A new campaign featuring orcs and dark elves is
the only noteworthy addition in this expansion for Warhammer: Mark
of Chaos.
The Good
- Broad story includes new races like orcs and dark elves
- Mostly accurate depiction of units from the tabletop game
- New World Domination multiplayer mode is a step in the right direction.
The Bad
- Merely recycles the original Mark of Chaos campaign
- Linear campaign loaded with many dull missions.
Do you like orcs? That's the main
question you need to ask when contemplating a purchase of
Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Battle March, as this
expansion-plus-original-game combo package includes no extra
content except for one new campaign featuring everybody's favorite
green-skinned goons. You get the exact same real-time strategy take
on the dark Warhammer fantasy universe released back at the end of
2006, along with an additional dozen or so hours of play tacked on
to fill out an epic saga about a war between the religious fanatics
of the Empire and the evil Hordes of Chaos. Still, you would expect
a little more than just a single new campaign from an add-on
hitting store shelves a full two years down the line, and hope for
more serious work to address some of the original game's
shortcomings.
The biggest issue with the Empire and
Chaos campaigns in the original Mark of Chaos was the linear nature
of everything. Both army management and the missions themselves
were big-time blah and practically played themselves. The Empire's
noble troops and Chaos' evil monsters followed a straight path
through the text-told (aside from the amazing opening cinematic
showing an Empire patrol being waylaid by Chaos warriors)
storyline, going from one battle to another on a tactical map
screen so dark that you could barely make out the terrain.
Strategic depth was almost nonexistent when it came to building
your armies. Because there were no resources to gather or bases to
build, all you did was fight and make the occasional pit stop to
buy supplies, buff armies with new weapons and armor, and pick up
magical doodads for your heroes. Intense battlefield combat based
on a superb re-creation of the Warhammer tabletop game's units and
brutally gothic atmosphere made up for some of these shortcomings,
although the missions themselves played out on linear maps striped
with narrow paths that led you by the hand to each goal. Soldiers
themselves were easy to lead as well, as all you had to worry about
was keeping their morale up, choosing from a couple of basic
formations and dealing with the usual rock-paper-scissors formula
to determine what units worked best against others. You sure didn't
need to do a whole lot of thinking, which tied the game to an
anchor that you got bored with lugging around after seven or eight
missions.
So you can understand how adding more
of the same to that could be seen as disappointing. The new
campaign, which throws a greenskin army of orcs and goblins being
manipulated by the dark elves into the original two-sided tale of a
Chaos invasion of the Empire, is a straight-up rehash of its two
predecessors. It plays and feels a lot like the original game's
Chaos campaign, with the same focus on the bad guys and a lot of
very similar, if not identical, units. You might find it a little
hard to get jazzed up about leading orc and goblin armies, since
parts of both were already present in the original Mark of Chaos
campaigns as greenskin mercenaries. Of course, you now also get the
dark elves and a memorable new lead character in the orc war boss
hero Gorbash. But the sunscreen-loving elves don't show up in the
campaign right away, so for a good while you'll be left feeling as
if you've played this game before. Also, Gorbash's repetitive "Me
smash!" Cockney musings will get on your nerves after a half hour
or so.
Even more annoying is the repetitive
design of the battle scenarios. If anything, the new orc campaign
in Battle March is more linear than its predecessors. Every map
requires you to guide your forces down a narrow pathway to mission
goals, battling ever-growing enemy battalions along the way in what
soon turns into a battle of attrition. Early scraps are always
cakewalks, although you'll generally take just enough losses in
each one that you'll find yourself running low on manpower by the
time you reach the inevitable big fight at each scenario's
conclusion. Along with being pretty tedious, this sort of structure
can also totally screw you in the overall campaign progress. It's
very, very easy to survive a mission with just a handful of troops,
leaving you unable to take on the next assignment with even the
faintest hope of success. Buying reinforcements is always possible
between battles, of course, but you don't earn enough gold during
fights to afford to completely replace units lost if your
casualties were relatively high. You can't save during missions,
either, which means that you often get to the very end of the road
and then discover that you don't have a chance of winning or
finishing with enough troops to continue on. Big fun.
Increasing your survival rate is very
difficult, too. Some maps are laid out like puzzles. Take one turn
and you head off to certain death, but take another and you'll run
into gangs of orc boyz eager to join up with your main army. There
is rarely any way to tell which way to go, as all routes look the
same. A tip occasionally pops up onscreen letting you know that a
certain part of the map would be worth taking a look at, although
this generally directs you to hero items and other loot--not the
smartest way to proceed through the scenario. You often wind up
playing campaign maps two or three times to learn them before
having a chance to beat them. Battle March battles are also very
fast, and as with the original game there's no way to turn down the
speed settings or even pause the action to dish out orders. It is
just about impossible to assume full tactical control over units
during larger-scale battles; all you can do is aim your battalions
in the right direction and hope that you come out on the other side
of the fight with as few corpses to bury as possible. Battlefields
are also narrow and confined for the most part, and this sure
doesn't help with army control. Unless you're dealing with just a
few units, engagements inevitably turn into chaotic mash-ups where
it is hard to tell what's going on, let alone make any orders to
turn the tide or complete the vanquishing of a foe. Heroes are the
only units that you can really focus on managing, due to their
lone-star status on battlefields, nifty ability with spells and
various sorts of arcane artifacts, and their solo presence in the
man-to-man duels with enemy heroes that can figure into many
missions.
Multiplayer further evokes traditional Warhammer battles, thanks in large part to the core game's Create Army option. Being able to custom-outfit any one of the game's six factions (Empire, Chaos, high elf, dark elf, orcs and goblins, and skaven) and go online for duels with other human players gets right to the heart of what Warhammer is all about. This expansion doesn't add a great deal in this regard, however. The new world domination mode of play is a nice amenity where you battle it out for control of multiple domains on a tactical map, but it really amounts to nothing more than fighting through a linked series of skirmishes and gets monotonous fairly fast. It does at least offer bonuses that add some strategic depth to the tactical screen, as you receive faction boosts like enhanced gold production and buffed morale for troops when conquering certain territories.
Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Battle March is for dedicated fans only. Its depiction of the sinister Warhammer Old World fantasy setting is remarkably true to the tabletop game, but the gameplay feels a little past its best-by date due to the continuing disappointment of the bland campaign structure and mission design.
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