basic tactical primer

8/2/2019 Basic Tactical Primer

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DOW 2 - Basic Tactical Primer

Essential Skills, Practices and Preparation for surviving MP

by Octopus Rex

Patch version: 2.4.0 - 28.10.2010

Contents

Overall Strategy & Economy - (pg2)

Know the Races

Squad Decorators Know the Maps Build Orders VPs, Power and Requisition Floating Teching Up Strategic Shopping Team-play Scouting & Reconnaissance

Hero Usage & Wargear Selection - (pg12)

Heroes Wargear Global Abilities

Skirmish Tactics & Unit Management - (pg19)

Strength in Numbers Focus Fire and Target Selection Abilities Squad Numbering Harassment Idling Keeping Your Troops Alive Dancing Kiting Layered Retreat/Approach Setup Weapons Teams & Suppression Grenades

Miscellaneous - (pg39)

Replays Communication Hotkeys & Gridkeys


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Skirmish AIIf you're totally new to Dawn of War 2 then this huge article may seem a little daunting and that

you'll never learn it all. Don't be put off by this. Have a read through and pick a couple things to work

on for a few games, then when you've got those down have another look and pick a few more things

to work on. Gradually build up your repertoire of skills and have patience, many of these things are

good habits rather than specific strategies and it takes time for them to sink into your play style.

Even if you successfully utilise just a few of these tips you will likely notice a strong difference at

lower TrueSkill levels.

Overall Strategy & Economy

Know the Races

You should know your army inside out. You should know all the costs of the units and all the tactical

options they open up out of the box and also what they bring to the table with upgrades. You should

be equally aware of the units strengths and weaknesses, what they counter, what they are

vulnerable to both in general terms, like knowing it's unsuitable for big fire-fights, and more

specifically such as which particular units wipe the floor with them and should be avoided at all

costs. In games you can find out what race your enemy is on the load screen, though you will have to

wait until in-game to find out which hero they are using. Even if you dont play all four races, you still

need to know all the units in them and be able to recognise them at sight. This task has been

simplified somewhat by the identifying decorator icons (see below) and they inform you at a glance

what strengths and upgrades the units have. These are useful certainly, but they are no substitute

for specific, detailed knowledge and combat experience of the troops.

You need be thinking ahead: What units am I likely to see? What units do I need to watch out for?

Are they likely to have loads of setup weapons or not? If so do I need to scout ahead before rushing?

How soon do vehicles normally come into play? You also need to have tactical responses to the

answers of those questions; if youre facing a Space Marine player and you think ASM are imminent,

its good to know that but you also need to know how youre going deal with that too. Stick with one

race for a little while so you can learn it, but do not simply stick with Space Marines forever and

hope for the best, do try to play all four races for periods and not just against the AI (I find it hard to

break out my Eldar comfort zone in ranked play, so I need to fix this too). Basically you need to know

all four races inside out. Consider - if your enemy knows exactly what your troops strengths,

weaknesses, upgrades and abilities are but you dont know theirs then you are at a strong

disadvantage.

Furthermore you need to be aware of how to synergise (what an awful word) with your team-mates.

If your Space Marine team-mate has missile tacs already then perhaps it's not a good idea to get a

Brightlance too unless the enemy has gone particularly vehicle heavy. If you understand your team-

mates force at a glance then you can tailor your own to dovetail into theirs and cover each others'

weaknesses. This is very relevant on tight maps like Argus Gate or the southern part of Capital Spire,

but on maps like Tibor Outpost self-sufficiency is a stronger concern than on others due to distance

and potential separation from team-mates.


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Squad Decorators

In the 1.3 patch Relic re-vamped the decorators from race specific icons to universal, generic icons in

order to make it easier to tell what kind of unit it is. Personally I preferred the old ones as they had

more flavour, but they were pretty hard to decipher at times so what the hell.

