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. In classic Spess Mahrine style, your tiny band is more than sufficent to cunt-punch an entire Tyranid hive fleet back out of the Milky Way (while 'liberating' war gear from as many other Chapters as possible). Such is your reputation that your initial one and a half squads are expected to turn the tide of an Ork invasion. 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

Retribution has been released on March 1,2011, 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. The story is rather clear cut, an Imperial Exterminatus has been declared on the sub-sector for not getting its shit together; many laughs ensue. It also appears Gabriel Angelos is in for a rematch against that spritely little Khorne daemon he accidentally unleashed way back in in the original Dawn of War.

Oh and before we forget to say it, Everyone's Favorite Red Shirt Army is back! and they brought Presents!

Trailer link

Characters of Dawn of War II

• 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. She gets killed in Angel Forge after Tarkus bitch-slaps her with his Terminator armor's powerfist.

• Gabriel Angelos - DoW's Gabe. From here, his role of more of advisory and critique since he never appears in-person in a mission(Apart from the final mission against the Tyranids though). 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. He is awesome in-game, capable of killing armies by smacking his fist on the ground resulting in tyranid/ork/eldar/kay-oss spess mehreen giblets for a rather ridiculous distance (the radius is twice as long as he is tall at maximum) and stun everything that is still alive for just a few seconds shorter than the time it takes for this ability to recharge, or he can sweep his assault cannon and instagib everything in a 90 degree angle in front of him, or he can use the multimelta sweep (best leveled up) and melt entire armies (as long as they are at close range) and erase titanic amounts of a boss's health in one go (seriously, I once brought Martellus's tank down to half-health from full in one go with this ability), which makes fucking bullshit bosses like Ulkair and Martellus far more manageable, and he can charge and gib everything in his path and shatter cover, he can also taunt vehicles and walkers on a one and one duel and if he's venerable and wins, grants your entire strike force a fuckhueg bonus, lastly he can shut down and regenerate his health really quickly and if you put enough points into stamina he can still attack in this state. He's totally awesome as a Venerable dreadnought because he'll be killing enemies so frequently that you'll pretty much always have an combat bonus up. Once you get him, you'll wonder how you ever lived without him. He is sadly killed in Retribution by Elpihas, and many shed manly tears upon his death.

• The Force Commander(Aliases include: FCHair Gel and FC Vanilla Ice) - 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 only guido 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 guido voiced Spess Mehreen. EVER. Is also, paradoxically enough, is from the Jersey Shore. Apparently the "best" ending of Chaos Rising never happened, and either the Situation or another squad memember other than Cyrus and Tarkus went full traitor, so he's either in some 100 year crusade near the eye of terror to atone for his corruption, banhammered by Gabe, or is now a Black Legion Chaos Lord. In other words, frosty the Force Commander killed plenty of heretics and xenos, but fucked up his unit enough to be replaced. His name is Aramus in the novels, though various conflicts between the novels & games canon has many fans insisting Aramus is a totally different guy. They're bitches like that. He is referenced in a Thunder Hammer Diomedes' can get which calls him the 'Nameless'. Which is a kick in the balls to all of us who downed Ulkair with Lightning Claws or speced him into a shooty Force commander.

• 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. When he's in terminator armor he has an assault cannon by default, which is awesome and can also mount shoulder-mounted cyclone missile launchers to fuck vehicles and infantry over, but for whatever reason his squadmates still have stormbolters, but luckily by level 30 their stormbolters will still deal like 1000 damage per shot against freaking tanks, so it's no real loss. In canon, he was actually the traitor in the Force Commander's squad, and was slain by Tarkus afterwards.

• 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 if armed with a sniper rifle or shotgun. WTF.

• Tarkus - who killed a Necron Tomb Spyder on Kronus 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." If his will discipline is leveled high enough, he can both spam grenades and can master the fine art of Grenade Fu, which allows him to throw 3 grenades at once, guaranteeing that anything in a tight formation is blow to smithereens . 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.

