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Demo is out. You get to about half an intro movie for Sisters, and playable Dark Eldar for a single story battle and skirmish map.

Flying units look like they are going to be done just like they flyers in Starcraft - Weaker hovering vehicles that ignore terrain and can't be shot by half the units out there. As usual in DoW there's a cap on them, so don't expect to build a huge air force or anything. The DEldar were capped at 3.

Dark Eldar seemed kinda neat. They build like protoss from starcraft - as in you need a builder to start the construction, but then he can leave to do whatever. There's an overall low amount of clickable abilities per unit, but a new feature for DEldar is a spell-bar just above the minimap that gives you a lot of nifty psychic power-ish effects in exchange for souls which you harvest in the field (or from slave pits in your base).

Most of their specials revolved around screwing up morale of course, and since you're playing against space marines in the demo, these powers didn't really do a whole lot. I could definitely see it having an impact on most of the other races though. A lot of units with jump capability, which is cool.

In the infantry department, you've got mandrakes from the HQ, which are essentially your scouts. Archon (reinforceable incubi retinue), warriors, wyches, warp beasts and scourges from your troop production and hellions from your vehicle factory. All of the DEldar infantry seemed geared towards anti-infantry combat, with the exception of scourges, who can be upgraded with dark lances. In fact, there was very little overall in the list to tackle vehicles and buildings. Maybe they'll get haywire grenades on wyches for release - or there's some other possibilities I missed. Haemonculi fill the secondary HQ 'sorceror' role, couple of nifty effects in there including the ability to blow up corpses.

For vehicles: the jetbike is translated to a vehicle that's sort of like the IG sentinel with the ability to uncap enemy points. The raider is definitely cool. It can carry a squad which will keep shooting while loaded (sorry no scourges), and it has a nifty jump that can be targeted on enemy units for a grenade like effect. The talos behaves like a CC dread, with the ability to harvest souls in the field (which is handy since the builders are really too weak for that). The flyer was ok, 3 of them could handle an upgraded listening post without a casualty. Finally, the ravagers and the super-unit, the dais of destruction, are shooty death tanks from hell. They shredded infantry like nobodies business, complete with a cool special attack that shoots a sweeping beam of death from the dais.

Anyways, go check it out!

Moz wrote:There's an overall low amount of clickable abilities per unit, but a new feature for DEldar is a spell-bar just above the minimap that gives you a lot of nifty psychic power-ish effects in exchange for souls which you harvest in the field (or from slave pits in your base).

Harvesting souls? Cool!

Psychic powers? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

You have a link?

Thanks,

Darrian

I used the torrents here: http://www.gameupdates.org/details.php?id=2129

Fileplanet et al. are also good choices.

Here's the fileplanet link
http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/dawnofwar/

Not exactly psychic powers in a sense, but effects they can get off with enough soul fuel.

All in all a nice demo. Had quite a time on the 2nd scenario. Tanks are the DE foil.

Thanks for the link and info. I am still waiting for the ultimate Company of Heroes/Dawn of War combination for ultimate funnyness+awesomeness!

Greets
Schepp himself

Toreador wrote:Not exactly psychic powers in a sense, but effects they can get off with enough soul fuel.

All in all a nice demo. Had quite a time on the 2nd scenario. Tanks are the DE foil.

talos seriously tear up anything in hdh. also loads of hellios squads and maybe some scourges with dark lances, ravager (without updates) and of course the dais of destruction are the way to go.
another way is to cripple vehicles with the raven and then tear em apart quickly, the "stun-effect" is rather short-living tho

That was cool. Last night I was reminded how bad I am at DoW, but also saw that Dark Eldar are really quite cool and very much deserve a new book and model line. Think my favorite units in game are haemonculus, mandrakes (they're demonic?!) and the talos naturally. The basic warriors are groovy too, and witches are fun.

Did no one else find it weird that every leader model gets to tote around a splinter cannon instead of the grunts getting them as upgrades? Bizarre on pure combat units like witches or the archon ...

- Salvage

I findf micromanagement at RTS too difficult, I prefer turn based games, otherwise there is simply too much to do.

remember the demo isn;t the finished game thigns will change, for example the dark eldar didn't have a proper flag pole to capture points.

Also is it me or are the blood raven commanders becoming more and more douche, the one in the mission campaign wth? whine whine moan, was all the guy ever did >.<

the only decent marine commander out of al lthe games is the ultrasmurfs chaplain in WA, Bleugh stupid thq they really need to get a better diaologue writer and you know a voice acter that doesnt' sound like he has pole shoved up his arse

I wish they would stop adding to it and just make a DoW2 with a more customizable engine. That said though i would love to see some incubi animated!

