Warhammer: Mark of Chaos
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Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is a Warhammer Fantasy strategy game released back in 2006. It has similar gameplay to Total War: Warhammer despite being released 10 years before. One could say that Total War: Warhammer is its' spiritual successor. Still, this is an extremely underrated gem that was almost never talked about on /tg/ due to its short supply of memes. Unfortunately the game is nowadays very hard to find, at least legally, as the physical copies are long out of production and it has yet to appear on Steam or any similar program. This is due to the fact that it was published by Bandai-Namco, a Japanese publisher not known for their embrace of the digital storefront, and that it was deeply integrated with Games for Windows Live.
Gameplay
Like Total War: Warhammer or any Total War game, there is no resource management or base building. There is unit formation you can put your units into, units have morale and you have leade- fuck it, it's a Total War game!
The original game features The Empire, The High Elves, The Warriors of Chaos and The Skaven as playable factions.
The Dwarfs and Greenskins also appear in a limited capacity, with extremely small rosters and merely serving as mercenary units for the main factions. The Vampire Counts also make an appearance, though only as an ai controlled foe in a handful of campaign missions.
The expansion, Battlemarch, made the Greenskins into a fully fledged faction, along with adding the Dark Elves as an entirely new one.
Plot
It should be noted that this game takes place one year after the great war against chaos, which means Magnus the Pious is the emperor instead of Karl Franz.
There are 2 campaigns in the game. Chaos and Empire.
In the Chaos campaign, you play as Thorgar the Blooded One, a Chaos champion who fought alongside the warlord Asavar Kul (also known as the fourth everchosen) in the Great War. Later levels have you control the Skaven as well. The campaign centers around Thorgar's attempts to rally the Chaos forces, ascend to daemonhood and, ultimately, finish what Kul started.
As the Empire is still around 200 odd years after the game takes place this can be considered the non-canon campaign, which is further proven in the lore where Asavar Kul's forces, including himself was ultimately defeated by the gangbangs from the forces of order that included: many survivors like imperial knights and some Kislevite lancers from the early battle at Praag, Magnus' main forces, the remain dwarf forces and most importantly, Teclis and his newly trained human battle wizard (whom will probably founded the imperial magic college at Altdorf).
The most characteristic thing about Thorgar is that he, a powerful Chaos Champion, is best buds with a Norscan Marauder by the name of Olaf. This wouldn't be so unique (in the end, even Chaos Warriors have friends), yet this friendship continues even after Thorgar TRANSFORMS INTO A DAEMON PRINCE.
In the Empire campaign, you play as Stefan von Kessel a captain in the army of Ostermark under Count Otto Gruber. Stefan's family used to be the Elector counts of Ostermark (which makes his service to the current count rather ironic), however they were convicted of heresy and executed with only little Steffan being spared, albeit branded with a mark of shame. The events of the story follow his struggles to hold off the forces of the aforementioned Thorgar whilst simultaneously trying to redeem his family name.
Expansion
The game also received an expansion called Battle March. The expansion made the Greenskins into a full faction while also adding the Dark Elves to the game. It had a campaign revolving around an orc warboss named Gorbash leading a Waaagh! through the Chaos ravaged Empire. It is later revealed that the whole plot had been orchestrated by the Dark Elf sorceress Lilaeth (no relation to the similarly named deity), who is manipulating the Greenskins for her own purposes. Also, Malekith makes a cameo, threatening to tear out Lilaeth's soul should she fail him (What a charming guy!).