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Download link (latest version)

Latest hotfix: Fixed bugged Sentinel build time. Fixed Sentinel Missile Launcher. Inquisitor and Commissar Lord upgrades no longer affect their bodyguards.

Upcoming changes and additions: The Hive Tyrant and Chaos Lord need changes to match their background. Orks may be underpowered. Free-for-all victory point display is still bugged. The Sentinel squad formation is a bit too tight and will be loosened up. IG HQs may become mobile reinforce points, as a buff both to them and to their faction at large, and to further play at the individual expendability of individual Guard soldiers and the vulnerability to command structure damage (change in testing). The Inquisitor and Commissar Lord models are invisible in the menu; this is due to some error in the squad coding that will be fixed eventually. Heretic Worship formation is a bit glitchy, this will be fixed.

What is Forbidden Lore?

To sum it up, it is a lore mod.

Retail Retribution is horribly designed with lore in mind. Devastators are much weaker in melee and much more fragile than Tactical Marines. Catachan Devils hit harder than Nobs in melee combat, and harder than Warp Spiders in ranged combat.. The list can be made very, very long. It is also rather unbalanced and has many AI and pathing oddities.

There is already a very popular mod called ELITE that changes the AI, adds new units, and many other things. Forbidden Lore does other things than ELITE and changes unit sizes, abilities, costs, stats and more to make the game match the background more closely rather than aiming for a competetive game result, though it should be noted that I will do my utmost to maintain balance as well.

It should also be noted that I do not wish to get drawn into a background drama situation. The background can be interpreted many ways and this is one that I believe makes sense with the theme and style of the 40K universe.

Now, since you have read this far, you probably want to know exactly what the mod changes! Here is a list:

Summary of hanges from retail Retribution

For full list of changes, see further below.

All races have had their popcap raised from 100 to 1000, and the upkeep threshold raised from 30 to 100
Many corpses are now permanent.
Many units have been entirely reworked. Astartes are stronger. Eldar are stronger. Some Tyranids are stronger. Guardsmen and cultists are weaker. Vehicles and monsters are stronger. HQs are stronger.
Resource income increased.
Various fx changes, especially with Bolt weapons.

I am currently looking for people to help playtest my mod. There's a lot of bugs to find, balancing to do, etc. Everything helps. Or hell, just play it!

For best results, also use Yandros' size fix mod.

Thanks to:

Copernicus for the mod tools

Screenshots of the mod: COMING SOON

Full List of Changes

Note: in all instances where a unit has simply 'become more powerful', or 'become weaker', the price has been adjusted accordingly.

General



Space Marines



Imperial Guard



Tyranids



Eldar



Chaos Space Marines



Orks



Gameplay videos:

Version 0.3 is in the works. Horde melee as well as certain Guardsmen units has been made cheaper due to elite squads being smaller (Which means fewer models can squeeze around each elite squad), Banshees, Raveners and Warriors have been reduced in squad size but increased in health, damage and cost per model another time, and the Banshee Exarch is now a separate squad like the Sergeants.

Wraithguard and Warp Spiders are next on the list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Version 0.3.0 done, Wraithguard have been reduced to 1 man squads and Warp Spiders to 2 man squads. Download link in OP updated.

Looks interesting, it will be nice to see how this compares to the DoW2 Elite mod created by Caeltos.

Elite is good but for another audience. Elite is basically 'Retribution+', building onto the game with new units, balance changes etc.

My mod changes the tactics much more significantly and rips up existing things a lot, but is also intended to end up balanced.

Hopefully I'll recieve permission to add certain Elite units like Chaos Terminators to my mod.

In other news, I am going to buff Guardians and take Warriors and Raveners back to 2 man squads.

MEQ are unable to deal with other units swamping them in bodies atm so I'll reduce their weapon cooldown.

Very interesting, was going to ask about this VS EM too but you have covered that well.

From initial impressions are many people using your mod - I mean from a player base perspective and interest?

Many people? Not in the slightest! I very recently made it public and it is still in its clunky beta stage. I only have a few playtesters atm.

But yes, elite simply wants a better game, whereas my primary intention is to make it fluffier and more immersive, while retaining balance.

