![]() ![]() ![]() I was fully prepared to build up a carefully constructed Imperial fleet, perhaps with a tongue-in-cheek TMC-themed naming scheme. MultiplayerĪs soon as my preview copy of the game finished downloading, I was excited about making my mark in the eternal war. Instead, you can carry on to fight another day, and even repair ships that were completely destroyed – savescumming is not something that Armada requires or encourages, and going into battle with the fleet you have is still just as fun. Still, you don’t need to win every battle, which is a pretty nice feature. There is the odd setpiece battle thrown in for good measure, which vary between frustrating and exhilarating depending on how close a shave it is. The cast of melodramatic space captains, robotic tech-priests, menacing inquisitors, and Orks completely nail the feel of the setting and go a long way to making the campaign feel a bit more lively.įor the most part, you will face the same kind of objective-based battles that you will in the multiplayer game. This is a pretty good fit with the turn-based overworld, and the limited number of battles you can start each turn means that you will have to let a few worlds fall, but it would be nice if you could be a bit more proactive in dealing with these threats. The story follows these various incursions into Imperial space, and Spire’s attempts at putting them down. Players take on the role of Admiral Spire, a starship captain in the Gothic sector promoted to that rank after taking out a small Chaos fleet in the prologue and living to actually talk about it.Īstute readers may notice similarities between the launch trailer and the latest GSF CEO update.Īfter earning your promotion to Admiral, the training wheels gradually come off as disloyal Imperial fleets, the forces of Chaos, Orks, and even Eldar pirates start to intrude on the Gothic sector. WARHAMMER 40K BATTLE FLEET GOTHIC HOW TOWhile the star and long-term draw of the game is the multiplayer mode, the campaign is a pretty solid way to learn how to play, and it provides a decent dose of 40k storytelling in the process. aligning them with one of the great powers of your faction. There are a couple of minor issues, like not being able to zoom out to view the entire battlefield, and the fact that repainting your starships is a function of buying them ‘favour’ – i.e. The rest of your time is spent choosing a loadout for your ships, and listening to snippets of plot if you’re in the game’s campaign mode. ![]() ![]() It’s just as well, since the combat is where 95% of the gameplay lies. While these can be used to avoid hazards at short notice, they tend to see the most play as each fleet closes in for the kill and jockeys for advantage.Īll these factors come together to form surprisingly complex and fun battles with even a few units. The other big part of the game involves the careful use of ‘tactical maneuvers’, which work like a sprint bar for starships. The basic controls are similar to most other RTS games, and context-sensitive overlays make it easy to figure out your firing arcs, or where your spread of torpedoes (powerful, but non-tracking weapons) will land. Thankfully, this is reasonably intuitive to manage. If you imagine them moving more like vessels from the age of sail – albeit with shields and laser guns – you wouldn’t be too far off the mark They are massive, lumbering space-cathedrals that bring broadsides and masses of boarding troops to bear. The starships of Armada aren’t sleek machines that boldly go where no man has gone before. This is just as well given the sheer volume of factors involved in commanding a space fleet in the world of Warhammer 40k. The ability to slow time down to a crawl, even in multiplayer modes, offsets this and allows for the fine control necessary to get the most fun out of your fleet. The game does diverge in a few places for the sake of gameplay Unlike City of the Damned, Armada takes place in real-time. If you have any passing knowledge of Warhammer Fantasy, 40k, or other tabletop wargames, this should sound pretty familiar. There are, at the time of release, four mutually opposed factions (the Imperium of Man, Chaos, Orks, and Eldar) that fight each other in points-based skirmishes. The team at Tindalos Interactive shared a challenge with the developers of Mordheim: City of the Damned – Battlefleet Gothic was a tabletop wargame, the space-naval companion to Warhammer 40k.Ī lot of its heritage shows through today. Much as XCOM 2 and Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars updated 90’s classics to a modern standard, the recently-released Battlefleet Gothic: Armada takes up the challenge of putting a new spin on tactical spaceship combat. It seems that adaptations of older games have become a theme in my reviews as of late. ![]()
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