Warhammer Skulls 2025 - May 22nd

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

Ah yes. Because tanks and flying units and dragons definitely come under the category of infantry units

 

 

Yes, and as we are all aware, 40K is only infantry, and certainly unit coherence rules have never existed, and obviously the Total War engine cannot represent various infantry types, and DEFINITELY not a variety of Ranged Weapons either.

 

No sir, it's a doomed concept, never could be done.

 

Oh well, maybe I'll fire up Warhammer 3, should I play the Ogres with Guns, the Dwarves with Guns, Kislev, Skaven with roughly 245 different Ranged units?

 

Hmm, which one to best represent the Napoleonic era...

[TheVoidDragon]

9 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Yes, and as we are all aware, 40K is only infantry, and certainly unit coherence rules have never existed, and obviously the Total War engine cannot represent various infantry types, and DEFINITELY not a variety of Ranged Weapons either.

 

No sir, it's a doomed concept, never could be done.

 

Oh well, maybe I'll fire up Warhammer 3, should I play the Ogres with Guns, the Dwarves with Guns, Kislev, Skaven with roughly 245 different Ranged units?

 

Hmm, which one to best represent the Napoleonic era...

 

As I said, you are just not getting what is meant in the first place.  Definitely not if you think any of that is what the issue is. This whole argument has gone on long enough already but that you misrepresent the whole thing and immediately go for a condescending tone over something you evidently have not understood at all means I'll try one more time to explain this.

This is something specifically to do with the infantry units and the way they are represented by the game.

 

It is not about the tanks, or heroes, or siege weapons, or monsters. Those are something that would work absolutely fine with small adjustments (like TW:W3 has them testing armour values).

 

It is not about "Oh, this is a ranged unit! 40k has ranged units!" or whatever nonsense like that you want to try and misconstrue this as. Infact it's quite absurd that what you're saying there is basically "Which of these various units that behave like Napolenoic Era gunpowder units behave like they're napoleonic era gunpowder units...." as if you haven't just LOOKED at them.

 

The issue here is to do with the fact that currently as part of its fundamental elements and just something what the series has done since the start, that THE quite important element of infantry units (something 40k obviously needs too to a significant extent) involves that those units represented within rank & file mechanics. They consist of members of a unit with its members grouped in a formation by horizonal ranks and vertical file. Lets actually take a look at a few of those units though:



Some Ogres with Guns, some Dwarfs with guns and....oh....they're formatted in some sort of rank and file structure and will function like that in battle....
 

Kislev obviously are as well, but what about Skaven?



Oh. They are too....

And despite something like Gutter Runners being less of a neat tidy unit, the way they behave is still as a formation and will keep to that as best they can. Infact if you have several of the same unit, their positioning ends up being broadly the same as the others, so they are a lot less free-form than they initially appear. They aren't the disorganized horde they might seem at first glance.

 

These various units are, just like basically every other infantry unit in the games, mechanically formation warfare infantry, rank & file. That is what the game does and focuses around with the core element of infantry.  Some are smaller units, have fire on the move / skirmish, some have loose formation (sometimes very much so with quite a bit of spacing), or whatever other adjustments, but those do not mean that they are not some sort of structured formation who when you order them to move or fight or position them somewhere, are overall operating in that way as a singular unit of that formation will try and remain in that grouping format (or at least some form of it as the unit shrinks) as they do things.  WHF is literally a rank & file wargame so was something applicable to the Total War format.

 

Modern day or WW2 or 40k soldiers being depicted like this would just be strange, far more jarring than with the settings the game has gone for up until now. Seeing Space Marines or Tau or Eldar or other typical 40k infantry (beyond something specifically historical themed like Praetorian regiment guard) trying to remain in a a specific box or line or whatever formations as they move about and fight as if they're Napoleonic Line Infantry, would be a strange real-time depiction of 40k combat.
 

That means that 40k isn't a great fit at the moment, because if you want it to remain at the same level of quality and granularity the series has applied to other stuff,  it would require quite significant changes and adjustment to this core element of the series formula. It would have to move away from that rank & file format it goes for. It would have to instead be something more skirmish-game appropriate, probably with the size of units being smaller, but with a unit of guardsmen for example a group of 10 men who are simply in cohesion near each other but not as a formation, more free-form and fluid movement for them, taking cover, overall being a bit less strict and rigid with their behaviour etc Something far closer to Dawn of War 2 or Company of Heroes 2 for example with its unit behaviour. Squads and the relevant gameplay mechanics for them, not formations like the game current involves.

