Chaos Space Marines were once loyal to the Emperor and to the Imperium. To put things in "perspective", Space Marines are much like the knights of medieval times. They were the exemplars, the elite, the best that humanity had to offer. 10,000 years prior to the main storyline of Warhammer 40,000, the Emperor had embarked on a great crusade to re-unite the galaxy and all of the lost human worlds. He created a dozen or so "Primarchs", supersoldiers that were based on his own DNA (the Emperor is immortal). The dark gods of the Warp - an alternate dimension used for FTL transit in between worlds - did not approve of this and scattered the Primarchs through the galaxy while they were still neonatal. Each Primarch grew to superhuman proportions and rose to be a leader of the world that they had been taken to. Chief among them was Horus. Meanwhile, the Emperor had used the Primarchs as the basic template for creating legions of super-soldiers, now known as Space Marines. Long story short, some of the neonatal Primarchs were touched by the Chaos Gods and slowly became corrupt. Horus - who rose to become the Warmaster of the Great Crusades and the Emperor's most trusted - fell ill on a world recently conquered and he became seduced by the Chaos Gods. Ultimately, over half of the Space Marine Legions turned to Chaos and fought against their own kind in what's now known in the game as the "Horus Heresy". They were barely defeated at the cost of the Emperor's life and they retreated into a realspace-warp space interface known as the "Eye of Terror". The Space Marines you play with in Dawn of War are centuries old and use the latest technologies the Imperium have to offer. But the Chaos Space Marines...most of them have lived on since the Horus Heresy 10,000 years prior to the main story setting because of the corrupting influence of Chaos. Chaos Marines have the benefit of millennia of combat expertise as well as being gifted with dark magics and even demonic possession.
@Courteous_Gentleman: I'll be honest, DoW2 always irritated me. I didn't care much for its small scale and Relic-style balancing (Relic-style being hopelessly-unbalanced-forever-style). Bad balance never bothered me in DoW1, but the current state of DoW2 is making blobs of melee troops for victory. Here's the part where I feel like a fanboy:
Including tau would totally make me overlook this and make me play this game.
In my opinion, Dawn of war 2 was a great single player game and a very flawed multiplayer game.
They took a great idea for the RTS game - focusing on combat and micromanagement - and spoiled it with certain game mechanics.
Certain game mechanics that make some units hard counters to other units. For those who don't know what that means, it means rock paper scissors.
I hope they overhaul the multiplayer in this expansion for soft counters over hard counters. That would mean certain units are effective against certain units, but superior micromanagement can even the odds for the player with the paper vs the one with the scissors.
Ehhh as much as I'm looking forward to this and most likely will buy it, I wish they had gone with a different race to be re-introduced. I'm not a big DoW buff so I dunno all the intracies of the races and such or if the story would even allow some of them, but I think the Necross would have been a better fit with how different they are from the current 4 races in place. Something MAJORLY different, I mean don't the chaos marines act a lot like regular marines in terms of their technology and style? Just more destructive and brutal, sort of a mid point between the space marines and Orks right?
Like I said though I'm not fully in-touch with how all the races work or their story so I may be wrong.
@Armagetiton: Choas is much older tech, as they have had few upgrades since the Horus Heresy. What they do have, as you said, is a lot of Warp-spawned units, such as demons, as well as some demonic tech. They also have the advantage of larger chapter sizes and swarms of mindless cultists who run interference or undermine planets before the main force arrives.
This looks cool. I would have so bought this and DoW2 if I had a computer that could run them. :(
On a side note, I wish I could hear more about that other Warhammer 40,000 action-adventure game they're making. Haven't heard any news on that in a while. Looking forward to it.
Unless they add some sort of base-building mode and a lot more units, count me out.
I loved Dawn of War, and I bought Winter Assault and Dark Crusade the moment they came out... but Dawn of War II for me was just lame.
I hate saying it because I was a huge fan of the first game and its expansions but I played the multiplayer beta and it felt so stripped down compared to the first game. I know a lot of people argue that base building is pointless and Dawn of War II focuses on the combat, but you barely have any units at your disposal either.
I guess that's the point... I'm obviously just missing something here but I really just don't get how it's in any way an advancement over the first game.
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Edited by KnightsofRound at 09/29/09 4:55 AM
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@KnightsofRound: The theory is it's more about the strategy of using a few units rather than build build build rush rush rush.
From that point of view, Dawn of War 2 is the only strategy game that doesn't boil down to building units as fast as you can then swamping the enemy base with them.
Well, I'm buying Dawn of War II and Company of Heroes right now, then. I've wanted to get DoW II for a while, but never wanted to spend a full $50 on it. $25 makes it a must-buy. And although I've never played CoH, I've heard it's really good, so I figure I can afford to spend $7.50 on it to give it a shot.
As an owner of all three Company of Heroes games as well as Dawn of War and Dawn of War II, believe me when I say the Relic has the very best thing going on when it comes to RTS games.
DoW II (for me) was GREAT for single-player, while CoH is better for Skirmish/Multiplayer.
Relic games are half price on Steam. I never noticed. What with the huge multi-banner half-page size ad.
I'm guessing DOW is quiet the money spinner for Steam/Relic if Valve are giving them a great huge sale poster instead of the usual small dinky one in the corner for normal WE sale notifications.
