Don’t forget the Space Marines as a fifth faction. You get them if you pre-order (hold that groan) and EVEN STILL GET THEM if you buy within a short time after release. So go ahead and wait for reviews and then snag 'em. As to playing the beta, so far this is my most pleasant surprise with a GW property since Dawn of War.
Wait, aren’t space marines the vanilla humans? I really should bone up on my Warhammer lore.
-Tom
Chaos scum!
The Imperium of Man are the “vanilla” humans that fight for the God Emperor. These are the ones you can use now. Space Marines are super genetic soldiers that are the elite of the Imperium. As the traditional faction, you can upgrade your ships to be better at boarding actions by going with Adeptus Astartes (the Space Marines). In Battlefleet Gothic, the Space Marines have their own ship types, these will be the fifth faction.
In Dawn of War terms, think back to Space Marines and Imperial Guard as faction choices. Both fight for the emperor, but one is like regular soldiers with laser guns and big tanks and the other is hulking steroid soldiers in power armor and walking dreadnaughts.
To be honest Tom, while a lot of the fiction is iffy, the lore is some of the best stuff Warhammer has to offer. I gave up the miniature games long ago, but still dig the lore. Said lore really enhances the joy in the video games when a good one comes along (which this one is shaping up to be).
Ah yes, of course, the Imperium. Space Russians, right? I know these guys from Relic’s Dawn of War RTS. Cheap manpower, rickety equipment, and brutal morale enforcers. So, yeah, Space Russians!
-Tom
I like Orcs, so I’m going to stay out of this one, feel free to rip eachothers throats out.
The ones from Dawn of War were, for sure. But there are lots of flavours of the Imperial Guard, depending on which planet or sector they come from. Some are closer to jungle guerrilla fighters, while others are styled more like WW1/2 infantry regiments, or Middle Eastern militia forces. There’s a pretty varied slew of (grossly expensive) miniatures and lore to back them.
The goal of the imperial army is usually the same - swarm them with numbers. Alternatively, have a lot of tanks. I can see both describes as Space Russians.
I guess that makes the Marines Space Germans (nazis?)?
I don’t think this was ever answered in this thread (apologies if I missed it), but I was just trying to find out if it is. The answer appears to be no, but you can go into a mode called “Tactical Cogitator” which slows the action down considerably.
Yeah, it’s not “turn based” but you can slow things down to super slow motion to make decisions or drink in all the glorious space pr0n. Personally I love to watch torpedoes from a million angles as they close.
I skimmed through TotalBiscuit’s video this morning, and was pretty blown away by the “space pr0n”. Think I am going to go ahead and buy it now.
In mp do they have like Coginator time? Like each side gets 10 seconds of it per match?
Tom chick was born to play Eldar, firing off snark from behind cloak and irony. My fleets of ork await you with lesson about the beauty of simplicity.
A healthy love of elves never hurts, either.
Looking at the pollon the forums, the race to come after Spess Mehreens will be one of the following…
Necrons
Tau
Tyranids
Whatever gets picked will also be free to pre-orderers , sometime after the Spess Mehreens come out.
Do the in-game orks sing as they head to battle? That would be a tipping point for me.
Imagine if the game soundtrack included an entire folder of Ork pirate songs! :D
I think Eldar are live? I have an 600mb download going and this guy uploaded this gameplay vid a few hours ago.
They don’t look like what I think Eldar combat would look like. Holofields and scatterfields means when you fight Eldar all you see is stuff glitching and ghosting everywhere. Although it doesn’t show them as opponents of course.
Here are the patch notes.
The juicy stuff that actually matters (aside from the Eldar getting added):
Gameplay
•The minimum amount of Line ships for a given mission is now “1 per whole 300 fleet points” slices.
•Fleet points given to the IA in Campaign mode reworked, it now has -15% in Easy, -5% in Normal, +5% in Hard, and +15% in Heroic.
•Nova Cannon modified:
◦ Precision modified to be a bit more average:
◾ It is now more precise at long range than before.
◾ It is now more imprecise at close range than before.
◦ The Nova Cannon now takes 3 seconds to fire instead of 2.
◦ Feedback added on the landing location of the attack during the firing time.
•Transport ships are now accessible in the factions’ docks. They can be fit with Upgrades like Escort ships, but cannot be added to a fleet in the pregame.
•The chances of a Cruiser Clash mission are now up to 40%. The 60% left is a random between all mission pool except for the cruiser clash)
•Traktor Kannon’s effect duration reworked from 3 seconds to 1 second, hence tracking upon a lesser distance.
•Defence platforms and Space stations now deal twice the damages they did before in case of ramming.
•In Space Station Assault, the Space Station’s position has been moved backward, and the Defender now have the same number of Fleetpoints than the attacker.
•IA Fleetpoints in Campaign have been improved.
Tau would be very interesting. Tau cruisers are half decent, with railguns. Demiurge are migratory trader/miners and their ships reflect that. Kroot are a mix of stone age and odd tech, their ships are called warspheres It’s a mix of alien ships differing to the other races (bar tyranid) which all look a bit similar.
That is indeed how it works, you get a limited amount of tactical cogitator time in multiplayer, at least that’s what I read when I was searching for an answer. I do not know if its use is limited in single player. Really hope not, could be a deal breaker for me.