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Note: This review is going to focus on the single-player campaign elements of the game. I did not care to test or play the multi-player version of the game, and thus will not be commenting on that in this review. I recently received Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and began playing it this past weekend. As you may know, the Warhammer name comes from a miniatures game (i.e., not a computer game) from Games Workshop (GW). To borrow the official description of the game from its web site: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is a revolutionary science fiction real-time strategy (RTS) game set in the violent, post-apocalyptic universe of the 41st Millennium. Utilizing the exceptional game design skills of Relic Entertainment, Dawn of War provides an immersive entertainment experience of epic proportions. Command hardened troops, deadly vehicles and high tech weaponry with one goal in mind, the complete extermination of the opposition. That should give you a good picture of this title. It's a real-time strategy with a sci-fi theme to it, in which Space Marines and their enemies battle it out on planetary surfaces.
Resource Management
As with any other RTS, Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War requires the player to perform resource management in addition to battlefield strategy. The game features two separate resources to manage: Requisitions and Energy.
Requisitions are obtained by capturing and holding the "Strategic Points" scattered around the map. The more Strategic Points held, the more Requisitions will be accumulated.
 Strategic Point In addition to the "normal" Strategic Points, a second kind known as the "Relic" is also available for capture. The Relic generates slightly more Requisitions than a standard point and also (in most cases) helps provide other bonuses for the team (or may serve as an objective).  A Relic Being Captured
Energy is accumulated by building and operating one of two types of generators. The first type of generator can be built near a heaquarters or a captured strategic point, and looks like this:
 Generator
The second type of generator produces more energy, but requires the player to locate a slag deposit first. Slag deposits look like this:
 Slag Deposit
Once the slag deposit has been located, a thermal generator can be built on top of it. Thermal generators resemble the following:
Generator
By keeping the generators running and maintaining control of Strategic Points, the player accumulates resources which can be used to build units, vehicles, and structures. This can be a critical part of winning the game. Without sufficient resources to build new units and vehicles, the player will eventually be overrun by the computer-controlled forces. With a large "income" of resources, the player can generate an almost endless stream of warriors and vehicles with which to attack the enemy.
At the "Normal" difficulty setting, it was relatively easy to generate all the resources needed to overcome the computer controlled opponent. The key to success was to begin capturing Strategic Points as soon as possible, fortify those locations with defenses like turrets and mine fields, and periodically check in on them. Because generators can be built as needed by the player, as long as the generators are defended, the player shouldn't run out of this resource.
Constructing The Buildings
The first building the player needs to construct, if it isn't already built, is the Stronghold:
 Stronghold (HQ)
This building is both the most-critical part of the player's base of operations, and in some ways the least important. Without a Stronghold, the player can't produce other buildings and units. The building itself produces both Scout Units and Servitors (to be described later). The Stronghold can produce research to improve the player's army's effectiveness and can be upgraded to provide access to additional types of units and buildings.
The next building the player will likely construct (again, if not already built) is the Chapel-Barracks.
 Chapel-Barracks
This building produces the infantry units needed to attack and defend. It can also perform research which improves the power and effectiveness of the units produced by the building. Initially, the structure can produce only the Marines and Assault Marines. Constructing additional buildings unlocks other unit types.
The next building the player will likely construct is the Armory, which makes it possible to improve the fighting ability of the units and unlocks the ability to build additional structures:
 Armory
Once the Stronghold is upgraded, the Machine Cult and Sacred Artifact structures. The Machine Cult resembles the following:
 Machine Cult
The Machine Cult allows the player to construct a variety of mechanized units, including the Rhino Transport, the Land Speeder, the Dreadnought, the Heavy Dreadnought, and Whirlwind artillery tank.
The Sacred Artifact building resembles the following:
 Sacred Artifact
The Sacred Artifact building allows the player to perform additional research and to upgrade the Stronghold to a Monastery, which unlocks the Predator Tank. It also unlocks the Land Raider, but to build Land Raiders it is necessary to have captured a Relic (similar to a Strategic Point).
The final building type is the Orbital Relay:
image to be added later.
The Orbital Relay provides access to the final unit types available to players, the Terminator Squad and the Assault Terminator Squad.
The only remaining "structures" a player can build are the Turret and the Minefield. These are defensive structures that will automatically attack enemy units that come into range. The Turret, once built, can be upgraded to launch anti-vehicle missiles.
 Heavy Bolter Turret
Minefields, like their real-world counterparts, explode when enemy units or vehicles pass over them. Unlike their real-world counterparts, these minefields won't explode when a friendly unit or vehicle passes over them.
