There’s no need to sit tapping your power-armoured feet in anticipation of Dawn of War 3: Relic Entertainment’s next game, over a decade after the original, is already out and we really like it. Allow us to bring you everything we know about the third iteration in the Warhammer 40,000 strategy series.
Has Dawn of War 3 got you in the tactical mood? Here are our favourite strategy games on PC.
Dawn of War 3 review
Here’s our full PC review of DoW3.
Dawn of War 3 trailer
Let’s get to the good stuff: here’s Dawn of War 3’s brilliant cinematic trailer:
Dawn of War 3 release date
You can get your strategy on right now: Dawn of War 3 released on April 27. It’s available in two editions: Collector’s Edition, and Standard Edition.
As you’d expect, the Standard Edition only includes the base game, but here’s what’s in the Collector’s Edition:
- Premium disc book
- Lenticular art card
- Official soundtrack
- Godsplitter Daemon Hammer replica
- Three mounted cloth faction banners
- Masters of War Skin Pack
Dawn of War 3 gameplay
Dawn of War 3 follows both the model of the first’s large armies and control-point capture, the second’s hands-on tactics at squad-level. As you can see in the video above, there’s a focus on scale and super-sized units, but DoW 3 still retains the clashing armies of the first game and heroes of the second.
While the strategy of each map is controlled by power generators and capture points like in the first game, units with unique special abilities are inherited from DoW2. They’re called Elites, and in singleplayer they are collected and upgraded as you progress. They dominate battlefields, be it through tactical buffs from commander units or, y’know, massive guns. However, they’ve got specific weaknesses: never send a hero in alone if you’re not prepared to lose them. Check out our Dawn of War 3 unit guide for more.
Cover has been simplified; squads capture defensive areas and become more resistant to range fire, rather than there being flat buffs in certain areas of the map. Cover is, however, now easier to clear out with assaults. Being in cover grants near immunity from ranged damage, so jetpacking/charging/teleporting in really is the only option to clear out the entrenched. Of course, assault troops have a massive advantage once close-quarters are achieved, so it doesn’t take much to counter.
Dawn of War 3 campaign
Dawn of War 3’s campaign features each faction converging when a catastrophic weapon is found on the mysterious world of Acheron. That weapon is the Spear of Khaine. Through the narrative you’ll move from Space Marine, to Ork, to Eldar as each go about their business of trying to massacre the others.
Let’s take a look at some sample missions from the campaign. The first, for the Space Marines, involves roving through the icy plains in pursuit of the Eldar:
The Eldar return the favour, looking to draw out Gabriel Angelos by blowing up his stuff and threatening to kill his friends:
Finally the Orks are also picking a space-elf fight to destroy an Eldar base:
Throughout, you use a selection of elite units in combination with a swell of line troops to complete massive maps with multiple objectives. All three races follow the theme of starting small and establishing a base then overwhelming an enemy, with unique twists on traditional RTS structures for each army.
Dawn of War 3 multiplayer
An objective-based system is used for matches, with turrets and power cores to destroy rather than wiping out your opponent’s buildings.
Dawn of War 3 DLC
Beyond the campaign and multiplayer, how will Dawn of War 3 expand? Warhammer is so ripe for addons that DLC is inevitable, but there’s nothing confirmed yet. All we have had so far is the Annihilation Update, featuring a new map, mode, and unit.
The Company of Heroes 2 model seemed the most likely, with factions added as paid upgrades every so often, letting anyone face against them in multiplayer without paying, but to play as them you cough up the cash. However, big, chunky expansions worked very well for both the original game and the sequel.
A lot of this could also depend on how successful the game is in its first year. A Dawn of War 3 that sells a couple of million copies is a far steadier base on which to build a constantly expanding service model than one that limps its way to a couple of hundred thousand, getting a single expansion before being shelved for the next big game. Early signs were good for Relic’s latest RTS, with Dawn of War 3 seeing 100 hours of game time in its launch week.
Dawn of War 3 modding
Dawn of War 3 launched with a map editor and Relic want to expand on that with a proper mod support workshop.