• The Avatar of Khaine - The avatar of Khaela Mensha Khaine is summoned once in both here and in Chaos Rising by the Eldar. He was a motherfucker of a boss during the original game but was somewhat easier in Chaos Rising.

• 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 aggressively 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. Was killed when the Armageddon was shot down.

• 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. His Thunderhawk crashed on Typhon shortly before the final battle in vanilla game and using only plot-armor, managed to survive for months along and crippled againsts Ork lootas, Tyranid remnants and the newly arrived Chaos Marines. 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. He also tried to out-Blood Raven the Blood Ravens by stealing their artifacts (including full suits of Terminator armor), but was caught when Angel Gate was attacked, and so his attempt failed. 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.

• Governor Ellena Derosa - An adviser to Governor Vandis and eventually becomes the defacto Governor of all of Meridian after Vandis took off to his playboy mansion and left the planet to die to the Tyranids and Chaos forces, she's also the only useful Imperial Guard commander in the series (Up until Retribution anyway). She was originally told by Vandis to stall the Blood Ravens, but had enough of his bullshit and finally helped the Blood Ravens in their defense against the Tyranids and Chaos legions in both games. She also told Thaddeus to fuck off when she had enough of his criticism and Avitus also has the hots for her since you don't normally see too many Imperial Guard officers who can tell Space Marine Sergeants to shut the fuck up and listen.

• Warboss Bonesmasha - The Ork Warboss who's supposedly the Warboss of the entire Waaaagh! On Aurelia. He can be fought in an optional mission near the end, which rewards you with another Terminator suit. He's famous in DoWII for having a FUCKING high health counter and ridiculous damage, the highest of any unit boss in the game. The Tyranid Hive Tyrant Alpha has nothing on this guy.

New characters of Chaos Rising

• 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.

• 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.

• Araghast the Pillager - The Chaos Lord of the Black Legion responsible for Eliphas' resurrection. He is shown to be superior to all prior Chaos Lords, including Eliphas due to his superior Voice acting, Khorne Worship, and Terminator armor. He is defeated because Relic handled his gameplay terribly, and because Eliphas was an ungrateful dick who let him die. However, Araghast is an enormously powerful unit in actual gameplay terms (ie: Multiplayer) 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 top end damage when deployed with a Blood Maul or a pair of Lightning Claws. Complete with 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 and his extremely high health and his vampiric health regeneration. 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. Also because his strategy revolved around portals, and not Defilers. He was eventually killed after getting Sindri'd by Eliphas, which wasn't really that surprising since Araghast has the attention span of Lord Bale.

• Captain Apollo 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.

• Jonah Orion - Gabe's new librarian buddy after Isador got executed for heresy on Tartarus and a member of the player's squad. He was absent in the first game due to the fact that he played a rousing game of mindfucking with the Tyranid Hivemind for weeks, as so Gabriel's fleet could enter the system and hamper the Tyranid forces altogether. Jonah is a unique character in the entire WH40K storyline, considering he's the first confirmed negro Space Marine in the entire Imperium who isn't one of the Salamanders, and also the second black guy to appear in the game just after Inquisitor Toth. This is a lot considering 99.9% of every last non-Salamanders personality in the Imperium is white. Well, aside from the Tallarns. Who are Scottish Arabs. And from whose stock Jonah and Toth likely hail from.

• Ulkair the Great Unclean One - Ulkair is a Great Unclean One of Nurgle, who was imprisoned by Kyras long ago in Aurelia, but the prison used to hold him started to break, so he was able to exert his influence into the world. He's the final boss in Chaos Rising and is famous for being THE toughest boss in the entire series up until retribution, where he's replaced by Kyras. He basically has a 7-digit health counter(So his HP should be around 1 million or more) and is capable of 1-shotting your LV.30 kitted-out Force Commander if he isn't in Chaos Rising-grade terminator armor and is the only thing that Davian Cool can't hold in CQC without dying atleast once. He can also vomit of everyone that does around the same damage as an arty hit from the Signum, make the ground around him rise and incapacitate anyone in range, and can pull one of your sergeants with his intestines if they start doing kite moves so he can OM NOM NOM him. Fuck The Avatar of Khaine and Warboss Bonesmasha, they're easy compared to this lardass.

• Eliphas. he's in the expansion, and as a mini-boss no less. Successfully Sindri'd Araghast and assumes leadership of the Black Legion forces and fails eventually. He appears in Retribution though, surprisingly as the Chaos Lord again. Thank the ever competent Black Legion Chaos Lord for that.

Characters of Dawn of War: Retribution

Contender for manliest IG commander yet?

Multiple covers: Collect them all!

Blood Ravens:

• Plot: Diomedes, now with his ego deflated, was enlightened to Chapter Master Kyras' heresy and how he orchestrated a fair amount of Just as planned throughout the entire DoW series. He and rest rest of the Blood Ravens under his command now rally to stop their Chapter Master from fucking everything up.

• Captain Apollo Diomedes - Diomedes finally gets his big break and now assumes the role of the "Force Commander" in Retribution. He lost his pimpin' white helmet though and is revealed to be (surprise surprise) bald. He is also claimed as the 'greatest warrior the Blood Ravens has ever seen,' in the words of Azariah Kyras. This should tell you everything you need to know about how FAIL the Blood Ravens are if their best fighter got his ass handed to him by a Force Commander who has barely over 100. But he makes up to it with his two handed poweraxe/thunder hammer which does a motherfucking shit ton of damage to anything in it's way even if it's rather slow. Though he's thoroughly outlcassed by Eliphas in terms of dmg, but he's generally tankier than Eliphas despite the latter being encased in Terminator armor. On the bright side, he at least does more damage than Bluddflag.

• Spike Spiegel - Spike Spiegel has once again returned to try to become a misunderstood badass (again). Out of all his fellow squadmates, Relic just HAD to put Cyrus back in because he's apparently the "cool bad-ass" even though he spends most of his time whining about how fucked up the world is. He's still pretty damned good, but he's not quite at his vanilla and CR peak of power. He's very handy for getting rid of those fucking noise marines.

• Martellus - Martellus, that fuckwit has secretly joined Diomedes. Unlike the last game where all he did was tell you bad news without doing shit about it, he's probably gonna do SOMETHING to help you, considering he's part of your squad. If you haven't guessed, his role is a Techmarine. Give him a melta and he will eat people and tanks for fucking breakfast.

• Tarkus (A.K.A. "The Ancient") - He does not speak, since that after he killed Avitus (Who was canonically the Traitor), he took a vow of silence to atone for past sins, but his actions speak volumes on the battlefield. He does speak after Diomedes finally realizes that Kyras had been manipulating him all those years. Hand him a plasma cannon and he'll buttfuck most everything that can be thrown at him as long as you can keep him out of melee.

Orks:

• Plot: Since Orks only care about FIGHTEN AND WINNIN', Kaptin Bluddflag's Ork horde wages a Waaaaagh! On Aurelia.

