Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 Review

BY Nabeel Akhtar | POSTED: 17 May 2009

The Emperor never had this much blind faith placed in him.



Dawn of War II is a sequel to the original Dawn of War released in 2004 and its subsequent expansions Winter Assault in 05, Dark Crusade in 06 and Soulstorm in 08 with each one adding another race to the main game and new story to expand on the universe.

The main differences in the game are immediately apparent from the get go. Gone are the units to construct bases and incrementally upgrade your technology to have access to higher level units. Gone is the need to collect resources of any kind. This game is very far removed from the strategy game we knew and loved, but does that mean it’s no longer going to appeal as much? Will it have to bite the bullet? Let’s find out…



The opening cinematic is the first thing that will catch your eye. There hasn’t been this kind of a quality intro since the first Dawn of War game. Without spoiling anything it certainly does entertain and introduce you to some of the unit types you will encounter in the game.

As with most games the first level serves as an intro mission to help you get used to the mechanics of the game and if you have played the previous Dawn of War games it is absolutely necessary, this will help you familiarize yourself with the mechanics. You are an unnamed, (you actually do get to name him to your liking), hero of the Imperium, recently promoted Commander. Your first task is to assist in the defense of a base under attack by the Orcs, along with a squad of Tactical Marines lead by Tarkus.

So far still feels the same, drag click to select all units, and click to where you want them to move. They move to said spot, and open fire on any enemies they encounter. Your hero is a unit on his own, and the marines are a unit on their own. Things are going well until we reach the main area under heavy attack. Now comes the first big surprise, your units can actually take cover behind objects on the terrain.

At first it seems a little added bonus just to give the feeling of cover, the previous games in the series would give you an added defense bonus if you were in a crater of some sort or a defense deficit if you were in a marsh or stream of water. In this game it gives you full fledged cover, of course your units still do take damage it wouldn’t be fair otherwise but the variations on how u can cover a squad are numerous. For example you can have 2 units in cover and 2 units standing in plain hindsight, or any combination like 3 cover 1 out, 1 cover 3 out, etc. There is also the level of cover that is provided by a given terrain object.



Hiding behind trees vs. rocks will show yellow position indicators so that you know that this provides okay cover, but hiding behind rocks or walls shows green indicators showing good cover. While holding the mouse button down to tell a squad to hide behind a particular object, dragging in a direction from said object ensures that the squad will be facing that direction when they take cover. This is especially helpful when you get your Devastator squad lead by Avitus. They need about 3 seconds before they start firing in any direction, don’t be fooled however these are definitely going to be among your favourite units. Among others are the Scouts lead by Cyrus and the Assault Marines with their jetpacks lead by Thaddeus.

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