Captain

Captain is the Class of the commander of your Templar Battleforce.

Overview
The Captain can specialize into a variety of different play-styles to compensate for, or augment, nearly any squad composition thinkable. Captain builds are typically first distinguished by whether they specialize in their Sidearm, a Blade and Shield, or a balanced combination of the two. Captains have rather high base attributes such as HP and Toughness that allow them better survival than perhaps any other class.

They represent the player on the battlefield as no additional captains may be recruited and their death is the only one that will always result in a mission failure; everyone else can be replaced.

Starting Attributes
Captains begin with the following attributes, skills, and class features:

Class Features

 * Base HP: 110 + 1 per level
 * HP Modifier: + 7 HP per Fortitude
 * Toughness Modifier: 150% of Fortitude
 * Resistance Modifier: 250% of Willpower
 * SP Cost: 0 (Leads every deployment)

Attributes

 * Fortitude: 4
 * Willpower: 2
 * Focus: 2
 * Strength: 4
 * Quickness: 3

Skills

 * Gunnery: 3
 * Warrior: 4
 * Tactics: 3
 * Evasion: 3
 * Grenades: 3

Starting Talents
The Captain starts with a single rank in Slash, Precision Fire, Commander's Confidence, and Frag Grenade.

Usable Gear
The Captain uses Blades, Shields or Sidearms, Tact-Systems (War Gear also used by Paladins) and Pilot Suits (War Gear also used by Scouts). The Captain wears Command and Heavy armor.

Slash
Basic single-target melee attack. Gains considerable bonus accuracy, damage, and even penetration at high ranks. Also used in counter-attacks. Has higher bonuses than Warrior's Wrath, but it only affects a single talent. Even for a pure melee fighter focusing on Slash and Bladeweave, Warrior's Wrath is often the better investment.


 * Weapon: Blade
 * Range: 1 (melee)
 * Cost: 2 AP, +3 Heat

Precision Fire
Single-target Sidearm attack and as such it cannot be used with a Shield. Has a low heat cost, and gains considerable accuracy and damage bonuses at high ranks.


 * Weapon: Sidearm
 * Range: up to weapon's range (3 or 4 in practice)
 * Cost: 2 AP, +3 Heat

Commander's Confidence
Buffs a group of allied templars with additional accuracy (melee and ranged) as well as dodge (ranged defense) in a 3x3 tile square centered on a templar. The bonuses are fairly modest, but this talent can save skill points for the entire squad, indirectly increasing damage by allowing skill points in Gunnery and Warrior to be reallocated to Tactics for more criticals. It is most useful at low levels where templars (especially Engineers) often struggle to hit.


 * Range: 6
 * Max targets:, limited by the Captain's Tactics skill
 * Buff: 4 turns
 * Cost: 1 AP, +6 Heat
 * Restriction:
 * Ordnance: Leader's Resupply

Frag Grenade
Deadly AoE attack for 1 AP to a 3x3 tile area. Grenades can be thrown to empty tiles and even some walls. Uses the grenade skill for accuracy, but it rarely misses even without any investment. Has limited uses. At rank 1, it may be used 3 times per mission. Higher ranks add a considerable amount of penetration as well as additional uses per mission.


 * Weapon: Grenade
 * Max targets:, independent of Tactics and other skills or attributes
 * Range: varies (see table below)
 * Cost: 1 AP, +6 Heat
 * Restriction:
 * Ordnance: Ranking Grenadier's Resupply

Pressing Need
Single-target buff of self or ally to give additional MP and some Dodge.


 * Max targets: 1
 * Range: 0-1 (self or ally)
 * Buff: 4 turns
 * Cost: 1 AP, +6 Heat
 * Restriction:
 * Ordnance: Leader's Resupply

Warrior's Wrath
Self-only buff that increases MP by a single point, and grants bonus accuracy and damage for Sidearm, Blade and grenade attacks. Higher ranks also increase critical hit chance by a moderate amount.


