Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus - now with Heretek expansion

[ERYFKRAD]

There's a mission where you have to raid the Necron's Warhammer 40,000 model collection. I'm so not making this up.

Does he paint them well though?

 

[thesheeep]

There's a mission where you have to raid the Necron's Warhammer 40,000 model collection. I'm so not making this up.

Does he paint them well though?

Necrons do everything well.
They make hilarious comedians, too, if you are into dry humor.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

The devs would do well to make an adaptation of the Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress board game. It suits the gameplay seen in this game quite nicely.

 

[lightbane]

Soo, has anyone tried the DLC? reviews say it's quite clunky and the new class uses its own HP as a resource, which sounds terrible.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Soo, has anyone tried the DLC? reviews say it's quite clunky and the new class uses its own HP as a resource, which sounds terrible.

The DLC missions are pretty bad honestly, primarily because they don't add a whole lot to the formula - there's no tomb exploration, just a short CYOA where you pick your objectives/advantages for the coming battle (though it has to be said that the options and outcomes in these cyoas are like a hundred times clearer than in the base missions), and then there's a big battle against rogue techpriests and their servitors. The biggest problem here is that one type of the enemy techpriests is pure bullshit. They start the missions shielded, which means you can't hurt them at all before they attack you, because only that disables their shields. And to make matters worse, they have an active skill that lets them dodge all the attacks of a selected target, so odds are you won't be able to hurt them for a turn even after their shields have dropped. It's particularly insulting in the first DLC mission, where you can pick your starting positions, one of which is "start far away to make use of your ranged weapons" - yeah this is best deal incarnate when you face hereteks that CAN'T BE HURT. For added bonus, both the hereteks and their servitrolls have a sprint ability, so your "ranged advantage" is largely non-existent.

The xenarite class is legit tho. He loses HP while shoopin', but has two healing abilities, increased ranged damage, increased crit chance the more hurt he is and a cheat death ability. A xenarite combined with dominus makes for an excellent gunslinger who does big domoges even with the basic shitty phosphor blast pistol, and the 1 hp loss/shot doesn't really matter in the long run, especially since this game is generous with all sorts of healing claws anyway.

 

[lightbane]

I seel. I'll wait for a bigger discount then. Has the "custom difficulty" patch been released already? Does it modify the content of the DLC? If it doesn't, it could fuck up a campaign for sure if the new enemies are left untouched, especially if you take penalties to the gear you carry around and/or Cognition costs.

 

[Jaedar]

I seel. I'll wait for a bigger discount then. Has the "custom difficulty" patch been released already? Does it modify the content of the DLC? If it doesn't, it could fuck up a campaign for sure if the new enemies are left untouched, especially if you take penalties to the gear you carry around and/or Cognition costs.

The custom difficulty patch exists, don't see why it would not fit in with the dlc tbh.

The dlc is not very good though. The hereteks are not fun at all to fight, and most of the added weapons are pretty useless (have an axe that does -1 damage compared to regular axe but gives -1 dmg per turn dot!). The only actually good addition is the xenarite class and perhaps one of the new minions, but it's honestly pretty hard to say that's worth 10 ebro.

 

[StaticSpine]

I replayed the game with Heretek DLC.

The new missions were okay and even provided some challenge. The final boss was tougher than the main boss of the game.

I gave Xenarite skills to my gunslinger, and the damage output became impressive (you get increased Crit chance if the Xenarite-Priest is wounded). Also, I used Heretek axes throughout the whole game: acid damage works well against teleporting enemies.

I can't say the DLC is a game-changer since the base game itself is solid, but it's fun enough.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Should i explore every mission lvl for max items and blackstone or just rush mission objectives?

 

[StaticSpine]

Should i explore every mission lvl for max items and blackstone or just rush mission objectives?

In the beginning, missions are p. easy so you can collect all the stuff to get faster growth for your priests. No point in doing it later, though.

 

[razvedchiki]

What skitarii units are in game? Any automata?

 

[Luka-boy]

What skitarii units are in game? Any automata?

