To give players even more initiative to wage war there is a rather compelling story put in place. Each of the two campaigns (each consisting of 4 chapters) follows the progress of a champion as he advances through the world in search of glory and mayhem (evil campaign) or revenge and justice (good campaign). The story telling won't win a Hugo or Nebula award, but it is better than in your average strategy game. Most of the story is handed to the player by means of short dialogs on the campaign map or the occasional cinematic (pre-rendered with the game engine) at the beginning or the end of a chapter. While speaking of the cinematics I should point out that the introductory video is amazing and easily rivals the work done by Blizzard (Warcraft) or Square (Final Fantasy).

Almost like Total War

Throughout the development several previews stated that the game would basically be a Total War game taking place in the Warhammer world. On release such previews were proven wrong as MoC is actually relatively different than the Total War games. For one thing, the strategic map is nowhere to be found. In its place we can find a linear campaign map where the only choices we are given are the recruitment of units and some optional missions. Users on the various internet boards have cursed the developers because of this and no one can blame them. I personally think that the inclusion of a strategic (turn based) map would have been a great addition to the game, but I will admit that the game feels more focused on the visceral battles because of what the authors did. As it is you build your army before the battle, composed of new units recruited from towns (all done on the campaign map) and old veteran units that survived the previous battles.

If there is one area where Mark of Chaos truly shines it is the battles themselves (seeing how they are the meat of the game this is great news). Again, they seemingly look like the battles from one of the Total War games but are in fact quite different. The biggest difference comes in the form of hero units. These champions of good and evil are strong enough to wipe out entire regiments of enemies and if used wisely they can turn the tide of any battle they enter. To make things worse for the enemy a hero unit can be attached to a regiment of regular units, giving a big bonus to morale and damage output of that unit. With the help of the heroes abilities a regiment is able to withstand ranged attacks or poison the enemy. To counter the immense power of hero units on both sides they can be drawn into duels, thus making the heroes focus on one another, leaving the rest of the armies to take care of themselves. These duels have the player select which ability his hero will use and a smart selection of tactics plays an immense role in the outcome of the duel.

All three of the hero roles (dueling, solo fighting or attached to a regiment) depend on different skill trees. Killing enemies earns the heroes experience which can then be used to upgrade some of these skills. While they mostly come in the form of 2% bonuses to the skills a fully upgraded skill will often offer a massive 10% difference in damage output (or damage resistance). Regular (non-hero) units also gain experience, but they can only achieve two experience levels, both of which increase the damage they deal and the number of regiment fighters (where applicable). These improvements force you to do your best to keep your experienced soldiers alive, as losing an experienced regiment has dire consequences – especially towards the end of a campaign.

The battles themselves usually take 10 to 20 minutes and a good 50% of that is spent in intense combat. The regiments are faster and more responsive than most would expect so the combat is very dynamic. Despite that the regiments mostly stay in formation (that is until a giant demon walks into their middle). Flanking plays a major role as do the rock, paper, scissors dynamics. All of this together makes the battles an intense and bloody experience.

Polish your armor

Looking at the screenshots it is not difficult to understand why the game requires some serious horsepower under the hood. The level of detail seen on the units is nothing short of breathtaking, especially for a strategy game where most of the time the camera is zoomed out. Every last detail on the armors can be seen from up close and units in the same regiment vary in appearance. The terrain is also intricately formed and some of the vistas look like they could belong in a FPS. The performance could unfortunately also belong to a next-gen shooter as the framerate rarely goes above 30 frames per second, even on a high end machine. Because of all the high-res textures playing the game with less that a full gig of memory is also not recommended.

On the sound front nothing stands out especially, which is good and bad at the same time. The music fits well with what happens on the screen but it is not memorable. Same goes for the dialog voices with the actors doing a good job but not leaving a very strong impression.

Playing together

With such an advanced battle system it would be a total waste fighting only against computer opponents (although the AI is pretty good). Unfortunately playing online offers only two different play types: siege battles and regular confrontations. Multiplayer is still a blast though and there is even an online campaign going on, managed by the forum community of the game. It isn't often that a game has such a strong community and because of that fact alone the future of the game is bright indeed.

Drawing from its tabletop roots the game offers an extremely deep unit customization mode, where even the most minor details of every single unit can be changed. Helmets, shields, armors and colors can all be set to suit your taste so you can be sure that when playing online your army is going to look unique.

Collector's Edition

As with every CE version of a game the box is filled with goodies. While we are used to finding a soundtrack CD and artwork booklet in these packages you don't often get a banner holder with 4 banners. And while the pewter symbol is also far from being a novelty the Mark of Chaos novel is a big surprise. I've only read a few pages so far but the first impressions are good and I'm sure I'll enjoy reading the rest of the 400 or so pages. I personally think that anyone who is even remotely interested into the Warhammer universe should get the CE, as the lore from the novel alone makes the game experience 10 times better.

Conclusion

Lately there have been many strategy games released and most of them were above average. Being an avid fantasy lover I can't overstate how happy I am that Mark of Chaos continues this tradition by being an outstanding representative of the genre. The game is not perfect, but you will be hard pressed to notice its shortcomings during a play session. And while it is true that basically all you do is battle it out with no resource gathering or base building, you can hardly call that an issue when it is done so well. It is definitely a game that every strategy fan should play and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone even slightly interested in the Warhammer universe.

Gameplay	18/20	Intense, fast, tactical, epic. These are all words that describe a typical battle in MoC be it in singleplayer or multiplayer.
Graphics	17/20	The units are as detailed as if this was a fps. And yet, somehow you can see hundreds of them in action. The action can slow down at times due to the game being a resource hog though.
Sound	16/20	If you heard one fantasy soundtrack you've heard them all. Same goes for the typical evil blood-hungry barbarian or the eternally good general.
Value	17/20	The singleplayer campaign will take most a good week to get through. After that you can spend months playing online. If you are obsessed with how your army looks you can even lose entire days “painting” your army.
Preference	16/20	If you don't like strategy games you most likely won't like MoC. This game is all about commanding your armies to cut down their foes so if that is not your cup of tea look elsewhere.
Overall	84/100	Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is a game that does justice to the Warhammer universe. It delivers constant warfare with some amazing gameplay to back it up. Highly recommended.