Relic's Dawn of War II is set to get its first expansion later this year when Chaos Rising arrives. The PC real-time squad-based strategy game based on the Games Workshop Warhammer 40,000 license will add in a new unit to each of the game's factions. Today, the first of those units has been revealed over on the official blog.

The Space Marine Librarian focuses on direct damage and support spells:
Availability: Tier 2

Abilities:

Smite – Fire lethal bolts of psychic lightning, tearing into enemies within a small radius of the target point.

Quickening – Greatly increase the Librarian's speed and his resistance to incoming damage.

Upgrades:

Tome of Time – Grants Veil of Time ability which temporarily increases an allied unit's movement speed and removes all set-up time from heavy weapons.

Psychic Hood – Grants Gate of Infinity ability which teleports a targeted ally to the Librarian's position.

Force Staff – Grants increased knockback and disruption to the Librarian's melee attacks. It also grants the Force Barrier ability which sends an expanding psychic barrier out from the Librarian, pushing enemies back and nullifying ranged attacks.
Chaos Rising updates will continue to roll out over the next few months, leading up to the expansion's spring release.

Don't return your library books late.



Bryn says: I'm late to the Dawn of War II party, having only just installed it last month. But so far I'm having a huge blast playing through the single-player campaign. I forced my brother to pick up the game recently too, so we can get a little personal multiplayer action going. Relic's efforts are truly appreciated by this old-school tabletop gamer, and as such, I'm pretty jazzed about getting to grips with Chaos Rising later this year. Will you be playing?