones, but you can optionally choose to undertake a secondary objective (aka "Glorious Deeds") if available, from killing a certain number of enemies with melee, taking at most a certain amount of damage , not using any Will points, or completing the mission using only basic equipment. Completing primary and secondary objectives award Requisition, the resource used to redeem mission rewards from new recruits or stronger wargear, but failing secondary objectives costs you 1 Requisition, so you must choose wisely whether you are fit to do them.

Down in her makeshift lab, Inquisitor Vakir needs to progress her research into defeating the Bloom, and to do so she requires Bloom seeds extracted intact from enemies during missions. Some enemies will be marked as "seed carriers", which have seeds implanted in certain parts of their bodies. The primary method of extracting seeds is to kill these enemies in melee, Zandatsu style, but melee critical hits will allow you to extract the seed straight away if the enemy can't be immediately killed. Ranged or environmental kills won't yield any seeds, but ranged crits with Precision Shot (i.e., the Astral Aim ability) can sever enemy body parts that contain seeds, which will still award you the seed. One of Vakir's researches unlocks a servo-skull that can harvest a seed directly, allowing you to safely and reliably extract seeds at very long range; several of the Apothecary's skills also allow them to extract seeds more easily. Bloom seeds can also be found scattered around the map in Bloomspawn spores which can be collected by any of your Knights (and also restore a point of willpower when they do so). Initially, there is only one strain of seed, but Vakir discovers the existence of four other strains, each with their own seeds.

Besides unlocking new research, Bloom seeds can also be spent to unlock Purity Seals on master crafted weapons, granting access to bonus stats or abilities such as increased critical chance or armor pierce on psybolt.

Meanwhile, Dominus Lunete oversees the repairs and upgrades of the Baleful Edict, each section requiring a number of Servitors and days to work on. Servitors are a resource that can be collected on missions and during random events, and are consumed when you begin repairs to a particular section. Certain events can also allow you to sacrifice Servitors in order to avoid risking your Knights or spending seeds, so you have to weigh in which resource you're most willing to sacrifice in these events. The Baleful Edict can also take damage to its hull integrity in such events, or later on if you encounter a Death Guard ship or Warp Storm without the necessary upgrades. Naturally, if you lose all your hull points, you lose, but you can order Lunete to repair the hull, as well as upgrade the Edict's systems to better deal with enemy ships or events.

The tactical layer allows you to deploy up to 4 Grey Knights Space Marines to the field, and plays similarly to XCOM, although instead of a move + action vs longer move, each marine starts with 3 action points (AP) to spend on movement, abilities or attacks in any order. Warp-based abilities, from powering up attacks with psychic power or psyker powers, cost Willpower (WP) to use, but increases the Warp Surge gauge which activates some debilitating effect when full. The Warp Surge gauge fills every turn at an amount dependent on corruption level, acting as a timer to prevent turtling much like XCOM 2's mission timer, but you're not completely screwed if it 'runs out' as it merely disadvantages you instead of immediately failing the mission. Still, you wouldn't want to let it fill up too often as it can quickly put you at a disadvantage and heightens the risk of permanently losing a battle-brother. The exact effects it has depend on the strain of the Bloom present on the planet, with different strains favoring different effects:

• Poxus, the Strain of Disease: The first strain you'll encounter. Warp Surges associated with the Poxus strain tend to inflict negative status conditions on your Knights and making them more susceptible to said conditions while increasing the debuff resistance of enemies and giving them the ability to inflict debuffs with their attacks.
• Mortus, the Strain of Death: Warp Surges associated with the Mortus strain interfere with using psychic abilities. This can be direct by means like increasing willpower costs, disabling Stratagems, and hurting you when you use psychic abilities, or indirect by providing enemies with the ability to reduce willpower with their attacks.
• Dolorus, the Strain of Agony: Warp Surges associated with the Dolorus strain are prone to inflicting damage directly to your squad, stopping you from healing, and boosting the amount of damage enemies can inflict on you.
• Necrosus, the Strain of Decay: Warp Surges associated with Necrosus revolve around reducing the effectiveness of your attack and defense and provide enemies with more armor to further reduce your ability to hurt them.
• Tentarus, the Strain of Growth: Warp Surges associated with Tentarus pile on Mutations (mostly in the form of HP boosts) and can summon Bloomspawn to get in your way.
• Technophage: Introduced in Duty Eternal, this strain adds much stronger enemies than usual but gives your Knights the chance to salvage valuable archeotech. If they can get it (and like XCOM's Meld you have to reach it quickly), archeotech can be used to upgrade the equipment for Techmarines and Dreadnoughts.

