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Review:

21st October 2005:
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault
"All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. " Sun Tzu.
Posted by Chris Snook - PC - UK and Europe

It is rare for an expansion to a well-known game to be described even as being as good as the predecessor, let alone better. Warhammer 40,000 - Dawn of War: Winter Assault certainly pulls off the former and maybe just maybe for some, the latter.

At it's heart, Winter Assault is the tale of the Imperial Guard, the most numerous of the armies of the Imperium, stalwart defenders of humanity and the bulwark against the forces of Chaos. Where as the fearsome Space Marines are powerful and capable they cannot be everywhere at once, to that task falls the Imperial guard, the Emperors armoured fist rather than his sharp blade.

They are men, ordinary men, who are forced to hold the line until others can arrive or to take a stronghold of Chaos to further the aims of the Emperor. As such they are ill-equipped to fell a demon, or battle an ork unaided. They are not alone however as they have officers, Commissars, who inspire fear and loyalty and courage into the squads, invoking the Emperor's name or executing a soldier as the situation merits to boost morale - one way or another. Further they have commanders, generals who have seen the worst that the universe and the warp can throw at it and survived, their very presence is awe inspiring and capable of providing that one last push for victory.

The Imperial Guard are also the users of heavy vehicles, bolstering their fragile numbers with impressive machines of war, with artillery, tanks and other hard hitting and dangerous methods of getting around and about and dealing damage from as far away or as well defended as possible. The sight of a Baneblade tank mowing all before it is inspiring.

This time round there are two campaigns, one of good and one of Chaos, with a combined Imperial Guard and Eldar campaign and a combined Orks and Chaos Marines one to complete. Both sides have conflicting goals within themselves but one thing is certain that the great prize of an Imperial War Titan - one of the most devastatingly powerful engines of ultimate destruction - is something that is worth possessing and using against your enemies. To this end the Imperial Guard has arrived to reclaim what it theirs, the Eldar lurk with intents of their own, cloaked in secrecy. The Orks thirst for battle and the Warriors of Chaos would see the Titan used to expand their influence and taint further.

The only thing certain in war is that people will get hurt. Excellent.

The visuals are stunning as you meander about purposefully, animations are crisp and clear and the graphics themselves, showing the snow of the frozen world to it's best advantage, with the addition of the persistent bodies and other decals the atmosphere increases almost as rapidly as the body count. It is a joy to watch as the mayhem increases with no slowdown at all even as there are a goodly number in combat at anyone time. The cameras work well and allow for a clear view of things from at least one angle, the zoom function however seems more limited than in DoW. The one gripe is that whilst the animated cutscenes are crisp and look good there is apparently no new opening for the Expansion as the old Dawn of War Intro is used. I was looking forwards to seeing what would be presented here.

Voice work whilst in combat is sparse, a welcome thing as too much is too distracting, it is well handled and adds to each unit. Engineseers the Techpriests sound slightly sinister, commissars sound gallant and so on. Within the opening movies for the campaigns the voices are at times a little odd, seemingly not flowing with what they say and occasionally a little stilted. Effects are handled nicely and further add to the atmosphere as you can hear your troops getting slaughtered elsewhere as you deal with the problem at hand where you are. Once again the music stands out, uplifting, choral and Imperial it strides out and grabs you even as you wish to see the fiends of Chaos crushed.

It is huge, each map covers a lot of area, be it a pair of hilltop forts, a chunk of a city fortress you need to capture to advance or just the front gates. Resource management is largely the same with a few new things to keep you happy as will the new Imperial Guard Techtree that is geared towards supporting them and their vehicles. This adds a whole new slant as you have to balance more carefully your units between infantry and their support and the way these interact with resources including available power and need.

The Imperial Guard also has the option to sit tight in a strong point and defend it or use interconnecting tunnels to move from location to location, allowing for swift and safe movement - a vital part of strategy as this allows for surprise attacks. There are also a dedicated stealthed sniper unit - the Vindicare Assassin, new units for the existing armies and a few further tweaks that takes an already well honed edge and delivers it a monomolecular sharpness.

Pathing is still a problem occasionally but the AI is as vicious as ever, adopting tactics as required and fitting the races, often trying pincer moves and drawing you out to fight. It is challenging but not overwhelming. Unless you choose the Insanity Difficulty then everything you get is asked for.

There is a kind of grace that surrounds Winter Assault, a sense of bravado that is backed to the hilt, a knowing feel that what is there will be what people are looking for and there is a cracking story involved for all, something that is often neglected in an RTS, it gives you a reason to keep going even after you have been slaughtered once more.

As a caveat, whilst the feel of the table top game is achieved, there is for those who are not fans of the races involved very little, much as games played in real-life there will be a preference for your favoured Army, here is hoping that the next expansion brings us the Tyranids or even the Tau.

Ultimately Winter Assault does what it sets out to, give us an expansion that does not sully the originals sophistication and does add to it, even once or twice slipping the bar up another notch.

Chris Snook

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Review Summary:

Superb add-on for the Games Workshop based RTS, Dawn of War. Winter Assault delivers the goods in crafting an expansion that is not only fun to play, is playable and actually adds sensible things to the mix of the original as opposed to placing them in randomly. A few pathing issues and the lack of another alien race aside it is a worthy addition.

Related Games:

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault
for PC

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