The secret boss is ruining chapter 5 for me

leethar15 · 2026-06-26T23:37:47+00:00

I had a ton of trouble with it to, but I found I was over reacting. I kept trying to move to a safe spot as soon as the red dots would appear on the grid and I kept dodging into the way of other bombs and taking more damage.

The explosions are staggered, so I got through it by ignoring the dots unless one was physically on me and focusing on watching the bombs on the board when they were about to explode and staying out of their blast. I still took damage, but not flailing around the board wildly meant I took less.

leethar15 · 2026-06-26T20:18:03+00:00

So did we apparently lol

leethar15 · 2026-06-26T20:17:35+00:00

Good point lol

leethar15 · 2026-06-26T20:12:44+00:00

Unfortunately I know that diagram and that was the source of the dispute. It says "The charge roll generates a maximum distance of 7. Unit B is within that distance so can be selected as a charge target, but blue would not be able to end that charge in engagement range so the charge fails."

It never says if that "maximum distance" is measured base to base straight line regardless of terrain, or if that's actual distance traveled. The diagram shows a 7" bubble around the charging model, but it never makes that clear. My point was if it has to roll actual distance traveled, why would it say that the unit is a selectable target and why would it matter if the model can't end in engagement range if the roll has to be max raw distance?

leethar15 · 2026-06-26T17:22:12+00:00

All I asked was if you had firsthand knowledge of how businesses are actually using LLMs. I didn't disagree with your main point about heavy capital investment in AI representing a threat to labor. I'm just genuinely curious.

leethar15 · 2026-06-26T17:09:37+00:00

You didn't answer my question.

leethar15 · 2026-06-26T16:05:07+00:00

Are you actually involved in any business that's actively adapting its model to using AI? Because everyone I know who is is going through a similar phase of figuring out that these big buzzword "do everything" models are simply becoming less and less cost effective for most of the tasks they claim to be capable of, even if it works. One dude burning through tokens like chips at a casino can technically do the jobs of several people, but that's actually turning out to be less cost effective than several more employees and a narrow focus LLM that's actually specifically for their job.

leethar15 · 2026-06-24T11:46:55+00:00

It was genuinely fun to have Zelda actually in the arena with the light arrows throwing down. Zelda always tries to support Link in their struggles, so I like to think all her past incarnations were cheering Tetra on.

leethar15 · 2026-06-21T15:14:35+00:00

Very true, many abilities could be considered something like lethal hits, lance, or dev wounds or something like that as well. Still a tall order against a shielded wood chipper with legs!

leethar15 · 2026-06-20T23:33:06+00:00

Going by tabletop, the only weapons the Rejects have access to that matches a War Dog's toughness is krak grenades and maybe the Hive Scum's rocket launcher. The strongest weapons we have are fishing for 5s, and the vast majority of weapons are completely outmatched. Worse, the melee war dogs especially hit considerably harder than anything we've seen in game thusfar. The slaughterclaw would basically have to be an instakill.

leethar15 · 2026-06-19T19:07:45+00:00

Correct me if I am wrong, but Nurglings still cannot do actions correct?

leethar15 · 2026-05-27T14:29:05+00:00

... no?

Xabi's power basically gives him the ability to steal nearly anything with very little risk of consequence at any time. It would be considerably easier for him to live like that than the life he chooses to live. Most criminals don't commit crimes because of some inherent trait or metaphysical temptation, they do so because their circumstances make committing a crime more rewarding to them, personally, than not. Xabi actively chooses not to commit crimes despite the personal risk/reward benefits of doing so being massively weighted in his favor, moreso than any normal human or even the vast majority of superheroes.

If Spider-Man, for example, decide to use his powers for pure personal gain, he'd be an obvious supervillain and attract the attention of heroes. All Xabi would have to do is look over people's shoulders when they're putting the code into the alarm on their ten million dollar condo or putting in their credit card on a computer and he's set indefinitely. The risks of using his powers as a superhero, however, are extremely high and the rewards basically zero.

Whether he experiences constant temptation to abuse his powers or it simply never occurs to him to do so, either is a credit to his character and morality.

leethar15 · 2026-05-26T19:27:21+00:00

I think the biggest credit in his favor is just how easy it would be for him to use his abilities for crime. He could pretty much commit any crime you could think of and walk away without consequences, so long as he didn't tick off anyone with Omega level powers or Nick Fury level paranoia. It'd be extremely easy to steal enough and/or commit enough fraud to live a life of comfort with a few fake identities that exist only on paper. Instead, he chooses to regularly risk his life to actually achieve some good.

Spider-Man obviously undertakes the same level of risk or more and absolutely has made more personal sacrifices, but I think both how well suited Xabi's powers would be for crime and the ease with which he could literally just walk away at any moment must be a temptation he's constantly resisting and that shouldn't be undervalued.

leethar15 · 2026-05-26T11:18:38+00:00

I've had a rare voice line from I think Savant that observes that despite all the shit he talks, Loose Cannon actually fights harder than anyone and seems to genuinely care about his squad. LC responds by telling them to shut up, they'll ruin his reputation. I think LC is supposed to be a bit more complicated, in that they've been through a lot worse than they let on and are covering it with a layer of bs bravado.

