Gaming Warhammer 40k Dawn of War: Soulstorm

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2008/03/20/warhammer_40k_dawn_of_war_soulstorm/1

Soulstorm is the latest and last of the Dawn of War expansions, delivering a standalone strategy game that delivers new races, units and tech trees. The last game developed by Iron Lore Studios, can the fighting nuns of Soulstorm provide a decent legacy?

 

lol, go to sleep Tim! Well i guess its a different time where you are. Anyway it looks amazing, I still have to finish the last xpack. Looking forward to playing this one

 

what i don't like is that you have to install the previous games to get their faction playable in multiplayer!
im a huge IG fan, meaning i have to install DoW, then WA and then uninstall it just to get it enabled! Dark Crusade's CD key method is better

 

Im a big fan of the serie, but this one I wasnt impressed at all...

The sisters of battle looked like CRAP, those guys (http://dawnofwar.filefront.com/info/interviewwhm) did a WAY better job designing them back before the game even came out... PLUS, if you tought the nightbringer or the bloodthurster was over powerfull, celestine is now the toughest nut to crack.

Dark eldar are very nice visually... but game wise: I dont like the idea of an almost imediate 3 mandrake squad rush (cloacked ofcourse)...

As for flying units: most of them suck and are almost of no use: hell necron scarab are now useless and they were a very nice unit to destroy bases and vehicules or to pressure foes.

Anyway I hope to see a nice patch soon to fix some inconvenient and I find it sorry that they did half the job on The S.O.B.

 

Actually I think your find that it just requires the single install of Soulstorm, and you can just enter the cd keys in to unlock the other previous races, much like Dark Crusade.

Quite enjoy the new expantion pack, still getting to grips with the new races, dark eldar are rather pwn tbh.
Sisters of Battle feel a bit poor.

Imperial Guard are still my fave, Baneblade WIN =]

 

Actually I found with Dark Crusade that I had to install the previous games to even get the prompt for the keys, although you'd think with the games installed it could just get the keys directly from said install of DoW and WA.

 

You can find high res army badges for download that make the game much nicer to look at.

And don't forget to enhance your graphics as much as possible

Find 'wh40k.ini' and find this line change the 0 to a 1 like this: screenantialias=1

Find 'local.ini' (you might have to run the game once) add this line: fullres_teamcolour=1

Then make a new shortcut for the game ( the original doesn't work ) go to properties. In the target box, at the end of the file path, add ' -forcehighpoly'

 

hum..... i didn't get any CD-key pop-up
i want to play IG!

 

It's a shame they didn't put Tyranids in, they're my favourite race, but they put the Dark Eldar in, which is considered to be the worst race by many players.

I might check this out, I liked the original DoW (although CoH is far better) but never got round to playing the expansion packs. I might see if it's cheap on steam as a bundle.

 

I prefer the actual Tabletop game, I currently spend some afternoons playing 4000pt games with a group here at uni. (I have 4000 pts of IG alone, including one of the apocalypse baneblade kits )

TBH, they could have done a much better job at representing the races, I feel they went too far in the 'balancing' stage, and as such none of the races play like they should.

here is a list of gripes:

IG - too underpowered, should be much more infantry heavy.
Eldar - rely too much on thir normal infantry, and are more heavily armored than they should be, they are supposed to be a very fragile force that takes alot of skill to play well. (I've only ever met 2/30 eldar players who really knew what they were doing)
Tyranids - got left out completely. they are the mortal enemies of all the races of 40K and games are generally imbalanced slightly in their favor (they can usually outnumber 2 to 1 easily)
Chaos - no true mark choice and corresponding bonuses, also special per-mark units left out
Orcs - genreally alright, but still a bit too expensive and heavily armored
Dark Eldar - sinister, but not quite sinister enough, also overpowered
Sisters of Battle - should be slightly weaker than, not equal to, space marines. Celestine also needs to be nerfed.

 

All I have to say is, WHERE ARE THE TITANS??? I'm still aching for a Warlord to tromp across a huge battlefield. Maybe DOW2 will bring us the famous Titans of Epic scale gaming.

 

you mean apocalypse scale

Apocalypse semi-replaced epic as it uses the same model scale as the regular game, but removes force org charts and allows the use of forge-world models (like the titans) also apoc-class games are minimum 3500 points and up, and played on a minimum 8'x6' or 8'x8' table

the only problem with them on the tabletop is that they can take 4+ hours due to the number of units involved (250 guard infantry models is a pain to move, but you get used to it )

 

Thought there was an expansion coming out with tyranids. sounds to be a bit of a let down.

 

they can't do 'nids with this game engine. not even close. they need to drop this crappy game and graphics engine and get the one from COH or something. they need to restructure the way they handle unit caps, resources, everything. Soulstorm was the same old boring **** from Dark Crusade. winter assault and the orig were kiinda fun in SP, but this "RISK" style skirmish crap isn't.

they need to ditch the Warcraft 3 and CNC styles of RTS, and move on. COH was a good example of this, as was SupCom

 

That's what the developers said, the mod community however, has proven them wrong.

They also said they couldn't do flying units.

I thought the CoH engine was essentially the DoW engine but with a few tweaks?

It would be good to have a DoW2 with the CoH engine though. I love how in CoH, tanks actually play like tanks. I'd also like to see how an RTS but using the tabletop mechanics would play out. So instead of a bolter doing X damage to a unit with Y health, the unit has a certain amount of wounds, the space marine fires, the volley has a certain chance to hit, then a certain chance to wound, then the enemy gets (or doesn't get) a saving throw.

 

CoH uses the Essence engine, while DoW uses an upgraded engine from Impossible Creatures.

I've seen the 'nids mod, and it really isn't that great. just an Orks clone with more flexibility imho. although that was 6 months ago. I haven't seen their latest release.

to REALLY do nids justice, they need a new game engine. the mod is quite impressive, and I applaud their work, however I have rather high standards ; )

as for the flying thing, the flyers in Soulstorm suck. they're a dodgy hack. they are simply vehicles that ignore impassible terrain.

 

this basically, really enjoyed the previous expansions but this one seemed pants...
dark eldar are just eldar with black armour
sisters of battle are just space marines but worse and with more fire

was boring, captured 2 regions and then uninstalled it

 

I want it anyway. To complete the series.
But yes... more high res poly would make the game som much nicer..
Or give it a new engine with the same content elsewise. With high poly. That would float my boat. Or even make it fly.

 

Just read the review and now im not even going to bother buying it. I loved the original game but they've just gotten worse ever since. If they bring out DoW 2 on the apocalypse scale using a similar system to the one used in supreme commander it would be worth buying but untill then I'll stick to my REAL Chaos army

That'd be interesting but it'd be WAY too adventurous for THQ. Pity though, the best moments in the tabletop games are when your opponent rolls too many 1s and their commander ends up as 200pt pool of blood

 

or when a lowly IG vet sergeant kills their 500 pt greater daemon with a power sword, after holding it in combat for 3 turns