Dawn of War 2

[Kendrick]

Hoping to have a hotfix up for the popcap bug in the next day or so. More on the DLC later.

[Mimirswell]

Yeah, the game was really devoid of life (and while each planet is different, the areas within the planets have almost no deviation). Like one point early on, you see a Predator and I was thinking cool, I'll have some artillery support for a mission. Nope, blown up within 10 seconds of appearing despite multiple restarts to see if I could save it.

With such limited squad selection and no support, it just comes off very shallow in terms of RPG elements. What little RPG elements that existed (mainly the voice acting) was well done and interesting and I mostly liked the plot (though the Eldar trying to avert a disaster against stubborn space marines and the Orks being a pawn were already done in DoW1 so somewhat cliche to use them again). Really, as cool as Space Marines are, I would of much enjoyed something unusual like Chaos Space Marines having to defend their planets against a Tyranid invasion.

[Palum]

It seems like the majority of story/campaign people on this game never played 40k. Space Marines don't do 'missions' for hive planet administrators to gain access to Imperial holdings.

[gavinrad]

finally decided to go ahead and beat it. got 3 or 4 blue drops during the final mission, which I can't use of course, because the game is over. Hoping that whatever DLC kendrick keeps hinting at includes unlimited free play, although I guess I can just do that before doing the final mission.

And what's up with not having clickable tabs on the right side of the screen for units 5 and 6 during the final mission? They drop pod in but never appear in the mission UI.

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by Blide

Also pretty obvious either IG or Chaos will be the next army introduced. Chaos has to make appearance sometime due the Blood Raven's unknown Primarch probably being aligned with Chaos.

Chaos! But I doubt we will ever find out their unknown Primarch. Beside the traitors there are also the two unknown primarchs which as just as likely. The story line will prolly include your squads finding terrible secrets but they never tell you.

[Mimirswell]

Originally Posted by Inconsiderable

Chaos! But I doubt we will ever find out their unknown Primarch. Beside the traitors there are also the two unknown primarchs which as just as likely. The story line will prolly include your squads finding terrible secrets but they never tell you.

One bit of history you come across in DoW2 is Captain Thule being forced by the Chapter Master to retreat from engaging the Iron Warriors when the Black Legion arrives to reinforce them. He ignores the orders initially but finally acquiesces when they threaten to strip him of rank and command. The Imperial Guard stationed on the planet have to repel the attack by themselves (which they do but with heavy losses).

So not only might they be descended from traitors but from THE traitor, Horus.

[CyrusReij]

So I was trying to get a couple 1v1s in before class and for the last game I ran into this dude. He was rank 25 with a record of 107-26 and I was rank 9 with a record of 9-2 (lol). We were both Eldar and this game is a great example of how Eldar are really a bunch of fucking Space Ninjas who fly all over the battle field doing flips and assassinating each other. Really good stuff, mostly high lvl gameplay (cept the fact that he let his hero walk into a Shuriplatform).

9 v 25 - Dawn of War 2 Replays - GameReplays.org

[gavinrad]

The Blood Ravens being descended from the Luna Wolves makes probably the least amount of sense out of all possible sources. I would say the most likely source of the Blood Raven geneseed would be the Ultramarines, since 3/5ths of the existing Space Marine chapters come from the Ultramarines anyway.

To be perfectly blunt, the Blood Ravens being descended from a traitor legion absolutely defies reason, but the very idea that they could have 'forgotten' their primarch in the first place is just as ludicrous. Whomever is originally responsible for the background of the chapter was probably barely familiar with the 40K universe, which would explain why so many things about the Blood Ravens make no sense at all.

[Kendrick]

Gotta take exception to the conjecture that we don't know W40K lore. GW approves EVERY aspect of the game, so there's nothing canon breaking in our lore, and a lot of it comes direct from GW.

The original DoW Blood Ravens backstory pitch came from a huge W40K fan, we play tabletop W40K with our own (personally paid for) armies on a regular basis for fun, we've immersed ourself in all the codexes from 1st edition onward, and we have access to fluff info that GW hasn't and probably won't ever publish. As a company, we've been living and breathing W40k for the last seven years.

[Dyscord]

I think what throws a lot of people is to say the chapter has a 'primarch'. It insinuates that either a) there were more than 20 primarch (which there weren't) or b) what they actually mean is they can't trace their lineage to which chapter they descend from.

And its not ludicrous to have them be the descendants of a traitor legion. The rot was not so pervasive to affect the entire legion. Some elements of the legions remained loyal to the emperor. Prime examples of this are in the Horus Hearsay books. The heroes in the books are the loyal elements of the traitor legions.