After all, what is more ripe for modding than a Warhammer 40,000 game? No matter how long Relic spend building a base version, within three months Games Workshop will have released some new army, unit or special character that someone would want to use. Even if GW gave up on the franchise tomorrow, Relic aren’t going to cram everything that currently exists within the massive universe into the game – the community will gather up their favourite factions and get them working, if allowed.
This was the case for the first two games, with mods like Ultimate Apocalypse still being regularly updated by committed development teams. While neither ever had the legacy of something like Skyrim or the long-running map-making pedigree of Blizzard’s games, there was lots of interest there. Previous versions didn’t have the support structure of the Steam workshop, nor the modern internet speeds and level of modder capability that’s pushed mods into such a mainstream area of gaming.
Dawn of War 3 units and races
We have a dedicated list of every Dawn of War 3 unit. Here’s a brief rundown of the three factions:
Space Marines
Eldar
Orkz
That’s everything we know for Dawn of War 3. Let us know if you’re enjoying the game in the comments.
- Read More
- Dawn of War 3 PC review
- Dawn of War 3 - everything we know
- Dawn of War 3 campaign
Tau Empire
Dawn Of War 3 Tau
Exotic army includes many different races. Tau Empire was one of biggest empires in the universe, thanks to their expansions. They could recruit to their army many different units. This army is a hybrid between newest advanced technology and natural powers of wild creatures from the entire universe.
Tau Commander Or'es'Ka - Main Hero of Tau Empire army. Can throw energy mines to slow enemy movement speed. Possible upgrades of armor, weapons. |
XVI5 Stealth Team - Scout group, invisible, with very low damages. Squad members from 1 to 4 scouts. Possible upgrades - jetpack, will allow to fly for short distance over battlefield. Can be armed with: - Fusion Blaster, strong against light vehicles. |
Fire Warrior Team - Regular Tau Infantry. Possible upgrades: armor, damages. Squad members from 4 to 8 troops. |
Vespid Stingwing Strain - special squad. Effective in close combat, can use special ability to make more damages to buildings. Can detect hidden units. |
Pathfinder team - Supports squad, can detect hidden units. Targets under their fire have got less resistance against damages and reduced speed. |
XV88 Broadsite Battlesuit - Strong against vehicles and aircrafts. Possible upgrades: weapons. One of few storm units. |
Kroot Carnivore Squad - Strong against light infantry. Squad members from 4 to 10. Special ability allows adding more HP. |
Kroot Shaper - Hero unit, added to squad, it does reinforce defense skills and speed. |
Kroot Hound - Squad size from 3 to 8 beasts. Strong against infantry and vehicles, good damages and a lot of hit points. |
Krootox - Beast with universal destination. Very good damages on long and close distance; it is one of the few storm units in Tau army. |
Greater Knarlock - Very strong beast against every type of ground forces. |
Devilfish troop carrier - Invisible transport vehicle. Can fly over battlefield. Weak HP level and damages. |
Drone Squad - Good damages and HP level. Can create ambush. When destroyed, it explodes and will harm all units near. |
Skyray Missile Gunship - Artillery vehicle, supports with long-range fire units on first line of battle. |
Barracuda - Aircraft, is strong against infantry and light vehicles. |
Drone Harbinger - Support vehicle, can build drones, is more like mobile hangar. |
XV8 Crisis Battlesuit - Can fly over battlefield, typical storm unit, can bring powerful fire support. |
Ethereal - Tau mage, strong special abilities, can summon Tau Body Guards. |
Hammerhead Gunship - heavy battle ship; it reminds of a tank and is responsible for same tasks on battlefield. |
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3 [official site] wants to be everything you like about the series, and its very different predecessors, in a single RTS. Missed the big armies and the base building? They’re back. Prefer fighting with beefy heroic units with lots of special abilities? They’re here too. It’s trying to be all things to all men, women, Orks and Eldar, and crikey does it come close to succeeding. So close you can hear the heavy metal roar of an Ork Waaagh tower and the thudding of Space Marine boots.
