Look at your spaceship.
Now back to me.
Now back to your spaceship.
Now back to me.
Now back to your spaceship.
Your spaceship is now a church.
I'm in a tank. I will hit things with sword.
I've been a fan of Warhammer 40,000 ever since I found the 2nd edition Codex Imperialis in my brother's closet and read about a grim future of cybernetic tech fetishists and benedictine monks armed with chainsaw swords and wondered, in my naive twelve year old brain, where all the good guys were. (Segmentum Ultima, as it turned out.) But my REAL fandom didn't quite click until I purchased the tabletop RPG, Rogue Trader.
(Not to be confused with the first edition of Warhammer 40,000, which was named Rogue Trader also.)
In Rogue Trader, you played as a titular Rogue Trader and his or her dashing crew of ruffians, vagabonds, borderline heretics and the occasional inhuman xenos scum - but the true star of the show was not the flamboyant combinations of Captain James T. Kirk and a Spanish Conquistador...NO.
THE STAR OF ROGUE TRADER IS THE GODDAMN FIVE KILOMETER LONG MEGA-CHURCHES ARMED WITH LASER GUNS THAT CAN VAPORIZE CONTINENTS!
And Rogue Trader let the players (including me) lavish incredible amounts of care on selecting every component and piece of your character's home. As the games progressed, you would learn to know the crew, and love every imaginary bulkhead. You would shudder as weapon fire stripped away armor and fires raged uncontrolled through the bilge decks. You would delight in every new piece of gold plated archeotech you could slip cram into your ship. And, eventually, you would go down to the ship to a warp core implosion because you'd be damned before you would go to the salvation rafts!
And then the fine people at Tindalos Interactive said: "Hey, lets put those ships in the a video game!"
And I said: "Shut up and take my money!"
And now, ten hours into the beta, I can tell you that Tindalos Interactive have made a very, very, very fun game.
This game is not for everyone. If you do not like RTS games, you will not like this game. If you like RTS games, but prefer something more fast paced like Starcraft 2, you will not like this game. If you like RTS games, but you don't like micromanagement, you will not like this game. If you do not like five kilometer long battle-churches shooting massive lasers at each other, you will not like this game.
For everyone else - Battlefleet Gothic: Armada puts you in charge of a fleet. You can either play the story based campaign a fledgling Admiral trying to maintain control over the Gothic Sector while that dang Abaddon starts a new Black Crusade. For those who don't know, Abaddon is not as big a threat as Games Workshop tries to make him out as. I mean, this is his TWELFTH Black Crusade. If you try and conquer the galaxy and fail twice, that's understandable. But when you fail twelve times, seriously, you gotta wonder...
The campaign in the beta is really only the first few missions - but I like what I am seeing so far.
The skirmish mode is where BFG:A really sunk its hooks into me. Basically, you choose one of the four fleets (though only two are playable in the beta.) Those fleets are...
THE IMPERIUM OF MAN - a galaxy spanning technologically regressive theocracy that sacrifices a thousand souls every single day to their crippled psychic superhuman god-emperor. Known for executing people for trifling offenses, legions of brainwashed soldiers, and a brutal inquisition that mercilessly cracks down on freedom of expression, religion and government. Also known as the good guys!
THE RUINOUS POWERS OF CHAOS - the heretical legions of (former) humans who have turned their back on the beneficent and glorious God-Emperor of Earth and begun worshiping the cthulian deities of the Warp - Slaanesh, the god/dess of endless sensory excess and perfection, Khrone, the martial god of war and strife, Tzneetch, the mind shattering god of transformation and change, and Nurgle, the putrescent god of decay and corruption. Also known as the bad guys!
THE SPACE ORK FREEBOOTERZ - a race of sentient green skinned fungus who reproduce via clouds of spores (no, really) whose technology is a ramshackle hodge podge of looted human technology and their own bizarre "inventions" that only function because orks believe that they will (no, really), which include things like guns that teleport wild animals into enemy ships (no, really) and gigantic red buttons that make their ship go faster because they think that red is a fast color (no, really.) The also talk like British soccer hooligans and put gigantic teeth on their ships to make them better at ramming (no, really.) Also known as the comic relief!
THE ELDAR STAR CORSAIRS - the slowly dying former rulers of the milky way galaxy, the Eldar are neigh immortal, psychically powerful space elves with stupendously advanced starships that are difficult to hit but when you do hit them tend to explode. Masters of trickery, hit and run combat, and generally being the most infuriating enemies possible, Eldar will sometimes work with the Imperium, but usually won't because they're dick. Also known as Copyright Infringement - the Tolkien Estate has been informed.
For now, the skirmish only has the glorious and upstanding Imperium of Man (all glory to the God-Emperor of Man, hallowed be His name, His will be Done, amen) and the evil and perfidious Chaos fleet (hiss, boo.) So, when you decide whether to be a good citizen or to be a filthy heretic, you get a Light Cruiser of your choice and some Escort class ships. Escort ships are replaceable, but anything larger is persistent - if you lose it in a skirmish, it is gone until you can get it fixed up in your starbase.
