Mordheim - turn-based tactics in the Warhammer universe

[Xathrodox86]

I wonder which additional warbands they will include. Witch Hunters? Undead? What about individual heroes like Aenur and Johann the Knife?

 

[Mangoose]

This is something I never quite got. Why when some developers remove some of the elements that allow correct decision making when they decide to port board game (Rodeo Games did the same by obfuscating numeral values in Warhammer : Quest, but at least, their UI was nearly perfect). Given that the base game was supposed to be played without obfuscation, why would they expect the exact same game to work with some key information removed?

I dunno. It's either they think their audience is dumb or that it's just a placeholder. But whatever happened, Warmachine Tactics in beta didn't have percentages (or "xdx" dice rolls") but now it's fine.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[fastjack]

I bit the bullet and bought the early access a while ago (they have added most/all elements of the persistent campaign) and while the game doesn't seem like it will be my perfect Mordheim game it has a lot going for it. Even some of the elements like the attrition heavy hp system that I hated at first have grown on me. If you are interested, have the cash, and don't mind playing early access games I recommend it.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

You know, I think this game will be pretty fun to play. Codexian battle rumbles should be interesting.
How does battle play out in this?

 

[Anthony Davis]

I don't know anything about this, so brace for incoming stupid questions.

This seems to be tactical combat with warhammer units, ala xcom.
Is there a campaign, or is it only MP?
Is there unit customization and progression?

most importantly, is it fun to play?

 

[fastjack]

I don't know anything about this, so brace for incoming stupid questions.

This seems to be tactical combat with warhammer units, ala xcom.
Is there a campaign, or is it only MP?
Is there unit customization and progression?

most importantly, is it fun to play?

The answers are:
That is an accurate description.
Yes (there is a campaign, quite involved with both random missions and larger hand-crafted ones)
Yes (for instance if your guy loses a leg he gets a peg-leg and in addition to moving slower he can no longer climb or charge and finds leaping and jumping down harder)
IMO, Yes (still early access but they have half of the planned 10 character levels and either half or a third of the story missions for all four current factions)

How does battle play out in this?

I think some of this is subject to change, but right now both sides units are randomly placed around a map (none with more than say 3 rounds until first contact) according to one of several scenarios. So the scenario might be that one side is scattered everywhere after being frightened and the other arrives as a group to hunt them down.

After the battle starts you can search chests/houses for loot or find warpstone (your ultimate objective in the game) scattered around or most likely start hunting and fighting the enemy.

There is a premium placed on ganging up on lone fighters (just like in tabletop I believe) since unless the unit is a special class and thus totally immune a solitary unit must past an 'all alone' check or else flee giving free hits to his enemies. There are a variety of active and passive abilities you can learn (I haven't gotten many of these yet so can't comment on their usefulness) and all movement, attack, and active abilities use pips from one or both of two pools (passive and aggressive basically).

I find the base hit rates too high (85% not uncommon) though I think this is the way people like their game systems to work nowadays (at least their don't seem to be ANY cooldowns!) and your opponent's defense can bring the rate down to 50% pretty quickly. Each soldier can take 5-6 normal or 3-4 'great weapon' attacks unless you take any armor into consideration with a helmet and heavy armor negating 30% of that for instance. Each guy has something like 9 primary stats that you raise as he earns experience but each increase only provides a variety of 1-3% bonuses.

I'm not a fan of the stuff in the paragraph above this but in practice it has been more fun and tense than I thought it would be. I wish they had kept a system like the original tabletop with 1-3 wounds per fighter since I think it makes for a more dramatic game. For instance the fact that no weapon can ever take out any fighter in one hit (and your basic units get 1 attack while your heroes get 2 to start with) means ranged weapons specialists seem like a real head-scratcher. Also magic looks pretty weak and situational rather than terrifying and powerful.

I think that about sums up the actual fighting part of the game but the campaign is also quite meaty and the four base warbands with more sure to follow also offers some good replayability. Personally I can't wait to play with my 3 brothers and just play each other so that we can become familiar with the opposing warband a la a tabletop game

 

[Morkar Left]

The answers are:
Yes (there is a campaign, quite involved with both random missions and larger hand-crafted ones)

I'm quite interested in the game. But can you tell how long a campaign is for one of the factions (early access and estimated final release)?

 

[Xathrodox86]

I've bought the early access and am generally very pleased with this game. However it's still buggy as hell and sometimes even refuses to boot. Still, when they'll finish it it will be a great title IMO.

 

[fastjack]

I'm quite interested in the game. But can you tell how long a campaign is for one of the factions (early access and estimated final release)?

I can only give a rough estimate. A random campaign mission takes me about half an hour to play, and the one story mission took me closer to an hour. I probably had to do at least 8 random missions for my warband rating to be high enough to match the story mission. Assuming the other story missions are just as long and take as long to 'prepare' for that would be 20 hours for one of the four early access campaigns (which I think are half of the planned campaign). Even if I am way off in my estimates the complete game should take at least 80 hours to play through the 4 complete campaigns and really I think it will be closer to 160 hours.

