A Turn-Based Strategy game that is infamous for being as hard as Dwarf Fortress, this game shows just how hard it is to run a chapter properly. From being forced to maintain your own ships, to amassing your own resources, training and other necessities, it often seems as if your chapter lurches from one extreme to the other, and your death is inevitable. Additionally, the game itself is constructed in a very similar way to Master of Orion, including the fleet space traveling part.
Just how the universe likes it.
It had a very troubled development history, but was eventually released online on August 6th, 2014, though as a mod to an ostensibly different game named Interstellar Army Simulator, in order to avoid troubles with Games Workshop lawyers. More details on how to download it here
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This game provides examples of:
- Artifact of Death: It is possible go get your hands on Chaos tainted artifacts. They tend to be much more powerful than standard ones, but they nearly always cause corruption and Chaos if used or given to anyone other than the Inquisition.
- And then there are the Daemon tainted artifacts, which make the former look positively harmless. Attempting to destroy them on your own usually ends up with summoning a small horde of Greater Daemons for your trouble.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Every Chapter with the Melee Enthusiast trait.
- Awesome, yet Impractical:
- Certain items qualify for this.
- Badass Army: You are in command of a Space Marine Chapter. Not to mention you being the Chapter Master yourself.
- Boring Yet Practical: Boltguns, Heavy Bolters and the Bolter Drill chapter trait work well for early battles.
- The Corruption: The biggest problem with Chaos, which makes it worse than Orks or Tyranids, is that they always corrupt planets they're on, along with nearby systems, and rooting out such corruption is long, difficult, and is nearly always abandoned partway through because something more dire has made an appearance.
- Demonic Invaders: Chaos has this ultimate goal.
- Determinator: Every Chapter with the Slow and Purposeful trait. It may marginally decrease melee and ranged damage, but dramatically bumps up resistance to damage.
- Taken to Mighty Glacier levels if a Marine is equipped further with the best armor available and with items that further increase damage resistance.
- Difficult, but Awesome: The Slaughtersong-class Dark Age of Technology battleship. It is randomly found when exploring ancient ruins and it requires 10k(!) requisition, all your Tech Marines and several months to restore. However, the sheer power of this ship makes space battles far easier, in addition to being able to double as a battle barge.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Any Chaos artifact should be treated as if it was made of pure poison. Not doing so is only done by those who wish to become traitors...or the stupid.
- Evil Versus Evil: If a Necron Tomb opens in an Ork-infested system, just steer clear. The Necron and Ork fleets will be too busy killing each other to expand into other systems.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: By the end of it, you will understand why purifying Chaos when in the midst of the Imperium's other major enemies is such a hassle, and why corrupted worlds are marked as "good enough" in the fact of other dangers.
- Horde of Alien Locusts: Tyranids make an appearance, and they act like they always do. After devouring a planet or two, it always moves on, and in great numbers.
- Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: As par for the course, ships can be lost in transit. Problematic when you have an entire company of Space Marines on board.
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Nintendo Hard: Remember how awesome the 40k universe is in other works? Now imagine yourself having to be in charge of the logistics of that place. Every casualty takes forever to replenish. Every space ship costing a fortune to build but is easily lost in battle. Interservice Rivalry with other imperial factions. The Inquisition breathing down your neck and declaring you a traitor for chatting with a xeno. The Orks snowballing to a ridiculous proportion because they can make space ships out of anything. The Tyranids consuming entire systems and spawning multiple hive fleets. A random world turning out to be a Necron world and dooming the entire sector. Needless to say, there are plenty of ways for your chapter to bite the dust. - Oh, Crap!: Multiple situations, but the worst is when your Librarians tell you that Tyranids are arriving into the sector.
- Every time when a sizeable Chaos Fleet appears near your homeworld.
- When you fail to blow up a Necron Tomb, it will start to spawn Rampant levels of Necrons and slaughter the inhabitants.
- Every time when a sizeable Chaos Fleet appears near your homeworld.
- Original Character: If you select a canon chapter, your custom chapter master will be this. An exception would be if you create your chapter master to match their canon counterpart.
- Simple, yet Awesome: Heavy Bolters. Slightly more expensive than traditional Bolters, they are still cheap, have a very long range and decent damage dealing potential against most things that you'll be killing.
- Bolter weapons in general if the Chapter takes the Bolter Drilling trait that causes said Bolters to deal more damage.
- Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: The proper way to promote your scouts into real Marines is to send them into situations where they can expect to have their gene-seed harvested. The ones who survive are worthy of joining the real companies.
- Total Party Kill: Taken to Redshirt Army levels when you send your whole Chapter to a Daemon World. The Greater Daemons there are ridiculously powerful.
- The same goes for Space Hulks if you send in your whole Chapter, though instead of being completely wiped out, you simply get enormous casualties due to Genestealer attacks. To avoid most of them, send in just your First Company.
- Crusades to other sectors. Experienced players will always tell you to send just one company (usually the underleveled one). The situation is the same as with Space Hulks. The less marines you send, the less severe the casualties are.
- Taken straight with missions where you have to send in a team to a Necron Tomb. Every player will mock you for sending in a company. Just send in four marines armed to the teeth with a Plasma Bomb (without Terminator Armors). This way you'll avoid waking up a very large number of angry Necrons.