What saying "It's not a good fit" means is that currently with what the series does 40k can't just be stuck ontop of the existing formula with a few relatively slight changes/additions but overall retaining that core style, but would instead require a more substantial overhaul. Not that it's impossible to make a 40k game. Not that there aren't multiple features of the game that would work pretty much fine in 40k. Not that ranged combat can't work. Not that the scale wouldn't make sense. Not that there aren't a few units that could be put into 40k basically as-is. Not that literally every unit in the game is "rank & file" / Napoleonic / whatever you want to call it.

Simply that what the series has done since the start, what they do best, what the engine is built around, and just what the series focuses on, as it currently is, involves a heavy focus on that rank & file / formation warfare on the whole - because that is how infantry the game is both now and how they have been in every game previously. That there are tanks, or monsters, or flying units, or magic, or firing on the move in TW:W in absolutely no way means that the core aspect of the game and series that is infantry is suddenly no longer depicted within those mechanics.

 

I honestly do not know what about all this is supposedly incomprehensible. It is specifically about the infantry mechanics and only those, with the fact that practically every infantry unit in the games are based around that formation warfare / rank and file style because that is simply what the series uses to depict infantry. That isn't a great way to represent WW2/modern 40k infantry because that's not how things are fought in those, it's a different style to how the infantry in the games are designed and the mechanics they involve. 40k is a skirmish game both in its scale and how those units behave (I.e. they're in cohesion but not organized into a specific set format), and in a real-time depiction in universe typically none of them would be fighting as as single organized block or rectangle or line or whatever as the sort of thing the games do because 40k is not historical formation/line infantry/rank & file warfare.

As I said in literally the previous few posts before you decided to start the whole thing again, there's nothing stopping them actually just making the required changes and making a 40k game, and with how popular a 40k game would be they almost certainly will figure things out. It would more than likely be a departure from what the series has done before but that doesn't make a difference to whether or not it would be a great game.

 

 

Edited Saturday at 11:31 AM by TheVoidDragon

[Scribe]

You see blocks of Infantry, and I admit they exist!

 

I see various formation options, various ranged attack options, a multitude of unit options, and I look at 40K and think 'yeah, doable for sure'.

 

Which is funny, as I'm not an optimist, but it just seems so easy.

[Craig]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/two-warhammer-40-000-games-will-be-delisted-from-steam-on-monday-and-one-of-them-is-currently-on-a-90-percent-discount/

Looks like these games are being removed from steam just before the Skulls event. Weird timing to make Warhammer games unavailable in the same week as celebrating Warhammer games. Possibly giving them away free like they did with talisman last year?

[TheVoidDragon]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

You see blocks of Infantry, and I admit they exist!

 

I see various formation options, various ranged attack options, a multitude of unit options, and I look at 40K and think 'yeah, doable for sure'.

 

Which is funny, as I'm not an optimist, but it just seems so easy.

 

As I just tried to explain, 40k does not revolve around Infantry units operating within the sort of formation / rank & file warfare mechanics the series presents infantry as.  It would be an odd depiction of 40k to have Space Marines/Tau/Eldar/Orks/whatever behave in that way, so those aspects of the game would have to be changed to something more suitable. Just sticking them ontop of how the series currently is wouldn't be anything like how it should be.

Of course they could do that if they really wanted to but it would involve significant alteration to how one of the series core features is depicted to make it something quite different and that's not going to be some simple easy task, especially when this is what the series and engine has been built around for all this time. The game engine already has a few issues and flaws because they've been stretching the things it's capable of, they'd likely need a new one at this point in order to do 40k properly.

 

1 hour ago, Craig said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/two-warhammer-40-000-games-will-be-delisted-from-steam-on-monday-and-one-of-them-is-currently-on-a-90-percent-discount/

Looks like these games are being removed from steam just before the Skulls event. Weird timing to make Warhammer games unavailable in the same week as celebrating Warhammer games. Possibly giving them away free like they did with talisman last year?

Wonder what reason this could be for. I doubt the games are particularly selling well as its a niche genre and they released a long time ago. Definitely a strange time to do it though.

Edited Saturday at 03:09 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Scribe]

39 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

The game engine already has a few issues and flaws because they've been stretching the things it's capable of, they'd likely need a new one at this point in order to do 40k properly.

 

I think our expectations of CA are not aligned.

[TheVoidDragon]

37 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

I think our expectations of CA are not aligned.

 

"Expectations" don't invalidate engine limitations that have been a thing for years (because they're a part of the engine) and being built around spaghetti code, which creative assembly themselves have previously said is a problem.

