Just got my copy tonight and it looks pretty good so far. The Imperial Guard seem to be a defensively oriented group of units which is kind of a change from the first game which was very aggressive. I haven’t started the campaign yet, just did the tutorial and a quick skirmish. Looks like a pretty good expansion though…and the graphics are still kick ass IMHO.
-XT
Oh well. If anyone is interested the game seems pretty good so far. I started the campaign. I don’t know how to do a spoiler tag (yeah, I know…been a member for 2 years and don’t know that yet) so I’ll just give a warning and then talk about it:
The campaign doesn’t start off where the last one left off unfortunately. I thought the campaign in the first game kind of left on a cliff hanger and I assumed that this one would start up where that one left off, with the demon free and the Imperium trying to destroy it…with the help of the Eldar of all things. However the new campaign begins on a completely different planet with a new set of main characters and a new goal. One cool thing with the expansion is that you can play the campaign as either good or evil now instead of just the Imperium. If you play as good obviously you are now the Imperial Guard instead of the Space Marines.
The Imperial Guard play pretty much like they did in the first game. They are weak, without a lot of armor and without a lot of really hard hitting weapons either, especially initially. Just about anything goes through my guardsmen like water through a screen so its taken me some time to switch tactics from how I played the Space Marines (my favorite race of all so far). One cool thing is you can actually garrison the buildings now…and once garrisoned you can move your garrison troops from building to building, so a few garrison troops can be moved between several buildings. Also now you expand the numbers of troops (and vehicles) by building additional buildings…not by researching as with the Space Marines.
Even the upgraded troops for the IG are pretty week…even the ogre type addition can’t really go toe to toe with the really nasty units of the other races. They just don’t have the armor or the firepower. I think where they make up for it is in their fortifications and in their vehicles. The Bladebane is a really nasty tank that seems to be pretty powerful…and they now have a flame thrower tank that you can turn out in relatively large numbers that is pretty effective though lightly armored. All the weapons and troops look like slightly modern versions of todays weapons…and I almost cringe when these poor frail looking troopers are hit by a major Ork attack.
Anyway, I’m still feeling my way through how to effectively use these guys. I’ve finished a few of the campaign which went pretty easily, but I’ve had more trouble in the skirmishes. I started off at ‘hard’ level which is what I normally play (or higher) with the Space Marines, but I got my ass handed too me in short order. I’m even struggling with the ‘Standard’ level so far to hold my own unless I team up with a computer player (something I usually don’t do when I play the other races). One really good thing though is that there are a bunch of new skirmish maps…about double what came with the original game. I haven’t really tried to find many player made maps yet, so for me this was a big thing.
Anyway, if anyone is interested or has any questions feel free to post in this thread as its not going anywhere atm.
-XT
Sounds fun. I may have to look around tomorrow and see if the stores here have it yet.
If you liked the first one I definitely recommend the expansion. I don’t usually go for the RTS type games, but in this case it was a lot of fun and even after finishing the campaign for the first one I would play a skirmish or two at night. There are a lot more maps now for skirmish mode and I imagine that a LAN party with a bunch of folks getting together to wack each other would be an absolute blast. I think there are some online services you can play skirmish mode against others if you are into that.
-XT
I haven’t played the expansion yet, but I know some people who play the tabletop game. Imperial Guard armies are typically very vehicle oriented, with the infantry mainly acting as screens for the tanks - that is, the foot troops harass and tie up the enemy forces while the tanks pound on them.
I saw one review saying the imperial guard need to defend like hell until they can access the good units. The reviewer said he could only win if he allied with someone else who would harass the oppopnents until the Imperial Guard player built up some decent troops. They’re definetly more defence orientated than the attack orientated other races.
Just found the review -
Got the expansion, loved the expansion. Bored by the IG a bit, still like the SM’s the most. But I LOVED the
NECRONS!!!
However, I just wanted to address one point.
IG troops, only mildly upgraded, can indeed wail on SMurfs if properly placed and in proper numbers.
The most important upgrade, IMHO, is the extended range for their lasguns. This allows you to utilize the Guard’s first and most important asset: massed firepower.
After that, it depends. If you plan on facing heavily armored infantry, like SMurfs, fill up on plasma guns and buy the upgrade for enhanced special weapon damage. Enough squads of guardsmen with extended range lasguns and plasma guns will smoke most non-horde enemies. For the Orks, I’d advise switching out the plasma guns for grenada launchers.
