STACK #139 May 2016

FEATURE GAMES

Four Warhammer

games you must play:

Vermintide Left 4 Dead but with giant rampaging rats and unabashed fantasy slaughter. Great to play with friends, and infuriatingly delightful to play with people online. Dawn of War II The perfect video game version of the 40K franchise, and the only title to perfectly capture the sound of the Bolter – the dull, solid thud of hitting Arnold Schwarzenegger with a frozen steak.

bat units to harass your gunline in order to stop you from tearing apart their shambling lines with shrapnel. Enemy cavalry race up the flank looking for the chance to disrupt your formations, and the opposing commander will do everything in their power (their literal power, with spells and everything) to crush your army. This game is the only place where Warhammer fans will

start their domination of the Old World. More importantly, depth hasn’t been sacrificed on the altar of the Blood God to make way for it. Your path forward is customisable, your strengths and weaknesses decided by the technologies you research, the

Bloodbowl II Like football, but with way more death, and thus more

GAMES

entertainment. Easy to play, hard to master, and impossible to predict with those goddamn dice rolls deciding everything.

troops you favour, and what Lord you choose to lead your forces. But the main concern of fans isn’t the overworld and army management. Since the rather disastrous launch of Rome II, with its pitiful AI, the player-base

...he’ll actually raise zombies or skeletons in front of himself to shield himself.

Space Marine Glory for the Emperor and a

button-mashing masterpiece, Space Marine is a gory chainsword delight that lets you find your zen between buckets of spilt Ork blood.

be able to see their spells mean more than just a roll of the dice. This game is the

first place Total War fans will be able to control armies that play completely differently from faction to faction. It is a wonder to behold, a spectacle to be enjoyed, and easily the best TW to date.

wants to know what happened and whether Total Warhammer will suffer the same fate. “It’s an ongoing process with AI. When we release the game, that’s the kind of thing we stick in patches as well,” says Winston, recalling the desperate fixes made to Rome II . “There’s obviously been a large amount of work to plant for the AI to do with all these new things and developments as well, so you’ll see nice little touches. For instance, there’s a ‘raise dead’ spell Vampires can unlock, and you’ll quite often see situations in a battle where a unit of cavalry are charging towards an enemy undead caster and he’ll actually raise zombies or skeletons in front of himself to shield himself. Although, again, yes there are problems present, but it gives us an opportunity for our AI guys to offer new challenges to the player.” To our eyes, the AI is performing far better than its closest contemporary. Playing as the Empire against the Vampire Counts, you’ll notice that the latter’s lack of missile units sees them relying on disposable, cheap flying

And it’s come at just the right time, too, because no-one wants to play Age of Sigmar.

• Total War: Warhammer is out May 24

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