What I think people expect is some weird smushing of hundreds of troops on screen at once dynamically rolling between cover, pushing peoples heads down, having individual sprites from a block of 30 throw a grenade around a corner whilst the rest of the squad line up ready to move and suppressive fire as they advance 2 at a time between cover. That is not and never will be total war. It's madness to expect that and no RTS on the planet will do that at that scale.

 RustyNumber wrote:
People, please trim your quotes before posting.....

What I think people expect is some weird smushing of hundreds of troops on screen at once dynamically rolling between cover, pushing peoples heads down, having individual sprites from a block of 30 throw a grenade around a corner whilst the rest of the squad line up ready to move and suppressive fire as they advance 2 at a time between cover. That is not and never will be total war. It's madness to expect that and no RTS on the planet will do that at that scale.

Yes, that is the kind of changes/advancement in gameplay and presentation I would expect from a large well regarded studio who are moving onto a subject different to previous ones. Again, look at Steel Division 2 footage. Do I expect units to literally be individually enacting Band of Brothers moment to moment? No of course not, but at least making the pretence of "these are firearm units utilising terrain and cover and bounding up" as opposed to "we march in formation across an empty plain firing our weapons like it's 1866" If Company of Heroes could do it 20 years ago with small units (and I'm perfectly fine with that mish mash of real world authenticity and "march your SMG unit until they stand 5m from the rifleman unit and they will blaze away at each other like zombies" gameiness) there's no reason it can't be done on a larger scale now.

I don't know why you'd point to the miniatures and artwork and say "see that's what we want and what we'll get!" the whole purpose of an adaptation is being able to break away from how it is (imperfectly) depicted elsewhere. I'll be the first to say that the scale of the tabletop looks silly and implausible, but that translates over and works fine in an RTS like DoW where your preconceptions (based on decades of games back to Dune) is that it's fine for units to engage at unrealistic distances, numbers and tactics. Total War however has always tried to wear some plausibility with its depiction of large battles, at least in comparison to something like Age of Empires.

Spoiler:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

These examples make me wonder if you're actually even entirely understanding of what this whole thing is even about, as what you've done there is look at a superficial cosmetic element as if that alone is all that this involves, with nothing more to it. What you've shown is mostly just units with members of a squad in cohesion with each other while out in the open, but they are not operating as a block formation of strict regimented infantry who maneuver and fire and behave in sync with each other as if they're one single big unit. One soldier standing behind another or if a squad vaguely resembles a loose square shape doesn't magically shift their behavior and fighting style back to the 1700s and make them operate as rank & file line infantry all of a sudden.

Units fighting in formation would be them choosing a specific shape, forming that shape together, and staying in that positioning as they move and fight, but that isn't what 40k is about. The way combat in 40k is primarily depicted is where they're operating together as a squad near each other, but they aren't all locked into a specific rigid formation carrying out specific timed behaviour patterns all doing the very same thing at once. It isn't rank & file formation warfare. Look at those Eldar Guardians in that last piece of art for example, that's how things are most commonly shown - acting on their own initiative, choosing their own targets, firing on their decision, having more fluid movement than being stuck together in a pattern, using cover when available etc like you'd expect modern-day soldiers to operate too. That's how the vast majority of books, stories, novels, animations etc have depicted things being done, not with a formation warfare style. The few times I can recall something that actually did outright involve a formation, is Krieg troopers marching in some of the Vraks art, and regiments like Praetorian or Mordian Guard forming firing lines because they're specifically based on more historical-styled regiments.

I don't think anyone is really suggesting that the way the game does things is something like every single unit member can behave on their own and would all wait cover with them moving up one at a time like it's the Men of War series where you get that level of granularity, for me it's just wanting a bit more suitable depiction of 40k than it being shoved into the rank & file block warfare format. It's a relatively small change but what I was hoping for something a bit closer to what epic 40k, Apocalypse 40k or Legionnes Imperialis does for their units - a unit being a combination of several squads together.

Dudeface wrote:
There is no formal explanation for how 40k troops fight? ....

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
There is no formal explanation for how 40k troops fight? ....

Push them all to the middle of the table in a clump and roll lots of dice?

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
There is no formal explanation for how 40k troops fight? ....

Push them all to the middle of the table in a clump and roll lots of dice?

 1984Phantom wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
There is no formal explanation for how 40k troops fight? ....

Push them all to the middle of the table in a clump and roll lots of dice?

The true fact is that WH40K in most cases depicts in the wrong way the strategy and tactics on the battlefield. The table is too small, is very very small, and is too full of troops. Troops don't have space to manouevre, to fire from the distance. I hope Total War doesn't copy from the tabletop game.

 Gert wrote:
It might just be me that thinks this, but I don't feel this is going to work as a Total War game.

Sure, it'll have the label, but TW is pretty well defined by its large block units (exceptions, of course, existing with the likes of artillery and monsters for TWWH and TW: Troy) and unless we're suddenly pivoting to Space Marines coming in blocks of 30 or Tyranids marching in square, then I don't see how its going to keep the vibe of TW and not just end up as "Slightly Differrent Dawn of War".

