You were expecting the Basilisk? Surely you can't be blamed, as
Relic carted that out for
Dawn of War: Winter Assault oh so many winters ago. But the Basilisk presents somewhat of a problem in the context of
Dawn of War 2- it is meant to be constantly shelling. Tying its attack to an ability with a sizable cooldown would be somewhat of a betrayal of the entire point of having an on-field Basilisk. And so the Basilisk is relegated to off-map support via globals. But the Manticore, the Manticore is a whole other beast, and its time has come to make a glorious entrance into the
Dawn of War 2 universe.
Manticore (300
/100
/15
/0
/Tier 2):Light on requisition, expensive on power. The Manticore's cost seems designed specifically to delay teching (thus, to delay the deployment of the Leman Russ and Baneblade). Its health- 275- is abysmal, lower even than the Wartrukk's. And furthermore, it has no default attack (or, no primary one anyway). With those three, sizable drawbacks... what makes the Manticore special and worthwhile? Storm Eagle.
Storm Eagle (0/0/0/0/0
):"Fire four Storm Eagle rockets in quick succession at the targeted area."
Storm Eagle is the posterchild for
Relic's new multi-targeting system in
Retribution (Orbital Bombardment is supposedly being reworked to take advantage of this as well). The ability works such that it has a minimum and maximum range (minimum range is modestly far out- it won't be able to touch melee units assailing it; it makes up for this with a huge maximum range that should reach from a player's base to middle victory points on most maps), and the player selects a target within those two ranges. Then the player is presented with a radius around the selected target to pinpoint specific locations for each of the four missiles to land. The missiles land in order of assignment, and there is about a second between missile impacts. With just one unit and one ability, the player assigns four shots.
The system is quite interesting in the control it offers, but what may well be more interesting is how that control factors into real gameplay- this kind of targeting system, while it should feel great, seems like it will be burdensome when attempting to coordinate multiple Manticores launching multiple Storm Eagle assaults at once... and if it achieves that effect, that should only be considered a positive.
The Manticore offers Imperial Guard's most potent on-field artillery, and judging by cost, fluff, and developer comments, it should be the strongest artillery in the game. What that translates to is uncertain, but comparing it to Stikkbombaz, Plasma Devastators, and D-Cannons, the Manticore provides more advance warning to its foes and that should mean that dead-on hits should have little issue with dealing significant damage to infantry (or rather, obliterating any foolish enough to eat Storm Eagles). Furthermore, the
IGN video displayed a Storm Eagle being targeted at an Ork Battlewagon, so the Manticore could well prove universally effective. How effective it is against power generators will be quite interesting to see, and could dictate an interesting component of Imperial Guard play.
Still, the cooldown of Storm Eagle, the cost of the Manticore, the vulnerability of the Manticore, the telegraphing of Storm Eagle usage... all of these factors should combine to rein the Manticore in successfully.
Relic seem to have made an excellent choice in the Manticore, seeing its potential to run off just an ability and to exploit that to fill Imperial Guard's gameplay and fluff needs. The Basilisk will be missed, but it will forever be in our globals. Long live the Manticore.
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