Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Anniversary Edition

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Anniversary Edition

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How to use units in Dawn of War 2 campaign
By Canadian_Zac
As it says above, basically a guide based on how to use the units accessible in the campaign (in my experience and opinions): the Force Commander, Tarkus, Avitus, Cyrus, Thaddeus, and the Dreadnought.
I've also added more info for how to use them in Chaos Rising, as well as how to use The Librarian.
Recently re-did the layout, just made things easy to use and sorted out some spelling errors.
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Force Commander
The Commander can be built to whatever you want dome. Tank, Support, DPS (Melee or Ranged).

If you give him a heavy gun (Heavy Bolter/Rocket/Plasma Cannon) then he can’t use a Commander item. And he’s just a worse Avitus.

He can be melee or ranged, to best support your army. I prefer melee, ranged is only really preferable if you have an all ranged army.

The Commander makes a good Tank. He has more health than even Tarkus, and some of his Tank abilities are very good, although he can’t draw fire, he is practically immune to suppression and can sometimes revive himself when he goes down.

He additionally gains tanking abilities if you give him an Iron Halo, as this further increases his armour and essentially lets him add his Energy to his Health

The Banner enhances his support capabilities, letting him buff and heal everyone in a large area around him, but is best with an army of one type (melee or ranged) so you can get them all in the area.

I recommend to make him a Tank/Melee DPS unless you’re using a full ranged army. Essentially building him like a Melee Tarkus.

You can also make him fully Support, but this also requires other members of the squad to build into the power tree, and takes away several very powerful abilities so I’d only recommend it if you’re very experienced.




Chaos Rising: Corruption is kind of hard to avoid, since the Commander will be on every mission, so items or missions will be required to keep him pure. None of the corruption abilities really stand out, so his corruption is optional, but will mostly just reflect the corruption status of your army.

His new abilities follow the same as his old ones and nothing really stands out that I can remember.
Tarkus
Best used as a full tank. Health tree if his primary one. He can be melee or ranged, he works as either, I tend to make him ranged, mostly because no-one else uses Bolters or Plasma Guns and there’s some really good ones for him, but you can build him melee as well, essentially you can build him to whatever fits best with your squad.

Taunt forces all nearby enemies to target him, and tactical advance reduces the damage he takes. So I tend to wait until the fight’s been going on for a moment, and someone’s low on health, and then Taunt and Tactical Advance to draw the fire and reduce it’s effectiveness, I also give him a Stimpack so I can use it immediately to help the low HP character without needing to change character.

I really recommend Terminator armour for him as soon as you can get it. Increasing his resistance to damage, about the only disadvantage is he can’t use grenades with it, but you can give them to someone else.



Chaos Rising:
Tarkus becomes a true 1-man (well, 4-man) army (not just tank, an army). But doing this requires corruption. The Blighted Bolter and Armour are truly powerful weapons, and upgrade with you as you go (donate the previous version to get the upgraded version, which requires more corruption to use. The Blighted Bolter has a weird thing where it does more melee damage than ranged damage so if you’re planning on going corrupted, it’s actually best to build him melee, but give him the Blighted Bolter (you will also need to remember to change his combat style to melee at the beginning of every mission.

If you wish to remain pure, he stays pretty much the same, just gains a few more fun abilities, upgrading his squad with better gear and more resistance and giving him special ammo with Bolters.

Thaddeus
It is possible to make him ranged, but I never see the point to this, as he is made for melee. Thaddeus is the melee DPS unit.
It is best to upgrade health and melee together as he is very squishy and will often be alone for at least a bit of time, which will get him shredded if he has no health upgrades.

Using Thaddeus is pretty simple in a battle. Jump in, fight a bit, jump out.
However, you need to pay attention as to where you jump him, going too far away from allies will result in him being shredded before you can reach him or jump away.
So he's best used to initiate an ambush. Jump him just ahead with your other squads just behind

Equipment: While in Power Armour I recommend using a Powerfist or Power Axe and a Plasma Pistol. You can use a Chainsword but his Jump Pack deals with hordes well enough that it’s better to have anti-armour capabilities ready to go.
I also tend to give him the melta-bombs, as this allows him to jump into a group, melta bomb any vehicle with them, and decimate a group so your others only need to mop them up.

Thaddeus can go either way for Terminator Armour. It makes him a lot more durable (as long as they don’t have rockets) but his teleport doesn’t deal the damage the jump does. He can still cause damage with some of his abilities but not as much as in power armour. So it’s up to you and if you have a spare suit, give him a go, but otherwise I’d save it for Tarkus and Avitus.




