[crizza]

Keep us updated, I nearly bought this myself a year ago, but back then, my GPU did not support dx11.

[The E]

Right now I'm loosing planets faster than I can reconquer them.
Data theft works, if you're not up against Eldar, planetary bombardment as attacker is rather easy too, but as a defender...

Well I guess loosing more planets than you are able to defend is a way to reflect the hopeless situation of the empire.

You will never have enough deployments available to keep the entire sector free of Xenos and Heretics. You basically need to pick and choose which penalties you'd rather avoid.

That being said, as the story progresses, you will find ways to neutralize at least two threats; whether or not that is enough to stabilize and claw back the sector is something I do not know at present.

[NGTM-1R]

Fought my first mission alongside Space Marines.

They deployed a bunch of Swords, which were like any other Swords really, and a Strike Cruiser.

The Strike Cruiser was smaller than my Dauntless (I deployed Overlord-class Loci Veritas Lux and Dauntless-class Righteous Retribution), but had a triple set of medium macrobattery broadsides and a heavy macrobattery turret equivalent to the ones found on the Emperor-class, as well as a single launch bay's worth of Thunderhawks.

They lost the Thunderhawks early in the battle to a teleport attack but it hardly mattered. I beat down a Styx while the Strike Cruiser attacked a trio of Hellbringers and massacred them with a combination of macrobatteries and boarding attacks. After that the last enemy ship ran away.

[crizza]

Sounds strikecruisers are neat

[NGTM-1R]

Torment just got away because it was one of only two capital ships in a blockade mission; I had to kill the other since it was the real threat to the defense platforms. Blah.

Loci Veritas Lux and Loci Veritas Lumien look forward to the rematch. Perhaps by then I'll have a battleship as well.

[crizza]

The Sword of Sacrilege was destroyed by Battlefleet Gothic, a rather easy cruiser battle, Rogal Dorn, you have been avenged.
Next on the list is the Tormentor but it is a convoy mission, so this could be difficult.
The Emperors Revenge will look forward to this battle.
I love my Retribution

As a side note: Orar is safe too, but this thrice damned Abaddon seemed to have destroyed a Blackstone.
Since I have the two artifacts, I hope he realy destroyed it and not took it away, since in established lore, he used the artifacts to power them down and took them.

Oh and I fought besides Astartes ships, although they looked like Strike Cruisers, they were named Tyrant-class I think.

[NGTM-1R]

The Torment is no more.

Battlegroup Spire, under the auspices of Battlefleet Gothic, deployed its pair of Overlord-class battlecruisers. Loci Veritas Lux and Loci Veritas Lumien had engaged the Torment previously, but only briefly. In support were veteran Dauntless Mk 2-class Light Cruiser Righteous Retribution carrying a squad of Imperial Fists in Tactical Dreadnought armor and new Dauntless Mk 2-class Light Cruiser Impetuous. A single Cobra-class destroyer, the X-15, was all that could be mustered as escorts in time.

Against this the Chaos fleet deployed the Torment, a Murder-class cruiser, a Hellbringer Mk 2 light curiser, and a single Idolator raider.

The Torment attempted to form one flank of a pincer maneuver against Battlegroup Spire, and was unprepared when the Battlegroup turned towards it and charged. X-15 was hit hard by the Chaos battleship's broadside only seconds after launching its first torpedoes and fell behind, but Righteous Retribution and Impetuous charged in and engaged the Chaos ship at close quarters, bringing its shields down to facilitate a devastating teleport attack by the Imperial Fists Terminator squad on the bridge of the Torment. Loci Veritas Lux and Loci Veritas Lumien closed and exchanged broadsides with the Torment, while the light cruisers provided support as they fell back.

But it was brave little X-15 that sealed the Torment's fate. Looping back in for a second torpedo run after damage control managed get a handle on the Cobra's issues, X-15 closed from astern and launched two torpedoes into the rear of the battleship. One of them, by chance, found a weak point and punched deep into the Torment's plasma drives, crippling the ship and preventing its attempt to outpace the two Imperial battlecruisers. The two Dauntless-class ships added their own torpedo salvos and then closed in on the Torment's port side, while Loci Veritas Lux and Loci Veritas Lumien attacked from its starboard.

