Warhammer 40,000: Dark Crusade

By CSL
October 11, 2006 16:13 PM PST
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PROTIP: Essensce of the Nightbringer is a fearsome weapon, but make sure to bring along some support for when your Necron Lord reverts back to his original form.

Calling In Reinforcements

Like Winter Assault, Dark Crusade gives each of the older factions--Space Marines, Chaos, Eldar, Orks, and Imperial Guard--a new unit to play with.The ever enjoyable Space Marines have been given Grey Knights, an extremely powerful melee-centric unit that finds its niche fighting demons. Nefarious Chaos players get to play with the Daemon Prince, an upgrade to the Chaos Lord which can wreck an impressive amount of damage.

The Imperial Guard's Heavy Weapon Teams offers a portable defensive strong-point that, when properly upgraded, will prove effective against any unit type. The Eldar have been given the Harlequin, a fast moving and extremely deadly melee fighter which can literally fly about and raise untold amounts of havoc. Finally, Ork players can arm themselves with Flash Gitz, exceptional ranged attackers who've got a bunch o' guns and want to shoot some humies.

PROTIP: When selecting war gear during the campaign, make sure to select pieces that will help against your nearest opponents.

Campaign Trail

New races and units aside, the unexpectedly impressive campaign mode is perhaps the best surprise put forward by Relic. Distancing themselves from the linear structure of the previous campaigns, Relic has instead outdone itself once again, putting together a turn-based strategic level campaign that brings to mind the dynamic feel of Rise of Legends. With a mix of scripted and skirmish missions, the campaign never feels like it's stuck on rails. Each turn players can move their army, headed by a customizable hero, into an adjacent territory, with the aim of taking sections of the map away from the enemy. All in all, the decision to move away from the linear series of scripted missions has done wonders not only for the single-player experience, but also for the replayability factor, which is much higher than in any other previous Relic game.

While it only offers as many options as you might see in a simplistic boardgames such as Risk, there are plenty of additional little quirks. For instance, a level of hero customization has been added, letting users to outfit their commanders with items that can increase, among other things, health, speed, and damage. Likewise, the capture of territory allows you to add special persistent units to your army, these will stay with your army until they are destroyed, and they are particularly helpful in holding your base against early attacks.

Expansive Expansion

Dark Crusade is an excellent addition to the Warhammer canon and feels more like a full-fledged product as opposed to a thrown together expansion. Fans of the original Dawn of War would be insane not to rush out and add it to their arsenal. Those who've neglected the series thus far would be wise to do so as well--after all, an expansion pack of this quality only comes around every couple years.

PROTIP: Training honour guard units takes valuable requisition points, which may leave you hurting in the late going. In a prolonged conflict, don't train anything but the most valuable units, such as Dreadnoughts.