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Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector - Space Marines vs Tyranids turn-based strategy

Zboj Lamignat

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Dunnou, I’ve just seen a letsplay where the player got his army wiped and he immediately replaces it with like 7 newly built Leman Russes (i guess 5 units or something in each figure) and starts steamrolling the map. No tactic was involved. And I can’t see any chance for it to appear.
If you don't play on a high difficulty you can do dumb shit, but it will come back to bite you in the ass later when you don't have cash for upgrades and lack experienced troops. This is pretty much like every PG-like in existence and is not one of the game's problems. The problem is that a lot of unit types (or even entire categories) are pretty much useless from the start and it only gets worse as the game progresses. Still, if the game is worth playing it's definitely for the first few defensive missions, especially if you play on high diff and larp a realistic army composition.
 
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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Rites of War is a game that exists. But yeah, I agree. Space marines are boring.

Yeah, Rites of War was a meh Panzer General 2 clone where you play as Eldar fighting first againt Imperium and later against nids. There was also a Tau FPS Firewarrior, again kinda meh but serviceable for the time when it came out. There is also reletively recent Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon - Da Orks, basically Armageddon from Ork point of view, but it got rather shitty reviews (didnt play it myself).


Because they are, it's not even an argument.

The other races are there purely for the big stompy robot men to fight.

Funny that in the tabletop scene (at least when I still followed it), playing “smurfs” was considered a clear sign of being a noob and all the people that steamrolled at tournaments usually played Eldar with their cheesy “you have to roll box cars to wreck my Falcon with holofields” lists.

Sure, SM are the poster boys, but identifying the whole setting with them is extremely shallow view which is holding the 40K games back in general. Imagine that someone would actually do an RPG based on the Dark Heresy where you manage a cadre of Inquisiton acolytes investigating some shit. Unfortunately, the constant focus on muhreens means that we mostly get simplistic crap most of the time.


If you don't play on a high difficulty you can do dumb shit, but it will come back to bite you in the ass later when you don't have cash for upgrades and lack experienced troops. This is pretty much like every PG-like in existence and is not one of the game's problems. The problem is that a lot of unit types (or even entire categories) are pretty much useless from the start and it only gets worse as the game progresses. Still, if the game is worth playing it's definitely for the first few defensive missions, especially if you play on high diff and larp a realistic army composition.

This. I finished the main campaign of Armageddon multiple times and also finished all the DLCs (except the Salamanders one coz I lost my saves after switching notebooks, its still on my to do list though), so I feel I have some idea about how the game works.


If you play at least on the normal difficulty, you will be constantly strapped for resource points, losing a lot of units from your core would be a catastrophe that will most likely end your playthrough. Most missions are pretty tense due to the turn limits and you don’t really do much steamrolling, most of the time you just barely break through the Ork lines and take the objectives just in time.


One of the biggest problems with the game IMO is the lack of “veteran replacements” that would cost more, but maintain the XP level of the unit. Because of this, it is practically impossible to get for example higher level IG infantry (other than niche units like Ratlings and Ogryns, in the later stages of the campaign you get access to SM units, which have more staying power).


As for the units, I agree that while the selection is pretty impressive, you will eventually converge on the very few “correct” types (Basilisks + Deathstrike for arty, Baneblade + Shadowsword for supperhevies etc), the way flyers work is really bad too (they count as fast moving ground units, so they can be killed by mortars and arty more effectively than by dedicated AA units).


Armageddon is certainly not as good as Final Liberation, but if you like PG clones and 40K, it is worth a try.
 
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fizzelopeguss

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Funny that in the tabletop scene (at least when I still followed it), playing “smurfs” was considered a clear sign of being a noob and all the people that steamrolled at tournaments usually played Eldar with their cheesy “you have to roll box cars to wreck my Falcon with holofields” lists.

Sure, SM are the poster boys, but identifying the whole setting with them is extremely shallow view which is holding the 40K games back in general. Imagine that someone would actually do an RPG based on the Dark Heresy where you manage a cadre of Inquisiton acolytes investigating some shit. Unfortunately, the constant focus on muhreens means that we mostly get simplistic crap most of the time.

