Have confidence in your shields and armour, create a bulwark, focus targets, and swat them like flies. The solution? Think, and play, like a stalwart imperial Admiral. As the Imperium, you can’t outmaneuver them, and if you let yourself become disorientated or distracted by the graceful, dragonfly-wing sails on their vessels, you’re done for. Fragile, but also extremely mobile and potentially deadly as a result. The Aeldari, for example, are sneaky sausages. The upside of this is how well the game captures the differing tactics of the individual factions, how those playstyles translate into personality, and how those personalities inform mission design. I’m not entirely sure if Armada 2 has legs as a serious competitive multiplayer game, since so much of what I enjoyed from the campaign arises from asymmetric scenarios. This is bolstered by noticeable tactical differences between the factions. This universe has always teetered on a fine line between gripping space horror and utter silliness, but restrained and confident voice acting lifted by a fittingly epic score make for some genuinely desperate feeling encounters. The baroque excess of the tabletop games’ best fluff can easily veer into ham-and-cheese toastie territory when actual humans have to growl lines like ‘blood for the blood god’ out loud. What’s most surprising for a 40k game, however, is how convincingly Armada 2 pulls off human drama. It makes for a great entry point, and I can see those familiar with the lore just soaking up how magnificent it is to see it all brought to life on such a grand scale. The history of the Necrons, the fall of the Aelderi, the birth of Slaanesh and the Eye of Terror, and the terrifying psychic effect of Tyranid invasions are all given due place. Each new faction encounter is preceded by a cutscene outlining their place in their universe. It’s dozens of tiny details like this that make Armada 2’s battles some of the most gloriously escapist science fiction naval conflicts I’ve ever had the joy to command.Ĥ0k’s considerably vast lore is well portioned out, too. Zoom in far enough, and you’ll see each one individually animated. Here, you’ll be launching squadrons of Thunderhawks no bigger than gnats. One of the biggest models available in tabletop 40k is the Thunderhawk Gunship. At one point, I noticed that destroyed ships not only leave floating, smouldering wrecks behind, but that the wrecks have their own physics. Battles are a cacophony of clashing bulkheads and sizzling plasma, a carnival of pyrotechnic flair. The sheer amount of choice often turns relatively slow-paced battles into frantic, involved skirmishes.Īnd it’s bloody beautiful, it is. Some may call it micromanaging, but I think Daniel Starkey summed it up perfectly in his review of the first Battlefleet Gothic: Armada by saying that he “always had something to do”. So you’ll need to be constantly thinking ahead and reacting to your opponent to get the best out of them. Most ships are monstrous, unwieldy things, difficult to maneuver, and hosting abilities that only work from certain angles. The Imperial campaign alone took me about 25 hours skipping some of the side missions, if you include the time I had to restart the whole thing due to bollocksing it up.įor those unfamiliar with the premise, in standard matches you’ll be controlling small fleets of very, very big ships and using them to capture strategic points, or in the story missions you’ll be completing a variety of objectives. It’s a hefty, generous package altogether.
There are sizeable campaigns for both Necrons and Tyranids too, along with a skirmish mode that lets you choose any of the tabletop game’s factions and go prow-to-prow against AI or other humans. I know this because I’ve seen the admirals of Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 wearing them while they command their giant space cathedrals to do a murder at other giant space cathedrals, in a sequel that veers fairly close to the original, but with some vastly updated visuals, and some surprisingly gripping storytelling.Īrmada 2’s Imperial campaign gives you combined control of the Imperial Guard and Adeptus Astartes and Mechanicus (that’s Space Marines and Robot Space Marines) in an effort to defeat Mighty Chaos Warlord Abbadon the Despoiler, who is much less terrifying if you call him “Abby D” like I do. In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
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