Recent reviews by Balizk

Yes

If you like the Heroes of Might & Magic series, this is a really great game.

The combat is in real time and automatic, but you have a degree of control with simple general commands for the troops to move or retreat and spells/abilties from heroes. Heroes have skill trees in which you can plan ahead your build order for an overpowred strategy.

There is also a nice variety of fatcions to choose from, 12 for base game and +1 (which splits into even more subfactions) in the Rogue Realms DLC. Each faction offers different ways to play the game with unique mechanics that spices a lot the crazy and fun strategies you can do. Like Decay (Necropolis like faction) where you can turn living things into undead and fuse them and also gather souls from fallen units to transform it into more troops or resources. Or the Stronghold/Barbarian like faction "Horde" where the troops evolve through combat instead of upgrading them with gold and the heroes having different abilities that costs no mana. This and much more for all the factions.

Amazing pixel art and soundtrack too

10/10

Totally worth it if you like the game, the new faction adds a couple of new ways to play and fun strategies to do. Also more spice to the existing factions.

Yes

Yahoo

Yes

Still searching for a vampire with my garlic

Yes. Good.

Yes

I will separate this review into three parts: singleplayer, multiplayer and extras.

Singleplayer:

One of the best RTS campaign out there, the ambience and theme (alternative 1920 with mechs). The plot gives you a gray view of the war and the main factions/characters... The missions can be quite tough if you go for the platinum challenges, the difficulty being if you know where and when you have your units. But the campaign is quite enjoyable regardless of difficulty. It's 21 missions in total for the base campaign, plus 4 missions in the Rusviet Revolution DLC. You can also play the campaign in co-op mode, where both you and your friend control the same army.

On a side note, the voice acting and soundtrack is also one of the best productions you will see around, you can even play with the native language of the factions if you so desire. After each mission you have a short cinematic which also enriches the storytelling.

There is also the challenge missions (map that works like a scripted mission having specific primary and secondary objectives. Those might require a good amount of tries, again, if you are going for the platinum medals.


Multiplayer:

The multiplayer aspects of the game are not quite complex compared to other more estabilished RTS, but the game has a unique feeling. Units position and composition can make a huge difference and turn the tides of a battle, so decisions and execution followed by map knowledge are huge factors that enriches the whole experience. Plus the mechs makes this much better, considering they are slow and can be (with proper mesaures) be hard countered it's a solid experience.

You cannot simply A-move and hope that it's going to work, again the game not having much emphasis on base building or managing resouces/production (the conventional "macro"), an inferior number of units that makes the enemy "bleed" their resources (expending resources repairing/replenishing units) can turn any advantage the enemy have back to yourself. Or delaying/forcing the objective (Victory Points) to your advantage. These are just some examples of the gameplay aspects you will face when playing multiplayer.

Regarding matchmaking, 1v1 is quite fast at finding games usually taking less than 2:30 minutes, unless you are at the high top mmr bracket of players. Team games are not so fast like 1v1, but there are a lot of players focused on it. Have in mind that most of the playerbase is on European timezone.


Extras:

Operation Eagle
This DLC will add a new playable faction the USA version of this universe, the Usonia, alongside with more 7 missions for the campaign. The faction main power are it's unique air units that is compesated for less mechs options in it's arsenal.
Looking forward for it and going to update this review after finishing it.

Community
The community is very friendly and fun, I encourage you to join the official discord to arrange team games and discuss balance and other topics... There are even monthly tournaments (sometimes with prizes) run by the community. It happens in multiple formats, from rookie tournament to the league one. Also modded ones and team tournaments too.
Worth checking it out.

Great and Fun game. Perfect for relaxing.