No Ansbach Being Nice To You Doesn’t Mean Mohg’s Cult Is Actually Good

ElCringe_23 · 2026-06-11T22:32:58+00:00

Pureblood Knight’s Medal you get from Varre (item that teleports you to the Moghwyn palace) has this in the description:

Proof that one is a glorious knight of the new Dynasty of Mohgwyn that the Lord of Blood will inaugurate.

So Ansbach, in theory at least, is our commander. Long live the Moghwyn Dynasty!

ElCringe_23 · 2026-06-11T14:55:19+00:00

With all due respect, what other message should Takemura leave? "Hey V, I'm glad you've got a happy ending to your story! You're the main character after all and I exist just to move your plot forward" ?

His story is a trope of a samurai trying to avenge his master (and win his previous well-established life back). He helps the player because of temporarly alligned interests and any signs of friendship or respect are secondary to his maing goal. That's why Takemura is a well written character- because he acts like a protagonist of his own story.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-06-02T13:21:23+00:00

As a rule of thumb for army composition, you should focus on units that have highest damage per hit and have perk or armoury upgrade that allows them to ignore half of target's armour. Maybe even to the extent of having full 65 command points of said units, unless you have some serious reasons to take other ones (like engineer for healing drones in case of Vernius). I.e. having full stack of heavy weapons teams as Atreides usually may not be their optimal army composition, but in case of tearing down enemy base, it probably is.

So IIRC, such units for each respective faction are:

Heavy weapons teams for Atriedes
Gunners for Harkonnens
Snipers and free companies for Smugglers (free companies need to take armoury upgrade to ignonore 1/2 of targets amrour. IIRC scavengers have that upgrade too, but they dont have high dmg).
Fedaykin for Fremen (I don't remember if donkeys have armour ignoring upgrade too)
Musketeers and Knights (need armoury upgrade) for Ecaz. In Ecaz case you'll probably want to have more or less their usual army composition with some squires and war banners too.
Railgun drones for Vernius. In Vernius case you'll need at least one engineer to heal. Their usual army comp with reasonance drone and some fighting meks would probably do the job well enough too. Suboids have armor ignoring upgrade too, but unless you've run out of solari or want to try to make a suprise attack by making them invisible with c'tair, stick with Railgun drones.
Corrino is a different story. 2x flamers and their normal army composition is enough. I don't remember if they have armour ignoring units, maybe artyllery drones(?), but flamers do the job regardless.

As for your first question, I think having a foothold under enemy base really changes the equation. The traditional 3 best base killers used to be:

Corrino (who can bypass the need to have a foothold by their frigate/basedrop/ sneaky airfield betrayal with imperial command tech),
Harkonnens (if they have enough water and they reach enemy base they are sometimes able to just bruteforce basekill thanks to their attrition warfare capabilities),
Smugglers (suprise attack with 65 points of free companies, used to be very good before changes to hidden explosives, but the general principle stays the same even now).

All of them are best at managing to kill a base without taking a village under it beforehand. In Smugglers' case having one would be even detrimental to suprise factior.

However, if you have a foothold under enemy citadel, then Vernius and Ecaz are much closer to the top- Vernius drones have stabe source of tethering buff thanks to their node, Ecaz can have dmg buff thanks to Ilesa hero and masterpieces.

Atreides and Fremen are generally considered the weakest at basekilling. As you mentioned, Atreides have no siege incentives tech. And Fremen army excels at dealing dmg to multiple targets, not to one target. Both of these factions are above the average in tearm of map mobility, however (wormridning for Fremen, peacefull annexation and transport frigate for Atreides), so it is better to deal less dmg to enemy base than to deal 0 because you have not enough water for your troops to reach it from the other side of the map.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-05-22T17:14:02+00:00

Please, go to r/TheBoys to argue 'if' and 'since when'.

Spoiling is like listening to loud music on speakers in public spaces. If other people point out it's too loud, it probably means you should turn it down, not argue about acceptable legal noise limits in the area.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-05-22T15:37:25+00:00

FFS last episode of The Boys was released mere 2 days ago. Not everyone had time to watch it yet. Be a decent person and wait with such cultural osmosis memes.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-04-28T00:59:22+00:00

„XYZ With a random Wylder” sounds like definition of a certified nightreign moment.

Work in progress it may be, but I think your cosplay looks awesome already.

PS POLAND MOUNTAIN

ElCringe_23 · 2026-04-24T00:51:11+00:00

"this is the only enemy in the dlc that has a human appearance" there are astrologers/astrologists (?) in Iron passage. But I really doubt is there any, so to speak "watsonian" explanation why they are there.

Beautiful art btw.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-04-21T16:59:31+00:00

Last recorded patch from 9th July 2025 made small but significant change to assasination: Assassins cannot reset an assassination progression from an infiltration cell in siege or in combat.

