Small note on Armageddon
Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2014 3:54 pm
So, I played enough to build my own opinion about Armageddon, and I doubt it will change soon (I played Tutorial, Act 1 and halfway through Act 2).
The only real trouble I have with the game is that ultimately it isn't I wanted for years. For years I wanted grand strategy in the universe of WH40k. Ability to play on really, really big scale: commanding planetary invasions and defences, long wars and hive cities sieges. WH40k deserves game like that: game which could really relay feelings of epic conflicts from WH40k fluff. I hoped Armageddon would be that game, but it isn't the time.
But, it can be the game to spend more years in waiting.
Armageddon have potential. Many current problems (like "Titans are overpowered") aren't really the problems of game balance - they are problem from mixing elements from different scales. Titans ARE overpowered - exactly like in game lore, where they are land battleships, able to dispatch entire armies and planets. Infantry aren't underpowered - fluff openly states what infantry in IG exists primarly to be cannon fodder. Ork superheavies do exactly what they should do to small platoons - they are decimating them. Lore-wise, Titans and superheavies shouldn't be even available to small-scale commanders in any other role than a "boss unit", like in Dawn of War. Those problems can be fixed, and they will be fixed (although I fear that that process of fixing will create contradictions with lore and create tabletop-like experience, where SM are hundreds of times weaker than they should be) with patches and balancing. That will come in time.
Now, at last, we have turn-based wargame in WH40k universe, which can be modified and used to build all armies in WH40k with relative ease - and that finally gives alternative to those of us, who dislike tabletop for it's price gouging, but want wargame experience, not RTS.
The only real trouble I have with the game is that ultimately it isn't I wanted for years. For years I wanted grand strategy in the universe of WH40k. Ability to play on really, really big scale: commanding planetary invasions and defences, long wars and hive cities sieges. WH40k deserves game like that: game which could really relay feelings of epic conflicts from WH40k fluff. I hoped Armageddon would be that game, but it isn't the time.
But, it can be the game to spend more years in waiting.
Armageddon have potential. Many current problems (like "Titans are overpowered") aren't really the problems of game balance - they are problem from mixing elements from different scales. Titans ARE overpowered - exactly like in game lore, where they are land battleships, able to dispatch entire armies and planets. Infantry aren't underpowered - fluff openly states what infantry in IG exists primarly to be cannon fodder. Ork superheavies do exactly what they should do to small platoons - they are decimating them. Lore-wise, Titans and superheavies shouldn't be even available to small-scale commanders in any other role than a "boss unit", like in Dawn of War. Those problems can be fixed, and they will be fixed (although I fear that that process of fixing will create contradictions with lore and create tabletop-like experience, where SM are hundreds of times weaker than they should be) with patches and balancing. That will come in time.
Now, at last, we have turn-based wargame in WH40k universe, which can be modified and used to build all armies in WH40k with relative ease - and that finally gives alternative to those of us, who dislike tabletop for it's price gouging, but want wargame experience, not RTS.