For the first time, Relic have put all three of their favourite factions on equal footing straight away instead of holding all but the Space Marines back for expansions. The heavily armoured space fascists, Orks and Eldar share the spotlight in both the campaign and multiplayer – a relief after the spate of Space Marine-only affairs. And it’s in the design of these factions that Relic have done some of their strongest work.
Each group scratches an itch. The Emperor’s finest are like a fist smashing a face: punchy. They charge and leap with bolters blasting and swords held high, getting into brawls quickly and pinning down fleshy foes with big hammers and even bigger knockbacks. They’re as subtle as a fart in an elevator, as evidenced by their special ability: they can queue up drop pods, containing more Space Marines, primed to be dropped right on the heads of their foes.
The Eldar and Orks aren’t quite as intuitive, but benefit from an additional layer of complexity. The former, along with their speed and predilection for fast, ranged strikes, can link up buildings to create a web of teleporters, and even teleport the buildings themselves. They’re perfect for hit-and-run tactics and surprise assaults. Their green enemies, on the other hand, overwhelm with numbers and the power of their psychic rage – the Waaagh. They grow in strength as they loot and salvage scrap to be used for upgrades, new vehicles and additional Waaagh towers.
While all three factions feature a broad range of line units, from melee units that can lock down enemies to ranged troops who fire devastating weapons that need time to set up, they still feel fundamentally different. Here’s an example of Marine combat.
Gabriel Angelos and a couple of squads of Tactical Marines are surrounded by pumped-up Orks, roaring and flailing with their cruel axes. They’re outnumbered, health rapidly being whittled down, and they can’t make it back to their base. Angelos, an Elite and thus blessed with more health and a suite of handy abilities, could make a break for it. He could leap over the Orks and leg it to safety, leaving his men behind. Instead, he leaps up, not over, and when he lands in the centre of the green tide, every enemy in the area flies backwards.
With extra breathing room, Angelos’ troops open fire, but they’re quickly forced back into desperate melee duels by another wave of enemies – enemies too busy to watch the skies. A roaring noise competes with the din of battle followed by, seconds later, two explosions. Two more rings of Orks are flung backwards. The drop pod doors open up with fresh soldiers pouring out, setting up firing positions and chasing down fleeing Nobz and Boyz.
Swap out the Space Marines for Eldar and the story changes. With their speed and penchant for slowing enemies, they really shouldn’t be surrounded in the first place, but if they are, they’re in a bit of a pickle. A whole jar of pickles. Eldar have a lot of strengths, but sustained melee engagements ain’t one of them – they crumble faster than me after a brisk jog, which is to say very quickly and with no small amount of embarrassment. Still, there are ways for them to escape using clouds of smoke and handy stuns, but if they choose to duke it out with the Orks, they won’t come out of it nearly as well as Angelos and his buds.
Some people will scoff at the idea that MOBAs can teach RTS games anything, but the MOBA inspiration behind unit design and ability synergy is a massive boon here. Though not quite as developed as the heroes from the likes of Dota or Heroes of the Storm, every unit – not just the Elites – has a hook and an ability that make them a valuable part of a team. And this goes well beyond the rock, paper, scissors formula. The value of a unit is more fluid, more situational, and depends on the squads around them creating opportunities.
It would be lovely, though, if everyone could maybe die… less? Or at least at a slower rate. It’s a bit of a jump from the incredibly hardy but small squads of Dawn of War 2 to these considerably more vulnerable facsimiles. It’s hard to get invested in a unit when they could get wiped out in a few seconds. It’s almost like Space Marine armour is actually made out of polystyrene. Sure, it’s lighter, and it’s probably more comfortable, but is comfort worth dying over?
The scarcity of properly hardy soldiers is something I could perhaps live with if there were more ways to mitigate damage. Unfortunately, after experimenting with a cover system in DoW2, Relic have chucked it in the bin in favour of no cover system at all. There are capturable areas that provide a destructible shield, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll be fighting anywhere near one; nor is one bit of cover really going to stop a lot of your troops from being riddled with holes. I like the clarity of these defensible positions, but there’s no flexibility. The result is that a great number of fights are pitched battles in open areas.
