2019-03-01_PC_Gamer___40_US_Edition

The Adeptus Mechanicus are, in

many ways, the perfect encapsulation

of what Warhammer 40,000 is about,

a bizarre Gothic fusion of tech and

religion. They are the chief scientists

of the Empire, but treat science like a

religious cult.

Mechanicus translates

this unusual faction

into a tactics game, and

does so wonderfully,

oozing character from

every pore.

The story is framed

by a group of high-

ranking tech priests

who are constantly debating each

mission. They’re all wonderfully

quirky characters: Scaevola has

removed so much of their humanity

they now speak in equations, the

devout Videx believes ignorance is

strength, meanwhile their leader,

Faustinius, has quarantined their

emotions. They’re Mechanicus’ great

strength, and I came to truly treasure

their bickering.

The Adeptus Mechanicus are

pitted against another of 40K’s

weirder factions, the Necrons:

Slumbering Egyptian-themed

terminators from the beginning of

time. The tech priests’ mission is to

investigate this tomb before the

Necrons awaken. The missions

themselves consist of a series of raids

on tombs. You explore

the dungeon’s rooms,

with little choose-your-

own-adventure

vignettes popping up in

each. The choices

presented in these

rooms are rarely

interesting, and their

outcomes seem largely

arbitrary, and in the end they just

become filler between each fight.

Things become more interesting

in battle. There’s no such thing as

cover, which makes combat fast and

lethal, initially for the tech priests

and then later, after a few upgrades,

for the Necrons. Combat revolves

around a currency called cognition,

which can be earned by scanning

obelisks and corpses, as well as lots of

other methods, and can be spent on

things like extra movement or more

powerful actions. One of my tech

priests was equipped with a bunch of

melee boosting equipment. He mostly

spent his cognition on extra

movement, sometimes racing the

length of the map to thwack a robot

in the face. Another wielded

powerful energy weapons that

required cognition to fire, meaning he

camped near obelisks to replenish the

group’s supply.

CALLING REINFORCEMENTS

Another thing cognition can be used

for is to summon troops. These units

can’t be levelled up and customized,

they get dropped on the battlefield

mid-combat, and can only perform

simple actions like moving and

attacking. At first the only troops

available are weak servitors that exist

mostly to take hits for the tech

priests, but later on more powerful

variants are unlocked. You can invest

as heavily or as lightly into troops as

you like, I gravitated towards ranged

units like the Skitarii, which

combined neatly with a support

priest I’d built with the ability to let

them fire a second time on his turn.

The tech priests themselves are

incredibly customizable. Each one

can attach various strange gizmos,

and has six skill trees to mix and

match. I went heavily into Explorator

(melee), Dominus (ranged) and

Enginseer (healing), but there were

plenty of other options available.

If anything, this customization can

get to be a bit too much. By the time

the Necron awakening timer had hit

as little as 30% my tech priests had

levelled up so much they were killing

Necrons in one hit. I was still having

fun while winning, I’d just

substituted challenge for efficiency, as

any true tech priest would. That, plus

a love of bickering cyborgs, is what

keeps me coming back.

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

XCOM with gribbly

robot men.

EXPECT TO PAY

$30

DEVELOPER

Bulwark Studios

PUBLISHER

Kasedo Games

REVIEWED ON

Core i5, GTX 970,

16GB RAM

MULTIPLAYER

None

LINK

http://www.bit.ly/

mechanicius

81

A diet XCOM-style

strategy game with

some great characters in

a fascinating techno-

cultist skin.

VERDICT

There’s no such

thing as cover,

which makes

combat fast

and lethal

A

few years ago, Games Workshop loosened its grip on the

Warhammer 40,000 setting, and the result has been a glut of

small-budget games set in the grim darkness of the far

future. The quality has been mixed, but every so often a

game like Mechanicus comes along that uses the opportunity

to explore a previously neglected corner of the Warhammer universe, and

makes it all worthwhile.

CULT HIT

WARHAMMER 40,000: MECHANICUS

succeeds by embracing the weird. By Tom Hatfield

SELF-MADE MAN

How to create an

axe murderer

1

These

gizmos

power up

Manarius’ melee

attacks.

2

The robes

make him

run faster. Don’t

ask how, they

just do.

3

This pokey

robo-arm

jabs people for a

little extra

damage.

4

The

cog-shaped

axe hurts when

you smack

someone with it.

REVIEW