Dawn of War: Dark Crusade

The second expansion to Relics high selling RTS game Dawn of War, Dark crusade attempts to go places no one has dared before, and take the race total to 7, by adding in two more highly unique races from the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Joining the never ending universal war of the Space Marines, Forces of Chaos, Imperial Guard, Eldar, and Orks come the young but highly advanced race of the Tau, and the most ancient evil in the universe the Necrontyr.

The Tau lack strong close combat troops and so user their kroot and vespid allies in the game to fill this void. They have two different tech tree routes, called "The Patient Hunter (Kauyon)" and "The Killing Blow (Monk'Ka)". Each takes the army down a different role. One packs more of a punch, whilst the other is more suited for those defensive players by adding in longer range and a few more close combat troops to provide the defensive line. The Tau's strong point is their shooting capability, easily outgunning every other race with both higher range and damage capabilities. With the right mix of kroot and tau to cover both the shooting and close combat aspects they are a true force to be reckoned with. Very susceptable to artillery fire though as they have very low health. Their base unit is the firewarrior, but although these are available quickly and scale to be useful in all stages of the game, very early on only stealthsuits are available to provide defense, which if I am perfcectly honest, are quite useful at anything other than resource gathering until they have a few upgrades under their belt.

The necrons couldn't be more different. Possibly the most unique race Relic have ever introduced to the game, they rely soley on power to fund their economy. As Dawn of War employs an area control system to try and supply resources to most races the Necrons use the listening posts to raise their build speed and unit caps so as to give them requirement to attempt territory control. Necron economy starts fairly cheap, with free base troops and builders, however as their force grows in size the build times of each Necron Warrior squad increases. Only their weak builders can capture points, and are one of their only stealth detectors, a slight downfall in the new stealth system (more on that later). Only their HQ building can produce troops for the Necrons, so the anhilate victory condition of all troop producing buildings is a lot harder for Necrons to keep afloat with, the HQ (Monolith) does become a mobile fortress later in the game, quite possibly the most powerful unit available. Despite their slow nature the army is quite mobile, able to summon warriors to any building, and deep strike the ridiculously powerful flayed ones. One of their most unique aspects that would be welcomed to other races, is the ability to buy wargear for the necron lord, and fully customize him. This gives him the ability of a stealth field, warrior resurrection, and various other things.

At this stage in its development the game is still fairly buggy and in need of balancing, but this is unsuprising for a game with 7 races (one of the reasons he hasn't been attempted before). There are several new features though that differ from the previous Dawn of War games, one of the most evident being the stealth system, units can now shoot while cloaked, and so to balance this the number of stealth detectors has now changed quite a bit. It presents some very different strategies, but can also be a thorn in your side quite often. There are a few other subtle changes such as the ability to build a turret anywhere, but have a limit on them, a lot of the more powerful units are restricted in number also.

A Necron Lord

Each race has gained a unit of their own to make them appealing still, although some are worse than others. Most notably the eldars harlequin is fairly useless compared to the orks immense flash gitz.

Despite being labelled an expansion it is actually a standalone game in effect, not requiring the first 2 to be installed, it only requires them to be able to play the previous 5 races. It is still capable of playing online/in skirmish against the other 5 though, therefore keeping the online player base as 1 block, a wise move on Relics part rather than splitting the fanbase into 4 groups (DoW, DoW+WA, DoW+WA+DC, DC only).

As much as I am growing tired of playing with each of the races as I know them all too well, I still enjoy playing this game online often with my friends, and I'm sure that after the next patch (rumoured to be soon) and sorting of a few balance issues, the other races will become more appealing as they gain a little more of a challenge to them.

If you are a fan or RTS games or Warhammer 40,000, I would suggest trying to pick up the Dawn of War Anthology pack (giving you access to all 3 games) for around £25.