However, being Space Marines and all, each battle-brother won't be instantly killed if they drop to 0 HP in battle; rather they will enter a critically wounded state which they will recover from (albeit with their maximum health cut in half) if healed or after taking 3 turns to catch their breath. Still, if a critically wounded Knight drops to 0 HP again in the same battle, they will die for good, and even if they survive the mission, they lose a Resilience point, which is the number of times they can get critically wounded and survive- if it goes down to zero, they stay dead. Fortunately, getting promoted increases maximum Resilience, so it pays off to preserve your forces as much as possible. And unlike XCOM, your Grey Knights know which end of the Storm Bolter the shots come out of so there's no risk of missing your attacks. You do however have a chance to score critical hits (both in melee and at range, though the former happens more often), which let you deal bonus damage, ignore armor, or debuff enemies in a variety of ways. It becomes imperative to abuse crits as much as possible later on when more nasty enemies show up in order to disable their more dangerous weapons and abilities, which can be optimized via certain skills and wargear.

The battlefield contains many obstacles such as classic explosive barrels and statues that can be shot or smashed to take out multiple enemies at once, and you can knock around enemies with skills and explosives, potentially blasting them into bottomless pits for instant kills, giving you an incentive to position properly (Be warned! They can do the same to you!). There exist high and low cover objects scattered around; as there is no accuracy factor in this game, all attacks will connect barring certain auto abilities that have a chance to block certain attacks. Thus, you have to rely on cover and armor to absorb fixed damage, where high cover blocks more damage than low. This is important especially in the early game, where your spess mehreens in default wargear are actually pretty squishy starting out, such that lowly cultists armed with autoguns and heavy stubbers can quickly pepper them down if they stand in the open. It's important to note that in most cases entering overwatch will force you to leave cover and only functions in a cone in front of your Knights, so mind your flanks and consider if the potential for a free shot or two is worth leaving yourself exposed.

Another key mechanic in the tactical layer are stuns and executions. Many enemies have a stun bar that scales with difficulty; depleting it via stun damage (not the same as HP damage) will stun the enemy, opening them up to a guaranteed crit from the next attack. Performing a melee attack on a stunned enemy gives you the option to execute them, instantly killing them while restoring 1 AP to all Knights. This can be very exploitable as it can allow you to wipe out multiple pods in a single turn if you manage to chain stun them all. That being said, some enemies take a lot of hits to stun and a few are outright immune to stuns, executions, or both.

Finally, Inquisitor Vakir can support your Knights from the Edict via Strategems, which can be unlocked through her research, acting as once-per-mission spells that include granting additional AP, group teleportation, or healing. However, they will be disabled if she is temporarily wounded through random events, a Warp Storm is active over the mission location, or if she personally takes to the field in certain story missions, using a custom set of equipment and psyker powers.

Grey Knight Classes

4 classes of Grey Knights are available at the start of the game, while 4 more advanced classes can be unlocked later after a story mission. Two more will be added in the Duty Eternal expansion.

Basic Classes

• Interceptor: Offensive class that can teleport through the Warp to flank enemies or tactically retreat from trouble, without triggering those pesky enemy auto skills. They start off pretty weak and unable to teleport without investing in the skill (though since it's a core skill, it should almost always be available to you), but advancing their teleportation and melee trees grants them insane damage output and mobility; while their ranged tree isn't as impressive, it does allow them to use Psilencers and grants a skill that disables enemy psychic abilities. They don't have much on the defensive side, but with support from allies, they are one of the best classes if not the best class in the game.
• Justicar: Defensive class that focuses on tanking enemy attacks, but can work as an offensive frontliner too. A very jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none class that doesn't really stand out alone, but can support allies well especially by giving them more AP and armor and has a taunt skill for tanking purposes (don't forget to pair it with Overwatch or a Paladin with Defend for maximum effectiveness). Can equip Terminator armor to improve durability, but doing so limits their mobility.
• Purgator: Offensive ranged focused class that can equip big guns like the Psycannon, Psilencer and Incinerator, granting them heavy firepower in exchange for poor melee attacks, so keep them away from melee foes. They can also specialize in grenades, gaining additional grenade uses and improving blast radii to the approval of Tarkus and Ork Kommandos. Going down the Astral Aim tree allows your Purgators to become snipers, scoring guaranteed critical hits that can also disable targets by shooting off their limbs.
• Apothecary: Support class that focuses on healing injured battle-brothers with their Narthecium and supporting them with Servo-skulls. They can also specialize in extracting blight seeds from certain enemies which are needed for further research, but that becomes obsolete once you have reliable crit builds later on. They also have some offensive and supportive psychic powers; despite the latter's short range if you don't have a specific servo-skull from their servo-skull skill tree, the buffs themselves are a significant boost to any melee class. Can also equip Terminator armor.