• 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. Has a large interest in Hats. Does a whole belligerent sexual tension routine with Adrastia, despite being an asexual animate fungus. Alas, he is a far less capable melee combatant than Eliphas (though he has more health than Eliphas by a large margin and is somewhat better at range). However, he will always be superior due to being funnier and the mere fact he's a motherfucking pirate, which trumps Chaos Lords in Terminator armor any day. His WAAAGH ability is pure awesome sauce once you level it up enough with health, damage and energy upgrades. Leveled it up to the point where it could make the boyz immune to suppression and improve damage by a lot, heal the boyz by a lot, completely refill their energy (including bluddflagg's, so effectively WAAAGH! becomes a free power), reinforce all the ork squads (thus eliminating the need to go back to reinforcement points), apparently repair damaged vehicles and revive incapacitated heroes, and summon additional temporary (and free) ork squads. And the damage bonuses become stronger as more orks are under it's effects, meaning that if you fill up your squad cap with orks, Bluddflagg will allow you to rape everything in seconds. And WAAAGH! Recharges very quickly. He talks quite a lot, and apparently he can outsmack Daemon Prince DOM-Kyras. Watching him go toe to toe with a Godzilla sized Daemon Princed DOM-Kyras is motherfucking awesome. But alas, he still cannot solo missions like Eliphas, nor shall he be able to one shot armies like Eliphas. However, he can kill Daemon Princes with rocks.
• Mister Nailbrain - Mekboy and Kaptin Bluddflagg’s First Mate "I'll SET ME GITFINDA TA PANSY BOSS!." Once you level him up to the point where he no longer has setup times for deffguns, he becomes very, very useful; after this point you won't need the big shoota (it's only advantage over the deffgun post setup time removal is that it can be fired on the move, but a deffgun does three times more damage than a big shoota of the same level) anymore, so Nailbrain becomes an invaluable suppresion fire provider. His Fighting juice is very, very handy since it heals your orks, revives incapacitated squad leaders, and improves their combat ability, use it to supplement Bluddflagg's WAAAGH! ability. His Stikkbombs, like all Grenade powers stop being that good for garrison clearing midway through the game since even Heretics and Guardsmen will be able to take multiple stikkbombs to clear out. He talks the second most out of the Orks, he has almost as many lines as Bluddflagg.
• Spookums - The Kaptin’s Kommando Nob. His starting shotgun is rather useless since you have to piss around with optimum range bullshit (stand more than a few feet and you'll take forever to kill even basic infantry, stand too close and you'll be in melee, and even if you can get it right heavy infantry laugh at shotguns which is bad since you'll have to kill a lot of Chaos and Normal but still renegade space marines) and the Big Shoota is just backup for the Deffgun, but he really starts to shine when you can give him a rokkit launcher. The Rokkit launcher does have some of the optimum range bullshit that the melta and shotguns have, but you can do maximum damage from a reasonable distance which is enough to blow up most every vehicle in two or three shots with frontal armor hits and it reloads really fast (way faster than the missile launcher). The Rokkit launcher is also great for building clearing with either rokkit barrages or normal shots (both of which work by simply blowing up the building).

• Brikkfist - A Storm Nob that has joined with the Freebooters. No other character in the entire WH40K universe has a name as awesome as his. He is fucking amazing, with the hammer he can hurt just about everything, he'll be able to automatically cause suppression by just being there, and disembowel followed by stab will kill pretty much any infantry unit that is not a boss. Even so, he's still outclasses by Kain, who is Eliphas' mute slave in terms of damage ad staying power. With a Tankbusta bomb he'll also be able to rapidly put a hurting on any vehicle, allowing you to finish them off much more easily. He talks quite a bit, but less than Nailbrain or Bluddflagg by a lot. He is an appreciator of really great punches/smacks, saying "Now dat was a propa smak" after seeing Daemon Prince Kyras double hammer fist Captain Angelos, to which Bluddflagg replies "Aye and Dat's gonna be the second 'ardest one we'll see today if ya don't keep movin."

Imperial Guard

• Plot: The Imperial Guard detachment sent to oversee the Exterminatus on Auerlia.

