Dawn of War 4 Adapts Tabletop Armor of Contempt Into an RTS Mechanic

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 imaginative director outlines how tabletop 40K ideas such as Armor of Contempt were reshaped for the RTS, saying it is not identical, but it achieves a similar effect.

King Art Games co-founder and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 development director Jan Theysen has described how the studio brought concepts from the Warhammer 40K tabletop into the game in ways that would work for veterans and first-time players alike.

In a detailed conversation, where Theysen discussed how the game delivers the familiar RTS feel of the 2004 entry and which hero systems and interface elements it drew from Dawn of War 2 and 3, he said King Art always meant to take cues from the tabletop source material.

““When we’re thinking about core concepts for factions, units, abilities, and similar elements, that’s usually the first place we start,” Theysen said. “Rather than creating entirely new unit abilities from scratch, it makes more sense to look at what already exists in the tabletop game; is this something that we can adapt or adapt it so it functions in an RTS?”

One of those ideas was Armor of Contempt, a Space Marine combat bonus that King Art adjusted so it would fit the RTS format.

“The tabletop is something distinct, but it's kind of the same idea, which basically means it makes Space Marines harder to deal with, right?” the creative director explained.

“In the RTS, we now have Armor of Contempt, which essentially comes into play when Space Marines defeat enemies, but also if one of them gets taken out, there is more contempt [the attribute], and then essentially the next hit you take is absorbed by the Contempt rather than reducing the HP pool, which makes the Space Marine harder to deal with, right?”

He added, “It's not the same mechanic, but it basically does something very similar. And by calling it Armor of Contempt, anyone familiar with the tabletop game immediately gets a solid impression of what it probably does.”

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 arrives on PC on December 3. The creative director has also indicated the game may later appear on console.

• The game takes inspiration from tabletop 40K for factions, units, and abilities.
• Armor of Contempt was adapted to suit real-time strategy play.
• The studio aimed to satisfy both longtime fans and new players.

The game is slated to launch on PC on December 3, and there is also a possibility that it could reach console at a later date.