Bought it and finished it. All in all not too bad but a bit short for my liking. 11 missions in all. Some exceptional attention to detail in many areas made for a sense of fit and finish. Great voiceovers, cut scenes and interesting story line. Anyone else pick it up yet?

"Let's hear it for the pansies in the light mechs.....WAY TO GO LIGHT MECHS!" - Duncan Fisher

I don't know if it's out yet in the UK, but I'll likely buy it in the next few weeks, since i aadored the demo and the table-top game.
What's online multiplayer like?

I'll be picking it up soon.

I haven't played the multiplayer yet. May not either. Perhaps I'll give it a try though.

"Let's hear it for the pansies in the light mechs.....WAY TO GO LIGHT MECHS!" - Duncan Fisher

Ok, I just played the multiplayer and I must admit, they did a very nice job with it. Worthwhile trying out.

"Let's hear it for the pansies in the light mechs.....WAY TO GO LIGHT MECHS!" - Duncan Fisher

Just got it today, and lovin the attention to detail of the units...biggest prob with the game for me though is I keep wanting to zoom in close to watch the detailed animations...and thus lose track of the battle!

Major William "Billybones" Ebaugh
AKA "Chopped Liver"
Commander, Delta Division
PaleRiders UeberUrbie Brigade

I love the voice overs when clicking on units and vehicles. Nice touch. Unfortunately, I don't think there's much replayability to the game. I played it through on normal first and now I'm going through it on hard. But, its exactly the same just with more enemies to kill.

Multiplayer was interesting........especially when i got my butt kicked repeatedly. What works in single player doesn't work in multiplayer. I used a seize/fortify routine building up turrets every so far to ensure I held the position. Worked weill in single player but got me creamed in multiplayer. People were already (after 1 week) talking about the only way to play multi is to build forces fast and just charge. He who charges fastest wins. Fun for a little while but not for long. The way they did multi was nice I thought, its juist that the game itself doesn't seem to lend itself to creative multiplayer strategies.

"Let's hear it for the pansies in the light mechs.....WAY TO GO LIGHT MECHS!" - Duncan Fisher

And another strategy game succumbs to the rush tactic.

***
I try to comprehend, but one by one it kills my brain cells...

1. Marine scouts with sniper rifles.
2. Servitors dropping down mines.
3. No more rush.

Admittedly, all my knowledge is based on too many games of C&C generals ( i know, it's not the same), and too many skirmishes on the demo mode 'cause i'm not in possession of a full version of DoW yet.

But a rush really isn't such a problem - is it? You can have a chapel-barracks built right off the bat and start pumping out assault marines if you should so choose, and with their jump packs you can rip up whomever comes for you, right?

Yes, and in fact if you don't like rush tactics I'd suggest trying some other game mode than Annihilation. Capture and Hold is a good one to start with if you don't like the Rush.

I've found the game to be very deep. Do you have to streamline your build order? Yep. But, each race has it's unique characteristics that benifit a certain approach. Learn those and you'll do fine. For instance, if you go Chaos try to make your peons submit to Forced Labor for a faster build on your structures.

Join us at: http://www.mechnexus.net

Downloaded and played...and finished the Demo..it was really cool..i mean the voice over and story line is really good....Details..Details..thats what I see so great here....I can just imagine a MOD for BT Universe...DEtailed Mechs...POwer Armors...Elemetals...Tanks...

getting back...Dawn of War is a great and Solid game...Single or Multiplay....Got 8 out of 10 in BBC news game reviews...

"Praise to the Lord my Rock, who traines my hands for battle and my fingers for war."

modability is definitely going to be a factor in the future of this game, and yeah, when I bought it the thought did cross my mind about a BT mod.....

Major William "Billybones" Ebaugh
AKA "Chopped Liver"
Commander, Delta Division
PaleRiders UeberUrbie Brigade

Bought it on Friday, finished the campaign last night. Comments, in no particular order:

1. This is a really, really short campaign. You're definitely buying this game in large part for the skirmish game. I was expecting a somewhat better storyline from Relic, but oh well. It didn't make me want to gouge my eyeballs out, at least.

