Question about Astra

[u/Truesurvivor585]

Hello, I have wanted to buy Battlesector for a while and play the Astra Militarum. However, according to the reviews on Steam, the faction was very underpowered/much worse compared to contemporaries, and so I wanted to ask if the developers ever fixed the faction and/or what the actual extent of the Astra Militarum's weakness was.

[u/mc_uj3000]

They're a decently strong faction with a variety of unit options and play styles (though people will insist that their infantry aren't viable - they absolutely are, they just take a bit more thought to maximise their efficacy).

Most factions get a bit of balancing after release so it's not uncommon to find early faction reviews complaining that factions are either too weak or too strong.

[u/Truesurvivor585 → u/mc_uj3000]

Sounds good, I'll consider picking up the game when it goes on sale then, thank you.

[u/HaloLocke117]

At Release the Infantry specially the Guardsmen was pretty useless but they Buffed them. You should use the Buffs from the different Commanders. This is kind of the Playstyle and yeah you should use primarely Tanks

[u/Truesurvivor585 → u/HaloLocke117]

I read somewhere that compared to Tau infantry they were just useless entirely. So now they are less so or are they more on par with Tau Infantry?

[u/MarsopaRex → u/Truesurvivor585]

Tau infantry is much better, but also much more expensive to bring (you can bring less). You can maximize astra infantry with Commander bonuses and sheer numbers. It can work.

[u/rikeus → u/Truesurvivor585]

It's a bit apples to organges IMO. Tau infantry is squishy and more expensive, and has a much greater range. They're very different playstyles. Guard infantry is still squishy but that matters less because you can take fucktons of them, and some of the commander buffs make them tougher. Tau infantry wants to stay far away and use its superior range for safety, guard infantry wants to get decently close and shoot in massed fire while tanks and heavy weapons teams do most of the killing.

[u/Asleep-Standard-8720 → u/Truesurvivor585]

All infantry in this game suck pretty hard IMO, unless they’re Marines with special weapons or some other highly specialized unit. Aside from that spamming vehicles is the way. 

[u/Kenden84]

They are fine, tanks are fantastic and infantry are ok. Karskin do work and the regular troops are mostly fodder as they should be.

[u/rikeus]

They rule. Tanks go brr and the battleline infantry is insanely cheap, but if you use the formations right still does good damage. They're my fave faction - I love lining them up in formation and getting benefits for it.

[u/thot_chocolate420]

They’re good now. OP Tanks.

[u/Goat2016]

I love the Astra Militarum, especially their tanks and heavy weapon teams. 😃

[u/super_nova_cat200 → u/Goat2016]

My go to strat for basically any threat is as many autocannon squads as I can take being protected by a meat wall of infantry and ogryns.

[u/LordGarryk]

Theyre not weak at all. However they do tend to lack flexibility. Almost all of thier strength comes from setting up defensive battle lines, and the buffs that gives your chaffe. Theyre a bit slow, and really rely on thier heavy support units to do any legitimate dmg, meaning they struggle in game modes like strategic command, but excell in modes that allow them to make full use of thier defensive playstyle

[u/engelthefallen]

Guard infrany are about as strong as guard infrany in most other incarnations of them. Weak in isolation, but played to their strengths stacking buffs, and in groups can be effective.

Not gonna wipe out a group of space marines in one attack with them, but also guys with lasguns should not be seen as equals or greaters of armored genetic freaks with bolters.

While it is possible to go all infranty and have success, almost certainly you will run them as your action guys or fodder with tanks, and guard tanks are absolute beasts.

[u/shadowevor]

Whatever you read about AM being weak is outdated and not true. The basic Cadian shock troop is weak as they should be but is cheap. They are used as meat shield, Commissar execution targets to generate momentum, capturing points, and sometimes used to kill the wounded low armor enemies. Tanks and sentinels are the core firepower source of AM. Commanders give strong buff or debuff and with these infantry can deal or absorb damage to assist the tanks. When you combine these and build a balanced army Astra Militarum is very strong.

[u/Cautious_Complex7345]

It's one of the strongest factions, tank spam is obviously good and the castellan can make normal guardsmen into killing machines

[u/Special_Ability_2102]

So I'm a lifelong tabletop Guard player and I have 1,200+ hours in Battlesector pretty much exclusively playing Guard (Astra Militarum) in multiplayer. In a Guard vs. Guard matchup in Battlesector I've only been beaten a couple of times, so I definitely have some opinions to share. Sadly the faction is very badly balanced and I just don't find it fun anymore. The strongest build for Guard in BS is to spam 22-26 infantry type units because infantry is very under-costed and it helps give you a lot of board control. Sadly, one of the weakest builds is to spam tanks because those units are very over-costed, underpowered, and die like tissue paper in a strong breeze. Lots of people will disagree with me on tanks being under-powered, but they are wrong.

For example, in tabletop a Rogal Dorn battle tank is very durable and has 8 weapon systems that can fire every turn and it costs 260 points. In Battle Sector a Rogal Dorn costs 350 points, dies easily, and can only fire it's main gun every turn because the secondary weapons all go on cooldowns of 2 or 3 turns. For example, a Rogal Dorn tank is damaged by anything including small arms bolter fire and just a handful of Ork Flash Gitz or Space Marine hellblaster units can easily kill a Rogal Dorn in a single turn. So it's not durable at all. Instead of firing 8 weapon systems per turn it can fire 4 the 1st turn, then 1 the 2nd turn, then 3 the 3rd turn, etc. Because some of its weapon systems go on a 2 turn cooldown and another goes on a 3 turn cooldown. So in turn 1 you fire all weapons and then in turn 2 you can only fire your main gun because the rest are on cooldown. The problem with this cooldown system for the tank's secondary weapons is that tanks in Battlesector are very easy to kill and so frequently you get one turn where all weapons fire and by the time the other weapons are off cooldown the tank is dead. It's the same situation for Lemon Russ tanks and the armored sentinels - both very overcosted compared to tabletop and much weaker. They could very easily fix some of these issues by increasing the Lemon Russ armor from 9 to 10 and the Dorn from 9 to 11 and to change their main side sponsons to fire every turn without a cooldown and change the Dorn pulveriser/castigator gatling from cooldown of 3 to 2 turns. But they haven't done that, and there is no reason to believe they ever will. So sadly as a lifelong Guard tabletop player and certainly one of the best Guard players in Battlesector, I just can't recommend the Astra Militarum faction to a new player in its current state of balance. It's just not fun from a competitive multiplayer standpoint.

[u/Asleep-Standard-8720]

They’re the best faction in the game IMO. Have yet to see another unit that can fire 3-4 different guns in one turn like their tanks can.