Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters is a Turn-Based Strategy game in the vein of XCOM and a sequel/reboot of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate.
Story
The game follows Strike Force Xiphos of the Grey Knights after a long, offscreen crusade against the a Khornate cult, banishing its Daemon Prince leader back to the Warp at the cost of Strike Force Xiphos' Brother-Captain Agravain and most of its battle-brothers. Grand Master Ectar appoints you to lead the journey back to Titan, home base of the Grey Knights, but Strike Force Xiphos was intercepted by an Inquisitor Vakir who commandeers their heavily damaged Strike Cruiser, the Baleful Edict, to investigate a Nurglite plague in a nearby sector, much to the chagrin of the ship's Techpriest Dominus Lunete.
Gameplay
Like how the original Chaos Gate was inspired by the original X-COM, Daemonhunters take many cues from the modern XCOM games. The strategic layer lets you select some research for Inquisitor Vakir to pursue that will aid the fight against the Bloom, select which part of the Baleful Edict Dominus Lunete should prioritize repairs, and select a mission to defeat the servants of the Plague God (does this sound familiar to XCOM players already?). Certain story events will have your crew butt heads over the mission, and picking sides will grant bonuses or maluses to their department, such as faster research times for supporting Vakir or increased exp gain for supporting Ectar.
Across the sector, each planet has a corruption meter that increases all sorts of nasty shit that can happen as it rises, usually in forms of buffs for enemies and debuffs for your dudes. Missions will appear randomly on different planets and you have a limited time to race across the Warp to do them before they expire and raise the planet's corruption meter, which means you can't save every planet. Most missions have objectives like killing every enemy or specific ones, but you can optionally choose to undertake a secondary objective if available, from killing a certain number of enemies with melee, taking at most a certain amount of damage or not using any Will points. Completing primary and secondary objectives award requisition which can be used to redeem mission rewards from new recruits or stronger wargear, but failing secondary objectives costs you 1 requisition, so you must choose wisely whether you are fit to do them.
The tactical layer allows you to deploy up to 4 Grey Knights Space Marines to the field, and plays similarly to XCOM, although instead of a move + action vs longer move, each marine starts with 3 action points (AP) to spend on movement, abilities or attacks in any order. Warp-based abilities, from powering up attacks with psychic power or psyker powers, cost Will points (WP) to use, but increases the Warp Surge gauge which activates some debilitating effect when full. The Warp Surge gauge fills every turn at an amount dependent on corruption level, acting as a timer to prevent turtling much like XCOM 2's mission timer, but you're not completely screwed if it 'runs out' as it merely disadvantages you instead of immediately failing the mission. Still, you wouldn't want to let it fill up too often as it can quickly put you at a disadvantage and heightens the risk of permanently losing a battle-brother.
However, being Space Marines and all, each battle-brother won't be instantly killed if they drop to 0 HP in battle; rather they will enter a critically wounded state which they will recover from if healed or after taking 3 turns to catch their breath. Still, if a critically wounded Knight drops to 0 HP again in the same battle, they will die for good, and even if they survive the mission, they lose a Resilience point, which is the number of times they can get critically wounded and survive. Fortunately, getting promoted increases maximum Resilience, so it pays off to preserve your forces as much as possible.
The battlefield contains many obstacles such as classic explosive barrels and statues that can be shot or smashed to take out multiple enemies at once, and you can knock around enemies with skills and explosives, potentially blasting them into bottomless pits for instant kills, giving you an incentive to position properly. There exist high and low cover objects scattered around; as there is no accuracy factor in this game, all attacks will connect barring certain auto abilities that have a chance to block certain attacks. Thus, you have to rely on cover and armor to absorb fixed damage, where high cover blocks more damage than low. This is important especially in the early game, where your spess mehreens in default wargear are actually pretty squishy starting out, such that lowly cultists armed with autoguns and heavy stubbers can quickly pepper them down if they stand in the open.
(to be continued...)
Grey Knight Classes
4 classes of Grey Knights are available at the start of the game, while 4 more advanced classes can be unlocked later after a story mission.