 

Like all game engines there are just just things it is and is and isn't capable of and it's not going to be a case of just "They can just do it, easy!" when it comes to figuring out a way around those (if there even is one) because that's just not how it works. It's built to do certain things. There's a reason that their games for years have followed the same sort of broad features and mechanics just with what are in effect relatively small additions and adjustments made while retaining that core.

Edited Saturday at 03:47 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Scribe]

They could do it, with the existing engine.

 

My expectations are however likely far lower than yours, because of CAs production over the last 4 or 5 years.

[TheVoidDragon]

12 minutes ago, Scribe said:

They could do it, with the existing engine.

 

My expectations are however likely far lower than yours, because of CAs production over the last 4 or 5 years.

 

Pathfinding and collision and just the AI in general are all something that it doesn't do particularly great with at the moment, and they're features that would need quite a bit of work for 40k. The engine is built around depicting settings involving rank & file / formation warfare, because that's what the games go for.

My expectations are just getting a game that is as reasonable a depiction of 40k as the historical/WHF games are with their settings, but as I have said that's going to be something that is more complicated than doing the other games were because of what that involves.

Edited Saturday at 04:03 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Scribe]

4 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

 

Pathfinding and collision and just the AI in general are all something that it doesn't do particularly great with at the moment, and they're features that would need quite a bit of work for 40k. The engine is built around depicting settings involving rank & file / formation warfare, because that's what the games go for.

My expectations are just getting a game that is as reasonable a depiction of 40k as the historical/WHF games are with their settings, but as I have said that's going to be something that is more complicated than doing the other games were because of what that involves.

 

OK yeah, thats the disconnect right there.

 

Ogres = Terminators.

Dwarves = Votann

Kislev = Space Marines

 

Trees = Ruins.

 

Not particularly difficult, and '40K' at a certain level of abstraction.

 

If CA tries to actually reinvent the wheel, as they proved with TWW3 release, and Hyena's, it will only be worse.

[TheVoidDragon]

57 minutes ago, Scribe said:

 

OK yeah, thats the disconnect right there.

 

Ogres = Terminators.

Dwarves = Votann

Kislev = Space Marines

 

Trees = Ruins.

 

Not particularly difficult, and '40K' at a certain level of abstraction.

 

If CA tries to actually reinvent the wheel, as they proved with TWW3 release, and Hyena's, it will only be worse.

 

I think the problem is you appear to only be looking at things at very, very surface level and not actually thinking any of it through. I have tried to explain the problem to you both in a detailed way and simply several times. It is nowhere near as easy as you're attempting to make out by spouting singular word comparisons as if that somehow means those problems magically vanish.

As I have said in the previous posts it is absolutely not something as simple as just re-theming what the game does because how infantry should behave in 40k is so different to how infantry function in the game. If you just take the existing units or factions from the game, and simply re-theme them to 40k stuff as they are, then you don't have a good depiction of what 40k is like. You have 40k units strangely depicted as the "rank & file" wargame style units / line infantry formations the series does, which is absolutely not how 40k is. 

 

Would you not want some sort of cover system and some more free-form cohesion for members of a unit instead of having them literally standing right next to each other in a strict rigid formation at all times, functioning and firing as a single block? Because unless change are made, that's what a re-theme of how the game current does things would be.

Edited Saturday at 05:04 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Scribe]

10 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

Do you want 40k infantry depicted as Napoelonic Line Infantry / Rank & file / Formation warfare? or would you want some sort of cover system and some more free-form cohesion for members of a unit instead of having them literally standing right next to each other in a strict rigid formation at all times, functioning and firing as a single block? Because unless change are made, that's would a re-theme of how the game current does things would be.

 

Free form cohesion at the singular unit (model) level within a squad?

 

No, I dont want CA to try that in any way shape or form. They will UTTERLY fail at that, and how do you possibly scale that up to what a Total War game could actually do?

 

If you were around at the time, imagine 3rd or 4th edition. Then imagine Apocalypse (9th essentially lol).

 

Total War should be striving for closer to Apocalypse. CA has not demonstrated proficiency at anything but. They should do what they know.

 

You absolutely should not be controlling at the per model level, it should be general (coherency) squad level at most, with individuals (Lords/Heros per TWW3) and such.

 

Again, drop the 'rigid formation/Napoleonic line' that doesnt have to be a thing. Skirmishers are not 'rigid formations' and that is more than good enough at representing coherency.

 

If I wanted a squad based game, I wouldnt be playing Total War.

[TheVoidDragon]

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

 

Free form cohesion at the singular unit (model) level within a squad?

