Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition news & patch notes

Gameplay 

• Fixed a crash that could occur when a unit that used an ability that applies root (ex. Chaos Sorcerer using Chains of Torment) is killed while the victim unit is attempting to execute a move

Fixed tuning changes that were errantly introduced in patch 2.9.0: 

Imperial Guard 

• Plasma Gun: Decreased armor-piercing damage against light vehicles and medium vehicles, light and medium structures to restore previous balance 

• Grenade Launcher(Kasrkin): Increased knockback and armor-piercing damage against light and medium structures to restore previous balance 

Orks 

• Super 'Eavy Boy Armor Research: Bonus to Stormboy maximum health restored to +33%. Power cost restored to 25 Power. 

Thank you to those that reported these issues and shared your save files & replays to help.relic.com to help us diagnose and fix them.

Today’s update aims to improve multiplayer balance in the latter stages of a match while continuing to refine the changes we made previously for the early and mid-game in update 2.8.0. 

As part of this, we’re moving the second global research for Requisition and Power for Eldar and Tau to Tier 3. These factions could previously research them at Tier 2.5, which allowed them to easily get further ahead in games if they were already winning. 

The team will continue to monitor the state of the multiplayer meta after this update, with a focus on additional adjustments for update 2.10.0 in the months ahead. 

Thank you to all our players for your ongoing feedback and bug reports! Your passion has been instrumental in our ongoing support of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition. 

Automatch & Modding 

  A Fair Multiplayer Experience 

Thanks to the passion and dedication of this community, we have been able to re-invest in creating a more balanced and stable Multiplayer experience in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition. Updates 2.8.0 and 2.9.0 both contain balance changes as well as enhanced detection and reporting on mod (and cheat) usage in Automatch. Going forward from the release of update 2.9.0, there are new policies being enforced to create a more even playing field for all players. 

Behaviors we are detecting and punishing from this day forward include but are not limited to: 

• Fog of War Removal / Map Hacks – mods that reveal units that would otherwise be obscured from the camera / on the minimap 

• Maximum Camera Distance – mods that allow for a much larger overview of the map than intended. Starting in 2.9.0, loose file mods will no longer impact the camera when playing Automatch. These mods will continue to work in all other modes. 

• Atmospheric Fog Removal – mods typically paired with camera distance mods intended to reveal more of the battlefield than intended 

The above behaviors all run counter to the intended mulitplayer experience as designed by the team at Relic (both past and present). 

Note: These policies apply to the base Automatch pool for the game – those playing Automatch with large scale multiplayer mods are placed into their own matchmaking queues that do not enforce these policies. Those playing custom games or watching replays are also not restricted. 

Those reported or detected using mods (cheats) that violate the spirit of fair competition will receive suspensions that start with 48h bans from Automatch and escalate to permanent suspension for repeat of flagrant offenders. 

Multiplayer Balance  

Chaos 

For Chaos, we’re making some minor tweaks to vehicles as well as buffing the Daemon Prince so that it can have more impact in the late game. 

The Defiler changes in update 2.8.0 were too harsh. It will get back its Area of Effect but will have reduced damage, morale damage, and knockback force. 

We’re also making the Chaos Space Marines take less time to recover from the morale break status to improve their performance in some matchups. 

Chaos Space Marines 

• Morale required to remove morale break status reduced from 150 to 100 

Chaos Vehicles 

• Now have the same bonus from heavy cover as the vehicles from all other factions 

• Ranged damage received while in heavy cover reduced from 80% to 75% 

Defiler 

• Battlecannon Area of Effect increased from 3 to 4 

• Battlecannon damage, morale damage and knockback force decreased by 25% 

Daemon Prince 

• Base regeneration rate increased from 4hp/s to 6hp/s 

• Damage against Vehicle High (Relic Vehicles and a few heavily armored vehicles like the Killa Kan, Baneblade and the Dais of Destruction) and Daemon High (Relic units other than vehicles and the Daemon Prince) increased by 50% 

• Daemon Roar ability radius increased from 10 to 15 

• Daemon Roar ability cooldown increased from 60s to 100s 

• Daemonic Strength ability cooldown reduced from 200s to 150s (This ability is the same for the Chaos Lord which is also affected) 

Sacrificial Circle 

• Symbol of chaos research time reduced from 70s to 60s 

• Daemonic Strength research time reduced from 80s to 50s 

Obliterators 

• Teleport time reduced from 5s/5s to 2.5s/2.5s to teleport/become mobile again 

Chaos Energies 

• New: Now gives +1500 health to the Daemon Prince 

• Chaos Predator health bonus from +1000 to +1300 

Possessed Space Marines 

• Reinforce cost reduced from 65/30 to 60/25 

• Squad Cost reduced from 260/120 to 240/100 

• Daemonic Fire morale dps decreased from 30 to 20 

Chaos Predator 

• Base damage of starting weapons (autocannon and heavy bolters) increased by 10% 

Dark Eldar 

Dark Eldar have been very strong since the last update and are receiving several adjustments to their early game as a result.  

We’ve also added two new T3 research items to allow for some scaling of infantry damage and health in the latter stages of the game. 

Reaver Jetbike 

• Damage decreased by 10% for all weapons 

• Armor Piercing against Commanders increased by 25% for all weapons 

• Damage against Infantry Low (all builders except Techpriest Enginseer) further decreased by 20% for all weapons 

Warrior Squad 

• Health Decreased from 300 to 275 

Hellion Squad 

• Damage against Infantry Low (all builders except Techpriest Enginseer) decreased by 30% on all weapons for both Hellions and their squad leader 

• Damage decreased by 10% on all ranged weapons for both Hellions and their squad leader 

Animus Vitae 

• Refresh Time increased from 1s to 1.5s (this affects how often the lifesteal damage triggers) 

Crucible of Malediction 

• Duration decreased from 6s to 5s 

• Cooldown increased from 120s to 150s 

Incubus 

• Reinforce rate increased from 10s to 15s 

Wych Squad 

• Ranged damage decreased by 20% 

• Wych Succubus ranged damage decreased by 20% 

• Combat Drugs ability duration decreased from 15s to 12s 

Warp Beast Pack 

• Beastmaster Tame Warp Beasts ability cooldown decreased from 180s to 120s 

• Damage against Building Low (mostly Listening Points, Generators, Turrets and Mine Fields) decreased by 30% 

Ravager 

• Horrorfex Bomb ability area of effect decreased from 10 to 6 

• Horrorfex Bomb ability duration decreased from 15s to 8s 

NEW: Improved Wraithbone Battlesuits 

• Requirements: Planetary Strike Add-on (T3 HQ), Wraithbone Woven Battlesuits (same slot in Haemonculus’ Laboratory) 

• Cost: 100/50, 30 seconds research time 

• Scourges health increased by 75 

• Wyches health increased by 150 

• Warriors health increased by 75 

NEW: Improved Soulseeker Ammunition 

• Requirements: Planetary Strike Add-on (T3 HQ), Soulseeker Ammunition (same slot in Haemonculus’ Laboratory) 

• Cost: 100/50, 40 seconds research time 

• Scourge squad Splinter Cannon damage increased by 25% 

• Warrior squad Splinter Rifle damage increased by 25%, this includes the Splinter Rifle on the Raider when Warriors are embarked on it. 

• Wyches ranged damage increased by 25% 

Eldar 

We’re continuing to adjust the early game for Eldar with some small nerfs to Rangers and Dark Reapers. We have also adjusted other stages of the game, most notably the Falcon can no longer make two Jumps at full charge, and the Avatar now gives less of a bonus to vehicle population cap. 

Dark Reapers and their Exarch now get the same bonus from the Optics research in the Soul Shrine to prevent Exarchs from becoming too weak in the late game. This is also a very slight adjustment to the damage output of a full squad of Dark Reapers with Exarch. 

Full Scale War Research 

• Now requires Mobilize for War instead of Support Portal 

Plasma Battery Storage Research 

• Now requires Mobilize for War instead of Support Portal 

Soul Shrine 

• Call of War research time decreased from 45s to 30s 

• Wargear: Reinforced Armor and Wargear: Enhanced Reinforced Armor now give the same mass increase to Banshee Exarch as it does to regular Banshees 

Listening Shrine 

• War Shrine Add-on (LP2) damage increased by 10% 

Improved Optics Research 

• Dark Reaper Squad: Reaper Launcher damage bonus reduced from 50% to 40% 

• Dark Reaper Exarch: Reaper Launcher damage bonus increased from 25% to 40% 

Superior Optics Research 

• Dark Reaper Squad: Reaper Launcher damage bonus reduced from 50% to 40% 

• Dark Reaper Exarch: Reaper Launcher damage bonus increased from 25% to 40% 

Rangers 

• Build time increased from 40s to 50s 

• Long Rifle damage against Infantry Medium (starting units like Guardsmen, Cultists and Guardians) decreased by 10% 

• Long Rifle (Tier 2) range increased from 35 to 40 (The weapon Rangers get after Improved Optics is researched) 

Dark Reaper Squad 

• Health reduced from 450 to 430     

Falcon Grav Tank 

• Cost of recharging a jump increased from 45s to 60s 

• Maximum charge is still 90s - can now store 1.5 jumps when fully charged instead of 2 

Avatar 

• Vehicle pop cap max increase decreased from 10 to 5 

Brightlance Platform 

• Damage increase effect on target decreased from 75% to 50% 

Shuriken Platform 

• Max speed effect multiplier on target changed from 75% to 80% 

• Build time decreased from 50s to 30s 

Wraithlord 

• Brightlance damage against Buildings and Vehicle Air decreased by 20% 

Seer Council 

• Infantry Population cost increased from 2 to 3 

Imperial Guard 

For the Imperial Guard we fixed a bug which was introduced in 2.8.0 where some numbers in the Guardsmen Grenade Launcher and the Weapon Specialization research were wrong. 

Guardsmen, Ogryn, and Kasrkin have all received buffs to some weapons to compensate for the reduced bonus from Priests. Guardsmen are also getting some knockback force back on their Grenade Launcher to make them a bit more likely to knock down certain units. 

We’re making the Hellhound and the Marauder a bit more accessible and giving back some strength to the Basilisk. 

Uncommon Valor has now been split into two research items to allow the Command Squad to be expanded in increments instead of a single expensive upgrade, adding two members at once. 

Guardsmen 

• Grenade Launcher knockback increased from 20-30 to 20-35 

• Plasma Gun damage increased by 15% 

Heavy Weapons Team 

• Health regeneration increased from 1 hitpoint per second to 2 hitpoints per second 

• Health increased from 650 to 750 

Hellhound 

• Acceleration time decreased from 2s to 1.5s 

Basilisk 

• Damage increased by 10% 

• Knockback force increased from 28-44 to 30-50 

Mechanized Command 

• Hellhound Depot cost decreased from 100/50 to 50/25 

• Marauder Depot cost decreased from 50/100 to 50/50 

Marauder Bomber 

• Vehicle population cost decreased from 4 to 3 

• Bombing Run: Krak Bombs ability damage against buildings decreased by 30% 

• Build time decreased from 38s to 30s 

Ogryn 

• Damage of all weapons increased by 15% for Ogryns and their squad leader 

Kasrkin 

• Damage of all weapons increased by 15% for Kasrkin and their squad leader 

Uncommon Valor 

• Cost reduced from 100/100 to 50/50  Research time reduced from 60s to 30s 

• Additional Command Squad members reduced from 2 to 1 

• Health increase for Command Squad members reduced from 100 to 50 

NEW: Dauntless Valor 

• Requirements: Uncommon Valor, Battle Command (T2 HQ)  

• Cost is set to 50/50 

• Research time is set to 30s 

• Additional Command Squad members is set to 1 

• Health increase for Command Squad members is set to 50 

Guardsmen Squad Grenade Launchers 

• The Dark Crusade version of the Guardsmen Squad Grenade Launchers as well as the Weapon Specialization Research were mistakenly used as a base for the changes in 2.8.0. This has been fixed. Affected values: Grenade Launchers Max range was 45 instead of 40 and their build time was 20s instead of 14s. Kasrkin gained x2 damage for Plasma Guns and x1.5 damage for Grenade Launchers from Weapon Specialization instead of the other way around. 

Necrons 

Necron Warriors have been given a third upgrade which is available in Tier 3. Necron Warriors are now slightly weaker in the earlier stages of the game but end up stronger in the late game where Necrons currently lack scaling of their units. 

Attack Scarabs are now cheaper and have lost some of their damage in return for more health and other changes. They should now be better at performing their niche role as anti-air units. 

Other notable changes include the cost increase of Flayed Ones to make them less spammable and Tomb Spyders now having a cost of 5 corpses instead of 4 to summon a squad of Necron Warriors. This makes it harder to circumvent their scaling buildtime cost and fill out the infantry cap with just Necron Warriors. 

Necron Warriors 

• Gauss Flayer damage against Building Low (mostly Listening Points, Generators, Turrets and Mine Fields) decreased by 10%  

Disruption Field 

• Necron Warriors Gauss Flayer damage increase reduced from 30% to 23% 

• Cost reduced from 200 to 175 power 

• Research time decreased from 80s to 70s 

Enhanced Disruption Field 

• Necron Warriors Gauss Flayer damage increase reduced from 35% to 30% 

• Necron Warriors bonus health decreased from 290 to 170 (Health after upgrade decreased from 870 to 750 ) 

• Necron Warriors Gauss Flayer range increase reduced from 4 to 3 (range after upgrade is 20 instead of 21) 

NEW: Superior Disruption Field 

• Requires: Enhanced Disruption Field, Engaged Monolith   Energy cost is set to 225 

• Research time is set to 80 seconds 

• Necron Warriors Gauss Flayer damage increased by 25% 

• Necron Warriors health increased by 175 (925 is the new max hp up from 870) 

• Necron Warriors Gauss Flayer range increased by 3 (23 at maxed upgrades instead of 21) 

Flayed Ones 

• Squad cost increased from 120 power to 130 power 

• Reinforce cost increased from 30 power to 35 power 

Immortals 

• Ranged damage against Vehicle Low (lightly armoured vehicles like Sentinel, Land Speeder and Reaver Jetbike) decreased by 15% 

Pariahs 

• Reinforce time decreased from 20s to 18s 

• Infantry Cap cost decreased from 4 to 3 

Tomb Spyder 

• Corpses consumed to spawn Necron Warriors increased from 4 to 5 

• Spawn Attack Scarabs ability has the following changes: 

• Health cost for the Tomb Spyder decreased from 30% to 25% 

• Cost decreased from 125 power to 75 power 

• Cooldown increased from 10s to 45s 

Attack Scarabs 

• Reinforce cost decreased from 20 power to 15 power 

• Reinforce time increased from 3s to 10s 

• Health increased from 95 to 150 

• Damage decreased by 40% 

• Sight Radius increased from 25 to 35 

• Vehicle population cost increased from 1 to 2 

Lord Destroyer 

• Health increased from 1750 to 2000 

• Stasis Field ability cast range decreased from 30 to 25 

• Stasis Field duration reduced from 30s to 20s 

Orks 

Orks have struggled a bit in the early game in some matchups after update 2.8.0. However, in this update we are adjusting some of their tougher matchups and their late game. As such, we are holding off on more changes to the Orks early game for now. 

The Fighta-Bomma Grot Bomb is now less dangerous to face and Slugga Boy Squads are now slower to build after they become free due to the More Sluggas research. They also have less health after their second health upgrade to make the green tide less hopeless to face in the late game. 

The Killa Kan Rokkit Launcha upgrade should now be more worthwhile and the Squiggoth is now less sluggish while turning. 

Super 'Eavy Boy Armor 

• Slugga Boyz health bonus from +33% to +25% 

More Sluggas Research 

• NEW: Slugga Boy Squad build time increased from 18s to 27s after this research  

Squiggoth 

• Rotation speed increased from 30 to 50. 

Killa Kan 

• Rokkit Launcha accuracy increased from 60% to 75% (a 25% increase in damage per second) 

• Rokkit Launcha cost decreased from 120/60 to 80/60 

Fighta-Bomma 

• Ork Grot Bomb damage, morale damage and knockback force decreased by 20% 

• Health decreased from 2750 to 2350 

Sisters of Battle 

The Sisters of Battle have also had a stronger early game than intended after the last update. We are making multiple changes to address this while also fixing some underlying bugs and other issues with the faction. 

Battle Sisters are facing some larger changes - we’ve increased their starting squad size by one and raised their cost accordingly. Their build time and reinforce time has been increased to slow down the timings for massing them. The damage from Phosphor Grenades has also been reduced, especially against lighter infantry like Guardsmen. 

We’ve also reduced the early game Faith income to limit how often Missionaries and Canoness can use their abilities in the early game. The Canoness has also seen some changes to her Act of Faith abilities - Purifying Light has lower duration while Ascension has been improved to make the Avenging Angels more worthwhile. 

Finally, the Inferno turret and the weapons of the Listening Posts now have an area of effect which matches the visuals of the flames. In return, they are losing a large part of their damage and morale damage to compensate.  

Ecclesiarchal Chapel (Headquarter) 

• Faith income reduced from 1 to 0.75 

Inferno Turret 

• Twin-Linked Inferno Cannons area of effect increased from 3.5 to 5 

• Twin-Linked Inferno Cannons damage reduced by 50% except against Commanders and Vehicle Low (lightly armoured vehicles like Sentinel, Land Speeder and Reaver Jetbike)

• Morale damage decreased by 30% 

Listening Post 

The following changes apply to both the Inferno Cannon and the upgraded Inferno Cannon 

• Area of Effect increased from 3.5 to 5 

• Damage reduced by 50% except against Commanders and Vehicle Low (lightly armoured vehicles like Sentinel, Land Speeder and Reaver Jetbike)

• Morale damage decreased by 30% 

Shrine of the Living Saint 

• Health increased from 1500 to 3000 

Manufactorum 

• Conflagration research time decreased from 45s to 30s 

• Conflagration cost decreased from 100/75 to 75/50 

Sisters Repentia 

• Righteous Fervor health degeneration effect decreased from 8 health per second to 5 health per second    

Battle Sister Squad 

• Starting members from 4 to 5 

• Build cost from 140/0 to 175/0  

• Build time from 16s to 22s 

• Reinforce time from 6s to 8s 

• Phosphor Grenades ability damage over time decreased from 8 to 7 

• Phosphor Grenades armor piercing against Infantry Medium (starting units like Guardsmen, Cultists and Guardians) decreased from 90% to 70% (both damage over time and grenade damage) 

• Veteran Superior damage boost to squad members decreased from 30% to 20% 

Canoness 

• Faith income reduced from 2 to 1.75 

• Act of Faith: Ascension ability cost decreased from 85 Faith to 70 Faith 

• Act of Faith: Ascension ability duration increased from 30s to 40s 

• Act of Faith: Purifying Light duration decreased from 20s to 12s  

• Act of Faith: Purifying Light cooldown decreased from 180s to 150s  

Act of Faith: Ascension Research 

• Cost changed from 100/100 to 125/50  

Avenging Angel 

• Max speed increased from 20 to 28  

• Damage against Daemons/Monsters increased by 25%  

• Damage against Vehicle High (Relic Vehicles and a few heavily armored vehicles like the Killa Kan, Baneblade and the Dais of Destruction) increased by 50% 

Purgatus Mine Field 

• Cost increased from 25/25 to 35/35 

Immolator 

• Twin Heavy Flamer morale damage decreased by 20% 

• Conflagration ability now also deals damage to Commanders, armor piercing set to 50% against Commanders (This ability has 100% armor piercing against infantry so Commanders will take half that damage) 

Exorcist 

• Damage, morale damage and knockback force decreased by 20% 

Sisters Repentia Mistress 

• Bugfix: Sisters Repentia Mistress was not targeted by the Wargear: Blessed Armor and Wargear: Sacrosanct Armor research due to it targeting a Mistress file not in use instead of the correct one. This has now been resolved. 