Advanced Classes

• Paladin: Defensive class like the Justicar but more specialized in frontline tanking, knockback, and inflicting stuns/critical hits. They're limited to only Terminator armor, but is also the only class that can use the Storm Shield, which they can forgo for a Psycannon if you specialize them in it, trading more durability for some firepower. Although they don't get direct boosts to the Aegis like the Justicar and lack most of its support potential, they've got a nifty skill that lets them automatically attack anything in a wide area while also drastically boosting their armor, and with the right upgrade they can outright cancel the first critical wound they get on a mission.
• Chaplain: Support class limited to Terminator armor that is similar to the Justicar, buffing allies and taunting enemies into attacking them. With a greater focus on buffing allies, they use litanies and prayers that last forever but only one of which can be active at a time and uses willpower as long as it's on. Using a different litany or prayer cancels out the previous one, allowing you to adapt to different situations if needed. They are the only class capable of using the Crozius Arcanum, which has a chance to inflict the Vulnerable debuff on enemies with attacks.
• Librarian: Offensive spellcaster limited to Terminator armor with a variety of powerful psychic powers, from group teleportation to energy vortexes that mulch groups of enemies AND disable vehicle weaponry. As a result, they're mostly limited by the number of Will points they have, and because their use will involve raising Warp Surge a lot, they can also learn a skill that will reduce the Warp Surge meter, otherwise it can quickly spiral out of control later in the game.
• Purifier: Offensive ranged focused class like the Purgator, but with a greater focus on the Incinerator and an obsession with setting things on fire that rivals the Salamanders. They can also be trained in Astral Aim and grenade-fu like the Purgator, but unlike the Purgator, can become specialized in melee to scorch adjacent enemies with the purifying flames of their soul. True to their name, their purity makes them immune to hazards, capable of purifying enemies of their buffs and applying a purifying flame damage over time on them, which can become permanent when upgraded. Like the Purgator, they cannot use Terminator armor.

The Castellan Champion edition adds Castellan Crowe as a playable unit, wielding the Black Blade of Antwyr with a unique skill tree. This would sound great if not for the fact that he's effectively day one DLC gated behind $10.

Duty Eternal Classes

• Techmarine: The Techmarine himself is a balanced mix of melee and ranged ability thanks to his bolter, Omnissian Axe, and servo-harness, and possesses a mix of tools to mess with mechanical foes while acting as a healer/buffer for any Dreadnoughts. But his biggest draw is from the combat servitors he can bring into battle with him in the place of wargear. Depending on their weapons, they can take multiple roles- they can overwatch, incapacitate enemies to force them to skip their turns, or just hit really hard. They're squishy compared to a Grey Knight, but on the other hand they're also expendable.
• Venerable Dreadnought: It's a Dreadnought, what the hell did you expect? Comes with options for Nemesis Doomfist with built-in heavy flamer, Doomglaive, twin-linked lascannons, plasma cannon, missile launcher, and assault cannon. It can only join on specific "Technophage" missions, and does so as a fifth member of your squad.

