Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Dark Crusade

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Dark Crusade is the second expansion to the PC-based RTS game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ. It is based on a collection of plastic dolls (ACTION FIGURES!) that you will be made fun of for if you buy. The expansion was originally suggested so as to create an army even simpler to control than the Space Marines (later entitled THE NECRONS) and it succeeded beyond expectations.

Your aim of the first game was to lead an army of invincible space mutants who are actually good guys through a series of confusing plot points, until the game ends with a spectacular cliff-hanger that no-one follows, - ever.

Armies

In this strategy game, you must control one of seven armies, ranging from the mighty Space Marines, da biggest and da strongest Orks, the slightly more mighty Chaos Space Marines, the stealthy, old race of Eldar, the Necrons - Living metal skeletons, the technologically Superior Tau, or the human Imperial Guard, who mass the battlefield with sheer numbers.

Space Marines

The Space Marines were formed when someone got paralyzed and sat in a huge throne, staring at people as though they were doing something wrong. For ten thousand years. It was decided that someone so important and dead-looking should be made the Emperor of Mankind, and be worshipped by all people since they can move and he can't. This is a form of reverse-racism, which will exist in 40,000 years time. Huge bulky people from around the universe are recruited to serve his holy stiffness, provided that they can pass the entry test, which involves putting on the Space Marine armour, and still being able to walk a short distance. They are then deported to distant planets that no-one has heard of, such as Germos (which does not resemble Germany as much as you would think), Lesbos (which does have as many lesbians as you would think) and The Halo (a secret ring world were epic online battles are fought between nerds, who like the game even though its like every other shoot-'em up ever).

This is an emperor totally different from the one mentioned in this article

The Space Marines are gradually, as they become more and more trained, allowed to handle increasingly more dangerous weaponry, starting with the command-issue slightly-sharpened butter knife, then rising to electrified battle swords,(that are designed not to shock the person holding them, despite how funny that would be). and finally receiving small doomsday devices called "bolters", capable of firing twice per turn, with a range of 12 inches (24 if you only fire once). As they advance in their training the Space Marines are also encouraged to wear their regimental pointless rucksacks and smarmy attitude, which screams I'm better than you, get over it, or, in extreme cases BOW BEFORE THE WILL OF THE OF EMPEROR, FOUL HERETIC!

The Space Marines specialise in being better than all of the other races statistically, meaning that you are stupid if you chose any other army.

Eldar

The Eldar are a complete rip off of J.R.R Tolkien's Elves, except that they are reputedly the worst entirely-female army in the universe(apart from the avatar)(ERM Rangers are Male, Darkreapers are MALE, WArlocks are MALE, and Guardians are mostly male too, get ur facts right kid)!!, and get owned repeatedly, unless they can build webway gates and use them to keep teleporting their building away from the enemies, which pisses of all of the other online players off, so you will never be allowed into another online lobby on pain of being shot with a plasma rifle (They really exist!). But seriously, the Eldar can't fight for shit, even to protect their home-planet Planet of The Apes

Things that make the Eldar vaguely acceptable as a playable army.

1. They have psychic powers such as Mind War, which makes a single enemy unit lose health very, very slowly, Eldritch Storm', which makes a blue light appear on the battlefield (It does not injure anyone, but if you use it right you can terminally blind other online players, or if you're really good, send them into an epileptic fit) and also the ability to summon the Avatar of Kane, which is basically the Balrog, making them the worst plagiarisers of Tolkien in the galaxy.

2. The Fire Prism tank is the one descent unit on this team of ethereal lesbians. Unfortunately it takes one Eldar second (equivalent to 200 Earth years) to reload, and explodes on contact with rain or wind.

3. The Eldar say deeply disturbing things, which will throw off anyone inexperienced with them. These sayings include You cannot imagine what we have seen with our eyes and look, it changes as I play.

Orks

The Orks (yet another bloody rip off of Tolkein) are an army of green putty that bears vague resemblance to a horde of slobbering piranhas/bears. According to details that our undercover nerd spies have discovered, the Orks are in fact fungi who reproduce using spores, which is just as well, because if their reproduction relied on attracting a mate, their species would have died long ago. Their complex battle technology involves whacking enemies with axes, the wrong end of guns, and the working-class Orks. Interestingly, their leaders are called Mega Armoured Nobs, which the rest of the galaxy laughs at them for, but which they cannot understand, as they have no concept of sexual organs. . The Ultimate Leader is called the Warboss , a mighty Ork that appears to wear several cranes on its back, and who knows almost 8 words of English, and very little French. It goes without saying that he knows all one word of Orkish: kjhfieyfuerhw4eoeur0er9ghudfiuyto8ejfvgjwhrue.

The ultimate mission of the Orks is to launch a planet wide ‘’Waaaaaghhhh!’’, which is something like a stag night, except replacing strippers with universal domination. They travel across the universe in blue mini vans, being an extremely technologically undeveloped race. They possess a racial hatred for all animals including other Orks from birth/germination and as a result this perfect stag night is unlikely to ever occur.

