Releasing all dem souls!

• It gives you +D3 PD to use per phase, and it doesn't have to be for the casket. No matter how you dice it, there's just not many things in the game that gives you this kind of advantage.  You want it to boost your normal casting? Go ahead. You want to use the Casket? Sure. You want to feed your Peripat? That's fine too.
• It gives you a pseudo-shooting option that you will always have.
• It allows you to remove a key pieces off the map if it goes off. I'm talking about serious key pieces here: The Skullcannon is Ld.7 with 4 wounds, Empire Cannons away from their general are also under threat, Ogre Ironblasters are Ld.7, although 5W will be harder to manage. Most of the other danger pieces only have 3 wounds. Elf RBTs only have 2W are are Ld.8; thus auto-dying on average rolls. Mournfangs in a flanking position are now suddenly threatened big time, so are most low Ld. chaff: Furies, Dogs, Sabertusks, the list goes on. And it has the potential to bounce.
• Once your opponent have figured out that this is a dangerous piece on the battlefield, he will throw dice to dispel it. The fact that he has to throw DD at a FREE spell potentially (D3 averages 2 dice free), you will now be ahead in the magic phase. This increases the chances you will have VDM, Desert Wind, or anything else you want to conjur up with your opponents are on a 2-dice deficit. If he fails to dispel and loses concentration, while the probability is low, it's just a shutout.
• This limits your opponent's movement, deployment and chaff potential. Will he risk bounces and lose large amounts of low. Ld chaff? He will need to deploy tight, or not be very careful of his movements or risk getting blasted off the board.  Forget about low Ld flankers, forget about warmachines trying to get flank shots, anything that can possibly threaten flanks is also threatened by the Casket if their leadership is low enough.
• With Peripat and Casket, you're literally +2 PD/DD on your opponent from the beginning of the game. You get 2 from the casket, you decide to bank it, and thus you're up 2 while you negotiate your existing magic phase. This is free advantage on both offense and defense.
• It works with a number of things that messes with your opponent's leadership.  Doom and Darkness makes it more effective, Golden Death Mask of Kharnut, Aura of Dark Majesty, anything that reduces or prevents superior leadership from being used.  While I'm not saying that this is the best use of points in the army, the synergy is there and cannot be overlooked.
• It's relatively cheap, small and you can keep it out of LoS because it doesn't need it to do its stuff. The effect is Direct Damage. It's also T10, I've had people shoot it with a cannon and call it a waste on a 1,2,3.  Most people don't even bother with it, and if you tuck it away in a corner without LoS, no one really bothers.

The lost art of dominating with an outdated book.

• Tier 1 - This tier represents the pinnacle of army power in the current metagame.  There are a lot of viable, competitive choices and they're all strong vs. netlists and cookie-cutters from other armies.  This level also indicates that regardless of build, the army is able to minimize on the number of bad matchups it will most likely encounter in a tournament setting.  Most of these armies have flexible magic, multiple viable builds, and strong options all over the book with some major power units that just soars above the rest.

• Tier 2 - This tier demonstrates a solid book with many competitive choices. Whether it is due to good internal balance or a few stand-out units, the army preforms fluidly on the table.  While certain builds are strong vs. netlists and can compete on equal footing with other armies out there, there are not as many as Tier 1 armies.  There will be more bad matchups that exist in this army tier, but not much since the majority of the book has the answers it needs.

• Tier 3 - This tier demonstrates workable unit choices with few competitive options. While some of these options are strong, the rest of the book suffers from not enough viable choices for a tournament setting. Whether it is due to subpar internal balance, or just that the units are not powerful enough compared to the other armies, there are noticeable weaknesses.  As a result, the number of bad matchups increases.

I googled Blood Knights and I got boobs.  Was not disappointed.

1. It's effective, not because of the fear-bomb, but because Golden Deathmask is amazing as an item overall.
2. When it does fear-bomb, it's hilarious because it makes your army godly.
3. Blenderbus + Chariots is the key:  It allows you to dictate where the combo is delivered and with all the speed and precision to do it.
4. You might as well bring Terrorgheists because if you're taking this combo, you're not out to make friends anyway.

Stare into the void.

