And here we are again!

Warhammer 40k: Tacticus turns three years old this month, and Snowprint have surprised us with the biggest update in the history of the game.  The game’s anniversary is being marked with a multi-week celebratory event, the introduction of the Emperor’s Children as a playable faction, and, oh yeah, a completely revamped economy and brand new content for every single character.

The upcoming patch, launching the week of August 11, is the biggest content drop in the game’s entire history, so let’s break it down.  Don’t worry: there is something here for everyone, from the greenest Scout to the hoariest old Chapter Master.

The Marine, The Myth, The Legend

Let’s not bury the lead: the biggest change here is the introduction of an entirely new rank, along with three new power tiers and 15 new levels.  The most important thing to understand about Mythic, though, is that it is not just Legendary+.  That is, from Stone 1 to Diamond 3, the progression has been the same: collect shards to increase rarity, ascend with orbs, use upgrades to increase power rank, and so on.  Mythic does things a little bit differently.

Mythic rank is available for characters who are at Winged Blue Star rank – that is, the highest rarity attainable in the Legendary rarity.  This is important: being at level 50, or Diamond 3 rank, does not unlock Mythic.  You must have gotten that shiny winged star.  This is currently pretty challenging, requiring a cumulative total of 900 character shards after you have ascended to Legendary rarity – but, as discussed below, there are a lot of changes coming to make that blue star much easier to get.

Anyways, once you do achieve blue star rank with your character of choice, the path to Mythic opens up.  Specifically, a quest chain becomes available, unique to that character.  Each quest chain is tailored to the character’s specific skills and attributes, and often includes “puzzles” for you to figure out.  For example, one of the quests we were shown was for Jain Zar, and required you to score 16 hits with her in a single battle.  That will be, uh, challenging, and will certainly require you to use some other characters to buff her just to make it possible.  Each chain has five missions and rewards Mythic Shards, Mythic Orbs, and Mythic experience books.

Basically every kind of resource Tacticus has is getting a Mythic version.  For some, that’s a logical extension (i.e. we already have Badges and Orbs sorted by rarity, this just tacks a new tier on the end).  For others, like Shards and Salvage, the Mythic version stands apart, and can only be used on Mythic-tier advancement.  But you don’t have to worry about scarcity – completing the initial 5-mission quest chain will reward you with all the resources you need to ascend your character to Mythic.

Once you’re there, things will be a bit familiar.  You’ll be able to level up your character, initially just to level 55 but eventually to 65.  You’ll be able to apply Upgrades to level your character to Adamantine 1 (and, eventually, 2 and 3, although these ranks won’t be available at launch).  You’ll be able to upgrade your abilities to Mythic ranks, and your gear as well.  And you’ll be able to equip a Relic.

Wait, what?

It Belongs In a Museum

The other half of Mythic, besides just Number Going Up, is the introduction of Relics.  These are the heart and soul of Mythic-ness and the main incentive to get those blue stars.  When a character ascends to Mythic, one of their three equippable-item slots turns into a Relic slot.  The other two slots can just equip boring old Mythic items, which are like Legendary items (armor, crit boosters, etc.) but with higher stats.  The Relic is something else.

Relics offer the same stats as the item they’re replacing, but they also come with a special, tailored bonus.  There are some “shared” Relics which can be equipped by multiple characters, but each character is also going to get a unique Relic just for them.  For example, Aethana’s unique Relic is the Phoenix Gem, which replaces her Block Booster.  Like a normal Block Booster, it increases her Block chance and amount, but it also gives her a special ability: the first time each battle she’s killed, she will revive with X health remaining, even if overkilled.  X will be a scaling number that improves as the Relic levels up.

Even the Shared relics are exciting.  Mataneo, Burchard and Baraqiel shared a Relic Power Fist that has a 33% chance of Suppressing and a separate 33% chance of Stunning any target they deal Power damage to – doubled to 66% if it’s an active ability (like, say, Mataneo’s diving headbutt).  BONK!

Once you apply a Mythic item, Relic or not, you can’t unequip it except to replace a Mythic item with a Relic (or replace a shared Relic with a unique Relic).  I think this is not going to come up too often, but it’s something to keep an eye on.  Oh, and when Mythic characters are downscaled (i.e. in Guild War, Tournament Arena, and other rarity-capped modes), their Relics lose their unique ability… which is sad, but probably necessary for game balance.

