Battlefleet Gothic Armada

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Developed by Tindalos Studios and published by Focus Home Interactive (the same guys behind Blood Bowl, Mordheim, and Space Hulk Deathwing), this game recreates the old specialist tabletop, pitting the different factions of Warhammer 40,000 in brutal space warfare.

Plot

This is you, Captain Spire, a rookie admiral who is about to go though unimaginable pain just to go fisticuffs with a demonic possessed super human......in a spaceship battle!

Basically the retelling of the Gothic War AKA Failbaddon's 12th Black Crusade, just a rookie admiral fighting Failbaddon's attempts to get the Blackstone fortresses. When you discover the plot unfolding and run to tell the Imperial Navy about the looming Chaos tsunami, the Inquisition immediately shocks your balls to be certain of Heresy-free before you're promoted to sector fleet command with more promises of continued balls-shocking if you feth up. Grimdark abounds.

not even the champion of chaos is safe....

Extra fluff was added apparently ported over from the Iron Warriors novella, like Abaddon got the information about the Blackstone fortresses from some old crone (according to the intro movie). But if you pay attention to the crone's shadow, it looks like the shape of the deceiver, which is bullshit since their meeting took place inside the warp and C'tan can't enter the immaterium. (Because it couldn't possibly be Cegorach, the Eldar Trickster God or anything, that has a similar silhouette) Skub aside, it is possible the meeting took place in some random planet despite the video showing it was zoomed in the warp for some reason (probably the old hag using her warp magic or something, despite being C'tan and all), on the other hand, the Eye of Terror still holds pockets of relatively stable real-space, besides, the Black Legion supplement talks about Abaddon's quest (the official one, not the one from the boards) where he finds some golden guy who gives him his sword, so all in all it may not be that non-canonical.

Oh, and it seems they got the same voice filter they used in Retribution to make Abby sound like himself, as well as Alfa Legion animation style combined with some beautiful 3D graphics which of course is gonna be highly exploitable for Youtube videos and whatnot. These campaign cutscenes provide bits of fanservice such as lesser and greater daemons of Slaanesh and colossal squigs making their first video game appearances.

Anyway. Rookie Spire quickly proves himself to be a highly capable Admiral running from flashpoint to flashpoint across the sub-sectors that make up the Gothic Sector in a giant game of whack-a-mole. Dealing with Heretics with extreme BLAM, Ork boyz eager to get in on the fights -up to and including taking on their space hulk and warboss- and of course those pointy eared xenos assholes known as the Eldar who seem to help and hinder you at the same time. With rarely enough resources to tackle all the problems each turn - so Tuesday for the Imperial Navy.

The main campaign is divided into three sub-campaigns.

First is the Prologue, which doubles as the tutorial. Based around the historical raids of the Chaos fleets looking for the 'Eye of Night' and 'Hand of Darkness'. Artifacts which in canon Failbaddon seized and was able to use eventually to turn on the Blackstone Fortresses because the Eldar are giant dicks leaving this stuff around. I mean this isn't a remote control you lost behind the couch for the TV here, but the keys to the ancient Eldars WMDs. Nice work fellas! Anyway, Spire CAN with some excellent work keep the artifacts safely out of the hands of Chaos and place them into the theoretically safer hands of the Inquisition, who get them out of the sector to safety. The game however defines them not as the remote controls, but as artifacts that would dramatically increase the power of warp storms and make warp travel harder. Which will have a very big multiplier effect when...

The second campaign is called, appropriately enough, the 12th Temper Tantrum Black Crusade. The Chaos attacks kick up in tempo and you're going to have to start making decisions on what missions to take and which ones to leave. Worlds can now be lost forever as Abby starts to nick those Blackstones and turn them against planets and eventually entire stars, something that isn't entirely clear to the Imperium at first, being distracted by his OTHER WMD; the aptly named Planet Killer. Which does give a sweet cutscene of it doing exactly what the name implies. Worlds that fall to the enemy strengthen them and weaken you in terms of keeping your fleet intact and supplied. Certain missions earn you 'favors' from factions within the Imperium consisting of the Navy, the Inquisition, the Space Marines (Imperial Fists chapter), or the Cult Mechanicus which can be redeemed for bling for your battleships. Priority missions are tied to the fluff of the crusade and ignoring them can quickly lead to Bad Ends. The Ork threat reaches its peak here where, if you play your cards right, things will end with a typically hilarious showdown with the Ork Boss on a mobile Space Hulk in an asteroid field. Eliminate it and the Ork threat is neutralized.

