Dawn of War III

Skulls for the skull throne!

"In darkness, I shall be light
In times of doubt, I shall keep faith
In throes of rage, I shall hone my craft
In vengeance, I shall have no mercy
In the midst of battle, I shall have no fear
In the face of death, I shall have no remorse"
- The voice in the trailer.

"In the grim darkness of the 21st century, there is only MOBAs"
- Relic's tag line

Announced on 3rd of May 2016 and released on April 27nd 2017, Dawn of War III is the third entry in the popular Dawn of War series.

Even though most of us have been waiting for this game for quite a long time, beware of the fact that because there are only 3 races available from the start, our wallets may become alarmingly thinner if we would want to experience the full glory of the W40k universe this game could offer us. It has been done before with the expansion packs in DoW 1 and it can be done again, although not to include Chaos as one of the starting races has got to be one of the biggest heresies so far. The Imperial Guard will be featured, but as a NPC race and will appear in a couple of missions as allies to the Space Marines and enemies to the other races. My point is: take great care and have faith in your respective God so that your money won't be thrown away needlessly before knowing what you are buying. Or jus' live tha freebootaz life afta dem ruskie boyz crack it shortly afta release, yar-har-har-har!

Plot

This article contains spoilers! You have been warned.

Coming back with a new look and much closer to the first game while having elements from the second, the third installment will see the return of some of the more popular characters. Among them Gabriel Angelos, Farseer Macha and Warboss Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter will battle for the planet of Acheron for a powerful weapon known as the Spear of Khaine. Whilst the Eldar and Orks seek to obtain it for its tremendous power, Gabriel seeks to prevent anyone from using it, as it apparently reeks of deceit. More of the plot can be read below.

Part 1: Verlock Keep and Cyprus Ultima

Long story short, it begins on the Knight World of Cyprus Ultima being overrun by Orks led by Warboss Gitsompa with Varlock Keep being on its last toes against the green tide. For some reason, Inquisitor Holt has prevented further reinforcements from assisting the local Knight house from being overwhelmed. Thankfully for Lady Solaria (The Matriarch of Verlock Keep), Captain Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos of the Blood Ravens ignored the Inquisitor's decree and came to assist Lady Solaria's forces. During the fighting, Warboss Gorgutz led a counter attack to prove that he is the better overall leader then Gitstompa. Unfortunately the Eldar led by Autarch Kyre, came on Cyprus to mess everything up which forced Gorgutz to think of some Tactical Genius which involves building a giant cannon, sabotage and Sindri'ing Warboss Gitstompa so that Gorgutz would become defacto leader. Meanwhile, the breach in the decree led to Inquisitor Holt feeling all butthurt about this and tasked Ol'Gabe to defend Starfort Helios which has been overrun by Orks now led by Gorgutz. Both Holt and Gabe talked about the reason behind the starforts, in which they were designed as a barricade against the legendary planet Acheron which houses the legendary 'Spear of Khaine' in which Holt took great interests in attaining it for himself. As you can imagine, Gabe was quite suspicious over the Inquisitor's ambition and was even more suspicious over the Spear of Khaine whose intuition led Gabe to suspect of it as a Chaotic corruption (Oh, how right he was).

On the other hand of the spectrum, Farseer Macha led an Eldar warhost to aid Kyre who he himself is also after the Spear of Khaine. However, Macha is suspicious about Kyre's prophecy as it did not add up to Macha's own divination on what lies beyond Acheron. Macha was tasked by Kyre to kill Gabriel Angelos as he sees the Chapter Master as an obstacle to Kyre's own ambition, however Macha's relationship with Gabriel stretched all the way back Tartarus. Before she could accomplish this, Jonah Orion stood in Macha's way. Macha promptly kicked Jonah's ass and threaten to kill him if he did not tell her where Macha's husbando Gabriel Angelos is. However, being the shining beacon of bromance that is Gabe, the Chapter Master came to Macha's location to prevent her from killing his boyfriend most trusted Librarian butt budy. Macha attempted to throw her singing spear, Gabriel remembered that he was wearing terminator armour and singing spears are AP- and so managed to catch the damned weapon with his hands. Macha blasted him with Psychic shenanigans, took a thunder hammer to the face and either passed her Invuln save or benefited from the Eternal Warrior rule. Before they could end their little 'reunion' however, the planet Acheron arrived on the Cyprus system and shattered Starfort Helios, reigning space debris on where they fought (Seriously, Acheron is ECKS BAWKS HUEG, like Gas Giant size). Macha escaped whilst Gabe was left horrified over the fate of Chaplain Apollo Diomedes as it was Gabriel who ordered Diomedes to assist the resistance on Helios.