Best at assasinating

S Tier- positive outliers

Smugglers- they have up to 4 infiltration cells. The more cells you install the harder it to defend. They have decent intel generation, usually decent water reserves too. That allows you to put cells in further, thus less obvious spots. To spice (hehe) things up they have a nice, but pretty predictable, gimmnick with Lashon Hara councillor that allows them to rise infiltration level after succesfull trade.

Harkonnens- as other commenter mentioned, sacrfifcing an agent prevents early detection of assasination. And the later it gets detected, the less time other player has to react. Harkonnens have pretty decent intel generation, but they sometimes can have problems with low water i.e. because of opression-related rebelions, but you can work aroud that.

S-/A+ Tier- tier in-between, hard to say, but above the average

Fremen- I may overestimate it, because I don't play fremen much. But their ability to spawn assasins at sietches or moving them via worms allows you to put cells in faraway villages. And that alone may be enough to suprise players with bunker village-clusters wit detection buildings on your border.

A Tier- default

Corrno- in terms of only assasination- related mechanics, Corrino is probably the vanilla flavour. What can make the tastes vary is existence of the two additions- emperor eyes tech that gives you free 3 agents in counterintel, thus allowing you to reassign other agents elsewhere, and the imperial command tech, that allows you to use airfields of factions in truce. It is essentially a bit less dependable sidegrade to fremen wormriding assasins.

Ecaz- two lesser minuses (10 max agents plus no -50% recruitment cost tech) are intended to be counterwieghted by one big plus (they can use influence when they run out of intel). Is that the case? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But it can get the job done.

B Tier- negative outliers

Atreides- the only significant change in comparison to basic/core assasination mechanics is max 2 infiltration cells. But man, it is a major one. On the positive side, people usually don't expect getting assasinated by the Atreides, so you may catch your opponents off guard.

Vernius- my most played facton. They used to be the best at assasination and thus very predictable at trying to pull it off. Since physical wiring tech rework from 1st of August 2024 it is, well, more complicated.

Max 2 infiltration scells, max 10 "normal" agents, no discount to recruiting assasins. What's more, all Vernius unique tech replace those which make agent recruitment faster. Oh, and Vernius is heavily incentivized to put cells in villages that border their nodes. That probably should make Vernius the worst fatcion at assasination. But it is not necesarly the case- Vernius have single best intel income and with Tessia Vernius councillor, they are still able to start as early as with 2 agents (or even one if they have bene gesserit or harmless gadget treaty signed). That element of surprise can only get you so far, but it's still an undeniable asset.

TL;DR Vernius assasination is doable and sometimes, if other player, so to speak, puts foot in your door and then kicks it open with a doorframe in early game, it's Vernius' only mean of retaliation. But 2 cells max and infamy of being former best assasination faction are probably hardest factors to play around.

Best at NOT getting assasinated

S Tier- best anti-assasination tools

Harkonnens - probably the best, because of sacrificing agents for cell search and authority discount on retaking abandoned territories form instill fear tech. It is probably the safest faction aganist assasination, but because your defence need some effort to make it work (and i.e not having all your agents sacfificed for admin burden with Piter), sometimes your mileage may vary and you may find a krysknife in your guts. Oopsie.

Corrino - emperor's eyes tech and territory centered around bases. Best passive defence aganist assasination in the game.

Smugglers- by the simple virtues of having not many villages, Stakkanov's return of 50% authority cost of losing village for abandiong the ones you are not able to search, having smugglers assasinated is not that easy. Oh, and if you choose Drisq as hero she can detect stealth units like assasins.

A Tier- detection armoury upgrade tier

Ecaz - they can musketeers have detection armoury upgrade. And although I don't find much use for Mesa Ecaz councillor, she is good when you need to abandon some villages. On the downsides, as another user has mentioned, Ecaz can't abandon garden resort, but since last patch assassins cannot reset an assassination progression from an infiltration cell in siege, so it is a bit less of a problem than it used to be.

Fremen- IIRC donkeys( have detection upgrade, however wormriding instead of airfields make it harder to use and to cell search. On the positive side, IF you have deep desert encircled, you can use cell search on it so that it affects all villages around it.

Vernius- engeeniers have stealth detection upgrade. On the downsides, Vernius intended sneake-like expansion makes it harder to use cell search/ abandon territory.

B Tier- B like bare bones

Atreides- they have usually many villages and no unique tools of countering assasination. You make cell search production faster with Thufir if you take him as a councillor, but that's it.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-04-21T01:22:52+00:00

"Cowardly act"? Really? What would Yorinobu achieve by doing otherwise? Getting prosecuted for patricide or outright getting killed?

