Mount & Blade II; Bannerlord

Back in 2016 I posted on the up and coming PC games I was looking forward to get a hold of and play in that year. All the games were purchased sooner or later except one. Yup, you guessed it Mount & Blade II; Bannerlord.

After being in development for the last five or so years the game has finally been released recently and I quickly purchased to help with whiling away a few extra free hours suddenly available recently for some reason.

Always a fan of the Taleworlds Entertainment Mount & Blade series in 'Warband' and 'With Fire and Sword' and played through both included mod versions they hold enough interest though the graphics are now pretty basic looking. This is the first and obvious update on M&B II with the graphic input ten times better than the original.

Having a strole round one of the many townscapes

First Character after a few game days adventuring
Still pretty lowly equipped

The graphics are very nice and the game map is much improved and much more appealing to the eye (the original Calradia and Eastern Europe maps being graphically sparse, travelling could get quite tedious) and with a lot more going on and more information for locations of objectives and info on encounters and so on.

There's a lot going on generally but follows the same basic premises of the genre set up in M&B Warband so familiar enough ground though the controls are much more involved and with more alternatives as well.

The milieu is new as well, with Calradia gone and a new realm peopled with the same technological level as before, roughly 12th Century (ish) medieval times. The eight various factions you can choose to play (Aserai, Battania, Khuzait, Northern Empire, Southern Empire, Sturgia, Vlandia and the Western Empire) in all, follow general Medieval tropes and are recognizable from their inspirations; from Byzantines, Norman's, Viking/Scandinavian's, Rus, Mongols, Anglo-Saxon and Saracen types and so on.

The art work for the loading screens (which you see a lot of going from battle to map to town to dialogue) all give a good idea of the artistic look and feel to the game and are pretty good on the eye as well which is just as well really;

The foregoing artwork by a Turkish artist Ilker Serdar Yildiz, is very eye catching and evocative work and must of been involved in the art direction in the game build as the aesthetic is maintained throughout the game.

I'm still early on in my first game play but so far it is interesting and worthwhile play, especially if you're into RPG style games in the medieval period. The game does have a pretty steep character development curve. It takes a fair bit of grinding through early missions and hunting looters to get anywhere. The cost for failing missions is noted and can be quite prohibitive sometimes finacially, cutting off lines of trade or limiting future access to a town. There are lots of lines of character development, in social standing, finances, local and faction standings and notoriety that all play a part in developing and advancing your career, not just killing folk and taking their money as was pretty much the previous norm.

I do quite like this as it gives a decent challenge and can be quite political as well as militaristic in flavour. Lots of depth.

There are a fair number of mods available for the game already and  include the inevitable LotR make-over and I believe a GoT as well plus the usual AI tweeks and so on. I'll play the vanilla game through before having a look at these.

All in all, pretty favourable opinion so far and generally recommended for anyone into the more 'believable setting' RPG genre. An early Warblog rating of 8 out of 10 'Worth Watching' easily merited and worth the wait.

PC Games coming in 2016

A big part of my gaming life has always been computer gaming, usually with a healthy dollop of warfare and combat flavour. Occasionally online (with the likes of the Battlefield series, a particular favourite was Battlefield 2142) but more often strategy based games with lots of resource management and armies trudging about, and of course the first person shoot and hack ups that everyone knows. All a big reason as to why I don't get as much painting done as I would like.

Always popular in the Warblog HQ have been the Total War series and the many mods available have kept me busy for many wee small hours. It is with interest that I have noted the forth coming Warhammer Total War. I'm not sure which company has bought into whose franchise here but which ever it is, I'm quite happy about the prospect.

Total War; Warhammer

You would be hard pressed to not have seen some of the hype around this game since there's been a fair amount of it out there. Interesting to note that it's very much Old World based and still very firmly entrenched in the previous Warhammer milieu, obviously GW are keeping there options open here with the licencing but I suppose AoS setting doesn't lend itself to the Total War concept.

Looking at the write-ups for this, it looks suitably resource rich and has a reasonable amount of factions to play with the Empire coming out quite well and the Dwarfs, Vampire Counts, Dwarves and Chaos in there too. It will be interesting to see how much of the TW ethos is retained and how much lost due to the programming contraints and the amount handed over to the fantasy mechanics, I hope not too much. The usual fluff and fuss can be found on the Total War web site with release around April time.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

M&B 2 is a action/RPG mix and this one of the stables is a prequel to the previous ones set 200 years in the past so you can expect circa 1000AD tech and aesthetics and the usual mix of European and Near East types in conflict with each other and much running around meeting people getting them to do what you want them to do or killing them and taking their castles.