• Combat drugs offering stat boosts can be useless to decent.  I would say they're worse than the current ones.
• Nothing looks great from the Warlord Traits.
• No ways to take troops outside of Warriors and Wyches.
• Raiders/Ravagers lose the ability to take Flickerfields.  This is gigantic because this means they have no protection vs. Ignore Cover now.  Even with a 5 points cost decrease, the 15 point Night Shields make them the same price they are now.
• This also means that Ravagers lose their ability to maintain fire and reap some kind of protection from Flicker Fields.  They must hug cover at all times or continuously Jink.
• The Glaive thing that the Succubus gets is the only form of AP2 melee outside of Incubi.  It's as if they never want us to kill SM characters.
• All the artefacts look subpar and generally not worth it.  Most of the psychology-based stuff is wasted on ATSKNF.

Is this DE kicking IG ass?  Only in GW's magical fantasy.

• The HQ section is really tricky for me because right now, I do not like the Succubus in her current place.  She went up in price, lost a lot of cheap weapon options, and the newer weapon options seems like you need the stars to be aligned to get any real profit.  The reason why I took her in the past is because 1. Wyches were good, 2. Thus allowing me to have a reason to take them and put them into combat, and 3. She was cheaper with better weapon options.
• The Archon is not looking so bad in comparison.  Sure, his Huskblade now sucks, he lost combat drugs, and he's pretty much a more expensive and useless version of his Craftworld cousin who comes with a 4++, an awesome ability and is only 10 points more.  When you compare this to the fact we have to buy the Clonefield, you pretty much want to torture the GW designers, but its OK, let's move on.  So you look at the Archon and you see a couple of neat things.  The first one is the Shadowfield being able to tank all the shots in any given phase:  Let's say he's in front of a unit of Wyches (for some reason) and your opponent opens an entire squad of Tacs on him.  Cool, take it all on the Archon, for his shield doesn't go away until the end of the phase.  Sure, he might die horribly, but this option is still there.  He is also the cheapest option to buy a WWP, which can lead to all kinds of cool possibilities.  I'm not sure if I like the investment factor yet, as +35 points for it is still much better for Eldar than it is for us (mainly because they can hit harder via Wraithguard and Fire Dragons).  Lastly, he is a Blaster caddy, very cheap, 75 points gives you an HQ that can shoot a lance from 18" away at BS7.
• Combat obj-sec still comes in the way of Wyches.  I have 40 of the damn suckers and I'll be damned if someone will tell me they're useless.  Sure, they're not as multi-purposed, but hopefully on a decent drug roll you can still apply 1 unit of these girls into someone's face with decent chances of holding them up or killing some of them.  These girls are also the only way to deliver a combat Archon (hurr hurr) or Succubus, but I would much rather do a Succubus because of her high I which will allow you to sweep units much more easily.  Just be careful who you're actually challenging and be careful on the layout of your characters.
• Then comes the workhorse of the list itself:  Min Raiders used for capping and Lance support, and then fully upgraded Gunboats that come with all the bells and whistles.  Before I talk about this in more depth, I want to touch upon how I feel about Night Shields.  To me, they're very expensive for +1 cover.  If you guys are used to having a blank board where your DE are being shot all the time, this might be worth the investment, but if you consider the fact that they're literally a quarter of the price of that paper airplane Raider that you're flying, you might as well face the facts here.  That vehicle is going to die, either by sheer number of glance/pens or there's Ignore Cover in the game.  In order for you to make a cost-effective choice whether or not to take Night Shields, you have to analyze your meta:  Do you play with a lot of ruins and builds and cover that will allow you to gain natural cover, do you have a lot of opponents that take Tau or Eldar (Ignore Cover), are you in open ground a lot?  All of these things matter when you're making this choice.
• Now, onto the actual discussion about Warriors.  You will always take a Blaster first and foremost.  Whether or not you rock them in a cheap ass Raider boat, they will be a mini-Ravager for you that can reach out and touch something with high-powered shots.  Otherwise, they will be mainstay damage dealers focused on killing enemy infantry.  This means that you're taking a full unit, Blaster, Splinter Cannon (maybe), inside a Raider with at least Aethersails and the mandatory Splinter Racks.  The main difference from this is that one unit is a solid support piece and is cheaper, and the other is an expensive (for what it does) infantry-shredder that makes Tyranids slimey tears.
• Venoms are still in, in fact, a lot of people urge that they're the thing to go.  I, however, completely disagree with this because the meta is filled with a lot of Tau big-suits, flying Demon FMC, double Dakkaflyrant, and Mechdar with plenty of WS.  You need Lances in order to touch some of these things, or at least threaten them with invul/cover saves and not their standard armor save.  This is why I like to be lance-heavy on the ships, and poison-heavy on the occupants.  With WWP in the game, reserve manipulation via Eldar allies (boo-hiss), and Venoms in our inventory, we will hopefully have the tools for the job regardless of matchup.
• You must vow to always take Aethersails on every single one of your vehicles if you can spare the points.  Why?  Because this is the best single upgrade to be given to our codex, as the thought of 24" consistent TB for 5 points gives even the saddest Archon a raging hard-on.  This will allow you to relocate behind enemy vehicles from a poor DS, find cover behind the most unlikely of places, or allow you to fully take advantage of obj-sec when you need it most.  DE is all about mobility and no single upgrade captures this as well as this 5 point upgrade.  In fact, it's such a given that you should just pretend all your vehicles costs 5 points more, minus Ravagers of course.

