Dawn of War Mods

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/tg/ loves it some Dawn of War. This goes without saying. Unfortunately as has been widely documented, Dawn of War is fraught with problems; the way the game plays is hideously unbalanced, the factions don't play anything like they should (Eldar being both swarmy and utilitarian, for example), and as such, this has left a lot of players out in the cold, asking obvious questions: Is there a way to fix this? Is there anything that makes this game better than it already is?

The answer to both is yes, and the answer comes in the form of Mods.

Mods in DOW range from conversion and add-on packs to add units, to mods to re-work the game to play more like vanilla Dawn of War. They can completely revamp how the game handles, or simply re-balance gameplay to more-clearly approach something resembling actual balance.

What Modding Can And Cannot Do

Modding in DOW can do a lot of awesome things. It can re-add slashed content (such as the Flamers for the Imperial Guardsmen, or optional weapon upgrades for the Imperial Guard Sentinel), it can make better use of existing resources (making weapon and tech-tree upgrades that make sense, for example), or it can mod how some units operate to make them closer to their codex equivalents. Alternately, they can change weapon and damage algorithms to make the game more balanced, ratchet back overpowered units, or add whole-new-units or factions! All of which, it needs be said, is Awesome.

On the downside, there's an extent to which Modding can do. A lot of DOW's more infamous issues are hard-coded into the SDK and cannot be fixed without extensive modification to the interface; for example, until it was patched, there was no way for modders to fix the targetting bug possessed by Tau Broadside Teams and Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons Teams. Sometimes, modders can make clever work-arounds to bypass existing issues, but this is not always a hard-and-fast rule. Idiotic nonsense like how DOW handles terrain (and letting units shoot right through it, for example) can't really be fixed with any level of modding, no matter how advanced. Except the Titanium Wars mod does do exactly that, fixing the terrain bullshit LOS to true LOS.

Dawn of War Modding

Dawn of War is arguably one of the least mod-friendly games that actually allows mods. There's a number of reasons behind this, but the general gist is that the developers did not go out of their way to embrace the modding community (despite constantly touting supporting it), and never released things like the engine coding or SDKs to the public. This, paired with the fact that no mod auto-updates in Dawn of War, did a lot to make all the various mods available in the Dawn of War series fight with one another for community spotlight and run-time, with each mod having a small but bustling community attached to it. Because there's an enormous population of fa/tg/uys and ca/tg/irls who still play Dawn of War, there's a sort of disconnect and general stigma against the modding community, when they've arguably handled a lot of issues better than the original developers.

But that's neither here nor there. You want to know about Mods, and that's why you're viewing this page.

Favored Dawn of War mods of /tg/

The Following are some of /tg/'s favorite mods for Dawn of War. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and needs to be updated by the community so they can add their own entries. It's highly encouraged that you check them out; they range from the epic to the lulzy. Almost every mod has its drawbacks, as well; Firestorm Over Kronus, for example, tends to use a lot more resources than regular Dark Crusade, whilst Dawn of War Pro's slower gameplay and more literal scaling tends to put a lot of players off - but that's part of what makes them enjoyable. Try them out and see which one(s) you like. People worked hard on these goddamned things, and it shows.

Anyway, here's the list that would probably enhance your life by many notches:

  • First and foremost, the Camera Mod. Technology marches on, and the zoom level on a big screen (or anything in 1080p) looks like you've squished your face into the tabletop. Most big overhauls include this, but if you're using nothing else, use this one. Especially if you're new to the game, to save you a lot of panning. (Dark Crusade edition here)
  • Firestorm over Kronus/Firestorm over Kaurava/Purgation of Kaurava - An epic mod, Firestorm Over Kronus ramps everything up about the game and then some. Sick of fighting with the limited battlegroups Dawn of War enforces? Want to fight with entire goddamned armies that remain faithful to the Force Organization Chart? Pissed that Chaos lost most of its weapon upgrades in WA? FoK does all of that, and even adds the Black Templars as a playable faction! One of several mods that /tg/'s Dawn of War veterans will heartily recommend. Available for Dark Crusade and Soulstorm.
    • A recent update on their page indicates that the development team has been put back together again after almost a decade of inactivity and are working on a new version. So far, units such as Imperial Knights,9th Edition Dark Eldar and the Primaris Astraeus Super-Heavy Tank are planned to be added alongside many other updates.
  • DoWpro - Dawn of War Pro is a mod that first arrived in Winter Assault, as a direct result of said expansion completely changing the overall gameplay of Dawn of War too much for many players' liking. Originally intended as a "closer to Vanilla" mod that made the new expansion play like the previous Dawn of War game, it gradually expanded into its own beast, adding cut content and new materials to flesh out the concept further. It's notable both for inspiring several gameplay changes that were added in both Dark Crusade and Soulstorm. If you're a fan of the slower pace of Vanilla and the added options it had, then this mod might be just what you're looking for.
  • Ultimate Apocalypse Mod - Another very prominent mod which introduces Titan and epic-sized units, expanding with more Advanced Buildings and a shit ton of new units for every race and making everything fucking epic. Massive battles with hundreds of units smashing into each other, very CPU intensive, but only when it wants to work. Soulstorm exclusive. The music is sort of buggy for the main mode, with only a few bits of the soundtrack playing. This will lead you to quickly turn off the music, load up youtube and play some other songs when you get tired of generic epic music. It also adds character leveling and campaign wargear. Also adds the ability to build walls and superweapons, the later in the form of nuclear strikes (IG, SM and SoB, along with a death Ray and EMP), various warp or psychic powers (Chaos and Eldar), WAAAAGH, raping your enemies souls (Dark Eldar), FUCK HUEG particle cannons (Tau), tons of RAPE in pyramid shape (Necrons) and biological bombardments (Tyranid). It also allows you to deepstrike Baneblades by manually putting spawned baneblades into mars-pattern commands, but it requires a minute or so before it's ready to be deepstriked. Includes Daemons and Daemonhunters to the mod and gave the Dark Eldar a titan.
  • Titanium Wars Mod (Also available for Dark Crusade and even backports Sisters and Dark Eldar) -(Unless you're Russian, you will have quite a hard time looking for a place to download the mod) The godfather of Titan-like mods which adds a good repertory of Titans for every race at the same time it keeps it fluffy and crunchy. Also fully compatible with the campaign. But it doesn't end there, no. First it merges soulstorm with daemonhunters mod, witch hunters mod and tyranid mod (which the later mods developers did not like so much, read: flamewars and bans over moddb), and adds a good bunch of new units to every faction apart from titans. Furthermore, the mod makes all races more or less balanced (by giving all of them a couple of so overpowered units that can blow each others base along with your computer in a HUEG fucking fireball), although removes air units. In its last version the Administratum was (oddly) added as a faction, based around throwing loads of PDF soldiers and old vehicles while begging for help from other factions through a radio beacon (you can ally with Chaos, smurfs, tau, Inquisition or IG).
