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

[rogueshadows]

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?

i recommend finding somewhere people play regularly. the worst thing that can happen is you get an army and then don't heve anywhere to play. there's usually someone who will happily tell you all about the different races, and help you pick an army based on what you want to do. [hint: if you want to sit there and have a firefight, dont pick 'Nids.]

 

[Calax]

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?

Gaunts Ghosts, Ultramarines, and Space Wolves series are all good reads.

As to DOW, I personally prefered the linearity of the first two games over the risk gameplay of the later iterations. Mainly because the Risk stuff lost alot of the personality. Dark Crusade was OK, not great just OK. One of the things people liked about it was that the Chaos leader wasn't a raving psycho, he was calm and collected. And the HQ fights had alot more personality to them than the other levels (they usually had scripted sequences and chats between commanders).

Soulstorm was a clusterbomb of terrible design, Models for Sister battle tanks were incomplete, they didn't bother to change the tool tip of the Daemon Prince's info in the wargear information section, the resource bug (you'd stop construction on something and get more money back than it take to start construction). The campaign was even blander that DC, the HQ fights were unimaginative and often had you just going from point A to Point D hitting every point in between.

The biggest problem with DC and Soulstorm was that the campaign maps were made up of skirmish/online maps. These maps could sometimes get as large as an 8 player map when you were dueling the computer which often left you sending your forces hither and yon to find the enemies base.

:shrugs:

 

[Wargamer]

I love Dawn of War, and Winter Assault, and even Dark Crusade (providing I'm playing Multiplayer, and there is no Unit-Spamming), but Soulstorm hurt. Physically hurt.

I think the original Dawn of War has one of the greatest intros I've ever seen. It manages to sum up all of 40K in a minute or so of pure, unrelenting mayhem. No mean feat.

 

[Wargamer]

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?

Hmm... Dawn of War 1 & Winter Assault are two really good videogame adaptations. Dark Omen is a very old game now, but also does a great job of combining the Warhammer Fantasy Universe with excellent gameplay.

Most other GW games are best labelled 'for fans only'. Firewarrior is a good example; a mediocre FPS that takes such disturbing liberties with 40K that it hurts. It's difficult to explain why to the uninitiated, but let me give a few examples.

KAIS KILLS 100+ MARINES (Imperial and Chaos) IN THE GAME
Equivalents -
A single Grunt in Halo kills Master Chief, and all the other Spartans.
A single Imperial Stormtrooper (not Clone) in Star Wars kills all of the Jedi in the universe.
Any generic henchman being able to take out Justic League, or equivalent.

Put simply, a Firewarrior is a professional soldier, born and raised. A Space Marine is an eight foot God of War with three lungs, two hearts, acid spit and almost Chimeran regenerative abilities. He's armed with a rapid-firing rocket launcher and wearing a suit of armour made out of the same stuff you build tanks out of. In short, he's a near-invincible killing machine. One squad of Marines can take out an entire platoon (60+) soldiers.


THE TAU REPEL A BOARDING ACTION FROM AN EMPEROR CLASS BATTLESHIP, COUNTER-BOARD AND WIN
Equivalents -
The Empire losing the opening battle in A New Hope.

Let's just try to just explain the situation.
First, Tau suck at boarding actions - they prefer long-range firefights. Also, the Imperials have Space Marines (see above).

The Emissary Class Starship is about a mile long, and built as a 'bit of everything' ship; it's a light support vessel when battle kicks off, but it's mostly for trade and exploration.

The Emperor Class Battleship is seven and a half miles long, and exists solely for war. It has no other function than to blow up spaceships and to blast cities from orbit. It's crew are trained and equipped for boarding action... and even if it came down to sheer numbers, they outnumber the Tau by countless thousands; they have five hundred men manning each of their Dorsal Turrets alone!


WEAPON BALANCE IS JUST SILLY
No equivalents needed here - it's just a fact. A "Chaos" Bolter is more powerful than an "Imperial" Bolter, even though they are both identical weapons. The Pulse Rifle isn't very strong (when it should be one of the strongest guns in the game), the Pulse Carbine fires explosive grenades (should be flash-bang equivalents), the Rail Rifle was actually made up just for the game, but later appeared in 40K... in short, just about every weapon is done incorrectly.

In terms of 'in game' performance the weapon set is pretty fair, it just has no correlation with its universe setting. Again, if you need other examples, I suppose it would be like claiming the Desert Eagle is 'weaker' than a Colt SAA revolver, for no other reason than you start with the DE and get the Colt on Level 4.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

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?

Look for Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM! It's a Warhammer 40,000 COMEDY series, basically Flashman in space.

Eldar are a bunch of evil bitches who Relic blatantly refuse to balance against the other races because of pure developer bias. Their troops are insanely overpowered in embarrassingly un-fluffy ways (troops in heavy armour can fleet-of-foot, base-raping Fire Dragons get the clamped boots that make them impossible to knock over when it should be Dark Reapers who get those) and their relic unit, the Avatar, is simply sick because it gives them a large boost to maximum troop and vehicle cap, something no other race can do at all.

And for all the whining about necrons, they're currently the weakest race in the game to the point of being almost unplayable.

 

[Calax]

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?

Look for Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM! It's a Warhammer 40,000 COMEDY series, basically Flashman in space.

Eldar are a bunch of evil bitches who Relic blatantly refuse to balance against the other races because of pure developer bias. Their troops are insanely overpowered in embarrassingly un-fluffy ways (troops in heavy armour can fleet-of-foot, base-raping Fire Dragons get the clamped boots that make them impossible to knock over when it should be Dark Reapers who get those) and their relic unit, the Avatar, is simply sick because it gives them a large boost to maximum troop and vehicle cap, something no other race can do at all.

And for all the whining about necrons, they're currently the weakest race in the game to the point of being almost unplayable.

... Wow, you are the exact opposite of most people who complain about the game.