On September 03 2011 01:42 [Agony]x90 wrote: If you're ever interested in a more "correct" portrayal of the 40k world, check out DoW 2. That game itself is modeled off of the "Dawn of War" deployment type (which is one of three). On the TT, you start with 1 HQ (your leader) and two troops (basic units). After that, everything else comes on at the start of the next term. The idea is that the battle is just starting, meaning that your troops slowly but slowly pour on.
Even still, the TT is by no means close to the actual fluff. One Space Marine is worth tens of thousands of lives of basic imperial guard. In the actual fiction, one chapter of space marines contains 1000 space marines, along with an array of supporting servitors, pilots, technician etc. who are all human or human equivalent. Of these 1000 troops, it is very rare for the chapter to lose a single space marine in an operation (apart from the epic mega battles that they always portray in all the artwork) and when they do fall, they must always be harvested for their gene seed, which is a foreign object placed into their bodies that reconfigure their genetic code to match that of their primarchs, who in turn were basically clones of the Emperor.
That is a Space Marine. An imperial guardsmen is one in a billion in his army alone. The imperial guard has thousands of these armies stationed all over the known galaxy. Imagine these men as fanatical, religious, blind following soldiers trained to kill and fight. They are constantly reminded of their religious duty to their emperor and if they fail always face the possibility of execution. This means that they are human, just like us, but that they will almost always fight tooth and nail, train to be in tip top shape and basically are, by our standards, super troops. However, these guys die by the tens of thousands in battles where the space marines would close to none. This is because no matter how well they are trained, they are leagues below any other race out there in terms of equipment and natural physical ability. For this reason, while the space marines are very tactical and smart about their approaches to battle, the Imperial Guard have no choice but to attack in massive droves on men (think Enemy at the Gates style).
This is basically saying, you may think this game shows the Space Marine as too strong, but as far as I could tell with the demo, this is how it should be. Regular Orkz are idiots with only half a brain enough to charge into battle. You occasionally meet Nobz, and these guys are basically on par with Space marines. This is perfect, because you only see a couple from time to time. Otherwise, it's natural to run into a dozen basic orkz and kill them with a team of 3 (should be 5 really) without too much trouble. The Orkz are, afterall, a horde army like the imperial guard. Now, i don't know about the chaos though. I hope that the majority of what you fight are cultists of sorts, because Chaos Space Marines are Space Marines with 10,000 years experience of fighting, just lacking the technology that the current Marines have. Ideally, one Space Marine will not be able to kill droves of CSM, but I won't be able to see that til the game comes out :-p.
/FICTION RANT
wow you got me very interested in 40k lore. can you suggest some books or places where i can read about it?
The only books really worth reading are Horus Heresy series, for Space Marines, Chaos and general history. Gaunt's Ghosts for Imperial Guard (although the first book can be a bit hard to read). The Word Bearer's trilogy is also nice but right now it's nigh impossible to get it (out of print and out of stock everywhere). Horus Heresy series contain so much epic that you may have trouble breathing when reading them.
I've lent my books to a friend, but if someone would be so kind as to quote the bombing of Istvaan III passage from Galaxy in Flames it could give people a glimpse of what kind of things are going on in this books.
Edit: Oh, the Eisenhorn trilogy was awesome too! Great insight on Inquisition. VVV
By "books" I actually meant codicies, xenology and IA. Never been a fan of suggesting books at random knowing that what is in them is probably no longer canon.
Also some of the old fluff which has been retconned is still considered valid by the older generations of players ie ollanius pius.
regarding 40k books, id recommend the ciaphas cain Hero of the Imperium series. its kinda hard to take 40k as a whole seriously, so might as well read something with a black adder-ish take on things
I love the universe that Games Workshop created, but their books are just awful. For example, after reading through a few books, I decided to take it upon myself to drink a shot of beer, yes... a shot of beer, every time I saw the action verb "smash" or "smashed" or "smashing". Do you know how drunk I got and how much money I wasted on 24 packs of beer?
Their books LITERALLY instilled in me an instinctive cringe every time I read the word smash in a sentence of a book or any written piece of literature.
Played the demo and it seemed like a decent game. Guns had a nice feeling and smashing orcs was quite enjoyable.
No way It's worth full price for me personally though, especially as I'm not a fan of Warhammer, going to wait till massive sales and pick it up then probably.
On September 04 2011 02:58 Headlines wrote: I love the universe that Games Workshop created, but their books are just awful. For example, after reading through a few books, I decided to take it upon myself to drink a shot of beer, yes... a shot of beer, every time I saw the action verb "smash" or "smashed" or "smashing". Do you know how drunk I got and how much money I wasted on 24 packs of beer?