Don't expect too much tactical genius from your Eldar allies.

The pointy eared annoyances can be turned to your side if you choose to do so and save them a few times which, at the least, free up resources and occasionally even bring them onto the field as an allied force (See image to know how advanced and resourceful is the AI player). Even as Failbaddon raises the stakes by blowing up star systems. OR you can wipe out the Xenos scum, destroy their webway gate and make sure that they know now and forever that the stars belong to the Imperium alone.

The final campaign, 'The Imperium Resurgent' has the Warp Storms as in canon dissipate and Imperial reinforcements start to arrive, leading to a final showdown. If you have done well, the space lanes should have mostly been cleaned at this point, with a few lost worlds that had to die by canon but otherwise a glut of resources to hammer down on any nails that stick up. If you have done poorly, then between Abbadon blasting planets, capturing planets and the Inquisition cheerfully burning worlds that remained captured too long, lose more of the Blackstones; in short, the Gothic sector will start to look increasingly empty if you fuck up that badly.

Either way, finally you will face down the Blackstones and Planet Killer at the historical Battle of Schindelgheist (with Eldar help if you chose to spare them). Where Captain Abridal on board the Flame of Purity (who had tagged along with you in a few battles as a support ship) makes his historical sacrifice in a cool cutscene and rams his ship into the convergence point of the three Blackstone warp cannons, causing the energy to feedback and shut them down. While you deal with the Planet Killer and blow it to all hell cripple it to the point that it escapes to show up a thousand years later in the 13th temper tantrum, along with two of the Blackstones that retreat.

One Blackstone is boarded, but Abbadon promptly hits the Self Destruct button causing it to shatter a short time later into a million pieces ... as the Deceivers silhouette looks on with no doubt a smug look on its face at the outcome. Just as planned!

Gameplay

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada looks like a mix between Star Wars: Empire at War and Sins of a Solar Empire (Fitting, as there have been Battlefleet Gothic mods made for both). The game allows you to customize different ship classes with upgrades, which allows for limited personalization of fleets and specialization into different styles of naval warfare, being it long range carriers, close combat brawlers, etc. With the lead developer, AKA Admiral Ravensburg commenting the game resulted in quite a success things look bright for the community, and while after the first months the player base has dropped (as happens to most videogames anyway) it has remained with enough size to ensure you don't have to wait that much for a multiplayer match.

At this point a new matchmaking system is coming which will ensure new possibilities for multiplayer combat, while new patches have been fine-tuning the different factions, they may remain unbalanced in some scenarios but this being 40k and based in Battlefleet Gothic in vydiagaim isn't that much a nuisance unless you are one of those guys who are absolutely obsessed with making everything perfectly balanced.

For those who prefer some compstomp, there is a new elite mode, unlocked at level 8, both for solo and coop which allows you to have cruiser clashes against the AI at maximum difficulty, what is more, with each new level you earn the AI earn 1% more points for ships, so, by level level 41 it will get 41 percent more ship points to call into the fight, oh, and every 10 levels starting with level 11 you will fight against the Planet Killer, the Ork Space Hulk, etc, lots of FUN*.

The Tau are coming next! For those who place faith in Tindalos, and got the early adopter pack they are going to be free, for the rest, they are DLC, and there is a hint that Tyranids and Necrons may be next, also, a fleet painter so you can customize those shiny ships of yours along with some other features.

