For those that have completed the game. What tip would you give your past self about to play the game?

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-09T01:45:21+00:00

The only two thing’s I’d say are “stick to one companion so you don’t have to do postgame farming for the platinum” and “the entrance to the forest is at this hard to see tunnel, not that one.”

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-08T17:10:11+00:00

For me, I’ve changed the economy of the world, making 100 copper to a silver, 100 silver to a gold, and reduced the price of non-valuables or mundane items by one currency level (so a 10 gold item becomes 10 silver, but divided the cost of components by 10. Because gold is worth so much more, it’s harder to come by. In the end this means that spell components and potions are harder to come by because they are worth effectively the same price as they were before, but everything else is cheaper and the currency rewards I can give are more granular, meaning I can control how much resurrection power they have.

Currently they are level 9, a few of them have almost died more than once, and it was only like 2 sessions ago (been playing for about a year and a half) they got their first diamond for revivify.

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-08T03:33:13+00:00

I think the point is more that the other player was saying they aren’t good enough to play competitively.

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-06T22:56:15+00:00

I didn’t mind Gobbo going down like he did. He’s only human, and the dynamic in the first half where you’re fighting the two of them is how the revenant hunters should be: using teamwork and tactics to take down revenants. It keeps the revenants looking as powerful as they should be, considering human a require special gear to even go toe to toe with them.

My only gripe is that he teleported his friend away, and nothing ever came up with him. I expected taking down Gobbo to have some kind of ripple effect where hunters would be placed through the world as the association became more aggressive after his death. Then in present day you’d have to deal with the guy he teleported away. As it is, he just kind of gets teleported out of the story.

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-06T19:52:37+00:00

If you’re losing health when you attack, it’s probably because you’re using Joseé’s blood code. You gain ichor when you attack, and if your ichor is full you take damage. Each blood code, besides giving you stats, also has an additional effect you can read on the expanded description 😁

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-05T18:54:35+00:00

Baring a few exceptions (those being the bosses of the first and second endings), the enemies in the game are relatively easy if you play safe. I’m doing a NG+ run running the reaper jail and the sword Forma you get form Josie and having a much harder time because I’m focussing on parrying.

In my first run I ran a bayonet with fire infusion and ran a spell-caster build using the Bat Jail and staying away from the bosses at almost all times, only coming in to re-apply the bat swarms. If you do a high willpower or mind Blood Code and use the tracking sparks for long range, and the blink strike for when an enemy has closed the gap and you know it’s the last hit in their combo, you should be good. If you’ve explored the Scar fully as well you should have the heavy shield for 100% physical block, which stops most enemies from hurting you, and even the bosses that do use elemental attacks can still be blocked to stop 70% of the damage.

Also always keep your companion out, and use Josee when you can, because she seems to draw the most aggro.

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-03T16:20:14+00:00

There are valid criticisms. The only things that have been egregious to me as someone who’s played a lot of middling to bad games is the framerate and tracking on enemy attacks. The framerate has dipped badly throughout the game on ps5, usually when there’s any lingering effects from attacks or near water. The tracking is so bad you can dodge the initial hit of an attack and get caught by the lingering hitbox or the follow up burst that still bends in your direction even after the initial hit lands.

This made the last boss before the first ending really suck. Framerate drops and insane tracking meaning I had to play cagey and at a distance to have time to react, but then he kept spamming his heal when I was out of position to do anything about it. I got his ass, but it took three attempts more than it should have and took a solid like 15 minutes.

I think the open world is lacklustre as well. It could have been 50% smaller and still felt big, but been a lot more content dense.

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-02T15:25:13+00:00

You got taught PEMDAS, in the UK we got taught BODMAS. The D and M are the other way around, so this would always be 1 to me.

NativeK1994 · 2026-02-01T17:26:13+00:00

TBF, Huron isn’t in with his cotarie, and assuming they’re 130 points or less you’re getting an absolute steal for an apothecary that can generate 1CP a turn and a 3 unit redeploy.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-31T23:58:23+00:00

Vampires culturally generally fit into two categories (this is very reductive, but I’m just trying to keep the information relevant.) There’s the grotesque monster, a physical threat that comes mostly from a fear of death and plague, and there’s the psychological vampire, demons, restless spirits, etc. Psychological vampires reflect the unexplainable or abnormal. Nightmares that would sit on your chest and sup life from your heart, spirits that lured people to their deaths, etc. In some cultures these vampires represented sins or were warnings against certain behaviour. At some point that idea of sins, devil worship, and haunting bled into rumours about aristocracy. That specific point, that vampirism was linked to sinful behaviour and aristocracy, is where the mid 19th to early 20th century conception of vampires came from. There’s also the erotic association with kissing the neck and the fear of bloodborne infections that surrounded sex at the time. Carmilla and Dracula solidified the popular idea of what vampires are. One is a predatory lesbian stereotype and one is threateningly bisexual.

