Warhammer: Mark of Chaos

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos is a real-time tactics game set in the Warhammer universe produced by Namco and developed by Black Hole Entertainment. It follows the same formula as Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat and Warhammer: Dark Omen. The gameplay is focused on managing your units and heroes and does not contain any resource management or base-building. The player can control one of the 4 armies in both the games single and multiplayer environments.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Mark of Chaos is focused on battlefield tactics without any base-building or resource management. Instead players command units which can have anything upto 60 individuals who move and fight together. The control scheme is very similar to the control scheme of the Total War series even giving players the ability to chose units orientation and formation. Each unit also has their own abilities which are dictated by their unit type. Mark of Chaos also incudes a morale system, units with low morale perform less effectively in combat and if morale gets low enough units are likely to break and retreat from the map.

Similar to Warcraft 3, Mark of Chaos contains special Hero characters. These are unique, hugely powerful individuals who can slay who units if they are used properly, they can also be attached to units which can infer attack and defence bonuses. They are able to learn new abilities and use additional equipment in a sort of percistant RPG system including multiple paths for the skill trees. Heroes can also initiate duels with enemy Heroes without interuption from either armies units until one Hero kils the other, during this the player can activate certain Hero skills. Heroes are also divided into 3 subcatagories, warriors who focus on close combat, wizzards who use offensive spells and generals who have supporting abilities and can increase units morale and offensive abilities.

The objective in Mark of Chaos is to either destroy every enemy unit or cause them to flee from the map by causing enough damage to their morale. Battles are fought on a wide variety of landscapes which contain different terain levels and terrian types which influence units in some way. For example units move slower when they try to climb hills.

Singleplayer

There are 2 campaigns in Mark of Chaos, one dedicated to the Empire and Elven forces, the other dedicated to the Hordes of Chaos and Skaven forces.

The Empire Campaign follows Stefan Von Kessel a young Ostermark captain whos father and grandfather were both executed for worshiping the Chaos Gods, his family was stripped of their titles. In the later stages of the game it is revealed that Von Kessel's father was actually framed by the Nurgle worshipping Elector Count Otto Gruber. Von Kessel is a new main protagonist for the Warhammer series, replacing the charismatic mercenary Morgan Bernhardt in this role.

The Chaos campaign follows Thorgar the Blooded One, a champion of Chaos, chosen by the Gods themselves as he attemps to buld his forces and launch an attack on the Empire. He is joined by a sorcerer by the name of Sudobaal who instructs and guides Thorgar to a Chaos Shrine where, after enduring a series of trails he is allow to chose which Chaos God to dedicate his life to, either Nurgle, the God of Decay or Khorne, the Bloodletter. Eventually he is elevated to his ultimate goal of daemonhood abd subsequently destroys the city of Talabheim.

Multiplayer

Before each battle in multiplayer, players are asked to select their armies, buying and upgrading units or buying additional equipment for your heroes.There are 3 subfactions for each of the factions in the game, each have different colour schemes and unit types. As a nod to the table-top game Mark of Chaos also includes a model editor which allows you to change the look of models by changins heads, limbs and armour. These can all be saved for later use.