2. Great cutscene at the beginning. Worth downloading the demo for that even if you don't want the game. The characters are a little Americanized, though, and aren't nearly as gothic as they were in Space Hulk I, which is a little disappointing. The animations in the in-game cutscene are pretty bad considering the graphical level of detail. They didn't bother to animate people standing back up in the cutscenes, or turning around, and it looks sloppy. Guys duking it out in close combat look really good in the game, but it doesn't look so great in the cutscenes. More detail in the cutscene scripted animations would have gone a long way.

3. The scripts governing computer-controlled units ("AI") haven't really improved much since the last RTS game I played, which was probably Starcraft. Getting your guys into cover is a pain, as is maneuvering vehicles around each other.

4. I really wish you could give orders when paused, at least in singleplayer. I'm the worst RTS player ever, and I get annoyed when I need to do two things at once but can't. Still too much micromanagement. I know what I want to do, but can't click on crap and hit hotkeys fast enough to do it all in time. I hate that.

5. I do like not harvesting gold/lumber/flubber for a change. That's one bit of micromanagement I don't have to worry about, at least.

6. Overwatch should stay on even after it's done reinforcing the squad. I don't like that I have to keep checking up on the 8 Terminators I have holding a gap; if the game would just keep reinforcing the squad on, then I wouldn't have to. I want to keep churning out full strength Marine squads with 4 missile launches plus a Sergeant, and it takes entirely too many keypresses to do that. And given that it only works until the squad is at full strength, why do we have "pause overwatch" and "stop overwatch" buttons at all?

7. The absence of commands to create and jump to player-set groups hurts. Also desperately needed is a "select all units on screen" button. For that matter, it would probably be best if they just incorporated all of the unit selection keyboard shortcuts from Total Annihilation.

8. With the exception of Possessed Marines, the close combat infantry seems to really suck. Is it just me, or do heavy weapons units rip them to pieces even in close combat? The range of close combat jump troops is totally out of control, though. They move from way the hell out of sighting range right into melee, whereupon they get shredded by anything but an unupgraded squad of Marines. I'd rather they 1) made the jump range much shorter; 2) made it so they jumped automatically, without you telling them; 3) made them stronger in close combat.

9. The tutorials and manual seem kind of half-assed. Would it kill them to lay out the hard numerical information in a readable format?

10. I never thought that Space Marine Dreadnoughts would look good waddling around the battlefield, but these things are actually pretty cool.

11. Several units seem useless. Just on the Marine side: Assault Marines, Hellfire Dreadnoughts and Rhinos. Any tips for these guys? Also, I make Apothecaries, but they keep getting shot first, which defeats the point.

12. The computer seems to get free spawns at various points in the campaign, which bugs me a lot. Either that or Chaos has some way of teleporting Assault troops around, and popping Horrors out of lava pits.

13. The army painter is nice, but I wish there were more options here. Individual body sections (e.g. Crimson Fist or Howling Griffon paint schemes, and helmets). Decals for kneepads. Multiple layouts per army for Squad 1, Squad 2, etc., or for Commanders/ Librarians/ Apothecaries. I wouldn't mind the useless units so much if I could customize their paint schemes a little more, to give the army some character.

14. I hope, when Relic releases the editing tools, that it lets you do some significant editing to the game mechanics, and that a lot of the aspects of the packaged game are just designed for playability. For instance, these maps are really small, and you really can't zoom out very far. If that's the presentation they were aiming for, that's fine, but I hope these things aren't hard-coded into the game.

15. Twin-linked lascannons seem really weenie, much weaker than the squad missile launcher. I have to check that numerical data in the information pane next time.

in my experience you Can give orders when paused.

