Developer: Playwood Project
Publisher: Deck13, WhisperGames
Rrp: £14.99 (Humblebundle and Steam)
Released: 8th February 2018
Available on: Humblebundle and Steam
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 12 Hours
It’s not easy being a Viking, enemies seem to be on all sides, the weather is harsh and extremely changeable and there isn’t even any respite to be found with the gods, who seemingly find enjoyment in your suffering. But its not all doom and gloom, you can raid other kingdoms… which, come to think of it, may be why we have so many enemies. There’s also mead, that’s always good!
First things first, lets cover what Wartile is not. It’s not a small game, taking up just over thirteen gigabytes which is kind of huge for an indie title. It’s also not a turn based strategy game, which we will cover later. Finally it’s doesn’t have any micro-transactions (with exception of the ability to buy the soundtrack). What it is is a real time digital Viking war game that uses a hexagonal tiles to make up the levels, and if that description appeals at all then this game may just be a good fit for you.
As is fairly common with war games, it makes use of hexagonal tiles to create the world and allow the figurines to move from hexagon to hexagon. As I said this game isn’t turn based, instead both movement and combat are cool-down based. This system takes a little getting used to and can make manoeuvring your figurines in a combat situation a bit fiddly, its all too easy to pick up the wrong one and not realise until its too late. However the devs have implemented a time slowing feature that you can activate at any time which allows for a lot more careful placement, its just a trick of remembering to actually using it.
The game also uses a light version of a deck building mechanic allowing you to construct your deck of divine favour cards before you enter a mission.
There are three types of card that occur in the game representing events, skills and.. I suppose I can call them divine favour. Event cards generally occur as part of a mission (or if you flubbed something), such as alarms going off etc. Skills are cards that your character can use that operate on a cool-down system, so you need to be careful when you make use of them. Last are the aforementioned divine favour cards, these cards are ones you earn from completing missions and require you to spend battlepoints that you accrue throughout the mission in order to be used.
In a way the combat is actually very simple, just place your figurines within striking distance of the enemy, you don’t have any real control beyond that. Except that’s not entirely true, you can re-position units to make better use of the terrain, you can order your units to use items that heal or buff them and you can tell them to use special ability cards. What you can’t do is tell them which unit to target (except ranged units, those you can call shots with).
You can also use your divine favour cards to tip the balance of the fight using the battlepoints that you have earned through killing enemies, interacting with objects in the world and completing objectives.
Your figurines (as the game keeps calling them) level up as you play allowing you to attach more upgrades and unlocking new skill cards. They also have their own strengths and weaknesses, some even have weapons only they can use.
So, you’ve organised what cards you want in your deck, applied what upgrades you can and have your figurines kitted out. Now its time to pick who gets to come on the mission. Each mission will dictate how many figurines you can use, whatever number is the exact amount you must use, no more and no less.
Once you complete the mission you unlock rewards such as new cards, upgrades and special weaponry… and of course there is the loot that you took while on
the mission itself, I mean what Viking isn’t going to pillage? The money that you earn is used for two things, either buying equipment from the merchant (you can sell as well) or hiring new figurines from the tavern.
You can also replay any mission you want as many times as you desire with harder difficulties becoming available after the first time you complete one. I have to say that I quite like the way the challenge of a given mission is depicted. When you select a mission it will show a number, the number is the recommended reputation level. If your reputation (shown above the mission) is greater than the mission you’ll find the mission easier to handle, if it’s lower the challenge will be greater. The higher the challenge rating of the mission you take on the greater the rewards are.
Its a beautiful game to look at, the level of craftsmanship on show is amazing. I can honestly say I spent a fair amount of time just marvelling at the level of detail on show with each board. However this level of detail does come at a price, loading times. The first time I booted up this game I had long enough to go make a cup of tea and drink half of it before it brought me to the main screen. Admittedly from after that point the loading times were much shorter (on average twenty seconds) but still that first time had me concerned.
In truth this game can start to feel quite samey. But if you consider this to be a digital tabletop war game it makes sense that the core gameplay loop would be like that. War games by their very nature don’t change the gameplay up, sure a objective may be different but in the end you are doing the same thing each time. The gameplay loop doesn’t change in the same way that Warhammer 40k and Battletech don’t, because they don’t need to.
I have to say though that on the whole this game is pretty great, it is a bit of a shame that there isn’t a way to play this game in multiplayer, but I can see that the very way this game plays would make creating such a system troublesome to say the least.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Children of Zodiarcs
Armello
Gloomhaven