• Archon - Viable, one of our few HQ choices, has some good stuff going for him mentioned above.
• Archon Court - I just don't like these guys because it further compounds the fact that you're trying to keep things cheap and min-max cost.  If you think the AP3 flamers will benefit your army because of your meta, please, by all means keep them.
• Succubus - One of our few HQs and viable because of her CC abilities. 
• Lelith Hesperax - Too expensive for she offers IMO.  If only her A League Apart just flat out re-roll hits and wounds she would be a much better buy.
• Drazhar - Too expensive.
• Kabalite Warriors - Our bread and butter unit that can fit anywhere and in any way.
• Wyches - The only way to deliver our CC boys and girls, but they were nerfed themselves to be not as multi-functional.  I am fine with that, as long as you guys are willing to accept this fate as well.
• Incubi - No grenades, no buy.  Their high-I killing potential is literally wasted if their defenders can kill T3 3+ models (which should be everyone).
• Mandrakes - They're ugly, no one owns these guys, but they got better and can potentially harass enemy troops.  I bet they're meta-dependent because I play in a pretty mechanized meta, these guys are no good for me.
• Beastmasters - With the Baron or someone to tank for them, I think they got a lot worse.  The lack of WWP utility also hurts them a lot.
• Raiders - Bread and butter transport with anti-tank potential.
• Venoms - Bread and butter transport with anti-infantry potential.
• Hellions - Garbage units, don't even bother.
• Reavers - Yes, these guys are really good. They lose a lot of movement opportunities for damage, but they got cheaper and have Rending HoW. Not bad overall.
• Razorwing - Got 5 points cheaper if you take them with Lances, and I encourage all of you to do so because you need something to shoot things out of the air.  Keep them cheap, buy multiples.
• Scourges - One of the best things we have our book as you guys probably noticed.  Haywires is a solid answer but so are DS Heat Lances.  However, you have to admit that these guys are still bare-naked ladies with the amount of protection they have going for them.
• Ravagers - The Ravager is still viable despite its many nerfs.  The lack of Aerial Assault will hurt them greatly since that can be the difference between a side-shot vs. front, cover or no cover.  Some people seem to think that Scourges will replace these guys, but I don't think so.  The AV11 will put them out of kill potential for Bolters and immune to small-arms fire that can threaten Scourges.
• Voidraven Bombers - Take them cheap and keep them that way.  Just buy the 160 stock and they should be worth their points with their Blast Lances.  Void Lances are also very solid at killing enemy armor and flyers, so the decision is whether or not you want to subject them to AT/Flyer or killing ground units.

The runes of fate are unclear for the Dark Kin.

