Nearly 4 years have passed since the release of the original Warhammer: Dawn of War, which brought significant changes to the strategy genre. After a couple of satisfying, albeit short add-ons, we are now graced with another add-on, to quench our thirst for strategy. Can this part be considered a worthy addition to the Warhammer saga or is it simply a desperate attempt to save an old game?

For those of you who don`t know, Warhammer: Dawn of War was one of the most acclaimed strategy games, at the time of its appearance. The original concepts that made it so successful back then, remained the backbone for this part as well. Instead of the classical way of acquiring resources, Dawn of War revolved around victory and critical locations, that when captured, provided a steady income. Building a Listening Point on them had the role of increasing the number of resources provided and also serving as an extra defense, with its ability to turn into a defensive turret.

With an infinite supply of resources (the Power resource can also be considered infinite, as long as you build generators), one might think that amassing a huge number of units and then steam rolling over the opposition would be something easy. Fortunately, that is not the case since the low squad and vehicle cap prevents you from doing this. While most strategy games of that time centered on a huge number of unimportant units, having just a few of them that you could improve (and certainly mind losing) was quite a refreshing change.

Let`s see the new addition that Soulstorm brings, before going further into detail. Like any good add on, we`re not only getting a new storyline here, instead we have two full new races that increase the number of playable races to nine and a new campaign. Did I mention the fact that it`s a stand alone? Yes, that`s right, you don`t need any of the previous addons to play this in single player, and all the factions are available, but you will need those installed if you wish to try the races in multiplayer. The original Dawn of War will unlock the Space Marines, Orcs, Eldar and Chaos Marines, the Winter Assault add-on will allow you to play as the Imperial Guard, while the Dark Crusade will also bring the Necron and the Tau to the playing field.

The new races brought by Soulstorm, the Sisters of Battle and the Dark Eldar are available from the start in the multiplayer mode, so you can play them even if you don`t have any of the previous games. As I said, the campaign will allow you to play with any of the nine races, to try and capture the entire Kaurava system. Unlike Dark Crusade, we now have a number of planets and moons that must be captured for system domination. The storyline, while indeed new, is somewhat hazy and you aren`t exactly told what all these races are doing on Kaurava, but since they`re there, they might as well fight.