The combo with Duranium Armour and Non-Euclidean Shielding is so strong for Barony. You can cancel 2 hits with a sustain and at the start of every round you can repairany ships that didnt sustain that round. It means if you have like 3 dreads and your flagship you can sustain ships and repair them over and over meaning your opponent has to do at least 6 or 7 hits over 2 rounds to even have a chance at damaging a ship. This is even better if you have any amount of a fighter shield to soak key hits when your ships are already sustained before they can repair. Their new commander ability means they are going to be banking tonnes of resources every round, easily enough to use their reroll all misses racial for 2tg every round. So what is already a basically unkillable fleet becomes the strongest attacker in the game (rerolling all misses) with the strongest defensive abilities, generating loads of tg on top. Barony were already one of the strongest factions in the game and this commander seems to completely fix their only weakness which is low tg economy. Their hero ability is cool. I think the way to use it is to make sure you get warfare for the round and you have the new yellow tech predictive intelligence. You make a small attack or positioning move, then next turn you activate the hero and use warfare tor distribute all your fleet tokens into tactics/strat, you make your big attack the next round and finish out your turn. Once the dust settles you pop Predictive Intelligence and rearrange back to whatever fleet supply you still need.
Ahh - my favourite faction, the Letnev! They are such a grim, thematic faction - strong, and getting stronger with these leaders (although it is more subtle than first meets the eye) The agent doesn't seem inspiring, yet is simple and useful, especially early game with your starting Dreadnaught threatening other fleets - so you can leverage your galactic bully card. The commander, on the other hand, is clearly superb when combined with the Letnev flagship (!), Mechs, and Dreads boasting Non-Euclidean shielding. You will be well set for trade goods, and can constantly cycle your Munitions ability in large battles for a serious edge - very synergistic! The hero looks so innocent, but don't be deceived! That ability is there to gain victory points. Want to take Mecatol with overwhelming force to score Imperial? Want to capture a home system to achieve Conquer the Weak? Want to defend your home system with an unstoppable wall of ships? She does it all. It is worth pointing out that several of the new scoring objectives from PoK require having very large fleets or several ships left over in systems after combat - no problem at all with this hero! Finally the Mech. I think this mech is one of the strongest in the game, it is extremely tactical and flexible on both offense and defense, on your turn and your opponents' turns. The Letnev rarely lack resources, so these will be metamorphing from their ground forces everywhere - gaining trade goods and tanking damage with NE shields (which is super thematic - as the Letnev are supposed to have mega tough infantry. I picture one of their vampire-like soldiers transforming in a kind of battle frenzy due to mech augmentations!) Oh, and they also combo well with a the new tech Self-assembly Routines - which the Letnev have easy access to from the start - MOAR trade goods! Overall - an under-the-radar win for the Letnev. This won't excite players as much as other factions, but the Letnev don't need your admiration - they need your planets, and they will take them by force! All hail the Baron!
I did not see in person but I saw a stream Barony used Dark Matter Affinity to take mecatol for the Win. It appears very situational though. Keep in mind The game round doesn't end until after the agenda. So you will gain two command tokens and have a chance to move your command tokens around around to save most of your fleet.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames I agree it is what I call strong but situational ability. If it doesn't get you the game winning points by taking mecatol or someone's home system it is not very useful.
It's hard to come up with ideal scenarios for using the Hero. The first issue is timing. The obvious choice is the final round, but that can sometimes be tricky to predict, and also ideally you'd somehow want to ensure you get Warfare or another way of redistributing your tokens, or else you fail to leverage the tokens in your Fleet Supply. On the last round Warfare can be quite desired, so you'd have to think ahead to get it. For the last round Warfare also puts you at a disadvantage with an initiative scoring order of 6. Another option is a large-scale push on the board alongside a strategical splurging of command tokens on Strategy Secondaries, but the situation would need to align perfectly with your objectives for it to make sense. Also, if you don't use it for the last round, then there's the issue of having to find sufficient fleet supply tokens for the next round when the pool is empty, possibly having to remove plastic from the board, or just overall being starved of Command Counters. Having no cap on the fleet size can be devastating when taking home systems, Mecatol, or defending them, but even those are highly situational and puts a lot of your eggs in one basket. Ultimately I feel like the Hero would make far more sense if it allowed you to redistribute tokens after using it.
Non-Euclidean Shielding and the Commander (Rear Admiral Farran) both combo great with the ability to stealth your Dunlain Reapers into ground combats. It's a very strong and flexible mech for that reason.
