Into the Breach

Introduction

Into the Breach is my ultimate turn-based tactics game. It's no doubt a roguelike in its campaign structure but it's the turn-by-turn mini-puzzles that are the star of the show and keep me coming back year after year. Part of the appeal to these puzzles is that finding the best possible solution isn't as straight forward as one might expect, especially when compared to traditional puzzle games. Into the Breach asks the player to balance grid power, mech health, killing vek, and bonus objectives (which on higher difficulties are not really optional). While this is quite a few things to juggle, the actual battles themselves are very contained in scope. With just three mech under your control and the map being an 8x8 grid, the entire battlefield is at your fingertips. A shared trait with FTL (Subset’s previous game) is their easily digestible UI. Minimal menus and a clean visual design mean everything the player needs to know is right in front of them. This GDC talk by Matthew Davis, one half of Subset Games, is fascinating and digs into a lot of these topics. I highly recommend a watch if you're into game design at all.

But speaking of FTL, a couple of years ago I did a run with each ship on hard difficulty and wrote a lengthy report on the endeavor. In the same vein, I recently embarked on a run with each Into the Breach squad on the unfair difficulty. While seemingly similar roguelike challenges in concept, Into the Breach and FTL have some distinct differences that create some alternative rules and goals. First and foremost, winning the run will not be the end all be all for this challenge. I have less than half the playtime in Into the Breach as I do in FTL and very little of that is on unfair. Most of my playtime is actually pre-Advanced Edition. With that version of the game, I had quite a bit of experience as I played through all the base squads on hard, beating each on 2, 3, and 4 island victories. So, with this in mind, the goal with this challenge is obviously to win each run, but practically, I want dive deeper into the Advanced Edition content and then to compare run scores and see which squad comes out on top. This works out because I like Into the Breach's scoring system better anyways. 

An Unfair Mode Playthrough

So, here's the ruleset for this playthrough of Into the Breach:

• One attempt with each squad (not including the random or custom squads).
• The first squad will be the Rift Walkers using Ralph Karlsson on 0 exp.
• The difficulty will be set to Unfair.
• All additional content will be enabled.
• I must play all four islands before attempting the Volcanic Hive.
• Subsequent squads can use the pilot saved from the previous timeline.
• I can choose whatever order to play the squads in.

Watching Into the Breach is a little dull and I'm not doing commentary so the following article will contain run reports for each attempt. Into the Breach gameplay is really just staring at the screen, running through scenarios in your head. So, the reports will contain important moments, interesting strategy tidbits, exciting developments, and notable finds. I'll cap it off with the final squad build and run score. So, without any further delay here's 13 runs, 13 squads, an unfair mode playthrough.

Rift Walkers

The Rift Walkers are the first squad unlocked from the start of the game. Everyone's first run will feature them. Thus, their stats and weaponry are very basic. These mechs all have three movement meaning deployment and subsequent positioning is critical. While their weaponry is basic in its function, at least every mech can push enemies, with the Artillery Mech's Artemis Artillery being the star of the show, being able to push four. Damage is fairly low all round, so pushing Vek out of the way or bumping them into stuff for extra damage is paramount. The Taurus Cannon is the only weapon I'm looking at fully replacing, it's simply too expensive to upgrade. Otherwise, some alternate, limited use weapons on the other mechs would be nice to provide some more flexibility. As for initial uses for reactor cores, I think movement upgrades, especially for the Prime and Brute are top priority.

Starting Pilot

Not much to say here. Everyone's first run of Into the Breach begins with the Rift Walkers and Ralph Karlsson at 0 exp. I thought it was appropriate to do the same for this challenge. Ralph will be in the Combat Mech to start and as he tries to rack up some early kills to level up as soon as possible.

The first island back was overall really smooth minus Ralph dying pretty much immediately to a leaper... But we completed all the objectives, only took a smidge of grid damage, got Harold in a pod and got Morgan Lejeune as the perfect island reward. Then I was able to afford three cores to cap it all off. There was one sticking point though that I'm glad I worked my way out of. One reason I often pick Detritus first is that aside from the acid which makes killing vek easier, there seems to be less of the trickier missions. In this current run, still shaking off the rust, I clicked on a mission where I thought we had the Detritus acid launcher/mountain destroyer thing on our side. That unit is sweet, straight up one-shotting multiple vek from range. But it turns out this particular Detritus "contraption" is a little more nuanced.

The bonus objective is to use the contraption four times. Looking at what it actually does, the contraption has two uses of a shield launcher and two uses of a 1 dmg missile. The catch is that these actions apply to all units on the battlefield. So that means damaging your own mechs and shielding the vek... This must have been an advanced edition addition because I totally forgot about this.

What added to the complexity here was the regen psion which essentially would negate any chip damage I wanted to accumulate with the missiles. What I ended up doing was focusing damage on the alpha leapers, knowing they were by far the biggest threat going forward. Using the Combat and Cannon Mechs, a bump, and the missiles to finish it, we cleared them off the board. It took me a while to arrive at this solution because it took me a while to realize the contraption had 2 HP and wasn't immediately in danger. So, by the end of turn two there were only two Vek left leaving me the perfect opportunity to use the contraption's shields. In conclusion, I think this is the right way to handle deploying the two functions of the contraption. Spend turn 1 killing as many vek as possible with the help of the missiles. Turn 2 finish off as many as you can, then shield before a bunch more emerge on turn 3.

I still don't have a good feel for what order to select islands in. All I know is Archive is my favorite island just for the vibes. And then for the first mission I remembered why the vibes are so good, got to love proximity mines:

By the end of the 2nd mission, I had gotten Prospero in a pod, Harold now had Skilled and +1 move, and Morgan had Masochist. I spent some time thinking through where I wanted each pilot. I decided that long term Morgan will almost certainly be on the Combat Mech, boosted combined with 4 base damage is really nice. That meant Prospero was on the Cannon Mech since flying provides fantastic maneuverability in close quarters. And that left Harold on the Artillery Mech. 5 movement is nice on any mech, what can I say.

The 4th mission of the island came down to an interesting choice between a super easy defensive shields/air support/single grid power reward outing or a defend the tanks objective or a high threat dam mission. I've always been a fan of the "break the dam" maps and this one was in a good position plus there was a robotics lab, so I thought it was worth risking the perfect island. I was already set on pilots anyway...

The final boss of the island was the psion abomination. We got lucky with the vek mostly attacking the mechs, so we used turn 1 to combo down the boss with two attacks from the Prime and Brute. The rest of the fight got a little out of hand because of this but ended up taking zero grid damage thanks to a 4% resist.

For the perfect island reward we got Silica, despite having no intentions of replacing our current pilots. The real reward was Morgan picking up Opener for her final ability. This is huge as it grants her boosted and +2 move on the first turn. It's an incredible little combo with her default Field Research ability that grants her boosted on kill. With the rest of our rep, I picked up three reactor cores to power up the +2 damage upgrade on the Titan Fist and bought Guided Missile to replace Taurus Cannon. This means 5 damage turn 1 for the Combat Mech and a more versatile alternative for the Cannon Mech. Guided Missile does the same damage, just now we can bend shots around corners.

Pinnacle always scared me a little bit for some reason or another. I'm not sure why I have this sense that it's difficult relative to the other islands. I always think about those little robots and the different objectives revolving around them. I can never exactly recall which missions are easy or hard or what the objective even is. Well, hopefully through this exercise I can come to understand this island better.

One thing I do remember enjoying, that we were greeted with in our first mission, was frost mines, got to love those! We took a defend the robots type mission next where the little guys scurry around each turn dropping frost mines. This one is fun too, just nerve-wracking because of how fragile they are. On the flip side it's nice when they're fragile but on the opposing team. We took a high threat, destroy the boom bots mission after that. Really only because it was the combination of a good map layout plus it had a robotics lab. It seemed worth it and proved to be so. The boom bots are very susceptible to all the Artillery Mech's pushing ability. It worked out nicely here because buildings were mostly out of the way, so the explosive damage really just hurt their own.

The centipede boss was a cake walk thanks to a very nice map layout and our Combat Mech doing 5 damage turn 1. And that sealed another perfect island, a little low on grid power I opted for the +4 grid option as we are set on pilots. In the store there were some good things available. We settled on buying Aerial Bombs, an alternative weapon for the Brute that does damage and smokes an enemy, along with 2 reactor cores. Those we immediately sunk into upgrading the Aerial Bombs range so it can smoke two enemies at once.

Saving the best for last, the terraformer mission is why I love R.S.T. We setup the bait by lining everyone up out of the way of the to be terraformed grasslands and let the vek come to us...

As whole though, R.S.T. didn't get much harder than this. We just steamrolled everything. In pods we received Chen Rong and Flood Drill. For the perfect island we took Heat Engines just for fun. Then picked up 3 cores in the shop after selling things off. The squad was feeling pretty strong from the sheer damage of the Combat Mech, the versatility of the Cannon Mech, and the pushing of the Artillery Mech. I threw Flood Drill onto our Prime just in case and Heat Engines onto the Ranged for good measure. Prospero had also gotten his final level up, so now he sits with Invulnerable and +1 Move. Not too bad.

Unfortunately, the squad and my recording came to an end. I actually think I forgot to press start recording at all, so no screenshots for this final battle, damn... Well, needless to say, I wasn't ready for the onslaught the Vek had prepared for me in the Volcanic Hive. From memory, I took a ton of damage in phase 1 and went to phase 2 with maybe only 1 grid power left and lost on turn 1 there. Disappointing for what felt like a really strong start to this playthrough. Without the recording It's hard to comment on what specifically happened. I'll try not to make that mistake again.

Run Recap

Despite losing in horrific fashion in the final showdown, this was a really strong run. 37836 is a pretty high score and zero failed objectives is what we like to see. You have to see the positives in the journey because the end result is a little demoralizing. I know I've done it before, but now I'm left wondering how to best that last battle. I went in with full grid power, a strong and versatile arsenal with strong pilots. So, I don't know, it doesn't help I can't look back at my mistakes here. Onto the next one!

Which pilot to save was actually a tough choice, each had a strong argument. Harold's Skilled plus +1 Move on top of his Frenzied Repair ability is just a lovely, well-rounded set of boosts that would fit into any squad. Morgan's exciting combination of Opener plus Field Research makes her boosted every turn if played right. And Prospero has Flying plus +1 Move. If you didn't know, Flying is incredibly strong in this game because it allows you to move through enemies and maneuverability is king. But with that being said, the unique combination of traits our Morgan has means we're going to keep her. It's a tough choice, but there's particular squads the I think really need that extra damage.

Blitzkrieg

I didn't like Blitzkrieg pre-Advanced Edition; I like them even less now. The limited movement, the good for nothing Hook Mech, the deceptively bad Lightning Mech... I don't know what to say. 2 damage means nothing to Alpha Vek. The first core is obvious; you need Building Chain on the Electric Whip. But also, every mech needs more movement badly. The Hook Mech's Grappling Hook is so useless in part because this guy can't even get to where it would matter half of the time. Let's get this over with.

Starting Pilot

Getting kills to maintain Morgan's boosted status shouldn't be a problem with her on the Lightning Mech. There's usually one non-Alpha Vek sitting around. Getting meaningful kills is a different question. I didn't like playing Blitzkrieg on Hard difficulty pre-advanced edition. Now with the boosted status and being on the Unfair difficulty not much has changed.

With the Lightning Mech piloted by Morgan I wasn't too concerned about damage early with Blitzkrieg. It was the early game objectives that require finesse and versatility that were my main worry. I choose Detritus first for this reason. Vek eggs and acid containers seem more achievable when compared to the robots on Pinnacle or tanks on Archive or the bomb on R.S.T. Here was an early battle that had a fun first turn. It's a tight map with vek eggs and a time pod that took a little while.

The pod was empty unfortunately, but the first core is really important for this squad. It immediately went into the Lightning Whip's Building Chain ability. This one is a key upgrade as it enables further AOE damage that is already boosted by Morgan.

The rest of Detritus was pretty unremarkable. I was surprised to get out of the boss fight at 6 grid power, much better than I thought things would go on the first island. But I do think Detritus is the smart pick for this squad. We did get the all-important perfect island reward, and it presented a tough dilemma. Silica was offered as the pilot reward... Silica's pilot ability is Double Shot: Mech can act twice if it does not move (Requires 2 Power), a strong yet limiting and costly ability. On the Lightning Mech, Silica teases the awesome idea of zapping a huge group of bugs twice. At the end of the day though I went with 3 damage with the option to move, over 2 damage twice and can't move. Most alphas are 5 HP anyway, so Silica wasn't blowing me away in this case, especially for two reactor cores.

The real frustration with this squad is the Grapple Mech. This thing stinks, so upgrading it in some way was my priority. The shop had a weapon I hadn't seen before, Flood Drill (convert any Liquid tile into a Hole, spreading the liquid to adjacent tiles). I was sitting at eight rep, so I decided to pick up two cores and give it a shot on the Grapple Mech, who knows, it might have something to do now.

Archives started out ok, but on the 2nd mission I was forced into taking a high threat map that had an awkward layout and bad repairs. The other option was a volatile Vek mission, which seemed even more disastrous. Things started out looking up as the Vek lined up for a perfect Flood Drill.

Yet even with this strong start, this map was too awkward for my squad. The limited movement plus all the water and mountain tiles made these cities impossible to protect. The Boulder Mech was the only useful squad member here. What a nightmare.

Run Recap

Well, that was a quick end for one of my least favorite squads. I think this one could've gone much further after that good first island. What I need to do is balance my zeal for perfect islands with the reality at hand. I should've realized this map was going to be a nightmare for my squad regardless of if it was high threat or not. The volatile Vek on the other map probably would have gotten fried but at least my grid power would still be up. No other pilots were worth saving so Morgan lives on for now. Hopefully this is my low score for the challenge.

Cataclysm

Cataclysm is the first Advanced Edition squad of the playthrough and were chosen due to their science mech's unique 'On Kill' weapon ability. I think there's only one other weapon like this and it's on the Arachnophiles. In Cataclysm's case, what's triggered on kill is that adjacent tiles become cracked. Then, if a cracked tile is damaged it turns into a void tile, an insta-kill for any non-flying unit. So, that's the Drill Mech's job, kill off little guys to open up opportunities for the other mechs to capitalize. The prime and ranged mechs are a little awkward to use and don't do much damage, so knocking big Alpha Vek into cracked tiles is the gameplan. The Pitcher Mech is setup nicely with four HP and four movement. The increased range upgrade on the Hydraulic Lifter is the top priority alongside the Seismic Capacitor's +1 damage.

