Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector is turn-based and about space marines. In other words, it will upset those who want 40K games to be more real-time and action-packed, and those who are fed up with all 40K games being about space marines. Over the past year and a half, we've seen games featuring bounty hunters, giant robots, bad gangsters, fighters, and fighters but orcs in this setting. Thanks to Games Workshop's free and easy licensing deal, we've been able to get a lot more games out there.

It also doesn't hurt that it's turn-based. Because I remember the days when all 40K games were real time, and I complained about that instead. Everything has a season. It's a little known fact that Birds is Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.Turn.

Battle Sector is not purely a marines-only game. You can also play the Dinobug Alien Tyranids in skirmish mode or multiplayer (online, hotseat, or email), and in the single-player campaign, you can unlock the Sisters of Battle and add them to your army. (In the single-player campaign, you can unlock Sisters of Battle to add to your army (Space Marines are the warrior monks of the setting, and Sisters of Battle are the warrior nuns). In addition, the Battle sector is not the generic armored Lumox, but one of the more interesting flavors of Space Marine, the Blood Angel theme. The cover of their Codex book depicts Christopher Lee.

Blood Angels suffer from an affliction called red thirst and are literally and figuratively bloodthirsty. In the battle sector, the closer you get to the enemy, the more momentum points you usually gain from kills. When a unit gains 100 momentum points, it begins to "surge," gaining a movement bonus and the option to exchange those points for one additional action or use of an ability power-up.

Non-Marine units also gain bonus momentum points in a manner appropriate to their personalities. In addition, sisters in combat, like masochistic martyrs, gain momentum by taking damage as well as inflicting damage.

Momentum may not seem like a big deal at first, but as the army grows, there are more opportunities to accumulate large amounts of momentum during the level. It also has a dramatic effect on your late-game skills. My psykicker was a bit underwhelming in its ability to create images of real scary faces, but I used a powered-up version of it to drop six tyranids in a close group at once.

It is tempting to go into overwatch at every turn in a game like this, but overwatch is a powerful tool in the battle sector. To emphasize this, overwatch goes into slow motion and you can see every shot fired and every number popping off. However, because it takes a lot of momentum to activate overwatch, the overwatch will be modest, and instead, commanders with jump packs and thunderhammers will make risky advances that will create hordes of small enemies or go one-on-one with giant monsters that spit acid! It will be.

Another thing that discourages staying back is that cover can be unpredictable. Sometimes a unit behind cover can shoot through without penalty, while other times cover will block them and bullets will hit the railing when they try to shoot off the pier.

The curse of the Blood Angel is twofold. There is the incessant red thirst as well as the rarer black rage. Those who are inflicted with this curse go berserk and eventually die. They paint their armor black and form a separate unit, the Death Company, to take on dangerous missions in hopes of doing something brave and dying. When you first see the Death Company in the Battle Sector campaign, they are knee-deep in rivers of blood, wielding chainswords and engaged in a battle that will last for days. The bonus goal in this mission is to kill five of their units.

At times like this, the battle sector is goth as hell. The setting is a moon covered in red desert, with ruined cathedrals and factories whose main production seems to be giant statues with skull-shaped goblets. Between missions, the HQ unit narrates a tough-guy epic." Such as, "On this hallowed ground, every one of us fought through our bloody teeth for the chance to be an angel. (Only the techno-marine Kroginax is more prosaic, grumbling, "So much for your poetics.") It's a vivid description, as one would expect from familiarity with Warhammer 40,000.

The story also throws around names like "Archmagos Cawl" and "Indomitus Crusade," hoping you are familiar with the unfolding meta-plot of recent 40K. The opening cutscene explains the basics and why the newly created Primaris marines (even more superhuman than the normal race) are joining you for their first taste of combat. But if you haven't read a book or played a tabletop game recently, you'll have some catching up to do.

The early part of the campaign is ostensibly about old first marines reconciling with their even more rugged replacements, but the primaris don't talk much. Their presence was felt in the midst of battle, not at all in the overarching story that connects the two battles. While I enjoyed the tactical play, such as sending in tanks that didn't care to deal with venom slopes that released poison into the ground, or spacing out units so that guns could fire from the most effective range, the connective tissue of the superstructure just didn't click for me.

Not just because it distanced me from the story, but because the units are completely interchangeable; HQ units have skill trees, but the troops that are with you from the start are the same as fresh troops with an infinite number of choices. It's odd that other games are so full of personality, but that's not the case here. Additionally, Blood Angels are better suited to the progression system, making veteran units tougher but potentially succumbing to Black Rage every time they are used. In the battle sector, Death Company is merely an option to choose if you have enough points.

On the other hand, the point limit for each battle is a number that is only known after leaving the corps management screen. This means that one must either return to edit the list after the pre-battle narration begins, or delete extra squads to make the calculations correct while choosing the placement location. [I got sick of hearing the same Tyranid screams over and over again, or having to search for the last enemy on each map after completing the main objective; Battlesector is reminiscent of 40K, sometimes making you scratch your chin and think about flanking maneuvers, sometimes making you say "screw it" and activate your jump packs, sometimes making you think about the next move, and sometimes making you think about the next move, It's a fast-paced tactical game that will have you spinning your chainsword.