Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach - Sons of Cadia DLC

Good DLC. Well, there is little surprise here regarding Astra Militarum or Imperial Guard, whatever we call them. Units are as expected but in a positive way. I could personally drop some infantry types and have even more artillery choices, but okay - all "classics" are here. Imperial Knight is pretty nice. Campaign seems solid. What to say more? "For the Emperor, men!"

I enjoyed this DLC very much. I bought it on sale and got a lot of play value out of it. The special campaign missions were a unique challenge and the new units were a ton of fun. If you liked the campaigns of the original and expect more of the same, you won't be disappointed.

Good premise - Poor execution When i am playing with an Imperial Knight i am not expecting it to explode to a single turn of shooting by a bunch of orks with machineguns that outflanked it. This pretty much sums up my experience with the sons of cadia DLC. The premise is good, you can see lots of cool 3d models of the warhammer miniatures game and visual effects are impressive but the balance is utterly lacking. Thermal lance of an Imperial knight which should be the best anti tank gun in the game is incapable of doing much damage to vehicles. Battle cannons are not doing area of effect damage and they can only be used for vehicle hunting. The campaing balance is non-existent. Sometimes you are waltzing across the fields with almost no oppositions , other times you are facing 1 ork super heavy surrounded by the enemies best 3 anti-tank vehicles in the game supported by tons of heavy infantry. In short this dlc fails due to the way weapons and vehicles are implemented poorly and non-existent balance. While main game is definetly recommended the dlc is not.

Play as the Imperial Guard, or in the more Games Workshop TM world of today, the Astra Militarum (IG in High Gothic). Played the first two campaigns as the wolves of Fenris, or even the Orks in "Legacy of the Weirdboy" DLC and you think you might be ready for this. Oh boys and girls of Cadia, you are so wrong. As you'll quickly learn in the helpful and necessary Tutorial Mission your 'bullet sponge' infantry are more akin to 'bullet paper targets', easily shredded within two attack moves by the Orks. Your famed armour, covering all the usual suspects in an armour-supported infantry company are also quite weak both in armour and ability to cause damage. Earhtshaker rounds from your Basiliks barely drop HP of the enemy at all, and even by Mission One you'll find, after losing the scenario for the 3rd time due to Turn constraints that they are best left in the armoury. Same with the Leman Russ, which barely causes damage, even to infantry without armour and dies quite easily. Las Cannons, that could tear a hole through the most heavily armoured of Ork Trukks/Tanks barely scratch the paint on a Killa-Kan, or even infantry for that matter. The balance, I am sorry to say is way off in respect of weaponry for the Militarum, and this is rightly an issue with many players, as is the imbalance in forces right from the very first mission. If you're feeeling overwhelmed, it generally means you are. So why Positive? Well, it's certainly not blind support for the game. I voted Positive as this DLC makes you think, and not just rely on minimal tactics and brute force as with the previous three campaigns. The tactician in you is well brought out and once you'v won a scenario, usually a bitter and bloody affair you might feel the breath of Commissar Yarrick on the nape of your neck, confirming your victory as well thought and fought. You might alos replay the Tutorial if away for some time wwith other games, but guess what? It gets harder the more often you play as not only do your troops upgrade, but so do the Orks. With a Freeblade Knight to add to your arsenal, and armour that supports and fights when well utilised you'll soon by scrubbing up on tactical guides and gameplay videos more than any other DLC. You'll also rely on Chimera Transports a whole lot more than you might Rhinos with the Wolves, as the infantry is better at 'mopping up' than direct assault. This DLC [i]makes[/i] you rethink how you play, even if you've played as the IG/AM in another game such as "Winter Assault" for "DoW", the only other game aside from "The Horus Heresy: Battle of Tallarn" by HexWar Games that I can readily think of. There is a load of content in this DLC, and if you've bought the Complete Bundle, or are selective in what you purchase, and this really is a must for any fan of the W40K universe of video games. It is that loaded with contet, to be used in the Campaign, Skirmish, MP or Skirmish Campaign. But, to be quite frank I am am enjoying the use of this force more in a Skirmish Campaign than the Campaign that comes with the DLC, simply because of the restrictive turn limits, the imbalance of the forces and the sometimes incredibly unfair set-ups for the set-piece scenarios.

I like the guard units, but this DLC has 2 big issues: 1 - units do not behave like in the real game. This isn't a huge issue for playing the game, but it a little annoying to a 40k player. Lascannons regularly doing less damage to enemy vehicles than lasguns is not a good thing. The guard really lack anti-tank power: meltaguns and valkyries or lasguns (or hot-shots) firing into rear armour are the onlyreally effective anti-tank I've found. Leman russ firing both sponson lascannons (yeah, they messed up the lascannon/heavy bolter placement) into a killa kan is going to do almost nothing. 2 - the larger issue. The campaign is rubbish. Normal missions are fine, but the scripted missions are just ridiculous. If I was designing missions to troll the player I would have come up with something similar. I stopped playing at the bridge mission- your meltaguns start surrounded ridiculous OTT hordes of infantry while you have lots of enemy mechs walking over bridges that protect their flanks into units that can do damn all against their frontal armour. Could I win it if I battle through? - maybe. Do I want to? - hell no.

