If you're as ancient and hoary a games player as we are, you may remember the pre-RTS stone age of the early eighties, when Games Workshop's excellent tabletop war game Warhammer 40K was the only viable solution for budding sci-fi generals.
But enough of our wasted youth, to download the Warhammer 40K demo Soulstorm demo, simply click here!
Warhammer 40K (alongside Fantasy Battle) was responsible for absorbing many an hour of our feckless youth, as we stretched out a tape measure to reckon charge bonuses, plotted area effect radii for damage effects and smote Chaos in the name of the Emperor (see, that grant-funded university education wasn't totally wasted).
The one downside was the the time required to collect and paint the dozens of troops needed to create a credible fighting force.
Thankfully, Relic's splendid Dawn of War series has since stepped into the digital breach to recreate all the thrills 'n spills of this most epic of futuristic wargames while simultaneously obviating the need to spend hours slaving over a hot paint pot to get your troops looking shipshape and Bristol fashion.
The third standalone expansion, Soulstorm continues in the series' finest traditions and we've secured the demo download for you to enjoy.
Weighing in at a bargain 1.1GB, the Soulstorm demo features the sinister and perverted Dark Eldar in three missions comprising one tutorial, plus two full-on assignments against the might of the imperial Space Marines.
Herein, you'll discover the power of the Dark Elder Archon, the fleet footed terror of the Eldar Mandrake squads and (possibly) spare a thought for the Tortured Slaves, unfortunate human drudges who fuel the Dark Eldar war machine.
This Soulstorm demo's a handy sampler for the full expansion which launches this spring and will feature the Empire's fearsome Sisters of Battle, brand new multiplayer tweaks, flying vehicles for all existing races in the game and a whole passle of Dawn of War 40K goodness.
For the moment though chow down on the demo, plus enjoy these brand new screens from one of the PC's most enjoyable RTS series.
If you're as ancient and hoary a games player as we are, you may remember the pre-RTS stone age of the early eighties, when Games Workshop's excellent tabletop war game Warhammer 40K was the only viable solution for budding sci-fi generals.
Err, guys? Unless you belonged to Games Workshop or had access to time machine, you can't have been playing Warhammer 40K in the early eighties, since it was first released in 1987 .
Warhammer 40k certainly wasn't the only "viable solution" either; There were already well over two dozen sci-fi tabletop war games when 40k first came out. The most famous of these is undoubtedly BattleTech (which is three years older than 40k); the oldest one listed on Wikipedia is Triplanetary (made by the company who would later create MegaTraveller, itself a year older than 40k), which was released way back in 1973! There was also a Starship Troopers game released in 1976 (based on the book and not the movie, obviously ).
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