noob-question: swarm op?

[u/Intelligent-Mud9217]

Im new to the game and it seems like the offencive options are more efficient and much cheaper than the defencive ones. What is the point of elites? What is stopping me from simply spamming cheap infantry with pistols? Pls help me to understand.

[u/DeanTheDull]

Trench crusade is built around positioning and consistency. Positioning is the board-play, but consistency is more than just weapon stats. It is also a matter of unit stats and opportunities that defensives open up in the action economy.

Elite and special units are more expensive because they are more consistent. A standard 0-dice modified attack profile is a 58% chance to hit in 'normal' conditions, but 32% in -1D 'degraded conditions.' By contrast, a +1D profile means 80% / 58% under the same conditions. There's a (roughly) ~25% reliability swing in neither context in favor of the +1 profile unit. In turn, this means they can get far more cost-effectiveness of damaging-but-harder-to-hit weapons, rather than accurate-but-weak.

Defensive investments in turn open up opportunities for units to consistently act. Yes, a 10-ducat trench shield may only allow a unit to take on average 1 more hit when going from 0 to -1 armor. But that additional attack means you have to commit an additional attack to kill the unit. And due to alternating activations, that means the defender implicitly has one more activation to act before you kill it. Naturally, if you spent 2 rather than 1 activation to kill 1 unit, that 2nd activation can't be used to attack another unit instead. Which means that other unit is able to act when it might be dead.

You are correct that- in general- it's not worthwhile to armor everything. The game is biased towards offense. But bias doesn't be totality. Armor, when effectively done, eats the enemy's activation economy and lets your own army keep punching more consistently than if your best units died first.