Warhammer: Mark of Chaos

For years I’ve been enamored with Game Workshop’s line of tabletop miniatures games.  Many times I’ve stood and marveled at the hard work and dedication the fellows at my local game store put into their custom armies.  I even attempted to join the ranks of these elite board gamers but lost interest after painstakingly painting one model and then tallying up how much a good army would cost me both in time and money.  I’ve never lost interest in the game though and I was delighted when a preview build of Warhammer Mark of Chaos showed up in my mailbox.

Before trying the tutorials and campaign, I did what I always do when I get a new RTS and fired up a quick skirmish against the CPU.  The game loaded up and I had to pop the DVD out of the drive and do a double take.  “Did they accidentally send me some strange new Total War game by mistake?”  No, they didn’t, but upon first glance the Mark of Chaos game engine bears a striking resemblance to the Total War series.  Well, except for the rat creatures, orcs, and the like.

Unlike most RTS titles, you’ll be commanding groups of individual fighters as a single unit instead of being able to give orders to individual warriors.  This is almost identical to the table top version in which several models all share the same base.  Commanding a unit is as simple as clicking on its banner and then right clicking on a destination or enemy.  You can also hold down the right button when selecting where to go which lets you assign a facing for the moving unit.  This can be used to prevent them from turning their back to the enemy.  In addition, you’ll be able to put units in tight or loose and column or line formations and decide whether they should chase down fleeing units or let them run.  It’s kind of basic until you start adding heroes to the mix.

You’ll have multiple heroes that can be assigned to units.  After the hero joins a unit he moves and attacks with that unit and his special ability commands show up on that units command panel.  This has several benefits.  First it prevents you from having to micromanage the individual heroes while the rest of your units consist of groups of characters and it also allows the heroes abilities to affect large groups of fighters.  For example, a fire wizard grouped with a swordsman unit gives that unit the ability to cast a fireball, special magical armor and other spells.  The fireball isn’t a big deal because the hero could already do this alone.  The magical armor on the other hand affects the entire unit that the hero is paired with, not just the hero.  These sorts of abilities when used correctly can be the key that turns the tide of a losing battle.  Heroes will also be able to level up and equip new skills by progressing along a skill tree as the campaign unfolds.

Multiplayer action can be had both on a LAN and over the internet.  It looks like there will be options to have free for alls as well as multiple folks on opposing teams.  Because the game doesn’t rely on the conventional base building, gold/metal mining RTS standards you’ll be able to adjust the size of the game by the amount of gold per player that can be used to build an army.  Players will then battle those customized armies against each other in a very close facsimile of the tabletop game.

Customization is what really makes your army stand out in the miniatures game and it’s also a key feature in the PC game.  You’ll be able to change the banners, colors, and the various units that make up your army.  Even more interesting is the amount of variety you can add to each individual unit.  In most games that twenty man squad of pike men will all look identical.  Not in Mark of Chaos.  Your group of twenty pike men can be made up of eight different character models that you can customize yourself.  Model one may wear a floppy hat, while model two has a different pike, with model three drawing the short straw having to wear tights and so on.  It’s a great feature that really brings a lot of life to each unit in your squad.

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos looks like it’s going to be more than the run of the mill RTS.  It may even have the potential to outshine its 40K cousin Dawn of War.  While there were a lot of minor bugs, missing art work and the like in the preview copy I demoed the development team should get these ironed out by release.  Warhammer fans are in for a real treat, plus RTS fans might find themselves trying something new that wasn’t done by Blizzard.