Codex
"And they shall know no fear" Welcome to the Dawn of War II Chaos rising CODEX. Dawn of War II tells the story of the space Marines Chapter of the Blood Ravens. After facing Orcs, Eldar and a massive Tyranid infestation they have to preserve their recruiting worlds again. This time the old arch enemy rises from the warp and throws its forces of chaos against your chapter. Will you and your brothers withstand the corruption and save the future of your chapter? Dawn of War II is one of the best tactic games of the last years and the recently published expansion "Chaos rising" just added a whole lot of new features. The heavy role playing element in this game was designed in a way to allow players to adept their forces to their own playing style. But even so there are some ways that are way more effective than others. This booklet will guide you to use your chapter brothers in a way which makes the emperor smile.
Your Brothers The Captain This is essentially you. You are the leader of your strikeforce - the one who guides his brothers and inspires them to greater doings. Always in the first line of battle and always cool and focused even in the face of hordes of xenos or the forces of chaos. To bring it to the point straight from the beginning - your Force Commander plays nice when equipped with a bolter or a plasma gun - sure thing. But he is supposed to be a tank! The developers wanted
him this way, the emperor wants him this way and YOU want him this way too!
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So when allocating your experience points forget about will and forget about ranged - what matters are stamina and strength. For some reason many players tend to always split their pints off - which means they spent one point in strength and one in stamina. This makes no sense since it takes twice as long to reach the next trait - and those are what you are aiming for. So always go for the next trait, but primarily invest into you stamina. A living Commander always does more dama-
ge than a dead one even this one has strength a maximum. Once you have maxed out your stamina and strength go for will. This will allow you to use your traits more often and grant you one more accessory slot for another one of those helpful seals. Following his role as a tank you should also equip your Commander accordingly. Important for him are armor rating and damage reduction. In case of doubt you could always go for an armor which has a few points of armor less, but reduces damage by a fixed percentage. Also worthwhile are bonuses to health and da-
mage. As soon as possible you should also equip your Commander with a power weapon and then with a thunderhammer. Powerweapons dead 125% damage to heavy infantry and also elevated damage against vehicles and buildings. Chainswords may be faster but the kinds of enemies powerweapons deal additional damage to are the kinds you badly want to kill. Thunderhammers additionally stun vehicles which is pretty handy. You Commander also has access to special Commander items. The most convenient in our opinion is the standard. The standard grants the rally ability which heals nearby squads over time and breaks suppression. The best part of it is surely the heal since it is so radical, that it will heal all your squads completely in a few seconds and it will even heal your commander while he is tanking hits from weaker enemies. If you also have Stimulant Kits equipped those two items can help you fight through the worst line of enemies if used well. So how do you use the commander in the field? The term "tank" should taken literally
here. His role is to take enemy fire so your other squads won't get hit. He also has to prevent enemy close combat units from charging into you lines by binding them in close combat. Furthermore he can charge into enemy lines in turn and bind heavy weapon teams like Orc Lootas or Eldar Laserplatforms, prefenting them from firing their weapons. A good tactic is to always let him move in front of your other squads. As soon as he gets hit he should look for cover and analyze the
enemy - depending on your experience this can be done in a few seconds. From there he can use his "To Victory" ability to intercept enemy close combat units or to charge into enemy lines. His charge ability will also allow you to destroy any enemy cover, leaving those units open to the concentrated fire from your other squads. A well equipped commander with high stamina, high armor rating is hard to kill for enemy ranged weapons but having him sitting behind solid "green" cover
using the rally real from time to time you could leave him there for all eternity and he would not die. So if necessary plant your Commander somewhere in cover after he has drawn enemy fire on him and let your other squads slowly shoot the enemy position apart piece by piece. You should never underestimate cover since it does not reduce incoming damage but will make a high percentage of the incoming fire just missing the unit in cover. Since cover reduces
much more damage than any achievable armor rating could my Commander is always the last one to be equipped with a terminator armor and only it prevents knockback. In Chaos Rising there is even no need at all to give him one since there are much better (looking) alternatives at hand. What should also me mentioned is that you should make frequently use of his battlecry since it will enhance the damage of your squads and also cause your commander to deal
killing blows in close combat once you have unlocked this trait.
Equipping the Tactical Squad is a little bit easier. High armor rating is always important, and also any available bonuses on range damage. Most of the time when having armors giving bonuses to range damage you will have to decide whether giving them to your Tactical or your Devastator Squad. As a general rule armors with high armorrating and lower range bonus will go to your Tactical Squad.
