Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector

This is a great game indeed; just bear in mind that if you want something complex in the likes of, for example, 40k Gladius, this one may be a bit lacking for you... That said, Battlesector nails that "There is only war" feeling: manage your army, equip them, plan your tactics and crush the opponent (or not). That's it. The game now have some more factions (Blood Angels and Tyranids in the base game and Necrons, Sisters, Khorne Daemons and Orks through dlcs). I really hope the devs keep raising the faction roster on this one <3 <3 <3

Ok I know the nids are all about the swarm tactics, but this game takes that to silly levels. Expect to have 4-5 times your number of units heading your way and your only effective anti-swarm weapons are a grenade (once you upgrade) and handflamers (again an upgrade). Missions boil down to rush to location X and deal with the MASSIVE swarm attack..without any weapons actually effective at anti-swarm UNLESS..you buy the Elite units DLC..surprise surprise. The enemy have several units utterly immune to almost all your weapons..while even your most heavily armored units are vunerable to the most basic of attacks. The occasional good game sneaks past GW`s quality control..this is not one of them.

Compared to the other two prominent 40k strategy games Gladius and Sanctus Reach, Battlesector is less complex and more narrow in its scope. Rather than comparing it to those two games one should compare it to Mechanicus. Instead of aspiring to include every unit in the table-top game and the war game's intricacies in a digitalised form it instead focuses on delivering an atmospheric experience of a superhuman struggle against overwhelming odds. The aspiration of simplifying the table-top experience is never quite realised, as the different mechanics are not explained in thoroughness and are not natural enough to be picked up through gameplay. Likewise the aim of developing an enveloping 40k experience never completely gets there either as the game is a slow bloomer. By the time you get to fight epic battles against deadly foes in interesting environments you feel like your troops have slogged their way through a few too many deserts. And I'm not sure all of the blame lies with the developers, as there is only so much you can do with a game completely based on a desert moon of Baal Secundus, just as the environments of Mechanicus get somewhat dull towards the end. The voice acting, the music and the lack of proper cutscenes (as gorgeous as the art is) however, scream lack of funding. They are by no means terrible, but they pale in comparison to the revered Mechanicus. In short, buy this game if any of the below apply: a) You enjoy 40k and don't mind GW's primaris shilling. b) The game is on sale. Battlesector has a lot of room to grow and as far as fast and cheap 40k fixes go there's not many that are better.

For me, Battlesector is one of the most polished game titles in the Warhammer 40k series, along with Mechanicus here on GOG. In terms of gameplay, Battlesector can best be compared to Sanctus Reach. Where Sanctus Reach now has a larger selection of factions through DLCs, in Battlesector you can currently only choose between two factions, the Blood Angels and the Tyranids, although it should be mentioned that each of the two factions has a large selection of unit types. Currently there is only a Blood Angels campaign. I expect that more campaigns, factions, units and maps will be added to Battlesector via DLCs like in the other Slitherine games. Graphically, Battlesector is ahead of Sanctus Reach and the usability and UI has been improved significantly. The morale system of Sanctus Reach is missing in Battlesector, but a momentum system was introduced, which requires a more aggressive approach. Contrary to Sanctus Reach, Battlesector has no turn limit. What I like about Battlesector are the mission objectives and maps, which differ significantly from mission to mission. What bothers me, however, is that the primary mission objectives, such as holding a position for 7 turns, are completely redundant, because in each mission it ultimately comes down to destroying all enemy units. I hope the developers will fix this. Otherwise, the game runs smoothly for me. I couldn't find any bugs so far. Since I don't know the tabletop game, I can't comment on how close Battlesector is to it in terms of gameplay.

I've been playing Warhammer 40K games since the legendary and superb Dawn of War came out in 2004. Anyone who follows the genre knows that there are more misses than hits when it comes to the quality of W40K games. Battlesector, however, is pretty good. Its campaign is long and well structured, and the gameplay (from the turn-based rules and animations to the voice acting and music) hits the mark. Winning a battle is accompanied by a feeling of achievement, especially when you are able to keep alive veterans of past battles (who level up between missions). The shortcomings of Battlesector are worth mentioning but in no way major. There are only two races in the game, and you can only play the campaign as the Space Marines. Thus, after the campaign ends, there is really nothing else to do but play around with the 2 races in skirmish or online. And yeah, that will get boring fast. The developers did just release a free "Planetary Supremacy" mode that adds a meta-map, strategic layer to the game, but this is going to need more refinement, along with the addition of more races (at this time, a Necron DLC is available and a Sisters of Battle DLC is on the way). Overall, Battlesector is definitely with a try for any fan of the W40K universe. I haven't played it since finishing the campaign and do not intend to play it again until Planetary Supremacy gets more content and improvements. But I'm going to keep an eye on it. Next to Gladius, it is one of the best W40K games that has come out in recent years.