Good god that’s a lot of options. 🤯 🏋️

Dow4 AI is no joke. I know its down to maphacks, and i swear they get a build speed/resourse trick, but damn, had 2 stale mate games, which only broke when i realised i had to distract them.
Orks i kinda just held out till i could secure path ways with turrets (hard AI) and i just had to stem the tide...
Necrons? ohhh boy. that was the kinda thing where i was like "please, im still sore"

Looking forward to the full game on release, alot of fun to be had!

just some initial thoughts so far after a few games, this will be mainly focused on things to improve/change IMO (played every DOW title in the series since inception, ex competitive COH /supcom player)

UI is too muted. everything blends into eachother, nothing stands out really. DOW1/2 unit upgrade options were smaller yet still easier to discern what you were upgrading to

i may be wrong on this but i dont recall any clear auditory or visual notification that research is complete (if there is and im wrong, its not clear enough like in previous DOW games or COH when you know if research is complete no matter how focused on a fight you are)

spacemarine VA is horrible. sounds like an underwater robot and not how theyve been portrayed anywhere else, give them various strong, masculine human voices and drop the voicemixer

in mutliple matches, AI heroes do not revive or do not revive for a long time - i assume a bug or the AI is prioritising resources to new units instead of reviving its hero

units getting stuck on enemy vehicles when trying to retreat, i had a squad of intercessors basically run around a ork wagon in circles for 1min after hitting the retreat button and they were just caught on the model within its bounds

unit abilities (plasma cannon, grenades etc) are basically invisible. if i choose to use my dreadnaught plasama cannon manual shot, i want to see that plasma blast travel, i dont just want to see the target get caught in a blue cloud with no projectile. same with units throwing or shooting grenades, cant even see them or really the explosion. its very lackluster and not rewarding for using what is basically a special ability

spacemarines dont get squad leaders with upgrades like in previous DOW games, seems like the weapon upgrades may grant a squad leader? seems backwards, would like to see the upgrade be focused on the squad leader and the weapons are secondary

whilst having reinforce in the field has been present in prior iterations, i think combining it with retreat presents large stalemate situations which ive ran into repeatedly. pick one or the other i think (id prefer retreat to base and only heal/reinforce at base which promotes disengagement/reengagement of fights for more rewarding gameplay loops)

maps are extremely boring and reminiscent of earlier DOW titles. its 2026, dynamic cover, weather, even just some kind of background or asset movement/interaction is needed. W40k is a brutal desolate devoid timeline, but the planets arent stiff 2d balls, lets promote some immersion with moving assets (foliage, rivers, trees, map based background lifeforms) and add in some kind of natural cover system like in COH which will allow units to interact with the environment and also add far greater depth and strategy to gameplay (just like the tabletop game)

dont take this as being a total negative nancy, the game knows what it does well, my focus is getting it to where it needs to be for success (i dont want to see another homeworld 3)

Hey guys, got access to the beta today and I've been playing for the last few hours so thought I would put some first thoughts down with how its been so far!

Just for context I have been playing DoW since the first release back in 2004 and probably have around 500 hours combined across all titles. I have always been a DoW 1 fanboy; I wasn't as much a fan of the DoW 2 gameplay but I did much prefer the campaigns and loved last stand so hyped that is making a comeback.

I'll start off with some broad feelings on presentation and gameplay:

The Good

Visually, it's very nice to look at; it must be said, the units are well modelled, and the effects are cool.

Good maps from what I have seen, some more open, some more tight choke points but all looked nice.

The combat animations are good, I saw alot of worry in the comments during some of the earlier footage of it looking janky but for the most part I didn't spot any glaring issues and thought it looked quite awesome.

Each of the 4 races feel unique, too early to really tell what their intricate strengths and weaknesses are but you can get a grasp after a game or two what the general gameplan should be.

The AI, even on medium difficulty, feels very competent. My win rate is probably about 50% or so, I did have one game against Space Marines where it did very little randomly, hardly built any units and I steamrolled.

While the beta is only skirmish, having access to the main menu and the profile screen looks to be alot of cool badges to unlock and progression that I always like in games.

All the unit upgrades are cool and visually represented too; it seems like it will open up alot of strategy in army comps

The Bad

Whilst the game looks nice, readability isn't amazing. I think this is always going to be your trade-off between nice visuals and easy-to-understand feedback when things are popping off. DoW1 really remains unmatched in this department.

Not sold on the UI for now. Took me a while to find things, especially the tech, all having fairly uniform white-on-grey symbols. Also on the tech, having them all free but just very long research times is odd. Imo this was a departure from standard approach in RTS that wasn't needed.

There are options for retreating and reinforcing in the field. I think one or the other is good you don't need both. I think its perhaps a little cheesy with auto reinforce, not a huge fan of that I must say.

Combat feels very fast once you get into the mid game, I don't think this is a completly bad point its fun to see things explode when you have all your guys shooting but there is alot going on during the matches and taking your eyes off something for a second sometimes it just means death.

Some of the VA feels a little, soft? Idk what it is. Compared to some of the iconic DoW 1 voice work it feels a bit missing. Especially noticeable with the orks who arent as WAAAAGH and shouty as I would like.

The battlefield abilities are crazy strong and do a little bit too much in terms of swinging engagements, although they are fun to use.

Will finish my thoughts now with a bit more focused impressions on each of the races, right off the bat SM and Orks are clearly the more straightforward factions, feeling quite pick up and play whilst Necrons and Ad Mech have a bit more mechanical complexity to them I think will take some time to master.

Space Marines
Right out the gate SM feels like a strong faction, their early scouts are pretty durable and they get access to some good units quickly. They can take good map control, especially with the speeder bikes that seem super strong. Good damage across the board with survivable units is always a winning combo, as you progress into the late-game Terminators and main battle tanks you really start laying down the hurt. Can see this being the go to faction for many people trying to learn the game which is probably how it should be!

Orks
For sure felt like the weakest faction, with their infantry basically disintegrating under most fire power. I was a big ork enjoyer in DoW 1 so understand the idea of quantity over quality, you can for sure spit out a ton of boys but even getting a fairly fast advantage on map control most engagements feel like an uphill battle. I also not a huge fan of some of the ork units like the squig cavarly and the helicopters.

Necrons

Probably winning the "vibes" competition at the moment, they are really cool in terms of aesthetics. A real upgrade from their DoW 1 ancestors. Their infantry firing in unison as they march forward combined with some awesome walkers, I was loving the power fantasy of this faction. They start really slow, and I mean like SLOW. Their base warriors move so slow its a bit painful but once you are up to deathball level they feel quite unstoppable with just how much damage you can put out. I was melting entire units in seconds late game.

Ad Mech
The race I feel like I want to "main" I would say. I love ad mech and I think they are represented really well here. I would say they felt the most complex just to pick up. They have this connection web mechanic that is hard to grasp and understand how you are meant to expand and prioritise it coupled with an army that needs a bit of thought on comp. Not as straight forward as the other races for sure and while I really enjoyed playing them I defo suck for now lol. Seem to have some big upside potential if you get a good build order and experience down with them however.

That about wraps it up! If you got this far thanks for taking the time to read and interested to hear what other people thought if they have beta access. key takeaway is that the game is good, they are getting the things right they need to for a fun DoW game, this is not a repeat of 3. I have seen enough to know my purchase day 1 is right for me.

Just wanted to post this in case it helps anyone.

I run fedora Linux and zero issues running the game. On the beta forum others are reporting other Linux operating systems working just fine to.

Turin plays the game, came across it and it's a breath of fresh air after seeing what the developpers themselves were posting and how minimal their explanation of the gameplay was.

Hello everyone, I thought with the new game only a couple of months away now that it would be fun to guess what factions will be coming post launch. I only just got into Warhammer as a franchise about a year ago, but I have played DOW 1&2, and my personal favourite to play was the Tau in 1. Other than them Ive been collecting Votann on the tabletop, and think its about time for them to join in to some of the video games, if they have enough units that is 😆.

This brother has finally been chosen by the Emperor to play the closed beta!

For those in the closed beta, what are the system requirements to run the game on highest settings? I’m going to be buying a new gaming PC soon, primarily for Dow 4, so want to get what I need to run it at its highest, without spending on unnecessary specs.

This is what support told me.

Hello fellas,

Got selected for this round, thrilled about it.

However I struggle to run the game with good constant FPS.

My gear: Ryzen 7 5800x, 4070ti & 32 DDR4.

Anybody facing the same issue?

Polite reminder if you want to enjoy this game, you're likely best to leave the DoW subreddits

In comparison, looking at the meltdown posts over WoW Forever miniscule issues, you'd get the impression everyone hates the game, despite it being amazing

I believe the same will happen for DoW4

I would like to know the point distribution on the maps without having to physically load one by one (In a game with over 200 maps, and even more with the Unification mod which i usually play on), which would be extremely tedious and inconvenient, i tried looking for a mod that adds this QOL feature but no shuch luck, the only "Solution" (Wich doesn't really solve my problem) is using the mission editor program from the game files, which just puts me into square 1 again because i have to open and load the maps 1 by 1 but with a different program

Do you guys know if there's any better way?

What's your spec and how well is the game running?

Hey just wondering if I could get some Qs answered as a RTS fan. I find the interface a bit odd coming from other games.

- Hotkeys: is it all pretty normal in that I can hotkey any group of units 1-9 (and 0)? Including buildings? If I double tap the number of a hotkeyed unit, my camera will center on it?

- I assume Attack-move and regular move are standard features in there for units, but do we also have DoW specific features like 'ranged stance' or 'melee stance'? I recall these from DoW1.

- What is up with the "cards" at the bottom of the screen, how does that work? Sometimes it looks like there are so many and I wonder if these are created automatically, or if the player is setting them up. It looks like there's space for ~20 of them. Do they have a particular order? First time I've ever seen these, they seem... interesting.

- Are there camera hotkeys? So I can do like (a la Starcraft) Shift + F2 over my home base, then anytime hit F2 and the camera snaps back to my home base.

- Is there a 'Select all my army units' hotkey? Like in Starcraft 2.

- Are hotkey settings configurable?

I think you guys are allowed to talk about this stuff now, yeah? Much appreciated :)

So what are your oppinions on the game now is it bezter or worse

Now that we know Johnathan Keeble is narrating campaign missions, I really hope they get Toby Longworth and Shogo Miyakita to take a pass as well (my mount rushmore of 40k voices). To me, Shogo sounds more like a space marine than any other living human i have ever heard. Pretty sure he's the one who did the secret level episode on Warhammer. Would be a missed opportunity not to get him!

I've seen plenty of people get rejection and acceptance letters but a few like me who got nothing. The discord server recommended I fill out an application to support. This is the response I got. So, for anyone wondering why you didn't get an email this probably why.

For the Emperor!