Xathrodox86 reviews: "Mordheim: Warband Skirmish" (don't play this game!)

That's it. I've finally hit rock bottom. I've decided to review a friggin' mobile game... and a shitty one at that. Why are you people still following me? Seriously?

All right, all right - let's be completely honest. For some time now I've been suffering what one might call a "writer's block". I don't know what to write about! I do have a bunch of book reviews in my head, as well as a couple of articles about the Adepta Sororitas (shout out to Sami who suggested this on Twitter), but still, I'm kinda burned out. I'm getting ready for my wedding, which is also a lot of work and stress, so there is also that, but still... I need to let off some steam, and what better way to do that, than review a shitty mobile game!

Hang tight. We're in for one hell of a ride!

"Mordheim: Warband Skirmish" is a 2017 tactical mobile game, created by the Legendary Games studio and released for iOS, Android and Amazon. It's a mobile version of the "Mordheim: City of the Damned", a game developed by Rogue Factor, and released in 2015 by Focus Home Interactive. These two titles are running on similar premise: the player creates his own warband, arms it and sets it loose within the cursed ruins of Mordheim, a city destroyed by Sigmar's wrath in 1999, during the civil war that ravaged the Empire of Man. The main goal is to collect shards of Wyrdstone (Warpstone) and to sell them for money, which can be then spent upgrading the party, recruiting new members etc. Other than that, the only thing connecting these two titles is that they fucking suck.

I will cover the attrocious "Mordheim: City of the Damned" one day, after I'll drink enough booze to install it once again, and then drink even more to play it for more than 5 minutes. Meanwhile let me tell you about its mobile cousin. "Warband Skirmish", at a first glance, is actually a really cool looking game. It runs on the Unity engine and for a mobile game it looks more than solid. Both the city, and the characters are really cool looking, they have this classic Warhammer Fantasy feel to them, mixed with a slightly comic book style. I'm not even kidding, this is one of the best looking mobile games, at least to me. The lighting, the art style - they're great. Sound, as is typical for any Warhammer game, is great as well. The combat, at the beginning of the game, is very satisfactory and visceral. There's this feel of ruthlessness and fighting for high stakes when it comes to combat in this game. That's a good thing. What is also important, and what I should've probably mentioned in the first place, is that the game is 100% free to play. Yes, there are microtransactions (shocking, I know), but you can, at least in theory, play the game without spending even a single penny on it. Emphasis on the words "in theory". Ok, I lied, but more on that later. There are also DLC-only warbands, most of which are much, much better than the standard three - the Reiklanders, the Ulricans and the posh Marienburgers.

One thing that is really cool about these paid warbands, is their look. This game really does look great!

As you've also probably noticed, I've decided to point out this game's positive aspects at the very beginning of this review (except for the DLC warband thingie obviously). There are not too many of them! Now we're getting to the meat of it, the rancid, rotten, oily, disgusting sliver of lice-infested meat. Where do I start? The combat is horrible. It's really, really, REALLY bad. At the beginning, the game goes easy on you. The guys you'll be facing are not too tough. Some of them don't even carry weapons! However, after crossing a certain point, "Mordheim: Warband Skirmish" doesn not fuck around. Suddendly my party of 4 guys began to regualry face off against warbands of 6-7 higher level mooks, all armed and armored for a bear, and with much higher stats than my guys. Every. Time. I'm not even kidding, it doesn't matter what kind of mission I'll pick, from a total of 3-4 (one of which is always a PVP online match, but I'll be dmaned if I'll ever try my strength against others in a game, in which you can literally buy your way to victory).

It's at this point that "Mordheim: Warband Skirmish" shows its ugly side. Not only is the A.I. better equiped and trained, it also cheats. It cheats like a motherfucker, and it is seriously disgusting to watch. Not only do they always know where your guys are, despite the Fog of War, they're also ALWAYS hitting you with 100% pinpoint accuracy, both in melee and ranged combat. In fact their ranged capabilities are incredibly good in a game, in which the ranged class is vastly inferior to CQC oriented warriors. My high level marksmen, armed with excellent ranged weapons that costed a fortune, barely hit anything at all, and if they do they usually deal a pathetic 1-2 damage per hit. The A.I. not only almost never misses, they also hit like a truck with their shitty short bows and basic crossbows, landing crits like they're going out of style. Most of "Mordheim's" maps have been built around long corridors, with very little cover. On higher levels the A.I. usually has 3-4 expert marksmen who ignore cover and armor penalties, and deal tremendous ammounts of damage with each shot. Yeah, it's bullshit.