Starting Pilot

Our Opener Morgan will slot nicely into the Drill Mech and with a single core investment open up one-shotting three HP vek. Flipping enemy's attacks isn't so bad, but we'd really like to trigger her Field Research ability every turn to maximize the number of cracked tiles.

Something that has made me a better Into the Breach player is mission selection and identifying lower risk maps. Understanding the enemy is another layer to understanding this risk. I picked Detritus here because it had fireflies, gastropods, and bouncers. All non-flying and low movement Vek making them easy to contain and thwart while being susceptible to void tiles. The 2nd mission I took on this island is a perfect example of a low-risk map. The vek got so confused about what to do that one is attacking another and two aren't attacking at all.

Also, I've chilled out on forcing myself to take harder missions for more rewards. A one rep mission can be a lot easier than a two rep mission (map dependent). And it's not worth risking a perfect island and grid damage for one additional rep. Especially in the first two islands, completing all your objectives to get that perfect island reward is so critical because you're given the option to select a named pilot. Time pods can be empty, so without perfect islands you could be going to the third island with a lackluster line up of pilots. Named pilot's special abilities are important, even the not so good ones have a leg up on default pilots. I think an easy way for your run to go downhill fast is to have default pilots with bad skills late in the game. The moral of the story here is: value a perfect island over taking hard missions with higher rewards, especially in the early game.

Of course there's always times when the high threat missions are absolutely worth taking. Who cares about an extra alpha vek on the board when Detritus' disposal unit can take out four on turn 1...

Overall, Detritus went pretty smooth, we got Adam in the pod, Camila for the perfect island, and was able to afford three reactor cores. Adam is a pilot with an odd ability that I haven't used much. He has the special ability Chosen One: On Reset Turn, gain Shield and +2 Move. I've never thought about strategically using the 'reset turn' mechanic. And it's important to note that while the shield will persist until damage is taken, the +2 move is only for that turn. Camila, we'll talk more about later, but she's one of my favorites with her Evasion ability: Mech is unaffected by Webbing and Smoke. Just really useful to have around and on the front lines, she'll pilot the Pitcher Mech.

Thank goodness for the Advanced Edition adding an armored train mission, the non-armored train is such bullshit. Turn 1s like the one below are super common and the default train is so flimsy that it made me never want to take the mission despite really liking it in concept. The big change is that it can run over Vek. It's still pretty flimsy, anything over one damage takes it out. With certain squads, like Cataclysm, this mission still isn't an easy putt. I was very worried about cracking train track tiles for instance. Blitzkrieg hates train missions as another example.

In this case the train made it, and we got out of there alright, only taking one grid damage. Better yet, the time pod contained Targeted Strike, a really handy limited use weapon that can get you out trouble when you need a little push somewhere where you can't reach.

Referring back to the topic of mission selection, sometimes it is worth taking a high threat mission. A big signal telling me it's worth it is if there's a reactor core as a reward. These come in the form of either defend the robotics or defense lab. The reward of one reactor core is huge because a single core costs three rep at the end of an island. So essentially the bonus objective below rewards five rep or nearly two cores for completion. That's sometimes worth risking your perfect island for. For me, I usually evaluate this based on whether or not I need another strong pilot or not. If I do, I prioritize the perfect island, if I don't, I prioritize getting more reactor cores.

Here on Archive, we were able to get the best of both worlds the high threat mission's reactor core and the perfect island! With the reward I took the pilot Bethany who has the ability Starting Shield: Mech starts every mission with a Shield. So pretty much Adam but I don't have to reset turn to get the shield. We were able to afford three cores which all went into the 2nd damage upgrade for Seismic Capacitor bringing it to a base damage of three, four with Morgan's boosted ability.

Bethany's time with the squad was limited though, because with the first pod we cracked open on R.S.T. we found Prospero. Prospero needs no introduction; he's the best of the best thanks to his special ability Flying: Mech gains Flying (1 power required). Flying mechs are the most versatile mechs in the game and Prospero turns any mech into just that. Now having two flying mechs and Camila on the squad, we're sitting very pretty when it comes to maneuverability.

Oh and on the pilot front, Camila has now transformed her mech into an absolute unit. She leveled into Skilled and +2 HP giving her mech 8 HP without using any reactor cores. I can't even count those bars anymore... lol.

The run was going smoothly until Pinnacle. The 2nd or 3rd mission in I took this map and immediately regretted it. What a disastrous confluence of poor layout and enemy types. First off, having the double city tile way up in Vek territory sucks, this location is going to be lucky to survive. Second, the deployment area is very limited with no way to guarantee our mechs wouldn't be webbed by a Spiderling. Third, the city and factory tiles being across the back and having at least one on each row is a nightmare with Centipedes much less a Centipede Leader. Plus, Moths are here and they are just a nightmare on any map.

Turn 1 went okay. The Pitcher Mech tossed the Alpha Centipede onto the emerging vek while blocking their projectile. The Triptych Mech pushed the Alpha Moth and killed the Spiderling. The Drill Mech flipped the Centipede Leader's attack. We got fortunate with the alpha bouncer's attack being resisted.

Turn 2 is where a crucial error was made. With the Triptych Mech, I decided to use Targeted Strike to free the Drill Mech while blocking the centipede leader's projectile. Targeted Strike can be used from anywhere. So, the problem here was that I should've positioned the mech one tile back. This was for two reasons: the centipede leader's attack would've killed the inactive bot next the mech and it wouldn't have created the perfect opening for a spiderling to ruin our day. At the start of turn 3 I realized the error of my ways. Both the science and ranged mechs got webbed, the bot that should've been dead and an alpha moth were targeting my Drill Mech, and three other vek were attacking city tiles and/or objectives. Two of my mechs were webbed and seven grid damage was being threatened... I had messed up...

Due already having used my Targeted Strike and the other mechs literally not being able to help at all, I resorted to protecting the grid and objectives by freeing the Triptych Mech and leaving Morgan to die... We were on pace for a perfect island, so I'd have an opportunity to pick up another pilot anyway. Nonetheless, looking back this could've easily been avoided with better mech placement and more map awareness.

But in a turn of events, the prefect island reward choices were tough to choose from despite our need for another pilot. This is because the all-powerful Ice Generator was on offer. A weapon that freezes everyone and everything in a huge radius, provided you have enough cores, which we do. The pilot on offer was no slouch either, Gana with Opener. I mulled it over for a while, but for the final island, a particularly crowded final island, the Ice Generator was the only option.

Not much to say here, frost is a little boring. But a win is a win. This will probably be the easiest final battle of the playthrough.

Run Recap

Our first win of the playthrough! And a solid final score too. I know I can do better, but it's good to get one in the victory column. Overall, Cataclysm felt really strong throughout this run. The pilots really carried the show for the first four island, Camila, Prospero, and Morgan is a nice lineup with good versatility. The final battle was carried by the weapons however as we ended with an AI pilot. The choice of who to save could've been tough, but Prospero rolled Invulnerable and Thick Skin, so it was a fairly easy choice to with our hugely skilled Camila.

Rusting Hulks

After finding a Skilled Camlia, there was only ever going to be one option for which squad was next. The Rusting Hulks are probably my favorite squad from back in the pre-advanced edition days. Smoke is just really strong and smoke that does damage, well that's even stronger. You get two mechs with four movement and one of them has flying. So, they're a good movement squad with a lot of ways to counter the Vek. Aerial Bombs is the star of the show here. The +1 range upgrade is huge as Vek frequently crowd together especially on higher difficulties. The Pulse Mech definitely feels a little useless early on but is a ripe candidate for pilots that improve mobility and positioning. The Storm Generator upgrade is a nice-to-have that I typically thrown on for the last island and volcano.

Starting Pilot

Just like the Rusting Hulks are an old favorite, the same goes for Camila. Looking at the pilot stats on my save file, she blows everyone else out of the water in terms of number of battles fought. Tricking Scorpions and Spiders never gets old and is really beneficial to the success of the mission. With the Rusting Hulks I always opt to put Camila into the Jet Mech. This mech often finds itself on the frontlines so at risk of being webbed by Vek and smoked by themselves.

Archive was an easy choice. Fireflies and Leapers, along with the Mosquito Leader who we can trick with Camila. This island was a cakewalk for the most part and showed how important it is to consider what enemies you pick for your first island. With the Leapers being negated by Camila and the rest being non-flying, controlling the battles was pretty straight forward. That is until you have to play a not-so great map with buildings scattered around in awkward places. So, after a decent turn one, the Vek decided to ignore our mechs and attack five building tiles... fuck me I guess? At least the poor luck was reflected on the Vek's side as one building resisted damage on a 4% chance.

This squad struggles early when the Slide Mech is more limited. Enemies can pile up on this squad and unless positioned optimally, they struggle to handle five or six threats. The Mosquito Leader was a case of this. Too many high health enemies that this squad struggles to take out and then the Slide Mech gets exposed.

Fortunately, we got out of there and picked up Gana for the perfect island reward. In the shop I had two extra rep and was between buying two grid power or picking up Force Amp, a passive that improves bump damage on Vek. I ended up going with Force Amp for the damage but was a little hesitant because it doesn't help the Jet Mech or give us more versatility in attack options. What will help the Jet Mech is the +1 range upgrade so that it can smoke two adjacent targets instead of just one.

Mission one turn one of using Gana I remembered why I like him so much. Who cares if the Slide Mech is a little useless when Gana can attract three Vek attacks. Also, I love when Gana can hit four Vek. It's not that big of a deal, just feels really good because it doesn't line up like that very often.

On Detritus we took our first high threat mission in the hopes to pick up the reactor core for protecting the defense lab. I think this example showcases the power the named pilots have. In the screenshot below you can see thanks to Gana's forward position he attracted one attack. And then thanks to Camila's immunity to web and smoke she baited the Spider's attack and an Alpha Mosquito's. In these high threat missions, six Vek start on the battlefield. Without these pilots, it's tough to avoid grid damage consistently.

The Plasmodia Leader was the final mission and that thing didn't really stand a chance. It's one of the weaker bosses, sitting at just five HP. So, with Gana chipping it down to four right off the bat, two bumps and thanks to Force Amp it was out of there on turn one.

As a reward for myself, I bought three reactor cores and put all of them into the Storm Generator damage upgrade. It's almost certainly not the best use of my resources, but what can I say, I like all the smoke.

Hight threat terraformer mission on R.S.T. are always a must-take for me for this exact reason. Turn one, three Alpha Vek dead. Who says this game is hard?

The map modifier that adds a storm that sweeps over the battlefield is hilarious with the Rusting Hulks. You almost start to feel bad for the Vek...

At some point my stubbornness to keep fun passives and reluctance to pick up practical alternate weapons was going to come back to bite me. The first mission on Pinnacle nearly ended the run. Boom Bots are not something I usually struggle with, but on this map layout with this squad we were in a world of hurt. We came in with a full power grid and left with only three remaining and that was with one grid damage resist. I'm not even going to bother showing my squad's actions because they sure as hell weren't good solutions. The spaced-out buildings, the Boom Bots, the explosive rocks, all were a recipe for disaster. Add in getting double-webbed by a Scorpion Leader and now we're really in trouble.

We did manage to protect the time pod though and were rewarded handsomely for our troubles with the pilot Henry Kwan. His ability, Maneuverable: Mech can move through enemy units, is one of my favorites in the game and very strong on unfair difficulty.

Despite the early struggles we pulled through and made it to the last mission. And this is what you want to see from your Pulse Mech, four kills thanks to Force Amp and the blocked emerging Vek.

Then we finally picked up a decent alternate weapon, Frost Beam was in the shop and a perfect second weapon for our science mech.

We probably would've won anyway, but Frost Beam sure made it easy. Freezing a leader and two alphas on the final stage turned it into a cakewalk as there was only ever two to four Vek on the battlefield after that point.

Run Recap

An old favorite that I enjoy playing with, plus a trio of really fun pilots that kick ass. The run did hit a few rough patches though and the score reflects that. The beginning was rough. Before we got Gana in the Pulse Mech it really struggled to make an impact on the battlefield. Island two and three we crushed and then island four caught up with us as we hadn't really evolved our gameplan at all. We should've done better but Frost Beam arrived one island too late lol. Unfortunately, Henry picked up two terrible skills in Invulnerable and Finisher and Gana wasn't much better with Technician and Finisher. I would've like to go with one of them, but Skilled Camila is too good to pass on. I'd rather the chance to find a better Henry or Gana in the next couple runs.

Hazardous Mechs

The Hazardous Mechs are next! This squad can do a lot of damage and not just to the vek, but to themselves and the environment around them. They're enjoyable to me because they have a lot of movement. The Leap and Nano Mechs both have four movement, plus Hydraulic Legs is essentially a ranged attack, and the Nano Mech has flying. To balance out all the self-damage, they have Viscera Nanobots which means they heal on kills. Initial reactor cores will go into +1 damage each for the Prime and the Brute, as well HP upgrades for whoever doesn't have Camila. I'm not too worried about surviving the early game with this squad. What's more at risk is the bonus objectives some occasional collateral grid damage. Smart mission and map selection will be key here.

Starting Pilot

Camila Vera (+2 Mech HP, Skilled) will be the starting pilot once again and I chose this squad for her to work synergistically with thanks to all their self-damaging weapons. I think, particularly on the early islands, her +4 HP will be a big boon for this squad. Giving them more flexibility maybe to block vek and take attack damage like other squads do.

I chose Detritus again. They had Fireflies, Hornets, Scorpions, and the explosive Psion. With Camila I'm not worried about Scorpions, and with the damage on this squad we should be able to take care of the explosive psion before it causes a problem. Unfortunately, we were greeted by two high threat missions and a "defend the train mission"... yikes. The train mission stinks with the Hazardous Mechs and one of the high threats was the acid storm controller. This left me little options, luckily the other mission was a favorable layout with lower risk objectives.

That being said, I quickly screwed up my drop locations, pinning my Unstable Mech in a bad spot. I should've been move cautious of this mech's low movement (3) and not so worried about the scorpion. It's better to get webbed then to be completely useless.

