Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - hands-on

The sheer amount of special abilities and power that Heroes can gain is not trivial, and the deep RPG component of Mark of Chaos was a welcome surprise. When gained, ability points can be spent in three areas: combat, duel and command. Combat skills are self explanatory, and command abilities are used when a Hero is attached to a specific unit. Duel skills and spells were called up when we wanted to face off with our enemy's Hero - a one versus one battle whose outcome often decided the eventual victor between the two armies involved.

The central premise of Warhammer (both on the tabletop and in Mark of Chaos ) is that every army has an overall point cap in terms of relative strength, guaranteeing drama to otherwise lopsided battles that are typical in the RTS genre. While balanced overall, our army evolved by trading in lesser units and gaining powerful "super units" found in towns during the turn-based phase of the game between battles. Taverns inside towns were also were we found "Dogs of War," or mercenary auxiliaries that enabled us to make our army even more ferocious.