  • Codex Mod - Another cool mod for those who felt disappointed by Firestorm over Kronus. Wile the mod does add new armies there a bit lackluster with lacking tool tips for most of them and some army's like the grey knights feeling too similar to regular marines. Also alters existing army's to keep them related to their respective codex and army sheets. What makes the Codex mod so highly recommended is that the mod can be easily edited to allow different race mods to work in the same game including superior versions of the Chaos Demons, Choas Renegades, and Daemon hunters. Use this mod as a hub for other mods to get multiple races working together along with updated versions of the base factions. mods marked with a "*" are compatible with Codex.
  • Battlefleet Gothic Mod - Considering how many terrible mistakes Games Workshop made by shutting down Specialist Games, a group of modders decided to undertake the very heavy task of turning DoW into a computer game version of Battlefleet Gothic. Considering that a big-name game studio's doing something similar as of late, one can only wonder just how this might have compared to that game...
  • Witch Hunters* - Before the Sisters of Battle were added in Soulstorm, a modding community got together to add them to Dark Crusade, and good god, were they successful. Notable for having models far more delicious than the SoB models Relic/Iron Lore put out for Soulstorm (seriously, the canoness seraphim induces HUGE thoughts of heresy). The Witch Hunters Mod was once abandoned since the team behind it disbanded, leaving only a beta, but it was a fan favorite and was eventually updated for Soulstorm and given a full release. The new Witch Hunters faction has you start as the Adeptus Arbites, then gives you the ability to call in reinforcements from both the Sisters and the Inquisition as you tech up, eventually giving you the choice between two mutually exclusive tech buildings, each unlocking different units, abilities, and upgrades.
  • Inquisition Daemonhunt* - A magnificent race mod which adds the Ordo Malleus Daemonhunters, one of the Inquisition branches as a playable army (Pre-Matt Ward dickery), totally recommendable if you like them. If your having trouble finding a working download look in the comments on the front page of the Moddb page for a location. A proper download has been uploaded on the website.
  • Armageddon Steel Legion Mod* - Oh, fuck yes. Tired of just having the original Imperial Guard to fight with? The ASL Mod adds the manliest of Ork-killers, the Armageddon Steel Legion, who play significantly differently than the other Imperial Guard force. With tons of units to play with and better scaling than the original, the Armageddon Steel Legion Mod's biggest drawback is how bad it (arguably) makes the actual Imperial Guard in Dawn of War look by comparison. Whereas the Vanilla Imperial guard is based mostly on the 3rd ed codex, this one is largely based on the 5th ed one with some IA options and the removal of things like Ogryns and Fliers. The A.I here, like the Tyranid mod, is fiendishly difficult and loves to drown it's foes in bodies whether on the defence or on the attack. Better pray you brought lots and lots and lots of anti-vehicle options because whether it's in mechanized or armoured flavour the Steel Legion is going to have all the vehicles. No air units though, so thankfully you won't have Vendettas hounding your ass.
  • Tyranid Mod* - The title says it all. The Tyranid Mod adds the Tyranids to Dawn of War! Naturally, this includes new units for this race as well as an unique gameplay dedicated to swarms and controlling your units through synapse. Be warned, the Tyranids are a fiendishly hard A.I opponent and will drown you in corpses. You're going to need a lot of flamers to stem the tide of bodies. And they don't need power, like at all, though they do have an alternative resource that works like Faith for the Sisters of Battle in the most recent versions. And did you bring anti-vehicle weapons? Well they'll all be useless. Not a single Tyranid has vehicle armour of any kind! Although many have Daemon armour.
  • Daemons mod* - Exactly what the title says; Daemons Mod adds motherfucking Daemons as a playable faction, complete with their own unique units and abilities. Also of note is the ability to summon fucking ANGRON to the field.
  • Black Templars* - Angry about 6E canning the Black Templars as an individual army? This mod, which is made by the FoK boys, is just for you. Giving the Templars things like Vows for the Emperor's Champion, a Castellan in fucking TERMINATOR ARMOR and the Land Raider Achilles, this is definitely a mod to play!
  • Dark Angels* - Probably the mod that finally got the Dark Angels' organization down, this mod gives them three different and balanced ways to play: Deathwing, which gives all your commanders Termie Armor (and Belial), Ravenwing, which gives everyone bikes and Sammael, and the regular mode, which gives you Azrael, the other major guys, and the ability to use either of the other two forces as you may.The finalized version has been released including Lord Cypher,a reworked Deathwing(this means plasma termies are in) and many more!
  • Dark Prophecy/Black Crusade: A MASSIVE mod that adds shittons of new stuff for the Imperial and Chaos factions. Space Marines can now emulate certain famous chapters and Chaos can also emulate certain traitor legions and warbands (including the Fallen TRAITORS THAT HAVE NO RELATION TO THE DARK ANGELS WHATSOEVER). The Sisters are overhauled too, now being the Inquisition with access to all three branches that can summon Sisters, Grey Knights, and Deathwatch depending on which Ordo you select. It also adds in backported DoW2 Tyranids. Current progress is...uncertain at best, as the mod is being done by one no-doubt overworked fellow who is building absolute fucktons of models for extra-specialness.
  • RAGE: World Eaters Warband*: Adds in the World Eaters and their armies of Khorne Berzerkers to DoW1. Noted for being very dedicated to Khorne with tons of melee combat and an economy that focuses more on how much you kill rather than how many listening posts/generators you spam. Yeah, Khorne be happy with this. Notable for the little details thrown in such as how most of the units even come in squads of 8, just like Khorne wanted. Later versions added a Khorne Banelord Titan, an Infernal Sicaran Battle Tank as well as new voice acting and new Khornate Engines of War,like the Kytan.
  • Soulstorm Bugfix Mod: The unmodded Soulstorm is riddled with bizarre bugs, problems, inconsistencies and typos. The bugfix mod fixes pretty much everything a mod possibly can without messing up game balance and incorporates the Dawn of Skirmish AI mod to make the computer not play like a total retard. Very strongly recommended for any LAN games or single player games of Soulstorm. The Bugfix mod also offers some additional mini-fix addons, such as fixing the AI Necron Lord, who otherwise refuses to use either the Nightbringer or Deceiver forms, and for repairing some long-standing broken armour piercing values on some weapons and abilities, whose brokeness suggests that Relic forgot how their own engine worked/Iron Lore had no goddamn clue what they were doing. Superseded by the Unification Mod below.
    • Unification Mod: Allows you to play a number of different mod races in a single game with minimal effort. Whereas most race combiner mods ([like this one or Codex above) can cause problems with getting the various component mods to play nicely, Unification was carefully designed to give the best, crash-free experience possible. Best of all, it's still being updated to this day. Update: A new version is currently in the works. The lead dev of the mod (Gambit_1) has ensured that it will be the most refined and compact version to date, it will also be much easier to combine race mods and to install. Update2: Said new version is out and is AWESOME.
    • Opinion of Unification has soured recently, as the egotistical behavior of the creators has caused some to become disenfranchised.This threadgoes over the various controversies indepth.
  • Renegade Guard*: based on the the Renegades and Heretics army from Imperial armor V-VII. Bit of a mixed bag this mod. On the one hand the infantry models all look excellent and they use autoguns not lasguns to help make them more unique, the buildings all are versions of the imperial guard with chaos decorations but they're traitor guard so it fits the theme. But all the sound files are from the regular Guard force meaning your chaos madmen are still praising the emperor, and the mod uses regular Leman Russ not Malcadors, but that's a nit pick. Over all we give it eight strangled kittens out of ten and a recommend. Update: The mod has been updated with thematically appropriate voice-acting and new units, including Beastmen and a fuckawesome Decimator Daemon Engine. Give it a try.
