This is a guide about the most important stuff in the game.
Both for brand new story mode as well as the original version of Warsaw.

Any suggestions, translation errors and tips are more than welcome.

DO NOTE THAT CURRENTLY BOTH NEW AND ORIGINAL VERSIONS OF THE GAME ARE AVAILABLE TO PLAY.

Enjoy!

On 23th Augus 2023 a new version of the game was released with a new title and a complete overhaul of game mechanics. It was also changed to be free to play.
After a very negative backslash from the community devs reintroduced the original game as a beta branch "Legacy".
The new version will be referred as "free to play (f2p)" or "story mode"
while the old one as "original", "legacy" or "strategy mode".

Tl dr; about story mode:
- Free to play
- Brand new bugs
- Focused on facts and historical events, organized in chronogical order
- Linear campaign progression with minimized randomness,
- Mission selection is no more
- City management part is removed completely
- Action points are no longer a part of game mechanics
- Few new enemies
- New voice acting, new animated cutscenes, new music
- New set of achievements unrelated to the old ones
- New map icons with historical landmarks with lots of lore
- Stopwatch consumable item was removed
- Resource management is no longer an issue
(since we wont be spending them on helping districts)
- Random events are less punishing
(mostly due to the fact that we don't have to keep the city districs alive anymore)
- Encounters and all fighting-related mechanics are the same
- Party order can be changed during mission
- Language selector FINALLY works
- Most missions are 1-day long, giving you less time to heal wounded party members

In short:
Story mode:
If you want an easier game focused around actual events from 1944.

Legacy mode:
If you prefer the old version with more strategic apporach, constant struggle to keep the city districts alive, more randomness and freedom.

To access the Legacy mode navigate to steam->game properties->beta->branch->legacy_version

Q: Is this game really that difficult (like Darkest Dungeon or worse)?
A: No. Read the gameplay basics, and you should have no issues beating it. And if it's still too hard you can always pick a lower difficulty.

Q: How long is this game?
A: 8h should be more than enough to complete it once. Getting 100% will most likely take much over 50h.

Q: The game ended after October 3rd, wtf?
A: It's because Warsaw is historically accurate and the Warsaw's uprising ended on that day during WW II.

Q: Which character is the best?
A: Go to heroes section, I've tiered all heroes and you can consider everything with S or A tier 'best'.

Q: Which weapon is the best?
A: It depends... on the positioning, skills or character traits. The rule of thumb is: go for the highest damage if your hero has good base accuracy, and go for the highest accuracy bonus if your hero is not the natural born sharpshooter.

Q: How much ammo should I take on a mission?
A: For a balanced team 2 stacks of every type is more than enough. The default inventory selection before mission is usually more than you will ever need. With time you will gain a good understanding of your team's ammo consumption and you will limit the amount accordingly.

Q: Do i need healers in my team? How many?
A: Yes, 1 is usually enough (like Jadwiga), or 2 when they are weaker (like Franek + one recruit)

Q: The name of XYZ is wrong
A: Yep, cause I'm playing polish version of the game and there is no way to change it to english. Leave a comment and I'll be more than happy to change my translation errors.

Q: The skill/hero description is wrong
A: The game is changing rapidly from update to update and I'm not able to verify all the content every few weeks. If you find some errors/updates - leave a comment.

Q: I did XYZ and there is no entry in the codex
A: The codex is still bugged as hell.

Q: I did XYZ and got no achievement
A: Achivement issues are common since day one, when the game was released. Try different save slot or remove saves completely and start from scratch. Don't be suprised when bugged achievements will pop up at random, totally unrelated to your current actions.

When you move around the city there are a few important factors to keep in mind. To get an idea of what you might stumble upon during the current mission see the bottom-right part of the screen.



For the story mode, there is one additional icon for historical landmarks:


From the left:
Amount of enemy squardons on the map
Amount of random events on the map
Amount of item crates on the map
Amount of historical points of interest on the map

Keep in mind that the buildings are a physical barrier you cannot cross and some paths inside or near destroyed buildings won't be passable due to rubble blocking your path.

Pressing TAB on the map will zoom it out giving you an overview of the whole district.

1. Objective arrows

There are two types: white and yellow. The brighter the arrow the closer the object is. Though the detection radius is rather small and you will really want to use flares (see items section).

• White - indicates enemies, loot crates and random events.
  
• Yellow - Objectives. Take note that in missions like "gain X influence" or "kill X german squadrons" they will still be indicated as white arrows.

In rare cases the mission objective won't be revealed (see screenshot) - if you happened to be in such situation - use flare to reveal the objective.

This usually happens with missions including objectives being revealed sequentially one after another. Whenever an objective is cleared AND the next object is located somewhere in your visual field (on map), it will not show up(the yellow arrows will.). In this case apart from using flare you can move away and return; the supposed objective location should be outside your visible map area. When re-approached, the objective icon should show up normally. - thank you SpacetimePhysics for the tip.

As a side note it works fine in 100% cases so far in story mode, so maybe devs fixed it.












2. Enemies

If possible avoid any unnecessary fights. The rewards may or may not compensate for ammo loss and you will most likely get your heroes injured or killed.

Encounters come in few variants:

• Normal squadrons - they are not aware of your presence and you can decide whether or not you'll fight them.
  
  
• Outposts/sentry - they have a red circle around them which is a detection radius. If you are within the red circle AND germans have a clear line of sight - you will be forced to fight. Buildings will help you to stay undetected. Use any physical cover if possible and you will be able to sneak past the outpost. The detection radius varies per squadron and they may overlap each other which might put you in a very unfavorable chain of fights. Often the enemy has a much greater detection radius than you and you will end up in an ambush. Flares are your best friend here - see items section for details. This is however not the case in story mode - as most enemiest tend to have smaller detection radius and can be seen in advance.
  
  
• Patrols - Introduced in free to play update. They got small detection radius, and are mobile. As the name suggests - they keep moving on a fixed route.
  
  
• Purple outposts - Introduced in free to play update. What differs it from normal outposts is the fact that they cannot be ambushed and are unaffected by camouflage.

Click on the screenshot to get an idea on how to use buildings to sneak around enemy detection radius without being detected:




3. Loot crates

You'll want to keep at least a few empty spaces in your inventory to get any usable loot you can find on the map. Prioritize medals, ammo (heavy>long>short) and weapon parts. One stack of long ammo is worth 4x50 money (3x50 when sold), while a single money stack is just 50. Try to maximize the value of your inventory as much as possible - every penny is important. Obviously try to get as much loot crates as you can during any mission, yet try to avoid any unnecessary fights in the process.

4. Random events

Watch what dialogue option you choose as the outcome might be fatal for your party. Possible lethal or harmful answers are marked with red cross near the dialogue option. Random events do count for the "gain X influence" mission types so you may decide to prioritize events over fights. Since żmija update, random events can give our heroes a quite large amount of experience if the outcome is positive( from around 100 to 300). Outcome often depends on trait checks so try to have at least one party member with high stats (like Kazimierz for charisma-based checks). The same type of event gives the same pool of posivite/negative closures - but the one you get is random every time.

5. Changing formation on the map
- this bad boy on the left was introduced in f2p update, and it lets you change squad formation between skirmishes. Pretty handy if you've made mistakes during mission setup or just need to adjust your strategy.

1. Party management

You will want to have two full parties ready for a mission. In 95% cases your squad will be heavily injured when the mission is over and it won't be wise to take them to the next one without healing them first. Thus the advised scenario is to complete a mission with party A, then go for next one with squad B while A takes its time to treat the wounds, then go with full hp A party and let B rest and so on.

2. Injuries

Every character got 3 levels of injuries. Which basically equals to how many days it will take to bring them back to full health. Going on a 3-4 days mission is enough for your injured folks to recover. Sometimes you will be forced to go on a mission with injured heroes - in such cases prioritize the ones with most hp, take 1-2 healers with you and heal them asap during the mission.

3. Recuits

• They come in a few variants.
  
• They are quite expensive but still you'll want to have 2-4 of them ready, preferably with different skillsets.
  
• They cannot gain levels but they are still very useful.
  
• They can be a valid replacement for your injured heroes, especially in the early-mid game.
  
• Keep in mind their low hp pool.

The most useful recruits skills (see weapons & skills section for more details):

• Healing - more potent than Franek's while it can also remove one debuff from the target. Having one such recruit along with Franek is a good substitute for Jadwiga when you cannot take her on a mission due to injuries
  
• Ploy - gives one of your heroes an extra activation point while also removing one activation point from the enemies.
  
• Cheap 1-heavy ammo strike
  
• Good rifle 2-target strike
  
• Pistol repositioning skill

4. Resources & party composition

These two factors come together when it comes to managing the economy and battle efficiency. You'll want to balance your ammo consumption. A good party consists of short, long and explosive ammo users. Try to avoid single type ammo users in the same party as much as possible, especially early game when you don't have a large quantity of ammo stacked. Pay extra attention to pistol ammo: it is cheaper and more common than long and explosive, A single stack is 100 bullets instead of 50 for long and 25 for explosive and it can be used by 3 weapon types: pistol, revolver, and SMG. Having one pistol/revolver, one SMG, one rifle and one demolition weapon users in a team is a favorable scenario - at least early-mid game. Also, pay attention to skill ranges - it is unwise when your only attack that can reach this last enemy staying in the last row is a very expensive 4-row aoe strike. Ps: you'll always want to have at least one healer in your party. First aid kits are scarce, expensive and can only be used outside battles. If possible try to have a mixed meele attack types available in your team and favor heroes with meeles that can move target +/- 3 rows.

5. Repairing weapons

You will always want to repair any weapon you've recovered from a mission. Selling weapons will be your main income source during the game. Always have some money left (~100) to affort repairing cost for at least one weapon.

6. Shop

Don't waste resources for ammo and items unless absolutely necessary, also later in the game when you will have a large quantity of ammo you can consider selling some to afford extra actions to strengthen city districts.

7. Legacy mode - Helping districts

It might seem useless and expensive but it's really worth it in the long run. Though you may skip it early game due to lack of money, try to help city districts when possible to keep the morale even across the city. Also, you may notice that cheaper actions are more money-to-morale efficient than the most expensive ones.

8. Legacy mode - Choosing mission

Prioritize the weakest districts to keep them from surrendering for as long as possible. Then prioritize non-violent missions. You will really want to think twice before going on a mission against armored targets like artillery or tanks, especially early game when you lack skills and resources. You might be tempted to choose missions with better rewards - i.e. heavy weapon parts instead of pistol parts - and that's completely fine but keeping the city alive is important as well in the long run. As a side note - failing a mission is better than letting you heroes die, unless they are recruits and you can afford new ones. You can run away from a mission whenever you like, both on a city map and during any fight.

9. Post mission events & cheats

After every mission, there will be a random event with a positive or negative effect. If the outcome is very unfavorable - like the death of a party member or loss of a city district you can close (or Alt-F4) the game and load it again. You will be placed at the end of your latest mission and there will be a different event waiting for you. Every few missions there will always be a 'new recruit' event. Alt+F4 can be used for a chance to get a different hero every time you try, especially if you are struggling to get a particular party member to join you.

10. Legacy mode - Skipping a day

This is a new mechanic introduced in 'Baszta' update. You can basically skip a single day instead of going on a mission. This will result in 1 point exhaust penalty for 3 districts but otherwise behaves just like a mission. You'll get a post mission event afterwards and your folks will be healed for that extra day. Don't fall into a trap of skipping a few days in a row though. This will give you more events for free in a short time period, but will also cause a lot of damage to the city districts. Treat it as a last resort when you really don't have a healthy team to succesfully complete any mission.

11. Codex

Żmija update brings us a complete codex overhaul. It still has 3 chapters: characters, weapons and enemies. But now every entry apart from a brief description, contains all detailed statistics as well. We can check every acquired weapon stats here, along with its skills, and the same goes for enemies - no more speculation about possible attacks or effects.

It seems that most (or all) issues with codex are also fixed in the żmija update. So far I'm able to unlock codex entries for heroes without any issues.

12. Story mode - The Chronicle

A new guy introduced in a free to play update. It stores all historical data gathered through the story mode, icluding lore from historical landmarks, mission related historical events, notable historical figures, newspapers, posters etc.

Żmija update introduced a complete overhaul of skill progression. Medal-based system was swapped to a more RPG-like system with experience points gained from different sources.

Every experience gained is 'per hero' experience (not a shared pool), meaning that 1000XP mission will give 1000XP for EVERY participating hero. Why is that important? Because unlike many other games you do not benefit from taking less team members on a mission, thus you can't do stuff like single character power leveling.

Since recruits do not benefit from gaining experience, try to limit their mission presence as much as possible, to maximize XP gain for your heroes.

Experience sources:

• succesfully finishing a mission
  
• winning a fight (more skirmishes in a mission -> more XP)
  
• completing additional random skirmish objectives
  
• random events with positive outcome
  
• medals

XP are utilized between missions at the base. Unlike the previous system, now it is actually important to take a particular hero we'd like to upgrade on as many missions as possible since they won't get XP (other than optonal 300 from consumed medals) if they are not fighting.

We can spend XP for skills, and what's new - on stats upgrades, which gives us a great deal of depth to our decisions and long term strategy. Some insurgents are very skill dependant (hello Helena), while others can do just fine with minimal (or zero) extra skills. In this case we can spend more experience points on statistic - like better accuracy, more hp and so on. If you find some character skills useless, or just prefer to use more weapon skills - just go for better statistics.

1. Positioning

• Avoid placing your heroes in the first row, place them in the 2nd one instead. The reason for this is that often there will be barricades present on your side of the battle arena and they are usually placed in the first rows, meaning that taking 2nd row will grant you the extra protection for free.
  
• Think about your squad skillsets, and choose flexible party composition where there is someone that can utilize his skills from 2nd row, someone for the back rows and someone for the middle rows.
  
• Scatter your team between upped and lower rows, so there won't be 3 party members lined up together waiting to be obliterated by a single shrapnel shell.
  
