Finally, is the campaign strictly Chaos vs Blood Ravens?

You'll battle all of the races in DOW2 sooner or later throughout the campaign, but the primary story-arc is that of Chaos vs. the Blood Ravens.

Was it difficult to balance the game by adding in the new Chaos units? What specific challenge did incorporating Chaos into the mix add into the designing on the expansion? I assume it has to be difficult to keep things authentic to the lore and also keep things on an even playing field.

When we add a new race, we want it to be true to the lore, asymmetrical to the other races, and to have a unique theme to how they operate. Accomplishing all three of those things is extremely challenging, but it's also what guarantees variety and a sense of ownership in players who have a favorite race. Chaos was particularly challenging in that they're supposed to be tough, fast, and strong... pretty much the trifecta of RTS design. One thing that helped was using mechanics involving sacrifice and drawbacks, such as killing your own units to spawn demons, or (my favorite) sacrificing control but granting a massive melee and speed-buff to the Chaos Dreadnought (whom I like to call Hug-Bot).

What can you tell us about the new multiplayer functionality? What do DoW 2 fans have in store for them when they head online?

In PvP Multiplayer, everybody gets new units, Chaos fans get to the Chaos race, with their own 3 heroes to choose from, and we created a new Free-For-All & Team Free-For-All mode in Custom Game settings- which adds a new way of manipulating the match by letting players not only capture Victory Points, but also disable them, forcing players to pay resources if they want to continue earning on their victory ticker.

In campaign, we've added a new feature to Co-op Campaign play. If you're the Guest in a co-op campaign, you'll be rewarded with various unique wargear on your personal save profiles for helping the Host to complete missions, including a new set of Terminator Armor.

In The Last Stand, you can now play as the Chaos Sorceror or the Tyranid Hive Tyrant. The Hive Tyrant is a hulking brute that's immune to suppression and knockback, and can summon numerous Tyranid minions to fight along with your team. The Sorceror is obviously a deadly spellcaster, but he also has the ability to create a minion- by creating an exact duplicate of any enemy he pleases. Getting frustrated by those Wraithlord bosses that spawn on Wave 12? Wouldn't it be nice if you had one of your own?

Lastly, I know this is a stand alone expansion – but what does that mean for someone who didn’t purchase Dawn of War II? Will they miss out on anything?

Owning Dawn Of War 2 lets you play the Original campaign, it lets you play as Eldar, Orks, Space Marines, and Tyranids in Multiplayer, and it lets you play the Space Marine, Eldar, and Ork heroes in The Last Stand.

If you have Chaos Rising, you can play the Chaos Rising campaign (we provide you with a campaign profile that starts at a high level and with a set of appropriate wargear), you can play as Chaos in Multiplayer, and you can play the Chaos and Tyranid heroes in The Last Stand.

If you own both, you get all of the above! So get out there and corrupt/be-corrupted today... whatever tickles your fancy.

We'd like to thank Daniel for taking the time to chat with us. Look for Chaos Rising on March 11. And if you hear a sobbing in your mind that is Slaanesh weeping on March 12.