After a rough first mission, at least we got a time pod, even if it was empty. The first core I decided to put into the Leap Mech for +1 dmg each. With Camila's extremely high HP, I think we can get away with it for now. We took one more high threat mission at the end of the island, this with vek egg sacks that had good placement.

That Hazardous Mechs can thrive when the vek cluster together.

For the final battle, the map was a bit tight, so I prioritized getting boss out of there. It was the gastropod leader, so AOE fire and a heavy attack. Sometimes you gotta take some grid damage for the greater good. Here I used the Nano Mech's acid shot plus the Unstable Mech to bump and kill it turn 1. The rest was clean up, not totally clean but good enough for now.

And with that we started off with a perfect island and boy was it worth it. Usually pilots are the pick this early on, especially being down one, but Force Amp is a passive effect I cannot refuse.

Double damage on bumps with a squad full of attacks that push is incredible. With the two cores I was able to afford, I powered Force Amp and gave the Unstable Mech +1 move.

Archive was fairly uneventful until the 4th mission. It was a choice between a high threat defend the satellite launches and defend the tanks... With the Hazardous Mech squad this choice is a nightmare. And then seeing the map layouts made it worse. Both the satellites and tanks were in vek territory and going to be a pain to not damage.

I went with the defend the tanks mission and started regretting it immediately. The tanks start dormant and have 1 HP, I forgot that... This mission with the Hazardous Mechs is like tossing a group of toddlers into a fine art museum expecting them not to break anything of value. I spent a long time on this one.

The first two turns where the tanks are dormant are the toughest, after that it's no big deal. The mental block I had to get over here was that shooting the spiderling into the time pod wouldn't destroy the pod as long as it was dead prior. So it works with the Unstable Mech but not the Nano Mech.

The Goo Leader messed us up pretty good too. Took four grid damage and killed the pilot of our Unstable Mech. What went wrong here was the urgency needed for the Goo Leader plus an Alpha Spider plus a bad tower location. What I mean by urgency is that if you don't kill the Goos early, then you are very much in risk of scuffing your perfect island. I was also very much feeling the need for the perfect island reward too being down two pilots and missing on this islands pod. Turn one I couldn't deal with taking out the Goo Leader, stopping tower damage, killing the Alpha Spider, and stopping any grid damage. I opted to protect the objectives and the grid suffered along with the Spider being a pain in the ass the rest of the fight, eventually leading to one pilot's demise.

It wasn't all for not though, I was awarded Chen Rong with the +1 mech reactor, a very nice pick up thanks in part to her nice sidestep ability. It got even better when the shop had Frost Beam, a strong science weapon to add to the Nano Mech!

Frost Beam is a cheat code. Frost in general in not fair. But we're playing on unfair.

Overall, R.S.T. was a pretty straight forward. Time pods were empty. Struggled to get back my grid power to so ended up taking +4 grid as the perfect island reward

Frost Beam plus a frost tank is broken, so some missions the vek got steamrolled. But you can still get put into touchy situations by a pesky, lone Scarab. Took me a while to figure out I could push the frost tank with the Nano Mech to line up a freeze shot on the threatened city tile.

The big moment on this island was the time pod with a sweet pilot:

Boosted on kill, plus +2 HP is perfect for mechs that self damage and heal on kill. This also allowed me to put Chen Rong on the Nano Mech which worked out perfectly because she just got the Conservative skill to synergize with the limited use Frost Beam.

The armored-up Bouncer Leader didn't really stand a chance. Force Amp is just too strong with the fact that bumps ignore armor. Turn one was rough for the Vek.

We wrapped up the island with a full grid, three strong pilots, and a few more reactor cores. We also opted to swap the Acid Projector for a Teleporter since we had the cores to make it work.

So, phase one turn one I made a big mistake...

With what should've been a manageable start to the fight, I missed the the Scorpion Leader was on a tile that was going to turn into lava, disabling their attack and therefore not killing the adjacent Alpha Firefly... This costed me two grid, not good.

The rest of phase one was clean, but phase two turn one is where things really went to shit. My big mistake here was letting the Firefly Leader break the ice on the Scorpion Leader. I should've thought through the first turn more and found a different solution. At a minimum, I should've realized the position of my Nano and Unstable Mechs plus the bomb to know that the Scorpion Leader would almost certainly move there. Having two mech tied down to start turn two is a recipe for disaster... To make things worse, my Leap Mech got pinned in the corner. Needless to say, I couldn't find a way to survive turn two and that was it, GG.

Run Recap

A disappointing end to a strong but bumpy run. I suspect this will be the low score for runs that make it to the final island. While the grid was never really in jeopardy, the civilians took a beating especially on the first two islands. Force Amp really helped out a lot, it's slowly becoming a favorite passive of mine after never really using it before. It thrives here where every mech can push and the Leap Mech can push four tiles. The Frost Beam made another appearance and I'm starting to have a love/hate perception of the frost mechanic. It's undoubtedly strong to the point where it makes some fights too boring. It took a little while, but we picked up some fun pilots. Morgan fits in nicely as always, although she didn't have opener this time, getting kills with this squad is no big deal. Chen is fun too. Her sidestep ability is sneaky useful. Morgan ending up getting Popular Hero and Chen got Conservative so neither tops our big Camila for now.

Zenith Guard

The Zenith Guard are next, in hopes that this will be Camila's last run. As much as I love her, I do want this playthrough to showcase a variety of pilots and I do hope to find some good ones here. Nonetheless, I never thought Zenith Guard was very memorable. I think the gist of this squad is that it teaches the player more about collateral damage. The prime's weapon can easily damage buildings and the brute damages themselves. The science mech is given the Shield Projector and sort of implies that you'll need to shield your mechs or building to limit collateral damage. In my experience, it's not that hard to avoid this stuff. Whether it's using certain pilots or picking certain maps, there's things you can do to not get yourself in a pickle. But then I guess the developers did do their job one way or another... 

Starting Pilot

In the past Abe was my go-to pilot for Zenith Guard. His armor made him an obvious pick for the Charge Mech. It essentially turns the brute into the Rift Walker's Titan Fist with dash and then only takes one core to get to 3 damage. Armor sure is nice for self-damaging attacks, but as we found out in the last run, big Camila works even better.

We absolutely stomped R.S.T., taking no grid damage until the boss battle. Camila had no issues using the Charge Mech, even after I put the first core into +1 damage each. It's easy to forget how much better the Defense Mech is compared to something like the Grapple Mech. The option of being able to use the Shield Projector makes all the difference, you can simply nullify vek attacks from anywhere on the battlefield. 4 movement and flying helps this a lot too. For the perfect island we picked up Archimedes, a solid yet seldom utilized pilot for me. In the shop I had an extra 2 rep and decided to purchase Grid Charger for fun. I threw it on the Laser Mech as an alternate weapon for now. Long term, I'd want something a little more impactful.

Pinnacle was next, it had Leapers and the usual robots so I thought it would be perfect for getting some value out of the Grid Charger. And similar to R.S.T. it was a bug stomp by our squad. That was until we took a high threat mission to protect a robotics lab of course. The bonus objectives were to destroy the shield generator and end with less than four mech damage. I'm still figuring out this shield generator objective, and this time around I waited until the last turn to destroy it. The first couple turns was a lot of pushing Vek around and shielding buildings from attacks. The last turn is what stumped me for a while. It was coming down to taking grid damage or having too much mech damage to get the objective. I was stuck on letting the Centipede take out the generator while shielding the adjacent city tile. Then I came to the solution of blocking the Centipede with the Laser Mech while grid charging the generator. This meant the shields went down and the Centipede would hit the Hornet, doing damage instead of just taking down its shield. To protect from too much mech damage I then had to shield the Laser Mech. And then to actually kill the Hornet had to let the other Centipede kill the Psion. Sheesh, this is why I love Into the Breach, because of turns like this.

So, here's one learning I gathered going through this island using Archimedes. They're sort of in similar vein with a pilot like Gana, in that they are great at baiting Vek attacks. The after action bonus move can be used to move toward the vek and give them a target for next turn. In the past I thought it was most useful to reposition and block emerging vek, but that's not the end all be all. Pushing towards the Vek is just good practice in general and Archimedes makes this super easy.

One another note is that we ended Pinnacle at full grid power and 17% grid resist. That's pretty good use of the Grid Charger in my opinion. Definitely situational, not something I'd spend on every time, but pretty good when used appropriately.

To reward our struggles, our start pilot on the Laser Mech leveled into Popular Hero and Pinnacle gifted us, Kai Miller! A nice profit plus addition to the squad that will slot into the Laser Mech for now. In the shop there was nothing of interest, so we just bought four reactor cores, not too shabby. The big invest in cores went straight into the three reactor cores for +1 damage on the Burst Beam. This is important because with Kai, we can now do five damage, enough to one-shot an alpha vek.

The 2nd mission was a high threat, protect the defense lab with a dam... I'm all about this. Plus, all the Vek on Archive this time around are non-flying, Beetles, Scarabs, Bouncers, and Tumblebugs.

The opening turn looked tough at first. The Vek had me boxed in and half were not all in the path of the dam. I ended up with a fun solution where the Defense Mech pulled the explosive rock out of the Laser Mech's way allowing them to break the dam open. The important piece here though was actually moving the explosive rock to be adjacent to the Vek egg. This meant when the damn broke, the explosive rock would destroy the vek egg, opening a lane for the Charge Mech to ram the Alpha Scarab on the far side of the newly created river. And with no flying Vek, this one was pretty much a wrap on turn one.

The rest of the island was pretty easy. For the final mission it was the typically much more formidable Mosquito Leader, but we have Camila, so we just baited it and took it out turn one with Kai. The perfect island reward was another game charger, Henry Kwan. Along with Camila, Henry was one of my favorites from the base game. His ability, Maneuverable - his mech can move through enemy units, is so generally applicable and useful. Not getting stuck is sometimes difficult, see that dam mission above. Henry bypasses these concerns completely. So, as much as I was enjoying Archimedes here, he's got to go unfortunately, Technician and +3 Grid Def isn't going to cut it especially when Henry already has Opener. The icing on the cake though was in the shop: Quick-Fire Rockets. And good on us because we had enough rep to buy and fully power this puppy up. Quick-Fire Rockets are a brute weapon that fire two, one damage projectiles in directions of your choosing. With upgrades these projectiles can push and do two damage. With Henry, these will be quite formidable.

If we were rolling before, we were really rolling now. We demolished the Vek on Detritus, got another perfect island, maxed out our grid defense at 25%, the pilot we found in a pod came with Popular Hero, the other pod we got had Quick-Fire Artillery, and as if it wasn't enough received the Refractor Laser for free, a big upgrade over the Prime's starter weapon, the Burst Beam. Fully upgraded it does five damage (will be six with Kai) and can be bent at an angle to hit more vek! This thing is formidable. Speaking of formidable, not really in a damage sense but more because of its defensive flexibility, we could now get Quick-Fire Artillery fully online for our science mech despite it being a ranged weapon. This was in part thanks to once again getting a Popular Hero pilot, the 2nd of the run. All in all, this run was flush with reputation.

And if we were really rolling before, this was one of the quicker final battles I've had. This one wasn't even close, the Vek were thoroughly out match, ending phase two with having taken only one grid damage.

Run Recap

This run was a lot of fun. It had fun pilots with great movement ability. Kai came in and was perfect for the Laser Mech. The weapons ended up being incredible. We really felt unbeatable towards the end. The quick-fire weapon combo is just too much for the Vek to handle. Overall, I was really impressed with the Defense Mech. Flying plus Shield Projector is just a get out of jail free card quite often. Applying five shields when upgraded from range is really handy, what can I say. This is the high score of the playthrough so far and it certainly felt like it.

Now choosing which Pilot to save actually took me longer than the final battle, no joke. As great as Camila has been it was time to move, but the choice between Kai and Henry was tough. Kai ended up with Skilled and Adrenaline, Henry ended up with Opener and Conservative. Henry with Opener is super sick. You're always going to start a battle on the right foot with that combination. And really that combination of abilities slots perfectly into any squad. Kai pretty much has two movement buffs since HP doesn't matter that much, and they should be killing every turn. I ended up going with Kai simply because I reviewed the squads I had left and thought one in particular could really benefit from Kai in particular. While, like I said, they all would love to have Henry, picking Kai means I don't have to worry about finding a good Kai all over again.

Arachnophiles

The Arachnophiles are an Advanced Edition squad that I do not have much experience. We're picking them next thanks to the Arachnoid Injector's on kill ability of creating an arachnoid. This is obviously super-critical to build around because if not, it's literally the worst ranged weapon ever made at one damage and with no push. The brute's Ricochet Rocket is interesting, but that damage upgrade is expensive. While the Slide Mech is primed for a Henry Kwan or Prospero to show up. Area Shift could be useful but is all about being in the right place. Significantly, this mech can't take a hit at two HP.

Starting Pilot

Kai Miller is the choice here, and they'll be piloting the Arachnoid Mech. Boosting it ranged damage to two means we can go after quite a few non-alpha Vek like Scarabs, Hornets, Diggers, and Psions that sit at two HP. Non-alphas are rare on unfair, but with the help of the Bulk Mech in particular we should be able to get the ball rolling better on the all-important turn one.

I decided to start at Pinnacle thanks to low HP Leapers, Hornets, Bots, and the easy to ignore regen Psion. I thought this would give us ample opportunity to get this run off the ground, seeing as how our Arachnoid Mech creating arachnids is the key to our success.

Early on I was really feeling the limitations of this squad. The Ricochet and Slide Mechs can be very hard to work with in tight spaces. It took me too long to figure out how to get out of the above scenario without smashing something into a building.

That was the theme of this first island, trying not to bump stuff. And it became extra critical because the mission rewards actually gave us zero power grid to pick up. This meant we entered the boss fight on three grid and by the last turn were hanging on by a thread. The other weakness of this squad is dealing with high HP targets efficiently. The Slide Mech literally shadowed the Tumblebug Leader the whole fight as they dropped more and more explosive rocks. By the last turn, the whole map was about to explode.

After going down to the wire, we were offered Abe and an unremarkable weapon, so we decided to take the +4 grid to get us back on track. We had enough rep to buy three cores. Two cores went into the damage upgrade for Kai to get them to three damage, enough to take out any non-alpha Vek in one shot. Note, we finished the island with an okay score of 9227.