 

No, I dont want CA to try that in any way shape or form. They will UTTERLY fail at that, and how do you possibly scale that up to what a Total War game could actually do?

 

If you were around at the time, imagine 3rd or 4th edition. Then imagine Apocalypse (9th essentially lol).

 

Total War should be striving for closer to Apocalypse. CA has not demonstrated proficiency at anything but. They should do what they know.

 

You absolutely should not be controlling at the per model level, it should be general (coherency) squad level at most, with individuals (Lords/Heros per TWW3) and such.

 

 

 

No, not a singular model as in you're literally controlling individual members of a squad. This isn't about the size of the battle or the extent of what you control specifically.

 

A squad of 10 or however many it is, where the members of that squad are in cohesion but not a formation. Like what Dawn of War 2 or the Company of heroes games do. You give an order to a squad, they will make their way somewhere in a way where they are not all positioned an exact distance apart and they might have been moving at slightly different paces or moving apart a little, and when they get to wherever it is they will then stand in a much more vague way just near each other. 

 

If you take an infantry unit in the Total War games, they would start in say a 5 x 5 box (Or a line. Or a rectangle. Or a loose formation), walk maintaining that box formation as best they can, and then position themselves fully back into that box formation you chose. It is specifically this sort of thing that the game series does with all its infantry, even the ones that seem more like a horde function like that as i showed on the previous page.

 

The former involves that unit as a squad just in cohesion. The latter is a unit mechanically them as a "rank & file" grouped formation.

 

Or if you still don't get it, just think of tabletop 40k VS WHF tabletop. 40k unit would be the squad within 2" of each other. WHF would be stacked alongside each other in a formation, because it's a rank & file wargame.

 

Not moving away from what the Total War series does in terms of battle size or what you directly control at all, but just the way infantry units operate being something more suitable for 40k than what it does currently.

 

Quote

Again, drop the 'rigid formation/Napoleonic line' that doesnt have to be a thing. Skirmishers are not 'rigid formations' and that is more than good enough at representing coherency.

 

Skirmisher units absolutely are in a formation still. They, just like all the other infantry in the game, are in a specific format and will move and fight and remain in that way as best they can. Because, again, that's how the infantry mechanics in the games have them work.

 

 

Edited Saturday at 06:24 PM by TheVoidDragon

[Nephaston]

Tangentially related to Skulls, and not at all related to what Total Warhammer and/or CA are doing; Speed Freeks had a change in publisher, launches it's 1.0 version on the 22nd, but also swapped from free to play to being a buy to own game, with people that previously played it being grandfathered into ownership.

 

Quote

OI LADZ, WE’Z BACK!

Hey all you freeks that love speed, here’s the big news we were talking about…

SPEED FREEKS is leaving early access and launching version 1.0 next week on May 22nd, the same day of the Warhammer SKULLS showcase.



This 1.0 launch signifies a few major things, one being that we’ve got a new publisher, Wired Productions. Why does this matter to you? Well, with this publishing switch-up comes big changes to the way the game currently works, meaning it’s no longer Free-to-Play (which had most of its content behind a paywall), and instead is now a low-priced game that comes with the majority of its content included.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An important note for those of you who played the early access version of the game: you will be getting the launch version for free! It’s already in your library and will update to 1.0 on May 22nd.



Us moving away from F2P also means that we can do things like:
 

• Have player-hosted matches with custom settings, including creating bots-only games if desired
• Have private games functionality
• Add a new Free-Roam mode to explore any map and create custom races - an awesome feature that helps illustrate how much more agency players have over the game
• Remove the 3rd party PROS account that was previously mandatory

Plenty more things to reveal, including new content as well, but you'll have to wait until launch day!

Now, to finalize the conversion of moving the game away from F2P, we’ll need to take it offline for a couple days, so SPEED FREEKS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE TO PLAY from Tuesday May 20th until Thursday the 22nd, when the game launches version 1.0. We apologize for the inconvenience, but this is a necessary step towards launching with the new changes.


In the meantime, we hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll say that we’re very excited to see how everyone likes the revamped and improved full launch of Speed Freeks!

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Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks will be available May 22nd at a special discounted price of just $15.99, 15.99€ and £12.99.

Prepare to GET STUCK IN!

 

[ZeroWolf]

7 minutes ago, Nephaston said:

Tangentially related to Skulls, and not at all related to what Total Warhammer and/or CA are doing; Speed Freeks had a change in publisher, launches it's 1.0 version on the 22nd, but also swapped from free to play to being a buy to own game, with people that previously played it being grandfathered into ownership.

