You'll also be getting a new squad in Chaos Rising as you'll have the services of Jonah the Librarian at your disposal. I know what you're thinking...a librarian? Really? The answer is that Jonah is to Librarians what Chuck Norris is to Texas Rangers. Jonah isn't a melee guy as he prefers to stay in the back and unleash a wide variety of spells from the rear echelon so you'll have to work that into your mix. He's deadly though and he can provide some light healing as well as damage. He's also a talky and righteous fellow who's not afraid to let you know when you're pissing him off so keep that in mind when you swap him into your squad.
Relic has also upped the level count on abilities and added new skills and traits for levels 20-30. The game will also ship with new weapons and items for your squads to use. One of these items was a set of lightning claws that allows you to rip through enemies. No word on if Relic has added anything that makes Cyrus useful though.
Speaking of weapons, Relic has changed the item user interface a bit to show all the attributes of the weapons and items to help you compare them. This is a tremendous help and should help players figure out which weapons work best. There are a host of other tweaks and improvements which help make getting around and playing the game a bit easier.
Multiplayer gets a few tweaks as well. The biggest is a new free for all mode which will allow you and some buddies to got at it without worry about things like objectives, flags, and capture points. I didn't have a lot of experience with the multiplayer in Dawn of War II so the press event was the first time I've ever played the game against other human beings. I can't believe I waited this long to play the game online as the experience was a blast.
Normally a standalone expansion pack like this would segregate the community into two groups but Relic is committed to keeping their community together. This means that those who already own Dawn of War II are going to get some new units for the core races they have already (Ork, Tyranid, Eldar, and Space Marine) when Chaos Rising ships. The original owners will be able to take those units online and play the folks who only have Chaos Rising. Those folk will only be limited to the Chaos units though. Of course the best deal is to own both and that will cost you an additional $30. While that's a bit on the steep end for an expansion pack you are getting a ton of new content.
If you own Dawn of War II and loved it just go ahead and pre-order the game. If you're an RTS fan and want something different, then I think you owe it to yourself to check out this fantastic game when it comes out. I just hope I can finish the last few missions of Dawn of War II before March 11th when the game hits stores.
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