Rhino Transport  

• Bugfix: Max limit for Rhino Transport wasn’t applying correctly. It now has a proper unit limit of 3 in game. 

Space Marines 

After update 2.8.0, Space Marines are no longer one of the weaker factions in the game. We’re now focused on adjustments to their mid and late game. 

The Chaplain is now cheaper and faster to build while reducing the impact of its healing aura. This should let Space Marines build the unit faster in early T2 when it is really needed while also reducing the strength of its healing which together with heavy cover and Rhino Smoke Launcher made Space Marines incredibly durable. Smoke Launchers have also been adjusted to make T2.5 Space Marines a bit easier to deal with. 

Orbital Bombardment is now less likely to wipe out buildings like the Necron generators and the Ork Banners on its own – this makes it less of a game ender when used successfully on clusters of buildings. 

The Twin-Linked Lascannon of the Dreadnought should now be worth upgrading to and the Furious Charge of the Grey Knights should now knock away their opponents a more reasonable distance. 

Assault Space Marines 

• Melta bomb ability damage against buildings reduced by 15% 

Space Marine Squad 

• Sergeant reinforce time decreased from 30s to 25s 

Armory 

• Wargear: Bionics lvl 2 research time decreased from 40s to 30s 

• Wargear: Enhanced Target Finders research time decreased from 35s to 30s 

• Wargear: Enhanced Target Finders bonus to Space Marines Bolter damage increased from 12% to 20% 

Grey Knights 

• Furious Charge ability knockback force reduced from 60-80 to 40-60 

Dreadnought 

• Twin-Linked Lascannon damage against Vehicle Medium (most normal vehicles like Dreadnaughts, Predators and Destroyers) increased by 80% 

• Twin-Linked Lascannon damage against Vehicle High (Relic Vehicles and a few heavily armored vehicles like the Killa Kan, Baneblade and the Dais of Destruction) increased by 200% 

Force Commander 

• Orbital Bombardment damage against Building Low (mostly Listening Points, Generators, Turrets and Mine Fields) decreased by 30% 

Rhino 

• Smoke Launchers morale and ranged damage reduction decreased from 50% to 40% 

• Smoke Launchers duration decreased from 30s to 20s 

Chaplain 

• Cost decreased from 260/50 to 225/50 

• Build time decreased from 57s to 45s 

• Demoralizing Shout ability duration decreased from 15s to 12s 

• Chaplain Healing Aura health regeneration multiplier decreased from 4 to 3  

• Chaplain Healing Aura morale regeneration multiplier decreased from 3 to 2 

Terminators and Assault Terminators 

• Teleport time decreased from 5s/5s to 2.5s/2.5s to teleport/become mobile again. 

Tau 

We fixed a major bug with the missile projectile of the Skyray Missile Gunship and the XV88 Broadside Battlesuit. They should now be able to hit targets based on the weapon’s accuracy and not miss because a unit moved slightly to the side. To compensate, they’ve lost some of their damage since they turned out to be a lot more effective with this bug fixed. 

We’ve also adjusted several other Tau vehicles. The Devilfish is now less deadly, the Barracuda deals less damage to commanders and the Drone Squad is now cheaper to build and reinforce. 

The Greater Knarlock is now slightly greater than it used to be with better movement and rotation speed making it easier for it to get into the fight. The Krootox has seen similar improvements while losing some of its damage against buildings. 

Finally, Fire Warriors now get less range from the Targeting Optics research which should make them a bit easier to deal with. 

Full Scale War Research 

• Now requires Kauyon Command Post or Mont’ka Command Post 

Plasma Battery Storage Research 

• Now requires Kauyon Command Post or Mont’ka Command Post 

Vespid Stingwing Strain 

• Damage against Infantry Medium (starting units like Guardsmen, Cultists and Guardians) decreased by 10% on all weapons for Vespids and their squad leader 

XV15 Stealth Team 

• Stealth Team Fusion Blaster and Shas’vre Fusion Blaster damage against Commanders decreased by 25% 

• EMP Grenade ability area of effect decreased from 10 to 5 

Fire Warrior Team 

• Shas’ui Photon Grenade ability damage increased from 45 to 65 

Listening Post 

• Fortified Position Add-on (LP2) damage increased by 10% 

Drone Squad 

• Build cost decreased from 105/195 to 105/150 

• Reinforce cost decreased from 40/75 to 40/55 

• Reinforce time decreased from 20s to 15s 

Barracuda 

• Damage against Commanders decreased by 50% 

Devilfish 

• Damage reduced by 20% for all weapons 

Targeting Optics 

• Fire Warrior Team Pulse Rifles and Shas’ui Pulse Carbine range bonus decreased from +10 to +5 (from 50 max range to 45 max range in combination with Advanced Pulse Rifles) 

• Research time increased from 25s to 40s 

Krootox 

• Max speed increased from 16 to 20 

• Rotation rate increased from 80 to 100 

• Melee damage against buildings reduced by 20% 

Greater Knarlock 

• Max speed increased from 16 to 20 

• Rotation rate increased from 40 to 60 

XV8 Crisis Battlesuit 

• Health regeneration increased from 1 hitpoint per second to 3 hitpoints per second 

XV88 Broadside Battlesuit 

• Health regeneration increased from 1 hitpoint per second to 3 hitpoints per second 

• Missile pods damage decreased by 10% 

• Missile pods damage against Infantry Medium (starting units like Guardsmen, Cultists and Guardians) further decreased by 20% 

Skyray Missile Gunship 

• Damage decreased by 30% 

• Damage against Commanders further decreased by 40% 

• Knockback changed from 20-50 to 25-40 

Skyray and Broadside Battlesuit 

• Bugfix: The projectile tau_smart_missile which is used by the Skyray and Broadside Battlesuit lacked a value for Rotation Speed which made the missile weapons of these units unable to track enemy units. Any unit which moved sideways was missed 100% of the time. Rotation Speed is now set to 20 like for the other Tau missile projectiles for the Tau Commander and the Barracuda. 

Targeting Optics 

• Bugfix: Targeting Optics now correctly increases the sight radius of the Shas’Vre by 10 (Squad leader of the XV15 Stealth Team) 

Bug Fixes & Additional Changes 

In addition to the above balance changes, the following improvements have been added to the game. Please continue to send reports and feedback to help.relic.com so that we can prioritize issues in our next updates. 

General 

• Controls – Added a new option for Modern Group Selection that enables updated functionality for Control groups.   

• Ctrl+N - Assign current selection to group N (unchanged) 

• Shift+N: Add current selection to group N 

• Alt+N: Remove current selection from group N 

• Camera – In unmodded Automatch the maximum camera distance is locked to 55m and loose file mods will no longer change it. Mods will continue to work as previous in modded Automatch, custom games, skirmish, and campaigns. 

• Automatch Maps 

• Added Deadly Archeology (Definitive Edition) 2p to the matchmaking map pool 

• Removed Emerald River 2p from the pool 

• Maps – Fixed an issue that could cause black voids to appear at the edge of maps from certain camera angles 

• Shadows – Fixed shadows disappearing when the casting object is off the screen 

• Reporting – Added additional logging for crashes that occur on start-up. If encountered, please wait until the BugSplat report is fully uploaded to see if there is a message that includes potential fix suggestions 

Gameplay 

• Save/Load - Fixed an error that would cause incorrect units to be loaded into the Honor Guard when using a save file from a previous patch. Units now save by squad name instead of squad ID to prevent future errors 

• Melee Attacks – While unable to move, rooted units now switch to melee attacks if there is an enemy within melee range 

• Projectiles – Abilities that fire projectiles now keep the unit busy until at least one projectile is fired to prevent issues where a unit could start casting at a target at the limit of its range, then have the ability cancel without a refund if the target moved out of range before the cast completed 

• Projectiles – Abilities that fire projectiles at a targeted squad now have random offset applied to each projectile and fire at the target’s current position if the target is still in range rather than only firing at the location when the cast began 

• Pathing – Single unit squads / commanders now correctly load into transport vehicles 

• Winter Assault – Updated Imperial Guard Weapon Specialization upgrade to behave the same as it does in skirmish / later campaigns 

• Winter Assault – Fixed an error that caused the difficulty setting to impact the player’s economy in missions where players would swap to a previously A.I.-controlled team 

• Dark Crusade – The Honor Guard version of Mega Armored Nobz no longer count against the population cap  

• Soulstorm – Fixed cases where loading save files from older versions of the game could be missing reinforcement squads from some territories 

• Dark Eldar – Dark Eldar A.I. tuning improved to account for unique builder behavior, so they no longer build duplicate plasma generators and make other poor choices when a building is under construction 

• Dark Eldar – Dark Eldar A.I. now uses correct Dark Eldar squad names (instead of Space Marines) 

• Dark Eldar – Dark Eldar A.I. players now accumulate Souls at the correct speed with a modifier based on the difficulty setting 

• Dark Eldar – Warriors loaded in a Raider now correctly keep improved statistics from Soulseeker ammunition 

• Eldar – Soul Shrine light now correctly hides when the Webway Gate Shroud ability is used nearby 

• Orcs – Fixed Gretchins becoming stuck when queuing buildings after a minefield 

• Sisters of Battle – Added a ‘movement_disabled’ FX to the Canoness melee attack to show the victim is rooted 

• Sisters of Battle – Fixed an error that led to having duplicate special units in the Celestian squad when using autobuild 

• Sisters of Battle – Sisters of Battle A.I. players now accumulate Faith at the correct speed with a modifier based on the difficulty setting 

• Space Marines – Updated Dreadnought Lascannon firing animation to match the reload time 

• Space Marines – Added a ‘movement_disabled’ FX to the Force Commander melee attack to show the victim is rooted 

• Tau – Tau A.I. now builds the correct units to capture points on Easy difficulty 

• Tau – Fire Warrior’s Shield Drone now has the correct requisition costs after the first one 

• Tau – Fixed an error that led to having duplicate special units in the Tau Fire Warriors squad when using autobuild 

Art 

• Team Colors – Clamped team color values to prevent cases where overlapping model parts would cause incorrect colors to be displayed 

• Chaos - Updated Listening Post building placement preview to show the correct building preview 

• Necron – Updated Monolith building placement preview to show the correct building preview 

• Space Marines - Updated Stronghold building placement preview to show the correct building preview 

U.I. 

• Multiplayer – Added additional messaging when currently facing an Automatch suspension / ban that may show additional messaging around the reason and duration of the suspension in the chat 

• Multiplayer – Fixed missing background on the Lobby Password creation screen 

• Dawn of War – Removed non-functional map preview from objective screens in the original campaign 

• Fonts – Font scale functionality at various resolutions now correctly calculates based on vertical resolution  

• Audio – Audio sliders respond more consistently when adjusting near the ends of sliders 

• Loading Screens – U.I. elements now have drop shadows / background art to make the text more legible 

Mods 

• Mod Limits – Increased the limit for modifiers, research, and events that can be loaded to 99. Note that the following templates need to be updated first: event_manager_ext.lua (up to event_99); modifier_table.lua (up to modifier_99) and research_table.lua (up to research_99) 

• Complex Parameters – fixed several errors, including crashes, that could occur when a modded unit had complex_upgrades set to true in the ebps_combat_ext 

• SCAR – Improved error logging when calling functions on dead objects. Commonly occurring in .ai scripts in various mods 

• A.I. – resource_manager:Update() now refreshes what capture points are available for the A.I. to capture 

• Tuning – Tuning parameters for entering transport vehicles are now exposed for modding – in tunings.lua under "squad_load": "load_state_distance" and "move_to_state_radius" 

• Logging – Restored functionality of testStats.lua to record match info but now only populates on match end to avoid revealing “Random” faction selections 

• Performance – fixed an error that could cause modded U.I. assets to load too many mips 

• Debug Console – Text in the console & debug overlays scales more legibly at different aspect ratios 

• Leaderboards – Automatch games played with mods are no longer reported as part of the base Automatch results

Today’s update is the first community driven patch focused on multiplayer balance in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition. This work was only made possible by your continued support, feedback, and passion for this game. We want to thank the community members that have been driving, testing, and validating this work to get it ready for all of you today. 

Balancing any RTS game, especially one with nine factions, is complicated and time-consuming work. As such, today’s update will not solve or address every single friction point in the multiplayer experience. Update 2.8.0 is only the first of several planned multiplayer balance patches coming in 2026. This work will be incremental, and it will adapt based on feedback from players in the coming weeks. As such, we encourage all our multiplayer fans to play as many matchups and game modes as they can to get a feel for these new changes and then provide feedback and suggestions for future updates. 

Additionally, with the release of this update, we will be enforcing escalating suspensions and bans for any players using mods or other software to remove the fog-of-war and/or atmospheric fog in automatch modes. This does not include custom games or singleplayer/skirmish. We know that these options exist in some historically popular mods, however, they run counter to the intended player experience - especially in automatch. This first round of suspensions will only last 48-hours and will act as a warning. In the coming weeks, player accounts detected removing fog-of-war or atmospheric fog will receive suspensions of a week (or more) and subsequent detection will culminate in permanent bans. Appeal requests can be opened at https://help.relic.com/.

Thank you again for your ongoing support and good luck in your multiplayer games! Stay tuned for the next part of this balance work in the months ahead. 

General  

Today’s multiplayer balance update aims to improve the balance between factions in the early and mid game. We want to decrease the effectiveness of area-of-effect units, as they became stronger with the changes to pathfinding and collision in the Definitive Edition. 

This update also mitigates the ability to sell early game buildings to prevent refunding them for resources. Though this was already true for Headquarters, Barracks, and Generators, we’ve expanded this restriction to cover the Tier 1 Armory buildings and the Forbidden Archive to avoid current and future strategies that exploited this. We exempted the Armory style buildings which double up as Tier 2 research, such as the Soul Shrine and the Path to Enlightenment. 

• Deleting completed Armory buildings (Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, Chaos, Imperial Guards, Dark Eldar and Orks) and Forbidden Archive (Necrons) now returns 10% of the resources to the player  

Finally, Artillery style units and grenade style abilities are receiving changes to compensate for the new pathing and collision systems. 

Chaos 

The Cultist Grenade Launcher opener has been overpowered; we have adjusted this to encourage more variety in opening play. 

Raptors health has been slightly increased, and they will receive an increased boost from Jetpack Booster Research to help them to be more useful in the mid-game. 

Berzerkers movement speed and Health has been increased to improve their usability. 

Vehicles have been adjusted to encourage a selection of vehicles other than Defilers. 

Cultist Squad 

• Grenade Launcher Area of Effect decreased from 4 to 3 

• Grenade Launcher damage decreased 20% (including the value for minimum damage dealt) 

• Grenade Launcher damage against Commander armour decreased by 15% instead of 20% 

Khorne Berzerker Squad 

• Speed increased from 20 to 24 

• Health increased from 610 to 670 

Hell Talon 

• Autocannon and Incendiary Bomb damage to commander armor decreased by 20% 

Chaos Predator  

• Heavy bolters range increased from 30 to 35 

• Cost decreased from 150/330 to 150/300 

Defiler  

• Battlecannon damage to aircraft decreased by 30% 

• Battlecannon area of effect decreased from 4 to 3 

Chaos Space Marine Squad  

• Frag Grenades damage decreased by 15% 

Raptor Squad 

• Health increased from 405 to 425 

Jetpack Booster Research   

• New: Now gives passive move speed of +20% to Raptors and Raptors Aspiring Champion 

Speed Fiends ability 

• Duration increased from 7s to 10s 

• Movement speed increase from 40% to 30%  

Dark Eldar 

Adjustments have been made to the Dark Eldar with the aim of decreasing the dominance of Reaver Jetbikes. We will continue to monitor these changes with a view to future updates. We are also adjusting the survivability of Warriors along with their lethality.  

Anti-vehicle options in the Scourge Squad and the Raider have been adjusted so they are better able to fend off early vehicles from other factions. We’re hoping this improves Dark Eldar performance in early Tier 2.  

Finally, the Talos has been adjusted so that it can perform better at melee range. 

