Dawn of War
Dawn of War is a Real Time Strategy game for the PC set in the Warhammer 40k universe, produced by Relic Entertainment and released in 2004. As of the most recent expansion, Soulstorm, almost every playable army in the setting is present in the game in some form, with the notable exception of the Tyranids. Many popular stories and memes on /tg/, such as Love Can Bloom, have their origins in Dawn of War. Author C.S.Goto has written books about it. Apparently.
The best part of the series is widely held to be the narration, featuring lines delivered with gratuitous emphasis and pauses at seemingly-random intervals. This sounds very grim and dark and is not at all ridiculous.
The game IS well known for its implementation of a combined morale, squads and alternate resource system, the potential of which was skullfucked by some of the most hilarious attempts at balance seen in the modern era. Seriously, you could throw a horse on a see-saw and it would do a better job. The visceral hand to hand combat and 'sync kills' were also praised, since watching your little dudes chainsword that other guy's little dudes is always entertaining, at least until all those other little dudes got back up again and raped you to death. FUCKING NECRONS.
The game was highly successful, though it was a cock-grinder when it came to online play. Fuck Gamespy.
Well-known characters from the games include:
- Force-Commander Gabriel Angelos
- Farseer Caerys
- Farseer Macha
- Farseer Taldeer
- Farseer Idranel
- General Sturnn
- General Vance Motherfucking Stubbs
- The Harlequin
- GODDAMNFUCKING NECRONS
- Khornate Sorcerer of Alpha Legion SSSSINDRIIIII
- Chaos lord Carron
- Dark Apostle Eliphas
- Space Marine Brother-Captain Indrick Boreale
- The Vindicare Assassin
Games
Dawn of War
The original Dawn of War release featured the Blood Ravens chapter of the Space Marines, led by Brother-Captain Gabriel Angelos, as they battle against an Ork WAAAGH on the planet of Tartarus. It is not long before the Eldar (led by Farseer Macha) and the Alpha Legion of the Chaos Space Marines (led by Lord Bale and the Chaos Sorcerer Sindri) show up, and as it turns out there's a demon imprisoned within an artifact on the planet that wants to use the bloodshed of the battle as a sacrifice so he may escape his prison. Spoilers, by the way.
Lord Bale is quite the irritable fellow and has little patience for Sindri's complex plans, frequently growling "SINDRIIII" at him in frustration. There is also a black Inquisitor (who isn't a stereotype, honest) , who is unsurprisingly incompetent. Although there is some evidence to claim that he was the Daemon of the Maledictum all along.
Winter Assault
The Winter Assault expansion added the Imperial Guard as a playable army, and features two alternate campaigns that take place on the planet of Lorn V. It introduced Farseer Taldeer, General Sturnn, Ork Warboss Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter, and the Chaos Lord Crull. Though the branching campaigns mean it is possible to achieve multiple endings, based on later games in the series, the canonical ending is probably that achieved by the Eldar in the Order campaign.
Infamous for featuring a Khornate warband that used Sorcerers and Horrors, and having a Warlord who was not even that angry. Khorne was very angry and beat Tzeentch up until he orchestrated the defeat of this Warband.
But seriously, Crull was still pretty awesome. All Khornate guys are. Only he was considerably less awesome than say... Arbaal the Undefeated. (Is he still alive?)
Also known for Guardsmen that is equipped with lasguns that can punch through anything. Even tanks.
Dark Crusade
Dark Crusade saw the addition of the Necrons and the Tau (led by Shas'O Kais), and was the first game in the series to drop the mission-based format of the previous singleplayer campaigns, instead adopting a Risk-esque strategic map where players were required to use their army to conquer the entire planet of Kronus and defeat all the other races present. Using the army to attack enemy-occupied territory resulted in playing a skirmish game against the AI, with the victor gaining (or retaining) the dispute territory.
Love Can Bloom originated from this.
Soulstorm
Soulstorm added the Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle as playable races, alongside flying units. Similar to Dark Crusade, the campaign takes place as a battle to control territories on the strategic map, but the fight now takes place over several planets in the Kaurava System, instead of a single planet as in previous games.
Continuing a long history by now, it has some hilarious dialogue. Memes extracted from Soulstorm include: Baldeale, METAL BOXES, SPESS MEHREENS and more. The game is sometimes referred to as "Baldstorm", in reference to Indrick.
All that aside, it's still quite fun to play. Unless you want to play in the campaign, because the loading times are longer than the Dark Ages depending on your hardware, despite you using a rig that's fully capable of running DoW2 without much lag, soulstorm's campaign still loads slower than a Monolith. Defrag the HDD for a slight more boost.
The singleplayer of Soulstorm also did away with the "building up" of the map (placing all of your high-end structures and capturing most of the nodes on the map so you could create massive, unstoppable forces instantly when you had to defend) that you could do in Dark Crusade, which was double-edged. The AI actually stood a chance against you, which made the battles slightly more interesting, but you also couldn't just upgrade a monolith instantly and steamroll the AI's attacking force, which meant you had to deal with 6+ regions getting attacked EVERY SINGLE ROUND of the overworld play when you started conquering more territories. And the auto-resolve system didn't give you the best of odds.
Miscellaneous
The game is well-known for its incompetent/retarded chaos lords too...except for Eliphas.
The future
- Dawn of War II, sequel to DOW1. Unlike prequels, featuring Tyranid. also starring Davian cool and Farseer Idranel
- DOW2 Chaos Rising
- Retribution. An upcoming expansion to be released in March 2011, featuring official campaigns for all races. And also Pirate Orks.