Warhammer 40k: DoW - Series Retrospective - "Snatching Failure from the Jaws of Success"

[Scorched_Cascade]

When I play DoW with friends we have a rule "no necrons" not becuase I consider them hard to beat but it just doesn't make for a fun game. If someone plays necrons everyone bum-rushes them at the start and wastes their structures meaning the player is out straight away and on the rare occasion we forget whos playing necrons and let them live they make an unstoppable army of fast teleporting things backed up by veichle killers and massive artillary (the monolith).

Just for reference I used to play chaos tabletop (purely because I hate space marines and their players and consider chaos the "funnest" to play) but in DoW I play elder for fast movement, sneaky reasource grabbing and dummy webways all over the map. A fair few times my friend has thought he had my base mapped only to find I'd ported it somewhere else while he was building an army and as soon as the army left the base my army decloaked in the center of his base.

On topic-a nice review even though I have to say my order of preference is dark crusade>dawn of war> winter assault>soulstorm.

 

[Mr Jack]

I found it stopped being fun when you had squads of invisible chaos warriors running round the map with heavy bolters.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

I found it stopped being fun when you had squads of invisible chaos warriors running round the map with heavy bolters.

You could make chaos marines invisible?!

 

[Mr Jack]

I found it stopped being fun when you had squads of invisible chaos warriors running round the map with heavy bolters.

You could make chaos marines invisible?!

In one of the expansions they made it so the "Infiltrate" ability, which could be given to Chaos Warriors, worked indefinitely, even while firing their weapons. It was a bit broken. You could have units in hand to hand and they wouldn't be able to fight back.

 

[Mr Jack]

I found it stopped being fun when you had squads of invisible chaos warriors running round the map with heavy bolters.

You could make chaos marines invisible?!

In one of the expansions they made it so the "Infiltrate" ability, which could be given to Chaos Warriors, worked indefinitely, even while firing their weapons. It was a bit broken. You could have units in hand to hand and they wouldn't be able to fight back.

Edit: It was really annoying as only a very few units could reveal them. Sorry about the double post, its really lagging for me right now.

 

[GloatingSwine]

In Dark Crusade they made infiltration not shit. Before that point there was literally no point using it, it was a novelty, but little more.

This makes the interplay between infiltrators and detectors much more important than it had been before. You have to plan ahead to get detectors out to counter any infiltrators the enemy might have. It seems like Mr Jack never quite mastered that little nuance.

 

[Mr Jack]

In Dark Crusade they made infiltration not shit. Before that point there was literally no point using it, it was a novelty, but little more.

This makes the interplay between infiltrators and detectors much more important than it had been before. You have to plan ahead to get detectors out to counter any infiltrators the enemy might have. It seems like Mr Jack never quite mastered that little nuance.

I never really got into the computer game, but having played the tabletop version first it just seemed a little nonsensical.
In the earlier games Infiltrate did seem rather useless, but I think they went too far in the other direction, that's all.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Dawn of War is deliberately very different from the tabletop games. (GW get The Fear when they even get a whiff of people being able to play their game without buying mounds of plastic and metal and paints)

 

[goodman528]

I agree with what you said. This is why the people over at Relic forum crucify me every time I hint at the possibility of a new expansion to Company of Heros. CoH is a very good game for RTS fans, now you can get it and the expansion for like $20, it's more tactical than DoW.

I think THQ should learn something from DoW and CoH, and never ever make another expansion pack to their future games, ever.

 

[Madlarkin]

Dark Crusade ad SoulStorm made me laugh.
The former was hilariously unbalanced in someway, everyone had their imbas and then when they fixed the balance more or less, the bring in the most game destroying bug ever.
I spent many hours on that game, watching my autoscore go up and down.

Sisters of battle where immensely fun, until you realised they're not worth a damn unless you have tonnes of faith powers.
That's what killed the game for me in SS, the two new races had something other than the two main resources.
One was hilariously easier to gather than the other.
Granted, the orks had their waaaagh too but that came with sticking up waaaagh banners, we all know how they turned out.

