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Let's Rip Off Something Awful - Dark Omen or No Love For 56K

Jasede

Arcane
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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Edit:
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12 - 1
Chapter 12 - 2
Chapter 12 - 3
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
:arrow: Chapter 18


Fanart:

chariot.jpg



How to run Dark Omen in XP - read the WHOLE thread, it's kinda thrown in between the lines. Sorry.
---


All right, I am going to show you some hot Dark Omen action so unzip those pants and get yourself good and ready. We're going to play (yes, we, you're going to decide which
routes to take and what battles to fight, when the time comes) Warhammer: Dark Omen.

487px-WHDO-Cover.jpg


Let's see what Wikipedia says-
Wikipedia said:
Warhammer: Dark Omen, the sequel to Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat (1995), is a real-time tactical wargame and is considered one of the first real-time tactical (RTT) games.
Rendered entirely in a freely rotatable- and zoomable steep isometric 3D overhead perspective, the game features for its time remarkable 3D graphics of terrain, terrain features and buildings, and advanced support of the first-generation Voodoo 3dfx 3D accelerator card effects. The 3D terrain and features are combined with 2D sprites ("billboarding") to render the hundreds of individual units simultaneously on-screen on the limited hardware of 1998; a technique still employed in games many years later, a good example being the essentially similar game Shogun: Total War (2000). Warhammer: Dark Omen is based on the Warhammer Fantasy Battle miniature tabletop wargame rules and situated in the Old World in the Warhammer Fantasy world (particularly in The Empire's southern regions) and makes good use of the vast background, creating a deeply engrossing storyline that develops over the course of the game through illustrations and voice acted conversations. The enemy AI is poor, relying on scripts rather than adaptive logic, something which is attempted to be compensated by the player's forces being heavily outnumbered throughout the game.

Sounds good enough. Dark Omen is basically Shadow of the Horned Rat, but with more comfort. Sadly it was also a bit dumbed down- there's no more realtime tactical map you can display during the battle and you can't even see the stats of your and the enemy's units. Stats? That's right, combat in Warhammer is decided entirely by dice-rolls, even if we won't be noticing that much.

The gameplay is basically real-time tactics- we have a battle and have to order our troops, ranging from cavalry, infantry, archers, artillery and wizards accordingly, minimising our losses and fulfilling certain objectives.

Let's start the game!

flic1.jpg


flic2.jpg


flic3.jpg

Generic prophecy for the win!

flic4.jpg

Pyramid? Eclipse? And what does it mean? (Oh, is it a dream?)

flic6.jpg

Uh...

flic7.jpg


flic8.jpg


flic9.jpg


flic10.jpg


mainmenu.jpg


Well, damn. Seems like the undead walk again because their, uh what do I know, king or something has risen as foretold by the prophey. Oh well. Our heroes don't know much about this yet-
Wait, you ask, our heroes? Right you are-

Meet the Dramatis personæ!

We are the Grudgebringers, sellswords that offer their blades for whoever can pay them, formed out of four core units. Their cavalry is led by COMMANDER Morgan Bernhardt, a master of collar-grabbing and kicking people into wells.

personae1.jpg


This is an obscenely powerful unit and will be the mainstay of our army, along with the next unit, the Grudgebringer Infantry led by good old Schepke, second in command,
Bernhardt's trusty sidekick. Rumour has it that he likes beer and pretzels.

personae2.jpg


And now some old veterans from Shadow of the Horned Rat, the ex-bandits under Fletcher, a trusty unit of crossbowmen who saved our ass more times than I'd like to admit back in SotHR.

personae3.jpg


...and lastly, the guys that make things go boom.

personae4.jpg


Our rag-tag rough and tumble mercenary unit is named after the powerful sword "Grudgebringer". After all, this wouldn't be a fantasy setting without named swords. Behold!

sworduu6.jpg

That's right, Bernhardt can set people on fire with it.

But where was I? All this exposition made my text-formatting mess up. Oh well- as I was saying, our heroes don't even know of the rising undead yet... in fact...

intro1.jpg


"Unaware of the evil forces gathering south Commander Berhnardt gathers his mercenary army, the Grudgebringers, to defend a small trading post against an attack by goblins."