Line of sight and high ground have an impact, and hidden units – either through an ability or an area that cloaks them – mean that sneak attacks and ambushes are perfectly viable tactics, so battles are never just a matter of smashing armies together, but there’s no real room for a defensive player. As well as a dearth of cover to hide behind, there are incredibly few fortification options and units aren’t capable of being garrisoned in buildings. This is especially strange when you consider the multiplayer mode, which involves protecting your team’s power core while trying to take out the opposition’s.
Everyone is on the offensive in multiplayer. You might, like I did at first, build up your forces, protect some important resource points, and keep an eye on your power core, but you won’t make many friends, and your allies will probably blame you for the loss. Maybe they’re assholes, but they might also be right. If you’re not constantly harassing the enemy, taking out their Elites, and generally getting up to mischief, then you’re probably not helping.
That’s not really the important bit, mind. Who cares what your team thinks? The real problem is that playing defensively is so incredibly, dreadfully, mind-numbingly dull. Got a couple of guys hiding behind some smoke? Placed someone in the magical shield bubble? Great, you’re pretty much done. Build some more units, I guess? So now you’re bored and you aren’t really helping.
That aside, Dawn of War 3’s multiplayer battles are still great. 3v3 in particular is a glorious mess of clashing armies and territorial punch-ups. Here’s the gist: two teams duke it out over their respective power cores, each placed at opposite ends of the map. To take out a power core, at least one of the turrets protecting it must be destroyed, and to take out a turret, you’ve got to take out the shield generator protecting it. And to keep the conflict going at all times, resource points dot the map and create new objectives for players to fight over.
With so many targets and an escalation system that increases resource generation and building health every 10 minutes, there’s an aggressive, relentless flow to these battles, and first blood is usually spilled within the first minute. With drop pods falling from the skies, buildings teleporting willy-nilly and giant Elite units slaughtering entire squads in seconds, it can be chaotic and sometimes hard to parse, but this chaos is also the source of some of the most exhilarating RTS brawls I’ve had the pleasure to win and lose.
While the constant attack, attack, attack might seem repetitive, there’s plenty of diversity when it comes to choosing how you’re going to be aggressive. See, before every multiplayer match, and to a lesser extent campaign mission, you choose a loadout – three MOBA-like Elites and six doctrines, essentially augments and buffs. These can dramatically change the tone of your forces, or shore up any gaps in their capabilities.
Orks aren’t very sneaky. They are too loud and, let’s face it, too smelly for stealth. But with the right combination of Elites and doctrines, they can be almost as sly as the Eldar. Zapnoggin’, for instance, can teleport groups of Orks into or out of trouble with his fancy Ork magic, while one of their doctrines allows them to hide underneath the scrap they normally use to unlock new weapons and armour, littering the battlefield with potential ambush sites.
Doctrines and Elites require skulls before they can be unlocked, however. You can earn a fair amount of currency from the campaign and keep earning it through multiplayer matches. I’m still not entirely convinced by the unnecessarily complicated system, however. You’ve got army doctrines that are, not surprisingly, army wide; presence doctrines, which only work if the Elite they’re connected to is present on the battlefield; and command doctrines that work when a specific Elite is in your loadout. Then you’ve got to take into account levels, because command doctrines can only be unlocked when an Elite reaches level 3, and when it hits level 8 that same doctrine can be unlocked as an army doctrine and… I’m losing you, I know I am.
I’m some 1,600 words into this Wot I Think and you’re probably starting to notice that I’ve been avoiding the campaign. Unfortunately this is not because I’ve been building up to Dawn of War 3’s best feature. Nothing about it works for me. Not the paper-thin characters, not the plodding story, not the endless journeys across maps that keep growing. There are a few individual missions that I’ve definitely clicked with, but as a whole, the campaign is…well, it’s a disappointment. It’s the one place where Relic’s attempt to merge elements from the two earlier games doesn’t really work, and the juxtaposition of linear, scripted missions with base building is incredibly awkward, cursing many missions with a confusing pace.
