Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Preview

To further deepen the strategic experience, Relic plans to include leader (often screen-clogging gigantic) units for each of the factions, like the Chaos' Blood Thirster, which thrives on battle and spilling the blood of its enemies, or the Ork Squiggoth, a giant armored elephant that has guns coming out everywhere. In addition, the players will control squads of units instead of individual ones; only vehicles will be represented as individual units; and they'll be able to pair together hero units and squads. This will allow for added protection, more firepower as well as increased morale of the troops.
But the wealth of strategy options doesn't end there. You can modify each of the squads with different kinds of advanced weaponry. So you can have two guys with plasma guns, and two guys with flamethrowers, in a squad of four. Or you can have a squad made up completely of heavy bolters. These are some of the finer tactical nuances that will make all the difference in multiplayer matches and will certainly make the single-player game more enjoyable.

Not very stylish, but they are highly effective.

Now THIS is what I call a death animation!

Furthermore, the terrain will play a vital role, as a squad of Space Marines might easily get wiped out by a squad of sniper-happy Eldar if they're strategically positioned on higher ground. Add a few mortars to the Space Marines squad and they'll be able to suppress the sniper threat with artillery fire and advance up the hill with relative ease.

Finally, squad morale will often influence the outcome of a battle. This is certainly a nice reference to the tabletop game and it implies that when the morale of a particular squad is low, their combat effectiveness will drastically decrease making them easy pray for the enemy. Relic has been adamant in pointing out, however that even though they might become hamburger meat in battle, these demoralized troops will remain under player's command at all times, meaning they won't tuck their tail between their legs and run from the battlefield on their own accord. However, when demoralized, the squad's agility will most likely increase, so if you decide to pull them out of battle, they'll be able to head back to safety faster than other troops.

In all honesty, I could go on and on about the wealth of strategy options in Dawn of War, but there just isn't enough room in a single preview. Instead, I should point out that in order to bring the Warhammer figures to life, Relic had to make sure that the 3D engine is able to boast some of the most spectacular visuals in a strategy game to date. The Warhammer universe has a very distinct visual identity and after seeing the game in action, I was immediately drawn to the colorful and rich folklore, with each of the races having a very distinct visual appeal. But what's really spectacular about the Dawn of War 3D technology is that it features probably the most detailed unit animations I've ever seen in an RTS. Seriously, units can die in a variety of ways, and there is a multitude of death animations available for most of them. When you zoom in on the action you'll be able to see the Orks taking mighty swings with their war axes at the Mech-like units and bits and pieces of flesh and blood spraying all around as meat meets metal. It's not a pretty site in a way, but then again it is, as the art style feels like a mix of Blizzard's work and something we'd see in a Total Annihilation game. This in turn ensures that while the combat is gruesome and juicy, it's fairly detached from reality and as such it is extremely fun for fantasy players. I was hella surprised to see the Ork pony tails swing left and right as they spread destruction and the extremely fluid martial arts moves used by the Eldar. Or even to see the units winking in a real-time strategy game! It's this amazing attention to detail that will truly bring the board game figures to life. I guess it's only fair that this is so seeing how much time and money it takes to paint each of the miniature figures required to play the tabletop game. In a way, the extremely detailed units are Relic's homage to this great passion of the Warhammer fans. (Ed. - If that's what you want to call it.)

And in case you're wondering about the type of system specs needed to play Dawn of War, you should note that in one of the interviews a member of the development team said he uses an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro with a 1.5 Ghz machine to test the game, and that "it runs great even at this early stage of development."

Speaking as someone who hasn't been thrilled with the way Warhammer games have worked out on the PC, I must say I am truly looking forward to Relic's Dawn of War. Hell, they're a developer with a proven track record, the game looks great, and the Warhammer universe offers such a wealth of information and marketing clout that I simply don't see how this game could fail. Speaking as a fan of RTS games, I can't bloody wait to get my hands on this one when it ships to stores this fall for the PC.