To begin with your fleet is small and simple to control, although as your Admiral levels up and the fleet grows, things become more complicated. Orders range from basic movement to evasive turns and ability usage.
Let’s start with the exciting stuff, combat! Battle is where your RTS skills are put to the test as you micro manage each monolithic gunboat in your fleet. A complex array of overlapping progression systems make Battlefleet Gothic: Armada an evolving beast, and hard to define in just a few paragraphs, but watch me try anyway. The game blends turn-based and real-time strategy as your fleets struggles to defend the Gothic sector on multiple fronts. The campaign follows Admiral Spire, a newly promoted Imperial officer who must take up arms against invading Chaos, Ork and Eldar forces, as well as seditious Imperial troops who have gone rogue. That being said, even without a 30-day preparatory course in 40k history, you’ll be able to follow the narrative without too much trouble, just with a lack of context. Characters, locations, titles and even nouns are all thick with the Warhammer universe’s particular brand of sci-fi jargon. Now, I’m not completely up to date with my Warhammer lore, most of which came from a single Chaos Marine Codex I had growing up (Yes, I am one with the dark side!), and Battlefleet Gothic: Armada certainly doesn’t hold your hand when it comes to the story. Tindalos Interactive have brought the dusty and out of print game back from the empty depths of wormhole space to engross a new generation of digitally inclined 40k enthusiasts. I’m referring, of course, to the 1999 tabletop game Battlefleet Gothic. Unbeknownst to me there was an addition to the Warhammer 40k universe that transcended the ground battles, instead taking place in the vastness of space. I’m sure there are many out there, like myself, who spent a large part of their adolescent life (and beyond) sitting in the library sending miniature Space Marines into battle against the Chaos scourge. “The Battle at Garden’s Gate” achieves the rare feat of being absolutely hilarious and also one of the best straight-up rock albums to come down the pike in many moons - and anyone who thinks it can’t be both just isn’t in on the joke.MonsterVine was supplied with PC copy for review As ripe for humor as the shrieking vocals, the Zeppelin riffs and the Dungeons & Dragons vibe can be, this album proves that the group isn’t only aware of those things - it’s beaten the haters to the punchline. It all gets very “Spinal Tap” at times, but Greta Van Fleet is not a parody act or even, like so many of their predecessors, essentially a tribute band that plays originals. The brooding “Weight of Dreams” is heavy on arpeggiated chords and bears more than a trace of Zeppelin’s epic 1976 track “Achilles Last Stand.” It has not one but two false endings: one that turns into a majestic, sweeping coda - complete with a blazing guitar solo, swooning strings and wailing, wordless vocal ad-libs - and a second that’s a moody outro played on acoustic guitar (another genre specialty). It advances the formula of the group’s earlier, more basic recordings with lots more keyboards and acoustic guitars (and even strings) and slower songs, many with quasi-philosophical titles like “Age of Machine” and “Built by Nations.” Several of those tracks are epic in their ambitions: More than half hit the five-minute mark, and one is almost nine minutes long - all of which, of course, only makes the album truer to its forebears (speaking of which, the coda of “Broken Bells” evokes Donovan’s 1969 anthem “Atlantis”).īut then again, “The Battle at Garden’s Gate” wouldn’t be authentic if it skimped on length or didn’t end with the nearly nine-minute song. Without drawing too fine a parallel, much of “Battle” evokes mid-’70s Rush - circa “2112” and “A Farewell to Kings” - with a nod to the Zeppelin albums that influenced those works. That path, essentially, is doubling down on the influences. Needless to say, he gets Greta Van Fleet, and helps them to define the path forward. That expertise and versatility comes into play on “The Battle at Garden’s Gate,” which sees the group teamed with two-time Grammy-winning producer of the year Greg Kurstin, who has worked with Adele, Sia, Kelly Clarkson and Paul McCartney - and also Beck and the Foo Fighters. Happily, that notion underestimates both the band and, not least, its record label, Lava Records, which was founded by veteran A&R executive Jason Flom, who cut his teeth on hard-rock acts of the ’80s but also signed Tori Amos, Katy Perry and Lorde.
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