Warrior Squad 

• Splinter Rifle damage against Infantry Low (All builders except Techpriest Enginseer) and Infantry Heavy Medium (Space Marines, Fire Warriors, Battle Sisters and similarly armoured units) reduced by 10% 

• Splinter Rifle damage against Infantry Medium (Starting units like Guardsmen, Cultists and Guardians), Infantry High (Mostly early game units from Orks, Eldar and Dark Eldar like Sluggas, Dark Reapers and Warriors) and Commanders reduced by 15% 

• Health increased from 250 to 300 

Reaver Jetbike 

• Build time increased from 21s to 25s 

• Splinter Cannon damage to Commander armor type decreased by 33% 

• Splinter Cannon with targeting module damage to Commander armor type decreased by 33% 

Scourge Squad 

• Dark Lance setup time decreased from 1.5s to 1.0s 

Wraithbone Woven Battlesuits  

• New: Scourges now gain 55 health from this upgrade 

• New: Scourge Sybarites now gain 100 health from this upgrade 

Raider 

• Health increased from 1400 to 1600 

• Dark Lance damage increased by 15% 

• Cost increased from 100/125 to 125/150 

• Build time increased from 25s to 30s 

• Raider Splinter Rifle damage adjusted to match the changes to Warrior Squad Splinter Rifle. These weapons are used when Warriors embark on a Raider

Talos 

• Deceleration time decreased from 1s to 0.2s 

• Acceleration time decreased from 2s to 1s 

• Time cost decreased from 45s to 30s 

• Max speed increased from 18s to 21s 

Wargear: Power Blades  

• Cost decreased from 75/75 to 50/50 

Wargear: Agonizers  

• Cost decreased from 100/100 to 75/75 

Archon 

• Power Claw and Agonizer damage reduced by 20%  

Wych Succubus 

• Damage from Wargear: Power Blades and Wargear: Agonizer decreased by 20% (not cumulative) 

Warrior Sybarite 

• Damage from Wargear: Power Blades and Wargear: Agonizer upgrade increased by 40% (not cumulative) 

Scourge Sybarite  

• Damage from Wargear: Power Blades and Wargear: Agonizer upgrade increased by 40% (not cumulative) 

Eldar 

We have made adjustments to many of the Eldar spells. Bonesingers Wraithtomb should now be less oppressive in shutting down buildings, the Farseer is less of a menace against factions like Imperial Guards, and the Harlequin is less effective at wiping out armies by herself.  

Banshee’s are getting some slight buffs to accessibility to make them more viable as secondary units.  

We have also made some minor adjustments to Rangers, Dark Reapers and Guardians to improve specific matchups. 

Bonesinger 

• Cost increased from 45/0 to 55/0 

• Wraithtomb duration decreased from 30s to 20s 

• Wraithtomb duration after death of Bonesinger decreased from 8s to 5s 

Farseer 

• Mind War ability total damage decreased from 315-440 to 340-350 

• Mind War ability cooldown decreased from 110s to 100s 

• Psychic Storm ability damage to Commander armor type reduced by 30%   

Soul Shrine  

• Aspect Portal added as a requirement 

Harlequin  

• Dance of Death damage decreased from 75 to 60 per hit 

• Harlequins Kiss area effect damage decreased by 20% 

• Harlequins Kiss area effect damage against Infantry Medium (Starting units like Guardsmen, Cultists and Guardians) further reduced by 20% 

• Harlequins Kiss area reduced from 15 to 12 

Ranger Squad  

• Knife damage against Infantry Medium (Starting units like Guardsmen, Cultists and Guardians) decreased from 4.8 to 4dps 

Ranger infiltration 

• Research time increased from 25s to 40s 

Dark Reapers 

• Reaper Launcher damage against Vehicle Medium (Most normal vehicles like Dreadnaughts, Predators and Destroyers) and Aircraft decreased by 20% 

Dark Reaper Exarch  

• Reinforce time increased from 15s to 20s 

Guardian Squad  

• Shuriken Catapult damage against Infantry Heavy Medium (Space Marines, Fire Warriors, Battle Sisters and similarly armored units) decreased by 10% 

• Shuriken Catapult penetration against Infantry Heavy High (Heavily armored infantry like Celestians, Terminators and Obliterators) set to the same as against Commander, was previously 0. Damage increased from 1.4 damage-per-second to 2.9 damage-per-second 

• Plasma Grenades damage decreased by 15% 

Howling Banshee Exarch 

• Health increased from 435 to 585 

• Health gained from Call of War decreased from 355 to 255 

• Health gained from Wargear: Reinforced Armor decreased from 235 to 185 

Banshee Aspect Stone 

• Cost decreased from 50/0 to 25/0 

• Banshee Aspect Stone time cost decreased from 11s to 8s 

Vyper 

• Missile Launcher knockback decreased by 20%    

Imperial Guard 

For Imperial Guards, we wanted to decrease the effectiveness of Guardsmen after getting all their damage buffs in Tier 2, both in general but also specifically for the Grenade Launcher. 

We’re improving the accessibility of the Psyker (HQ) in Tier 2 to allow more detection units while also lowering the effectiveness of Curse of the Machine Spirit which currently counters early vehicles too hard.  

We’ve also improved the usability of the Heavy Weapons Team by lowering the time it takes to entrench/uproot as well as increasing the speed at which they rotate their weapons so that they can start firing sooner.   

Telepathica Temple 

• Now requires Battle Command instead of Tactica Command 

• Research time decreased from 20s to 10s 

Priest (Headquarters)  

• Cost decreased from 80/50 to 80/40 

• Squad damage bonus reduced from 50% to 33% 

Psyker (Headquarters) 

• Cost decreased from 100/50 to 90/35 

• Health increased from 375 to 425 

Curse of the Machine Spirit 

• Cooldown increased from 45s to 55s 

• Duration decreased from 15s to 12s 

• Curse of the Machine Spirit range decreased from 40 to 35 

Guardsmen Squad 

• Grenade Launcher knockback force decreased from 25-40 to 20-30 

• Grenade Launchers damage against buildings reduced by 10% 

• Plasma Gun damage against buildings and vehicles decreased by 20% 

Weapon Specialization 

• Bonus damage to Grenade Launchers is reduced from 100% to 75% 

• Research time increased from 30s to 45s 

Commissar 

• Execute ability bonus max damage to lasguns decreased from 100% to 80% 

Heavy Weapons Team  

• Time to entrench/uproot decreased from 3s to 2s 

• Rotation speed for all weapons increased from 45 to 90 

Basilisk  

• Earthshaker Cannon damage, morale damage, and knockback force decreased by 20%    

Necrons 

Necrons mostly saw some economic changes in this update. The power upgrades are slightly cheaper and the Thermo Plasma Generator is now easier to build while giving less return. This allows players to build it with less risk while also reducing the impact it has on the game.  

Obelisks now give one extra vehicle population cap to avoid situations where Necrons control half the map but still can’t get more than 17 vehicle cap. With this change they can get to 20 like the other factions.  

Solar Pulse and Phase Shift received minor nerfs and Immortals are now a bit more tanky.    

Solar Pulse 

• Cooldown increased from 70s to 80s 

Phase Shift 

• Cost increased from 75 to 100 power 

Immortals 

• Health increased from 450 to 500 

Strengthen Powergrid 

• Cost decreased from 350 to 300 power 

Plasma Battery Storage 

• Cost decreased from 550 to 500 power 

Thermo Plasma Generator 

• Power gain decreased from 30 to 20 power 

• Cost decreased from 250 to 225 power 

• Power gift on completion decreased from 100 to 75 power 

• Construction time decreased from 120s to 80s 

• Health from 2000 to 1600 

Obelisk 

• Vehicle population capacity increase from Obelisk increased from +3 to +4  

Orks 

Orks have been adjusted with the intent of delaying and reducing the impact of their attack timings. 

We’re increasing the cost and reducing the effectiveness of certain upgrades and abilities while also nerfing Nob Leaders.     Mega Armored Nobz are receiving some buffs to make them more viable. 

Blastier 

• Research cost increased from 100/25 to 100/50 

• Shoota Boy Squad Shoota and Big Shoota damage bonus decreased from 50% to 40% 

'Eavy Boy Armor  

• Research cost increased from 75/25 to 75/50 

• Sluggas health gained from 33% to 25% 

• Stormboyz health gained from 33% to 20% 

Nob Leaders 

• Power Claw damage to Building Low (Mostly Listening Points, Generators, Turrets and Mine Fields) decreased by 20% 

• Shoota damage to Building Low (Mostly Listening Points, Generators, Turrets and Mine Fields) decreased by 15% 

• Health decreased from 900 to 800 

• Health gained from Tougher Bosses increased from 100 to 150  

• Health gained from Even Tougher Bosses increased from 100 to 150 

Mega Armored Nobz  

• Reinforce cost decreased from 100/75 to 100/60 

• Build time decreased from 45s to 35s 

• Power Surge ability cost decreased from 10 to 7 health per second 

Turbo Boost Research 

• Stormboyz speed bonus decreased from +30% to +20% 

Turbo Boost Ability 

• Movement speed bonus decreased from +50% to +30% for Stormboyz, Wartrak and Wartrukk 

Stormboyz 

• Stikk bombz damage decreased by 15% 

Wartrak 

• Bomb Chukka damage, morale damage, and knockback force decreased by 20%   

Sisters of Battle 

Sisters of Battle have historically underperformed. With the change to refunds from Armory deletion, we are giving Sisters of Battle several early game buffs to compensate and bring them closer in line to the other factions in terms of early game performance. The most important of these buffs is an increase to the accessibility of Faith in the early game to allow for earlier and more frequent use of their Faith based abilities.    The Immolator is getting multiple changes to make it more accessible and better at its anti-vehicle role, while toning down the strong Twin Heavy Flamers. We are also splitting the health and damage upgrades into two upgrades each to allow for better scaling in the mid and late game.     We’re making Purgatus Mine Field more useful as an area denial tool and increasing its charge count. In return, we nerfed the damage and morale damage of its explosion.    We also tuned the cost of some upgrades and the effectiveness of the Confessors Faith abilities. Moving 10 power cost from the Armory to Wargear: Power Weapons allows for a few more reinforcements for Seraphims - when opening without a generator, this makes them more viable after losing the resources from armory deletion.  

Ecclesiarchal Chapel 

• New: Provides +20 Faith max (Note that this allows maximum Faith to go above 100 if more than one HQ is built. It is a known issue that the UI may not display Faith above 100 correctly. ) 

Holy Icon 

• Maximum icons built decreased from 5 to 4 

• First icon cost increased from 25/0 to 40/10 (Note: Cost scaling unchanged at +40/25 per icon built) 

Canoness 

• Faith resource generation increased from +1.75 to +2 

• Bolt Pistol damage increased by 15% 

Battle Sister Squad 

• Phosphor Grenades damage decreased by 15% 

• Phosphor Grenades damage over time decreased from 9 to 8 

• Bolter damage increased by 10% 

Pristine Sanctuary 

• Cost decreased from 175/50 to 175/40 

Wargear: Power Weapons  

• Cost increased from 50/20 to 50/30 

Immolator 

• Build time decreased from 55s to 40s 

• Twin Heavy Flamers morale damage decreased by 50% 

• Twin Heavy Flamers damage decreased by 20% 

• Twin Heavy Flamers fire on the move accuracy decreased from 70% to 60% 

• Multi-melta build time decreased from 20s to 15s 

• Multi-melta damage to Vehicle Medium (Most normal vehicles like Dreadnaughts, Predators and Destroyers)  and Vehicle High (Relic Vehicles and a few heavily armoured vehicles like the Killa Kan, Baneblade and the Dais of Destruction) armor types increased by +20% 

Purgatus Mine Field 

• Max Explosions increased from 1 to 4 

• Explosion cooldown set to 5s 

• Damage from explosion decreased by 30% 

• Morale damage from explosion decreased by 50% 

Wargear: Chaplet Ecclesiasticus 

• Cost decreased from 125/50 to 75/50  

Laud Hailers Research 

• Cost decreased from 75/50 to75/25 

• Research time decreased from 30s to 20s 

Confessor 

• Holy Edict stun duration decreased from 15s to 10s 

• Emperor's Wrath damage decreased by 20% 

Wargear: Blessed Armor/Wargear: Psyocculum 

• New: Is now split into two upgrades; the second one is placed in the same slot in the armory and is displayed after the first one has been researched 

Wargear: Blessed Armor 

• Research time decreased from 45s to 30s  

• Otherwise exactly the same as current Blessed Armor 

Wargear: Sacrosanct Armor 

• Requirements: Blessed Armor, Ecclesiarchal Citadel  

• Cost set to 75/25 

• Research time set to 45s 

• Provides further 15% hitpoint bonus to Battle Sisters, Seraphim, Celestians, and Sisters Repentia 

• Provides further 15% hitpoint bonus to Veteran Superiors, Seraphim Veteran Superiors, Imagifers, and Mistress 

Psyocculum 

• Requirements: Ecclesiarchal Cathedral 

• Cost set to 75/25 

• Research time set to 30s 

• Increases the damage of Battle Sister's Bolters, Flamers and Heavy Bolters by 20% 

• Doubles the damage of the Missionary's Bolt Pistol 

Wargear: Enhanced Psyocculum 

• Same stats as current Psyocculum except for the following: 

  • Cost changed from 150/50 -> 100/75 

• Increases to the damage of Battle Sister's Bolters, Flamers and Heavy Bolters decreased from 35% -> 12.5% (total bonus from both Psyocculum upgrades is the same as from the current Psyocculum) 

• Removed damage upgrade for Missionary bolt pistol 

Space Marines 

Space Marines received relatively minor changes despite being one of the weaker factions in multiplayer. However, several changes to other factions have improved the performance of Space Marines.     Space Marines and Assault Marines are getting damage buffs against Infantry High – notably affecting Eldar, Orks, and Dark Eldar, three factions that the Space Marines used to struggle against.    Assault Marines received additional buffs to make them more viable in the early game.    Land Speeder Tempest received several changes to make its different Heavy Weapon upgrades more specialized and Krak Missile Launcher less of an anti-everything alternative.    Listening Posts, Heavy Bolter Turrets, and Missile Turrets had very low damage against some armor types compared to their counterparts in other factions. In some cases this was due to legacy bugs. We’ve fixed those values and these buildings will now be a lot stronger in some situations.    

Listening Post 

• Storm Bolter damage to Vehicle Low (Light vehicles like Reaver Jetbike, Landspeeders and Devilfish increased from 9 to 19.4 damage-per-second (same damage as the Chaos Listening Post) 

Space Marine Squad 

• Bolter damage against Infantry High (Mostly early game units from Orks, Eldar and Dark Eldar like Sluggas, Dark Reapers and Warriors) increased by 10% 

• Frag Grenades damage decreased 15% 

Assault Marine Squad  

• Squad cost decreased from 220/0 to 210/0 

• Chainsword damage to Infantry High (Mostly early game units from Orks, Eldar and Dark Eldar like Sluggas, Dark Reapers and Warriors) increased by 15% 

• Chainsword damage to Building Low (Mostly Listening Points, Generators, Turrets and Mine Fields) increased by 10% 

• Bolt pistol damage against Infantry Low (All builders except Techpriest Enginseer) decreased by 35% 

• Health received from Wargear: Bionics Level 2 increased from 19% to 30% (from 581 to 634 after this upgrade) 

Machine Cult 

• Vehicle Cap given from this building increased from 2 to 3 

Rhino 

• No longer requires Armory to build 

Land Speeder Tempest 

• Health increased from 1200 to 1500 

• Cost increased from 100/125 to 100/150 

• Krak Missile Launcher armory requirement removed 

• Frag Missile Launcher armory requirement removed 

• Krak Missile Launcher area of effect reduced from 4 to 2.5 

• Krak Missile Launcher cost reduced from 60/30 to 40/20 

• Frag Missile Launcher cost reduced from 50/20 to 40/20 

• Krak Missile Launcher damage against Commanders decreased by 30% 

Dreadnaught 

• Cost reduced from 170/305 to 155/305 

Apothecary 

• Health increased from 500 to 600 

Sacred Artifact 

• Cost decreased from 125/50 to 100/50 

Hellfire Dreadnaught 

• Hellfire Missile Launcher knockback force decreased by 20% 

Missile Turret 

• This turret had a faulty table of penetration values which lacked entries for all building armor types; these have been fixed by copying the penetration table from the Imperial Guard Missile Turret which is identical to the Space Marine Missile Turret 

Heavy Bolter Turret 

• This turret lacked penetration values against all building armor types, these have been added and penetration values copied from the Chaos Heavy Bolter Turret which is identical to the Space Marine Heavy Bolter Turret in every other way 

Tau 

For the Tau we wanted to reduce the effectiveness of mass Fire Warriors in early Tier 2 and slightly nerf the early game harassment from Vespids.    Vespids received a slight nerf to their jump, while they still have the ability to store up to three jumps, each jump now costs more. 

Fire Warriors lose the ability to choose two of the same Squad Leader. In return we fixed the Shield Drone and buffed its survivability. 

We reduced the cost of the Kroot Shaping Center and the Kroot Shaper and increased the latter's squad bonus for health to improve the scalability of Kroot Carnivores into Tier 2. 

Earth Caste Builder 

• Cost decreased from 65/0 to 60/0 

Fire Warrior Team  

• No longer prioritize targeting Squad Leaders/attached units in a squad 

• Shas'Ui and Shield Drone are now limited to one each in a squad of Fire Warriors 

• Pulse rifle damage to Infantry Low (All builders except Techpriest Enginseer) increased from 9.5 to 14.5 damage-per-second 

Shield Drone  The Shield Drone had an Armor value of 0 which means it took full damage from all sources of damage no matter what penetration value they had against this unit. This has been changed to 100, in line with all units. 

• Health increased from 275 to 425 

• Armor type changed from Infantry Heavy Medium to Infantry Heavy High 

Vespid Stingwing Strain  

• Cost of recharging a jump increased from 30s to 40s 

• Maximum jump charge increased from 90s to 120s 

• Starting jump charge is still 50% (from 45s to 60s) 

Kroot Shaping Center 

• Cost decreased from 135/0 to 100/0 

Kroot Shaper 

• Cost decreased from 100/50 to 80/40 

• Health bonus to attached squad from +10% to +20% 

Pathfinder Team 

• Mark Target ability bonus damage decreased from 75% to 50% 

Advanced Pulse Rifles 

• Research time increased from 25s to 35s 

XV88 Broadside Battlesuit 

• Cost decreased from 240/120 to 210/120 

• Missile Launcher knockback decreased by 20% 

Tau Commander 

• Missile Pod knockback force decreased from 30-50 to 20-40 force 

• Flamer Morale damage decreased by 20% 

Barracuda 

• Missile Pod knockback decreased by 20%   

Bug Fixes & Additional Changes 

In addition to the above balance changes, the following improvements have been added to the game. Please continue to send reports and feedback to help.relic.com so that we can prioritize issues in our next updates. 

