Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War (Dark Crusade) (Rambling)

DISCLAIMER: There's a little bit of blood on this one (nothing major, really) so if you're really queasy I recommend not reading any further than this.

The planet Kronus.

Beset on all sides by the tides of war.

This once quiet colony became a savage battlefield.

Seven armies clashed on this one world, each refusing to back down

Each convinced it was in the right.

From the depths of the Warp, the demonic forces of Chaos arrived to enforce their claim.

To oppose these fearsome powers.

The planet's rulers in the Tau Empire send their elite soldiers and sophisticated battlesuits into the fray.

From the mighty Imperium of Man came the Imperial Guard.

There to secure Kronus for the glory of the God Emperor.

Like a green tide the Ork horde descended on Kronus, caring little for others' claims and sowing destruction in its wake.

The Eldar, ancient enemies of the Necrons emerged from their webway to pursue their own agenda on Kronus.

Then came the Space Marines.

Finest and most uncompromising of the Imperium's soldiers. Seeing a world beset by aliens and heretics they undertook a great purge.

And finally, from beneath the sands of Kronus's central desert came the Necrons.

Ancient machines-

_{FORWARD MY SKELETAL BROTHERS, FORWARD!}

-bent on-

_{KICK THEIR FLESHY BUTTS!}

-erradicating all life.

_NYEH!

A Dark Crusade had begun. It could only end with the total victory of these factions and the total defeat of all others.

---

"In the Grim Darkness of the far future, there is only war."

This is Warhammer 40k, the sci-fi version of the "Warhammer Fantasy Battle" tabletop wargame set in a dystopian future where hell and demons are real, elves are asses, orks are the true neutral party and where the best possible outcome for anyone that is not a fighter is a quick and clean death.

In case it's not clear by now: It's a really messed up universe.

Usually described by the term "Grimdark" (Not to be confused with GrimdaNk or Grimderp) which is used to describe something really "edgy" or "dark", basically, almost everything in the 40k universe. A lot of people get invested into the universe of Warhammer because of the video games, like me for example, and it's usually thanks to one game: Dawn of War 1.

This one has three expansions, one of which i'll be playing today that goes by the name of "Dark Crusade".(Also known by the fanbase as the best one).

It's a simple RTS (Real Time Strategy) game about building a base to produce some dudes and make them fight against your opponent's dudes so that you can destroy their base, sometimes it's about building a base to produce some dudes and make them fight other dudes to get some points in the map before your opponent does, etcetera.

The campaign mode (or story mode) of this game is quite simple: Seven armies want to control the world, you pick one army and lead it to victory by destroying everyone else.

The armies, or races, you can play in the game are as follows:

-Space Marines: The guys in the box-art (For the original game)

-Eldar: Warhammer 40k's version of Elves.

-Orks: Warhammer 40k's version of Orcs. They like all things war related.

-Chaos Space Marines: The edgy version of the Space Marines. Basically SM mixed with demons (or daemons as they call them)

-Imperial Guard: The guys that always get killed in the lore. The ones that always win in the game.

-Tau Empire: The ones with the Mechas.

-Necron: The Space Terminator Egyptian Skeletons with traces of Zombie.

Such a colorful universe, don't you think? All of these armies play differently from one another (with the exception of Space and Chaos Space Marines who have similarities but enough differences to make each one unique), and today we'll be playing everyone's favorite:

The Imperial Guard! The Necrons, yay!

My second favorite race in the entire game and everyone's favorite skeleton space guys from a dystopian future! Without further ado, let's begin!

---

The Necrons had laid buried in the sands of Kronus for eons, having retreated there at the end of the great war only hinted at in the histories of ancient races like the Eldar.

Long before man even stood upright the Necrons and their Dark Gods had retreated to their tombs.

But their slumber was not eternal; eventually their genocidal deities awoke them again driving them to purge the life that had spread across the galaxy during their sleep.

On Kronus this awakening came when an archaeological team opened a mysterious crypt on the arid Thur Abis plateau.

"Fascinating, this alien crypt seems to contain fossilised huma-"

"WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE!?"

"AAHH!"

Most of the team died, but expedition leader Tomas Macabee somehow became one of the misterious Necron Pariahs.

"YOU!"

"M-me?"

"YES, YOU. YOU SHALL BE MY SECRETARY!"

"B-but why!?"

"BECAUSE THE PLOT DEMANDS IT, NOW GET ME MY POINTY STICK!"

The Necron Lord of Kronus, the most ancient and powerful of the deathless creatures on the planet, promptly launched a campaign of extermination. His loathsome god, the Nightbringer, hungered for the deaths of all those in Kronus.