They're beyond poster boys, they bankroll the entire company. You get niche shit like Tau, Harlequins, SoB, Necron and Dark Eldar precisely because there's a new Marine product right around the corner ready to pick up the slack should they flop.
GW would have gone the same way of all the other big miniature firms without them. Who the fuck talks about Warzone, Warmachine, Vor, Void, Confrontation etc anymore?

The problem isn't Space Marines, it's the fact that there's no good writers anymore and the setting has become completely infested with americanised bollocks. It's completely lost all sense of humour.
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Gladius is pretty much WH Warlock: a game for people who think nu-civ combat is so amazing that building entire game solely around it is an amazing idea. Apparently quite a few people like that exist, but if you're someone who thinks entirety of nu-civ is dogshit then I don't think there's much to be found there.

Warlock and Gladius have very little in common with Civ: both focus on combat, and not oon city/wonder management. Their combat sysemt comes from Panzer General and Battle Isle, which influenced Nu-Civ.
However, Warlock suffers from a horrible AI (unlike Civ, it can push troops well, but it cannot find good counters, or even buff its troops and debuff tours).
Gladius suffers from a totally different issue:
It offers very little flexibility:
When it comes to city building, there is a good way to do things, and tons of wrong ways.
Same for the tech tree. There are 2 better choices at each stage, that don't depend much on what your opponent is doing. It makes the strategic side inferior to Starcraft actually (in SC, you have to tailor what you research to what the opponent is doing...).
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Warlock and Gladius have very little in common with Civ
Wat. Gladius and Warlock's combat is pretty much 101% nu-civ combat, not only when it comes to the core rules, but also presentation and overall feel. It's also absolutely obvious that nu-civ was the inspiration there, what with its popularity and the fact that in mainstream's eyes modern 4X=nu-civ, just as modern tactical game=nu-xcom.

The fact that some firaxis dev said he was "inspired" by panzer general doesn't make it gospel. They do have superficial similarities, naturally, but they're different types of games and there's very little of PG ruleset to be found in nu-civ. Hard/soft attack/defense, replacement/overstrength, ammo/fuel, tenacious defense etc. Not to mention that doing combat such way in a 4x game focused on a grand scale empire building is imo a completely stillborn idea and I utterly fail to see the draw of these games. I love me some 4X with actually good combat, but go the AoW route, not this.
 

Galdred

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Warlock and Gladius have very little in common with Civ
Wat. Gladius and Warlock's combat is pretty much 101% nu-civ combat, not only when it comes to the core rules, but also presentation and overall feel. It's also absolutely obvious that nu-civ was the inspiration there, what with its popularity and the fact that in mainstream's eyes modern 4X=nu-civ, just as modern tactical game=nu-xcom.

The fact that some firaxis dev said he was "inspired" by panzer general doesn't make it gospel. They do have superficial similarities, naturally, but they're different types of games and there's very little of PG ruleset to be found in nu-civ. Hard/soft attack/defense, replacement/overstrength, ammo/fuel, tenacious defense etc. Not to mention that doing combat such way in a 4x game focused on a grand scale empire building is imo a completely stillborn idea and I utterly fail to see the draw of these games. I love me some 4X with actually good combat, but go the AoW route, not this.
That was my point actually:
Both Warlock and Sanctus Reach have a more developped combat, and stripped down economy, so that makes them play very differently from Civ. Also, in both of these games, the AI can move troops in another formation than column.
 

ValeVelKal

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Guys I am not sure I understand you. In Armaggeddon, you don't "gain" prestige from scenario to scenario. The only way to grow in prestige is that if scenario #3 gives you 110 000 prestige and scenario #4 has been set up for 100 000 prestige you keep the 10 000 worth of units.
So you can fuck up a lot with your units in Armaggeddon, nothing matters as long as you manage to not lose your super heavy units so they get max veterancy.

Gladius combat is well developed and the AI is pretty smart compared to Civ//PG/BI. The problem of the game is that, like Galdred said, there is only one development path for all nations (with rare exceptions where you will choose one unit over the other depending on who you are facing), which is itself due to all the maps looking the same and resources being perfectly regularly distributed accross the map.

Also, while races play fairly differently tactically (though not differently enough if you ask me, you can't really zerg with the Orks) base building plays all the same, whether you are Eldar or Tyrannids. The only exception maybe is the Space Marines because they have only one city ^^.

What the hell is WH:Warlock ?
 