Melee

a. Melee Anti-infantry (AI) Basic

b. Melee AI Strong

c. Melee AI and Anti-vehicle (AV) - Basic, w/upgrade

d. Melee AI and AV Strong

Ranged

e. Ranged AI Basic

f. Ranged AI Strong

g. Ranged AV Basic

h. Suppression unit, w/setup time.

i. Ranged AI and AV - Strong, w/setup time and area effect

j. Sniper unit, w/detection

k. Ranged AI - Basic, w/area effect (clearer picture of the AoE target)l. Grenade/Explosive unit

Extra (the little ones on the top)

m. Squad with an upgrade (could be anything)

n. Jump unit

o. Squad with anti-vehicle upgrade

p. Squad with flamer upgrade

q. Squad with grenade upgrader. Hero icon (the big white bars). Hero has Melee AI - Strong and is a jump unit.

s. Random example: Ranged AI - Basic, w/additional grenades and detection.

Know the Maps

This seems obvious, but its worth stressing how important it is. There's only a few maps to learn for

each play style so it's not such a big task. You must be familiar with where the crucial, typically hard-

fought areas are, which points should definitely be yours and which are contested, and also in

2v2/3v3 you must be aware which points your troops should be going for and which you should

leave for your team-mates. As soon as you see the map you need to decide which point youre going


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to make a play for, dont shilly-shally around. Generally this should not be a point thats should be

yours by rights; you should usually head for a contested one with at least one of your opening units.

It might seem like this will leave you without any resources but your following squads should cap

your points on their way to the frontline. If you leave the contested point then your enemy will

likely take it without interference, cap their own points at leisure, will be better prepared and harder

to dislodge when you arrive, and will then already control more points than you leaving you at a

disadvantage. When the enemy pushes forward they will be fighting you for points that should be

yours for certain, while the points in their half of the map remain uncontested; you will be fighting

to hold on to your minority rather than fighting to gain the majority. You should know the little kinks

in the maps, like how the top of the Typhon Arena map has a requisition point that those on the

right-hand side can get to easier than those on the left, or the infamous Trench O Plasma-Spam

Doom on Capital Spire (though this is less potent now as the map has been tweaked). In fact Capital

Spire is notorious for these little things, like buildings that are a pain to remove troops from etc.

You should also know (though this is really obvious) when youre getting close to their base. The

obvious threat is the turrets, but theres also the issue that proximity to their base makes it quicker

for them to reinforce and come back, making it harder for you. Also, youre pretty far from your own

base, so it might take you a while to get back to reinforce. Pushing too far into the map is easier to

do than you might think when you're chasing a retreating enemy, especially with melee troops;

however, the desire to just finish off that squad can easily lead to your doom wondering quite how

you lost it all. Be aware of the balance between pushing the advantage and running yourself into a

disadvantage.

Lastly, in 3v3 don't just look after your part of the map. Help out your team-mates, hop over to their

area and lend a hand for an attack or defence. Some maps are very 'laney' and it's very easy to get

stuck in your own lane. Some lanes are tighter than others or lend themselves to group play a bit

more, so think about which areas are hotly fought and whether you need to go help out at them or

whether you need your team-mates help you out at your own area.

If these images don't send you into a 'Nam flashback sequence complete with black and white filter and shouts


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of "Charlie's in the trees!! Dakka dakka dakka!!", or make you curl up into a ball sobbing for your momma at

the horror of remembering your most crushing defeats.....then you're not ready trooper!!

Build Orders

The build order is a pre-planned list of which units, upgrades, wargear and structures (gens etc.)

you're going to build and in which order and can span from being only the first two or three units to

mapping out deep into Tier 2 depending on how involved and bold your strategy is. As soon as the

game starts you need to make a call as to what build order youre going for, you cant waste valuable

seconds umming and ahhing at this crucial point in the game and you won't have any idea what

the enemy's plan is yet so you have nothing to react to - you need to be decisive and build orders are

the solution. I generally spend the map loading time pondering which build Im going to go for, and

then make slight alterations when I know what starting position Im in. This means you need to have

several build orders that you know how to handle and are ready to go. As you grow familiar with

them and experiment they'll blossom into branching and changeable trees which can respond to

enemy choices, and while you might queue up two Slugga squads at first, you can easily change your

mind, cancel the second Slugga and swap it for a Shoota etc. With base building missing from DOW2,

however, build orders are not as long as they are for other strategy games, but still the point stands:

you need a plan.