These are Cohors units:

- Servitor
- Skitarii Vanguard
- Skitarii Vanguard Alpha
- Skitarii Ranger
- Skitarii Ranger Alpha
- Kataphron Battle Servitor
- Kastelan Robot
- Skitarii Ruststalker
- Sicarian Infiltrator

 

[Peachcurl]

Coolio, it's on sale at GOG. Bought it.

re decent W40k Games: I think Inquisitor was very much decent as well. Lacking the end-game pass times of stuff like Path of Exile, but otherwise a good experience.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

re decent W40k Games: I think Inquisitor was very much decent as well. Lacking the end-game pass times of stuff like Path of Exile, but otherwise a good experience.

And - to state the obvious - Mechanicus.

 

[what am i doing]

This game is pretty fun and makes me want more Adeptus Mechanicus games. I like that they portrayed the religious, zealous aspect of the Adeptus Mechanicus; most 40k games seem to portray them as atheistic and faithless. This game is much more faithful to the tone of 40k.

I've been a fan of 40k for a long time but never found the Imperium especially appealing; Mechanicus did a good job selling me on them as a faction, at least the Martian half.

 

[Lacrymas]

Having played only a little of this game, I can definitely say it's one of the most faithful Warhammer 40k games out there. I usually love the Adeptus Mechanicus, their aesthetics, and worldview, so it was right up my alley. I put it on Hard and I was going to fail in the tutorial already, lmao, but since only 1 of my Tech-Priests needed to escape I just pooled my bonus points and got to the end. I like how every modification has its own visual on the models and how there are resource penalties for taking damage and dying.

 

[what am i doing]

Alright, taking a break from phoneposting cancer here's my full thoughts on Mechanicus. I have a few minor gripes with it, but in general my view on every aspect is positive. tl;dr I like this game and I like the AdMech.

Starting with presentation: it's authentic 40k shit, obviously, but I feel like it's a lot richer than something like Dawn of War (the first of which I did love); it's not just 40k, it's 40k decked out with prayer seals and noospheric data and candles and servo-skulls flitting around and it absolutely fucking radiates atmosphere, despite the graphics being pretty low-poly in general. I found myself spending a lot of time just sitting looking at the scenes on board the Caestus Metalican and listening to the background music. 40k is made by a British company, but I would say, between these guys and Streum On, the French are the best at presenting 40k in games. There's just something about the mood of it that they're really good at capturing. The other side of presentation is music and this shit is really good. A lot of 40k games go with "epic" music, which is pretty stale and generic, outside of the menu themes I have a really hard time recalling any Dawn of War songs. I can't remember Space Marine's music at all. Did it even have music? I'm actually not sure. But, Mechanicus' mixture of techno, organs, and chanting goes really well together and fits with the factions being presented.

Expanding on lore, again, I'm glad they showed the religious side of the AdMech. In most other games where they feature they're just the IT department for your Chimera. Mechanicus highlights all the rich internal flavour: they do have their own priests and religion complete with ceremonies of detestation where they pour rancid machine oil and blown fuses on Necron altars, they display the same fanatical hatred for the alien as the rest of the Imperium, belief in the divine superiority of human technology and knowledge, etc. (There are also Xenarites, of course, but they still hate the alien, they just want to steal its shit rather than destroying it). They are also shown to be researching and experimenting with better augments and so on rather than retarded stagnation and ignorance. This is how the Adeptus Mechanicus should be. I also liked that the Skitarii, despite being somewhat augmented, were portrayed (admittedly mostly just by reference from Khepra and others, and some of the CYOA mission events) as being a military organization composed of human beings, just like the Imperial Guard. It's shown that while your missions are just a small elite group, your Ark Mechanicus is capable of fielding its own army that's successfully waging war on a partially awakened Tomb World; half your missions are focused on eliminating key targets or doing sabotage behind enemy lines, taking pressure off your Skitarii forces, boosting morale, etc. And that's pretty cool. 40k generally had the AdMech working in the background or just acting as support for the IG and SM. Seeing them working on their own fighting a war composed entirely of their own forces, rather than needing the Imperial Guard or Space Marines, is great. It highlights that the Adeptus Mechanicus is not just a department like the Imperial Navy or the Astra Telepathica, but rather a fully-fledged empire in perpetual alliance and partial political union with the Imperium. Also, while I quite liked Oldcrons and initially hated the new "Tomb Kings in Space" Necrons, I've warmed up to it thanks to Mechanicus. They've done a decent job combining Newcron lore with the "feeling" of the Oldcrons. I can live with this.