• Hitting target from the opposite row grants a 20% damage bonus (upper/lower row and vice versa), abuse it. However the bonus does not apply vs machines.
  
• Having repositioning attack skills is essential for an aoe-based party. You can push the enemy back, you can switch the row (up/down) the enemy is in as well. Before using any expensive aoe skill try to first group your enemies together. Keep in mind they can also reposition themselves.
  
• Maximize aoe skills effect. It is useless to waste 4 field attack on a single enemy. If it will take you a few action points to maximize aoe damage for the rest of the fight - go for it.
  
• Some enemies can reposition your team members i.e. by switching their position from 2nd to the last row - expect this and have a skill set that can be used from both front and back rows, otherwise, you will have to waste action points for repositioning to a more favorable spot.

2. Priority targets

Always think about who you gonna kill first or if you can afford aoe attacks to weaken the whole enemy squad instead of focusing a single target. If you are fighting 4 cramped grenadiers with one sniper in the back it would be tempting to nuke the grenadiers but sniper alone will give you hell, so focus him instead, especially seeing his low hp pool. Important note about armored targets - they are often accompanied with supporting crew (engineers) that can and will repair them for a considerable amount. It might be wiser to kill all other enemies before switching back to this pesky cannon. Doctors and radio operators may be annoying but they have limited fighting capabilities so consider them low priority targets. The same goes for commanders. Few enemy types have two action points per turn which automatically makes them high priority targets. On the other hand, 2 action points mean they will bleed and burn twice as often - abuse this fact.

3. Activation points

• Usually enemies will outnumber you and will start the fight with more actions per turn than you. Your goal is to turn the tides of battle as efficient as possible by eliminating priority targets (like units with two actions per turn) and change the ratio in your favor.
  
• Your heroes start the battle with 3 action points.
  
• They will recover 1 action point per turn (unless it's Franek who can regain 2 when trained).
  
• Actions will typically use 1 or 2 action points, most simple attacks use one, most explosive and some aoe skills use 2. Few skills (hello Helena) needs 3 AP to use.
  
• The more action points you got during the attack the better the accuracy.
  
• Having 2 AP reduces accuracy by 10%, having 1 AP makes the character take 20% more dmg.
  
• Passive skills do not use action points, therefore it is wise to get some of them.
  
• Repositioning your heroes uses an action point, avoid doing it.
  
• Try to lure your enemies to waste their action points if possible. When there is a doctor in enemy squadron he will try to heal any bleeding or burning effect which will waste one german's action point. Many enemies will prioritize buffs/help on their weakened comrades which is also a win for you. Heavy weapons will use one turn for the attack and one turn for reloading giving you a more breathing space. Also, use your recruit's skill to strip enemies from one action point - it's often a lifesaver.

4. Healing

• Having a healer in your party is rather obligatory.
  
• Any healing effect can hit critically doubling the healed HP amount.
  
• If you have to choose between killing an enemy or healing a party member - prioritize killing the enemy unless your party member is in a critical condition.
  
• Focus more on healing after you have more actions per turn than your enemy (after killing at least part of the enemy squad), otherwise, you won't be able to outheal the damage anyway.
  
• Try to leave a single weak enemy alive at the end of the fight and use ploy/suppression skills on him. This will give you an opportunity to fully heal your party before the next battle.
  
• Jadwiga FTW

5. Armor and hit chance

• Armor - some enemies (machines) will have a non-zero armor value. The armor percentage equals to damage reduction applied to every single attack received. Without a proper skillset, it might be way too difficult to deal with enemies like tanks or Pak cannons. Some heroes can buff armor-piercing capabilities of your team's attacks. On top of that, every skill has its own armor-piercing potential which is usually around 5%.
  
  
• Hit chance - Every attack has its own chance to hit and every target has its own chance to dodge the attack. The substraction of both is the percentage hit chance. Both accuracy and dodge chance can be further buffed by skills on both our side and enemy side. Some attacks, like Shield breaker, have higher accuracy when used vs heavy targets and lower accuracy vs infantry.

6. Skirmish objectives

Żmija update introduced additional optional goals we can fulfill during skirmishes for a small bit of extra experience points. There are always two such objectives, randomly selected for every fight. The amount of extra XP is constant, thus you won't gain more for fulfilling harder objectives. The objectives themselves are stuff like "don't use more than X ammo of Y type during the fight", "kill 2 enemies during a single turn" and so on. An extra mention on "don't lose more than X hp" - as mentioned in the objective description you can heal your team members to lower the dmg counter, thus if at the end of the fight you are below damage treshold - congratz, you fulfilled the objective.


7. Cheats

This game has nondeterministic RNG, which means the same situation will be different every time you load the game and is not determined by pre-generated seed (like Xcom2 or Slay The Spire).
What does it mean to you?
When you get to an unfavorable fight where half of your team was obliterated by a single critical hit aoe explosive you can Alt+F4 the game. Load it again and try the fight with slightly different enemy setup and positioning and a chance to get a different outcome.

This chapter describes a few typical battle formations and reasoning behind them.
For examples of an actual setups see Heroes - example formations chapter.
Obviously there's much more choices than the ones presented here - those are only examples to give you a general idea on how to play.

Dictionary:
AOE - area of effect / multi-target
BUFF - positive effect cast on our heroes (i.e. damage bonus)
AURA - passive skill that affects the user and all adjecent units

1. T-formation
One of the most popular formations I'm using, especially with Jadwiga or Krzysztof.

+ Maximum usage of a single aura
- Prone to AOE attacks
- Repositioning of an aura user is a big issue








2. 2x2 square formation
Square formation lets you use multiple auras with limited efficiency as every used aura has 3 targets (including the user).


+ Can utilize multiple auras
+ Better buff utilization
- Prone to AOE attacks
- Lower single aura efficiency
- More problematic to pick heroes and cover all rows with attack skills








3. Mixed single aura
This is a compromise between aura synergy and anti-aoe defense. Some passive effects does not need all 4 targets be actually effective. Imagine a setup with Wanda with to the limits armor-piercing aura, surrounded by two other users of heavy weapons + a healer in the front. Usually the healer does not have any good anti tank attacks anyway so there is no point of using T-formation.

+ Can use single aura / but -with lower efficiency
+ Better protection vs AOE attacks
+ Can place 2 Rifle/Explosive/MG in the back row


4. Wave/Spread formation
This one is typically used with Konstanty as he must be placed in the 1st row to be effective. It also grants better defense vs most aoe attacks (some can still hit two targets in a single line tough).


+ Best anti-aoe defense
- Hero on the front is not covered with barricade
- No aura synergies
- Low efficiency of AOE buffs

*** STATUS EFFECTS IN THIS GAME ARE ADDITIVE. ***

What does it mean exactly?
Consider the following scenario:
Our Wanda has take cover skill equipped which got 25% armor penetration out of the box.
She has to the limits passive aura equipped as well, wchich gives her +15% penetration bonus.
Now she has 40% bonus (25%+15%).
There is also Martin in her team which can buff her for +20% bonus so in the end she has 25%+15%+20%=60% armor penetration.
You can stack as many buffs of the same type as you please and they will have the full effect every time - contrary to multiplicative stacking used in most other games.

• Resistances - it is a percentage chance to dodge debuff and it is subtracted from the apply chance of a skill. Most bleeding/burning debuffs got 80% chance to be applied, so in case our enemy has 30% resistance the actual odds are 80%-30% = 50%. Nazi's field medic can boost ally resistances by 60%, also armored enemies have high debuff resistance bonuses. Still, if the resulting odds are above zero you can even cause Nebelwerfer to bleed (tested). Don't bother debuffing such targets though, you'll most likely miss and waste a precious turn.
  
  
• Duration - most positive and negative effects lasts for 1 to 3 activations. Do note that one activation does not equal one turn in most cases. Consider the following example: At the beginning of my turn I was able to apply bleeding on a machinegunner putting 2 activation stacks on him. After his action the bleeding activates dealing damage then at the end of the turn bleeding activates again therefore both activations were done in a single turn.
  
  
• Stacking & renewal - buffs and debuffs with the exact same effect does not stack. If you applied 2-activations bleeding and then use it again it will still be 2 stacks instead of 4. Same rule apply for buffs - recasting the same effect will only renew the duration to the original value, e.g. I've put a 3-stacks damage buff on my teammate, then used one stack, then recast the same effect and I'm back to the original 3 stacks. The name of the skill may be different but as long as the final effect is the same - it won't stack. HOWEVER, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter - you can stack the same buff type from different sources as long as they give different bonus values. So when I cast Martin's armor penetration buff on Wanda's armor penetration passive the effect will stack additively, but the duration and renewal will follow the same logic as for other effects - so recasting will only renew the given effect to the initial amount of activations.
  
  
• Tiers - some status ailments have two effect tiers, i.e. Waldemar's Triage skill puts improved toughness I on all targets, except the most wounded who got improves toughness II. The math is simple, tier 2 has double the effect of tier 1. In the given example it's 20% toughness & 40% toughness.
  
  
• Targets - some debuffs work different on enemies and on your allies, namely suppress. In case of enemies it skips their single turn, in case of allies it prevents one person from doing any actions till the end of the turn.
  
  
• Heroes - some heroes specializes in buff manipulation more than others: Jadwiga can renew buffs duration, Martin can copy buffs from enemies and recast them on allies and Konstanty can remove all positive effects from enemies.
  
  
• End of turn activation - at the end of the turn all debuffs are activated once, e.g. bleeding deals damage or suppression is lifted.

Debuffs:

• Bleeding - applies a damage over time effect, in the current patch it is typically 2 ticks for 7-8 damage. It works on infantry as well as machinery, barricades are immune. It means that you can still apply bleeding vs e.g. Nebelwerfer despite its being a machine type - of course when your %chance to hit will be greater the %bleeding resistance of your target.
  
• Burning - same mechanics as bleeding except it can hit and damage barricades as well.
  
• Blind - lowers accuracy by 15%, weak and pretty much useless.
  
• Suppression - in case of enemies it prevents their next action, in case of heroes it prevents any action till the end of your turn. Don't bother casting suppression after the enemy's attack - the effect will be lifted at the end of the turn for them and won't be transferred into the next turn.
  
• Delay - if I understand this one correctly it delays the affected enemy activation to the very end of the current turn.
  
• Reposition - not really a debuff as the outcome is instant and works only once, but it is still an effect that can complicate your life or life of your enemies. Especially when the target will be put outside of its attack range.
  
• Ploy - steals a single action point from target, used by recruits.

On the mission preparation screen press shift + l-click to take only one piece of a given item instead of the whole stack, e.g. single flare instead of 5.

Flares

In my opinion, the most important item when it comes to survival. The flare will reveal all nearby objectives including german outposts, loot crates, etc. When you are near a few objects and you want to avoid ambushes - go on and use a flare. They are quite expensive but you will find them in most missions and usually it won't be necessary to restock them in the shop.

Compass

A must for longer missions with a lot of objectives, especially the ones that require you to find X objects that are not german squadrons. Compass will temporarily slow down action points loss on the map, effectively giving you more time to explore the map.

Weapon parts

A reward from any mission, also a rare drop from loot crate. Grenades and heavy weapon parts are the most expensive to both sell and repair. Then comes machine guns & rifles, then pistols, revolvers, and SMGs. When you got two similar missions to take - take the one with a heavier and more expensive weapon reward.

Medals

Same as weapon parts - always acquired for completing a mission, and can be found in loot crate as well. Medals can be used between missions, in base, in a skill menu as a consumable which adds 300 XP to a hero experience pool.

Med kits

Expensive, rather rare, can heal one person for a large amount of hp outside the battle. Consider them a good source of money and an emergency healing tool. You'll still want to always have a healer in your team and with proper battle management, you won't need the first aid kits anyway.

Camouflage

Recently added to the game, camouflage lets you turn into a ninja for a while - for a very short while. After using it there will be a percentage counter on the top-right corner of the screen which will rapidly decrease when you move. Try to use it as close to the enemy as possible since it works for like 4 seconds of moving, tops. When you attack an enemy there will be a question mark over their icon meaning you'll ambush them. It drops pretty often, it's not particulary expensive so feel free to use it a lot during missions. The effect of one less activation for the enemies may not seem like much, but it's still pretty useful. The effect lasts ONLY for the first turn. Camouflage can be used vs mission objectives (yellow markers).


Ammo

There are 3 types:

• Short - 100 in a single stack, Used for SMGs, pistols, revolvers. Low damage, but cheap and common. 100-150 per mission should be plenty for 1-2 users.
  
• Long - 50 per stack. Used for rifles and machine guns. How much you will take heavily depends on a skill set. Aoe skills use a lot of ammo while a single rifle shot can use as low as one bullet.
  
• Explosive - 25 per stack, Used for heavy weaponry and grenades. Try to use it as effectively as possible. If the attack can hit 3 targets - hit 3 targets. With proper usage, you won't have to buy them in shops. 2 stacks for a single user should be more than enough for a mission. Also, most attacks with this kind of ammo use two action points so you won't be able to spam explosive attacks with the same person anyway.

Money

Used to strengthen city districts (morale boost) to repair weapons and to buy resources. A single stack accommodates 50, which makes it least effective use for inventory slot, as the full ammo or item slot is worth much more when sold. Always try to have at least ~100 to be able to repair any weapon you'll get from a mission.

Parasol update - weapon model DOES matter and it alters the skill parameters.
See the following screenshots for comparison between the same skill for Winchester 1895 vs Kar98k used by Krzysztof:

Unfortunately I still don't know if there is any way to change the displayed language to english.
However you can clearly see the differences:


List of weapons

In the following section I've listed all in-game weapons, so you'll have an idea on how many you're missing to get the corresponding achievements.