Another cool thing to note is that they plan the ability to play multiplayer games in lieu of the 'random' campaign games so that you can incorporate any multiplayer you participate in right into your ongoing campaign. Note that this isn't currently implemented and I haven't tried the multiplayer yet since it sounds buggy atm and I think it lacks timers and disconnection penalties for now so I fear the griefing/trolling factor is way too high for me to stand.

 

[Morkar Left]

Sounds promising, especially if they take the root to let you use the same warband across multiple matches (and additional campaigns). This would make the warband indeed feel very personally attached to the player. I put it on my wishlist.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Huh, I thought it was dead when I looked at the official web, with half the forum posts from 2014...

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Well, I'll check it out on release.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Cower before the might of the Ruinous Powers pathetic ratkin!

• Accidentally deleted my level 5 mercenary warband because the UI is shit. Rage quit.
• Got hit by infinite loop bug on AI turn (again) after an hour spent playing through a story mission. There's no in mission auto, or manual, save of any kind. Rage quit.
• My chaos warband leader got stuck with 'megalomania' trait after being KOed. Prevents spell casting. He's a spellcaster. Rage quit.
• Random demon spawning right beside my rookie warband on very first mission. Rage quit.
• My completely unencumbered warlock KOed himself after failing to climb a small ladder six times in a row. How can you fail to climb a fucking ladder? A fucking LADDER. Rage quit.
• Spent twenty minutes trying to deploy my warband sensibly. A task that would take twenty seconds in an alternative dimension where modern PC strategy games are designed for mouse control. Rage quit.
• The pink horror doesn't split into two blue horrors when killed. Autistic rage quit.

 

[Elwro]

• The pink horror doesn't split into two blue horrors when killed. Autistic rage quit.

goddamnti they cannot even get the baisc things right

 

[Jimmious]

TB strategy game that causes massive butthurt?

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Played it for a few hours - I like it. Will continue to play.

 

[Anthony Davis]

I broke down and bought it as well.

PROS:
Great atmosphere
TB combat is fun
Risk versus Reward
Cool upgrades and injury system
Early game finances are challenging

CONS:
Wonky Camera, and I work for Obsidian, so I know wonky cameras.
Early game finances are challenging
RNG can sometimes just end you.


Looking forward to playing some more tonight. Have recommended it to several Obsidianites so far.

 

[Caim]

Does the game have a story of some kind (aside from the regular Mordheim plot)? Or is it just random skirmishes?

 

[muds_animal_friend]

There's preset missions called "story missions" for each of the four factions. They're a bit more involved than the random missions in that they've multiple objectives, and the maps are generally more elaborate, but I can't say that I've really noticed any overreaching narrative to them (as yet).

--------------------


I agree with what Antony has said above except in comparison to a game like Darkest Dungeon, the risk versus reward balance is horrible. There were many tense moments in Darkest Dungeon where I pushed my badly wounded party, and my luck, onwards because I was within a hair's breath of meeting the mission goals. Just one more room and all those sweet, sweet heirlooms would be mine. Mordheim, in contrast, is get in, do the minimum possible to win, and get the hell out again. Injuries are just too crippling to risk experienced fighters on anything other than normal difficulty missions. Getting KOed just once can result in multiple injuries, rendering the fighter as good as dead for all the use they are. Here's a couple of injury table results that had me reaching for the Preparation H:

Spoiler

The low risk strategy in random maps is always to keep your team bunched up into one (or maybe two in a large warband) big blob and overwhelm the first enemy units encountered ASAP to force a rout before the wounds stack up on your own units. That's it. There's not a great deal of finesse in that, but neither the xp earned for completing the optional objectives/hard difficultly missions, nor the junk scatter around in chests, nor a bit of extra warpstone is worth the extra risk of units being KOed.

Now if the warband's reserve pool was two or three times the size it currently is, then yes then risk of higher difficulty maps/objectives might be worth it. But hey, at least they've fixed the way demons spawn, so it's no longer possible to instantly lose your entire warband to a passing bloodletter.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

I broke down and bought it as well.

PROS:
Great atmosphere
TB combat is fun
Risk versus Reward
Cool upgrades and injury system
Early game finances are challenging

CONS:
Wonky Camera, and I work for Obsidian, so I know wonky cameras.
Early game finances are challenging
RNG can sometimes just end you.


Looking forward to playing some more tonight. Have recommended it to several Obsidianites so far.

Agree - but I think once you get your first shipment off a lot of the finance problems kind of solve themselves.

I love the upgrade system and I like the injury system in theory, but it is very punishing - maybe on the verge of too punishing. I don't really get the desire to risk more in most missions - if I complete all of the objectives I'll probably get a few more stones, maybe a little bit more loot, and a tad bit more xp, but the cost of an injury to your best warriors kind of makes it not worth it. DD is a good comparison as the post above me said - I've definitely pushed a little too far in DD to my great detriment, but I've also done it to my great reward. Balancing the rewards would go a long way in fixing that - it would make the injuries more worth the risk.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

 

[InspectorRumpole]

How is this compared to Blood Bowl? Is it worse than having your Star Players slaughtered?

 

[LESS T_T]

While official release date is "in a few days", several sites indicating it's November 20th.

 

[LESS T_T]

Launch trailer:



Releases today (10AM PST).