Then, you go on skirmishes: Randomized matches, which can be anything from escorting lightly armed transports to assassinating an enemy admiral by blowing up his flagship to fighting your way past an orbital blockade to bombard a planet. Each victory unlocks new ship slots, new ships, and levels the ships up - unlocking new crew skills, new ship upgrades, and so on!
So, you can very quickly and very easily fall into a habit of just doing one more battle for, uh, five hours straight to keep on building your fleet and blowing up enemy ships.
Once you actually drop into battle, you control your ships with standard RTS controls. It is not Homewold - the ships move in two dimensional space, and you cannot go under or above the enemy. Rather, combat is more similar to Empire: Total War's naval battles...though it is SLIGHTLY faster and far far far less finicky than E:TW's slugging sailing ship combat. For instance, you don't need to be worried about your ship accidentally going against the wind and ending up going no where.
When it comes to actually firing guns at one another, you have a wide variation of weapons - none of which are "hard" counters to anything. But they all have different strengths and weaknesses. Macrocannons fire rapidly, but are inaccurate. The closer you get, the more effective macrocannons get. Lances fire slowly, but always hit. Lances can work very well at range. Both do moderately good damage against void shields - but macrocannons will strip the shields off faster, as they fire faster. Meanwhile, torpedoes have theoretically infinite range, but they can be shot down by defense turrets and interceptor fighters. Nova cannons are extremely long ranged, but inaccurate and cannot be fired TOO close to your own ships. Strike craft are flexible, but fragile.
In the end, victory depends heavily on using your ships intelligently. Scout with escort craft to reveal the enemy fleet's composition. Maneuver your craft so that as many guns can fire at as many things as possible. Target enemy generators or engines to cripple them. Board enemy craft using assault shuttles and the teleportarium to disable their warp generators to prevent them from escaping. And, when in doubt, RAMMING SPEED!
My only complaints are very minor: Some of the weapon effects feel like they lack the impact that they should have - I mean, macrocannons are firing shells the size of large trucks. Oh, and if you loose contact with an enemy ship by it running silent or by it hiding in a nebula, the ships you ordered to attack it will STOP rather than continue to the enemy's last known position.
But...yeah.
TLDR: Buy game. Game good.
Now back to me.
Now back to your spaceship.
Now back to me.
Now back to your spaceship.
Your spaceship is now a church.
I'm in a tank. I will hit things with sword.
I've been a fan of Warhammer 40,000 ever since I found the 2nd edition Codex Imperialis in my brother's closet and read about a grim future of cybernetic tech fetishists and benedictine monks armed with chainsaw swords and wondered, in my naive twelve year old brain, where all the good guys were. (Segmentum Ultima, as it turned out.) But my REAL fandom didn't quite click until I purchased the tabletop RPG, Rogue Trader.
(Not to be confused with the first edition of Warhammer 40,000, which was named Rogue Trader also.)
In Rogue Trader, you played as a titular Rogue Trader and his or her dashing crew of ruffians, vagabonds, borderline heretics and the occasional inhuman xenos scum - but the true star of the show was not the flamboyant combinations of Captain James T. Kirk and a Spanish Conquistador...NO.
THE STAR OF ROGUE TRADER IS THE GODDAMN FIVE KILOMETER LONG MEGA-CHURCHES ARMED WITH LASER GUNS THAT CAN VAPORIZE CONTINENTS!
And Rogue Trader let the players (including me) lavish incredible amounts of care on selecting every component and piece of your character's home. As the games progressed, you would learn to know the crew, and love every imaginary bulkhead. You would shudder as weapon fire stripped away armor and fires raged uncontrolled through the bilge decks. You would delight in every new piece of gold plated archeotech you could slip cram into your ship. And, eventually, you would go down to the ship to a warp core implosion because you'd be damned before you would go to the salvation rafts!
And then the fine people at Tindalos Interactive said: "Hey, lets put those ships in the a video game!"
And I said: "Shut up and take my money!"
And now, ten hours into the beta, I can tell you that Tindalos Interactive have made a very, very, very fun game.
This game is not for everyone. If you do not like RTS games, you will not like this game. If you like RTS games, but prefer something more fast paced like Starcraft 2, you will not like this game. If you like RTS games, but you don't like micromanagement, you will not like this game. If you do not like five kilometer long battle-churches shooting massive lasers at each other, you will not like this game.
For everyone else - Battlefleet Gothic: Armada puts you in charge of a fleet. You can either play the story based campaign a fledgling Admiral trying to maintain control over the Gothic Sector while that dang Abaddon starts a new Black Crusade. For those who don't know, Abaddon is not as big a threat as Games Workshop tries to make him out as. I mean, this is his TWELFTH Black Crusade. If you try and conquer the galaxy and fail twice, that's understandable. But when you fail twelve times, seriously, you gotta wonder...