Tactics

Depending on the chosen faction, gameplay will encourage a certain tactical doctrine based on archetypal strengths and weaknesses, with the Imperial Navy being heavy tanks designed for medium to close combat brawls, Chaos having great long range attack capability, Orks being very assault oriented, Eldar favouring hit-and-run tactics and stealth and Space Marines excelling at boarding actions.

Since changing ships and upgrade/skill loadouts consume limited in-game resources, players will most likely have to commit to a certain 'fleet build' in all game modes, with the leveling of new admirals and different builds within the same faction a likely time sink, although a new coming mode will change this model into something more accessible.

In the TT game, ship collision required a Ramming special order and was not automatic. In BFG: Armada ship collision is automatic and there is a maneuver resource that allows even very large (Imperial and Chaos, Orks and Eldar do not have this ability) capital ships to quickly turn and accelerate, making ramming a highly effective (albeit limited use) damage-dealer.

Point defense turrets are the default defense mechanism against torpedoes, bombers, and boarding craft. As ships take damage, they lose defense turrets in proportion to their health. This limits the effectiveness of the aforementioned tactics, especially at extreme ranges or against massed, undamaged ships. Late-game, however, when formations have likely broken up and as ships sustain damage, these become powerful offensives. While underestimated escorts can deal extremely heavy damage, with particular upgrades becoming highly effective against Eldar and Chaos harassers.

Most ships have a damage threshold which, when crossed, may force your ship to warp-out (or in the Eldar's case jump to the web-way, Tindalos thinks on everything), you can execute your captain to avoid the ship to flee, although you must be careful as sometimes running away is the best tactic and a ship heavily damaged or destroyed won't be available for 1 or 2 turns respectively, you can also install the "Rally" skill which allows you to cancel a mutiny so the ship stays fighting without suffering penalties. Ships can also be lost in the warp, you can deny this by upgrading your navigator/equivalent.

Tindalos has implemented a series of interface options which allow you to preset certain behaviors for your ships such as minimum range engagement, autocasting skills, frontal or side attack and aggressive stances, this allows you to save some time customizing ship and can help you set your weapons to react to specific scenarios without requiring too much micromanagement skill, also, there is a tactical cogitator (click space bar once) which slows the game for some time so you can think what to do next, the ability will be reloaded after some time so use it wisely and don't bother trying to troll someone with it.

Imperial Navy

Love Nova Cannons? Certain cruisers can be fit with these murder guns, allowing you to mass enough firepower from very far away to wreck minor ships with coordinated volleys, although being highly inaccurate you may need a few of them to land some decent damage (tip, set autocast when the enemy is well inside the attack range). That aside, Imperial weaponry is high-alpha but low-medium ranged and heavily favors broadsides. Heavy armor but no special resistance to being boarded (aside from limited Ratings crew and Space Marines favour upgrades) means that Imperial ships prefer close-ranged shootouts but may struggle against dedicated assault fleets. Favours (specializations) include Imperial Navy (immune to insubordination and you can summon a Cobra), Inquisition (1 free bonus level for each crew member and you can reveal one enemy ship every 120 secs), Mechanicus (1 additional upgrade and skill slot, making it extremely popular), and Astartes(extra lighting action and boarding defense, okayish).

Your escorts can be effective in squadrons if you upgrade them properly. Sword-class Frigates benefit greatly from the armor-piercing macrocannon upgrade, while Firestorms can make good use of the lance range, anti-shield and crit upgrades. The turret upgrades also help in combating strike craft-based strategies. Cobras are fast and can be summoned as reinforcements with the Imperial Navy favour, making them pretty decent disposable firepower if you upgrade their macrocannons or engines, although their torpedos may feel a bit lack-luster as they only shoot two, still, remember, each blow landed in an a summoned Cobra is less damage taken by your main ships.

Torpedoes should be fired right of the bat. Their spread makes them difficult to dodge at long range and can deal fairly significant damage/force the enemy to maneuver and thus be revealed. The skill reload lets you fire on average 3 full salvoes per ship before the engagement proper begins. Melta torpedoes are very good later in the game when emergency repairs are on cooldown, on the other hand, conventional torpedos are great for finishing off ships attempting to warp out, just remember there is a minimum range for the torpedos to deal damage.