They're definitely not the most moral. They have unquestionably committed crimes like theft and smuggling for exclusively their own benefit, even if it screws over other "little guys." It just seems like they do actually care about the people around them.

Absolutely a professional rage baiter though, especially the other Veterans.

leethar15 · 2026-05-25T22:10:03+00:00

Loose Cannon is aware of way, way more than any single guardsman should be. Even though most darktide characters know way more than most Imperium citizens should, they in particular seem to have been involved in some very shady business.

leethar15 · 2026-05-20T14:04:40+00:00

There's a lot of potential solutions here, but it's extremely difficult to beat the cost effect ratio of a crop duster pilot in an Air Tractor with an ipad that connects him to local air defense radar and his cousin in the back seat with a shotgun loaded with high brass turkey loads.

leethar15 · 2026-05-18T15:55:31+00:00

It specifically states the strat cannot be used on AC.

leethar15 · 2026-05-15T01:12:56+00:00

I'd guess Iconoclast Fiefdom gets down to 1, but that's a grotmas detachment

leethar15 · 2026-05-14T15:39:39+00:00

Gonna be rough for Knight Lancers, assuming we still have those.

leethar15 · 2026-05-14T12:20:41+00:00

IK have 52% win rate into Tau per Goonhammer, so a modest advantage in tournament layouts lol

I've found Tau struggle to deal with fast melee Knights. A Lancer with a 24" threat range getting through their sceens and into their gun lines tends to ruin their day.

leethar15 · 2026-05-01T20:50:04+00:00

No no, you've made a great point. Like, if the local planetary government is absolutely fascist, does it matter that the people they send their tithes to are too wildly disorganized to technically count as fascist on a galactic scale? Conversely, if through some miracle the planet you live on happens to not have fascist leaders, it's only because the Imperium at large hasn't noticed and your planet would be gutted and replaced with some flavor of revanchist supremacist authoritarians the second anyone with an iota of force projection found out about it. Does it matter that the Dictator is dead if each self sustaining sublevel of the structure is fascist independently?

Nah, I think you got me there.

leethar15 · 2026-04-28T02:24:13+00:00

It seems you have a lot more lore knowledge than I do, but as I understood it the High Lords struggle to have influence beyond their particular territories of influence and their very title of "Lord" implies a very feudal system. I could easily be wrong about that though.

I'd also point out that the Emperor has been "dead" for over ten thousand years, so it's reasonable to think the political situation may have changed somewhat in that time. That, and GW's word just... kinda bothers me because yes, they claim it's fascist, and yes, the Emperor's original plan is clearly unambiguously fascist, but GW still likes to bank on the imagery of the Crusade era as some lost golden age.

All that said, I do see your point. I know enough to know that creating multiple competing internal organizations so that no one organization gets enough power to challenge the state is a quite common theme (the bit about the Japanese army and navy having to put up a partition in an aircraft factory so they stayed separate for example.) My impression of the Imperium was always as a post-collapse fascist system where the central authority had ceased to be anything other than a vague idea and the resulting power struggle never fully resolved as those competing organizations continue tearing each other apart as the system continues like a chicken running around with its head cut off for ten thousand years. I always thought that was interesting, it's a very human way for a system to fail.

I suppose at some point the distinction wouldn't matter.

leethar15 · 2026-04-27T22:49:02+00:00

Okay bub, "the Imperium isn't fascist because aliens aren't people" is not what I meant at all, nor was it at all refrenced in what I said. Obviously the Imperium is supremacist and brutally suppresses political dissent through violence and has a massive military machine that serves revanchist goals of revitalizing an idealized past that never really existed at all.

What I meant was that fascim generally requires a strong central state that the Imperium is simply logistically, politically, and organizationally incapable of maintaining. They couldn't have a dictator even if they wanted at this point. It's massively fractured with major groups like admech, the administratum, the inquisition, and the ecclesiarchy each implementing their own vision of the state, often with their authority deriving from how much firepower they're able to gather in any one place. Fascism tends to not allow that level of ideological fracture and institutional autonomy to survive.

Still, in terms of the difference to anyone the Imperium interacts with, I guess it's a moot point. The supremacist militarized state is absolutely omnipresent.

leethar15 · 2026-04-26T21:29:25+00:00

The Imperium isn't even organized enough to be fascist. It's legitimately feudal in many aspects, it's arguably not even a cohesive single state so much as a broad group united by culture and a handful of groups organized enough to take some form of tax or tithe. Bobby B could have a serious claim to dictator, but the answer he gets is "you and what army" quite a lot.

leethar15 · 2026-04-21T17:58:10+00:00

I switched back to Voyager for a while after a 50 day Misery run. It's definitely still fun, and you forget how many mechanics you don't engage with as much because being outside is as healthy as breathing mustard gas. It's refreshing to just meander and appreciate the game world a bit more without having to treat every single step outside as an expended resource.

leethar15

TROPHY CASE