Unable to flee, and with its void shields and some lance batteries disabled by hit and run attacks from the encircling Imperial ships (with the Terminators taking top honors again), Torment was pounded into scrap by the ships of Battlegroup Spire. The Murder-class arrived on the scene just in time for a massed torpedo volley from every ship of Battlegroup Spire to push it to within an inch of its life. It and the Hellbringer promptly fled the field.

[Aesaar]

Tau confirmed as second DLC faction.

Also Tyranids probably coming later.

Personally I hope they add Grand Cruisers and the other ships from the supplements at some point.

[NGTM-1R]

Personally I hope they add Grand Cruisers and the other ships from the supplements at some point.

Likewise. At the least there's a lot of Imperial and Chaos ships that could be added in.

[rubixcube]

Tau confirmed as second DLC faction.

Also Tyranids probably coming later.

Personally I hope they add Grand Cruisers and the other ships from the supplements at some point.

Good to see they beat their revenue expectations

[StarSlayer]

Tau confirmed as second DLC faction.

Also Tyranids probably coming later.

Personally I hope they add Grand Cruisers and the other ships from the supplements at some point.

Good to see they beat their revenue expectations

CoOp versus AI looks pretty snazzy, I'd be up for getting some matches with you folks!

[0rph3u5]

The announcement for leagues is something I will keep an eye on ...

[NGTM-1R]

First Blackstone fortress jumped out on me at -34 HP.

Little bit mad about that.

[crizza]

I tried that mission three times...
Three ****ing times...
At one time it hit zero and jumped, after that I googled and found out it will survive no matter what you do, like that other big bad ship when you meet it
Granted, the dialouge could be more like "You drove them of, good job" instead of "Buhu, you failed, it will hound us again", but canon seems to be a thing here, after all Abaddon the Failure will take two Blackstones with him at the end of the war

So, about the discussion Nova Cannon or Missile launcher?
On my first attem I used my Retribution, a Mars and some other Cruiser.
The Blackstone warped away fearly early and had crippled the Mars.
Second attempt I switched to an all out missile attack pattern, I even brought these missile escorts.
A piece of cake.
The Blackstone moves straight at you, so if you line up and launch spread after spread of melta torpedos, turn and burn, you'll get this mission over in not time.
Unfortunately these dumbass AI allys usually end up in my line of fire.
So in battle against a Blackstone or later the Planetkiller, missile are the way to go, they are slow and unable to evade and with a bit off maneuvering, you can kill them without getting a single scratch

And about the AI...
Had a breakthrough mission with my Astartes buddies.
A Strike Cruiser, two Swords and a Firestorm on his side and I brought my big R along... it is a bad joke, you try to support him and that Strikecruiser always runs off, so my big guns cannot support him, the point limit of 300 is not helping either.

Addendum: The Eldar will launch no new attacks in the Sektor, or so I was told.

Icannot emphasis the toughness of a Battleship enough.
I took two Battlecruiser and my Retibution into said battle, add to this an Eldar BB, a Cruiser and several escorts against Orks.

Once again the AI charges ahead, resulting in several escort being ran through by the opposing Ork ships.
While I picked my targets, my Dominator was slowly picked apart, it lost engines, reactor, got an Hullbreach and so on, but at that point, the Eldar had escaped and only their badly damaged BB.
So I was up against an Ork BB and two cruisers.
Since my Gothic has only a range of 6km with its braodside guns, I had my whole fleet set at 6km engagement range.
With the Dominator safely fled(and of course lost in the warp), I set up the range of the big R to 12km and shredded the orks, supported by the Gothic.
The big R was badly damaged herself, reactor gone and an hullbreach as well. So I kept her far away and let the Gothic dive in in, when the microwarp was ready, fired, and warped out.
The AI, braindead stupid chased after the Gothic, so I could repair the big R up to AFAIK 75% and delieverd the killing blow.
It is simply outstanding how much damage this beast can take, only to shred opposing ships.
Right now I choose to run her with Firestorms as escorts, sniping away enemy shields, launching a spread and then thunder the broadsides

[NGTM-1R]

The 12th Black Crusade is over. Battlegroup Spire won at Schindelgeist.

