Waaagh! Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon Released

Games Workshop have been a bit weird with their licensing since the fall of THQ and the end of Relic's glorious Warhammer 40,000 games, greenlighting an unexpected variety of games. Sure, this has lead to humdrum oddities like WH40K: Storm of Vengeance, but I can't imagine they'd have given 40K: Armageddon the go-ahead before either.

It's a serious-looking turn-based strategy game by the folks behind Panzer Corps, recreating the Second War of Armageddon across a big campaign with hundreds of different units and variants. And it's out now. Come watch some orks get squished in an hour of livestreamed action.

Armageddon's not a recreation of the tabletop game, using its own serious strategy rules with stats galore - Panzer Corps with Space Marines, basically. Players are commanding Imperial Guard forces on the planet of Armageddon, fending off a huge ork invasion with a little help from several Space Marine chapters. Units are persistent across missions too, gaining experience and new gear; I do always enjoy the triumphs and tragedies of becoming attached to particular units.

It's also got multiplayer via hotseat and Slitherine's asynchronous play-by-e-mail-inspired PBEM++ system. And a map editor so folks can make their scenarios. Huzzah!

I've been looking for a way into more serious strategy games, but find the typical historical settings overwhelming as I feel I'd need to learn a lot about the background before I even started on the game. I don't know my Panzerfaust from my Panzer Maus, me. I can, however, tell you all about Terminators and Titans. I'm not proud of this.

A launch discount brings Armageddon to £22.49 on Steam or £20.99 direct from Slitherine, who also chuck in a boxed copy if you pay £30.99. Have a launch trailer on me:

Slitherine also livestreamed about an hour of the game last night, which I would embed but the video is very insistent upon autoplaying.