These Relics will be granted by the mission chains, in special events, and in the Rogue Trader.  There are 16 Relics planned for launch, but more will be added until everyone gets one.

I can tell you, I am wildly excited for relics. My head is spinning with ideas.  They fundamentally change the way characters play, which I love.

Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2

There’s so much changing this patch that I can’t possibly go into detail about all of it, but here are some highlights:

• Machines of War can become Mythic too, if you’re one of those sickos who blue-starred the Forgefiend for some reason.  If your Machine of War is Mythic, it grants a permanent passive bonus to all of your Mythic characters on the field.

• When Mythic drops, there will be a new Mythic tier of Raid Boss added.  Initially, there will just be one, the lowest level, and it’s planned to be a Tervigon (aka the Loot Piñata), so it shouldn’t be hard to clear for guilds already looping the Legendary raid bosses, but over time more will be added
• Similarly, the last portion of Extremis Mode on Campaign Events (levels 23-30) is going to be Mythic tier.  This is where some Mythic loot will be available.  These levels will be reset for people who already beat them, and can be beaten again for sweet prizes.
• LREs, Character Quests, and Incursions will have Mythic tiers added to the top, too.
• Mythic scaling is intentionally much shallower than previous ranks.  A fully leveled Adamantine 3 character is about 50% stronger than a Diamond 3 character… which sounds like a lot, but a Diamond 3 character is more than twice as strong as a Gold 3 character, so it’s definitely less noticeable a climb.
• Mythic also isn’t scaling up the difficulty in leveling up as much as previous ranks – getting from A1 to A3 is supposed to take about as long as getting from D1 to D3, and going from zero to A3 is supposed to take just a bit longer than going from 0 to D3 used to take.  More on that below.
• Bafmodads still are not collectible in the game, despite my many angry letters to Snowprint.

• The launch event for Mythic starts on September 1.  It is a one-time event with mission chains that reward Mythic Seals that players can spend on various goodies.  Some of these goodies are Mythic too, but the shop will scale to your player level and offer you things you can use, so even new players will get something out of it.  Speaking of…

Stimulus Package

“But Togepi!” you are saying.  “I am but a wee babe!  I don’t have a single blue-starred character!  When I open my wallet, a single moth flies out!  Instead of clothes, I am wearing a barrel attached to my shoulders with suspenders!”

Don’t worry, anxious Tacticus hobo.  This update comes with a fundamental retooling of the entire Tacticus economy.

Energy Crisis

Let’s start with the headlining change here, too: soon we are all going to have a lot more energy to work with.  Currently, in addition to regaining one energy every 5 minutes, you can get bonus energy through a series of daily offers: first, 50 energy if you watch an ad; then 100 energy for 50 Blackstone; then 100 energy for 110 Blackstone; and so on.  There are three changes coming.

• First, the daily ad refresh now gives 60 energy instead of 50.
• Second, there is a new tier of Energy offer – after you watch the ad, you will be offered 60 energy for 25 Blackstone, before moving to the 100-for-50 offer and onward.
• Third, completing your daily quest (you know, the one that is like “clear 5 missions, play arena twice, complete one Onslaught” etc.) will reward 30 energy.

This is a huge influx of energy.  I have also seen some misinformation out there about this deal, saying that it is somehow worse than the existing system, but that is flat-out wrong.  Let’s say you currently buy the 50 Blackstone refresh each day.  Your current energy total is:

• 50 from the ad
• 100 from the 50 Blackstone
• Totaling 150 energy at a cost of 50 Blackstone per day.

Under the new system, let’s say you buy the 25 Blackstone refresh every day, and the 50 Blackstone refresh every other day.  You will earn:

• 60 from the ad
• 60 from the 25 Blackstone
• 30 from the daily quest
• 100 every other day for the 50 Blackstone refresh, averaging to 50 per day.
• Totaling 200 energy at a cost of 50 Blackstone per day.

If you can swing 75 Blackstone per day, rather than just 50, you will end up with 250 energy per day!  So you either get the same energy for less Blackstone, or more energy for the same Blackstone.

Turning Down the Grind

What do you spend all of this energy on?  Well, for starters, drop rates in normal and mirror campaigns are going way up – in an interview, a Snowprint developer said that they would be increasing drop rates for items in regular and mirror campaigns (and Campaign events), and Elite campaigns are having their daily cap raised from 3 to 6.  That’s a huge change, since Elite campaign farming is so much faster than regular campaign farming.  There will also be more upgrades accessible in various shops, and it’s been suggested that some upgrades will have their requirements reduced.