However, there's quite a bit of lag. it seems like you pretty much have to click and hold the icons, hotkeys seem to work less well.

which of course makes issuing those orders when paused more difficult than is convienent. probably to discourage ppl in multi from pausing.

it always seemed to me that the missile launcher while very effective vs. vehicles and buildings kinda sucked vs. infantry of any sort. lascannon seem to be perhaps less efficient vs. buildings but more effective vs. infantry.

missile launchers do have the nice knockdown effect, but if you're getting mobbed they don't seem to be all that great.

they do do a great job at pinning heros though

personally i liked the lascannon predator better, but that's just my uninformed opinion.

assault marines are great vs. vehicles/buildings with the melta bombs, but that's pretty much all they have going for them. the jump packs only really give them an advantage on maps with lotsa terrain disconnects, like some of the campaigns maps.

hellfire dreads are ok. normal dreads are better for assaulting enemies and destroying buildings (they just work faster) but if you're into just shooting em up, then hellfires are better.

close combat troops are potentially lethal. banshees are bit fragile, but seer councils are very lethal particularly once you start handing out the witchblades.
assault marines, raptors, and rokkit boyz oddly enough probably shouldn't be counted as close combat specialists :/ which is very strange.

i think raptors/assault marines/rokkit boyz are less heavy cav than light cav. which is odd since in theory they are wielding two close combat weapons which gives them more attacks/dice than a standard tac trooper. so they're Supposed to rip up less specialized troops in melee.

i recall seeing a method to have a squad auto-reinforce, but don't recall what it was. check the DoW boards.

I used hellfire dreadnoughts exclusively to great success. I did find the assault marines far less effective than I thought they'd be. Those big transports (can't remeber what they're called now) were awesome. I had one of those and 4 hellfires with one servitor reparing and they were unstoppable.

"Let's hear it for the pansies in the light mechs.....WAY TO GO LIGHT MECHS!" - Duncan Fisher

land raider?

the one that requires a relic right?
twin heavy bolter and 2 sponsons. carries termie squads?

for the money i think i'd favor preds and dreads more, but they are intimidating and do have slightly better layouts and damage.

i'm begining to think assault marines are more shock troops than CC specialists.

i think the only economical use for them may be to jump em in to tie up enemy heavies say a hellfire dreadnought or something. run a heavy weapons tac squad in and then let loose and maybe extract the assault marines if they're too beatup. or better yet for chaos use some raptors to tie em up and then charge in the possessed.

hell i find 4 dreadnoughts tend to clean house in general. of course this is generally vs. light opposition. a bunch of assault marines with meltabombs would probably mess up a pure vehicle squad. or use warp spiders with haywires.

I'm kinda disappointed with termie squads myself. they're late game, cost a lot, but don't have the ultra nasty durability they do in minitures, although for standard termies the assault cannons are kinda nice. this is seems particularly true of the assault termies esp. since they supposedly have storm shields.

Land Radier.

That's it. They are worth the money. They kick a$$. I had one taking on some serious competition and just wouldn't die. Its big enough so that you can hide a servitor behind it (so it doesn't take fire) and let it keep repairing it. Two of those things with some support troops or mechs would be tough to beat.

"Let's hear it for the pansies in the light mechs.....WAY TO GO LIGHT MECHS!" - Duncan Fisher

trust me, it's just b/c opfor didn't pack enough AT weapons.

land raiders are very cool, but off on their lonesome even with servitor back up it's vulnerable to meltabomb assault marines or warpspider haywire bombs. warpspiders are potentially worse since i think when they're upgraded for haywire their filament guns get more effective vs. vehicles. (on the upside they die faster compared to assault marines) but in either case 2-4 squads of them will probably really mess up your land raiders.

2 land raiders represents 8 units of vehicle support. for the same support levels you can take 4 dreads. i'm pretty sure the dreads would beat the raiders in close combat. the combined lascannon might destroy one of the dreads, but then the other three would probably quickly finish em off. OTOH the req cost is probably lower for the double raiders, also dreads can't transport anything (but does anyone use that ability much?)

on to another disappointment. fire prisms. they're pretty cool, but that splash is murder on your own troops
esp. if you go heavy melee

The single player missions were too easy and not very interesting. The cut scenes were pure crap. Relic better start focusing on its gameplay and balance, cause their last 3 games all suffered from crappy play balance and bad design decissions. They took the time to make the game look increadible, but didn't create verried and interesting units, basicly took a great engine and licence and shot themselves in the foot.

