CoD's New Warhammer Mode Is Better Than You Might Expect, Even For Non-40K Fans

CoD’s New Warhammer Mode Is Better Than You Might Expect, Even For Non-40K Fans

Time Stamp: March 15, 2024 2:44 PM

Season 2 Reloaded has introduced a Warhammer 40,000 crossover into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, bringing a limited-time mode called Juggermosh. This was initially described as a juggernaut suit mode played in third-person perspective, but this Warhammer 40,000 mode is more like fun-filled Space Marine chaos than just fighting in traditional Call of Duty-style juggernaut suits.

Before getting hands-on with Juggermosh, I wasn’t immediately interested in the playlist. I’m not someone who is a super fan of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, and juggernaut suits in Call of Duty can often feel sluggish to use and a pain to fight against. However, Juggermosh doesn’t feel anything like you’d expect from Call of Duty’s jugg suits and offers a distinct style of fun that’s worth trying even if you’re not a fan of hefty juggernaut armor.

You truly feel like you’re suited up as one of Warhammer’s Space Marines, and while the suits look like the bulky power armor from the franchise, you don’t feel as weighed down and slow as a Call of Duty juggernaut suit. Juggermosh does disable the game’s sliding mechanic, which changes how players get around, but no one is bogged down by the suits either. It’s still easy enough to sprint towards or away from danger.

You’ll either spawn in with “Ultramar’s Vengeance” power armor or as a Blood Angels Space Marine in “Baal’s Wrath” power armor–these are the same operator skins found in Modern Warfare 3’s pricey $30 Tracer Pack: Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines bundle. This lets you be a Space Marine without spending any cash or lets you take the suits for a test drive before purchasing.

In Juggermosh, you don’t have Call of Duty’s normal auto-regenerating health. You’re given a health bar for your armor, so you can see when your suit is badly damaged, and you’ll need to sprint around collecting armor plates off the ground to repair your suit and thus replenish health. The suits are also also designed to prevent fall damage and release an area-of-effect stun and damage effect on enemies when landing from a high-enough drop, but I never really found myself in situations where I utilized these effects. I mostly stuck close to the objectives as I was usually on smaller-size maps like Scrapyard and Shipment, but I can see how this ability might become useful on maps with vertical vantage points like the tower on Rust.

The mode takes away custom classes and gives everyone the same set of weapon loadout options to choose from, so there’s no worry about needing any powerful meta-weapon builds here. There’s also a Warhammer 40,000 chainsword power-up item that can be grabbed at the start of the match. It’s a powerful one-hit melee weapon, so wielding it can let you go on a quick killstreak and turn the tides of the match for your team, especially in a game of Hardpoint, where the use of stuns and the sword can easily clear out all the enemies actively on the capture point. At the same time, it’s also not so overwhelmingly overpowered-feeling because there’s only ever one sword on the playing field at any given time.

Juggermosh is played across Call of Duty’s familiar modes of Kill Confirmed, Domination, and Hardpoint modes, but having everyone running around in armored suits can really make these modes feel like a different kind of chaotic fun with added strategy. Stun grenades can feel more impactful and necessary for helping your team clear players off the Hardpoint or Domination flags, and headshots are more crucial when everyone is beefed up in power armor that causes significantly more body shots to take someone down.

Overall, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed matches suited up as a Space Marine, and this is definitely one of Call of Duty’s most successful and well-designed crossover LTMs. Modern Warfare 3’s recent crossover with The Boys was a fun time with superpowers, but matches still mostly felt like typical CoD modes, while Juggermosh gives a more differentiated experience. I hope we see future crossover modes like this, where Call of Duty adds thoughtful rulesets and a way for everyone to try paid operator skins.

Alongside the Juggermosh playlist, there is a Warhammer 40,000: For the Emperor event live in Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone. This event runs until March 27, letting you earn Space Marine-themed cosmetics. Here we list all the Warhammer 40,000 rewards you can earn, including the Righteous Storm weapon blueprint.

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