Meanwhile, Gorgutz promptly jizzed himself with all the loot being crash landed around him due to Helios' demise. Unfortunately, other gitz such as Weirdboy Zappnoggin and Big Mek Wazzmakka are fighting over the loot. After Gorgutz promptly bash their heads in and forced them to comply under his leadership, Gorgutz then led on a joyride to Starfort Charon so he could find out what the hell is going on in Acheron. Apparently how he managed to get onto the Starfort without getting shot down isn't worth worrying about (seriously, he's just there and hopping off a crashed craft without any further explanation). After blowing up the defenses of Charon with nothing more then a bunch of Gretchin with explosive grenades (seriously, you would think that the defenses of an Imperial Starfort would a bit more secure), Gorgutz than used the opportunity of the disabled Starfort to land on Acheron without the worry of being blown up. On the other hand, Macha met with Ronahn to discuss on the potential craziness that is Kyre. Apparently, the reason why Ronahn was here and acting as a secret spy for Kyre was because Kyre somehow got his hands on Taldeer's soulstone due to some altercation with Ronahn. Apparently, Kyre is using Taldeer's prophecy as not only as to stroke Kyre's fragile ego but to also keep his legitimacy stable. Despite the fact that using another Craftworld's soulstone for nefarious purposes, especially one from Ulthwé should be enough to send half of the Craftworld's forces to shank Kyre's ass for Heresy, this did not come to pass. After some discussions, Macha, Ronahn and Jain Zar (Who came to Macha's assistance to stop Kyre's foolish action that would further weakened the Biel-Tan craftworld) all agreed that Kyre's prophecy is nothing more then a steaming pile of Bullshit and will lead their people to ruin. Unfortunately Jain Zar didn't just tell everyone to stop follow Kyre because she didn't feel like it (yes seriously, she'd rather kill Eldar than that and there's a weak explanation on her trying to get Macha to realize her potential through the conflict) which would have ended the conflict immediately and stopped Eldar from killing each other. so Macha and Ronahn devise a plan to distract Kyre's forces with the aid of Gorgutz so they could sneak around and steal back Taldeer's soulstone instead. Macha and Ronahn also managed to convince Gorgutz to aid them by essentially waving the Spear of Khaine all over Gorgutz like he is some sort of attack dog. So with Gorgutz now in the race to get his 'Super Pointy Stikk', Dawn of War 3 has essentially turned into a Monty Python sketch with all three races bonking each other's heads so they can leap frog each other to get to the Spear first.

Part 2: Acheron

On the other side of the theater, Gabe discussed with Captain Balthazar on board the Blood Raven's Battlebarge to retrieve Diomedes' Gene Seed for he fears that he is dead. However, Inquisitor Holt being a shady motherfucking dick, threatened Gabriel not to go to the remains of Helios or else he would shoot Gabe's aircraft out of the sky. This understandably twisted Gabe's nipples to no end and secretly arranged Balthazar to teleport Gabe on the remains of Starfort Helios. They agreed and Gabe was transported on the destroyed Starfort. What he saw disturbed Gabe as the remains of both the Starfort and its crew members was fused with the structures of Acheron. Fearing for the worst, Gabriel along with a group of Terminators proceed to cleanse the area of both Orks and Eldar with sufficient Dakka. Once Gabriel found where Diomedes is located, to everyone's surprise, Apollo Diomedes has indeed survived due to rolling a 1 on his To Wound/Destroyer roll and escaping unscathed (or maybe he just passed every Armour/Invuln save, he was wearing termie armour). After hearing the Inquisitor's actions, Diomedes was understandably pissed as fuck. Inquisitor Holt himself was displeased, but more pressing matters was at hand due to everyone wanting to get the Spear of Khaine.

