14 DAY TRIAL // 
Something went wrong in the worlds of Warhammer and through the Gate the Old Ones used for traveling allowed also the passing of the forces of Chaos. The Northern Lands were now their new home. And so the war began?
Now it's been over a year since the end of the Great War. Although without a leader, the hordes of Chaos still sweep across the Empire lands in search of loot and slaughter. As if this wasn't enough, border settlements are constantly plundered by smaller enemy warbands. Under these conditions the united Empire and High Elf forces hunt down the remaining of the Chaos troops.
The fact is that dark heroes try to rise up to be worthy of leading the cruel menace. And while the Empire is busy purging the lands of isolated battalions, aspiring champions of Chaos gather their troops to subjugate the humans, but none of them can match the power of their fallen leader, Asavar Kul.
The single player offers two campaigns - Empire and Hordes of Chaos. Evidently each of them tells the story from the two points of view. The campaigns are structured each into four chapters. Now for each chapter you'll have a small map to cover. Your hero starts on an isolated edge and has to discover the story one adventure at a time.
What's New There is so much to say. Yet I don't mean to be too enthusiastic as it is just a beta version, a beta version with very high potential, but still a beta. The game seems to rise up to the expectations. The atmosphere is beautifully presented on the battlefield as well as on the adventure map (this was rather surprising). Impressive, wonderful graphics when it comes to the environment as well as the unit and building design, various possibilities of including fun and story guidance episodes, realistic battlefield maps, very high level of detail, wise choice of sounds, intuitive controls (it's not your first RTS, is it?), and a few unexpected features, but most welcome.
Remember there were times when you were so proud of a victory against a top 10 player let's say? You had to go through a lot of trouble to convince your friends that you actually played and you could maybe, just maybe, only present a few screenshots as proof. Well? now you get to save the replay of any game. Basically you can roam freely on the map enjoying the fight from any angle you wish. Let's see if distrusting friends have anything to say now.
Your army is fully customizable. You can change the banner, the clothes' colors (nothing really new until now). The innovation is that you can fully customize your army's appearance as you can randomly differentiate the troops in any battalion. There are also lists of features to choose from in terms of face selection, torso clothes and clothes design for each arm and leg of the unit.
Need even more? You may be glad to hear that not only heroes gain experience in this game. Your battalions, depending on their battle experience, go up the ranks. They don't gain any attack or defense bonus, but the group can hold more members - which is a lot better. So if you start with a group of 18 handgunners and offer them the chance of killing a lot, you'll be glad to see that the battalion can hold, sooner or later, depending on the action on the battlefield, 26? 34 individuals. When you can only select 10 battalions (plus four heroes and four siege weapons) the competency of those troops weighs enormously. So almost doubling the number of your troops would effectively double the strength of your army.
What else? ... There's the hero's skill tree, dependent on the type of hero you chose. Here you can add up to five points for each of the skills gathered into 3 categories: combat, duel and command. The combat skills also include the magic abilities, which depend on race and also on the type of hero (there are commanders, priests, wizards, chieftains, shamans and much more). We are all used to having 3-4 skills to upgrade, but here there are 21 (twenty one) skills.
Another thing I have to mention is the morale indicator of each company. If they walk for too long or they take casualties, the soldiers' morale will drop. Initially it's at 100% and everybody is happy. When it reaches 0% the remaining units in the company try to flee from the battle and they will reach for the edge of the map. The morale rises as a company inflicts damage (big bonus for exterminating an entire enemy regiment), with the help of magic skills or commanding attributes the heroes may have or by certain morale blesses (such as visiting the church of a town and paying for a blessing).
The game offers four fully playable armies - Empire and High Elves, which are met during the Empire Campaign, and Chaos and Skaven, met in the Hordes of Chaos Campaign - as well as additional races controllable as mercenary units (Orcs, Dwarfs, Vampires, Goblins, Giants and more).
Gameplay and Video Not to mention the outstanding intro video (which you probably remember from E3), the game immediately catches the attention. The tacmap (adventure map) is an impressive mixture between a 3D rendered world with thin, wind carried away clouds above and an old map with the names of each territory exquisitely engraved. In valleys or on small hills are the hero's objectives - towers, fortresses, settlements and crossroads - each offering different missions and allowing different actions.
The gameplay concentrates on war tactics and strategies, while minimizing the aspect of micromanagement and resource gathering. The only resource of the game is money. The only thing to do with money is hire more troops, upgrading skills and acquiring potions and equipment for the heroes. And of course what other way to get the money but by battling the vicious enemies. Now, this is a mary-go-round. You go to war, loose at least some troops, but gain some experience and money. You spend all the money on rebuilding the army and you need to go to war again. And you do this over and over again.
Yet the battles are a constant challenge. First of all after you decide to take up on a fight you can decide on the units (battalions actually) that you will bring to the battlefield. This came in very handy as in the beta version the money comes hard and I found myself in the situation of not being able to fill in the blanks of my battalions so I had to live some troops on the side just to be sure I won't loose them.
On the battlefield your first task is to deploy your troops within a certain (small) space. Taking the time to come up with a strategy and arranging the troops before setting off to achieve the goals is extremely helpful, even vital when it comes to defensive missions. Be sure to order your archers to a safe distance from the fighting site, still in range of course, as they die pretty easy in hand to hand combat. Also mind the siege weapons. If those are placed well your army can rapidly brake through an enemy fortress wall without taking too much damage from their tower cannons. There are also ladders for the troops to use for getting on and over the walls (my archers got a rather good advantage from attacking from the walls).
Another thing to remember is that there are some buildings on the map that can be occupied with a battalion, keeping them safe, although an enemy battalion could attack it by entering the same building. A fight would start and the winning one would keep the "hiding place". There are also small defensive structures (such as walls) very helpful for the archers.
The units move impressively well on the battlefield. They will break the lines and go the best possible route, to get by different environment features. From what I've seen, not all the hills on the map are accessible, but who knows what the final version looks like (it would add a lot to the tactics side of the game if they were accessible).
Conclusion Although only a glimpse at the game, the beta version seems like a very good sign of what Warhammer: Mark of Chaos could offer. Yet so much could also go wrong. I do hope this is not the case. Afterall Black Hole Entertainment had a good experience with Armies of Exigo (2004) and should be able to keep up. The first impression was outstanding - the engine looks promising, the gameplay doesn't seem to start with any penalty and the Warhammer world should be the support for a must have. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens later this year (winter 2006 says on the Namco site).
