This is not the first Tacticus Diary and it will not be the last, you can find the others here.

Last Week’s Hangovers

• No hangovers, a quieter week ahead, just working on ranks for characters. But once we’re into the next Battle Pass season the grind for characters will begin again!

Saturday 27th December 2025

• Ranked-up Ulf and the Winged Prime to Silver 1 today, which was the goal for both of those. Ulf could potentially have some more use at a higher rank with his Unstoppable trait and Piercing damage but others have been prioritised over him.

Sunday 28th December 2025

• The Philosophies of War event started today for Farsight. Not a character I’m particularly fussed about unlocking myself (but won’t say no if I can do at some point) but always interesting to see how far my characters can get in these with the Lucius event not to far away!

Monday 29th December 2025

• Ranked up Incisus to Gold 1, that’s another goal completed! Healers always feel like particularly crucial goals to hit as they’ll play a massive part in letting my teams reach as far into the different tracks as I need them to.

Tuesday 30th December 2025

• Another goal hit, this time Archimatos to Gold 1, I also took the opportunity to boost him to Legendary as had plenty of shards and orbs and may as well make the most of his summoning ability in the Lucius event, particularly with that Black Legion track.

Wednesday 31st December 2025

• Enjoyed ‘Da Red Gobbo’s Quest’ with a chance to get a few upgrade items that are common across a few factions and some Ork shards. I’ve really enjoyed the Red Gobbo as a character actually. Will be sad to see him gone!
• Ranked Marshal Dreir up to Silver 3, the goal for him is Gold 1 too, so nearly there

Thursday 1st January 2026

• Happy New Year! Not a huge amount happened but Maugan Ra advanced to Silver 2 on his journey to Gold 1!

Friday 2nd January 2026

• Marneus Calgar got to Bronze 2. I decided to try and get him to Silver 1 for the Lucius event and then he can replace Certus or Brother Burchard in the Bolter team. It’s not a massive change, but Calgar is going to be at a Blue Star soon so seems daft not to rank him up a bit to make the most of that!
• Actus reached Silver 1, that’s another goal hit. He’s another that ideally would be a bit higher but for the Lucius event he’s only in the flyer track for me and there’s nobody in there that needs him as a mechanic so he’s just making up the numbers as I don’t have any of Dante, Celestine or Ahriman, all of whom would fit better here. Will be handy for when I want to do some work on the Ad Mech afterwards though!

Highs

• Nearly time for the new Battle Pass and Laviscus – very excited to unlock him, although, because he doesn’t really fit into any of my teams for the Lucius Plan, he’s going to have to wait a little longer than the other Emperor’s Children characters did before I can rank him up… I feel like that restraint may go out of the window when I have him so don’t be surprised to find out a few characters were stopped at Silver 2 or 3 rather than making it to Gold as a compromise!

Lows

• I really should have called this section – “Disappointing 10 Drops” as I could comfortably tick this off each time. In theory the 10-drop is better with the certainty of a character in the last drop-pod but I can’t remember the last time I got a good 10-drop – this one was particularly dull/unlucky!

Learning

• The Farsight Legendary Event (Philosophies of War) has been useful preparation for the Lucius Plan and getting a better sense how some of my lesser used characters might perform in that next event and just generally trying to get a sense for when is the right time to rush the spawn points and when is the right time to castle up. I’m less fussed about wasted tokens for Farsight, a character I have a lot less interest in than I would be for Lucius so some experimentation has happened but I’m on course for about 300 shards from the first round which doesn’t feel like bad going when my teams are more optimised for the Perfection Personified event rather than this one!

Upgrade Item of the Week

This week’s Upgrade Item is a: Codex Astartes

With doing some work on Calgar this week, the Codex Astartes feels the most relevant seeing as it’s his genefather that wrote it (and looks like I’ll be using lots of pages from this to upgrade him!)

I’m currently using the Tacticus Planner and the Tacticus Codex to help with my event planning and my Raiding plan – you can see a bit more about them in my Getting Started with Tacticus post.