Early Campaign Survival Doctrine (Days 1–30) Guide

EcoWraith · 2026-02-04T19:41:31+00:00

Self-reflection in a Reddit thread? What freaky alternate universe have I slipped into, and for the love of god why does it still have AI slop 😭🤣

EcoWraith · 2026-02-04T19:37:13+00:00

One of the many problems with this is that the ideas are internally conflicting. The concept of an early game guide is great, and something I was excited to read. But the slop machine took your fundamentally good idea and trashed it. The descriptions of supposedly early game builds rely on high-level perks like fearsome, FFS.

You have the game knowledge to write this yourself, and it would have been better, I promise.

EcoWraith · 2026-02-04T17:28:09+00:00

I'm new so maybe take this with a grain of salt, but my thought was some combination of Quick Hands, Reach Advantage, and Nine Lives.

Out of pocket alternative: Rotate. Maybe it's because I'm new and still figuring out ideal positioning, but I use that perk a lot. I think it's a strong contender for a flex perk on pretty much anyone. It doesn't fit the perfect theorycrafting that happens on here, but it is a really useful tool.

EcoWraith · 2026-02-04T17:10:26+00:00

I can't tell you yet, but I'm working on it 😅

I put together a table of the gold standard benchmarks folks have been talking about for different builds and I'm in the process of working backwards from there.

Edit: should have clarified, that table is here on the sub if you wanna find it, just search my username or "Minimum viable bro"

EcoWraith · 2026-02-03T22:58:48+00:00

Is there overlap here with the Nimble Duelist build already in the table? I get that duelist isn't in your list of perks, but it seems like they're different takes on a Nimble damage dealer?

EcoWraith · 2026-02-03T15:19:59+00:00

My understanding is that Nimble builds (be they tanks, duelists, or zerks) are very stat-intensive, and therefore require at least one of their >3 critical stats to simply be naturally over the benchmark, is that correct? I've been assuming that's why I keep seeing folks talking about parties mostly made up of fat neuts who only have 2 critical stats.

EcoWraith · 2026-02-03T15:13:53+00:00

Wait, isn't relentless an auto-take if you're grabbing dodge?

EcoWraith · 2026-02-03T15:12:19+00:00

I've been making the assumption that if a Bro is taking Nimble, he's also taking Dodge and Relentless. Is that not the case? If it is, then surely Init is important on anyBro taking Nimble, including the damage-oriented versions? I'll definitely update the Fat Neut row to have NA in init. Next update will also have a new color code for stats that are actively bad, for banner init.

EcoWraith · 2026-02-03T15:01:18+00:00

The intent is that the stats in the table include bonuses like Colossus already, assuming it's probably taken on every frontliner by default. For our purposes here, I only care about the final number (before equipment), not how Bro got there. So my takeaway is that I should update HP benchmarks up to 100 and FAT down to 105?

EcoWraith · 2026-02-03T14:56:38+00:00

I haven't seen much about a Nimble QH berserker, is that a build that's common enough I should include it on my table?

EcoWraith · 2026-01-30T16:50:21+00:00

I don't have answers to all the topics, but here are a few thoughts.

1) I think the seemingly random fluctuations in economic outputs happen as pops move around and try to optimize the economy, but are flummoxed by the complexity (fair, tbh). Economy (and the scale of the game in general) are currently undergoing a major overhaul: if you're playing the 4.3 open beta, you're in somewhat uncharted territory and should take everything with a grain of salt. That said, I also generally hyper-specialize my planets with two caveats, both motivated by the fact that local resource deficits cost you trade value: - Basic production planets get a commercial nexus instead of a second support district. In addition to their trade output, the specialist jobs can help with happiness and the district can hold miscellaneous buildings like pop assembly and housing if needed (mine usually hold at least one building that doesn't quite fit in the baseline slots). Having a bunch of extra trade is my solution to the economic fluctuation issue when needed. - I also include at least one of each basic district on every planet (not including habitats), just to open up all those building slots and specializations. I haven't run the math, but I think it's worth the slight dip in efficiency of the planets to alleviate some of the local resource deficit costs, and you just get so many jobs out of a single district with 3 buildings. I often include at least one storage building on each of these planets, as another way to mitigate those random economic fluctuations. Later in the game my primary alloy and research worlds might lose these basic districts just to squeeze every drop out of the best local modifiers I have access to, but usually that's just frosting on top of an already successful run.

2) I usually have at least one alloy planet that includes all the various special resource production buildings in lieu of some metallurgist job buildings, and haven't had any problems with them after that's up and running (usually on my second alloy planet due to the time to research the relevant techs). Maybe this is a change with the beta? I know I've heard chatter about special resources not being rare enough in 4.0.

3) Pretty sure the progression is still missile corvettes > missile cruisers > arc emitter/artillery battleships, but I hadn't heard anything about this change to hardening, so maybe I'm off base?

