Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Winter Assault

Winter Assault is the first expansion pack for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Unlike the later expansions, it explicitly requires the base game to play. It adds the Imperial Guard as the fifth playable race. The storyline takes place on the planet Lorn V, this time in two campaigns - one for Order (Imperial Guard's Cadian 412th Command and the Eldar Ulthwé Command) and another for Disorder (the Ork Mob Gorgutz and the Chaos Blood Legion of Khorne). Every faction's aim is to more or less recover an Imperator-class Titan, an immense bipedal combat walker which can be compared to a walking fortress.

The two campaigns have five missions each. The player controls one race at a time, however the game may force the player to switch races once enough progress has been made during the same mission (for example from Imperial Guard to Eldar in the Order campaign). In a later mission the player will have the option of choosing with whom of the two races to finish the campaign. The game plays exactly like the original in terms of producing and controlling units around the map, as well as battling foes: to be able to produce infantry squads, vehicles, power, special constructions, and to research new technologies the player needs to build various structures and upgrade them over time; the combat units are used to attack the enemy and capture strategic points, the latter being a valuable source of requisition--the main resource in the game and a prerequisite for building any kind of structure and deploying units. To get an edge over the enemy it's important to assess the situation and use the appropriate combat units based on their advantages and disadvantages.

To win a mission it's necessary to fulfill a set of primary objectives, ranging from capturing strategic points and destroying structures to assassination and escorting a convoy safely. Unlike the original Dawn of War, there is less emphasis on controlling the map in this campaign and more on completing objectives tied directly to the story, where building a pool of requisition and power has less importance. This means that in some cases the player will acquire new infantry and vehicle units by finding them on the map.

The Imperial Guard, added by Winter Assault as a new playable race in Dawn of War's Skirmish and Multiplayer modes generally have a weaker infantry, but pretty powerful armored vehicles, thanks to units such as the Baneblade and Leman Russ tanks, and the Basilisk mobile artillery. They can also deploy the Sentinel combat walkers, the only vehicle capable of uncapturing strategic points until the next expansion, Dark Crusade, was released. Also included are over 20 new multiplayer maps, new units for the existing factions, new winter theater, and new animations.

The installation process applies patch 1.40 to the base game (subsequent patches affected both Dawn of War and Winter Assault).