Pistols
1) Walther PP
2) TT-33
3) Mauser C96
4) Colt 1911
6) Luger P-08
8) Vis
9) Steyr M1912

Revolvers
1) S&W Victory
2) Nagant wz. 1895
3) Colt 1917
4) Lebel Model 1892
5) Webley & Scott Mk VI
6*) Enfield Mk3
7) Enfield No. 2
8) S&W M&P 1905

SMGs
1) Sten
2) MP 40
3) Lightning (PM Błyskawica)
4) MP 34
5) Thompson M1
6) MP-28
7) PPD-40
8) PPsh-41

Rifles
1) Winchester 1895
2) SWT-40
3) Kar98k
4) Gewehr 43
5) Lebel Model 1886
7) Mannlicher 1890 (currently M1888 in codex)
8) Mosin-Nagant

Machineguns
1) DP-27
2) Bren
3) MG 34
4) MG 42
5) MG 13
6) BAR wz. 1928 (aka polish Browning M1918)

Grenades
1) Molotov
2) Stielhandgranate
3) F1
4) No. 82 Gammon
5) ET-40 "Filipinka"
6) Nebelhandgranate
7) Stielhandgranate cluster

Heavy weapons
1) Piat
2) Panzershreck
3) UR wz. 35
4) PTRS-41
5) Panzerfaust


Unique weapons from personal quests

Zmija update introduced personal quests for our heroes and with them a set of unique powerful weapons. So far this weapons are not listed in the codex and I cannot verify whether or not they are counted towards the weapon-related achievements (since I got most of them already). As a side note - Władysław does not have any quest weapon, during his personal quest we will get broken parts of a random, normal rifle.

Helena - "Kercelak" rifle
Henryk - "Macher" revolver
Janos - "Remeny" rifle
Jadwiga - "Soteria" revolver
Kazimierz - "Radosny subiekt" (happy vendor) - machinegun
Marian - "Józefina" - heavy weapon
Anna - "Dorotka" (Dorothy) - SMG
Krzysztof - "Szpon" (Talon) - Rifle
Ernest - "-Kara- mówisz" (-Penalty- you say) - revolver
Franek - "Mysza" (mouse) - pistol
Martin - "Orchidee" - SMG
Wanda - "Punchline" heavy weapon

Every character can use up to 4 skills + meele strike. Those 4 skills can be any mix of weapon attacks and character-specific skills, including passives.
Note about passive skills - they might be passive but you still have to equip them in one of 4 available skill slots.

1. Meele strikes
Added in Zniwiarz/Harvester update. Every character has an extra fifth skill - meele strike, that cannot be removed. The outcome for every character is different so read the description before using it. Meele attacks require single activation point, can be used from any position agains any position. Even Władysław can use meele strikes. Naturally they do not use any ammo. Many enemies that are usually spawned in the back rows cannot attack from front rows and vice versa - use meele strikes to keep them out of position and they won't be able to attack at all. E.g. brennkommand cannot attack from the back rows and sniper cannot attack from the front rows.

Currently there are 3 kinds of meele attacks:
Strike: 3-5 damage without any additional effects (e.g. Ernest and Konstanty)
Thrust: 1-3 damage + 3-row pushback (e.g. Władysław, Anna)
Pulling:1-3 damage + 3-row pull forward (e.g. Franek, Jan)

Do note that most enemies have a non-zero toughness values, and 10-15% is enough to mitigate some damage. Don't be suprised when the 3-5 damage hit will deal 2 in most cases.


2. Notable starting skills

This section contains the most useful (in my opinion) early game skills for recruits and (mostly) starting characters with default weapons that I've been using to successfully survive through the whole uprising. For a more detailed guide and builds - see heroes section.

Barricade - used by recruits and Wanda. Quite useful skill when there are no barricades on the map and when you are facing many enemies that cannot ignore obstacles (i.e. the flamethrower can, machineguns cannot and its damage will be reduced by barricades).

Explosive shot - good for early game. Cheapest attack utilizing explosive ammo (1 bullet) and does moderate damage.


Fire! - cheap and can hit two targets in a row. Very ammo effective if used against two targets and from an opposite row. Great for early-mid game.


Ploy - recruit skill, one of the best survival skills if used correctly. It costs 2 action points, gives one ally extra action points and strips enemies from one action point. Use it mostly when you want to avoid an attack or when there is only one enemy left. He will be left helpless while you will be able to heal your party members quicker.

Helping hand - recruit skill, quite potent healing, removes one negative effect from the target. A better version of Franek's healing and a substitute for Jadwiga when you cannot take her on a mission.

Shot without aiming - recruit skill, upon a successful hit moves target to an opposite row (up/down). Great for grouping targets together and to buff the damage of your other team members due to row difference damage bonus.

First aid - basic healing skill you will find yourself constantly using. It can critically hit for double healing amount. More powerful than helping hand but cannot remove debuffs.


Garbage collector - passive skill that helps you to build larger ammo pool. The earlier in the game you get it the better. It can be skipped in late game and when you are in need of more battle skills for difficult missions.

Incinerate - places burning effect on up to 4 targets in 2x2 area. The signature skill of Marian. The best part of it? - it does not cost you any ammo. Use it often. Fire can also burn barricades.

Contraband ammo - can be useful in the early game, especially when you can cast it on two characters and both of them have aoe skills since the burn/bleed effect will then affect all aoe targets.

Suppression - there are a few variants of this skill and they are all very useful. You can basically prevent one enemy from doing a single attack. Especially useful vs guys with rocket launchers. Do keep in mind the enemy can resist it.

Push back - both variants serves the same purpose and both are viable for aoe setups to move enemy one step back.


Shield breaker - not as useful as 'take cover' due to 2-row aoe, but got a decent armor-piercing capability and relatively high critical chance. Take it if you plan to fight against heavy ordnance.

Single shot - your bread and butter in early and mid-game. Costs only 1 long bullet and does moderate damage. It can only hit two back rows so you'll want to have someone with either push back skill or with a good attack for the front rows.


Stinger & Slicing salvo - both deals damage with a chance for bleeding debuff. Most useful vs 2 action points enemies.


Snipe - godlike skill of our sniper Anna. Can kill a Frontline type enemy with a single shot. Even in late game there will always be enemies she'll be able to pwn with this and it will make numerous battles much easier. Use whenever possible and since it takes 2 action points - conserve the 3rd ap from the 1st turn so you can use snipe again in the 2nd turn. Just be aware that it can miss (84% accuracy). Use Anna + recruit with ploy skill for double snipe in the first turn.

Take cover - most useful 3-hit aoe explosive skill. You will be constantly using it during the entire game. This skill is the main reason why you'd like to use all these low damage repositioning skills.

This game is based on true events from World War II.
Both in story mode and legacy mode.
While legacy mode is loosely placed within the historical environment and lets you focus on the strategic aspects of gameplay, the newly introduced story mode (default when starting the game) strictly follows events from 1944 Warsaw uprising.

Some game mechanics might seem weird to you, some events may feel odd, but keep in mind this all actually happened and one of the goals of this game is to teach you about the past events.
Take time to read the index, to learn about the history of polish folks who fought germans. Read about the german army and their cruel deeds, see how the beautiful capital of Poland was completely destroyed. That's why there is so much death in this game and that's why many battles and events are so unfair - it was even worse for the citizens who decided to fight for their freedom during WW II despite having no chances of success against nazis.

If you wan't to get more insight into the historical background of this game, check some wiki articles:

Warsaw uprising[en.wikipedia.org]
Auschwitz - german death camp[en.wikipedia.org]
Warsaw Ghetto[en.wikipedia.org]
Dirlewanger brigade[en.wikipedia.org]
RONA troops[www.warsawuprising.com]
Polish Home Army[en.wikipedia.org]

There are two main types of enemies - infantry and machines. Machines cannot be repositioned (row change/push back), and the opposite row damage bonus does not apply to them. Other than that, mechanical enemies tend to have high armor values (% damage reduction) and high bleeding/burning resistances (it can still be applied if the resistance is below 100%). Ordinary suppression skills don't work vs them.

Many infantry enemies cannot attack from all rows and repositioning them from front to back rows or vice versa can force them to change position instead of attacking you - abuse it.

Since Żmija update we can see a complete description of every encountered enemy in the codex, along with skills and attributes. I'm focusing more on hints and strategies since you can read all the details in game

Brennkommando - equipped with the flamethrower, typically located in the front rows, Attacks front/mid area causing aoe burning and blind debuff. Can reposition himself if moved to the back rows. If you are struggling vs mr. flammenwerfer then a valid strategy is to keep pushing him back with meele thrusts or weapon skills (like potshot). Try to avoid placing all your team members in the front rows. A note about continous care skill - it won't heal you after consecutive damage ticks from burning.

Dirlewanger's trooper - got two action points, uses few different gun attacks including 2 field attack with bleeding debuff. Cannot attack from the 4th row. High priority target.





Doge - can inflict bleeding or suppression debuff. Can push back its target by one row. Rather low damage if not accompanied by a trainer. Can be sniped. Cannot attack from the 4th row. Medium priority.
In story mode update doggo and his trainer are now merged into a single unit and doggo itself never spawns alone anymore.



Doge trainer - buffs doge or attacks with medium damage machinegun attack. Medium priority.
In story mode, as mentioned above, trainer and dog are considered a single unit. He attacks only with the dog now, no more machineguns. Lot of HP but overall much easier than the original version.




Engineer - he can either attack with machinegun or heal allied mechanical unit or barricade for ~25hp. Can push back target by one row. Get rid of him before focusing on Pak or other heavy weaponry.






Feldgendarm - Attacks with blinding machinegun shots while moving himself one step forward at the same time. Can cause aoe bleeding. Can be sniped. He can heal debuffs.






Field medic - rarely attacks with pistol shot that can push back the target, buffs allies (+60% debuff resistance) and can remove negative effects from them. A valid strategy is to ignite 4 targets and let him remove burning from a single ally effectively wasting one enemy turn. Low priority.



Grenadier - most common cannon fodder, with weak aoe grenade or machinegun attack. Can use suppression vs single target. Staying behind barricades will greatly mitigate received damage. His attacks can move him forward. Can be sniped, low priority target.




Gunner - medium damage single target attack, can use non-damage skill to move any hero to the first row. Can be sniped. Medium priority target.




Gestapo officer - with his signature 'Polnische Banditen' pistol strike (2 targets), 2 activations per turn and aoe buffs (2x2, +15% crit chance) he is a formidable enemy. His attacks can cause bleeding. On the bright side - Gestapo officer is a rather rare enemy. Cannot attack from the 1st row. High priority target.




Heavy machinegun - two actions per turn, medium aoe damage, can cause aoe bleeding, can push back a single target, can buff allies evasion by 20%. Medium-high priority. Not as lethal as it looks like.





Machinegunner - Low-med aoe attacks also low-medium priority. Can cause suppression debuff on multiple targets.






Mortar - often misses. Can cause aoe blind or medium damage. Medium priority. In Zośka update mortars got additional action - they can use action to shuffle positions of the whole team to a new random positions.




Observer - cannot attack, can buff allies (+25% accuracy, +30% damage) and debuff your party pinning down 2 heroes. Low priority target.





Officer - deals medium damage & buffs allies, including +40% 'toughness' (damage reduction) Medium priority.






Pak 38 - avoid fighting against Pak whenever possible. Its attacks are devastating. It can deal either single or aoe hit for 30+ damage. Its shrapnel aoe attacks can cause bleeding on top of the high damage. On a bright side: after firing it needs a turn to reload and also it mises more often than other enemy units. Usually encountered with engineers who will heal it. Explosive and/or armor piercing attacks are a must. Usually, it's better to get rid of all supporting crew and then focus on the cannon itself. Unlike other kinds of armored enemies this one can be spawned both as a mission objective and as a normal enemy in the mid-late game mission.

Flakvierling 38 - Introduced in f2p update it's basically a machinegun on steroids mixed with a tank. Due to very low fire resistance applying burn status is actually a viable strategy if you are lacking other means of dealing with armored targets. It got 55% damage reduction and 75% accuracy. Can be devastating if RNG gods are agains you since some of its attacks don't need reloading. 3 activations, high priority target.

Goliath tracked mine - Introduced in f2p update. This one works much like Wurfgerat 42 and the same strategy applies - kill the operator asap. Time window is very generous as the mine first needs to travel to the 1st row in order to be armed and detonated. But if it does detonate it can obliterate your whole team.

AT Trooper - basically a bit less lethal version of Pak. It is the main target for suppression skills to keep him from firing his 30+ damage rockets. Same as Pak it needs an extra turn to reload. High priority target. He cannot attack from the front row - use meele strikes to push him forward.




RONA gunner - low-med aoe machinegun attack, can suppress multiple targets, more hp than other mg users, low priority.






RONA officer - medium aoe damage, two action points per turn. High priority target.







RONA trooper - There are two versions of this enemy, one with helmet and the other one with russian fur cap - their stats are slightly different but they are counted as the same enemy type. Medium single target damage & medium hp pool, can move one step forward with attacks or one step backward without other actions. Can be sniped. Medium priority.



Schiessbecher - He can sometimes fire a high damage grenade - usually from mid rows. Can also attack with a medium damage rifle. Medium-high priority. Can be sniped.





Marksman - high single target damage, low hp pool. Usually stays in the back rows. High priority target that can one-hit kill your lower-than-max hp heroes. His critical strikes can deal over 40 damage (43 in my case) and hit attacks can cause bleeding. He cannot attack from the front row - use meele strikes to push him forward and deny his attacks completely.



SS grenadier - apart from dealing moderate damage he can reposition your folks between front and back rows causing suppression debuff.His 'Entdeckung' grenade strike targets barricades and will damage any adjecent heroes. The more heroes he can hit with it the higher the priority to kill him.





SS officer - Rare enemy, can be objective in assassination mission. SS Officers can give their troops damage buffs, and their pistol attacks can bypass covers dealing full damage. They cannot attack from the 1st row.






