Warhammer 40,000 (or 40K for people more familiar with Warhammer world ) Mechanicus, created by Bulwark Studios, is a turn-based tactical combat that can make you remember a little bit XCOM.
Short story, in Mechanicus you have the pleasure to play with the Tech-priests, the priests are sent to an expedition to investigate a colony (planet Silva Tenebris) after getting a signal from a distress call from the planet but during the expedition, you get faced to enemies called Necrons.
About the gameplay, starting from the beginning you’ll have the typical menu and when you choose to start you’ll have to choose your difficulty and you have various options available to pick if you feel yourself to be challenged (permadeath, ironman and some more ). The tutorial allows you to understand the game easily, is not annoying and is pretty quick to finish and you’ll get quickly the hand of it.
At the end of each mission, you will be brought to the main menu where you can choose the next mission from a panel in the left side, you will as well able to customize your priests and army.
Yes, customize!
We all love some customization, and it is one of the strong points of this game, you have a wide tech tree that allows you to gain new skills and new equipment that you can equip your priests with and that will allow you to get your own very style. Some gear can be won in missions too.
The game goes like a room to room travel, where you need to choose your path, in each room you might find runes and decisions to make where you’ll need to choose an option and you will be rewarded or punished in function of your choice, or you might just combat some Necrons.
By the time that you spend in the mission, there is a progress bar that goes up turn by turn that will make the enemy aware that you are there and the task will become harder for you, it makes in sort that more enemies appear in a fight for example.
So, has referred it’s a tactical combat game, you know what awaits you, you need to prepare yourself carefully, this game can punish you by doing the wrong decisions but it quickly becomes easy because your priest can become really strong. At the start, Necrons stats are hidden and you need to use a skill (the servo skull) that will go to the enemy and back and will inform you about their stats. When an enemy is killed he doesn’t really die immediately, just if you gave him a critical hit, they need to be hit again to ensure death or they repair themselves and come back or you can as well put them all in a knockdown state and it will allow you to win.
There is no regen between fights what looked to be a bit of a trouble for me in the start until I learned how to manage it and I even had to adapt my strategies due to that, but there are skills to allow you to heal yourself or just finish the mission and you’ll be as new for the next one.
To help you, you have an army of weaker units that you can deploy in exchange for CP (cognition points), it works like action points, at the start of each round. And there are a lot of different “minion” units that you will be able to unlock and to choose which one you want to take with you before each mission.
This game really got focused on customization and choice, it really allows you to build your very own playstyle and that is a really big thumbs up.
The Heretek expansion
The expansion brings to you new enemies, the faction of AdMech, who are a faction with humans and they use a style of corrupted technology.
You’ll need to rethink some strategies seen that they have the same weapons and skills that you have, it brings some fresh air to the game and allows you to take a little break of Necrons, that being said it really turns out to be fun having to face a different challenge. It brings as well new maps to fight in.
The worst thing in the dlc is the length I would say , it does not have a lot of missions and it can be quickly completed but in my opinion If you even if the dlc is short and if you really liked the game , you should try the DLC.
Another negative point might be that you need to replay the game if you want to play the DLC content because there is no way to play it like a standalone, it is then highly recommended to probably buy the DLC the sooner you realize you like the game, otherwise, you’ll need to start a new campaign.
