Dawn of War II multiplayer beta...anyone tried it?

[XT]

Was reading this article on GameSpy about the Dawn of War II multiplayer beta and was wondering if any 'dopers have downloaded it and tried it out. I have to admit…this game sounds way cool. Not your grandpa’s tank rush type RTS, that’s for sure.

It doesn’t take too many games before a player realizes that failing to manage one’s resources is a quick way to end up as the Tyranid’s next meal. Requisition points and energy accumulate slowly, units (even the weakest of them) are very expensive, and almost everything you do in the game requires some expenditure. Imagine if every hand grenade, bullet and tank on the battlefield was made of solid gold – that’s how miserly we became with our resources. Indeed, the biggest resource drain is simply the production of new units. While every unit can level up in multiplayer and veterancy confers important benefits, the most important reason to keep units alive is simply because of the outrageous cost of replacing them with newbies lacking upgrades.

Interestingly, this doesn’t make the game slow. In fact, it makes it more frenzied and actually deepens the strategic considerations of each and every conflict. In our games as the Tyranid, for example, we quickly discovered the utility of the small, relatively cheap Ripper Swarms. These tiny creatures are weak but fairly zippy, and ran Space Marine opponents in circles by just running around and grabbing resource points. Since they are so small, they take much less damage from single-shot weapons, which means that to effectively combat them, a Space Marine opponent would need a flamethrower or similar area-of-effect weapon. Because of this, we often found ourselves in situations where a Space Marine couldn’t kill our Ripper fast enough to keep us from taking a point. If we were fast enough on the retreat button we would often manage to get it back to base, heal it up and send it out again.

Sounds like just the ticket. I know the game ships mid-month next month, but I’m considering wasting my weekend giving this a whirl. I hate to drag myself away from the Stainless Steel mod for MTWII and some forays into the wasteland, but I’m thinking I just might have too. It may be a moral imperative…

-XT

[FinnAgain]

Good lord… I may have to try that. I’ve already been excited about it, but that just sounds awesome.

The fact that I’ve got a little bit of fondness for The Swarm only helps. I’ve love getting a chance to play my 'Nids in multiplayer.

[XT]

Yeah, the original zerg faction they sound awesome. That’s what the writers of the article played and I thought their tactics sounded pretty workable. Not sure how my own play style will go with this game…I’m more a turtle type player usually. Myself, I’ve always favored the Space Marines for some reason…all that heavy armor I guess. I’m probably an Arend at heart…

-XT

[FinnAgain]

Starcraft ripped off Warhammer 40K pretty heavy. Zerg are Tyranids. Protoss are Eldar. Humans are humans.

And yeah… I’m much the same. I love to turtle in RTS games. I covered the territory in turrets in Down of War and the second expansion, whatever that was. (Winter Assault was crap). Same in Company of Heroes.

But I’m willing to try Zerging simply so I can play mah 'Nids. I’d can hardly wait to try my first Genestealer rush. Or drop a flying Hive Tyrant onto a squad of heavy infantry. Or blow apart tanks with Zoanthropes, or…