Warmachine Tactics Review

Warmachine Tactics is, the clue is in the name, a small 3D turn based tactics game. By small I am not being insulting, I mean rather than controlling large amounts of units or squads you control a modest amount of individual troops. Developed by privateer press interactive and having its roots humbly started by Kickstarter it is based in the world of Warmachine – a Table top steam punk game. Oh, and is available for both mac and PC. As mentioned Warmachine is a small 3D turn based tactics game based in a cyberpunk world full of war and conflict where a unique set up people known as warcasters can control steam powered dreadnoughts known as warjacks.

The campaign starts off with you as Lieutenant Allison Jakes under trial for the death of Commander Sturgis. Not only is lieutenant Allison jakes a warcaster but also she was a Commander Sturgis direct apprentice and even from the brief introduction seems to admire the guy a lot, which is thrown into question when she admits Commander Sturgis death and that she personally was the cause. The campaign then follows the events that led to this with you controlling Allison Jakes.

The Game plays combat is interesting as with most standard turn based tactics games you have an attack phase and a movement phase. The movement phase is simple to understand – it is when you move. You can choose to move the standard distance or run to move additional spaces, however this voids your attack phase. The attack phase is fairly similar in complexity as it is when you attack with either a ranged attack such as a rifle, cannon or grenade or a melee attack with varying kinds of stuff that you would usually use to hit people in order to cause fatal consequences. This is all there is too standard infantry units, however, things get a little more complex with the warcasters and warjacks. Warcasters always get a certain amount of a thing could focus and this can be allocated to any warjack close by the warcaster or just kept with the warcaster to perform one of three things. Initially the points can be used to add damage or accuracy to your melee, ranged or charged attacks. Also the focus points can be used to buy extra melee attacks during combat, which can be pretty handy if you’ve just been rushed and are in a little bit of a pinch. However, that is not all as the warcaster can also use spells which include the ability to heal themselves or move themselves additional spaces or any warjack within the area near the caster – even if their movement phase has already been performed. This focus system allows for a very interesting, risky element to] be added to the game as it can work out well, allowing you to blow away units before they even have a chance to react or quite badly as the focus points you dump into a lancer soon become a waste as a juggernaut smashes it to pieces before it can do anything. In this way it also almost always gives you a chance, even when the battle doesn’t seem to be going your way.

The graphics, well, I can’t really speak of those too much as initially I had the game on standard but it soon became clear with the lagging that my small laptop couldn’t handle it so I had to change it to the lowest settings it had and it still jittered every now and again. This is in no way the fault of the game as my laptop not really being geared up as a gaming laptop wasn’t designed for the nice shiny surface of the war jacks metallic coverings. This being said the brief glimpse I did get off it was nice and a little bit taunting. I had the same issue with the sound, but the dialogue was fine and very well done.

Another feature of the game is the multiplayer and skirmishing – the multiplayer went as well as you would expect from a low end graphics card, however the skirmishing played out well as long as I didn’t have too many individual units on the field. The selection of the four maps were different in as much as a snowy hill is as too a wet one. This felt like it didn’t really give much of a tactic advantage on how you used the maps. Another issue was with designing your army as you are allowed to create your own battalion using the units associated with each faction based on a limited amount of points and units using those points up depending on their type. This was pretty cool, however if you want to craft your own perfect team you need to be well associated with all the units which is kind of great as it encourages you to play with the units and really get to grips with them however this can also be very time consuming especially if you don’t have a lot of time. This is made worse as when building the team you cannot see stats or even a picture of the unit that you are placing into that team. It would have also been great too, maybe customise your own warcaster and warjacks but, that isn’t possible and leaves that feeling of you not really customising your team and merely just stacking it in a convenient manner.

Overall Warmachine is a 3D turn based tactics game – you get exactly what you expect, with the cool lore and steam powered juggernauts and the interesting focus system that adds more flexibility to your moves if you’re a fan of the table top game, then this will be great for you and if you’re looking for an easy to get too grips with tactics game it also covers that too. You may, just like me, want a decent machine too run it on. Maybe powered on steam……. or maybe not.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.