A classic at this point.

Dawn of War never lacked the atmosphere and 44K lore fidelity.

This is the one real time strategy that not only covers W40k's theme - but also has NINE factions. NINE.
That alone recommends it as unique and outstanding. It's only missing Tyranids. I think everybody else but the fringe and on-and-off factions like the Squatts are there.

To me - it is better than DoW2 because it allows you to field armies that feel complete. DoW2 is a smaller scaled tactic covering
I hear DoW3 has a lore problem in being sanitized and too P.C.

Go for DoW 1 and go for Soulstorm.
It has a sandbox approach to it campaign that's an acquired taste. It actually grows on you!

For how old this game is, it's actually pretty good! Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm is a RTS Base building and army commanding game. As far as I know, this game still has a community 15+ years after release, so that really says something about this game. The graphics are decent, and the gameplay is still fun even in today's standards.

Upon loading up the game, you start on the title screen. There are 2 game-modes, those being Skirmish and Campaign. Skirmish is the most replayable of the two in my opinion. In Skirmish mode you build bases, produce troops and fight an enemy team. Your goal is to kill your enemy's troops and destroy your enemy's base. Skirmish sounds simple, but with all of the different types of buildings to build and different troops to produce, the game is very in-depth and is a lot of fun finding what race/troops work best for you. Campaign is basically a series of Skirmish like games, but connected. I haven't really played Campaign much, but basically you go from planet to planet defending or taking over territories on those planets. I believe you can level up you weaponry for your heroes and carry over troops from your last battles.

The list of different races go on and on. The list of races includes:
Imperial Gaurd
Orks
Space Marines
Chaos Space Marines
Eldar
Dark Eldar
Sisters of Battle
Necrons
Tau

This isn't even the best part. There is still a decently large community that has teams of people making mods for this game 15+ years after release. The base game is pretty good, but modding this game is basically a necessity. Mods for this game add TONS of races to play as with TONS of new building and troops which creates entirely new game-play loops. My favorite mods I've played are Unification and Ultimate Apocalypse. Mods for this game are relatively easy, you just go to a website called Mod DB and install them from there.

Another feature that I love is the Army Painter. Army Painter allows you to create a color scheme for any race of your choice and play with in game. Not only does this customization look awesome, but believe it or not this isn't the only use for the Army Painter. I've used the Army Painter to create a custom color scheme for models I've painted in real life. I tested out different color schemes on the Army Painter to see what I liked and then painted the model based off what I created in game. Now I have a custom color scheme I made in game as an army of real models of Imperial Guardsmen for Kill Team.

Unfortunately there are a few issues I've had that come with the age of this game. Every time I load the game the window of the game is super small and I need to change my resolution every single time I load the game. Another Issue I had was crashes. Maybe it was some of the mods I was using causing the crashes, but I've had a few games where I play for an hour and then crash, losing all progress I had. I've learned my lesson and save the game every 20 minutes or so now, but that is just a few minor inconveniences I have experienced.

Overall, for how old this game is it is still a pretty decent game. I recommend this game, but I HIGHLY recommend downloading mods as it makes the game so, so much better!

why cant i buy the original dow now?