Build orders, in combination with which point you go for, are much like opening plays in chess, they

become slightly formalised and recognisable, and they also take practice to execute well, not just

clicking the build squads, but timing your battlefield tactics to match the expected arrival of new

troops. The relative strengths and weaknesses of different builds versus different races and

commanders need to be noted, what to watch out for, what type of positional play works well with

it, which maps and starting positions they work best on and so on. You should stick with a build

order until you get the hang of it, dont sack it off after one attempt, keep trying different ways of

playing until you get comfortable with it or until you are sure its not going work. Once you are

happy with it and have done well with it, try another one. This way youll soon build up your

repertoire of build orders and will be able to chop and change much more easily as well make

judgment calls at that crucial moment upon map loading. When you have a few build orders under

your belt then you'll also be much more use to your team-mates in the early game as you can fit

your build to match theirs. Tag-teaming the bottom section of Angel Gate? Let your Marine player

go ranged and you can handle the melee with the 'Nid swarm for example.

VPs, Power & Requisition

So, VPs are the most important point right? Or are they...? What points you go for really depends on

what's going on in the game at the time and will boil down to some primary considerations: how

easy will it be to capture it, how long am I likely to hold it for, and how much will I gain by simply

denying to from opponent. These issue are all interlinked.

Victory Points


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It's important to grab your VPs early on, this much is obvious, but their importance in the game

won't become apparent until later on. If you neglect to grab them - or rather never really push the

contested points - and focus instead on power points and combat then it can go pretty well, but you

can soon find yourself way behind on VPs having been victim to a strong bleed. It's not the end of

the world, but you are now forced to concentrate on the VPs and your enemy, if they are smart, will

know that. The battle will start to focus around the VPs but the onus will be on you to attack and

camping will be the luxury of your opponent. What material advantage you did have can soon be

smashed on the walls of a good defence, and power is often not such a limiting factor late game as it

is in the early game.

There will likely be much to-ing and fro-ing over the VPs (as I presume was intended by the

designers) due both to their position and lack of capping node. VPs can often become fortified with

troopers in building, multiple setup teams, and deployed turrets and you should be aware of which

VPs are easier to defend and camp at, which are tricky to hold, and which should belong to you at all

times. These are not your only considerations though, as often the flow of the battle is a big factor.

Typhon Arena is a textbook example of distraction - the fight will be raging over that equidistant

bottom VP, maybe with some D-cannons setup, a couple of plasma cannons, and you might as well

toss in some Nobz Squads and Termies while you're at it. "Smashing battle wot wot, eh chaps? We'll

give these guys a damn good thrashing!" you retort to the executive officer as your frontline troops

are mercilessly mown down by heavy bolter fire. However, the canny commander across the way

meanwhile has taken the top VP from your side. Sure, taking it back will often not be that hard, but a

continually nibbling at VPs such as this can nullify any hard-fought advantage you've gained on the

main frontline, as well maybe drain a surprising amount VPs.

Often, simply de-capping a VP can be enough, and many close battles can be decided on things like

this. Fast, speed-buffed troops , webways and infiltrators are all obvious tools for a job like this, just

be sure to keep a careful eye on them in case they run into some surprise defence as they'll likely be

wiped out in short order. The reverse issue around this is how to prevent the enemy capping your

own VPs - not just keeping them from it in general, but actually physically stopping them - and for

that job you'll be using tools like knockdown weapons, walker chargers, Warlock's warp throw and of

course the global nuke. Perhaps counter-intuitively, but late game units like Terminators often

making surprisingly good cappers and they resist many of the knockdown techniques and can also

usually withstand enough firepower to get the job done. Still, you'll soon find that a desperate, last-

minute nuke to keep the enemy from re-capping a VP can just seal that game for you.

Power Points

Having said all that about VPs, generally it's best to go after your opponents power early game. Tibor

Outpost is a classic map for razing generator farms as both teams make a mad dash across the map

for the upper node on the left-side and the lower one on the right-side. All of a sudden the flamer

tacs appear on the mini-map and boosh - those gens are gone as there's simply not enough time to

get back to defend them on such a huge map.

While the VPs will win you the game, it's really the power nodes that will ... win you the game (if you

see what I mean). In a close game, really tight spending strategy might help you a smidgen, and

making sure you don't botch your micro will help, sure, and picking the right counters is just a given.

