WHere can I find background on this game and all the W40k races?

[Crushyerbones]

I just need some website with the story for the marines, the eldar, orks (do they have any?) and even tau and others

[ChunkyMrEvil]

www.games-workshop.com, has all the races there.

[Aetherfox]

http://www.criticalhit.co.uk/w40krp/appendix.shtml

this site is pretty comprehensive though a little hardcore for the average dow gamer lol. i loved it alot though.

[JediNeophyte]

The best place to get information on the races are their respective Codices, but those cost money. The abriged version:


"Give me a hundred Space Marines. Failing that, a thousand other troops." - attrib. Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists


Space Marines, also known as the Adeptus Astartes, are Humanity's finest warriors. Recruited at a very young age from worlds across the Imperium, they undergo nearly two decades of intensive training, indoctrination, and most importantly, the modification that turns them into a Space Marine. A series of nineteen implants transforms those individuals who survive the earliest of training, and few even of those survivors make it into the hallowed ranks of the Astartes as a Scout.

Through their extensive augmentation, a Space Marine is superhuman in every sense of the word. The play-balanced and playable race you see in this game does not do the Astartes justice, not even close. Their power armor render them nigh-invulnerable to small arms and their inhuman strength can tear through ship bulkheads or tanks' armor. The Astartes' mantra is "And They Shall Know No Fear," they do not fear death in the slightest. In the 41st millenium, though, there are fates far worse than death.

The signature Marine weapon is the boltgun, or bolter. Again, Dawn of War does not do the weapon justice. In the game and intro they are depicted as submachine guns of sorts; they are more accurately described as rapid-fire RPG launchers. Each round, or bolt, is a .75cal shell of depleted uranium that penetrates its victim and detonates within, causing horrific damage to most targets.

Marines are organized into Chapters of approximately 1000 warriors each. After the Horus Heresy, the Legions were broken down into these Chapters as was outlined in the Codex Astartes. It was written by Roboute Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines then-Legion (and now Chapter), and it contains the guiding principles most Chapters follow. Many, like the Dark Angels and Space Wolves, do not follow the Codex Astartes at all.

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"'Ere we go! 'Ere we go!" - Ork motivational saying

The Orks are easily the most numerous race of the galaxy, and if they ever banded together they would crush the Imperium of Man. Orks only want two things out of life: To fight, and to go perpetually faster. This is represented in their culture rather blatantly, all they do is run around and fight anything that moves. They are a sort of fungus; they reproduce via spores shed everywhere they do, which eventually mature into some type of orkoid, be it a lowly Squig, a Grot, one of da Boyz, or even a Squiggoth. An ork becomes stronger and tougher as it fights, the survivors of fights joining the nobility caste, or Nobz. The most experienced (and therefore the biggest) of these is generally called a Warboss, and rallies lesser orks to his cause, which generally involves stomping something.

What makes orks truly unique is their latent psychic power. It rarely manifests itself in the form of Weirdboyz, but for the most part orky psychic power is more subtle. One example are Waagh!s, orks are psychically drawn toward fighting on a subconscious level, so the more orks that are fighting, the more "Waagh! energy" that builds up and the more orks that will arrive. There is also the so-called "Power of the Waagh!" - a group of orks charging at their foe will subconsciously enhance themselves with psychic power, increasing the ferocity of their initial attack. And then there are the other little things - the crude contraptions orks build and use everday would not operate under normal circumstances; they work because the orks think they work. This applies to virtually everything they employ - shootaz, choppaz, trukkz, you name it. This even includes red paint - Everyone knows that painting things red makes them go fasta! Most orky vehicles are painted red for this reason.

Orks revere the gods Gork and Mork, the ork gods of strength and cunning - like all "gods" in 40k, they are psychic embodiments of the patron race as a whole. Gork and Mork are believed by the orks to be able to smash those puny Chaos gods.

[JediNeophyte]

I don't know a ton about the Eldar, but a brief overview follows. They are an enigmatic and arrogant race, holding themselves aloof from the galaxy at large. They are generally hostile in encounters with the foolish mon-keigh (humans), but have been known to forge alliances of convenience when against Chaos. They once dominated the galaxy and arrogantly hold onto times long past (like the French). The Fall of the Eldar describes a time when humans were discovering the intricacies of the simple wheel. The race became too obsessed with their own hedonistic desires - this gave birth of the fourth of the Chaos gods, Slaanesh. Slaanesh devoured all but two of the Eldar gods and their empire was demolished, confining them to their mobile Craftworlds until only recently. Khaela Mensha Khaine, the Eldar god of war, survived only by shattering himself into thousands of psychic shards, embedding them in impressionable Eldar minds - a seed for each to become an Avatar of Khaine.

The Eldar are a dying race, unable to reproduce. Each Eldar devotes his entire life to one specific Aspect. Some of these Aspect Warriors are depicted in DoW: Howling Banshees, Warp Spiders, Dark Reapers. There are many more: Striking Scorpions, Swooping Hawks, Fire Dragons, Shining Spears, and so on. The leader of a group of these is called an Exarch.

The race as a whole is arguably the most powerful, psychically speaking. Warlocks and Farseers are some of the most potent psykers in the galaxy. They lack the raw potential and destructive power of humans, the hive mind of the Tyranids, or subtle influence of the Orks, but have the means to refine their skill to become fearsome psykers in their own right. They are the only race (excluding the Necrontyr) to have tamed the Warp, able to travel it and draw upon its power with relative safety.

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Chaos is a catch-all term for the malign psychic influence of the Warp, tainted by the darker emotions of the Eldar and Humans. It includes the psychic manifestations of our worst nightmares - literally daemons, the greatest of which are the culmination of the worst vices - Nurgle, god of decay, rot, disease, and plagues; Tzeentch, god of ambition, power, and change; Khorne, blood and violence; and Slaanesh, disgustingly sick hedonism. Dawn of War features elements of both Tzeentchite and Khornite forces (generally a Chaos-following army worships a specific deity).

In the case of this game, Chaos represents one of the nine of the original twenty Space Marines Legions that have been declared Excommunicate Traitoris for falling to Chaos and following the corrupted Warmaster Horus during the Horus Heresy. They are thoroughly evil, tainted by ten thousand years of Chaos, and are more daemon than human anymore. The greatest of these often become Daemon Princes, as seen in the single-player campaign.

The complexities of Chaos and the Warp are far, far too detailed to go on about here, so suffice to say that is deadly, it is insidious, and it is pure evil. Once again, this can be evidenced throughout the campaign.

[K_R]

There is quite a decent Wikipedia entry on 40K: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40%2C000