"ThEy ToOk OuR SlEePy TiMe AwAy. KiLl ThEm AlL"

"'KAY FAM."

Now, some people would say these guys are just genocidal skeletons but I disagree, they're just people who want to sleep and have been rudely woken up by some random people and are responding in the most logical way possible; with violence.

Just like anyone would do if they were rudely woken from their sleep. So they're technically the neutral party here, kinda.

This is the world map.

"SECRETARY, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?"

"W-what do you mean milord?"

"WE'VE JUST STARTED AND WE'RE ALREADY LOSING!"

You'll notice every faction has a color corresponding to the territory they own right now and that the Necrons only have one little space to call their own.

Since I've only played as Necrons I have no idea if this is the same case when you play as any of the other races.

In case you haven't been paying attention to the huge amount of text I put before, the goal of this game is simple: defeat every other race in the "board" by conquering their territories and defeating each race at their own stronghold. A game over happens when any of the races manages to defeat you while you're defending your stronghold. You only really need to defeat a race at their stronghold to eliminate them from the game, but to get there first you have to conquer every territory in the way. The player and the Computer take turns playing.

From this point in the map our closest targets could be the Imperial Guard(Yellow) or the Chaos SM(Purple).

Since we're playing the sleepy lazy Necrons we'll go for the closest one and target the Imperial Guard.
_{technically they're like at the same distance but whatever.}

This little screen appears every time you choose to attack an enemy territory and it usually says some useful stuff, like how many bases the enemy has, how strong is their infantry, how op is their general, etcetera.

Since this is the beginning the enemy is kinda weak, but since this is a RTS game you can't just charge head on without preparation. For example, you need to make some defenses and some units to attack the enemy.

The Necrons are the slowest of all races, with the exception of the Necron Lord and some others. This not only means that your units are slower than turtles it also means that your buildings take a little longer to build. Therefore, using the Necron Lord to annoy the enemy so that he has to respond to your spooky threats whislt you build some decent defenses/your units slowly walk over to the enemy is the usual strategy used for Necrons.

You start the game in a set location:

_{Necron base with some improvements}

And your enemy starts the game in a different one, usually in the opposite direction of yours but that's not always the case.

_{Imperial Guard base courtesy of the Necron Lord.}

"Someone get that Necron out of there!"

Normally, when you start a game you only have your base and your builder unit but when you start games in the campaign mode you start with the same things AND your race's general which in this case, is the Necron Lord.

This is the Necron Lord, valiantly charging towards the enemy

_NYEH

And this is the Necron Lord, fighting some poor souls.

_"Contact!"

_{"W-what do we do Sir!?"}

_{"POINTY STICK, DO YOUR THING!"}

Some really poor souls...

_{"EW YOU GOT BLOOD ALL OVER MY METAL BODY"}

_{"The Commisar is dead!"}

_{"Run away!"}

This goes on for a while...

The enemy general joins the party and needless to say it doesn't end well.

For him that is.

"Milord! your army is complete!"

"THERE IS NO NEED FOR IT MY LOYAL BUT SLOW SECRETARY...!"

"FOR I'VE ALREADY DESTROYED OUR ENEMIES HEADQUARTERS!"

"Man, that's cheating!"

"...THAT'S IT? WHERE'S THE BIG 'BOOM!?'"

Thanks to the brilliant strategies of the Necron Lord, the Necrons obtain a well earned victory against the Humans.

EACH VICTORY IS A STEP CLOSER TO OUR COLD, ROUGH STONE BEDS!

Unfortunately this is also the point where my game decides to crash for no apparent reason.

WHAT HAPPENED!? WHERE DID EVERYONE GO!?

I didn't save.

---

So, there it is. Something different from KOTOR and Fallout after all this time.

I initially wanted to make this an October series about "Spooky skeletons" or something where each week i talk about the Necron's progress in their quests for relaxation and sleep, but life got in the way and before i realized, it was October 23rd already.

The idea to play this game and take nothing about it seriously (since i'm playing as a necron lord who does nothing but yell all the time) just comes from playing and reading about 40k in general. You have this gritty, dark (and sometimes edgy) atmosphere that sometimes just wants to make you go "screw it" and just play the game in your own way.

Playing something like this with the idea of being an insane robot skeleton that just wants to go to sleep again gives me a weird feeling that makes me want to keep playing. It's really different from the usual "Hurrr, only war" thing warhammer has going on. But it really depends on the person since some people are really into the air of despair that warhammer gives while some people like me usually get tired of it after a while.

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings about skeletons and warhammer, have a nice day and see you all later!