Chaos Units

• Cultists: Come in a few variants, but most of them can still be quite dangerous. They die very quickly if you actually strike back, but don't underestimate them. Generally, they will try to pin your units with overwatch, suppressive fire and grenades, forcing pinned units to take damage if you try to move them without dislodging the Cultists first. One overwatch shot isn't too bad, but five or six of them at once...not so much.
• Poxwalkers: Typical zombie-type enemies that swarm in large numbers, and their groan ability can turn nearby corpses into weaker but still annoying "lesser Poxwalkers". One variant is the bloated Poxwalker, which has more health and explodes on death in a toxic cloud that improves other Poxwalkers' max HP and inflicts plague on your units; it'll become enraged when its health is low and try to blow up in your face, so either inflict a crit to disable the death explosion or take it out from a safe distance (preferably after clearing out any other Poxwalkers).
• Apostate Preacher: Enemy caster that focuses on buffing Nurgle troops, debuffing your Knights, and forcing Warp Surges. Only slightly tougher than a regular Poxwalker and generally hangs in the back, but can cast bolts of armor-piercing warp-stuff if he doesn't have any buddies to hide behind or has his staff disabled with a crit. All of his abilities are psychic, so Silence will leave him completely helpless. Occasionally, he appears as a target objective in Bloomspawn missions, surrounded by 4 Malignant Growths that can't attack and grant him a shitload of armor as long as they're alive. If you let him complete his ritual, he turns into a Plague Ridden and his Growths turn into Plaguebearers, so try to focus them down as much as possible.
• Bloomspawn: Big ugly plants that spit explosive globs of goop which inflict debuffs when they hit you and heal other enemies caught in the blast, or smack you with armor-piercing vines. Several variations of them exist with different amounts of HP, but all of them should be fought from heavy cover and/or from a safe distance.
  • Bloomspawn Spreader: A grown-up Bloomspawn that you must kill in certain mission types. Like its smaller cousins it acts as a giant mortar, spitting out explosive globs of filth over a huge area that gives your Knights random afflictions and heals its allies. They also gain armor and extra damage for each nearby Feculent Gnarlmaw, and while killing the Gnarlmaws will weaken it you'll need to weigh the advantage that gives against the turn limit built into the missions it shows up in.
• Feculent Gnarlmaw: A surprisingly hardy tree monster that produces a damage field that hurts anyone too close while healing and buffing allies in its range. But you'll have to get close to do substantial damage to it, because it has an aura that reduces ranged damage it receives for both itself and its allies.
• Death Guard Plague Marines: Early game analogues to your Justicars- slow, but well-armored and have a self-heal. Like the cultists, they'll try to set up overwatch traps to lock your Knights down, and they also possess a melee attack that disables auto abilities. Some of them have Plague Belchers that poison the ground, making it hazardous to walk over, but perhaps due to buggy AI, instead of unflinchingly marching up to your knights to shart on them, they will often waste their turn to shart on the empty ground behind themselves if your Knights are too far away. Fortunately/Unfortunately (depending on your perspective), their AI got improved and now they're a lot more numerous and aggressive. A free update also introduced Plague Marines equipped with Meltaguns and krak grenades, which naturally make them able to blow through your armor more readily.
• Plague Champions: Stronger Plague Marines with significantly increased survivability. They can give orders to their allies to help them beat you up better while stealing your Willpower, smashing your cover, and debuffing your defense. At least they can't heal themselves. They can also make allies immune to stun, so if you're abusing stuns and executions, you might want to take him down before he can buff his allies.
• Noxious Blightbringer: The bell-wielding bastards specialize in stripping away defenses, with the ability to nullify defensive abilities like the Aegis Shield.
• Blightlord Terminators: Heavier armor than the regular Plague Marines, access to suppressing fire from their autocannons, and the ability to automatically melee attack the first Knight to walk next to them make these guys a nasty piece of work, to say nothing of their ability to debuff your ranged damage with their blight grenades. Either try to outrange them or bring someone that can disrupt their melee counter.
• Blightlord Champions: Nurglite equivalents to your Paladins: they don't have any ranged attacks, but they hit hard in melee and can lock down chokepoints with the best of them with their equivalent of the Paladin's Defend skill. Engage them at long range, preferably with a weapon that has Armor Pierce or Armor Break; they've got an AoE that debuffs melee attacks, so while you could try to beat them at their own game it's not a very good idea.
• Unnamable Beasts of Nurgle: A Daemonic creature with a fuckton of HP but no armor, though they can be stunned. They don't inflict a lot of damage, but most of their attacks are AoE and inflict knockback, and they have an ability to grab one of your Knights to instakill them next turn. Fortunately, you can disable most of the above abilities by shooting/hacking off the limb that enables them, however they have a 50% chance to heal and regrow a limb at the end of their turn. They can also gain mutations at a disturbing rate, so you might want to kill them fast.
• Foetid Bloat-Drone: A mechanical unit with low armor but a decent amount of HP, they focus on crippling your Knights' movement. They can bomb an area to inflict the Hobbled effect (-1 movement) and return fire at any ranged attack, inflicting Immobilized, both attacks ignoring armor. As such, a melee specialist can easily dispatch them, while you'll have to use full cover, disable their return fire ability or disrupt them to safely hit them with ranged. They can also consume nearby corpses to heal themselves and gain a mutation. A free update gives some of these Fleshmowers, which makes them dangerous to face in melee but reduces the threat they pose at long range.
• Myphitic Blight-Hauler: Lots of armor, but once that breaks has surprisingly low health, which also makes it easy to kill with armor ignoring attacks. Can do heavy damage and smack your units away if they're in melee and can produce a smokescreen that weakens incoming ranged attacks. Has a special "Mortar" attack that will blow up small areas after a turn, can smash up cover, and has a multi-melta that breaks armor.
• Helbrute: At long range, he blasts you with armor breaking attacks that wreck cover or charges you in an attempt to knock you over, and up close he can grab your Knights to leave them unable to act before throwing them a turn later. Focus fire on him with high powered attacks from as far away as possible, since he tries to charge and grab whoever hits him and explodes a turn after he dies. Disrupting him, with Psilencers for example, can disable his many dangerous auto skills including his explosion on death.
• Nurglings: Not enemies so much as they are a map hazard in Aeger's boss fight. They spawn every turn from specific structures aptly known as "Nurgling Spawners" and from Aeger himself, who consumes them to use in several nasty skills and can transform them into Plaguebearers. You can't target them individually but your Knights can knock them around by moving on them, and they can be destroyed with AoE attacks.
• Plaguebearers: The most common Nurgle daemons are slow as molasses, but they can take a beating and gain a new mutation every turn. Take them down quickly before they get the mutation that lets them survive the first fatal hit they take, or at least have a way to purge those mutations before they start to add up. Keep in mind that they have a chance to negate one melee attack per turn, and watch out for the debuffs they can inflict.
• Plague Ridden: Elite Plaguebearers with a ranged spread attack that debuffs Knights and heals allies at the same time and can provide mutations for nearby allies as well. The first hit they take in a turn increases the Warp Surge counter for good measure, and they're just as tough as you'd expect. They have an aura that reduces ranged damage for themselves and their allies, so unlike the standard Plaguebearers you'll want to get up close to beat them. Silencing them with Psyk-Out Grenades will keep them from using their most dangerous abilities.