Chaos Space Marines

This is an advanced battle force of Space Marines who realised how totally idiotic worshipping a giant paralysed guy, who could have died decades ago without them knowing, is, and chose to look into other beliefs. They started with Catholism, but this was even more ridiculous, before moving on to Buddhism, which they pooh-poohed due to the lack of smarmy attitudes necessary, and finally settled on a Daemon -Worshipping Cult of monsters with tentacles growing from various extremities. They differed from the normal, logical corpse-worshipping machines, in that their voices are 1 octave lower, and they sport some rather flashy battle horns. Also, if you play as the Space Marines you are unlikely to hear such amusing comments as "We live to serve you!" and "I wish only to please!" This army is greatly recommended for those with low self-esteem. It is rumoured that emos love this army, but they aren't real in the future.

P.S: Most players do not count this as an army at all, since it differs from Space Marines only in voice and the number of spikes to be found on the building and vehicles. Some may argue that the daemons make the Chaos Space Marines different, but if you look closely at the Blood Thirsters you will see that it is composed of several hundred Scout Marines pressed together.

The Imperial Guard, worst piece of shit ever

The Imperial Guard are a bunch of lowly little peons who cannot do anything except die if you are stupid enough to be blunt. They are armed with lasers so weak they are more like long ranged butter knives with the armour piercing capability of a dildo. Their armour is as thin as those wafers you get in ice-cream, and just as likely to shelter you from a deadly blast. If they trip over, they will find some way to impale themselves on a sharp object or tumble off a cliff, due to the fact that whilst Space Marines are injected with super strength and intelligence genes, all the Imperial Guard get is the suicide impulse. They are called the Hammer of the Emperor and it is true that they're communist bastards, resembling everything bad and weak about the human race -well, everything about the human race...

At least twice as scary as the imperial guard.

Some may say that they redeem themselves with Tanks,which they mostly make up for withhSentinels that look like half-assed Star Wars fuckers, but less cool and more like four-eyed chickens, they carry shitty little miniguns, flamethrowers, or laser guns, all of which are loud, weak, and obvious except the latter, which is slightly stronger but almost as slow as a Necron. The Chimera is a crappy little transport tank, possessing only a few puny little laser guns (aka flashlights) to defend itself with, usually used as a sort of badly-armoured nightlight. The ability to transport troops does not improve this fact, as the troops it is transporting are shitty little Imperial Guardsmen., the HellHound is a flame-throwing battle buggy (endorsed by some french cook probably) that is also great at cooking cakes, but they do make up for this in Lemon Rust Tanks which kill anything like its first time getting bullied in the 1st grade, whilst devastating in firepower the BaneBlade can rape anything with anything.

The Tau Empire

The Tau Empire, sometimes known as "Space Commies", are an Empire of creatures spanning many worlds, (including Lesbos 2, the second planet in the Lesbos star system), that is so quick to develop, that with 4 minutes of becoming sentient life they had invented the toaster, the can opener, the cheese grater and countless other helpful kitchen things. Ironically toast, cans and cheese never developed in their culture. They had also invented a fair system of Parliament, overthrown it in a series of bloody conflicts and replaced it with a corrupt form of communism called The Greater Good. They're just that advanced.

In legend, the Tau where a load of primitive neander-aliens, with clubs, but then a physcadelic storm came over them, and they all became futuristic things with pulse guns, anime style transformers and the unique ability to actually be constructive in the universe. No-one knows what happened in the storm, except that some alien hippies called etherals, with funny pony-tails and heads with a slit in the middle making it look as if it were an arse managed to convince the neander-aliens to stop fighting, and become nerdy.

The true form of the Tau.

The Tau wear beige uniforms at all times, so no-one knows what they really look like, but most people assume that they look like blue Yodas, or one of the aliens from War of the Worlds (At the end when they have a cold). The Tau live harmoniously with the most annoying creatures in the history of creation, The Vespid. Their incensing buzzing noises and the fact that they have the fighting ability of a recently concussed weasel means that no other race in the universe is willing to share a planet with them. Presumably the Tau can't hear the buzzing noise in their beige uniforms, and they are too "peace loving" to notice that The Vespid suck in combat.

The Kroot are a race of parrot-dinosaurs who live with the Tau and occasionally steal from them. They range from educated, upright-standing monsters to obese social outcasts such as the Krootox, and the kingpin of the obese social outcast world, the Greater Knarloc, the only creature in the universe whose bark is worse than its bite, and whose breath is worse than its bark.

Another great Tau invention.