Your light cruiser options are currently limited to Dauntless with Lances and Dauntless MkII with Torpedoes. Go for the lanceboat, although the case could be made for combining multiple volleys of torpedoes from 3-4 Dauntlesss MkII to finish off ships attempting to disengage.

While Nova Cannons can be tempting they may be tricky to use, in previous versions they were quite broken, but Tindalos tuned them down, they are still fairly useful against incoming blobs of enemies but not that accurate as they may end up firing in empty areas and achieving pretty much nothing, they are still quite great for dealing with Eldar, though, as they are highly vulnerable to their area of effect.

The imperials have a nice selection of cruisers and battle cruisers which allow for different combos, either if you want jack-of-all-threads fleets or specialized fleets, although they are usually better in brawls, with the Overlord Battle Cruiser and the Tyrant Cruiser having the benefit of the plasma macron-cannon batteries. On the other hand, if you feel like you want a challenge or are finding Ork and SM ships hard to deal with you can go for Gothic and Dictator cruisers and Mars Battle Cruisers, as their respective lances and ordinance bays allow you to stay relatively out of danger.

For those of you who like battleships, you may go for the Retribution Class, while this ship is slow you could make an interesting build comboing maneuvering thrusters, fuel gauge, armour-piercing macro-cannons and a stasis bomb in order to get as close as possible to an enemy ship, keep it quiet, unleash a salvo of torpedoes and then finish them with your Plasma Macron-cannon broadsides at close range, as with nearly other tactic in this game is not an automatic win but it may work decently for games such as killing the transport ships or the Space Station where your victory conditions can't be sabotaged by a warp jump, you may also want to upgrade the Retribution with a power ram, while hard to pull this out, if you manage to get close enough for melee then you can throw a bunch of Consecutive Normal Punches by quickly turning on and off your thrusters to destroy anything short of another battleship in short order.

The other battleship, the Emperor class, is actually more an aircraft carrier than a proper Battleship, although it can still unleash some heavy damage with its broadsides, can be great to deal massive damage at long range or defend your other ships with swarms of fighters from enemy ordinance, its main drawback is its slow speed, with an abysmal 112, this can be somehow fixed by installing Mezoa Pattern Drives and fuel gauge as well as belt armour to reduce the chances of getting its engines blown off, did we mention it has a great 10,000 sight range?

If you are feeling particularly manly today, get some Angry Marines favor on your light cruisers for extra effectiveness on boarding and lightning strikes as well as defense (they make your ships yellow as a free bonus), buy the light cruisers maneuvering thrusters, gauge, macro-cannon armor-piercing and then some hull upgrades, and send them in mass supported by yet another Angry Marine cruiser with the same configuration, be sure to write "FUUUUUUU---" when rushing as close as possible on the enemy for extra-lulz.

Chaos

What is this? Marks other than Khorne and Nurgle?! EXTRAHERESY! Ships aren't as tough as their Imperial counterparts but are faster, have longer range, and more powerful lances. Standard tactics basically involve playing keep-away and throwing out Deathclaws every 90 seconds to take advantage of the game's critical hit system, which can cripple an Imperial player with bad RNG, bombers are great too for dealing extensive damage, and against dedicated close combat factions such as the Orks and the Eldar refractor fields are life-savers. Alternatively, you'll want to really improve your lances and hit enemy ships from outside their sensor range, this can be tricky as you will need to get the enemy ships revealed, a work your escorts can do decently.

Don't forget to buy the micro-jump upgrade, as you need to stay away and be ready to maneuver yourself out of close combat heavy ordinance.

When it comes to marks, Nurgle is considered the best one as its area of effect means anyone who closes in with you will receive continuously damage, giving you a much needed buff against the other close-range oriented factions as well as additional resistance against boarding actions, this is particularly great if you have to deal with orks, space marines, or the imperial navy, also, it makes easier for you to finish off enemy ships and quickly dispatch enemy escorts.

