Total War: Warhammer

[Pixel]

An armoured column attacks a fortified position attempting to breakthrough and destroy the shield generator. Rebels call for air support to deal with the "tanks" - it makes plenty sense to me.

There's a trench of infantry defending against nothing but giant walkers which it's established they can't damage. They're only there to give the walkers something to shoot at, and to provide a ticking clock for Luke to be rushing against. Better stop those walkers before they massacre the good guys, etc.

A trench of infantry defending against something they can't really damage is something that's happened before in reality, though, for lots of reasons. It's kind of why armoured spearheads were so effective at breaking through fortified positions. It's almost like that was their entire operational role! It's worth noting that the combat scenes in the original trilogy were inspired by combat in older WW2 movies - right down to the props and art design. If you think of Star Wars combat as just ww2 with lasers, it makes a good deal of sense, at least in the OT as the prequels decided to be weird.

In any case, with the editing and such, it's hardly something unique to star wars, especially movies made in that time. Newer star wars movies get into the grit of it because technology is better... though it's partly why they tend to be worse.

Some people view of SW is limited to a few movies

Star wars is a film franchise, and one that's so iconic and regularly imitated and parodied that barely anything can be changed without it starting to look a bit silly. The overwhelming majority of people haven't watched or read any expanded universe stuff, and the expanded universe is barely thematically related to the films anyway because star wars does not have a compelling or expansive background. It's just good vs evil in space with a little bit of Kung Fu.

You're right, it's only the most expansive fictional universe literally ever created. I think only Star Trek even comes close. I don't think you really understand the nuances of Star Wars though. The Jedi are not "good" at all if you look at their philosophy. They repress basic human emotion and restrict freedoms based on paranoia, they refuse to even study the dark side in hopes of being able to counter it, they are naive and complacent - the Jedi Order changes a lot but this is how they are portrayed in the movies. They are so fargone, corrupt, and useless that they aren't even capable of sensing the Sith Master right in front of them (Palpatine). The Sith aren't even inherently evil and if they are, are redeemable.

It's not good and evil so much as two opposite extremes on the usage of the force - and both extremes are ****ing horrible. The best force-users in terms of being decent people are the ones who don't align with either side, the Grey Jedi, they're also the most interesting characters. Luke is one. Qui-Gon was one (okay he wasn't that interesting in the movie but he's better out of it). Obi-Wan was one because he was taught by Qui-Gon.

It's just my interpretation I guess but Star Wars is an endless story about a galaxy where constant apocalyptic-scale warfare (on a scale even 40k can't match) will simply never end, because the Force and the philosophies that attempt to guide the usage of it are eternal and drive every conflict. It's pretty hopeless and dark if you actually think about it. People like to say Star Wars is all noblebright and happy idealism but they forget that the movies are literally a tragedy story. I'm not saying grimdark is inherently compelling writing, but it shows that there are layers to this thing.

The problem with the EU is that 75% of it is poorly-written Mary Sue garbage written by people who don't really understand it, and can't write at all to begin with, the remaining 25% is extremely good. Admiral Thrawn is perhaps one of the best antagonists I've ever seen in a book. The problem is not "put lightsabers in it and it's star wars" it's actually a pretty complicated setting and most people familiar with it don't seem to be aware of it.

On the note of George Lucas and Scifi, it should be understood that A) star wars is not sci-fi, it is space fantasy, and B) George Lucas had very little to do, creatively, with much of the original trilogy. He didn't even direct two of the movies.

/off-topic rant over

 

[Wulfburk]

The problem with star wars for me is that that view that the jedi arent good, and that the grey jedi are the most decent ones, is one that is actively being repressed nowadays isnt it?




In fact, just look at the backlash that the republic commando novels from karen traviss received. Just because she actually thought to tackle the fact that the jedi are using a slave army, and she did it keeping it interesting. Then they decided to retcon it all and make the jedi the greatest heroes ever, and oh look the poor clones having chips inside their heads. Now they are best budies with the jedi, so awesome.

oh and

Star Wars is an endless story about a galaxy where constant apocalyptic-scale warfare (on a scale even 40k can't match)

隐藏

and besides, since when is that apocalyptic conflict in star wars constant? Didnt the republic have some 1000 years of peace before the clone wars? Back in my days young man the imperium would be happy if they didnt get assaulted by some orks/tyranid/space elves/pervert space elves/space mummies/japanese robots for just a few days.

 

[Bluehawk]

Star Wars is a very small universe. It contains a father, a son, a sister, an embodiment of pure evil, a few wise old men and a lovable rogue. It has only 5 major settings and its timeline does not stretch beyond 50 years.

 

[Pixel]

and besides, since when is that apocalyptic conflict in star wars constant? Didnt the republic have some 1000 years of peace before the clone wars? Back in my days young man the imperium would be happy if they didnt get assaulted by some orks/tyranid/space elves/pervert space elves/space mummies/japanese robots for just a few days.

The republic did not have 1000 years of peace before the clone wars, there are a lot of novels written in that timeframe and they're all about war (because what else is there to write about). Granted, these wars were not against the Sith to my knowledge, as they went into hiding during that period. I think the "1000 years of peace" thing was invented because people wanted to explain why the Republic had no army (it did) and was so stupid during the prequel trilogy. They seem to glide over the fact that it would mean the Jedi had 1000 years without real lightsaber dueling practice or incentive to practice it and yet are fully capable in that regard.

