Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

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Garrick
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Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Mon 04 Mar, 2019 7:08 pm

A Storm Gathers Around the Eye!


Thirteen times shall the Traitor King go forth. In the End Times the iron fortress shall be cast down. Its walls breached and its Gate forced open. Those that dwell beyond shall spill through it. The air shall burn and the ground shall melt, the Daemon shall lie down with the machine, Brother shall slay brother with fire and sword. And the sky-wound shall pour its malice forth. The Eye shall stare unblinking at its prize, and the Traitor King shall cross the bridge of stars. He shall return to finish the Warmonger's red work, upon holy soil shall the fate of man be decided.

The Cadian Gate has been set ablaze by the relenting hordes of Abbadon the Despoiler’s thirteenth black crusade, the likes of which has never been seen since the Dawn of the Imperium of Man. The various worlds around Cadia are burning, while desperate pockets of Imperial resistance make the servants of the ruinous powers pay dearly for every inch of soil they take and every drop of human blood they spill. The Eye, unblinking, is at its apogee.

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‘We’ve lost.’
- Lord Castellan of Cadia Usarkar E. Creed, after the orbital bombardment of Kasr Patrox.



This is where our story begins, in another place, in another time. In a Cadian Gate crippled but not destroyed, in a Galaxy where Primarchs are still a distant memory, and the Eye of Terror was never marred by necron technology. This is the story which this modification wants to bring to life. It wants to add many things to this game, with DOWELITE's structure as a codebase. While it would be easy to classify this mod as a lowly submod, what I want to bring you within this mod is bigger in scale, much bigger. I am now finally seeing a first release getting closer, and I want to showcase it to you. To this end, I wish to showcase a few graphical assets of this project, a brief apetizer for what's coming in the next weeks.

ref.486292/25 - Heltrak's Marauders, Excommunicate Traitoris/995 M41
ref.870594/39 - 67th Tallarn Desert Raiders, Cadian Gate Relief Forces/999 M41
ref.683472/78 - 97th Armageddon Steel Legion, Cadian Gate Relief Forces/999 M41
ref.59348/87 - Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter, Tactical Marine, Caliban System/999 M41
ref.59348/88 - Dark Angels Space Marine Chapter, Company Master, Caliban System/999 M41

The first release will include an extra subfaction for the Space Marines, the Imperial Guard and Chaos, while also containing revamps to existing heroes/armies. New units will be featured, with an emphasis on trying to distance this modification from what has been attempted before. It also seeks to add as much art variety as it’s feasible, with custom models for armies such as Imperial Fists, Dark Angels, Crimson Fists, Catachans, The Armageddon Steel Legion, the Iron Warriors, the Night Lords and more.
More subfactions will come after the first release, and I am sure that you will not be disappointed. Beyond subfactions, I will be including a new co-op mode based on Cope’s old wave defense mod's open source system as a basis, but with full armies in place of heroes. I want to recreate the Assault mappacks of DOW1’s fame. At first, it will be a simple wave defense mode, but I plan to progressively increase the variedness of each map, adding custom objectives, randomization of waves, custom enemy characters and more. I shall unveil more about that as time goes on.
I will also be planning on doing weekly content updates, with design post-mortem in-betweens, where I will discuss the mod’s design and provide some answers to your questions. There will be also other innovations that I plan to add, beyond subfactions, but I’d like to keep that under wraps, for now. Next week I will be showing to you what I have in store for the Adeptus Astartes. The week after I will be doing that with the Imperial Guard, and the week after that I will be discussing the scions of the Ruinous Powers.

My hope is to release a first playable version around July.


See you in a week from now, and may the Emperor guide your guns…


Updates
001 - Give me a hundred Space Marines...
002 - Reshaping the game

Credits:
Firestorm over Kronus Mod from DOW1
Steel Legion Mod
Seregruth
Last edited by Garrick on Sun 17 Mar, 2019 7:31 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Swift » Wed 06 Mar, 2019 10:30 pm

Looks pretty I treating to see someone start something so ambitious, I am definitely interested.

Is there a way you'll elaborate on how the subfactions would work?
The internal battery has run dry, the game can now be played. However, clock based events will no longer occur.
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Garrick
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Wed 06 Mar, 2019 10:46 pm

Every subfaction will get one or more dedicated news post(s). Some of them are more divergent than others, ranging from simple remixes of how a faction generally works to more...radical turns. I will be announcing some of them as part of next Monday's update.
They will be featured as characters by using my eight-slots hero selection menu, as it is the most elegant way I could think of. For a time, I experimented using an ingame selection via the special powers buttons, but in the end, I wanted the player to be able to jump straight into the action, rather than waste ingame time choosing a subfaction.
Atlas

Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Atlas » Wed 06 Mar, 2019 10:50 pm

Great of you to be doing this! Always nice to see new stuff coming along. I'll definitely give it a look when it's ready!
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Nehkrosis » Thu 07 Mar, 2019 8:17 am

So if this is well received, will it become an official part of DOWELITE?

