Warhammer 40: Dawn Of War: Dark Crusade

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

There's an expansion pack out for Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War. It seems to be moving in the direction of the Total War, combining a turn-based planetary campaign with RTS battles and upgradable Individual Characters. Plus, 2 new races, including the Tau and Necrons. I picked up the full version today at Target, and apparently it's a 'stand alone' expansion, meaning that the original Dawn of War and the Winter Assault expansion aren't needed. All 7 races(Marines, Chaos, Eldar, Ork, Imperial Guard, Tau and Necron) are playable with just the expansion BUT if you only have this expansion, you can only play Tau or Necron in online multiplayer. Seems kinda stupid to me.

Anyway, the campaign mode looks very cool. The overall map is divided up into 25 territories. And your goal is to conquer all of them. However, you only get one active army, led by a Named Character unit. Your territories are defended by garrisons you can place in conquored territories, plus any buildings you make when attacking a territory stays there. Each territory battle is like a simple skirmish battle, but each faction has a home territory with a stronghold and scripted events. The extra cool thing is that, as you conquer, your leader gets stronger, and you get more wargear and abilities for him. Plus, I'm not sure how, you get an 'honor guard' for him, containing stronger versions of standard units. The AI seems to cheat, though. The player is constrained by population caps, fairly low population caps, at that. The AI seems not to be. I've had my base get attacked by a force which should theoretically be impossible while I was attacking their base, which was filled with yet more units.

Tau are surprisingly powerful, two squads(of 6 each) can cut down 2 full squads of marines without taking a single casualty. They seem to be lacking an artillery unit, though it may be one of the Kroot units which I don't really use.(Crisis Suits FTW!) Necrons are quite interesting. Only their worker units can capture strategic points, they don't use requisition, only power. What capturing strategic points does is increase the speed at which units are built. Most of their infantry are slow. Annoyingly slow. Flayed Ones look really cool, 'cuz they walk like zombies. Their base structure evolves, eventually, into a Monolith from the table top game. It can move, produce units, and teleport. Teleport! I teleported into the middle of the AI(Orks) base, and it singlehandedly destroyed the whole goddamn thing!

[Bushmeister]

Sounds like Tau are too goddamn cheesy T_T But that's cool, that's cool. What I liked about the original DoW before the latest balancing patches was that it wasn't necessarily always fair for every player. Just adds more challenge to it. Oh well - time to get back to overrunning people's bases with an endless stream of green Orky Boyz!

They should have added Tyranids tho.

[Gongsun Zan]

The SM in the demo were nerfed, for obvious reasons, btw.

[Farmer Reil]

They should have added Tyranids tho.

Edited October 14, 2006 by Cap'n Jean-Luc Picaaaarghd

[Bushmeister]

They should have added Tyranids tho.

They've said that they won't add Tyranids because "they wouldn't be able to do them justice". Which sucks

[Farmer Reil]

Anything that is still standing after three turns of fire from TWO Dark Angels squads AND a Mortis Dreadnought (with 2x Plasma Cannon of course) is seriously broken

That much Plasma could wipe out several ARMIES

Luckily, most Necron players that take 'liths don't have many Warriors. so winning the game is far easier than destroying the damn Monolith.

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

The SM in the demo were nerfed, for obvious reasons, btw.

Edited October 14, 2006 by Fanku Kaibutsu

[Farmer Reil]

Speaking of Broadsides, it doesn't make much sense to me that the Broadsides suits are buildable long before the Crisis suits.

I have discovered what passes for Tau artillery. It's called "Missile Barrage", a researched ability for the Skyray tank.

And I don't know if they've changed the Rhino, but last time I checked, it generally sucked. The Tau's troop transport, however, doesn't suck. It can carry 3 squads, and is stealthed.

Edited October 15, 2006 by Cap'n Jean-Luc Picaaaarghd

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

Unless I'm missing something, though, Broadsides are generally better than Crisis suits, plus they deploy in packs of 3 and have no cap for how many you can have, while Crisis suits are deployed singly, and you're limited to 3 total.

That's another change, elite units are limited like that. At least the player's elite units. I doubt the AI is constrained like that.

Fire Warrior squads can have 8 units- 6 soldiers, 1 squad leader(who can huck grenades) and 1 shield drone(which gives them an energy shield for a short time.)

Edit: it seems Rhinos and Chimeras can carry 3 squads as well. Have Rhinos always been able to carry 3? Rhinos still suck, since they have weak armor, no weapons, and are about the same speed as walking. Chimeras are cool, though, because the infantry inside can fire from weapon slots(which should be a feature on rhinos as well, but..)

Edited October 15, 2006 by Fanku Kaibutsu