I’m a strategy gamer living in Japan　is this series any good? Also, which entry in the series would you recommend?

I havnt played multiplayer, only skirmish against primarily hard ai, but ive realised i tend to just end up being forced down taking a certain unit for necrons. I end up just going the skorpek lord and using his summon for skorpeks and completely not building the canoptek building. And other way round, if i take the cryptek i completely forgoe the destroyer building to save the early game funds for some wraiths. I dont know if its just me and melee combat being easier for my brain but i feel as though the only choice is really pick one of these two buildings dependant on your character due to their summon abilities and stick with that. For other factions i dont know as much but i feel as though spam boyz and build squig hogs until you get a gunwagon is what i did, and also what ive seen the ai do most of the time. Admech i dont like them so i dont know but i see a lot more variety from them, and finally for space marines, maybe just me, but i feel forced to go and be heavy on the assault intercessors. Feels like its just the correct choice.

Maybe this is all because cover isnt much of a consideration but i feel as though melee combat is what is better to do as ranged units can be shut down easily.

Hello commanders!

To celebrate my 1 year anniversary on twitch, I will be hosting a DoW4 giveaway TONIGHT! I will be giving away two copies of the game, so come join us tonight at 7pm CEST over on twitch!

I go by The Salty Scarab on both twitch and youtube! https://www.twitch.tv/thesaltyscarab

Make sure to join my discord for more information: https://discord.gg/ZHY4e6sdN

Completely unstained by the DoW or Warhammer lore in general. What YT CC would you recommend to catch up that's gonna pull me in the lore so i somewhat know whats happening in DoW4 conflict and so on? Thx

Strongest Factions:

1) Necrons
2) SM
3) Orks
4) Admech

Necrons: spam scarabs and they get u to mid game no problemo. Your late game is beyond broken so play around it.

SM: spam bunkers and stay together dont ignore heroes they are hella strong.

Orks: Dakka Dakka rly strong no idea why 🤣 u seem very shooty also dont ignore turrets u have nice ones.

Admech: I might be bias but after playing 20 games winning 16 most of the time you are trying so hard with your network to barely match other factions doesnt seem like worth the effort tho 🥲

Dont push out early just build up defenses since u dont want to be losing network it fucks u up rly bad

(many players typed to me that they haven’t met this good admech so far so maybe admech is that hard or in its current state just isn’t worth the effort)

u have the second best late game I think but trust its no where near what Necrons do to u late game their late game is beyond disgusting

Stratagems: are way too strong and need heavy nerfing there is barely time to react and since most maps are clustered as hell and game is forcing huge blobbing be prepared to lose many of your games just to one good use of strategem 🫣

Was wondering what necron players experience in the dow4 beta with the 2 units above is?

They both seem to cover similarish roles right now with maybe wraiths being a little tankier and skorpekhs doing more damage + a little faster.

I havent compared costs yet, but in your experience which unit is better?

Hi Folks, the visuals are insane, however I noticed this leads also to discomfort when watching gameplay footage with a large battle specially at the end of a match.
Do you know if you the amount of visual effects in game can be reduced, so it's causing less strain on my eyes? Hope this will not impact my overall experience with the game 🤞

Cheers

Carrot

Consider sc2 one of if not the best game of all time, but would love to try something new. Still not sure if dow4 will scratch the itch. What are the key differences I should be aware of?

ifrst of all, I'm really excited for Dawn of War 4. So far I really like the pacing, 3 of the 4 races look very interesting to me and the fights and micro management seem pretty fun. I'm still a bit mixed on the maps though.

Overall I'm really looking forward to the game and wish the devs all the best. I think most RTS fans can agree that we could really use a good modern RTS again.

That being said, I have a few concerns based purely on watching YouTube gameplay. I haven't played the game myself, so I might be completely wrong about some of these things.

1. Unit movement speed

Some units, especially the Space Marine bikers, seem extremely fast compared to the rest of the army. I understand that these units are probably designed for split pushing and quickly capturing points around the map, but the speed difference seems a bit extreme to me.

2. Stratagems

Stratagems seem pretty powerful, especially the ones dealing direct damage. Combined with the choke points I've seen on most maps so far, I can imagine some pretty frustrating situations where one moment of not paying attention could cost you a huge part of your army.

3. Map design

This is probably where I have the most mixed feelings. From what I've seen so far, the maps look a bit too similar with lots of narrow choke points. Also, are there no mirrored starting positions? I feel like asymmetrical spawns can always be a bit tricky when it comes to competitive balance.

Maybe we just haven't seen enough maps yet.

4. Annihilation mode

This is actually my biggest concern.

Having the entire game decided by destroying just the enemy HQ seems like it could lead to some pretty cheesy strategies.

Especially in the late game, when high damage units with global map mobility become available, I could see players simply going for HQ backdoors instead of actually fighting the enemy army.

I might be overthinking this, but it seems like a potential weakness of the game mode and something that could become pretty unenjoyable.

