Greetings and welcome, I'm Ash and these are my first impressions for Battlefleet Gothic:
Armada, a Warhammer 40k themed strategy game that features large scale space battles between
four distinct factions, each with their own ridiculously large ships and weaponry.
It is currently in a multiplayer beta, so while the core of the game is fully present
there are some bugs and balance issues that will need to be ironed out prior to launch.
Before I move on to the gameplay, allow me to just say that if the few campaign missions
available in this beta are any judge, Battlefleet Gothic is going to be one of the most impressive
and faithful Warhammer 40k adaptations in recent years.
With each mission starting with a well done cutscene and delightfully over-the-top narration
its hard not to get giddy if you're a Warhammer 40k fan, as the characters, races and themes
are spot on.
I won't comment on the quality of the campaign itself as only the tutorial is currently available,
but given the size of the playable Gothic Sector and all the areas you get to wage war
in, I have a feeling its going to be a rather long one.
My main concern is mission variety as I've only seen around 6 different types, but throughout
my playthrough I constantly kept unlocking new features that never showed up, so this
might be a beta only issue.
Whatever the case, I look forward to seeing more of the campaign as the tiny bits of it
I managed to play were immensely enjoyable, and rather challenging even on normal difficult,
though that could be attributed to me being bad as the campaign was the first thing I
tried out.
Once I was done with the tutorial I was ready to unleash my fleet upon all that dare stand
before me... at which point I realized I don't actually own a single ship.
As it turns out, the multiplayer portion of Battlefleet Gothic mirrors the progression
system of the campaign where you need to gather renown in order to unlock, upgrade and personalize
your fleet, ship by ship.
Even though it might sound a bit annoying, its not a bad system by any stretch as it
makes it so new players only have to contend with two ships, while more advanced players
are given command of entire fleets.
The only problem here is that progression is faction based, so if you put in a lot of
time towards mastering the Chaos fleet, and then decide to switch to the Imperium, you
will be right back at zero.
There are ways for more experienced players to earn renown quickly, the most efficient
route being to intentionally handicapping yourself by going to battle without all of
the ships slots filled.
Unfortunately, doing so doesn't seem to boost your experience gain by a significant degree,
which is the main issue since experience is what gates you from picking up some of the
truly gigantic ships that have become iconic to the Warhammer 40k universe.
On the positive side, the ship customization system allows for plenty of opportunities
to mold your fleet towards whatever strategy you enjoy.
Depending on the size of the ship, and the experience of its crew, you will be able to
attach various new abilities which have direct combat uses, technological upgrades which
improve your ship's performance in a given area, and even additional crew-members such
as the Commissar which helps improve moral by shooting people in the face.
While the majority of the customization options are currently available in the beta, the most
important one is unfortunately still in development, and by that I mean the ability to color your
own ships!
Its such a small feature, I know, but as a Warhammer 40k fan just having the option to
play as the famous Chapters and factions from the lore is a great feeling, and it elevates
the gameplay to a whole new level.
As of right now, the beta has two factions available: the heavily armored, slow and powerful
Imperium, and the forces of Chaos which excel at long range engagements and the use of support
units such as bombers and fighter craft.
Out of the two I opted to play as Chaos, partly because their tactics appeal to me, and partly
because Chaos tends to have hilariously corny voice acting which never gets boring to listen
to.
However, despite the voice acting being exactly what I signed up for, I did encounter a major
disappointment.
Even after having my entire fleet dedicated to Khorne, the god of slaughter, blood, and
other equally nice things, not a single one of my troops ever exclaimed the most iconic
and well recognized phrase in Warhammer 40k: "Blood for the blood god!
Skulls for the skull throne!".
I'm aware this is such an absurdly specific thing to complain about, but given how your
entire ship transforms depending on which god you serve, would it really have been too
much to ask for a couple of more lines.
With my fanboy complaints out of the way, its time to finally delve deep in to the actual
RTS mechanics behind Battlefleet Gothic.
The first thing any player will notice once they enter the battle arena is that even though
the gameplay is simple in concept, the UI is anything but.
There is an overwhelming amount of poorly explained options for you to use, options
that are of great significance in combat, yet completely obscured from new players.
The best example of this is the "Lock On Target" ability that makes it so your ship constantly
fires at the enemy, even while you're maneuvering it around, changing its angle for the perfect
broadside cannon spread and so on.
Its the sort of thing you would always want to have enabled, but Battlefleet Gothic not
only disables it at the start of each round, but also hides it among a dozen other options
with tiny icons at the bottom left of your screen.
Once I figured out Lock On Target existed my enjoyment of Battlefleet Gothic practically
doubled as I was no longer fighting my ships for control, yet its next to impossible to
locate unless you're actively fiddling with the menus.
It also doesn't help that the default keyboard controls have been designed with the squid
people of Grobulon 5 in mind, and as such the majority of your important functions are
delegated to far away buttons while the completely pointless camera controls are set on very
accessible WASD keys.