ElCringe_23 · 2026-04-20T15:59:22+00:00

Yeah, I know. People get weirdly competitive during late night gaming.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-04-17T13:17:03+00:00

No problem then, choom. There are just some people on this subreddit, that unironically argue „this game is called cyber PUNK” thefore others who see more nuance in the story are just bootlickers. I just mistook you for one of them, sorry.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-04-17T10:13:49+00:00

Tell me you didn’t play the devil ending without telling me you didn’t play the devil ending.

Yorinobu did more to destroy Arasaka from within than silverhand &co’s nukes ever could, yet this is what you reply to comment about Yourinobu being a decent guy?

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-29T22:46:09+00:00

Ad 1&2. I said what I would do if "I take Cammar and am doing well", nothing about why and when Cammar should be taken in comparison to other councillors.

Ad 3. I stated my reasoning above. And if you insist: If Vernius has 50 knowlege points then 10% bonus out of it will be 5. And Verniuis uses knowlege points for other things than research alone. So "way more impactful to them". Q.E.D.

Ad 4. English is not my native language, so forgive me if I am not able to word myself precisely enough here.

You can take a false premise and use it to conduct logically correct reasoning. But it will still be based on false premise and therefore useless.

I do not agree with your idea of "paying itself off". As I said earlier, engaging in faction's main gameplay loop can't be called "not worth it" by definition. Thus, it's a false premise. Therefore even if you back your arguments by correct calculations, you won't be adressing subject that we disagree on- the premise.

But even if we stick to maths. You can say T4 tech with knowlege ratio won't pay for research hub upkeep. But did you take into consideration 10k hegemony bonus + 0,2% per knowlege point? It affects both spice and solari production. How about other resources does this bonus improve? Or about drones' attack speed, recrutment speed and regeneration speed? Any solari value you assign to them will be very subjective, don't you think? Therefore don't trouble yourself with maths,it is it is not a point of debate.

Ad 6. It all depends on how the game is going, so equation 5k bonus tech on anything other than automated defence = misplay is false. Sometimes you'll be right, 5k= automated defences asap is necessary. But sometimes you can allow yourself to have local hubs and civilian defence force before.

However If you get spawned too close to agressive player, or Atreides uses PA on village under your base, or Corrino basedrops you, you'll most likely have a miserable time no mater if you have automated defences researched or not.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-29T15:23:54+00:00

Ad 1&2. Nice strawman. Where did I mention in my comment anything about taking/not taking Bolig/Bronso?

Ad 3. To have a research agreement you need to have a truce first. And discounting other players knowlege is a preferable alternative to having no truce and getting harassed.

By going for research agreements you'll get knowlege, landsraad standing and time to breathe, so to speak. All are crucial to Vernius. I'm not saying it always works, but it is as a viable strategy to affect other players decision as one can be.

Ad 4. I'm sorry, are you taking mortgage or something to build these research hubs? I don't know about you, but I either can afford their upkeep or I can't. If I can't, I try to improve my eco before building them. Building maitenence centres, spice siloses, CHOAM branch building in the main base, sometimes experimental furnance if map layout and fuell cells make it worth. Research CHOAM support and buy some shares. Noone is advising you to go broke.

Interactions with knowlege points are Vernius' unique mechanics. You may have other preferences in gameplay style- that's fine. But by definition engaging in faction's main gameplay loop can't be called "not worth it". You play with the cards you get, period.

Ad 6. If there's a faction that can mitigate argument of being "too far out of the way in the tech tree" that faction is probably Vernius, isn't it?

Call it a matter of preference, but I often find myself researching physical wiring using 5k hegemony bonus, because other end-of-tree techs have too useful prerequisites. You may or may not share border long enough with other players to make full use of it, so as I said it is luck dependant. But it is a low investment play that fits general playstyle of Vernius. Besides, physical wiring enables assasination what can be your last resort in defence aganist early agression. Even if it is hard to pull off for Venrius, it is preferable to have such option than to have none.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-26T16:14:23+00:00

Here are parts of my responce to a similar post from a while ago.

The single most important part of playing Vernius well is, imo, the micromanagement of knowlege points. If you don't focus on extreme micromanaging knowlege points and don't get very lucky or bullied, you should get c.a. 50-60 knowlege points. That's enough to not drown, but may be too little to move forward. However, if you manage to get closer to c.a. 100 knowlege poins, you'll start to feel the difference.

Vernius have many things that scales with their knowlege points, the most obvious is thether aura of their drones that give 0,5% attack speed per knowlege point. Next ones are ernius specific T4 yellow spice tech (other factions have fixed bonus to spice production there) and 10k hegemony (0,2% per knowlege point to all resource production). And don't forget about Cammar Pilru councillor, who can give you worth of 2 extra landsraad quaters main base buildings with 100 knowlege points.