Great maps make a world of difference. Check out these three beauties. Some features of a map are better or worse based on the particular enemies you are facing. The dam being an example where if you have two or three flying enemies, it can be more of a hinderance for your squad as opposed to a weapon. Here the dam is in line with the frontline of the deployment region, meaning we can bait non-flying Vek into its wake. Train maps that have building on the Vek's side are terribly hard for obvious reasons. Buildings on the Vek's side of the map suck in general, they're just harder to defend. Sometimes though you can get a modifier on the map like landmines, that make for perfect traps.

We capped off a great island with an immaculate turn one against the Goo Leader. The big concern here was the two Moths. They're dangerous enemies because they fly, deal one to three damage with an arcing projectile that can't be blocked that also pushes, while also sliding backwards themselves. At three and five HP, they aren't easy to knockout either. Another problem here is that they're flying over water, meaning I can't use the Arachnoid Injector to generate an arachnoid because it will just fall into the water... That leaves the high damage combo of the Bulk and Slide Mech. Well, you can see how it played out below. Needless to say, there's a lot of bumping and sliding to take care of everything. Double bumping the Alpha Moth and lining up the Alpha Firefly to finish it off it is why we play this game.

After a brilliantly easy island, we were rewarded handsomely. My not-so-favorite pilot, Adam, got the thematically on point and ironically named level up: Popular Hero where that pilot now sells for four rep instead of one. And then the shop went crazy and offered us two top tier science weapons: Control Shot and Force Swap. I went ahead and bought both, converting my dinky Slide Mech into the ultimate science mech. It's funny because these are really strong weapons from two different Advanced Edition squads that we have yet to play with. So, here's a little preview.

As if the game hadn't been generous enough to us, the first pod on R.S.T. contained Gana. Then after steamrolling the rest of the island, the perfect island reward was an old favorite: Quick-Fire Artillery, a lovely secondary weapon for our ranged mech. In the store we bought three cores and a brute weapon called Rail Cannon, a single target, 0-3 damage and push weapon that I thought could help out our brute. The catch is that the damage is based on the distance you are from the target, meaning the further away you are, the more damage.

So, this run turned into a breeze. Turns out having Gana in your science mech with two overpowered weapons is strong. We smoked the Vek here and it wasn't really that close. One note is that the Rail Cannon stinks. Turns out putting distance between you and the Vek is kind of hard when they're all over the place. And the upgrades are a trap, only upping the max damage still requires you to be that far away. It's hard to find the opportunity to do five damage when you have to stand five tiles away.

In a pod with got an ACID Tank. I never play with these tank "weapons" because they're so expensive, two core to power up, two more to upgrade. But this run was on a heater and flush with rep so I thought, why not.

Again, nothing too interesting to comment on here, this squad is smoking everything on sight. At the end of phase one, we're untouched and there wasn't a Vek in sight.

Phase two put up a little more fight, but in the end, we were too much. I even had time to pull out the ACID Tank.

Run Recap

So, it turns out changing your stinky Slide Mech into the Control/Exchange Mech piloted by Gana is really strong. I had a sense we were doing well on R.S.T. and by the last island I looked at the score and realized we didn't take any grid damage for the last three islands. We ended on 39227 which is why I noted the score earlier. Not too shabby, that's the high score for the playthrough so far. Of course I'd really like to top that but 39227 is equivalent to taking only four grid damage in total, so that's the bar I have to clear now.

Kai was great in the Arachnoid Mech. Three damage is really important and makes finding kills pretty easy. It goes without saying, but if you're not creating arachnoids, it's pretty much game over. When you do get kills though, you're obviously taking out one Vek and now you have this little guy to go and mess with another one somewhere nearby. The movement and push of the arachnoid makes this weapon really versatile and good for unfair mode. With all that being said though, we're done with Kai for now. Damage is always important, but we have a specific need for Bethany, and I don't want to push my luck any further and miss her entirely. Gana would be nice to hold onto too, but +2 HP and Adrenaline aren't enough to convince me.

Frozen Titans

The Frozen Titans are a decent squad that I don't like that much. They're one of the few squads that I stumbled into a perfect 30k score with before the Advanced Edition added unfair. First, the Mirror Mech is not a lot of fun to play with. On so many maps, the opposing direction attack becomes a hinderance instead of a boon. On unfair it is paramount to be able to deal with multiple vek each turn, so while the Mirror Mech teases this, in reality that just rarely comes to fruition. The Aegis Mech is a little unremarkable. The Spartan Shield is just a 2 damage attack that flips the Vek's attack. Flipping an attack is pretty situational and rarely able to impact two Vek. Lastly, the Ice Mech is nice but pigeon-holes you into taking certain starting pilots. While you could get away with not taking a pilot with a shield-related ability, the mech's low movement makes it difficult to setup combos where you freeze a Vek while lining yourself up to take damage. Overall, this is a squad in desperate need of alternate weapons pretty much from the start of the run.

Starting Pilot

So, I've been waiting for Bethany to come around. She came in late during the Arachnophiles run and picked up two not so good abilities in Finisher and Conservative. Finisher is pretty much useless here, but Conservative could be something down the road if we are able to pick up some thematically appropriate and completely overpowered ice-based weaponry. Regardless, her special ability is particularly special when it comes to its synergy with the Frozen Titan's Ice Mech. Bethany's shield protects her from the "freeze yourself" part of the Cryo-Launcher. This is what I meant by pigeon-holing you into a certain type of pilot earlier. Bethany is just the most convenient option that ensures your Ice Mech is ready every turn. I would've liked to have found Mafan by now, but no dice.

Pinnacle was an easy pick for the first island on this run. The Frozen Titans have some natural synergies with the objectives here. The various 'freeze bots' objectives become easier and in general the lower HP units here help a squad that doesn't have crazy damage. Overall, things went fairly smoothly, took a little damage but made it through. The boss was definitely a struggle. Sometimes, especially on the first island, you'll reach the boss and just realize that your squad doesn't really do a lot of damage yet. With the Frozen Titans this is magnified because one of their mechs, while strong, only freezes enemies and doesn't even push. So, if you're going for that perfect island, and therefore not killing the Vek leader isn't really an option, then with the Frozen Titans, you only really have two mechs that can help accomplish that objective. With other squads you can typically take your ranged or science mech and deal with two or three non-leader Vek, knocking them around, blocking them, etc. Meanwhile, your higher damage dealing prime or brute can walk up and smack the leader around. When you don't have the high damage mech, often you have to get creative with how you are going to damage the leader: setting them on fire, lining up friendly fire, applying acid. The problem with the Frozen Titans is that they're really bad at doing direct, high damage, they're really bad at pushing Vek around, and they don't have direct access to any of those status effects.

I got a little clever turn one and baited the Hornet Leader into attacking my nicely aligned mechs. Unfortunately, this had the obvious but not so helpful effect of allowing me to ignore the leader for this turn. Great for protecting buildings, but not so great for completing the bonus objective of killing the Vek leader. This meant that on the second to last turn, I had to bite the bullet and sacrifice some buildings to double up on the leader to whittle down its health. Other squads could maybe handle this better, but on this map with these enemies nothing was lining up to help my situation.

Yet we were rewarded handsomely for the perfect island with Gana once again. Plus, we had enough rep to buy two cores and restore some power grid. We put the cores into Gana's special ability and movement for the Ice Mech.

I got scared off from R.S.T. by the Goo Leader, I didn't believe we'd have enough damage to deal with it. Archive seemed more doable with the Scorpion Leader and the fire immunity Psion, which we obviously don't care about. But I quickly regretted my decision as we were forced into a high risk, defend the train mission right off the bat... but it got worse yet because the map it was on absolutely stunk.

This map is so claustrophobic! And with Starfish and Moths this was looking really rough. So, turn one had two Vek attacking the power plant, two Vek attacking the train, and two Vek attacking building tiles... That's a lot to deal with but this where the Frozen Titans limitations really start to shine. My big brain tried to bait the Moths into attacking the Mirror Mech. What I didn't want was to put the Mirror Mech frontline and have the Starfish body block the train, because like I said, we're really bad at pushing Vek and there are too many buildings on this map. Fortunately, no Starfish body blocked the train, so that part of the plan worked, but unfortunately the Moths were uninterested in attacking my mechs and now we were just badly out of position with a mech that is already very hard to position... So, turn one was pretty bad, we took two grid damage and lost one of the objectives, the damage was done.

We were now back down to two grid power left, and at this point I just made a reckless decision. Reviewing my recording of this, there were two options: another high threat mission, destroy the dam and defend the robotics lab, and a one star mission. I didn't even look at the one star mission... I just clicked the high threat one and went. Honestly, I think was a little annoyed playing the Frozen Titans, I just don't find them fun to play. But nonetheless I took this destroy the dam mission.

The map layout was not too bad, but I should've been scared off by the one building tile close to Vek territory and more importantly on the other side of the dam. It's a two building tile too, so one shot and I'm done. After a strong start to the battle, busting the dam and nearly clearing the board, I again got reckless and pushed to reach the 'kill at least 7 enemies' objective, instead of making the safest plays. Instead of freezing enemies, I was freezing the buildings they were attacking to allow me to potentially get the kill later. On the last turn, the second wave of enemies punished this overconfidence and put me in a checkmate. This squad isn't versatile enough to juggle this difficulty and all the objectives; you have to be ready to compromise, and I wasn't here and it cost me to run.

Run Recap

Damn... taking back-to-back high threat missions on the second island with no real weapon upgrades while only being on four grid to start was not smart... Well, the first one I didn't really have a choice and that map sucked so I can't get down on myself too much. I just ended up doubling down instead of course-correcting.

Steel Judoka

The Steel Judoka have never been one of my favorite squads. In concept I like them a lot. A squad centered around setting up Vek to damage each other is a neat idea to play into. While Vek Hormones incentivizes this strategy by buffing friendly fire damage, the rest of the Steel Judoka arsenal doesn't explicitly enable lining things up more so than your average squad. But I guess I'm factoring Advanced Edition squads into that thought... They have a good amount of movement options for pre-Advanced Edition with the Cluster Artillery and Grav Well, and Vice Fist. The damage of your weaponry is absolutely paltry and upgrades ain't cheap, so you're really just forced to get creative. The clear priority upgrade here is the single core 'buildings immune' for the Cluster Artillery. It's a strong weapon that can impact many Vek but is definitely limited by the risk of collateral damage to buildings and objectives.

Starting Pilot

Gana was the clear choice coming out of the last run despite only having the Technician ability so far. He's limited from the start as we won't have the reactor cores to power his special ability, but it's worth the wait. We've used Gana several times in this playthrough but haven't carried him over between runs yet. Long story short, Gana is one of my favorite pilots, probably right after Camila. He's fantastic, his special ability Preemptive Strike allows him to deploy anywhere, damaging adjacent units, it's so damn good. I picked the Steel Judoka for him, not only because he can help with damage on a weaker squad, but also because he can get in the Vek's face and bait attacks. We'll see how it plays out.

Ideally the Gana you carryover between runs would have the +1 Mech Reactor skill to enable his Preemptive Strike ability on the first mission. The next best scenario is that you get a time pod on the first mission. This was us. And here's the power of Gana on display in the first island's boss fight. Three Gastropod attacks targeting Gana, just amazing...

In the shop I picked up the powerful Force Swap as an alternate weapon for the science mech. I say alternate, but it will probably be used way more than the Grav Well if I'm being honest.

Rewatching this run, I caught that I missed a beacon... damn that bothers me more than it should.

This is why you bait enemy attacks. Two Alpha Hornets attacking my mechs is hilarious but to top it off the back one clearly blocked where the spore intended to attack. So now it's just sitting there doing nothing haha.

Overall, Archive went really smooth and with the perfect island reward of Bethany our squad started to feel well rounded and clicking on all cylinders. We used the two cores bought from the shop to give Cluster Artillery its overdue 'buildings immune' upgrade and also bring online Gemini Missiles which we found in a pod. Those will make for a nice, higher damage alternative for our ranged mech.

Different island, the same story. Check out how Gana completely dominates here. Three enemies, all distracted by this guy. This was a high threat mission too and because of Gana and a really great map layout, this one was a cakewalk.

One thing I noticed rewatching this part of the run was that on this particular turn, I opted to fail the bonus objective and protect the buildings. I saw I was spending a lot of time on this turn and remembered that I was bouncing between options because I couldn't find the perfect solution that accomplished all my goals. Earlier in this playthrough, I was prioritizing perfect islands and therefore bonus objectives almost at all costs. At this point in the playthrough, I started to realize when to layoff that mindset. This run is a good example where I have three, good named pilots, along with two alternate weapons. This lowers to significance of the perfect island reward quite substantially. In general, the perfect island reward loses importance with each island. But here I made the right call, for this particular moment. One extra rep and the perfect island reward is nice, but we are shooting for high scores here and if I'm confident in my squad, that should mean something.

The Mosquito Leader is a weapon of mass destruction when you have Force Swap. Just stand next to the target and let the Mosquito Leader swap with you do all the work. You still have to remember to do damage to it, but it is really fun to watch it decimates its own ranks those first couple turns,

Bethany picked up Opener with her level-up, so we swapped her too the ranged mech and gave the Gemini Missiles their '+1 damage' upgrade to enable some serious damage turn one.

The toughest challenge at Pinnacle was this 'freeze and defend robots' mission. I always find this risky because of how flimsy, yet destructive these little guys are. With two out of the three mechs I have being too damaging to help out with that objective, it was down to the freeze tank and my science mech to figure it out. Turn one was a mess with four enemies threatening building damage and our prime mech being trapped by Spiderling webbing. The saving grace was the Alpha Moth attacking our prime as well.

The first big play was realizing I could swap our prime with one of the Robots and line up a kill on the Alpha Moth. The chip damage from Gana meant it was left at 4 HP, just enough for the robot to finish the job before also dying from friendly fire. Chen's Sidestep ability came up huge here too, as she was able to then dodge the Robot's attack and save herself. Second, and more obvious was to just toss the Tumblebug Leader out of the way. Next, we dunked the Alpha Leaper and lastly froze the building to shield from the other Robot's attack.

