I’ve waited so long for my dreams to come true. I’m just kidding, that was too dramatic. But the news really was swell. THQ, or Relic, or whoever is in charge of press releases, announced the other day the title of their new expansion for the innovative and popular RTS Dawn of War II along with several screen shots and a short teaser trailer. Chaos Rising will grace the computer game landscape in Spring 2010, tentatively anyways. The way the video game business is these days with pushing release dates back en masse it could very well come out Christmas 2011. But I digress.

The story, can’t forget the story, is set in the same system as Dawn of War II (the system containing the Blood Raven Space Marines Chapter’s recruiting worlds) wherein a world long ago swallowed into the Warp reappears. Several cadres of armed to the teeth Angels of Death are sent down to investigate and low and behold there’s some good old Chaos Space Marine action waitin’ for ‘em. Avitus, Tarkus, Thaddeus, Davian Thule (now Dreadnought) and, of course, the voiceless Commander (Insert Name Here) will encounter their age old enemies in the form of the Black Legion. One can only hope Abbadon the Despoiler will make an appearance.

Chaos Rising will implement several good ideas I and several other Warhammer 40,000/Dawn of War players have had. Whilst playing the Chaos Space Marines in multiplayer mode, the player will have available to them all four of the Dark Gods of Chaos (Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaneesh, and Nurgle) to choose from. This means, as I infer from the teaser (Bloodletters), that the player will get specialized units to choose from depending upon which God they chose (I.E. Bloodletters of Khorne or Horrors of Tzeentch or Plaguebringers of Nurgle) and different bonuses. This is, however, a claim made before the release date and an inference made from a short teaser, but I can hope. As always, the other factions (Space Marines, Orks, Tyranids, and Eldar) will receive a number of new units; how many, I can’t say, but I’m sure it’ll be one or two per.

ALSO! As a final thought before I forget, Chaos Dreadnoughts! They weren’t in the original Dawn of War or the expansions for Chaos to construct, but the banner picture for the expansion’s official website contains, front and center, a Black Legion Dreadnought.

And now it’s right here!