• Autarch - Most of the transports and units in our book that can ride said transports can now DS directly onto the battlefield.  This allows us to appear out of nowhere because 7th Ed. rules can bring back full reserve armies.  Given, you still need to keep some units on the battlefield on T1 so you don't auto-lose, you can play a pretty mean reserve game and the Autarch is the man to do it.  With his awesomely cheap price, you can take a barebones WS with some Dire Avengers and just have him chill in it.  If he wants to come out and play, a simple Fusion gun will be enough.  Personally, I think the Farseer is now out of the picture because the Autarch's reserve manipulation rules synergies with Deep Strike way more than some lame-o psychic abilities.
• Wave Serpents - The obvious power choice for competitive players will come in the form of the faithful, tried-and-true, tournament-winning transports of doom.  There is no arguing that the Wave Serpent is one of the best units in the entire game and for good reason.  It moves well, shoots well, and is extremely durable to return fire.  This is probably my go-to option in terms of providing scoring troops and a place that my Autarch can ride safely in.  I would be kidding myself if I said that the Autarch would be safe in one of my sailboats, but then again, a Fusion gun DSing in wouldn't be half bad.
• Windrider Jetbikes/Rangers - A good, decent cheap troop option if you want something to just fill up that requirement.  While I would probably take Windriders every time, the Rangers can be a little more survivable by back-capping and just going to ground every chance they get.  It's really whether or not you want an aggressive objsec unit, or something more survivable.  Regardless, these guys should be in reserve and come on later to preserve their own well-being.
• Fire Dragons - I can't say enough good things about these guys, except that they just blow our Trueborn out of the water.  You have incredibly strong and accurate shots at Melta and AP1, as well as Melta bombs as stock and 3+ armor.  For a lovely point cost of 110 for a squad of 5, you can take these guys in a Wave Serpent with an WWP Archon and call it a day.  Drop where you want, the WS will shoot the crap out of the rear armor of some vehicle, and then your Fire Dragons are now a permanent threat behind enemy lines or wherever you want top put it.  When you compare the price of 5x Trueborn with 4x Blasters, you get something like 115 DE vs. 110 from the Fire Dragons.  Just looking at that price difference should infuriate you because you get 3+ AS, meltabombs, fusion guns, Battle Focus, Fleet, the ability to take BS5 Exarchs, Fast Shot, and the lovely Wave Serpent.  You can bet your ass that these guys will replace your Trueborn in an mixed Eldar list.
• Wraithguard - You can either have normal shots or D-Scythes, it all depends on what you want these guys to do.  Put a Archon in there with WWP, equip him with a Shadowfield and he will tank all those shots on a T6 unit with 3+ AS otherwise.  Sure, why not, give them a Wave Serpent as well and they can go around anywhere they want, blowing up infantry and vehicles alike and do a fine good job at it.  This is points well-paid for right here, since they do an incredible amount of damage and is also extremely durable.
• Swooping Hawks/Warp Spiders - Drop in, do damage, feel good about yourself.  If you can take them, why not?  There's a reason why you see these guys in some Eldar lists, and you will find that they make great anti-infantry supplements to DE Scourges.
• Crimson Hunter - I think by now, we've all come to realize that DE doesn't have dedicated anti-air.  While the Razorwing is a fair purchase at 140 with lances, for 20 points more you get something that's completely designed to wreck anything in the air.  Enter the Crimson Hunter, one of the most hotly disputed worthwhile units in the Eldar codex.  If you guys know anything about me, this is my favorite unit to exist in 40K to date.  I love the idea of an Eldar fighter ace and I have it with the Crimson Hunter Exarch, since 4x S8 AP2 shots at BS5 that re-rolls pen vs. air targets will shoot anything out of the air.  My biggest gripe with it is that despite being virtually naked defensively, he doesn't have any type of countermeasures defensively.  It is the biggest crime in the whole codex that this air superiority fighter doesn't have Holo-fields when humans have figured that out since the '50s.  Absolutely embarrassing.  Either way, these guys are great for dedicated anti-air, something that Dark Eldar lacks entirely.
• Vyper Squadron/War Walkers - Does a crazy amount of damage at good range and with good maneuverability.  Comes with a buttload of high-powered S6 shots that you can upgrade to Scatter Laser so you can get that Laser-lock.  Let's just say that in most cases, these guys do a better job at killing vehicles than Ravagers.
• Wraithknight - The big daddy in the codex has just as much meaning in the Dark Eldar book as it does in the Eldar.  You have something big, something very threatening, and it can cover a lot of ground and maul things in combat.  The two heavy wraithcannons should be the mainstay weapon since it can reach out and touch anything, and maybe even possibly ID'ing something on a roll of a 6.  While not entirely reliable, I've seen Riptides get sucked into the warp by that thing, so it's all good.  Just make sure to stay out of fist fights with Dreadknights and the WK should be able to make its points back with careful play.  Just remember that with the WK on the field, it pulls a lot of fire and attention away from the rest of your flimsy sailboats.  This can be a boon or a vice depending on how you use the rest of your army.  If the only thing on the board is the Wraithknight and the rest of your army is in reserve, it's going to be quite obvious what your enemy is going to shoot at.
• Night Spinner - I put the Night Spinner in my army lists because it can do something very unique:  Provide Dark Eldar with a high-S Barrage weapon for vehicles hiding behind cover from our lances.  You have Razorwings to shred horde units, but the Night Spinner is there to punish vehicles that like to hide from the possible Alpha Strike.  The torrent weapon on a fast vehicle is also a useful at times, capable of hitting multiple vehicles and/or enemy models.