Gameplay 

• Fixed a Fatal Scar Error in Winter Assault Disorder Mission 1 that occurred when Gorgutz was incorrectly despawned before the ending cutscene 

• Squiggoth entrance updated in Winter Assault Discord Mission 1 to remove attack misalignment when it attacks 

• Winter Assault Order Mission 2 cutscene updated to remove stuttering 

• Winter Assault Order Mission 4 updated to remove the light FX after the Mars Pattern building has been destroyed 

• Updated the Sisters of Battle Honor Guard Immolator to not use vehicle cap. Save files from before this patch that already have an Immolator in the Honor Guard will still be impacted by this issue 

• Necrons – Tomb Spyder particle projector no longer fires when under the effect of the Necron Lord’s Phase Shifter 

• Necrons – Obelisk Gauss Flayer firing FX now correctly matches its fire rate 

UI 

• Translations across several languages updated to fix Wargear descriptions that were cut off 

Modding 

• Updated the “-init” launch argument to no longer crash immediately on match start Note: use of this launch argument may lead to instability at the end of matches 

Gameplay 

• Melee Combat – Re-applied a fix for revived units such as Necron Warriors and the Living Saints to prevent them from endlessly pursuing their last melee attacker 

Audio

• Speech – Updated how intel speech priority is handled (for example, scripted character dialogue during a cutscene) to address cases where story dialogue could be skipped because all audio channels are full during heavy combat 

Please be sure to report any bugs or technical issues by submitting a new request at help.relic.com. 

Today’s update for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition includes several quality-of-life and bug fixes to improve gameplay, the user interface, art & animation, and modding capabilities. Notably, this update should address frustrations with melee unit behavior and should also resolve an economy exploit. 

In the coming months, the team will continue working to resolve any high priority bugs or issues that arise, so please be sure to report those by submitting a new request at help.relic.com.

One of our goals when we first began working on the Definitive Edition was to empower and support the community that has kept the fires lit for 20 years. To that end, we are in early discussions to support community-driven multiplayer balance patches. What shape that takes, who will be involved, and when official balance updates might be released are still being determined and will be at Relic’s discretion. We hope to share more information with the community as these plans begin to take shape. For now, just know that multiplayer balance is top of mind, and we’ll have more news later this year. 

  General 

• Crash – fixed a crash on launch where the display device was not detected correctly on first boot. Please submit BugSplat reports and add information about if it was your first time booting the game or happening repeatedly if you continue to see an issue 

• Match Reporting – fixed some instances of match results being sent incorrectly or at the wrong time. This resulted in some matches not being recorded correctly in player stats 

• Audio – added audio treatment to numerous pieces of Russian unit dialogue to be more consistent with other languages. Examples include faction-appropriate helmet reverb on many Space Marine, Chaos, and Eldar units, faction-appropriate radio effects on many vehicles, and the Eldar Avatar of Khaine sounding far more godlike 

• Audio – added support to restart ambient background music when loading a save file in the Dawn of War and Winter Assault campaigns.  Note: If the music was triggered by a scripted objective change it will not reload / update until the next objective update 

• Shadows – disabled shadows on numerous small objects placed in maps (ex. stones, grass) to reduce the appearance of floating when on uneven terrain 

• Rendering – disabled manual window resizing when playing in Windowed Mode to prevent a mismatch between game and window resolution 

Gameplay 

• Melee Combat – updated the pathfinding system to allow melee attacks on fleeing opponents to be successful more frequently instead of stopping or switching to ranged combat.  The intention is to more closely match Soulstorm’s legacy behavior 

• Melee Combat – Fixed a case where revived units such as Necron Warriors and the Living Saints would endlessly pursue their last melee attacker 

• Economy – fixed an exploit where research could be unlocked earlier than designed by deleting a required building, getting a refund, and buying the upgrade before the requirement updated 

• Pathfinding – fixed several cases where units could become stuck inside each other – for example when hit by a knockback attack or when melee attacking a larger vehicle. Enemy units in these overlapping cases will now be able to phase through each other to disengage 

• Save/Load - units that had an order active when the game was saved now resume the order when loading. Applies to actions such as: move, using an ability, construction, repair, capturing, and more. Note: Capture action will resume but capture progress will be lost 

• Chaos – fixed a tuning issue that caused the Dark Crusade & Soulstorm campaign Chaos Lords to become weaker when ascending to Daemon Princes through Wargear unlocks 

• Chaos – fixed a case where the cooldown on the Chaos Raptors Speed Fiends ability would reset immediately after spawning the Aspiring Champion 

• Chaos – updated the Aspiring Champion’s Berzerk Fury gridkey & command card button to the bottom row to avoid conflict with Attack Ground when attached to Cultists with a Grenade Launcher. See Known Issues list at the bottom of this post for additional details 

• Chaos – added missing Russian dialogue that caused the Aspiring Champion to respond in English 

• Dark Eldar – updated the Terrorfex Grenade ability gridkey and command card button to the third position to avoid conflict with Haemonculus abilities 

• Imperial Guard – added hotkey support for the Assassin Infiltration research in the Dark Crusade campaign 

• Necron – updated the limit on the number of harvestable bodies in the world at a given time to be per Necron player value (75) rather than a global one for matches with more than 1 Necron player  

• Orks – increased the attack range of the Slugga Boyz to fix cases where they would not attack while within weapon range 

• Orks – updated Mine Field to use the correct hotkey binding ork_mine_field 

• Sisters of Battle – fixed a case where the cooldown on the Angelic Visage ability cooldown would instantly reset when adding the Seraphim Sergeant 

• Sisters of Battle – fixed an unintentional cooldown reset by removing a duplicate ability on the Veteran Superiors for the Celestian and Seraphim squads 

• Space Marines – update the Librarian to correct default to ranged combat instead of melee 

• Space Marines – updated Skull Probe’s sabotage ability to prevent enemy vehicles from Jumping 

• Space Marines – added hotkey support for Librarian research in the original campaign and moved it to S for all campaigns to prevent overlapping 

• Space Marines – updated the Champion Select screen to load the correct face model when selecting Space Marines 

• Tau – increased the Fire Warrior Bodyguard line of sight to 25 to prevent issues where it would stop attacking while still in weapon range 

• Winter Assault Campaign – fixed a bug with squad reinforcement that could result in new units using the incorrect team colors 

• Winter Assault Order Mission 4 – fixed a script error that caused the incorrect Eldar color scheme to be used in the closing cutscene 

• Dark Crusade – fixed a fatal scar error that could occur in the Chaos Stronghold mission during the ending cutscene when a Necron unit dies right before the cutscene starts 

• Dark Crusade – updated the Eldar Stronghold script to correctly trigger the intro dialogue when playing in Russian 

• Soulstorm – updated the camera for the Chaos Stronghold closing cutscene to avoid situations where units would clip through the camera 

User Interface 

• Japanese – fixed translations for Diplomacy and Objectives on the HUD buttons 

• Lighting – updated lighting on the Dark Crusade and Soulstorm Commander and Wargear screens to load consistently and be rendered from the correct direction 

• Army Painter – tuned lighting used on the Army Painter screen 

• Army Painter – adjusted positioning of several units to appear more grounded in the scene 

• Cover – fixed description of Cover to better reflect in-game behavior 

• Chaos – fixed description of the Heavy Weapon Increase upgrade to better reflect in-game behavior 

• Eldar – fixed a data error that caused incorrect Eldar unit portraits to be displayed for the Bonesinger, Guardian, Seer Council, and Fire Dragon 

• Eldar – updated several upgrade icons that were displaying lower resolution versions 

• Imperial Guard – fixed missing icon that caused a Space Marine skull icon to be shown when hovering over the HUD minimize button 

• Imperial Guard – updated description for the Psyker Soul Strip ability to correctly reflect in-game behavior 

• Imperial Guard – updated several upgrade icons that were displaying lower resolution versions 

• Space Marines – updated Skull Probe Sabotage ability tooltip to correct reflect disabling enemy vehicles 

• Winter Assault – updated text spacing on loading screens to fix text that could be cut off 

• Dark Crusade – updated Ariel Highlands loading screen to remove visible debug lines 

• Dark Crusade / Soulstorm – increased the resolutions on Wargear icons 

• Dark Crusade / Soulstorm – updated lighting to load correctly and project from the correct direction on the Wargear screens 

• Dark Crusade / Soulstorm – added missing icon when the Chaos Lord has Ascension to Daemonhood Wargear equipped 

• Soulstorm – fixed blurry outline on the Soulstorm Campaign loading screen 

• Soulstorm – fixed the location of the popups when mousing over the rewards earned sections on the Victory screen 

• Soulstorm – deleted several legacy icons that were being loaded instead of the remastered icon 

• Soulstorm – updated text spacing on Wargear screen to avoid description text from being cut off 

Art & Animation 

• Chaos – fixed cases where the Chaos Marine plasma gun and bolter models could be visible at the same time 

• Chaos – Predator tank tread alignment corrected for viewing in the Army Painter using mods 

• Chaos – fixed Raptor flamethrower VFX to aim correctly at the target instead of downwards 

• Chaos – added visible projectiles to the Defiler and Hell Talon autocannons 

• Chaos – tuned the Cultist grenade launcher animations to better match the firing speed 

• Chaos – updated position of the Chaos Lord when viewed in the Winter Assault campaign menu to better align with the ground 

• Chaos – updated building VFX to hide correctly when buildings are destroyed in Winter Assault 

• Chaos – update the Hell Talon Biotoxin bomb VFX to avoid being applied repeatedly on units that move in and out range 

• Dark Eldar – realigned Disintegrator to be held correctly on the Wargear screen 

• Dark Eldar – adjusted the Torture Pit to not have persistent bodies to improve framerate 

• Dark Eldar – updated the placement preview for all buildings to match the finished structure 

• Eldar – realigned the Eldar Commander’s pistol placement on the Wargear screen after upgrading to the Shuriken Pistol 

• Eldar – improved texture resolution of the Aspect Portal building 

• Imperial Guard – added tracer VFX to the Leman Russ heavy bolters 

• Imperial Guard – added new animations for the Kasrkin to better align when firing the Plasma Gun 

• Imperial Guard – tuned the lighting on the muzzle flash VFX for the Basilisk to not be overly bright 

• Imperial Guard – fixed misaligned animations with Heavy Weapons Team loading & firing 

• Necron – updated Warriors to shoot at the correct angle when moving 

• Necron – updated the Monolith attack VFX to play consistently 

• Orks – updated the Big Mek to hold the correct weapons after teleporting 

• Orks – fixed an animation issue that caused the Tankbustaz rockets to be invisible when moving 

• Orks – updated Gorgutz’s ‘Ead ‘Unter gun to align correctly with the arms and correctly display projectiles 

• Sisters of Battle – fixed purple pixels on the Shrine of the Living Saint 

• Sisters of Battle – adjusted textures on the Canoness’ hand to no longer appear to be invisible when shown in the Main Menu 

• Space Marines – Dreadnought animation corrections for parts of the model becoming invisible during sync kills 

• Space Marines – added glowing VFX to the Plasma Generators 

• Space Marines – updated bullet tracer VFX to the Tactical Marine bolters 

• Space Marines – fixed the badge size on Terminator squads 

• Space Marines – adjusted VFX placement on the Skull Probe when using the Librarian Word of the Emperor ability 

• Tau – updated Kroot Carnivore Squad to correctly hold their weapons when firing after moving. 

• Under Siege – fixed several impasse bugs on Dawn of War Campaign Mission 3 to prevent clipping through walls 

• Testing Grounds – updated numerous locations where objects overlapped that was causing flickering 

• Fata Morga – adjusted grass placement to improve terrain alignment 

• Deadly Archeology – created new environment pieces to reduce the number of objects in the map and improve performance 

• Deadly Archeology – adjusted height of some of the decorative planters to avoid flickering 

• Sandstorm – reduced density of sandstorm FX to improve performance 

Modding 

• Hotkeys – incremented the Hotkey version to support new fixes in this patch 

• Documentation – added new information about tuning environment & FX lighting 

• Crash – fixed a crash that could occur when a Winter Assault campaign mod did not have “wxp_order” and/or “wxp_disorder” 

• Gameplay – added support to “squad_leader_ext” to support Faith and Soul costs 

• Gameplay – fixed cases where AddOns with a 0.0 second timer were not correctly handled and had longer than desired durations 

• Rendering – added support to disable specific objects from casting shadows by using the “cast_shadows = 0” simvis_attribute associated with that model’s .lua file 

• Mission Editor – fixed a crash that would occur when doing undo / redo after performing move or copy / paste actions 

• Mission Editor – updated the Entity List to make it easier to find duplicated / overlapping objects by adding columns that show the X & Z locations and an overlap indicator to highlight likely overlapping objects.  Objects that have the same transform (position and rotation) but different blueprints are not considered 

• Mission Editor – added an Objects menu allowing hiding and unhiding of the selected or unselected units  

• Mission Editor – added a new Decal List that shows all the decals placed in a given scenario.  Decals can be selected and hidden / unhidden from the list 

• Mission Editor – added support to quickly scroll between overlapping decals.  When hovering over the decals using Shift+Mousewheel will allow scrolling between the decals under the pointer.  Press Space to select the highlighted decal 

• Mission Editor – added a toggle to show lighting volumes in the editor.  It can be found in Edit > Options > Show Lighting Range and enables rendering of lighting fall of spheres showing the effective illumination range 

• Mission Editor – fixed a crash that would occur when trying to Hide or Select an item on the Entity List that no longer exists 

• Mission Editor – Height mode in the Object Placement tool is updated the “Adjustable” button renamed “Fixed” to better reflect how it works.  An Apply Height Mode button is now added and will apply the selected “Fixed” or “Relative” height mode when clicked.  Setting an object's Height mode to Relative to Terrain no longer snaps its height to the terrain. Its current height remains the same; when moved the object will react such as to maintain this height relative to the terrain. Similarly, setting Height Mode to Fixed will not alter object's height; when moved its height will remain fixed 

Known Issues 

The team at Relic is constantly reviewing issues reported by the community and adjusting priorities to address the most frequently occurring issues. These are some of the higher priority issues we are currently tracking. Thank you for all your submissions to help.relic.com! 

• Audio – Dialogue lines can intermittently be skipped during cutscenes – both dialogue and subtitles do not trigger 

• Audio – Specific high-end audio hardware may fail to initialize, leading to the game not having audio on launch.  Improvements have been made to support a wider variety of configurations, but if you are experiencing this issue please send in information about what hardware & software you are using to help.relic.com 

• Invitations – Accepting an invitation immediately after quitting an Automatch search can fail to join and require a second invitation 

• A.I. – Specific combinations of A.I. factions & difficulty level can lead to armies that do not build the correct units in the early game for capturing strategic points, can fail to upgrade units in the late game, and can build only a limited variety of units 

• Hotkeys - When attaching a Sorcerer (with Corruption unlocked) to a squad with an Aspiring Champion (with Berzerk Fury unlocked), Berzerk Fury will be "pushed" to the fourth position of the final row. With grid keys on, this means it can only be triggered via hotkey if Corruption is on cooldown (as they share the hotkey C). Despite the push, the abilities function normally when clicked or when using non-grid hotkeys. Given the number of abilities at play with upgraded Sorcerers and Cultist squads, this was the best compromise that allowed all abilities to be accessible 

• Modding – Modders building Campaign mods with DoWDE as a parent mod or as a RequiredMod can have the mod fail to load and have their options settings reverted to default unexpectedly when attempting to launch the campaign(s) 

• Modding – Modders are limited to a hard cap in number of upgrade research available in each building 

Today’s hot fix addresses a small number of issues raised by the community after Tuesday’s 2.6.0 update. Thank you to those that reported the errors, and helped us troubleshoot the root causes. Please continue to report any issues at help.relic.com.

General 

• Fixed crash in the FX Editor when attempting to save a new FX 

• Fixed a crash when loading the Skirmish menu when modded map names or descriptions contained an unsupported number of characters 

• Community Maps – renamed the version of Community Maps released in 2.6.0 to avoid conflicts between these maps and the legacy modded versions.  The maps have been re-added to the Automatch pool

UPDATE - We have temporarily rolled back the changes to the Automatch map pool until we can resolve the conflicts between the Automatch maps and legacy mod maps. The new community maps will continue to be available in Skirmish and Multiplayer. You may still encounter issues playing the new maps in multiplayer if only some players have the legacy mod maps.

We’re excited to reveal that today’s update will bring five community-made maps into the official map pool. Additionally, we have improved our translations for Japanese, Russian, and Polish. We have also done a tuning pass of flamer weapons after their recent visual and behavior improvements in update 2.5.0. You can find more details and the list of other fixes and changes below. 

As we approach the end of 2025, we want to thank all the players who have supported Relic and our games. The response to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition has been fantastic, and we are so pleased to have you all on this journey with us. What started as a small project to refresh this beloved game has taken on a life of its own, and that’s all thanks to your support. 

The team will be taking a break for the holidays, but we are working on our plans for 2026 and hope to share more with you later next year. In the meantime, we will be working through our backlog of work items and player-submitted issues. 

We have recently updated and improved our support and bug reporting process - notably by bringing on additional full-time Customer Support representatives. As we review and close older reports, please continue to share any new or unresolved issues with us at help.relic.com. We will use these reports to help shape our priorities for 2026. As such, we have not included a “High Priority Known Issues” list with these patch notes as we work to complete this new review. 

General

• Community Maps – added 5 new maps created by community members to the pool of maps available in Skirmish & Multiplayer. The team at Relic has made some minor updates to these maps for their official inclusion in the game.

