[starbug]

WARING SPOILERS MAY BE AHEAD!!!

I have played and finished the Chaos marines and Blood Ravens campaigns(started the eldars) , i loved the storyline a nice sense of closure to the dow Gaberial Angelos saga, so far I was a bit confused at first because i started of as chaos (i love Eliphas even if hes changed voice actors he’s still badass), was shocked to find myself fighting the Alpha Legion but then it all made sense after finishing it and the blood ravens story. Also shocked at who the ancient hero was, wasn't expecting that! Also cool that Abaddon features even if he sounds like your average 2d bad guy.

The ending for Chaos is RUBBISH but it does leave things open for something else to happen were as the marine ending closes up the whole DOW storyline. Wonder which ending will be the cannon and will it go on to DOW 3 (which relic have more or less said its being made) or will DOW 3 be a whole new story?
Pros
- good storyline(for chaos and blood ravens as those who i have played)
- Pretty balanced
- Good conclusion to DOW 1, Dark Crusade and Chaos Rising
- brillant new music
- Get to play as Eliphas again!!!!!
- Baneblade, LandRaider Redeemer!!!

Cons
- Chaos Campaign ending is totally and utterly rubbish, such an anticlimax to a really good last level.
- Campaign missions for each race i have played are the same just different audio/text and cosmetic differences( would have been nice to have had different missions but i guess that would have taken to long to do.)
- Most races get a big super tank or walker except for chaos, all they get are noise marines. I think they should of got Defilers or Obliterators.
- Unit pathing for the big tanks ie land raider, baneblade is pretty poor.
- Army painter for Chaos marines is STILL rubbish i want my multicoloured Chaos marines just like i can with the space marines!
- Collectors Edition in my opinion not very good, i know its the only retail version you can get but you don't get much and contents seems to be different in different countries, i know for a fact one of them gets a t-shirt, think its the US were as the UK gets postcards and a poster. New soundtrack would have been nice.

Cant wait for DOW 3!!!

[NGTM-1R]

I've completed the SM campaign and am working on IG and Eldar ones. I've also had Ork thoroughly spoilered.

This is not as good as Chaos Rising, IMO. Not to say it's not worth it, but CR was more tightly plotted and more interesting. The SM campaign is the least-interesting of the ones I've played, which is sad because it should really be the culmination of everything from DoW1, DoW2, and Chaos Rising.

Bringing your army with you is oddly useless. The missions must eventually be scaled to match your heros, and considering your heros are as tough or tougher than your superheavies, other stuff dies easy. I expended three Redeemers and five Predator Annihilators in the final mission because of this. (Weirdly, Venerable Dreads dropped from the sky were much more durable than Land Raiders.)

(Also you can totally break the Ancient with the perma-inflitrate armor and a plasma cannon.)

[mxlm]

When I put perma-infiltrate armor and an artillery witch-staff (!) on my farseer, she stopped responding to attack-move orders. Or, well, she would move, but she would only attack if an enemy revealed her. That was mildly annoying, so I took off the armor.

[PsychoLandlord]

CR had a much better SP. I understand the constraints they were working with, having to design one campaign for all the races, but I almost wished they had taken a Dark Crusade approach to it this time around.

I'm also thoroughly annoyed that Sergeant Merrick was better able to deal with a crowd of enemies than my Squadron of Leman Russ executioners.

[starbug]

Yeah Chaos rising singleplayer was better, but according to relic, they wanted to make retributions missions and storylines to be completely different for each race but they said THQ wanted the game to be made within 12 months, so for that i can forgive relic and its pretty good considering the time it was made in. Ah well lets hope they get the blood ravens storyline finished properly in DOW 3.

[Suongadon]

The ending for Chaos is RUBBISH but it does leave things open for something else to happen were as the marine ending closes up the whole DOW storyline. Wonder which ending will be the cannon and will it go on to DOW 3 (which relic have more or less said its being made) or will DOW 3 be a whole new story?

Given that the Blood Ravens are Relic's very own space marine chapter, I think they have to go with the SM ending as canon otherwise they're stuck with 'generic space marines do generic things which cannot be important because games workshop said so', since all the other endings have the blood ravens wiped out.


Also only played SM and Chaos campaigns through and they were tedious and bland for the former and too easy for the latter. Maybe it was just good luck for wargear, but I think I could have solo'd the last three or four missions with any one of the chaos heroes if I wanted, and kyras went down in about a minute and some with Neroth's three hundred bolts of purple doombolt and kain's super speed autocannon, as opposed to the tedium of fighting him with the space marines.

