Name: Tacticus in 2026? 9 things you need to know (and a list of codes!)
Uploaded: 2026-03-23T11:42:02.000Z
Duration: 9 min 33 s
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Adverbs of degree

With 2026 upon us and as my 3-year content-making anniversary has just passed, I thought I would do a piece that was both reflective and instructive, aimed at players who are looking to pick up the game for the first time.

You've seen the title of the video by now;

here are the things that I think a new player picking up Tacticus for the first time in 2026 should know.

At its core, Tacticus is a hero-collector game where players can collect, level up,

and play with their favourite characters from the Warhammer 40K universe.

Gameplay itself centres around hex-based combat, where each unit has unique stats, traits, and

abilities to help decide the outcome of the battle.

There is a mixture of PvE and PvP content, as you would expect,

but the game leans more towards PvE gameplay.

On one end, you could find yourself with a small squad of characters fighting in the campaign's storyline or against waves of enemies.

At the other end, you bring your characters against a powerful Primark-level raid boss, where you're just trying to do as much damage as possible to bring the boss down with the help of your allies.

The first and probably the most important thing for a new player to know is that Tacticus is a grindy game.

That was true when I started playing and remains true 3 years later.

We've already talked about the hero-collector framework for the game.

Within that game model, there are new characters that are regularly being added to the game that require resources to level up.

Probably because it's the most important.

I've had lots of friends pick up the game on my recommendation and then drop it after a month or so, simply because progression can be slow.

and the game, I think, becomes more fun and enjoyable once you can get past that initial roster-building phase.

If you have the patience for it, you will enjoy the game.

Results do take time, but a little time investment each day goes a long way.

Probably the most commonly asked question I get on my videos and in my direct messages is, "Who should I upgrade?" I mean, Tacticus is a character collector, so it makes a lot of sense.

The answer is different for different people,

but since this is a video aimed specifically at newer players, here is what I would suggest.

Focus on your campaign characters initially.

I've done a video talking about the importance of campaigns and why those characters should be your initial focus.

Within those campaign characters, some are more important than others.

Speaking about campaigns, you don't have to complete the campaigns in any particular order.

For example, if your ultramarine characters aren't particularly strong, it's completely fine to prioritise other campaigns like the mirror campaigns and then circle back to the initial ones later.

Continuing along the theme of campaigns and upgrades, there will come a point in time where you get stuck.

You're not able to progress your characters any further because the upgrade you are looking for is hidden behind a bit of campaign that you either don't have access to or aren't strong enough to defeat.

Realistically, one of three things as a free-to-play player.

One, you get lucky and one of the upgrades drops at random through a chest that you open.

It's not particularly likely, but it is possible.

Option two is the upgrade that you're looking for appears in the daily shop.

You can refresh the shop several times a day, but again, the upgrades on offer are random.

Perhaps the best option, though, is to join a guild and request the upgrade.

You do rely on the benevolence of your guildmates,

but it underlines the importance of finding a good guild.

Probably the next most commonly asked question when somebody picks up a new mobile game is, "How expensive is it?" Is progression locked behind expensive resources or character packs?

Well, as you would expect, those offers exist,

but Tacticus is a game where a little spend goes a long way.

The best value pack by a significant margin is the daily Blackstone shipment.

cheaper for the first purchase and gives you a small amount of Blackstone every day for a month.

Blackstone is the universal currency in this game and can be spent on almost anything you want.

but I think it gives comparatively less value and your return on investment isn't as good.

In fact, the best thing you can spend on this game to progress is time.

Playing a little bit each day, completing the daily missions, and spending your tokens will progress you nicely.

Having said that, when I was making this video, I canvassed a bunch of new players, and

the one offer they almost universally told me they wished they knew about was the Isabella offer.

As soon as you start the game, you are offered a character pack that has Commissar Yarik.

but if you don't buy that pack during the timer, then you are offered Isabella at the same price point,

and she is much, much more valuable as a character.

Could there be better catch-up mechanics for new players?

But I think in general, the game is reasonably free-to-play friendly, especially if you invest wisely.

Another really common question from new players is, "How should I spend my Blackstone?" The temptation with a game like this is that you want to have new characters to play with,

and with over 100 characters in Tacticus at the moment, that is an understandable sentiment.

This leads a lot of new players to open requisitions since those are the easy gateway to new characters.

The trouble is, once you have a bunch of new characters, you can't progress any of them because you don't have the energy to farm upgrades.

but personally, I think that you should be spending your Blackstone on energy.

If you are completely free-to-play, you should be able to sustain your Blackstone stocks on the 25 and 50 Blackstone energy refreshes daily.

That means you're effectively spending 37.5 Blackstone a day, which you should get just by playing the game.

Another common question, or rather feeling that new players have, is around various game modes.

Tacticus has grown and developed a lot over the last 3 years,

and accordingly, the game is more complex and can feel overwhelming at times.

On this slide here, I have listed all of the available game modes.

I've split them into two camps: the so-called evergreen game modes, which is stuff that you'll be able to play every day or nearly every day,

These are the game modes that come around on certain days every 5-week cycle.

The 5-week cycle is known within Snowprint as the live ops cycle and essentially repeats the same pattern every 5 weeks.

So you will kind of know what to expect and when things will happen.

For some of the events, things like the legendary release events and survival events, you won't expect to get very far as a new player.

I'm forewarning you because not everything in this game is going to be accessible and playable if you picked up the game last week.

There is some endgame stuff, so don't get frustrated if you load into one of these events and aren't able to make too much progress.

I'm talking about Arena and enemy AI together in the next section because, as a new player, that's where you're going to be spending a lot of your time.

In Arena, you'll play against players in your league,

and their units are controlled by the game's internal AI.

Without sounding cliché, the AI in this game isn't very clever.

In fact, as you play, you'll learn that movement and behaviour is actually quite predictable.

For the new player, you need to know two things.

So for a mode like Arena, the best thing you can do is just pass your first turn and let them get into a nice spot for you to alpha strike and finish them off.

Secondly, the enemy AI loves to target your summons.

That's useful because if you bring summons or summoners along, you can keep your key characters alive for longer.

It's a great tip for Arena, but also for completing campaigns.

In the interest of keeping this short, given the modern-day attention span, this is the second-last topic I'll cover.

Equipment is something that you'll be able to get and give your characters.

They generally either impact crit chance, block chance, or give your characters more health or armour.

Players see these green dots and think they have to upgrade equipment to get rid of the dots.