What will make the real difference in a game is if you manage to gain a power advantage allowing


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you to slowly pull away up the tech tree. Of course you still need the micro-management chops to

capitalise on this advantage as it's all too easy to lose your troops in a blink of an eye with those big

sausage fingers of yours mashing the keys like an orangutan, but getting that power advantage is the

first step.

Equally, defending your own farms is important, as a gen-farm trade-off gets us nowhere. So you

need to win that first encounter in order to both push onto the gens as well as protecting your own.

The first initial skirmish is a crucial factor in the game and can easily dictate the flow the battle for

the early game, so get you need to get your tactics sorted for the first three or four minutes and get

your execution down hard - nice 'n' crisp, no cock-ups.

To return to VPs for a moment: power is more important initially, but the thing is it can be a gamble.

You might make a big push and only manage to get one of the gens down - well done, not to be

sniffed at - but if you don't manage to make the most of any advantage you get, or even worse you

get caught off guard on the counter-attack and get a spanking, then the fact that you didn't grab any

VPs along the way will bite you hard. So it's not that you shouldn't go after the power - if you can get

some down solidly then great - it's just that you need to judge the situation a bit and make sure you

don't do yourself a disservice by going for it.

Requisition Points

These are a tricky one. They are seemingly innocuous and not really worth troubling over seeing as

your HQ churns out so much requisition already. However, this doesn't mean you should ignore

them. Every little helps in a close game, and when you're feeling the upkeep burn from all those

troops and your reinforcement bill is getting out of hand that extra requisition can really help get the

boys back on the field sooner rather than later. Mid to late Tier 2 is when I start feeling a realrequisition drain - the big guns have started to arrive and casualties are high combined with large

standing forces demanding larger upkeep bills. So, yeah, ok, way to state the obvious, right? More

req is a good thing, tell us something we don't know.

The real question you're wondering is whether you should go after them? Well, yeah you should.

But again that comes with caveats and judgements.They are certainly a lower priority than VPs and

power, but that can work to your advantage too, in so much as you can often get away with ninja-ing

req points relatively unscathed. Remember that req points are worth more over time, so often

simply de-capping your opponents points can be a worthwhile venture, something they'll not really

pay attention to at the time but, hopefully, will come round to bite them on the ass later. One of thethings you'll notice the AI doing is de-capping all kinds of req points deep in your territory. While this

is really only a minor annoyance, it can cause a significant drain on your req over time and more

significantly it can cause you to chase all over the map trying to re-cap the points near your base,

thus diverting your attention from more juicy targets like the VPs. This diversion is pretty hard to pull

off against good players who'll often annihilate any squad trying that in no time - whoops - but

successfully distracting and diverting the opponents can be invaluable.

Should you capture a req point instead of a power node? Almost certainly not. Should you just

capture the req points near you and leave it at that? No to that too. Use every advantage you can

because you might just need it.


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Floating

Floating is when you have excess resources kicking around that are unspent. You should avoid this;

you should be spending your resources as soon as you get them. This doesn't mean you should

spend it on anything as soon as you've got it just to get rid of it, it's fine to save up for the more

expensive things, but unspent money => less troops/less tech => weaker force overall => you falling

behind. So spend that crap as soon as you have enough to buy what it is you want, and if you can't

think of what to spend it on or what to save up for then just spend it on something!! Resources are

useless on their own and are meant to be transformed into strength for your force (be it tech, troops

or upgrades) - the sooner you convert it the better. Knowing your build order will help this a lot in

the early phase.

A common issue is having an imbalance in requisition or power. Overflowing requisition in the early

game is not unusual, and later on - if you're doing well - you can riding high on power. If you have

too much requisition then you should start slamming down power gens. If you've done that already

and you're waiting for enough power to buy a T2 unit then do some quick maths - can you squeeze

out another basic req-only unit while waiting for those twenty power points to trickle in? Probably,

so do it. With too much power kicking about then you probably need to buy more high-tech units

and upgrades, perhaps you're focusing on low-grade infantry too much.

"What's the diagnosis, doctor?" - "Hmm, well nurse, it looks like he's got a bad case of......TEH FLOATZ!!

Prognosis: not good."

Teching Up

Don't fall too far behind in tech. If you see your opponent is T2, then you need to be gettin' yo azz to

T2 as well ASAP. In DOW1, the "something" which you spent your money when uncertain about

troops was tech researches and upgrades; however, this isn't really the case in DOW2. A classic

pitfall of the inexperienced player is that they want to have a sizeable force at all times, and so

continually replenish their troops before teching up. This is usually a mistake. Even if you have just

taken a beating and lost a fair few troops, if you can afford to it's usuallybest to tech up, though this

is not always the case and it can take some judgement. You only have to tech up once, and when

you do your whole army benefits (not necessarily directly, but they have better upgrades, more

troop choice etc). Even if you're losing the skirmishes, don't get too far behind on tech otherwise

you really will get mangled. Avoid having a series of mental checkpoints like "well, I need a decent

army of two ranged units and two melee units before I tech up, and I need my commander too" that

are outside of your build order because to some extent you should be planning when to go to T2 aspart of it.


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Be aware of what costs power in T1 and consider the effect spending power will have on your

teching. If you keep buying things that cost power you'll never make it to T2 and you'll get walloped,

so weigh them up carefully. Keep an eye on the rates of income too: You may have 300 requisition

and 75 power, but instead of simply waiting for that extra 50 power there's a good chance (at the

stage in the game) that you can spend that requisition on troops (but not the power), and by the

time you've got 125 power you're back at 300 requisition. The race to T2 has certainly slowed down

somewhat since the 1.5 patch. Now T1 is much longer than before and it's advisable to go into T2

strong rather than rushing there as fast as you can. The same guidelines apply though, it's just the

timing is now longer. The main point is to be proactive with teching.

Strategic Shopping

As mentioned in the teching-up section, a common error is to just churn out the troops and hope

that troop-mass will win out. Consider going for the opposite approach, consider have fewer but

better troops. DOW2 rewards players for having fewer troops as your upkeep costs will be less, so in

many cases it's better to purchase upgrades and leaders than it is to get more troops. It's easier to

manage fewer squads than it is tons of squads too, and better squads will kill more/survive longer

becoming more experienced and thus performing even better still. Also, upgrades will stick around

on a squad forever so long as at least one trooper survives and thus they are money well spent. The

same is true for commander wargear too (note that they only cost 250 req 0 power to revive).

Another small detail is to, I find, buy any upgrades first, before the leaders. The reason being that

the upgrade is permanent, where as the leader may require repeated purchasing. If you are

strapped for cash and keep only being able to afford the leader, you could've spent all that time in

possession of the upgrade too and had a better chance of keeping your leader. Admittedly, not avery common scenario, but it was brought to my attention in the days of very weak Warp Spider

Exarchs who would die all the time. These points are not a rule, just something to consider, and they

are only useful if you are suitably proficient at keeping your troops alive otherwise it will just be

more money wasted! There are times when getting all the upgrades first will prevent you squeezing

out another squad, and it might have been better to get that squad out and upgrade the first squad

while the other builds. There's also times when getting the squad leader first may be preferable,

such as with Guardians and their awesome performance-for-cost Warlock leaders.

Another tip for the canny shopper is timing. When you're building something with a long build time

in the HQ - most notably the tier upgrades - I find it's often best not to queue anything up behind it.The reason for this is the upgrade is so long that by that time it's completed you will have gathered a

load more resources (especially power) and so this may affect your troop choice. I have often

queued up what I thought was a much needed unit behind the Tier 2 upgrade, only to cancel it

before it started as I realise I now almost have enough for a better vehicle or whatever. You will also

have better knowledge of your opponents troops too, as the fighting during the long upgrade will

reveal more of your opponents strategy and you can pick a better counter. Still, either way it's a

balance - on the one hand there's potentially time wasted if you forget to build something when it's

done, on the other you can accidentally build a unit that's not actually that useful because you

forgot to cancel it.


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Remember that upgrades and leaders on your troops can be built at the same time as troops of

course, so if you need some extra Pow! as soon as possible then don't waste resources on queued

items, get some quick upgrades. However, holding off on upgrading your troops is worth considering

when they have a choice of upgrades to pick from; you should refrain from just going ahead and

buying these weapon upgrades based on assumption. Leave your tacs un-upgraded until you see

what kind of play the enemy makes in T2, that way you can ambush them with just the right counter.

