The board's still 8x8, and the main objective is still to take down the enemy king while protecting your own. There's lots that will be familiar once you take a second to understand the basics of the transposition that leaves white and black armies as Orks and Space Marines, the likes of Shoota Boyz replacing pawns on one side, Devastators standing in for Bishops on the other. It's a strange mix, as you have to get your head around a range of new tactical opportunities that have been laid over movement rules that you probably first learned in childhood - but it's a mix that works.

This is chess done the Warhammer way, then, and while you can play Classic mode, which is standard chess decked out with wonderfully vivid animations, Regicide mode draws the ancient board game into a more modern world of cooldowns and special abilities. It's still cold and tactile, if not particularly polite, but when you make a good move here you know about it, because your enemy has turned into a red mist, raining giblets down on the barren earth. Warhammer 40,000: Regicide is pretty violent full-stop. Chess has always been a pretty violent game, but the really nasty stuff would generally play out in your mind, the splatter erupting beyond the board and far removed from its cold, almost polite, tactical clarity.

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