Can I buy Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II if I've never played any of the previous games in the series?

I saw a trailer of it and thought the game looks interesting. Is the storyline like StarCraft?Can I buy Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II if I've never played any of the previous games in the series?
It's based on the Warhammer 40k universe, which has a vast depth of back story but isn't exactly a storyline that you need to play the previous games for, you won't be missing out on anything. Really if you just go to Wikipedia and look up the various races, who hates who and why, that's about all the story you need to know, assuming you want to bother with the story at all.



That said, you can get the Dawn of War Anthology (the game and expansions in one pack) for a reasonable price and it's a pretty good RTS so it's worth it.Can I buy Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II if I've never played any of the previous games in the series?
StarCraft + Mentioning it to a WH40K fan = All Hell Breaks Loose. LOL No, nothing really in common. Dawn of War 2 will really not have much to do with the past games. I was first introduced into the Warhammer 40,000 genre with DoW 1. Basically what will be in DoW 2 will encompass is a Captain who showed up in only Dawn of War Dark Crusade...not much has happened to him since then. The Dawn of War series isn't much on storyline. You won't need DoW 1 to understand DoW 2.