Though Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III is still not formally announced, that hasn't stopped publisher THQ and developer Relic from talking about the RTS sequel. The latest revelations come from Relic marketing manager James McDermott in an interview with Eurogamer, covering topics including custom armies.

"Looking at what we had real success with with Dawn of War II - Retribution, with the DLC, and with customisation and building their armies and collecting being a big part of what 40k fans really love, we want to make that a big part of DoW 3," McDermott said. "There's going to be lots of opportunities to expand and build your own custom mega army. That's definitely an area we want to invest in. We see a good opportunity."

Customisation is a staple of the tabletop miniatures wargame, from paint schemes and replacing figures' components with snazzier parts to flat-out inventing new factions. The most recent DoW only supports relatively limited custom paint options. How exactly will it all work in Dawn of War III? Until the game's revealed, who could possibly say. But custom armies!

McDermott also backed up THQ core games head Danny Bilson's remarks that Dawn of War III will combine elements of the first two with new elements and MMO aspects. DoW 3 "is going to have a much larger strategic component to it, more of a global battle going on with little tactical things, sort of MMO-like," McDermott explained.

"We're trying to leverage even more so on the Games Workshop tabletop game, and then combine that with the game mechanics people have said, 'If you were to make a DOW3 we would like this kind of balance of things,' and what we think would be good for strategy games as a whole."

Bilson had hinted in 2010 that Dawn of War 3 might be free-to-play, depending on how well the F2P Company of Heroes Online was received. Considering that it shut down in February this year, you can probably scratch that out.

McDermott also teased the announcement Relic is due to make at the Gamescom show in August, saying "There is something cool and I think people will be really pleased to hear about it." If we all wish hard enough for a surprise Homeworld 3 announcement, it might just come true.