Firestorm Over Kronus

Dawn of Warhammer 40K: Firestorm Over Kronus (also known as Firestorm Over Kaurava and, most recently, Purgation Of Kaurava) is, without a doubt the most popular Mod out there for Dawn of War, simply because of how close to the Tabletop it hews, from the focus on army choices to the reformatting of abilities and costs, and how many things are available for use.

As of writing, progress on the Dark Crusade version of this mod is dead (The team behind the mod kinda drifted apart), while progress on the Soulstorm version is present, if not incredibly slow, with a playable Alpha available.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The Good

• Alongside the default races established, the mod also adds in the Black Templars as a unique race. Note that this is 5th Edition Templars, so that means that they get their awesome stuff with them.
  • Currently, Purgation of Kaurava is in an Alpha build that lacks both the Sisters of Battle (Which is being replaced by the Inquisition (currently under construction), which has Ordo choices which allow for the Sisters, Grey Knights, and Deathwatch to be available as troops) and Dark Eldar as playable armies. Most of this is because the coding is a lengthy process to completely convert to the style this mod uses.
• Force Organization plays like the Tabletop Game. Instead of just Infantry and Vehicle Caps, there's an HQ Cap, a Troops Cap, a Heavy Support Cap, a Fast Attack Cap and an Elites Cap to keep to the FOC.
• All the costs, health, armor and weapons are re-balanced to fit with the Codices of their respective armies. This means that health is scaled to work with Toughness and Wounds, Armor now counts both the regular armor and Invul saves, Weapons now have properly-assigned S and AP powers, and costs are based upon the points they are worth.
• Tons of choices available for every part of the army, from any sort of equipable gun for the infantry to upgrades for vehicles and Commander units.
• Plenty of choices for the armies. Imperial Guard has the Infantry and Armored Company doctrines, the Space Marines have special Warlord Traits (Now being replaced with the Chapter Tactics 6E gives them), Chaos Space Marines can become one of the original Traitor Legions or be a generic renegade chapter.
  • Since Daemons as an army is very disorganized and difficult to organize thanks to the powers that be, they are being used alongside the Chaos Marines, just like they did back in good ol' 2E.
• For balance reasons, the flyer units Relic forced upon Soulstorm are effectively scrubbed. GOODBYE, OVERSIZED HELL TURKEYS!
• Tyranids are now a playable faction, importing the shiny models from DoW 2!

The Bad

• That lack of flyers will cause problems to armies that really need them. (Namely Chaos Space Marines, who had a pretty weak Codex for 6E) Considering the issues Codices have with balance, this will definitely cause problems about what changes that need to happen besides the Codex ones. (This really isn't an issue with Chaos, you don't need much of anything when your troops can carry lascannons and autocannons and snipe almost any vehicle upon spawn with a spotter.)
  • The 7E Orks Codex has been out for a while and they still haven't changed crunch to fit 7E- and it shows.
• Progress for the Dark Crusade version is nonexistent. This means that your latest version is not even a finished product.
  • Soulstorm version, though, is progressing, but slowly, due to the time it takes to get everything for the new races.
• The fact that the mod team's modelers have to make most of the models for new units (Dark Eldar Wracks, Tau Riptides, Space Marine Centurions, Eldar Wraithknights and Wraithblades), means that it will take a long, long, LONG time for things to come.
• Many weapons and units have no information on their Strength and AP values, and special rules are not explained at all.

The Ugly

• It used to have a module to merge with Tyranid Mod. The maker for that, however, retired from modding, thus leaving the community with a merger to a Tyranids Mod version that is obsolete to say the least. B
• One very important thing players of this mod need to know is that UNITS CAN ONLY REINFORCE NEAR STRUCTURES AND TRANSPORTS (Yes, we're aware of just how stupid this game mechanic is). Newbies who do not learn this rule will be in for a world of pain.

Sites

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dawn-of-warhammer-40k-firestorm-over-kronus - ModDB for Firestorm Over Kronus

http://fok.dow-mods.com/index.php?sid=ca6c62225ea7b7d599834d1a57957b60 - Official forum for the mod, with the links to the final released version of Firestorm Over Kronus

http://www.moddb.com/mods/purgation-of-kaurava - ModDB for Purgation of Kaurava

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?252831-SS-Warhammer-40k-Firestorm-over-Kaurava-Purgation-of-Kaurava - RelicNews thread for Firestorm Over Kaurava/Purgation of Kaurava