Battlefleet Gothic: Armada

That reads like what I would expect of the Eldar.

This is one of the few GW properties that I don’t have hands on for the table version. Only Imperium and Chaos are in right now, but from the game play trailer and what I have seen in Twitch, Chaos is fast and long range. The tricks I locked onto while watching was they have sensor fake outs (Tzeentch), plague dots (Nurgle), and ship relocation with teleportation. Who knows what Eldar will bring.

Looks good, also this is $28 over on GreenManGaming with the current 20% off code, no affiliation with the Orks.

Go to hell, Chaplin, I’m $40 poorer now.

I’m considering picking this up, though the Steam forum for it is really negative. Though, it seems that many of the people complaining don’t seem to understand what “beta test” means…

Yes, brother. As the God Emperor commands we shall drive them back into the Eye of Terror. :)

In all seriousness, it is just the beta and who knows how it will evolve with time and play. However it’s nice to not have yet another junk title wrapped up and sold with a Warhammer license.

That said…

I watched more streams from some experienced closed beta players last night. It is a very tactical game. It was pretty cool seeing good players do an almost slow motion or ballet version of fighting game’s “footsie” in a naval setting. Seeing them maneuver, jab, withdraw, pounce and punish on poor positioning, pivot away to counter broadside with a critical free side full of repaired cannons, use torpedo volleys to wall and isolate…all so cool.

A table top player suggested that if Armada follows the TT game then Eldar will have near OP movement, super strong short range weapons, and entire faces (rather than just jaws) made of glass. They seem to be a high skill fleet that requires precise maneuvering for hit and run strikes. Orks should be terrible at most things but really tough and great at ramming.

The planetkiller is from The Gothic War/Abaddons 12th Dark Crusade, so early in the 41st millennium. 30k is the Great Crusade, pre-Heresy.

The game sounds pretty good though glad its on pre-order. I hope Orks and Eldar are in at release. Ork space tech is pretty interesting. The latest GW book, part 3 of 12 in their 32nd Century post-Heresy special “The Beast Arises” was a rather good novel focusing on the space combat, Imperials vs Orks.

I’ve read through a lot of those. I think it’s fair to say it’s the usual Steam forum stuff. Some folks are mad that the beta with a level one admiral can’t have Sins of a Solar Empire scale. The game IS smaller scale. Plus, low level admiral matches are only 300 points which seems like a good idea as there is a lot going on and I have seen some tragically scattered focus even in just a few ships so far. Some folks are mad about progression in multiplayer. I guess that depends where you fall on a Command & Conquer 4 (where are all my toys) to Mordhiem/ Blood Bowl (team management) spectrum. Some report bugs and crashes. Well…beta. And there is some that seem to be on a crusade against the publisher.

Ah. My lore is rusty and I wondered when I saw Abbadon being tempted by “Warmaster” title in a trailer. Orks and Eldar are for sure supposed to be in at launch, just probably not beta.

You actually might be exactly the one to ask this, I have strayed from the 40k novels for awhile, can you name any that are currently available that focus on tactical space fleet combat? It sounds like I need to hunt down “The Beast Rises”. I remember one of the early Horus Heresy ones had some, but grew bored of story retreading after several books.

Execution Hour and Shadow Point by Gordon Rennie are set in the The Gothic War and the pretty much the only Battlefleet Gothic/pure naval novels but looking at Amazon, the prices range from omg to Only Notch Can Afford.

Okay, this is the same as treasure Island, battle at procyon game, just more awesome setting, i think it will be god fun, with solid mp setting , if you oove the emperor you buy this.

Any singleplayer in it yet?

This.

Yep, looks like the campaign is in, you can play 3 modes, campaign, skirmish and multiplayer. All worked fine for me, some bugs here and there but nothing bad.

In the current beta, you can play campaign prologue, which has 3 mission, the last one you get to fight the Ork (the voice acting and production in those prologue mission are top notch). then you can play offline skirmish with AI (Imperium and Chaos only at this time), it plays pretty good, although consider it is still in beta, so there are bugs and such, but nothing too bad.

Thanks guys - Im getting this asap!

Can you board/capture other ships? I’m not familiar with the Warhammer board/miniature games.

Ship can be boarded for damage (you can choose subsystem to target, i.e engine, shield, etc.) but no capturing of enemy ship in game.

Anyone else worried about the devs history on their two prior titles, apart from the ever prescient Mr Rubin?

Both Etherium and Stellar Impact were apparently buggy messes that ultimately remained incomplete when the devs dropped support. This is firmly in ‘wait for reviews’ territory.

Thanks for writing up all the reports Chaplin. From what you’ve said, I’ll certainly pick it up at final launch if not earlier.

Okay, besides my reckless fandom so far I think it is very fair and even handed to say, resoundingly, yes. Even in the beta there is a more developed skirmish than I have seen in any RTS since maybe Warlords Battlecry III. The skirmish (as the multiplayer) has fleet development tied to your admiral where you level up ships, give them passive and active specials, upgrade crew, etc between matches. Ships lost or severely damaged in a skirmish are out of play for a few runs. Skirmish is essentially a campaign without story stuff. Keep in mind your admiral is tied to the difficulty you picked at the start. I am finding normal pretty easy and might start over on hard.

There is a true campaign in the full game that looks outstanding, but the beta only has the first few missions/ “prologue” for that.

So, while it’s called a “multiplayer beta” you can easily play the snot out of it with progression as a single player game. It is worth mentioning that the pre-order hook of the Space Marine faction is actually an early adopter bonus so folks can sit it out till release then still get the extra faction after release for a few months. Still, I find the beta right this second a solid value and darn cool. But Sci-fi naval tactics is one of my favorite genres and outside of books it rarely gets scratched.

–Chaplain Chaplin