Chaos Bosses

• Kadex Ilkarion, Warden of the Bloom: The Daemon Prince presiding over the Bloom's spread, Kadex first introduces himself when Inquisitor Vakir and your Knights discover the origins of the blight seeds inside an infested Aeldari Craftworld. As Vakir tries to get a sample from the corrupted Infinity Circuit, he must be fought off alongside waves of Nurglite reinforcements while protecting the Inquisitor. He possesses a number of abilities designed to Troll you, from teleporting a Knight to a random spot (typically right in front of a bunch of Plague Marines and Plaguebearers), cursing a Knight to take damage when Kadex is wounded, creating illusory duplicates of himself when he's hit, and simply calling even more reinforcements on top of the ones that already spawn in constantly. Turns out he has a bone to pick with Vakir for foiling one of his plans in the past. He shows up again later to invade the Baleful Edict, doing all of the same shit but matters are complicated further by your intially being only able to use Vakir. Your Knights will eventually show up, but you won't have any control over which ones they are- you have been leveling everyone up, right? He gets a tiny canon cameo in The Siege of Terra's sixth book Warhawk where he's described as leading one of the Death Guard's larger groups outside the Lions Gate Spaceport.
• Aeger the Benevolent, Reaper of the Poxus Strain: A Great Unclean One said to have an extensive history of defilement, and is always accompanied by a mass of his Nurgling "nephews". He has 100 health, spawns Nurglings with the help of a handful of Nurgling spawners in his arena, and is armed with both a Plague Flail and Doomsday Bell. The flail knocks your men back and plagues them, while the bell makes him consume Nurglings to heal himself and turn them into Plaguebearers. Take out the Nurgling spawners first, as his most powerful abilities need a bunch of Nurglings nearby to work properly.
• Malathian the Harvester, Reaper of the Mortus Strain: Another Great Unclean One, this time armed with a Bilesword and Bileblade. His psychic attacks get stronger with the number of other daemons he summons to the point of being able to cause one-hit kills, plus he creates effigies that boost his armor to massive levels and also inflict powerful debuffs as long as they're present. Worse, the effigies add further debuffs to his attacks, including one that kills the victim in 3 turns (and by sheer coincidence, its debuff causes Knights whose HP hits 0 to outright die rather than taking a critical wound). Keep an Interceptor around to take out the minions and effigies while one of your tankier Knights keeps Malathian busy.
• Cruciatus the Generous, Reaper of the Dolorus Strain: You might think that having to take down a Knight Desecrator with just four Grey Knights and no access to dedicated anti-vehicle weapons might be just a tiny bit unfair, and you'd be absolutely right. His health is surprisingly low for a boss, but he's got tons of armor, multiple ranged AoE attacks from his Laser Destructor, and a melee attack that incapacitates a Knight for a turn before either dealing damage or outright inflicting a critical wound. Fighting him requires lots of armor piercing/armor breaking abilities combined with careful exploitation of his habit of rushing at the first Knight that shoots him. Critical hits will be a big help too, as one of his parts will increase his vulnerability to future crits if broken.
• Munificus the Undying, Reaper of the Tentarus Strain: This powered up Unnameable Beast isn't called "Undying" for nothing- if an attack doesn't outright kill him he'll immediately heal right back up to full health. Most of his attacks aren't especially strong, but they're AoE and possess knockback that'll bounce you around the arena, possibly into a bottomless pit. The secret to beating him is to use criticals to break his body parts- that'll reduce his max HP until it becomes possible to take him down in a single hit. Naturally, it's not that simple to do because he'll dump a hazard zone and a Bloomspawn every time he takes a crit before jumping out of reach, and his arena is also full of chasms that Power Armor can jump cross, but Terminator Armor can't. Thus, Purgators/Purifiers with Astral Aim, crit focused Interceptors and Librarians with upgraded Gate of Infinity are easiest ways to quickly chase him down and knock off his bits, while being able to quickly clean up the weeds that keep spawning in. Abilities that remove mutations will also help since he gets a new one with every turn.
• Morgellus the Corroded Prince, Reaper of the Necrosus Strain: A big, bulky Plague Hulk with access to a bunch of abilities to break your armor and disrupt your ability to fight him, backed up with high health and armor. He's immune to critical hits under normal circumstances, but if you stun him you can remove that immunity from him. You'll want to have a melee damage dealer for this since he takes less damage from ranged attacks until you break his claws, but with all the knockback he can bring you'll need an Interceptor to stick near him at all times. Oh, and watch your footing because he'll try to break parts of the platform you're standing on and send you falling to your doom. Take too long, and the entire battlefield will fall apart with you on it.
• Mortarion: Ok, ok, try to suspend your disbelief that Draigo and 4 other Grey Knights can take the fight to a Daemon Primarch in his own backyard. Believe it or not the writer responsible for such fluff-rape is Aaron Dembski-Bowden rather than Matt Ward this time. But seriously, Mortarion is fittingly the single deadliest enemy you'll ever face in the game. With 200 health, 10 armor that can't be broken, and a -50% critical chance, this fight will truly be a test of endurance. He's also 2-3x as fast as any other boss or enemy in the game and doesn't trigger overwatch when he moves. Morty's weaponry also packs a punch. Lantern is an AOE attack which ignores cover, armor, and sends your knights flying. Silence will also send them flying, hobble them, and do heavy damage while breaking 2 armor. His many abilities are geared towards AOE effects and debuffs as well, while Barbaran Plate ensures the greatest blows aren't permanent. Draigo himself is an important part of the fight, because if he goes down the Death Lord will try to take his soul- if he isn't disrupted immediately you lose on the spot. During the battle, Mortarion will power himself up using one of the Bloom Roots in his arena with every 40 HP he loses- he's invincible when he does this and only Draigo can destroy the roots. In addition to all of this, you'll also have to manage a second squad to prevent a massive army of Death Guard goons from joining their Primarch and making an already fearsome battle even more of a struggle than it already is. Make sure this team is tanky and has plenty of ranged firepower, because they'll be up to their armpits in Blightlords. Mortarion is kept off of Draigo long enough for the ritual to complete and when the bloom is purged instead of finishing the fight he rages at Kadex's incompetence and teleports away.

