Dawn of War II

Dawn of War II is the sequel to Dawn of War released on February 19th, 2009. Unlike it's predecessor, it has Tyranids.

It stars Sergeant Avitus, who hates you, Sergeant Tarkus, who is bald, Spike Spiegel (also the Wolverine from Wolverine and the X Men), and a bunch of 'mos. And your Force Commander avatar clearly spends more than the sanctioned amount of time maintaining his hair. Actually, every single fucking space marine officer (with the exception of Tarkus, obviously) in this game does so, resulting in a HAIRESY-ridden gameplay experience. Also features the return of Davian Thule, who tragically lost both his eye and his sexy accent after the fighting on Kronus. Davian Thule can also be called "Davian Cool" in this game.

The game features the Blood Ravens as the only playable campaign faction, and throughout the course of playing they fight Orks, because they’re everywhere, Eldar, who are attempting to slow the Tyranids' progress to their craftworld, and Tyranids. Only three units and your captain may be taken along in any mission, and eventually two sergeants will need to stay home because there are six officers total. There are other drop pods available to carry more men, but it is suspected that Wolverine (or Spike Spiegel) encouraged the rule so that he could remain on board and write bad poetry about the futility of life.

Most of the ridiculous dialogue that started “METAL BOXES” and other memes is now handled typically by Spike Spiegel (who is also Wolverine) and Avitus, who are either very sad or very angry all of the time. At one point, Spike Spiegel spoils victory celebrations by reminding everyone that they’re all going to die some day – he argues the point until everybody agrees and is no longer happy, and then he goes on to say they should save their happiness for when they are dead.

Despite everything written, the dialogue is actually pretty good for a Dawn of War game. Especially when the (relatively, he's around 80) young Assault Sergeant starts reflecting on the melancholy of becoming 'one with the chapter,' you know, if you're into overbearing, melodramatic prattling. Of course, Wolverine (Spike Spiegel) strongly encouraged emotional, cynnical complaining during the monologue. Srsly, Cyrus jumps in to keep the complaints coming in the middle of the monologue.

Also, it was pretty fun to play once through, although repetitive since all the maps are reused two or three times each. There wasn't much point in replaying since you'd have technically already beaten everything twice or more.

Chaos Rising

HAIRESY will be maintained regardless of loyalty!

The expansion is called Chaos Rising and will be released in March 10 2010. In this game, Relic has realized its heinous mistake and has decided to include the Chaos Space Marines and the option to turn your Blood Ravens into Chaos Space Marines.

Featuring a warband of Black Legion Kayoss Spess Mehreens, oh, it seems Eliphas switched allegiances or that it's Word Bearers now, also a bunch of new units(Chaos Dreadnought, awesome Khorne and Nurgle stuff, Genestealer, etc), a corruption meter changed by your actions in game, which determines your Spess Mehreens are chaotic or not, some nice ice planet called Aurelia, and Space Hulk. And according to the developers, no moar missions that are exactly the same. Also! An exciting new character known as Jonah Ossun Orion the Librarian! Who shall become evil and turn to Chaos, as Relic has taught us; niggas and Librarians = evil. It turns out, Jonah is not the daemons, amazingly enough (UNLESS HE IS LOL). Despite being the one with a direct connection to the warp.

Retribution

Another expansion pack coming March 2011, said to re-feature base-building to some degree, multi-faction campaigns and the possible coming of the Inquisition to Aurelia. Characters include Kaptain Bluddflagg, an Ork Pirate guy doing what all Orkz do best, choppin', fightin' killin', lootin', and rockin' a crazy scottish accent while doin' it(0:49 in linked video) but sadly isn't Gorgutz. Other confirmed factions include an Eldar (where you play as an Autarch) and Tyranid campaign where you play as the wait for it....SWARMLORD!!! You play as a Hive Lord, basically a male equivalent of a Norn Queen, for the Tyranid Campaign and the Swarmlord is nothing but a call-in super unit for multiplayer. Sorry. So if you're looking to get your BLAM! on... well, here's your chance. Trailer link

Characters of Note

• Farseer Idranel, she's the incredibly racist Eldar Farseer leading the Eldar on Aurelia. She's more racist than most traditional Eldar and because of this, she spawned the mini-meme "Double Mon-keigh" which is kinda equivalent to Double Nigger.

• Gabriel Angelos, DoW's Gabe. He only becomes more usable in Chaos Rising as a playable character. Will probably return in Retribution, leading the remnants of the loyalist Blood Ravens against Kyras.

• Davian Cool, who makes his return to DoW as a dreadnaught this time around, causing him to easily be an ace in the hole for most missions thereafter. Especially in the expansion, because he can now rip apart enemy vehicles and turn them into health and damage upgrades for the rest of your marines (which mysteriously disappear after your current deployment - he was only using duct tape though). His Alzheimers seems to have improved somewhat, and is capable of speaking more than two sentences before forgetting that he left the iron on back at the chapter keep.

• The Force Commander, who will likely turn to heresy in Chaos Rising (no, not hair-esy, just regular heresy. He's already a hair-etic). Despite being called, 'the youngest Space Marine ever to assume the rank of Force Commander', the Force Commander's voice is provided by the same guy who does Gabe's voice in DoWII. And his voice in the cinematic makes him sound quite old and gruff when compared to Thaddeus. This was likely done because, no one would want to play a teeny bopper voiced Spess Mehreen. EVER. Is also, paradoxically enough, a Guido fuck. Apparently the "best" ending of Chaos Rising never happened, and either the FC or another squad memember other than Cyrus went full traitor. A mysterous "Veteran" who never speaks will take up the 4th hero slot in the Retribution campaign. In other words, frosty the Force Commander killed plenty of heretics and xenos, but fucked up his unit enough to be replaced.

• Avitus, who hates balls-of-steel Guardsmen with a passion due to the Kronus campaign. He was also brutalized by them during childhood, never fully accepting that he probably deserved it. He's also probably going to turn to Chaos and become a Khornate Berzerker, eschewing hundreds of years of heavy weapon experience. During the game he expressed anger at everything, including anger at his own chapter for numerous reasons, making statements bordering on treason by the rigid standards of a Space Marine chapter. He's just an angry guy. He frequently asks aliens to show him their fury; or in fuckwit's terms, to get angry at him. He will also very, very frequently say "more corpses" after leaving yet another Xeno/Heretic dead.

• Spike Spiegal (who is also Wolverine or sometimes even known as Cyrus or Nancy), who will whinge, cry, and generally detest everything and anything that happens as a matter of character and principle. He's trying so hard to be a misunderstood badass. Just so hard, the poor deluded fool - although to his benefit he is hard to understand. It's hard to understand what his fucking problem is, for example. He was probably raped by Tyranids while he was in Deathwatch. Is voiced by the normally hot blooded Steve Blum... What the fuck happened, Steve? In-game however, he's capable of clearing whole maps by himself. WTF.

• Tarkus, who killed a Necron Spyder by shoving a grenade into its head, a clever ploy which led to the loss of his arm (replaced by cybernetics) and half of his face. Apparently he also owns a flame thrower awarded to him by the Salamanders Chapter, resultant of the fact that the Salamanders don't really know what else to give people on any occasion. Unlike Avitus and Cyrus, who could never blend into most known societies today because both struggle desperately to understand more than one human emotion at a time, Tarkus is actually pretty normal for a Space Marine. The guy also has Terminator honors, and if the squads from the first game do turn to Chaos, it's likely he'll be the only one level-headed enough to ask if that's not a stupid decision. "I'll respect your decision, commander, but we should consider that the Chaos Gods basically fuck all their minions in the ass sooner or later, if you'll permit me to speak freely. It's not like we have short life spans and will never regret this, sir." He also has gained Grenade Fu, and can now fuck up large masses of troops with a single throw. He also once trusted an Eldar Ranger and got his whole squad killed, which gave him hatred against the spehss elves that only the Ordo Xenos could rival.

• Eliphas, he's in the expansion, and as a mini-boss no less. Gets his shit ruined by Abaddon.

• Scott McNeil. SCOTT MCNEIL! MIGHTY IS HE!!!

• Thaddeus, who is supposedly an ex hive gangster. This is almost impossible to believe for a number of reasons. One is that Thaddeus is probably the most hair-etical member of the bunch, especially considering how he manages to make that shit stay despite flying around with a jet pack all day. Two is that he's the one who decides to start whining in the middle of the game about how emotionally jarring it is to become a Space Marine (which Cyrus aggresively approved of). I'm pretty sure gangsters rape you for that nonsense. Though it's difficult to tell due to the lighting in his talking head's box, he has blond hair; and as we all know, all blond men are evil.

• Gordian. The Apothecary. Aside from Tarkus, the only other character in this game who's dialog does not strictly adhere to only one human emotion. Also called out Cyrus on his pessimistic bullshit.

