Dawn of War
Dawn of War is an Unbalanced-Piece-of-Shit 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:
- Farseer Caerys
- Farseer Macha
- Farseer Taldeer
- General Sturnn
- General Vance Stubbs
- The Harlequin
- 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 is unsurprisingly incompetent.
In competitive online play, Dawn of War was renowned for being more unbalanced than the gap between rich and poor in Russia. Successive patches by Relic succeeded in clusterfucking everything in sight until the final patch, at which point Winter Assault had been released anyway.
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.
In competitive online play, Winter Assault improved on its predecessor by adding new units to each race, completely fucking the balance of the Imperial Guard (an example - Guardsmen were stupidly tough and highly effective against buildings...in close combat), horribly dumbing down the other races, and generally making the game unplayable until the final patch, at which point Dark Crusade had been announced.
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.
In competitive online play, Dark Crusade further enhanced the already-proven formula of Winter Assault by adding two new races, both of which were the most unbalanced bullshit seen yet. Quite frankly, the Tau and Necrons were a load of fuck and were unbeatable even by Eldar, the previous most bullshit race (after Imperial Guard were nerfed to shit). The game was unplayable until 5 months later when Relic released the first and final patch, at which point Soulstorm had been announced.
Soulstorm
Soulstorm added the Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle as playable races, alongside terrible 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. It is unclear what, if any, continuity this follows from Dark Crusade.
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.
In all honesty, online play is also a load of bollocks. In competitive online play, Soulstorm was immediately hailed as the dawn of a new age in DoW's balance. While it was still a festering pile of cunt and the air units were implemented worse than the Treaty of Versailles, it was far and above superior balance wise to anything seen before. However, a number of bugs (including an unlimited-money thing for Sisters of Battle) rendered the game still rather limp. Relic promised a patch, but then Dawn of War 2 was announced.