I'd love more factions/units for Elite, and i don't think i speak for just myself when i say that!
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Thu 07 Mar, 2019 8:05 pm

I can speak for this.

Unlikely. My focus is on co-op over multiplayer and thus makes me more oriented towards making interesting gameplay that balance. ELITE is focused on super-tight balancing and balancing so many factions to that level would probably drive the team beyond crazy.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby SarDauk » Thu 07 Mar, 2019 10:52 pm

Well even if it's unlikely to see new factions, maybe some of the models could be used for skin purpose ? (and who knows mb even for the 2 others OM heroes :p)
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Atlas

Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Atlas » Fri 08 Mar, 2019 11:05 pm

Anything Garrick gives will be of his own fancy. As far as I'm aware, Elite and A Gathering of Storms are their own different things.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Mon 11 Mar, 2019 5:54 pm

Give me a hundred Space Marines...



Emperor protect you, blessed Force Commander. The time is dark, and hope dwindles. You and your battle brothers, along with fellow adeptī astartartii, are bringing a most needed aid to the beleaguered defenders of the Cadian Gate. Many fortresses lay in ruins, even more outposts and trenches are awash in the blood of men from all over the galaxy. It falls to you and your battle brothers to be a new bastion that will break the black waves of traitors, heretics and madmen.
May the Emperor’s light guide you.


Image


Welcome to the second content update of Gathering of Storms. Within this update I will showcase a first peek at how I plan to rework the Space Marines faction, along with a portion of the visual work I have made over the two years I have worked at this modification in secret. First I want to showcase a brief glimpse of the new idle animation of the Force Commander, which helps to differentiate him from Sergeants and other minor characters.
ref.5398576/453


Secondly, I wish to present the first ‘new’ unit featured within Gathering of Storm: the Veteran Squad. The veteran squad is an amalgam of Vanguard and Sternguard and is inspired by the Veterans from 3rd Edition and 4th Edition Space Marine Codexes. On a personal level, I never quite liked the hard division between Sternguard and Vanguard, as I always envisioned the warriors from the 1st Company to be at the peak of everything, and, differently from formations such as the famed Deathwing of the Dark Angels, would rotate between Terminator and Power Armour.
That is why I developed this hybrid unit. It’s a unit that requites a steady hand to be used, as it can strike hard from both afar and in hand-to-hand. Veterans will automatically switch between bolters and chainsword upon entering hand-to-hand but do not have the damage resistance to hold for a protracted fight with melee specialists. They need to strike at specific targets and always read the tide of battle. They can be led by the Company Champion, bolstering they melee prowess.
ref.55938/319
ref.55938/320

Following them is a reworked Land Raider, which now will be available in the Phobos variant, sporting twin lascannons sponson and a single twin-heavy bolters turret. The Land Raider can now be upgraded with additional armour, which was made by Seregruth and converted by me for use in Dawn of War 2. This allows the Land Raider to perform a tank shock maneuver, which crushes enemies in its path and suppresses enemies around.
ref.497321/982
ref.497321/983

The third and final unit is the Land Raider variant available to Space Marines, the Land Raider Prometheus. As a command vehicle, the Land Raider Prometheus is less focused on direct engagement and more on support abilities. It can deploy as a mobile command vehicle, bolstering surrounding infantry units' weapons range at the expense of mobility. It can call down a reinforcement drop pod. Finally, it can designate a patch of ground as a target for a magma shell strike, which scorches the land and leaves an area of damage-dealing flames.
ref.69636/459
ref.69636/460
ref.70218/460

Every Space Marine subfaction will get a different Land Raider Variant, tuned to their peculiarities as a subfaction.


This concludes this brief briefing. See you in a few days for the first design diary, which will detail a portion of the mod’s design process and go on a few (hopefully) interesting tangents.


See you in a few days, and may the Emperor guide your guns…
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Sun 17 Mar, 2019 7:27 pm

Re-shaping the game

This is a design post, where I will try to make reader privy to what I am attempting to do. I hope these tangents will be of interest and shed a different light on the mod’s development.