On Acheron, Farseer Macha and her posse sneaked to where Taldeer is resting and proceed to 'burrow it' for their own uses. However, they were caught and were forced to flee, fortunately they completed their task and Kyre sighed in disappointment. Near the vault shielding the Spear of Khaine, Gabe and friends fought their way to destroy the Eldar. However, Inquisitor Holt decided that if a bunch of enemies are gathered in one spot, you might as well just nuke them and requested an orbital bombardment on the vault. Unfortunately it turns out shooting a door has a chance of blowing it open, which certainly happened and that was near where Gabriel's forces were (though he did at least warn Gabe with more than enough time for the Blood Ravens to flee), so Gabe ordered his brothers to flee and while remaining behind because he knew it would look really cool for the trailer. Apollo Diomedes and even Jonah Orion flipped their shit on the Inquisitor, with Diomedes swearing he wants to rip Holt's head off and shit down his neck and Jonah calling Holt a fucking retard for even requesting orbital bombardment. Holt, feeling the heat of a chapter of pissed off Space Marines went and plead with Lady Solaria. Solaria then laid down the sickest burn in the game, calling out Holt's cowardice in not only letting Solaria's house to die by the Ork invasion but also firing orbital bombardment near the position of Gabriel Angelos, she further states that no one would fear the incompetence and idiocy of a 'disgraced Inquisitor' threatening Holt that his ass is grass once she tells Holt's superiors on what he has done. Holt later put an ice pack on that burn and cried himself to sleep, but before he did, he told Solaria that Gabe may still be alive and what do you know, Gabriel IS alive since he watched the bombardment from a distance while taking advantage of that Iron Halo/Cataphractii Terminator re-roll bullshit. Gorgutz was also practically under the blast and he survives due to... he just does.

Inside the vault on the true surface of Acheron, Autarch Kyre used Macha's supporters as leverage to draw her out and force her to comply to his will. Unfortunately for him, they were standing on an icy prison keeping a FUCK HUEG Greater Daemon of Khorne from escaping (yes, it is yet another reveal that Chaos is the ultimate big bad, Que more moaning and bitching that the plot is uninspired) and Macha rightly concluded that fighting would only wake it and that something was wrong with the spear. Naturally Kyre didn't listen and after an intense firefight of elf-on-elf violence, Macha then pleaded to Ronahn to let Taldeer's soulstone to be interned in a motherfucking Wraithknight. Ronahn as you can imagine, hesitated cause he is a good and dutiful brother and would never put his sister into harms way again; the situation however, was dire, thus Ronahn relented and became the co-driver with his sister. During the infighting, Kyre knew he was distracted and continued his campaign to retrieve the Spear. However, bad luck follows Kyre everywhere, and is forced to butt heads with Gorgutz army. These two both battled each other before Kyre won, grabbed the Spear of Khaine and attempt to slay Gorgutz. His plans were slightly hindered when a part of the blade broke and he was liquefied, as it turns out that the Spear was a Trap designed to spill the blood of the ambitious and greedy and to act as a blood ritual to release the daemon from its prison. Kyre did the 'Oh Shit!' look before ending up like Sindri Myr as daemon chow.

Part 3: Tartarus 2, Electric Boogaloo

With the daemon released, everyone promptly shat bricks. Macha and Taldeer then did a quick divination and found out that the only way to victory is get all three races to unite and spank the daemon to oblivion. Macha, somehow managed to convince Gorgutz to join her cause despite being backstabbed by Ronahn (Or as Gorgutz would like to call him, Ronny) whilst Gabriel has a....somewhat intimate chat before he himself joined her cause. Unfortunately for Gabe, part of the ritual needed to defeat the daemon was to blow up Acheron....with his own Battlebarge. Captain Balthazar overheard this and accepted his fate before pile driving the entire Battlebarge into the planet's crust, blowing up the mantle and hurtling the shrine housing the Spear of Khaine into orbit. You would think that the Battlebarge would have just fired its weapons or even have a Cyclonic Torpedo ready, but it seems the Imperium has a knack for wasting expensive ships by blowing itself up for myriad of reasons.

