Dawn of War II

[Monk]

Here's a question for all you DoW2 players. I played with the MP beta and hated it, i just didn't like the smaller scale in an MP fashion, however all I am hearing is that the small scale works quite well for SP.

Is this the case? Would you recommend a buy for the sole intention of playing the campaign?

[Papewaio]

SP rocks enough for the price of the ticket.

I think MP needs more maps, and styles.
I would love to see a defend vs horde without numbers map.
Also a persistent version of MP based on the SP campaign could be pure gold (particularly if they took a look at Necromunda and used the experience system from that... ie an Uber army fighting noob would get a win + minimal xp, the nood would probably loose but get an xp bonus).

[TinCow]

Is this the case? Would you recommend a buy for the sole intention of playing the campaign?

If you like RTS games, yes. The character-building aspects and wargear (guns, armor, etc.) make the SP campaign very entertaining. It's paced well so that there's always some new piece of loot that you're excited to use or a unit that has gotten a new special ability to try out. The SP campaign is also pretty long; it seems longer than most of the SP campaigns I can think of in other RTSs. There are lots of 'optional' missions, but I've been doing all of them and so far I think I've completed about 30 missions and I'm guessing there are at about 10-15 more. Some are a bit repetitive, but I haven't gotten bored with them yet.

[Major Robert Dump]

i would recommend the game for the campaign, especially considering the level cap means there will be lots of skills/tactics you never use, which will add to replayability down the road if you choose to up the difficulty.

started on normal setting for a few missions, realized it was too easy, and currently working through on Captain. Think I'm near the end. I have Force commander, tactical marines (my faves), scouts (second faves), heavy weapons, assault marines and a dreadnought.

Once the scout gets the ability to use accessories from stealth it is on, baby. I use stun grenades + detonator charges, and fill my third slot with either remote detonators or grenades. And once the scout learns to resuscitate instantly from stealth you don't have to worry about losing to any bosses ever again.

I also tend to make my heavy weapons crew my medic, since they are usually in the middle of my formation, move the least and have hte fewest active offensive skills to use. I use my commander as my tank, so making him the medic (he does have rally, tho) can be disastrous since he's the most likely to go down first.

I'm curious how well a ranged heavy bolter/artillery force commander would work, which would mean I'd need a new tank for early game. I'll probably make a ranged FC on replay

[Papewaio]

Playing Captain level as well.

From the abilities, Tactical Squad can go Bolt Pistol and Chainsword with their first melee skill (~lvl 3) add that to the Assault Squad and you could have two hand to hand squads, Devastators and a Heavy Bolter FC.

[TinCow]

In my campaign (also on Captain) I've found the Assault Marines to be the all-stars. I focused them entirely on melee, and while the Force Commander could dish out more damage in hand-to-hand, the assault jumps are a game winner by themselves. Once you get the low level assault jump improvement skills, landing in the middle of an enemy group does significant damage to them, throws them all to the ground, and suppresses them. Anyone that survives the impact (which can often be surprisingly few) is easily finished off with a bit of shooting while they are out of cover and suppressed. The skill that makes the Assault Marines temporarily invulnerable after a jump is just icing on the cake. I would guess that my Assault Marines are responsible for 40-50% of my kills. I've completely avoided using the scouts, and found the Assault Marines were a good substitute for structure killers. I gave them the demolition packs and it's very effective to have them jump in, toss a pack at the target, then run out (or run in, and jump out, as per the demands of the situation).

The situation changes a bit when you get Terminator armor for them. This massively increases their survivability, but it removes the assault jump ability in favor of a teleport. The teleport does not do any of the damage, stunning, or knockback of the assault jump. For this reason, I eschewed it for a while and considered taking the Terminator armor off of them. Then I discovered that the teleport recharges MUCH faster than the assault jump, and it's also near instantaneous. Once I realized this, my Terminator Assault Marines became pure death machines. They're only level 17-18, but with their armor and the hammer/shield weapon thing, they dish out upwards of 700 damage per second in melee and have about 100 armor. Since they can teleport right into the middle of any enemy formation, they simply don't get hit by ranged fire and nothing but bosses pose a challenge for them. They alone can keep 4-5 enemy groups engaged while the ranged units pound them down, with most of the kills still going to the Assault Marines.

I highly recommend them.