Company of Heroes is still awesome. Playing Dow2 now, but find that though it incorporates CoH mechanics into it, it still feels like a regular RTS.
DoW2's cover doesn't seem to provide as much protection as in CoH. It also often feels that cover tends to get overshadowed by the 41st century's awesome weapons and melee fighting. As such, it feels like a regular RTS slugfest.
But then again, I haven't played it more than 10 times... maybe I just haven't gotten into the intricacies of the game yet.
In my opinion, every one of them is worth getting.
Right now I'm playing through all the Company of Hero games again getting all the medals, it's great fun and the missions are really well scripted.
Dawn of War II's campaign was great fun as well and the multiplayer, while pale in comparison, is still good for a few romps.
The first Dawn of War is great if your looking for more traditional RTS gameplay and the balance now is finely tuned, at least in the original.
Protip: Company of Heroes, as great as it is, is notorius for patching. The game and all of it's expansions together have a lot of patches so if you get all all of the series, be sure to install Tales of Valour first and let it patch, after this, all it should take is entering in the keycodes for the first game and expansion to unlock all the content.
@-MasterDex-:
Too true. I remember back when OF first came out, biggest bitch to patch. EVER. Still rings true with the latest expansion. It puts A LOT of people off, which is why the community kinda dwindles after each major patch, or expansion for that matter. Hell it even put me off. I used to play hardcore competitively online, Until the latest expansion came out.
But it was some of the greatest times i've ever had online, really rewarding if you invest the time.
@Spidery_Yoda: I know but if you were to get all three and install them beginning with the first game then it'd take a lot longer than simply installing Tales of Valour, letting it install and patch(part of the initial install time) and entering the keycodes for the previous titles.
09/29/09
09/30/09
And as far as Google tells me, it's not even a cut and paste job. Well done, sir/ma'am.
09/29/09
09/29/09
Including tau would totally make me overlook this and make me play this game.
09/29/09
09/29/09
They took a great idea for the RTS game - focusing on combat and micromanagement - and spoiled it with certain game mechanics.
Certain game mechanics that make some units hard counters to other units. For those who don't know what that means, it means rock paper scissors.
I hope they overhaul the multiplayer in this expansion for soft counters over hard counters. That would mean certain units are effective against certain units, but superior micromanagement can even the odds for the player with the paper vs the one with the scissors.
09/29/09
Like I said though I'm not fully in-touch with how all the races work or their story so I may be wrong.
09/29/09
Space marines are also more efficient in tactics - while chaos is just that, chaos.
I'm sure the only thing chaos marines and space marines will have in common in this game will be the basic marine squad.
09/29/09
09/29/09
On a side note, I wish I could hear more about that other Warhammer 40,000 action-adventure game they're making. Haven't heard any news on that in a while. Looking forward to it.
09/29/09
Bring on Chaos Rising :)
09/29/09
I loved Dawn of War, and I bought Winter Assault and Dark Crusade the moment they came out... but Dawn of War II for me was just lame.
I hate saying it because I was a huge fan of the first game and its expansions but I played the multiplayer beta and it felt so stripped down compared to the first game. I know a lot of people argue that base building is pointless and Dawn of War II focuses on the combat, but you barely have any units at your disposal either.
I guess that's the point... I'm obviously just missing something here but I really just don't get how it's in any way an advancement over the first game.
09/29/09
From that point of view, Dawn of War 2 is the only strategy game that doesn't boil down to building units as fast as you can then swamping the enemy base with them.
I like that :)
09/29/09
07/31/09
07/31/09
DoW II (for me) was GREAT for single-player, while CoH is better for Skirmish/Multiplayer.
Best RTSs since Age of Empires II.
07/31/09
I'm guessing DOW is quiet the money spinner for Steam/Relic if Valve are giving them a great huge sale poster instead of the usual small dinky one in the corner for normal WE sale notifications.
07/31/09
DoW2's cover doesn't seem to provide as much protection as in CoH. It also often feels that cover tends to get overshadowed by the 41st century's awesome weapons and melee fighting. As such, it feels like a regular RTS slugfest.
But then again, I haven't played it more than 10 times... maybe I just haven't gotten into the intricacies of the game yet.
07/31/09
07/31/09
07/31/09
Right now I'm playing through all the Company of Hero games again getting all the medals, it's great fun and the missions are really well scripted.
Dawn of War II's campaign was great fun as well and the multiplayer, while pale in comparison, is still good for a few romps.
The first Dawn of War is great if your looking for more traditional RTS gameplay and the balance now is finely tuned, at least in the original.
Protip: Company of Heroes, as great as it is, is notorius for patching. The game and all of it's expansions together have a lot of patches so if you get all all of the series, be sure to install Tales of Valour first and let it patch, after this, all it should take is entering in the keycodes for the first game and expansion to unlock all the content.
07/31/09
Too true. I remember back when OF first came out, biggest bitch to patch. EVER. Still rings true with the latest expansion. It puts A LOT of people off, which is why the community kinda dwindles after each major patch, or expansion for that matter. Hell it even put me off. I used to play hardcore competitively online, Until the latest expansion came out.
But it was some of the greatest times i've ever had online, really rewarding if you invest the time.
07/31/09
07/31/09
07/31/09