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Alpharius

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Guys I am not sure I understand you. In Armaggeddon, you don't "gain" prestige from scenario to scenario. The only way to grow in prestige is that if scenario #3 gives you 110 000 prestige and scenario #4 has been set up for 100 000 prestige you keep the 10 000 worth of units.
So you can fuck up a lot with your units in Armaggeddon, nothing matters as long as you manage to not lose your super heavy units so they get max veterancy.
Yeah, in Armageddon campaign you get a fixed amount of resources for each mission and if your current army costs less than that, you can add more units. Thats it.
Still, it was pretty good on max dificulty imo. Due to limited time for most missions and endless enemy units the brain-dead AI was not an issue.

Also Multiplayer was pretty fun until i figured out that basic infantry + some anti vehicle + a few jump troops is the most effective army composition in.

Only played Gladius and Sanctus Reach in beta cause i've had enough of them there, absolute garbage. Especially Sanctus Reach. Randomly-generated missions with yawn-inducing combat even on max difficulty, woot?

Hope this one will be better because the phase-based combat space games these devs made were apparently not that bad(?). Ah who i am kidding. :negative:
 
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Gladius combat is good
I honestly don’t get where this goodness comes from. From what I saw the main tactical advantage you can get is to overwhelm an enemy with numbers while maximizing a line of contact. There’re no flanking, morale, side/rear armor differences, type of damage, etc. mechanics. Special abilities are scarce. Leveling is mostly rudimental.
Maybe I’m not right, but this is my impression overall. Would be glad if anybody will point out what I am missing.
 

Galdred

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Gladius combat is good
I honestly don’t get where this goodness comes from. From what I saw the main tactical advantage you can get is to overwhelm an enemy with numbers while maximizing a line of contact. There’re no flanking, morale, side/rear armor differences, type of damage, etc. mechanics. Special abilities are scarce. Leveling is mostly rudimental.
Maybe I’m not right, but this is my impression overall. Would be glad if anybody will point out what I am missing.
There is some kind of damage "types" with armor vs penetration.
There is also morale actually, even though it is rudimentary. It is good for a 4X, not for a tactical level game. Scouting, and mobility are important here: unlike in Panzer General, you usually have to fight over several fronts.
 

Alpharius

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Gladius combat is good
I honestly don’t get where this goodness comes from. From what I saw the main tactical advantage you can get is to overwhelm an enemy with numbers while maximizing a line of contact. There’re no flanking, morale, side/rear armor differences, type of damage, etc. mechanics. Special abilities are scarce. Leveling is mostly rudimental.
Maybe I’m not right, but this is my impression overall. Would be glad if anybody will point out what I am missing.
There is some kind of damage "types" with armor vs penetration.
There is also morale actually, even though it is rudimentary. It is good for a 4X, not for a tactical level game. Scouting, and mobility are important here: unlike in Panzer General, you usually have to fight over several fronts.
As far as i remeber the devs put so "much" effort into balancing the game that lascannon devastators and similar anti-vehicle infantry squads were much more effective against infantry than heavy bolter squads and similar anit-infantry units, while having almost the same cost and also wrecking vehicles. Though i guess they might have improved it after release.
 
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underground nymph

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Well I must admit this looks.. not bad at all. Despite disastrous trailer.
Pity AI is dumb af.
Btw, how is this in strategy and not in tactical?
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Gladius combat is good
I honestly don’t get where this goodness comes from. From what I saw the main tactical advantage you can get is to overwhelm an enemy with numbers while maximizing a line of contact. There’re no flanking, morale, side/rear armor differences, type of damage, etc. mechanics. Special abilities are scarce. Leveling is mostly rudimental.
Maybe I’m not right, but this is my impression overall. Would be glad if anybody will point out what I am missing.
There is some kind of damage "types" with armor vs penetration.
There is also morale actually, even though it is rudimentary. It is good for a 4X, not for a tactical level game. Scouting, and mobility are important here: unlike in Panzer General, you usually have to fight over several fronts.
As far as i remeber the devs put so "much" effort into balancing the game that lascannon devastators and similar anti-vehicle infantry squads were much more effective against infantry than heavy bolter squads and similar anit-infantry units, while having almost the same cost and also wrecking vehicles. Though i guess they might have improved it after release.
That is true actually (but I think at release, only lascannon was introduced, and heavy bolters arrived with the reinforcement pack?), but I think it is a result of the "good enough" culture of Slitherine.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.wargamer.com/warhammer-40k-battlesector/interview