The Centipede Leader fight to cap things off cracked me up, not because of anything the leader did but because these two Alpha Tumblebugs were driving me absolutely nuts with their explosive rocks! This map was so weird with its open center. My mechs were just orbiting around, doing damage control. Tossing the rocks out of the way or swapping them to somewhere else. Somehow, I finished the fight with all buildings still standing.

Forgive me father for I have once again acquired Ice Generator. And I have Bethany too, as if things weren't easy enough already...

I won't even bother to waste yours or my own time. The fully upgraded Ice Generator is officially a joke. It breaks the game. GG Vek better luck next time.

Run Recap

This might have been the most enjoyable run of the playthrough so far. Wow, I had no idea how synergistic Gana + Force Swap + Vek Hormones was. Baiting big attacks with Gana then swapping Gana out with a Vek giving us problems elsewhere was huge! The new high score is 39596 and I don't know if this one is going to be beat... I hope it will, but I'm very happy with this one, nonetheless. We're sticking with Gana here. While he didn't pick up the +1 Mech Reactor ability +2 HP is nice and my other two pilots laid eggs with their level ups. And that's actually a good point; my other pilots weren't that extraordinary. Their abilities were almost zero impact. Just goes to show how good everything else was with this run.

Mist Eaters

Someday I'll get the Rusting Hulk's Storm Generator while playing the Mist Eaters. That's the dream. For now we'll have to settle for two flying mechs, oh well. But seriously, two flying mechs from the start is sweet. The maneuverability is off the charts and we have a good ranged mech. It will be very hard to put this squad in a bad spot. Direct damage is a bit of a concern. The Smog Mech's Smoldering Shells are pretty sweet for attack cancellation but can obviously be light on killing potential. We'll just have to be smart with picking certain objectives and the leader on the first island. Utilizing Control Shot to setup friendly fire will definitely be necessary there.

Starting Pilot

I liked Gana for this squad because I thought he'd fit well in the Thruster Mech. The HP boost plus Technician means we shouldn't have to worry about self-damage holding us back. Also, putting Gana in a flying mech is nice because it prevents him from ever being trapped by Vek, which isn't such a bad thing, but the maneuverability is nice.

We did it again! Time pod on the first mission to power up Gana. Not only this but everything else went perfectly at Archive. Perfect score, perfect island with Abe as the reward, one of our starter pilots leveled into Popular Hero, hence we had a ton of rep so we were able to afford four reactor cores and try out Shrapnel Cannon on our brute. The cores went into upgrading Smoldering Shells with more smoke and movement on two mechs.

It's always a nice surprise when I remember Gana's Preemptive Strike does double damage to enemies with acid applied.

Detritus was a cakewalk. The acid ate the Vek alive while my mechs just dipped into all that smoke we were spewing out to repair. Turns out four or five tiles of smoke put out every turn is pretty strong. As if the squad wasn't strong enough already, the time pod gods granted us Ice Generator once again. Then the perfect island gods granted us Silica, interesting... We spent our cores on Silica's Double Shot ability and got Ice Generator online.

In hindsight, investing into Silica and Ice Generator this early was a mistake as my dreams of a perfect score came to a screeching halt. This is when I suddenly realized my squad had zero pushing ability aside from the limited use, rather imprecise Shrapnel Cannon. After laying the smack down for two islands straight, it was crazy how much of a problem Spiders caused this squad. Only one of the mechs can adequately deal with the Spiderling Eggs! The Control and Smog Mechs are essentially helpless and can't help others. Control Shot can't move the Spiderling Eggs and using the smoke from Smoldering Shells to get them to release the webbing feels like an incredibly bad move.

Not only did we lose our perfect score, but we lost Silica right after acquiring him. Checkout how royally fucked my squad is below. Two webbed, two being attacked, two buildings being threatened, one mech on fire... What a mess. And it's not like I could've even saved Silica and sacrifice something else. He was literally unsavable in this situation. I really underestimated these Spiders and Leapers and paid the price. Hypothetically, Silica I could have smoked the shit out of the map with his Double Shot while protecting himself, but the placement of the always annoying explosive rocks was devilish.

An interesting observation I made while rewatching this island was that this map had an identical layout to the previous mission. That one went way smoother though. Why was that? I think it was because turn one I was able to Control Shot and Alpha Mosquito and take out the Alpha Spider right away. And then on turn two I was able to get a decent Ice Generator off freezing two Alpha Tumblebugs and one of their explosive rocks.

Despite losing Silica, we did regain two cores in the process. So, we just powered up Ice Generator and didn't have to worry about a thing even though being down a pilot for the rest of the island.

The Bot Leader did give me some trouble though. It had been a long while since I had seen this guy and forgot that it can be rather hard to kill for certain squads, the Mist Eaters being one of them. Whenever it takes damage, it will use the next turn to heal up, plus every turn it gets a shield. This means you need multiple sources of damage as well as some weapon with high damage output. I tried the whole fight to setup the kill but couldn't. But it also wasn't that much of a threat because I think it only attacked one out of the five turns of the fight. So, no damage taken, but it did block our perfect island.

Fully powered up Ice Generator is back and it's still broken. I was pretty pissed after losing the perfect score and Silica and just wanted to get this run over with. Who needs all that smoke when you got that ice.

Brrrr, is it just me or is it pretty cold down here in this volcano?

Run Recap

This run was disappointing but on the whole still really good. Steamrolling the first two islands and then suddenly realizing your perfect 40k run was going to evaporate because your squad actually doesn't have any pushing options was a bit shocking. I really can't emphasize how hard those Spiders on Pinnacle fucked up my mojo. My squad simply had no answer for them. It's funny too because for my whole Mist Eaters intro and those first two islands I was blissfully unaware of that limitation. But all in all, we still almost got 39k, not too bad. If I were to run it back, I'd avoid spiders at all costs and try to get an alternate weapon that can push. I'd hope for better pilots too. There's not too much to think about here, we're keeping Gana on for another run.

Flame Behemoths

The Flame Behemoths I quite enjoyed back in the pre-Advanced Edition days. What can I say, I like setting things on fire. Plus, the Swap Mech is really great to use. Whether it's dunking Vek into the ocean or setting up an Alpha Leaper up to one-shot its own leader, the Teleporter, especially with maxed out range, rules. The Vulcan Artillery on the Meteor Mech is no slouch either, hitting four tiles with push will always be strong. The awkward link in the chain though is the Flame Thrower on the Flame Mech. You might be surprised to know that the Flame Thrower does a conditional two damage based on whether or not the target is on fire. I say this because I'd be surprised if I used this damage more than a handful of times through any given run. The real reason you might go back to hit the same target isn't usually for the damage, it's for the push. This thing would be so much better if it did an unconditional one damage, applied fire, and pushed. The +1 range upgrade is a nice little plus, but what you'll always want to spend your early cores on is Teleporter range.

Starting Pilot

We're still sticking with Gana, the other pilots from the last run were nothing special. Hopefully we get lucky again with an early time pod.

Our luck finally ran out; the time pod came on the last mission before the boss fight. So, no Preemptive Strike pretty much the whole island made this a rough start. In the pod, we did get Archimedes and with the perfect island we took Kai Miller, despite them being a bit of a weird fit on a squad with no direct damage.

The first choice of missions at Pinnacle illustrates that the threat level isn't always indicative of how hard the mission will be. The high threat mission here looks way easier thanks to a great map layout and very easy objectives.

Watching back this island, nothing really notable happened. We had a really easy time with this group of Vek plus there was a lot of favorable map layouts. Favorable layouts with a bunch of non-flying Vek is a nice recipe for success that can't reliably be replicated but can be taken advantage of when given the opportunity.

For our convincing victories we were gifted Skilled Chen Rong. Not the most impactful pilot, but you can never be upset about a pilot with Skilled. This worked out nicely because Archimedes got Popular Hero and the shop had Frost Beam. We bought it while still being able to afford four reactor cores. With those we got more range on the Teleporter and + 2 damage on Vulcan Artillery. This was important because we found Kai in a pod and was unable to use them because none our mechs actually did direct damage and therefore wouldn't benefit from boosted. Now we have some damage thankfully.

I don't think I've directly highlighted the other benefit of freezing Vek: the frozen Vek are still counted as on the battlefield and therefore effect how many Vek are set to emerge on the next turn. In the example below there's three Vek active on the map, two frozen, and two set to emerge. If not for the frozen Vek, the number set to emerge could easily be four. The game on unfair likes to keep around six Vek on the map, so it'll typically add in more than six knowing the player will eliminate some on their turn. But with frozen Vek, still counting towards the number on the map, less Vek are triggered to emerge, making the fight a whole lot easier.

With Frost Beam, R.S.T. rolled over. We received Morgan as the perfect island reward, another not so useful pilot for the Flame Behemoths unfortunately. But in one of the pods we did get the always useful Prospero. We had a tough decision until Kai leveled into +3 Grid Def and made things easy: Prospero in, Kai out.

So, there was this turn that I was stuck on for way too long. And it goes to show how you can get trapped thinking one way and therefore not seeing the obvious solution that's right there the whole time. The crux of my hang up here was the Scarab Leader. It's a unit with a powerful artillery-type projectile that pushes in four directions. It was also positioned on an edge tile, meaning it couldn't be pushed forward or backward, just side to side. What this meant was that due to all the explosive rocks around, damage felt inevitable. The only answer I had was Frost Beam and this is where I got stuck. Because if I used the Swap Mech's turn freezing the Scarab Leader, that meant the other two mechs had to deal with the other three Veks attacking building tiles. These Vek were in awkward spots and, annoyingly, our options were limited by all of the explosive rocks lying around.

After bouncing off of this conundrum for far too long, I stepped away. I can't recommend this enough whenever you're stuck. It lets you drop the mental framework you were tied to and start anew when you eventually return. The great thing about Into the Breach, that I forget in the moment because I get so wrapped up in it, is that it's incredibly easy to pick up. Some games grab you when you're in them, but if you step away for a couple days or only have time for a short play session, they struggle to have that magnetic attraction. Into the Breach does not have these issues, within a minute of booting back into the game, you'll see your squad, take in the map layout, look at your objectives, and then start processing solutions, the barrier to entry is close to zero once you've learned the basics. I say all of this to make the point that stepping away mid-mission really only has an upside. You may feel like you have to solve this particular situation right now, but in reality, it's often easier to put it down for as little as ten minutes and come with a fresh perspective.

In this example, I unpaused the game and within a minute realized: the Scarab Leader is not the problem, it's the damn rock... I pushed the rock back one with the Flame Mech, killed the Tumblebug with the Meteor Mech, and froze the Hornet and Leaper with the Swap Mech and that was it. Problem solved.

On the last turn of phase one, I decided to put Gana on an insta-kill tile so that I could ice the game, pun intended. There was no other way to stop the Alpha Crab and Digger from damaging those pylons, but icing both the Digger and pylons meant no damage was taken. We were on a five-run streak with Gana at this point and his deployment-based ability was going to be useless in phase two, so I thought it appropriate to give him a warrior's funeral, as in a crater of volcanic rock to the dome.

Ultimately, while Gana's death was the right call, the damage wouldn't have mattered because we smoked the Vek in phase two anyway.

Run Recap

A solid win, but nothing special. We took chip damage throughout but never felt at risk of losing the run. The only notable weapon pickup was Frost Beam. It was useful situationally, with the Teleporter being excellent as always. The other mechs sort of struggled along, not really ever getting good alternatives. At least we picked up Prospero which is always huge. Having two flying mechs feels great. R.I.P. Gana, you are a legend, five straight victories. As much as I'd like to hold onto Prospero, Chen Rong picked up the two best abilities: Skilled and +1 Mech Reactor, so she's moving on.

Heat Sinkers

The Heat Sinkers are probably the squad I have the least experience with. They were the last to unlock with the Advanced Edition and so I got a win, unlocked their achievements and by that point was ready to move on to other games. Since returning for this playthrough I've been a little more excited to return to the Heat Sinkers but have been waiting for the right time to jump in. At some point in this playthrough, another squad picked up the Quick-Fire Rockets for their brute and I fell in love with the amazing versatility of this weapon. That love is conditional though. Quick-Fire Rockets are nothing without the 'add push' upgrade. So, I've been waiting for a pilot to roll the +1 Mech Reactor skill so that we're given the best shot from get go. The other Heat Sinkers and their weapons are nothing too special. The Naplam Mech and its Firestorm Generator is not all that different from the Flame Thrower in the previous run. The Thermal Discharger I recall being a bit awkward to use but at least it has multiple pushes. Overall, the Heat Sinkers have a lot of push, especially with the Quick-Fire Rockets getting that upgrade.

Starting Pilot

Chen Rong's special ability isn't all that special. But last run she picked up that +1 Mech Reactor that's been evading us the whole playthrough. She's also Skilled so this iteration of Chen is no slouch. She'll be piloting the Quick-Fire Mech, to enable that push like we talked about earlier. Another subtle synergy to be on the lookout for is her special ability situationally allowing her to move to a fire tile triggering Heat Engines to give her boosted status.

We picked Archive thanks to an easy group of enemies, all of them being non-flying. Our first pod yielded great rewards holding an old favorite Force Amp. And it couldn't have arrived at a better time, just after talking about how much push this squad has. With the Quick-Fire Rocket's push upgrade this island was a cakewalk. Even the default pilots rolled great level-ups, one being +1 Mech Reactor and the other being, Popular Hero, the ultimate default pilot skill.

Checkout the power of Force Amp here on turn one of the boss fight, just an absolute demolition...

For the perfect island we were rewarded with Adam, an okay pick up. At the shop we sold our popular hero and was able to buy four reactor cores, not too shabby. With the four cores we went for the +1 damage on Quick-Fire Rockets and +1 movement on the Dispersal Mech.

Pinnacle went smoothly. Found Morgan in a pod, got Archimedes for the perfect island reward. Morgan is a nice fit for the Quick-Fire Mech, we'll see how they progress there. Archimedes already has +1 Move which is great right off the bat. In the shop we picked up Push Beam as an alternate weapon for our science mech. I haven't tried it before, but with Force Amp it could be fun.

And then we finally got one, a cracked mountain tile with a beacon of unknown origin inside... We destroyed the mountain with the disposal unit and then utilized Archimedes special ability to reposition and activate the beacon. That triggered a familiar sound effect and a unique-looking time pod crashed onto the map. Inside was a special pilot, Mafan, a friend from another timeline and another game entirely.