Tips and Builds

• Ship speed should be the most prioritized ship repair/upgrade as it will help you reach multiple Bloom missions whenever they appear, maximizing your requisition and resource gain as long as you can consistently complete missions.
• Stuns and executions are the most broken mechanic in the game as stated above, especially on the highest difficulties which make enemies as disgustingly resilient as Nurglite forces are expected to be, where it is much easier to inflict stun damage over HP damage.
• Recruited high level Knights with skills you don't want? You can either respec new Knights with dead Knights through the upgraded Apothecarion or simply send them home to Titan to free up your barracks at a 2 Requisition refund. A free update added the ability to pay requisition to respec as well, although any Knight thus respecced will be unavailable for a while.
• Besides respec'ing abilities, dead Knights can also be turned into bonus ability points to make your Knights even stronger.
• Random events are probably one of the more spottier aspects of the game where it seems you're screwed over more often than you gain something. The consequences are also very vague and don't often tell you what exactly it means when something is "at risk", which can range from losing resources/hull points, damaging part of the Edict, wounding one of your crew to random Knights going on a 60 day crusade or straight up dying. Because you don't always get corpses back for respec'ing from events and high starting level recruits can have bad skill builds, avoid options that send your Knights away if you can afford the other options.
• Damage-over-time afflictions like Bleed trigger at the end of the turn, which means an enemy about to die from Bleed can still make one more move before dying, or be saved by an ally. Fortunately, the same applies to you.
• Performing an Exterminatus isn't necessary to complete the game but is still a good option to have in case you can't spare any Knights for a Noctilith Crown mission, though Grand Master Kai won't be happy if you use it.
• A lot of Strategems fall under "unnecessary but nice to have", so you aren't missing much by skipping most of the Strategem research, especially when Quicksilver and Gate of Infinity, two early Strategems you can unlock, are some of the best and relevant throughout the entire game.
• Justicar
  • Most builds can't go wrong picking up Terminator Armour and Hammerhand, granting more durability and allowing your Justicar to disable dangerous abilities/collect blight seeds in a pinch.
  • Pure Support: Primarily supports other Knights with Honour the Chapter, which will require a lot of Willpower. For your remaining skill points, investing in Fortress helps you protect squishy frontliners like Interceptors and melee Purifiers, while investing in the Psycannon discipline forsakes melee damage to grant some midrange damage output (unless they're using Terminator armor).
  • Frontline Tank: Stack HP and armour to become unkillable especially with Warpcharged Aegis Shield, then using the Provoke ability to draw fire away from your other Knights. You can then invest in Crushing Charge or Rend the Unclean to smash aside the enemies swarming your Justicar, or double back to Honour the Chapter to support allies.
• Interceptor
  • Teleport Range is recommended for any build since it is what truly grants the Interceptor amazing mobility, same goes for Hammerhand with the same reason as the Justicar. Psychic Suppression is also a good utility skill to consider when dealing with enemy casters that you can't kill this turn.
  • Melee Fighter: A purely offensive build that invests in the Teleport Strike and Melee discipline trees. You can Teleport Strike into a large group of enemies, then proceed to blend them with constant crits, where the Ruthless Precision skill lets them go on a rampage. Couple this build with focus and crit enhancing wargear, and the Justicar's Honour the Chapter, your Interceptor will be tearing through even bosses in a single turn.
  • Ranged Support: The less popular build because the Interceptor doesn't have good skills to take advantage of shooting and are limited to Storm Bolters until you unlock the Psilencer. They also rely on the Support Fire skill to put out some extra shots on an enemy being shot at by another Knight if it's also in range of the Interceptor. However, Support Fire shots are a fixed 2 damage regardless of your weapon's base damage, and require investing in the entire tree to activate a second time and inflict extra damage, and also cannot crit or inflict stun. Thus, it's also antithetical to stun builds as Support Fire can accidentally kill off enemies you were about to stun.
  • Melee Support: A more sensible but nonetheless obsolete build featuring the Hammerhand, Psychic Suppression and Cleansing Strike trees to disable specific enemies, when it's better to just outright kill enemies than cripple them.
• Apothecary
  • Keep in mind that you can directly use the Apothecary's heal and psychic powers on a target WITHOUT manually moving next to them, as the Apothecary will move to the target regardless without wasting AP.
  • Apothecarion Skulls have limited uses and takes up a wargear slot, so it may not be worth the skill point investment unless your build is very Biomancy heavy.
