GW Games I loved, and that are still great:
- Chaos Gate: The one I preferred, both in atmosphere and gameplay.
- Final Liberation: Pretty great too, but titan spam spoils the end game. Also, I think the game system lacks nuance, and made weird balance changes by mixing Steel Panthers, Epic Space Marines, and Epic 40K. Also, where are the promised expansions?
- Dawn of War: Why did they have to butcher its sequels?
- Blood Bowl #: It also perfectly reproduces GW eye gouging practices
- Dark Omen
- Warhammer Total War : it is quite "fiddly", but really addictive
- Rites of War: I thought the rest of the serie was at the operational scale. Why am I playing with the same system at the squad/hero scale? Granted, it was the same for Fantasy General. Still a solid entry, but I much prefer the other SSI 40K games.
Almost There:
- 40K Deathwatch: Cool level design, and game system, spoiled by a slow movement speed, a bad UI, and a terribly bad looting system. Still a pretty good game despite all of it
- Mordheim: Nice system, but fiddling with doorway and positioning can get old, and it forces risk avoidance too much, as wounds can be crippling.
- Gladius: the best of the recent 40K games IMO. It has a nice combat system, but the economic system is needlessly complicated, and is more about optimizing production than meaningful choice (ie, you don't really choose how to specialize, but you need to assess the right number of buildings of each type to get to avoid the spiral of slow economic death).
- Sanctus Reach: Good system, but wtf were they thinking about having a campaign where you control a random subset of your force pool (you don't even know what is in here...) every battle?
- MEchanicus: Poorly balanced, with a tons of option to balance it yourself. I suppose some settings work to give a satisfying experience? It is oozing with atmosphere, though.
- Dawn of War 2: Not as good as the one, but the SP campaign was nice.
- Battlefleet Gothic mobile: This one is faithful to the tabletop, but on a mobile screen, with a mediocre UI, I found it took too long to play. Still a good adaptation I think (well, I cannot be 100% sure given I never played the TT).
Not quite there, but playable
-Space Wolf: The game is playable on PC (have fun playing on mobile without paying, with 3% of the card pool). It is an OK card based tactical game, but feels a bit repetitive, and getting cards is very grindy (unless you feel like copy pasting promo codes every week...)
- Warhammer Quest: Quite addictive, but repetitive too, and feels like an endless grind.
- Any modern flavor of Space Hulk: Deathwing has tons of documented issues, the board game port was way too slow, with a dumb alien AI. Ascension is not bad, though, but the UI still felt unresponsive. I haven't tried SH: Tactics
- 40K Armageddon: Not much to add. All has been said on the thread. I still like it despite its flaws, though
- Freeblade: enjoyable, until it try to coerce you to watch adds or give money...
- Adeptus Titanicus: I think it uses the rules of Epic 2nd edition (also named Adeptus Titanicus) or maybe one of the latter rulesets. It is still in early Access. It plays well currenrlty, but lacks content (no campaign, and not a lot of different enemies to face). It only features Titans. Knights have been hinted, but it won't have the combined arms we all loved from Final Liberation (partly because of licensing issues. GW hands a lot of licences over, but with very restrictive conditions). It has the same issue as its TT counterpart: when Adeptus Titanicus (1st edition) came out, it felt like a barebone Battletech. I suppose it is the reason why vehicles and infantry were added (leading to Space Marines and Epic).
- Legacy of Dorn: Herald of Oblivion: hoose your Own adventure . They sadly just lost the licence. It was a "good for what it is" game: It also has all the issues of COYA (choices that seem arbitrary, and not the most interesting combat in the world), but it was a good exemple of the genre, with nice retro presentation.
Could be good with 10 times the development time
- Man o War: What would happen if you took Akella games (Sea Dogs, City of Abandonned ships), stripped down the combat, the content and made the UI worse, while porting them to the Warhammer universe. The game could have been good with better melee combat, but in its current state, it is barely serviceable. The gameplay is worse than MnB mods on sea.
GW games I loved that probably didn't age well
- Space Crusade (Atari ST) : It didn't age well, and is very random, too slow and a bit repetitive. Still interesting as the decisions are usually not that easy (as your marines can die pretty quickly, you constantly have to weight getting back to the ship, or pushing with the mission.
- Space Hulk[1993], the tactical kind of FPS with pause timer. This one was the most stressful of the space hulk implementations, and probably the best. But I am not sure the action part has aged well (and it was a bit wonky already).
WTF were they thinking with their licence?
- Storm of Vengenace : yes, 40K totally needed a mobile game about "lane warfare" on Steam
- Regicide: Maybe it is good, who knows? I just don't see the appeal of Chess 40K
- Horus Heresy Drop Pod Assault: Another mobile game (Boom beach 40K) that tries to make you play when it wants, and not when you want.
- Fire Warrior: Well, I have never tried it. Maybe is it better than I gave it credit for?
- Warhammer 40K: Kill Team : Warhammer turned into a simple, mediocre arcade game.
Bad GW games that got a faithful port
- Talisman: Chutes and ladder. It could be fun with beers and friends, but certainly not played by yourself on a screen.
Unknown:
Space Hulk: Revenge of the Blood Angels: Probably good Tactical FPS (it has a lot of supporters on Gog for sure)?
Battlefleet Gothic 1&2: They both appear solid, but I tried neither yet (but BFG2 seemed rushed from what I had read).
Aeronotica Imperialis: Not much enthusiasm for this one. I suppose it lacks content?
Unsorted mobile games (probably not any good?)
Mordheim: Warband Skirmish
Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realm War
The Horus Heresy: Legions
Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest
Warhammer: Doomwheel
Freewares:
Space Crusade: Faithful to the original. Going with a single squad is very hard. With 3, it is too easy. Haven't tried 2.
Chapter Master: Well, Interstellar Army Simulator thanks to Games Workshop hating fans doing a better job than some of the devs who bought their licenses. There is a link to the 40K mod.
Fumbbl: BloodBowl for those who don't mind simple sprites or don't like getting nickel and dimed 10 times for the same game. Also less buggy than the Cyanide version.
The better Space Hulk: What if space Hulk didn't have "cinematic" walking animations that take ages to play, and a braindead AI? Here you go! This one is as faithful as possible to the TT, and it works well (as in the TT, the odds are against you, so good luck!).
Mount and Blade: Warsword Conquest is a comprehensive Warhammer mod for MnB: Warband. I tried it a long time ago, and it worked just fine iirc.
Warhammer and 40K mods:
Call of Warhammer for Medieval 2 Total War (magic and heroes are better in Total Warhammer,but the sieges are much better in MTW2).
There are a tons of war for Arma 3, I tried some ages ago, but I didn't follow much. I think the main one is this one.
40K mod for Open X-COM Yay for Space Marines that cannot hit the broad side of a barn (heh, I guess that's why they have swords!). Pretty cool, but some changes are a bit wonky (like Chimera troop transports replacing UFO).
40K XCOM2 mod list to make your own mini overhaul, but it will still feel wonky as some parts of the game will remain unchanged. Or maybe this one?
Final Liberation: There was a Chaos Mod, but it was never finished, that should be somewhere on this page. Some guy also made a mod to alter unit values and add moar Space marines here, but it is a bit bugged, so you may have to dig into it yourself.
Bonus: making Final Liberation work on Windows 10
Men of War Assault Squad 2: I never tried this one, but it seems to feature both SP and MP.
Dawn of War: Armageddon: Because bigger is better!