They usually start out by limiting your army to a handful of squads and forcing you down a bunch of corridors, fighting your way from A to B. Without wrinkles like cover, suppression and resources, it feels more like Diablo than an RTS. Sometimes, that’s the entire mission. A few squads and an Elite, jogging from one end of the map to the other. The majority, however, let you start building a base during the second phase of the mission. That’s when things start to feel like a strategy romp again, with armies duking it out over capture points and assaulting each other’s HQs.
I’d still do terrible things for a more reactive campaign AI, mind you. It feels like enemies never really act unless the invisible director tells them to. When they attack, it’s because they’ve reached that point in the mission when they’re meant to try to take out your base. When fast patrols start scouting and hunting down your minions, it’s because it’s part of a secondary objective, not just something an enemy with common sense would do.
Aside from Homeworld, Relic’s best campaigns tend to be non-linear and based around capturing territory across one or more campaign maps – a simulation of actual warfare. It’s desperately needed here. Without it, there aren’t enough decisions for players to make. From start to finish, the campaign feels like you’re playing someone else’s story, not your own. And while decent RTS campaigns increasingly feel like my white whale, I can usually depend on Relic for something better.
There are moments, many of them, during multiplayer and AI skirmishes, where I’m absolutely certain that Dawn of War 3 is the best game in the series, even with its missteps when it comes to cover and fortifications. I could happily continue rambling on about the brilliant faction design or how I still squeal with glee every time I drop a gargantuan beast of an Elite like Imperial Knight Solaria into a fight – you haven’t lived until you’ve witnessed her impossibly huge guns turning an army of Orks into green-red paste. If you’re only interested in the campaign, however, then you’re unlikely to find as much to get enthused about.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3 is out on April 27th.
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PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.10 to v1.20 Patch - EnglishThe hotfix for the latest patch, which caused a balance issue in Soulstorm. Pretty quick release, I must say.By the way, keep the comments..
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ModsSOUL HURRICANE ModAs Soulstorm was published, I was depressed by the 'Features' that came with the game.First to mention was the damn campaign thing: Why is..
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33 1.39GB
Official ReleasesSoul Hurricane Mod 1.1This mod by Jarok makes several adjustments to the Tao. See File/Full Details for more info.
11 15.42MB
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13 713KB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.00 to v1.10 Patch - SpanishDoWfiles is proud to present to you guys the Dawn of War: Soulstorm Patch!
4 129.36MB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.10 to v1.20 Patch - RussianThe hotfix for the latest patch, which caused a balance issue in Soulstorm.
17 770KB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.00 to v1.10 Patch - RussianDoWfiles is proud to present to you guys the Dawn of War: Soulstorm Patch!
3 129.42MB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.10 to v1.20 Patch - PolishThe hotfix for the latest patch, which caused a balance issue in Soulstorm.
0 749KB
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PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.10 to v1.20 Patch - KoreanThe hotfix for the latest patch, which caused a balance issue in Soulstorm.
Sven co op server how to choose map. If you created another file it would renamed to banana(1), second to banana(2) and so on, even with changed uppercasing (BaNaNa, BananA, ect).
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PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.10 to v1.20 Patch - ItalianThe hotfix for the latest patch, which caused a balance issue in Soulstorm.
1 710KB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.00 to v1.10 Patch - ItalianDoWfiles is proud to present to you guys the Dawn of War: Soulstorm Patch!
1 129.36MB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.10 to v1.20 Patch - GermanThe hotfix for the latest patch, which caused a balance issue in Soulstorm.
4 718KB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.00 to v1.10 Patch - GermanDoWfiles is proud to present to you guys the Dawn of War: Soulstorm Patch!
6 129.37MB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.10 to v1.20 Patch - FrenchThe hotfix for the latest patch, which caused a balance issue in Soulstorm.
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PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.00 to v1.10 Patch - FrenchDoWfiles is proud to present to you guys the Dawn of War: Soulstorm Patch!
8 129.37MB
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0 710KB
PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.00 to v1.10 Patch - CzechDoWfiles is proud to present to you guys the Dawn of War: Soulstorm Patch!