 

 

That's quite interesting, I'd heard they'd changed from early access to a proper release, but not the publisher change.

[Subtleknife]

I’m kind of hoping the rumour about a Total War: Warhammer 40k game isn’t true. Creative Assembly games have become a bit too arcade-like for my tastes. I prefer something with a bit more realism—within the bounds of 40k, of course. The scale also feels too small for what I’d want from a 40k RTS. I’d absolutely love something in the vein of Graviteam, but I admit that would be far too niche. A Steel Division-style 40k game, though—that would be seriously cool, in my opinion - and probably the scope I would prefer vs Total War.

 

I really hope the rumour about the Rogue Trader devs getting another go is true. I thought they did an excellent job with the first one.

 

Also keen to see some Mechanicus 2 gameplay—I’m genuinely looking forward to that.

 

And lastly, my personal wishlist and what I think would be a real licence to print money: a Helldivers 2-style game. Four-player co-op, dropping into hostile worlds as a Kill Team to fight xenos? I’d pay good money for that, no question.

Edited Saturday at 07:00 PM by Subtleknife

[TheVoidDragon]

17 minutes ago, Subtleknife said:

A Steel Division-style 40k game, though—that would be seriously cool, in my opinion - and probably the scope I would prefer vs Total War.

 

 

 

This is something that I think would be a great style of game for 40k too, would allow a lot of variety up to even including Titans.

[Garrac]

We could potentially have:

 

-Boltgun 2

-DLC trailers for Rogue Trader and Total Warhammer (Dechala and the other 2 factions)

-Dark Heresy announced

-Gameplay footage for Mechanicus 2

-New faction for battlesector

-New enemy mob on Darktide

-Horde mode and roadmap for Space Marine 2

-New 30k game

-New AoS game

-No new crappy mobile games

-Dawn of War 3

 

Or... or we could have none of the above, lol.

Edited 21 hours ago by Garrac

[Garrac]

Sorry for double-posting, but I just found out that recently someone on r/roguetrader asked Owlcat to announce a new cprg, and a dev answered with a cryptic "Soon!"

 

Link: 

This has to be summed up with the recent whisper of the warp brought up by Valrak about Owlcat doing a Dark Heresy game...

 

[TheVoidDragon]

5 hours ago, Garrac said:

Sorry for double-posting, but I just found out that recently someone on r/roguetrader asked Owlcat to announce a new cprg, and a dev answered with a cryptic "Soon!"

 

Link: 

This has to be summed up with the recent whisper of the warp brought up by Valrak about Owlcat doing a Dark Heresy game...

 

 

One of their recent Job listings is outright asking for a narrative design who specifically has a good level of knowledge of Warhammer.

Considering the recent DLC is pretty much done and they've only confirmed 2 were happening, it either means they're working on another game in the setting, or just that Rogue Trader will have more DLC.

 

Pretty much a definite thing at this point with the rumours and that they answered a question a while ago of if more Warhammer games are coming with somewhat of a vague affirmation (whereas with other settings asked about they clearly just said no).

Edited 3 hours ago by TheVoidDragon

[Osteoclast]

Owlcat also just posted a three days to go picture with a file name of “WHDH_Skulls_3_days_left_“ so I’d call that pretty confirmed for Dark Heresy CRPG.

Edited 58 minutes ago by Osteoclast

[Marshal Reinhard]

Couldn't it just be a reveal of a dlc for rogue trader?

[Osteoclast]

4 minutes ago, Marshal Reinhard said:

Couldn't it just be a reveal of a dlc for rogue trader?

The image in isolation? Yes, it’s just a fancy III. But the filename of WHDH isn’t likely to be anything other than WarHammer Dark Heresy. 

[DeadFingers]

47 minutes ago, Osteoclast said:

Owlcat also just posted a three days to go picture with a file name of “WHDH_Skulls_3_days_left_“ so I’d call that pretty confirmed for Dark Heresy CRPG.

Where did they post the image with that filename? The one on their twitter (which is also the one linked on the subreddit) is just the usual string of letters.

[TheVoidDragon]

27 minutes ago, Osteoclast said:

The image in isolation? Yes, it’s just a fancy III. But the filename of WHDH isn’t likely to be anything other than WarHammer Dark Heresy. 

 

It would be quite a strange coincidence to have rumours of a Dark Heresy based game including concept art, now a teaser coincidentally including initials for it, but then it not being anything to do with that.

Where is that name seen though? I can't see it on any of the places they've posted the image i can find