I'm really glad we finally found an FTL pilot, I thought it might not happen on this playthrough. In the last run I was thinking back on the other runs in the playthrough and couldn't remember missing any pods, so I was pretty sure I hadn't missed a beacon (turns out we had though). On island three and four two time pods will drop on each island. If you're lucky, there's a low chance one of these pods can get replaced by a beacon. Revealing and activating the beacon calls in a time pod from the FTL universe that contains an FTL-based pilot. We got, arguably, the best of the three out there. Mafan has the special ability Zoltan: +1 Reactor Core. Reduce Mech HP to 1. Gain Shield every turn. Pretty strong to say the least.

So, one learning I had on this island is the importance of center map control. And what I mean by this is that I think if your mechs are positioned in the center of the map, especially a little to the Vek's side, your next turn is going to be a whole lot easier as a general rule of thumb. Your mechs attract more Vek attacks, you're closer to all areas of the map making movement less of a concern, and certain weapons and abilities just work better. Check out this boss fight map, buildings and mountains all through the middle, and narrow lanes around the outside. The second screenshot is pretty nightmarish. The Vek are threatening seven grid damage and have two of my mechs webbed... yikes. So, how did we get here? Well, it's a combination of the map layout, not having flying mechs, and enemies that throw up obstructions making movement even more difficult. This was the first fight where the Quick-Fire Mech felt useless. When it wasn't locked down by leapers, it couldn't target two enemies because it had no angle on the enemy. We barely made it out. This was one the only times I ever remember letting an Alpha Hornet just smack four building in one attack, but I think it was the right play. I think the following turns could've been bad if we didn't tank that hit. I don't love doing this because it tanks the score, but you get the four grid power right back for a perfect island anyway.

One thing I'll say about the Heat Sinkers is that I love their aesthetic. Quick-Fire Mech might be my favorite looking mech, it just comes off as dangerous and versatile. And then I love the translucent, orange cylinders on the other two. Combine that with their end game ability to just coat the map in fire and the Heat Sinkers really just grew on me.

The boss fight here was a great example of how to take center map control (when possible) and how that changes the fight. Here we had two leaders, one being the Tumblebug which can generator two explosive rockets with its attack. On a map that is already tight through the middle, this can wreak havoc. Since the furthest lane forward in my mechs deployment area was choked up with buildings and mountains, it was inevitable that we would be boxed in. This is where the Push Beam came up huge, sliding the whole row of vek out of the way. This opened up a path for my Quick-Fire Mech to the center of the board and then we let them go to work. The rest of the battle was a breeze with this position secured.

I was a little concerned after I failed once again to find any viable alternate weapons for the prime and brute, but the final battle turned out to be relatively a breeze. GG

Run Recap

What a fun and weird run. Thanks to two pilots with Popular Hero, I was flush with rep the whole run and therefore flush with reactor cores. On top of that my pilots had +1 Mech Reactor and we found Mafan. On the last island, instead of buying another core and having an extra one laying around, I hit undo and bought grid resist. That's a first. I was in a weird spot though because what this squad really needed was a decent alternate weapon for my prime, but I couldn't fathom giving up my really fun passives. Force Amp was so much fun with all the push I had going around and with how much fire I was doling out it would have been a pain to give up Heat Engines. If I wanted a higher score, I should've probably abandoned the fire-based weapons earlier on, but I never like moving completely off a squad's thematic equipment.

Here's two other tidbits I learned from this run. First, Quick-Fire Rockets fully upgraded, with boosted, with Force Amp is a force to be reckoned with. The damage is off the charts, AND it pushes multiple targets, it might be my favorite weapon in the game. Second, no flying mechs is hard and makes map selection (if that's an option) important. On unfair, it's really easy to get boxed in by Vek. Without flying mech, your options for positioning in these scenarios become extremely limited. The compounding part of this equation is that the Heat Sinkers kind of don't have a ranged mech. Often ranged weapons can have the effect of a flying, close-range mech. Since their weapons bypass obstacles and enemies and can impact hard to reach areas. I was hoping to find a Prospero or Henry Kwan, someone that would be able to break enemy lines. Instead, I invested into movement and Archimedes did a bang-up job repositioning towards the enemy and attracting attention.

Each of these pilots deserved to move on with me, but after finally finding an FTL pilot, there was no way I was leaving him behind after only part of one run. Mafan with Opener and +1 Mech Reactor is an anomaly of a pilot.

Bombermechs

The Exchange Mech's Force Swap is one of the best weapons in the game. We already knew this from the earlier Arachnophiles and Steel Judoka runs. It efficiently handles two vek at once. You can easily help allies as well, swapping a webbed friendly out from under a Leaper and putting in an unsuspecting Vek to get torched by its own kind. To balance out this overpowered weapon, the Bombermechs namesake mech, the Bombling Mech, is straight dogshit. Launching one bomb that does one damage to the four adjacent tiles does nearly nothing on unfair difficulty. That being said, there are some fun enabler-type use cases for it that work synergistically with the rest of the squad. The bomb can be swapped using Force Swap and it can be lined up with the Pierce Mech's AP Cannon. Again, I don't have much experience with these Advanced Edition squads, but I do already have an unfair win with the Bombermechs so that's a good sign. For the last run of the playthrough, let's get a 40k score while we're at it.

Starting Pilot

Mafan was the only choice after the last run. Coming in with two extra cores is awesome and he'll slot perfectly into the Pierce Mech, immediately upgrading the AP Cannon with +1 damage. Opener is great here too as we'll be able to do four damage and push turn one meaning we can potentially get opening kills on five HP alpha Vek.

With the first time pod, we picked up the previously maligned Rail Cannon. But in it's first outing it actually saved grid damage here. It took me a while to come to this solution, but it worked thanks to the direct damage. This was also one example where I used the Walking Bomb for damage. Otherwise, this first island it was a full-time emerging Vek blocker.

A crazy strength of this squad is how well they deal with being webbed. The below fight is an example where I just continuously left the Pierce Mech open to being webbed. Why? Because attracting Vek attacks is good of course but also because the Exchange Mech makes it too easy to remedy a normally annoying web. Swapping the under attack mech for a Vek that's threatening a building somewhere else on the board is a really strong play almost every time.

Despite how strong the Exchange Mech is, it's not really an experience generator for the pilot. Same goes for the Bombling Mech but for the opposite reason. Because of this, finding named pilots is a big deal because the default ones are not getting level-ups until late island 2, maybe. But the Into the Breach gods had different plans when they offered Wind Torrent as a perfect island reward. I've never really gotten into Wind Torrent but have always heard it was strong, so this was a perfect fit for our under-powered ranged mech.

Archive was picked next because it had Leapers. I wanted to use the typically fearsome Alpha Leaper against its own kind. Only leaders will be able to survive their five damage attack. Everything was going smoothly and then on the second mission we got a pod with Kai Miller inside. This was interesting and perhaps prompted a re-shuffling of the pilots as only the Pierce Mech could currently take advantage of Kai's boosted ability. This had to wait though due to Mafan providing the cores that enabled the +1 damage upgrade, so switching the pilots was essentially net neutral for damage.

I usually go for high threats missions with the dam. This one was a little awkward though with the robotics lab on the wrong side of things and two Alpha Mosquitos being present from the start. Ideally, the dam is closer to the Vek and none of them are flying... But this one was no big deal, by the end of turn one the dam was broken, so we really just had to worry about the mosquitos now. But even then, they're a bit of an asset because with the Force Swap you can just swap them with a non-flying Vek for an instant-kill.

For the Goo Leader fight, Wind Torrent came up huge. Pushing everyone back, including the pesky explosive rocks, was huge. I then could swap the Pierce Mech into a dangerous position and start taking out the boss. I always find it important to get started with the Goo Leader early as you have to kill five and there's only so many turns.

It's hard to capture in a screenshot but turn two had this funny interaction where the Wind Torrent push caused an explosive rock to break while an adjacent mid-tier Goo also got killed. The resulting Goo spawns landed adjacent to where the explosive rock just broke and then they were immediately terminated by that rock's blast. Didn't realize that was going to be the order of operations but was pleasantly surprised when it all worked out.

With Archive down I was once again starting to think we could pull off a perfect 40k run. The hype continued when got a decent pilot, Lily, with +2 Mech HP as the perfect island reward, followed by Frost Beam being in the shop. We had a Popular Hero starter pilot, so they were sold off and were able to afford three cores and the weapon. This is where we did some pilot shuffling. Kai went into the Pierce Mech and even though it lost two cores by removing Mafan, we were able to replace them and keep the two +1 damage upgrades, meaning we were doing a total of five damage going into island three. Mafan went onto the Exchange Mech. Opener was a little wasted by not having any weapons that deal damage, but the extra cores went into movement and Frost Beam, which will be a nice alternative for the few scenarios where the swap isn't working. Lastly, Lily would hold down the Bombling Mech for now. Here unique ability, Impulsive, is essentially Opener without boosted and that is fine for this mech.

At Pinnacle Frost Beam turned out to be pretty useful due to the explosive psion present there. In pinch, being able to freeze instead of finding a way to kill without being adjacent to a building is a really nice alternative to have.

With the perfect score through two islands, I wasn't looking to take many risks, especially with how strong my team was starting to feel. Pinnacle then dealt us a pretty easy hand and we took it. The breaking buildings out of ice mission always feels like a layup, I usually avoid the "kill six or less enemies" objective but with an ice storm and Frost Beam that was too easy, and then bots starting in ice maps are usually pretty nice because they distract the Vek from attacking buildings. What can I say, it was a bunch of easy maps with easy objectives, and we didn't need to push harder for additional rewards.

The Blobber Leader wasn't as much of a layup. Thanks to a map layout that had buildings spaced out across the middle of the battlefield with open gaps between them, the Blobber Leader and Alpha Hornets were able to get into awkward spots behind my mechs. The result was a lot of clutter and quite a bit of restriction on how useful Wind Torrent could be. In the last screenshot in particular, you can see how no matter which way I decide to push a Vek would smash into a building. This wasn't a huge deal, just pointing out the particular Wind Torrent puzzle you have to run through in these scenarios.

Let it be known I turned down Ice Generator for the greater good of the playthrough. It helps that we're already killing it and Skilled Bethany isn't too bad of a consolation prize.

When it rains it pours! Dammnnnn and the shop had Quick-Fire Rockets! Hell yeah, I'm sure! "Game over, man. Game over!"

So, the first stop on R.S.T. is where the perfect score almost met its end and we missed our one and only objective for the run. It was a pretty simple map with two straight forward missions that got complicated by a Blobber Leader coming back for more and of course my two favorites: Diggers and Moths. A nice Frost Beam shut down their first turn.

But then the Hornets came out in full force on the flank and nearly messed up my perfect score. I ended up solving the hornet problem but at the cost of a time pod.

And then looking at the boss map, Frost Beam is just licking its lips because the perfect line up is pretty much inevitable. We had the Plasmodia Leader dead turn one with

And ok, I fully get Wind Torrent now. It dominated in these final stages, shifting tons of Vek into lava and falling rocks.

Run Recap

We did it! A perfect 40k score! And just in time with the last run of the playthrough. This whole run was good vibes. After the first island, getting Wind Torrent was a sign. Then Frost Beam and Quick-Fire Rockets in the next two shops assured me that this was the moment. A well-rounded squad with an answer for everything. Tons of push with Wind Torrent and Quick-Fire Rockets, great range with Force Swap and Wind Torrent, Frost Beam provided situational, mass attack cancellation, the brute's combo of AP Cannon and Quick-Fire Rockets was solid damage, and even the Bomb Dispenser chipped in every now and then by blocking emerging Vek.

Bonus Run: The Secret Squad

I'll be honest, I've never really enjoyed playing with the Secret Squad. A big part of my enjoyment with the other squads is not only their unique sets of weapons but all the fun stuff you find throughout the run. Named pilots with cool skills, interesting weapons you've only used a couple of times before... the Secret Squad just straight up takes these things away. The significance of named pilots is eliminated as they can only be sold and the fun of finding different weapons dampened as they cost additional cores to power. This would all be fine if the pilots you're locked in with were interesting or if the starter weapons who have are unlock any other weapons, but unfortunately, they just aren't. The techno-Vek pilots can't die, they just lose exp and the weapons are a slightly remixed version of the Rift Walkers... At least the Needle Shot upgrades are pretty strong. It would be nice to find some fun alternative weapons this run, but we'll have to see if we can afford it.

Starting Pilot(s)

Here they are: Kxlatl, Xakran, and Taaxetizl. Don't ask me how to pronounce their names... What's special about the? Well, they don't die, just lose exp, that's it.

With squads that have low damage but decent push, I like considering Pinnacle as the first island. Here we had Fireflies and Scarabs, so it felt like a no brainer. Having push makes dealing with the Robots pretty easy.

This assessment paid dividends, Pinnacle went smoothly, only taking a few points of damage against the Scorpion Leader. The cores from the shop immediately went into the Needle Shot's range and damage upgrade.

At Archive, all of the squad got their first level-ups. The Techno-Beetle got Conservative, the Techno-Hornet got Technician, and the Techno-Scarab got +1 Mech Reactor. So, not to bad especially because we were able to quickly capitalize on Conservative by picking up Smoke Drop at the store. The other lucky roll was that the prefect island reward was Bethany with Popular Hero, the only skill you love to see on a named pilot this run. With that, we were able to afford the expensive second range and damage upgrade for the Needle Shot, making it deal three damage to three tiles plus the push, very nice.

Smoke Drop made an impact almost instantly. This is a high threat mission with Reinfeld bombs. Normally a mission I do not take because of how fragile those bombs are. But check out how I completely nullified the Vek attack by simply smoking out all the tiles around them.

The Techno-Hornet was clicking on all cylinders too, especially with these maps where you can line up the Vek in a straight line. We finished out R.S.T. and fully upgraded the Techno-Scarab's Explosive Goo, although I'm not quite sure it the +1 tile upgrade is actually an upgrade. Yes it's more damage, but it does make the weapon harder to use. More tiles being pushed is great, but being precise is made more difficult.

Of course the only other time we get a secret pilot beacon is with the Secret Squad... WTF! Detritus went will otherwise though.

