An RTS is only as good as its campaign. Sure, it's the competitive multiplayer side of things that gives these games their long tail—StarCraft 2 has been the dominant RTS for 16 years for this very reason—but the bulk of initial players will first be seduced by the promise of a killer singleplayer romp. In this regard, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 has the juice.

I've had a couple of weeks to play around with two of the four campaigns—orks and Adeptus Mechanicus—along with the shorter, two-mission prologue featuring the Astra Militarum, and I've been able to set aside my fear that we'd be getting a repeat of Dawn of War 3's issues. Folks, I am loving these campaigns.

Out of the prologue, I signed up with the orks. The greenskins are a good first pick, not just because this campaign comes first in the chronology, but because it's the most straightforward faction. Their units and buildings are the cheapest in the game, and it only takes a few minutes to recruit a basic army right out of the gate. If you just want to smash shit up, the orks are your guys.

This is not to say that you'll be steamrolling everything. You can lose that army even quicker than you recruited it if you just charge in blind. Orks might not be the brightest xenos in the universe, but their ruthlessness and rage is tempered by low cunning—something the campaign narrative leans into.

If you want to make the most out of your green tide of devastation, you'll want to do a bit of recon, figuring out what toys your opponents are playing with.

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