You can upgrade in the field relatively quickly, so it can be very reactive. Even so, there is advantage

in upgrading early, especially with commanders, as it gives you that offensive boost, but holding

back until you have more info is often useful, if only so you know which of your normal upgrades to

getfirst. For example my default setup on the warlock is Merciless Witchblade and Warpthrow. I'll

hold off for a little while to see what's shaping up: if the enemy is apoth, farseer or is using energy

dependant troops then I'll go witchblade first (it drains energy), if they're going setup teams then I'll

get warpthrow first, but the chances are still that I'll get both in the end. The key point, however, is

this: make informed choices when you go shopping.

Team-play

In 2v2 and 3v3 it is very easy to get all wrapped up in your side of the map - the battle over the

power node is intense and there's plenty of back and forth. That's great, but remember you're part

of a team so use each other! Make sure you're keeping an eye on what your team-mates are doing

by looking at the mini-map and also just hovering over their part of the map to see what's going on.

This way you can see what troops are being fielded (by both sides) and get a better idea of what to

counter, or if you see them standing around wondering what to do you can yell "Get your big, sexy

dreadnought over here pronto, I'm getting my ass busted by nids and haven't even got to T2 yet!!"

If youre feeling boxed in and stuck, don't stay that way: mix it up a little and change lanes. It's

amazing how many games get turned around by simply swapping lanes and fighting a different

enemy. It catches them totally off guard and they're often ready for all the wrong counters. Also

consider pushing forward in concert with your team-mate and in the same location. You might have

to hold back for a few seconds while they get ready, but it's much better to attack simultaneously.

This is readily observable on the central mezzanine of Capital Spire. I can remember numerous

games where we've lost due to both going up the bottom stairs in relay one after the other rather

than simultaneously. The enemies, on the other hand, are both sitting there together and get to

fight us individually with their combined strength. Often on that map the early plays can be gamedeciding and I remember vividly thinking that I should've just waited for my team-mate before

charging up the stairs. To balance this there's always the risk of losing your side of the map while

absent from it. However, it often doesn't go as badly as you'd think as the other players may rush to

help out in the area that you and your team-mate have ganged up and then turn up in a staggered

fashion, getting pounded each in turn, rather than heading off for the vacant areas. Also, teaming up

with a big hard race when you're wussy Eldar makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, and the big hard

races love having plenty of Eldar cannon fodder shielding them.

Lastly: revive commanders!! I'll say that one again: revive commanders dammit! This is so helpful to

your team-mates and is also beneficial to you as your commander will automatically go up a levelwithout having to kill a single thing. The main benefit for your team-mate is not so much the 250req


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cost (when the counter has run down) so much as the time spent without the commander; the

commander is the spearhead of their force and is often decisive in a skirmish. If you're

communicating well with your team-mates then there's even times when you won't need to retreat;

your team-mate is backing you up and will come to revive you to save you the wasted time of

retreating and healing. (Kudos to Arbit and Troubleshooter)

Repairing each other's vehicles with your cheap troop mass can help out so much it's not even funny

If you're getting really fruity then you can try hitching a ride in each other's transport vehicles. Don't

do it just for the hell of it (then again maybe you should just for the lolz) because it can be pretty

fiddly and requires very good coordination. It's best done with headsets and microphones, and when

successfully pulled off it can be a real shock for the enemy when two ASM squad pop out of an EldarFalcon or the boyz swarm out of a razorback. I would stress though that good communication is key

as similar attempts have backfired on me badly due to misunderstanding and misreading the field.

Scouting & Reconnaissance

This used to be considerably more pressing a concern when you didn't know what race your enemy

was playing before you started, but now you can see what you're up against on the load screen and

it takes some of the pressure off. However, this is still a very important technique in the game and

greatly underused. Scouting is not solely the domain of infiltrators, even uninfiltrated capping unitscan be useful too, but it's much better if the enemy doesn't know that you've seen them and thus

they won't change up their plan. The point of it all is to give yourself the best information for

preparing a defence and an offense. An obvious demonstration is with the most slow to react of

units, the setup weapons: just scouting out ahead of your main party a little way can give you a very

simple bit of information namely which direction the enemy are coming from. With this information

you can tweak your setup weapon's position accordingly for the best defence, rather than hurriedly

trying to re-setup as the enemy charges you which is usually doomed to failure. The unit make-up of

their force is another very important aspect and certain units will stick out like a sore thumb such as

jump troops or vehicles. Even if you aren't prepared for them with a good counter yet it's much

better to know in advance that these things are coming, and you can queue up your counter that

much quicker and hopefully without needing to replace many troops. Another lifesaver is when you


