All the makings for an epic RTS... without the epic gameplay... had potential though
Old Warhammer, epic setting. If you know the setting/lore, you might come into this expecting massive armies of chaos truly worthy of the word "horde".
What you actually get feels like a real time conversion of the tabletop game... from the perspective of 2 wargammers with limited funds, hence they can only ever field a small collection of miniatures on their table at one time.
The unit formations in this game are limited (line or column only... mounted units can wedge as a special ability) and you'd expect much more from Warhammer, but it is a nice addition nonetheless. Pre-battle deployment setup is also a nice touch. You could say this is a hybrid between Warcraft 3 (with an advanced hero leveling/choose-your-upgrades structure) and the RTS aspect of Total War games. Decent, but considering the standard Dawn of War set for the Games Workshop worlds in the RTS genre AND that Mark of Chaos came out around the same time... it feels like a meat sandwhich without the meat!
The story/audio is also lacking. Dawn of War lives up to the franchise brutality. The bloodletting, the obssession with brutality and war that makes the Warhammer settings what they are... you don't get that with Mark of Chaos. Your chaos troops at the beginning of the game are steroid juicing barbarians that yell alot. Kind of pulls the setting down into a mock Conan imitation. The voice acting isn't bad, but it's mostly cliched with a dumbed down story/script that, if you've read any of the Warhammer novels, is nowhere near good enough. Again... Dawn of War quality it ain't
If you're willing to kill some time and are truly devoted to the consumption of anything and everything Warhammer, you might dig this, but as a challenging and fulfilling RTS, it comes close to satisfying and then leaves you without a "happy ending"... if you know what I mean.
It