Khorne too gives some buffers to your boarding defenses and a bonus action when using lightning strikes and assaults, improving your chances of dealing critical damage to your opponents, also horns, like a lot of them, your ships become quite spiky, as a simple advice it may be a good idea to take some Carnage cruisers as they are the main brawlers of the chaos fleets and upgrade them with Khorne's mark, or go Nurglite.

Slaanesh mark may be nice when dealing with Orks as it breaks their morale, this being one of their weak points, it also has a power which blocks enemies from using special abilities, which may be helpful in order to shut some Eldar pulsar weaponry but that's it, one or two slaanesh ships in your fleet may be enough for support or to hunt down one enemy ship at a time.

Tzeentch mark is good if you are depending in long range attacks as it generates a (very evident) cloud which hides your ship an any close allies, combine it with efficient thrusters for extra sneakiness, you can also throw a false-signature beacon and switch place with it if you so want, but don't expect that much as it disappears when in visual contact with the enemy, with that said, it turns your ship into a magical flying castle which may be a fancy compensation, try it with a Despoiler or a Desolator battleship!

Orks

Rest easy, because now your one stop shop for ramming and assault entertainment has arrived. All of your ships have a few "Kustom Points" that allow you to change out the basic build for something that is almost the same. Your options (at the time of this writing) are: 1) Lotz of Gunz, where you have, you know... a lot of small caliber gunz. This is the base option. Compared to macro-weapon of other races, gunz have very fast RoF, but orks being orks, battery is as likely to fire double the dakka, as no shots at all, making them quite unreliable. 2) 'Evy Kannons, which pack a punch....if you can stand low rate of fire and abysmal accuracy (50% at range of 3k units). If you take these, Macro-cannon range upgrade is absolute must. 3) Hangars. What does it say on the god damn tin? Grab the extra teleporta upgrade to drop 3 assault actions at once on some poor squishy fool. Prow options: 1) Grot Prow Gunz. Not awful, but not world beating either. They're free if nothing else. 2) Mega Zzap gunz. They tend to do little damage, but have perfect accuracy, and orks even have upgrades the allow them to bypass shield and holofields, or slow down enemy ship upon hit. Fore weapons: 1) Torps. Whats that bitching about torpedoes not being any good? Well, you're kinda right. BUT Orks get Boardin Torpz! Because cramming a bunch of Boyz into a tube and lobbing them at the enemy has never gone wrong in the history of ever, also, you can set them in auto with right-click, as the Boardin' torpedoz don't deal friendly damage. 2) Mega Kannonz. 90* forward arc lovin with good damage but...with Orky (in)accuracy. Probably better than torpedoes only if you having problems with maneuvering your ships front on to the enemy.

For favors, half of the upgrades are crappy or just basic utility (extra upgrade slot and Grot Shokk attack gun for long range teleporation for the Bad Moons, a highly inaccurate Nova Kannon which can explode and Kommando training for running silent for the Blood Axes). For the more suicidal among us, you can choose some Goff action. It provides you with a flat boost to Troops (for and against assault actions) and then straps a giant can opener to the front of your ship to provide +50% ramming damage ( stacking with orks racial bonus of another 50%). If you can time your Big Red Button right, you can ram escorts to death in one shot, The downside is that you lose your fancy rust-and-red paint in favor of Black on black. The Red Sunz favor is actually great when combined with the Big(er) Red Button as it not only gives your ship a longer boost of speed, but also a *traktor beam*, which is probably the orkiest weapon in the game, because nothing else screams Orks that something that allows tossing of kilometers long ships like toys. You can use it to throw enemies into mines, asteroid field, torpedoes fans, or right into the path of a bullrushing ship, extra-win if that ship has the Goff upgrade, accept no substitutes for catching scurry space elves.

Eldar

The last race to be implemented pre-release, and the archetypal glass-cannons, while eldar ships are extremely fragile (read, they can be easily killed by multiple simultaneous and devastating, offensive normal rams or boarding action) they are very difficult to catch as they move extremely fast, have great turning rates and holofields based on evasion, also their pulsar weapons are capable to destroy an enemy light cruiser in a couple of shots.

