Enlightened and Errata 3.05

The March errata brought some minor tweaks, but two of them are quite relevant to the Enlightened, specifically our Heavy Weapon options. I’ll be going over some of the implications as well as the winners and losers of this change.


Victory & Valour: Specific effect may only be attempted once per unit

While this correction was probably only meant to clarify that you can’t try again after having your effect canceled by Fortunes of War, this does mean that Heavy Particle Cannons, Magneto Encapsulators, and Gravitronic Imperilators can only use their Valour Effect once per activation in a unit. In my Enlightened Overview, I talked about firing Heavy Particle Cannons separately to get multiple 15 dice pools via SRS tokens, which is now no longer possible. Gravitronic Imperilators were similar, in that the valour effect was a major source of damage.

With these changes, the Heavy Particle Cannon has lost a small bit of flexibility, but it still basically does the same thing. This probably pushes a bit more towards the Antarctica as your HPC platform over the Copernicus (giving you Heavy Firepower for a 18 dice and 15 dice shot, or to evade FoW a little), but it’s basically down to personal preference. I wasn’t a big fan of the Gravitronic Imperilator before, and that’s dropped a little further now.

 

Collisions: Damage based on mass

The Kongo in its natural habitat, about to plow into an island
 
Colliding with Terrain now causes damage based on the mass of your ship, averaging out to 0.8 damage per Mass instead of 1 damage flat. The reign of the bumpercar battleship is over. The reign of the Magneto Encapsulator, on the other hand, may just be beginning.

While the 7 (5) profile is somewhat anemic on its own, higher terrain colision damage does add an extra bit of spice. If your opponent has to jury rig the Navigation Lock because the ship would plow into an island instead, that’s another extra damage (mostly). However, getting terrain collisions with it is still difficult, since as someone on the discord pointed out to me, the facing doesn’t change and the blast has to be over the initial target. As such, it’s still primarily a way to hand out Navigation Locks.

I intend to try it on a Daedelus with attached Zumeena. 10 Dice should let you reliably do the 1 damage you need to trigger Magnetic and the valour effect. This package can also be brought in on strategic reserves to give you the perfect angle you need, and you have plenty of range to work with. Copernicus or Antarcticas still prefer the Heavy Particle Cannon, in my opinion.

 

Conclusion

While this is a nerf, I’d say it’s fairly minor overall. It did save me from having to math out 3 15 dice Heavy Particle Cannon shots vs. the combined volley, so silver linings. If I’ve missed anything please let me know.

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