Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Relic Entertainment and based on Games Workshop's popular tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000. It was released by THQ on September 20, 2004 in North America and on September 24 in Europe. Since its release, three expansion packs have been released: Winter Assault in 2005, Dark Crusade in 2006, and Soulstorm in 2008. The sequel, Dawn of War II was released in February 2009.

As a series Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide as of January 2013.

Gameplay

Gameplay is initially focused on capturing and holding strategic locations on the battlefield. These control points are captured by infantry squads and provide resources to construct additional units and buildings or unlock certain units in an army's tech tree. Battles are won either by holding a certain number of control points for a period of time or by destroying all of the opposing armies' HQ structures. A number of special conditions are available to choose from to customize matches.

Artillery game

Artillery games are early two or three-player (usually turn-based) video games involving tanks fighting each other in combat or similar. Artillery games are among the earliest computer games developed; the theme of such games is an extension of the original uses of computer themselves, which were once used to calculate the trajectories of rockets and other related military-based calculations. Artillery games have been described as a type of "shooting game", though they are more often classified as a type of strategy video game.

Early precursors to the modern artillery-type games were text-only games that simulated artillery entirely with input data values. A BASIC game known simply as Artillery was written by Mike Forman and was published in Creative Computing magazine in 1976. This seminal home computer version of the game was revised in 1977 by M. E. Lyon and Brian West and was known as War 3; War 3 was revised further in 1979 and published as Artillery-3. These early versions of turn-based tank combat games interpreted human-entered data such as the distance between the tanks, the velocity or "power" of the shot fired and the angle of the tanks' turrets.

Dawn

Dawn (from an Old English verb dagian "to become day") is the time that marks, depending on the specific usage, the beginning of the twilight before sunrise, the period of the pre-sunrise twilight or the time of sunrise. When identified as the beginning of or the period of twilight, it is recognized by the presence of weak sunlight, while the Sun itself is still below the horizon.

Types of dawn

Different definitions exist for the start of dawn. The difference between these definitions is the amount of sunlight that must be present. This can be correlated with the angular distance of the centre of the Sun (degrees) below the horizon, in the morning:

Dawn of astronomical twilight

Astronomical twilight begins at the moment after which the sky is no longer completely dark. This occurs when the Sun is 18 degrees below the horizon in the morning. Though it is possible to localize the direction of the Sun during astronomical dawn and dusk, people in general experience astronomical dawn and dusk as night, even without clouds. The zenith is dark and more than just the brightest stars can be seen (except low above the horizon in the direction of the sun).

Warhammer 40,000

Warhammer 40,000 (informally known as Warhammer 40K, WH40K or simply 40K) is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science-fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics. Expansions for Warhammer 40,000 are released periodically which give rules for urban, planetary siege and large-scale combat. The game is in its seventh edition, which was released on May 24, 2014.

Players can assemble and paint individual, 28-millimetre (1.1 in) scale miniature figures that represent futuristic soldiers, creatures and vehicles of war. These figurines are collected to comprise squads in armies that can be pitted against those of other players. Each player brings a roughly equal complement of units to a tabletop battlefield with handmade or purchased terrain. The players then decide upon a scenario, ranging from simple skirmishes to complex battles involving defended objectives and reinforcements. The models are physically moved around the table and the actual distance between models plays a role in the outcome of combat. Play is turn-based, with various outcomes determined by tables and the roll of dice. Battles may last anywhere from a half-hour to a whole weekend, and battles may be strung together to form campaigns. Many game and hobby stores host games, and official gaming events are held on a regular basis, such as the Throne of Skulls.