SOVL : Fantasy warhammer - It's Warhammer 6th edition in jank form!

[Hell Swarm]

A kind soul recommended me this game the other day and I've been having a lot of fun with it. Shame there isn't a thread so now there is!

SOVL is a digital version of a tabletop wargame, similar to Warhammer fantasy battle or Kings of war. Your blocks stumble forward and pivot to engage with your opponents blocks. Dice are rolled and units shit themselves and run away. It's exactly what you would do if you had friends and 100 hours to build toy soldiers. There is a decent little campaign, multiplayer and army builder all included for free. Additional factions cost money, so if you're a furry faggot wanting to play Skaven or chad Chaos warriors you need to pony up $5s a faction.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

P. solid stuff tbh fam, thanks for posting it. Army builder is easy to use and the AI in skirmishes aint all that terrible. I am a 40K person myself and I never got around to trying the table top Warhammer Fantasy, but this is a pleasant experience so far. Will defintely try out the campaing now...

Edit: the campaign is kinda a lighter version of the Mark of Chaos - you travel over strategic map, fight battles, visit camp sites etc. Its OK. What surprised me is that there is a fairly active MP comunity. Played two battles so far with my Empire army - lost the first battle against Chaos mostly due to bad use of terrain on my part, won the second one against Orks precisely by using terrain to keep part of the other dudes army out of combat for almost the whole game while zipping around with my pistoleer cav and wrecking shit hard.

This is fun, ima play this more.

 

[Desman]

I kinda enjoy it so far cool but i really dislike that you can't target units with ranged weapons when they are engaged in melee.

 

[Kabas]

Watching your champion and his band of merry men go from nobody to a warlord with a proper army feels great.
Last time i played SOVL i found Dwarves and High Elfs to be one of the easier races to figure out while i was struggling a bit with other factions, Orcs especially.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I kinda enjoy it so far cool but i really dislike that you can't target units with ranged weapons when they are engaged in melee.

That's standard tabletop rules. Most games don't let you shoot into melee and either force a disengage after combat so it's possible or just accept shooting into a brawl where half the arrows will hit your own guys is a bad idea (unless you're a goblin)

 

[Reinhardt]

i like what i see gameplay-wise but can you change portraits or something? because it looks more like warcraft than wh.

 

[Johannes]

Played some skirmishes, game feels kinda too simple. Needs some more interesting spells or something.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Ranged units feels incredibly useless

You salvo twice or thrice to their big stack and kill maybe 4 - 5 units then the melee happens and they are sitting useless

 

[Hell Swarm]

Ranged units feels incredibly useless

You salvo twice or thrice to their big stack and kill maybe 4 - 5 units then the melee happens and they are sitting useless

They remove chaff so your heavy hitters can hit what they need to. And occasionally sit infront of a charge so your good units don't get smashed.

 

[Kabas]

Ranged units feels incredibly useless

You salvo twice or thrice to their big stack and kill maybe 4 - 5 units then the melee happens and they are sitting useless

I had the opposite experience. My high elven army supported by a wizard were doing a pretty good job at softening the enemy before any serious melee could begin.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Yeah, I run an Empire army with handgunners and pistol cav and these two units consistently end up with the highest kill count. Yes, the number of shots they get off is limited because the battle will always end in a large melee, but shooting can do huge difference before the melee begins. Also it helps that the pistol cav is p. decent in melee too and even the handgunners can pull their weight in a fight - they can buy time untill you can set up a flanking charge with another unit.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Yeah, I run an Empire army with handgunners and pistol cav and these two units consistently end up with the highest kill count. Yes, the number of shots they get off is limited because the battle will always end in a large melee, but shooting can do huge difference before the melee begins. Also it helps that the pistol cav is p. decent in melee too and even the handgunners can pull their weight in a fight - they can buy time untill you can set up a flanking charge with another unit.

Often their job is to move forward to shoot and then threaten a flank charge on anything hitting your core. Your unit doesn't need to be amazing in melee if it can get a flank charge off.

 

[Johannes]

and you can stall units from entering melee for a good bit sometimes, with fast units. Let them move forward, then you take your cavalry unit to threaten their flank. But you don't charge their flank even though you could, just keep peppering them with missiles, and they spend their turn turning to face the cavalry which moves to the flank again.

If you have ranged superiority, delay the onset of mass melee for as long as you can, but when it starts those missile troops are valuable in melee too.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Just ran into a nasty as fuck bug.

Heavy elf cav (don't call me a fag please). Flee into a lake. They rally and cannot move because they're in a fucking lake. Had to struggle through a 'boss' battle without my best unit.

Swamp turned my elven spearmen into wights though. So my elf slut (wish I could pick a leader) is now leading a bunch of undead dudes.. Didn't expect it, quite like it though. It's telling a story and maybe I'll do something with real models to tell this same story. Elves are on my to do list once I've finished.. 50 other projects.