Chaos Rising:
Thaddeus becomes the true king of melee DPS with one trait near the end of the melee tree. This trait changes his explosive strike into a short jump/teleport and increases its damage, but it requires a couple seconds of standing still and doing nothing. It enables you to Explosive Strike in, wreck several units, then jump back out, the delay it isn’t as good In the middle of a fight unless you can time it right, but it will destroy when used to start an ambush. This is especially deadly with combined with the ability that lets you use his abilities with no cooldown or power cost, and will annihilate entire hordes.
Terminator armour is helpful to keep him alive, and with the enhanced explosive strike it doesn't harm his damage very much, so i tend to base it off of the equipment i have.

Corruption isn’t very useful for Thaddeus, swapping power regen for kills is good, but he can use them for no power cost sometimes so it isn’t that great. Overall Thaddeus tends to be my purest character since some pure equipment is very powerful and compliment his abilities well, the power sword for saving the scouts is really strong for a Pure Thaddeus.

Avitus
Not really much advice needed. He’s straight ranged DPS. All I really have to say is don’t use the Plasma Cannon if you have melee units, as it damages and knocks back your own units. You can still use it with melee units, but you’d need to be very careful, so it’s only really useful in a full ranged armour (but it does do a ton of damage in an area, so if you’re going all ranged go ahead and use it)

Equipment: You can give Avitus whatever gun best fits what your squad lacks. I prefer the Rocket launcher, since it’s good against vehicles and infantry, but if you have tanks covered, just give him a Heavy Bolt and shred Infantry.

I recommend Terminator Armour, it makes him tougher, and gives him the Assault Cannon, which is the most effective anti-infantry gun he has, and will mess up tanks and monsters on focus fire as well, however, he can’t use cover while in Terminator armour, and a couple of his abilities do make him better while he’s in cover.



Chaos Rising:
Chaos Rising doesn’t change Avitus much. The Lascannon is very good against Tanks, Bosses, and Heavy Infantry, and has a small AOE on it’s impact so can do better than you’d think against Infantry.
Essentially his options are: Heavy Bolter for Infantry, Lascannon for Tanks, Rockets for a mix, or Plasma Cannon if you're all ranged.

I really like Corruption with Avitus. Gaining Energy for ever kill will essentially let him Focus Fire indefinitely as long as he has an enemy to shoot. His final corruption skill makes Focus Fire even better, but does mean you’ll need to watch him while you use it so he doesn’t die from the health drain when he runs out of enemy (which can be very bad if you forget to turn it off at some point and he just keels over.
Cyrus
Sometimes overlooked, Cyrus is a difficult character to use due to his low health and armour. But he Is easily the most powerful character in the game if you use him right.

My main tip for using him is, fight like Cyrus. The description loading screen for Cyrus says that’s known for his unconventional tactics, so you must embrace that, and use him cleverly.

It is best to not use him too much until you get the ability to let him use items without revealing himself, and acquiring the Demolition Charge. The Demo Charge can be placed, and then exploded later, once you have the two of these Cyrus can destroy bases of enemies in instantly. The Demo Charge destroys pretty much anything short of bosses instantly.

Equipment: I recommend the Sniper Rifle. It has very good range, letting him stay out of harms way if he gets caught in a straight fight, and it gives him High Powered Shot that can destroy anything short of a mini-boss or carnifex in 1 shot, all safely from out of their range. But it has an extremely low rate of fire, so he’s not doing anything against a group.

You can also give him a shotgun, which does great damage but has extremely short range, so he will be in danger of being flattened if you aren’t careful. The Shotgun has good AOE, and its ability can destroy entire squads in 1 shot. So it’s a high risk high reward weapon.



Chaos Rising:
Cyrus gets better in every way. He can become more powerful while away from the squad (which is where he ends to hang out when things are going well), but he doesn’t get more durable, so he remains squishy.

Corruption is quite fun for Cyrus. He becomes immune to damage while stealthed so he doesn’t even need to run away to set off his bomb, the power regen will hurt him, but will also be powerful. One Demo Charge can wipe entire bases and completely regen his power, but getting the power back without killing is going to cost Speed Stars.

His final Corruption ability can be really fun. He essentially turns another squad member into a bomb. Slap that on Thaddeus and jump him into a base. It’ll cost resilience stars but it’s fun to do.
Dreadnought
The true DPS of the game. Although he can be a tank (literally), I don’t recommend it. He’s very hard to repair in the field, and anti-armour weapons will shred his health really fast.

The Dreadnought is very slow moving. In an army with all Terminator Armour, this won’t be noticeable, but power armoured armies will really lag with the Dreanought.

Equipment: The Powerfist is the variety weapon for the Dreadnought. He deals great damage in an area around him, doing high damage to high value targets and knocking back, most effective against heavy infantry and bosses.

The Assault Cannon is the anti-infantry weapon. The basic weapon deals decent damage to tanks, but the ability will destroy entire armies and buildings with a single use.




Chaos Rising: He doesn’t change much. The Dreadnought gains no corruption, so pure or corrupt doesn’t affect him. He gains more health and damage like the others, but he doesn’t get anything really fancy.