Their books LITERALLY instilled in me an instinctive cringe every time I read the word smash in a sentence of a book or any written piece of literature.
Yes, several of the books are quite lame.
However SOME of the authors do the subject matter justice... Dan Abnett in particular does very good work
Eisenhorn remains to this day one of my favorite sci-fi genre books... It was the first 40k book I had ever read, and it approached the subject matter from an amazing perspective. Hell, I think i'm going to go read it now.
Well after seeing TotalBiscuit play Space Marines and talk so enthusiastically about the universe, I decided to check it out. Keep in mind that this was my first contact with this universe aside from seeing figures fully painted in modelling shops that I frequent =)
Went to a friend and borrowed his Dawn of War games. Played through the vanilla DoW and had a blast . I didn't finish Winter Assault because the Imperials felt like shit >.< Currently playing Dark Crusade and loving the Risk style map! But I have to play on hardest to get a challenge after StarCraft RTS training ;p
I also installed DoW 2 to see how the graphics improved, and to see the Swarm on this side of the universe. Initially I was largely put off by the removal of standard RTS base building, and the new huge focus on squads and the commander play, but it started to grow on me. The campaign still feels like shit, but the custom battles with the AI are starting to get fun as I get to know the units, the upgrades and the races. Also went over to gamereplays and watched some VODs and casts to see how it's supposed to be played.
Can anyone tell me how's the balance in both DoW I and II? Any OP factions? I imagine that every Xpacts screws the balance over more and more every time. (If you have trouble answering this, just say which factions work on the high level of competition or ladder) I'll probably get these off of amazon.co.uk next time I'm shopping there, since DoW I (vanilla+all 3 xpacks) costs 12 pounds and DoW II (vanilla+1st Xpack) 9 pounds.
The balance improved grately over time. I've been out of touch for some time now but if you want to watch some good games with good commentary head over to dow2live.com (although the site has changed so I'm not sure if they still have the old vods). Edit: here they are: http://www.own3d.tv/live/12189/dow2live
On September 04 2011 08:11 Latham wrote: Well after seeing TotalBiscuit play Space Marines and talk so enthusiastically about the universe, I decided to check it out. Keep in mind that this was my first contact with this universe aside from seeing figures fully painted in modelling shops that I frequent =)
Went to a friend and borrowed his Dawn of War games. Played through the vanilla DoW and had a blast . I didn't finish Winter Assault because the Imperials felt like shit >.< Currently playing Dark Crusade and loving the Risk style map! But I have to play on hardest to get a challenge after StarCraft RTS training ;p
I also installed DoW 2 to see how the graphics improved, and to see the Swarm on this side of the universe. Initially I was largely put off by the removal of standard RTS base building, and the new huge focus on squads and the commander play, but it started to grow on me. The campaign still feels like shit, but the custom battles with the AI are starting to get fun as I get to know the units, the upgrades and the races. Also went over to gamereplays and watched some VODs and casts to see how it's supposed to be played.
Can anyone tell me how's the balance in both DoW I and II? Any OP factions? I imagine that every Xpacts screws the balance over more and more every time. (If you have trouble answering this, just say which factions work on the high level of competition or ladder) I'll probably get these off of amazon.co.uk next time I'm shopping there, since DoW I (vanilla+all 3 xpacks) costs 12 pounds and DoW II (vanilla+1st Xpack) 9 pounds.
Anyway sorry to high jack this thread
Haven't played ina while but basically DoW1 went that generally Eldar, Orks and Tau are the strongest races and the weakest is very much Necrons because of their retarded build mechanics.
As for racees you dont see too much, probably Sisters and Dark Eldar are the rarest. (Some people just play Necrons cuz its different)
On September 03 2011 12:24 Percutio wrote: Relic's 40k series are fun but I think it would be more awesome to have a total war style game with balance close to the fluff.
Plus building armies and commanding them would be amazing. However it would be really intensive to run armies that would be of appropriate scale without giving power races like Space Marines and Chaos Space marines unreasonably small armies. I mean imagine having like 1 mad expensive Tactical squad vs 1000s of guardsmen, wouldn't be fun even if it was balanced.
This is how DOW3 is planned. 'Massive custom armies' I have read. May also include Titans. They want the game to be more MMO also, I guess jumping into planetry battles on a large scale. Well Relic always try to add something and they are doing this for DOW3. First reveals are planned for December.
Also anybody who hesitated to play DOW2 but is a fan in general of DOW 1 I would say the game (DOW2) is in a pretty good state now. Definitely worth a look in on steam sales. If people like this SM game and are new to 40K I would definitely reccommend the DOW2 vanilla and Chaos Rising campaigns. They have a lot of content.