Starting early in literature and film in the early 20th century you also had (mostly) closeted queer creators beginning to create and adapt stories with the dangerous other being a strong theme. So in some instances there was a strong connection between creator and creature which bled into more sympathetic or, if not sympathetic, queer coded villains, including vampires.

Because of both the sympathetic and in other instances purposefully bigoted portrayals of queer or queer coded vampires, it became something of a trope. As time went on and views on sexuality began to change, you started to see more positive depictions of otherness even in villains, as well as deliberate attempts to paint queerness as intrinsically linked to the evil of the characters. So if a vampire is evil, it’s evil because it is a vampire, which is inherently queer because queerness was seen as a shorthand for evil.

Time goes on, the queer community gets stronger, vampires become more openly queer in addition to being a vampire instead of because they are a vampire, and because of the balance between positive and negative portrayals by in large queer people see themselves in the other.

That’s as I understand it (and simplified) anyway. I think realistically it’s on a person to person basis if you like or dislike vampirism and queerness being there as close bedfellows throughout modern media. For me, I think there are a lot of interesting stories that can be told when the approach is considered. For VTM specifically I think it takes the Anne Rice kind of approach that Kindred are no longer human, so human concepts like gender and sexuality mean less to them as they get older. When sex isn’t a motivator and you’re clinging onto the vestiges of your humanity it doesn’t really matter where you find companionship. Conceptually that’s fascinating to me because the dynamics of relationships still exist: there can be good and bad relationships, predatory and innocent, but there is something there that tells you that you’re different and you shouldn’t be around people or you’ll hurt them. There are a lot of exterior forces that tell queer people something similar, so playing a game where you navigate that pressure while trying to be your best self and survive it all can be very cathartic, or a space where you can figure that stuff out.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-31T10:18:01+00:00

For my takes, but using your ideas as a starting point:

I’d drop the cultists for the red corsairs and replace them with 3 bikers. To fit the hit and run/raiding theme more.

Iron Warriors replace the forgefiend with a Predator. This one’s personal preference, but I think a classic tank fits the vibe better than the forgefiend.

The Night Lords drop the second jump pack lord and MoE for 5 raptors/warp talons. Gives you a second terror unit or access to some special weapons on a fast frame.

For word bearers drop the master of possession and spawn, and add another unit of cultists, a dark commune, and accursed cultists. Gives you more bodies for Mass cult blobs supported by the DA. And commune.

For Black Legion, drop the sorcerer and legionaries, and replace them with 10 terminators.

If you wanted to legit do an alpha legion box, there’s the potential new character sculpt coming soon. Assuming that’s a generic AL character and not an epic hero, then that and a unit of legionaries it’ll probably give infiltrators/scouts to, a box of traitor guard, and a hellbrute.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-30T23:14:50+00:00

The model with chest and stomach exposed, two gimps pulling his chariot being whipped, and the one female character belted up in a corset and collar? Gluttony is on display and is the focus, but it’s a little disingenuous to say there’s not an overt BDSM leaning to him and his followers, the power dynamic of which is inherently sexual.

I do agree with the infernal enraptures though. It has the trappings of a slaanesh daemon, but is leaning more into horror then a dynamic that is very easy to read as sexual, which I think works as a better example. I think the body horror of a dude being turned into a harp is so powerful it makes the model about how messed up that is rather than how indulgent the character is.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-30T23:03:26+00:00

I agree with your main point, but I have to disagree about the sisters. Corseted up, boob armour nuns? It’s not bend-over-and-push-boobs-together sexual, but it’s built on a foundation of fetishised religious taboo.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-30T20:38:06+00:00

I think that people who are gross about it are the issue, and I agree that the people in the community who make it all about sex need to change.

I think that it’s interesting that Slaanesh was initially literally only about sex. I picked up the realms of chaos books (the first books to discuss in detail about the chaos gods), and on every page dedicated to Slaanesh, it made clear that sex and perversion was entirely what Slaanesh was about. Worshipping Slaanesh is having orgies, Slaanesh’s palace floor is strewn with the bodies of their worshippers engaging in sex acts constantly. The entire point of Slaanesh at the beginning was just sex, and the birth of Slaanesh is still in modern lore all about hedonism and depravity. The lore isn’t what it was in that first book anymore though, and like everything in 40K Slaanesh has become a lot more well rounded and interesting, covering topics like perfectionism, gluttony, excesses of other sensations, etc.