Thats cool

You guys can expect version 0.4.0 to be available for download later tonight if all goes to plan.


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Did some playtesting yesterday. We agreed that

Warriors and Raveners should be moved back to 2 man squads

MEQ bolters need better rate of fire in order to counter the hordes of other races

This in turn means Eldar will need buffs, especially Guardians




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Further playtesting will be needed to ensure I get the cost of units right as I go along.

Any help is appreciated.

V0.4.0 is ready.


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I think vehicles need to be made stronger and more expensive, but I am not sure by how much. I also need Ork players to come with their opinions on how Orks need to be changed to make their units have fluffy stats compared to other races.




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Download link updated.

Beta build 0.5.0 is ready and going up now. Changes have been added like:

MEQ, Warriors, Wraithguard, Nobs and certain Commanders are now Large instead of Small.

Aspiring Champions and Tactical Sergeants give your allied infantry units a damage buff in a small area around them to give the player further incentive to consider adding a Sergeant to their army instead of just spamming Marines with special weapons, or the cheaper-but-often-equally-damaging CSM.

I think I will recode the mod from the ground up, but this time base it on Elite. This is because Elite is effectively Retribution +1, making my mod better if I base it on it without any loss. Assuming I get permission from the creators, of course. Stay tuned.

Seems like something I may well end up trying at one point, and well any change is welco0med to DoW 2 Retribution, seeing how the game was horridily flawed

Today I toyed with fx. I thought, despite Bolt weapons being rapid-fire science-fiction high explosive shells, they do not actually do very impressive explosions on impact- in fact, pretty much none at all! I decided to change this.

I made Space Marine bolters use the sm_sniper_high_powered impact fx, and their heavy bolters use the sm_assault_cannon_explosive_barage fx. (Yes, they actually made a typo in the coding.)

Chaos bolters use the ch_missile fx and their heavy bolters now use the ch_autocannon_dreadnought fx.

Many targets killed by Bolt weapons will now be gibbed.

Heavy bolters now have a small AoE.

Heavy bolter damage is less extreme at close range but higher at long range now.

The result? CARNAGE!

I will implement this in a future version, for now I am still awaiting permission to base it on Elite.

The Elite version of this mod has been shelfed for now- still no response from the creators and all viable versions of Elite are currently bugged as hell (I want a GK Brother-Captain, not a '6257375 No Range', dammit!).

I will work on enhancing my vanilla mod instead until I get updates on this.

The elite bug was fixed, I will get to work on it soon!


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I decided to name the mod 'Grim Future'.

I am working on the next version still!

Got response from Cealtos and recieved permission. Grim Future will now be based on Elite, that is, it will include all the pathing and AI enhancements as well as the new units.

Many thanks to him for that!

Version 1.0 is complete! I am starting the upload now.


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1.0 available for download!


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Found an error on mediafire. I will upload it via dropbox instead.


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Argh, I have found an error. I will have to fix this.

May take a little time.

Until then, you guys will have to use the clunky devmode version of the mod- still fully playable, just harder to install. I will upload it soon.

Necroing to ask people a question. Due to a massive coding fail on my part I will have to start over with the mod, but since this would mean many hours of work, I will only do it if there is interest.

If I rebooted the mod and made a playable version, would you try it out?

Will it work if I just have Chaos Rising, or will I need vanilla DOW 2 to make it work?

My mod is designed for Retribution.

What is that? an update? After all these months?

That's right! After ages of downtime and redoing the mod several times, I now have the Forbidden Lore mod (as it's been renamed) ready for alpha testing!

Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines and Imperial Guard are ready for testing, the other races are not changed yet.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/107871650/Forbidden%20Lore%20Alpha.rar

Just follow the instructions and tell me what you think!

WHERE DO I SIGN UP!!! POP OF 100!! YES!!!1!!1!One!!!!

but no seriously are orks working yet?

Downloading anyways

Orks are scheduled to be added in the next beta build!

My main issue with the idea of a lot of pop caps being raised is that for some armies like imperial guard and the persistent corpses though fun would make the game run slower. Not everybody's PC might be able to handle that even though the game is sorta old.

