The Tau are one of the coolest armies in the Warhammer 40k universe. Sure, they aren't as iconic as the Space Marines, but their mix of highly complex battlesuits and tribal warriors has always intrigued me. Fans of the faction have lamented their exclusion from Dawn of War II, and while that isn't changing yet as far as competitive multiplayer or campaign is concerned, those who love The Last Stand mode have a lot to look forward to with the all-new Tau Commander.

If you're unfamiliar with Dawn of War II's The Last Stand, here's a quick refresher. Up to three players team up to fight off waves of enemies, choosing from a number of heroes from the various races in Dawn of War II. Killing enemies without having any of your teammates fall yields multipliers, and also yields points. Once all the teammates are down the round ends, the points are tallied, and you gain experience for your character. You level up (to a max of 20), and gain new wargear to outfit your hero with.

The Tau army has a variety of warriors at their disposal, but the first thing that comes to mind for any fan of the race are their battlesuits. The relatively frail Tau get into super-powerful armored vehicles, raining destruction on their enemies from afar. They have no melee capabilities, and thus rely on their high mobility to keep them away from harm.

He's a cool hero to play in The Last Stand because they can seriously bring the pain. After they slam into the ground, giving themselves valuable distance from their foes, they can blast away at the enemy with everything from heavy plasma cannons to air-burst grenade launchers. They can also pick between taking twin-linked versions of their weapons or a shield. The shield doesn't give them any offensive capabilities, but some give additional special powers such as a kinetic pulse that can push enemies away.

Like all characters in The Last Stand, the Tau Commander can be customized to your playstyle via his wargear. If you want to be the team member that fights off mobs of lightly-armored units, you can take grenade launchers; a more vehicle oriented commander can take a heavy, slow-firing cannon. They're versatile and their weapons — like most in Dawn of War II — look fantastic as they fire. All the characters make you feel powerful in The Last Stand, but the Tau Commander is like a mobile gun battery.

The Tau Commander isn't without weaknesses, though. Melee units can tear him apart in short order, so to stay alive a clever player has to utilize both his jetpack and his ability to summon drones. The drones are essentially a buff for the Commander, as heavy turrets dish out extra damage, shield drones give damage reduction, and marker drones help make fire more effective. Depending on who you're teamed with and how you load him out (drones are part of your wargear), you can make him a fantastic support unit.

The Tau Commander launches on Thursday, October 20th for $9.99 on Steam. If you haven't checked out Dawn of War II then you definitely should pick it up while it's on sale until October 16th for 50% off.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused flash enchantments to occasionally stop player movement.
• Fixed a bug that eliminated the aftercast delay for Augury of Death.
• Changed the description for the bonus in Ruins of Surmia to reflect the objective more accurately.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some of Courier Falken’s Brawling skills from dealing damage in Cantha Courier Crisis.
• Fixed a bug that caused Yon Ruino to award an incorrect amount of information points in Family Matters.
• Fixed a bug that prevented Jaundiced Gaze from reducing the energy cost of enchantment spells that require foes to be targeted.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Unity of Spirit costume to animate incorrectly on female Rangers.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Charrslayer Shield to display incorrectly.
• Fixed a bug that caused a crash when heroes used some flash enchantments in conjunction with Charm Animal.

In the grim dark future of the 41^st millennium, there may only be war, but that’s no bad thing for MMO players looking forward to Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium. There’s also been a big information dump for the game too, including a release date. Don’t hold your breath though, because it won’t be coming out until March 13^th, 2013. That’s quite a while for now. Just to make that wait worse though, here’s some more information that still not actually verified:

The biggest release that appeared on the Warseer forums was that combat in Dark Millennium will not be the traditional MMO flare. Instead, it looks like they are targeting something far closer to Gears of War and Space Marine for ranged combat, including cover systems. For melee combat, they’re looking to make it similar to both Space Marine and their own game Darksiders. So, cover based shooting and combo-based hack and slash action in an MMO? That would be a pretty significant departure from the norm.

It looks like we’ll at least be seeing the Imperium, Eldar, Ork, and Chaos races, with the former two being grouped under the ‘Order’ faction and the latter two under the ‘Disorder’ faction. If that means your future Space Marine can’t crack the skulls of some Space Elves remains to be seen. Other races, including Tau, Dark Eldar, Necron, and Tyranids will likely be brought in with later expansions. This is good, because the Tau are awesome, and should be playable as soon as possible.

Your future Space Marine (or Assassin, or Techpriest, or psyker…) will be able to do a lot of skull-cracking though. The game will feature both open PvP areas and instanced PvP zones. This will likely be primarily faction based.

The game will be running on the same engine that Darksiders used, and it also sounds like Relic is lending a very small hand into the development as well. Given that they’ve been sheepherding Warhammer PC games for a while, that makes some sense.

Besides the release date though, none of this information is actually confirmed, and this needs to be strongly emphasized. Anything in this could be wrong, and even if it is correct now, we might see major changes between now and March 2013. For the time being, if you’d like to see more information, you can check out the original post on Warseer.

Microsoft has announced that a 320GB hard drive will be available for Xbox 360 this month.

The drive will hit stores at the end of October and will come bundled with a download code redeemable for a full copy of Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars.

The drive is the largest available for Xbox 360 to date. It will be compatible with all Xbox 360 S models, and Microsoft says it's capable of holding "up to 95 full games, 200 standard definition movies, 40 high definition movies, or up to 975 standard TV shows."

The drive will cost $129.99 in North America and will be available worldwide.