Warhammer (SotHR, Dark Omen) & Co

[Jasede]

So it's basically a bigger, better Shadow of the Horned Rat? I can't believe it! It's basically the game I have always been dreaming of, then!

Edit: I barely dare to ask, but- does it have Skaven? I know Rat had a hundreds of enemy regiments, orcs, undead, skaven, trolls, everything!

 

[sheek]

OK I don't know how long the download link is going to last, so if anyone else wants it contact me now.

Jasede, there are mods which add other armies and units. But I don't think there are any Skaven, definitely not in the default campaign.

 

[Kingston]

No fucking Skaven D:
-> Someone needs to mod it in dammit!

The main campaign is played with humans (you can get dwarves and elves and a few tanks etc). Multiplayer allows for Undead, Orcs/Goblins/Trolls and humans.

 

[Jasede]

Awww. Shadow of the Horned Rat was HUGE. It had at least 40 missions, and they branched like a mofo, with tons of optional ones. Only thing they all had in common was that they were bitching hard. But hey, I am starved for a good game! After all the, err, autumn cleaning I did this week and with university starting soon a fine game for the weekends will do me good. Thanks everyone for their responses.

In fact, SotHR is seriously the best strategy game I know. Placement matters, formations matter, height matters- everything matters! And you're ALWAYS against overwhelming odds which makes each mission very satisfying once you finally win.

Let my memory work a bit-

Mission 1: 1 Infantry & Cavalry versus 1 wold-riders and 1 goblin stickers, with more wolf-riders popping up.
Then some escorts, some patrols, a skaven patrol (paying 30 crowns for each skaven head brought back (the patrol alone was 3-4 missions), then you rescue Ilmarien, then there's a bitching hard mission where you rescue some civilians. Soon after you venture to the SE of the map, defending a village and attacking an orc camp on the way (optional, epically hard). Later you travel either through mountains or the forest path, each paths branching multiple times themselves IIRC... it's just too good for words and if some guys here haven't played it yet, they really should.

 

[Kingston]

The game has 26 mission I think. The graphics age surprisingly well, and a lot of the characters have... character.

 

[Jasede]

Thanks to sheek I can finally play Dark Omen! Strange that the game has no music and videos though.

The controls are a lot simpler than in Rat, which is sad- where did the map go? And where do I manually turn my soldier? In Shadow, I could turn the cavalary, for example, manually and thus charge right into the flank of a pinned-down orc squadron.

So things I am missing: A map. There must be one, how do I activate it?
An unit list. Shadows had this- a list at the bottom that I can use to quickly select a regiment.
Manual formation and direction orders- I want to be able to turn my squad 90 degrees right or left, plus, I need a way to rearrange an units formation. IE, I'd like to know how to make a 4x6 squad a 2x12 one. Could you help me? Am I accidentally using a "less clutter" interface?

Edit: Silly me! I missed the big, fat "tutorial" button in my excitement. Hopefully it teaches me how to activate the map.

Edit 2: Space and tab! AHA! But there's gotta be a minimap somehow?

Edit 3: Left click ze banner! Move der unit! I am in love. This is like birthday and christmas together. I've never been so happy to play a game before in the last 5 years.

Edit 4: I want to see my item/statistics window during battle, and the enemy's statistics. Has that been dumbed down away? The interface is so... uncluttered as opposed to SotHR.

 

[pkt-zer0]

There's a separate encyclopedia where you can check the stats of units. You can't change formations manually, I think.

 

[Jasede]

They dumbed the game down. D:

You could do that in SotHR, and change facing while moving - very useful when chasing fleeing regiments manually.

Still, boy is this a fine game! They're all coming back- Fletcher and his crossbows- I remember recruiting them in mission... 3, was it, in SotHR. I just wish they hadn't simplified the controls, but it's still damn, damn good!

For ze victoree!

Edit: And Bernhard looks like the guy from 300!!

Edit 2: Where DO I see the stats? Strength, agility, HP? I can't find an option to display it in the encyclopedia.

 

[pkt-zer0]

and change facing while moving - very useful when chasing fleeing regiments manually.

Shift + Click was the "force turning" command, not sure whether that's what you're looking for. Also, manual.

 

[Jasede]

AHA! + and - let you change the formation. This is useful- for example, cavalary used to be more effective in a spear-like, thin formation when charging, and archers are better in broad waves.

 

[sheek]

Thanks to sheek I can finally play Dark Omen! Strange that the game has no music and videos though.

That's why it's only 90 Megabytes... they took them out.

I'm currently uploading the music and video but it'll probably take until tomorrow (300+ MB zipped).

You can get a manual from replacementdocs.com

 

[Jasede]

Hmmm... is there a difficulty setting? Shadow of the Horned Rat had you fight super-tough scenarios by mission three, and I just completed the first mission with undead without using my crossbowmen, infantry or cannon, just the two cavalary. Not a single rider died- I kept pince-charing into the undead. I guess this game has a more gentle difficulty curve than Shadow of the Horned Rat?

Shadow was:
Mission 1 - piss easy
Mission 2 - kinda easy
Mission 3 - medium
Mission 4 - hard
And by then all the other missions were hair-pullingly difficult.

I am not trying to brag, mind you, but so far it seems my SotHR experience is really, really helpful.

 

[obediah]

Jasede, could you please quit jizzing all over the forums? There are children hear for christ's sake.

 

[Jasede]

It's a really good game, man. I am so happy!

Edit: Nice, the brigand mission is already a good chunk harder, nothing you can just rush into without a plan.

 

[pkt-zer0]

It's a really good game, man. I am so happy!

