It's raining death in Dawn of War 3

I expected to lament all of the ways that Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 3 wasn’t Dawn of War 2 when I sat down to play it, but thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Sure, the zoomed out camera and lower per-model detail makes it a bit less immersive than its prequel, but what it lacks in terms of presentation, it makes up in scale and depth of gameplay.

Dawn of War 3’s battles are big; even a mid-sized skirmish is larger and more layered than the biggest fights you’d see in Dawn of War 2. The larger population cap means more units on screen, and a wider variety of units participating in any given battle. As a result, max-population engagements look and feel a lot more epic than Dawn of War 2’s late-game dances.

Speaking of unit variety, based solely on my time with the Space Marines, there are definitely more tools in the tool box this time out. Some of that is because there are now separate units to represent different loadouts as opposed to highly customizable base units. As an example, Scout squads with shotguns, proximity mines, and infiltration capabilities are a separate unit from the scout squad armed with sniper rifles. That’s not to say that unit customization is gone completely though. Tactical Marines can be upgraded with either a flamer or plasma weapons, the latter of which are effective against heavy infantry, but will overheat during longer incursions.

Heavy Metal

In terms of armored units, though, there are simply more than in Dawn of War 2. The Predator Destructor wipes out infantry and light armor with its main autocannon and side-mounted heavy bolters, while the Predator Annihilator bristles with lascannons, making it more suited to engaging enemy heavy armor. While extremely beefy and hard to scratch, both Predators are more vulnerable when attacked from behind.

In terms of armored units, there are simply more.

Landspeeders are quick, deadly to enemy infantry, and capable of crossing gaps and other types of impassable terrain. As a nice bonus, they can be outfitted with a Multi-melta to turn them into highly mobile tank killers to boot. Dreadnoughts make their return, of course, while the Whirlwind acts as a sort of stand-in for the Company of Heroes Katyusha rocket truck. It lacks any direct attacks, but its rocket salvos can fire every 30 seconds, laying waste to wide swathes of enemy units from extremely long range.

Tide-Turning Elites

None of that is counting any of the armored Elite units, which are a sort of mix between Dawn of War 2’s commanders and global abilities. You’ll pick three from a pool of possible choices to take into battle, though during the campaign, one of those will always be Blood Raven Chapter Commander Gabriel Angelos. Accompanying him in the mission I played were an Assault Terminator Squad and the Titan-esque Imperial Knight, Solaria, who towers over every other unit on the battlefield. Along with Angelos, these elites have abilities that not only turn the tide of battles, but have interesting nuances and interactions to learn and exploit.

As you’d expect, the preposterously resilient Assault Terminators can teleport directly into an enemy formation’s back line and wreak havoc with their Storm Hammers, which give them a special ability that can stun every enemy unit in an area around them. Gabriel is capable of creating an AOE barrier that knocks nearby foes away while temporarily blocking incoming enemy fire. Wielding his trusty Godhammer, he can also leaping great distances to send groups of foes reeling. Interestingly, if you refrain from using Godhammer, it will accrue up to three “charges,” which power up his other abilities. For instance, his barrier ability will last an additional second for each Godhammer charge he has, and his passive trait to score a critical every six attacks can become as frequent as every three, making him much more deadly in melee combat with a full stack.

Elite units sport abilities that not only turn the tide of battles, but have interesting nuances and interactions to learn and exploit.

Solaria is an even better example of the kind of nuance Dawn of War 3’s units exhibit. With every attack from her arm mounted gatling guns, she builds up heat, and when she finally overheats, all of her attacks deal 25% more damage, damage, she moves slower, and her special abilities gain entirely new properties. The cooldown on her missile salvo is variable depending on how many of her six missiles you fire off, so choosing to go with a surgical strike to kill only the most vital enemy squads can prove a lot more efficient than blanketing a whole area with missiles and watching everything burn. At the same time, any kills she scores against elites or vehicles lower those cooldowns considerably, so if you can wipe out multiple vehicles with one salvo, you could manage a second salvo before the fight is over. But for as powerful as she can be, if she gets tied up in melee, she can’t do much else until she’s dealt with her attackers, so it behooves you to provide infantry support to keep those pesky Howling Banshees off her back.

Those are the only elites I played with, but we were shown another in the form of a Chapter Librarian, whose offensive and defensive spells synergized with one another nicely. While they wouldn’t commit to a number the folks at Relic there will definitely be “more than five” elite units to choose from per faction. Each one will be rated in terms of difficulty to use, and in terms of Command Point cost, a resource that builds as you fight. You might go with all low-cost elites so you can get some on the field fairly early, concentrate on more expensive ones to dominate the late-game, or go with a mix of both. I’m really looking forward to seeing how different elites can support different playstyles and attack timings.

Strike From The Sky, Brothers!

Another nice tactical wrinkle comes in the form of Space Marine Drop Pods, which can be loaded with just about any unit. Once ready, you can deep strike them anywhere you have line of sight. It makes a great one-two with a squad of infiltrating Scouts, who can sneak into enemy territory undetected, and then call down a drop pod right on an unsuspecting enemy’s head. Sometimes I’d have three squads of Assault Marines all queued up, ready to surprise and tie up Eldar heavy weapons teams from the sky. You can even load up a drop pod with a bunch of automated heavy bolters to cleanse a large area of enemy threats.

The combination of Drop Pods, along with the wider variety of vehicles, and the nuanced, powerful nature of elite abilities has made the Space Marines much more interesting to me than I usually find them. Space Marines are usually the most vanilla faction, so who knows what Relic will cook up for the other two?

Vincent Ingenito is IGN's foremost fighting game nerd. Follow him on Twitter and tell him how terrible his Rashid is.