Let's go Autarch!

• Mechdar, 2x WK-variant, Autarch variant, Spiritseer/Wraithguard, all of these lists may or may not have Farseers to provided Shrouded.
• Tau, with possible SM allies, assume your standard gunline with Broadsides, Buffmander, Kroot backfielders and Riptides.  New suit will be allowed at the event.
• Space Marine-variants, possible Imperial Knight allies (made popular last major), but almost always grav-shooting
• Imperial Knights
• Chaos Space Marines, typical Nurgle play + Heldrakes
• Necrons, big infantry or MSU mech-playstyles with Ghost Arks, Lord in Chariot and Annihilation Barges
• Demons, typical flying circus
• Tyranids, while rare, almost always come with dual dakka-Flyrants.

My wife called me a robot this weekend.  Does not compute.

• It started on Thursday with the 9pm PST release, I already had it pre-loaded and I ended up playing till 5 in the morning.
• Woke up last as hell on Friday, called out of work because I was dead tired, but still ended up playing until 1am.
• Decided to run some errands on Saturday, watched my brother play with Harmony for a bit before jumping on myself and played until 5 in the morning.
• Woke up early, jumped on and played until right now.  All in all, I played way too much Civ and my wife thinks I might some problems.  I don't deny it.

• I've only played with ARC, Pan-Asian Cooperative, Polystralia and Fraco-Iberia so far.  Out of those, I feel that Polystralia and ARC are the strongest.  Fraco can be good, but the technology bonus needs to be timed really well to get the big pay off.  Pan-Asian's worker speed is nice, but not as good as ARC and Polystralia's bonuses.
• Why?  Because ARC allows you to spy faster and get more intrigue, which allows you to do nastier stuff.  I don't really care about this in particular, what I really care about is the faster operations.  Faster operations means you can steal science faster, which means you get faster research.  This is huge, and very consistent since steal technology gives you random crap.
• Polystralia sings well to one of the game's assets right now and that's trade.  Trade is absolutely huge in this game and you gotta set that stuff up quick.  Once you get your trade routes established, the money starts to flow and everything is smooth sailing from there.  Energy and research gives you everything you need to jumpstart your game and stay ahead of the other races.
• If you have a coastal city, sometimes its best to start with the small trading convoys and then upgrade to trading vessels later on.  Water cargo gives you a lot bigger payoffs and allows you to reach out to other continents.  If you're doing well on exploring and you're getting a good amount of energy, feel free to go for vessels immediately on coastal cities.
• How I like to start off a faction is to pick the faction, go for Artists because of the +2 culture and +1 health in every city, Fusion Reactor for the faster 2nd Explorer, Laboratory so you can immediately start trading and save yourself some research time, and land on a Terran world because you get land, water, and multiple trading areas and playstyles.
• Once I get in game, I look at the Prosperity tree in Virtue for a large amount of my time.  The +10% growth is great in early game and helps me get more citizens while I go straight for the free Worker and Colonist.  Basically, anything that's free or near-free is extremely good at getting going early game.  It's very much a snowball because if you get a good location with healthy trade routes, expansion opportunities and your shit doesn't get fucked up by the local aliens, then you're good to go.
• Double Explorer is vital because it allows you to go around the world, scout things out and get research pods.  Pods gives you all kinds of different bonuses, but the culture ones are exceptional because of the free virtues they give you.  If you get a free affinity level, put it into Purity because it makes it so aliens don't attack your explorers.  This is super useful in early game when you're cracking all the expeditions open.  Combine this with Pathfinders from the Prosperity tree and you're rolling in free expeditions.
• Another reason I go Prosperity is because of the health bonuses.  Sure, grabbing the buildings that give you health is great, but having a virtue that gives you Mind Over Matter for +7 the heath is fucking ridiculous.  When you expand and your cities grow, your health starts to go down and everything slows down if you fall into the red.  The same thing happens with you annex other cities after you kick their ass or turn them into puppet states.  Good health in this game makes you stay on top of the other factions.  Every single game, all of my cities are floating around 20+ and staying in a Utopian society for max +bonuses.  It's just essential if you want to have a good economy and kick ass with your military.