The Tactical Squad also can benefit from their equipment. Stimulant Kits should be allocated to the tactical squad since they can heal your commander this way if necessary. Especially in the later game when he executes special attacks or is caught up in one your Commander will not be able to use his items for a few seconds. The Tactical Squad should be located further back in solid cover and always be
So if you act accordingly your Commander will be able to support your whole strikeforce and carry the fight into the heart of the enemy lines. It will also help him to live to fight another mission while doing this - and of cause help you keeping your resilience rating up.
The Tactical Squad The tactical squad is exactly what the names says. It can fulfill a variety of tasks which you can rest assure it will fulfill. They are the role models of every of their brothers and can handle nearly every kind of wargear. Being an allrounder makes it kind of hard to train this unit for a certain task. But it sure makes no sense to improve their close combat abilities since your Commander, Assault Squad and Dreadnought fulfill this task way better. The strengths of the tactical squad definitely are within stamina and range combat - which you should max out. The Will combat discipline also offers some really handy traits such as additional accessory slots and that frag grenades can be used as an energy based ability.
able to use the Stimulant Kit. Depending on where you like them most you could also allocate stun- and fraggrenades to your Tactical Squad instead of your Assault Squad. Once you have unlocked the trait which makes fraggrenades a energy ability you should give them to the Tactical Squad anyway. However the most important item for this squad is the weapon. At the beginning of the game you will have no choice but to arm them with a bolter. Later in the game you will find a plasma rifle which you should allocate to your Tactical Squad as soon as possible. Also you should try to unlock the Ranged Specialist trait next. . At the end of the game the Tactical Squad can also receive a terminator armor given that you also have a stormbolter available. From this point on your Squad will no longer profit from any cover or be able to use plasma weapons but has much better chances to survive the heavy bossfights. In Chaos Rising you will be able to load the special ammunition into you stormbolter, making up for most of the shortcomings. Prepared like this your Tactical Squad should have no problem fulfilling its tasks on the battlefield.
Your Commander is drawing the fire of those Orc Boys on him and sets up in heavy cover. Meanwhile your Tactical Squad moves into a good cover at the rear of the enemy unit usig Tactical Advance. The enemy unit has no cover against the Squad flanking him.
So how do you use the allrounder in combat? At the beginning of the game the Tactical Squad sure can be used to deliver some extra damage in addition do your Devastators. Later in the game the role of this squad is mixed between damage dealer and supporter. The Tactical Advance ability allows them to move from cover to cover without being suppressed and gaining reduced range damage. This enables them to get into a position where they can flank the enemy forces or to get near to enemies in buildings and to eliminate them by a grenade. Even if Tactical Advance drastically reduces range damage especially when in co-
ver I cannot recommend using the Taunt ability. The developers may have planned it this way to use Taunt and tactical Advance together to draw fire away from other squads on to a squad which can resist the damage. But this is essentially what you are doing with your commander only that he is not dependant on any Trait to survive the range fire. However having flanked the enemy using Tactical Advance and cover you will be able to open fire on them. If the enemy is not in green cover incoming fire from the flanks will not be reduced by cover. In Chaos Rising you can also equip your bolters with special ammunition dealing more dama-
ge against covered enemies if you have unlocked the Sternguard Trait. This trait is also very desirable, it makes your Tactical Squad more resistant and equips them with better weapons. Speaking of which you should make the best use of you plasma rifle once you have it equipped. The damage output is usually higher than the one of a bolter. In addition it penetrates armor much better and also lowers the targets armor for a short duration. This can boost the damage other squads deal to this target
The Assault Squad Assault Squads are the fury of the chapter. They are able to attack the enemy at their most vulnerable points. They will hit hard and fast and their abilities enable them to take out the most dangerous enemy units within one precise deadly strike. They brothers of the Assault Squad are close combat specialists - I am sure no player ever had the idea of raining them in range combat end equipping them with bolters... But just to make really sure: skill them in the same way as you did with your Commander. Max out stamina and strength. Contrary to your Commander strength is more desirable for the assault squad. The reason for this that even if your assault squad is a close combat unit they are no tanks - they lack health and damageresistance. In my opinion
- especially of your Devastator Squad. Because of this your Tactical Squad should always fire on the most critical targets allowing you other squads to bring them down more easily. In terminator armor there are no needs for those tactical moves. Just keep your Squad behind your commander and fire away on the enemy with your stormbolter. If fire is drawn on them use Tactical Advance and if necessary Grenades.