I’d also second the thought that if you liked the first game, you should probably buy this one. The campaign on this one is also somewhat short, of course… and even the possibility of a limited degree of branching really doesn’t solve that problem. Still, you get to play campaign games as the four non SM races in the game, so it’s not all bad. A bigger campaign really would’ve been neat, especially with the depth in the 40K fluff.
It would’ve been real neat to start out on the first level with a kill team on a mission of sabotaging a behind-enemy-lines target so that your first troops could land. Then fighting for a beachhead, etc…
Or, heck, playing the first Armageddon war if they were going to give us the IG to play with. Or defending a planet against a Hive Fleet. Heck, they could’ve set the expansion on Maccrage…
Which brings me to two points: Tyranids and Tau!!!
These are two races which need to be in any future expansions/games. The Tau are just about the shootiest army around, and the 'nids (should) provide a CC powerhouse that even the game’s Orks can’t quite match.
Erm. And that’s it.
The expansion is somewhat poor imho. They removed a lot of the customization abilities from the races, especially from chaos which I liked to play. No longer does chaos have customizable marines, making them obsolete almost as fast as you can get them, and they took the customization off the tanks and a lot of the space marine’s stuff as well. 
Now chaos’s entire strategy is:[ol]
[li]Tech up to Berserkers.[/li][li]Put Barrackss on overwatch for zerkers and set the rally point up near the frontlines.[/li][li]Opals for the opalcat![/li][/ol]
Gets really old really fast.
I totally disagree. The IG can dominate the entire tier 1 map if they aren’t constantly attacked to keep their numbers down, and once they get the commisars and priests they become one of the strongest forces in the game.
If you want to annoy people online, there’s a bug(hopefully) currently that gives the imperial gaurdsmen huge melee damage, IE: they can tear down buildings almost as fast as a dreadnaught. On a small enough map a guard rush is almost unstoppable.
And god help you if you’re orc and the IG gets up to kasrkins. :eek:
If anyone wants a link to a mod some guy on the relic forums is working on, I can get it as soon as their forums come back up. IMHO it’s pretty good, there’s actually a reason to keep building the lower tier units once you hit the endgame, no more spamming berserkers or assault terminators endlessly.
Been having more fun with it than with the actual expansion. 
Really? Odd… I didn’t know about the SM changes, but I figured that nerfing the chaos marines a bit was okay… are SM tactical squads no longer truly tactics? (eg. stuck to just heavy bolters too?)
Can you elaborate any?
Yeah, the chaos plasma marine zerg was pretty lame, and I agree they needed toning down, but completely removing all their hp/targetting upgrades and leaving them with only two heavy bolters a squad is lame. Also taking out the flamers from raptors was kinda weak too.
Space marines are still able to get the special weapons and stuff. They lost their dreadnaught special weapons, and both their and the chaos marine’s tanks are no longer upgradeable. So that intro movie with the tank firing linked lasguns isn’t in the game anymore.
Basically the guy took the old DoW (pre-expansion patch nerfs) and rebalanced it to make it more “epic”. He made it so the more of a single unit you produce, the higher their cost is, as well as capped some of the stronger units at a set amount of squads. In addition to that he changed the tech tree around a bit, putting stronger stuff, like plasma, higher up or made them more expensive so they aren’t so much of an “I win” tech early on. He also slowed down the power resource, making gens a bit more expensive each time you buy one, to stop super-fast teching and vehicle spam.
All of which work to stop the “tech up to X, spam X until you win” style of play. It also makes for a more diverse battle, since there’s many different types of units fighting.
It’s pretty fun, though he’s still working some of the kinks out. Orcs are a bit strong atm, and he hasn’t been able to work on the IG stuff since relic hasn’t released the mod tools yet.
Here’s the thread he puts his updates for the mod in. I think they’re currently at 1.51 or so.
Whoops, they’re at 1.43, the AI mod is at 1.5. :smack:
Damn, that blows!
I haven’t tried playing the SMurfs since I installed winter assault, but I guess if I’m going to I might as well remove the expansion pack first. Blah.
Yeah, I was a bit bummed about removing the tank mods…I thought that was pretty cool. I’ve played the SM’s and still find them pretty powerful. I don’t normally play Chaos…even before the expansion…so I can’t really talk to that. Playing against the computer when its Chaos they still seem pretty good to me, but I’m probably not a very good skirmish player so that doesn’t mean much.
If anyone has links to mods or player made campaigns definitely post them to this thread…I had thought it died long ago and was glad to see I’m not the only one playing this. 
-XT