  • Salamanders*: As you can expect the Salamanders play a lot like regular space marines except they're slower, have more health and have better melee thanks to a 'non codex' squad of thunder hammers. overall not bad but don't feel like you need to run out and get it now. A finalized remake version dubbed "Reforged" has been released and includes lots of new content as well as reworked units and abilities, most notably Primaris marines. Special characters are also featured, such as the friendly giant himself and Tu'shan.
  • Harlequins*: Lets you field the Harlequins as their own faction. Notable for going to old lore let you field Mimes, and all of the harlequin leaders like Death Jesters, Shadowseer as well as their own jet bikes. Only time will tell if this will get a 7E facelift...
  • Thousand Sons*: This mod was in production for almost a decade, and NOW it is finally out! Copious amounts of mind-bullets, daemon summoning, and walking dustbins are to be expected, and Ahzek Ahriman himself can be summoned, able to fire a metric fuckton of spells.
  • Adeptus Mechanicus Explorators: A rather homebrew-centric army, this takes some mobile servitors and armed tech-priests protecting a giant tank that acts as their HQ similar to the Necrons. There is a second AdMech mod out there that attempted to be more FW-friendly, but there's not as much progress there, while this one has a beta out.
  • Strongholds Mod: See all those awesome faction mods in the list above? This mod lets you use them in the single player campaign missions for Dark Crusade and Soulstorm. Have fun storming Victory Bay as a RAGE-filled horde of Khorne Berzerkers, or whatever weird combination you feel like trying out.
  • Emperor's Children: A mod which adds the Emperor's Children as a playable faction. Contains a bunch of new custom models and unique lore-friendly additions such as sonic predators and Noise Terminators. Special characters from the lore are included, most notably Miriael Sabathiel who finally gets the attention she deserves. You can choose either the Emperor's Children branch (which allows you to unlock the full heretical might of Third Legion, including Lucius the Eternal and Fulgrim), or Miriael's branch of Fallen Sisterhood, which even allows her briefly to daemonhost Slaanesh! Update: A new version is currently in the works, it will add lot's of new content along with a bunch of other improvements (as if the mod isn't packed full with toys for us to play with already) which includes, but is not limited to: Knights of House Devine (Slaaneshi-dedicated house that is actually canon), Fabius Bile (which may or may not have his own branch), an actual chaos land speeder, chaos thunderhawk and Daemon Primarch Fulgrim in his true serpent-like form.
  • Imperial Fists: For those of you who believe the best offense is a good defence.
  • The Eranthis Project Redux Mod: A WIP HD overhaul for Dawn of War, upgrading both sounds and textures (and more recently, making some significant gameplay alterations) Makes the game look and sound better whilst also trying to improve certain mechanics.
  • The Crucible: A spin-off of Ultimate Apocalypse made by some people who wanted to rebalance the game while maintaining the epic scale of the gameplay. Not only is this mod intending to add certain depths of gameplay where UA might have cast aside but is also intent on trying to make it a go-to choice for pvp balance.
    • Note that until the mod proper is uploaded to Moddb, your only way of downloading this mod is to go through their Discord server. There is now a proper verison on Moddb
    • It should be noted that some view The Crucible with some...irritation, as a dev who used to work on UA is the one supplying models, leading to a sense that they went against the agreement they set up with the original Ultimate Apocalypse Mod to let them be the sole devs. Whether you think this is justified or not depends on how you view the split.