All three heroes was teleported onto the shrine (It would be safe to assume that all named elite heroes survived Acheron's destruction) by Macha's help to face the daemon. As explained, the previously seen ECKS BAWKS HUEG daemon the size of a Imperial Cruiser has now shrunk in size to be the same height as any old regular Greater Daemon. During the fight, Gabriel in a completely uncharacteristic way, acknowledged ignoring Macha's warnings back on Tartarus was a mistake which resulted in the devastation of the Blood Ravens in Dawn of War 2, in which Macha in turn, uncharacteristically accepted it. After kicking the daemon to death, all three heroes departed to go their separate ways with Gorgutz finally getting his 'Super Pointy Stikk'/Spear of Khaine. Again, this is bizarrely uncharacteristic for all of them as we usually see an Eldar ending up backstabbing the Orks and Space Marines into muderfucking each other instead of simply...you know...keeping their promises. So with the mission done, it is safe to assume that Inquisitor Holt is going to get have his anus enlarged by fifteen meters over the shit he has done to Gabe and friends.

All in all, the last few missions was vaguely similar to the plot of the original Dawn of War. As both games ends with a cataclysmic fight against an agent of Chaos being freed from a millennia long prison that is disguised as an object of immense power, in which a gullible pawn thinks he can take it for his own benefit, only to be used as a sacrifice to free the daemon in a blood ritual. Both artifacts is seen by Gabriel Angelos to be malicious and needs to be destroyed with Macha warning Gabe about the true nature of both artifacts. The only difference is that Gabe actually listened to Macha for once on Acheron, thus making the ending of Dawn of War 3 more Noblebright than the original Dawn of War.

Oh yeah, the secret after credits ending depicts none other then the return of the Necrons. Fuck Yeah!

Returning Characters

Imperials (Blood Ravens)

• Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos: Returning with a ornate and badass looking set of Terminator Armor. Would be 100% badass if it weren't for the fact that he was capable of inexplicably jumping (and flipping!) several meters off the ground in said Terminator Armor (And the fact that he's no longer voiced by Paul Dobson *sob*). They try and explain this away by linking this ability to his hammer, but considering that Diomedes can do this too and we're not clear on how the hammer does it, it's still stupid. Spends most time battling with the other two factions to prevent them from obtaining the Spear of Khaine, as he suspects it may be corrupted. Some art has him standing at Primarch-grade height. He is loyal and thoughtful of his chapter to the point that he defended his new librarian buddy Jonah Orion from the jealous yandere-virgin as well as against an inquisitor's order to try and give Diomedes last rites when the starfort Diomedes was on crashed into Acheron. Currently having a harem relationship with his librarian buddy Jonah Orion, Farseer Macha and Lady Solaria of the Varlock Imperial Knight house, probably Diomedes too.
• Chief Librarian Jonah Orion: Promoted to Chief Librarian after surviving the battle against the chaos corrupted Chapter Master Azariah Kyras. Now sports a goatee and wearing fancy new armor. Is currently having a bromance relationship with his Chapter Master.
• Chaplain Apollo Diomedes:' Returning as a Chaplain in terminator armor (and just as capable of inexplicably jumping in the air in said armor like Angelos). Must have felt so ashamed about serving a chaos tainted traitor so much that he couldn't bear the mantle of First Company Captain anymore. So now he's a Chaplain, sniffing out taint and making heretics...Repent. He is now loyal as ever to his chapter, so loyal that he nearly transforms into an Angry Marine after the stupid-made-manifest known as Inquisitor Damien Holt bombarded their Chapter Master Angelos.

Eldar (Biel-Tan)

• Farseer Macha: Returning for the first time since the original Dawn of War, and looking (almost) exactly as she's been depicted in /tg/ art for years. Ostensibly working for Lord Kyre to get the Spear of Khaine for him, but appears to be suspicious of his real motives for doing so. Is somewhat tsundere with Gabriel Angelos.