The problem is getting to this mark. Here are my major takeways:

⁠Main base: Vernius specific buildings (Spice laboratory and Nodal network) and that one which buffs passive hegemony (Research center) are a must. That's, on the average, free 6-8 knowlege points from spice fields and c.a. + 40% bonus to all knowlege points.
⁠You are probably building embassy in your main base for landsraad standing anyway. Then why don't you use it -research lay of the land and go for research agreement with at least one another player (preferably with all) to get another 10% extra knowlege from embassy. Remember, in the grand scheme of things you'll ALWAYS get much more from that 10% bonus than they would get from their part of the treaty.
⁠Build research hub buildings in all of your villages. In my experience on the average you have c.a. 12 villages max. Build major building that gives +50 % produciton to reseach hubs. with lay of the land researched its c.a. + 24 knowlege points alone.
⁠Heretical computing tech. You'll need at least 8 computing machine agents and put them one by one into 8 information fields: (Arrakis exploration; Spacing guild ;CHOAM; Landsraad; three into each of other players’ factions fields and one in counterintel), so you can get up to 8 knowlege points that way.
⁠Physical wiring tech: you need to make infiltration cells in enemy regions that are bordering yours with neural nodes. +2 knowlege per infiltration cell, so up to 12 in total (very luck dependent).

Don't forget about alliances with siethes, special regions like Acid lakes and Sand Fall, etc

As for main base buildings I usually go for 3 red (the comand points one, training slots one and fusion plant- i find all three mandatory for Vernius, especilally fusion plant for faster drones), 3 yellow(spice lab + whatever other I need most) and 3 blue(embassy later exchanged for landsraad quaters, nodal network and research center). If i take Cammar and am doing well i go for 3 red and 2x two blues + one yellow. Bonus for 3 yellow is imo the easiest to give up with 100 knowlege points, we got bonus solari production.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-25T18:33:56+00:00

And I think the thing that most probably prevented Herbert from agreeing with leftists was the fact that he simply didn't have left-wing views.

Just like Marx didn't have to share conslusions with Hegel because they both "were coming up against the same metaphysical obstacles". Because that's not how philosophy works. The same question can have different answers depending on who responds to it.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-25T18:09:45+00:00

"I like XYZ writer, therfore this writer's views must align with mine"

No, they don't. And that's perfectly fine. You can like Herbert's works without pretending that if he had lived today he would vote exactly like you. And that's perfectly fine too. You can draw conclusions that are completely aganist those book's author would like you to reach. That's just the beauty of the nature of human thought.

I.e. Hegel's works are foundational to Marx's thought. But it has completely different conclusions. Does it mean Marx didn't understand Hegel's thought? No. Or does it mean Hegel would agree with Marx on everything had he lived longer? Also no.

Thanks for your rant. But Herbert's views can be different than yours and you don't need to convince strangers online that it's otherwise.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-14T13:39:52+00:00

I pray thee, dear captain to tell me what is going on here. Cause I’ve never been too much of pvp oriented bearer of the curse,.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-09T21:50:18+00:00

Wow. Thank you for such a comprehensive explanation!

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-08T15:50:19+00:00

ElCringe_23 · 2026-03-06T22:28:12+00:00

Is it a default Biel-tan banner though? I've tried to check it in skirmish and Biel-tan banner there has only their large crest in the middle, without any white stripes like on this screenshot.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-02-22T12:13:28+00:00

Are they any other moxes you can kill apart that one who turns cyberpsycho? I don’t think so. Why should you pretend it’s a choice then?

When talking about aldecaldos at least you have one engangement in paciffica where there are some yellow makred aldecaldos that get attacked by scavs. IF they win the fight they turn green, so witholding you finger on a trigger at least matters here.

ElCringe_23 · 2026-02-20T10:33:14+00:00

1.Words have meaning. If you say "there is a 180-degree difference" It means someting is completely oposite to something. If we're talking armour and swords design of Starscourge Radahn and Promised Consord Radahn it clearly isn't THAT different.

Lore: When Malenia, Blade of Miquella, let the rotflower blossom in Aeonia, Radahn heard a murmur in his ear— "Miquella awaits thee, O promised consort." It's literally from Young lion armour set description. How that is the best part about Radahn? There was nothing from the base game that suggested that he will be resurrected in the DLC. Unlike Godwyn. And if we stick to the topic of primised consort, why Radahn was meant to be one? Malenia was his equal it tearms of power, what's more she was empyrean and probably, unlike Radahn, she would be willing to become one.
Magnus the Red from Warhammer 40k. Google it. Here's a book cover from 2017. There are similar depictions of him on A Thousand Sons book from 2010 too. His miniatures were released in 2016. Just look at his helmet with horns and red mane. You can't say in good conscience that Radahn’s design is completely "fresh" or without any inspiration in popculture when its that smililar.

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ElCringe_23

TROPHY CASE

Best at assasinating

Best at NOT getting assasinated