Dawn of War II Modding

Oh hell yes. There's plenty of mods here, too, but, like the case for Dawn of War, they haven't been widely supported. They include things like mod packs that add the dreaded weeaboo space communists or stupid sexy evil space elves.

Dawn of War II mods:

  • Elite Mod - A must-have for all of those who felt a big let down with Dawn of War 2 Retribution and how it was left for death without fixing many of it´s problems. Re-balances many things and also adds some new units; plus you have the possibility to play as the Grey Knights.
  • Codex Edition - Don't confuse it with Codex Mod from DoW1 as they are quite different. Codex Edition adds many more new units and adds realistic damage. Worth to take a look.
  • Space Hulk mod - HOLY SHIT ITS SPACE HULK FOR DAWN OF WAR 2, COMPLETE WITH ANGRY MARINES!!
  • Warp storm over Aurelia - Adds fluffy crunchy codex stuff but doesn't change gameplay much otherwise. Definitely worth checking out.
  • Destroyer 40k - Adds some really pretty Grey Knights and lots of new upgrades for Marines and Chaos.
  • Stratagems - Features specialized Victory Points and other capturable assets on a 6 Player team battle map for DOW2 Retribution Multiplayer and Skirmish.
  • Vengeance of the Blood Ravens - A huge and unique mod that aims to make DoW II lore-accurate; that is, a handful of Space Marines face off against hundreds of Orks/Tyranids (which is balanced by unit costs and such). In addition it also adds an absolute shit ton of new content for each faction, which greatly improves replayability. It also allows you to play as the Grey Knights, Death Korps of Krieg, Legiones Astartes (unique to this mod), and Tau. Worth a try for a bit of a different experience. Update: The latest version has added several new baneblade variants (including Banesword, Stormblade, Shadowsword and Stormsword) all of which function properly, though the plasma blastgun of the stormblade is a bit underwhelming, but that's a minor problem. The creator of the mod (DeusImperator) is also planning to add the 3 iconic SM superheavies in a later version: The almighty Fellblade, Glaive and Falchion. TL;DR: Basically considered the DoW II version of the Ultimate Apocalypse and/or Unification mod in terms of content, but different from both in that it aims to make the gameplay lore-accurate.
  • Forgotten Emerald - A mod for the Last Stand which aims to completely overhaul all heroes, diversify their builds and rebalance some waves. Want an autocannon Dreadnought summon? Now you can. Want to play a Marked Champion of any god? FE's got you covered. Wanna be a badass and use Termie armor? It's in active development. The mod's in an open beta currently, and so far only the Captain, the General, the Sorcerer (renamed Chaos Champion) and the Farseer have received overhauls, along with waves 1-10 of the Colosseum. Other heroes have received minor balance changes, and Anvil is pretty much the same, except for Catachans, who can summon Terminators.

Dawn of War III Modding

The game may have been cancelled, but there's still some cool stuff here. Unlike the previous two titles, this game has Steam Workshop support, so you can easily find, install, and uninstall mods on the game's workshop page. If you want to make some mods of your own, Relic put together a modding wiki to guide you through the process, which you can find here.

Dawn of War III Mods

  • The Exodus Mod - Probably the best mod on the workshop, and highly recommended for anyone looking to play Dawn of War III (especially multiplayer). Exodus is designed by one of the top online players in order to rebalance the base game and resolve many of the community complaints. The changes are too numerous to mention here, but primarily the mod:
    • Increases unit health to offset Dawn of War III's terrible attrition problems
    • The AI has been improved to make it more challenging
    • Elite unit abilities have been toned down so a single Wraithknight can't O.K.O. an entire army
    • Power Core mode has been re-balanced to make it a slower-paced and more tactical experience, rather than the mad-dog rush it usually is.

Seriously, if you were turned off by Dawn of War III before, give this mod a try. It may not fix Gabe's fancy acrobatics, but it makes the rest of the game a more strategic, enjoyable experience.

  • DEATHWATCH - While the Exodus mod is mostly focused on re-balancing Dawn of War III, DEATHWATCH is focused on making it bigger. The successor to the excellent Rework mod, DEATHWATCH (despite the name), includes major changes to all three factions, adding new units and new gameplay mechanics. All non-character Elites are now trainable units with their own squad caps (so you can have four squads of Terminators running around), makes units more resilient to compensate for DoW3's horrible attrition. It also features 11 new units, including Fire Dragons, Sternguard Veterans, and Flash Gitz. Check it out on the workshop to see the full list of changes. The mod creator has discontinued work on the mod, but it still works fine.
  • Codex 8: Dark Eldar - The first race mod for Dawn of War III, this mod adds Dark Eldar to the game.
  • Codex 8: Chaos - Adds Chaos Space Marines to the game.
  • Codex 8: Factions - Adds Dark Eldar, Chaos Space Marines, and Imperial Guard factions to the game.
  • Classic Dawn of War Maps - A collection of all the maps and modes people have ported over from the original Dawn of War and Dawn of War II.
  • The Last Stand - Adds The Last Stand from Dawn of War II.
  • The Angry Marines Mod - FUCKING HERETICS!

Try all of them out. You'll be glad you did. I guarantee it.

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