I do enjoy the idea of persistent corpses. If i remember the old DoW 1 had that option and it was fantastic to see at the end of the battle. If i remember some corpses went away as it probably would've made piles otherwise.

Other than all that i will congratulate you for what you've done. I have no idea how to mod things but you seem to have done well with it. It'll be nice to see guardsmen as the human spam army that they are.

It is true that it takes some CPU, but you can lower your settings if you like to compensate. I think it's well worth it for the sheer glorious carnage, and each dead Marine should be painful - the corpse should remain to remind you of the loss. (Or, if you are the one who killed him, to remind you of this accomplishment.)

Guardsmen will indeed be very spammy. Large amounts of Guardsmen will be key to the army, providing noticeable firepower through sheer numbers. You will need a lot of them though. I am considering lowering their price further.


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To clarify, Orks, Tyranids and Eldar are fully playable in the current version of the mod, but they are likely to be underpowered and they are very poorly balanced in terms of fluff compared to other factions.

User discretion is advised.

Updaaaaate!

Tyranids and Eldar have been designed and implemented, but Orks must still be done. Once they are, I will prepare the next version for you to download.

Tyranids have mostly recieved obvious changes in cost, squad size, health and damage to bring them in-line with the fluff, but the Eldar have recieved more numerous changes:

All Eldar infantry are now 1-man squads.

All Eldar infantry units except Wraithguard now have very low health for their price (including commanders) but have an 80% chance to dodge all incoming attacks to compensate.

Banshees, Warlocks and Warp Spiders of all types now passively jump/teleport over cover.

Two new units: Warlock (melee support psyker) and Howling Banshee Exarch (Lethal melee combatant ideal for supporting Banshees)

Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a teaser, here is a preview of the Space Marine bolt weapon effects in my mod.

Those poor guardsmen. My sides.

That noise you hear is Vakathi jumping out a window.

 Ashiraya wrote:

All Eldar infantry are now 1-man squads.

When you say 1-man squads, do you mean, say, a "squad" of Banshees is just a single fighter?

When i tried to download it my Computer said it didn't know what program to open it with, but I'd love to play test your mod if i can get on it. I am not amazing on computers, Elite had a lovely installer for me which did all the work then! I am interested to see how you Eldar work, it sounds unique and fluffy.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
When i tried to download it my Computer said it didn't know what program to open it with, but I'd love to play test your mod if i can get on it. I am not amazing on computers, Elite had a lovely installer for me which did all the work then! I am interested to see how you Eldar work, it sounds unique and fluffy.

Read the instructions.

It's a .txt file that should be included in the compressed file.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

All Eldar infantry are now 1-man squads.

When you say 1-man squads, do you mean, say, a "squad" of Banshees is just a single fighter?

That is correct.

Each 'squad' of Banshees is now a single model, but they still have the same cost and damage per squad (ie five times as high damage and cost per Banshee) as they have in normal Retribution, and with the addition of the dodge mechanic they also have the same effective health.

Next update!

Orks, Tyranids and Eldar are ready for testing, and as such, Forbidden Lore has now entered its Beta stage!

What I need now is data from playtesters, as the long and painful struggle towards game balance begins.

Download link updated in OP! Alternatively, use this link:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/107871650/Forbidden%20Lore%20Beta.rar


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Updated download link with a tiny bugfix.

Current known issues: Victory points in non-Annihilation games are not displaying properly. I am still trying to figure out where the bug has happened. Until then, consider playing Annihilation unless you want quite unpredictable matches.

Heretic worship animations are glitchy as all hell.

Theupgrades for the Inquisitor (and Commissar Lord?) are currently also granted to their retinue. Looks amusing, but is very OP and unintended.

Chaos Lord is possibly overpowered. IG HQs may be underpowered.

Eldar health is going to need a lot of testing to get right.

Heretics (and Ork boyz?) might need to be cheaper still.

Guardsmen's repair ability becomes OP because you can have so many. Nerfs will come.

The Baneblade needs to become stronger (and accordingly more expensive) to place it at its home, the top of the superunits.

Going to look into formations and hitbox sizes later on - for example, if you have a 'combat squad' of 4 Tactical Marines and a Sergeant, their default formation is too widely spread.