Golden dawn for Warhammer 40K expansion

It's a happy day in the grim darkness of the future, relatively speaking. THQ today announced that Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, the stand-alone expansion to the real-time strategy hit Dawn of War, has gone gold and will begin shipping worldwide October 9.

Dark Crusade adds two new races to the game: the technologically minded Tau and the undead Necrons, who have recently been awakened from a 60-million-year nap and are downright cranky. The two new factions bring the game's total to seven playable races.

Developer Relic Entertainment has also included a new single-player campaign in the game to challenge players to take command of one race and exterminate all opposing forces.