Cadia's Finest, with Comissar Hakoda of the 73-7
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

[TRANSMISSION INBOUND]

[INSTRUCTOR: COMMISSAR HAKODA OF THE 73-7]

[SUBJECT: NEW RECRUITMENT TRAINING]

So, you want to prove that you've earned the title of Veteran and not just by surviving the war? Lucky you soldier, near everyone here has something to prove. If you're looking to keep both you and your strike team alive, then you listen well. Understood? [PAUSE FOR CONFIRMATION] I'd say good, but then that'd imply you'll be alive to prove me wrong. First thing's first: You must familiarize yourself with your weaponry, as much as you should get a feel for every single weapon at your disposal, I've personally selected these two fine pieces of war as your starting gear. Starting with one of my favorite souvenirs from a planet whos people fight as hard and strong as the fine men and women of Cadia.

[MELEE WEAPON BREAKDOWN SEGMENT]

Hailing from Catachan, the Mk IV "Devil's Claw" Sword is a practically indestructible piece or war. Forged with a hollow frame filled with liquid mercury, the sword feels light while packing a punch harder than you'd believe. Your combo with this weapon is as follows: For your Light Chain, the weapon will start with a Sweep, followed by a Strike into a Double Cross Strike in the shape of X. If you're looking to add some extra heft to your strike, the Heavy Chain begins with an Strike followed by a Sweep. When facing a tide of heretics, your plan is to start with a Light Sweep followed by a Heavy Sweep, and seeing as the follow up attack most practical would be the Sweep that initiated the Light Chain, you can repeat that combo until the horde is nothing more than a pile of corpses and a deep puddle of blood. If you're looking to add more heft to your strikes, begin with the initial Heavy Strike followed into with the Light Strike, and much like the horde combo you can repeat this until your target is no longer breathing. I find the Heavy Strike is extremely efficient when it comes to decapitating the heads of Specials and Elites, most notable enemies would be: Sigma-Minoris-33 (Pox Hounds), Traxis-66 Traitor/Deltacron-8 Tox Flamers, Traxis-4 Traitor/Dreg Shotgunner, and (whenever they inevitably get in range) Traxis-1 Sniper. Something to keep note, should the Emperor bless your strength, your weapon should feel effortless in blocking enemy attacks with its unique move specially designed for use with this blade: The Parry. When you Parry with this weapon, you will automatically strike back in a cone in front of you after blocking an enemy(ies) strike. Practice long enough, and you can Parry immediately after striking back. Practice makes perfect, even then perfect may not save you in the heat of battle, remember that, soldier.

[RANGED WEAPON BREAKDOWN SEGMENT]

The Vraks Mk IV Infantry Autogun is a sub-compact machine gun with a terrifying fire rate, manageable recoil, suppressive power enough to keep the heads of entire fire lines down, is just as reliable and sturdy as your melee weapon. With an ammo pool consisting of a Max Capacity of 580 Rounds and a Magazine of 58, that totals 10 Spare Magazines. Being the compact version of all the Infantry Autoguns, I favor a higher mobility frame for it. Being lighter offers you faster running due to less weight and even more importantly, Dodging will be a lot more effective. The goal of using your Autogun is to either Suppress the enemy to make advancing the enemy position easier for your Strike Team, eliminating critical targets, or to spray as many bullets into the enemy as possible. Overall, should you manage to master this weapon, you'll be a gunman that strikes fear just by the sound of the first round fired.

[ABILITY BREAKDOWN SEGMENT]

So, you've made it past weapons training, have you? Good. You did above average. Now, onto what makes a soldier stand out and turn into a leader. Starting with some further teamwork training, you'll be familiar with your Close Order Drill as it will embolden you and every member of your Strike team. For every member within Coherency, you'll feel stronger just by staying within each other's presence. Your Toughness will receive upwards to 33% Damage Reduction, that's 11% per Strike Team member. After your teamwork exercises, we'll give you some more combat training to help you acknowledge your Confirmed Kill of every Specialist/Elite you're bound to encounter. When you eliminate a heretic that stands out above the fodder, you can expect a growing sense of pride within you, just make sure to keep it in check. You'll generate 10% of your Toughness flat with an extra 20% over the course of 10 seconds, that's 30% total for those of you who can't count. What makes this so important is that this effect can stack, meaning you can generate your Toughness extremely quick over an extended time period. 

