Warhammer 40.000: Mechanicus (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.4.4 Update

Warhammer 40.000: Mechanicus is a turn-based tactics video game developed by Bulwark Studios and published by Kasedo Games for the PC in November 2018. It is based on Games Workshop’s tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000. The game was developed by Bulwark Studios, published by Kasedo Games, and released for the PC on November 15, 2018. Versions for the Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch were released on July 17, 2020.  Seize command of the Imperium’s most cutting-edge army, the Adeptus Mechanicus, in this highly acclaimed turn-based tactical game. With every choice you make, the destiny of your troops will be forged, as you navigate through over 50 meticulously designed missions, including the awe-inspiring Heretek DLC missions. Your path must be chosen with utmost care, for the very survival of the Imperium hangs in the balance.

GAMEPLAY

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus is the first video game to feature the Adeptus Mechanicus, a faction of cybernetically enhanced warrior priests. The game features turn-based tactical combat in the style of the XCOM series. Cognition points (CP) dictate how many actions characters can take on their turn. Mechanicus puts players in control of an array of Adeptus Mechanicus forces, allowing them to lead tech priests and troops on a tactical quest to salvage ancient technologies from the mysterious catacombs of the Necron Tomb World Silva Tenebris. As Magos Dominus Faustinius of Mars, every decision will shape the missions ahead and have far-reaching consequences. Seize command of the Imperium’s most cutting-edge army, the Adeptus Mechanicus, in this highly acclaimed turn-based tactical game.

PLOT

Millions of standard years ago, the world of Silva Tenebris was a Necron world, ruled by the Szaregon Dynasty. In addition to Overlord Szaregon himself, the ruling court of the planet included the Royal Vizier Mhelob, Lord Astronomer Ekropis, Grand Architect Neftusk, and Void Admiral Agrolekh. Each of these nobles had a great army of subservient Necrons at their beck and call, including lesser Necron Lords. In addition, a large lair of Flayed Ones called the planet home, headed by the Corrupted King Ubjao. Over sixty million years ago, in the wake of the War in Heaven with the Old Ones and their allied servant races, the Necrons entered the Great Sleep, placing themselves in vast, subterranean stasis tombs to await the gradual decline and disappearance of their enemies in the Aeldari Empire, and Silva Tenebris became a Tomb World.

The planet was eventually settled by Humans during the early Age of the Imperium, who founded the colony of St. Eckhardt’s Hope. However, contact with the wider Imperium was lost after two standard centuries, and the colony was presumed lost. In truth, with no idea of the magnitude of evil slumbering beneath their feet, the colony never had a chance to survive. Unsuspecting explorers and prospectors found openings into the stasis tombs and began to explore them, thus triggering the initial phases of Tomb World Activation. This resulted in the slaughter of the entire colony’s population by pitiless Necron Warriors. With the interlopers destroyed, the Tomb World eventually returned to quiescence.

In the 41st Millennium, Magos Explorator Rhesak of the Adeptus Mechanicus arrived on Silva Tenebris, hoping to reclaim the architect from the ruins of St. Eckhardt’s Hope and investigate the Xenos ruins there. Though he knew little more about the Necron menace than did the settlers, Rhesak’s expedition was far better armed and held their own against the awakening Tomb World long enough to gather considerable combat data. He transmitted this information astropathically to Mars, though for reasons unknown he locked many of his files on specific Necron war forms using synthetic proximity encryptions, which the recipient could only unlock by personally encountering those same war forms.

Moreover, the transmission was lost for solar decades or standard centuries by the vagaries of the Warp, and Rhesak himself did not live to report his findings in person, his forces finally crushed by the ever-mounting Necron counterattack. In the Era Indomitus, Rhesak’s long-delayed astropathic message finally arrived at Mars and was brought to the attention of Magos Dominus Faustinius. Faustinius in turn gathered a command council and set out aboard the Ark Mechanicus Caestus Metalican to investigate the threat. It was well that Faustinius commanded such a mighty force of the Mechanicus, for there would be no reinforcements. The Adeptus Mechanicus was stretched thin by the many crises spawned by the birth of the Great Rift, so no further support was available from the Forge Worlds.