Using the hero with warfare makes sense but there's another benefit idea. Using it to build an overwhelming offense against an equal opponent. So instead of having 4 v 5 Capital ships, you can bring in more, Maybe pancake that enemy war sun
Dark Matter Affinity A very good ability, you can use it to pile a big fleet to attack mecatol and have a big defence fleet there until the end of the round where you need to score that one objective you'll need. Costly cause you may lose ships at the end of the round when itruns out, but to net VP its cool. Dunlan Reaper The Deploy ability means that even if you only have 1 Mech in reserve you can deploy it, lose it in the round of Ground Combat and then redeploy it if there is infantry left.
You touch on something interesting there, I assume you can only deploy if you have a Mech in reserve, so it might be wise to try to keep at least one waiting at all time.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames If I recall correctly, according to the rules whenever you need to put fresh plastic on the board and there is none available in the reinforcements you can yank it off another spot on the game board - essentially moving it around.
@@barnabyalsop5601 with Production, you can indeed remove your units from elsewhere on the board if you don't have any in reinforcements (though not from a system with one of your command tokens). Deploy specifies that the placed unit must come from their reinforcements.
As long as you have predictive intelligence there is little to no risk especially since you'll probably loose a couple ships in the game round. Though to be perfectly safe warfare + predictive Intelligence and you should be totally fine
The hero is probably so you can attack with a huge fleet, expecting many of those ships to be destroyed in the battle or to have a huge fleet hold Mecatol so you can score imperial. It’s not great but Barony was always pretty strong. And non Euclidean shielding is insane now that it works on mechs.
I don't think the Barony hero is great for Barony. They already have fleet supply covered by armada, so its impact is reduced. I think it will most likely be used to stack all of their ships on the Home System to defend it during the last round.
The combo with Duranium Armour and Non-Euclidean Shielding is so strong for Barony. You can cancel 2 hits with a sustain and at the start of every round you can repairany ships that didnt sustain that round. It means if you have like 3 dreads and your flagship you can sustain ships and repair them over and over meaning your opponent has to do at least 6 or 7 hits over 2 rounds to even have a chance at damaging a ship. This is even better if you have any amount of a fighter shield to soak key hits when your ships are already sustained before they can repair. Their new commander ability means they are going to be banking tonnes of resources every round, easily enough to use their reroll all misses racial for 2tg every round. So what is already a basically unkillable fleet becomes the strongest attacker in the game (rerolling all misses) with the strongest defensive abilities, generating loads of tg on top.
Barony were already one of the strongest factions in the game and this commander seems to completely fix their only weakness which is low tg economy.
Their hero ability is cool. I think the way to use it is to make sure you get warfare for the round and you have the new yellow tech predictive intelligence. You make a small attack or positioning move, then next turn you activate the hero and use warfare tor distribute all your fleet tokens into tactics/strat, you make your big attack the next round and finish out your turn. Once the dust settles you pop Predictive Intelligence and rearrange back to whatever fleet supply you still need.
Non-Euclidean and duranium armor works on mechs too...
Oh s***
Lol this guy knows what he's talking about, don't ignore him !!! :DDDDDD
100%
ag_greenzerg is a sweaty nerd
Ahh - my favourite faction, the Letnev! They are such a grim, thematic faction - strong, and getting stronger with these leaders (although it is more subtle than first meets the eye)
The agent doesn't seem inspiring, yet is simple and useful, especially early game with your starting Dreadnaught threatening other fleets - so you can leverage your galactic bully card.
The commander, on the other hand, is clearly superb when combined with the Letnev flagship (!), Mechs, and Dreads boasting Non-Euclidean shielding. You will be well set for trade goods, and can constantly cycle your Munitions ability in large battles for a serious edge - very synergistic!
The hero looks so innocent, but don't be deceived! That ability is there to gain victory points. Want to take Mecatol with overwhelming force to score Imperial? Want to capture a home system to achieve Conquer the Weak? Want to defend your home system with an unstoppable wall of ships? She does it all. It is worth pointing out that several of the new scoring objectives from PoK require having very large fleets or several ships left over in systems after combat - no problem at all with this hero!
Finally the Mech. I think this mech is one of the strongest in the game, it is extremely tactical and flexible on both offense and defense, on your turn and your opponents' turns. The Letnev rarely lack resources, so these will be metamorphing from their ground forces everywhere - gaining trade goods and tanking damage with NE shields (which is super thematic - as the Letnev are supposed to have mega tough infantry. I picture one of their vampire-like soldiers transforming in a kind of battle frenzy due to mech augmentations!) Oh, and they also combo well with a the new tech Self-assembly Routines - which the Letnev have easy access to from the start - MOAR trade goods!
