Playable armies at the initial release of the game include elements of the Blood Ravens Chapter of Space Marines, the Orks, the Eldar, and a splinter fleet of the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Leviathan. The gameplay of Dawn of War II is markedly different from that of the original Dawn of War and its three expansions. Jonny Ebbert, the game's lead designer, describes the feel of the game by saying that it "takes everything that was great about the original and combines it with the best that Company of Heroes had to offer. There is a heavier focus on cover, which gives more substantial defensive bonuses. Accordingly, there is also a new emphasis on methods of dealing with units in cover. Some weapons, such as grenades and other explosives, can destroy cover, while others, such as flamers, ignore co