 Minefield
The Turret and Minefields are useful for providing "automated" protection for critical structures while the player focuses attention on conquering Strategic Points, Relics, and destroying the enemy. Another useful defensive structure is the listening post. A Listening Post can be constructed on a conquered Strategic Point:
 A Listening Post
The Listening Post provides increased Requisition resources but has no defensive capability. To add defensive capability, the player must upgrade it to a Fortified Position. This arms the Listening Post and defends it against infantry. A second upgrade turns the Fortified Position into a Heavily Fortified Position. The Heavily Fortified Position features a more powerful turret that is effective against both infantry and vehicles. Heavily Fortified Position
To truly gain an advantage over the enemy, it is important to build all of the structures as soon as possible, as this makes the most advanced and powerful vehicle and infantry units available.
Infantry Units
The lowest-level infantry unit, if it can be called that, is the Servitor.
 The Lowly Servitor
The Servitor is the workhorse unit that builds all the buildings, installs Listening Posts, places Turrets, lays Minefields, and repairs vehicles. In combat, they are virtually useless, as they have no armor to speak of and no weaponry.
Next on the list is the Scout Marine Squad.
 Scouts
The Scout Marine Squad has some combat capability but is somewhat weaker than the other units. This does not make it an ineffective unit, however, especially when combined with one of its primary abilities - the power to turn itself invisible and walk past all enemy units and structures except the leaders. The invisibility power makes it possible to use the Scouts to explore the enemy base, spy on a Strategic Point before attacking it, etc. Scouts can also capture Strategic Points and Relics if they are not heavily defended, making it useful for sneaking behind enemy lines and capturing Strategic Points from the enemy.
The real workhorse of the player's infantry is the Marine Squad:
 Marines
These units travel on foot. They can capture Strategic Points, attack enemy structures/infantry/vehicles, and defend the player's own structures and Strategic Points. Because they are relatively inexpensive from a resource standpoint, the player can produce a lot of them and sacrifice them to achieve an objective.
The Assault Marine Squad is the fast-moving counterpart to the Marine Squad.
 Assault Marines
The Assault Marines are equipped with jet packs which enable them to move rapidly. This speed is offset by their reduced armor and firepower.
The Terminator squad is a rapid-deployment group with high offensive and defensive capability.
 Terminators
When created, Terminators remain "inside" the Chapel-Barracks. When the player is ready to unleash them, they can be deployed anywhere that an infantry unit, vehicle, or building controlled by the player can see.
Assault Terminators are basically the same as their "non-Assault" counterparts.
 Assault Terminators
The main difference between Terminators and Assault Terminators is that the Assault Terminators are more effective at close-range combat.
Another important infantry unit is the Apothecary.
 Apothecary
The Apothecary is a "healer" who can help to maintain the strength of the other infantry units around it. Apothecary units can be assigned to other squads as a permanent part, providing healing when needed in battle. This has the effect of keeping an infantry squad alive a bit longer in a prolonged battle.
There are three additional infantry units that are available to the player at different points during the single-player campaign. First is the Force Commander, who is the leader of the player's assault forces:
 Force Commander
The Force Commander is an extremely powerful close combat fighter with one added advantage. If the Force Commander is killed in battle, he will re-spawn a short while later. This is a departure from many other RTS games, where the death of the commander usually signifies that the mission, or the game, is lost.
Another infantry unit is the Inquisitor.
 Inquisitor
The Inquisitor, like the Force Commander, can be assigned to a squad. When assigned to a squad, the Inquisitor will help to keep the squad's morale up in combat. The Inquisitor also has psychic attacks which can demoralize and damage an enemy.
Both the Inquisitor and Force Commander are able to effectively fight infantry, vehicles, daemons, and buildings. Both are extremely powerful in close combat. The player shouldn't be afraid to use these units in battle, as they re-spawn soon if they are killed.
The Librarian is another unit available in earlier missions (but not in later ones).
 The Librarian
The Librarian is very similar to the Inquisitor in abilities. It has psychic attacks, boosts squad morale, and is effective against a variety of enemy unit types and in close combat.
The Campaign
There are 11 missions in the single-player campaign. Before and after each mission there is a cut scene that provides a story to go with the mission. One of the later cutscenes is depicted below:
 A Cutscene
After the cutscene is a mission briefind that provides additional storyline and gives a rough idea of the objectives of the upcoming mission. (The full objectives are available within the game from the menus in the upper-right corner of the screen.)