- Basic Classes
- Interceptor: Offensive class that can teleport through the Warp to flank enemies or tactically retreat from trouble, without triggering those pesky enemy auto skills. They start off pretty weak and unable to teleport without investing in the skill, but advancing their teleportation and melee trees grants them insane damage output and mobility. They don't have much on the defensive side, but with support from allies, they are one of if not the best classes in the game.
- Justicar: Defensive class that focuses on tanking enemy attacks, but can work as an offensive frontliner too. A very jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none class that doesn't really stand out alone, but can support allies well especially by giving them more AP and armor. Can equip Terminator armor to improve durability but limits mobility.
- Purgator: Offensive ranged focused class that can equip big guns like the Psycannon, Psilencer and Incinerator, granting them heavy firepower in exchange for poor melee attacks, so keep them away from melee foes. They can also specialize in grenades, gaining additional grenade uses and improving blast radii to the approval of Tarkus and Ork Kommandos. Going down the Astral Aim tree allows your Purgators to become snipers, scoring guaranteed critical hits that can also disable targets by shooting off their limbs.
- Apothecary: Support class that focuses on healing injured battle-brothers with their Narthecium and supporting them with Servo-skulls. They can also specialize in extracting blight seeds from certain enemies which are needed for further research, but that becomes obsolete once you have reliable crit builds later on. They also have some offensive and defensive psychic powers but they aren't very flexible or powerful, because they need an upgrade to cast them at range, with a specific Servo-skull taking up a wargear slot, that has limited uses. Can also equip Terminator armor.
- Advanced Classes
- Paladin: Defensive class like the Justicar but more specialized in frontline tanking, knockback and AoE damage. They're limited to only Terminator armor, but is also the only class that can use the Storm Shield, which they can forgo for Psycannon if you specialize them in it, trading more durability for some firepower. Unfortunately, being another jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none class, they can't fight better than an Interceptor, nuke better than a Librarian or support better than a Justicar or Chaplain.
- Chaplain: Support class limited to Terminator armor that is similar to the Justicar, buffing allies and taunting enemies into attacking them. With a greater focus on buffing allies, they use litanies and prayers that last forever but only one of which can be active at a time. Using a different litany or prayer cancels out the previous one, allowing you to adapt to different situations if needed. They are the only class capable of using the Crozius Arcanum, which has a chance to inflict the Vulnerable debuff on enemies with attacks.
- Librarian: Offensive spellcaster limited to Terminator armor with a variety of powerful psychic powers, from group teleportation to energy vortexes that mulch groups of enemies AND disable vehicle weaponry. As a result, they're mostly limited by the number of Will points they have, and because their use will involve raising Warp Surge a lot, they can also reduce the Warp Surge meter, otherwise it can quickly spiral out of control later in the game.
- Purifier: Offensive ranged focused class like the Purgator, but with a greater focus on the Incinerator and an obsession with setting things on fire that rivals the Salamanders. They can also be trained in Astral Aim and grenade-fu like the Purgator, but unlike the Purgator, can become specialized in melee to scorch adjacent enemies with the purifying flames of their soul. True to their name, their purity makes them immune to hazards, capable of purifying enemies of their buffs and applying a purifying flame damage over time on them, which can become permanent when upgraded. Like the Purgator, they cannot use Terminator armor.
The Castellan Champion edition adds Castellan Crowe as a playable unit, wielding the Black Blade of Antwyr with a unique skill tree. This would sound great if not for the fact that he's effectively day one DLC gated behind $10.
Chaos Units
- Cultists: Come in a few variants, but most of them can still be quite dangerous and shoot quite well. They die very quickly if you actually strike back, but don't underestimate them. Generally, they will try to pin your units with overwatch, suppressive fire and grenades, forcing pinned units to take damage if you try to move them without dislodging the Cultists first.
- Poxwalkers: Typical zombie-type enemies that swarm in large numbers. One variant is the bloated Poxwalker, which explodes on death in a toxic cloud that improves its allies' max HP and inflicts plague on your units.
- Apostate Preacher:
- Death Guard Plague Marines:
- Blightlord Terminators:
- Foetid Bloat-Drone:
- Myphitic Blight-Hauler:
- Helbrute:
- Nurglings:
- Plaguebearers:
- Daemon Prince of Nurgle:
- Great Unclean One:
- Mortarion: