Unlike real-time strategy games past where each unit has a specific function with a few ways to differentiate through research upgrades, Dawn of War II lets you gradually accrue an assortment of wargear throughout the campaign that can dramatically affect functionality.

It's up to you which four squads to bring into any mission, as well as how to equip them. Aboard the starship Armageddon you'll only ever amass six squads throughout the campaign, and you'll never build a unit-producing structure you only capture relays and buildings to reinforce squads and net other bonuses. As a newly promoted Force Commander for the Blood Ravens chapter of the Space Marines (genetically altered superhuman soldiers) you'll battle against the Eldar, Orks, and menacing Tyranids to save your home planets. This time there's a far greater narrative element that's woven into the action. Instead of constructing a linear, mission-to-mission campaign, Relic has opted for an reworked version of the persistent campaign map that showed up in the Dark Crusade and Soulstorm expansions to Dawn of War. In the campaign, you'll play strictly as the Space Marines, and though both modes illustrate Relic's move to eliminate base building, the campaign is the more obvious example. Video Review - Watch or download the video here (HD available). In the skirmish mode, you can participate in 1 versus 1 or 3 versus 3 matches online with others or against AI-controlled opponents of several difficulty levels using Tyranid, Eldar, Space Marine, or Ork armies. In the campaign, Relic gives you the option to play cooperatively, with those participating working together to vanquish the enemy, though it's only the host who reaps the persistent rewards. The game is divided into a campaign mode and skirmish mode, all of which feature multiplayer. It's a game that, like Massive Entertainment's World in Conflict, slices the strings that bind genre entries to tradition, and in the process emerges as something as strange as it is familiar, that sometimes stumbles in its newness but still manages to find its footing.

The notions of persistence introduced in the expansions to the original Dawn of War have been expanded, the cover system and destructible environments from Company of Heroes imported, and the capture point mechanic for resource acquisition built in and simplified for the skirmish mode. In its place have been fused elements of role-playing games, whereby the squads you control in each of the campaign carry over mission to mission, grow, and evolve according to what gear you decide to equip and what skills you decide to improve. Now with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, Relic has smashed apart a major pillar of the RTS formula by eliminating base building. It's been the standard operating procedure of the real-time strategy genre since Dune II cemented the foundation.

Build your base, order your troops, and command them in the field of battle.

Warhammer dawn of war 2 review ign