The game was really fun, just imbalances and bugs ruined it.
Hence why it gathers dust upon my shelf now, rather than being installed on my pc.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

The worst part about the whole series is that I have to have something like 15 gig of space dedicated to one game because otherwise I don't get everything out of it... I love the game and if the online lobby system had worked as well as Battle.net I probably would still be playing it, however, it sucks, they haven't released a single patch for it (even though they have been promising patches since release) and there are multiple game breaking bugs that make the game impossible to trust online.

I absolutely and completely loved vanilla DoW with every fiber of my being. Winter Assault was fun to play on it's own, however, multiplayer was broken because you could amass ridiculous super armies of unstoppable final tier units so every game became a rush to the top. Dark Crusade was better but there is no doubting that the Necrons and Tau were severely broken and never truly fixed. Soulstorm was and is fun, however, the Necron nerf stick was applied too liberally, the Tau are quite possibly the most broken race in the game, and SoB and DE bugs that break online gameplay are still present after all of this time.

I'm excited for DoW2, however, given DoW's track record I'm not expecting anything amazing. What I can expect given the current evidence is a buggy half-finished game with crazy amounts of unrealized potential and a lazy and/or incompetent developer team which can't fix any of the many problems which will likely still be in the game at release.

 

[Geamo]

I was one of the first to grab the first DoW, after battling on the tabletop with my Black Templar army. At this point, I had been playing RTS' such as Rise of Natios, and this blew me away. The campaign was sucky, but I beat it anyway. Nothing felt more fun to me than getting multiple squads of tanked-up Space Marines and supporting them with mech units.

Winter Assault was nothing brilliant in my opninon. Imperials were fine and great, but one of the key units that I use with them wasn't implemented until Dark Crusade. Campaign was still so-so.

Then came Dark Crusade. This was a revalation, as I had bought a new computer at that time and the prospect of installing only one game was fun. However, waaaait a moment, I can't play as Space Marines online? *sighs and installs DoW*. The introduction of two new races were pretty good. Tau were lethal, although beatable. Necrons...well, let's just say I dreaded attacks by them. Imperial Guard became my ultimate defensive force; many a game went by holed up.

Then came Soulstorm. *insert faint-hearted cheer*. It didn't bowl me over. It was, to a word, meh. Flying units? You could keep 'em. Multi-world campaign-meh, yet again.

Now DoW2 is coming out. I'm interested at the tack they are taking towards it, more focused on squad combat. Cover should be used properly, as i'm rejoicing about.

Solid review.

 

[Necron0398]

Thou shalt not insult the Dark Crusade!

I first played Soulstorm. I thought, "Wow! This game is awesome!" and then I played DC.
It was... IS so very awesome.

 

[Neosage]

If anyone didn't know soulstorm has been patched...twice.

 

[Silvertongue]

If anyone didn't know soulstorm has been patched...twice.

That's what I was about to say. x3

 

[SkinnySlim]

I've always avoided the Warhammer games, both tabletop and PC/Console, but was recently introduced to the books (Horus Heresy), and I'm impressed. That series is well written, and I have never had much interest in that particular genre. So, now that it has my interest, what is a good intro to the games? I've seen Battlemarch, but know nothing of it, or any of the other games. Any recommendations?

 

[Ursus Astrorum]

I enjoyed the original DoW, as I did in Winter Assault, but I absolutely loved Dark Crusade. I now had all the races I play tabletop with at my disposal. I honestly love Imperial Guard the most, generally using the shock troops as canon fodder while Sentinels blast away and my Basilisks are raining Earthshaker rounds across the map. Ah, good times....


Oh, and a very cheap thing to do with Necrons: Build an army and max out your cap. Get them all killed, via scuttle or battle. Then max out your caps again and get your Lord to resurrect your original army. You wind up with a nigh-unstoppable force, and you don't even need a monolith.