The pre-release screen shots etc look quite pretty for in game and the though the map still looks quite simplistic as previous versions have been. Still mod-ifyable from design concept the base game does look to be improved but much playability will likely come from the mods that will be sure to appear. Check it out at Taleworlds for info but with no release date yet they still obviously have some work to do on this one.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

The Deus Ex franchise is one of my favourite one's mainly because of the design aesthetic that permeates the 'Blade Runner' type setting, with the investigative theme and high tech smooth upper class wealthy corporate 'upper' world and the grimy and hard-life lower common 'lower' world on the streets. Hacking and gun play with a big helping of stealth and diplomacy makes the game play very interesting, along with lots of futuristic hardware is hard to beat combination.

In the continuing story Jensen has to defeat another world wide conspiracy in a background of hate against his kind (augmented humans). Details can be checked out on the Deus Ex Universe site. Not out until August, it should be worth waiting for.

Doom

I think this one will need no introduction to anyone out there and is the next incarnation of the pre-emptive first person shoot-em up that set the genre base plate. This, it's fourth incarnation I think, will be a re-invention of the original descent into hell and shoot lots of really creepy and gribbly things before they eat you kind of thing. Switch your brain off and look out your BFG.

From the Bethesda shop and following on from the likes of Fallout 4, Skyrim, Dishonoured and Rage, the mechanics of the game should be fine and you can expect lots of gore and very disgusting opponents. Due for release in the Spring and can be checked out on the Bethesda site.

X Com 2

The latest of the X Com stable is another which has been vastly improved, looks-wise from it's original and is an enjoyable tactical challenge in a not too hard on the brain kind of way. Lot's of tech, research and gribblies again, but I think the overall scope of the latest incarnation lacks a bit of the long reaching depth the older versions had. You know, just over a bit too quickly, certainly the last one (X-Com; Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within) was by defeating the 'mother-ship' it all was over too easily. However, in this one apparently it wasn't easy after all and the aliens have taken over and the 'good guys' have to fight the good fight to get it all back.

X Com 2 is out in February with new treats and can be checked out on the X Com 2 site.



Of course there are many other title's forth coming in the year including Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, Hitman, Mass Effect Andromeda, Homeworld: Deserts of Karak and Dishonored 2 to name but a few, but these few are one's I'm looking forward to. On a slightly different note, there are a big number of action films due for release this year too, not least a large number of Marvel Universe flicks, and these may spawn their own Computer Games.

One thing I have noted on the the titles that are coming up over the next few months and indeed generally, including my top picks, is that the vast majority of the titles are additions to ongoing franchises. Makes you wonder if there aren't any new idea's out there, or is it that the games developers et al, are not willing to take any risks on promoting new idea's.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I have just picked up the other day the Computer Game XCOM Enemy Unknown. This game has been out for some months now and has received glowing reports generally and I'd been looking to pick it up at some point as I was a fan of the original game of the same name and it's subsequent sequels; XCOM: Terror of the Deep and XCOM: Apocalypse.

With the imminent release of the add on to the current game, XCOM: Enemy Within, Steam had an offer on for the main game with 75% off so it was an idea time to get around to picking it up. And I'm glad I did, it's a great update to the original.

They have kept to basic premise of the game, Earth attacked by insidious alien intelligence with an unknown agenda and you play the pert of a multi national elite force known the XCOM project who are there to find out about the aliens and repell their assault on Earth. The basic gameplay revolves around some resource management but this is pretty basic in terms of funding from the various 'council' members and the corpses and materials that you get from missions which are then used to build facilities and equipment and research new technologies, and the aforementioned missions which are the real thrust of the game play, with squads of troops with varying skills which you can enhance as the squad members gain experience.

The Original Version

In many ways, the actual game play and the choices you have through out the game have been simplified and the mechanisms for going through the game are also much simpler from the original but the actual look and feel of the game is much enhanced and slickers (as you would expect) and in fact in many ways positively cinematic with all the battlefield action nicely animated and annotated.

All the elements of the original series are still there with only a couple of additions with the main add being a running 'plot' through the game as you progress picking up on the progress of the war and adding a few specific missions over and above the standard recovery or abduction missions.

The names of the equipment types have been kept; Skyranger transport vehicle and Interceptors and the enemy troop types; Sectoids, Floaters, Mutons etc are all still there too.

A bit of colour is the ability to customise your squad members. 

Although this has no effect on game play you can get some nice looks to your troops with various skins for facial types, nationallity, armour, headgear and so on.

Along with the add of the different troop type development trees which lock in on each trooper once they get passed the rank of Rookie and they can progress as Assault, Support, Sniper and Heavy with a limited choice in skills as they progress on their paticular development tree, you can get a fairly pleasing variety of troops.

Once you have a squad and a mission comes along, you are launched on to the tactical gameplay where the main action of the game is.