  • Pure Support: The typical build for the Apothecary, focusing on improving Battlefield Medicine and Servo Skulls with some Biomancy on the side. Upgrading Battlefield Medicine with Warpcharge allows it to grant 1 AP to the Knight being healed, which gives your heal a lot more value. Servo Skulls are very flexible type of wargear and the Apothecary can carry a buttload of them, and being able to heal from a distance is essential when almost all of the Apothecary's abilities are melee range. Warp Speed and Iron Arm are the go-to psychic powers, which can make Interceptors even more monstrous while compensating the Justicar and Paladin's low mobility.
  • Melee Support: Apothecaries can dabble in melee combat by using their Biomancy skills on themselves, though they lack Hammerhand, passive crit bonuses and Nartheciums aren't really amazing weapons. With Terminator Armour, they can soak quite a bit of damage and heal it back up, while the Emperor's Judgement ability can be used to slow down and control melee foes.
• Purgator
  • In general, any build should focus entirely on either the Psycannon or Psilencer. Both weapons have their merits, so you should have a Purgator specialized for each. Remaining points can then be invested in the Astral Aim, Sanctified Kill Zone and Wargear disciplines, the latter of which allows you to carry up to 6 grenades on a single Knight.
    • While they can also use the Incinerator, they don't have any abilities that really benefit it, leaving it a better choice for the Purifier.
  • AoE Nuker: Focusing on the Psycannon, a strong midrange weapon with the Psychic Onslaught Warpcharge ability that blasts the area surrounding the target, capable of slaughtering groups of enemies at a decent range. Put Sanctified Kill Zone on your intended targets to ensure maximum carnage. With focus enhancing wargear and the Rapid Reload skill, you can compensate for the Psycannon's low ammo count by ensuring you never run out of it. Near the end of the game, you may want to grab Psycannons with higher base damage and/or crit, as big chunky targets like Helbrutes and Blightlord Champions aren't really threatened by Psychic Onslaught.
  • Ork Sniper: Focusing on the Psilencer, which is the longest range weapon type in the game. You can easily pick off enemies at long range and with some focus, consistently inflict the Disrupted ability which can neuter many dangerous foes. The Psilencer's AoE ability has short range, but is useful in a pinch if your Purgator is swarmed by Poxwalkers or Plaguebearers. Support Fire is iffy for reasons stated for the Interceptor, and similarly doesn't benefit from any weapon effects for just a little fixed damage.
  • Ranged Support: Similar to the Interceptor, focusing on offense is vastly preferable to support. Still, it's doable and somewhat decent. The Emperor's Light power isn't bad, and can be useful against certain bosses and enemies that love their mutations, but more importantly gives you some breathing room against ranged enemies. Arcane Weapons is a weird skill, since the best classes that benefit from it is another Purgator or a Purifier. You might also want to run a Storm Bolter if you invest in that skill due to its higher ammo capacity (especially with some Master-crafted variants), which isn't too terrible since the Purgator can unlock armor pierce on its Psybolt, and can perform executions.
• Librarian
  • While all their abilities are useful, any sort of Librarian benefits most from investing in their Gate of Infinity and Warp Surge trees, because group teleportation is just that broken and being able to reduce Warp Surge whenever you don't want to deal with it is handy.
  • If you take the passive focus skills, Librarians with a Nemesis Force Staff become pretty tanky as they can ensure Aegis Shield activates for free every turn.
  • AoE Nuker: Focusing on the Vortex of Doom skill, it functions similarly to the Psycannon's Psychic Onslaught ability, but with the bonus of disabling weapons of mechanical foes (Helbrutes, Foetid Bloat Drones etc.). However, it's not as useful against high HP organic or daemonic enemies, where Psychic Shriek takes the spotlight, helping you stun enemies like Blightlords and Chaos S- those things.
  • Pure Support: Librarians can also stack a ton of armour on allies with Sanctuary and Fortress, similar to the Justicar. However, by the time you unlock the Librarian, you should have a pretty high level Justicar around, and once again it's simply better to kill enemies before they can attack you.
  • Ranged Support: With very high Willpower, the Librarian can specialize in Storm Bolters with good Psybolt abilities. If it grants increased crit chance, you can consider investing in the Psybolt tree to increase the Librarian's ranged damage output, while with increased stun, you can easily stun enemies, especially individual/spread out enemies where Psychic Shriek isn't cost effective.
• Chaplain
  • Litanies and prayers use 1 WP per turn once active, so try not to activate them if you don't need to.
  • You have enough skill points to fully invest in at most 2 skill trees, so the following builds can overlap. However, avoid dipping into too many trees as you can only have one litany active per Chaplain, and you really want upgraded litanies over their basic forms.
  • AP Generator: Focusing on the Litany of Hate, this couples best with stun builds, ensuring a constant stream of AP that will trivialize even multiple pods.
