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Dawn of War returns with its third and final expansionWhen Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War came out just under four years ago it didn't revolutionise the RTS genre, but it did offer a compelling, solid, fun and, for its time, spectacular strategy experience. However, it did feel slightly lacking in the playable race department, offering only the Space Marines, Orcs, Eldar and Chaos Marines for future fantasy fans to sink their fangs into. Three expansions and nine races later we've finally got our hands on the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle in what's promised to be the final Dawn of War expansion ever. Having pumped hours into the two new races, stayed up late into the night busting open the ultimately unnecessary single-player campaign meta-game and stared bleary-eyed at the game's new air units, we can confirm that Soulstorm is bloody brilliant and a fitting finale for the RTS franchise. Phew.
First off the two new races. The Dark Eldar are evil incarnate, kind of like the Eldar gone very, very bad. They concentrate on pain, torture and terrible acts of depraved violence. And they love it. And I love them for it. The Dark Eldar, while not the most popular of races among fans, are an intriguing lot. They've got a creepy, crazed feel that should offer the more unstable of Warhammer 40k fans an alternative to the similarly bad but more soulless Chaos Marines.
AdvertisementOn the battlefield the Dark Eldar are best used with run and gun tactics - their high mobility but low durability makes them perfect for quick-fire attacks and even quicker retreats. Because of this the Dark Eldar are a very strong tier one race, but get less useful the longer a skirmish goes on. Their super-powerful Dais of Destruction is more of a spectacular luxury than a useful unit. Better to rush your opponent and try to finish them off before they pump out the Terminators.
The Dark Eldar's hook is the harvesting of souls from corpses strewn about the battlefield. Soul Essence is a spectral resource used to power their sickest and most powerful abilities, some of which affect the entire battlefield. For example, you've got the Screams of the Damned ability, which reduces the morale of all enemies, to the all encompassing Soulstorm attack itself. These special abilities are accessed from a bar above the main toolbar at the bottom of the screen, and consume souls from the Dark Eldar's Soul Essence attack, meaning you'll have to make sure you harvest as many souls as possible from the corpses of your defeated foes.
The Dark Eldar are evil incarnateThe other new playable race, the Sisters of Battle, are an all-female Space Marine/Imperial Guard hybrid who have taken their devotion to the God-Emperor a tad too far. They have an all white angelic look, with halos and Organ tanks (yes, I said organ tanks). They're good all-rounders, durable, mobile, and powerful, but they don't excel in either area. Like the Dark Eldar, the Sisters of Battle won't top many Warhammer 40k fans' favourite race list, but they're worth a few hours of play, if only to hear some of the fabulous lines of dialogue their units have been blessed with.
Unique to the Sisters is their Faith, built up by adding Holy Icons to Listening Posts. In the game Faith acts as a sort of supplementary tier, granting Act of Faith special abilities and access to the Sisters' most powerful units, but in the Dawn of War lore it is the "metaphysical measure of their devotion to the Emperor". Sounds like a dodgy cult to us.
Nothing from the Dark Eldar or the Sisters of Battle, changes the way hardened Dawn of War veterans will play the game. The fundamentally fun take and hold resource based gameplay is as important for both the new races as it is for the Space Marines, Orcs and everyone else. In a way this sums up everything you need to know about Soulstorm - it's more of the same.
Each race has been given air units, a first for the series. These work in almost exactly the same way as ground units except they can travel over all types of terrain. Most are mobile and best used in quick strike attacks. One of Soulstorm's biggest draws for fans will be messing about with their favourite race's new air unit. Unfortunately you can't control their height, which is a bit of a shame, but we understand that this could potentially have caused problems on the battlefield.
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Bloodstorm wrote at 13:43 on 07 March 2008
Got it an hour ago, i'm certainly up for a multiplayer with anyone here tonight or tomorrow if they want.
VERY disappointed that the only new units are air units.........well for 8 of the races at least.
TrampSkillz wrote at 14:55 on 09 March 2008
SO MANY BUGSSSSSS
wyp100 wrote at 16:05 on 09 March 2008
@ trampskillz
bugs? how so? i didn't notice any
Bloodstorm wrote at 09:49 on 10 March 2008
Only thing i dont like in the game now is......
The battle sisters online....they are soooo over powered it makes me so frustrated when someone picks them and the necrons.
Khaine wrote at 22:18 on 10 March 2008
I love Dark Eldar but they need defence, and yeah Necrons kick ass when you know how to use them. But they Immortals are the best unit to destroy buildings, the tactic i use is build as meany as you can kill them all then build more then get then use orb of resurection on them, I garenty you will get loads more units, but then the patch stoped that a bit but you still get more units.
Someguy wrote at 20:58 on 14 March 2008
@wyp100
There are two horrific multiplayer bugs. The poor balance that took months to fix up at the release of Dark Crusade was one thing, but these should have been fixed a day after they were identified.
First, there is the unlimited resource bug from canceling builds with the Sisters of Battle, which is completely game breaking. I personally DC from any matchup with a Sisters player who I don't know, as much as I love being rolled by a T3 army 5 minutes into the game.
Next if you're playing Dark Eldar with an observer, the observer can use your unit abilities and put them on cooldown.
Hunkinatot10 wrote at 21:01 on 16 March 2008
Couple of only concerns with it, the campaign take forever to load. I have top range specs and when i click campaign it takes like 2-3 mins to open up the screen. Then it takes another 2 - 3 mins to tell me that i have conquered a planet then another 2 - 3 mins for me to get back to the actual campaign screen.
I see what you mean about SOB being over powered, but i was playing against an IG army and we were both fully upgraded and both hit each other at the same time and annihilated each others army, there over powered but have the same stats as IG on the table top version which is shit.
Anonymous wrote at 13:05 on 22 March 2008
So it it a big campaign or what? is there weeks of play or a few hours?
wyp100 wrote at 15:30 on 22 March 2008
The campaign is massive if you enjoy it - it will of course depend on what difficulty you play it on, but theoretically, if you were to try and counquer all four planets of the system with every single race on the hardest difficulty, I'd imagine it would take you around 50 hours.
Anonymous wrote at 01:34 on 27 March 2008
i still think the space marines are the best i mean the SOB are just female space marines with new units and resource not really much of a difference
they didnt give a space marine air unit either that disappointed me but at least they still got terminators and deep striking squads
puppies wrote at 17:19 on 22 April 2008
I have just install the game but it keep kick me out of the windows when i start the game. Please help.
GodStorm[R0] wrote at 11:12 on 28 April 2008
Hi there!Well i got ss a few weeks ago and i've been playing it since then.I finished the sp campaign with sob and de(mainly cuz theyr new) at normal difficulty just to see how they are.I feel the de have to much rush power in them but that's not a problem since theyr defense sucks.The sob well i love em'!Theyr a lot of fun to play with all that fire and plasma units.Overall it's a great finale for the dow series(except for the mp bugs :-( ).