If you do decide to play Battlefleet Gothic, heed my advice and go in to the controls and
remap your skills to buttons you're comfortable with as you're going to be using them often,
and the default settings are simple not adequate.
While the options might be somewhat poorly explained, the whole process of planning and
executing your attacks is immensely satisfying given that each ship is capable of taking
a solid amount of punishment, so you never feel like you've just won or lost purely because
someone got lucky.
Instead, its all about using every single tactical advantage available to you in order
to turn the tides on your opponent, which sometimes means sacrificing your own ship
by ramming it prow-first in to the enemy.
Much like the galleons of old, the cannons in Battlefleet Gothic are mostly situated
at the broadside, with the front only having limited firing options.
Since the ships in question are almost all ginormous, its not easy for them rotate around
in order to get the optimal firing angle, which means there is plenty of ways for you
to outmaneuver and deceive your opponents in such a way that you leave them constantly
shifting and turning as they desperately try to find a good angle on you, while you unleash
barrage after barrage straight in to their engines, crippling them further.
This is the future, however, so you are able to execute a high-energy turn in order to
quickly rotate your ship, but this doesn't come without its downsides.
First of all, almost all of your forward momentum will be lost and while you might turn around,
you will be left adrift and slow in the void of space which is the universal signal for
"attack now"; and secondly, using these sort of turns expels precious fuel which can also
be used to greatly boost your speed.
So if you see your opponent constantly executing high-speed turns you will know for certain
that they can't run very far, or very fast, which means its time to bring out the big
guns, space-bombs and hilariously slow moving torpedoes to bear upon them.
If you haven't guessed already, speed in Battlefleet Gothic is of the utmost importance, especially
if you enjoy playing with short-ranged ships, which is where one of my main annoyances comes
in, and that is the ability to permanently destroy a ship's engines.
When you're mostly fighting moon-sized ships it makes sense to give you the ability to
focus fire on certain parts of it: the turrets, the engines, the deck, navigation and so forth.
The problem is that while disabling the turrets or the deck is annoying, doing so for the
engines is a 100% death sentence.
Without the ability to move quickly your short ranged ships will simply be either forced
to warp-out of the engagement if they're still able, or remain floating around like space-turds
as your opponents activate their turbo-boost and skedaddle out of range of your guns.
Suddenly, just because someone got fortunate enough to get a few solid hits on your engine,
your entire ship, which might be on near-full health, is now completely useless as it can't
catch up to enemies, turn quickly or do practically anything.
Worst of all, when a ship loses its engine early on its just not fun to play with, so
I do hope this is something the developers fix for the launch version, because losing
your engines should be a massive punishment, but not the RTS equivalent of torture.
Thankfully, that nightmare scenario doesn't come up often as the balance in Battlefleet
Gothic feels like its almost there, with maybe the exception of the Imperial Nova Cannons
which do obscene amounts of damage if you dare face them head on.
Another factor worthy of praise is that battles are relatively short so even if you lose you
won't feel like you've wasted too much time, and will gladly queue in to another match
armed with the knowledge some other player just beat in to you.
As a part of my strategy I outfitted all of my ships with docking bays so that I can launch
wave after wave of bombers and fighters to overwhelm the enemy with, while my long-ranged
cruisers only ever come close in order to deposit a fresh batch of Chaos demons on enemy's
doorstep before falling back once again.
It seems like a very simple system, even when you're playing it, but there are so many minute
things you can do in order to secure yourself an advantage that Battlefleet Gothic constantly
kept pulling me back for one more round, all the way until 3 AM.
If I would to level one big complaint against Battlefleet Gothic it would be the completely
static maps upon which you do battle.
Sure some have a few nebulas, others a few asteroid fields, but overall the maps never
change and there is nothing dynamic about them.
I want to see maps where a Space Hulk slowly meanders across the battlefield providing
an annoying obstruction, I want to see warp storms spring out and negatively affect all
ships that are unfortunate enough to be caught inside them without their shields up, things
like that.
As it stands, every map might look slightly different, but they all play exactly the same,
and that's just a shame given how cool the actual gameplay is.
I've spent around 10 hours playing Battlefleet Gothic: Armada this week and while it certainly
has a few annoying issues and balance problems I can't say I didn't greatly enjoy my time
with it.
Even though I appreciate a good bit of multiplayer madness, its the campaign I'm looking forward
to the most, especially after seeing how its so faithful to the Warhammer 40k lore while
also being just a touch self-aware.
If you're a Warhammer 40k fan, and you think you would enjoy a micromanagement focused
RTS, then by all means give Battlefleet Gothic: Armada a try, I had a good bit of fun with
it.
Thank you guys for listening, and if you enjoyed this, or even if you didn't, please let me
know, and if you would like to see more you can either subscribe here, or check out the
website linked down below, that one tends to be updated more frequently.
With all of that said, I hope you have a nice day and I will see you soon with Paragon,
see ya!