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PatchesWarhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm v1.10 to v1.20 Patch - ChineseThe hotfix for the latest patch, which caused a balance issue in Soulstorm.
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Relic reveals the second of two new races featured in the second expansion pack to its hit sci-fi RTS: the virtually unstoppable Necrons. See them in action, and read our first impressions of the game's new features.
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Games Workshop's influential tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000 has inspired many different PC games over the years, but arguably none so good as 2004's Dawn of War. Not only did it capture the gritty, violent feel of the source material better than any game before it, but the game also did a great job of delivering an action-packed, real-time strategy experience that put the focus on combat, not on base-building or resource-managing. Dawn of War became a hit, and when a real-time strategy game is a hit, you can count on expansion packs adding more of what fans crave. Last year's first expansion, Winter Assault, introduced a new playable race and improved multiplayer features, tiding over competitive Dawn of War players. However, the next expansion pack sounds considerably more ambitious: Not only will Dark Crusade add two new races to the mix (for a grand total of seven), but it will also include a new open-ended strategic campaign, new hero customization options, and more. With Dark Crusade, Relic's intentions are nothing less than to produce 'the greatest expansion pack ever made,' according to one company rep.
Before going into a lot of the other details, let's give a warm welcome to the Necrons, who'll be making their appearance for the first time in a Warhammer 40,000 computer game in Dark Crusade. According to the series' mythos, the Necrons are a long-dormant race that's more than 60 million years old..so, in a sense, they're all long dead. Now these warriors are awakening with intent to harvest the souls of the living to suit their needs. The Necrons have a robotic appearance, reminiscent of The Terminator, and they share in common an inability to easily be killed. As a playable race, the Necrons' distinguishing feature will surely be their propensity to come back to life after being shot to pieces--you'll sometimes see the pieces literally pull themselves back together, stand back up, and keep fighting. That may sound like seriously bad news for the other races fighting over the galaxy, so you'll be comforted to know that the Necrons' significant battlefield advantage should be counterbalanced by the slow, lumbering speeds at which Necron units tend to move.
We got a chance to see the Necrons in action for the very first time at a THQ pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo event. While we didn't get our hands on the game, the developer had prepared an in-engine demonstration of the new races, which gave us a sense of both how powerful the new Necron and Tau units will be, but also how they can be beaten. Necron units will include standard Necron Warriors, which are equivalent to the other frontline riflemen for other races but capable of coming back to life; Wraiths, which are bony, flying creatures that can rip apart units if they can get their claws on them; Scarabs, which are swarming buglike creatures that can overwhelm enemy forces but are highly vulnerable to explosive damage; and, of course, the Necron Lord, who is leader of the Necron army. In one scene we saw, the Necrons seemed on the verge of losing a pitched battle against a Space Marine squad..but all of a sudden, the Necron Lord casts one of his ultimate abilities and the entire defeated army gets back on its feet. You can imagine what happened next to the Space Marine remnants. And if that doesn't sound bad enough, consider that the Necrons' ominous black base is capable of transforming into a nearly invincible flying fortress, bristling with extremely powerful weaponry. As a Necron player, you'll constantly be challenged to decide whether to invest in more troops or build toward this final weapon.
While the Necrons will likely appeal to players who like to do the equivalent of slowly strangling their opponents, the Tau will be Dawn of War's most accomplished sharpshooters. In the Warhammer 40,000 mythos, the Tau are the closest thing to being the 'good guys.' A relatively young race, they preach unity and enlightenment across the galaxy, accepting new allies with open arms..and ferociously defending against those who would threaten their lives. Tau Fire Warriors stride into battle wearing high-tech battlesuits and wielding deadly pulse rifles. The withering firepower from these weapons is usually sufficient to bring down most foes, which is fortunate for the Tau, because they aren't nearly as proficient at close combat as a lot of their rivals. Exemplifying the Tau's strengths is the Tau Commander, equipped with a jetpack for great mobility, missile launchers, a plasma rifle, and more. The best advice is to not get anywhere near this guy, and yet, seemingly the only way to bring him down is engage him up close. Overall, the Tau seem like they'll be well suited to players who like keeping their foes at a safe distance. And their impressive-looking battlesuits, reminiscent of anime robots, give the Tau a distinctive appearance even among the other heavily armored races in the game.
