Welcome to the fifth entry in Gamereplays.org's
Dawn of War 2 Screenshot Analysis series. Last time we checked out a Dreadnought fighting a lonely battle against a tide of Eldar Guardians, but today we're going to go back to an early one - in fact, the first one uploaded to the portal. Here's today's image - click to enlarge it to full size.
This one's a very nice example of the new melee combat engine, particularly with the Assault Marine on the right blasting point-blank at the prone Ork with his bolt pistol (most likely a sync-kill, I doubt that's a standard attack). It's a fairly simple screenshot with only a few unit types, but let's see if we can't break it down.
The first thing I see is the crater next to the left Assault Marine. There's already been heavy talk about Assault Marines leaving craters on their landing that nearby troops could use for potential cover, but that crater seems extremely shallow for all that; not even a diminutive Gretchin could use that for actual combat cover without lying flat on its stomach, and even then it'd be doubtful. The Assault Marine standing over it appears to be a Sergeant as well, judging by his lack of headgear, though the camera angle makes it impossible to see anything more than his standard bolt pistol.
One thing that strikes me as slightly odd about this screenshot is that there are a couple of Orks with shootas in the back of the crowd of Slugga boys. Slugga boys and Shoota boys moving together in combat is nothing new in the
Dawn of War series, but the two have never been part of the same unit. Up through
Dawn of War: Winter Assault a Slugga boy squad could carry big shootas (the Ork equivalent of a heavy machine gun) as support weapons, but the weapons in this image don't appear to be anything beyond regular shootas. There's a chance that the two ranged Orks could simply be the last survivors of a torn-apart Shoota squad, but it looks unlikely. Another possibility could be an Ork player simply buying a "Boys squad" rather than Shoota or Slugga boys, with the default Boys armed with sluggas and choppas. The individual Orks could then be upgraded to carry shootas for a minimal price, thus upgrading the Sluggas to Shootas instead. Most elite Ork units in the
Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargame can be deployed with a mix of shootas and sluggas, so the idea isn't new.
Another thing of note in the same area is the Ork fighting the Assault Marine Sergeant. While he's clearly too small to be a Nob leader, you can plainly see the tops of stikkbombz poking up from a pack on his back. Stikkbombz, the Ork version of a frag grenade, are only available in
Dawn of War as a Stormboy option, but in this image they're being carried by a member of a regular Slugga squad. Hopefully this means they're giving the Slugga boys the option to carry the grenades as well. You can see the same thing closer up in the very bottom right corner, under the Gamereplays.org watermark, though in that case they're on an Ork in a group of Shoota boys rather than Slugga boys.
There's also a rather minor, and probably purely graphic, point that the Slugga boys pictured are all carrying swords, rather than the axes their predecessors used. In
Dawn of War and all of its expansions, Sluggas have been armed with axes, while Shoota boys used knives in melee combat and Stormboys carried swords.
Click to enlarge this image, as usual.
- 1) A crater most likely left by a landing Assault Marine.
- 2) This Marine's lack of helmet most likely makes him a Sergeant.
- 3) These two Orks in the back of the Slugga boy mass are carrying shootas.
- 4) The Slugga boy to the right of the number "4" is carrying stikkbombz.
- 5) Slugga boys carrying swords rather than axes.
- 6) A closer view of the stikkbombz being carried by Orks that are not Stormboys.
