clunky strategy game that doesn't rise above mediocrity
The control system is cumbersome, this just can't be played well with a controller, there's alot of micromanaging that you just don't have time for. You can pause to select units but you have to issue commands on the go. It gets chaotic in the middle of a battle when I want to issue like 7 different commands to my squads while trying to control 3 heroes and their abilities while watching the health point bars and morale bars etc. All while trying to use a controller.
The gameplay is disappointing as well, mission battles compose mostly of just enemy troops coming in lone squads wandering up to your army to be slaughtered. There's really only a few missions that are full armies verse each other. There's also quite a few timed missions, which although I didn't run out of time it seemed like a unnecessary annoyance when you have to rush a strategy game. there's 6 playable races(empire, high elf, chaos,orc, chaos elf, skaven) and you get to play them all at some point though some have less missions than others. Each missions takes about 20 mins each to finish. There's probably maybe 25 hours max all up to go through all the campaigns.
My biggest grievance is the utter lack of a decent manual, the tutorial doesn't cover nearly enough of the game commands. There's a total of 6 pages dedicated to it and it's very general. It doesn't go into how to lay siege a castle for example. You really have no idea what some of the icons do in regards to your troops, they just aren't explained or given any tool tip about what it does.
there's also a duel function that 2 opposing heroes do when they meet. The battle keeps playing though so you have to keep swapping back between an ongoing duel and the other unit management. It's also basically won by spamming your cooldowns as they autoswing so it's pretty forgetful.
Graphics are ok, though you'll spend most of your time zoomed out so you really are just watching a bunch of midgets fight. There's no way you could play this on a standard definition television. The camera controls are ok though.
melee units tend to suffer from a kind of bottle neck effect, as in they all clump up trying to attack a unit and you end up with units just standing around in a battle. Siege and range units are also a bit too strong I feel. A fairly simple strategy is just to have a few squads of archers with siege units with some melee units in front. Pretty much everything dies before it even gets close.
There's also a function to create your own armies and engage them in skirmishes which I guess is cool for the more warhammer fan types
Music is ok, fairly fitting sounds are ok, the unit attack/move acknowledgement can get annoying since they ramble on a bit.
The coolest parts of the game are probably the intro movies, unfortunately the games fail to capture the feel of epic battles. Most battles you are controlling < 100 troops.
Ultimately it's an OK game I bought it from the bargain bin so it was a reasonable few days of play. I'm quite a sucker for any type of fantasy themed game though.