Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach (2017)

stayed up super late last night in a rather long final battle but managed to finished sons of cadia campaign after chipping away at it every now and then for a few months. This was a rather enjoyable DLC (So far the Imperial Guard are definitely my favorite in this game due to the way you use use vehicles to support infantry) by the end of the campaign i had a very sizable (and levelled) mobile armor battalion, which was surprisingly effective at just slaughtering oncoming hordes (in the beginning you could not really do this, and had to rely on inf to sandwich so the orks couldn't go toe to toe with vehicles) and very few managed to actually get too close.

One final campaign to go... but I might switch off into another game next time i'm needing my TBT/TBS fix though.

just hit the half-way mark in sons of cadia. what a long game this one is. at first i was clueless on this campagin but I've found ways to fight the orks as imperium and really appreciate this game's mechanics more seeing the differentiation open up a bit. orks ain't too bright and exploiting AI seems to be a big help. wheras with marines i really just like simple startaegy of bulking down with marines and moving up slowly with support vehicles, the imperial guard allow you to fine tune and supplment an armored force with infantry units depending on your OCD threshold. a general purpose ogryn meat shield squad in the front and various armor in the back with some auxiallry infantry units covers it all nicely. you can get more involved with it using flamer units and stuff like psykers/comiissars, and plasma configuration tanks. a lot of these units actually scale and become more useful as they level (key example hot shot volley boys) from there its a matter of keeping distance and managing chargers when they go toe to toe with you. things got sideways for me real quick last night when i pushed too quickly and overtook a bridge rather than let them come to me. i lost tons of units when i typically have no issue and barely maanged to win the scenario and didnt think icould turn it around using basic infantry... but somehow i did, flanking about 4 deff dreads one at a time with lasgun inf, hot shot lasguns/volleys and artillery of all things.

tldr; in sons of cadia space is critical and some unit variation and understanding of their weapons as well as the enemies weapons and behavior is key, then this becomes pretty methodical and easy and the game becomes more of fine tuning things to your personal tastes. enjoy this.

I finally finished the first expansion to Sanctus Reach - Legacy of the Weird Boy. It gives you access to an Ork campaign (also known as a WAAAAAAGH!)

At first I had no idea how to play with these units. The style is a bit different than the space marines. I alos think they are inferior. However some units are extremely potent.

The space Marines have some excellent ranged options for their infantry. The Orks have a few that really shine though (Flash Gitz are the best heavy weapon infantry among them both) The Orks also have some seriously hard hitting bikes that can when fully upgraded fuck up titans. (what the hell) Armor is a mixed bag. I feel its a bit pricey. I was really hoping to play with gargants and stompas (heavy class walkers but not titan class) but for some reason those are not orkcessible in this campaign.

The ork has a nice anti infantry unit but its by no means comparable to the whirlwind. The whirlwind is he number one threat against orks. IT can wipe them out and the orks don't have a suitable means to take them out beyond that of helos (which the AI loves to target and shoot down)

The secret sauce in the Orks though is playing with the WEirdboy. By clustering your units up and casting a shield, you can just camp there and take out any would be melee attackers the enemy might threaten you with. Then target heavy weapons infantry. After that you can just swarmp them with your infantry.

If you have helos, bikes, gitz, killa cans and other ranger vehicles, you can just move up slowly in a line. (same way you play space marines) this isnt the way the orks are meant to be played but i find it actually works well, especially with a run herder or 40 cr boys at point. combine this with a weirdboy (though there usually isn't much need) I don't really like the kamikaze style tactics of sending in boys to rush and absorb reaction fire then other units. You tend to get over involved and 'stuck in' drawing in way too many units at once. Still the ork infantry is tough and can manage more abuse and more threat vectors at once than space marines it seems, but fuck if they don't seem to suck at melee. its no contest when it comes to fighting wolf riders, various forms of terminators, dreadnoughts, and even ravenclaws. the orks dont have n upper hand. lowering morale is crucial if you are going to play melee heavy and will need flamers and stuff to sidestep reactive melee attacks.

In the end the campaign was fun, very challenging and I got really acquainted with the game engine and faction but its not nearly as powerful as the space wolves.

I'll take a break then tackle on the Imperial guard campaign. Hopefully its not lots of micromanaging tons of units (like orks) and the guard have good ranged infantry solution.

I very much liked this game. It's a turn based strategy game that uses some simplification of rules to emulate the tabletop game. It feels a bit like chaos gate. It's not as 'dry' as the hex turn based game of Armageddon/Golgotha. (I played almost all of those and really got tired of it at some point) In SR, you have a mix of unique scenarios and lots of supplementary random generated missions. These all help you get XP for your units to give them upgrades that consist of powers. You can spec your units for anti infantry or anti armor, range or melee. (It's very simplified, and you only get 2 upgrades to pick from each level and cap at 4) In addition to this you can field units with points (in the same way the tabletop works.) So, this gives you some discretion as a player in how you want to focus your assault. Do you want to focus on infantry or vehicles? Heavy infantry or lots of light fast attack units? MAybe just a few mechs that fight from range position. Do you want straight forward units like standar infantry and tanks and attack helicraft, or do you want to get more involved with flame thrower infantry, artillery and jump jet fast attack to finish off whats left? In the end I found that despite some units being a bit finicky (flamers especially and the bikes are trash) the game really lets you play it as you want and to spec things nicely with levelling. The AI is not the best and tends to be predictable to a degree, and has a strong tendency to disregard casualties of friendly fire. Other things about the game are it's quirks, such as the way unit health is a cumulative of the health of all the units in a squad. You'll get the hang of it but it's something to consider as you bump up to the more costly units that have 3,2 or single personnel in a squad. A five man squad usually has 5 attacks and can take a good amount of damage as the damage tends to be divided amongst persons. (This is one of the problems with bike squadS and what make attack helicraft rather vulnerable.)

The base game consists of a more easy campaign and then a second tougher campaign (Currently about half way through it). The second campaign is more dynamic and complex due to more urban environments and variety of units (including much more dangerous ones) that forces the player to make trade decisions in regards to which units to keep and which to destroy. It's also a Lot longer due to requiring more time to consider your moves on what to do. Some missions go great and are a cakewalk and some you get overwhelmed or can have a bad comp as you get overrun by units you aren't well suited against. This gives it enough variety and challenge to keep playing the campaign interesting. Both scenarios you control the space wolves (space marine subtype) faction. You can play on three difficulties (and change it at any time) but I only played the standard normal difficulty. The DLC lets you play campaigns with other factions. W40K: SR is a good TBS game. And For GW, this is a great game. But overall, despite the time one might spend in it, it's still a fairly 'average' game in general and it does have some design flaws and can get repetitive. I enjoyed it far more than other Slitherine stuff I had played as well. I would recommend it to people who like hex based strategy games like Wesnoth, Super Conflict, Daisenryaku, Into the Breach, etc and are curious about the tabletop stuff.

Great pick up and play TBS game. Takes more time than a match in Hearthstone or half a run in Into the Breach but fits the bill nicely!, and is kinda fun to just play all day as well.