Gameplay - I'm not generally a fan of turn-based games. I like it better than RTWP, but there's usually a part of me that groans inwardly when I find out a game has turn-based gameplay; by far I prefer real-time. But I actually do enjoy the gameplay of Mechanicus. I don't know if that's a point in its favour (that even someone who normally dislikes turn-based enjoys it, or that it's so far removed from the turn-based standard that it appeals to real-time plebs). I think the main reason I enjoy it is that there aren't too many units to control, and each unit has a lot of stuff they can do in their turn, instead of one action per turn. I don't know if that's typical of turn-based games because I don't play many of them. Maybe it is and I've been playing the wrong ones and I just missed out on ones I'd actually enjoy. But in any case it's pretty good. I find it very easy, but I did decide to go with unaltered Normal difficulty and I see there are both a couple higher difficulties, and a more detailed adjustment menu, so I don't hold that against the game. If I play again I will probably crank the difficulty up somewhat. I did find that troops, compared to Magi, seem extremely weak. I suspect it's more a matter of me not really being thoughtful enough in when and how I use them, but I was generally deploying non-Servitor troops only when I was fairly confident they were unlikely to be fired upon (by tying up all the enemy ranged units with Magi) or I had to split my forces due to map layout. However, I don't have any Secutor magi, having geared them all up either for pure melee or pure ranged firepower, and I imagine troops are probably a lot better with proper support. If I replay, I will try one Secutor and one Enginseer, or possibly just a single Magi and everything else troops, because I'd like to see if it's viable and the Skitarii are pretty cool.

The resource cost thing is interesting but the implementation feels a bit off - the whole idea of spending up front and then recovering costs if you did better in battle sounds great, but in practice it often incentivizes dragging the match out one extra round to make sure everyone's health is topped up. I think it would make more sense to base returns on overall performance such as damage taken, or taken vs dealt, rather than exact health at the end of the match. However, to be fair, the longer combat lasts, the more Awakening you acquire, so maybe I'm just not factoring in that background cost properly. Awakening is an interesting mechanic. Normally I fucking despise time limits on games, but Awakening is not a time limit per se, as it's linked fairly statically to how much stuff you do rather than how fast you do it, and you have lots of opportunities to minimize it's growth. I have not felt particularly pressured; after playing for 20 hours on my first playthrough so far, I am still only at 60% awakening. I have been very diligent with destroying terminals, however, which probably factors in. Awakening might be part of difficulty settings too, I don't remember.

The "Choose Your Own Adventure" mission layout thing is good and bad. Good because the flavour text and art is solid, bad because it's often unclear what result a given action will provide. I can't tell what's intended, and I also don't know if the results are actually static for a given choice or randomized. Sometimes praying to the Omnissiah grants divine intervention in the noosphere and reduces Necron initiative. Other times it doesn't help you and the time you spent doing it lets Necron awakening go up. Sometimes sneaking around an area slowly lets you identify a Necron ambush and you get CP. Other times the time you spent doing it lets Necron awakening go up. Etc. There's no real clarity. The only thing that's almost always given me positive results is the passive "take some pictures" option but even that one isn't 100% successful. The glyphs are much better, if you write them down while playing so you learn over time what each one does - it's not RNG. Speaking of which, the combat doesn't have too much RNG, and I really do appreciate that. Dice rolls make sense in tabletop where you need a method of arbitration. The depth of simulation provided by a computer means it's unnecessary in video games. Mechanicus does have damage ranges but other than that the game is pretty deterministic, in the actual combat, which is nice. I mentioned CP as well - Cognition Points are a great generic universal resource. It's cool that your guys share a resource pool, helps highlight the fact that they're all networked together via the noosphere and brings the lore into gameplay in a good way. It also adds more depth to your decisions. Resource management, resource acquisition. Good shit.