• Speaking of which, don't build your military up too quickly, and hold off on the Might virtues until you're ready to roll out.  The +50% experience is great, but often times that's enough from that tree.  Once you get into later game and you have a lot of science, the Foresight from the Knowledge tree is also fantastic.  After you're ready to build your late game wincons like Emancipation Gate, go into the Industry tree for faster buildings and wonders.
• I can't stress the importance of having healthy cities and a good economy before military units.  If the local aliens are giving you a hard time, look into getting the fence from Ecology that keeps them away from your capital buildings.  If they start attacking your convoys, getting the fence will give you the quest option to make your convoys immune to alien attacks.  Always get this if your convoys are getting attacked or else you're just bleeding money and falling behind.
• When looking around for good expansion spots on the map, you must know what kind of resources plays well with your affinity.  For Supremacy, you want Firaxite nodes, Xenomass if you're going Harmony and Floatstone if you're going Purity.  The only way you're going to find this out is by having a lot of scouting and uncovering as much of the continent that you're on ASAP.  At the end of the day, the map will determine which affinity you will be best for, which kind of sucks if you really enjoy the Supremacy playstyle or whatever.  If the map doesn't have any Firaxite, you're pretty much screwed unless you trade for all these luxury resources.  This can be a huge waste of money in the long run, so its best to let the map determine which affinity you roll with.  This is another reason I like having Pioneering pre-researched, since it allows my guys to go on water via the Planetary Survey research in the same tree.
• The Spy Agency is pretty important in this game and so is intrigue.  I always try to get as much stolen research as possible to shorten the time I need to research sometime.  It's consistent and gives you a keeps you ahead on the research tree.
• I'm the kind of player that likes to build 3-4 cities and then keep them as healthy as possible.  I don't think you really need more than that, because if you need more, just build an army, kill other players and get yourself some puppet states.  Don't bother annexing them because it's a serious hit on your overall health.  Hopefully by this stage in the game, the cities you destroy have some kind of trade established and you can just build the vessels/convoys at your cities and send it over to them if you don't have any.  Otherwise, just raze them into the ground.  I believe this particular playstyle of having fewer but more powerful cities is called "tall" for all those civ fans out there.
• Research small upgrades that gives you boosts to your economy early on.  While rushing to that Spy Agency via Computing might seem like the best thing ever, if I can grab 2-3 research options that will improve my economy first in the early game, I will most likely do that.  It's also smart to go for the luxury materials foundries because you can always work those tiles early.
• Don't get caught up in building Wonders in early game, but let your cities build what's really important: anything that contributes to your economy.  When I say economy, I mean trade routes, science, health, production, food, energy, because anything that boost the performance of your cities will keep you ahead for the rest of the game.  Wonders will come when you're at 3+ cities and you can dedicate your city with the highest production to building them, which is probably going to be your capital (since it should be the most developed by then).
• Laying siege to towns is really quick in this game compared to the other Civ games from what I'm told.  My brother has played nearly every civ pretty competitively so he's been one hell of a coach.  What you want to do is get yourself no more than 3 artillery pieces because believe me, that's pretty much all you need to bring a city to its knees.  Your cruisers are also really effective at laying waste of coastal cities, so I always bring some naval units when I'm waging war on the seas.  While you can build a Gunboat to patrol, I wouldn't go near any of the aliens in the water until you get yourself some cruisers to take them down.
• Speaking of combat, all the races play pretty differently when it comes to warfare.  Purity is a pretty defensive faction with a lot of buffs that target their defensive traits, and most of their stuff can float above the ground thanks to Floatstone technology.  Supremacy is very much about the attack, having good range, damage bonuses to standing next to adjacent units, and can shoot twice on their shootier stuff in later game.  Then comes Harmony, which is about speed, healing and using miasma to improve their units in combat.  You typically want to start your assault with the field covered with miasma because it deals damage to your enemies and give you bonuses.  It's basically scorched earth tactics at that point.