Sd.Kfz.251 - high hp combined with heavy armor makes it very tanky (105 hp, 65% damage reduction). It has 3 actions per turn. Typically attacks with a single target machine gun salvo. Can spawn Gunners as reinforcements. Wanda and Anna are highly recommended. Wanda due to her armor piercing attacks with heavy weapons and her aura that boosts armor piercing capabilities of nearby allies by 15%. Anna - to snipe reinforcements and to suppress Sd.Kfz. Spawns only as a mission objective.

Panzer IV - With whopping 110 hp and 80% armor (damage reduction) and hard hitting attacks the tank is a beast to fight against. Can use 3-field (single row) shrapnel attack for ~30 damage, smoke screen that grants it 20% dodge, 'panzergranate' - a single target explosive aimed at barricades, single target machinegun strike with added suppression effect. After every explosive shot it needs to reload. Explosive attacks have medium accuracy: panzergranate often misses, and the aoe strike usually hits only 2 targets. Panzer IV has 4 actions per turn!. Get your best can openers like Wanda, Anna and a good healer to keep you alive. Eliminate any supporting crew before fighting the tank itself. Spawns only as a mission objective.


Nebelwerfer - 125 hp, 35% armor. This is so far the hardest hitting enemy I've met in this game. It has devastating 3-row aoe strike that deals 25+ damage AND inflicts burning debuff. Like other types of heavy ordnance it needs one turn for reloading. It has 2 action points per turn. However there is a valid strategy against it: you will need Anna with machinery suppression skill and one recruit with ploy skill. Use Anna's suppression on Nebelwerfer - so it will waste one turn. Use ploy on Anna or your damage dealer (preferably Wanda) so her action will be renewed and second action point of the dreaded artillery will be removed. Keep stripping the enemy of as many action points as you can and let your heavy weapon user gradually wear down its huge hp pool. Nebelwerfer spawns as a rare mission objective.

Jaeger - Jaeger is basically a weaker variant of sniper. He can use repositioning skill that gives him two buffs (+10% accuracy, +80% chance to cause bleeding). He attacks with a moderate damage single target rifle strike. He is a frontline type enemy and therefore a decent target for snipe.




Sapper - He is an elite enemy with three possible actions: he can build a barricade, he can destroy your barricade and he can shot a low damage 2 target vertical row SMG salvo (~10-15 dmg). Not much for an elite, low priority. Since he will try to turtle behind covers try to use attacks that can ignore barricades.



Wurfgerat 42 - Ultra lethal if ignored. This is actually a group of enemies - two warheads and one operator. Operator can buff warhead accuracy by 25% and prepare it for launching while the weapon can either skip turn or launch itself when under the 'prepare for launch' effect. Every group member has one activation point. The operator will typically start with buffs and then proceed to arm the weapon itself. When armed warheads will launch during their nearest turn and they do not need operator to be alive at that moment - it only matters if the buff is in place. They can easily deal 50 damage and cause burning. Luckily they are single use and if the operator happened to be still alive after firing both warheads he will proceed to use his rifle for 2 rows rifle attack (~15 damage). Note that warheads have a very low base accuracy (55%) and 60% damage reduction. If you got a good anti tank weaponry it might be easier to wreck warheads first, if you don't - then kill the operator as fast as possible or keep him suppressed. The whole group is a high priority target.

SS Veteran - an elite enemy with three attack types - medium damage (~15) SMG attack or two rows panzerfaust strike which deals 20+ damage with added burning effect and gruelling fire. The good thing - only one activation point, the bad thing - he does not need to reload his panzerfaust. High priority tatget. His low accuracy 'gruelling fire' skill (1 target) can remove one stamina point from the target.



Sturmpanzer - 3 actions per turn, and the greatest damage reduction in the game - 90%. Can attack with 1x2 machinegun or 2x2 aoe cannon that needs reloading. Like most other tank enemies it got its own dedicated mission type, and can be encountered very early in the game (~10th August in my case) along with other units including engineer and other infantry. Less lethal than other tanks, but nearly immortal without a good armor piercing equipment.

The following chapters describe all characters that can be obtained in the game.

1. Acquisition
After every few missions there will always be an event present where one random hero will join your forces. If you are not particulary happy with the outcome - you can always close or Alt-F4 the game and load it again for a chance to get someone else.
After you've obtained a hero at least once - he/she will be added to the starting characters pool for custom campaign (without the tutorial).

2. Upgrades

• Skills - The skill progression went through complete overhaul in Żmija update and now depends solely on gained battle experience. See the gameplay - experience chapter for more detailed XP description. What is even more important than XP - the skill choice constraints are no more, meaning we no longer have to pick single skill out of a pair, and have to go through consecutive '1 out of 2' choices but are free to pick and mix whatever we find useful. There are no tiers as well, and currentyly there is no randomness involved in leveling our character. The fact that we can currently create an unstoppable beast is somehow balanced by the different cost of every skill, thus game changers like Jadwiga's continous care are super expensive to get XP-wise in comparison to less powerful skills.
  
• Stats - Apart from battle skills, as mentioned in the experience chapter, we can now invest points in stats as well - upgrading traits like accuracy, hp pool, resistances etc, effectively mitigating all drawbacks a given hero has. This balances the game greatly and makes even less favorable heroes useful - as we can just boost their stats instead of wasting resources on poor skills that won't be used anyway. Stat upgrades are additive, so buying +4% accuracy bonus and then +8% accuracy bonus gives +12% bonus.

3. Stats
Every character is described by two sets of statistics.

• Battle stats - HP, debuff resistances, damage reduction, accuraty, critical chance etc. Naturally accuracy and critical chance affect weapon attacks.
  
• Character traits - one point means +10% bonus above 50% for skill check during mission events or post-mission events. E.g. "charisma +++" means 30% bonus which means (50+30) 80% success rate for charisma based checks.

The above example shows the stats of the same skill "Target sighted" using the same weapon - Kar98k.

Stat comparison:


As you can see in case of accuracy 7% base difference equals 7% final difference, but in case of crit chance 3% difference converts to 2% final difference. This might be due to number rounding, because of other tested case: Krzysztof vs Wanda, weapon: Piat, skill: take cover, the outcome was exactly one to one.
All you have to remember: your hero parameters does affect the attacks now.


4. Personal missions

After fulfilling a codex entry for a hero (play 5 missions + gain 7k XP), a personal mission for this particular hero will be added to random mission pool on the city city map. In each case (so far) its as simple as to go and find the mission objective. Such mission gives us an extra story for the hero, +300XP for the party, +1000XP for the mission and an unique powerful weapon that does not require repairing. Personal missions may be played more than one time, giving us an easy XP boost along with another piece of decent weapon.

An example of how a personal mission looks like:

This chapter shows a few viable party compositions and reasoning behind the choices. This is based purely on my preferences and if you find you can do better - feel free to do as you please. Your setup will usually be a mix of anything described below anyway.

!!! Unless stated otherwise all placements are in rows 2 to 4 to utilize barricades in the front row !!!

1. The all stars
Great aoe potential, great sustain thanks to Jadwiga, great vs machines and infantry thanks to Wanda and Anna. Frontline unit is not that crucial but in this example Marian is a good candidate due to some pistol repositioning skills, good aoe and cc. Bronisław or even Franek is a good choice here as well. This is my preferred setup for the toughest missions. It also serves as an example of T-formation with Jadwiga's healing as the central part. This is also the most common and balanced formation type - one healer, one tank/support, one explosives user and one gunner.





2. Rowdy fellow
There is a 999 variants of this formation, and this is only a single example. The core is Kazimierz with rowdy fellow, Jadwiga with either stimulants and/or soothing presence and one support for replenishing stamina - like recruit with ploy or Henryk with excellent command or refreshment or even better - both of them. The 4th character does not matter but for the sake of versatility I've picked someone with explosive weapon. This can be played both as T-formation with continous care or hybrid with Kazimierz & other hero in the back.



3. Can openers
Great anti tank potential with lot of armor piercing attacks and to the limits aura. We can swap Krzysztof for someone else, but he is there for the extra eye for an eye anti-tank counterstrike. Anna compliments this setup with anti-tank suppression and Jadwiga provides the passive as well as active healing if needed. This is also an example of a 3 aura setup (if we consider Krzysztof's counterstrike being an aura).











4. Can openers II
The T-formation variant has a better utilization of Wanda's to the limits aura while being more heavy ammo friendly. Remember that machineguns and rifles also has a decent attacks with high armor penetration values and in this example we can either pick Ernest with MG 34 or Jan with his default Mannlicher. Ernest got more armor penetration but Jan can take care of his own healing. Kazimierz or Krzysztof can be used as well. Karol serves as a front line damage dealer since his skillset can be optimized for such usage. You can swap one hero for recruit with ploy or for Anna with suppression.



4. I need ammo
Example of a party with Konstanty. His attacks does not use any ammo, Anna's snipe and Helena's single shot attacks use only one long bullet and this setup actually generates a resonable amount of different ammo types thanks to Franek and Helena. Helena's cocktail party is also very useful in this scenario. This is also the only example here of a setup that utilizes all 4 rows.





5. I need ammo II
Marian will take care of the front rows, Kazimierz will take care of the back rows, Ernest will buff him so single shot will be able to reach front rows as well. Wladyslaw can use his random debuffs to cause bleeding from time to time, but don't rely on it. Kazimierz can be used here with rowdy fellow as well to maximize damage per bullet. In such case take Jadwiga with proper skillset with you.








6. The immortals

Tons of damage reduction with extra synergy from Władysław's aura for the whole team. Also 2 forms of passive healing for Jan and Janos to make you even more immortal. More like a fun build cause it lacks much aoe, explosive or anti tank options, but still fun nevertheless.

Anna

• S tier.
  
• Stats: low hp pool, good accuracy & dodge chance.
  
• Very universal and powerful skillset.
  
• Uses SMG - mediocre weapon damage, poor vs armored targets.
  
• Most suited for 3rd row.
  
• +3 intuition, +2 agility skill checks bonus

Anna is a great damage dealer vs almost every enemy setup thanks to her snipe skill.
She is also one of the best anti-tank character due to her covering fire ability that will always pin down a single mechanical unit. Cap off is a great addition for burning/bleeding/aoe parties to finish off low hp enemies for free.

Example upgrade path
Get both accuracy bonuses first to ensure your snipe will hit more often. Grab covering fire next. Get cap off next or focus on more survivability (hp and dodge bonus). All other stuff is optional, she's already lethal.


Example build:







Alternatives:







This is my typical anti-tank build. Snipe for killing frontine soldiers, Cap offfor other infantry if needed, slicing salvo if I'm forced to use 1 action point attack and covering fire vs machinery.
Covering fire can be switched to escape, controlled assault or any other weapon skill for either greater mobility or more offensive options if you are not fighting vs mechanical enemies.


Skills

Snipe - starting skill, and the main reason why Anna is godlike. It was changed a few times already, and currently it costs 2 stamina and got 94% accuracy (buffed from 84%). Very useful from early to late game. Do remember that only frontline infantry can be sniped - see more info in enemies chapter.



Cap off costs 2 but it will work till the end of the fight - It's an one time cost. It can miss like every other attack, so again - accuracy bonus is a must. It works vs every type of infantry, recommended.




Taunt is only usable with another skill - decoy. Even with a few decoys in place there is still a good chance the enemy will hit your heroes as usual - not to mention aoe strikes. Thus its effectiveness is very limited and requires a lot of setup.



Covering fire is simply too good not to use it. especially that with 200% hit chance it will always debuff you enemy's tanks or other machinery and it costs only one action point. One of the best, and most reliable skills in game.



Decoy - pair it with taunt and other character who can draw the enemy fire away from you to make Anna a support more than assasin. Not my playstyle though as I find her damaging skills far superior.



In good rhythm giver stacking accuracy bonus that is lost when you take a hit. Totally useless since Żmija, since we can now upgrade Anna's accuracy by 12% passively instead of wasting precious skill slot. Even more useless due to the fact that we are usually sniping at the very beginning of the fight - and that's when accuracy bonus matters the most.

One down gives permanent damage bonus (till the end of the fight) you get after every kill. If you are mostly using snipe the damage bonus will be wasted. On the other hand - after sniping it gives you a nice damage boost till the end of the fight. Up to you to decide.

• S tier.
  
• Stats: above average hp pool, low accuracy, good thougness.
  
• Best anti-tank character in the game.
  
• Heavy weapons and machineguns user, can attack all rows.
  
• Most suited for 4th row - or 3rd when using armor piercing aura & surrounded by allies.
  
• +2 knowledge, +2 agility skill checks bonus.

Great vs infantry groups, even better vs armored targets. Her starting weapons are all she needs to be a successfull damage dealer. Get to the limits armor piercing aura as the first upgrage. That single skill is all she really needs to shine. She can survive a lot due to her toughness and high hp pool, but will most likely take all debuffs on face. Loses a lot of potential if moved to the front rows. Consider invesgint most XP for accuracy and even more surivability.

Example upgrade path:
To the limits -> both accuracy bonuses -> optional demolition -> toughness/hp/evasion -> debuff resistances

Example build:







Alternatives:







This is a typical all around tank-ready build. You will most often start the battle with take cover to hit 3 enemies at once. You'll want to have at least one machinegun skill to be able to attack with only one stamina point left - full salvo if someone else can take care of the back rows or slaughter for better aoe. To the limits can be swapped for something else if you don't really need that extra armor piercing bonus, same goes for shield breaker as it's purely anti-tank attack. Crippling strike is a decent anti-infantry skill as it is a 2x2 explosion with a chance to cause bleeding, but it is expensive (8 explosive ammo) and the Panzerschreck launcher is a rare weapon. Barricade can be useful early game as well, but this can be covered by your recruits.

Skills:
Barricade - semi-useful early game, and only when you happen to have not enough stamina points to use heavy ordnance. Usable vs tanks or other hard enemies as well as in most cases they got attacks that focuses on barricades - and it's better for barricade to soak this 30+ dmg shrapnel than your heroes.


