Dawn of War 3, the next game in Relic Entertainment’s real-time strategy game series based on Warhammer 40,000, is coming in 2017. Sega, Relic and Games Workshop announced Dawn of War 3 today in the form of a cinematic trailer that promises death, destruction and some of the biggest units ever featured in a Dawn of War game.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3 will combine “the epic scale” of the original Dawn of War, released in 2004, with the customization and elite heroes of Dawn of War 2, Sega said in a release. Players will be able to command massive units like the Space Marines’ Imperial Knight, the Ork Gorkanaut and the Eldar Wraithknight, and deploy destructive abilities like Orbital Bombardment, Ork Rokks and Eldritch Storm.
Dawn of War 1 style bases are back. They produce your workaday line units such as Tactical Marines, heavy-weapon Devastators and Dreadnought walkers. As in previous games, you build power generators and capture requisition points in the field to acquire resources.
If your Space Marines are too lazy to walk you can load units into three drop pods and smash them into a fight to surprise and squash the enemy. This is a key part of the Space Marines’ ‘death from above’ strategy, which also incorporates jump-pack powered Assault Marines and a giant orbital laser—more on that later.
You collect and level up elite units
You have three elite slots, which must be assigned before each battle. They are designed to let you define your play style, and to support a variety of strategies for each race. In the single player campaign you collect a wide range of elites that can be levelled up—an attempt to emulate the pleasure of collecting and building armies in the tabletop game. Elites can be individual heroes, crack units such as Assault Terminators, or super units.
For multiplayer, inspired by Dota’s hero selection phase, Relic designers are considering an element of pick and counter-pick to the pre-battle screen, though they’re yet to show exactly how this will work.
For Warhammer fans, units shown included Tactical Marines (with optional plasma weapon/flamethrower upgrades), Devastator Squads with lascannons, Dreadnoughts, Assault Marines, Gabriel Angelos, the Imperial Knight. On the Eldar side there were Guardians, Howling Banshees, Wraithguard, Falcons and Jetbikes. Unit upgrades give these line squads some tactical variation. Plasma weapons allow Tactical Marines to do more damage when stationary, but they they take the flamethrower instead they can lock down territory with fiery area-of-effect damage.
Super units are the series’ biggest yet
Elite units like the Knight have special abilities, bringing some of Dawn of War 2’s tactical micromanagement into Dawn of War 3. The knight has a sweeping gatling cannon attack that can deal massive damage to a forward arc, and the bombardment missiles can be individually placed, allowing you to scatter damage across the enemy line or focus in on one high-value target.
You can fire a giant orbital laser cannon
This is the Space Marine super ability. It calls a massive beam of death from the Dauntless battle cruiser orbiting the planet. Once the beam hits, you right-click to move it around. The more enemies it kills, the fatter, slower and deadlier it becomes, because that is how lasers work in Warhammer 40,000. Enemies caught in the laser are lifted upwards for a moment before they glow white hot and dissolve into ash.
A new cover system
Relic RTS games tend to have complex terrain with lots of medium and strong cover zones. The system has been simplified in Dawn of War 3 to allow for clearer counter-play. Cover in the demo I saw consisted of circular barricade structures that units can capture. Units in cover are resistant to ranged fire, but can be quickly eliminated by close-combat squads.
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of LostSouls.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
