14 DAY TRIAL // There are four heroes you can use in all of the campaigns included in the Retribution expansion for Dawn of War II, except when playing the rather disappointing Tyranid narrative where just one will have do to, along with his extra capable minions.
Each of them has three advancement tracks, one linked to health and regeneration, one focused on damage output and one that is concerned with energy usage and regeneration as well as abilities that enhance friendly units and damage enemies.
Each track has five unlocks, each consuming one advancement point that a player gets on level up.
Each can be customized with weapons, armor and items that add abilities and battle power.
The level cap is at 10, meaning that there's an important decision that a player needs to make early on in his campaign about which fifth unlock is the most interesting to him in order to focus on that branch.
Each of the heroes can deploy in battle and a team of four is pretty tough, with abilities that complement each other and can make short work of almost any enemy setup, but a gamer can also choose to leave a hero or more at the base and take Honor Guard squads along for the ride.
These are very capable units that can also gain additional power depending on hero unlocks and also make room in the population cap for more recruited units.
Each completed mission in Dawn of War II – Retribution allows the player to chose from three unlocks, one representing a piece of wargear (crucial when fielding four heroes), an upgrade for a squad or an unlock for an even more powerful unit.
The above represents a list of the big choices that players can make in the new real-time strategy even before actually deploying for a mission and using their set up to tackle the challenges that the game throws at them.
Relic did a great job of making “choice” the central element of Retribution, creating a huge playground for those who want options and love the Warhammer 40,000 universe.