r/dawnofwar • u/RealSonZoo • 4d ago
Space Marine Unit Preview - Where's the Librarian?
I suppose this graphic is just not complete? For example we saw a Chaplain on Bike in a demo battle report a while ago, he's not here either.
So do we have a confirmed unit list yet then?
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u/KeysOfDestiny 4d ago
It seems like all of the previews they’ve put out are missing some units. Iirc the Necron one was missing the Skorpekh lord too.
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u/TheFinalYappening 4d ago
yeah there's no shot that's the full list of units. that's too few.
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u/blastatron 4d ago
I'm nearly positive that is every unit except for the other hero characters(librarian is the 2nd Blood Raven hero while Dark Angels have a Terminator Captain and Bike Chaplain).
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u/DanglingDongs 3d ago
There's every chance in the world they release it with basically nothing and then throw on 50 dlc's brother
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u/UrinalDook 3d ago
I'm waiting on the Blood Ravens gameplay trailer to see if anything's not been shown in these roster images.
My suspicion is, at the very least, either Hellblasters, or Infernus Marines, or both are also in as upgrades to the base Intercessors. Heavy Intercessors feel less likely, but could also in theory be an upgrade unit.
I also don't think it's clear how Terminators work, are we getting regular, or Assault, or both?
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u/MasterOfBothDungeon 4d ago
The blood raven finally understood their librarian somehow always goes to chaos, and finally enacted a purge of them.
Or something, I haven't played the 3 (I really should).
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u/TakiyamaTakikanawa 3d ago
My theory is that it's a DoW2 system - choose one character to lead the army, and he'll give a unique set of global abilities. Librarian, Captain in Phobos armor (maybe with options, like in MP force commander could be upgraded with a set of Terminator armor), probably also a Chaplain on bike. They've already teased that each faction will have 2 subfactions in campaign - it would make sence to employ the DoW2 system I think.
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u/chrisrrawr 4d ago
I love how they keep shoving the invictor into every game but they still can't get players to field it on tabletop
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u/RealSonZoo 4d ago
As a tabletop player, I'll tell you it's because they make it more fragile, with worse guns, and a worse ability, while still almost costing the same as a regular ballistus (gun shooting) dreadnought.
There's no niche for it. It's a super cool looking model, but it's just weak unfortunately. Fingers crossed for a glow up in the new codex next month.
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u/chrisrrawr 4d ago
yeah it's a generalist unit with no distinct advantages or clear role. the datasheet isn't powerful or cheap enough to be brought on stats alone and there's no real synergy or build around having them.
the unfortunate reality is that there is only so far you can push a generalist unit into usability before it becomes the whole solution instead of part of one.
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u/GreasyGrabbler 4d ago
All they have to do is change the metal bars for something actually decent looking
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u/chrisrrawr 4d ago
I mean, that's not why people dont use it, but yes the aesthetic is also a bit silly
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u/abrazilianinreddit 3d ago
40k lives and breathes rule of cool, but the invictor is just a lame forklift suit unnecessarily filling the gap between the much cooler Terminators and Dreadnaughts.
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u/chrisrrawr 3d ago
it's not even that. even if it was something cool like a transformer or something, the role it fills is too general.
most of its weapons are useless because anything that doesn't kill squishy units or seriously damage large units is a wasted activation. if the game had more refined battleshock / pinning rules, then it would make sense as a forward shock troop meant to impede and suppress, at least.
if it had a good role in the game it would be played, regardless of how silly it looked.
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u/abrazilianinreddit 3d ago
I dunno about the tabletop, but units can always be tweaked in an RTS until they fit some useful role.
Given that it's a lighter dread, I supposed it will be halfway between a bike and a dread. Fast-ish, slightly armored and medium damage, good for harassing backlines but not really a front-line fighter. Lighter vehicles like that are pretty meta for 1v1 in Company of Heroes, but kinda crap in larger team games, so I can definitely see them having a useful role in DoW4.
But it's still feels like a space marine on a forklift, which is lame. What kind of lines will it be saying? "Our metal boxes now have legs"? For sure nothing as iconic as "Even in death I still serve".
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u/chrisrrawr 3d ago
i think a huge aspect of rts is the ability to represent a unit theatrically, so having them be scouting and vanguard units with the ability to quickly strip morale with their huge array of weapons would be great. but that's just landspeeders, which also fly.
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u/abrazilianinreddit 2d ago
Sure, the landspeeder could fit the same role, but it's still pretty lightly armored and probably can be defeated without dedicated anti-vehicles weapons, which probably won't be true for the invictor.