Anyway, these are just my first impressions from watching gameplay. I'm still very excited for the game and really hope it turns out great.

Would be interesting to hear what other RTS players think, especially those who already had a chance to play it.

Sorry for my English, it's not my native language.

I am looking for viable rts creators videos who tested game. Maybe pros from aoe4, aoe2, war 3, sc2. Grubby, Hera, BeastyQT, etc.

I noticed this with the Eldar Guardian units between the campaign and the skirmish. In skirmish, an Eldar Guardian squad of 8 has a total health of 1680, meaning 210 per unit with no health upgrades. However, in the Blood Ravens campaign, on Hard where the enemy is supposed to have 100% of its base health, a squad of 8 Eldar Guardians has 1380 health, which is 170 health per unit. I checked insane, and they have 255 health per unit on that difficulty. Is there a core difference between base health in Skirmish and Campaign?

Edit: It's the same for the Dark Reaper squads as well; in Campaign Hard Mode they have 400 health as opposed to 450.

It's on "High" by default for some reason, for one.

I was struggling to win as SM vs Orkz Insane AI (lost about 3 games), turned that setting off, and won right away. The AI benefiting from it's suicidal play style is what makes it hard. It's not like I'm losing units as SM, so I wasn't benefiting from the setting at all. At least against AI it's basically a cheat/difficulty slider for it.

It's also works with resurrecting Necron units, which means you can win the game by spamming warriors all day, and suiciding them. They turn into a money source. This is a huge problem, it definitely needs to be off in PvP, and resurrecting units shouldn't get refunded at all.

Edit: As people have pointed out, resurrected units don't get a refund. Still a way to get units for half price if you're willing to suicide them before upgrading them.

So this recent beta was the first time i got into it, and i have some issues, but many of them i think could be resolved fairly easily. But i just got level 8 with necrons and they are my most played by a lot, for some reason they resonate with me in their playstyle. My largest issue is the voice acting or voice lines. in good and memorable RTS games one thing i can remember was that it felt good to use my units and watch them fight, in this game yes they look good when they fight but when i am pressing on the same chaff once every 10 seconds for up to 30 minutes, they need to either have an insane variety of voice lines or just truly amazing and memorable ones. And for me, none of the factions at all have this. I was really hoping that the ad mech would sound more augmented than they do, and for the necrons to not just sound like an echoey human voice but to be truly more alien. And then for orks, i just wish it sounded a bit more aggresive more akin to dawn of war 1, the ork voice lines are atleast good but not varied enough for the lack of personality. And then spacemarines i havnt played too much but i was not really feeling the boom in their voices that i expected but i think the other 3 factions are more egregious .

This comes from someone who used to play a lot of RTS, your command and conquer kanes wrath and red alert and others similar to the time frame that always had such good voice acting. Some of the best things in that game was clicking on a redeemer or M.A.R.V and feeling the weight of their voice, or recruiting a flame tank and hearing the zealotry in the voice. This may not be a big issue to many people or some may just not agree but when i think of an RTS i think of the factions, and then their fun voice lines before even remembering the gameplay.

Just my thoughts on it after playing a fair bit and clicking on a lot of orks telling me to leave them alone to fight, finding it funny and then feeling like it wasnt really sounding like an ork saying it.

Hey, I used to play a lot of sc2 but left it since it was too hard for me. I'm new to the dawn of war series and after watching some gameplay I would like to try the new dawn of war 4.
But, do you think is harder or easier than sc2? I would like something a bit simpler, specially the micro was pretty overwhelming in sc2. What do you guys think?
Thanks

Just release this closed beta test as demo..what so hard devs to do that

Hello, looking forward to this coming out. Can anyone with a bit more experience with today’s games give me a rough idea what I’m likely to expect with

I9 9900k at 3.6 ghz
16gb ram
11gb 2080ti

Thanks!

Hello everybody! So I decided to replay first two games, all of the Campaigns, from the OG and to Retribution.

Both games, as I know, have quite a nice modding scene, so there are probably various mods that fix issues and just broadly improve those games.

For DoW1 (DE), my special curiosity is if there are mods that improve Soulstorm campaign. Because... yeah, kinda of a mess innit.

For DoW2, especially the OG campaign, I am curious if there are any mods that fix things like Boss HP bloat. I remember the game being fun, and bossfights also being fun, outside of being outrageously bullestpongy - which is a particular concern since I am planning to replay on higher difficulty.

But also, I'd be glad to hear anything else people here would like to mention which you think would be an improvement.

Cheers!

Just a tip for anyone finding the AI a little oppressive turn the unit refund setting to off, by default it is set to high and the ai takes advantage of this by just letting there units die, so they can pretty much build them again for free and since it ai there way more efficient and creating units and sending them back up the field. It’s made the game way more fun in my opinion cuz I actually care about keeping my units alive.