“We’ve turned the blood up to 11” – Warhammer 40K Battlesector dev on making turn-based strategy “meaty”
40K's rapid, gory melee and XCOM-like squad tactics aren't easy bedfellows. Black Lab's boss tells us how they're marrying them up

warhammer-40k-battlsector-interview-5-900x506.jpg


Warhammer 40K has always embraced exaggerated, exultant violence and action. Even to the uninitiated, the hulking power armour of the ‘noble’ Space Marines, and the buzzing teeth of their trusty chainswords speak to the stylised ferocity of the grimdark future’s Forever War. Moving off the tactile tabletop and onto the PC screen brings more vivid visuals to the flamers melting Greenskin flesh, or meltaguns cooking the plate armour of some twisted warp-entity – but it comes with challenges of its own.

It’s this kind of aggressive, bloodthirsty action that developer Black Lab hopes to replicate in its recently-announced strategy game, Warhammer 40K Battlesector. Or, as founder and head of Black Lab Games Paul Turbett tells us, the game should “feel real, feel grungy, meaty, and like you’re in the battle”.

To truly recreate the aggressive rush of combat is a tall order, even in a AAA-budgeted first-person shooter, but Battlesector faces an additional hurdle – it’s a turn-based strategy game. When publisher Slitherine announced Battlesector would sell-itself on “fierce, fast-paced combat”, eyebrows were understandably raised. Tactically manoeuvring squads of Blood Angels across a skirmish battle-grid to outflank groups of Tyranids in the drawn-out staccato of a turn-based squad tactics game doesn’t naturally lend itself to portraying the sprees of fluid, kinetic destruction described in 40K fiction. Nevertheless, Black Lab has a plan.

“It’s all about relativity to the norms of a turn-based game,” explains Turbett. “There are some turn-based wargames where it takes two hours to have a turn, with hex grids, and counters, and a lot of detail.



Part of this comes through the rhythm of gameplay and creating a persistent flow of player involvement. During unit movement and action, the player can hop between squads on the fly, dishing out commands to some units, while the actions of others on the opposite side of the battle are still resolving. While not the full-blown real-time/turn-based strategy hybrid of Black Lab’s last offering, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock, Turbett hopes it’ll provide players more consistent decision-making and immediate feedback than many turn-based games.

“It’s always flowing,” he says; “Things are always moving.”.

“If you want to stop and take a bit of step back, think about it, you can do that. But if you want to just get a whole bunch of things happening, you can do that as well – the game’s not gonna get in your way.”


More substantially, Battlesector’s action is driven by combat mechanics that encourage brazen player aggression. Through a ‘momentum system’, units are rewarded for their active engagement in combat, and provided upgrade points for leaping into the fray.

Aping the Blood Angels’ ‘Red Thirst’ of 40K lore – a genetic fault that makes the Blood Angels and their successor Space Marine chapters crave the blood of others – units engaged in combat will rapidly increase in momentum points to spend on additional actions or upgrades. Pull back from the frontlines, and watch your momentum plummet, along with whatever combat advantages it provided.

Turbett gives the example of a Sanguinary priest that upgrades their healing after a bloody melee encounter, or a squad of Intercessors that temporarily improve their accuracy and firepower after a brawl. Keep them out of combat or rely too much on their defensive abilities, and they’ll soon be overrun by the buffed aggression of the tireless Tyranid swarm; keep them constantly on the frontlines and you’ll be rewarded with bonuses.

“It’s about incentivising moving forward and always taking the fight to the enemy,” says Turbett. “It’s especially rewarding players for being active, and partly came out of trying to avoid the whole turtling thing where someone sits back in overwatch and waits for others to come.”



EMBRACING THE MELEE
Of course, no game set in the grim darkness of the far future could appropriately recreate its bloody aggression without capturing its tone. In Battlesector’s case, that means a healthy dollop of bloody gore.

“We’ve turned the blood up to 11,” says Turbett. “Flying limbs we haven’t done, but a few other things are needed to do before getting to that stuff.

“We’re definitely making sure we’ve got a good layer of grimdark through the environments,” he added. Expect lots of dead Space Marines, fallen in the devastation of Baal, littering the battlefield.