Emancipate them with Angels!

Victory Conditions

• Domination: conquer the capital cities of all other factions.
• Contact (Science): discover clues left by the intelligent Precursor aliens who once inhabited this planet, decode "The Signal" and contact them. To start, complete two of these three tasks:
  • Find a fragment of The Signal via an Explorer Expedition on Progenitor Ruins. The chance is slim, but possible.
  • Launch a Deep Space Telescope orbital unit to search for a fragment of The Signal.
  • Research the Transcendental Math technology and solve the Transcendental Equation to derive a Signal fragment.
  Then:
  • Build the Decode Signal project.
  • Build the (Contact Beacon) Planetary Wonder to attract the attention the aliens.
  • Achieve oneness with Carl Sagan.
• The Promised Land (Purity): tame the planet in the name of Humanity and make it a home for our Earthbound brethren.
  • Research Orbital Networks and build a Lasercom Satellite to reestablish communication with Earth.
  • Achieve Purity level 13 and build the Exodus Gate planetary wonder.
  • Receive 20 colonists from Earth through the gate and settle them.
  • Profit.
• Transcendence (Harmony): awaken the planet's sentient superorganism and mind-meld with it.
  • Research Nanorobotics, Transgenics, and Swarm Intelligence to develop the Cognitive Link.
  • Achieve Harmony level 13 and build the Mind Flower planetary wonder.
  • Defend the Mind Flower from the unclean and support it with resources and Mind Stem buildings.
  • Achieve eco-nirvana and become one with the planet's consciousness.
• Emancipation (Supremacy): annihilate humanity on Earth. Er, I mean, "free" them from their biological bodies.
  • Research Orbital Networks and build a Lasercom Satellite to reestablish communication with Earth.
  • Achieve Supremacy level 13 and build the Emancipation Gate planetary wonder.
  • Send military units through the gate to effect the mass genocide of humanity on Earth. Er, I mean, "liberate" them from their trifling, unenlightened existence.
  • Go directly to Hell. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

• Emancipation's victory condition is sending 1000 strength worth of units through the gate and you can only send one per turn.  That means you want to send in your biggest dudes like the Angel so you can essentially complete the victory in 10 or so turns.  Don't worry, you get your Firaxite back once the Angel goes through, so you can keep buying more of them to send in.  Ideally, you want to be producing one and buying one so you never slow down a turn.
• For the Promised Land victory, you might end up wanting to kill yourself because its a huge pain in the ass .  The colonists that come from earth are slow as fuck and have limited movement, and you need to settle 20 of them on the clusterfuck world you're already in.  To make matters worse, the settlers abide by all the standard 3-tiles away bullshit so you need to spread them the fuck out too.  This one took me forever, so fuck earth and these dumbass colonists.  You can tell I'm salty.
• The Transcendence victory is by far the easiest one to complete IMO.  Just build Mind Stems and wait for the stupid thing to blossom.  Poof, instant hippie victory.
• For the Contact victory, prepare for some massive RNG because you need to explore a lot and uncover ruins that decodes the signal.  I just lucked out hard with my victory.  Proof below!  Oh, and once you turn on the beacon (30 turn wait), it will use 1000 of your energy immediately and all energy income will stop.  I guess that's what you get when you turn on a giant flashlight and point it into space.
• Lastly, the Domination victory is when you just go around kicking everyone's ass.  I did it with the Purity affinity and waged war across multiple continents like a badass.  Feelsgoodman.jpg.

Prepare to roll that D6, or D20, or 3xD20, who knows.