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MAP/MOD SUBMISSIONS
If you would like your map or mod featured in the newsletter, please send an email to newsletter@relic.com with the following details on the map: Game made for, number of players, name of map/mod and any other info you can provide.
Opposing Fronts Advanced AI Mod
Mod Lead: Warnstaff
Designed to work with Company of Heroes and Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, this mod makes the AI in the game more difficult to beat. Try it out! Smart AI that acts differently than it does in the retail game. Use this to try new strategies or just for a different feel to a game. The mod team would like to thank fenwe, BlackOmne, TrueKnight, and d4m.
Click here to download the mod. 
 
Autum Forest
Created by Simon Ezanardon
Autumn Forest is a 6 player map for Dawn of War - Dark Crusade designed for 3v3 teamplay. Special features are: custom dead tree model, 100% custom playlist to increase the epic feeling of the clash, and custom leaves decals.
Click here to Download the map.
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NARRATIVE SUBMISSION
Welcome to the Narrative/Storyline section! If you would like your short story to appear in the newsletter, please send an email to newsletter@relic.com with your name and the title of your story along with the associated Word document or Text file.
Lure of Chaos
By Mellr0
Chapter Master Aural had been in the process of reverence for Candlemass. He had recited the 20 Truths of the Emperor, and had been in the process of igniting the sins of his command, as he had done for the past 140 since the birth of the Weeping Skulls, when he had been disturbed. Now he was in a meeting with Chief librarian Biah, Chaplin Maomus and Commissar Omis of the Mentlis 52nd, after 7 days of only half sleep. He had only been in the meeting for 10 Terran minutes, and already he had heard all the arguments twice.
“..Fleeing is the only option my lord.” The commissar insisted “The Astropaths all agree that the warp storm will destroy us entirely, and this planet. If you call the evacuation now, we will get at least 90% of our forces off before it engulfs us.” Commissar Omis seemed an unlikely man for a commissar. He held no presence, no passion, although everything he said, he stated, as if it were true. He had one piercing blue eye, and one red, well cleaned bionic eye.
The chief librarian leaned forwards “All the Astropaths agree on is that the storm will pass within this sector, and will possibly bisect this system. I spoke to Lord Astropath Menti and he said he was unsure as to when or where it will hit.” The small commissar seemed to shrink even smaller as the Chief librarian glared at him.
Aural glanced to Maomus who had been silent since the beginning of the meeting. “I trust that this information has already been heard by both the chapter and the 52nd?”
“Rumoured, maybe. The battle brothers seem to care not about it, and as long as they are unafraid, the Imperial Guard seems to be bolstered by it.” Aural rubbed his hand over his chin. He was stripped down to simple robes, and large amounts of stubble had developed over his period of preparation for Candlemass. Preparations for Candlemass were already underway, and he couldn’t afford to have his soldiers doubt their place.
The Weeping skulls chapter had been plagued with a cursed history for many years. They took part in the genocide of Metatel prime, an event that took place because of a miscalculation in tithes from the Adeptus Mechanicus. They had been involved in quelling the Placos rebellion, instigated by the Alpha Legion to use as propaganda against the Imperium. Each deed was an example of the terrible crimes that he now lit every year for Candlemass. This planet had been different. The Weeping Skulls and the Mentlis 52nd had liberated the world from alien raiders. While they stayed, the aliens dared not plague the planet. The instant they left, the planet would fall prey to the Hrud, with or without warp storms. “We will halve our forces. One half of our forces will move to the nearest, safe system. The rest will remain, to defend the planet if necessary. I will not flee and leave this planet to be taken from the emperors light.”
Omis looked like he was about to object, but a quick glance stilled him. “Leave if you wish. But I am not abandoning this planet.”
Less than a week later, Aural stood looking up at the stain across the sky. It seemed to grow every second he watched. At first, the storm seemed to move as if it was going to avoid them, but it suddenly lurched back on itself in space, and set a course firmly towards the planet. Aural was standing with planetary governor Astor, in the palace. The smell of sweet, exotic flowers forced its way gently into his thoughts. He had been in a meeting with Astor when it had been first visible. Now it seemed to take over the sky, like a hand reaching down the grab the planet. As the sky darkened into a deep purple, Aural felt something, as if someone was staring at him, as if someone was watching him.
Then, the sky swirled into a deep crimson before thick black clouds spilled out of an eye in the centre, like smoke from an exhaust. Suddenly, his attention was brought to the runes within his helmet, flashing about dangerous airborne agents, as there was a compressing within his armour as it became vacuum sealed. Next to him, Astor began to cough, slowly staggering as he lost his footing and fell to his knees. Commissar Omis did likewise. Around where the commissar’s bionic eye touched his skin, the skin began to grow red, and puffy, becoming irritated and infected. Governor Astor’s eyes became two cataracts over as he lay convulsing on the floor. Their eyelids swelled with infection, and their gums bled. Hacking diseased coughs shook from their dying forms.
Turning away from the horrible sight before him, Aural swept his eyes over the palace garden. The trees began to die and wilt. The fruits on many of them turned black and mouldy while the roses on others turned white with disease, horrible purple veins spreading over them. The grass turned brown, before decaying into a thick black slime, from which worms began to crawl. Aural raised his plasma pistol, expecting some kind of enemy, some monster or daemon of some sort. He found nothing, just disease. His own bodyguards were alive. The 5 sergeants had all been wearing full or nearly full armour. The one who had not been wearing a helmet was still alive, his eyes slightly swollen and his skin pale, but alive. Thousands has died as the plague wind descended. The streets of the capital city were littered with diseased corpses, and those who hadn’t died straight away. A pile of diseased pus and body fluids moaned for a second, before Aural put it out of its misery.
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