Topic: Mark of Chaos review up at GSpot.

[Quemaqua]

While you don't have much choice in the direction of the campaign, you do have some bit of strategic-decision making in the composition of your army. You can recruit different types of units in towns and cities and then outfit those troops with better weapons, armor, and siege gear, as well as banners and musicians that help boost troops' morale in battle. Or, you can also get your troops blessed at a temple, which grants them various protections. And when you do arrive at a battle, you have to decide which troops to take into the fight, as you usually have more troops than battle slots. This involves deciding what kind of battle you want to fight. Do you want to rely on ranged weapons such as bows, axes, or muskets, or do you go for a heavier force and rely on swords and spears? On top of this, your troops gain veterancy the more they fight, which means you want to preserve as much of your force as possible in each battle. Veteran units are both tougher and much larger than green units. You can replace losses after a fight by purchasing them in your army camp, and there's usually enough gold salvaged from each victory that you can restore your losses and purchase a few upgrades.

Connection issues will eventually be fixed, but it's disappointing that issues as serious as these made it through development. Once they're addressed, Mark of Chaos should appeal to the sizable Warhammer community, thanks to its battle system and beautiful visuals that capture the essence of the tabletop game. The rest of the game doesn't quite measure up to the quality of the battle systems, but technical issues aside, Mark of Chaos represents a promising first step.

Ranks in at 7.2.  Not great, but at least it doesn't completely suck.  Just sounds like there isn't much in the way of replayability where the campaign is concerned, there aren't a lot of factions to play, and there are a few relatively minor technical issues.  The community seems to like it well enough, ranking it a full point higher as of now.

[PyroMenace]

Heh, I just enjoyed that kickass trailer. I've never played any of the Shogun games nor did I care for them. But a 7.2 is good, even if it is a little too close to 6.

[sirean_syan]

From my experience with the demo after more than my initial impression, that sounds about rate,

I will say this about the qauntity of races though. Even though there are only four main races, they break into seperate mini-factions like Age of Empires did and such. Plus, all the customization options seem really sweet. And really, the only reason four factions doesn't seem like a lot is because we've grown used to Dawn of War and we all know how much of an exception to the rule it is.

The community is probably happy because it does feel very close to the source material, at least from what I remember with my short time as a fantasy Warhammer player. In a lot of ways it's almost a direct translation.