This game highlighted two things for me. One, I really want to see the next 40k RTS include AdMech/Skitarii as a playable faction instead of just a couple lowly enginseers in an IG army. They do have their own codex in the tabletop now, so maybe it'll happen some day (certainly, there's a DoW1 mod for it). Two, Magi are some of the ded killiest gits in the galaxy and if Streum On Studio makes another 40k game, the player should be a Magos and the gameplay be paced more like EYE: Divine Cybermancy than like Space Hulk: Deathwing. They could justify all of EYE's crazy gameplay in a 40k setting, that wouldn't have worked playing as a Terminator, by playing as a Magos. Massive amounts of cyberware, tons of hot-swappable guns and melee weapons for your body, extreme speed, minion master gameplay, class specialization, etc. EYE gameplay and character building would map really well to Magi.

Overall rating 9/10. I can't give a 10/10 to anything that's not Guild Wars or Thief II: The Metal Age so consider this full marks.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Space Marine's music at all. Did it even have music? I'm actually not sure.

All the music in Space Marine was the sound of Titus thumping across the forge world.

 

[Commissar Draco]

I liked music in Inquisitor too it has beautiful themes and ample nicely to game play sure game has some errors like valkyrie used like eagle lander but it shows nicely the sector if imperium so f.... even Inquisition there works on string like budget. Had much fun playing both games purged thousands of heretics, mutants, witch and xenos and even three fellow inquisitors. Admech, Inquisitor and Armageddon are gems in diarrhea of games shat out in last couple of years.

 

[Peachcurl]

I agree, Comissar.

That would be great by the way. A game featuring the Commissariat.

 

[Beowulf]

[...] Two, Magi are some of the ded killiest gits in the galaxy and if Streum On Studio makes another 40k game, the player should be a Magos [...]

Slightly off topic, but they are making another 40K game - presumably Assassinorum (but that has not been confirmed so far):
https://www.exclusivelygames.com/3-new-warhammer-video-games-in-development-what-i-want-to-see/

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

A lot of 40k games go with "epic" music, which is pretty stale and generic

Chaos Gate has pretty good OST.


edit.
That said I have soft spot for Final Liberation's hard rock musics.

 

[BrotherFrank]

I have a really hard time recalling any Dawn of War songs.

There's a few others but these 3 came to mind almost immediately when thinking 40k songs from the dow series I really liked.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I would also mention the space marine theme from DoW1 and the eldar theme from DoW2, which is downright kickass. These two and the DoW1 IG theme poasted above are my top3 Dawn of War tracks for sure.

 

[lightbane]

Alright, tried the first "proper" Heretek mission.

Good: Looks cool. New enemies. No awakening meter bullshit. A fresh change of pace.

Neutral: No dungeon, only a small CYOA segment to choose your position.

Bad: HORRIBLY UNBALANCED! This sounds like the lazy dev's method to make things harder. The first battle has you fighting against dozens of enemies, all of which can sprint to your position in record time and one half who is immune to ALL DAMAGE until they attack, and can poison you and hit twice AND dodge everything after attacking.
If you choose said mission with the objective to kill everything, you're fucked, as you cannot damage these bastards who can outperform Lynchguards, especially without AOE weapons. If you choose the "hacking" objective, it is doable since you just have to survive. Allegedly future missions are easier, but no idea. Also, if you break the terminal, you still get the same effects as doing so with a regular Necron terminal, lol.
Speaking of: If you press Space in the mission selection screen, you get a hidden character that gives you missions, and eventually a secret boss. Has anyone played this arc to the end to discover what's that about?

Lastly, if I wish to use Cheat Engine to speed up attack animations, which values should I modify?
EDIT: Nevermind, found them. I'll have to see which value is best to avoid things moving too fast.

Oh, and Heretek gear is OP and can be used by non-Xenarites, lolz.