EXPLORATORY MISSION

Though penetrating the Great Rift made for an arduous journey, the Caestus Metalican arrived in the Silva Tenebris System reasonably unscathed and made orbit without incident. Magos Faustinius swiftly ruled out dealing with the threat by simply pronouncing an Exterminatus action upon the world; research goals aside, the Xenos structures were so deeply buried in the planet’s crust that even starship weapons could not reliably destroy them. A full combat deployment of the fleet’s assets also made little sense, given the uncertain extent of the Necrons’ subterranean tomb complexes, and the existence of an unknown threat that might harm the less-augmented Skitarii. Instead, the Magos Dominus moved cautiously and sent Skitarii pathfinder units to begin mapping the planet, and a single team of Tech-priests and their servitors to examine one of the alien structures.

The team found the buried structure discovered on their augers to be a labyrinthine vault made of unknown materials, badly corroded by the passage of megayears, but still intimidatingly massive and exhibiting signs of advanced, technological activity. The Explorators soon discovered two things: that the xenos that built the vaults were the machine warriors known as Necrons, meaning that Silva Tenebris was a Tomb World; and that many of the objects they found contained rich caches of Blackstone, a vital strategic material for the Imperium and thew. Unfortunately, one obelisk reacted violently to the team’s presence and acted as an intruder alarm. Soon afterward, the team began encountering Necron Warriors patrolling the tomb complex. The team pressed on, destroying several Necrons, and then attempted to data-mine a relatively undamaged alien cogitator. However, they were interrupted by the awakening of a Necron individual of fearsome power: Void Admiral Agrolekh, a Destroyer Lord.

The team barely managed to escape the Necron noble’s assault alive, and only by fleeing while Agrolekh was busy destroying their servitor complement. Following this first encounter, energy readings revealed that the Tomb World’s master control program had entered an extremely aggressive, exponentially accelerating reanimation protocol. If not stopped, within 264 solar hours it would awaken every Necron on the planet, producing a Necron army far beyond the mission’s ability to contain. In the face of this threat, Magos Faustinius decided to fully deploy his entire Battle Congregation to the Tomb World’s surface. The Skitarii would explore the stasis tombs chamber by chamber maintain a foothold, and demolish every inactive Necron and war machine they found. Kill teams of elite, heavily augmented Tech-priests would form a mobile reserve to achieve crucial objectives and respond to crises.

Faustinius’ council of advisors, meanwhile, would scour the data streaming back from the deployed Mechanicus forces, identifying key objectives and threats for the special forces to take, thus making the best use of the limited time available. The Magos Dominus himself made the final decisions on which missions to prioritize, as well as personally commanding the most important ones by telepresence from the command throne of the Ark Mechanicus. Though most of Magos Faustinius’ advisors generally agreed on the mission’s goals and simply focused on their areas of expertise, two exceptions stood out: Tech-Acquisitor Scaevola of Stygies VIII and Lector-Dogmatis Videx of Metalica. Scaevola was a member of the heterodox Xenarite sect, an expert on archeotech and xenotech, charged with comprehending, navigating, and appropriating any unfamiliar technology the Explorators should encounter.

She proved invaluable in finding weaknesses in and paths through the bizarre technosorceries of the Tomb World, as well as finding Human archeotech. However, she also made no secret of her admiration for the Necrons’ technical knowledge — particularly high-energy physics, dimensionalism, and material science — and her desire to add it to Humanity’s own. In her mind, the Quest for Knowledge should be pursued with scant regard for even Human life, let alone obstructive dogma. Videx, by contrast, was a walking archive of Cult Mechanicus scripture and theology. His duty was to maintain the Battle Congregation’s righteous courage and purity of thought; no easy task in the face of the arcane techno-blasphemy that filled every corner of the stasis crypts, and the deadliness and inventive cruelty of their inhabitants.

The missions Videx recommended spread signs of the Machine God’s divine favor throughout the tombs, heartening the Skitarii charged with holding them and defeating many attempts to corrupt or demoralize the Battle Congregation. However, he believed firmly that the best counter to the Necrons’ moral threat was to annihilate the source. He recommended at every turn for Necron relics to be consigned to the flames and their contents scrubbed from the expedition’s data memory. Unsurprisingly, Scaevola and Videx clashed frequently. Internal Mechanicus politics aside, a fierce war soon raged beneath the bedrock of Silva Tenebris. Magos Faustinius’ legions of Skitarii and cohorts of war machines battled undying Necron warriors and Canoptek monsters throughout the planet’s huge catacombs, seeking both to learn as much as possible about the mysterious and deadly automatons and to strangle the Tomb World’s immense military power in its sleep.