It would have been nice to see some more missions though, even if they just copied over some of the CR single player maps. But I bought it because last stand and nuke sorcerers fill that special place in my heart, so I shouldn't complain about the poor campaigns.

[starbug]

Given that the Blood Ravens are Relic's very own space marine chapter, I think they have to go with the SM ending as canon otherwise they're stuck with 'generic space marines do generic things which cannot be important because games workshop said so', since all the other endings have the blood ravens wiped out.

Not entirely so, Winter Assault had i think the eldar winning along with gorgutz ead hunter surviving as well and in the rubbish Soulstorm the Blood Ravens lost. Even so the Chaos ending is soooooooooooooooooooooo anti climatic after the events in the last level.  Spoiler I mean you finish the campaign as chaos and in the end cinematic, they don't even feature in it  End Spoiler

[NGTM-1R]

So I've completed some more of the campaigns. (I'm also totally clueless how they're going to justify the Tyranid one now.)

The IG campaign suggests the Blood Ravens survive as a chapter, or at least they're running around in the background at the end.

The IG endgame is much less tedious than the SM one. (Which in turn is less tedious than the Eldar.) You set up your heavy weapons teams to keep the Bloodcrushers away, you drop a medic bunker to keep them healthy and up to strength. You drive a Baneblade into range of Kyras and drop a repair bunker behind it to keep it alive. Set the heros around and in front of the Baneblade to keep it alive. (Grab the L9 Plasma Gun for your Lord General, it's ridiculously effective and nothing quite beats watching whole squads of Bloodletters or CSM go flying backwards in death.) A squad of Catachans to back up the heavies if you're worried about them. Guardsmen to watch out for any turrets or other vehicles you add and provide supporting fire; if they take losses, call in a Valk drop to fix them. Keep the Baneblade's heavy guns busy. It goes briskly.

[PsychoLandlord]

Tyranid campaign's justification is NOM NOM NOM. Most of the campaigns actually have concurrent storylines up until the very end, but the Nid one throws all those out the window on the first level. Still the same set of missions, so its a tad odd, but at least they tried.

I've been using exclusively Infantry forces with the Guard recently, and much to my annoyance, this works better than a mixed Mechanized force. C'mon, Relic, do the Russ some justice

[Suongadon]

Wasn't there some sort of half-assed justification for the Tyranids hunting Kyras because he was blocking the connection to the hive fleet or something?

Also, started the eldar campaign in co op last night and we lost the second mission four times. Probably embarrassing, but it was hilarious watching the heroes die when a guard squad so much as looked at them.

[PsychoLandlord]

Wasn't there some sort of half-assed justification for the Tyranids hunting Kyras because he was blocking the connection to the hive fleet or something?

Yeah, sorta. He wasn't so much blocking connection as he was casting his own Shadow in the Warp (FLUFF RAPE) that was throwing off guidance, so the Hive Mind was aware of the Aurelia Swarm, it just couldn't figure out where they were.

Then the Hive Lord eats a Demon Prince (MORE FLUFF RAPE.)

[Liberator]

Just finished the SM campaign.  Tar...The Ancient and a plasma cannon with either Cyrus or someone else in the perma-stealth armor doing sighting is ridiculous.  Especially if you get the one that sweeps any hostiles between it and the target away.

So Avitus was the one who canonically went rogue during CR and the Player Commander died fighting Ulkair?

[NGTM-1R]

So Avitus was the one who canonically went rogue during CR and the Player Commander died fighting Ulkair?

First one is correct, second one does not appear to be. (He was among Gabriel's folks and declared renegade with them. You can pick up his Thunder Hammer at one point.)

[PsychoLandlord]

I seem to recall that ol' Nilla was stated to have died in the intervening years, during the whole sequence of events were Gabe bled his own forces dry.

[SpardaSon21]

Play the Ork campaign.  The writing for the dialogue is great, and where else will you hear Orks with pirate accents?  The main Ork is even known as Kaptain Bluddflagg, and he has a pirate hat and eyepatch, both presumably looted.

[PsychoLandlord]

Bluddflagg was great, but Spookums

[Liberator]

Working through the IG missions now, only real success is coming when I manage to get 4 or 5 heavy weapons teams put together and use the rest of my squads and hero's to support them on stuff that gets too close.  Also, I am terribly underwhelmed by the Inquisitor.  Given their reputation, I expected her to be at least as tough as a terminator, but she's no more durable than a single guardsman trying to take a baneblade single handedly.