Introduction: what am I up to?
Long story short: I don’t like competitive multiplayer. I have a somewhat short fuse and I don’t find competition relaxing. What I like the most is co-op, although Co-OP RTSes with more than two players are quite rare, and The Last Stand became old after a while. I wanted to play with the full complement of 40k’s armies, not with a single hero. That’s when DOW2: A Gathering of Storms was born. I wanted to basically make my own way of enjoying the 40k Universe. This makes the mod a very authorial thing, and that is why I decided to set the mod in the lore framework of 3rd and 4th edition 40k, mostly because things were not, in my opinion, so over-described as it is now. However, the lore bit is a story for another tangent. Now, let’s get down to some of my plans for changing Space Marines and then the rest of the factions.
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Squad Sizes.
It all started from squad sizes. I could never like space marines squad sizes. Three marines on average was weird, although I understood the developer’s intent. And so I changed squad sizes to better reflect tabletop reality, with four-astartes squads (becoming five with the sergeant upgrade) becoming the norm. However, I needed to add some kind of drawback to this, which brought the removal of any way for Space Marines to reinforce squads beyond the HQ or certain variants of Land Raiders. In turn, this transformed the role of the Rhino transport, which is different from the Razorback, featured as a different vehicle. The Rhino can heal allied troops but not reinforce them and can do this only while not in combat. This gave Space Marines a familiar but different feeling, forcing the player into a slightly different way of playing when it comes to preserve their forces. The same treatment was given to every other faction, with squad sizes faithful to the tabletop and stats adjusted to match the Space Marines.
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The Size of the battle
Like many other mods, I plan to raise the general pop-cap. In fact, I want to follow this design choice with two more other decisions. First, I will reserve quick squad selection in the left portion of the screen to heroes and unique units, in a throwback to DoW1, so that there are no issues with unit selection via keyboard number buttons. I also plan on making the game less micro-intensive and more focused on macro-management, to change the flow of the game and allow for some really epic battles.
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Art
As you have been able to see within the many screenshots I have disseminated in the previous two updates, I am slowly updating and refining a multitude of models, to improve the visual quality of the game. Space Marine power armour is now more detailed, and better-looking weapons have been converted from the Firestorm Over Kronus mod for DoW1, as it features amazing weapons models made by the FoK Team. Chaos and Imperial Guard will get the same treatment.

Image
Robes skin by WickedVixen

A sneak peak
The first release candidate will feature adjustments to Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Chaos Space Marines, while also featuring the Dark Angels Company Master, the Steel Legion Marshall and the Lost and the Damned Rogue Psyker as new characters/subfactions.

See you seven days from now. The Hammer of the Emperor is approaching.
Atlas

Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Atlas » Mon 18 Mar, 2019 3:55 am

Awesome.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Mon 25 Mar, 2019 5:31 pm

Backbone of the Guard, ready to serve!


Image

The Hammer of Emperor, billions of fighting men and women ready to die in the name of the Emperor on faraway worlds. At times, a platoon of guardsmen is the only line of defense between a planet’s population and a hostile universe. Cadia is awash in the blood of men. While the super-human astartes duel with their corrupt brethren, men die in the trenches, every fallen body a brick in the wall against the waves of darkness. Behind the bodies, the steel of the Emperor’s war machines. With cannon and heavy bolter, with faith and firepower, they hold the black tide at bay.

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Over these men towers the Leman Russ, the backbone of the Imperial Guard, the armored fist of the Emperor of Mankind. Assembled day and night on many forge worlds, the Ryza-Pattern Leman Russ is one of the most common patterns, and proudly serves the Emperor over a thousand worlds.
This has been a shorter and briefer post because I, sadly, had some mishaps along the way. Rather than doing nothing, I decided to split the Imperial Guard into two newsposts, and do a quick showcase of the Leman Russ. The model was converted from the Steel Legion mod, while the skin came from LeonardGoog’ own work for his HD Dawn of War project, which was retooled to fit with my rework of the DOW2 Leman Russ’ chassis.

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Image
As you can see, the chassis is generally based on the 3rd edition’s version of the miniature. The current model, in my opinion, by being generally flatter and squatter, has a certain toyish quality to it, which I dislike. I generally hold the same opinion regarding the Leman Russ Punisher, whose role overlaps (lore-wise) with the Leman Russ Exterminator, and completely robs the tank of that WW2ish quality. So here’s a beefier Leman Russ.
Enjoy, and see you in a few days for the full Imperial Guard post!
Last edited by Garrick on Mon 25 Mar, 2019 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Atlas

Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Atlas » Mon 25 Mar, 2019 7:11 pm

Kk, thank you for keeping up posted! Looks like it is starting to come together.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Mon 25 Mar, 2019 7:40 pm