 Briefing Screen
The early missions focus on defeating the Ork army. Orks are large, green, brutes who are extremely warlike in nature but not necessarily the smartest creatures in the galacy. Later, the Eldar also come into the battle, along with a third, more mysterious force. The last few battles deal with defeating that mysterious force (later known as Chaos), which seems bent on releasing a long-imprisoned demon.
The next-to-last battle includes an attack (fairly early on) by a demon, pictured below:
 Demon
If the Force Commander and Inquisitor are near the main Stronghold when the Demon arrives, they should be able to defeat it without too much difficulty, though the player should expect at least one of the two units to die (and be re-spawned) before the demon goes down.
The final battle involves both the Eldar and the forces of Chaos. The Chaos forces succeed in releasing the long-trapped demon from its prison. You're required to find an vanquish that demon. It looks something like this:
As you can imagine, this demon is no pushover. It will easily defeat any squad of infantry units, occasionally stabbing one with a sword and picking it up like an hors'douvre, tossing it to the ground, and stomping on it. It delivers force attacks which throw nearby units away from it.
Once the final demon has been dispatched, the game plays a final cut scene and goes to the credits for the developers of the game. The list of names is quite long and will take several minutes to scroll by.
The Winning Strategy
The strategy that more or less won the majority of missions was, sadly, a very simple one that probably works in most RTS games: Capture as many of the nearby control points as possible to begin building up Requisitions. Build as many Plasma Generators as you can at your central location. Harden all your control points Surround your “main base” with turrets and minefields to protect it when you go off attacking. Build up as much technology as you can, as fast as you can. Build as many Space Marine squads as you can, assign an Apothecary (healer) to each one, and equip it with all the weaponry you can. Build as many Tanks and Heavy Dreadnoughts as you can, loading them out with upgrades as well, so that they're as “maxed” as they can be. Build a handful of Servitors (builder robots) to hold in reserve. Begin capturing control points. Each time you capture one, bring a Servitor out to put a listening post on it. Harden that listening post down and put some mines and/or turrets around it to help it hold out for a while if it's attacked. Once the Requisitions and Energy are flowing in pretty well, head for the objectives of the mission. For example, if you're supposed to wipe out all the Orks, head for where you suspect the Ork/Chaos base to be located (e.g., the far end of the map, or “that spot near all the conveniently located-close-together control points”). Blast everything in your path. When you find their base, pump everything you've got into leveling it, to deprive them of new units. Hunt down the stragglers if necessary.
The only slight exception I can think of to this rule is the one mission where it was necessary to use an Assault Marine squad to fly across an otherwise-impassable chasm and land at an abandoned base, claiming it for your forces. Once you made the landing, it was back to the above strategy.
The Review
Having played a number of RTS games in the past, going back to the original Command and Conquer series, they all begin to blur together after a while. The basic gameplay consists of an early scramble to gather resources and build defenses, followed by achieving one or more objectives. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War (hereafter "Warhammer") is no different in that respect. The only "twists" it really adds to the RTS playbook are the capturing and holding of strategic points (which isn't that much different from holding on to resource locations in other RTS games), the ability to attach commanders and healers to squads, and the "tech tree" that results in a variety of unit upgrades that seem to slightly improve a unit's functionality.
The typical RTS strategy works here. That is, early in the mission, the player should seek to gather resources, build defenses, and assemble new structures. As play progresses, the player begins to explore the map and build a large offensive force with which to seek out and destroy the enemy. Once the force is amassed, the player attacks the computer forces with superior numbers and/or firepower and wipes it out. This strategy will work for nearly every mission in the game, so the much-hyped variety of unit types and technology options doesn't do that much to alter the basic gameplay. This is still an RTS, and it still plays pretty much like any RTS out there.
The game's graphics are at least as good as expected for a modern RTS title. They pale in comparison to a game like Half Life 2, but are far better than any of the earlier RTS titles I can remember. Sound effects and voice acting also seem to be fairly professional and polished. The default camera angle works well (but it can be adjusted by the player), and there is very little to complain about overall. Controls for the game are pretty typical RTS controls. You click a squad or unit to select it. You right click to move it to a specific location. While it's selected, you can apply bonuses or upgrades to it (if any are available) through the interface at the bottom of the screen. If you click on a building, you're shown a menu of the unit types the building can produce as well as research in which it can engage. As you complete more of this research, more and better unit types become available to you from the buildings. As some buildings are upgraded, they make additional buildings and units available to you.