• Inquisitor Adrastia - The female Inquisitor of The Ordo Hereticus assigned to purge/investigate the Aurelian sub sector of xenos, heretics, and mutants. She has artificer armor and a pimp hat and pop-collar that rivals that of Creed. Likes: EXTERMINATUS, The Emprah, Burning Heretics, Gabriel Angelos. Dislikes: Everything else.Chief Weapons:Surprise and Fear. Also likes to cheer her men up by telling them that if they fail, Aurelia will be Exterminatus'd and she'll be the only one allowed out. So tsundere for Bluddflagg. No, really. We wish we were kidding here. She apparently has a thing going for Angelos, and when Kyras smacked him in the end of the IG campaign (remember, Angelos only survives the pit of Maledictus in the SM campaign) she got really pissed, first shouting "CAPTAIN ANGELOS! NO!" and telling Kyras that he had better pray that he dies this day or she will make sure that his life will be filled with as much fucking pain and misery as possible. That is a totally badass thing to threaten a FUCKHUEG Daemon Prince made out of an Ascending Chapter Master+Chief Librarian who is over a thousand years old and the Daemon of the Maledictum who makes Ulkair look like a puppitten (a combination of a puppy and a kitten you fucking retard) next to a Daemonically possessed Tyrannosaurus Rex in comparison. .
• Lord General Castor - A limey looking Imperial General fighting to survive in a war with the darkest powah. He may have been General Melchet in a past life. He is the leader of the Imperial Guard units investigating Aurelia's extermination. His personality is that of a cocksure, gentlemanly big game hunter. This is awesome since he'll look at Ulkair or the Hive Lord and think "I say that monstrosity's head would look very good mounted on my wall by the fireplace!" (The Hive Tyrants head is now mounted above said fireplace) As a leader, he hates guardsmen who are pussies and have lost their regulation issue steel balls. He can also fire the 40k version of a 50. cal sniper rifle one handed like a pistol while at the same time wielding a power sword, all this without the aid of power armor. It is known that his trophy room records the entire evolutionary history of the tyranid species. Also one of the manliest generals in the Imperium as Gritty as Sturnn and has a manliness measure somewhere between CREEEEED! and Vance, also out gambited Kyras by tricking him to Exterminatus Typhon, also a pretty competent leader despite the fact that at first you might think he's just a brash glory hungry Armchair General. He was smart enough to re-outclever Kyras, very quickly figuring out that Kyras would try to hide in Cyrene (despite being with an Inquisitor, who didn't seems to know anything) since the Imperium wouldn't Exterminatus a Planet twice and telling Merrick that "Cyrus isn't as clever as he thinks."
• LORD Commissar Bernn (Not putting LORD in capital letters is heresy) - The math is simple, Commissars = blam, LORD Commissars = HEUG BLAMMING! He is a support hero, and ironically, supports his men by murdering them. Lulz ensue if you put him in a Chimera... Has no lines during the campaign, which fucking sucks, though his actions speak louder than his hammy voice in the field, usually seen along side Adrastia in the field and for showing the troops under his command that he has even bigger balls than them by CHARGING A DEAMON PRICE WITH NOTHING MORE THAN A POWER FIST and coming out of it still smelling of Roses, also like most Commissars likes to employ the *BLAM* technique to get his troops out of suppression but seems to have grown mostly out of it over the course of the game.
• Sergeant Merrick - Technically not a new character, but Retribution is the first time he's is playable. Merrick is such a badass he blasted through a suicide mission to destroy a tyranid hive fleet, the return of Ulkair AND the ten years of non-stop war in-between. Plays similar to Tarkus. Made Avitus choke on his bitching about the Imperial Guard. Unfortunately, he's also a Goddamn psuedo heretic who places the lives of his men above the Imperium. HERESY! He got really mad with Castor after the Exterminatus of Typhon, telling Castor that he allowed thousands of guardsmen to die, but Castor convinced him that it was a ncessary sacrifice and by the time DOM-Kyras is dead, they seem to have become friends more or less.

Eldar:

• Plot: The Eldar campaign revolves around the prevention of an Exterminatus act on the planet Typhon. Since that their is a craftworld buried in the planet, as well as thousands of soul stones, the Eldar assist Inquisitor Andrastia with her investigation of Azariah Kyras' corruption, therefore stopping the Exterminatus , saving of the soul stones, and making Slaanesh very unhappy.