Once again, Smoke Drop stole the show. It's really funny how it screws up the Diggers so hard. In both stages they had no idea what to do, in the second stage the Psion trapped the Digger and proceeded to literally give up, not moving for the last three turns of the fight. In the first stage, the dangerous Alpha Scorpion spent two turns trying to get to a tile where it could attack any target at all... just perfect.

I never would've predicted but this squad took no damage in both stages! WOW!

Run Recap

I was quite reticent to even do this run after the high of ending the main squads with a perfect 40k. But after a month straight of playing Into the Breach, muscle memory kicked in and I booted it up and started another run. I think I would've felt like I left a stone unturned if I hadn't at least tried, so we went for it. And it went much better than I could've hoped for. The thing with the Secret Squad is that despite being a secret, they aren't really that special. So, I'm really impressed with the 38561 score, that's way better than I thought this one would go. But to give credit, where credit is due, Smoke Drop on the Beetle who picked up Conservative was huge. The Vek seem like they can work around one deployment of smoke, but two drops is a game changer. The map is only so big, and two drops covering ten total tiles really restricts what the Vek can do.

Playthrough Review

Wow! What a playthrough. I really enjoyed my time revisiting Into the Breach, especially finishing on a six-run winning streak and hitting my first perfect 40k with the Bombermechs. After the Frozen Titans run, I was feeling a bit burnt out while only being halfway through the challenge. But the squads in the back half revitalized me and even had me energized enough to attempt the Secret Squad on unfair. And even that was a resounding success. Overall, I won ten out of fourteen runs, with two losses coming earlier in the playthrough on the Volcanic Hive and the other two being early flame outs with squads I'm not so keen on. I definitely grew in skill over the course of the playthrough. I started to play more for score as I became more confident in beating the game. I wish I could have re-dos on the first islands for Steel Judoka and Arachnophiles, in retrospect I think I could've gotten perfect scores there too. But all in all, I'm happy with the 39k scores for sure. Check out the leaderboard I built out below for the all the scores. Also, I'll dive into which pilots got used over the course of the playthrough, seeing who survived, who triumphed, and who made it into the most timelines. Lastly, I'll recap with fourteen key learnings I had playing Into the Breach this time around.

Playthrough Scoreboard

I've said it already, but the Steel Judoka run might be my favorite. That's such a good score for a squad I previously stunk with and didn't enjoy. It really captures how much I improved through this playthrough. But you got to give credit to Force Swap, what a fun weapon. On the other hand, the Rusting Hulks run, while fun, was probably my worst performance with the most disappointing score, being the lowest among victorious runs. I was certainly still knocking some rust off at this point and definitely not thinking about the score much at all. I think it wasn't until that Steel Judoka run that I flipped a switch and stopped worrying about simply surviving. The most impressive victory has to go to the Secret Squad. Prior and pretty much up until the halfway through the playthrough I had zero interest in playing this squad. I thought it was certain defeat and more importantly it's just not a fun squad. But by the end of the playthrough I was convinced I could win and sure enough we pulled off a top five score. The most disappointing run goes to the Mist Eaters. Smoking the competition for two islands straight, thinking we were on track for a perfect 40k, and then that getting door slammed shut and losing one of our pilots in the process was rough. The least surprising result goes to Blitzkrieg, no comment.

Pilot Analysis

Just for fun, I went through and tabulated all the pilots I used throughout the playthrough. This isn't exactly comprehensive; if the pilot was sold for instance, I didn't keep good notes on that. So, this list primarily includes pilots I won and loss with and pilots who died. Let's see you popped up the most, who won the most, and who died. If the pilot got sold at any point in the run, they don't get any credit.

Unsurprisingly, Gana is the top dog with five timelines. In the middle of the playthrough he was carried over three times between runs. His Technician plus +2 HP skill combo wasn't anything special, but good enough to make a big difference when coupled with his special ability. The one death was essentially a victory as he sacrificed himself at the end of phase one in the Volcanic Hive.

In the next group, I expected to see Camila and Chen. They both had Skilled and I carried them over two times each. Camila is one of my favorites, so no excuses needed. While Chen picked up +1 Mech Reactor as her second ability, so there was no denying her value. Surprisingly but also unsurprisingly Bethany is here as well. She just kept popping up over and over. I think I may have carried her over once for the Frozen Titans, but she never blew me away. Her special is solid and that's that.

I gotta feel a little bad for Morgan sitting there with no victories to her name. In actuality though, both of her deaths came when the runs were essentially won. Plus, her losses came when I didn't really have my feet under me yet and was playing Blitzkrieg...

Kai came in mid-run and helped Zenith Guard and the Bombermechs to victory piloting heavy hitters to great effect. Kai also was really important for the Arachnophiles run.

I wish I saw more of Henry Kwan and Prospero or at least had better luck with the skills they picked up. It was a whole lot of Thick Skin and Invulnerable and I wasn't having it. But their special abilities are THAT good, making it really hard to drop them mid-run.

Mafan was a fun way to end the playthrough with the really strong +1 Mech Reactor, +1 Mech Move skills. Silica flopped both times I tried to get them going. And then Abe, Archimedes, and Harold all had decent showings in their single outings. The rest of the pilots didn't really make a mark. We started the playthrough with Ralph but sold him by the end of the second island. Adam kept showing up but never impressed and was always sold. Lily showed up once and contributed a little for one island. And Isaac and Rosie never actually made it into a mech. I missed one beacon, so perhaps I missed a chance at Ariadne or Kazaaak, but we'll never know.

14 Runs, 14 Lessons

Just like in the FTL article I'm going to wrap up my thoughts on the playthrough with one takeaway from each run. So, for Into the Breach it's 14 learnings from my 14 runs, here we go.

1. Understand enemy movement and attacks and let that inform you on what mechs and buildings are at risk of being attacked next turn. This is most critical on deployment.
2. When picking an island, review the Vek types present first and think about what your squad will have trouble dealing with. This is especially important for the first two islands.
3. Early in a run, prioritize getting a perfect island and saving time pods. Upgrading off your default starter pilots as soon as possible is top priority.
4. Always review the map before selecting the mission. For example a high threat mission on a favorable map layout can be much easier than an easy, single reward mission on an unfavorable map layout.
5. Consider baiting Vek attacks with your mechs, especially on deployment. An example would be putting your three mechs in a line when facing the Hornet Leader.
6. Shoot for dealing with two threats with each of your mechs. There may be crossover, like one mech dealing with one but setting up another mech up to deal with three.
7. You should always be looking for good, alternate weapons that fill a gap in the squad. An example here would be that the Mist Eaters are a really good squad but cannot push at all. Finding a weapon that pushes would make them even stronger and more versatile.
8. On unfair mode the battlefield is crowded. Have a way to deal with enemies you can't physically walk up to. Think ranged weapons, flying mechs, Henry Kwan, handy utility weapons like Smoke Drop.
9. Damage upgrades aren't usually the best way to spend your reactor cores. Review what other options exist like adding push or smoke to an attack or expanding the area of effect. When upgrading damage, consider if it gets you to certain thresholds: three damage to kill any normal Vek, five damage to kill any alpha Vek for instance.
10. If you have the luxury, funnel Vek kills towards the pilot with the least experience. Pilot skills can be very impactful and knowing earlier what skills a pilot has helps make decisions on which pilots to keep and which to sell.
11. Limited use, frost-based weapons like Ice Generator or Frost Beam are more often than not run winning.
12. Take your time. Countless times in this playthrough I had to step away from the game for a while and when I came back, I was often able to quickly come up with new potential solutions. When you get stuck, be patient. If you don't get it, come back later, there's no rush.
13. Your Mech HP is an expendable resource that replenishes for free between missions. Don't hesitate to body-block projectiles or block emerging Vek.
14. Always take into account turn order and Vek friendly fire. Solving for two Vek can often be dependent on which Vek goes first.

Everything Else That Makes This Game Great

What more needs to be said at this point? Well before wrapping this up I figured that while I'm on the subject of Into the Breach, I might as well exhaust all avenues. In the main body of this article, I wrote at length about turn-based tactics, roguelike mechanics, and general gameplay stuff but didn't comment much on everything surrounding those things. So, here's my thoughts on everything else I love about Into the Breach.

The Art

It's good. Look at those fireflies.

Dang, look at those different biomes. I like that.

Oh, and I really like the pilot profile pictures. In game they have little touches of animation, like blinking eyes or flashing lights.

And here's just some super cool Into the Breach art from the vinyl soundtrack. Props to the artist: spudonkey.

The Soundtrack

First off here's links to the two soundtracks:

Into the Breach Soundtrack, by Ben Prunty

26 track album

Ben Pruntywon_wonique

Into the Breach Advanced Edition Soundtrack, by Ben Prunty

10 track album

Ben Pruntywon_wonique

For a while I didn't think FTL's soundtrack could be topped. For the definitive sci-fi spaceship game, it was the definitive soundtrack, the perfect match. And then Into the Breach came out and I realized Ben Prunty's work with FTL wasn't a fluke, it just a beginning. The main menu theme captures the tone they were going for perfectly and still puts chills down my spine to this day. That sorrowful cello coming in just hits all the right notes. Its cast this gloomy outlook on the state of things while the plucky electric guitar gives direction and purpose.

Archive, Inc.

Archive has my favorite tracks. The overall atmosphere of this island is my favorite to be honest. Old Earth is pure melancholy traced with nostalgia. Antiquity Row and Old War Machines are more bombastic with loud percussion and soaring strings that give you motivation to push on and fight.

R.S.T. Corporation

R.S.T. brings in guitars that are little focused on strumming and sounding dissonant. While Archive feels like an old home you're returning to, R.S.T. feels a little frontier-like. There's a sense of exploration and advancement.

Pinnacle Robotics

Pinnacle features this smoky-sounding wind instrument, I don't know what it is, but it sounds sick. It's contrasted with some of the more upbeat, higher octave motifs heard in the whole album. It lightens things up a little bit for once.

Detritus Disposal

Detritus might be my second favorite island when it comes to the soundtrack. Here we get some undulating synth work that creates a distinct atmosphere for the island. A.C.I.D. has such a sick sound to it that fits right alongside the familiar themes we've heard from the beginning. The synth goes nuts to start and then these hollow keys come in and set the tone for the rest of the track. Straight up eerie, techno vibes.

Advanced Edition

I'm not able to post individual song links to the Advanced Edition tracks because it's not on streaming, but boy these might be some of my favorite. The Mist Eaters track goes so hard, like it's straight out of an EDM festival. Check it out

UI Design

Into the Breach's UI design is the best in the business. Subset built off what the did with FTL and again emphasized that the majority of information the player needs should be accessible without the press of a button. With a little bit of experience, this is one of those games where you can just stare at the screen and play out scenarios in your head. Vek telegraph their attacks and will always hit their targets, damage numbers are small and buildings are fragile. The result is you're not thinking about hit chances and you're typically not worried about whether the Vek are dealing one or five damage, it's all bad. Your mech's attacks are often much more complicated but the UI design still shines. When you trigger an attack, Vek HP automatically appears with the intended damage blinking over the threatened Vek. Arrows indicate where the unit will be pushed too, with little explosion marks for when collisions happen. Tiles can have effects that are triggered by damage, like a forest fire or dust cloud, little indicators will popup for those too. All this information is available just from the attack preview, so if you don't like how things look you can always cancel the attack and undo any movement that occurred prior.

The other subtle, yet all important UI consideration is having these info popups. When hovering a unit, at any time you can press the left bumper and get a detailed look at the status of the unit, the pilot's skills, or a Vek's attack. This little menu is so convenient and informative as it nicely supplements the less descriptive iconography that is displayed at all times.

From the GDC talk I linked at the start of the article, you can see the design leaps they made over time when it came to the UI. Starting with a really rough mockup just from prototyping the gameplay to something that has quite a bit more going on than what we got in the final product. Again, definitely check out that GDC talk if you're interested in game design.

Controller Support

If you're not aware, for the past two years Factorio has had me wrapped around it's finger. Last year I was deep into Space Age when I injured my right elbow/hand. Using a mouse suddenly became uncomfortable as I had nerve pain shooting across the top of my hand. It sucked when I was at working and I had zero interest in pushing through pain just for a video game, albeit a really fun one. I took a break from games for sometime and then Christmas break rolled around and I had some free time on my hands. Itching to play a game, but hesitant to use a mouse I started scrolling my Steam library looking for a fun game with controller support.

There's one game that always comes to mind when I think of great controller support and that's the one I've been writing about far too much. But while we're here harping on about Into the Breach I have to commend the feel of using a controller. This obviously ties in heavily with the incredible UI design I just wrote about as everything you need to do or see feels right at your fingertips. No extra button presses or weird uses for the sticks. Just intuitive controls that become muscle memory very quick. I do think turn based games are well suited for controllers. The lack of any urgency means I never had to worry about being extra efficient. The small battlefield means its easy to hover the pointer about with just the left stick. The left bumper gives you the details about whatever you're hovering over, mech stats, vek stats, etc. Pushing in the right stick gives you the turn order. The D-pad cycles through your units. Right trigger/bumper is your mech's weapons. That's pretty much it. On top of that, there's not much to the squad or shop menus so there's not a lot of clicking around that gets tedious.

Back when I had a Steam Deck, I said it was my favorite game to play on that device and in part that comes down this controller support I'm talking about. Turns out it works great with a Dualsense controller too. Thanks devs for making this game work this well, my hand appreciates it.

The Outro

If you've made it this far in the article, thank you! I can't believe I wrote this much honestly. This is easily the biggest project I've taken on. It's been three months of consistently writing about Into the Breach. The crazy part is that most of the article was written in my notes app on my phone. I already mentioned how being unable to play Factorio because of my arm and hand got me back into this game, well it shouldn't be a surprise then that typing on a keyboard for long periods of time wasn't pleasant either. So, the process was a lot playing on a controller and then after something happened, I'd pick up my phone, make a new note, and then at a later date mass export a bunch of my notes into the actual article. Definitely not the most efficient process but it got the job done.

Speaking of Factorio, the Space Age article is long overdue. And I'm a bit concerned about making a video because some the designs of the early planets I did over six months ago. I have chunk of it done and drafted up but my playthrough is crawling over the finish line due to my aforementioned issues. Regardless, that's probably the next thing to expect out on this website. Sad that such a banger game went out on such a whimper and not really to any fault of its own. Hopefully the article does it justice, it was my 2025 GOTY after all.