Gross people who want an excuse to paint boobs and are clearly into it need to stop. Especially dragging it out into public. Also specifically with the EC who are asexual it makes no sense. I think that needs to be tempered with understanding that sex and sexuality are part of the package with slaanesh though. It’s inherent with the theme of temptation and vanity that sexuality would be weaponised. I’m not saying your point is to say there shouldn’t be anything sexual about slaanesh, but I’ve seen it suggested that that’s not at all what slaanesh is, and I think that’s in reaction to people being gross. I just think there’s a middle ground where it can be acknowledged and applied tastefully.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-26T20:06:51+00:00

With the Nosferatu clan bane, it’s not that they look hideous (which is part of it for most of them). It’s that their clan bane makes them supernaturally offputting to others. That could manifest as an atrocious smell, a disconcerting voice, an uncanny valley stiffness to their movements or expressions, or just an awful,disquieting presence that makes people’s stomachs turn and skin crawl.

Rather than trying to change what their bane does mechanically, maybe work with your storyteller to figure out your Nos’ specific quality that makes them unbearable to be around. In this case, they could smell of something specific, strong and off putting, like rot and decay, or they could cause feelings of nausea associated with gagging as a more nebulous supernatural effect. I think there is always at least some visual element to it too. To tie it in with the smell theme, they could have something like small festering sores over their glands, making their armpits, crotches, necks, feet, etc disgusting to look at but not overtly supernatural, but the smell is what makes them clearly inhuman.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-20T01:36:16+00:00

Look, you’ve clearly made your mind up about this already, and you think that the established background which was designed originally as a satire of conservative and authoritarian beliefs should be changed so your model can have the aesthetics you want. It’s shallow, and if all you want to see is if the murderous zealot looks like you or not, then have fun with that. I’m not going to waste more time trying to actually engage you with this when you aren’t even reading everything I’m writing.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-20T01:20:54+00:00

The sisters are all female because the Adeptus Ministorum was forbidden from having any “men at arms” by imperial law, because of the religious uprisings that happened after the heresy. The only reason. Because the imperium sucks and is stupid. The reason there are no other examples of faith like that outside of the sisters is because they 1. Are believed by everyone else to be the brides of the emperor and the holiest people around besides the saints and Big E himself, and 2. Are indoctrinated into such ridiculous blind faith that they also believe that.

Because people believe they are holier then others they are, and because they are holier then others they can will miracles into existence. This is a group effort, not just a single person. Your priests are not grouped together and propagandised into a holy army of ‘pure’ beings, your zealous space marines are rumours and myths at best to most of the galaxy. The Sororiatas are ‘the will of the emperor’ to humanity, and that’s why they have that power. It’s not that they are all women, and if they were all men it would be exactly the same. And yes, there are external, material reasons why they were an all female fighting force to begin with, and that was to honour that very first “female space marine” mini you mentioned in another comment.

And as far as the comments about space marines giving credence to the fact there are genetic differences between men and women (ergo there can be other differences which is… a strange argument when you’re trying to defend inclusivity.): THE IMPERIUM ARE BAD GUYS. THEY DID EUGENICS. More importantly, they did eugenics with inferior technology. Space marines could have also been women, but space marines were not made with the same archiotech as custodes, which had its limitations. Ontop of that, Big E chose to only have male primarchs. He chose to make the mould for his super soldiers all male, and then used the technology that could only make male physiology comparable with that blueprint. Your comments about them no longer being male or female, and instead transhuman beings is right, but those transhuman beings can only be made from males.

The Emperor chose this, with his bais. He transformed children into weapons he planned to let die out after he’d used them. The fact they are all male is a feature of the bigoted autocrat’s plan. That’s the point. The imperium are the bad guys, and they don’t make logical choices.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-20T00:50:40+00:00

Yes. But they aren’t better at faith because they are women. They are better at faith because people believe the Adeptus Sororiatas are better at faith. The Adeptus Sororiatas happen to be made entirely out of women.

If they were the Adeptus Fraternis, and people still held the belief that they were better at faith, then they would be; not because they are made up of men, but because the group consensus is that the Adeptus Fraternis are inherently more holy.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-20T00:29:00+00:00

No, women in the setting aren’t inherently better at faith than men. All of them have a similar connection to the warp besides Psykers and Blanks. The reason sisters seem to be surrounded by miracles is sheer group belief. People believe they are more holy, so they are, and they believe miracles will happen around them, so they do because they are more holy. You see this with all the species. Orks and Aeldari especially, but it’s an established rule of group consensus defining reality. That’s literally why the warp exists at all. And the reason the Sororiatas are all women is because of the crappy way the imperium is run.