I thought the campaign was pretty good, and am basically satisfied with my purchase.

There is a gigantic difference in difficulty between Normal and Hard, for both the campaign and the skirmishes. Normal is a little too easy, but Hard is way the hell too hard, at least for me (not the world's greatest RTS player).

The in-game cutscenes are crap, though.

Easy is better then the insanity that was Homeworld 2.

***
I try to comprehend, but one by one it kills my brain cells...

Yea, that game was insane. Its one of the few games where I just said "F*** it" and didn't bother to finish.

I finished it, but it was very counterintuitive in that starting the mission with fewer ships made the missions easier. They created an adaptive system for the AI starting forces that was something like 3-to-1. If you went into a mission with the maximum forces, the enemy had that advantage, plus construction vessels, and you couldn't build any more. If you went in with the minimum then you could build up enough to balance your forces with the enemy's.

It was a very, very bad choice for "balancing" - the first Homeworld had no balancing factors like that, and I loved it. So did many other people, apparently. I'm not sure why they felt the need to change it.

Brian/Perrin42
http://www.tro42.com

Per ardua ad astra.
Through struggle to the stars

"I thought it would be nice to lie down and close my eyes
It never occurred to me that I am already asleep"
Trapt, Enigma

Actually, hw1 *did* have balancing factors like that - the mission opfor was adaptive to what you brought to the party. I had to do the asteroid-crashing-in-mothership mission with a significant force of my own including over 50 frigates, 20-something destroyers and 8 heavy cruisers.
Tough, but I had a massive wall of firepower, so I ddin't mind all that much

Well, it couldn't have been significant. At the end of the first game I'm usually using spheres of Ion Cannon Frigates as anti-fighter forces, and overpowering the enemy pretty handily. Which seems like how it should be. I mean, this isn't Ender's Game.

Brian/Perrin42
http://www.tro42.com

Per ardua ad astra.
Through struggle to the stars

"I thought it would be nice to lie down and close my eyes
It never occurred to me that I am already asleep"
Trapt, Enigma

"This isn't Ender's Game"

hahaha

probably the best thing about the unrestricted max force size was that you got the impression you were scavenging everything in sight and were the poor downtrod rebel you were cast as, fighting against an enormous (if a little slow on the uptake) empire.

i never really got the sensation that i was in possession of a superior technology artifact as is implied in hw2. after all, even with all the jumps, the enemy always appeared in front with large numbers of ships, often with well prepared ambushes. the sort of concentration exhibited doesn't exactly imply to me that the taidan travelled all that much slower.

I think you got that exactly right.

Brian/Perrin42
http://www.tro42.com

Per ardua ad astra.
Through struggle to the stars

"I thought it would be nice to lie down and close my eyes
It never occurred to me that I am already asleep"
Trapt, Enigma

i thought DoW was perfectly servicable.

it's not a total trend setter, but it does a very good job getting the atmosphere right.

I think this is more of a case of them shooting themselves int he foot by Taking a strong license.

seems to me relic in homeworld was a total suprise, there are clear shortfalls in it but it was mostly mindblowing b/c it was brand spanking new!

taking an existing franchise and pushing beyond expectations seems like it's a little difficult for them (right now). given their current history it seems to me that they're very good, but not great. it always seems like they can't Quite fit that extra flip and twist into whatever budget they're on. (of course it feels like sadly bemoaning olympic athletes are 'only human')

based on some limited additional experience with the skirmish and multi and can readily believe that the AI ramps things up a lot on harder difficulties.

Just wanted to state for the record, that even though some things coudl be improved in the game, I'm having a GREAT time playing online. Orbital drops to the back of their base is increadible.