 Overread wrote:
I'm imagining Eldar will be similar to Woodelves in Old World. That is a limited region where they can recruit from and then territories they grab having very limited build options and no recruitment directly from them and such.

The only difference is that as they use huge Craftworld space ships they might have the capacity to move those around between systems. Probably at some huge resource or limited resource cost.

Dudeface wrote:
Oddly it's fine for units to march in formation across open areas firing their weapons in dawn of war and nobody bats an eyelid, but in the mass battle game? Nooo can't have that.

Gert wrote:It might just be me that thinks this, but I don't feel this is going to work as a Total War game.

Sure, it'll have the label, but TW is pretty well defined by its large block units (exceptions, of course, existing with the likes of artillery and monsters for TWWH and TW: Troy) and unless we're suddenly pivoting to Space Marines coming in blocks of 30 or Tyranids marching in square, then I don't see how its going to keep the vibe of TW and not just end up as "Slightly Differrent Dawn of War".

 RustyNumber wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Oddly it's fine for units to march in formation across open areas firing their weapons in dawn of war and nobody bats an eyelid, but in the mass battle game? Nooo can't have that.

Total War however has always tried to wear some plausibility with its depiction of large battles, at least in comparison to something like Age of Empires.

You're right, I don't bat an eyelid at Company of Heroes because they've always gone for a blend of muh-realism and classic RTS. Though I do admit that when I first played the game it did take some adjustment to accept the weird blend of the two. CA could absolutely just spit out "lol it's Empire Total War but with Space Marines volley firing by rank and sometimes they can garrison specific bits of terrain" if that's their take on it, but I'll be disappointed if it is.

Gert wrote:It might just be me that thinks this, but I don't feel this is going to work as a Total War game.

Sure, it'll have the label, but TW is pretty well defined by its large block units (exceptions, of course, existing with the likes of artillery and monsters for TWWH and TW: Troy) and unless we're suddenly pivoting to Space Marines coming in blocks of 30 or Tyranids marching in square, then I don't see how its going to keep the vibe of TW and not just end up as "Slightly Differrent Dawn of War".

Is Total War Total War because "it always has massed set piece battles with blocks of troops" or is it Total War because "CA attempts to make a roughly plausible and historical depiction of pre-smokeless powder warfare/tactics/vibes, which so far has happened to be in the form of historical melee armies that were mostly set piece battles with blocks of troops" because I vote the latter. No reason they can't pivot to the realtime battles being something like *once again gestures to games like Steel Division* if it suits the setting.

Edit - 15 minute mark of that official video they discuss it a little.

 Flinty wrote:
40kTW will be fundamentally different to DOW4 because it has the whole strategic layer over the top. The tactical fighty bit is not the real core of the game. While I enjoyed the tactical bit in Shogun and Medieval, I often just auto-generated the result so I could keep my focus on strategic moves and development. Or I did t really feel like manually defending the same bridge for the 37th time with overwhelmingly superior forces against a raid by a rather overenthusiastic AI.

Dudeface wrote:


I think 10 marines moving and behaving like a skirmishing total war formation, but small, sort of works. So if they simply give you lots of 10 man loose bricks, rather than a 40 man block, that emulates a bit of that appearance of "the squads are all independent and doing squad tactics" whilst simply making it a traditional total war game mechanically.

 Olthannon wrote:
What made the 3 TW Warhammer games good was the larger armies fighting that you'd never really have an opportunity to field on the tabletop.

 Olthannon wrote:
What made the 3 TW Warhammer games good was the larger armies fighting that you'd never really have an opportunity to field on the tabletop. I don't really have a concern if the basic unit size for marine squad is 20. Primaris numbers for instance are all over the place anyway. I'm hoping for more Apocalypse level games for a TT comparison. I'd like to see some massive Imperial Guard formations battling it out with Orky hordes.

I don't think there will be an issue with how this game works, be interesting to see how it progresses. Some of the comments in this thread read like people who have not played TW before. Of course we haven't got much to go on and I suspect this will be a bit smaller size armies than the usual. But if you're wanting a squad level tactical RTS, a Total War game isn't really for you?

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:


I think 10 marines moving and behaving like a skirmishing total war formation, but small, sort of works. So if they simply give you lots of 10 man loose bricks, rather than a 40 man block, that emulates a bit of that appearance of "the squads are all independent and doing squad tactics" whilst simply making it a traditional total war game mechanically.

I'd argue that it also emulates the tabletop 40K experience fairly accurately, which is surely the point? I think a greater interactivity between terrain/cover will be essential (and probably something they're conscious of given they've built a new engine with part of the focus on more granular destruction of buildings etc.) Empire/Napoleon had it in a rudimentary form so there's some precedent for them to build on.

It will be interesting to see what emphasis they put on named characters. They're essential and dictate campaign playstyle in TW:WH (and it largely works) but they seem to be pushing the idea of personalising your armies in 40K so it would be weird to then have to pick between, say, Calgar, Ragnar and Lysander as your faction leader for Astartes.