 

[Kabas]

Took them tough Chaos Abyssal bois for a spin.

This Divine Protection that let's you re-roll saves is pretty overpowered.
The moment my "Dark Raptors" got this blessing from the event they became practically unkillable. Nothing short of the very elite units like those elven swordmasters could cause any casualties to them.
Focusing on getting extra attacks also proved to be a worthwhile investment.

So my elf slut (wish I could pick a leader) is now leading a bunch of undead dudes.

You can pick an alternative skin for your leader but it requires completing all 5 challenges as the same class if i understood correctly.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

interesting, truly interesting, but i'm not sure i want to pay real money for a knock-off.

 

[Kabas]

interesting, truly interesting, but i'm not sure i want to pay real money for a knock-off.

This is a free game tho.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

https://store.steampowered.com/dlc/1870300

 

[Kabas]

Thought you meant the game itself. Sorry for misunderstanding.
Not wanting to buy DLCs is understandable.

 

[Hell Swarm]

My run ended with the 2nd boss. Faggot wood elves and lizardmen out numbered me 3 to 1. I had the slut on a dinosaur, a bolt thrower, archers, 2 lancers and my wights. Nothing I could do when they could swarm me so hard. I was always lacking funds to buy new units. Worst thing was I had 304 gold and a unit of spearmen was 305. Fucking insulting! I doubt it would have made a difference but... Fucking jews!

I don't like that the enemy always has a distinct advantage. You need to protect your stuff while they can suicide rush everything in. Makes it very different to tabletop. But I'll be the first to admit that I suck at rank and flank games. I'm more of a round base skirmishy guy so big blocks is hard to wrap my head around.

 

[Johannes]

I don't like that the enemy always has a distinct advantage. You need to protect your stuff while they can suicide rush everything in. Makes it very different to tabletop. But I'll be the first to admit that I suck at rank and flank games. I'm more of a round base skirmishy guy so big blocks is hard to wrap my head around.

In a lot of the basic battles you're not necessarily outnumbered, at least if you did good / lucky in the campaign so far.

AI might not have to care about maintaining its troop count, but on the other hand it is just retarded and even gets its units stuck in corners quite often. And taking losses isn't the end of the world for the player either, the gold bonuses you get as the alternative to patching up casualties is p low. And in that Act 2 bossfight you really don't have to care about casualties at all, since it's the final battle of the campaign, just gotta win it by any means necessary.

Beat the campaign once with a human knight, now in the last mission with a goblin shaman. Orcs can start with 4x boar chariots, which makes for a p unique playstyle.

There's more to the game than I first thought, the basic system seems mostly solid. Now just needs more content than just grinding thru the same shit over and over, it's not interesting at the start of the campaign when you have too few units, 1-off skirmishes vs AI are too easy, and multiplayer is only tiny 500 pts fights (plus there's nobody online).

 

[Kabas]

the gold bonuses you get as the alternative to patching up casualties is p low

One of the traits you can get on your leader grants you +x% gold income from winning, compared to looting bonuses this one i found to be quite substantial.
Just completed a game as a dwarven engineer. Dwarven artillery and gunline are not to be underestimated.
Here is me slaughtering a bunch of treehuggers.

Ignore the enemy cavalry right on top of my handgunners. They run like bitches after a single bout.
And here is my MVPs.

Got a human mortar from an event, wasn't lagging behind in this army especially with a boost from my Engineer leader.
My leader also entered a secret grove one time that gifted him with an abiltiy to cast arcane web spell. Felt almost like an overkill in this army composition.

I agree that SOVL could use a bit more content like more fun spells or extra gameplay modes. I don't like that challenges are unlocked for each character separately.
Still, even without DLC factions there is enough content to be entertained for a bunch of hours.

 

[Hell Swarm]

As a quick and dirty warhammer sim I think it's acceptable for what it is. Are there any other games like this? Not RTS, flank and rank tabletop games but digital.

 

[Johannes]

Yeah it's good for this stage of development, shows promise. It's decently fun to play even with the imbalance, UI issues and repetitive campaign. When those are improved on down the line, could be a great game.


I did an elf campaign with only bolt throwers as the starting units. Gets pretty ridiculous, as you get two of them for a starter pick so you get 4 throwers. And they're roughly on par with cannon or mortar in damage output as far as I can tell, and as they gain levels they get a ton deadlier.


What this needs is a campaign full of only tough fights, and where you go in with a premade army list like you can make in the Army Builder.

 

[Borelli]

Played the roguelike campaign (no MP) of this a lot. Fun game even if a bit basic for now. I find the elves and dwarves to be top tier, artillery is strong in this game,
anyone remember in older versions catapults attacking for 2d6? Fun stuff :D.

The random event where a group of your dudes gets transformed into wights can go fuck itself though.