• Autarch Kayleth - the Eldar commander which the player assumes in Retribution.
• Ronahn - A former Pathfinder of Ulthwe, but he has renounced his ties to the Seer-led craftworld and now wanders the stars. He probably left because of that dick Eldrad. Sadly, he can never be badass because his gun looks like a giant dildo. Also, he's Taldeer's brother. As of now it is not known where he fits into LCB canon.
• Veldoran - An aged and experienced Warlock accompanying Kayleth on her mission. Can make people's heads explode like in Scanners.
• Elenwe - A Farseer, a master of prediction, helping to guide Kayleth on her mission. Looks surprisingly like a 16bit pallet swap of Idranel.

Tyranids:

• Plot: Aside from returning to contact with the Hive Mind , the rest is perfectly clear: The Tyranids will just go OHM NOM NOM NOM NOM everything edible as usual.

• The Hive Lord - Not the swarmlord as originally thought (he's busy in the Octarius sector any way), but simply the much smaller male version of a Norn Queen/Dominatrix. He will be the only Hero for the Tyranids since their campaign will have a completely different play-style, being more like an actual RTS campaign than the Tactical Role Playing games that all the other campaigns in Dawn of War II and it's expansions have been. He's trying to lead the tyranids to resume contact with the Hive Fleet in deep spehss, but something is interfering with telepathic communication to the fleet and the Hive Lord will solve that problem in the only way that works in Warhammer ever works; with lots and lots of violence. He becomes one of the most awesome hive tyrants ever by charging right at a titan sized Daemon Prince and hacking away until DOM-Kyras becomes weak enough to be decapitated by a capillary tower bursting out of the ground and leading the Hive Fleet to return and omnomnom Aureilia.
• The Hive Mind - No longer simply just a woman's voice with a bit of an echo, the Hive Mind's voice has been reworked into a much more gravelly and masculine tone (as well as being mildly creepier and more capable of expressing emotion). Ironic, considering the voice is done by a crazy woman. The Hive Mind essentially plays the role that Gabriel Angelos did in the Dawn of War II and Chaos rising campaigns, giving you plot exposition and commands. The other half of the plot exposition will come from intercepted communications from your enemies in response or anticipation to your actions.

Chaos:

• Plot: Eliphas is now under oath from Failbaddon, his job is to give him every last Blood Raven soul to him.

• Lord Eliphas - has somehow regained his badassitude. His lines are usually the best written and most violent out of all the heroes, (tied with the Orks) and generally does the most damage out of all the other heroes in the game when specc'd as a Khornate Champion. In addition, in his campaign he has a rematch with Davian Thule and wins. Killing Davian is likely the hardest thing in the game to do from an emotional standpoint ;_; since you've had three games to use and grow attatched to him, and he's so awesome in all three games, killing him is like being forced to shoot a dog you've loved and taken care of for most of your childhood. With his terminator armor (which he obviously stole from Araghast), his constant screaming of 'BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!' and his fun gameplay, Eliphas seemed to have been back to his old self. That is until, he starts sucking up to Failaddon. Who uses the disinformation that he actually has arms to kowtow Eliphas into servitude. Why didn't you just go with the Helmeted Badass from Chaos Rising, Abaddon? Bah. Eliphas then goes on to kill copious amounts of shit and becomes a Daemon Prince after killing another Daemon Prince (Kyras). He can also find a Bloodletter's Hellblade (sadly not a Bloodthirster's Axe) and a Daemon Sword. Both of which are the best weapons in the game with the exception of the Plasma Destroyer, which doesn't really count, as it's a ranged weapon. He is also capable of soloing missions. Seriously, turning him into a full Khornate Lord and throwing the rest of the points in Nurgle turns him into an all-powerful, unstoppable rapemachine that makes Bluddflag and Diomedes look like shivering pansies in comparisons. He'll out-damage all of them with their best possible respective weapons with almost anything you can get your hands on, and he'll get two passive DoT auras that drain a combined 50hp every second and heals him. Also, he gets health back with every hit. Idiotically high damage and massive self healing with a DoT that one shots hordes? Oh yes. Granted, this can only be accomplished by pledging Eliphas solely to Khorne. So, Nurgle and Tzeentch fans? Screw you. Go Khorne or go home. Upon giving him the highest level armor, he looks, suspiciously enough, exactly as Araghast did. Complete with a helmet. Given his newfound Khornate worship and armor, you can successfully fool yourself into thinking you're playing Araghast! Which is awesome! Thanks to a mod, you can successfully get rid of Eliphas' baldness and give him a helmet from the get go. Making the Chaos Campaign completely awesome. Did we mention he's the best melee hero in the entire freaking game? Oh yeah and he two-shots garrisons. ALL GARRISONS. Oh, one last thing. Don't worry, this is the very last one: HE CAN SOLO FUCKING LANDRAIDERS. Upon defeating Kyras, he arguably gets the best finishing move, he delivers some particularly macho words and then opens a Warp Rift. After which, a Chaos Star appears and CHAINSAWS KYRAS' FUCKING HEAD OFF IN A SPRAY OF GORE.

