For example, you’ve got the Screams of the Damned ability, which reduces the morale of all enemies, to the all encompassing Soulstorm attack itself. Soul Essence is a spectral resource used to power their sickest and most powerful abilities, some of which affect the entire battlefield. The Dark Eldar’s hook is the harvesting of souls from corpses strewn about the battlefield. Better to rush your opponent and try to finish them off before they pump out the Terminators. Their super-powerful Dais of Destruction is more of a spectacular luxury than a useful unit. Because of this the Dark Eldar are a very strong tier one race, but get less useful the longer a skirmish goes on. On the battlefield the Dark Eldar are best used with run and gun tactics – their high mobility but low durability makes them perfect for quick-fire attacks and even quicker retreats. They’ve got a creepy, crazed feel that should offer the more unstable of Warhammer 40k fans an alternative to the similarly bad but more soulless Chaos Marines. The Dark Eldar, while not the most popular of races among fans, are an intriguing lot. They concentrate on pain, torture and terrible acts of depraved violence. The Dark Eldar are evil incarnate, kind of like the Eldar gone very, very bad.

Having pumped hours into the two new races, stayed up late into the night busting open the ultimately unnecessary single-player campaign meta-game and stared bleary-eyed at the game’s new air units, we can confirm that Soulstorm is bloody brilliant and a fitting finale for the RTS franchise. Three expansions and nine races later we’ve finally got our hands on the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle in what’s promised to be the final Dawn of War expansion ever. However, it did feel slightly lacking in the playable race department, offering only the Space Marines, Orcs, Eldar and Chaos Marines for future fantasy fans to sink their fangs into. When Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War came out just under four years ago it didn’t revolutionise the RTS genre, but it did offer a compelling, solid, fun and, for its time, spectacular strategy experience.

Dawn of war soulstorm tier list