Horus Heresy: Drop Assault

Drop Assault is a Free-to-Play android game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, specifically set during the Battle of Isstvan III of the Horus Heresy.

Typical of the F2P genre, you have a base which you construct using resources which can either be slowly over time, or by sending your forces to raid enemy bases, which can be either players or AI.

Have you ever played Boom Beach? it's exactly the same, down to the units.

Gameplay

You choose a Legion present in the battle: Sons of Horus, World Eaters, Emperor's Children or Death Guard, which all have a very minor bonus depending on who you play, and you choose a faction of either Loyalist or Traitor.

You get a base, prepare defenses and build up squads.

Unlike some other F2P games, there is a hard cap of eight on the number of squads you can build. It never goes any higher than this, though upgrades can be bought or researched which, for instance, increase the number of men within a squad, or increase their attack power or health.

These squads can be sent to attack enemy bases, or you can go directly to real-time PvP mode, which is similar to Dawn of War in that you get a map with objective points, and have to destroy what forces your opponent brought.

Added with a patch, you can rally heroes which are like super units who come with a variety of active and passive abilities like the ability to disarm mines or teleport around the battlefield. Heroes also defend your base when attacked and can be equipped with Wargear that offers direct or support bonuses for your forces and/or buildings. Rallying also has a chance to grant materials to craft relics and wargear, as well as consumables to help upgrade heros.

The latest patch(11/17/2017) adds sieges, which are chapter(the games guild, or player clans) based mini-events consisting of numerous bases of ascending difficulty level, on a seperate map from the rest of the "campaign." Sieges grant resources to each member of the chapter, with members who contributed more to the siege as a whole gaining proportionately increased rewards.

Although all being fine, there are some lore rape, yet this is not caused by ignorance, but by sake of not having either side be at a disadvantage. And by lore rape, we have things like Loyalist World Eaters getting RED BUTCHERS who are the spiritual predecessors of modern-day Khorne Berserkers.

Resource Model

There are several types of resource which have different functions, such as Munitions for building squads and raiding bases, Power for upgrading buildings, and Machine Spirit which is used to rush completion timers, unlock access to higher level equipment/relics or grant bonuses which give you long term advantages (such as more Techmarines).

Of course as a F2P game; because it offers the greatest advantage, Machine Spirit can be bought for real-world currency and would appear to be how Drop Assault pays for itself. However, atypically for the genre, there is no requirement for you to ever do so. Machine Spirit is awarded regularly and can be accumulated over time without ever having to spend any money on the game.

Furthermore, completion timers can be rushed by choosing to watch advertisements which last only around 20-30 seconds but can shave off a hour of time. Of course this is completely voluntary, so you don't have to feel nickel-and-dimed, even though its obvious what is going on.