By Ned Jordan

If you’re a strategy gamer, I’m sure you’re familiar with last year’s excellent Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War. If you enjoyed that game, and odds are that you did, you’ll be happy to hear that an expansion game is in the works, Winter Assault. THQ recently held a game preview event and I was lucky enough to get a close look at what’s in store for Dawn of War fans.

Now that's some firepower.

The biggest addition to the game is the introduction of a new faction, the Imperial Guard. The Imperial Guard are a bit of an anomaly in the game – in a war that features Orks, demons, and genetically altered warriors, the Imperial Guard consists primarily of foot soldiers conscripted from the general population of the Empire. They’re just not that imposing at first glance. So what makes them special? Well first of all in a game that features and rewards unbridled aggression they are a race built for players that like to dig in a bit. The Imperial Guard can get their initial buildings up pretty quickly and have the ability to garrison every structure that they build, so they’re totally vulnerable to rush attacks by the other factions. Furthermore, all of their structures are connected by tunnels so they can quickly move men to where they are needed. However, these defensive capabilities alone are not their strong point. Their defensive stance is designed to buy them time until they can research out their tech tree and bring in their heavy weapons. And woe to any enemies that let them get to that point.

Towards the upper reaches of their tech tree the Imperial Guard gets their hands on the big guns. The Sentinel is a fast-moving walker that can quickly put the hurt on far-flung enemy units and structures. The Hellhound is a flamethrower tank that burns enemy infantry to a crisp while breaking the morale of any survivors witnessing the carnage. The Basilisk is an artillery piece that can bombard distant locations, even those outside its field of view. But the real heavy hitter is the multi-gunned Baneblade assault tank which packs the biggest wallop in the game.

Although the squads of Imperial Guard infantry are pretty weak to begin with, there are things that you can do to make them a more effective fighting force. First of all you can assign leaders to a squad to shore up their morale. A commissar will keep a unit from breaking and can even be ordered to shoot a soldier in the back to give the rest of the squad more motivation to stay and fight. A priest will be able to whip a unit into a blind fury that makes them invulnerable for a short time. You also have the ability to upgrade the weapons of individual members of a squad. Arming a few soldiers with grenade launchers goes a long way towards increasing their effectiveness.

The Imperial Guard look like they will add a new dimension to Dawn of War’s gameplay, and without upsetting the balance between the factions. Couple of the new strategic possibilities created by the introduction of the Imperial Guard with an entirely new campaign to play your way through and you get an expansion game that’s well worth looking out for.