Retribution-class battleship His Wrath, Overlord-class battlecruisers Loci Veritas Lux and Loci Veritas Lumien, and Dauntless Mk2-class light cruiser Righteous Retribution engaged at maximum range with salvos of melta torpedoes, laying down several salvos before His Wrath was forced to sidestep a return shot from the Planet Killer's Armageddon Gun by use of a micro warp jump. Before they could fire another salvo after that, a Desolator-class battleship attempted to interpose itself, crossing in front of His Wrath and Loci Veritas Lumien. Both launched torpedoes with standard plasma warheads, doing moderate damage.

The Desolator managed to get in front of Loci Veritas Lux, tangling the two ships up, but the allied Voidstalker Khaine's Testament swept in on it and attacked, so all that the Desolator bought was time as Imperial and Eldar ships rapidly tore into it. The remaining ships of Battlegroup Spire continued to advance firing plasma-headed torpedoes now, and Loci Veritas Lumien was forced to avoid a shot from the Armageddon gun in a similar manner. Righteous Retribution fired its last spread and turned broadside, avoiding torpedoes from the Planet Killer by rapid maneuvers and exchanging broadsides with the much heavier vessel. It had to abandon the engagement quickly, being far out of its weight class, but did some damage and the embarked squad of Imperial Fists successful sabotaged the Planet Killer's bridge, though they were killed to a man when they attempted to challenge Abaddon himself.

Next to arrive were Loci Veritas Lumien and His Wrath. While the Retribution traded broadsides with the Planet Killer, supercharging its voids to stand up to the impressive broadside lances, Loci Veritas Lumien cut across its rear. The Planet Killer turned and attempted to fire the Armageddon Gun at Loci Veritas Lumien, but the battlecruiser escaped the shot by going all engines ahead full while His Wrath made a rapid turn to fire another salvo of torpedoes at the same time a teleport attack from embarked Imperial Fists terminators rampaged through the Planet Killer's engine room. All eight struck home and the damage was catastrophic.

Enter Loci Veritas Lux, with a full spread of six torpedoes from the other side. The Planet Killer, crippled, attempted to disengage but Loci Veritas Lumien had reloaded all tubes and launched another spread of torpedoes before it could manage to create a stable warp portal.

[0rph3u5]

This happened yesterday during a 2v2* match, following the description of my tactics for the mission:



  (and that's not showing my "partner's" "suggestion" to win by destroying the enemy fleets; also note that the enemy fleets were two CAs and one BCs with a CL)

Nevermind we won that match several minutes later after my Auroras mopped up the platfroms and escaped... (there is nothing better than Hellbringers or Auroras for Breakthrough)

* (I like 2v2 better than 1v1 because the matches are 300 points each, so you are more focused on your ships and so can perfrom better - also keeps CAs more relevant and I like my Shadows)

[T-Man]

Tau confirmed as second DLC faction.

Oooh missed this. Pardon me while I squee like a small child for the rest of the day (yes i'm a fanboy of them, sorry). Also suggests they might be going for every race eventually as they are last race I expected to ever be in it (assumed it would be Necrons given the Blackstones, or maybe Dark Eldar).

[0rph3u5]

Today was also Patch-time, which reworked how criticals are triggered. Essentially they added a new category of temporal crits and reduced the amount of sources for the permanent crits.

Today's patch also added two new ships to the Eldar Corsairs line-up:
- Eldar Shadows Kurnous-Pattern trades the Torpedo-launcher for the hangar
- Eldar Eclipse Vaul-Pattern trades the hangar for a Torpedo-launcher

Eldar also recieved a number of balance changes including but not limited to the removal of the +3k range for Pulsars upgrade which no one will miss.

[TrashMan]

Call me crazy, but I put ramming spur on most of my ships and I won 99% of battles by constant ramming.
I rammed the orcs to death.
I rammed the blackstone fortreses.
I rammed the Kolosus
I rammed the Planet Killer.

RAM EVERYTHING.

Enemies cried as The Imperial Fisting and Emperors Mighty Rod plowed into their exposed rear.

[0rph3u5]

Going to be out in a few days...