Not really worth it. I'm a big 40k fan, and I love the Imperial Guard so I thought this would be a no brainer but it's just... god awful. Apparently whoever designed the balance over at Slitherine forget to make your AT weapons actually capable of killing armored targets. Lascannons, the primary AT Imperial AT weapon, can't even reliably damage a Killa Kan, one of the Orks lightest walkers. I had more success with killing armored targets with a Leman Russ Punisher, a tank that trades anti-tank power for a giant gatling cannon, than I did with my standard Leman Russ which mounted actual AT weapons simply because the Punisher fires more bullets, which means more chances to crit. Even with an upgrade that supposedly made every shot fired a crit, the standard Russ couldn't take on any form of enemy armor. On the other hand, just about every enemy unit is a threat to your own armor. I lost a tank to a single squad of basic Ork melee infantry hitting it with medieval axes for a turn or two. A lot of the other problems with the game can be forgiven, but this makes it practically unplayable.

Devs don't fully understand how Cadian works. The rest of the factions seem to have most of their strong points and preferred units but gave us a half-baked version of guard. If you're here for only tanks, I can see you being somewhat happy, but if you're here for infantry you'll immediately notice the lack all commands, all heavy weapons, lasgun rerolls and their ability to damage in 8 and 9e. Virtually everything that makes an all Cadian infantry viable on table top is not here. Devs need to revisit this and reduce point costs.

While the addition of the Imperial Guard is great, the DLC is plagued with missions featuring infinitely respawning enemies, and missions where the odds are horrifically against your favour. Even for Normal difficulty each of the pre-made missions feel insanely hard with no real indication on how to achieve victory. Some missions give you a defensive position, imply a massive attack, and then give you defensive units (eg artillery); however you're actually suppose to push against enemies that will infinitely respawn to capture points. The units are fun, great, and it's encouraged to use the Knights aggressively, but the Knights will still be chunked by regular infantrymen simply because they're hitting the side/back. Some of the best units that would be suited for anti-armour like the Vanquisher cannon are out-shined by the Punisher cannon for anti-armour capabilities because they put out more rounds. Worth picking up on sale for a hell of a lot cheaper.

The content you get is alright in scope. A new campaign, tons of units.. this is actually an expansion, not just some cash-grabby DLC. I still can't recommend it because the balance of the campaign is... plain dumb. I don't know if this comes from the people responsible not knowing the source material very well or the attempt to make the campaign difficult. A few examples: One of THE premier anti-tank weapons of the Imperium, the lascannon, struggles to kill anything. It often fails to kill a single Ork Nob with a hit. My record for Ork Warbuggies tanking lascannon hits was 8. Killing actual heavy armor with it is unfeasible. Vanquisher battle cannon is single target. At best you kill two models out of an Ork unit with one of the biggest guns ever mounted on a Leman Russ battle tank. It's anti-tank properties are practically non-existent. Basilisks with their Earthshaker artillery guns need a LOT of luck to even kill a single unit with a full turn of firing. Their splash damage is nice and does tons of damage, but they can not reliably finish anything off. And again, no anti-tank capabilities. On the flip side, EVERYTHING the Orks field is lethal. There is no chaff. Almost anything they have can kill your infantry units in one turn or even worse; one action. You can lose whole units to overwatch from regular Ork Shoota Boyz. THEIR anti-tank actually works. Imagine deploying your units, Orks have first turn and the first thing you see is a Battle Wagon with a XBOXHUEG gun speeding forward and killing one of your tanks. In the very first turn without you being able to do anything about it. This wouldn't be so bad if you could do the same, but as described above: you can't. Your AT weapons will just bounce off and force you to dedicate ridiculous amounts of guns to taking the thing down before it can mulch more of your tanks. Not that other Ork units have trouble with this, seeing how the humble Slugga Boyz can melee a Leman Russ to death in a turn or two if you are unlucky. That being said, the game is still very playable, just frustratingly unfair in my opinion. But I guess it comes down to personal taste. If you have no problem with playing catch-up a lot and tilting your head in utter surprise at the ridiculous damage numbers the weakest of Ork units can pull off, Sons of Cadia offers a lot of new content and very Warhammer-y atmosphere. If the balance was better, buying this would be a no-brainer. As it is I would say it wholly depends on your tolerance for frustration.

What is not to like? A good game that was lacking in variation has just added a completely new race. And, not just any race but the much heralded Imperial Guard. This is as close as you will ever get to the tabletop. You do need a little patience because the multiplayer is set up for async play but for grown up players looking for a good, tactical wargame then look no further. The units are beautifully depicted and there are now a lot of them. You really feel like you are in charge of an army of models and figurines. Well done to the team for the attention to detail. The sky is the limit for this game. There are hundreds of campaigns and tons of races that they could add. With some support I hope to see this game grow and grow. Highly recommended. 9/10