These changes will also make it a lot easier to get your characters that coveted blue star, since their Shards will be obtained much, much quicker from Campaigns.

Skills and item upgrades will be a lot cheaper to upgrade, too, especially at the legendary level.  And don’t worry – if you already spent huge piles of Gold upgrading your skills and items, you will get a one-time, massive refund of the excess Gold.

Command Economy

Finally, Snowprint is doing a general reorganization of the economy, with an eye on making the various different shops and modes more specialized.  This is ongoing, and subject to change, especially based on player feedback – so, if you like the new changes or dislike them, let Snowprint know!

The biggest change is to Guild Raid rewards.  Guild Raid bosses now give you triple the amount of Guild Credits as they did before, but do not drop Orbs at all.  However, all types of Orbs are now purchasable in the Guild Credit shop, and will be there permanently.

This is a controversial change.  Overall, the number of orbs you will be getting will go down, if you were in an absolutely top tier guild that was looping the Legendary bosses multiple times.  However, for most people, the amount of Orbs you obtain will probably stay about the same.  More importantly, the fact that you now only get the Orbs you need is huge.  There are 12 Common, Uncommon, and Rare bosses in a Guild Raid season, and these currently reward orbs that are – not to put too fine a point on it – basically useless after a while.  Now, instead, they will reward Credits that you can spend on Legendary Orbs!

In addition, the Guild Raid shop will sell XP books more consistently, Upgrades, and older Uncommon and Rare characters that are no longer farmable.

The Rogue Trader, meanwhile, is getting a facelift.  You will still collect Archaeotech for characters at blue star or above – normal character shards do not auto-convert to Mythic shards – and this Archaeotech can be spent on Mythic resources (including Shards and Relics).  So there is some conversion after all.  You will also be able to get newer Legendary characters in the Rogue Trader, that is, ones whose LREs just ended recently.

The Guild War store is becoming more helpful as well: the focus here is on resources for Machines of War, Ability Badges, and older Epic and Legendary characters that are not farmable.  Snowprint knows that the Badge economy is pretty rough, especially once you hit Legendary, and so they are injecting more of them into the economy.

Arena will focus on giving you XP books and items, with a lot more of the former.  Getting to level 50 takes a ton of XP, so there will be a lot more books floating around.  There are also new Mythic XP books, which function exactly like the existing books except that they give 62,500 experience points per use.

Onslaught still gives Badges (and Shards and Orbs when you pick a character to honor at the end).  It will just give out way more Legendary Badges than before, and starting at level 80, Mythic Badges.

Salvage Run and Campaigns are changing least of all (at least in terms of what kinds of resources they give you – as noted above, Campaigns are going to be a lot more generous with drops).

What does this mean overall?  It means that, for players still progressing through the silver and gold ranks, you will find your progress much quicker.  So get those blue stars and let’s get Mythical!

Vanishing Into Myth

Whew!  That was a lot, and I’m a little afraid to Ctrl+F “Mythic.”  I’m getting that feeling where you say a word over and over and it stops sounding like a word to you.

There is more to announce, but this was already a ton, so watch this space – I’ll probably do another explainer closer to launch (as well as reviews of some the Relics, maybe).  And, as I noted above, Snowprint is actively soliciting feedback on this mode.  You can join the Snowprint Discord here: https://discord.gg/6btRKRGM.  Remember to keep your feedback polite.  Do not shame the good name of Goonhammer by misbehaving in official company Discords.

I hope this guide got you good and pumped for Mythic – or, if you were nervous about the change, I hope it assuaged some of your fears.  I have just a couple of blue star characters, but I am eager to see what happens when I take them to Mythic.  I’m particularly excited to advance Celestine, my very first legendary, who has reached both blue star and Diamond 3 power.  Let me know who you plan to ascend first!

If this article was helpful to you, please consider using my referral code – CUE-13-REV.  You can only do this once, but it’ll give you and me both some free stuff in game, plus it means that if we’re ever at the same birthday party, I have to let you have a corner piece of cake.  And my guild has a couple of openings, so feel free to ping me on the Discord if you want to play together.  You can leave a comment here, too, but I can’t guarantee I’ll see it in a timely fashion.

Oh, and if you’d like a video, Tacticus content creator Nandi created one here.  He’s interviewing Snowprint developer Francesco about Mythic.  Some great insights!

Until next time – Togepi out!

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