Warhammer 40,000
Battlefront

[fan-made concept document]

Warhammer 40,000 Battle front: is a game of grand scale combat set in the 41st millennium. Man kind is on the brink of destruction, beset on all sides by terrifying enemies of demonic and alien nature. The small glimmer of hope in this terrible universe is the courage of the men and women that form the imperial military might. Led by the immortal emperor, who sits upon the life sustaining golden throne, unable to communicate with those of whom he is but a god to, his forces sacrifice their lives for the survival of the entire human race. In this dark reality, there is only war...

Gameplay:

-Player control
Battlefield combat is the focus of this game. Players take the role of the basic troops of each race and faction on the enormous battlefields of the 41st millennium.

Playing from a first and third person perspective interchangeably, players control one soldier at a time. Taking to battle with some basic equipment, they must fight along side their fellow soldiers to try and secure victory. Combat will be brutal and devastating, it is unexpected that a player will survive. However once a player has died they will take control of yet another soldier and continue onwards.

A player will have full control of their current soldier, being able to run, jump, take cover, fire weapons and grabble with the enemy in close combat.
Players will be given special abilities depending on the soldier they control at a given point and will have option to choose which type of soldier they wish to control when they re-spawn.

Many types of soldiers will be playable at the start of a mission though some must be worked for. For example, a Space Marine force starts out with a few squads of tactical marines, assault marines and scouts. Though later in the game they be able to place down a teleport beacon and bring in a squad of powerful terminators. Or perhaps once securing a drop zone they receive a dreadnaught to control.

-Computer control
Along side the players will be many other soldiers controlled by the computer a.i. This brings the numbers up of the soldiers on the battlefield, as many battles will be fought by hundreds if not thousands of troops, though they may not all be seen at once. These computer controlled soldiers will have all the functionality of the players and will be able to do anything a player can do, such as join squads, drive vehicles and commanded forces.

-Battlefields
Battlefields are ever changing and unpredictable. Combat will be mostly objective based and these goals can change during the course of the battle. Example objectives would be simply

-hold a position from the enemy
-capture a strategic point
-bring down a priority target

The terrain the battles are fought on will change with the flow of combat. Buildings will be torn apart by powerful weapons and missiles will carve the ground into great craters. Flame throwers will burn through foliage and bullets will tear through steel walls and flesh alike. The weapons in the 41st millennium are great and terrible in their power and the terrain will be ever destructible when faced against such force.

During a battle, events can be triggered, such as weather changes, destruction of certain areas of the map or reinforcements added to one of the forces. These events will provide obvious bonuses to certain sides of the battle and will furiously fought over as secondary objectives during a battle.
An example of such an event would be destroying a bridge, hindering enemy access to area and cutting off reinforcements.

Battlefields will often span several different areas, depending on the scenario. Players may start the game in great starships above the planet and be dropped into combat upon the surface. You may fight amongst the dunes of a great desert while your fellow soldiers battle tooth and nail inside a great mining structure further on from your position. Each small victory in each area will effect one another while the overall battle continues to rage on.
Players will be able move between these different battles though often will never see parts of the map in a single mission due to the focus of the combat.

-Heroes
Most battles will have a number of great heroes and commanders leading their troops into battle. These characters will be controlled by the computer to begin with but as players fight well they be given the option to control such a powerful character. These characters can be killed but it will take immense power to do so. Most of the time, once bringing a hero down, they will simply retreat to comeback later.

There will however be lower level heroes that will die permanently and are a limited recourse for each mission.

heroes tend to be great warriors who lead from the front. These characters tend to be incredibly powerful in their own right, but they will also tend to command an elite squad that will be tasked with the imperative of objectives.