  • Frontline Tank: Use Provoke and Litany of Faith to draw fire and soak damage, especially if you have a good Terminator Armour with better armour or Aegis Shield. With a crit focused Crozius, they can also fight competently in melee and benefit off Ruthless Precision.
  • WP Generator: Invocation Of Focus complements high WP usage, allowing you to stretch out your WP use especially later on where opportunities to recover WP become fewer. With a focus boosting Crozius or Storm Bolter, the Chaplain himself can even use Force Strikes and Psybolts for free (mind the Warp Surge!)
  • Crit Support: With either Words Of Power or Intonement for Guidance though the former is more flexible. Words Of Power further improves the damage output of Interceptors and Paladins, and also helps shooty Knights with good reliable crits. Intonement for Guidance is more iffy and mainly used if you have a lot of ranged focused Knights without crit boosting wargear.
• Paladin
  • Once again, Hammerhand is a great ability to grab on a melee class in general, and the Paladin has several crit damage bonuses to compound his damage output.
  • The Defend Position ability is tied to the Storm Shield, so it cannot be used if you trade it for a different ranged weapon.
  • One of the Paladin's core skills is +1 stun, which helps a lot in stun builds especially with an Apothecary casting Warp Speed and Iron Arm. With a high stun weapon, the Paladin can run around stunning and executing enemies with impunity, unless they cannot be stunned.
  • Frontline Tank: The Paladin's best role, focusing the the Defend tree with some points into Melee and Fury. Since you'll be locked to the Storm Shield, you're recommended to take Smite as a backup ranged option. Defend Position is a melee overwatch skill, which can be used to catch enemies around corners or camp reinforcement portals, also setting up the Paladin to use Hammerhand or Fury of the Ancients next turn. Furthermore, in the same tree, Only In Death allows you to put your Paladin in harm's way with less consequence.
  • Ranged Support: A less orthodox build passing up the Storm Shield and the Defend Position ability for support skills and ranged potential. If you wanted to try Arcane Weapons and not waste a Purgator, here's your chance. You can also invest in the Ranged Weapons tree, which is your only real way of improving the Psycannon. If you still have points left over, you can go for the Emperor's Will tree in order to donate WP that would be better used on other Knights, or in Hammerhand, since you can still use a melee weapon.
• Purifier
  • The Wargear discipline is similar to the Purgator's but with the ability to get +2 grenade damage, making it a reliable investment for most builds.
  • Investing in Unstoppable Conflagration can greatly improve damage output, especially with the Incinerator, but you'll want a Justicar to supply AP for casting the required psychic powers.
  • AoE Nuker: Probably the best Purifier build, investing in the Incinerator and Flames Of Purity disciplines to melt entire pods with the Incinerator. Though Astral Aim cannot be used with Incinerators, it's worth investing in the tree just for Rapid Reload, since Flames Of Purity will constantly deplete your ammo. Speaking of which, you'll naturally want wargear that maximizes your ammo count, since Flames Of Purity scales with the amount of ammo used. Be careful if you pick up knockback for Flames Of Purity, as you might knock smaller enemies like Plague Marines and Plaguebearers out of range.
  • Ranged Support: While lacking Psycannon and Psilencer passives, Purifiers can still make use of Astral Aim to snipe off enemy bits, chuck a ton of grenades and purge mutations with Cleansing Flame which can permanently set enemies on fire once upgraded. This can be useful if you're running out of time and don't want to be bogged down with weak enemies, so you can set them on fire and leave them to burn as you rush the objective. Unstoppable Conflagration can help improve damage with the lack of ranged passives.
  • Melee Support: The only way to describe a melee built Purifier, as they lack durability, mobility and damage output. Still, they have access to Hammerhand which is always useful in a pinch, and are immune to hazards, meaning they can safely charge through plague zones and fire to slap a heretic, and grenade-fu is always helpful. Again, Unstoppable Conflagration is your only real way to improve damage with the lack of passives, and you can also pick up Cleansing Flame for the same reasons above.
    • If you have his DLC, Castellan Crowe plays like a melee Purifier, but with Warp Suppression, Rend The Unclean and Crushing Charge in lieu of of the Astral Aim, Incinerator or Flames of Purity trees. Not that it matters since he can't change his loadout (for obvious reasons, not like it matters because it's extremely powerful anyway), and his unique class skill is literally Plot Armor that prevents him from dying or losing Resilience. While they aren't fully upgraded, these skills do give him a noticeably greater amount of utility and AoE damage over generic melee Purifiers, and he also has the First Strike auto ability that lets him melee attack the first enemy that moves adjacent to him.

Links

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