One part of the game that is particularly satisfying is some of the more violent animations. It gives a sort of perverse pleasure to see a Dreadnought picking up an enemy infantry soldier, spinning it around, and flinging it away like a rag doll. Similarly, it is even fun to watch the final demon skewering the player's soldiers, throwing them to the ground, and squashing them like bugs. This is something fairly new and interesting about Warhammer, but it's not impressive enough to me to recommend that you pick it up immediately just to see that.
The computer AI is fairly predictable most of the time, but can occasionally throw a few curveballs. The Chaos forces offer a fairly substantial number of unit types and a seemingly accelerated rate of unit creation, so the player will often be overwhelmed by a larger force of superior enemy units. These challenges tend to be infrequent and short-lived, however.
Pathfinding by player-controlled forces is usually excellent, but at times becomes brain dead. The player may select a dozen squads and vehicles to begin an assault, right clicking on the desired destination. Some of the units, for no readily apparent reason, will stop moving somewhere between the starting and ending points of the trip. Other units, with very clear paths for movement, will refuse to move at all, stuck behind some kind of invisible barrier.
The maps in the single-player campaign are generally “wide open” or “forced path” scenarios. The “wide open” maps allow a player to move wherever seems interesting or appropriate. The “forced path” scenarios feel heavily contrived, making you take your units down a very specific path, where you pretty much realize in advance that you'll eventually get ambushed. In case you can't tell from my tone, I hate “forced path” maps because they rarely seem realistic. (They're kind of like watching the typical horror film. “The TV says there's a crazed killer running around my neighborhood. I think I'll leave all the doors unlocked and go take a shower...”)
One interesting feature is the ability to give a unit a "stance" to maintain. For example, "Stand Ground" means that a unit will stay precisely where it is until it is destroyed, while "Attack" will cause the units to chase down enemy forces until they, or the units, die. The "Cease Fire" stance prevents the units from firing. It is generally effective only when the player notices a unit on the verge of death and wants to "rescue" it. If the unit is in an attack mode while dying, attempting to move it anywhere will result in the unit ignoring the order and continuing to fight. By placing it in Cease Fire mode, the player can force it to shrink away from an unwinnable fight and head off for repairs by the nearest Servitor.
The “technology tree” you have to follow is repetitive and annoying. Each time you start a mission, your technological progress on the previous mission is “lost”. For example, you might have researched every available piece of military hardware and upgrade in the game on mission 10, but on mission 11 you have to research them all over again. It just doesn't make sense to me that a military outfit “forgets” or "loses" the tools and techniques that helped them win their last battle when the next one starts. Having a progressive technology tree like Civilization would make a good bit more sense and would be more realistic.
All things considered, this is one of the better RTS games I've ever played. It never crashed, the graphics all worked as designed (as near as I can tell), the sound never stuttered, the cutscenes played smoothly, the controls worked fine, and the AI provided a decent challenge but wasn't "too much". But I must be growing tired of the RTS genre, because as good an RTS as this is, it wasn't that "fun" to play. The same strategy got me through virtually all of the missions, with very little need to vary it. I found myself playing the same combination of unit types in every mission, and ignoring all the rest. (For the record, I used the Marines, Hellfire Dreadnought, Predator Tank, and Apothecary pretty much exclusively. So much for the game's much-hyped variety of unit types and capabilities. I did use an occasional Scout Squad, but not many.)
While this may be one of the better RTS games I've ever played (and I do prefer strategy and simulation games over action and first-person shooters by far), it lacked that element of "fun" that made me want to go back and replay it after I finished the campaign. I'm not even interested in trying the multiplayer or "skirmish" modes out. Given that, I would have to rate this no better than a 7.5 on a 1-10 scale (with 10 being best). Had the AI pathfinding been a touch "smarter" it might have gotten an 8. Had there been some "wow" factor to the game (on par with the same factor in Half Life 2) it would easily have gotten a 9 or even a 10. Unless you're just craving some sci-fi RTS action, I can say that I heartily recommend the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War.
This article contains a thorough review of the game Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War, also known as Warhammer 40K Dawn of War, or WH40K DoW. This text isn't meant for human eyes, though the article is. This text gratuitously uses the word "Warhammer" and the phrase "Dawn of War" to help improve the page's search result ranking. Warhammer 40K Dawn of War is a great game and deserves attention. Warhammer fans from the miniatures world may like it. PC RTS fans will probably like Warhammer Dawn of War (DoW) more than miniatures fans. DoW is a relatively new Warhammer game, based on Games Workshop's Warhammer miniatures game series. There is now an expansion out for Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War but we're not talking about that here.
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