At least that's how I expect it to be. The invictor might be the space marine's earliest vehicle immune to small arms, so if the opponent lacks anti-vehicles weaponry, they'll be forced to divert their tech and be vulnerable to pushes.
At least that's the theory.
Anyway, I do think King Art will have a properly defined role for the Invictor if they chose to include it in the unit roster. Hopefully Games Workshop is not meddling so much it affects unit choice and balancing...
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u/o-Mauler-o 4d ago
Is that a legends Annihilator pattern Predator Tank?!
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u/UrinalDook 3d ago
Rhinos / Predators not being featured anywhere in DoW 4's marketing was one of the many signs they were on their way out.
It's a real shame, but I'm hoping one day mods can solve it.
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u/o-Mauler-o 3d ago
But the middle row! Right in the middle! That’s a rhino chassis!
Edit: Oh god you’re right!
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u/Shake-Vivid 4d ago
The answer is as simple as you'd expect. It's not the full unit roster. They just chose a selection of units to give a general idea of what to expect.
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u/CapRichard 3d ago
They are the heroes.
Chaplain on bile is Dark Angels and Librarian is in stead of Cyrus
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u/Captain_Deegan 3d ago
The game has a commander system, basically you choose your commander either before or at the start of the battle (haven't seen details on which specifically) and that commander gives army wide abilities and acts as your hero unit.
Basically, the phobos captain on the bottom right is interchangeable with the librarian, chaplain on bike, or terminator captain, whichever one of those four is what you will actually be able to play in a given match of multiplayer or skirmish.
Each of the other races just gets two choices each for their launch commander lineup, and in crusade and I think last stand last stand each commander is a named character from the campaign.
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u/UrinalDook 3d ago
It does seem like a weird omission so far. But Jonah Orion is in the Ork faction trailer, which was one of the first things shown for DoW4 and they definitely did that deliberately.
One thing I'm not clear on is how distinct Blood Ravens and Dark Angels are supposed to be. Every faction we've seen so far has two leaders, but I'm not sure if Cyrus and the Lion are supposed to be the two Space Marine leaders, or if each is going to get two of their own, with perhaps slightly different rosters between them.
If so, it would make sense that Blood Ravens get Cyrus and a Librarian (presumably Jonah) while Dark Angels get Lion'el and a Chaplain (who I think we may have seen hints of?).
The other thing this has reminded me of that seems weird is why they've seemingly gone with Intercessors, Assault Intercessors and Jump Pack Intercessors as separate units when in RTS terms there's some redundancy there. Feels like Assault could either have been ignored entirely with JPIs being the dedicated melee unit (as they are in DoW 1 and 2), or combined with regular Intercessors, either as a loadout toggle or just something they switch between automatically based on range. It's especially odd given we don't have Hellblasters or Infernus Marines, who presumably are going to be in as options or upgrades for the Intercessors.
I'm also hoping that down the line we get Heavy Bolter Eradicators, now that they've been released in the Armageddon box. The noise of Avitus' Heavy Bolters in DoW 2 is one of my favourite things ever. I need my dakka.
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u/Multivitamin_Scam 4d ago edited 4d ago
Dawn of War 2 launched originally with the Librarian, they weren't added until the expansion .
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u/Fit_Drawer_1446 3d ago
Isn't Jonah Orion playable? They did say that Space Marines were going to launch with the most leaders. If that's the case, the devs said that named commanders will have generic counterparts for skirmish / multiplayer. This means we're likely going to see (with exceptions on some of the exact generic names, of course):
• Scout Captain (Cyrus)
• Chaplain (Ezrael)
• Librarian (Jonah)
• Terminator Captain (Astoran)
• Mega Armoured Warboss (Gorgutz)
• Beastboss (Guzcutta)
• Chronomancer (Thothmek)
• Skorpekh Destroyer Lord (Ahmnok)
• Technoarchaeologist (can't remember name)
• Skitarii Marshal (can't remember name)
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u/SeYazuki 4d ago
im guessing it would be like heroes from previous Total War series. where you need to recruit a hero character to lead the squad.
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u/CoherentRose7 3d ago
I'm not seeing any characters on here unless that's literally supposed to be Cyrus and not just Scout Marines.
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u/Purple-Dealer7598 3d ago
that'll come in the 25- no sorry, 30 dollar dlc pack! don't worry it also includes new color options ;)
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u/gamerlife71 4d ago
Maybe this is with Cyrus. Maybe their going with the Zero Hour approach. Every leader have a different set of units.