The Necrons

These robo-skeletons have been sleeping below ground for countless millennia, but now are emerging to see whether their favourite shows have been cancelled and to go to the bathroom. Whilst above ground they have also taken it upon themselves to exterminate all lesser life forms, in their opinion, anyone who makes fun of them for being... robotic skeletons. (Other species have made such jokes as: why can't Necrons play music in church? Because they haven't got any organs! Why can't a Necron smile? Because they're dead serious! Why are graveyards so noisy? Because Necrons are crawling out of the ground and evaporating people with their gauss weaponry)

Space Marine combat-code tells us that if you kill a Necron, you haven't. Necrons just refuse to die, and before long the mangled bits of them you took home as a trophy will come to life and start strangling your loved ones like in some low-budget horror film. If they are coming towards you, simply run away, since Necrons travel at the speed of fingernail growth, and it is much simpler than attacking them as they have been known to get back up- even after pounding them with artillery for two hours- in large numbers, which obviously makes them very different from zombies. The Necron forces are totally silent so they can't even swear at you as you flee, unless you take deep offence to beeping noises. Without the annoying-as-smelly-dog-shit-on-the-floor speaking the game isn't worth playing Also, it may be noted that in wanting to have everyone who isn't one of them gone, not taking kindly to teasing, swarming you and being very, VERY slow, Necrons are similar to Liberals.

Plot

The campaign of Dark Crusade takes place on the ice planet of Kronus, a place inhabited by chain-smoking narrators with deep voices who say things like But each Death served only to feed its dark appetite and With the Space Port you can attack any location other than Enemy Strongholds. It is widely known that the strategicall importance of Kronus is that millions of undelivered copies of WHITE DWARF can be found in its core, which unlock the great secret of which army will be slightly changed in 20 years, and how to correctly paint a Space Marines crotch. Naturally all of the races are desperate to learn this secret, particularly the Space Marines themselves, and decide to attack the planet at exactly the same time, with hilarious sitcom-like consequences.

The Eldar build architecturally pretty but totally impractical base on top of a mountain and stand there spouting out riddles. The forces of Chaos sweep across the planet, going door-to door in an effort to convince people that they are different from Space Marines, and asking people to convert to their god(s). The Tau send out the Vespid swarms to drive everyone nuts with the annoying buzzing. The Space Marines stay at their home base, laughing at earth worms for being an inferior life form. The Orks fight other Orks. The Imperial Guard.... well... who cares about the Imperial Guard, and the Necrons (who are descendants of the Transformers) all transform into Hot Wheels so as to invade the enemy strongholds.

Relic Units

These units are the bestest units of the lot, they are really crackerjack units these. So good, in fact, that you need a golden plank nailed to the floor and a ridiculous amount of requisition just to get them! All of the armies have a relic unit except the Tau who are too cool to have one. So what the fuck do you call the Greater Knarloc then? An overpriced piece of shit, is what I call it.

Space Marines: Land Raider Crusader

Space Marines have the power to actually summon a Crusader of the 11th century. You may choose from: Richard the Lionheart, with the power of having a beard, Saladin, with the power of having an even larger beard, or King Arthur, who has a 50% chance of being real.

Eldar: The Avatar of Kaine

This is a stick figure set on fire that is capable of being expensive. Its main power is making your base glow, and therefore easier to find and kill. Also, he lets you get more vehicles, which, with their poor health, if you build will make you even EASIER to find and kill.

Orks: The Squiggoth

The Squiggoth and a Guardsman for lulz.

Pros: Transports, lots of health, big.

Cons: Slow, always seems to go down quick since it's the biggest thing on the screen (yet astoundingly inaccurate), doesn't do amazing damage when it does hit, and can't transport your good units.

Chaos Space Marines: The Antichrist

The Devil appears on the battlefield for a short time. You may choose for him to be a huge fiery demon , or some guy in a suit with a beard who you just know is evil. The devil has the power to be the devil, and can also use his fiery spells of fire to cast fireballs and start fires.

Another form of the Antichrist which randomly appears instead of the Devil on the occasion that your on an acid trip, is believed to be called the Bloodthirster, he looks cool but its too bad he dies of thirst if there is no blood to drink, which there usually isn't because he is too weak to draw blood even with a big chaos battle axe from the deepest regions of hell. -It has been theorized he is in fact a Vampussy, like in Twilight, (Yes, the Bloodthirster sparkles too.)-

The Imperial Guard: Baneblade

What you get if you smash a Lemon Rust and a Land Raider together! Wham Pow Ker-bang! Unfortunately it moves at the speed of an asmatic snail. Every hundred years it is confirmed the Imperial Guard and the Necrons meet for tea and biscuits while hosting the Monolith vs Baneblade track and field event. Even though the emphasis is on fun, the Imperial Guard keep getting wiped out, especially after the Necron piots have had too many biscuits.

Necrons: The Monolith

Faster than the Necron Monolith.

This is a tank whose appearance and firepower are similar to that of a volcano. It is absolutely awesome and in most respects unkillable, however it is slower than the process of evolution, and it is wiser to let your enemies age to death than send the Monolith towards them. It is armed with funny little things that look like those things Daleks have, and has an enormous crystal on the top, which looks like a nice bit of lego which also looks like an obvious weak spot, but isn't.

The Tau: That Giant Chicken Looking Thing

The Giant Chicken Looking Thing is a frightening beast that attacks so slowly that the enemy will be gone before it can attack. For an advanced Communist race, you would expect more.

See Also

• Dawn of War
• Space Marines
• J.R.R Tolkien
• Elves
• Orcs
• Army
• Communists
• Transformers