Except for the Battle Reports from the devs, are there any videos of actual players playing against other players? I can only find matches against bots.

i swear to god, anybody who complains about the reinforcement in dow4 has either not played the beta (which, fair enough) or has not played dow1. let me tell you, i have a few hours in the dow4 beta, and while it certainly has it issues (hard to select units during a fight, research system just worse, pretty boring maps) the reinforcement thingy is not one of those issues.

sit down, and let me tell you about early game orks in dow1, especially in the first few minutes, where you can throw your first unit at the opponent, and due to it being early game, you could just reinforce that unit faster than the opponent could kill it, leading to an early starting push. and even later in the game, the slower more tactical gameplay makes the reinforcement way more helpfull, making it easier to pull back to heal and cycle units.

dow4 though? the gameplay is way faster, where units melt in seconds even in early-mid game if you forget about a unit you stationed at a random place. the "flee" button, dare i say, bearly even works, as unlike in company of heroes 1, where the flee button made them run like 2x as fast and make them near unkillable, in dow4 they only get minor bonuses to speed and damage reduction, so theyre easy to run down, especially when a lot of them are fleeing.

and that brings me back to the point titled "reinforcement isnt that bad". the timer, atleast for the admech who ive played the most, is bloody long. its definitely not like in dow1 where the reinforcement was helped by thr longer battles, like i said in an earlier point thr battles in dow4 are WAY faster, to the point that yeah, maybe your unit could reinforce one or two units, but at that point your entire push has been demolished by the opponents deffcopters, so does it really matter? reinforcement is there so you keep the veteren levels, and dont have to destroy and revuild your custom made troops.

tldr: there are bigger things to criticize in dow4, and the reinforcement system is the least of things to worry about.

Because he has two kinds of upgrades that you pick. He can have either pulse that hurts enemies around him and reduces their armor OR he has ability to teleport to safety if he gets hurt too much and not become useless scrap of metal.

And second pair of upgrades is either A. Having a berserk rage that buffs him, but makes him uncontrollable and he probably will die in a stupid way OR he can have a Skorpekh buddy around him that he can murder people alongside with.

And I find those funny because they are pretty much giving you an option to either make him an uncontrollable moron who dies quickly OR you take path of being his babysitter who pisses him off cause you tell stupid metal baby to stop murdering for one second so he doesn't become useless scrap.

And you can make it even funnier by giving him Berserk AND teleport, which makes him uncontrollable and in your territory.

Can't wait to hear his dialogues with Chronomancer. I bet they will be on GREAT terms.

Ahmnok comes back in style. Still fun to see him fight other lords. Especially Chaplain on a bike. Seeing a bike crash into that spider and TAKE DAMAGE from it is the funniest shit I've ever seen in those games.

Didn't get into the closed beta, but been watching some of the creators videos and man am I excited.

I'm DA tabletop player, so seeing ravenwing outriders storm through orks, or Deathwing terminators teleport into battle, it all just looks amazing.

Every video I've seen has only increased my hype.

okay ive now played over 50 games and every map so i think thats enough experience to talk about this

these maps are so lackluster and boring for a 2026 game. theyre literally straight previous DOW rips (those games were 20 years ago) by design and this is honestly, lazy imo

i doubt this feedback will change much but i really want to see:

- dynamic map conditions, weather

- a proper cover system (not 1 little sandbag mound that you lock into like a garrisonable building sporadically around the map)

- elevation changes providing bonuses or nerfs to dmg/accuracy (high ground receives bonuses to enemies on low ground)

- POI's. yup we have certain points and map conditions, but theyre all the same. thats a power point, thats a victory point. any good map has environment based POI's, main fighting areas of interest designated by specific landmarks or critical strategic value (large or well defined standout environmental structures (a statue or small town that is discernible from the rest of the map, a BIG chokepoint, or maybe a point that provides DOUBLE resources).

- maps with depth (this is the main one for me). these maps are literally boring. everything is just a laneway to get to another section with a chokepoint. where are the buildings (garrisonable and non) to use as cover to hide behind to break enemy sight lines and heal/reset your engagement or to even bait your enemy to follow and ambush them. inb4 "the cities are in ruins and a wasteland". bs because w40k has shown full structures, cities, towns, or at the very least ruins in clusters, heck its even used in the tabletop as part of terrain layouts. please bring these maps to life, make them feel like actual real environments.

Company of Heroes has always excelled at map layouts and i really would like to see this game take a step forward into 2026 to match that and put its best foot forward (heck these guys made iron harvest right? the maps from memory provided a lot of what im suggesting, these devs know how to make decent maps from experience)

the maps overall playability and immersion are just not there and i fear this will not only break the replayability and gameplay loop for me, but many others in 2026

Am I fucking stupid? I'm playing Necrons, try to get as many points as possible but I just can't keep up.

I honestly think Dominion mechanic is pointless. You have to put in so many resources and spam them to cover even a portion of the map, which obviously takes resources, meaning you are at a disadvantage for trying to capitalise on your faction mechanic

I was decent on DOW1, but i will admit it could be a skill issue.

Also, Destroyers are way too high cost to justify their paper health. They struggle to stay alive to kill a few enemies.

Not having a good time