Dawn of War IV's Last Stand makes ground worth taking

The first attempt in KING Art's November Battlefield Report ends with its developers overrun. For the second, they change their equipment and try a different approach. That's how The Last Stand in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV is meant to go. Three players face twenty waves, and every run opens up more ways to spend the next one's limited deployment points. A loss gives the group a reason to look at who brought what and where they chose to fight.

There's a good reason to look away from the enemy for a moment. Key positions provide supplies that can heal damaged squads, and holding those positions also counts towards the team's score. Our look at Dawn of War IV's co-op modes introduced the three-player horde mode. The November demonstration fills in what the team has to do with the ground it holds. Between waves, a patch of ground can be worth crossing the battlefield for, especially if it means the squad that just took the worst of the fighting can start the next wave in better shape.

What you bring to the fight

Each player controls a Commander and can bring up to four companion units. All those units, Commander abilities and deployable defences are choices to weigh against a limited number of deployment points. A player who puts points into a strong Commander ability is making a different contribution from one who spends on extra units. The appeal of talking through those loadouts before a run is that one player can spend on a job the other two would struggle to cover.

Take a group that wants to keep a position under control while its main force deals with the wave. An extra unit gives the group another body it can put on the map. A deployable defence is another way to invest in holding ground. A Commander ability might be more valuable to a group that already feels comfortable maintaining a line and wants help clearing a wave quickly. Those are different answers to the same question about where the team expects to spend its attention.

What the capture points buy you

In Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, control of the arena's two capture points helped raise the score multiplier. So did clearing waves quickly and keeping the heroes alive. There was already a reason to leave a comfortable corner and contest the map. Dawn of War IV keeps those three priorities in its scoring, and gives point control an immediate reward for the force you've brought along. Supplies between waves can patch up the units your Commander depends on.

That changes the calculation when the end of a wave is in sight. If the team's squads are in decent shape, keeping everyone together to finish the wave quickly has an obvious attraction. When a companion squad is already battered, getting it to the next fight in better shape may be worth giving up some of that concentration. The team has to weigh the speed of this clear against how much it will have left when the next enemies arrive. Both decisions matter to the score, and healing has value even on a run where the group cares mainly about surviving.

Another go with a different squad

The developers' footage pits the team against Orks and Necrons, with different enemy mixes across the waves. Clearing one gives you a little information about the group you brought. If you can cut through the attackers but struggle to hold a position, you have a specific job to think about when changing the loadout. If you can sit on a point but take ages to finish a wave, you may want to make room for an ability that helps end a fight sooner.

In Dawn of War II, levelling already gave you new wargear to change what your hero could do. In IV, experience earned from runs unlocks wargear and abilities as well as units. Now you can change who comes along as well as what the Commander carries. That makes a second attempt a chance to change how the group divides the work. The player whose Commander was needed in two places can bring a different companion next time.

The player whose units kept coming out of waves in bad shape might keep the same loadout and agree who'll help hold the next supply position. That's a change the whole team can make even before anyone unlocks a new piece of wargear. When Dawn of War IV launches on PC on 3 December, a good question for your first trio is where you want to be standing when the shooting stops.