Eldar (Ulthwe)

• Ronahn: Also reappearing as the leader of a Ranger detachment, and only marginally less whiny than he was before. At some point, he leads Gorgutz and his horde to the entrance of a vault, fully aware that it is guarded by Eldar under the command of Lord Kyre and tricks both sides into fighting each other.
• Taldeer: Apparently Taldeer's soul stone ended up being salvaged during Retribution, as she reappears as a Wraithseer Wraithknight with a big fucking sword. One of her prophecies as recounted in the trailers seems to refer to the impending conflict over the Spear of Khaine.

Orks (Bad Moons)

• Warboss Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter: Returning during his absence after Soulstorm, Gorgutz is back with a bigger and badder power klaw (with a retractable chain, no less). He starts out in the service of another Warboss named Gitstompa, and apparently always planned to Sindri him (though the Eldar unwittingly turn him into the Warboss of the Bad Moons WAAAGH! after they kill Gitstompa, believing that killing him would scatter the Ork horde). He's racing against the other factions for the pointy-stick. At some point gets sort of tricked by Ronahn into fighting a heavily defended Eldar base defending the vaults entrance. Macha told him she wanted the other Eldar dead, and told them they were both trying to get the spear, but Ronahn "forgot" to mention the bit about their entrance being heavily defended, which somewhat makes Gorgutz a dumbass for actually trusting dem sneaky knife ears.

Others

• Brian Dobson: The only VA from the first and second series to return. He voices generic Space Marines, Orks and Eldar.

New Characters

Imperials (Blood Ravens)

• Captain Balthazar: A Captain of the Blood Ravens and serves as the mission briefer.

Imperials (Others)

• Lady Rebek Solaria: Head of House Varlock of Cyprus Ultima and pilot of the Imperial Knight, Drakaina. Drakaina is equipped with two avenger cannons that'll deal more damage when heated up. Becomes BFF's with Angelos after he saves Varlock Keep from Orks (against Inquisitor Holt's orders).
• Inquisitor Damien Holt: An Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos that seeks the wandering world, Acheron, for the Spear of Khaine. He plays the role of asshole cold blooded strategist that gives little regard to his allies like they were pawns in a chess game (so like all inquisitors). The imperial forces he's working with: Imperial Knights of House Varlock and The Blood Ravens. Both hate his guts. The Varlock House hate him for abandoning them. The Blood Ravens, already tired of inquisitons' treachery and incompetence in the past, despised the inquisitor for launching an orbital bombardment on their chapter master Gabriel Angelos. This made the Blood Ravens so mad that Diomedes, the Chaplain, was going to shove a BAAAANEBLADE up the inqisitor's arse only to be stopped by Jonah Orion. No relation to Commissar Holt.
• Deathwatch Killteam Ironmaw: They compose of a Dark Angel, a Blood Angel, a Crimson Fist, a Smurf and are led by one of everyone's favourite space vikings. In multiplayer the Ultramarine is replaced by a space marine from the chapter you selected via army painter.

Eldar (Biel-Tan)

• Lord Kyre: Leader of the Biel-Tan warhost and seeks to obtain the Spear of Khaine. The idiots that led even more Eldars to die in a pointless campaign for some legendary shiny weapon. He hired Ronahn as his spymaster only to be betrayed by him. He still got the spear in the end, after fighting Gorgutz for it and cheated using psyker power. Turns out the spear contained a greater daemon of khorne and was possessed by it, after the spear itself shattered as Kyre tried to strike Gorgutz with it.
• Jain Zar: Phoenix Lord (Lady?) of the Howling Banshees and the first of the Phoenix Lords to be featured in a video game adaptation (Granted, she's also in Eternal Crusade, but has yet to fully appear in that game).

Orks (Bad Moons)

• Wazzmakka: Da most byotiful Big Mek dere is. He dont call her beauty for er' looks!
• Zappnoggin: A Weirdboy who sounds surprisingly sane-ish for an ork whose head can explode at any time. Very unorky.

Differences and New Things

The game is seen to be closer to the first one while retaining certain elements from the second, but also adding new game mechanisms. Relic's aim was to make their latest game the most accessible (nobody knows how accessible it will be, but hoping it won't turn out the same way as a certain game that is slowly dying, yet it is said that battles will simply be easier to read via having the attacks clear enough to see where they are hitting).