  • Deadly Archeology (2)

    • As the Necrons wake across the Galaxy, more and more worlds have found ancient basalt structures spewing forth pitiless, death-dealing machines. Deadly Archeology is a 1vs1 map created by TranspersonalPsy

  • Fata Morga Remastered (2)

    • Site of the climactic battle between the Blood Ravens and the Chaos witch Morga. A remastered version of the classic 1vs1 Fata Morga map, created by TranspersonalPsy

  • Sandstorm (2)

    • Sandstorm is a 1vs1 map created by monorail and Eranthis. The Blood Ravens recruiting world of Calderis features endless tracks of desert and massive sandstorms

  • Refinery (4)

    • Promethium refineries dot the landscapes of countless human worlds, belching smoke and producing the power that drives the Imperium. Created by MC Warhammer and Eranthis

  • Forsaken Canals (7)

    • Forsaken Canals is a 7-player map created by Eranthis. Once a lush city cut by broad canals, Eran was abandoned when an axial shift rendered the planet an arid wasteland

• Japanese – added official support for Japanese by completing missing translations, updating legacy translations, and updating fonts to support Japanese characters

• Russian – reviewed & updated legacy translations to improve quality and consistency

• Polish – reviewed & updated legacy translations to improve quality and consistency

• Achievements – removed earning score-based achievements from Campaign missions, as this was not an intended behavior 

• BugSplat – upgraded the game’s BugSplat version to improve error logging and to catch crashes that were not previously logged 

• Save / Load – fixed Cloud Save functionality to correctly back-up & transfer profile information to fix errors 

• Save / Load – updated Original Campaign save functionality to correctly save difficulty setting when loading or restarting a game 

• Lighting - FX lights now light the terrain  

• Game Launch – improved handling of cases where two (or more) copies of the game are launched to prevent cases where DirectX error messages were displayed 

• Game Launch – added additional error logging to help diagnose rare cases where the video card is not correctly detected on game launch 

• Load Times – improved loading functionality to prevent cases where Windows would trigger Application Not Responding errors when loading large games 

Gameplay

• Flamer Changes – Today's update re-tunes several flamer weapons both to function correctly as area effect weapons and to match their effectiveness more closely to update 2.4.0 or their legacy Soulstorm equivalent. Note that in most cases, these new values don't match Soulstorm one-to-one because they were not working properly as area of effect weapons during that game’s lifetime

  • Imperial Guard Hellhound (inferno cannon): area of effect restored to 10 meters; visual FX increased to better match damage area. In this case, gameplay should match 2.4.0/Soulstorm very closely

  • Tau Crisis Suit Flamer: reduced flamer angle from 60 to 30 degrees and damage from 50-70 to 15-25. Effectiveness vs basic infantry groups should be close to 2.4.0/Soulstorm, although single-target damage is much lower. In 2.4.0/Soulstorm this weapon had no cone and was doing damage only in a line 

  • Tau Commander Flamer: reduced flamer angle from 60 to 20 degrees. Effectiveness vs basic infantry groups should be close to 2.4.0/Soulstorm, where this weapon had a very short cone so was mostly doing single target damage 

  • Sisters of Battle Penitent Engine Flamers: reduced damage from 42-50 to 10-15 on each flamer. Effectiveness vs basic infantry groups should be close to 2.4.0/Soulstorm, although single-target damage is much lower. In 2.4.0/Soulstorm these weapons had wide and short cones so did damage over a smaller area 

• Winter Assault - updated Eldar to correctly fire at the Assassin during the Order Mission 3 cutscene 

• Soulstorm – fixed a bug with the Space Marine factional campaign map power (Deep Strike) in which it was linked to an incorrect data table – causing units to immediately die instead of correctly spawning 

• Movement – fixed an error where charge modifiers would be applied multiple times, most reported with Chaos Cultists moving much faster than intended 

• Multiplayer – updated the Faith (Sisters of Battle) and Soul (Dark Eldar) resources to not share with factions that cannot use them in Multiplayer games with Resource Sharing enabled 

• Audio – updated Space Marine servitors to fix using English dialogue while playing in Russian 

User Interface

• Front End – updated lighting in the front end to render as intended and to load consistently when switching between campaigns / mods 

• Save/Load– updated Save / Load screen background to correctly support widescreen resolutions in Dark Crusade & Soulstorm 

• Archive – fixed the aspect ratio of images on the Archive screen in Dark Crusade & Soulstorm 

• Dark Crusade – fixed a typo in the Manreaper wargear description 

• Soulstorm – updated campaign victory flow to correctly trigger conquest victory cinematics 

• Soulstorm – fixed cases where the menus would display in 4:3 aspect ratio when the Attack tutorial pop-up was triggered 

• Soulstorm – updated incorrect mission speech portraits in Necron & Dark Eldar Stronghold missions 

• Soulstorm – updated Defeated screen backgrounds to be the correct resolution and to be images from Soulstorm campaign 

• Soulstorm – updated victory screen to align the tooltip box correctly on all resolutions 

• Soulstorm – fixed cases where Reinforcement unit images would be displayed at the incorrect size 

• Soulstorm – increased resolution on icons used on the Campaign map 

• Loading Screens – removed legal text when loading between mods / campaigns 

• HUD – removed camera edge panning functionality when the Objective or Diplomacy HUD overlays are open 

• HUD – added mipmaps to unit portraits & icons to better preserve detail on smaller images 

• Videos – improved playback performance to skip frames when Vertical Sync is enabled at a lower frame rate 

• Videos – fixed cases where audio would pause and desync from videos if the game lost focus or became inactive during a video 

Art & Animation

• Maps – updated the out of bounds areas across numerous maps to avoid having noticeable cut-off areas

• Winter Assault – fixed impasse to prevent units from clipping into the terrain near the Titan in Order Mission 5 

• FX – fixed a rendering issue that was causing FX to flicker – for example the warp storm on the Soulstorm campaign map 

• Tau – fixed opacity on the faction leader when equipping the Stealth Field wargear 

• Space Marines – updated leg animations of the Dreadnought during sync kills 

• Eldar – updated the Vyper to display the correct weapons during the jump ability animation 

• Dark Eldar – updated Slave Chamber to correctly display badges 

• Dark Eldar – updated Raiders to correctly remove squad members when disembarking 

Modding

• Lighting – With recent improvements to the renderer, we are now able to support lighting the terrain with FX lights

  • The FXTool now supports 'NewAttenuation' on FX lights 

  • This follows a more physically correct (1/(d*d)) falloff 

  • Enabling 'NewAttenuation' disabled the effect of 'Attenuation' as it aims to have the light falloff to the 'Radius' of the light 

  • We have also added an 'Intensity' control so you can make the lights brighter than white to compensate for the increased attenuation rate 

  • With this come some limitations: the renderer can only handle 8 lights per object.  This includes chunks of the terrain 

  • This means that there is a limit to 8 lights per 32m x 32m terrain chunk  

• Mods Menu – added a button to directly open the Mods folder location 

• Mission Editor – updated editor to use available dedicated GPUs to improve performance 

• Mission Editor – decals can now scale up to 400% 

• Mission Editor – objects no longer snap to an unexpected position after dragging and releasing left mouse button 

• Mission Editor – moved manual snap shortcut to (Shift+S) to fix cases where the save shortcut (CTRL+S) could be interpreted as pressing S 

• Mission Editor – updated manual snap to support undo 

• Mission Editor – editor no longer interferes with mouse movement when the editor is not in focus – ex. ALT+TAB to another program 

• Mission Editor – Show Objects toggle is correctly restored on launch 

• Mission Editor – added toggle to Edit > Options > Sound to toggle sounds on and off 

• Mission Editor – the Heightmap Editor now updates terrain lighting after each edit using the Terrain Smoothing Tool 

• FX Tool – updated tool to correctly display Dark_Eldar visible FX 

• FX Tool – added support for lighting debugging 

• FX Tool – fixed skinned meshes not correctly rendering and models not correctly loading 

• Logging – removed deprecated values from FX files to fix malformed errors 

• Logging – fixed numerous data errors causing “motion_error” to be logged repeatedly 

• Logging – reduced amount of “Failed to open folder” errors that are logged 

• Logging – updated localizer ID errors to reduce log spam 

• Logging – fixed errors in the unitstats.ai causing invalid upgrade log spam 

• Logging – Improved AI warnings messages to aid with debugging: added more information to each cpuAssert(), updated cpuAssert() to prefix the function name, added cpuBreak() for all the cpuAssert( false, ...) situations, fixed some cpuAssert( true, ... ) situations to be cpuBreak() 

• Mod Support – improve support for unit lighting in Main Menu & Army Painter when playing with modded units (ex. Tyranid mod) 

• Mod Support – improved support for zero-time research to correctly register immediately 

• Mod Support – load models in the Main Menu on demand rather than all at once to improve loading time 

Today’s hot fix addresses a handful of issues leftover from last week’s 2.5.0 update, including a fix that inadvertently reverted an old balance change. We know that as we continue to support, update, and fix issues in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition, it may have knock-ons to the multiplayer meta, which has essentially been untouched for the last 10 years. Your love for this game and your continued support has gotten us this far, and we intend to go further. We remain dedicated to improving the game and making it the best way to play Dawn of War. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks. 

Thank you for your continued feedback. Please continue to report any issues to us at help.relic.com. 

Gameplay 

• Chaos – reverted a hot fix that was actually an ancient balance change. Cultist Squad Aspiring Champion will no longer receive a plasma pistol or power sword upgrade 

• Jump Movement – fixed two additional error cases where squads with a jump movement ability could fail to perform the jump action

User Interface 

• Multiplayer – updated the end of match flow to fix an issue that caused the results screen to not appear 

Art & Animation 

• Vehicles – fixed an issue where tank tracks would display missing decals in the original campaign 

Today’s update includes our top-requested feature – Achievements for both Steam and GoG. You can find a full list of the Achievements and their descriptions below. Additionally, this patch improves the Mission Editor for modders and addresses several gameplay bugs and issues for our more competitively minded players. This includes fixes for jump movement, grenades, Necron generators, and several flame weapons and flame FX such as the Immolator. 

Many of the fixes included in today’s patch are thanks to your feedback, so please continue to report any issues to us at help.relic.com. 

Achievements! 

Our team is excited to release 109 new achievements for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition. These achievements were inspired in part by requests from the Community, in addition to some fun ones we have come up with ourselves. We hope you enjoy unlocking all of them! 

Please note: to bring achievements to Dawn of War - Definitive Edition, we needed to dig in and track progress across the game. With a 20-year-old game as our starting point, we did not have much in the way of existing stat tracking to use, so we had to add that in this latest patch to support Achievements. Any previous play time will not contribute to earning achievements - you are largely starting fresh with this update. 

One partial exception is campaign-completion achievements, which are awarded when you finish the campaign, not working through the entirety of it. You do not need to replay the entire campaign to gain its completion achievement. If you have an existing save or have the final mission unlocked, you can simply replay that mission to earn it. 

Achievement Name 

Description 

Play a match of any type 

Death, War and Blood 

Win a match of any type 

Our Prey Is Near 

Win a skirmish match as Chaos 

We are the Lords of Despair 

Win a skirmish match as Dark Eldar 

Victory is Our Fate 

Win a skirmish match as Eldar 

Glory For The First Man To Die! 

Win a skirmish match as Imperial Guard 

The Galaxy is Ours 

Win a skirmish match as Necrons 

Orks is da biggest and da strongest! 

Win a skirmish match as Orks 

A Small Mind Is Easily Filled With Faith 

Win a skirmish match as Sisters of Battle 

For the Emperor! 

Win a skirmish match as Space Marines 

Victory is the Reward of Unity 

Win a skirmish match as Tau Empire 

Do you hear the voices too?? 

Win a multiplayer match as Chaos 

Power From Pain 

Win a multiplayer match as Dark Eldar 

I Have Already Seen Our Victory 

Win a multiplayer match as Eldar 

Only in Death Does Duty End 

Win a multiplayer match as Imperial Guard 

We Awaken Once More 

Win a multiplayer match as Necrons 

If We Win, We Win. If We Die, We Die Fightin’ 

Win a multiplayer match as Orks 

Faith Without Deeds is Worthless 

Win a multiplayer match as Sisters of Battle 

Victory Needs No Explanation, Defeat Allows None 

Win a multiplayer match as Space Marines 

For The Greater Good 

Win a multiplayer match as Tau Empire 

Purity of Purpose 

Achieve an Annihilate victory 

Identify and Eliminate 

Achieve an Assassinate victory 

We Claim This World as Our Own 

Achieve a Control Area victory 

We Stand. They Do Not. 

Achieve a Destroy HQ victory 

Raising the Tithe 

Achieve an Economic victory 

They Stood No Chance 

Achieve a Take and Hold victory 

We Alone Will Remain 

Achieve a Sudden Death victory 

All Out War 

Complete the Dawn of War campaign 

Blood and Frost 

Complete the Winter Assault Order campaign as Imperial Guard 

The Cold Means Nothing 

Complete the Winter Assault Order campaign as Eldar 

WAAAGH! 

Complete the Winter Assault Chaos campaign as Orks. 

We Revel in Their Defeat 

Complete the Winter Assault Chaos campaign as Chaos 

Heresy. Purged. 

Capture the Chaos Stronghold in Dark Crusade 

Break the Xenos 

Capture the Eldar Stronghold in Dark Crusade 

Fools Blinded by a Dead God 

Capture the Imperial Stronghold in Dark Crusade 

Entombed Once More 

Capture the Necron Stronghold in Dark Crusade 

Nothing but Rubble 

Capture the Ork Stronghold in Dark Crusade 

Gates Unbarred and Unguarded 

Capture the Marine Stronghold in Dark Crusade 

Diplomacy is Temporary. War is Not. 

Capture the Tau Stronghold in Dark Crusade 

Chaos Undivided 

Complete the Dark Crusade Campaign as Chaos 

Do Not Pity the Mon-Keigh 

Complete the Dark Crusade Campaign as Eldar 

The Emperor Protects 

Complete the Dark Crusade Campaign as Imperial Guard 

Rejoice, For We Have Returned 

Complete the Dark Crusade Campaign as Necron 

Ere We Go, Boyz! 

Complete the Dark Crusade Campaign as Orks 

My Armour is Contempt 

Complete the Dark Crusade Campaign as Marines 

The Patient Hunter Gets the Prey 

Complete the Dark Crusade Campaign as Tau 

Crazed Fanatics 

Capture the Chaos Stronghold in Soulstorm 

You Shall Cause Suffering No Longer 

Capture the Dark Eldar Stronghold in Soulstorm 

Soul Black Shadows of Death 

Capture the Eldar Stronghold in Soulstorm 

Witness Your Doom! 

Capture the Imperial Stronghold in Soulstorm 

Scrap Metal 

Capture the Necron Stronghold in Soulstorm 

Not Kunnin’ Enough 

Capture the Ork Stronghold in Soulstorm 

Death to the Corpse God and His Servants 

Capture the Sisters Stronghold in Soulstorm 

The Road to Disappointment 

Capture the Marine Stronghold in Soulstorm 

Not So Great Anymore 

Capture the Tau Stronghold in Soulstorm 

An Offering to the Dark Gods 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Chaos 

Raise our standard! Let it strike fear! 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Dark Eldar 

I Taldeer you so! 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Eldar 

Live to Fight Another Day 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Imperial Guard 

We Are Legion 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Necrons 

Clobber Da Whole Lot Of Them! 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Orks 

Our Emperor, Deliver Us 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Sisters of Battle 

Eternal Service 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Space Marines 

We Will Deliver the Killing Blow 

Complete the Soulstorm Campaign as Tau 

Let the Galaxy Burn! 

Kill 666 Space Marines as Chaos 

Lesser Kin 

Kill 1000 Eldar as Dark Eldar 

The War in Heaven 

Kill 1000 Necrons as Eldar 

Breakdown in Negotiations 

Kill 1000 Tau as Imperial Guard 

Ancient Slaughter 

Kill 1000 Eldar as Necrons 

Armageddon 

Kill 1000 Imperial Guard as Orks 

Purifying Flame 

Kill 1000 Chaos as Sisters of Battle 

Suffer Not The Xenos To Live 

Kill 1000 Orks as Space Marines 

Fire Superiority 

Kill 1000 Imperial Guard as Tau 

The Grim Darkness Of The Far Future 

Kill 40,000 enemy units 

Neophyte 

Defeat the easy AI in skirmish 

Battle-Brother 

Defeat the standard AI in skirmish 

Lieutenant 

Defeat the hard AI in skirmish 

Captain 

Defeat the harder AI in skirmish 

Chapter Master 

Defeat the insane AI in skirmish 

Yes, Yes! We Will Work Faster! 

Build all structures as Chaos in a single match 

The Dark City 

Build all structures as Dark Eldar in a single match 

Craft World 

Build all structures as Eldar in a single match 

Sanctum Manufactorum 

Build all structures as Imperial Guard in a single match 

Tomb World 

Build all structures as Necrons in a single match 

Build It Right Up For You! 

Build all structures as Orks in a single match 

Sanctum Sororitas 

Build all structures as Sisters of Battle in a single match 

Chapter Planet 

Build all structures as Space Marines in a single match 

Spheres of Expansion 

Build the Tau Coalition Center 

Master of the Forge 

Add 50 special weapons to squads 

One Amongst Untold Billions 

Reinforce 100 units 

Complete Annihilation 

Achieve Total Score of 40000 

Praise the Machine God 

Achieve Technology Score of 1000 

Death Be Thy Compass 

Achieve Military Score of 1500 

Exactis Extremis 

Achieve Resources Score of 30000 

Departmento Munitorum 

Gather 20000 requisition 

Greatest Generation 

Gather 10000 power 

Master Tactician 

Capture 100 strategic points 

Blood, Sweat and Boltguns 

Capture 10 critical locations 

Spirit of the Machine, Hear My Prayer 

Capture 10 relics 

Placing Charges 

Raze 100 buildings 

Blood for the Blood God 

Deploy a Chaos Bloodthirster 

Dark Dais Ahead 

Deploy a Dark Eldar Dais 

Bloody Handed 

Deploy an Eldar Avatar 

Ready to Win the War, Sir! 

Deploy an Imperial Guard Baneblade 

Monolithic 

Deploy a Necron Monolith 

Don't Poke Da Squiggoth 

Deploy an Ork Squiggoth 

Salvation Through Annihilation 

Deploy a Sisters of Battle Living Saint 

Death Has Arrived 

Deploy a Space Marine Land Raider 

That's Gnarly 

Deploy a Tau Greater Knarloc 

General 

• Fixed a rare crash on startup – potentially seen when running a virtual machine 

Gameplay 

• Jump Movement – updated all squads with a jump movement or attack to fix cases where some of the units would successfully jump then teleport back to the starting location or some units in the squad would not jump at all 

• Jump Movement – units in the middle of a jump movement can now take damage correctly 

• Grenades – updated functionality of grenade-like abilities to be fire-and-forget – now if the projectile is mid-air when the initiator is killed or given another command the grenade will still land and activate correctly 

• Sisters of Battle – updated the Immolator to correctly start the area of effect from the weapon and use a pie shape (was previously spawning a circle on the main target of the opponent’s squad).  Units now correctly play the “caught-on-fire" effects 

• Sisters of Battle – adjusted heavy flamer weapons on Immolator and Penitent engine to better match visuals.  Pie angles set to –15/+15 (from –20/+20) and pie radius to 25 (was 14) 

• Tau – updated the Tau Commander and Crisis Battlesuit to correctly spawn the area of effect from the weapon (was previously spawning on the main target), correctly hit all targets within the area of effect, and updated the “caught-on-fire" effect to correctly play without blood VFX 

• Tau – adjusted the flamer weapons for the Tau Commander and Crisis Battlesuit to better match the visuals.  Pie angles set to –30/+30 and pie radius set to match the max range 

• Imperial Guard – updated Hellhound area of effect to better match the visuals.  Radius set to 5 (previously 10) and updated to correctly trigger the “caught-on-fire" effects 

• Chaos – fixed an issue causing the Cultist Squad Aspiring champion to not receive plasma pistol and power sword upgrades 

• Necrons – fixed an issue causing generators to build more slowly than expected 

User Interface 

• Automatch – automatically restart the automatch process when a player is dropped during the “Game Start” phase 

• Join Game – fixed an error that prevented the online join game screen from correctly showing the map preview information 

• Join Game – improved response time when refreshing the match list 

• Dark Crusade – game now shows the correct text when losing your stronghold in the Dark Crusade campaign 

• Loading Screens – fixed instances where selection lines were visible on loading screen background art 

Art & Animation 

• Vehicles – added terrain decals for all tracked vehicle movement on snow maps 

• Environment – removed spec from Crater_00 and darkened it to remove shine and updated all faction structures that use a spawn decal 

• Environment – updated all maps to correctly handle the difference between snow & grass when creating footprints 

• 5P Red Jungle – updated map to use DirtSand coloring for the textures around buildings 

• 6P Tristram Plains – fixed flickering walls and terrain in several locations 

• 6P Crossroads – fixed an issue allowing units to pass through the Ork walls 

• Imperial Guard – updated Baneblade to correctly spawn track marks in snow 

• Sisters of Battle – fixed animation issues where multiple units would flicker when planting the flag on a capture point 

• Space Marines – updated Apothecary animations to remove flickering when moving and fixed the chainsword teeth to animate correctly 

• Space Marines – fixed the geometry that was animating incorrectly on the Soulstorm campaign commander 

• Space Marines – fixed the barrel rotation animations on the upgraded Listening Post 

• Chaos – updated VFX on buildings in the construction queue to not turn invisible after a short time 

• Chaos – fixed decals that could overlap and flicker when buildings were built close together 

• Chaos – added barrel rotation animations to Obliterator 

• Chaos – fixed the barrel rotation animations on the upgraded Listening Post. 