After the extra training, you'll be given your choice of Grenades, for this training regiment you'll be issued an enhanced version of the Standard Fragmentation Grenade. This version of the Frag Grenade is known as the Shredder Fragmentation Grenade, these grenades are packed with extra gunpowder and wrapped with more casing to send out shrapnel that will either sink into the heretic or, as the name implies, shred their skin. Your targets will Bleed and eventually die with time. The benefit of these grenades lie in the Crowd Control that they offer, knocking even the most armored Crushers down on the ground to knocking back and pushing even the most stubborn Praxis-9-Alpha, that's the Chaos Spawn for those of you who didn't pay attention to target identifications. Of course, some of you may have ideas on how to improve your grenade efficiency, luckily for you we take in all the Grenade Tinkerers we can. We have standard blueprints to help make your Shredder Fragmentation Grenade more deadly by Increasing both Blast Radius and Damage by 25%. Getting the upper hand on the heretic can mean a myriad of things, for a soldier like you and me it means going in with a Grenadier mentality and a Demolition Stockpile. I'll never argue about bringing even One Extra (+1) Grenade and having the ability to scrounge around, you'd be lucky to find One Grenade every 60 seconds. Of course, scrounging around and looking for a grenade is fine, however should you take the following Demolition Squad training, you'll be authorized to use grenades found on the corpses of traitors.

The type of aura you emit while on the field will help your team immensely. My personal favorite? Close and Kill, offering a 5% Speed Boost can give you an edge that you only wish you had when things hit the fan. Having a Survivalist mentality works just as well, picking the pockets of fallen enemies for even 1% of your ammo reserves can come in handy in a pinch. For this exercise, you'll be using Fire Team to give an increased 5% Damage to you and members within proper Coherency. 

Most of you were taught that we're all expendable. That isn't going to change, however you can improve your chances of survival. Field Improvisation offers massive improvements to both Medical Crates and Ammo Crates by allowing Medical Crates to Heal at Double the Effectiveness, basically dropping the equivalent of 2, and enabling the Medicae within to Cleanse Corruption with the added benefit of Restoring 1% Toughness per Second. As for the Ammo Crates, it will FULLY restock Grenades for ANY Strike Team member using grenades. Pair that with the mindset of Leave No One Behind and you'll embolden yourself to rescue your strike team when their in peril. If you're like me, you can't stand when the heretic gets the upper hand on you, that extends to your team. When they get knocked down or when they're in trouble, it should be your goal to rush to their aid. Train your cardio and you'll be Moving faster towards any incapacitated Strike Team member, along with increasing your Assist and Revive speed. That'll come in handy with this next segment.

The Voice of Command. Enough to make any enemy quake in fear, powerful enough to imbue strength into your team, and more than just empty threats or rally cries. When you issue orders to you team, you'll be shining like a beacon of Duty and Honour, emboldening your team to grit through the pain and fight with the strength of a Leman Russ, while teammates who are down in the fight will rise with a burning zeal and angering thirst of vengeance as they're reminded that Only In Death Does Duty End. Further on in your deployments, you may feel as if you were a natural Born Leader, and that your Toughness gains are shared to your Strike Team. Just remember, leaders are made more often than they're born. Of course, you should always remember who you're fighting for, some Strike Team members may need some reminding, with a cry to deafen the heretics and break their resolve show them who you fight for: FOR THE EMPEROR! Hearing a shout as such shall strengthen your fighting spirits. Even with a victory of battle on the horizon, you must stay sharp. Keep an ever vigilant watch, a type of Tactical Awareness and you'll find yourself engaging and eliminating priority targets, most specifically hostile Specialist. In doing so, you'll have a heightened sense of concentration, inspiring more Voice of Command battle cries.