To further elaborate Eldar's shields decrease the accuracy of enemies weapons, which has make them more vulnerable at close range. Lance weapons always hit them so they act by giving a permanent negation percentage.

Tactics? Just keep moving, as the Aces High song says, run, live to fly, fly to live, do or die, fire your pulsars at convenient rates or get ships with launch bays so you don't have to maneuver your ships to target the enemy. Don't let yourself get caught or you are done. Remember to keep mashing the solar sails button, and that you don't have high energy turns or broadside weapons- so feel free to sail right past the enemy ships, and turn around in their rear arc before playing chicken over and over again. Don't get hit.

Eldar have their weaknesses and it will be good to consider them so you know what you have to deal with. Bombers and Lightning Strikes ignore holofields, so having a bunch of fighters escorting your ships may be a good upgrade, Nova Cannons and plasma bombs/stasis bombs, etc will pulverize you so avoid getting in their path. Players will target your generators since without it's holofields an Eldar ship will crumple with a few shots from any weapon. Eldar ships have an upgrade to give them a free fighter squadron to make up for their painful vulnerability to bombers, be careful of torpedoes which may draw those fighters. Eldar also suffer crits at a much greater rate than other races, and sheer weight of fire can and will get through your holofields eventually, a good idea may be to buy an upgrade which allows your ship to never have their holo shields charged below a certain percentage. Remember Eldar ships are paper and will just crumple up on the side of any colliding ships while barely scratching the paint so never ever ram.

Space Marines

Space marines and their space metal bowxes are first DLC fleet added into game.

Compared to other fleets, SM are quite unique in a few aspects, most notably lacking any ship of battle cruiser class, but having access to two battleships ( battle barge mark I and II ) instead of just one in fights. Astartes ships are quite a sight, being fast, well armed and armoured as well. That however makes them expensive as well, and SM fleet will usually be ship or two behind in numbers, also, most cruisers are very low in HP, so they are extremely vulnerable to torpedoes.

Playstyle wise, marines are somewhat similar to core Imperial navy - where optimal engagement range is "close but not too close", middle ground between more ranged oriented chaos, and more close quarters focused orks ( although SM are not that bad up close, thanks to inbuilt extra boarding resistance, similar to one granted by the SM favour in Imperial Navy ).

Speaking of boarding, the SM have the ability to get boarding torpedoes, which can lock on enemy ships, from unlimited range, you can take advantage of this by sending an escort ship while having the boarding torpedoes of the other ships in autocast and unleash salvo after salvo of attacks without risking any direct confrontation, good against fleets low on interceptors, not so much if your enemy has them.

Speaking of favours, Astartes are again unique, with each specialization being possible to mount of just one vessel in the whole fleet. Favour includes Chaplain ( special skill that makes ship impossible to board for short duration of time, excellent to troll the orks), Librarian ( special skill that have very large chance of triggering mutiny of enemy ship, again perfect against orks ), Master of the forge ( extra upgrades slots for the blingiest ship in entire segmentum) and Chapter Master who can passively buff either your special orders, or rise your ships troops value and decreases it for enemy.

Links

• The wiki, currently under construction, help is welcome!
• The official forums, feel free to fill it with complains about how your fav faction needs insane buffs.
• Imperial Navy trailer, killing heretics and xenos for the Emprah!
• Chaos trailer, for the ruinous powers! Marks for all gods!
• Da orks trailur, we iz gona krump dem good! Featuring, ork pirate songs!
• Eldar trailer, they don't seem to like ork songs!
• The launch trailer, featuring imperial manliness unleashed and Abaddon talking about people failing.
• Space Marines trailer, seems like Spire knows something about the Dark Angels THAT WE ARE TOTALLY SUPER-LOYAL IN ALL 40K ITERATIONS INCLUDING THIS ONE
• Recurring OST theme, it captures the feeling of the game quite well.