Warhammer has the “Mark” of Chaos; Massive Strategy Game Favors Action Over Resource Management

by Louis Bedigian

“We wanted to add tactics that you haven't really seen in RTS games.”

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is not your everyday real-time strategy game. The headline isn’t even half of it. Yes, the game does put action first. It hopes to pull that off by including four distinct armies, the ability to combine armies, and the choice to take specific units into future battles – and leave others behind.

“When we first started the game, we had to keep in mind that we’re going to have people playing it that are hardcore Warhammer fans, and people who have never heard of Warhammer before,” said Producer Chris Wren, discussing pre-development concerns. The game should attract attention from a wide range of players, most certainly due to two of its key features: tactical abilities and Champion duels. The latter turns your heroic (and most likely your best) unit against your opponent’s best for a battle to the death.

“The mechanics of dueling are set up like rock-paper-scissors where there’s a counter for every attack,” says Chris. “There are magic heroes, melee heroes, and range heroes – although range isn’t really that valuable.”

Each type of hero excels in one of those three categories. Typically, the best music users will be appropriately suited against another magic user. Melee warriors belong fighting other melee warriors. But there are times when you’ll need to cross over, and there will be times when a melee warrior can beat a magic user, or vice versa.

No penalty will be issued should you choose not to accept a duel. Later on Chris, together with Producer Thomas Vu, explain what happens when you accept and lose a duel.

First and foremost, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is being promoted as a game that's all about war. Tell us about the gameplay and control style, and the style of combat.

Thomas Vu: Instead of focusing on resources, we wanted to add tactics that you haven’t really seen in RTS games. Mark of Chaos is all about huge armies and regimens. It’s not single-based units, except that your heroes can be single units. But really you’re controlling 50 to 100 units at once.

We added tactics, such as… Flanking is a big deal in the game. If you’re on higher ground you can see further, shoot further. We’ve allowed people to do targets. And we have a pretty cool physics system where, if two units collide into each other, the bigger unit will topple over the smaller one. Because of the way Mark of Chaos is, you could have a Giant, which is at least 10 times bigger than Gauntlet, you’re gonna see a lot of different effects when you have these multi-layered armies colliding.

You’ll have the ability to go from a tight stance to a wide stance. To counter a horse charge you would want to be in a tight stance. The deeper your units are, in terms of how much space they take up – horses and other units that charge into it would slow down. Because the units are so densely packed, you’re able to stop horse charges.

For ranged weapons, having a wide stance is a really cool thing because you minimize the [target] for your [own] units. Arrows would obviously have less collision.

You can change formation on-the-fly.

Mark of Chaos includes four playable armies: Empire, Chaos, Skaven and High Elves. Could you tell us a little bit about each of these, and why we'd want to pick one over the other?

Chris Wren: It really depends on how you like to play. If you’d like to have a limited number of units but have those units be strong. If you don’t like range attacking a lot, Chaos is probably good for you. They have a couple of range attack units, but they are by far the most limited among range attacking. They [also] have a flying unit…

You know, generally when you think of Chaos, you’re thinking, “Most powerful unit on the battlefield.” Really good armor. Really slow-moving, but really powerful attacks.

If you like a mix of everything, Empire is a great choice. They’ve got just about everything mixed in there. They’ve got great heroes, many different magic users, gun power, and artillery. They’ve got cannons. Ranged units and special units. Zero armor, but they’re immune to fear.

If you like a lot of units, Skaven might be the best for you. With Skaven, you generally lose a lot of units. [But they have more to spare.]

I like the idea of learning new tactics and abilities. How will this work, and what are some of the introductory tactics and abilities you'll have, and what are some of the ones you will get to learn?

CW: The campaign is kind of set up to teach you how to use an army. You’ll start out with a couple range units, melee units, and a Champion. We tried to make the beginning of the game exciting, but [at the same time] we can’t overwhelm you. A part of the game is watching what the other, bigger armies around you are doing. [Watching them shows] how to use their tactics, their troops – maybe things you don’t currently have access to but will [later on in the game].

When you start out, there are objectives within each of the missions. The objectives, each one teaches you something. In the first one you have to capture something. Through that you’ll learn how to use environmental objects, how to target, etc. And you’ll learn how to attach your user Champion to a unit.

With every new unit in your army, you’re going to get new formations, new things you can use on the battlefield. We’re hoping that by the end of the campaign you’re an expert in whatever army you’ve chosen. You can then take the army online and compete against other people.

You can challenge other Champions in a fight to the death. Is there a reward for winning? Will you be severely punished if you lose?

CW: Yeah, both are true.

TV: If you lose a duel your army will take a morale hit. [But] it won’t be as bad as if you ran away. If you leave a duel [willingly], you’ll take a bigger morale hit.

Morale plays a very important part in the game. If your army doesn’t have high morale, your defense and attack will be [significantly] lower. And your Champions will more likely leave a battle.

This is based on individual units of course. Skaven are kind of skittish and they will run a lot more. Some units, such as the High Elves, have high morale so they’ll stay around.

CW: We designed this to be something you can partake in more or less if you want to. It’s not an all-encompassing thing. You don’t have to focus entirely on one duel.

We’ve put things into the game to make it really easy to see where the heroes are, and how close to they are to one another. If your Champion gets close to an enemy Champion, there’ll be this glow of light to indicate when they’re in close proximity.

Can you tell us about the buildable features?

CW: Resource management has kind of taken a backseat to the combat we wanted to focus on for this game. But as far as plopping down a wall or a tower, we really don’t have much of that in the single-player or in multiplayer. We tried to minimize that.

The whole idea is that you’re always on the front line. [You’re supposed to be] focused on the troops you have while you’re in battle. You need to keep those guys alive and use them to the best of their ability. You’re not the architects, the city planner – you’re the general. And your job is to go and take territories for your race. To kill enemies for your race.

In what ways can you customize your army?

TV: On a tabletop game, it’s a big deal to mod your heroes and color them. So we wanted to do that for every unit in the game.

We have a pretty cool tool where you can try out different faces, helmets, shields, etc. You can make these cool individual regimens where every unit within the regimen would actually look different.