Recent reviews by thrandui1

So I started out loving this game. I played some historical battles such as Gaines Mill which was quite fun. Then I tried the campaign. Now, the first few battles are amazingly wonderfully fun. You get to build your army, get new weapons, blah blah blah. And then the real battles start to kick in.
Now I was playing easy mode because, well, I had just bought the game and I didn't know the mechanics very well. And to be honest - I got ♥♥♥♥♥ slapped by the AI. And it's not because I'm new to these types of games. I literally have almost every Total War Game and I have hundreds of hours on them.
Each battle sorta goes like this: "Well, I feel pretty good. The rebs are advancing and I got my arty pounding on em. I think I'll win."
"Oh ♥♥♥♥. That was close. Just got charged by the rebs but I'm all repgrouped now and I got reinforcements to aid me. I still have a good chance."
"♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. WhErE TeH ♥♥♥♥ DiD 18,000 MoRe rEbS cOmE fRoM."
And this has been the past 5 battles for me. And I know you can't win all of them, but when you're completely outgunned and outmanned by a 2:1 ratio, it really gets to you. I hope they fix this issue because the ideal strategy game is one where the AI makes you work for your victory and actually requires you use your brain. This one, however, just makes you sit and stare at the computer for half an hour watching your men get shot up sitting in the same damn location forever. And then they break and flee. It's not like total war where you have complex manouvers of moving up skirmishers and postitioning arty and making cav charges to the flanks. The troops are slow moving and it's unbearable.

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Edit: So it's been more than a year since I wrote my initial review, and I've played this game a lot more since then. Overall, it's a pretty solid game. I love how completely destroying your opponent's army has a lasting effect on them throughout the game in that their numbers are depleted for the next few battles. There are still some things that piss me off, though. Cover is way too over powered, as well as small units for some reason. There is no way a 500 man brigade behind cover can hold of my 2500 man 3 star veteran brigade. Utter bs. Even when I charge, with my melee stat at 100. I also hate the morale system. Units break and flee so often that it's not even fun. You have them march up to a fort, they lose 200 out of their 2500 man unit in one volley so they retreat to halfway across the battlefield. Ridiculous. And keep in mind that they severely outnumber the number of troops within the fort, yet they can get about 20 kills and that's it.

The point is, if you like seeing your army being slaughtered by an outnumbered enemy for no reason other than subpar battle design, then this game is for you.

This game has great graphics, the combat moves are awesome, but overall it's just chess with space marines and orks. There's nothing outstanding, so only buy if it's on sale.

great game