As the closed beta for Total War: Warhammer 40k grows ever closer, we’re getting to see a lot more gameplay. The first reveal was at our very own PC Gaming Show, and then a couple of weeks back, courtesy of BiliBili, we got to see a kind of battle report overview of the same encounter with narration.
In the latest Alpha Strike livestream, Creative Assembly showed off that same battle, but ran it three times through from the player’s perspective. We got to witness the Astra Militarum trying to defend a river crossing against the Orks, and learned a lot more about ranged combat, cover, reserves, army abilities, and other juicy details.
You can watch the full stream above, but here are some of the things that stood out to me as someone who’s been following Total War: 40k’s reveals closely:
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- Units have a lot more stats since they’re made up of multiple entities with different weapons, making them effective against specific units. For example, a unit could have a commissar, a vox operator, and regular soldiers, all with different stats and loadouts
- Heroes will have bodyguards you can customise instead of running them as individuals as in Total War: Warhammer
- Units can now strafe, firing as they move slowly in a specific direction, such as a tank backing away from infantry, though accuracy will be impacted
- You have airstrikes and army abilities, but for the Astra Militarum, these Regimental Orders only impact those close to command units and voxcasters (as in the tabletop)
- The balance of power bar now visualises and represents reinforcements off the field
- Line of fire is now individual to entities in a unit, so they can fire independently at different units at once depending on what they see
- All projectiles are simulated, units have unlimited ammo, you can suppress enemy units, and some units (like Baneblades) now have sweeping fire to maximise ranged damage
- There’s a new Sentry Mode that lets you mark enemy units to prioritise before they come into range, plus there’s now a visual indicator of line of sight when targeting a unit
- There are grenades and unit abilities—psykers were mentioned for the first time
- There is a unit morale system and units will visually represent the damage they’ve taken
- You can choose to deploy reserves or hold them and reinforce later in the battle, such as with drop pods or thunderhawks for the Space Marines
- It was mentioned previously, but blood is in the game for free (no blood DLC)
It was a massive info drop, but my key takeaway is that positioning is going to be king in Total War: Warhammer 40k and that using cover, line of sight, and scenery will make or break battles. Unit loadouts will also be very important in terms of matchups and performing effectively in combat, similar to Total War: Warhammer.
Honestly, the new engine is looking really good, too, and all the changes to projectiles and line of sight are very exciting. It was also mentioned that this is a two month old build, but it sounds like we’ll be getting more of these livestreams on specific features in the run up to the beta, so hopefully we’ll see more of the Space Marines and Eldar in combat, too.