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.