• Neroth - Chaos Sorcerer devoted to Tzeentch. He is an agent of Abaddon sent to make sure that Eliphas fulfills his promise. He's not a very SSSSSINNDRIII type sorcerer, and is mostly concerned with blowing shit up. Giving him the Artifact of Ahriman and kitting him out with 5 points in Offense turns him into a doombolt spamming rape machine. However, Eliphas is still better in the killing department.

• Kain - Chaos Champion. HE LIVES IN DEATH! PEACE THROUGH POWER! He doesn't talk much. You can fool yourself into thinking that he's Chaos Rising's Eliphas while thinking Retribution's Eliphas is Araghast. Confused yet? Nothing too spectacular about him, but hitch him up with a good force sword or chain axe and he'll be an admirable CQC fighter, despite not being a main character and having no lines, he's still capable of out damaging both Diomedes and Bluddflag. And even then, Kain doesn't even come close to Eliphas in DPS or durability.

• Varius - Plague Champion. Take out the 'a' and place the 'i' second and it will turn out that his name is an anagram for "Virus", which pretty much suits him. Also ugly as fuck but that unsurprising considering he's a follower of Papa Nurgle. Doesn't talk much either. He's had it up to here with all this Khornate bullshit. Can turn out to be a fine healer if stamina is filled to max and you get him metabolism.