Most of the time the traitors 'removed' loyal elements from their legions before they engaged in open revolt. The legions were vast, though, operating all over the galaxy, so its definately not outside the realm of possibility that in some areas the loyalist elements of a legion were able to beat the traitors and continue to fight for the imperium during the hearsay.

In the 'modern' imperium, those loyalist elements would probably be subject to exterminatus 'just to be safe'. But after the hearsay it was a different time. The imperium was litteraly in shambles. There was nothing the imperium could do in retribution. Loyalist elements of former legions were probably reorganized into new units to help fight, in a time when the future of the imperium was very much in doubt.

For one of these new chapters, it definately would be best to just 'forget' where you came from, rather endure the mark of shame for all future generations.

[Caliane]

I don't really know anything about the background fluff.
But yeah, "forgotten" could easily be a nice way of saying, purposely purged all links to traitors, so that future generations don't have that mark of shame or temptation.

[gavinrad]

When did I ever say anything was canon breaking? There is nothing that says a space marine chapter can't have forgotten it's primarch, the idea is simply ridiculous. It's up there with a chapter being descended from one of the two missing primarchs, or the 'my chapter is actually a bunch of traitor_legion_01 who refused to side with horus and have magically avoided being wiped out by the inquisition and the other space marine chapters in the ten thousand years since the heresy'. Just because something isn't explicitly said to be impossible doesn't mean that it makes any sense.

The Primarchs were more important to their respective space marine legions than the Emperor himself, which is why the Heresy was able to occur in the first place, and is why Guilliman ordered that the Legions be broken into Chapters. Space Marines draw most of their identity as a chapter from their Primarch, successor chapters less so than Primogenitors, but to not have a Primarch is to not have an identity as a chapter.

The whole point of the first couple Horus HERESY books was the traitor legions purging the loyalists out of their legions. Bits and pieces of loyalists amongst the traitor legions do survive the purge simply from being so far away, as demonstrated in Battle for the Abyss, but enough to found a chapter? Not a chance.

Additionally, in the aftermath of the Heresy, the Imperium was pretty messed up, but not to the point where they would grant amnesty or sanctuary to loyalists from the traitor legions. Read Flight of the Eisenstein, where the loyalists who go to absolutely incredible lengths to bring the warning about Horus to Terra are still treated with the utmost suspicion. The loyalists would not be 'reorganized into new units to help fight'.

Every chapter has a Primarch, the idea that the Blood Ravens cannot trace their heritage to a Primogenitor legion is absurd.

[The Noble Savage]

Originally Posted by gavinrad

Every chapter has a Primarch, the idea that the Blood Ravens cannot trace their heritage to a Primogenitor legion is absurd.

I think this is your problem. You're confusing "forgotten" with purposeful purging. I'm not going to argue semantics of how, but games workshop created the two "unknown" Primarchs and their chapters to specifically leave a back door for players to create their own. And this is exactly what Relic has done with the blessing of the creators of the damn franchise.

When it is said that the Blood Ravens have "forgotten" their Primarch, it really means no such thing. Just pay attention to their obsession with knowledge and the secretive way they handle...well pretty much everything in the games thus far.

Forgotten simply means that each member of the Blood Ravens hasn't been told. Not that the chapter master himself doesn't know, or that Thule or Gabriel didn't stumble upon the knowledge on Kronus.

There are tons of hints, from the little blurbs stating how they have an unusual amount of Psykers and that there is a strange mutation in their geneseed, to the "dark secret" on Kronus.

For example, in the Dark Crusade when you attack the Blood Raven base with the Eldar and you capture the relic Thule flips out and Taldeer says something along the lines of "Is it truly your Emperor you worship, or something other dark god" (paraphrased).

[Dyscord]

According to lore filled out in the books, the two chapters that are 'missing' were expunged before the hearsay. I think the quote was "the two missing brother's seperate tragedies did not serve as a warning for future generations" or something. In halls of the primarchs, the statutes of the traitors have been covered with sheets, but the slots for the second and eleventh legions are simply missing. It seems these two legions have been completely, totally expunged from history.

But in the end though, the ultimate trump in my opinion to every argument about impossiblity or absurdity is... its a very big, very old, very strange galaxy where the unthinkable often happens.

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by Dyscord

But in the end though, the ultimate trump in my opinion to every argument about impossiblity or absurdity is... its a very big, very old, very strange galaxy where the unthinkable often happens.

And its a work in progress. Any long term body of work that has multiple authors will bound to have some hiccups on what is or is not "cannon" or makes sense. Sometimes things that have been stated as fact, get changed to fit into a better overall design later.