Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War

The Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War is a magnificent hex-based strategy game in the settings of this globe-wide recognized fantasy world. It is practically an good old Panzer General 2, with the addition of the supernatural SF abilities and psychic powers for the troops, which makes him even better and more tasty. The one shortcoming I see is that you can play campaign only as the Eldars' faction (although in the late missions you can also command some Imperial Marines units, yeah). I love this game, his atmosphere, background storyline, campaign, units, etc. Many many thanks GOG-Team for bringing this long forgotten precious game game back to life :). ELDARS, forward march! The VICTORY will be ours (again)!

As most reviews said, the game is based on Panzer General 2. I will add, based on the round Carnifexes and bulky Eldar Guardian boots that it's based on 2nd ed. WH40k, which was full of cheesy and overpowered units. The fact that the game is TBS makes is very faithful to the tabletop. Controls are simple enough, left/right-click eo either move, atack or read the informations on your units, use psyker powers to wreck the battlefield. You can savescum, so by trial and error you can learn the maps and unit dynamics (which unit is good against what). Also to make is super easy you can turn off spotting so that you see every unit on the map (save for special hexes), which is a nice touch to not only learn the game but imitate the tabletop games. Winning missions (or scenarii) will net you Glory (think XP/currency) to either "buy" more units (and your army can have reserves in the "barracks") or fit units with upgrades (skills that beef up your chars). In campaign that means big upgrades to faceroll the opposition. Furthermore, you can edit anything in Scenario mode, create an infinity-points army list and deploy them on any map for any scenario you want (relic hunt, extermination, take and hold, conquest, escort what have you), add stuff (traps, rewards) on hexes, shamelessly copy the existing scenarii except change the players, and your scenario armies can be saved and upgraded at will. The amount of customization is beautiful, with a huge army roster (the Tyranids even mix Genestealers cults and a Hive force, so Space Hulk fans rejoice!) Why did I knock the rating down a notch? Well first the menus are unwieldy, there is no SXF/Music level set (only On/Off), saving is cumbersome, also while I like the sounds they're very generic and the music, while nice, feels out of place (think HoMM IN SPACE). Finally there is no hotseat multiplayer, and visibly online is impossible. Sadly thus, no party game and only VS CPU scenarii, so another notch down. But the scenario mode alone majkes this a great purchase.

Ah GOG .... what can I say? You guys are Awesome ! First Chaos Gate and Final Liberation and now ROW ...... As promised in the Wish list - you published and I bought it. Looks good, sounds good and even ALt-Tabs fine and does not crash. Quite an accomplishment on an old game that could not even load the main menu properly from an old CD. Now ... if you were to re-publish Emperor of the Fading Suns .... life would be complete. ;) Thanks for your excellent work.

What really makes this game shine as a turn-based strategy game are 2 things: -The design decisions of the army management: Units have several upgrade-paths(all with detailed encyclopedy entries), many stats, inventory and perks. There are even heroes and hidden units, which you get to keep (if discovered). Although there are only 3(or 4, depends on how you look at it) main-races in the game, there is plenty variety. -Atmosphere of the setting: The story revolves just around a small conflict, but the voice-acting, cut-scenes, soundtrack, ingame-discoveries, twists give an excellent feeling of campaigning as an Eldar-Warlord. Graphics might be dated, but are fittingly detailed and truthful to the franchise. Balancing and AI is also very well done, even on medium difficulty it's very challenging. If you're not a die-hard Warhammer fanboy like me, feel free to deduct one star, but if u like turn-based tactics its worth every cent. (even if not on sale)