Another change is the new cast of voice actors (whom according to the developers comprise of VA's from their previous title Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine). This has been met with some amount of rage from fans, most notably those who wish for the return of Paul Dobson as Angelos.

Base building and large scale battles make a return and there will only be Space Marines, Eldar and Orks available at start. Armies are now divided into line troops and elites. The first will be trying to fight and survive, while the latter are more powerful units that you can level up to become even more powerful. In both campaign and multiplayer, players will collect said elites by farming skulls (Yes, I'm not kidding. All three factions are Khornate for some reason) and level them up to become even more efficient. Among them there will even be really powerful units that are showing up for the first time in the series (such as Imperial Knights, Wraithknights, and Gorkanauts). Some of these things may be controversial since Relic took some elements from ASSFAGGOT games (also known as MOBA:s, meaning that before you deploy in multi, you choose your commander and elites as counters and what will be great at breaking counters), yet so far Relic did not fail for now, thus it's way too early to judge (inasmuch as DoW3's existence was only just confirmed). At the very least, the presence of troop units to back up the character squads could mean that the rest of the Blood Ravens 4th Company might actually be getting off their asses and doing something this time around.

A thing to wary of is the campaign itself, since the homepage mentions having one linear campaign switching from controlling the Blood Ravens, the Eldar or Orks, so while the gameplay may be closer to Dawn of War I, the campaign itself will be closer to Vanilla Dawn of war II.

However the 12 minute exclusive gameplay has already drawn quite a lot of ire. With many complaining on the way it looks (Being cartoonish as shit), with rumors that the team developing DoW 3 is trying to piggyback Starcraft of all games to the animation lacking the weight and grit of the previous Dawn of War games. Special mentions goes to the fighting style animations of old Gabe whose sudden usage of backflips, frontflips and jumping like a 5 ton ballerina on crack despite wearing terminator armor has drawn accusations that one of the lead creators of this game might be a small, black leprechaun with a fetish of Multilasers and backflipping Terminators. Hell, the goddamn Lascannons don't fire a quick, charged, devastating single shot but instead its a laser weapon that fires rapidly, raising its rate of fire the longer it keeps firing. These suspicions are further reinforced by the fact that said bastard is the one that's writing the Blood Ravens book for the game. Also Taldeer is back as a Wraithknight of Ulthwe but for reasons unknown, is working with Biel-Tan alongside her brother Ronahn.

Later interviews and bits of information released have done little to ease the ire. Including the lead director confirming that sync-kills have been removed, Assault Marines being considered "light armor" units, the dynamic movement system introduced in II being removed, and fall back mechanics are also gone. At this point from a community standpoint, you're either absolutely behind these changes, or are watching something your were previously looking forward to turn into an absolute shitshow; with very little middle ground to be had apparently. And it really doesn't help that their methods of explaining away some of the lore breaking shit seems to come directly from our good old friend. Notably they try to explain the backflipping Terminator armor, by saying that his hammer has a shard of an Avatar in it. Coincidentally, that happened to be one of the Irish leper's ideas as well. Draw your own conclusions.

Relic managed to show in the BETA version of the game something interesting that enriches a player's experience. Namely Doctrines. Similar to the Doctrines from Relic's other title, namely Company of Heroes 2, the ones in Dawn of War III are at the same time something much more. First of, unlike in Company of Heroes 2, you may take up to three Doctrines and each is connected to specific Commanders and Elite Units. Secondly, the Doctrines do not give bullshit like +4% to ranged damage, but either unlock abilities for specific units or upgrade the existing abilities of others (like upgrading the Dreadnoughts to gain charge attacks and shields after executing slam attacks, giving Dire Avengers Holo-Fields, or giving Deffkoptas Buzzsaws).

The game is out, and it feels like kind of a mix of the previous games. Reception has been mixed with lots disliking it for being different. While others have enjoyed it. The Critic side has been positive as a whole for the game however.

External links

• Actual gameplay, supposedly in alpha, we heard the same with C&C4...
• Old fan Arch Warhammer dissects an interview with DoW3 lead director Phil Boulle
• For those searching from the trailer's the "Clean" version of the soundtrack, is finally here
• Here are the game sales stats.