The emperor’s finest Boys In Red aren’t the only ones prone to unbridled aggression. The fearsome insectoid Tyranids, playable in the game’s Skirmish mode, though not in the central campaign, must also satiate their ‘Endless Hunger’ by diving straight into the fight at every opportunity. You’ll soon find your hormagaunts helpless against the offensive capabilities of the Blood Angels, if left out of the fight and unable to accrue those crucial momentum bonuses.



In a nod to their playstyle on the tabletop, players are also encouraged to stick Tyranid units close together and leverage their ‘Swarm Tactics’ ability, which provides bonuses to whole swathes of Tyranid forces when in proximity. The devout followers of the Emperor, however, are handed abilities that bolster the combat stats of individual units, able to slaughter hordes of parasitic Tyranids alone.

As well as being borne out in Battlesector’s mechanics, Turbett says the game’s melee focus is also meant to lean into 40K’s grim, ultraviolent aesthetic.

While XCOM, and similar squad-based tactical shooters that have experienced a renaissance in the last few years, have focused heavily on calculated ranged gameplay, Turbett reckons the close-combat focus of Battlesector better recreates the cadence of combat in the 41st millennium.

In-keeping with their famous penchant for melee armaments on the tabletop, Blood Angels fans can expect to see a bunch of their chapter’s beloved close-combat weapons recreated in-Battlesector – from the Encarmine swords of the Sanguinary Guard to the mighty, dumpster-sized power fists of Furioso Dreadnoughts.



“Quite often, you’ll do a lot of detailed design on ranged combat and its mechanics,” says Turbett. “We wanted to make sure that melee had the same amount of weight in terms of options you’ve got; the same depth to the systems. Melee combat needs to feel dangerous, and it should feel meaty.”

“When you go in and do an attack, it’s very high damage, but there’s also a reaction. So that means that there’s a degree of danger in doing that,” he added.

“If I’m going to shoot you with a bolt pistol from a little way away, compared to cutting you with a chainsword, the chainsword is immediately going to do more damage, but it comes with a bit more risk as well.”



PERSISTENT ACTION
Part of this risk comes through automatic fighting mechanics. Units engaged in close combat will receive an ‘attack of opportunity’ against fleeing enemies, and ranged units can hunker down in an overwatch-esque ‘engaged state’ to shoot down any squad that attempts to fall back. Similarly, both melee and ranged units possess proximity-bound ‘zones of control’ over their adjacent tiles, automatically attacking any enemy unit that walks through their zone.

These additional, automatic actions encourage players to keep their squads on the attack. It’s often more rewarding to aggressively plunge forward through enemy lines, rather than skirting around them or fleeing back to cover and incurring the damage cost.

At launch, Blood Angels and Tyranids will be the only factions to make an appearance in Battlesector, but Turbett hints that more factions and playable races could be on the way post-launch. He says updates for Battlesector will likely take on a similar rhythm to Black Lab’s previous release Battlestar Galactica Deadlock – providing additional content over several years to match players’ interests and community direction.



Battlesector’s beta-testing sign-ups are now live and the game expected to release this May, although the precise side of the month is up in the air: “We’ll progress through the beta, and then make a decision about what’s the best time to release it based on how we’re going with getting the game right.”

That beta will be Black Lab’s chance to show it’s successfully transported the ridiculously overstated, gore-soaked kill-fest of 40K into the regimented environs of a turn-based strategy game. Only time will tell if Battlesector earns eternal glory in the eyes of the God-Emperor, or gets left for carrion, to be subsumed into the Tyranid Hive Fleets.
 

Lilliput McHammersmith

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Gladius is pretty much WH Warlock: a game for people who think nu-civ combat is so amazing that building entire game solely around it is an amazing idea. Apparently quite a few people like that exist, but if you're someone who thinks entirety of nu-civ is dogshit then I don't think there's much to be found there.

Armageddon has the PG "build and expand your collection of tin soldiers as you take them through combat missions" factor and the first act when you're on a defense against an ork horde with a bunch of poorly trained and equipped IG is pretty fun. But it is also a very cheap game that is hilariously badly designed when it comes to "numbers game" (one of the most important factors in a PG-like imo) and injects classic PG ruleset with quasi-wh ruleset and they often collide in a "hilarious" manner.

Sanctus reach just rots on my steam account. I think I tried it once some time ago, but I don't remember a thing, so the initial impression must've been pretty bad.