• Tau – updated Vehicle Beacon animations to correctly handle when unit production is cancelled 

• Tau – fixed an animation issue where the Tau commander’s cannon would stop rotating after upgrading to the flamer on the opposite hand 

• Eldar – fixed a flickering animation when the Dark Reaper and Fire Dragon units would stop/start moving 

• Ork – Tankbustas animations fixed to remove flicker when switching from fire on the move to stationary 

• Soulstorm – update reflections on water planets to reflect the sky instead of horizon 

Modding 

• Mission Editor – Fixed a potential crash when undoing a command that could not be performed (such as placing a decal or object outside of the playable area) 

• Mission Editor – You can now export and import the terrain type (a.k.a. footfall) map, as you could previously for the height and impasse maps. These are found under the menus: File > Export/Import > Export/Import Terrain Type Map  Known Issue: The Terrain Type Overlay display may shift after importing. Change the Overlay to a different mode (e.g. Impass Edit Mode) then back to Terrain Type 

• Mission Editor – The Game Camera setting is now preserved between sessions, and when switching maps 

• Mission Editor – Added an option to hide or show all placed objects: Edit > Options > Show Objects 

• Mission Editor – All options, overlay actions and render modes now have hotkeys. (Some operations already had hotkeys; these have not changed.) 

  • Options: 

    • Show Objects: Ctrl+E 

    • Show Fog: Ctrl+F 

    • Show Sky: Ctrl+K 

    • Show Terrain: Ctrl+T 

    • Show Water: Ctrl+W 

    • Show Decals: Ctrl+D 

    • Show Marker Proximity: Ctrl+M 

    • Show FX: Ctrl+Alt+X 

    • Show Occlusion: Ctrl+Alt+O 

    • Show Bounding Boxes: Ctrl+Alt+B 

    • Game Camera: Ctrl+Shift+G 

  • Overlay actions: 

    • No Overlay: Ctrl+Alt+L 

    • Grid: Ctrl+Alt+G 

    • Impasse Edit Map: Ctrl+Alt+I 

    • Terrain Type: Ctrl+Alt+T 

  • Render options:

    • Texture Mode: Ctrl+Alt+E 

    • Mip-Map Mode: Ctrl-Alt+M 

    • X-Ray Mode: Ctrl+Alt+R 

    • Wireframe: Ctrl+Alt+W 

    • Mip-Map & X-Ray modes have been moved to a top-level Render menu 

• Mission Editor – Object Placement - A new rotation mode allows you to rotate selected objects as a group rather than rotating each object individually. To use, select multiple objects and, while holding Tab, click a selected object with the RMB and drag to rotate  Known Issue: Object rotation and height adjustment now only measures right/left mouse input, whereas formerly up/down input was also used 

• Mission Editor – When performing a copy/paste, the pasted objects are now positioned slightly offset from the objects that were copied 

High Priority Known Issues 

The team at Relic is constantly reviewing issues reported by the community and adjusting priorities to address the most frequently occurring issues.  These are some of the higher priority issues we are currently tracking.  Thank you for all your submissions to help.relic.com! 

General 

• Profiles – Cloud saves do not contain profile data when switching between devices which blocks the ability to create a new profile without an error message 

• On some systems, loading into campaigns can take long enough for the application to appear unresponsive in Windows. Loading is still happening, please do not close the application 

Gameplay 

• Chaos Cultists can accelerate and run unusually quickly when moving in combat 

• Disembarking a squad from a transport vehicle in narrow space can cause units to be spawned out of bounds and become stuck 

• Ork Gretchins can fail to move to complete their next build order when shift-queuing after building a mine field 

• Faction-specific resources are split among all allies when Resource Sharing is enabled when the ally is a different faction that cannot use that resource 

• Using the Deep Strike feature in the Soulstorm campaign can result in the units silently dying when summoned 

• Speech audio may not trigger correctly if too many sound channels are currently occupied 

Today’s update for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition includes several modding fixes, including the infiltration shader, a new Mod Assistant tool, the long-requested “No Flyers” option for Custom Games and Skirmish, plus a new optimized renderer which should significantly improve the performance of shadows and visual effects. 

Our next update (2.5.0) in November will include the rollout of Steam Achievements for Dawn of War – Definitive Edition. 

Many of the fixes included in today’s patch are thanks to your feedback, so please continue to report any issues to us at help.relic.com.

General 

• Performance – today’s patch includes a new optimized renderer designed to significantly improve rendering performance. This is done through a combination of improved GPU scheduling and multi-core processing

• Fixed a rare crash that could occur when numerous units were built at the same time 

• Fixed a very rare crash when attempting to select a commander when starting a Dark Crusade or Soulstorm campaign 

Gameplay 

• Orks – Warboss no longer kills friendly units when using the Big Horns Wargear 

• Camera – fixed an issue where the camera could continue to move when the Pause Menu is open 

• Winter Assault – fixed a fatal scar error that could occur in Disorder Mission 4 

Multiplayer 

• No Flyers – added an option in Custom Multiplayer and Skirmish to disable all flying units. This toggle disables the functionality of building flying units and enables the Necron Tomb Spyder to spawn non-flying versions of the Attack Scarabs. Please keep in mind that using this option may impact faction balance. Modded armies may be able to bypass the No Flyers setting.

User Interface 

• Videos – video playback now pauses when the application is not in focus to avoid desyncs between video, subtitles, and audio 

• Videos – updated video decoding to play more smoothly on lower spec hardware that has vsync disabled to prevent video from lagging behind the audio & subtitles 

• Sign-In Errors – moved the “Failed to Connect” error pop-up to be a tooltip to avoid the error being spammed to players that prefer to play offline.  If you are playing online and see Multiplayer greyed out – the tooltip when hovering over Multiplayer will give some information about the error causing it to be disabled

• Multiplayer – fixed several errors that could cause the incorrect user or incorrect stats to be displayed when viewing a player profile in the multiplayer lobby 

• Loading Screens – added additional variety to the loading screens when entering multiplayer 

• HUD – updated squad health bars to correctly display when multiple squads are selected 

• Custom Badges – added an option to disable usage of custom badges, the game will use default badges when this toggle is set to off 

• Unit Portraits – added commander portraits used in Soulstorm campaign 

• Wargear – updated camera placement for all Wargear to better frame the item being added to each commander 

Art & Animation 

• Team Colors – updated the default team colors for all factions in all four campaigns to avoid situations where it would default to the first alphabetical name 

• Team Colors – updated models shown in the Army Painter where overlapping team color areas created artifacts where incorrect colors would be shown 

• Dark Eldar – Hellion models no longer flicker when completing a movement and switching to the idle animation 

• Eldar – Farseer model updated to user higher resolution textures and correctly show Wargear 

• Eldar – Commander eyes updated to show the correct team color 

• Eldar – Guardians now have recoil animations when shooting 

• Space Marines – Sergeant animations updated to only hold one weapon at a time when moving and shooting 

• Necron – Deceiver facial animations updated to fix distorted mouth positions 

• Necron – updated the Reaping Blade Wargear to correctly update the model when applied 

• Orks – In Dark Crusade the Orks now use the correct banner art 

• Orks – update Tankbustaz mask to be correctly aligned 

• Orks – greatly reduced the number of animations that cause the Mega Armored Nobz head to clip through the armor 

• Maps – fixed impasse and terrain issues causing vehicle pathing issues on the Fata Morgana map 

• Maps – fixed a wall with misaligned collision allowing units to move through it on the Temple of Cyrene map 

• Winter Assault – fixed flickering wall textures in Disorder Mission 2 

Modding 

• Mod Assistant – a new tool called the Mod Assistant is now available to aid new modders in being able to launch modding tools without needing to perform additional set-up steps

• Replays – fixed a crash that could occur when attempting to save a replay while playing a modded game 

• Infiltration – fixed an error that was preventing legacy mod units from correctly applying the infiltration shader 

• Object Editor – fixed a crash when attempting to open a model with more than 255 bones 

• Mission Editor – fixed a crash that could occur when opening Dawn of War Mission 5 or Mission 6 

• Mission Editor – added a toggle to switch to “Game Camera” to match the typical view from the game and lock the camera to the playable area 

• Mission Editor – fixed an issue where the game would freeze when unlocking windows while the mission editor was running 

• Logging – updated logging functionality to allow logs to write out info and to be opened while the game is still running 

High Priority Known Issues 

The team at Relic is constantly reviewing issues reported by the community and adjusting priorities to address the most frequently occurring issues.  These are some of the higher priority issues we are currently tracking.  Thank you for all your submissions to help.relic.com! 

General 

• Profiles – Cloud saves do not contain profile data when switching between devices which blocks the ability to create a new profile without an error message 

• Due to a startup crash with the GoG Galaxy overlay, we have had it disabled. Since multiplayer game invites are done through the game overlay, game invites will not be possible on GoG until we resolve this issue

• Switching rooms during matchmaking may cause the game to become stuck or frozen in the "cancel" state. You may need to force the game to close and restart to resolve this issue while we work on it

• When there are a large number of multiplayer games available to join, there may be a small pause on the Multiplayer Join Game screen when it refreshes

• Map preview and description not displayed in the Multiplayer “Join Game” menu

Gameplay 

• Units with a Jump ability can appear to start/complete the jump then teleport back to the starting location 

• Disembarking a squad from a transport vehicle in narrow space can cause units to be spawned out of bounds and become stuck 

• Ork Gretchins can fail to move to complete their next build order when shift-queuing after building a mine field 

• Faction-specific resources are split among all allies when Resource Sharing is enabled when the ally is a different faction that cannot use that resource 

• Using the Deep Strike feature in the Soulstorm campaign can result in the units silently dying when summoned 

Today’s hot fix for Dawn of War – Definitive Edition resolves a gameplay issue introduced with yesterday’s 2.3.0 release.  Thank you for all your reports, please continue to report any issues to us at help.relic.com to help set priorities for upcoming patches. 

Gameplay 

• Imperial Guard – Heavy Weapons team now entrenches and engages in combat correctly 

Additional High Priority Known Issues 

These items are in addition to the high priorty Known Issues we released yesterday. 

• We are investigating reports that stats are appearing as reset, or displaying incorrect values. 

• We are aware that some unit portraits have not been updated. Please send us bug reports with any you find, and please let us know which game mode or campaign you found them in. 

• Infiltration shaders are not correctly applied to units in modded games.  

• Loading a Replay from a match that is using mods will lead to a crash 

“Only in death does duty end.” 

To revisit Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, a game we love, and to see the warm reception from players has meant so much to us here at Relic. We want to thank all of you for your continued support and passion for the game. We have therefore extended our support plans for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition beyond September and will continue updating the game for the rest of 2025. The next patch is currently targeting late October 2025. You can find a small preview of exciting, and highly requested features coming this year listed below today’s patch notes.   

Today’s update for Dawn of War – Definitive Edition includes a complete overhaul of Unit Portraits, improvements to the Automatch experience, Art and Animation fixes, HUD improvements, and fixes for several high priority crashes. Many of the fixes included in today’s patch are thanks to your feedback, so please continue to report any issues to us at help.relic.com. 

General

• Unit Portraits – all faction units and buildings have been updated to use portraits built from captures of the updated Definitive Edition models with hand touch-ups to improve clarity and consistency.  These can be seen in the HUD in all modes as well as on the Dark Crusade & Soulstorm campaign maps. Note: With the volume of icons updated, it is possible that some may have been missed or mis-implemented. Please report any issues you find, and we will prioritize fixing them in a subsequent patch 

• Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting a multiplayer match 

• Fixed a crash that could occur when transferring badges in multiplayer lobbies 

• Fixed a crash that would occasionally occur when deleting a unit during multiplayer gameplay 

• Fixed a crash when a unit would attempt to perform a jump attack near the map border in multiplayer gameplay 

• Fixed a crash that would occur when loading an autosave file that was saved right as a building was updating to the next unit in the production queue 

• Fixed a rare crash that could occur after the skirmish or multiplayer game was complete and players were viewing the map 

• Fixed a rare crash that could occur when loading Dark Crusade or Soulstorm campaign missions 

• Fixed two rare crashes that could occur when a player uses a Possession ability in a multiplayer game 

• Fixed a rare crash that could occur in Dawn of War campaign missions when defending against large hordes of Orks 

• Fixed a rare crash when loading save files created on a modded Soulstorm campaign 

• Fixed a rare crash when using the Tyranid mod in multiplayer 

• Fixed a rare crash that could occur on attempting to join a custom game 

• Fixed a crash that could occur when playing Multiplayer using Parallels on Mac 

Gameplay 

• Camera - updated edge panning functionality to correctly work while Lock Cursor to Game is disabled 

• Audio – updated unit speech to correctly respect the 3D placement of the camera when Sisters of Battle, Tau, and Dark Eldar units enter combat, take damage, or die. 

• A.I. – updated a scripting error that would cause Insane difficulty A.I. to default to Easy in the final Dawn of War mission 

• Eldar – enabled an Avatar sync kill that was disabled in Soulstorm 

• Orks – Ork Warboss range attack upgrades now function correctly in Dark Crusade 

Multiplayer 

• Match Statistics – fixed an error where match results / statistics would not be correctly reported when spectating after being eliminated from a match 

• Automatch – removed Unranked Automatch as an option to prevent confusion. All Automatch matches have always been and will continue to be ranked 

• Automatch – Added messaging about the number of players found during an automatch search 

• Automatch – added messaging when cancelling automatch to prevent attempting 2 overlapping automatch requests.  This prevents issues where automatch would appear to be immediately cancelled after pressing the button 

• Team Automatch – fixed an error where after the host changed their own faction it would change the faction of other players 

• Skirmish – added an error message when players attempt to start a match with unbalanced teams with auto/random teams enabled. Previously this would automatically add an A.I. player to a Closed slot 

• Observers - updated logic used to add Observers to prevent situations where observers would take the spot of a required player. Closed slots now default to Open for Observer and Observers cannot join in Open slots  

• Player Statistics – updated the player stats UI to always show the correct player statistics and updated several statistics that were not tracking correctly  

User Interface 

• HUD – unit portraits and action icons no longer blur when choosing Low Texture Quality 

• HUD – updated Dark Eldar HUD to not block mouse input when clicking on the hotkey area of each button 

• Automatch – updated team automatch screen to correctly display in widescreen 

• Dark Crusade & Soulstorm campaign intro videos now play correctly for all factions when starting a new campaign 

• Dark Crusade & Soulstorm – fixed several cases in campaign missions where the help text incorrectly referred to the name of the army from another campaign 

• Dark Crusade & Soulstorm – updated Victory and Loss screens with new background images and with better support for ultrawide aspect ratios 

• Dark Crusade – the strength value shown when the A.I. is attacking the player now shows the correct value instead of 0 

• Soulstorm – updated the units portraits shown during dialogue to use the correct Soulstorm commanders on Tau & Chaos stronghold missions 

Art & Animation 

• Terrain – reduced specular values on terrain that should not be reflective 

• Terrain – updated footstep FX to reduce brightness that was causing it to look like units were walking on snow when on grass 

• Buildings – updated textures on building rooftops covered with snow in Winter Assault to avoid seams 

• Wrecks – updated tank wrecks that could appear to be squashed  

• Tau – added thruster glow FX to the XV8 Crisis Battlesuit 

• Tau – updated Fire Warriors running animations to position their gun correctly 

• Space Marines – fixed a graphical error on the force commander’s chainsword that made it appear in multiple pieces 

• Space Marines – fixed an error causing ground decals around turrets to respawn constantly while it is alive 

• Chaos – fixed animation error that caused Chaos Cultists to shoot in the air on their first shot 

• Chaos – fixed the Horror’s firing animation  

• Chaos – updated the Daemonic Ascension Dark Crusade wargear to correctly display the FX in wargear menu 

• Orks – added animations to the wheels on the Trukk 

• Orks – added muzzle flash to the Big Mek pistol 

• Orks – fixed an animation issue where the Warboss would appear to fire their first shot into the ground 

• Orks – added recoil animations for the Shoota Boyz  

• Orks – fixed the animations of Orks on the Waaagh! Banner to prevent their feet from clipping 

• Imperial Guard – updated Commander to use the correct color scheme in Dark Crusade missions 

• Winter Assault – added a gate closing animation to the gates used in Winter Assault Disorder Mission 4 

• Winter Assault - updated Winter Assault Order missions to correctly use the Ultramarines color scheme where appropriate 

• Sync Kills – fixed an animation issue where units thrown by a sync kill (ex. Killed by Dreadnaughts) would freeze in midair 

• Skybox – updated the Dark Crusade Necron stronghold mission to be correctly oriented during cutscenes and gameplay 

• Relics – Relic strategic points now animate correctly during capture 

Modding 

• Map Editor – updated map editor to correctly autogenerate minimaps for maps above the 512x512 size 

• Removed A.I. spam about "bad ability name"

Sneak Preview 

Here is a short list of highly requested features that we plan to deliver before the end of 2025. 