Others

• Azariah Kyras - Who in the past jewed himself up to the position Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens, and, as you would expect, it turns out he is a filthy Khorne worshipping traitor who plans to jew the chapter out to Chaos. So its now up to the jolly band of loyalists heroes to exterminate the arch-Jew. And boy, is he super Jewish. Strange, seeing how Khorne feels about Jews.. Probably because of how well he could scream the standard Khornate mantra of: "BLOOD! FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS! FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" as well as a new one "LET THE GALAXY, BURN!" so well that Khorne just had to take notice, and he used his jewish dickery to get the Imperium to Exterminatus Typhon and sign off a big chunk of a space marine chapter to him. After all of this Khornate dickery (see Tzeencth isn't the only one who can plan ahead you faggots!) he walked over to a lava pool in cyrene where he merged with the Daemon of the Maledictum to become a Mega-Uber-daemon prince the size of a fucking skyscraper (and remember Sindri only tapped the Maledictum's power when he became a super-daemon prince, Kyras fucking became one with it.) He became the best update to the generic daemon prince look in all Warhammer 40k history, but he only partially ascended so he was still mortal. But then Gabriel Angelos found him out and came down to fight him with a bunch of terminators, Jonah Orion, and a Dreadnought or two; but then Diomedes/Bluddflagg/The Hive Lord/Kayleth/Adrastia/Eliphas also found the fucker out and came down to Cyrene just after Angelos. Angelos and his crew futilely fight against Kyras, accomplishing nothing besides killing some Daemons and Chaos looneys because they forgot to blow up the Offering Altars of buttfuckery that were making Kyras invulnerable and protecting him while he finished his ascension. Kyras accidentally tells his weakness to the orks/other space marines/eldar/imperial guard/tyranids/other chaos looneys by telling his chaos looneys to protect these altars. The protagonists destroy the first altar; after which Kyras/DOM gives Angelos one hell of a double hammer fist and disposes of the rest of those space marines. Then they mow down the rest of the altars and make Kyras vulnerable and fight him. After a long fight, Kyras is on death's door and the protagonists call down their death from above global power (Eldritch Storm, Orbital Bombardment, Artillery Strike, Rok Bombardment, Capillary towers, or Empyreal Abyss) and finish the fucker off, by hitting him a lot of times before blowing his head off and causing his bloated corpse to slump back into his pit. Some players speculate that he got his ass kicked to the other side of the eye of terror for pissing of 3 of the 4 Gods of Chaos:
• He pissed of Khorne because he's offering was done in a very Tzeeechy style of Just as planned which Khorne REALLY REALLY doesn't like. Also because he's a Psyker.
• He pissed of Nurgle because his Just as Planned master-plan involved getting Ulkair trapped in his pit AGAIN.
• And he pissed of Tzeench because let's be honest, a JUST AS PLANNED PLAN FOR AN OFFERING TO KHORNE? U MAD, CHAPTER MASTER?
• Slaanesh however didn't really react much to this, probably busy getting laid or something well he/she/it doesn't have anything to say on this matter.
• Maladictum Daemon - The Khornate Daemon which Gabriel Angelos accidentally released on Tartarus a few years back, during the original Dawn of War. Gabe gets his shit together and goes off to have a showdown with him while he's merged with Kyras. It is totally fucking glorious. Especially when Gabrial gets his ass burned off. He probably dies (as in permanently dead, and yes you can kill a Daemon off for good) with Kyras after the two get decapitated by roks/orbital bombardment/bombers/whatever the fuck you used to finish him off.

• Abaddon the despoiler - Serves only to screech and threaten Eliphas to fulfill his promise of delivering all the souls of the Blood Ravens to him. But can't actually do anything to him since he lacks arms (Thankfully, Eliphas is completely unaware of Abaddon's "little" problem). After Eliphas wins, he literally squees that Eliphas is awesome, the fickle cunt.

• The Mad-mek - mainly famous for his hilarious dialogue, after you escape the Exterminatus of Typhon Primaris you will be introduced to this motherfucking hilarious sonovabitch. He hams it up to epic levels, easily out-hamming Araghast and Ulkair combined. "I FINKS IT'LL BE ANNUVER DECADE BEFORE I CAN ZAP MESELF OUT A DIS BUG...INFESTED... 'ELL 'OLE!!!!!!"

• Jonah Orion - Playable only in the campaign prologue. Also gets double-hammered along with Angelos. Though in the SM campaign, while Gabriel survives, Jonah, unluckily, does not.

• Commander McTavish - Name based after Graham Mctavish due to the fact they they sound very alike. Has a scottish accent and red glowing eyes indicating that he is corrupted by chaos. He chases the players with a Baneblade. When he finally gets the players cornered, the players hack into the defensive weapons and blow the baneblade into smoldering ash.

• Those three Space Marines who have British accents for some reason - Undoubtedly the best VA'd characters in the game. These 2 renegade marines and 1 Chaos Space Marines have well done accents. Likely the only link to the fact that Games Workshop is BLEEDING BRITISH COMPANY. They are also well characterized by being able to scream Blood for the Blood God better than any body else. And combined the effortlessly out-ham the Mad-Mek, Araghast and Ulkair all put together.