
Hello everybody, this is my review of the 2005 expansion to the hit RTS game, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. This was the first expansion to Dawn of War and it was published by THQ and developed by Relic Entertainment, the same companies that worked on the main game. The game introduces a new faction, the Imperial Guard.

Plot:
The plot of the game is divided into two and it takes place on the Ice planet Lorn V. When I say it is divided into two it means you can play the same story from two different perspectives, Order and Disorder.
ORDER
In the order campaign the Imperial Guard are sent to Lorn V to find and fix an Imperial Titan. A titan is a machine of immense power that can change the tide of entire campaigns forget about battles. On the way, the Imperial Guard meet fierce resistance from the Orks and Chaos and when all seems doomed and hopeless for the Imperial Guard, suddenly they win or break through. The Imperial Guard become suspicious that someone or something is helping them, and they are right. A small force of Eldar, led by Farseer Taldeer are assisting the Imperial Guard as they need assistance against a new threat, the Necron. The Necron are an ancient race that gave their souls for immortality and are now trapped forever in machines fighting across the galaxy. The Imperial Guard make it to the titan and power it just before the Necron show up. With the might of the titan the Imperial Guard destroy the Necron forces and win back Lorn V.
DISORDER
In the Disorder campaign you are leading a WAAAGH!, an ork war led by the Ork Warboss Gorgutz. The Ork and Chaos forces clash and slaughter each other until the Imperial Guard arrive and force an allegiance between Ork and Chaos. The allegiance is fragile at best and both forces still kill each other. The Chaos Lord Crull, wants the titan for himself so he can corrupt the machine spirit inside it and use it to devastating effect. Crull and Gorgutz defeat the Imperial, Eldar and Necron forces. Gorgutz turns on Crull and slaughters him. After beating all the enemies on Lorn V, Gorgutz and his WAAAGH! look to the next planet to take under his command.
So what did I think?
To be very honest there isn’t a lot of differences from the expansion to the main game, mainly a lot of gameplay changes. The graphics are the same, though that isn’t to say that they aren’t vivid, pretty and great to look at, though a little dated now.
They took on a different composer for the expansion from Jeremy Soule to Inon Zur. Inon Zur is a huge name in the gaming soundtrack industry. The games I would know his compositions from would be: Fallout (3,NV,4). Crysis and Dragon Age: Origins. The soundtrack is fantastic and it is quite militaristic. There is a sense of honour, pride and duty to the Imperial Guard soundtrack which perfectly fits in to their ethos, while the Eldar soundtracks are much more subtle and quiet. With the Ork and Chaos soundtracks comes dread, fear and anticipation of something bad. The songs fit the mood and they add to the character of each army.
The Imperial Guard as an army themselves are quite effective. Their infantry are cheap, but bad at fighting unless you upgrade them, then they become dangerous and in some cases a little overpowered. The magnum opus of the Imperial Guard forces are their armour. The tanks and artillery of the Imperial Guard are absolutely devastatingly powerful and very few armies can match the strength and ferocity of Imperial Guard armour. A fun army to play if you want a bit of danger, because until you get to the armour and building your vehicles, they are quite vulnerable.
The story was good. It was interesting seeing the Eldar and Imperial Guard working together as allies of convenience and I enjoyed the Order campaign. What I did not enjoy was the Disorder campaign. I found the missions to be tedious, boring and just pointless. I felt like there was way too much dragging out of things and increasing the play time for the sake of it instead of giving it a good reason. Overall a good story, but if I was to play it again I would just stick to the Order campaign myself.
Graphics: No difference to the Dawn of War graphics, so I must give it the same score. 7/10
Sound: Another amazing soundtrack from an extremely talented and well known composer. The sounds of battle are as fierce and exciting as Dawn of War: 10/10
Game play: The gameplay is the same, but with an extra faction? Yes please. The campaign let it down a bit though and I thought the Disorder missions were tedious and boring. 8/10
Worth: It is, but only for the extra faction. The story isn’t all that great for me. It has 10 missions split over 2 campaigns and 5 of those missions I didn’t really enjoy. 7/10
Story: It was okay, as I said I didn’t enjoy the Disorder campaign, but that was more about the playability. It was interesting seeing the factions team up and seeing the danger of the Necron forces. So overall it was an okay story. 6/10
Total: 76/100 C+
I hope you enjoyed my review and as always, thanks for reading!