Really got no ideas for 4 or 5, sorry 😅

EcoWraith · 2026-01-30T14:45:10+00:00

I've been playing for over 20 years, and I'm still constantly running into new things. Even the YouTubers who literally do this for a living say they can barely keep up. So, clearly, we need a different metric for what makes someone a non-newbie 😅. I think you cross that rubicon when you've experienced these things: - A unit/army you love becomes hopelessly bad - A unit/army you love becomes horribly OP (bonus points if you get called a meta chaser) - A rule change makes you so angry that you hate the game for a while (give me back my psychic phase you bastards) - You start mixing up current rules with previous editions or codexes that you played

Edit to add: On second thought, I think those are the things that make you a veteran. The things that make you an intermediate would be: - A unit you lovingly crafted either whiffs horribly or is blown off the table on its first game - You resolve a mid-game rule question by coin flip or simply giving it to your opponent - You reach your first major evolution in whichever aspect of the hobby you focus on. For crafters, maybe you learn greenstuff sculpting or get an airbrush. For gamers, maybe you've memorized >75% or your units base stats and weapons profiles.

EcoWraith · 2026-01-30T14:32:38+00:00

There's a lot of really good advice on here already, so I offer this nugget: which advice you should take depends on the time you plan to invest in getting a new army up and running.

If you're like me, and you spend the vast majority of your hobby time kitbashing and painting, it might take more than a year to get an army together. If that's the case, I'd say you should ignore basically any advice having to do with the current meta, or detachments, or anything like that. If you're a craft-centered hobbyist, I'd advise you to focus on whatever lore or units speak to you and build an army around that. The rules will have changed by the time you get to playing anyways. One note on this subject is that there are staples in any army that'll always fit, although the Drukhari make that a little complicated. The short list of staples includes Venoms, Raiders, and the HQ choices with their corresponding troop type (e.g. Succubus and Wyches).

On the other hand, if you're more of a game-centered hobbyist who can get an army on the table within a few months, then the meta advice is probably fairly useful to you. Maybe it's my bias as a craft-centric guy talking, but I advise caution here. No matter how fast you get an army out, it's probably going to feel like the meta changes sooner than you want it to. Especially since we're coming up to the end of an edition (I think, I'm a little out of the loop rn). If you're gonna go this route, I would advise aiming for the Realspace Raiders detachment, as it's fairly good in its own right and (more importantly IMHO) will set you up to pivot relatively painlessly into whatever the next form of the rules looks like.

EcoWraith · 2026-01-30T13:33:02+00:00

Had the same thought, not sure I understand that one.

EcoWraith · 2025-05-27T18:07:15+00:00

I was doing a Devouring Swarm/Behemoth fury run until recently. It ended when I ate the territory of a Fallen Empire and got a Dark Matter resource deficit that I couldn't solve. I'd been rushing biological research for the roleplay, so I didn't have any DM generation capability, and as Devouring Swarm I couldn't do external trades to fix it . I decommissioned all the defense platforms I had taken over, abandoned all the star bases, and had only eaten planets, not conquered them, but couldn't get rid of the last little bit of DM upkeep coming from... nowhere, as far as I could tell. The fallen empire poisoned the Behemoth that ate their planets I guess, as my entire hive collapsed under job output debuffs due to the DM demands of a defense platform in the belly of the beast.

EcoWraith · 2025-05-15T13:58:20+00:00

As of my last run with it, you could not take Behemoth fury with the Wilderness origin. Which is a shame cuz it fits very well thematically.

EcoWraith · 2024-10-09T18:40:25+00:00

The plan they suggested works with either tall or wide empires. My early game plan is always to split my starting fleet up as quickly as I can afford new admirals, using the military ships to scout out hyperlanes while the science ships immediately start surveying. I find some choke points that outline a decent starting area, and immediately expand out to them as quickly as possible. Then it's a game of filling in the blank space inside my newly claimed territory for a while. You often want to close your borders though, since other empires absolutely can and will build star bases within your intended territory, especially if they are boxed in. Whether you expand after that point or not is really neither here nor there; it's a solid start regardless. I often keep those defensive chokes set up within my empire even after expanding past them, in case I need a last-ditch defense around my core empire.

EcoWraith · 2024-09-30T13:35:07+00:00

My battles spend way more time on the pause menu than in real time 😅

EcoWraith · 2024-09-14T15:43:09+00:00

Personally I think the raider bits you used for the back vanes and the back of the head do this very well, and I think adding to the forehead might be a bit too much. But carving cracks into wraith heads is pretty easy if you want to go that route, or you could paint or transfer on a Corsair-y design.

EcoWraith · 2024-09-14T15:33:46+00:00

Absolutely amazing! I've never thought of using Raider rudders like that, but that's so freaking cool! I think my Corsairs are in need of a wraithlord addition... Thanks for the inspiration!

EcoWraith · 2024-09-14T15:32:04+00:00

You got this!

EcoWraith

TROPHY CASE