The way I see it, the 'Stars Above and Beyond!' action is competing for resources with the 'Make a Nice Place for guests!' action.
We can only really stack resources on
one of those.
However,
both of those are directly relevant to Primary Objectives. 'Stars Above and Beyond' advances obtaining our own home-grown Voidcraft, while 'Make a Nice Place for guests!' works towards both ensuring that our incoming guests don't ruin everything
and the secondary objective of obtaining at least one Ally.
Which means we want both. The only question in my mind is the order to get them in. So what do we know?
"We will have guests soon."
"What kind of guests are we talking about?" Dana asked--Niamh shook her head. "Unclear, the readings only warn of potential peril. We must make suitable preparations in the time we have remaining."
We know that there is potential danger and that they will arrive 'soon'. We also know that we need to subvert the usual expectations of the setting in order to get the best endings.
Suitable preparations for this are the 'guests' action and any kinetic action you want - the silk glove, mailed fist treatment, basically, as otherwise we've got a dangling hero somewhere.
----
Short Objective list this chapter. Everything seems basically straightforward, though I'm not quite sure what a basic Army List contains and how we can tell how far we are from completion.
A 'basic army list' fills all ground-based roles, which can be split up as follows:
Infantry, which take and hold ground. The 'Queen' of the Battlefield, if you aren't using Infantry (or an equivalent) you're doing something wrong. We've got the Verdant Army, which has a slew of useful special rules. The Ork Warband or Imperial Guard regiment fills the same role for those factions.
Scouts, which poke at the edges of enemy forces, usually with the Fast Attack or Fleet rule and a bunch of special rules to go with it, including the ability to rapidly reposition Infantry. It's mostly Orks that use something like this, with other factions either directly integrating transports into their infantry or relying on Aircraft to perform the same duties. As such, the role will be filled by Project NOMAD Part Two.
Armor, usually Tanks, which provide substantial force concentration. This is the 'Giant Friendly Crab' action.
Walkers, which provide substantial force concentration and serve to boost Morale or psychic resonance. Our Flower Knight Maniple covers this. Imperial Knights and Titans, Ork Dreads and Gargants, etc.
Monsters, which aren't always necessary and probably redundant with the Verdant Maiden's themes. Not everybody uses these. Monsters have varied roles, but are summed up thematically as 'commanded beasts'. Ork Squigs, Exodite Dinosaurs, etc.
Aircraft, which provide rapid aerial transport for Infantry, provide ground support/airstrikes, and can contest for Air Superiority. Project NOMAD Part Two covers this.
Artillery, which provide pinpoint bombardment of enemy positions on an on-call basis. Also known as the 'King' of the battlefield - Artillery generally
fucks up Infantry, or indeed anything it can hit, but it's usually rather fragile. We don't have an option for this at the moment.
As nuChaos / a Warp Faction, we get
Daemons, which can be summoned directly to the battlefield for some cost or another. We don't have research options for this, but our Daemon Varieties are something to take into consideration for future planning.
And lastly,
Epics. The Special Big Boys, each faction generally does these somewhat similarly. The Imperium fill this role with their Imperator Titans, Orks with Mega-Gargants, Chaos with Megadaemons and Abominatus Titans, Necrons with Soul Rippers and Collosi, Men of Iron with Megatanks, Megabots, and Super-Titans. The
Big Boys, frequently coming in at 500 meters in some dimension or another - length, height, etc - they combine an absurd amount of firepower and force concentration with incredible defenses and battle-tilting special rules.
We've got our Leviathan Landship. At 500 meters long, it's in the right size category; we'll want specialized transports to move them between worlds. But... it's kind-of a mish-mash of design principles at the moment. Is it super-artillery? A mega-transport? ???
Project NOMAD Part One covers fixing that, designating the Landship as a Carrier.
We're actually fairly close, by my read. We don't have artillery available yet, but that's not too big a problem; I'm sure it'll come up sooner or later. An action each turn should steadily fill the holes in our basic army group.
We won't have super-heavy tanks or full-size Titans by the end of this unless new research options open up, but those
definitely aren't basic. Hell, the Landship isn't basic, but we've got what we've got.
E: Clarified Scouts - 'It's mostly Orks that use something like this, with other factions either directly integrating transports into their infantry or relying on Aircraft to perform the same duties.'