---

Battle 1 - Defending the Trading Post

Objective: Defend the trading post and repel all goblins that try to get past your defensive line!

deploy.jpg


At the beginning of a mission, we are allowed to deploy our units in the marked area. Unit deployment is imperative to success in some missions. The placement of the artillery is especially crucial since it has to be dug in and can not be moved once the battle starts. We place our forces close to the road since we know that the goblins will come from there to attack the post. They're in for a surprise.

enemysighted.jpg


Oh dear, some archer goblins trying to assail us with their arrows. They're moving to a ledge... if they get there in time we're screwed since our cannon-men and troups would be in plain sight- We order our ranged troops to focus on shooting them.

cannon.jpg


Success! A direct hit with the cannon kills half of the goblin archers and they fail their morale check and run. They are still at half unit size and will most likely regroup, but let's hope not- we got other worries. Like the unit of goblins rapidly advancing down the road!

fireball.jpg


They're in for a warm welcome- the Grudgebringer sword roasts one, then our cavalry charges their ranks- the ensuing battle is a lot more fierce than I predicted, our four men are killed before the goblins flee from us- we won't allow a single one to live!

crushthem.jpg


Die, goblins, die! You will notice that there is an arrow on the top of the screen, pointing to us. This means the goblin archers we maimed with the cannon have regrouped and are advancing into a position to pelt us with arrows!

more.jpg


We won't let them- under the cover of those trees our cavalry, very mobile and deadly, rounds the trees and charges into the back of the goblins, our swords cutting through them as if they were, and I am thinking of KC here and avoiding a cliche, made of chocolate that has been heated in an oven for a few minutes.

flee.jpg


Damn- a few got away. When a regiment manages to flee to the boundaries of the map or a wood that is connected to the edge of the map, they manage to retreat from the battle. Well, guess we are victorious-

evenmoremap.jpg


...guess again! They throw another slew of worthless goblins at us. Here you can see the tactical map. Unlike in SotHR you don't see it permanently and have to hit space to access it, and you can't even give orders on it, which is pretty jarring, but oh well. We retreat the cavalry to set up an ambush for the goblin stickers, the goblin cannonfodder, our artillery making sure no archers set up shop at the cliff just northeast of the deployment zone.

downhill.jpg


As you can see, they try to move towards the trading post to the northwest and run right into our trap- the crossbows weaken the goblin unit. As you may also be able to see, their archers have no chance to attack us since the cannon keeps firing at the ledge just northeast- if they moved there they'd be killed as easily as the first group of goblin archers.

To save cavalry - 4 men died fighting the first wave of goblins - we use our Grudgebringer Infantry to mince the gobbos that survived the waves of the archers. Another beautiful little detail of Dark Omen: Unlike Shadow of the Horned Rat, units don't have an AI toggle anymore. What this means is that cannons, mortars and archers will keep firing at an enemy unit even if they close in for melee with one of your units- this is devastating, so you, as the commander, have to manually stop them from firing each time the enemy closes in.

infantry.jpg


As you can see above, our cannon scored another lucky hit while our infantry fights- this made the goblin archers retreat, their white arrow became yellow. After a glorious battle, the goblins all die... well, except for those fleeing archers that have regrouped.

lastarchers.jpg


Commander Bernhardt doesn't approve of them and runs them all down. Victory! Everything is quiet- well, that's a lie. The ravens start to descend and feast on the fallen and the horses stomp their hooves uneasily. Will we face more goblins? Time passes- and no more goblins come. We saved the trading post, misison complete! Just one little detail-

omarksthespot.jpg


See that circle? If we go there we see...

treasure.jpg


...a treasure chest someone happened to drop in the middle of the trading post! Awesome. We grab it and are off. If you're curious, it contains 150 coins.

win.jpg

Here we say our pay as well as the things we picked up, like the treasure chest with the coins.

losses.jpg

Could have been better!

reinforcements.jpg


All that is left is to hire some able-bodied men that know how to hold a sword and can ride to fill up our Cavalry...

After the battle we have a little chat with an old friend-

story.jpg


:evil: (Morgan Bernhardt) A battleground is a banquet of dead men's flesh. The crows are dining well (IN HELL). Win or lose, the crows never go hungry, eh, Claus?
:x (Klaus) Death, some say, is its own reward, Morgan.
:evil: If death is a reward I will take it in gold coin old friend, preferably from emperor Karl Franz. That man owes me.
:x Perhaps he is about to pay. You have been summonend to the imperial court in Altdorf. Immediate departure. Reason unknown.
:evil: Who told you this?
:x An imperial courier. He rode in during the battle. It would seem the emperor has need of a mercenary commander who deals with death in gold coin.
:evil: Then I will not disappoint and he better not disappoint me. Get ready to march to Altdorf!