 

[ace_of_something]

The style of play is almost the same of "Impossible Creatures" at least the resource Gathering. Which was also made by relic. Just throwing it out there.

the fact that I still play Soulstorm with friends and online, speaks volumes to the game. On tabletop I played Dark Eldar and Witch-Hunters; which are the races introduced in SS. I still like Imperial Gaurd and Dark Eldar the most in DoW

I hold High Hopes for DoWII

 

[GloatingSwine]

Oh, and a very cheap thing to do with Necrons: Build an army and max out your cap. Get them all killed, via scuttle or battle. Then max out your caps again and get your Lord to resurrect your original army. You wind up with a nigh-unstoppable force, and you don't even need a monolith.

Doesn't work any more. You can only get Cap +5 max with 'crons since DC 1.2. (Mostly because of how broken it was to let you res everything).

Of course, there was a classic defence against the old "field o' corpses" attack pre 1.2 as well.

Necrons march in, die, wait patiently for resurrection.

Builders scuttle out and build minefields all over the corpses.

Necron Lord wanders in, hits res, boooooom, army flies everywhere, dies again straight away, slow ass army gets face full of pie (Necrons don't like pie). Shit necron detection capability means either scarabs have to come to front (and die easily to a turret or something) or the mines go undetected.

 

[rogueshadows]

firstly, good review.

Thats kind of what I like about the 40k universe, as I understand it from DOW. None of the factions are the good guys. Theres some kind of horrible, unending dark age that's turned everyone into jerks. All the armies are motivated by religious persecution, xenophobia or just plain evil. I think it's kind of supposed to be hopeless and depressing.
Actually the Eldar and maybe Tau seem like they're not too bad.

The T'au are quietly-xenophobic communists with the technology to waste just about everyone else. The Eldar are a dying race full of bitterness that their glory day is passed and now they just want to shake their walking sticks and tell the kids to get off their lawn - pity those walking sticks fire burning electric death.

The Orks just wanna party. And by party, I mean kill you and everyone else around you. For the fun of it. WAAAAAUGH!!!

The Dark Eldar want to do the same, but more slowly and more painfully. Because they like pain. Giving and receiving.

The Necrons are even more bitter than the Eldar, but can't express it due to being cold metal. And before you can cry "EMO!" at this misunderstood kids, remember they can (and will) flay you and drape your skin over themselves.

And of course, the various humans...

The Imperial Guard is filled with meatshields, wearing nothing but a flak jacket and packing a flashlight shaped like a rifle. Doesn't matter how many die, plenty more squeezed out every day. And you know, executing your own men does wonders for improving fighting spirit!

The Adepta Sororitas take everything awesome about faith, and turn it into flamer fuel. They like to burn and burn and incinerate and burn. Don't worship the Emperor? BURN!! Refuse to bow to the Ecclesiarchy? BURN!! Think we should go left instead of right? BURN!! Bitches.

The Hordes of Chaos - demons aside - are pretty much the same, but replace BURN with GUT THEM ALL, and just change every other word to BLOOD!!! and a bit of FOR THE BLOOD GOD just for good measure. Wackos.

And finally, the sole hope for the Imperium and all Humanity - the Adeptus Astartes. Space Marines. Finest of the Imperium. Pity they're a bunch of over-zealous man-boys with big guns and the poor sense to shoot first and not even bother with the questions.


So yeah, nice and bleak. And great for a little bit of escapism.

this is so utterly true. i might add that the tau etherials practically brainwashed the vespid into joining them. seriously. think communion helm.

it's funny. i picked my (metal and plastic) army by flavor: the dark eldar are just so unabashedly EVIL! and then started reading online that they were "really hard to play" still, though i have no chance against nids, the space marines and necron just keel over and die, and that's what's important, isn't it?