Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War Games pt.1
Dawn of War games are based on popular tabletop miniature gaming from Warhammer 40000 universe. This universe is filled with horrors unimaginable, Warhammer lore is one of the deepest and to read all Warhammer40k material out there would take years, it is a universe more detailed than Star Wars and Star Trek combined. Setting that Holywood still hasn't explored, but luckily we the fans have so many Warhammer games to play and among the best WH franchises are Dawn of War games.
Every DoW game is a Real Time Strategy game, and even if you don't particularly like the setting, RTS mechanics these games offer can hook you for months. In the first part I will talk about Dawn of War and it's 3 expansions, each can be looked at as a standalone game. At the end of Dawn of War run we had 9 playable races, nothing can measure to that amount of variety and imagination, and that is the main reason DoW is my favorite RTS franchise.
Dawn of War
How many fans of WH good excited by this game, a lot. First real RTS trip to WH universe delivered fully and then some. Vanilla game offered 4 playable and completely thematically different factions. Space Marines, or genetically enhanced super soldiers, Orks, or endless waves or green menace that only likes to kill and conquer, Eldar, or stealthy and low in numbers space Elves and last but not the least Chaos Space Marines, Space Marines possessed by the dark gods of Chaos. Story in DoW games is always interesting and if you haven't check this game out try it right now, it still holds great.
Winter Assault
This highly anticipated 1st expansion brought this universe cannon fodder or Imperial Guard, massive in numbers human army with weak but numerous soldiers and huge warmachines like Baneblades, massive tanks piloted by 20 soldiers. Level of over the top tanks this army has is amazing, one of my favorite WH armies. Story in Winter Assault is about scavenging massive titan and awakening of Necrons army that will be explored in the next expansion.
Dark Crusade
Dark Crusade is one of the best expansions ever released, expansion features two new fan favorite races Necrons and Tau. Necrons are long dead race in metallic bodies using gaus weaponry, Necrons are silent slow and deadly. Tau on the other hand are completely different, Tau are the new race in the universe, technically advanced they are using battlesuits or anime looking mechs and also they use a decent variety of alien mercenaries like animalistic Groot and Stingwins.
Soulstorm
Imagine space nuns in battle armors shooting with huge guns, yes those are the Sisters of Battle, new faction in last DoW expansion. Sisters are Inquisition inspired race with all sorts of holy weaponry and incantations helping them beat another new race Dark Eldar. Dark Eldar are perverse Eldar worshiping Chaos god Slaneesh, they use slaves and quick machines of war for hit and run tactics. When you mod this expansion with Ultimate Apocalypse mod you will get a true WH40k experience. Epic!
I have the base version of the game. It's great. Highly recommended. The campaign is suitably grimdark, and the multi-player maps are good, too.
I love how this series brings so many WH40k miniatures to life that we drooled about how cool they look. Interestingly enough I've played more multiplayer in DoW2 while custom maps in DoW were enough to satisfy my inner nerd. Sync kills and ultimate units are just WOW.