The Total Star Wars Rumour, Not So Much
As a Total War game unlike any other, Creative Assembly has some work to do to make Total War: Warhammer 40K work well. Instead of the traditional map, where you take provinces away from the competition to keep your economy going and build more and better troops you will instead be looking at “crusade theatres” which are comprised of several planets you can take, or if you prefer you can go full Exterminatus and remove them as a base for anyone. The battles themselves will also be somewhat different as you don’t start the battle with just the troops you initiated it with, reinforcements called in from orbit will be a big mechanic of the game.
We haven’t seen much about how this will work from the trailer nor discussions with developers but we do know a bit about the races. For one, Chaos Space Marines won’t be appearing right away but instead are going to be a DLC or full add-on to the base game. Instead you get the classics, the Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Orks and Eldar to play with.
IG will be the most Total War-ish of the Warhammer 40K options, with huge amounts of troops, artillery and tanks but little moral. Think Skaven with flashlights, backed up by less amusing but just as effective armoured units. Da Orks will be similar but instead of fleeing the second the Commissar’s back is turned they will instead turn on each other if you let them get bored, so keep that Waaugh going!. Space Marine will field comparatively tiny armies, but with each individual unit equal to 100 or more of the other races. That will be an interesting change from previous games and it will be interesting to see just how well this is executed. A good Nob should be able to much a Marine without help after all.
Last are the Eldar, who apparently are properly weird. Instead of focusing on fighting the ‘lesser races’ you will instead be more focused on stopping horrific things from happening to the galaxy. This doesn’t mean the Mon-keigh and others care, they will still be looking to erase the Xenos filth from the universe. Troops will come from a Craftworld which is off screen, so no worries about it being taken, but when one of your troops dies it is gone forever, it’s soul now belongs to Slaanesh. It’s unclear exactly how that mechanic will work, but the same can be said for most of the new mechanics in this Warhammer 40K game. We don’t even know if there will be fleet battles or not, nor if Creative Assembly have gotten better at those battles since the naval battles in Medieval 2.
Check out the trailer if you haven’t seen it yet, or take a peek at how Warhammer 4K: Mechanicus II has changed after the feedback from the demo.