Edit: Nice, the brigand mission is already a good chunk harder, nothing you can just rush into without a plan.

Yeah, that's the mission I permanently got stuck on, back when I was wee lad. Not "stuck" as in "can't complete it", but "stuck" as in "can't complete it without major blood loss".

By the way, Jasede, what sound card do you use? I'm thinking that the crappy AC'97 integrated sound card might be what's causing all the sound to be garbled. Trying a driver update - man, I could've thought about this sooner.

 

[Jasede]

I have an AC97 on-board, but I am not using it in favour of my SB 24 live, a very cheap and very good soundcard I bought for 30$ two years ago. It works really well!

And finished brigands with moderate losses. :S

Edit: This game is so awesome. I kinda suck since I didn't play Rat for a long time but I still got it in me: try #2 of the brigand mission, first success- very costly though.

The losses in the infantry were unneccessary- I simply was too slow to order them to attack the brigand archers on the South East, and two unneeded dead crossbowmen- archers again, didn't move them into cover quickly enough. Man! The rush of real-time tactical battles. Seriously, I think this is like the only genre were realtime actually makes the game better. Next time only 2, 3 will die! This game is so much fun!! Big thanks to Sheek!

Edit: I love this game. I am so excited about the next mission! I can barely sleep! I am so happy! This'll keep me happy until and after Christmas!

Edit: Disappointing & dumbing down for the mass market: The game removed the "wounded" status units could have... now they're either dead or alive. In the predecessor they could also be wounded, which basically reduced the max regiment size since you could fill spots of wounded people with hirelings, giving further incentive to keep losses to a minimum. Nothing too bad but it does make the game easier.

 

[pkt-zer0]

I have an AC97 on-board, but I am not using it in favour of my SB 24 live, a very cheap and very good soundcard I bought for 30$ two years ago. It works really well!

Hmm. Time to get a proper soundcard, then. Putting in an old Fortemedia FM801 didn't help.

 

[Kingston]

Jasede, we understand you like the game, but you don't have to screaming around about how awesomeness landed on your front door.

Also, you can get stuck in the game if you lose too many units and can't rebuy them back. So you get into a loop of losing more and more units because you need more units for the next missionz and you don't have ze money so your other troops get pwned etc etc.

And the music is pretty good iirc, as are the combat sounds.

 

[Destroid]

Exactly what made me get stuck in SotHR towards the end. If you don't keep many backup saves you will get bogged if you slog through with heavy losses and have to restart the whole game :S

 

[Jasede]

It's like the second coming of Mohammed.

This game is really awesome! The difficulty curve has nothing on SOTHR though. I helped defend the village so I had to reclaim the tower. I lost 12 men- 2 in regular fighting, 10 thanks to that damn necromancer. Didn't know they had such a damaging spell! Next time I'll just teleport the wizard into his back and throw a few fireballs. >.<

 

[Destroid]

I would just like to point out another old awesome hard tactical game...

Battletech: Crescent Hawks Revenge. If you havn't played it, I highly recommend you do.

 

[Shannow]

Jasede, if you are still considering DOW I do recommend a demo first. It is nothing like the good Warhammer games. Also keep away from Mark of Chaos. It might look like a great successor to Dark Omen but it is a pile of shit.
Concerning difficulty in Dark Omen: wait until you have to charge up a serpentine path to the top of a mountain while being bogged by skelettons and zombies and shot at by catapults. Only to realize at the top of the mountain that wights (immune to non-magical weapons) and more other undead are waiting for you

@Destroid: It might be too late now, but you don't have to win every battle in Shadow of the Horned Rat. I kept my unit strenght by fleeing in some of the non-essential battles, for example patrolling the elven forest...

 

[Jasede]

It's getting a bit tougher already, Shannow. The current mission has me attacking a well-fortified greenskin place- they got two artillery units in good tactical positions, higher ground, and cliffs that the AI "abuses" very well, using their archers for maximum efficiency. Won't breeze through this one. For some reason my Bright Wizard can't teleport anymore- his teleport spell changed for some piss-poor ray of fire.

 

[Radech]

btw if you're looking for more games with a similar way of combat, why not give the Total War series a go - it's not even close to being fantasy themed and there's ratppl or any such nonsense, it's just pure to the bone tactical combat(yeah the civilisation light phase is a bit of a drag but you can always skip it and stick to single battles)

btw DoW is more of a C&C/wcx type game(build a base, gather resources, build army and mosh opponents) it's a pretty good one at that though, and even though the WH40k is a horrid setting for any game it's still extremely fullfilling to charge headon with your big screaming green mass of death (where's my goblin fanatics in wh40k? /cry)

 

[Kingston]

It's getting a bit tougher already, Shannow. The current mission has me attacking a well-fortified greenskin place- they got two artillery units in good tactical positions, higher ground, and cliffs that the AI "abuses" very well, using their archers for maximum efficiency. Won't breeze through this one. For some reason my Bright Wizard can't teleport anymore- his teleport spell changed for some piss-poor ray of fire.

I remember that one. Iirc I placed all of my troops right back, gave the cannons enough range to just hit the edge of the cliff while still being in range of the area from which enemy regiments approach (there's a tower there iirc). I pommeled the regiments with the cannon, mortar and crossbowmen and each hit truly counted (I just remember sitting there and shouting "hit them! HIT THEM FFS!"). If they got too close I would engage with the swordsmen. Then during that small break before the next regiment arrived I charged my grudgebringers on the greenskin catapult and then... something. I recall circling their archers and at the same time using that firebolt sword and lightbolt banner until I got close enough to charge.