In a fair variety of terrain types and looks (I've even had a couple of missions set in Glasgow!) with the addition of lighting varieties the action is interesting and thought provoking being three dimensional.

With a familiar IGOUGO based system with the Overwatch and reaction facilities to interrupt the oppositions movement/action the whole combat sequence can be very entertaining with the required tactics being similar to real squad tactics of move and cover and mutual support.

Rush moves where you run to cover are usually nicely cinematically animated and the score of the action usually adds to the drama too.

All in all the game is as I said, a good update to the original franchise and though there are a few minor quibbles (like where there is a choice in mission, you can only choose one and can't go back to pick up the others like you could in the original, and you've only one base rather than several to manage which I liked in the original) I wholeheartedly recommend the game to anyone interested in this genre, especially when it's available for download at £8.

Third Age Total War - Lord of the Rings

Dale Swordsmen finish off an Easterling General

I've been playing Medieval Total War II PC game since the game was released some years ago and it is one PC game that has generally kept it's interest for me especially as there have been a good number of very good mods available for the game. I had been looking for a new mod to see if there was something out there to bring some new life into the game. What I stumbled upon for a very good mod for Lord of the Rings, The Third Age.

The mod has been developed by a group of LOTR modding enthusiasts and they have put together a very convincing game of the War of the Ring complete with all the appropriate factions, history, maps etc all true to the books and using some of the where-with-all from the cinema trilogy for graphics and cut scenes etc.

Easterling Cataphracts charge into the Dalesmen lines

Campaign map - Part of northern Rhovannion

With all the functionality of the Medieval TW II game and some smoother graphics and all the armies and races included, the game has certainly peeked my interest in the game and given it a new lease of life not to mention a renewed interest in LOTR gaming.

The Dalesmen Heavy Infantry receive the Balchoth
Tribesmen's onslaught

I've only tried the campaign once and I'm in the middle of the campaign as the Men of Dale and so far I am enjoying success against the Easterlings of Rhun with some minor skirmishes against the Orcs of Gundabad in the north.

A Dalesmen General is ambushed by Balchoth
and Variags but goes down fighting

If you have the game, maybe buried away somewhere and are a fan of LOTR, I thoroughly recommend this mod to while away the odd hour or three. Easily findable if you google Third Age TWII mod and can be downloaded from a number of sites in two parts and installs very easily. A good find from out there in Interweb Land.

The final confrontation - the Easterlings get it!

More Claymore 2011 Pics

I have just purchased, at last, the add on for 'Mount and Blade: Warband' computer game, namely 'With Sword and Fire', this add on moves the action from a ficticious medieval mid 1250's setting firmly into early 1600's eastern Europe with Poles, Germans, Turks etc to play. It does look quite nice and certainly who can resist charging into battle in the company of Winged Hussars and Pancerni? Will give it a go and report back.

Mount & Blade: With Fire and Sword

On a different note, a warm welcome to DaveK to the Warblog. When you going to get your own blog up and running Dave, you know you want too.


And on to the meat of this post, a few more pictures of the fayre on offer at this years Claymore in Edinburgh;

Good show and a generally good day.

Lizard for tea...anyone?

As an aside to my wargames related activities, I've just got back from being over to see my Mum for the weekend and doing a bit of lumberjacking with my number 2 son. On the way over we stopped up from Rhunahaorine (the site of a minor battle in 1647 between Leslie's Covenanters and Alastair MacCollas' Irish and Scots Royalist troops retreating to Dunaverty) mainly due to the very nice sunset which we watched unfold.

Jura from Kintyre

The scenery and the drive got me thinking (again with the thinking) about the Lords of the Isles and early medieval Scotland. Might be picking up on the Scots medieval army again, MacBeth sort of period maybe or maybe something a bit later like a Isles and Highland army circa the Battle of Harlaw. The early period has always been a period of interest in Scots history for me and seeing some nice period armies recently and indeed the trip down to Kintyre has given me some inspiration so maybe yet another project on the way. Maybe need to finish one of my ongoing ones first. ........ Na!


This week, my game was a friendly against Dave B and his Lizardmen army for WHFBs. This army is Daves latest army for Warhammer and has only had maybe one game with it and was keen to give it another outing so my Empire was wheeled out again to oblige.

Initial deployment

About the game, probably the less said the better other than to say commiserations to Dave who had one of the worst night of dice throwing I've seen. Thanks for the game Dave.

On a different note, I picked up a copy of Cossacks 2 out of the bargain box at the local Game Shop for the PC.

Note usually a great Napoleonic gaming fan but for a couple of quid worth picking up, and since I did like the first game in the series many years ago, thought it might be interesting. Lead up to 10,000 men to victory at the battles of the Leipzig, Borodino and Waterloo, could be fun with a bit of a light entertainment on the cards when invading Russia.