Expansion is an understatement -This game is actually almost as big as the original, and its only an expa
First things first, the new race, the Imperial Guard, is a great complement to the other factions. While the other sides concentrate more on sheer offensive strength, the Imperial Guard have more defensive capabilities. These inherent characteristics of the new race seem to blend quite nicely with the usual "destroy everything as quickly as possible" tone of the game. What good is a base if you can't defend against a few troops anyway?
The Imperial Guard also sport some of the best vehicles in the game from the agile Sentinel walker, to the extremely dangerous Basilisk artillery. The Imperial Guard also have such mechanized behemoths as the Chimera transport, which can not only carry troops to the front lines, but defend them once they get there. They also control the awesome power of the Baneblade heavy tank, which is outfitted with all the heavy machine guns, lascannons, battle cannons, and other heavy weapons you can think of (12 in all). In fact, I've seen one take on two bloodthirsters at once!
One major advantage the Imperial guard has is its ability to pump out squads of infantry quickly. This is great for building up forces to combat the early assaults of orks and chaos. Although, this advantage comes at a cost, the Imperial Guard infantry do not have very high morale because they are only human soldiers. But luckily, The Imperial Guard can have many heroes at once on the battle field. If the player properly complements their infantry squads with heroes, than theoretically, they're morale will NEVER break.
With all of these characteristics for the new race on the block, I'd say that they managed a solid balance between offense and defense.
The campaign is split up between the order campaign (Imperial Guard and Eldar) and the disorder campaign (Chaos and Orks) with 6 missions each. All though I wont give the story away, I will say that the campaign is every bit as immersive and fun as the original, all though I would like to have spent more time in the campaign with he Imperial Guard.
The gameplay has been bumped up even more with more maps and animations. The new maps are just as good as the first with more strategic possibility, great terrain and detail in every square inch. The new animations are also just as gruesome and beautiful as before. In fact, In the middle of a huge battle for a critical location on the top of a plateau, I saw an Imperial Guard priest knock a foe to the ground. Then he took his chain sword and started slashing and digging at his enemy’s chest until he died.
All in all, the new features and increased detail make this an extremely addictive and solid expansion pack which I know I will be playing for months.