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

[thesheeep]

This reminds me of BattleTech, actually (the HareBrained one, that is). The lack of any kind of limitation to what you can field - other than slots - just means you will field the best and heaviest possible option for each slot.
Everything else would just be gimping yourself - and if gimping yourself is the only way to get a challenge, the devs have failed, honestly.

Difficulty options can only go so far, and as others have said are usually the way to go after you are already mostly done with the game, maybe on a second playthrough or so.
And while I liked the game, I really didn't feel like it would warrant another playthrough. I felt that I had seen everything the game has to offer after one playthrough.

 

[Peachcurl]

Doesn't BattleTech have persistent (but repairable) damage to mechs and pilots? Which would limit your choices of mechs/pilots for follow-up missions, where you can't wait for repairs? At least, that's a thing in the recent Mech Warrior iteration (which also had weight limits though...).

 

[thesheeep]

Doesn't BattleTech have persistent (but repairable) damage to mechs and pilots? Which would limit your choices of mechs/pilots for follow-up missions, where you can't wait for repairs? At least, that's a thing in the recent Mech Warrior iteration (which also had weight limits though...).

It does, yes.

Doesn't matter, though, as you have more than enough "spare" pilots and mechs to fill any gaps for a mission or two until the main guys are ready again.

 

[jac8awol]

So I finally got this and booted it up. Seems cool, got pretty engaged in the prologue but after about 15 minutes noticed my machine start to lag, and realized the temperature is way, way up, probably moments away from a meltdown. So no, I can't play this yet. Gotta put it on hold until the omnissiah blesses me with a new rig.

 

[Infinitron]

The console release of Warhammer 40k Mechanicus is more than just a simple port. Watch as Bulwark Studios walks you through what's changing when Mechanicus hits consoles.

 

[Jaedar]

From skipping a bit in the video, it looks like they tripled or quadrupled the size of all the ui stuff and that they redesigned the boss encounter with the c'tan shard (although they only showed the same fight that was in PC version, so who knows).

Looks like a pretty simple port to me.

 

[what am i doing]

One-techpriest is interesting. My rule here is that I can use as many of them as I want, but only level up one. I did lose a couple due to inattentiveness; playing with Ironman, Permadeath, and No Canticles. Finally got Cog Occultaris so I shouldn't lose anymore unlevelled priests.

My team has consisted mostly of troops and it had made gameplay more interesting as their limited capabilities force me to use them more carefully. My one levelled techpriest is mostly there for healing and opportunistic AoE damage. I've found that despite being able to concentrate all my blackstone on one techpriest, levelling one guy up to high levels doesn't help all that much; it's probably more effective to stop each guy as soon as he has 25 augment points; after that all you're getting is more abilities on one priest. I think I would generally prefer to have a bunch of double-classed Tech-Auxilium + Lexmechanic priests for tons of cognition points and powerful guns.

I did discover level 2 ranger alphas (or better) are really good at fucking over Lychguard (one of the more annoying enemies) and really good in general. Their dodge ability works on Lychguard counterattacks so they can run up to a Lychguard, fire off their ability, whack him, and be immune to retaliation. Then opportunity attack him when some other unit pulls him away. I think that in future any mission with Lychguard present I would bring Ranger Alphas along.

Certainly I think Permadeath + Ironman are good settings to have on. Promotes a bit more caution.

Edit: level 3 Ranger Alphas are insane. They get two attack per turn for 8-12 damage total, free, plus the second one is a machine spirit attack so it also takes a bit of enemy armour off.

Edit 2: I fucked up pretty bad and lost my main techpriest. Proceeding to simply level my two remaining guys up side by side. Probably go for melee build, Lexmechanic-Explorator, spam arc lashers. Gonna be rough for a while.

Edit 3: lost another Techpriest fighting Epsilus Dammek-Yoth, one of his attacks caught me by surprise though I did barely manage to take him down without losing altogether (albeit with all troops dead and the last techpriest half dead). After that, took out Mhelob, but kept my remaining techpriest cloaked the whole time and just relied on Ruststalkers. I have now lost 4 out of possible maximum 6 techpriests and have only one on hand; I will have to be fairly cautious taking on Neftusk and Szaregon.