 * Max targets: 1
 * Range: 0 (self)
 * Buff: 4 turns
 * Cost: 2 AP, +6 Heat
 * Restriction:
 * Ordnance: Leader's Resupply

Denounce
Single-target crippling melee attack that causes a foe that takes damage from this skill to be easier to critically hit, and have lowered parry and armor for 3 turns. Requires triple the heat to use compared to Slash and has slightly lower accuracy and significantly lower damage. The debuff resulting from Denounce opens the target up to attacks from other templars as well as followups from the Captain. This makes a Denounce followed by a slash a particularly deadly combination for a moderate amount of heat, assuming the talents both have reasonably high ranks.


 * Weapon: Blade
 * Max targets: 1
 * Range: 1 (melee)
 * Hinder: 3 turns on hit
 * Cost 2 AP, +9 Heat

Honing
Single-target ranged attack that applies a self buff if it hits and deals damage. The buff grants significant damage as well as critical hit chance for the following three turns. The attack itself is weaker and less accurate than Precision Fire while requiring quadruple the heat expenditure. Unlike Denounce, this skill will not aid other templars against a foe directly, but will allow the Captain to use his/her other talents against enemies not hit with Honing and still benefit.


 * Weapon: Sidearm
 * Range: up to weapon's range
 * Buff: 3 turns on hit
 * Cost: 2 AP, +12 Heat

Bladeweave
A cross-shaped melee AoE attack affecting up to 5 tiles. Costs triple the heat when compared to Slash but hitting multiple targets is typically worth the cost. Has a greater damage and penetration bonus than Slash with slightly less accuracy.


 * Weapon: Blade
 * Max targets:
 * Range: 1 (melee)
 * Cost: 2 AP, +9 Heat

Arc Fire
A small fan shaped ranged AoE attack with a bonus critical hit chance affecting up to 3 tiles. Costs 6 Heat and can hit up to three targets, rewarding excellent positioning quite seriously. Less damaging than Precision Fire.


 * Weapon: Sidearm
 * Max targets:
 * Range: up to weapon's range
 * Cost: 2 AP, +6 Heat

Discerning Eye
A group debuff ability that lowers foes' deflection and parry (melee defense). The range on this skill is quite high and combined with a 1 AP cost and unlimited number of uses makes this an excellent skill to use frequently if you can spare the 9 heat.


 * Max targets: up to rank 5, then, limited by Captain's Tactics skill
 * Range: 6
 * Hinder: 3 turns
 * Cost: 1 AP, +9 Heat

Fire Commander
A group debuff ability that lowers foes' dodge (ranged defense) and makes the Captain and his allies more likely to land critical hits on them. The range on this skill is quite high and combined with a 1 AP cost and unlimited number of uses makes this an excellent skill to use frequently if you can spare the 9 heat.


 * Max targets: up to rank 5, then, limited by the Captain's Tactics skill
 * Range: 6
 * Hinder: 3 turns
 * Cost: 1 AP, +9 Heat

Dasher
Like a Runner Scout, the Dasher Captain is built to get to objectives quickly without support from the rest of the squad except for some initial buffs. For survivability, Fortitude should be maximized. If the mission is longer than 3 turns, raise Willpower to 5 or 6, and the rest of the attribute points may go into Focus for the Auto-Block bonus or into Quickness or Strength depending on the weapon equipped. The rest of the Skill points should probably go into Warrior or Gunnery.

As for talents, Pressing Need 1, 4 or 8 (+1/+2,+3 MP) is a must, and so is Warrior's Wrath 1 (+1 MP). Should the Captain run into a crowd Bladeweave or Arc Fire can help. Better yet, dump all remaining talent points into Frag Grenade.

For a low-level Captain, use the Ballast Pilot Kit (+32HP) which is worth about 4.5 points in Fortitude. For a high-level Captain with lots of HP on a short mission, the Blitz Kit (+2MP, -10 Heat) is a better option.

Just before separating from them, the Dasher typically gets buffed by other squad members (Rallying Charge, Warding Fire and Power Field to name some of the most common ones). The Dasher then moves away, turning on Pressing Need and Warrior's Wrath after having exhausted the MPs.