DoW2 Strategum Part 1: Before the Mandate of Hyerbiolums

I ended up having a pretty good weekend at home with my Family. It was nice to see my kick-ass new nephew Zander and also fun to teach his older brother Kaiden to not freak out cause he cannot find the pointer on the Wii (btw Wii, I hate you for that. Why do you punish children so?). When I finally got back to Chicago, I ended up plopping down to a play some more DoW2 (Dawn of War 2) and noticed the Beta recently got some updates (after going public). The more I play this game, the more excited I get for the full campaign. I decided I'd share a more detailed experience with those of you that are intersted in how the game plays (which btw, you should just go get on the public beta and mess around).

I've only played as the Space Marines and even then I've only really handled the Techmarine. He is a hero unit that is designed around defense, which matches my style of play. Now when I say defense, I do not mean the classic RTS concept of "Turtling" instead the Techmarine is ideally suited to establishing a forward line and then holding it. He can reinforce the line with turrets that help out your units. He even has several powers that can boost the ranged damage of nearby allies. So far I've tried him out against a Hard AI using the Tyranids.

Starting out, I send out my scouts to capture a nearby power node since most of my Techmarines key abilites need copious amounts of the blue lightning harvested by said nodes. My Techmarine becomes the Rally point for my base and he moves out to start capturing requisition nodes. I usually build a devastator squad first to support him. These are heavy weapon units that use big-ass machine guns to suppress incoming infantry. These guys will move forward and cover wide areas while the tech marine start laying down turrets at key locations. I usually then bring another devastator squad to cover another key point. At this point, I should of grabbed a decent amount of nodes and then try to bring in a Tactical Squad that is more general purpose to accompany my Techmarine around. Then it comes a race to upgrade. Getting to Tier 2 brings up Plasma Devastator Squads which are crucial to taking out heavy infantry. I usually try to get one of these up and keep them centralized so they can quickly support different groups. While my Techmarine and his squad move forward, he will lay down turrets to keep defending different spots. By this point, the line has basically been drawn and now its a matter of holding it.

This has defiantly become one of my favorite aspects of this game. Its not about launching massive assaults on each others bases but instead getting key defensive positions and duking it out. I've already been looking into how other heroes are designed to break these lines or simply go around them. The Tyranids have a hero that can actually burrow behind your lines.

I've come to the realization that DoW2 basically does to Turn-based Tactical Games what Sins of a Solar Empire did to Turn-based 4X games. Where before the turn-based games offered deep but slow paced combat, these newer games offer the same-depth but at a faster pace to keep up with the evolutions in game design.

Here's hoping the campaign is going to be as fun as it sounds.