• Martellus the Techmarine, some lazy fuckwit on board a strike cruiser who's sole job it is to tell you bad news. May Is secretly Spike Spiegal. Also he died. And then he got better. When he becomes a heretic (Don't kid yourselves, he's wearing a helmet and Relic likes to make the "happiest" endings canon) he drives a god damned tank that does fucking retarded amounts of damage and takes fucking forever to kill. In an actual plot TWEEST, Martellus is CONFIRMED in Retribution as being a Blood Raven loyalist along with Cyrus and Diomedes.

• Governor Vandis. The planetary Governor of Meridian and the most useless character in Dawn of War 2. Instead of helping the player, he just got high in his pleasure palace while two strippers sucked his dingy. Then in Chaos rising he committed heresy and joined up with the Black Legion and attacked the newly promoted Governor Derosa's holdings in hope of regaining leadership. He lost.

• Araghast the Pillager. The Chaos lord of the Black Legion. He is shown as being less retarded than the previous ones (except for Eliphas). Later betrayed by Eliphas cuz Eliphas doesn't take orders from anyone. However, Araghast is an enormously powerful unit in actual gameplay terms and rather fun to be around, regardless. His 'character class'. a Chaos Lord is perhaps the best hero unit in the game due to his strong damage, complete immunity to suppression fire early on in the game, his ability to reduce enemy range to almost nil, and his ability to reduce enemy squad damage by a sizable margin every time he kills a unit. He is clearly the hero of Chaos Rising and the mere idea that he loses to some effete snob with an arrogant and unpleasant fanbase makes the game moar tragic than Hamlet and Othello put together. He is also a devotee of Khorne and unlike Crull, totally awesome. He is also a master of the art of insult, as is evident by his creative and awesome taunting of the Blood Ravens on the mission where they kill him. He lost mostly because Eliphas is a dick. Also because his strategy revolved around portals, and not Defilers.

• Ulkair the Great Unclean One. Famous for having way, way, way too many fucking hit points and doing absolutely stupid amounts of damage in one hit. Fuck the Avatar of Khaine and Warboss Bonesmasha, this lardass is the true pain in the ass of a boss.

• Derosa. She was the second most useless character for being such a dumbass bitch that watches jersey shore with her girlfriend. Pretty hot however.

• Abaddon. Because destroying a dangerously depleted Space Marine chapter fighting a civil war with itself is just the sort of victory he needs to win back his 'street cred'. Bwahaha, just kidding. He'll still lose.

• Apothecary Galan. He found Kyras on the space hulk Judgement of Carrion a long time ago, and was corrupted by Chaos after spending too much time on the wreckage. Once you infiltrate Captain Diomedes's base you have the choice to kill him and his terminator veteran bodyguards, who are also heretics. If you do, he'll be back to his old self and tell you that Kyras is evil and stuff, and you can then blow up Diomedes's base and not have to kill him.

• Captain Diomedes of the 1st Company: Diomedes is a helmet wearing jerkass, but damn if he isn't awesome (he's a 1st Company Veteran afterall). At first, he kill steals the sorcerer you were sent to eliminate with gusto, then tells you and Gabriel to stand down and get the fuck out of the sector. As a result, Angelos sends you to Calderis to blow up his base. If you kill Galan, you don't have to kill him and he will realize that Kyras is a heretic and joins Angelos's side. This would mean that the 1st, 3rd, and 4th companies would be on Angelos's side, and since the blood ravens are only at half strength, poor old Kyras will only have 200 marines to his name, which would mean that he'd be majorly screwed. He has a pimping white helmet and gold trimmed pauldrons. His star is also on the rise since he's been confirmed as the new Blood Raven's Force Commander for Retribution.

• Kaptin Bluddflag, the Ork warboss leading the Waaagh on Aurelia, awesome with a capital A since he's wearing a god damned pirate hat with an bionic eyepatch, he sadly isn't Gorgutz, so many a veteran dawn of war fan were very disappointed upon hearing the news.

• Hotass McMurderkill, the female Inquisitor assigned to (most likely) purge the Aurelia sub sector of xenos, heretics, and mutants. She has artificer armor and a pimp hat.

• Autarch Kayleth, the Eldar commander which the player assumes in Retribution.

• Chaos terminator Lord of the Black Legion. Most likely Eliphas reborn....Again...Since his voice is exactly the same. No confirmation of this yet. If so, please cite a coherent source. We here at /tg/ endeavor to at least be factual.