This looks like slightly upgraded SR, so whatever.
Sanctus Reach is okay, similar to most games on that engine (the exception being Field of Glory 2, which is pretty darn good). It isn't the greatest game of all time or anything. I think it could have been a pretty great game if it had a little bit higher budget. This one might be the higher budget SR, so who knows?
 

Hobo Elf

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As everyone else has mentioned before SM are pretty dull, but I wonder if there's any hope of getting different factions as DLC in the future. I know Sanctus Reach didn't get much, but many other Slitherine games I've played have had pretty decent DLC support.
 
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As everyone else has mentioned before SM are pretty dull, but I wonder if there's any hope of getting different factions as DLC in the future. I know Sanctus Reach didn't get much, but many other Slitherine games I've played have had pretty decent DLC support.

Regarding the possible new faction DLCs - from the lore standpoint the game takes place during the Devastation of Baal, which actually had Khornate demons show up to fight against the Tyranids (basically to indirectly help the Blood Angels because some major demon couldn’t stand the idea of Blood Angels being wiped out by anyone but him). So I guess that a Khorne DLC is very likely, this time probably with chaos as a playable faction with its own campaign. Other forces involved were Blood Angels successor chapters and relief force that contained all kinds of SM chapters and IG.


If they keep Baal as the setting, it is very unlikely that there will be DLCs with other races like Eldar, Orks etc.
 

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They've already said there'll be DLC if the reception and interest's there. I'm in the testing for it so very, very limited in what I can say at the moment. Can say I am enjoying the testing. Black Lab did BSG pretty well for the lore vibes and then post-release expansions etc. Giving them a 40k setting with some flexibility to write their own stories and I reckon they'll do alright.
 

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They've given a Youtuber some access to a beta build to stream:



Thing to note is that he's loading premade saves, so has access to skills without needing to interact with the very light 'strategy' layer and is very much on 'easy mode'. Also it's quite fun to see how everyone defaults to trying to play it like XCom and creep along with overwatch. I believe the game will stay in beta a bit longer than first thought as they polish and make some quality of life improvements, probably a June release now from dates which have been given.
 
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Infinitron

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https://www.pcgamer.com/warhammer-4...ame-starring-the-ultimate-goth-space-marines/

Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector is a tactics game starring the ultimate goth space marines
We played the beta of the game pitting Blood Angels against devouring alien tyranids.

I started collecting an army of Blood Angels in 1993, so if you take one look at Battlesector and tell me there are too many Warhammer 40,000 videogames about space marines already, I will not care. Because these aren't any old space marines: these are the warrior-philosophers cursed with a red thirst that drives them to frenzies and death, and they are my special little guys.

In the last few years modern Games Workshop's profligacy with its license has given us games where you get to be orks, tech-priests, and Necromunda gangs, so we're due for another turn-based tactics game about shoulderpad fetishists. And it seems to be a competent one. Though I only have access to two missions and some tutorials in this beta, I'm happy to report the models look real nice when you zoom in, the voice actors confidently declaim their nonsense in gloriously macho fashion, and although some of the animations and sound effects seem unfinished, it's competently assembled and just works. With Warhammer games, that isn't always a guarantee.

What if war, but too much?
Battlesector is a tactics game with a scale somewhere below Dawn of War's mass conflicts and above Dawn of War 2's skirmishes. You've got 10-25 units in any given mission, probably including a couple of vehicles, multiple five-man squads of marines in various flavors, and some heroic individuals to lead them and call in the air strikes.

Movement's on a grid, and you can move units while the previous ones are still jogging into place like in Space Hulk. Which is nice if you're impatient. Everyone's got one or two action points to spend on attacks, buffs, going on overwatch, or moving an extra square. So far, so standard.

What's unusual are the momentum points, which you earn by scoring kills with bonuses for getting up close. Whether it's with a flamer or chainsword, what matters is that you look the aliens in the eye when they die. The more momentum a unit has, the more crits it scores, and when a unit hits 100 momentum you can spend the lot for an extra action or a skill upgrade. Thing is, momentum dribbles away when you're not killing, and it costs 10 points of momentum to go into overwatch. (As a reminder of its importance, "Momentum +1" notifications scroll away above the heads of units as they earn it. I could do without that to be honest, but though there are options to have more visible notifications on enemy turns, there's no way to see less of them.)