Overall - an under-the-radar win for the Letnev. This won't excite players as much as other factions, but the Letnev don't need your admiration - they need your planets, and they will take them by force!
All hail the Baron!
Great summary there. I think these guys have taken a jump in quality. When we get around to a new Tier Ranking update, I suspect they'll be elevated.
I really appreciate your TI4 videos. The certainly help me understand the game even better. Thank you!
You're very welcome, Sean. It's fun putting them together, as I learn a few things myself in the process and from the comments.
I did not see in person but I saw a stream Barony used Dark Matter Affinity to take mecatol for the Win. It appears very situational though. Keep in mind The game round doesn't end until after the agenda. So you will gain two command tokens and have a chance to move your command tokens around around to save most of your fleet.
That's true, but it still feels kinda win-now focused.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames I agree it is what I call strong but situational ability. If it doesn't get you the game winning points by taking mecatol or someone's home system it is not very useful.
If it gets you a victory point, use it.
It's hard to come up with ideal scenarios for using the Hero. The first issue is timing. The obvious choice is the final round, but that can sometimes be tricky to predict, and also ideally you'd somehow want to ensure you get Warfare or another way of redistributing your tokens, or else you fail to leverage the tokens in your Fleet Supply. On the last round Warfare can be quite desired, so you'd have to think ahead to get it. For the last round Warfare also puts you at a disadvantage with an initiative scoring order of 6.
Another option is a large-scale push on the board alongside a strategical splurging of command tokens on Strategy Secondaries, but the situation would need to align perfectly with your objectives for it to make sense. Also, if you don't use it for the last round, then there's the issue of having to find sufficient fleet supply tokens for the next round when the pool is empty, possibly having to remove plastic from the board, or just overall being starved of Command Counters.
Having no cap on the fleet size can be devastating when taking home systems, Mecatol, or defending them, but even those are highly situational and puts a lot of your eggs in one basket.
Ultimately I feel like the Hero would make far more sense if it allowed you to redistribute tokens after using it.
Non-Euclidean Shielding and the Commander (Rear Admiral Farran) both combo great with the ability to stealth your Dunlain Reapers into ground combats. It's a very strong and flexible mech for that reason.
Yeah, totally agree
Finally!!!
Been waiting a long time for this one :D
Love your TI4 vids!
Hopefully I do the beloved Barony justice here.
That Commander man... SO powerful!
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD 😆
I think the hero would be great with warfare. Warp an entire armada into a system then play warfare and they can all scramble to different systems.
Hahaha found you Jeremy on accident
My fav faction!
They're one of the most popular, it seems.
Mine too
Check your description; it still says “Arborec”
Thanks. Guess where I copy and pasted from :)
Using the hero with warfare makes sense but there's another benefit idea.
Using it to build an overwhelming offense against an equal opponent. So instead of having 4 v 5 Capital ships, you can bring in more, Maybe pancake that enemy war sun
Dark Matter Affinity
A very good ability, you can use it to pile a big fleet to attack mecatol and have a big defence fleet there until the end of the round where you need to score that one objective you'll need. Costly cause you may lose ships at the end of the round when itruns out, but to net VP its cool.
Dunlan Reaper
The Deploy ability means that even if you only have 1 Mech in reserve you can deploy it, lose it in the round of Ground Combat and then redeploy it if there is infantry left.
You touch on something interesting there, I assume you can only deploy if you have a Mech in reserve, so it might be wise to try to keep at least one waiting at all time.
@@RulebreakerBoardgames If I recall correctly, according to the rules whenever you need to put fresh plastic on the board and there is none available in the reinforcements you can yank it off another spot on the game board - essentially moving it around.
@@barnabyalsop5601 with Production, you can indeed remove your units from elsewhere on the board if you don't have any in reinforcements (though not from a system with one of your command tokens). Deploy specifies that the placed unit must come from their reinforcements.
As long as you have predictive intelligence there is little to no risk especially since you'll probably loose a couple ships in the game round. Though to be perfectly safe warfare + predictive Intelligence and you should be totally fine
The hero is probably so you can attack with a huge fleet, expecting many of those ships to be destroyed in the battle or to have a huge fleet hold Mecatol so you can score imperial. It’s not great but Barony was always pretty strong. And non Euclidean shielding is insane now that it works on mechs.
I don't think the Barony hero is great for Barony. They already have fleet supply covered by armada, so its impact is reduced. I think it will most likely be used to stack all of their ships on the Home System to defend it during the last round.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense.
Day 556 still waiting for the L1Z1X update
It drops on Sunday