His speed (or, lack of it) becomes even more noticeable, several missions have timers, and his clomping around will be noticeably slower.

In addition to being incorruptible, he will leave the group if you get too corrupt. I don’t know exactly when this happens, but, if you do all the missions (corruption and pure) he will leave around the Space Hulk.

(And, while I mentioned it. I also recommend doing Pure missions even if you’re going for corruption, they ironically give very powerful Corruption items)
The Librarian (Chaos Rising)
Extremely powerful if you use him right. The Librarian is the true glass cannon of Dawn of War, he’s even squishier than Cyrus (since Cyrus still has the 2 ablative scouts to take the hits with while he’s alone to take the bullets).

I recommend to build him up to the second to last trait in the ranged tree, and all the way in the power tree. This gives you an enhanced Ignite Soul and Smite, and makes him occasionally fire them as a basic attack. A single enhanced Ignite Soul will completely clear a building and can remove groups of elite infantries, and smite will cause tons of damage to infantry and will stun bosses for a moment.

His third ability is up to you. Invisibility can be fun to do some scouting or ambushes if you didn’t bring Cyrus, and other Support ones are good in a variety of roles (the speed power is stupid. I tried it out in one battle, he sonics his way across the entire map in seconds. I don’t really see how it’d be actually useful in a fight, but it’s fun as ♥♥♥♥ to just sprint him across the map)

His most powerful ability is a portal. He will create a portal, which remains stationary unless you have the right skill, and pulls any non-boss into it, and deals tons of damage to everyone nearby. It costs a lot of energy, so goes well with the default firing Smite and Ignite Soul since you’ll have energy to spare.

Corruption is quite useful for him. Power Regen can be good or bad depending on the situation. But Corruption unlocks some powerful abilities for him, and some corruption items make him very powerful.
But his pure ability is also good as he heals when he uses an ability.


The Traitor (Do Not Read if You do Not Want Spoilers)
Near the end of the Campaign one of your Squad Leaders leaves and is revealed to be the Traitor, The Traitor is always the Squad Leader that has the most corruption, unless none of your units have corruption, then it The Tech Marine. The mission is just like all other mission, this is the level go through it, get to the boss, and kill them, except that the boss is one of your Squad Leaders who has gained a lot of power by selling their Soul to the Chaos Gods. The Traitor is never the Force Commander, since he must be take on every mission and he's you (and he could make mincemeat of the others with the right upgrades, and would be really annoying to take down if he has the perk where he almost always gets back up immediatly), and neither is it The Dreadnought, who cannot be corrupted.

Since the Traitor is determined by Corruption levels, it is often better to choose one that you dont use much, and take them on a few missions to corrupt them, then only do redeming missions with everyone else, as if use one guy for evey mission, and your strategy for winning heavily relies on someone then you may find youself in a great deal of trouble after and during this mission.

Reasons for Betrayal (i wont ruin it with who it is, that, you'll have to find out on your own):
Corrupted by a Corruption Weapon.
Made a pact with the Chaos Gods to beat the Tyranids.
Falls to Khorne as he ends up beliveing that everything is pointless so he must kill everything.
Frustrated by Incompetent Blood Raven Leaders.
Possessed by a Daemon.
Made a pact with the Chaos Gods to Survive.

The Death's are almost always sad as they are dying most realize that they really messed up pledging themselves to the Chaos Gods, or when the Daemon leaves their ruined body. Only the one that Falls and the one that leaves dont regret their decision. But the others are sad to see them die.... and they cant just be resurrected by a Stim Kit this time.


62 Comments
eREKTion 22 Aug, 2024 @ 10:00am 
Thanks for the guide!
BrickBagel 8 Nov, 2023 @ 7:13pm 
Great guide!
emperoresh 21 Feb, 2023 @ 4:09am 
Thanks
General Chaøs™ 8 Dec, 2020 @ 11:03am 
Ah thanks,I figured you meant that since his skills use a lot of energy but wasn't sure.
Canadian_Zac  [author] 6 Dec, 2020 @ 3:32pm 
General Chaos, I mean Will, the Purple one. Gives him extra power for his spells
General Chaøs™ 6 Dec, 2020 @ 11:36am 
Just started Chaos Rising today and used this guide to decide how I wanted to build my team. I have a question , for the Librarian you say spec into the power tree, is that the Stamina or Will tree? Great build guide btw.
ToErrIsMe 5 Feb, 2020 @ 12:44pm 
How 'bout you put The Traitor all in spoilers blacked-out, and it's only visible when you mouse over it? that would definitely silence MY complaints, maybe other people's complaints.
AlexandertheGamer298 14 Dec, 2019 @ 8:59pm 
Clear and informative thanks!
Mr Saladfinger 25 Sep, 2019 @ 9:29am 
Thanks a lot ! I'm a newbie.
aking2b 25 Nov, 2017 @ 8:46pm 
Thanks for the info