Commanders will be much weaker then heroes but will have greater power over soldiers on the battle field. They will often be situated in command bunkers or vehicles, given sensors and readouts depicting information of the battle. They will be able to give orders to groups of soldiers, which computers will most often follow though players may choose to disobey. The players will likely however trust their commanders as they have more information on the battlefield overall while the troop only knows what they can see.
Commanders can also call in special forces and tech for use on the battlefield and it us up to them where these extra recourses goto on the battlefield.


-Vehicles
It will not only be men and aliens taking to the battle field, but great war machines as well. All vehicles that take to the battle field can be controlled by players and computers alike, though some extremely powerful ones will not always be available at the start of a mission.
Various vehicles that would be found would include things such as, motor powered bikes for fast moving scouts, powerful tanks for brute force attacks, skimmers for airstrikes and rapid deployment and enormous titans which wield the most devastating weapons each side has to offer.

When vehicles are destroyed, their hulls will be left as wreckage upon the battlefield, either providing cover or creating hazards for the troops near by. Sometimes these vehicles may be repaid or salvaged for any weapons they carried on board that may still work.

Many vehicles will transport troops and will often be how soldiers are deployed into battle. Players and computers may board vehicles, ride on top or be crushed underneath their bulk.

-Squad combat
Groups of players and computer control a.i will be able to band together in squads. These squads will be of many various sizes depending on the race or faction being played. The function of squads will be to bring the single soldiers together to give them more power.

A player or computer controlled character will take position as squad leader, having certain abilities such as to rally the squad, using war cries and calling out specific targets. However if a squad leader is killed it will have negative effects upon the squad.

A squad will have abilities such as to focus fire on powerful enemies and have their combined fire strengthened. They will have an easier time holding positions and laying down suppressive fire though they may also be larger targets for the enemy.

Squads can be disbanded and joined depending on race or faction, giving some groups of soldiers greater versatility in certain situations, such as space marines, while enabling smaller weaker enemies to pose a greater threat in organized numbers such as the imperial guard.

Campaign:
Campaigns will be broken up into several different missions, often of a conquest style gameplay. Players must take control of an entire star system or perhaps they only need to take control of one planet, though over many different battlefields.

The player will control recourses and placement of their forces, trying to strategically send both to the right places to win the game. A player will attack and defend different zone of the map and battle will be fought as per a normal mission, though with bonus and disadvantages due to how they are playing the campaign map.

Special missions:
Their will be special story missions which the players can play which recreate great historic battles, such as the great assault on terra by Horus during the Horus Heresy. These battles may also find their way into certain campaign maps and will bring more story value to such a style of game play.

Races and factions:
There are many different races and factions that fight amongst the stars, all operating very differently and sharing different doctrines and beliefs. Some of them work together as part of the same major faction and will not always be fielded as a force by themselves, rather supporting the main forces.

[So as pointed out, the faction list I put here was stupid. So instead I am simply listing all the factions that should be in the game I think, some may be in as allies but not sure. ]

Space Marine (Elite infantry,strike forces)

Imperial Guard (Horde Based Infantry, firing lines with heavy mechanized support)

Sisters of battle (Elite infantry, effective against chaos traitors)

Grey knights (Elite Infantry, effective against chaos Deamons)

Chaos Space Marines (Elite Infantry, strike forces)

Traitor Guard (Horde based infantry, firing lines with heavy machanized support)

Chaos Deamons (Elite infantry and horde based infantry)

Tyranids (Horde based infantry, biological weaponry)

Genestealer cult (Horde based infantry and elite infantry) - not a necessary faction to have but it would be awesome

Orks (Horde based infantry, looted vehicles of other races)

Feral Orks (Horde based infantry, organized in tribes, primitive) - not a necessary faction to have but it would be awesome

Tau (Elite infantry, powerful technology, accompanied by primitive races)

Tau Empire Human forces (Horde based infantry, firing lines) - not a necessary faction to have but I would love to see the concept of humans in the Tau empire explored a bit more

Necrons (Elite infantry, robotic)

Eldar (Elite infantry, rapid forces)

Dark Eldar (Elite infantry, rapid forces)