 

[Serious_Business]

Any proper tactical game must be played on permadeath and ironman settings. I'm not too convinced by this title, it is too easy and you have way too many options in how you handle situations, as mentioned. The game would have been much better presenting a typical Warhammer frame, I suspect, where you have a balance between the factions. It's all about one faction here, which does enable some pretty good presentation and writing, but I don't know about the rest. It's not bad by any stretch though. Admittedly I still have to play it on the hardest difficulty settings ; maybe there the game will have a more interesting flow. I did play it on permadeath + ironman, but I never was at risk of loosing a single character.

 

[Nevermore]

Bought Mechanicus yeasterday with a nice discount (thanks, Mr. Newell). While the gameplay is not really something to talk about, I'm in awe of the in-game music and overall atmopshere. They are really mood-defiining, and I love listening to quarrels in Techna Lingua.

 

[Nevermore]

Bought Mechanicus yeasterday with a nice discount (thanks, Mr. Newell). While the gameplay is not really something to talk about, I'm in awe of the in-game music and overall atmopshere. They are really mood-defiining, and I love listening to quarrels in Techna Lingua.

8 hours later I got bored with the same decorations and objectives. Switched to easy mode (I don't feel shame, I'm a bird) to enjoy the story and exploration.

 

[Geisler]

Christ this is boring, even vanilla nu-XCOM is more fun and challenging. Nothing more to add besides what's already been said ITT. It has great music, that's it.

Bought Mechanicus yeasterday with a nice discount (thanks, Mr. Newell).

Saw that discount too but luckily i played a trial version first.

 

[TemplarGR]

Yeah, another overhyped game by Mandalore/Sseth and the gang of comic-shills. It is not bad, but it is nothing special either.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Its a good game, you gits just have 0 taste

 

[TemplarGR]

Its a good game, you gits just have 0 taste

Found the Emperor shill.

 

[Galdred]

Yeah, another overhyped game by Mandalore/Sseth and the gang of comic-shills. It is not bad, but it is nothing special either.

The atmosphere is really special though. It is maybe the most "faithful" 40k game since chaos gate(except the recent spaceships spacehulk FPS maybe?) when it comes to presentation.
But the gameplay is wonky indeed.

 

[what am i doing]

It is maybe the most "faithful" 40k game since chaos gate(except the recent spaceships spacehulk FPS maybe?) when it comes to presentation.

SHDW was so faithful to 40k (and to Space Hulk in particular) it actually ended up being to the game's detriment, playing in tactical dreadnought armour makes for a very poor experience especially coming from a studio known for their previous fast-paced, high mobility FPS.

 

[Galdred]

It is maybe the most "faithful" 40k game since chaos gate(except the recent spaceships spacehulk FPS maybe?) when it comes to presentation.

SHDW was so faithful to 40k (and to Space Hulk in particular) it actually ended up being to the game's detriment, playing in tactical dreadnought armour makes for a very poor experience especially coming from a studio known for their previous fast-paced, high mobility FPS.

That may be true indeed. Also Space Hulk is a weird entry into the 40K universe, because it relies on a very different set of rules: (the dreadnought armor in the SH tabletop game provides virtually no protection, and Terminators feel closer to the marines in Aliens than their usual 40K selves in the lore, which dates from the origin of the game, as it was their original purpose, with Rogue Trader/Space Crusade Marines and SH Terminators until GW decided to go the superhuman road.