There's more when that came from! The biggest challenge is getting the LaTD to be a coherent and interesting faction, something the public will see in two-three weeks!
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby SarDauk » Mon 25 Mar, 2019 8:11 pm

it's already a great work !
"Drive me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Mister Moo » Tue 26 Mar, 2019 7:47 pm

Nice
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Mon 01 Apr, 2019 7:56 pm

The Hammer of the Emperor


The Imperial Guard. Billions of fighting men and women marching onwards, securing humanity's place in a galaxy of war. The Imperial Guard fights not with the sophisticated weapons of the Emperor's finest, too many and too frail to handle the noble bolter. Their weapon is the lasgun, supported by flamethrowers and grenade launchers. Imperial Guard infantry squads seek to overpower the enemy with a wave of lasbolts, flames and high explosive shells. They must avoid hand to hand combat, however, as the blessed human form cannot overcome the degeneracies of xenos and mutants, for their crooked forms, although tainted in mind, leave them with much power in their many gaping mouths and striking arms.

Image Image

Those who endure and maybe even thrive in close confrontation with the enemy, surviving battle after battle, are called hardened veterans. These men are entrusted with more poweful weapons, and are capable of holding their own in hand-to-hand combat. Their best weapon, however, is their experience, which allow them to remain hidden to enemy sight and ambush the Emperor's foes. However, they are not the assault specialists of the Astartes, and thus must still refrain from initiating overly-problematic confrontations. If well directed, they serve their commanders well.

ImageImage

Other fighting men must find recourse into other ways of subjecting enemy specialists to the Emperor's righteous guns, and do this by building fortifications. These fortifications offer awesome protection against enemy fire and prevent movement to enemy forces. They can only be smashed through by especially heavy vehicles such as Land Raiders or Baneblades, or the most fearsome alien beasts. Thanks to a judicious use of these emplacements, the men of the Imperial Guard can overcome their disadvantage by leading enemy assault specialists into lethal killzones.

ImageImage

And this concludes a brief appetizer of how the Imperial Guard will be altered within Gathering of storms. I do, however, have one bad news: due to work and family, I will only be able to make new updates from the end of next week onwards, so I will not be updating the project for 10-12 days. I hope to see again then...

...for the hordes of the Lost and the Damned are coming!
Atlas

Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Atlas » Mon 01 Apr, 2019 7:59 pm

Gotcha. Very impressed by what is already there though! Thank you for the update!
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Tue 16 Apr, 2019 9:01 pm

They're coming!

Image
Image
Atlas

Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Atlas » Tue 16 Apr, 2019 10:23 pm

Sweeeet.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby SarDauk » Wed 17 Apr, 2019 9:02 am

The lost & the damned have special commanders or are using the same as the CSM ?
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Wed 17 Apr, 2019 3:40 pm

The former (only one though). And he's coming.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Mister Moo » Tue 23 Apr, 2019 10:54 pm

Amazing work! It is nice to see passionate players make the vanilla game more exciting. How hard is to make these custom models by yourself? Each race and their respective factions appear have their own unique style instead of the generic same model with different colors, so it looks like a ton of work.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Torpid » Wed 24 Apr, 2019 3:43 am

If all the grunts of the lost and damned have arms like that guardsmen equivalent, shit, we will need the Emperor.
Lets make Ordo Malleus great again!
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Fri 26 Apr, 2019 4:58 pm

Mister Moo: It's time consuming. I mostly edit, because it takes a long time.
Torpid: Nah, it's just a special weapon, the 'Long Stub', a fancy way of having a kind of anti-tank rifle (it was inspired by various interwar AT rifles). The Enforcer (Commissar equivalent) however is equipped with a boarding pistol, which is a mini-shotgun. The Traitors, however, tend to be quite fragile. They can be easily outshooted by a standard IG Squad. They have to rely on infiltration and ambushes to gain the upper hand.
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Sun 28 Apr, 2019 4:19 pm

Once again, a not so large update. Got a nasty flu this week. But still...

Lost and the Damned Mutant WIP!
Image
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Re: Dawn of War: A Gathering of Storms - A Mod Project

Postby Garrick » Mon 06 May, 2019 8:34 pm

Often leading the armies of the Lost and the Damned, so-called Rogue Psykers are dangerous warp-users escaped to Imperial control, with all the issues that it entails. Driven to the margin or outside Imperial society, they use their uncontroller powers to wreck havoc upon their enemies, and to impose their will on whoever is mad enough to follow them. Death is too good for them.

-Colonel Vrant, 97th Cadian Internal Guard Regiment.

Image

Credit to the old primaris psyker model from RN for the coat.

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