Warhammer 40,000: An Interesting Deckbuilder Struggling With Monetization Is Warpforge

Card games are fun for me. I enjoy playing Warhammer. I should be able to play any new Warhammer card game, especially if it’s digital. These days, I’m all about the digital stuff, even if I still enjoy holding a piece of cardboard in my hands and seeing the light catch on foil for those fleeting moments when it’s not in its binder or deck box. I have nowhere to keep my collection of cards that I’ll never look at, and I’m too lazy to convince my friends who are just mildly interested in playing cards to buy decks. I have room on my phone for another app, and it’s far simpler to find online opponents to combat with than to barge into my neighborhood game store. They are all crazy about Lorcana, a game that I have no interest in playing, just like my coworkers at TheGamer.

Launching an assault with a massive Tinker Bell or an overindulgent Dalmatian? No thanks. I’ll use a swarm of alien bugs to eat my opponent’s face or use a poorly constructed launcher to throw a grenade into their ranks. I was able to take on Warpforge with choppas and talons following a little tutorial using dull old Space Marines—Ultramarines, to be exact, the most dull of Space Marines.

The game features five playable factions: Necrons, Eldar, Orks, Tyranids, Chaos (Space Marines, not Daemons, since everything is Space Marines, apparently), and Ultramarines. Even though some of the more intriguing species in the cosmos, like the Nicassar, are absent, that’s still a lot of variation, and given the nature of collecting cards and constructing decks, you’re better off choosing one and staying with it for the time being.





Following the tutorial, you select a faction to start a sort of “campaign” (i.e., battle pass). Every side has a unique currency that you may advance along a branching timeline by earning more of as you play. You can select among booster packs, special cards, and other currencies as rewards at each level.

In addition to the faction-specific money you need to advance the campaign, you can earn pink crystal, which is a currency that isn’t defined in the beta but can be used to buy or improve specific cards. One can access a variant of draft mode with premium rewards by earning an arbitrary number of gray crystals, which is the third currency.

Gold, the game’s premium currency, is the last one. Cosmetics and boosters can be purchased with this, however they are rather pricey. You should expect to pay between $15 and $30 for avatars and $50 for card backs for your deck. Maybe the whole point of this is to convince you that the $1.50 booster packs are a terrific value.

Obtaining booster packs through other channels is difficult. combat pass uncommon items are not available if you use boosters, and combat awards are few. It helps a little to upgrade to the premium track, but that alone costs $20. You guessed it: twenty dollars a race, kindly, if you wished to choose the premium track.

Except in cases where your opponent AFKs and you have to wait 30 minutes to get kicked out of the game, matches are quite short and easy to pick up. With each card, you have two attack options: close combat and ranged, and you absorb the relevant damage. With the terrible darkness of the Warhammer aesthetic plastered over it all, you get the normal gradually expanding mana pool a la Hearthstone or Legends of Runeterra, along with a variety of stratagems (think spells that buff your cards or impede your opponent’s).



There is some pretty good artwork, particularly on the card backs. If you grind it out, Tyranids can get some very Giger-esque gear, but that’s not enough incentive to put in hours of fight every day. While Warhammer 40,000: Warpforge is now playable in early access on Steam, it appears like the majority of the game’s players will be drawn to the mobile version when it launches in early November, according to developer Everguild. Even if the mobile industry has normalized this kind of monetization model, it is still extremely offensive.

A good game is Warpforge. It’s straightforward but captivating, and I quickly found some great combinations amongst my cards. The combat isn’t intricate enough for players who aren’t familiar with the IP to hold their own, thus this is a game best enjoyed by aficionados of Warhammer. However, if you can construct an entertaining deck for nothing, it might be worth a try. I simply don’t know if it will be achievable.