They just need to release this game so I can sit in my office for 3 days killing things with Sisters over and over and over. The anticipation is killing me.

That reminds me, I need to buy more towels.

i played it for a while today, and i finally got the trick on most units. by far my favorite unit is the dias of destruction. that darkwave thing it does is NUTS, i moved upon 30 or so blood angels (no lie) and let that thing rip, killing them all. as an added bonus, one of the special "soul" powers you get lets you refresh all the abilities of one unit intatnly, so if for some reason i needed to kill another 30 or so marines ASAP i could just click that and go for it.

harvesting souls is easy, you dont even need an enemy, you can make slave chambers that spew out blood on a timed release, giving you a steay, albeit slow supply off essense.

the best "soul" powers i have used extensively were the refreshing rage one and the corrupting cloud, squads of marines hit by that that are are already getting shot die ASAP. i also like the one that reduced the moral of everyone on the board, i really didnt use the other 3 that much.

as per units, the heomonculus is a nice squad addition, not migh of a CC fighter. archon and crew can rip damn near anything apart, as can that talos, as a added bonus the talos can harvest souls, which makes him have a great dual purpose when im done killing and there is a lull until the next wave of meat comes my way.

some of the units i didnt use, warp beasts didnt appeal to me, nor did the new flyer of jetbikes. i think i used one single jetbike to run around and snatch req points for my warriors to take. i used the raider alot, with wyches and warriors for support. used the ravanger x2 in my last game and they can pump out alot of fire.

the DE defonatly need alot of skill to use correctly, there was a few times where the blood angels just came fast early on, and i almost lost it. the slave chamber's bump back thing helped alot, and upgrading req point listening towers to the max is also a must, the fire support is needed, as the DE seem to not get turrets OR mines, both of which i enjoy using with other armies.

im reallty waiting for the sisters though.

FearPeteySodes wrote:I wish they would stop adding to it and just make a DoW2 with a more customizable engine. That said though i would love to see some incubi animated!

DoW2 is being worked on. The engine will be enhanced to handle more things, which has lead to Tyranid rumors.

Yeah, but it sounds like they want tabletop style 40k. I
don't know if that will happen.

Do you guys know of any cases of crossover, where a
videogamer played DoW and then switched to Tabletop?

Yes. I played DOW, thought it was amazing and then started playing 40k. True story.

I liked it despite its flaws. I was a little put off by the changes such as splinter cannons for squad leaders and some units with ranged weapons not having them. What would have really made this expansion for me would have been the Dark Eldar having pirate voices instead of the voices they have.

Ahtman wrote:

FearPeteySodes wrote:I wish they would stop adding to it and just make a DoW2 with a more customizable engine. That said though i would love to see some incubi animated!

DoW2 is being worked on. The engine will be enhanced to handle more things, which has lead to Tyranid rumors.

Yea right there....

Thats the spot.

Dark Eldar are nice. I like the warriors doing drive by's with their raiders. That's a cool thing! Also scourges are cool. Maybe if GW redoes Dark Eldar it will have plastic scourges in it and then there will be evil swooping hawks. harhar.

Other then that: I'm getting a bit bored by all the races. It's like, yeah, nice race and all, but the game itself is a bit dull. Nothing uncool dull, but could use a bit of fresh air, all the funky new special powers just cannot cut it.

But definitely worth a try!

Greets
Schepp himself

malfred wrote:Yeah, but it sounds like they want tabletop style 40k. I
don't know if that will happen.

Do you guys know of any cases of crossover, where a
videogamer played DoW and then switched to Tabletop?

I got into tabletop 40k by way of DoW, but then I used to play other wargames table top too, so that might not count.
I did draw my old roommate into 40k by way of DoW though.

Wehrkind wrote:

malfred wrote:Yeah, but it sounds like they want tabletop style 40k. I
don't know if that will happen.

Do you guys know of any cases of crossover, where a
videogamer played DoW and then switched to Tabletop?

I got into tabletop 40k by way of DoW, but then I used to play other wargames table top too, so that might not count.
I did draw my old roommate into 40k by way of DoW though.

I can see where it would be way easier to corrupt somebody w/ it so i cant say im surprised.

didn't read the entire thread, but any dates set for a release yet?