"So, who here has played Dawn of War II before?" asked Jeff Lydell, one of the producers of Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, the stand-alone expansion to Gamervision's 2009 Strategy Game of the Year. My hand shot up as I scanned the room proudly, feeling like one of the only kids in class to complete a homework assignment. I hadn't just played Dawn of War II, I'd loved it, and spent dozens of night staring at the computer screen, clicking my units across the map, fighting back the Tyranid swarm. Whatever the follow-up to the developer's question was, I was prepared, and I noticed I was one of the few in the room who had played the original. "Great, you'll be playing against each other in multiplayer when we start the demos." My enthusiasm was shattered: many of the other writers attending the event had exhaustive experience with Dawn of War II's multiplayer. I'd played it. I'd played it a lot. But I hadn't played it in months, and certainly wasn't at a competitive level. As I walked over to the section of computers that were put aside for the "experienced players" I began to wish I had kept my hand down, but eagerly anticipated getting a hands-on with the expansion. Luckily, before diving into the multiplayer, we were given a brief rundown of the changes, and a chance to play a few select levels of the single player campaign to see what the Blood Ravens are dealing with post-Tyranid invasion. The answer? Chaos.

The Chaos Space Marines have come, and they plan on taking out the Blood Ravens, or converting them to their evil ways. This, obviously, rubs the Empire the wrong way, and it's an all-out war across the galaxy. In the campaign levels I played, the Ravens ran into the Chaos forces on several occasions, needing to slaughter their new enemies in fairly typical Dawn of War II battles. While the battles themselves don't play out much differently than the ones found in the original game, new units and the entire new army that is Chaos make everything feel fresh and, when a game is as good as Dawn of War II, freshness is sometimes better than actual change. When it comes to change, though, Relic was sure to add elements that make sense for the expansion, such as a "Purity vs. Corruption system" that allows moral choices to influence the Blood Raven's progression throughout the game. It's a somewhat tired element this generation, but when done well it can pay off, and it appears to be working as well as could be hoped in this case. For the most part, it unlocks different abilities depending on how the player chooses to complete objectives, but I didn't get far enough into the game to assess how it works in the long run.

Beyond that, a new hero for the Marines called the Librarian adds a spell-caster class to the arsenal, with the ability to take down large groups of enemies with his powerful magic. Well, until they fix him, that is, as the developers were sure to point out that the hero was a bit overpowered at the time our preview copies were pressed to disk. It's an "issue" they plan to fix, but I'm personally pulling for them to forget about it. If that's not enough, the level cap was raised from 20 to 30, giving the previous heroes some more room to grow.

Playing through the campaign was fun, and reminded me of the same enjoyment I got out of the original game. Too soon, though, I had to stop, and begin playing some multiplayer. Before actually getting competitive, something I was fearing a little at first, we were told to play a skirmish against the computer to try out the largest addition to the game: the playable Chaos faction. The Chaos are essentially corrupted Space Marines, worshiping evil, twisted gods and being generally unpleasant whenever given the chance. As my Facebook friends and Twitter followers were quick to point out, fans of tabletop Warhammer 40K get weak in the knees when it comes to the faction, which is why Relic was sure to be careful when adding them to the game. As is the case with any other tabletop game that has been around for as long as Warhammer, there are a number of different variants and versions of the Chaos that they could have chosen from. In the end, they picked out the ones they liked the best, and only time will tell if the community thinks they chose correctly. From a gameplay point of view, however, they seem to have hit their mark, as Chaos is incredibly fun to play. It's not all that different from the regular Space Marines, but additional firepower and fun, Chaos specific abilities make the bad boys a tad more, well, chaotic, and that's not a bad thing.



Playing against the computer ended up being a quick and painless process (thanks to a few debug cheats) and, before long, it was time to play against a few real, fleshy people. There are two new multiplayer modes in Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, neither of which really need any explanation. There's free-for-all and 2v2v2, both of which play exactly as they sound like they should. The addition of new units for every faction, Chaos, and a number of balance tweaks and improvements make it something that anyone who enjoyed Dawn of War II should get into without much of a problem. For those who didn't, the additions might be enough to make it worth another try.

I, personally, was destroyed in just about every game. After playing a few hours of the expansion, I'm extremely excited to pick it up when it releases in March. It's obvious that my skills need honing, and I have a feeling it's going to take a few weeks of practice before I'll be able to redeem myself from my previous failures. That, or I'll just stick to the campaign, which looks to be expansive enough to justify a purchase. I hear there's Chaos rising, and I'm likely qualified to help quash it.

Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising will launch on March 11th for PC.