Momentum encourages aggression, appropriately for the Blood Angels, and similar rules affect your enemy, the aliens who make all their tech out of living biomass called tyranids. It's apt for them too, as a species who are basically The Very Hungry Caterpillar if it ate entire civilizations instead of fruit.

Though momentum makes you want to get close, shooting is still a good idea. Overwatch fire can cause suppression, stripping away action points. And ranged weapons are particularly effective at specific ranges, highlighted when you mouse over weapon skills. It's worth taking a step back before shooting with long-range plasma guns or medium-range bolt rifles. Depending on the makeup of my opponent's force and the mission's objectives, I find myself switching between playstyles, rather than following the XCOM rule of "always be overwatching".

Speaking objectively
Though skirmish and multiplayer modes (hot seat, online, and play-by-email) will apparently be limited to kill-em-all victory conditions, the singleplayer missions have multiple objectives. In one I have to switch off valves in a factory that seems to mainly manufacture explosions, and I've only got four turns to get to the first one.

I send my fastest unit, a land speeder. It's got a pintle-mounted heavy bolter on the front, and I like to imagine a tasteful bumper sticker on the back like "Honk if you love the Emperor's glory". It arrives at Prometheum Flow Segment Primus on the last possible turn, and that's when I learn vehicles can't interact with objects and fail the mission.

Replaying it, I send my jetpack assault marines instead. After turning off all the valves while protecting a librarian dreadnought (a half-dead psychic piloting a mechsuit), the objectives switch to "mop up the remaining tyranids". The previous mission, where I had to take a bunker then hold it for three turns, ended the same way. Though I don't have to scour the fog of war much to find the drizzle of remaining tyranids, playing through foregone conclusions makes for underwhelming finishes to both levels.

These are only two missions out of a 20-mission campaign, which will have persistent upgrades, loadout options, and a story binding it all together. That sounds promising, but it's not part of the beta so I'm just squinting into the fog of war and guessing at the shape of it.

I have concerns about unit variety too. It's just Blood Angels versus tyranids, and fighting the same enemy over an entire game can get old. It helps that my own force seems to have personality, split between cranky veterans of the firstborn marines and the newer primaris variety, who are strengthened by heavier genetic modification. (Space marines follow Invader Zim's philosophy that the more organs you cram into your body the better.)

I'm hoping for extra troop types in the campaign, like the elite fliers of the Sanguinary Guard and the Death Company, who are so consumed by the red thirst they descend into battle madness and paint their armor black in mourning because, on the off-chance they survive the suicidal charges they're known for, they're executed for being a liability.

Stuff like that would go a long way toward communicating what makes the Blood Angels interesting compared to other space marines—they're the ultimate goths of a setting where everyone is already quite gothy.

Battlesector reminds me of Sanctus Reach, another 40K game published by Slitherine, but where that felt generic, Battlesector has character. I hope the full game leans into that even more, because it would be a shame if people saw this game about vampire-angel warrior monks fighting bug-dinosaur aliens who have organic guns and just went, "Urg, not again."

Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector will be out in May on Steam and GOG.
 
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Mefi

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Response to the two missions seems pretty positive from what I've seen of reviews and videos. There's no great hidden (nasty) surprises ahead so they offer a fair insight into what the game plays like at the absolute easiest possible level. The intro dialogues place the time too, so it's Baal's moons as the Blood Angels are cleaning-up with the Crusade resupplying in orbit. Write your own stories from there so long as main narratives aren't contradicted.

Seems fairly obvious that the main criticism of the game is going to be scope (linear 20 mission campaign playing SM vs Nid, MP/Skirmish of SM vs Nid, and no procedural generation of any sort). I'd add in that the campaign layer is, by intention, very light so replayability of the main story is really going to be in units/weapons/skills used to do the same objectives. Against that, I've really enjoyed playing it. It's learned from Byzantine Games' approach to TB combat, tucking away detail into visual indicators especially, and if it had the mechanics for 'cannot be controlled' then the similarities would be even more striking. There's a lot right with the game even as you can see where it could be expanded out and improved upon. One of Black Labs flaws with Battlestar Galactica was getting the little quality of life things in game, or realising that they didn't have them to start with, but that improved over time. This is starting from a better place but similar progression over time would be good to see.
 

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