The campaign in the beta is really only the first few missions - but I like what I am seeing so far.
The skirmish mode is where BFG:A really sunk its hooks into me. Basically, you choose one of the four fleets (though only two are playable in the beta.) Those fleets are...
THE IMPERIUM OF MAN - a galaxy spanning technologically regressive theocracy that sacrifices a thousand souls every single day to their crippled psychic superhuman god-emperor. Known for executing people for trifling offenses, legions of brainwashed soldiers, and a brutal inquisition that mercilessly cracks down on freedom of expression, religion and government. Also known as the good guys!
THE RUINOUS POWERS OF CHAOS - the heretical legions of (former) humans who have turned their back on the beneficent and glorious God-Emperor of Earth and begun worshiping the cthulian deities of the Warp - Slaanesh, the god/dess of endless sensory excess and perfection, Khrone, the martial god of war and strife, Tzneetch, the mind shattering god of transformation and change, and Nurgle, the putrescent god of decay and corruption. Also known as the bad guys!
THE SPACE ORK FREEBOOTERZ - a race of sentient green skinned fungus who reproduce via clouds of spores (no, really) whose technology is a ramshackle hodge podge of looted human technology and their own bizarre "inventions" that only function because orks believe that they will (no, really), which include things like guns that teleport wild animals into enemy ships (no, really) and gigantic red buttons that make their ship go faster because they think that red is a fast color (no, really.) The also talk like British soccer hooligans and put gigantic teeth on their ships to make them better at ramming (no, really.) Also known as the comic relief!
THE ELDAR STAR CORSAIRS - the slowly dying former rulers of the milky way galaxy, the Eldar are neigh immortal, psychically powerful space elves with stupendously advanced starships that are difficult to hit but when you do hit them tend to explode. Masters of trickery, hit and run combat, and generally being the most infuriating enemies possible, Eldar will sometimes work with the Imperium, but usually won't because they're dick. Also known as Copyright Infringement - the Tolkien Estate has been informed.
For now, the skirmish only has the glorious and upstanding Imperium of Man (all glory to the God-Emperor of Man, hallowed be His name, His will be Done, amen) and the evil and perfidious Chaos fleet (hiss, boo.) So, when you decide whether to be a good citizen or to be a filthy heretic, you get a Light Cruiser of your choice and some Escort class ships. Escort ships are replaceable, but anything larger is persistent - if you lose it in a skirmish, it is gone until you can get it fixed up in your starbase.
Then, you go on skirmishes: Randomized matches, which can be anything from escorting lightly armed transports to assassinating an enemy admiral by blowing up his flagship to fighting your way past an orbital blockade to bombard a planet. Each victory unlocks new ship slots, new ships, and levels the ships up - unlocking new crew skills, new ship upgrades, and so on!
So, you can very quickly and very easily fall into a habit of just doing one more battle for, uh, five hours straight to keep on building your fleet and blowing up enemy ships.
Once you actually drop into battle, you control your ships with standard RTS controls. It is not Homewold - the ships move in two dimensional space, and you cannot go under or above the enemy. Rather, combat is more similar to Empire: Total War's naval battles...though it is SLIGHTLY faster and far far far less finicky than E:TW's slugging sailing ship combat. For instance, you don't need to be worried about your ship accidentally going against the wind and ending up going no where.
When it comes to actually firing guns at one another, you have a wide variation of weapons - none of which are "hard" counters to anything. But they all have different strengths and weaknesses. Macrocannons fire rapidly, but are inaccurate. The closer you get, the more effective macrocannons get. Lances fire slowly, but always hit. Lances can work very well at range. Both do moderately good damage against void shields - but macrocannons will strip the shields off faster, as they fire faster. Meanwhile, torpedoes have theoretically infinite range, but they can be shot down by defense turrets and interceptor fighters. Nova cannons are extremely long ranged, but inaccurate and cannot be fired TOO close to your own ships. Strike craft are flexible, but fragile.
In the end, victory depends heavily on using your ships intelligently. Scout with escort craft to reveal the enemy fleet's composition. Maneuver your craft so that as many guns can fire at as many things as possible. Target enemy generators or engines to cripple them. Board enemy craft using assault shuttles and the teleportarium to disable their warp generators to prevent them from escaping. And, when in doubt, RAMMING SPEED!
My only complaints are very minor: Some of the weapon effects feel like they lack the impact that they should have - I mean, macrocannons are firing shells the size of large trucks. Oh, and if you loose contact with an enemy ship by it running silent or by it hiding in a nebula, the ships you ordered to attack it will STOP rather than continue to the enemy's last known position.
But...yeah.
TLDR: Buy game. Game good.
