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[Cthulhu]

Been jonesing for some Mordheim on your heretical PC Cube?  This probably won't scratch that itch, but it might come close.  The same company that made the flawed but fun Blood Bowl adaptation have just put their new game, Dogs of War Online, on steam as an open beta.  Like anything else Cyanide makes it's a little flawed, but lots of fun.

Based on the Confrontation tabletop game (See: Confrontation, Aarklash: Legacy) this is a turn-based small-group tactics game sort of akin to Mordheim, where you control a squad of mercenaries on missions against other mercenary companies around the game world, Aarklash.  Combat is semi-heavily dice based, success rates are generally high and failure consequences low compared to games like Blood Bowl, but you still need to mind the dice.

While F2P I'd say it's not P2W.  Aside from a couple things, pretty much everything in the game can be bought for in-game money or real money.  Because it uses an Army Points system however, you can't really call it P2W.  Wallet warriors can buy a full set of high level dudes but they'll have to play them in the 800-AP tier with other wallet warriors.

There's currently three reasonably well-balanced factions available:

Kingdom of Alahan:  A defensively-oriented human faction.  Decent standard troops are supported by ridiculously tough Knights of the Lion and strong archers.  Their magic is mostly healing and strong buffs.  The Valkyrie's favorable auspices (next roll automatically succeeds) allows archers to make short work of imprudent mages and lone assassins, regardless of range and cover.

Children of Yllia:  The dogs of war are pure offense, or at least they want to be.  All wolfen troops have the Born Killer attribute giving them a second melee strike.  In the 200AP bracket beating the wolfen often comes down to luck.  At higher AP the high cost of their troops means they're often outnumbered and at risk of being bogged down and chipped to death.  Magic is relatively weak, most teams focus instead on melee offense with glass cannon Hunters and the frankly ridiculous Predator of Blood.

Baronies of Acheron:  The typical lolundead faction.  Every game has one.  Necromancers summon weak skeletons to supplement the already substantial forces of chaff Acheron can field.  Standing tall over the swarms of skeletons are powerful priests, dark paladins, and skull warriors.  Encirclement penalties are brutal, many a Lion Knight and Predator of Blood has been lost in the skeleton tar pit.

Upcoming factions include the alchemically augmented Dirz, the human Griffin knights, some orcs, some elves, and some other dudes.  All the factions are decently balanced, only two units stand out as overpowered.  The Knight of the Lion is stupidly resilient and nearly unkillable, and the Predator of Blood has basically everything.  It's fast, high damage, hard to kill, everything.   The only weakness is its cost.

It's pretty fun!  There's not much of a grind and the previously brutal injury system has been toned down.  Deathmatch reduces the chances of getting injuries (which must be cured with healing cards, which you can get for 100 in-game coins each), and honestly I'd avoid the other modes right now.  Wolfen speed means they auto-win king of the hill by reaching it turn 1, and if a predator of blood gets a hard-on for your VIP in elimination there's not much you can do.  Deathmatch is the most balanced once you're past the 200AP bracket which is a little rough.

Anybody else play?  It uses your steam id so there's no need to pass around email addresses and extra accounts and such.