Formations add a new dynamic to the gameplay
Your regiments and heroes are at more of a risk than ever before thanks to a new concept called ‘aggro’. This notion sees an enhancement in the A.I. which ensures that the enemy armies may not necessarily attack the closest thing to them, but instead will systematically switch their focus to that which provides the most threat, meaning you’ll need to be more aware than previous Warhammer games. The A.I. have also been enhanced in every aspect of the gameplay to give balance to the warring armies, including a few recent tweaks to the long range attacks of certain factions, making them more deadly. Having not played the previous games I’m not certain how much the AI has improved, but I have been caught out on numerous occasions by the tactical awareness of the enemy and was suitably impressed with how the friendly AI respond to your commands.
As you move in formation you’ll need to make sure you don’t get flanked and by pressing and holding the right mouse button (once a unit has been selected) you can rapidly spin them round to face the direction of an enemy. If you want all of your regiments to march in unison you simply select the required units and drag the green rectangle around them; click the right mouse button and they’ll all move to the same area. You'll need lightening quick reacts in some scenarios and when controlling multiple regiments, especially when defending certain points, enemies descend on you from all directions and tactical decisions need to be made quickly in order to succeed. Newcomers to the RTS genre may be phased by all the snap decisions that need to be made, but the tutorial at the beginning of the game is a solid introduction to the necessary tactics available.
Click for larger imageIt’s within the battles where the formation styles have the most impact and it’s these intense assaults, in which you’re guaranteed plenty of bloodshed, where the gameplay steps up a notch and demonstrates just how well the developers have thought so intensely about the implementation of a decent set of tactical options, magical spells and the way such battles should animate.The result are a number of great battles, with my personal favourite being the sieges where you have to break through the castle walls and take the stronghold.
Before entering into a battle you need to choose your regiment and you can add regiments that may have picked up along the way or recruited at the barracks. This is done via the army composer which is well-detailed, providing stats of your heroes and regiments; it's easy to use and well presented. There are a number of these types of menus within the game and instead of actually visiting many of the villages or towns, where you can buy spells from the alchemist, heal your units at the temple, recruit people into your regiment or upgrade and purchase armour and weapons, you are instead presented with these user interfaces. It certainly beats building them from scratch like many RTS titles, but it would still have been nice to wander around these towns and check out the scenery. Nevertheless, these menus are easy to use and you’ll soon be purchasing ladders from the armoury, which allow you to scale castle walls, powerful spells from the alchemist and buying re-enforcements for your depleted regiments.
Click for larger imageDuring battles you’ll have access to the command panel where you can issue some standard commands to your units, such as stop, attack or run and to fight against the enemy you just need to select a specific unit and then hover the cursor over the enemy and click the mouse to attack. The battles are superbly animated and thanks to a zoom function that allows you to move within a whisker of the action you can watch how the fight pans out in all its gory detail. The camera options are also well worth a mention because you are able to pan around an area, pan right out for an overview of the action, or head right to ground level and move the camera upwards to a real detailed look at the fight.
The 2D mini-map which sits in the bottom left of the screen ( giving you a top-down view of the battlefield) allowing you to assess the environment through a basic colour coded system that works extremely well and allows you to determine in a split second whether an enemy is approaching or where your own units are on the battlefield. There’s a handy range finder, ideal for seeing if ranged units such as hand gunners can reach an enemy from their position and if you need to jump to an area quickly you can simply click on the position on the map to see what may be up ahead.