Conserve will heal adjecent barricades at the end of turn, Pretty useless since you'd place Wanda in 4th or 3rd row all the time with no adjacent barricades. Barricades are also rather sturdy and they do not need to be healed every turn anyway.



To the limits - armor piercing aura is that is cheap and helpful for the whole team. Do remember that even infantry got non-zero toughness values. Highly recommended to get it asap and use it for the whole game.



Out of the way is an interesting machinegun attack. Good single target damage but relatively costly for a single target strike. Still, it crits often, can crit for over 40 dmage and got a bit more accuracy than other machinegun attacks. You'll probably never waste it vs barricade anyway, despite extra burning damage.



Blinding strike can be used vs machinery but...15% debuff is weak, it can be resisted, it can be only be applied vs machinery and you'll most likely want to use this 2 activation points for shield breaker or take cover anyway. It might become viable due to nice damage and accuracy if the cost would be reduced to 1 someday.


Demolition cost was recentyly changed from 3 to 2 wchich makes it a viable pick now. It deals a great damage (approximately 20-35 per target) and in a favorable scenario lets you hit 2-3 targets adjacent to the destroyed barricade. I was able to critically hit Pak cannon for 34 damage, which means demolition has a pretty good armor piercing potential.


Reprocess lets you change short ammo into explosive ammo. You should never be in a situation when you lack heavy ammo though. This skill was buffed recently and now it lets you change 20 short ammo for 5 heavy ammo. You can sell 20 short ammo for 20x2=40 money and you can buy 5 heavy ammo for 5x8=40 money. Thus it is not a waste of resources anymore as the cost was balanced - now it's only a waste of XP.

• S tier.
  
• Stats: average hp pool, below average accuracy, moderate dodge & crit chance.
  
• Best healer in the game, almost obligatory for toughest missions.
  
• Very versatile in terms of positioning, usualy placed in the middle of your team (T shaped setup) to maximize passive effects.
  
• High bleeding resistance. Mediocre resistances for other debuffs.
  
• +2 knowledge, +1 intuition skill checks bonus, uses revolvers.

Jadwiga is a decent healer with myriad of uses. Her continous care passive is a core for many team setups. Her kit revolves around healing and reducing activation cost. Unlike most other healers she cannot heal debuffs - but can prevent them from happening. Her starting attack skills are suprisingly useful, even in the late game. If you can only afford to have a single healer in your team or you want to fight vs the most difficult enemies like tanks or artillery - Jadwiga is the best choice.


Example build:







Alternatives:







Żmija update made Jadwiga into even greater healer because currently you can equip both auras on her and they are both damn good. Currently my typical build consists of one attack skill (highly weapon dependant), one healing skill and both auras. In terms of healing we got a single target first aid and the famed aoe passive. Such combo can cover most of our offensive and defensive needs. The truth is that even now most of her skills are useful and you are free to try other builds as well. E.g. get two skills that reduces activation cost when playing with Kazimierz utilizing rowdy fellow passive. I'd still leave at least one attacking skill on Jadwiga, just in case.


Skills:
First aid is our starting skill. Potent single target healing, that can critically hit doubling the healing effect like any other healing skill in this game. Extremely useful for the whole game.




Continous care - because free healing is free healing. It is her most expensive skill, but rush it anyway, it's just too good to pass and you'll benefit greatly from it. The continous care will work even if your hero dodges the attack, but won't work for consecutive damage ticks from bleeding or burning. The average healing amount is around ~8Hp per activation.


Soothing presence - our second aura, that is great if you are playing a very stamina points hungry team - so most of the time. Especially good with heavy weapons users or for rowdy fellow setups. Highly recommended.




If you absolutely love Martin, get additional opinion to constantly have your whole team buffed. If you can live without Martin then feel free to skip it completely as the ability to refresh buff duration is not that great.




Preventive treatment can be useful vs Flammenwerfers or Nebelwerfers, or whatever-werfers that can aoe-debuff you. But honestly the double aura setup is just better.




Ad hoc help is an AOE alternative for first aid. It's weaker and will heal less for every consecutive target but it's still worth considering. Especially good when played together with continous care.




Deploy stimulants is a good alternative for soothing presence. Can be played with or without sooting presence for even better effects.Do note that deploy stimulants can lower the activation cost to zero.




Guardian angel. Cheap, medium damage, nice critical chance but very situational. You will most likely skip it because usually you don't really want to shuffle your team members placement over and over.

Krzysztof

• A/S tier.
  
• Stats: high hp pool, high accuracy & relatively high debuff resistances.
  
• Jack of all trades, can fit in most team compositions.
  
• Great substitute for Wanda or Kazimierz.
  
• Uses heavy weapons & rifles which makes him very universal pick.
  
• Most suited for 3rd or 4th row.
  
• +3 toughness, +1 constitution skill checks bonus

This guy is a versatile anti-nazi terminator right from the start. He doesn't really need any upgrades to be a decent addition to almost every team. Weapon composition mixed with his high accuracy makes him very effective and lethal. He can both do an aoe strike with explosives or kill enemies one by one with a low-cost rifle skills. He can be specialized for a tank killer or to be even more lethal vs infantry targets. When your Wanda is wounded or you don't have her - Krzysztof can serve as your main armor piercing damage dealer. Oh - and he can survive a lot due to high HP and high debuff resistances. Why not S tier then? Because his other skills are either too expensive or not that great overall.

Example upgrade path:
Accuracy -> one or both counterstrike auras -> you are godlike already, use excessive XP however you please.

Example build:







Alternatives:







As you can see this is his default build and it is actually decent and very universal. It has both good aoe damage, and good single target skills. If you want to invest medals into upgrades then you got a few valid options to change either his decoy skill or one of the rifle skills.

Skills
Retalation and blow for blow are described together due to a lot of similarities. Both are following the same mechanics as other auras, which means the most effective way of utilizing them is to put Krzysztof in the middle of a T-shaped formation so that he will be adjecent to all other insurgents. Both have 3 activation points cost which greatly cripples Krzysztof's efficiency in the long fights. Both skills have only one activation cost, So you pay in ammo once for all the attacks - which is awesome. Both can crit and in both cases you'd like to have someone to replenish your activation points. Retaliation works vs any infantry, giving 3 counterattack stacks per cast with bit lower accuracy (compared to his other skills). It costs 12 long ammo, effectively costing you 4 ammo per stack. Blow for a blow - DAMN SON, this skill gives you FOUR counterattack stacks vs machinery for only 7 heavy ammo! Let that sink in slowly: you can deal 4x30+ damage for 7 ammo. It has 90% accuracy (for PIAT launcher), deals decent damage, can crit and is one of the most cost effective skills in the game. Both are good, you can go for anti-tank one which is more powerful or the anti-infantry variant which is more universal and you'll use it more often. Both counterstrikes can be used even if Krzysztof is suppressed. The choice is yours, take one, or both, depending on personal preferences.

Contemplation - gives 40%% amor piercing bonus, which is awesome vs machinery but useless vs anything else. if you REALLY need more armor piercing - take it.



Withdraw is more like a gamble because you still got like 50% chance not to dodge the incoming attack. With the current 2-point activation cost it's not worth getting at all.



Slayer is a no brainer but it works only vs frontline enemy types - the same type that can be sniped by Anna which makes this one almost useless when we have Anna.




Composure in theory can be pretty neat, especially when mixed with withdraw and one of his 3-activation points counterstrikes. In such scenario you'd like to wait one or two turns anyway for Krzysztof to regenerate activation points, during which he will have some nice dodge bonus stacked.


Deceptive action - unlike other taunting skills this one can be cast on barricades, which will further upgrade your survival potential. Usable early game, since it's a free starting skill.

• A tier.
  
• Stats: highest hp pool in the game, above average accuracy, good resistances & toughness.
  
• Uses pistols, heavy weapons and his exclusive flamethrower.
  
• Great frontline tank with versatile skillset.
  
• Most suited for 2nd row, 1st is viable as well.
  
• Can be played with minimum ammo consumption.
  
• Decent, consisten performance independent of RNG.
  
• +3 constitution, +2 charisma skill checks bonus.

Marian is an unique character that can serve as a tank, a frontliner, a damage dealer and as a support both vs infantry and vs machinery. His pistol will be used mostly for repositioning and debuffing enemies (push back, suppression, bleeding), while his flamethrower will compliment it by adding aoe burning and yet another suppression. On top of that he can use high damaging explosive strikes. In theory this versatility enables Marian to be placed in any row depending on build, but my preferred one is 2nd - as the most universal position when he can use most of his kit.

Example upgrade path:
Wall of fire -> dodge/hp/resistances -> accuracy -> any skill we find viable. We will be using his flamethrower most of the time, the accuracy bonus is not that critical. Since Marian is typically placed on the frontlines the resistances and/or hp/dodge bonuses are a viable choice. You are free to take any skills at any time (like rioter), I just don't find them that useful.


Example build:







Alternatives:







The all around build got it all - free aoe burning, extra bleeding for double damage over time debuff (+repositioning), good armor piercing strike and a free aoe crowd control. You can switch incinerate for rioter(?) aura, you can also switch shieldbreaker for take cover or run of luck if you plan to play on 3rd or 1st row.


Skills
Incinerate - signature skill of Marian you will find youreself constantly using. It's a 2x2 aoe attack causing burning debuff with no direct damage. It always hits, can be resisted (apply chance - enemy resistance) and in theory can deal 4 targets x2 ticks x 7-8 damage. Pretty neat, and lets you save tons of ammo.


In theory fireproof seems like a sweet deal giving you 100% fire resistance vs this pesky brennkommando, but in reality enemies tend to taget another heroes making this skill less effective.




Rioter can be quite fun. Marian and all adjecent units are granted 50% chance to inflict burning on ALL their attacks. Meaning that every shot, every attacking skill can inflict the extra burning effect. Since Marian will be usually placed on 2nd row, the aura effectiveness is somewhat limited, but damn, put a good aoe character behind Marian (like Wanda or Kazimierz) and see the world burning. Using rioter will limit incinerate effectiveness so consider taking only one of those two with you.

Breakdown as any other skill with blinding effect - just don't. It's way too underpowered to be viable. use your XP elsewere. 15% accuracy debuff vs machines is a joke.




Wall of fire is a good, reliable free aoe suppression you will often use. Expensive but highly recommended.




Wrangle is basically a better version of similar skill offeder by some pistols (like TT-33) but it's cheaper (6vs8 short ammo) and got much better accuracy and crit chance. Still, it's much worse choice than wall of fire,



Run of luck is a 3in1: good damage, cheap, accurate single target explosive + burning debuff + burning chance self buff for Marian (3 stacks, +80% chance). The self buff will be applied only when the skill hits the enemy. Interesting anti infantry option (since it lacks armor penetration) but I'd still prefer other explosive skills - and if you really need the extra debuff just get youreself a Panzershreck, Panzerfaust or take the rioter aura.

Bring it on! - a typical taunt like many others with no additional effects. Can be useful since Marian has huge hp pool and got a nice damage resistance. Especially useful when Marian is covering behind barricade (for extra damage reduction).

• A tier.
  
• Stats: average hp pool, low accuracy & mediocre resistances.
  
• Versatile, powerful skillset.
  
• Can only use rifles.
  
• Needs upgrades to shine, got two extra skills gained with levels.
  
• Can earn you a lot of money - see skills section.
  
• Most suited for 3rd or 4th row.
  
• +3 charisma, +1 knowledge.

Don't be deceived by her poor base stats - this blonde lady with a cable spool on her back is a versatile powerhouse. If you are concerned by her low accuracy - Gewehr 43 (+20% acc) or Mannlicher 1890 (+15% acc) is all you need to be the Simo Häyhä[en.wikipedia.org] of Warsaw's uprising. Her starting skill - noise is useless, and you'd like to her more powerful skills early. Consider Helena a sniper-support character that lacks anti-tank potential and be sure to read the skills section to get a better idea on how to play her.

Example upgrade path:
Cocktail party -> accuracy bonuses -> Call reinforcements / Connected and coordinated or any other skill of your preference -> survivabiliy or critical chance bonuses depending on playstyle

Economy build:







Support build:







Alternatives:







Since you won't be able to afford getting all her skills - try to pick your preferred playstyle and buy skills accordingly. Get one or two attacking skills for the rifle of your choice and some high cost skills that will determine her role - like call reinforcements or cocktail party or comforting transimission.

Skills
Noise - starting skill, totally useless. Delayed action effect is so situational that I cannot reccomend it, it's just a waste of action point most of the time. On the bright side - the stamina cost is 0.




Incitement - buffed in the latest update. Now you can grant bleeding chance bonus for your entire team at once. Can be useful for economy builds but since it does not deal any damage by itself I'd still get cocktail party most of the time instead. Pairs well with aoe smg/mg skills.


Cocktail party is very useful. You can blind & ignite up to 4 targets for zero ammo cost (nerfed from 6 in Radoslaw patch). You will use it a lot and it will save you a great amounts of ammo. It costs two activation points but hey, 4x2x7 damage for free!



Comforting transimission replenishes one activation point for your whole team (if you don't have anyone on the first row) INCLUDING HELENA. Which means the effective activation cost is 1 instead of 2, because one of her activation points will be instantly replenished (you'll still need 2 to use it though). See that smiling Karzimierz and Wanda waiting for the extra activations? I'm sure you do.


Connected and coordinated might seem weak but...it gives you TEN HEAVY AMMO AFTER EVERY FIGHT and 10 heavy ammo is worth 50 money - multiplied by the number of skirmishes per mission. The ammo won't be shown within the loot popup but instead will be automatically added to your inventory. See this smiling city districts waiting for you to spend your money to help them? I'm sure you do!


Disorienting signal can suppress infantry and enemiest equpped with heavy weapons - like mortars. Do note that while it can move infantry it still cannot reposition any heavy weaponry. Also I was not able to suppress Pak with it.



False transmission can blind and push back your target, which is nice if you are using skills like single shot, it also costs only one activation point. Still, you can achieve the same pushback with meele stike so don't bother and skip this skill.