Achievements 

• An initial wave of achievements is on the way! 

Disable Fliers in Multiplayer/Skirmish Custom Games 

• Option in custom games and skirmish to remove flying units 

Mod Assistant 

• We are preparing a tool to aid in the building of your mods. This is designed to allow modders to more easily launch all the available modding tools, and create new mods in the intended file structure.  Use of this tool will not be required for making mods but is intended to help avoid pitfalls of getting a mod started 

High Priority Known Issues 

The team at Relic is constantly reviewing issues reported by the community and adjusting priorities to address the most frequently occurring issues.  These are some of the higher priority issues we are currently tracking.  Thank you for all your submissions to help.relic.com! 

General 

• We have found that the GoG version of the game can crash on startup. We are continuing to investigate the matter.

  The current workaround :

  • Press 'Play' to launch the game.

  • Once the game window appears, alt-tab to a different application.

  • Wait about 5 seconds (until the Relic Mine into movie begins) before selecting the game window again.

  • Continue with game.

• Unit Portraits – Any issues discovered where the new portraits were not updated correctly and extending the new portrait usage to Command Card actions that use unit portraits as icons (ex. building upgrades & abilities) 

• Performance – framerate can drop significantly during combat in larger scale games 

• Army Painter – visible artifacts when team colors overlap on several models 

• Profiles – Cloud saves do not contain profile data when switching between devices which blocks the ability to create a new profile without an error message 

• Archive – Map images in the Dark Crusade and Soulstorm UI do not use the correct aspect ratio 

Gameplay 

• Units with a Jump ability can appear to start/complete the jump then teleport back to the starting location 

• Disembarking a squad from a transport vehicle in narrow space can cause units to be spawned out of bounds and become stuck 

• Ork Gretchins can fail to move to complete their next build order when shift-queuing after building a mine field 

• Faction-specific resources are split among all allies when Resource Sharing is enabled when the ally is a different faction that cannot use that resource 

• Using the Deep Strike feature in the Soulstorm campaign can result in the units silently dying when summoned

Update 2.2.1 fixes several issues that could interrupt multiplayer games and adds additional logging to help diagnose an issue causing some players to disconnect unexpectedly. The fixes included in today’s patch are thanks to your feedback, so please continue to report any issues to us at help.relic.com. 

General 

• Fixed an issue preventing players from creating matches when launching from GOG Galaxy  

• Fixed an error that would lead to a crash when transferring badges in Multiplayer 

• Added additional logging to better diagnose the following rare issue. If you continue to encounter this issue, please submit a new support request at help.relic.com

  >Multiplayer sessions disconnect seconds after loading is complete

Update 2.2.0 resolves issues across several categories including gameplay, multiplayer, U.I., art and animation, modding, and hotkeys. We have also included additional logging to provide our team with better data as we work to improve stability and automatch. Many of the fixes included in today’s patch are thanks to your feedback, so please continue to report any issues to us at help.relic.com.  

General 

• Added additional logging to better diagnose the following rare issues. If you continue to encounter these issues, please submit a new support request at help.relic.com :

  • Crashes during badge transfer when starting a Multiplayer match 

  • The game video output freezing before, during, or immediately following the intro videos 

  • Desync errors during multiplayer gameplay 

  • Audio being played through the incorrect device or not playing at all  

  • Automatch immediately cancelling when attempting to find a game 

  • Multiplayer is greyed out and unavailable 

• Fixed a font issue that was preventing some Polish alphabet characters from correctly displaying in Dark Crusade 

• Windowed Mode – Windowed mode now correctly displays the window borders when the game resolution matches the monitor’s resolution setting 

• Save/Load - Updated Autosave to remove noticeable hitch 

• Audio – Updated audio initialization to fix several cases where players did not receive audio output from the game 

Gameplay 

• In Dark Crusade and Soul Storm campaigns, Honor Guard units are no longer counted as lost if they joined a squad during a scripted mission

• Skirmish A.I. – updated the A.I. build logic to improve cases where the A.I. would stop creating new buildings and updated worker logic to reduce how many builders are sent to under construction resource buildings 

• Sisters of Battle – Updated squad cap increase for the final research step from 3 to 4 and removed Repentia Mistress and Imagifier squad cap modifiers 

• Dawn of War – Fixed terrain in Mission 1 that allows enemy units to spawn inside cranes 

• Dawn of War – Fixed scripting issues in Mission 2 that could cause the objectives to not be cleared correctly and prevent the mission from ending  

• Winter Assault – Fixed a scripting error that could cause the mission to not end without completing all sub-objectives in Order Mission 2 

• Winter Assault – Updated terrain that was blocking troops from leaving the Field Command building without a rally point in Order Mission 2 

• Winter Assault – Fixed terrain with incorrect impasse that could cause the Squiggoth to become stuck 

• Winter Assault – Fixed sky rotation in Disorder Mission 4 

• Dark Crusade – Updated Imperial Guard Governor Raiment’s Wargear to correctly allow popcap to increase beyond 20 

• Soulstorm – Updated dialogue in Tau & Space Marine stronghold missions to avoid missing English dialogue 

• Capture Points – Updated capture points to be match legacy behavior of visibility in the shroud (dark black undiscovered territory in scripted missions) and fog of war 

Multiplayer 

• Fixed a configuration issue in Automatch that changed all player colors and banners to the default settings. Players will now be able to use their custom Army Painter designs in Automatch as intended, as long as they have been set in the Army Painter.  

• Removed the ability for Hosts to kick players during the countdown  

• Added a warning when attempting to use Auto Teams with a closed slot – this was resulting in unwanted A.I. being added to balance player counts 

• Updated the Dawn of War - Definitive Edition API to show automatch rankings for players.

User Interface 

• Multiplayer – Join Game page now correctly displays game info when selecting a game to join 

• Multiplayer – Fixed font error causing missing text when viewing the map name for Custom games 

• Multiplayer – Updated player statistics to correctly show game count and properly display ratings 

• Soulstorm – Territory icons now display at the correct resolution 

• Soulstorm – Updated unit icons to be the correct size 

• Army Painter – Fixed an issue that was causing custom badges & banners to appear as pink squares 

• Loading Screens – Updated Dark Crusade & Soulstorm loading screen text to be more legible 

• Loading Screens – Winter Assault loading screen art updated to support widescreen  

• Simplified Chinese – Fixed several punctuation errors that caused English characters to be displayed in narrative text 

Art & Animation 

• All – Force Commanders badges now display at the correct scale and resolution 

• All – Updated all capture point banners to display at the correct resolution 

• All – Fixed artifacting on the Relic capture points 

• Space Marines – Sacred Artifact building no longer shows construction FX after completion 

• Space Marines – Armory doors correctly animate when performing research 

• Space Marines – Updated Librarian walk animations to be in sync with movement speed 

• Space Marines – Eye lens color updated to be consistent in Dark Crusade & Soulstorm 

• Space Marines – Fixed placement of glowing skull on upgraded Assault Marines 

• Eldar – Ulthwe now use the same team color values in Winter Assault as in later games 

• Chaos – Fixed an animation issue causing Raptors flamethrower weapons FX to shoot at an angle 

• Chaos – Fixed Aspiring Champion’s banner that was mirrored 

• Chaos – Daemon Prince now uses correct team colors in Skirmish / Multiplayer 

• Chaos – Sorcerer animations updated to fire correctly when moving and shooting 

• Imperial Guard – Updated General Sturnn’s lightning claws to be correctly attached and oriented 

• Imperial Guard – Updated Commander’s sync kill animation to correctly attach guns to his hands 

• Imperial Guard – Updated animations for Heavy Weapons team to correctly rotate and trigger death animations 

• Sisters of Battle – Fixed a naming error with the Veteran Superior that prevented the whole model from rendering 

• Dark Eldar – Fixed a texture error making the Tower of Loathing appear black when upgraded 

• Dark Eldar – Fixed a Wych animation bug that would cause units to appear stun-locked when melee attacked by a unit that does not typically apply a stun effect 

• Dark Eldar – Soulstorm campaign now uses the correct team colors by default 

• Orks – Updated Waaagh! Banner gunner animations to be correctly animated 

• Tau – Updated FX on Crisis Suit missiles to be correctly synced 

• Tau – Fixed an error on the Commander that caused tracers to fire straight up in Dark Crusade 

• Tau – Fixed an issue causing Tau Commander’s missiles to appear facing backwards 

• Tau – Fixed a case where the Dark Crusade commander would use Soulstorm Wargear 

• Necrons – Updated materials on Necron Immortals to appear more metallic 

• Necrons – Updated base buildings to have higher resolution terrain detail 

• Tutorial – Terrain updated to improve clarity on which areas are walkable and which are out of bounds 

Modding 

• Audio – Fixed a crash that occurred when the game tried to read a modded audio file with a ‘.’ character in the file name 

• Mission Editor – fixed an issue that would prevent Undo from functioning dragging to paint 

• Mission Editor – updated Heightmap Editor to regenerate and align decals after modifying terrain heights 

• Water – Legacy modded maps that used the old water system for non-water (ex. lava) now retain their non-reflective state 

• UI – Added scrollbars to faction selection, win conditions, and other scrollable lists to better support mods that add numerous options 

• UI – Added functionality to support showing Mods, Options, and Credits selectable in the Main Menu when a mod is loaded 

• Scar Doc - SCAR stands for "Scripting at Relic.” SCAR documentation is installed to “Tools\\ScarDoc.” To launch the documentation from this folder, open "frameset.htm” in a browser. (If the sidebar menu is not shown, click the “No Javascript?” link.) In the “Scar” section from the sidebar menu is an overview of the SCAR system and some tutorials with sample code. The SCAR API is detailed below the “Blueprints” and “Functions” sections. 

Hotkeys 

General 

• The lua files associated with each keybinding option now contain details of the changes from the previous version to help improve the ability of modders to update their own custom options 

• Changed unload command to Ctrl+F1 for Gridkeys. This command is in different places in different cases, so can't be on the grid

Space Marines 

• Moved Rallying Cry, Inquisition, and Frag Grenades to middle row positions to allow for consistent positions 

• Updated grid keys for Rhino smoke launchers and Skull Probe Sabotage  

Chaos 

• Rearranged Cultist weapons so their upgrades would better match positions in the Chaos Marine Squad (plasma gun upgrades in same position so grid keys match) 

• Moved Frag Grenades to right column and Berzerker Rage to middle row to prevent spacing conflicts 

• Moved Tainted Auspex to bottom of row 3 

• Updated grid keys for Frage Grenades, Berzerker Rage, Smoke Launchers, Tainted Auspex and Speed Fiends to match grid positions 

Orks 

• Changed Slugga Boy Burna and Killa Kan Rokkit Launch weapon upgrade gridkeys to match grid position 

• Changed Fightin Juice ability to position 2 and gridkey to X to match grid position 

Eldar 

• Corrected webway_gate_healing_research binding (was eldar_webway_gate_healing_research) 

• Moved Nightwing to middle row and updated gridkey to match 

• Changed Eldritch Storm grid keys to Ctrl+V to accommodate duplication when Farseer is attached 

• Changed Embolden to grid keys Ctrl+C to accommodate duplication when Farseer is attached, changed to position 3 to reduce conflicts 

• Changed Entanglement to bottom right and changed gridkey V to match revised grid position, changed to position 4 to reduce conflicts 

• Changed plasma grenade and banshee warshout to middle row to avoid conflicts with attached Farseer 

Imperial Guard 

• Changed Commissar's execute to position 2 to avoid position conflicts and updated gridkey to match revised grid position 

• Changed priests Fanatical to position 2, and psyker abilities to 3, 4, 5 to avoid conflicts with General in command squad and with Kasrkin when attached

• Changed Heavy Weapons Team weapon upgrades gridkeys  to match grid position 

Necrons 

• Changed tomb spyder harvest gridkey to match grid position 

• Added binding for second Obelisk add on to allow for a key that matches grid position 

• Updated grid keys for Necron Lord abilities necron_mass_resurrection, necron_solar_pulse, lightning_field changed to Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C to avoid clashes (Necron Lord can equip 3/6 active abilities so consistant grid position is not possible) 

• Removed duplicate entry for necron_solar_pulse 

Sisters of Battle 

• Vehicle armor research moved to middle row to avoid conflicts with laud hailers and changed gridkey to match grid postion 

• Ardent Flame gridkey moved to match grid position 

• Krak Grenades, Phosphor Grenades, and Fervor moved to middle row and set gridkey to match revised grid position, to avoid conflicts with attached leaders 

Dark Eldar 

• set dark_eldar_upgrade_commander_health, dark_eldar_combat_drugs, dark_eldar_tame_warp_beasts, and dark_eldar_terrorfex gridkeys to W to match grid position 

Tau 

• Created consistent position for Tau Energy Shield 

• Added new bindings for Tau Commander's campaign wargear drones (tau_commander_shield_drone and tau_commander_sp_drone) to prevent conflicts and accommodate grid positions. 

• Updated grid keys for Energy Shield, Ion Shield, and Harbinger Direct Spawn to match grid positions 

As a reminder, here is our guide on customizing hotkeys in Dawn of War – Definitive Edition. 

High Priority Known Issues – Targeting Late September 

The team at Relic is constantly reviewing issues reported by the community and adjusting priorities to address the most frequently occurring issues.

Thank you for all your submissions to help.relic.com ! 

General 

• Army Painter – visible artifacts when team colors overlap on several models 

• Performance – framerate can drop significantly during combat in larger scale games 

• UI – the cursor prompt to enter text (ex. When creating a Profile, naming a Save file, or the Chat box in Multiplayer) may not appear 

• Profiles – Cloud saves do not contain profile data when switching between devices which blocks the ability to create a new profile without an error message 

Gameplay 

• Units with a Jump ability can appear to start/complete the jump then teleport back to the starting location 

• Disembarking a squad from a transport vehicle in narrow space can cause units to be spawned out of bounds and become stuck 

• Ork Gretchins can fail to move to complete their next build order when shift-queuing after building a mine field 

• Faction-specific resources are split among all allies when Resource Sharing is enabled when the ally is a different faction that cannot use that resource 

• Sisters of Battle and Dark Eldar units do not play 3D audio correctly when using a zoomed out / modded camera 

• Using the Deep Strike feature in the Soulstorm campaign can result in the units silently dying when summoned 

Additional Known Issues 

The following are game impacting known issues that the development team is reviewing potential solutions for: 

• HUD – An Eldar Farseer with all abilities unlocked that is attached to a Guardian squad will have some abilities become unavailable due to the command card running out of slots

We plan to release another patch in late September, so please continue to report any issues to help.relic.com so that our team can triage and log issues accordingly. Be sure to join our official Discord to leave any additional feedback and to chat with other players and the development team. 

Today’s 2.1.1 Hot Fix addresses a crash that occurred when booting Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition via Steam in Offline mode introduced in this week’s 2.1.0 update. 

After this update, if you are still seeing crashes on start-up, please take the time to submit your information to BugSplat and, after submitting, wait a moment for the BugSplat website to load and review any troubleshooting steps that may be available.  These are targeted responses that can include more information and workarounds related to the issue encountered. 

A huge thank you to all our players that have been diligently reporting issues via our help portal as this is an essential tool for helping the team at Relic set priorities as we continue to support the game – please continue to do so at https://help.relic.com/

General 

• Fixed a login error that would lead to a crash on start-up when launching the game in Offline mode on Steam 

Today’s 2.1.0 Update addresses issues including cases where the cursor would fail to stay locked to the game, unit pathing issues where large vehicles, such as Dreadnoughts, could become stuck, and brings improvements to hotkey modding and WASD camera controls. Please refer to the help article "Customizing Hotkeys in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition" for a step-by-step guide to customizing hotkeys.

Additionally, this patch continues to address some of the highest occurring crashes, progression blockers and multiplayer issues, along with other art, animation, UI, and gameplay issues.  

A huge thank you to all our players that have been diligently reporting issues via our help portal – please continue to do so at https://help.relic.com/

General 

• Fixed numerous cases where Lock Cursor to Game would fail to stay locked (for example, when receiving platform notifications or after Alt+Tabbing) 

• Fixed several crashes that could occur while custom badges were transferring while loading into a Multiplayer game 

• Fixed an error where Windows could detect the game was unresponsive during longer loading times for large scale Multiplayer games 

• Fixed two rare crashes that could occur when loading a menu screen 

• Fixed several errors that would prevent Automatch from correctly finding matches 

• Fixed several causes of desync errors in Multiplayer that could lead to a crash when leaving the match or on match end 

• Fixed rare cases where certain players would be able to load into the game without a player profile – this would lead to errors when attempting to play Multiplayer or when saving the game 

• Character speech now correctly plays when the game language is set to Russian 

• Added new troubleshooting steps to BugSplat for those that crash on launch. If you are still having issues, please follow the links in the BugSplat window 

• Added additional messaging & logging to help diagnose certain players being unable to connect to the RLink servers and seeing the Multiplayer option greyed out. After the update, if you are still seeing this issue, please submit a new request at help.relic.com 

Multiplayer 

• Disabled Resource Sharing by default during Automatch 

• Removed Fortress (3 Player) from the Automatch map pool 

Gameplay 

• Fixed an exploit where too many resources are refunded when cancelling buildings under construction

• Fixed cases where large vehicles, such as Dreadnoughts, could become stuck in cliffs when multiple units were pathing at the same time and stopped in the same location 

• Fixed pathing issues when units with a melee charge attack, such as Kroot Carnivores, could become stuck when attempting to charge an enemy unit above them 

• Fixed an issue where infantry units would be frozen in place for several seconds when pathing alongside friendly vehicles 

• Fixed a data error that was causing Space Marine Force Commander and Imperial General to use voices that did not match their unit 

• Fixed an error that could cause mission dialogue to not correctly trigger or to skip lines during scripted sequences 

• Fixed a frequently playing sound effect for Tau Barracudas 

• Fixed several issues where keybindings overlapped, such as Ecclesiarchal Chapel, Haemonculus’ Laboratory, and Techpriests 

• Updated Winter Assault Order Mission 2 to prevent hidden Chaos units from triggering a fail condition while the player is focused on the Eldar segment of the mission 

• Fixed an issue in Winter Assault Order Mission 2 that prevented units from spawning from the Field Command building without a rally point being set 

• Updated melee-killed infantry corpses to match the persistence of ranged-killed units 

• Added unit occlusion to the Sisters of Battle and Dark Eldar buildings 

User Interface 

• On ultrawide monitors, fixed the alignment of the error popup when attempting to perform an action without the required resources 

• Fixed several cases that would cause hotkeys to not be displayed on the HUD 

WASD Camera & Controls 

• Set secondary camera move to SHIFT+WASD on all keybind sets (except AZERTY grid where it is the equivalent, SHIFT+ZQSD); arrow keys continue to also work 

• Copies of the keybind lua files are now copied to the user's /Profile/Profile\/ directory for easier modding without unpacking an archive 

• Added AZERTY and QWERTZ versions of Gridkeys (these are selectable by any player who wishes to, regardless of region) 

• Added new keybindings for Sniper Rifle Research (Space Marines) and command squad versions of Commissar, Psyker and Priest (IG) and bound those to proper grid positions; in non-grid keybinds these are generally duplicates of the previous bindings. 

