Just like 50% of all Warhammer licensed PC games (40k games included), it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bad. Fight me, I dont care, it's straight up fact a lot of the games are terrible or at the very least not ready for release.
for the past 6 or so years I've owned this game I go through a cycle of retrying, playing for about 45mins, uninstalling and then giving the game another chance or forgetting why I disliked it.
First things first, all those screenshots for advertising the game, throw them out, I cannot see a scenario where you'll have either that setup or those views.
When you're playing, your view is 3rd person, overhead and behind with varying zoom and rotation.
I enjoy turn-based, tactical, difficult games, I've clocked hundreds of hours on Battle Brothers, X-COM series, and even Mechanicus...this game is like really like a campaign manager, which from my (very basic) understanding, is the point of Mordheim, you can't make decisions based only off the mission, there are consequences to playing recklessly or 'just trying to finish the level', which carry over the in-game days. I kinda like that.
The pay-offs or rewards after a mission are really bad, like depressingly so. You can loot off of your dead enemies, which is alright. However if the enemy squad fails their save rolls and retreat, the level ends right there, you win, no more looting, there's no "run-down" mechanic, no "final turn" rotation, the dead with things in their pockets, gone. Now during the mission you have your own wagon where you can drop items into, or steal from the enemy's wagon, but that is at the cost of possibly being caught along the way and is definitely a waste of actions/turns. That said, you DO NOT want to attempt a 1V1 fight with the enemy AI, you may get away with it once or twice, but it will only lead to developing a bad habit that you pay for later on. The other option is keeping some of your squad defending it, however there is a small chance of finding loot inside buildings or boxes, so you will want to go out. The actual loot is worth almost nothing, I mean like 1 to 4 gold apiece for weapons. Gold is necessary in order to pay daily wages. In the meanwhile, you need to collect the premium currency "wyrdstone", this is the reason for the entire game and many times are a campaign success metric, like you have a quota to make within a certain number of days. There's also cases where the w-stone collection is part of a bonus objective, is it worth it? I have no clue, never accomplished it, and if I did, I have zero memory of it and likely was a waste of effort.
Oh and you can't just reload a save, the entire thing is Ironman Mode.
I have had scenarios, where once the enemy's first round begins, they've picked up 3 or 4 of the wyrdstone, which is fine. The game itself doesn't give any shining or effects to show a crate nearby and the wyrdstone are just bright green crystal formations you'll find on the ground, I'm fine with this too. The problem is where the enemy AI is homing in on these items because they likely can see where everything is through the walls, floors, ceilings, buildings, etc. to collect them. This goes back to the looting and retreating issue I already mentioned.
During your turn, your movement and actions are determined by a point system. To the game's credit it will allow you to walk entirely within a single movement point zone without committing to the action of movement, until you cross the threshold of the next action, skip the turn, take a stance or enter combat. To try and explain this better you'll have a ring around your starting position, you can run from one edge to the other without any movement cost, until you step outside the ring, where it will then reset the ring centered on the character, spending the point.
Mordheim:CoD, BY FAR, has the worst rolls/RNG I have EVER experienced in a game. A 70% chance to hit may as well be 25%, I'm actually convinced the programming was accidentally inverted at this point. Now before you point out the other games I mentioned above-- this 70% chance repeatedly missing is happening while I have 3 units, one of which is a leader, surrounding a single generic enemy foot-soldier, with 3 consecutive attacks in the same character turn. According to the game itself, the defense stances, armor/shield, any buffs, modifiers or negative effects have already been calculated when I'm referencing this hypothetical 70%.
Successful combat somehow manages to not have any rewarding factors, because when do you finally connect with an attack, there's zero satisfaction in it. The damage is determined and deducting as soon as you click, BEFORE the animation even has begun. Maybe it's my PC, but after playing the game, I really doubt it.
I have had a face off between my Leader and a random henchman enemy, my own character getting an ambush attack off first, after the exchanges over a few turns, my leader goes down..I would be okay with this if they weren't the same race and the implied stats advantage of your own leader vs henchmen. Playing as Skaven (the rat-men), there is almost zero discerning between your own characters and the enemy AI's until you've triggered an attack of opportunity. This may be the case with all races/factions, but I can only tolerate so much of a terrible game at once so never tested it.
SOMEHOW I can win an encounter labeled as Hard or Brutal, but get my ass handed to me in an exact clone of those previous missions labeled Normal.
The actual level design looks good for what it is. I am fine without having a map and the game wants you to use perception rolls to ping enemies and allies, the problem is nothing ever stands out visually. I will start my turn, say "ok those 2 are fighting just behind me, around that corner...", no they're not. Every building looks the same, mainly due to how closely you're zoomed in on your squad members. Maybe that's an incorrect statement because I didn't continue beyond the first Act, but I wouldn't know.
The menus pre and post battle are absolutely atrocious, I've never played the tabletop version of this game, but everything is laid out kind of like a manual and stat blocks. Now that seems simple, but the maneuvering to be on the correct menu is tedious and never stuck with me, best I can compare it to is flipping between pages in a book trying to look up rules for a TTG, then clicking on blocks to make changes. None of it ever clicked or made sense.
What pisses me off with the game the most is the fact it had a lot to work with to make it good. I'm not sure if they were going for a tabletop purist experience or rule-set and it just does not translate well to a PC game, or if it was rushed out and never revisited after it sold, or what.
Overall, playing the game felt like a chore that never had a reward or fun or feeling of accomplishment in mind. Victory never felt good. I legitimately felt like my time, my effort to learn the game, my attempts at trying to give it a shot, was disrespected, idgaf about the money, I've pissed away more cash over dumber ♥♥♥♥, but this game is not in an acceptable condition and I cannot recommend it to anyone.
