Quick Links
- Princeps Overview
- Balanced Tank Build
- Frontline Tank Build
The Princeps is just one of the four classes you can play in Expeditions: Rome. It's the tankiest class and what you think of when you hear the words "Roman soldier." They use shields along with swords or spears, and they're the quintessential front-liners.
Two of the main characters you'll recruit in the game are Princeps, and it's not a bad choice for a starting class for your main character, either. That said, with three sub-classes and lots of skills, it can be a bit daunting when considering how to build a Princeps.
Princeps Overview
The Princeps has three subclasses aiming to fulfill different purposes in battle.
- Defender: These skills revolve around being a defensive wall regardless of your positioning, with some being designed for the protection of your allies.
- Vanguard: These skills are focused on getting you to the middle of a fight and making you a better frontline soldier. It's a varied tree with skills that improve your survivability and give you tools to adapt to any dangerous situation.
- Veteran: This is the most offensive of the Princeps subclasses. It has multiple skills to improve damage output, including passive abilities that improve and sustain your mobility.
As you can see, a Princeps's place is in the thick of a battle. They are your front liners, designed to dish out and soak up damage in equal measure.
Balanced Tank Build
This build is great for balancing offense with defense. A Princeps is always going to be bulkier than a Veles, but they can still pack a punch when they need to. This build sacrifices some of the pure tankiness of the Defender subclass for more flexibility provided by the Vanguard subclass.
While it doesn't have any standout strategies, a Princeps with these skills will be highly adaptable to many situations. Bull Rush is a particular highlight as one of the Vanguard capstones – it lets the Princeps rush towards an enemy, giving them some more maneuverability.
| Skill | Ranks | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Defender Skills | ||
| Brace | 2/2 | Regains stacks of Strong, useful for anyone who takes a lot of hits. |
| Bastion | 1/1 | Synergizes perfectly with Flawless Defence. |
| Fortress | 1/1 | Improves Brace and thus your action economy. |
| Shake it Off | 3/3 | You really don't want your frontline units to be suffering debilitating status effects – this skill will remove the need for Triarius units to spend their turns healing you. |
| Shield Wall | 1/1 | Fantastic skill for blocking up a bottleneck or withstanding a surprise horde of foes. |
| Vanguard Skills | ||
| Frighten | 1/1 | Great for affecting morale when the party has lots of tools to help out – less useful in the early stages of the game. |
| The Best Defence | 3/3 | Shield attacks aren't bad, and this makes them even better. |
| Flawless Defence | 2/2 | Being able to reduce many attacks to glancing blows is fantastic for a frontline unit. |
| Taunt | 1/1 | Mostly used in a pinch when weaker units are being threatened. |
| Bull Rush | 1/1 | Knockdown is terrific and it makes for a decent gap closer and movement extender in a pinch. |
| Avenger | 1/1 | A useful skill to have when things start to go wrong in a battle. Helpful for turning the tide of a tough battle. |
| Veteran Skills | ||
| Nimble | 2/2 | Reduces the movement penalty of heavy armor. |
Frontline Tank Build
As opposed to the previous build that values both offense and defense, this build is all about soaking up hits and protecting allies. This isn't a bad build to give to Caeso thanks to him always sticking around – it's always handy to have a tank in your party, especially for those battles with an abundance of opponents.
The general strategy for a Princeps tank is to get to the head of the party as quickly as possible and stay there. They want to be the main target of the enemy – this will likely require liberal use of Protect and Taunt, along with support from a Triarius with the Logistics ability.
| Skill | Ranks | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Defender Skills | ||
| Brace | 2/2 | This build is designed to take lots of hits, so being able to regain Strong at will is vital. |
| Bastion | 1/1 | You want as much Resistance as possible to reduce attacks to glancing blows. Works really well with Flawless Defence, too. |
| Fortress | 1/1 | Making your Brace ability stronger means you'll have more time to use your other skills in future turns. |
| Repair | 1/1 | Defence is important for a tank – being able to remove debilitating statuses without relying on luck is fantastic. |
| Protect | 1/1 | This allows you to bring squishier units to the front lines without much fear of death. |
| Shake it Off | 1/3 | Only take one rank of this to spare skill points for other trees, but one rank is enough to get some benefit over a playthrough. Tanks should have Triarius support, anyway. |
| Guardian Angel | 1/1 | Making Protect better is great. |
| Shield Wall | 1/1 | This is great for any Princeps for soaking up damage and taking control of bottlenecks. |
| Vanguard Skills | ||
| Hardened | 2/2 | More health is vital for a front line tank designed to take as many hits as possible. |
| Flawless Defence | 2/2 | Best used at the front line once you're in position. |
| Taunt | 1/1 | Use this on particularly dangerous enemies to keep them away from your squishy allies. |
| Adrenaline Junkie | 1/1 | With your increased health pool, this should activate sooner than for other characters and provide a greater benefit for longer. |
| Veteran Skills | ||
| Nimble | 2/2 | More movement is always appreciated for characters who value being in front. |
| Opportunist | 2/2 | Being in the thick of it means you're likely to have lots of attacks of opportunity, so you might as well make them more effective. |
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