To be continued... if it isn't too boring. Improvements and criticism encouraged.
 

Surgey

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Well this looks interesting. I'm assuming it's an RTS? I never heard about it. Looking forward to more!
 

Trash

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Great stuff Jasede! Will take awhile untill you get to optional paths in the game though. I'm still playing through Shadow of the Horned Rat, but I remember this baby as being a whole lot tougher for me. Good luck with the battles!
 

Sovy Kurosei

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Morgan reminds me of King Leonidas from 300.

I'm gonna keep an eye on this thread, Cedric.
 

abstract

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So what was in that treasure chest? The magic items in Warhammer games were pretty cool, I remember the Dread Banner from SotHR - pretty much made the wielder invincible in combat, unless they got really careless or got hit by artillery.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
150 coins. I edited the original post. Keep the criticism coming. I'll try making one update a day while things are still easy in my major. (Note to self: They never are in Mathematics. x.x)
 

dragonfk

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If I recall correctly in the chest were "only" gold .

Too bad I never finished the game. I always get stuck in 6 or 7 mission... :/
 

abstract

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I finished SotHR, but never made it through Dark Omen. I got stuck on the Hand of Nagash battle, uninstalled at some point, then lost the CD. I still got the WFB archer figurine that came with the game, though,
 

pkt-zer0

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Kingston said:
A review without the creepy church defense battle is no Dark Omen review at all.
Familiarizing yourself with the concept of a "Let's Play" thread would be beneficial at this point, I'd say.

Anyhow, it's slightly disappointing that you apparently didn't get FRAPS to work. Otherwise it's all good. More SPARTAAA references might be needed, though.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Hey I was actually using FRAPS. But it's kinda annoying. It only saves in .bmp format so I had to format them all, one by one, to .jpeg with MS Paint. And that church battle is fun as hell, I did it on my first playthrough. (Which isn't complete, actually, so you may have to see me suffer harshly in future missions I haven't played yet)

Edit:

Meet Commander Leonhardt!

leonhardtby4.jpg
 

Marsal

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What's your tactics concerning armor? Buy all you can afford, making troops tougher, but more expensive to reinforce or just let them go naked? ;)

Also, GJ!
 

Marsal

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EliotW said:
Its a shame that it flickers so badly on my Nvidia card.

CPU rendering FTW!

(there's another thread where problems running the game were discussed)
 

dagorkan

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Cedric, you call yourself an expert strategist and you lost 4 Grudgebringer cavalry to Goblins in the first mission?? It's gonna cost you. You can win that battle without losing a single man if you use your missile troops.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Lol, TB...

Of course not, skyway. Where would be the challenge if you would not have to decide important maneuvers on the fly?

And sheek, I was just making a test run, but couldn't be bothered to play the mission again perfectly. If you check out the way I placed the cannon you can see how I messed up. Actually, the four lost men are a prime example of how important aritelliry placement is: Sheek is right- had I been less careless, I would have been able to not lose a single fighter. This way, the mission brought only marginal profit, but as long as we take care from now on we should be fine. Then again, some XP on the cavalry ain't that bad either. And I am not a master tactician by any stretch, though I am pretty good at SotHR.

Mission 2 and maybe 3 later tomorrow!
 

MetalCraze

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dagorkan said:
Obviously RT 3D. Why would you want it to be 2D?
because I'm so last-gen.
I can't play 3d games much now. Is there at least software rendering? (come to think of it - '98 - should be)

Why I would want TB? Maybe because I'm starving for something turn-based, don't know. Everything is real-time now.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Well, this is one of the few games I am actually glad it is NOT turn-based. It makes it more challenging and compensates for the poor AI.

It is 3D but the game uses CPU rendering, so I suppose the answer to your question is yes.
 

Balor

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Yea,WH:DO is kickass.
I still remember fondly how I run over the "Dark Lord of the Dead" (tm) with my steam tank.
Talking about 'technology vs magic'. He-he-he.
 
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you can convert lots of pics to jpg with one-click with a great little picture viewer called IRFANVIEW (use google)

nice lets play!

the screenshots dont really show battles that well, coz the units are so small.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
I'll zoom up more when making screenshots, now that I know how to convert the .bmps to .jpeg quickly. Also, more tactical map goodness. I should get cracking on a mission There's so much Math homework. And it's only the first week! I ph4il.
 

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