Upcoming real-time strategy game Dawn of War III will allow gamers to build their own custom armies, developer Relic has revealed.

It will also simulate the idea of a "war that rages eternal," Relic marketing manager James McDermott told Eurogamer.

"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 DOW3," he 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."

Last year Eurogamer broke the news that Relic was in the brainstorming stage of Dawn of War III.

THQ core games boss Danny Bilson suggested the Warhammer 40K RTS would launch between 18 months and two years after Dawn of War II - Retribution, pegging DOW3 for an August 2012 to February 2013 release window.

He also said the game "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".

Now more gameplay details have trickled out ahead of what THQ has teased will be an announcement at German show Gamescom next month.

With Dawn of War II, Relic dropped base building  although it did feature in a reduced way in the game's multiplayer.

"We brought some base building back with Retribution," McDermott continued. "With DOW3, because it's going to be a new version, we're looking at the game as a whole, and we're really upping the intensity.

"With the 40k universe, the tagline is: there is only war. We want to give you that greater sense of the war. The battle. The war that rages eternal, and make that feel like that's really imposing and all around you, and you have your own personal, custom army in there.

"Your army and my army should feel very different. That's where we would like to get to.

"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.

"We're looking at all that stuff really carefully. And I'm sure you've probably heard this as well about Relic  we have a big announcement at Gamescom."

Is it Dawn of War III? Or perhaps Company of Heroes 2, the sequel to Relic's excellent World War II RTS?

"There is something cool and I think people will be really pleased to hear about it."