History YMMV / BattlefleetGothicArmada2

** The intro to the Chaos campaign is horrific, with a group of Word Bearers performing a divining ritual to learn who the Ruinous Powers want as their Admiral. Said ritual involves a poor sod having (huge, serrated) hooks on chains punched through his skin a la Film/{{Hellraiser}}: he's quite understandably screaming bloody murder up to the point a Daemon takes his body. His eyes start glowing and his agonized expression turns into a PsychoticSmirk, and he calmly tears free of the hooks with a series of disgusting squelching noises as he declares his choice. Cue the screen blacking out and a [[HellIsThatNoise horrific, unearthly scream]] before cutting to the image of assorted Daemons [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness slaughtering the other candidates]], Malos standing calmly in the midst of the carnage.

* ThatOneBoss: The Ancient One, the Tyranid boss. While victory is achieved by destroying it no matter how many other ships are on the field...that's just it. You ''must'' destroy it, and since it has such an ungodly amount of crew that it can refill AT WILL being a Tyranid, you've gotta kill it via health damage. All 8000 of its hitpoints. On top of this staggering durability, the Ancient One has a bulky shield that all but necessitates the likes of disruption bombs to get rid of it quickly, a psychic scream that ravages morale in a huge radius and endless ranks of Tyranid ships of all shapes and sizes backing it up. The boss battle becomes a sheer grind, and on principle you ''do not want a protracted battle against the Tyranids''. Even the [[BigDamnHeroes White Scars]] that show up after you get rid of about half the Ancient One's health serve as little more than a distraction for a few of the Ancient One's minions, who will rip the Space Marines to shreds in just a few minutes.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** One of the major complaints among those who played the beta is that campaign missions were all about capturing points and holding them, forcing the player into only making a certain type of fleets to maximize their chances at capture whereas most wished a "more fun" annihilation mode that would only require destroying the enemy fleet. Although Focus Home Interactive stressed that they still thought the Domination mode was the experience they intended for the players, they still implemented the option to ignore control points.
** Another major complaint was the inability to swap ships between fleets in the campaigns. It often forced players to scrap fully leveled veteran ships when they wanted to pick a larger ship or remodel their fleet, which was so frustrating that players have gone on record stating that they stopped playing the campaign specifically because of this problem. The devs took note and finally rectified it in the June 2019 update.
** The Invasion feature was so unpopular among the player base that the June 2019 update also introduced an option to reduce or outright disable it at the start of a new campaign.

* ThatOneBoss: The Ancient One, the Tyranid boss. While victory is achieved by destroying it no matter how many other ships are on the field...that's just it. You ''must'' destroy it, meaning even if you bring in enough boarding actions to somehow chew through its crew, you won't win until you get rid of its health. All 8000 of its hitpoints. On top of this staggering durability, the Ancient One has a bulky shield that all but necessitates the likes of disruption bombs to get rid of it quickly, a psychic scream that ravages morale in a huge radius and endless ranks of Tyranid ships of all shapes and sizes backing it up. The boss battle becomes a sheer grind, and on principle you ''do not want a protracted battle against the Tyranids''. Even the [[BigDamnHeroes White Scars]] that show up after you get rid of about half the Ancient One's health serve as little more than a distraction for a few of the Ancient One's minions, who will rip the Space Marines to shreds in just a few minutes.

* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: It's ''40,000'', so [[BlackAndGreyMorality all the characters count as 'villains']] to at least some degree, but even so there are a few characters who are clearly written for the express purpose of being hated: Threxos Hellbreed is a cowardly GloryHound who despite serving Khorne seems more interested in throwing his weight around as a member of Abaddon's Chosen and forcing others to do his dirty work for him than going out, getting his hands bloody and collecting skulls. The Imperium meanwhile has Inquisitor Darkhammer, who insults and threatens Spire every chance he gets and basically acts like a petty dick for no clear reason but to flex his authority. It's telling that in both cases, they end up under the guns of their own side in the Chaos and Imperium storylines respectively.

* ThatOneLevel: All campaigns have at least one mission that may cost you a new keyboard or two, but what takes the cake is "Legend of the Past" in the Chaos campaign. First you fight a bunch of powerful Ultramarine ships, but that's okay, you have the ''Vengeful Spirit'' backing you up. Then another, bigger wave appears, forcing Abaddon to retreat, but he'll still take out a few Smurf ships on his way out. Then... the flippin' ''Macragge's Honour'' shows up with an even bigger fleet in tow, and this time the ''Vengeful Spirit'' is gone for good. This would be bad enough already, but it's made a thousand times worse by your new objective: turn Papa Smurf's ship into a drifting hulk. Titan-class vessels have ~150 troops aboard, which a) requires a metric ton of boarding actions to wear down[[note]]even more if the ''Honour'' goes into Call To Arms mode; it's entirely possible you don't even have enough boarding actions to accomplish this[[/note]], b) takes a long time during which the giant ship continuously rains hell on your fleets, c) you can't shoot the thing because you mustn't destroy it before it's depopulated, and if you don't disable your ships' weapons, chances are this'll happen. So, to summarize: after two gruelling battles, your damaged and depleted ships are supposed to neutralize an entire Ultramarine fleet including their primarch's legendary flagship, without shooting back most of the time. The mission becomes a lot easier if you bring a dedicated carrier fleet, but that requires [[GuideDangIt previous knowledge of what's about to happen]].

