(no subject)
Welcome back to me playing Dawn of War II and talking about it.
When we last left off, Commander Smiles had just dealt with some Orks. Now we're going to deal with some more Orks.
On this mission, however, we will meet two more of our heroes. There is a clue as to who one of them is in that screenshot.
Meet scoutmaster Cyrus.
CYRUS: Cyrus is a master of stealth and infiltration. He has almost no combat capability in a straight up fire fight, but can equip a wide variety of very useful special abilities, such as demolition charges and sniper rifles. He is my favorite squad leader.
DROP PODS: When Space Marines enter the field, they do it with authority. Basically, they get in a big metal box, and then just drop it from fucking orbit. This is the most metal form of transportation.
Just after we land, Captain Thule informs Smiles that Sgt. Avitus is still alive, but has been captured by Orks, and that we should go help him.
A short jaunt east takes us to Avitus's position, but he is stuck in an ork outpost.
That's him, under the little red hexagon. I could get him, but that little building at the top of the screen has orks in it with heavy guns, and they would chew up anything that they saw coming. Fortunately one of Cyrus's abbilities is that he can turn invisible.
From here, a well placed Demo Charge means...
(Cyrus gained a level from blowing up that building, which is why he is glowing in this shot)
That was easy, let's go save Avitus.
Meet Avitus
AVITUS: Avitus is a Devestator Space Marine. That is warhammerese for "has a big honkin' gun". Seriously, that thing probably weighs more than you do. He is the second frailest in your squad, ahead of only Cyrus, but he also has the highest damage output. His guns generally take a few seconds to set up and have a limited field of fire, but within that field, things die.
The other things we have acquired is:
A relay beacon!
RELAY BEACONS: These are predeployed beacons that let you teleport in replacements for your generic space marines when they die. You need to find them and set them up before you can use them. The flow of this game is basically fighting your way from beacon to beacon.
ONWARDS! We must find more orks to kill.
And orks we find. Two armies at relatively close range just BLAZING away at each other are what Warhammer is all about. Commander Smiles, as is his habit, is right in the middle of the orks, wreaking havoc.
Pushing forwards, Smiles & Co. eventually finish clearing out this village of Orks. Captain Thule informs us as we get to the edge of the village that more orks are coming. Thusly forwarned, I take defensive measure, hiding Tarkus and Cyrus behind a wall and sending Smiles ahead to make with the choppy. Avitus, however, is about to take advantage of another neat capability of this game.
Hiding in buildings. Suffice to say, if anyone Avitus doesn't like (and trust me, there are a LOT of people he doesn't like) gets near that building, they will have a very unpleasant time indeed.
The Orks come. The Orks die. The mission is complete.
After the mission, Thule and Cyrus have a conversation in which Cyrus points out that the orks knew where we were weak, and orks having that much intelligence is frankly unrealistic. They agree that someone is probably feeding the orks information to lead them against you. From here we have two ork leaders I can try to hunt down: Skykilla, or Gutrencha. Man I love Ork names
I've also picked up two new squad leaders.
Avitus...I should give you guys a choice but really, Avitus' whole point is that he has a bigass gun. ALL his points are going into ranged weapons.
Cyrus, on the other hand. He has some really cool abilities in just about every category. So what path should he focus on?