These effects scale with how high your reputation is, so at a low but positive reputation you’ll get a small bonus to certain stats, or a production bonuses, and the higher your reputation gets, the higher these bonuses will be. The character customization is, as usual, quite robustīecause the Oathbound think of themselves as the good guys reputation is very important to them, and playing in a way that increases your reputation is encouraged by some of the factions doctrines and abilities that heroes can get.

These defensive abilities might at first glance look a bit like “Swarm shield” that all Kir’Ko units have, but swarm shield is a passive buff that strengthens all Kir’Ko units that stay close to other Kir’Ko units, where as the defensive abilities of the Oathbound needs to be actively used, and when an Oathbound unit uses its defensive ability it prevents it from taking an offensive action that turn. Their tier 2 melee unit for an example has an ability called “protector shields” which protects all nearby friendly units from ranged attacks and makes them unflankable. To help them get close to the enemy, their combat units tend to have some form of bonus when they enter defensive mode that also buffs nearby friendly units. Instead, the Oathbound is a faction that wants to get up close and persona, with even their ranged units have somewhat limited range.

Most of their units are somewhat bulky and defensive-minded melee units, and they don’t have access to any form of artillery or snipers. Where the support units are weird and unlike anything else in the game, the fighting units of the Oathbound are surprisingly conventional. A crafty opponent can make the Oathbound player waste their abilities by using weaker units first, or using weak area of effect attacks to remove any defensive buffs, and the support unit is using up its turn to help another unit. This is powerful, but not as overpowered as it might look at first glance. Other support units have similar buffs and debuffs that has an effect on the next action, like an enemy unit can’t avoid your next attack, or your next attack will be a critical hit. For an example, their tier 1 support unit, the Scryer, can apply a buff called “precognition” which makes it so that the next attack that targets a unit misses automatically. The Oathbound can effectively remove the games random elements, at last temporarily, through their support units. How do you create a faction that can literally see into the future? The answer they came up with was to give them a lot of buffs and debuffs that made sure that the next action ends up being favourable to the Oathbound. Triumph Studios did not exactly give themselves an easy task when they designed the Oathbound. The campaign has a good amount of story segments, and even seemingly trivial choices, like this one, can have a noticeable impact Gameplay This create a rather striking look for the army on the battlefield. The fighting units are increasingly massive mech suits that primarily use a white and bright gold colour scheme, while their support units remain roughly human sized, and use a lot of black/grey, dark blue and dull gold in their colour scheme. Their units fall into two categories, fighting and support units, and both look distinct from each other. In terms of looks, the new faction is one of the most consistent in the game yet. The Oathbound don’t go into battle blind, their seers have already foreseen some of what’s to come. And to do this they’ve developed ways of predicting and shaping the future. For them entropy itself is something that needs to be fought or at the very least controlled. But in order to create their galactic empire they need something known as the Grail Configuration, which is found deep within Star Union space.ĭisorder and chaos is something antithetical to the Oathbound. They view themselves as the people who should rule the galaxy in order to create a new era of order and prosperity. The Oathbound are a group who view themselves as the good guys, the protectors of the galaxy and the innocent people living in it. Huge mech suits supported by normal humans make up the armies of the Oathbound Story and Presentation

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