 

[Darth Roxor]

the dreadnought armor in the SH tabletop game provides virtually no protection

This has been transferred into the standard 40k fluff/rools by establishing that genestealer claws are so sharp they can literally cut thru tanks. The only reason why the marines are running around in termie armour iirc is that it's the only way for them to teleport in and out. Or maybe it also has better life support systems to survive in the space hulk than regular power armour, but p. sure it's mostly about the teleportation.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

the dreadnought armor in the SH tabletop game provides virtually no protection

This has been transferred into the standard 40k fluff/rools by establishing that genestealer claws are so sharp they can literally cut thru tanks. The only reason why the marines are running around in termie armour iirc is that it's the only way for them to teleport in and out. Or maybe it also has better life support systems to survive in the space hulk than regular power armour, but p. sure it's mostly about the teleportation.

Tactical Dreadnought Armour also supports heavier weapons.

 

[Peachcurl]

Tactical Dreadnought in these cases never really made sense to me. In such a confined space, less bulk and increased mobility should trump the added firepower and seemingly negligble protection. Astartes are supposed to be large, not stupid.

And about teleportation: I do not know about the different PnP rules, but the W40k novels have plenty of teleportation for non-dreadnoughts. So there may be something about built-in Teleportation devices, but a ship-based teleporter for non-dreadnoughts still seems possible.

 

[Spectacle]

While the Space Hulk games deal with Termies vs Genestealsers, in universe there's lots of other stuff that could be encountered in space hulks. Chaos infestations, Orks, unknown aliens, ancient combat robots, you name it. Terminator suits are going to give much better protection against most of that than standard Space Marine armor.

 

[Ebonsword]

The only reason why the marines are running around in termie armour iirc is that it's the only way for them to teleport in and out. Or maybe it also has better life support systems to survive in the space hulk than regular power armour, but p. sure it's mostly about the teleportation.

In one of the 40K novels I've read (Death of Integrity, maybe?) they do mention something about the terminator armor being better able to withstand the radiation in the space hulk.

 

[Tyranicon]

So I recently got this and am unsure how to feel about it. At first, I loved the game, but then the various faults of the combat system (especially CP and CP skills, which I am not a fan of) started to gnaw at my enjoyment of the game.

Also, the way missions are handled (you have no idea which rewards are hidden behind further missions of the same path) irks me.

 

[Dayyālu]

It's an intensely relaxing game with good ambience. As a tactical game? It's a complete breeze.

Of course you can set up the difficulty settings to cripple you and "fix" the problems in the curve, but that requires some indepth understanding of the mechanics. I liked a lot Mechanicus mostly because it lets you do endless amount of bullshit and doesn't punish the player for doing retardo builds on standard playthroughs (NuXcom irks me immensely for being an incredibly limited game where you can't really afford losses, but of course I've never played it beyond NuXcom without exp packs).

If you want to suffer properly, raise the difficulty and set up the options. The devs have clearly made it a very easy game with scaling for those who wants such things, and it's revealing that the hardest mission of the game is the first Heretek, because you haven't snowballed yet.

If I had a solid complaint on Mechanicus, it's the exploration minigame. Repetitive and often badly-explained despite being athmospheric.

 

[Tyranicon]

It's an intensely relaxing game with good ambience. As a tactical game? It's a complete breeze.

Of course you can set up the difficulty settings to cripple you and "fix" the problems in the curve, but that requires some indepth understanding of the mechanics. I liked a lot Mechanicus mostly because it lets you do endless amount of bullshit and doesn't punish the player for doing retardo builds on standard playthroughs (NuXcom irks me immensely for being an incredibly limited game where you can't really afford losses, but of course I've never played it beyond NuXcom without exp packs).

If you want to suffer properly, raise the difficulty and set up the options. The devs have clearly made it a very easy game with scaling for those who wants such things, and it's revealing that the hardest mission of the game is the first Heretek, because you haven't snowballed yet.

If I had a solid complaint on Mechanicus, it's the exploration minigame. Repetitive and often badly-explained despite being athmospheric.

You're not kidding. The game was somewhat challenging up until you get access to the first ranged troop (Skitarii Vanguard), and then the game becomes an absolute cakewalk.

Is there also any point to the exploration side besides getting to the objective as fast as possible? The random bonuses don't seem to be worth the effort and the additional awakening.