As you progress through the battlefield, you will encounter Ogryn type enemies, you'll have to be quick and coordinate a joined effort to Bring it Down! Not only will you specialize in taking out Ogryn based enemies, but all monstrosities such as the Omega-Minoris-77, Praxis-9-Alpha, and of course your standard Theta-65-Gamma will feel the extra pain you've trained to inflict. On the topic of taking down large targets, you should be constantly pinging enemies and bringing attention to them for your Strike Team, even more so they should have the mindset of bringing down priority targets, so you should all Focus Target! When you mark a target for death, they'll have a target on their face that will enable you to deal extra damage, with an added bonus of Focused Fire, you should be able to bring down priority targets even faster. Once you get the Target Down, you'll feel an inspiring wave of strength and Toughness, as if you've been given a second wind with more Stamina. Even more incentive to take these targets out, once they're in the dirt dead, you'll be able to Redirect Fire and focus the damage onto more targets.

[END TRANSMISSION MESSAGE]

Keep this training in mind while you're on the battlefield Soldier. You may yet live to prove me wrong, or you'll die to prove me right. Either way, fight FOR THE EMPEROR! FOR CADIA!

(Out of character notes)

 (You can parry immediately after the parry blocking animation goes off, the animation doesn't have to play out to get the damage off so go ahead and spam it lmfao and with all the Block Efficiency your Parry will only take 1% Stamina.)

(When it comes to the Infantry Autogun, I prefer high mobility as I use the Mk IV which allows you to run the fastest, so when you're rushing to help someone you run extremely quick with the stacking 20% Movement Speed from Leave No One Behind. You can opt for more Stopping Power if that suits you, works wonders with the Collumnus Mk VIII.)

(For Field Improvisation, it doesn't matter who deploys the Med/Ammo Crates, as long as a Veteran has the talent, it will apply the bonuses.)

(Demolition Squad offers the ability to Regenerate a Grenade at a 5% chance whenever you OR your allies in COHESION kill an Elite or Specialist)

(The Revive Boost from Leave No One Behind applies at 20% and STACKS with any other bonus to Revive Speed, meaning you get max 50% bonus Revive Speed, it also applies to the Revive from Only In Death Does Duty End. You also gain the benefit of being Stun Immune when rushing towards Allies in Need.)

(I get that having a longer cooldown on Voice of Command is unappealing but with the added Cooldown Regeneration you get from your Curios, you'll get it back in no time, especially when Tactical Awareness gives you an extra 100% cooldown regeneration whenever you kill a Specialist for 3 seconds. So take my advice: Just. Use. It. I remember when the talents trees got overhauled, even with the extra cooldown I shouted more than anyone else did. I counted the average, every 10 I issued other veterans would issue 3. Just use it.)

(The golden ping from Focus Target is extremely strong, even when not maxed on stacks. You'd be surprised how much 5% can go, upwards to 30% extra damage, does amazing work on Bosses. On top of that, Target Down can give minimum of 5% Toughness AND Stamina to a maximum 30%, which is a massive bump in defense. Not to mention Redirect Fire offers 2% to 12% bonus all around damage. May not seem like a lot, but hell just like with Close and Kill, 5% goes a long way.)

(Born Leader is a great team buff, making so that 20% of the Toughness you generate will be Shared to Allies in Coherency.)

(Bonus content: All the known enemy classifications so you can be like me and roleplay your veterans while in game! Sigma-Minoris-33 = Pox Hound, Traxis-1 = Sniper, Traxis-3 =  Heavy Gunners and Ogryn Gunner, Traxis-4 = Scab/Dreg Shotgunner, Traxis-7 = Mauler, Traxis-8 = Scab/Dreg Rager, Traxis-66 = Scab Traitor Flamer, Traxis-77 = Scab Trapper, Deltacron-8 = Dreg Tox Flamer, Omega-Minoris-77 = Beast of Nurgle, Praxis-9-Alpha = Chaos Spawn, Theta-65-Gamma = Plague Ogryn, Malis Extremus = Daemon Host)