** CHALICE. OF. ENTROPY. As your first Chaos mission against the Necrons, you are out of NOWHERE forced to stealthily move through gas clouds to ambush Trazyn the Infinite. You've pulled ambushes before in the campaign, so no big deal, right? NOPE, the devs decided "fuck you lol" and have this obnoxious motherfucking probes floating around, who will vigorously hump (read: follow) a ship if one of your ships (one of which is a gigantic Nurgle Grand Cruiser) steps out of a gas cloud. It is horrific and considered by many to be one of the worst missions in the entire game.

* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: It's ''40,000'', so [[BlackAndGreyMorality all the characters count as 'villains']] to at least some degree, but even so there are a few characters who are clearly written for the express purpose of being hated: Threxos Hellbreed is a cowardly GloryHound who despite serving Khorne seems more interested in throwing his weight around as a member of Abaddon's Chosen and forcing others to do his dirty work for him. The Imperium meanwhile has Inquisitor Darkhammer, who insults and threatens Spire every chance he gets and basically acts like a petty dick for no clear reason but to flex his authority. It's telling that in both cases, they end up under the guns of their own side in the Chaos and Imperium storylines respectively.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: The rechristening of the corrupted Macragge's Honor is one, twisted as only the forces of Chaos can be: Monarchia was the triumph of Lorgar's labors, the perfect ShiningCity dedicated to the Emperor down to the bedrock. Despite turning their backs on the Emperor and joining His sworn enemies, and thus having no real reason to maintain connection to a city dedicated to a 'false god', the Word Bearers still memorialize [[MyGreatestFailure that defining part of their history]] as a giant "FUCK YOU!" to the Ultramarines that destroyed it.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: The rechristening of the corrupted Macragge's Honor is one, twisted as only the forces of Chaos can be: Monarchia was the triumph of Lorgar's labors, the perfect CityOnTheHill dedicated to the Emperor down to the bedrock. Despite turning their backs on the Emperor and joining His sworn enemies, and thus having no real reason to maintain connection to a city dedicated to a 'false god', the Word Bearers still memorialize [[MyGreatestFailure that defining part of their history.]]

* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: The rechristening of the corrupted Macragge's Honor is one, twisted as only the forces of Chaos can be: Monarchia was the triumph of Lorgar's labors, the perfect CityOnTheHill dedicated to the Emperor down to the bedrock. Despite turning their backs on the Emperor and joining His sworn enemies, and thus having no real reason to maintain connection to a city dedicated to a 'false god', the Word Bearers still memorialize [[MyGreatestFailure that defining part of their history.]]

* ThatOneAchievement: One achievement requires you to promote a Titan-class ship to maximum veterancy in any campaign. The problem is that you don't get these ships [[EleventhHourSuperpower until the campaign is pretty much over]], and it takes a lot of battles to grind enough XP to reach level 4. Chances are there'll hardly be any hostile forces left on the map, if any at all, so good luck finding enough cannon fodder for your Titan to kill for this achievement. Necrons have the added disadvantage of not even having a Titan in the first place.

* AntiClimaxBoss: The final mission of the Imperial campaign. True, you face wave after wave of Traitor Marines, and yes there are tons of those obnoxious Chaos totems from the below-mentioned boss rush. The issue arises from two factors: one, there's nothing particularly spectacular about Abaddon's mooks: they're all the ships you've been fighting throughout the campaign without any additional bells and whistles. Two, unlike the boss rush they will come rushing headlong toward your fleet, effectively negating the nastiest part of the totems: that is, having to maneuver through them dodging ships trying to get in striking distance of the enemy flagship. It is perfectly feasible, and in fact your best move to simply burn retros and park your fleet right in your starting zone out of the totems' reach, barrage the incoming ships with Nova Cannons and finish off anything that manages to survive. Then the ''Vengeful Spirit'' engages, and to be fair it's a heavy hitter, but it's got a single Cruiser for backup and if you've done the proper sidequests Yvrainne and the Dark Angels will appear to back you up. Your combined firepower will shred the ''Vengeful Spirit'' to pieces in about thirty seconds. Cutscene, roll credits. All in all, the final mission is a shocking anticlimax...until you remember you're up against [[MemeticLoser Failbaddon the Harmless]].