Things are not looking better when it comes to close combat. Even weaker and less-armored enemies will fuck you up. At some point, ALL of them will attack you twice, and will crit, and crit, and crit all day long! Your guys? If they'll even live long enough to strike at the enemy, will maybe deal half of the damage that the A.I. is causing. Double handed weapons mitigate this to some extent, but using them means less protection, as you can't carry shields. Not that it matters that much, since the computer laughs at your warriors' defense and parrying skills 99% percent of the time anyway.

Finally we come to the breaking mechanic. You see, when one or both warbands reach a certain threshold, after losing too many guys or sustaining too much damage to their ranks, they have a chance to break, and immediately lose. The problem is that this system is also rigged. At the beginning of the game your enemies will almost always run, even after losing only a single warrior. Play long enough however, and you'll see that they're 100% certified badasses, who don't care for loses, like they're friggin' Soviets during World War II. They will not break, like ever. More than once I saw a single dude facing off against my entire party, after witnessing the deaths/maiming of his men, and not giving a fuck. Not only that, but he usually routed my own guys! It didn't matter that I still had my commander in play, and another 2-3 warriors on their feet. This one guy dealt enough damage to my team that they've decided to pack it and run for the hills. It happened more than once. Actually, the more you play, the more this phenomenon is possible to occur. What the hell devs? Who thought that this was a good idea?

Ok, but let's say that you've won. You've routed/wiped out the enemy, and the day is yours! What kind of reward do you get for your troubles? On the higher difficulty, on which the whole aformentioned bullshit occurs, you can count for 1-2 shards to be added to your stash. That's about 23 gold pieces, after you sell them to your boss/taskmaster/whoever the fuck he's supposed to be. How much is 23 gold pieces in this game? Well the Hochland Long Rifle costs about 600, while a suit of Gromril armor will be about a 1000 gold pieces. You see the problem here? Now imagine that you have a party of 4-5+ guys to arm, equip and make sure that they're all up to the task at hand. Oh and later on even the lowliest mooks will cost a fortune to recruit... and will still be on level 1! Fuck you game, is all I have to say about this.

Unless you'll spend a ton of actuall money, you'll never build a warband like that.

But wait, there is always the Fate Point system to fall back to. At the beginning the game graciously offers you a handful of Fate Points, kinda like in WFRP. You can spend them to treat a permanent injury, ressurect a fallen warrior, convert them to cold, hard cash, get unique, special gear or even "reload" a shop selection (yes, really). There's a catch tough - you can only gain more with actual, real money, and they ain't cheap. A bundle of 100 will cost you about 40 bucks. The trick is that you kind need those FP's because the game is so punishing and unforgivig. Unless, of course, you won't have any problems with constantly running a low-level, underequiped party of mooks, many of whom will have crippling injuries. This is a perfect example of a scammy system that so many mobile games are known for. "Mordheim", with its ridiculous difficulty curve, unforgiving combat and downright A.I. cheating, is basically requiring its players to invest money in Fate Points, or else their experience will turn from "shit" to "rancid, rotten shit". Do excuse my sophisticated use of fecal metaphores, I'm kinda pissed, no pun intended.

"Warhammer Quest" is a mobile/PC game that you have to pay real money to get, and it still offers you paid DLC if you wish for more classes. The fact that you can finish the game with the basic ones is, however, something that's A) normal given the fact that you did pay real money for this title, and B) absolutely possible, if a little hard, depending on the RNG. "Mordheim: Warband Skirmish" lures its players with this false sense of being free to play, and also not requiring them to buy the stupid, fucking Fate Points. That's what pisses me off the most about this title, aside from it being a badly programmed mess, with a scammy DLC system, where the players with deep pockets will actually have a clear advantage over those who decided not to spend their dosh on this piece of shit, as everyone who's even slightly sane should.

The biggest shame is that this game had a lot of potential. The art style, the music, the descriptions of locations and items - all of these things, and more, are solid. If only Legendary Games would decide to change a couple of things, fix the A.I. and difficulty system, and change the payment options, then "Mordheim: Warband Skirmish" could've been one of the better mobile games out there. Instead it's a mess that I can't really recommend to anyone. Maybe play it for an hour or two, before the difficulty curve kicks in, see what it's all about. That said there are way better titles out there, like the aformentioned "Warhammer Quest", which will give you that sweet, sweet Warhammer fix, and won't drive you mad at the same time. I recommend that you give this game a shot, and leave "Mordheim: Warband Skirmish" in the gutter, where it belongs.

Until next time!

Xathrodox86

P.S. This game apparently was nominated for Amazon Appstore Game and for Strategy Game of the year in the Tiga awards. I only have one question: how?