Priority target is a good alternative for single shot or target sighted with the extra suppression vs officers. They are not very common enemies but I still find this skill very useful as it's cheaper than target sighted and can deal a consistent damage with high accuracy. Recommended.



Call reinforcements - and here comes the ultimate skill of Helena. At the cost of 3 activation points AND 10 heavy ammo you will summon a single recruit to help you. It will always be a dude with Piat and Ploy. An extra team member means an extra activation point per turn, so even if you won't ever attack with the recruit you'll still have that one extra action per turn and one extra cannon fodder to get hit instead of your team mebers. If he dies the activation pool will be reduced back to 4. There can be only one extra recruit on the map at any given time but the skill can be recast if the poor dude dies. Obviously if you happened to have any recruits in your base team - they are not counted for the sake of this skill, as shown:

• A tier.
  
• Stats: above average hp pool, average accuracy & resistances.
  
• Versatile, consistent performance, few different play styles.
  
• Can use rifles and machineguns.
  
• Most suited for 3rd or 4th row.
  
• +3 charisma, +1 intuition.

Kazimierz is a decent starting character and he proves to be useful through the whole game. His skills are (mostly) straightforward and are not prone to RNG. His base accuracy is acceptable, he can survive a lot of beating and he will be your most trusted guy when it comes to charisma-based skill checks. There are a few drawbacks that keeps me from giving him S rank - he lacks anti tank capabilities (except 'rifle grenade'), his buffs/debuffs are meh, his rowdy fellow passive is inconsistent and his performance is greatly hindered in the front rows. There are three main ways of playing him: all-arounder, economy sniper or a damage dealer with support. PS - give him Bren machinegun (or any other with good accuracy bonus) and you are golden.

Example upgrade path:
Starti with both accuracy bonuses. Then pick any preferable subset of skills, then invest XP into critical chance. You can also get rowdy fellow asap and then follow up with accuracy and cc.

Economy sniper build:







All-around build:







Damage dealer build:







Alternatives:







You can clearly see how versatile this builds are.
Eco revolves around single shot that costs only one long bullet and the garbage collector passive to help us maintain the ammo pool in the long run. The secondary attack: target acquired is there for greater flexibility and the suppression grants him an extra utility vs priority targets. Use it when you are extremely low on ammo.

All around build is my everyday build for Kazimierz. It's very flexible, it has both good aoe and single target damage and a handy pin down, this is a no brainer.

Damage dealer build is based on a rowdy fellow passive and needs a support with cost reduction/replenish skills to really shine. Since every attack costs 2 activation points you'll want to replenish as much points as possible. This build has an extreme damage potential and you'd like to use a lot of AOE skills to maximize the effect - like slaughter or crossfire. Single shots for over 40 damage or crossfire killing an entire group in 2 salvos are a common view. The only problem with this build - it's inconsistent. You can get a +50% damage bonus, or a great critical chance bonus one turn and completely nothing for your next attack. Do note that skills like buffs or debuffs are unaffected by the rowdy fellow effect. They will still cost 1 action point and their effect won't be altered in any way. Give this build a try - even for the 'wow' effect alone, like this one:











Skills
Pick-me-up - don't bother. Too weak to be viable.





Dirty trick - same as above - don't bother. Blindness can be resisted and grants only -15% accuracy.





Garbage collector gives you around 12 extra long ammo after every fight. The ammo is placed directly into inventory, so there won't be any popup or loot window. Pretty handy for economy builds.




Rowdy fellow is one of the most potent damaging skills in the game. I was not using it since the effect is random and the extra cost is panful but some time ago Tacitus suggested to try it anyway and indeed, it has great (but random) extra damage potential. It's a passive that makes all attacking skills cost one more stamina, and and the same time grants them a random bonus effect - like bonus damage or critical chance. Sounds dull, but its damage potential is extreme. Single shots for like 40-80 damage or aoe strikes killing half enemy team in one go are a common sight. Requires a whole team to be build around Kazimierz, but it's worth it.

Grind'em Up has very high accuracy and critical chance and uses short ammo. Pretty viable pick when you are low on long ammo.





Rifle granade has below average accuracy and uses explosive ammo. it's cheap, it has 40% armor penetration and a nice critical chance. It mitigates Kazimierz's biggest weakness - lack of armor piercing attacks. Take it if you don't have anyone with heavy weapon (like Wanda or Krzysztof) who can deal with machines.



Contraband ammo. Two targets, 3 stacks and ONE of the two possible effects: +80% chance to cause bleeding or to cause burning. The choice is random so recasting the buff can either renew the already existing effect or cast the second one.



Misdirection is a great suppression skill available right from the beginning. I tend to take it with me most of the time since it helps greatly at keeping the dangerous targets at bay and gives you some breating room for healing etc.

• A tier.
  
• Stats: decent hp pool, above average accuracy, high thougness.
  
• Great tank and an excellent choice for a frontline unit.
  
• Uses machineguns and SMGs
  
• Most suited for 2nd row.
  
• +3 intuition, +2 constitution

This guy is tough. His tanking potential is great and he can still pack a punch with his machinegun attacks. He is usable right from the start due to his stay behind me skill and DP-27 machinegun. He synergizes well with Władysław (the doctor) who can make Bronisław a true brick wall with additional damage reduction buffs. In the current game version he is a rare sight however. I was able to get him only in the late game and only after numerous rerolls (loading the same save file over and over). This should change when 'Baszta' update will be released out of beta stage as the odds of getting rare characters were increased.
With story mode update his name and lore was changed for unknown reasons.
Same guy, same picture, same skills, different name & background depending on game version you're playing.

Example upgrade path:
Start with armor bonuses. Why? Because you can! And because being immortal is pretty cool. Follow with draw fire, accuracy bonuses and any skills you'd like to use.

Example build:







Alternatives:








This is a typical frontline tanky build. You will want to use stay behind me at the very beginning of a fight to maximize its effect. Draw fire compliments his taunt greatly and is highly recommended. The two gun attacks are up to you. Full salvo is very universal and push back / slicing salvo both serve as an additional utility. You can consider slaughter if you want to have any attack that will work from the back rows in case of repositioning.


Skills
Stay behind me - the 40% damage reduction is great - even greater when you happened to have a barricade on the first row. Taunt has a limited potential to draw enemy fire (I'd say 20-30% tops) but still, if this damn Pak will hit Bronisław for 14 damage instead of your precious Anna for 35 - that's a win.



Steady fire can serve as an option to choose instead of full salvo due to a greater critical hit chance. It does not however justify it's extreme XP cost.





Bullet storm can only be used from the first row, and we don't want to be in the first line without any cover - even as a mighty Bronisław. What is more - it costs 16 short bullets. Definitely not something you'd like to use early game. Feel free to skip this one, not worth it.



Fake retreat - I was thinking about scenarios when this skill can actually be useful and I was not able to find even a single one. His skillset works best from the front lines, most of his attacks works from the front lines, thenn why bother pushing him back.



Draw fire gives 5% extra damage reduction after every received hit, combined with taunt it's just too good to pass up. Oh and currently it has no stacks limit and it's passive - yay!




Encirclement - A typical single target pin down + extra relocation. Nice and always useful, regardless of setup and situation. Can be used from the front rows just like most of his other skills.




To battle! is very situational. 30% damage bonus is nice, but works only for 2 attacks. If you like to play with Martin this can synergize with him well, as he can recast this buff on the whole team.

• A/B tier -> A with upgrades
  
• Stats: high hp, low base accuracy - mitigated by starting weapon & skills, low crit & dodge chance, low resistances (except suppression)
  
• 90% suppression resistance
  
• Powerful starting rifle
  
• Can use rifles and grenades
  
• Most suited for 4th row, or 1-3 with a different rifle
  
• +2 toughness, +2 agility, +2 constitution skill checks bonus.

There are two great things about Jan - his starting rifle and his suppression resistance. When you upgrade him, there will be three great things about Jan - two of the above and his passive healing. His weapon - Mannlicher 1890 is a decent rifle with high damage skills and good accuracy bonus (+15%). You will most likely stick with both skills this weapon provides. On the other hand - to utilize them you'd like to place Jan in the 4th row, which makes his grenades more problematic to use. You can consider swapping the weapon for something that can be used from the front rows - like Kar98k to utilize better grenade skills, but in my opinion it's not worth it due to low accuracy of grenades and their relatively lower damage in comparison to Mannlicher 1890. His starting skill is basically a waste of activation due to how random and situational it is. You'll find yourself using One-two skill most of the time anyway.

Example upgrade path:
Get both accuracy bonuses to compensate for his low base stats. Follow with perseverance and optionally - methodical. Anything else is situational. I'd get critical chance to compliment his extensive rifle usage.

Example build:








Alternatives:








My preferred setup is a simple damage dealer build using Jan's default Mannlicher 1890 rifle.One-two is what I tend to use 70% time, shatter is there to finish off any single targets and vs machinery. Two passives for extra damage and free healing. Simple yet very effective build. Grenade skills are not really worth it due to low damage & accuracy. Rifle skills can be swapped for whatever suits you, when you decide to switch weapon to something like Gewehr 43 or SWT-40.

Skills:
Nuisance is so random it's not really worth using. It's a buff that can be used on anyone other than Jan, with only one stack - meaning it will be lost at the end of the current turn. In theory you got like 25% chance that an ally with nuisance will be hit and the enemy will lose one extra activation (2 instead of 1 and so on). In reality this is so extrelemy rare that 100 out of 100 times it's better to use your activation for attacks.


Both buffs have the same condition: if there are at least 2 enemies in the front rows the buff will have a greater effect (tier 2 instead of 1). This is a bit of a lottery, but at the same time usually there is even more enemies in the front. Enemy spotted gives extra armor penetration and against the tide grants additional debuff resistances. Both are meh and I was not using any of it. Still, if you lack any other form of anti-tank attacks just take the armor piercing buff.

Watchful guard is an anti-crit and anti-bleeding aura with limited efficiency since we will be placing Jan on the 4th row most of the time.





Methodical is a rather hard to use passive damage buff vs infantry. As the description says it gives bonus vs 1st row on the 1st turn, then vs 2nd row in the 2nd turn and will rotate onward. It will most likely be wasted on the 1st turn, due to "One-two" attack range limit and will require some repositioning skills in the team to better utilize it. If you forgot which row is currently affected hover the cursor over "+" (see screenshot):











Not a step further is an interesting alternative for other single target rifle attacks due to its great accuracy bonus, and the fact that it can be used on the first turn together with methodical passive.




Master throw - take it only if you absolutely, positively need a grenade skill (which is never).





Perseverance - this skill alone is what gives Jan one extra tier for his final score. It heals 4-6 hp AFTER HIS EVERY ACTIVATION and additionally at the end of turn. So the more attacks you do with Jan the more healing you'll get. There is one condition - he cannot be repositioned between turns or activations. Still, with proper management this is a huge help and typically you can use it 2-3 times per turn without any issues. This is like having a built-in mini Jadwiga on board. Take it every time, and you won't need any additional healing for him.

• A/B tier.
  
• Stats: high hp pool, good accuracy & resistances vs bleeding & blindness.
  
• Uses SMGs & grenades.
  
• Versatile skillset with good passives.
  
• Most suited for 2nd or 3rd row, depending on used weapons.
  
• Consumes a large quantities of ammo.
  
• +2 toughness, +2 agility skill checks bonus.

Karol, Cichociemny[en.wikipedia.org] is an interesting character. Super weak early with default weapon and without upgrades, becomes a viable pick later in the game with upgrades and when equipped with better weapon (like Thompson M1 or MP 28). His starting skill ace up one's sleeve is what makes him usable early - use it often.

Example upgrade path:
Start with one (or both) accuracy bonuses to make ace up one's sleeve more reliable source of damage. Then keep buying skills of your choosing (see example builds) and finish off with critical chance or dodge bonuses.


Example builds:

Standard:







Anti tank:







Alternatives:







With a good weapon, slicing salvo will be your main damage tool due to good damage, good accuracy and extra bleeding debuff. His ace up one's sleeve often misses but it's still more reliable than grenades. It's even better when paired with saboteur passive. He is not as good as Wanda or Krzysztof vs armored targets, but his anti-tank built is still a viable alternative if you don't have the mentioned heroes. You may notice that pretty much all of his attacks are very ammo-hungry and he does not have many options to attack the back rows. Keep that in mind and take someone with rifle to take care of the back rows, preferably in a cheaper way (ammo-wise).


Skills:
Ace up one's sleeve is a decent starter skill. It costs 5 ammo for a 2 target strike, but you need only one stamina to use it - while most attacks with heavy weapons needs 2. Just pay attention to your heavy ammo pool, and don't spam ace too much, expecially early game.



Dedly accuracy is way too weak to be considered viable, and it's not even multi-target. Forget about it.





Master of disguise is a nice survivability tool. It has only a single charge but it allows Karol to always dodge the next attack. Usable in many situations, especially vs heavy ordnance




Saboteur gives you a nice passive accuracy and armor piercing bonus, and makes ace up one's sleeve so much better vs armored targets.





Killer gives a passive crit chance bonus vs any infantry. With proper crit-oriented weapon this can also be a valid pick - even better when paired with Ernest in team.





Take unyielding together with saboteur for a great synergy vs armored targets.






Take trained, to survive when you have Jadwiga with continous care skill for a nice, passive synergy. Not as essential as other skills though.

• B+ tier
  
• Stats: high hp pool, average accuracy, good toughness & resistances.
  
• Uses SMGs & grenades.
  
• Gameplay concentrates around buffs,
  
• Random and unreliable performance.
  
• Most suited for 2nd row, requires 2x2 formation.
  
• Weak without upgrades and better weapon.
  
• +2 toughness & charisma +1 agility/consutution/intuition.