Star wars is just more densely populated (the population ruled by the Galactic Empire, alien and human, was estimated at like 400 quadrillion according to wookieepedia, whereas the entire Imperium of Man just says "hundreds of billions" for its human population. maybe the orkz are comparable tho?) and has more infrastructure in place than 40k though, and so many wars are fought on a galactic scale. By comparison 40k is quite desolate.

Don't get me wrong though I like 40k just as much if not more

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

There's a trench of infantry defending against nothing but giant walkers which it's established they can't damage. They're only there to give the walkers something to shoot at, and to provide a ticking clock for Luke to be rushing against. Better stop those walkers before they massacre the good guys, etc.

If you watch the scene the rebels don't actually shoot at anything (except maybe once or twice, but it's never shown in the reverse shots facing the walkers), they just sit there and wait to get blown up, but due to clever editing and a focus on the fighters it's not really noticeable. Until you try to make a strategy game out of it, that is.

Wrong. The trench of infantry is to defend the turret guns, which a couple scenes establish are at least somewhat effective at damaging the AT-ATs. So they are shooting at something, likewise they are defending against the Imperial footsoldiers who are both trying to knock out their guns as well as get inside Echo Base.

 

[Pixel]

Okay, maybe found someone more fun than Kroq Gar.
(note the kills)

 

[Orion]

Fighting Skaven? I'd believe it.

 

[Sartek]

In my game, Kholek got a bit under 1k kills against empire. A bit modded....and still lost. Was outnumbered 5 to 1

 

[Baguette Eater]

I think this will be fun to mess around with.

 

[YourStepDad]

Apologies for a slight necro.

I have a Warhammer II 50% off coupon on steam. The first to PM me receives it. Adding on steam is a given though. Steam name is Obese Geese

 

[Pixel]

same

 

[Sartek]

I have the first one, cause of ...I think humble bundle.

Not getting the second one anytime soon, because it would feel like getting into early access. I mean, even the second game is not "finished " yet. There is still content coming up.

And if I hop on now, it will feel like I am playing a half-finished product. Knowing that there will be more factions to come. I mean, sure, I probably wont play a majority of them ever, but I can still fight against them.

Probably when the last game in the trilogy has had its last update, would get an " ultime triple xxx supreme collectiors digital extreme deluxe partially complete edition", just to have a one time purchase and have everything.

That said, I fully support their practice of doing these race-packs. Development costs money, and these arent just cheap re-skins and quick cashgrabs.

 

[YourStepDad]

I think I have finally lost faith in Warhammer and gave up on it entirely.

Where the campaign map is lovely and finally as it should be, the battles just don't work. They're overly small, fast, and never nearly as epic as they should be. Perhaps only in multiplayer with multiple players, but otherwise, no.

 

[Sartek]

Havent found any mods to fix that for you ?

I`m sure there are some battle overhauls.

Nothing  that can make it as good as Medieval 2, but.....still slower than waht we currently have

And I think it worth applauding how diverse the factions are when compared to their real history games. The variety is amazing. The scale and sense of discovery with Mortal Empires must be amazing.

A imagine its a bit better than Shogun in that regard. Defeat one faction and ooooh, these ones have slightly better spear ashigaru....wow, completely different feel to fighting with them. Amazing

 

[Orion]

I think I have finally lost faith in Warhammer and gave up on it entirely.

Where the campaign map is lovely and finally as it should be, the battles just don't work. They're overly small, fast, and never nearly as epic as they should be. Perhaps only in multiplayer with multiple players, but otherwise, no.

That's a common complaint, and there are several mods which address it. I've been playing with Steel Faith Overhaul on Warhammer 2, and it has slower battles among other things. Not a ton slower, mind you, but it's not the one-and-done 5-minute melee that vanilla battles usually are. Most of my battles are over after 10 minutes, but I usually play factions with lots of morale shock potential & offensive magic.

 

[YourStepDad]

I in fact have only played Steel Faith. I hardly ever bothered with vanilla. And with 40 unit army stacks at that.

The battles still feel small, and fast.

The battles have never felt smaller than in warhammer because a lot of hero units and large units occupy the numbers that traditionally human troops would make use of. The terrain sizes feel a lot smaller as well.

No matter what I did I could not remedy the scale and size of the battles. Even a 40v40 unit battle has, at times, felt relatively small.

Its all such a shame, because the campaign, especially with Steel Faith, really works. The AI is not dumb. On Legendary, or even Very Hard, playing the game on the campaign map feels so chess-like. I really tried hard to love it, but its not going to give me the same sense of scale and that of actual war that for example, CoW/RoDG mods do. Those mods have a problem with eternally retarded AI, so even if I theoretically could have large enough battles to my satisfaction there, any chance of that happening outside of something scripted is painstakingly low and not worth my time. Such a shame.

 

[Orion]

I got ya. I've felt a little disappointed when the Chaos Invasion event triggered and it spawned four 20-unit armies but they had something like 400-500 soldiers each. Ah yes, the great surge of Chaos from the north, here to bring the endtimes! 

I get that they have to be that way to be both lore-friendly and balanced, 'cause even their largest standard units (Chaos Warriors) have smaller unit sizes than dwarfs, but they're supposed to be these monstrously jacked Norscan bozos that could take on several normal humans at once.