Warhammer 40,000 meets Hearthstone in this solid free-to-play card game

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SHOULD I PLAY WARHAMMER 40,000: WARPFORGE?

Ask yourself two questions: 1. Do you like the Warhammer 40,000 brand of pulpy science fiction? 2. Do you like digital card games? If you answered yes to either of these, you should at least give Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge some serious consideration. If you answered yes to both, it’s a no-brainer. This slick card game uses the extensive Warhammer universe of characters and factions to create a challenging but still approachable experience that seems to have enough depth to keep hardcore players busy for a long time to come.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve spent around six hours playing Warpforge so far, mostly playing with the Hive Fleet Leviathan and Black Legion factions. I also ran a couple of drafts, one of which I managed to earn a whopping four wins. It’s not much, but considering my performance in the standard ranked multiplayer so far, I’ll take it.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT WARHAMMER 40,000: WARPFORGE?

• Great use of the IP. I’m far from a Warhammer fanboy, but Warpforge does a great job of presenting factions, unit types, and characters that are well-known even beyond the hardcore community. Units and hero types all have great battle cries that lend them a lot of character, and there’s just a ton for Warhammer aficionados to dig into here, whether they prefer the old-school soldiering of the Ultramarines, or the goofy space ork antics of the Goff Clan.

• Multiple progression paths. Rather than forcing players to buy dozens of card packs to build up their collection, Warpforge allows them to earn new cards and packs by progressing along a campaign path. It’s not just one path, though; each of the game’s six current factions have their own lengthy campaign that can be moved along by finishing daily missions and spending currency to unlock nodes. I’d guess it would take me at least a couple months of consistent play just to finish one campaign path, much less all six, so dedicated players have plenty to work towards.

• A wide range of compelling card mechanics. Though it hasn’t presented me with anything I’ve never seen before, Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge pulls together a lot of interesting ideas to make for deep, swingy matches. There’s stuff like Rally abilities, which activate when a minion enters players (think Hearthstone’s Battlecry), or the Talent ability that creates temporary cards in your hand at the start of the turn, or even Flying units à la Magic: The Gathering.

Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle, though, is how the game handles melee versus ranged damage. Almost every unit in the game has a separate melee and ranged damage number, and players can swap between the two attack types before dealing damage. The type of damage you cause also determines what type of counterattack damage the enemy hits you back with, which leads to a lot of difficult trade-offs. For example, maybe your character has a melee attack of 5 that could take out an enemy, but they’ll hit you back for 4 and leave you near-death; your ranged attack of 3 won’t finish them off, but since their ranged damage is 0 it may set you up to finish them off with another minion or ability. It’s a very clever and complex system that had me racking my brain before each swing.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT WARHAMMER 40,000: WARPFORGE?

• It’s super difficult. Listen, I’m not like a pro card game guy or anything, but I’ve spent hundreds of hours playing Hearthstone and dozens more in games like Magic: The Gathering Arena and Legends of Runeterra, so I’m not exactly a complete newbie either. Even with that experience, though, I found Warpforge extremely challenging to figure out, and I’ve only squeaked out a handful of victories across the hours I’ve spent with it so far. Maybe it’s just because the starting decks suck, but boy has this process been demoralizing!

• It can get spendy. Like I mentioned earlier, you can unlock a lot of stuff along Warpforge’s campaign tracks, but many of those unlocks are still random, so it’s entirely possible to still be missing important pieces for the perfect deck. If that’s the case, you’ll need to buy individual booster packs, though you can at least buy packs targeting specific factions.

Speaking of campaigns, it’s also worth noting that each campaign includes a premium track that unlocks additional rewards. Premium access requires a payment of $19.99...per faction campaign. There’s enough content here that that doesn’t feel like a massive cost for some extra rewards, but if you really want to wring out each faction’s campaign or if you were really hoping to go fully free-to-play, you might be disappointed.

PLATFORM TESTED

Android via Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G phone