Martin the BuffMeister. His playstyle revolves around getting buffs with former comrades in arms and casting them on your team with knowledge of the enemy. Without a good weapon and with no upgrades he is just a waste of a mission slot but with proper build AND proper enemy setup he is a beast. For best effects he must be played in 2x2 formation on 2nd or 3rd row to maximize his kit effectiveness. Due to the random nature of encountered enemy squadrons his performance will vary greatly from skirmish to skirmish. The more buff casters on the enemy team - the merrier. Try to pair him with at least one good buff caster (with tier 2 buffs) on your side, Jadwiga works well with Martin as well since she can renew buffs duration on him.

Example upgrade path:
Start with former comrades in arms, follow with accuracy bonuses, then get any other skills you'd like to use.

Example build:







Alternatives:








Skill:
Both are meh, both are tier 1 buffs with 2x2 aoe and you won't use any of them anyway. Well, maybe conscious offensive (+20% armor penetration +15% crit chance) can be used early game when you lack any viable anti-tank options, but the only use for counter tactic (20% toughness +20% dodge) I can think of is to use it along with Władysław's buffs and then keep refreshing the toughness buff stack on your team. Nevertheless both are skippable.

Always take Ex-comrades, period. This is a core skill on him and the main ingredient of his playstyle. It passively copies every sinlge buff used by the enemies to Martin.



Seen them all with its 20% damage resistance vs tanks is pretty meh, avoid.





In the belt is very cheap for being 1x3 aoe and got a decent accuracy on top of 15% damage bonus vs frontliners. It is also one of a few SMG skills that can be used agains back rows.



Explosive bundle is a viable alternative for other grenade skills. It's cheaper, it hits 2 instead of 3 targets but with much better armor penetration and bit better accuracy.




Knowledge of the enemy is a core ingredient in Matin's builds. Always pair it with former comrades in arms.Cast some buffs on Martin youreself and wait for enemies to use theirs. Having a few buffs stacked - use this skill and distribute all the buffs to other team members. Casting it on Martin will renew the stacks. Synergizes well with Jadwiga. The only drawback is the cost - 2 stamina, so use it wisely since it's not spammable.

An example of a proper way to manage buffs with 4 enemy buff casters:

• B tier.
  
• Cannot use weapons -> cannot use any weapon skills.
  
• Stats: above average hp pool, his attack-related stats does not matter - see above.
  
• Basically a weaker version of Jadwiga with more focus on buffs/debuffs.
  
• Starts with only two skills, needs upgrades to be useful.
  
• +3 knowledge, +1 intuition, +1 charisma skill checks bonus.
  
• Has problems with alcohol.
  
• Hight bleeding & burning resistances, very low blindness and pin down resistances.

Definitely not your first choice in terms of healer, as Jadwiga outperforms him and is more universal, Władysław can still be useful and got his own niche. He has numerous healing options and he can make your team more resistant to damage. His only damaging skill is painful mixture so consider placing him in a team where other folks can mitigate his lack of damaging potential.

Example upgrade path:
You'd like to get two skills asap to fill all skill slots. Pain relief, patient care or increased care are a great candidates to rush. Spend all excessive XP into tankiness, since any offensive bonuses are useless on Władysław.


Example build:







Alternatives:







Since we have to invest a lot of XP into this guy we will use both starting skills for the most time anyway. You can consider 2x2 team placement instead of T-shape to maximize effect of both starting skills. Also placing Władysław in front of other comrades will help us to make use of his relatively high survivability and debuff resistances. Regarding other skills - if we have no need of healing then moving two action points via increased care from Władysław to our damage dealer (like Wanda) can be pretty useful, Throw in the pain relief passive to make your team even more tanky. Alternatively if you REALLY need to deal any damage take painful mixture, and if you prefer single target healing - then medical recommendations is a valid choice if you can afford repositioning.

Consider the following team placements for better starting skills utilization and less aura efficiency:

or

Skills:
Field hospital is a pretty decent healing and a free starting skill. It can heal two heroes but you will have to take positioning into account.You will use it a lot, and most likely till the end of the game.




Triage will buff damage resistance in 2x2 area, doubling the resistance bonus for the most injured person - and if this person happens to be Bronisław, you just got youreself an almost immortal brick wall that taunts enemies.




Medical recommendations is 1 hp more potent than Jadwiga's first aid, but the repositioning effect might be (and will be) a double edged sword.





Increased care is a nice versatile healing option and in many cases will let yourWanda to use another nuke or your Anna to snipe additional target faster. Recommended.




Correct me if I'm wrong but all the delay skill does is moving its target action to the very end of the current turn. The only possible use for this I can think of is when you use it vs a priotiry target like panzergrenadier and then you will kill at least one enemy in the same turn, which will stripe enemies from one action effectively preventing panzergrenadier from attacking. Way too situational to be viable.


Painful mixture effect is random so in the best case scenario it will be able to at least put a damaging debuff on your target. The only good thing about it - it has no percentage hit chance, meaning it will hit every time BUT CAN STILL BE RESISTED. It can apply damaging debuffs (i.e. burning), blindness, pin down.



Pain relief is a no brainer and compliments other resistance boosting skills well.






Patient care is simply a weaker version of continous care, and passive healing is always more than welcome.

Ernest

• B tier.
  
• Stats: very high accuracy & hp, relatively high critical hit chance, good toughness and medium debuff resistances.
  
• S**tty skills.
  
• Uses machineguns and revolvers.
  
• Difficult placement: most skills work from front-mid rows, most MG attacks require back rows.
  
• High damage starting weapon - MG 13
  
• +1 toughness, +3 constitution, +2 intuition skill checks bonus

A newest addition to the heroes pool, Ernest is rather unique persona. His very high base statistics combined with his high damage starting machinegun - MG 13, make him both very tanky, accurate and lethal. He becomes even more deadly when equipped with weapons having high critical chance bonus - like MG 34 (+15% crit chance). His skills, are rather problematic to use along with machinegun due to placement restrictions. Let's face it - typical MG user is placed on a 3rd or 4th row, while most of Ernest's skills are usable from 1-3. You are more than welcome to try different combinations with revolver skills as well, and suggest me some viable builds.

Example upgrade path:
Get deatly squad aura, then all crit chance bonuses and optionally accuracy bonuses if you have low tier machinegun. Use all excessive XP for active skills of your choosing or more tankiness.


Example build:








Alternatives:








Deadly squad is obligatory, no exceptions. You can optimize your team for critical hits - with mentioned MG 34 on Ernest and weapons like Panzerfaust on Wanda etc. for some ridiculous damage potential. If you don't own any top tier revolver - you can safely skip his revolver skills, unless you are short on long ammo or want to place him in rows other than 3 or 4. An extra note about his awareness skill - many build have limited range so awareness can be used to mitigate this drawback, also using it on guys like Krzysztof (or other rifle user) can help to make single shot skill able to hit any enemy in a cheap and efficient way.


Skills:
Oppresive actions can be used on Ernest and one ally, but the blind debuff is a joke anyway. Basically a waste of activation in most cases.





Awareness is actually a pretty decent buff that pairs well with rifle users. Recommended for economy setups with single shot users.





Deadly squad is in my opinion his best skill. 10% extra crit chance does not sound like much. But it's additive to innate weapon chance + hero chance + stat bonuses. All in all with proper setup you will crit A LOT. Highly recommended.




With premeditation heals us after every kill. The problem is, Ernest is an MG user, and as such we are mostly dealing area damage to maximize the machinegun potential while other guys are using cheap single target attacks to kill wounded enemies, so the usability of this skill will be severely limited, unless we are willing to waste much more ammo to kill enemies with AOE MG attacks, or want to use his revolver.

Condemnation removes buffs from 2 enemies. Situational, personally I was not using it at all.





Unchecked removes debuffs from Ernest only. Yet another skill that is potentially good but it's too situational and not worth the XP investment.





Guillotine is cheap, has good accuracy, and has a 100% crit chance vs blinded or suppressed targets. It can hit only first two rows though. It requires some setup with debuffs and positioning but on the bright side it ignores cover and the crit damage is high and consistent - especially with a better revolver equipped.



On my mark ignores cover and has the constant, high accuracy value despite debuffs or stamina points. Reliable alternative to any MG attack skill.

• B tier.
  
• Stats: average hp,accuracy & above average resistances.
  
• Good dodge chance.
  
• Low damage but good supporting potential.
  
• Uses pistols & grenades.
  
• Good for conserving ammo.
  
• Most suited for 2nd row.
  
• +3 agility, +1 intuition skill checks

Everyting about this little fella is mediocre. His mediocre tankiness, average accuracy, weak healing, low damage pistols and unreliable grenades. He is definitely not a damage dealer, nor a healer but he can serve as a support for others. He is also a viable pick when we are low on ammo, as two of his skills are dedicated for economic playstyle. A perfect position for him is the second row, right behind the barricade, where he can soak much more damage, or just avoid hits more often than others thanks to his relatively high dodge chance.

Example upgrade path:
Start with ammo generator skills if you want some early eco, if not then get accuracy & dodge bonuses and follow with any skills you'll find useful.

Example builds:

Standard







Support:







Eco:







Damage dealer:







Alternatives:







There is plenty of viable builds on Franek with no winning 'meta'. I tend to play him with either standard or support builds for more versatility. I also tend to take Franek on easier missions, which does not include a lot of fighting, especially not vs armored targets as his grenade strikes are too unreliable and not too good in penetrating armor. I also always try to take another healer with me, usually a recruit with helping hand, since Franek's healing potential is poor. You may notice that there are the same pistol skills: Potshot & Stinger in most builds. This is due to the fact that he might not be a great damage dealer, but repositioning enemies is still viable in most setups, so are debuffs - in our case bleeding. His grenade strikes are all expensive and unreliable due to low accuracy and randomly picked targets. If you have to pick one - take conflagration early game and more expensive but also more accurate peculiar parcel in the later stages when you can afford the ammo cost.


Skill comparison
Bandage bundle might be weak, but heal is a heal and it still removes a single debuff. Worth keeping.





Ugly bird gives you extra ammo (added directly into the inventory) when enemies are dying. You can get 6 or 8 short ammo, 3 long ammo or 3 explosive ammo. From my tests so far it seems like the ammo type depends on killed enemy as I'm usually getting S or L, while i got explosive after killing Panzergrenadier.



Youthful gives us one extra stamina point at the beginning of every turn, which means we are reovering 2 instead of one point. This definitely helps if we are using a lot of grenade skills or Franek is the only healer in the team.




To own hands removes suppression and regenerates single stamina point for the target. Do note that you can still cast it on character without suppression, effectively transferring one stamina from Franek to his target. Useful for supporting guys like Wanda or Kazimierz (with rowdy fellow).



Field support grants target two random buffs. The buffs are always tier 2 (the more powerful veriant) and can be one of the following: +accuracy, +damage, +critical chance, +resistances. Usually it is one damage buff and resistance buff. Both has 3 stacks.



Peculiar parcel is expensive, hits only two targets but has very high accuracy and extra suppression effect. If you have zero luck (like me) you will often hit barricades with it which limits its effectiveness. Still, the damage is high and consistent and the debuffs are good even when placed only on a single enemy.



Scavenging has a nice synergy with ugly bird and I advise you to take em together if you decide to play eco builds. It has high accuracy so use it to finish off your targets. The ammo gains are the same as ugly bird, so 6-8 small ammo, 3 long ammo and 3 explosive ammo, and in this case it is clearly stated that ammo type depends on killed enemy type.

• C tier -> B+ with a good weapon
  
• Stats: high hp pool, above average resistances and toughness, good accuracy
  
• Most of his skills don't use ammo.
  
• Uses SMGs and pistols.
  
• Must be placed in the first row to utilize most skills.
  
• Good vs infantry, useless vs machines.
  
• Weak starting weapons
  
• +1 toughness, +2 agility, +2 constitution, +1 intuition skill checks bonus.

Our ulhan[en.wikipedia.org] was buffed recently and after both his bleeding chance buffs (nerfed a bit in Zniwiarz update) and introduction of different weapon stats he is actually not as useless as before. He is a frontline unit and his gameplay consists of slashing, debuffing and dispelling enemies. He does not have a single good armor piercing skill, also both pistols and SMGs are not really good vs tanks. Konstanty can be used to conserve a lot of ammo, especially early game when there is not a lot of armored enemies present. The major issue with him is his placement - he needs to be placed in the first row, otherwise you won't be able to use most of his skills. Placing him there means he will always receive full damage and hiding behind a barricade is not an option. On the other hard, some weapon skills can only be used from the 1st row, so Konstanty is the best candidate to utilize them. Both his starting guns are poor in terms of damage and utility and he REALLY needs a better weapon to shine. Get him a better pistol like TT-33, Luger P08 or a good SMG (like Sten) and his efficiency will skyrocket.

Example upgrade path:
Since Konstanty is played from the first row - prioritize surivability bonuses: dodge, hp, armor. Then pick any skill(s) you'd like to use and put all spare XP into even more surivability. Accuracy it not especially critical since we won't shot often plus Konstanty's base accucary is excellent.

Example build:







Alternatives:







As you can see, my typical build is a mix of slashing, utility and damaging skills. Obviously your build will heavily depend on the weapons you got. Keep in mind that you can slash heavy weapons like mortars or Paks. You can also take only one slashing skill with you to make a room for one of his passives or just more damaging skills.The fact that his sword skills does not deal any direct damage is a joke and a huge drawback. I mean come on, you can deal damage with a tiny knife but a big-ass saber can only apply bleeding...


Skills

Hack has its uses as it can both apply bleeding with 120% chance (means it can land even on heavy weapons) and remove all buffs from the enemy at the same time. You will use it a lot, especially early game.




Mad charge can apply bleeding to 3 targets in a row and is basically an aoe version of the starting skill minus the dispell.





Raid moves Konstanty 3 rows to the front and pushes a single enemy away by one row + grants increased bleeding chance for Konstanty, which is useless. There is no point in having like 210% chance to cause bleeding, unless you have no ammo left and want to slash this Pak cannon into tiny bleeding pieces. The repositioning is also pretty useless by itself since we can reposition our heroes freely anyway.