Next, we'll tell you about the game's strategic map and other new features. The new races may be the obvious new attraction, but Dark Crusade's strategic campaign sounds like it'll add a lot more meat to the single-player experience.
Conquering Kronus
One of the relative weaknesses of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was its relatively brief single-player campaign, which focused exclusively on the Space Marines, pitting them against three other races. The Winter Assault expansion introduced the Imperial Guard as a playable race (they made a cameo appearance in the original), and its two tag-team-style campaigns let you play from multiple perspectives. As a result of the added variety, though, the campaigns felt a little disjointed. Dark Crusade seems like it'll be built off of the lessons learned from these first two Dawn of War outings, but we'll have to see if third time's the charm in this case. What Relic has lined up certainly sounds appealing, that's for sure.
The game's strategic campaign will let you wage war in an attempt to wrest control over the planet of Kronus--a planet that seems to hold a great, great strategic importance, since all seven of Dawn of War's races want a piece of it. You'll be able to conquer the planet (or at least try) from the perspective of any of the game's seven races, and Relic tells us that the storyline will be different depending on your choice of race. (Presumably you won't be able to play as the Imperial Guard unless you own Winter Assault.) What's more, the order in which you attempt to conquer the territories on the map is going to be your choice--this isn't a straightforward linear campaign as in the original Dawn of War. Instead, this Risk-style strategic layer is reminiscent of games such as Medieval: Total War or the War of the Ring mode in Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II (or, for you RTS old-timers, even the original Dune II). However, bear in mind that this isn't a full-fledged sequel but an expansion pack building on an already-solid foundation. It's exciting that the single-player campaign game will be structured so much differently than what we've seen from Dawn of War thus far, and the result has the potential to give Dawn of War tremendous single-player lasting value beyond the skirmish mode.
So what happens when you capture a territory on the strategic map? We didn't get to see it in practice, but Relic reps told us that territories would absolutely yield strategic benefits. You'll earn an additional resource by conquering parts of the map and be able to spend it on reinforcements, such as in defense of regions you've already occupied. So if one of your enemies tries to reclaim one of the territories you rightfully took over, they might find some nasty surprises waiting for them when that battle begins. Presumably allegiances can be forged and broken during this battle. Should one side start to take over a majority of the map, it'll pay for any remaining races to band together, at least temporarily, to slow the encroaching threat. Of course, a lot will ultimately depend on how well the game's artificial intelligence plays on a strategic level, as well as on the tactical level. Whatever the case, the mere idea that you'll get seven different stories rolled up in this one epic-scale campaign is quite exciting all by itself.
The new strategic campaign demonstrates Relic's intent of making the Dark Crusade expansion all about player choice, as opposed to forcing players down a particular path. To that same end, Dark Crusade will be introducing another feature that many Warhammer 40,000 fans have surely been hoping for: the ability to customize your hero units with high-powered wargear. As you win successive missions in the campaign, your army's leader will continue to gain prestige, and with it comes certain perks that can help him live longer or make his enemies' lives a lot shorter. Custom weapons and new special abilities, as well as improved armor and other wargear should be available, and each of the different races will have its own options to choose from. These upgrades are reflected visually on the game's nicely detailed character models and should help make you feel more attached to your army's hero character as the campaign unfolds.
All that's being added to Dark Crusade sounds like it should do a lot to make an aging real-time strategy game feel fresh and interesting all over again. Though the developer won't be making radical changes to the previously available Dawn of War races, having two completely new races to play around with should introduce all-new levels of strategic depth--and Relic reassures us that they've been working hard all along to make sure all the races end up being well balanced once this expansion is ready. We're looking forward to seeing how it all pans out and bringing you more information along the way. Dawn of War: Dark Crusader is scheduled to ship sometime this fall.
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