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prevent yourself from walking into a big suppression trap by just scoping the place out first, you can

then go round the back way and nullify their defences. Even just the sight of overwhelming force can

be enough to go on - seeing two players blobbed up together and hungry for kills - and can save you

from utter annihilation, either by calling your mates over quick-sharp or by just pulling back out of

the way before they strike.

The benefits of knowing in advance what your opponent has and where they are huge. Also

important is knowing where the enemy is not - that way you can safely go ad ninja their points,

forcing them to perhaps split up their forces to chase you off and take it back, or maybe just giving

you an extra VP for a while. The benefits of good information are so strong (see Sun Tzu's The Art of

War for confirmation of this) that I tend to rate the Farseer's Farsight ability as the best global in the

game - it's cheap and useful at all times in the game. The amount of times I've scoped out VPs and

resource clusters to find them totally unguarded is just awesome, as well as scoping at that exact

position of that bloody irritating D-cannon battery and the direction they're facing. You should share

all your information with your team-mates: what commander they've gone for, what special troops

they've picked up that you might need help with, location and name of the of the first enemy vehicle

to hit the ground, places where they enemy is massing and blobbing up with more than one player,

dug in weapons teams and campers - all sorts of stuff. Having no information makes you a dumb

bunny ready for killing and eating. Don't be a dumb bunny. Information is vital, so go get some!

Hero Usage & Wargear Selection

Heroes

Theres no doubt about it: heroes are crucial. Heroes and their wargear should generally form a large

part of your strategy and to lose your hero early on can often be crippling. You should be keenly

aware of your chosen heros strengths and weaknesses, what situations they excel in and what

situations they need to run like buggery from. If youre used to a big tank hero whose job is to leg it

into the enemy and knee them in the face then its going to take some adjustment in style to play a

support hero who has to hang back.

Offensive Heroes

These guys generally perform the aforementioned application of knees to opponents faces. Largelytheir role consists of keeping the enemys melee troops off of your soft, squishy ranged troops or

disrupting their ranged squads. Watch out for that initial gap-closing sprint as your hero can (and

will) take a lot of fire here and this short period of time will be very influential in deciding the

outcome of the ensuing scrap. Even if you reach the enemy, if youve taken too damage on the way

there itll be time to scarper before you can really do anything effective. Be particularly aware of

setup teams of course while it may seem at first that youre going to reach them under

suppression, generally youre not and youll take a lot of damage trying. Your hero will generally be

tough as old boots, but you should be wary of running across big, open areas to get to the enemy,

those clear lines of fire will let them gun your health down pretty quickly most likely.

Support Heroes


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With this more fragile class of support heroes, distance and timing is key they can potentially be

tough and its often fine to wade in, but you must know when to pull back to your supporting troops

otherwise you risk losing your commander too easily. This is partly due to comparative weakness

when faced with an offensive hero, but it's also due to the fact that their main strength is in boosting

your troops combat effectiveness with their auras and abilities rather than their own offensive

capability. While attack is often the key to victory in this game, there are certainly times when it pays

to actively hang back and have your hero support the troops from there. Be aware that these will

not be as straight forward as offensive heroes and often very powerful, buff-laden wargear

combinations. There'll be a lot more clicking of abilities if you want to get the most out of these

chaps and plenty more careful timing and situational use, so if you feel you're a sausage-fingered

button masher that just likes to go and bosh stuff in the face then you might want to approach these

hombres with caution. On the other hand, there's only one way to get better and the heroes only

get more fiddly from here on in.