Rout Out by itself is useless as there is no point in pushing Konstanty backwards - what is more it actually ruins his playstyle since he has to be placed in the 1st row most of the time....BUT paired with Grim courage it's not that bad since we will be moving back and forth, accumulating damage bonus and using it with rout out which will pretty much always hit due to its incredible accuracy bonus. (thx for the tip idkwhattosayk?)

Showdown is good without any extra effort: it's cheap, it has high crit chance, high accuracy and it moves enemy one row forward.





Grim courage moves Konstanty a 1 step forward and gives a stacking +5% damage bonus TO WEAPON SKILLS every time an enemy infantry (any type) does any action. The buff resets after we use weapon skill. Do note that slashing or normal meele strikes won't reset the couner. Also if Konstanty is in the first row the damage bonus will still stack, so the moving part is not obligatory. If we decide to use Konstanty's slashing attacks at the beginning of the turn and weapon attacks at the end of the turn we can have a consistent +15-20% damage bonus every turn in most cases.

First line - ignores enemy's pushback effects. What it means is that we can still push ourselves back with e.g. rout out. This passive can be pretty useful, since any repositioning f***s up his playstyle badly. It is a better alternative to raid since it's passive and the desired effect is the same - having our ulhan bro on the first row constantly.

• B tier.
  
• Stats: high hp pool, high debuff resistances, good toughness
  
• Potentially a great tank-support but with some serious issues
  
• Uses rifles & revolvers. Starts with Kar98k.
  
• Inconsistent, gameplay revolves around debuffs
  
• Despite being a tank back rows are best for him
  
• +3 constitution, +2 toughness skill checks bonus

Janos is a survivor of GERMAN DEATH CAMP - learn ur history folks and don't let anyone to rewrite the historical facts. He lived throuh hell, he is hardened by the horrors of the concentration camp and and this is indeed reflected in his skillset. His gameplay revolves around debuff management. The more debuffs the enemies are using the stronger Janos becomes. So he relies on getting negative effects but on the other hand he got high debuff resistances which hinders his skillset. This makes him very inconsisten and thus I consider him B tier only. It is also possible to completely abandon this part of his skills and focus on attacks only - then we are getting a decent, tanky and a rather accurate rifleman. 4th row is my preferred position for him due to excessive use of one two, 3rd is more suitable for debuff builds. Dont bother with his revolver skills - not worth it.

Example upgrade path

• Weapon oriented: get accuracy bonuses, then will to live and reckoning (in any order). Optionally get survivor and place all other XP into stats.
  
• Debuff oriented: survivor -> camaraderie -> mental fortitude.

Example build







Debuff oriented







Alternatives







Skills

Enmity - typical taunt with extra repositioning effect (push enemy 1 row towards Janos). Switch it to something more useful as fast as possible.





Reckoning - high accuracy, near zero crit chance. Gets more damage (not listed in description nor during battle) depending on the number of infantry (any) enemies. From my research the damage bonus is around 5-10% per one infantry. Eg with Remeny (22-27 dmg) I was dealing 38-40 vs opposite rows (so extra 20% dmg on top of skill bonus), or ~25 vs single enemy on the same row. Overall a great, high damage, cheap skill (ammo-wise) you can count on.


Surivor - heals Janos after his action and at the end of turn for the amount listed muiltiplied by amount of debuffs. Can be played alone as an extra heal gained from time to time, or with other debuff oriented skills for more synergies. Keep in mind that healing applies first, then debuff which means if you have 100% hp, the heal is wasted and you get the damage tick from bleeding/burning anyway.


Camaraderie - main issue I got with this skill - it costs 2 stamina, which is a huge drawback. Another issue - it only works vs single target. Gives +15% or +30% damage bonus buff depending on how many debuffs you've gained. Honestly it's so situational and hard to use I was never able to get the +30% bonus. Way too underpowered for me in its current state.


Will to live - this is a no brainer: cheap to get, +15% passive damage resistance, take it or leave it (ofc you'll take it).





Mental Fortutude - play it with camaraderie to make its stamina cost more bearable. No point using it alone.





Shared Burden - even less reliable than Camaraderie but at least it only cost 1 stamina. Grab your crystal ball and try to predict who will get stuck with debuff next...or just spend XP on something not as useless.




Nemesis - when was the last time you've met officer type enemy? And when was the last time you've met more than one in the same fight? Yep, exactly, this skill is useless. It's weak by itself, and the approximate damage bonus is around 10% only. On the bright side - it only costs 1 pistol ammo (If you've ever run out of pistol ammo in the next century).

• B+ tier.
  
• Stats: below average hp, above average accuracy & resistances, good dodge.
  
• Support class.
  
• Uses SMGs and revolvers.
  
• Most suited for 2nd or 3rd row.
  
• Weak starting weapons.
  
• +3 knowledge, +2 intuition bonus.

Henryk gives a rather negative first impression - very weak weapons, average stats and poor starting skill. He needs XP and a better SMG to be considered viable. Henryk is a support and should be played as such - in late game I was hardly using his skills, but his presence alone was more than enough to ensure smooth nazi slaughtering.

Example upgrade path:
Start with excellent command then refreshment and/or coordinated actions. Get accuracy and crit chance bonuses along with (optional) lethal shot. Finish with either dodge and hp/toughness bonuses or any other skill you'll find useful.

Example build:








Alternatives:








Skills:
Keep the formation is the starting skill. Very situational, but feel free to use it untill you can afford something better. It is especially useful in T-formations with auras, since you can use Henryk's stamina for repositioning instead of your damage dealers or aura users.



Excellent command is in my opionion a core component of playing as Henryk. It gives you one more action every turn. Of course this action point can be used by anyone. And what is better than attacking 4 times in one turn? Attacking 5 times in one turn, obviously. Do keep in mind that you'll still need stamina to utilize the extra turn, so this skill is best used in teams with mostly 1-point stamina actions. It has a great synergy with Jadwiga's soothing presence and stimulants. Using excellent command with Jadwiga and Kazimierz (with rowdy fellow) is a very powerful combination. Definitely worth using.

Refreshment is basically the same as Helena's comforting transimission but with different area of effect (1x3). It can replenish one stamina for Henryk as well, making the effective casting cost of this skill 1 instead of 2. Usable in stamina-heavy setups (Wanda, Kazimierz etc).



Lethal shot is an interesting late game attack. Why late game? Because it requires a good revolver (like Macher or Soteria or anything else with high critical bonus) and some investment into stat bonuses, namely critical chance and accuracy. With all of the above conditions met, you are getting cheap 2-field attack with ~90% accuracy and ~70% crit (in case of Macher revolver). Pretty decent for a support character, especially that it can be used from front rows to attack back rows, which complimens most SMG skills hitting front rows only.


Coordinated actions gives and aura with 10% extra dodge chance. Not much, but with innate dodge chance of some characters + all dodge stat bonuses (a total of +20%) we can achieve rather high percentage values. In case of Henryk he can get like 41% chance to dodge any attack (base 11% + 20% from upgrades +10% aura). Defnitely worth considering.


No pardon - expensive for 2-field attack, and the extra blinding is meh. Can be used together with coordinated actions to further boost effective dodge chance. Still, not the greatest SMG skill around, and can be omitted.




Steadfast resistance - +30% debuff resistances may sound cool, but the enemies will still have like 50% chance to apply that bleeding on you. I find this skill too weak and too situational to use. Oh and it can be cast ONLY from the 2nd row. Not recommended.

• A tier.
  
• Stats: high hp pool & accuracy, moderate dodge & armor, below average crit chance.
  
• Uses rifles and SMGs
  
• 3rd row is optimum, but it depends on weapons & skills combo
  
• Good resistances except low vs ignite.
  
• +3 toughness, +2 intuition & constitution skill checks bonus.
  
• Weak starting equipement.
  
• Decent support and debuffer, acceptable damage dealer.

New boi on the block introduced in free to play update.
Currently he is available only in story mode (25.08.2023)
Half of his skills are bugged and he got hardly any voice acting.
He can be a decent support or support-damage dealer hybrid.

Effectiveness of his skills depends on the amount of activations left in the current turn.
Thus it is best to use them at the beginning of your turn for maximum effectiveness.
Consider this two examples:



We can see the base skill effect of To Victory is multiplied by x4 on the left screenshot with 4 activations (beginning of turn) and x1 on the right one - cast at the end of the turn as a last activation.


Example upgrade path:
Get To Victory asap, then accuracy buff(s), then Spirited assault and/or Fervor. Everything after that is optional.

Example build:

Support (3rd or 2nd row):







Damage dealer (4th row):







Skills:

An escalation is super awesome when paired with Marian or anyone else who can debuff enemies. This skill copies all debuffs from a single enemy to all enemies AND refreshes any debuffs already present. You can use Marian to put both burning and bleeding effects on someone, then propagate it to all enemies, then keep refreshing all effects every turn for maximum ammo efficiency. Or you can pin down the whole enemy team, or whatever other combo you can think of. During my tests I've noticed that the copied effects hits almost every single time, despite resistances. The viable strategy is to debuff the least resistant enemy and then propagate debuffs to others without issues. It also works with pinned down machines & infantry: you can use Anna to pin down a tank, and then propagate the status to soldiers and vice versa. Bleeding and burning Pak 38? no problem. The only time I was unable to copy debuffs was in case of tanks (which got like 500% bleed resistance). Take it, and abuse it:




To Victory - another S tier skill in our arsenal. It heals whole team for 3 multiplied by amount of activations left in turn ( so 12,9,6,3 with every consecutive action), gives +15% damage buff to every one and on top of that heals ALL debuffs from the whole team. It's as awesome as it sounds like. As every other AOE heals it can crit individually on each party member:


Fervor gives one more activation to your team and one less activation for enemies ONCE at the beginning of the fight. So when you start the skirmish you got 5 activations, making Ignacy's other skills even more potent with x5 multipiler. Pretty neat in most fights and recommended to wipe out more enemies on the first turn.


Spirited assault IS CURRENTLY BUGGED. On paper it gives your team an extra activation when you kill anyone with this skill. However I've noticed that it breaks when you kill 2 enemies at once and instead of gaining 2 activations it gives nothing and works like a normal attack. It can also happened after killing a single enemy. Despite that, the damage, accuracy and consumed ammo are still good and this skill can become your main damage source, even when bugged.

Controlled shot seems overpowered at first but is mediocre at best. For 6 long ammo we got low base damage, not so accurate shot with high crit chance. Crit chance scales off base critical chance (skill + weapon) multiplied by number of activations. You have to click the skill in order to see calculated critical chance. Even when it crits, the damage is still sub-par and it misses often. The outcome definitely does not justify high ammo usage. Take single shot instead, it's cheap, reliable and has better accuracy.




Until The Very End - in theory it's nice, especially when paired with taunt.It gives one-time immortality followed by a strong healing multiplied by the amount of activations (so 80,60,40 or 20 hp healed). In reality it's totally useless, expensive to learn and not worth the skill slot. You can try to play around taunting enemies and letting Ignacy die, but if he won't trigger the ability early in turn the healing will be severely reduced, and the taunt itself is highly unreliable.

A risky gambit. Yet another taunt in the game, this time paired with low damage AOE attack as well as higher casting cost of 2 stamina. As of 28th August 2023 this skill breaks the game. When you are about to aim and fire it will render the attacks unusable, and the skill bar locked. Restart the game in order to be able to fight again. As with every other taunt it only gives higher chance to be targeted, thus it's unreliable and should be avoided completely.

Shove - extra mention for meele skill, due to yet another bug. According to description it is typical 3-5 damage stab without added effects. In reality on top of the 3-5 damage it also pushes target back.

Stuff that is not suitable for any other chapter.

1. Save location

Saves are located in C:\Users\<current user>\AppData\LocalLow\Pixelated Milk\Warsaw
If you are tired of constantly losing and just want to get it through the game - you can 'scum save' and periodically make a copy of save files.

3. Performance issues

I've noticed that after around half of the game when the city begins to burn there will be a dramatic increase in map loading times. The game will be unresponsive for a while and then it will continue to load as nothing happened. This will most likely be fixed soon, but still, be aware this is not a game-breaking bug - just wait a while longer - IT'S MUCH BETTER IN THE ZNIWIARZ UPDATE


4. Index issues

• When you acquire a new weapon it won't be immediately visible in the codex. You have to complete the next mission first - FIXED IN PARASOL UPDATE.
  
• Maybe it's just me but after killing 4 tanks (Panzer IV) I still don't have it listed in the Index. - FIXED IN ZNIWIARZ UPDATE
  
• Index bugs seems to be (mostly) fixed but I'm yet to prove it.

5. Achievements
I was able to unlock Full Documentation achievement (100% codex) from legacy version randomly while playing story mode. I got the full codex before, but the achievement never triggered when I was playing the original game.

All new achievements from the story mode works. The only problematic one is Spirit of '44 since some historical landmarks are present only on random missions.


6. Bugs

• The game will occasionally break when encountering flak cannon. Alt+F4 to fix.
  
  
  
• Zomming out map stops working randomly during missions.
  
• Consider Ignacy, the new character, to be in a beta state. Some of his skills are bugged, meele got wrong description and he got hardly any voice lines.
  
• Buying perks (eg accuracy bonus) sometimes require clicking multiple times. Try to close character windows, or change tab, or click 9999 times on the icon till it finally accepts the input. As suggested in this thread clicking an icon's corner/border works.

List of people who helped me to make this guide better:

El Presidente - translation errors, enemies and skills suggestions.
Tacitus - a bunch of helpful tips about enemies and heroes.
Kratochek - for pointing out that weapon stats do matter in the latest update.
Lord Chanka - list of missing weapons and character tips
Haxinous - for pointing out that SS veteran can strip stamina points
idkwhattosayk? - numerous tips and strategies I was not aware of + translation errors
Prussian Wolf - translation errors
awg - translation errors
SpacetimePhysics - additional workaround of missing mission markers.
GodShake - translation errors