Other than that, Slay the Spire 2 comes out as of the day I'm writing this. There's honestly no way I'm not going to like it; I just hope I love it as much as the first game. Well, if you haven't had enough Into the Breach already, I have a beefy bonus section that features three tier lists: squads, pilots, and weapons. Again, thank you for reading and if you haven't played Into the Breach, what are you doing here? Go buy it and play it now!

Into the Breach on Steam

Control powerful mechs from the future to defeat an alien threat. Each attempt to save the world presents a new randomly generated challenge in this turn-based strategy game.

STEAM

BONUS SECTION: Tier Lists

Squad Tier List

This isn't exactly a conventional tier list and I'm not really rating based on strength of the squad. An Into the Breach squad tier list doesn't quite work for me because winning with any given squad doesn't feel that much more difficult when compared to the next squad. Below I've listed out my very subjective pros and cons for each squad. So, this list is based on those + and - scores and really just comes down to how much fun I have when playing them.

I enjoy the Rift Walkers as the default squad mainly because each mech can push with their attack (+1). The downside is that with their generic feel comes no flying mechs and all starts at three movement (-1). Total Score: 0

Blitzkrieg also suffers from no flying mechs and all starting at three movement (-1). They also have to drag along the useless Grapple Mech (-1). The armor means nothing when you want to scale up damage on the Lightning Mech as soon as possible. But yeah, the Lightning Whip is pretty badass when you get it going (+1). Total Score: -1

Cataclysm has the cool and unique ‘on kill’ effect of cracking tiles which creates instakill opportunities (+1). They also have two four movement mechs and one has flying (+1). Total Score: +2

The Rusting Hulks also have two four movement mechs and one with flying (+1). They also have smoke that deals damage, very cool (+1). Total Score: +2

The Hazardous Squad also has two four movement mechs and one with flying (+1). Self damage and collateral damage is sometimes annoying to work around (-1). But they do have a lot of push (+1). Total Score: +1

For Zenith Guard Burst Beam is weak and annoying starting out, you have to build around it to get it to work (-1). Upgraded Shield Projector is kind of fire though (+1). Total Score: 0

Arachnophiles have two cool weapons: Ricochet Rockets (+1) and the Arachnoid Injector (+1). Total Score: +2

The Frozen Titans Mirror Mech might have my least favorite weapon, the Janus Cannon (-1). The Cyro-Launcher necessitates the use of specific pilots and still only handles one Vek at a time (-1), but it is a frost weapon, so it is really strong (+1). Total Score: -1

The Steel Judoka might have the coolest passive in the game: Vek Hormones (+1). They have two four movement mechs and one has armor (+1). Doing damage and killing Vek can be a struggle (-1). Total Score: +1

Mist Eaters have two flying mechs with four movement (+2). To balance them out, they have zero pushing ability making certain enemies very difficult (-1). But between Control Shot and a lot of smoke, they still have a strong arsenal (+1). Total Score: +2

The Flame Behemoths are the Rift Walkers with fire and a teleporter (+1). Total Score: +1

The Heat Sinkers are home to my favorite weapon in the game, Quick-Fire Rockets (+1). They also can lay down a ton of fire, that’s badass (+1). Total Score: +2

Meanwhile, the Bombermechs are home to the best starter weapon in the game, Force Swap and AP Cannon is strong too with two damage and two push (+3). They also have to deal with their namesake Bombling Mech’s horrendous Bomb Dispenser (-1). Total Score: +2

The Secret Squad’s cyborg pilots block access to all the fun pilots (-3). At least all their mechs have push (+1). Total Score: -2

Pilot Tier List

Unlike the squad tier list, I think the pilots are little easier to rate because they can have some very tangible impacts on the outcome of a run. The abilities they acquire with level-ups mid-run are very impactful too, but some of these special abilities pilots have are game changers.

The S-tier category is the Positioning Superstars. Now I'm biased towards pilots that are flexible and give me options. I hate getting stuck. When the Vek are all in your business, attacking buildings, clogging lanes of movement, that's the worse. These three pilots are the best at getting out of or avoiding these situations altogether. First, it's no surprise Gana is here. His ability allows him to start on the Vek's side of the board, an incredible superpower that changes the game. On unfair, there's a simple math problem that is at the heart of all failed runs. And it's that the number of Vek attacking buildings is greater than the number of ways you can deal said Vek. Gana changes this completely. I wanted to go through some of my runs and count how many Vek attacks Gana drew and do an analysis comparing that number to the number an average pilot draws, but I was too lazy. But it doesn't matter I know the answer in my heart, it's a lot more. And when Vek are attacking Gana they aren't attacking buildings. Also, his forward positioning also leads him into blocking a lot of emerging Vek, it's a win-win. The next two pilots, Henry Kwan and Prospero, I have up here because they can move through Vek units, plain and simple. With their abilities you just can't really get stuck anymore. Not being stuck means you have more flexibility in what actions you can take, more flexibility means you are better at handling everything the Vek throw at you.

Next I have the Absolutely Additive A-tier pilots: Mafan and Kai Miller. I grouped these two together because they take what you want to do with a squad and amp it up or accelerate it. A bunch of mechs from a variety of squads need just one more damage to be more impactful, especially with weapons that have 'on kill' effects for instance. And likewise, a bunch of mechs have weapons that have a one reactor core cost upgrade that means the world. Stuff like adding push or building immune or some extra range can be brought online before you even start your first mission.

Next up are the B-tier Baiters: Camila Vera and Archimedes. If Gana is the standard for baiting Vek attacks, these two are the runners up. I have a personal bias towards hating Vek that can web my mechs, maybe that's because I played so much pre-Advanced Edition when those enemies were more prominent, but nonetheless Camila is my answer. Nothing beats the feeling of putting Camila and her mech in range of an Alpha Leaper and then seeing it hop right on over and waste its turn. Nothing brings me greater satisfaction. But a close second is Archimedes' ability to move a second time after attacking. This ability is extremely handy for getting up into the Vek's space, blocking emerging Vek, and getting their attention.

In C-tier I have the duo known for Covering up Weakness, it's Harold Schmidt and Kazaaakpleth. Both of these guys are great at taking a rather useless mech and giving them a decent action. Whether it's Harold's four tile push or Kazaak's two damage push, both are really nice options to have on a weaker mech.

D-tier is a big group of pilots I like to think of as Default-Plus. Pilots like Bethany, Ariadne, Abe, Adam wouldn't be that different from a mech starting out with +2 Mech HP skill. Lily essentially has Opener and Morgan kind of has Finisher. Chen's Sidestep ability is definitely more unique, but I just don't find it to be very impactful that often. This group I'm never unhappy to see, but they don't excite me either.

For E-tier, I have the two pilots I never really use but think could possibly be good, it's Silica and Rosie Rivets. What's funny is that while they are grouped together, I see they potential as being on opposite sides of the spectrum. Silica in the right situation could go crazy. Double the actions has nutty upside, I've just never really pulled it off though, two reactor cores and no movement to enable is a steep cost. Rosie Rivets on the other hand I don't think I've ever even placed into a mech, so that's a problem... I don't know, her ability just seems so inconsequential. It's still something though, so I can't put her in the default tier out of principle.

And last and certainly least I have the Default F-tier pilots: Isaac Jones and Ralph Karlsson. And yeah, what is there to say, you might as well have a default pilot while you're at it.

While I'm at, here's how I'd rate the common pool pilot abilities:

S - Skilled, +1 Mech Reactor
A - Opener, +1 Mech Move
B - Technician, Conservative, +2 Mech HP
C - Popular Hero, Adrenaline, Masochist
D - Thick Skin, Finisher
F - Invulnerable, +3 Grid Def

Weapon Tier List

S - Game changing weapons. More often than not deals with more than two Vek.

Ice Generator - The single most game breaking-weapon. If you have the four cores required to power it up all the way, you've won the run.
Wind Torrent - I was late to the party on this one, but for one core it can very effectively deal with most of the Vek on the board.
Force Swap - For one core you get the most consistent weapon that deals with two Vek. It's a favorite of mine.
Frost Beam - It's a little expensive at three cores, but freezing in a line can often solve a mission from turn one. More often than not you can freeze two and protect a building in one turn.

A - Effectively deals with two Vek, every turn.

Refractor Laser - The best damage in the game. Bending the laser makes this weapon so much better than you would initially think.
Quick-Fire Artillery - Incredibly versatile and cheap.
Quick-Fire Rockets - Not quite as incredibly versatile and cheap. Requires more mobility and one core to get the push upgrade. Another personal favorite.
Smoldering Shells - For two more cores you get a weapon that consistently counters two to three maybe even four Vek every turn, that's rare.
Cluster Artillery - The buildings immune upgrade is very necessary but it's still a cheap way to consistently deal with two Vek while doing some chip damage.
Control Shot - Arguably B-tier, but it's a ton of fun to move high damage Vek into positions to kill their own.

B - Sometimes deals with two Vek or very effective at eliminating beefy units.

Rebounding Volley - Deals nice damage while moving two enemies.
Artemis Artillery - Versatile range with lots of push.
Vulcan Artillery - Artemis Artillery (fire variant).
Explosive Goo - Artemis Artillery (bug variant)
Rocket Artillery - Great single target damage with push and smoke can be useful too.
Ricochet Rocket - Two pushes with damage, but awkward to use and low damage.
Hydraulic Legs - Great mobility, range, and pushes, balanced by collateral and self damage risks.
Cryo-Launcher - Freezing enemies is great but yourself, not so much.
Teleporter - Very fun and deadly but rarely helps with two enemies.
Titan Fist - Great single target damage with push.
Hydraulic Lifter - Cheap upgrades give this weapon good damage and great Vek repositioning power.
Boosters - Hydraulic Legs without the downsides but less upside.
Smoke Drop - Great in a pinch, but limited use keeps it down.
Rock Launcher - More limited than above artillery options due to only having two pushes, ok base damage.
Arachnoid Injector - When boosted this is A-tier otherwise it's limited by damage.
Heavy Rocket - Great damage limited by uses.
Grid Charger - Game changing secondary weapon.
AP Cannon - Ok damage with the potential for two pushes.

C - Good single target weapons or limited multi-target weapons.

Guided Missile - Decent single target damage and a push that is pretty flexible in its reach.
Shock Cannon - Decent damage and a push, can rarely impact two Vek.
Aerial Bombs - Great for the Rusting Hulks, not so great for everyone else.
Ramming Engines - Good damage but you need a way to heal.
Reverse Thrusters - More good damage and you still need to heal due to self-damage. Worse because of positioning and mobility requirements.
Micro-Artillery - Decent secondary weapon for ranged, single target push.
Gemini Missiles - Good damage but limited use. A nice secondary option for damage and range.
Tri-Rocket - Weak damage and rarely impacts more than one Vek.
Firestorm Generator - Ok you got me; this one is definitely D-tier but at the same time five tiles of fire and a push is so dope.
Seismic Capacitor - With boosted this is quite fun, without it, not so much.
Targeted Strike - A solid secondary weapon that can get you out of a pinch.
Needle Shot - With upgrades it's ok, but not enough to make a difference.
Prime Spear - Not good enough to be a main weapon, not flexible enough to be a secondary, not bad enough to be D-tier.

D - Limited single target weapons or hard to use multi-target weapons.

Vice Fist - Good Vek movement, but not a lot of damage and can be awkward to use at times.
EM Railgun - It costs zero cores and has a cool effect, but it rarely works.
Unstable Cannon - Ok damage and push but you need a heal and can be awkward to use in tight spots.
Shrapnel Cannon - Limited use and tough to get full effectiveness of.
Titan Shield - Ok damage but flipping attacks is not very good. Would much prefer a push.
Rock Accelerator - Expensive upgrades and I'd rather have a push.
Flame Thrower - Conditional damage stinks.
Taurus Cannon - The most basic damage and push weapon but the upgrades are terribly expensive.
Heavy Artillery - Lots of damage but not how you want it.
Grappling Hook - I hate this weapon because it's a Blitzkrieg weapon. It's probably not that bad though, could be a decent secondary in a different timeline.
Grav Well - An ok secondary weapon with no upgrades and very limited impact.
Repulse - Limited by positioning, ok secondary weapon.
A.C.I.D. Projector - A damage enabler with push. Meh.
Shield Projector - With upgrades, I think this one is fun.
Push Beam - Lots of movement for free. Limited use and hard to make impactful though.
Area Shift - Mostly annoying to use, can go crazy with Force Amp though.
Ramming Speed - Low damage with push. At least it has good range.

E - Situationally decent weapons, but overall inconsistent at dealing with one Vek.

Rail Cannon - Tricks you into thinking you'll get big damage for free.
Burst Beam - Not enough damage to make a difference and it still is a big collateral damage risk.
Electric Whip - Another trick, don't fall for it. Or the ultimate normal difficulty weapon.
Janus Cannon - Yeah, I don't like this one.
Bomb Dispenser - Hard carried by having Force Swap on its squad.
Attraction Pulse - Does this get the award for most boring weapon? Pull one tile towards you, no upgrades.
Shield Array - Not flexible enough to help consistently.
Flood Drill - Can be great, but way too situational.

F - Struggles to deal with one Vek.

Fire Beam - I love fire, but without damage or push I can't justify putting this higher than F.
Burning Mortar - I love fire, but without damage or push I can't justify putting this higher than F.
Astra Bombs - One damage without push is pretty much useless 99% of the time. Congrats Astra Bombs on being the worst weapon I've ever equipped.

Unused - Weapons I've never used, wow there's more here than I thought.

For whatever reason I like sticking with base weapons. In this playthrough I definitely started to try and be more open to new weapons. Some of them are a lot of fun. I think my frame of my mind needs to shift more towards that fact that options are good. And even if a weapon looks like it stinks, it could be perfect as a secondary weapon you only use once every two missions. Not everything has to be good enough to use every turn. That being said, much of what is in my 'unused' tier is either expensive or niche in its use cases. Next time around I'm definitely going to be up for more experimentation. While unfair is certainly a step up in difficulty and makes some weapons impossible to use, it does promote being more versatile and therefore necessitates having secondary weapons.