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hey i have been out of the warhammer scene for about 3 years but i have started to come back into the hobby, i have now become a gaming commentator and i would love to mix warhammer and gaming alot better. Is there a game in which i could deploy a battle and play online turn based rounds like you would in a normal face to face battle, if there isn't do you think there is a reason why a game hasnt been made?

Because frankly, when it comes to video games, a slow-paced turn-based list-building style game simply is not a good video game.

The Dawn of War games for 40k have had to make a lot of gameplay concessions to make them viable video games, and while they are good, they are certainly not the tabletop experience.

The tabletop gameplay does not translate well into video games.

fair enough but games such as halo wars and starcraft are slow paced yet still have a massive audience this could be due to it not being turn based but an average game can last 20 minutes to an hour.

 jammy wrote:
fair enough but games such as halo wars and starcraft are slow paced yet still have a massive audience this could be due to it not being turn based but an average game can last 20 minutes to an hour.

And an average size warhammer/40k game lasts 2-3 hours.

And both Halo Wars and Starcraft are completely different gameplay styles than Warhammer/40k. For the first part, both are real-time which is a considerably different style of play than turn-based. Being real-time, you need a degree of good reaction and the ability to input actions and make orders quickly (why do you think APM is such a big deal in the professional Starcraft circles?). Warhammer, by contrast with turn-based gameplay, has you planning out moves and you have the luxury of time to build larger-scale strategies and go through processes more slowly.

Second, 20-60 minutes for an average Starcraft game is nothing compared to the 2-3 hour average Warhammer game. Again, those games being real-time make the gameplay far faster paced because you are always acting. You are always working on a new base, or building new units, or moving active units in a game like Starcraft. Warhammer, by contrast, has large periods where you are watching your opponent in action and playing the mental game in how best to counter them.

well you just destroyed me there didnt you aha well fair enough then i understand, although i still think personally it would be cool but i understand the very time consuming part.

My gut feeling on why a video game version 40k doesn't exist is probably due GW feeling it would canabalize into it's sale of models.

People might not feel inclined to pay $50 on a model if they could game the same experience on a computer at a fraction of the cost.

Not saying this is the actual reason a videogame version of the 40k rules doesn't exist. Just a hypothesis.

Vassal is close enough for now anyway.

Takes a lot longer than an actual game, but you can play online.

Its a perfectly good model for a game. It's just not very profitable in the current market. It's a niche genre and the demand isn't that high. And yes, I do suspect GW, much like Wizard's of the Coast, is reluctant to release a digital version of their game for fear people will buy that and never get a physical product which for them is far more profitable.

There is Vassal for play against other humans, but I dont think you could earn real money with it or even developing a Computer opponent.

Shadow of the Horned Rat, Dark Omen, and Battle March are all still in existence, though obliviously the first two are fairly old.

I always thought a Panzer General-style 40k game would be great. Could do pretty much anything at that scale.

 Testify wrote:
I always thought a Panzer General-style 40k game would be great. Could do pretty much anything at that scale.

Or this old jewel. I loved this game.

If you find Halo Wars slow, well, thats a bit weird.
Its bloody fast for a RTS.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Testify wrote:
I always thought a Panzer General-style 40k game would be great. Could do pretty much anything at that scale.

Spoiler:

That looks sweet!
Hmm it did get awful reviews though.

+1 for Final Liberation



What an awesome game. I still remember just buying an army group with three Basilisk regiments and the rest just waves and waves of PDF regiments, then charging an Ork-held city with it, Chenkov-style.
What a slaughter. Though one third of them lazy cowards ran away iirc.

Best kill was when a couple platoons of Tallarns actually managed to kill a damaged Ork Gargant in close combat (after about five rounds and lots of casualties). No idea how they managed that, though I'm guessing lots of explosives.

But yeah, for actual 40k tabletop ... go Vassal.

hmm what games are these that your showing like how do they play if that makes sense they look quite good and yeah i can understand the loss in the sales of their models well that sucks and vassal? i might have to look up about that what is it like?

Chaos Gate, Final Liberation, Rites of War etc are all older turn-based strategy computer games that were generally enjoyed by a lot of people.
Final Liberation was Epic 40k, and thus involved much larger armies than the normal game, and even Titans. Infantry was moved not with individual soldiers but entire squads. The original tabletop can be found in the Specialist Games section of the GW website: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/landingArmy.jsp?catId=cat480006a&rootCatGameStyle=specialist-games

Vassal is a freeware tabletop simulation software that can be used for a plethora of rulesets, one of them being 40k. As far as I know, it's the only way to play 40k (the tabletop) online.
It only simulates a table, dice and the models, though. How you move them and what you do with them is up to the players, so you still have to buy the codices and rulebooks from GW.
There's a link in one of the signatures up there ^

Chaos Gate and Final Liberation are both good games, that I would buy if they would just be revamped with better resolution an MP Mode.



You can play Vassal40k online or ,,Hot-Seat" only.

Here is the link signature:

oh right thankyou for the detailed description, final liberation looks pretty good i am a massive fan of strategy games. and okay i might look into that vassal thanks alot guys.

You're welcome. Enjoy!

Some of those old games might actually still run on modern computers. No promises, though!
You can try if it works here: http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article/37-strategy/22485
As you cannot buy it anywhere anymore, it's abandonware. The publisher, SSI, ceased to exist ages ago.

And Vassal is fun. Pretty much the only way to get your 40k fix when you're travelling or don't know any other players in the vicinity, and do not want to resort to alternatives such as Dawn of War.