On September 03 2011 12:24 Percutio wrote: Relic's 40k series are fun but I think it would be more awesome to have a total war style game with balance close to the fluff.
Plus building armies and commanding them would be amazing. However it would be really intensive to run armies that would be of appropriate scale without giving power races like Space Marines and Chaos Space marines unreasonably small armies. I mean imagine having like 1 mad expensive Tactical squad vs 1000s of guardsmen, wouldn't be fun even if it was balanced.
This is how DOW3 is planned. 'Massive custom armies' I have read. May also include Titans. They want the game to be more MMO also, I guess jumping into planetry battles on a large scale. Well Relic always try to add something and they are doing this for DOW3. First reveals are planned for December.
Also anybody who hesitated to play DOW2 but is a fan in general of DOW 1 I would say the game (DOW2) is in a pretty good state now. Definitely worth a look in on steam sales. If people like this SM game and are new to 40K I would definitely reccommend the DOW2 vanilla and Chaos Rising campaigns. They have a lot of content.
THQ has a site wide labor day sale at least in the states. Retribution for $15 among other things.
But yeah I'm going to get hyped for DOW3. I just hope they have a high number of starting races as I really want to play Tau.
I also hope they can get decent balance in line with the "fluff" numbers wise. I mean if it is conquest style a la Total War campaign series then I don't see a problem with having a lot of a race if you've justified it by carving out a good empire (:
And by fluff wise I mean withing reason, I'm pretty sure Space Marines would be stupidly efficient and boring if they were depicted at their supposed strength.
On September 05 2011 21:20 haduken wrote: Why the hell does every 40K movie and game has to feature
A) some no name chapter B) Ultramarines...
What are dark angels, imperial fist and that white and red chapter (forgot name, played when I was a teen.)
I think this may be lore related and how ferociously GW guard their IP. Some chapters maybe might not have lore released for them yet and I guess they don't want to introduce too much new fluff through the videogame genre. Relic have done a really good job with GW but they are also restrained. It seems a lot of companies contracts fell through with GW due to lore restrictions, even Blizzard if you listen to the rumours
probably Whitescars. I agree, the blood angels need more love. They were the original pinup chapter and they did the job far better than the smurfs IMO.
I think this may be lore related and how ferociously GW guard their IP. Some chapters maybe might not have lore released for them yet and I guess they don't want to introduce too much new fluff through the videogame genre. Relic have done a really good job with GW but they are also restrained. It seems a lot of companies contracts fell through with GW due to lore restrictions, even Blizzard if you listen to the rumours
I do not think this is the case. Every marine chapter has been fleshed out very thoroughly now, in fact far more thoroughly than in a lot of more recent publications. The essentials needed for portraying any first founding chapter in a videogame are certainly already out there.
The reason for choosing ultramarines is that they are really the no-frills space marines. They follow the basic organisation of the chapter almost to the letter, they don't have any backstory (other than various winrars for the emprah.) and they have the spartan-300-hoplite motif going that links in to a lot of pop culture right now. As I said, with all the vampire craze I really don't see why the blood angels don't get a look in, but I guess easy is good.
What makes space marines so incredibly attractive as organisations in my opinion is that they have their own unique traits and character. Not only does this give people something to be drawn to based on their own personality, but the chapters play off each other and create a tension within the lore
Also I'm pro Ultramarines, they rock! No more Blood Ravens please. In multiplayer I'm probably gonna go with Imperial Fists.
Speaking of multiplayer, I hope the modes don't get boring too soon. There would be so much potential for co-op modes, like being a 5-10 men team against an Ork horde or something.
i want...i soooooooo want! AND you can change the appearance! sweet! not just runnin round las an ultra, but other as well (pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase space wolves?? iron hands?? ...salamanders?!?!?)
On September 05 2011 21:20 haduken wrote: Why the hell does every 40K movie and game has to feature
A) some no name chapter B) Ultramarines...
What are dark angels, imperial fist and that white and red chapter (forgot name, played when I was a teen.)
blood angels and the white scars? yeah,. theyd be awesome too, but now that ive looked at some other trailers, i think were going to see none of them
Same here. $90 on steam in AU compared to $50 US. Our dollar is at 1.07 US atm. As much as it pains me to do this to a game from a studio I respect and an IP I love, this one is getting torrented. Publishers have got to stop doing this, because I would happily give them my money if they didn't take every chance to bend me over and **** me for living where I do.
EPT
. I didn't finish Winter Assault because the Imperials felt like shit >.<