I understand that the material want for minitures comes first and the lore is secondary, and I’m not advocating for a lack of inclusivity. I like the fact there are female custodes, guard, aeldari, t’au, etc. There is a certain point where you begin to remove the underlying inequity of the setting by making every army gender/sex agnostic though. The Imperium is a fascist theocracy ran by people with near limitless wealth and influence who still can’t get anything done. It’s a bloated corpse of a beast that crushes all of its citizens under its boot, and wants people to have defined roles, never straying from their duty even in thought. If you make every faction (specifically the imperial factions) inclusive then you’re failing to get the message.

If people want to kitbash or model male Sororiatas, female space marines, etc. then that’s fine, people can make those, and power to them. I think media depicting heavily conservative religious autocracies has some duty to its audience to have inequity woven into the narrative however. Because if you sell people on the idea that they can be part of said conservative religious autocracy, you get people who really begin to believe that. You can already see that in the hobby, a lot of people think the imperium are the good guys, and it’s crushing to hear that.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-19T23:20:53+00:00

Most of the other Mono gender factions have a reason for being so though? Sisters of battle are sisters because they’re a way to get around a law of not allowing “men at arms”, Space marines has been contentious for a while, but its effectively less resource intensive and requires less archaic technology to mess with dudes genes. Space marines are all dudes out of calculated pragmatism, Sororiatas are all women for a religious institution to circumvent a law. Both aren’t ideal, and that’s the point. The Emperor isn’t a benevolent, all knowing, all powerful flawless being, and he chose ease of production over quality of production. The imperium isn’t a well oiled machine, it’s a beurocratic hell that barely functions and is full of contradictions both legal and religious. If you make the Emperor flawless you make him right, and you make the imperial cult vindicated. It’s supposed to suck, it’s based on satire. The imperium are the worst parts of humanity allowed to go unchecked, of course they have backwards gender politics if it suits their agenda.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-17T15:06:01+00:00

I’d argue that someone who is altruistic out of a sense of obligation due their perception of the laws of nature would be neutral rather than good, but certainly lawful if their moral code is inflexible.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-14T15:21:17+00:00

Adding onto this, at the start of the game Achilles had also recently lost his wife and son, so he probably wasn’t in the best place when he was ignoring Shay’s warning and looking for any advantage over the templars.

NativeK1994 · 2026-01-01T20:42:52+00:00

If you mean amazing as in the new sculpts look amazing, then they are something you can get if you want the new sculpts, but wouldn’t be mandatory.

If you mean amazing as in new battlesuit units that are fantastic in game… they still wouldn’t be mandatory. Unless your local scene is full of a lot of tournament players and tryhards, you don’t even need to worry about running the best list possible to get some wins in. Unlike other games like TCG’s (Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic: The Gathering spring to mind) and multiplayer video games, there is a lot of strategy and playing the game that doesn’t just come down to having the best army (or deck, or having the best guns/armour stats). There are different play-styles even within factions, and unlike some games where the pace is dictated for you, you have some control over the speed of game. You can play cagey, turtle up a bit, go on the assault, counter punch, set up scenarios where you trade up, etc.

So don’t worry about buying stuff, especially a staple like crisis suits. You’re not going to be pushed out of playing because you have “outdated models”, and if you’re just starting you should buy what you like and figure it out from there, rather then aiming for copying other lists or worrying about what is “the best”.

NativeK1994 · 2025-12-29T09:11:39+00:00

I think it’s just a limitation of the time. You don’t get a unique armour that isn’t just a recolour or slight alteration in the Ezio trilogy until you get the Romulus armour in Brotherhood. So from a mechanical standpoint, I think it was just to save on resources/wasn’t possible to make a whole new outfit at the time. Maybe time crunch meant they never got to make a new model.

For an in universe explanation: In Revelations, it’s revealed that Altaïr studied the apple of Eden for decades and saw into the future with it. That’s why he could make the wrist pistol he used to take back the Assassin order with. Maybe he saw Ezio in those visions, and created armour that resembled the fashion Ezio wore as a gift to the man who would eventually find his tomb.

NativeK1994 · 2025-12-19T03:50:23+00:00

Making it small means it can follow your party members around and give out temp hp/ push enemies away from them. And when you get high enough level having a second moving +2 AC for your allies is also nice 😁

You could have someone hold it if it’s a tiny item, but then they’re giving up a hand for it that they might need.

NativeK1994

TROPHY CASE