• In gridkeys, set melee stance to F (its grid position) and combat stance to F1 (which is off the grid but near at hand) -- this key appears in different positions based on if a squad or building is selected so can't have a proper grid position 

• In gridkeys, shifted the advanced stance buttons along the function keys to make room for F1 use 

• In gridkeys, changed the Dark Eldar global abilities to be on Alt+\ to free up Shift+WASD for camera movement 

• In gridkeys, moved options menu to Escape 

Art & Animation 

• Fixed alignment of glowing eyes on Necron Warriors 

• Fixed alignment of the glowing skull on Space Marines & Assault Marines when the Bionic Upgrade is applied 

• Updated Space Marine Dreadnought and Terminator so assault cannon barrels correctly rotate when firing 

• Fixed the Space Marine Force Commander not aiming correctly at enemy targets 

• Fixed cases where Thunderhawk engine lights were still visible in the sky at certain angles after constructing Space Marine buildings 

• Updated the Veteran Superior Sister of Battle to correctly load the entire model 

• Fixed animation stutters/pauses that could occur when spamming movement commands to units (ex. Dark Eldar Hellion Squad) 

• Fixed flickering on the Space Marine Stronghold building 

• Fixed stuttering animations on units with melee charge attacks when the path to attack is blocked 

• Fixed animation of the Kroot Hounds to prevent them from appearing to teleport 

• Fixed occasional T-Pose on idle animation for Chaos Aspiring Champion 

• Fixed posing for Orks that are in cover but out of combat 

• Fixed the Ork Pile O Gunz turret to correctly aim at targets 

• Fixed several issues across maps where there were noticeable seams between terrain textures 

Modding 

• Mods that have legacy UI images (ex. Unit Portraits) will now be able to correctly replace the Definitive Edition updated assets 

• Added support to access linear campaigns with mods based on Dark Crusade or Soulstorm if the mod’s .module file includes “DXP2”-like sub-module. 

• Example mods: “Ultimate Apocalypse”, “Tartarus, Lorn V, Kronus and Kaurava Campaigns for Soulstorm”, and others built in the same manner 

• Updated the Army Painter to not have misaligned text when using legacy mods that reskinned the screen 

• Mods that are packaged with additional mods inside of them will no longer fail to open if the secondary mod is marked as having a dependency that is not included 

• Fixed a rare crash in the MissionEditor when attempting to save a modded map 

• Fixed an error when the ObjectEditor was unable to open EBP files because it could not find the BurnerImp executable 

• Note: ObjectEditor needs to be launched in the mod directory (where your pipeline.ini files is), but with the command line -appDir so it can find the BurnerImp. 

High Priority Known Issues – Targeting September 

While the issues below are not fixed in today’s update, we will be aiming to resolve these in the upcoming September patches. This list is not exhaustive; however, it is provided to highlight the major issues that the team will be targeting to improve. Thanks again to everyone who has submitted reports and feedback as we work to improve the game. 

General 

• Occasional network error that can lead to a crash when post-game results are being calculated 

• Game settings are not displayed when browsing Custom Games 

• Map names are displayed as missing symbols when playing in Russian / Chinese while the host is in another language 

• Gridkeys do not correctly load when playing in Automatch 

• Army Painter colors are not used when playing Automatch 

• Squads with a jump or teleport attack can appear to partially complete, then teleport back to the starting location 

• For some players the game audio does not correctly play from the default audio device 

• Capture points (ex. Strategic Points) are not visible in the shroud 

• Units do not correctly unload from the Dark Eldar Raider 

• testStats.lua is not correctly being written on match end 

Additional Patches 

This is an overview of our next two patches. However, please note that overall stability for the game is our priority and that may delay some of these items. 

Patch 2 – Modding – Target: Early September 

• Improved modding documentation based on frequently asked questions and a sample mod 

• Additional support to ensure stability of mod usage 

Patch 3 – Additional Reported Issues – Target: Late September 

• Gameplay exploits – targeted fixes for issues affecting Multiplayer 

• Unit Portraits – newly recaptured unit portraits using the Definitive Edition models for all units 

Today’s hot fix aims to resolve some of the highest occurring crashes, progression blockers and multiplayer issues affecting players in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition. 

We will be releasing another patch next week with additional high-priority fixes. The fixes coming in next week’s patch required a bit more time to test and validate, so we appreciate everyone’s patience as we work on them. Thank you to all our players that have been diligently reporting issues via our help portal – please continue to do so at https://help.relic.com/

General 

• Fixed an issue where players could not see Multiplayer game lobbies hosted by a player using a different audio language (English, German, French, and Russian) 

• Fixed an issue that prevented the game from loading the correct language using the GOG Galaxy launcher for those using Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. 

• Fixed a desync that led to a crash in Multiplayer games where players on Windows & Linux (SteamDeck / Proton) were playing together  

• Fixed two crashes that could occur during singleplayer or multiplayer when numerous enemy units were starting to move while the player is also moving the camera 

• Fixed two crashes that could occur when pre-rendered movies started for players using older operating systems. 

• Fixed a crash that could occur during loading screens or while saving the game 

Gameplay 

• Fixed a fatal scar error in Winter Assault Disorder Mission 1 when Gorgutz was killed immediately before a cut-scene triggered 

• Fixed a scripting error that prevented Listening Posts from being buildable in Dawn of War Mission 1 when two strategic points were captured at the same time 

• Fixed an issue that could sometimes prevent objective locations from being correctly highlighted by arrow FX in Campaign missions 

• Updated Gridkeys controls to fix a keybind conflict on Orks, Space Marines, and Imperial Guard 

High Priority Issues – Aiming to Resolve August 26th 

The below issues are not fixed in today's patch. We aim to resolve these in next week's patch which should release on Tuesday, August 26th. We feel it is important to share these details so that players are aware of our goals for the coming week. Thanks again for your patience and continued reports as we work to improve the game.

• Two possible crashes when custom badge transfer fails while loading into Multiplayer matches. The crash can lead to all other players having an infinite loading screen that will eventually crash 

• Rare error where new players are not able to create / load a profile name and receive errors when attempting to start missions / multiplayer 

• Rare crash that can occur on a loading screen when entering Campaign Missions 

• Rare crash at the end of Multiplayer matches when the Results screen is shown 

• Additional error logging for players who cannot start or consistently time out when trying to connect to Multiplayer – this will provide us with more data as we work to resolve this issue 

• Dialogue occasionally does not trigger in the correct sequence during campaign missions – some lines can be skipped 

• Large units – such a Dreadnoughts - can get stuck when navigating near other large units beside cliffs 

• Infantry units can become stunned for too long of a period when pathfinding near vehicles 

• Infantry with a charge attack can get stuck pathfinding when attempting to charge on an elevated position 

• Cursor lock functionality does not stay locked when the game loses focus (using Windows key, Alt+Tab, getting Steam/GOG notifications) 

• Camera movement keys cannot be remapped by modders 

• Keybinds are not easily accessible for modders without having to unpack an archive 

• Update loading order to allow mods to overwrite unit portraits 

• Rare crash in the Mission Editor when attempting to save changes to a map 

• Mods that package multiple mods fail to load if a secondary mod is marked as having a dependency that is not included 

Additional Patches

Patch 2 – Modding – Target: Early September

• Update file load order to allow for additional customization of the User Interface

• Improved modding documentation based on frequently asked questions and a sample mod

• Additional support to ensure stability of mod usage

Patch 3 – Additional Reported Issues – Target: Late September

• Gameplay exploits – targeted fixes for issues affecting Multiplayer

• Unit Portraits – newly recaptured unit portraits using the Definitive Edition models for all units

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition is out now!

Experience this genre-defining Warhammer 40,000 classic in all its blood-soaked glory, including four complete campaigns, nine classically depicted factions, and over 100 skirmish maps – all in one game. 

Developed by Relic Entertainment, this is the iconic Dawn of War as players remember it, optimized for modern hardware. The award-winning real-time strategy game has been improved and enhanced while remaining faithful to the grimdark original.  

So, what is included in the Definitive Edition?  

Everything – all in one game! 

Nine full factions from across the galaxy, classically depicted 

• The transhuman warriors of the Space Marines bring the Emperor’s fury from orbit. 

• The savage Orks smash through all their foes with abandon.   

• The mystical Eldar strike from hiding with weapons of incomparable elegance.   

• The twisted force of Chaos marries the power of daemons and heretic Space Marines alike.  

• The mechanized Imperial Guard roll their mighty tanks across the battlefield.  

• The high-tech Tau deploy powerful mechanized battle suits and fearsome Kroot warriors.  

• The ancient Necrons rise from the sands to eliminate all life.  

• The foul Dark Eldar swoop from the skies to steal away their victims.  

• The pious Sisters of Battle purge the foes of mankind without mercy. 

Four Full Campaigns  

• Command the Blood Ravens as they face the deadly fall of Tartarus in the original Dawn of War campaign.  

• Lead the Winter Assault on Lorn V, guiding either the forces of Order (Imperial Guard and Eldar) or Disorder (Orks and Chaos) in a race to recover a mighty Titan war machine.  

• Conquer the planet Kronus during the Dark Crusade, a non-linear strategic campaign playable as classic Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Eldar, Orks, Chaos, Tau, or Necrons.  

• Weather the Soulstorm in the Kaurava System, in a second non-linear campaign, this time playable as any of the nine factions. 

Frantic Multiplayer 

• Play 2 to 8 player multiplayer, either in teams or in free-for-all automatch 

• Choose from many modes and numerous maps. 

• Take control of the action in Custom Games and set your own rules for war 

Solo Skirmish 

• Play as your favorite army in solo skirmish to dominate the enemy A.I. 

• Fully customize match settings  

• Pick from over 100 maps 

What’s new and improved? 

• Full 4K resolution Upgraded unit and world textures – 4x the originals 

• Upgraded from x32-bit to x64-bit platform 

• Compatible with 20-years of lovingly crafted mods  

• Includes Classic Hotkeys, Grid Hotkeys and Modern Hotkeys presets 

• Image based lighting enables a higher level of fidelity, while retaining the classic experience 

• Improved world lighting, unit reflections, improved shadows, new unit gloss and emissive lighting will faithfully enhance the game 

• Improved gameplay camera shows the battlefield like never before   

• Increased draw distance allows for a more cinematic experience 

• HUD and screen layout optimized for modern resolutions 

• Widescreen support (up to 21:9 fully supported – note that wider resolutions will work, though they may see some discrepancies from standard resolutions – please let us know if you encounter any issues!)   

Post Launch 

While the game is available today, we are continuing to fix bugs and make some additional improvements. We will also be monitoring the game’s performance across different hardware specifications to ensure it is running optimally. We aim to release any critical hot fixes as needed, with subsequent patches rolling out over the course of August & September 2025. Please note that these patches will not be focused on additional content or multiplayer balance changes, but on resolving or improving high priority bugs and features.  

Play it today! 

New players can experience where this classic franchise began, and veterans can relive the magic of this seminal Warhammer 40,000 title. Be sure to join our official Discord to discuss the Definitive Edition and find others to play with, and if you’re encountering any technical problems or wish to report a bug, please submit a new request here. 

GeForce NOW Support

Dawn of War - Definitive Edition will be available via GeForce NOW on day one. GeForce NOW delivers the firepower needed to join the frontlines without having to wait for downloads or installs. Players can leap straight into battle, resume campaigns and join multiplayer chaos with just a few clicks. No frames lost to underpowered hardware — every skirmish, every decisive strike is rendered in full glory in the cloud.

FAQ 

Q: What platforms will Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition be available for?  

A: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition will be available for PC on Steam and GOG storefronts. The game can also be streamed via GeForce NOW.  

Q: How much will Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition cost?  

A: USD$29.99 

Q: I own the Dawn of War – Anniversary Edition, do I get a discount?  

A: Yes! There will be a 30% discount for players who own the Anniversary Edition on Steam or GOG.  

Q: Is there cross play between the Steam and GOG versions of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition?

A: Yes! Both platforms can play multiplayer together in any way (automatch, custom games, etc.) though players cannot use friend invites across platforms.

Q: Is there cross play between the Definitive Edition and the Anniversary Edition (legacy)?

A: There is no cross play between Dawn of War: Definitive Edition and Dawn of War: Anniversary Edition (legacy). These are different games with different code bases. Multiplayer in RTS games is deterministic - meaning the game has to occur in lockstep on every player's machine, and this isn't feasible due to improvements we have made, such as moving from a 32-bit to a 64-bit architecture or changes to improve pathfinding.

Q: Will you be adding any new content or post-launch DLC? 

A: Our focus has been on delivering the ultimate Dawn of War experience – that means everything players know and love from the original game all in one package. Our primary goal has been to optimize Dawn of War for modern hardware; however, we are already planning additional patches to address high priority bugs and some legacy gameplay issues. 

Q: How do I use mods with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition?

A: We want to say a huge thank you to our community modders who we have been working with for many months. They've put in a lot of work both in helping us to support legacy mods, and in readying their own mods for the Definitive Edition. It is important to note that this is a different game with different tech from the Anniversary Edition. Please read the following guide to understand how to use modded content in Dawn of War - Definitive Edition. Be sure to share any feedback you have about this guide to help improve it for other players, and we will adjust it accordingly.

Q: Is there a Known Issues list with planned fixes?

A: These are the Known Issues at launch that the team is targeting to improve during the course of August & September 2025. We will share updates letting you know when to expect hot fixes on our social channels @dawnofwar and on our official Discord. 

Q: How do I report an issue or get technical support?  A: For technical troubleshooting or support, please visit help.relic.com.

Q: Where can I get more info or find others to play with? 

A: The Relic Entertainment Discord server is a great place to stay up to date on any important information and to find other DoW fans to play with! 

The Dawn of War – Definitive Edition team sits down to chat about the work they’ve put into updating the game, and what it’s like to return to a project from 20 years ago. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition will release on August 14th 2025 at US $29.99. As a thank-you to our loyal fans, players who already own Dawn of War - Anniversary Edition will receive a 30% discount on the Definitive Edition. Wishlist it now!

The Dawn of War – Definitive Edition team talks technical work, and what it's like to revisit and redefine this classic experience 20 years later. Learn more in our latest developer diary!

Want more gameplay?

Check out the first full gameplay reveal of Dawn of War - Definitive Edition in 4K! Design Director Philippe Boulle plays through Dark Crusade’s Pavonis Spaceport mission while discussing what new and returning players can expect from the game.

We’re excited to announce that Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition will be released on August 14, 2025!

The Definitive Edition will be available to purchase that same day for USD$29.99. Players who already own the Dawn of War – Anniversary Edition will receive a 30% upgrade discount on Steam and GOG. This discount for previous owners will remain in place for the foreseeable future. The team has been hard at work updating this classic experience for modern hardware, but in the meantime, check out the classic Dawn of War trailer, newly enhanced in 4K!

Q: When is Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition coming out?  A: August 14, 2025    Q: What platforms will Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition be available for?  A: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition will be available for PC on the Steam and GOG storefronts.    Q: How much will Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition cost? 

A: USD$29.99

Q: I own the Dawn of War – Anniversary Edition, do I get a discount? 

A: Yes! There will be a 30% discount for players who own the Anniversary Edition on Steam or GOG.  

Q: What languages will Dawn of War: Definitive Edition support? 

A: Most of the original translations for the game will be available at launch with the addition of full text support for Simplified Chinese. We’ll have more news on all the language options for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition closer to its release date. 

Q: Is the minimum recommended specification on the Steam Store page accurate?  A: This is a conservative preliminary minimum specification. Further optimization during development will bring this down before launch.    Q: Will you be adding any new content or post-launch DLC?  A: No. Our focus is on delivering the ultimate Dawn of War experience when we launch the Definitive Edition later this year – that means everything players know and love from the original game all in one package. We’ll keep an eye out for any critical issues or bugs that need to be addressed after launch, but our primary goal is to optimize Dawn of War for modern hardware.    Q: Will you be making any multiplayer balance changes or quality of life improvements? 

A: Though our primary focus is on updating the game for modern hardware, we have been keeping a close eye on your feedback. Multiplayer balance will mostly remain the same; however, we have been fixing some of the most egregious legacy bugs that should help improve the multiplayer experience. Though not all legacy bugs will be addressed for launch, we plan to be on standby to hot fix any high priority issues after the game’s official release. In addition to that, we are experimenting with changes to high impact items to improve general gameplay, such as the behavior of flying units or the pathing of infantry and vehicles, along with quality-of-life settings such as grid key presets.    

Q: Does this mean that we’ll also get a new version of Dawn of War 2 or any other Relic Entertainment games?  A: We can only talk about games that we have announced. Right now, we’re focused on supporting the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition and our other released and upcoming Relic games.    Q: When will you share more information about the updates and improvements to the game?  A: In the lead up to our August launch, we have lots to share from the development team in blogs, videos, and livestreams. Join the official Relic Entertainment Discord server to stay up to date on the latest. 

• Everything – all in one game!
• 4 Classic Dawn of War Campaigns
• 9 classically depicted Warhammer 40,000 Armies
• Over 200 maps

• 4K and widescreen support
• Upgraded unit and world textures – 4x the originals
• Upgraded from x32-bit to x64-bit platform
• Compatible with 20-years of lovingly crafted mods with better mod management in-game
• Image based lighting enables a higher level of fidelity, while retaining the classic experience
• Improved world lighting, unit reflections, improved shadows, new unit gloss and emissive lighting will faithfully enhance the game
• Improved gameplay camera shows the battlefield like never before
• Increased draw distance allows for a more cinematic experience
• HUD and screen layout optimized for wide screen viewing

FAQ