Teleport Heroes

Even though these guys are all ranged, they are still very useful in melee. Rather than standing off

with your ranged troops and laying on the hurt, its often very useful to teleport into melee combat

with the enemy ranged troopers to prevent them firing, especially with setup teams. The ranged

troops wont bother your hero especially in melee and this saves your squishy squads plenty of

bother. Make sure you tie-up the most powerful ranged squad of course, and this will help you out a

ton in the early stages of the game. If youre going to shoot people up then remember to port

behind cover and dont take your eye of your hero as they arent that tough. Teleporting behind

enemy lines is very useful and tempted, but it also leaves you potentially vulnerable to unseen

troops at the back and might leave you a bit too close to some melee troops. Also, you're deeper

behind enemy lines and so successfully retreating is more problematic, especially as teleporters will

lose health rapidly as they are weak. Naturally these guys are good for ninja-capping points too, as

well as hopping between lanes to help out team-mates. High battlefield awareness is key for these

guys as you'll be instantaneously darting about all over the place. Lastly, watch your energy level as

you don't want to get caught with your pants down when the banshees come a-charging - that's a

schoolboy error, don't get a smacked bottom.

Stealth Heroes

These boys are sneaky, very sneaky, and they take a fair amount of finessing to get right. It can take

a bit of practice to get the timing off their disruption abilities right so they work in harmony with the

troops properly, and this is something youll need to do as the hero wont last long against any real

force. Similar to teleporters, keep a close eye on the energy level, as the infiltration will drain it

consistently and often stop you using your planned ability if you hang around too long, so even

though youre invisible you havent got all day. Sneaky missions deep behind enemy lines are quite

fun too, so have a go ninja-capping when the battle seems lop-sided to one side of the field.

However, be aware that youll have to split your attention across two distant places to pull this off

which can be tricky, and a sudden attack will likely wipe out your hero too far away for any chance of

getting revived.


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Here the Force Commander is doing his stuff, getting stuck into some troops with the ranged fellas hanging

back. I'll admit my guys are all blobbed up there, but I had to run them over quick smart for the shot, you'd be

amazed how hard it is to get the AI to hang around so you can take a screenshot while you bash their face in.

Note also the wargear box - there's green ticks on the items that I've already purchased at the early stage in

the game. Clicking on these will switch them back for free

Wargear

You should also be clued up on their wargear and have a firm idea about your options from the start.

Your wargear should ultimately be woven into your strategy in a pretty integral way. In case you

dont know, the basic lowdown on wargear is that you have three slots weapon, armour &

accessory that you can fill. If you fill one slot, however, you can still buy further pieces of the same

type. The new piece will replace the existing wargear which will then appear with a green tick in the

UI (see above picture). You can now switch between these pieces (of the same type) that you have

at no extra cost the only drawback is that it takes time for the switch. Wargear stays with your

commander when they die and never need to be re-purchased, and so in one sense they are a very

cost effective thing to purchase because when your hero dies you will only have to pay 250 req (if

you wait for the timer to go down) and 0 power, or for free if a team-mate revives you.

There are arguably three main things to consider when pondering the wargear options and it will be

a compromise between these:

- Your positive attacking strategy and how to strengthen it. A classic example of this isthe Warp Spider Exarchs group teleport wargear which can be extremely deadly when

combined with two banshee squads and fired right behind enemy lines, especially


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against Marines. Two banshees plus the Warp Spider Exarch is good, but the group

teleport just takes this tactic to the next level.

- The deficiencies in your troops and how you can plug those gaps. You might take ananti-vehicle weapon such as the power fist or the power klaw in order to make up an

anti-vehicle shortfall that youre not planning to plug with troops.

- What your opponent has brought to the table and what will help you counter that. TheApothecarys power axe might spring to mind if you find yourself toe-to-toe with a

spellcaster thats getting on your nerves and want to stop them being a nuisance, or the

Mekboy's Electric Field is great when facing massed Guardian blobs.

However, these three things are heavily interlinked and pretty much triangular in nature so dont

dwell too much on which one is which: what race the enemy turns out to be will strongly affect

which strategy you choose, your strategy should pre-empt and work around any troop deficiencies it

will entail, and your troop deficiencies will largely only become relevant if your enemy decides to

exploit them with their strategy.

A simplified example: Warlock Immolate Area of Effect damage-over-time spell. This is good for

dealing a lot of damage to a large mob and also for forcing setup weapons team to pack up and

move out. The ability to dislodge setup up teams means you can probably hold off buying Rangers

for that purpose. If youre immolating the enemy, then you probably dont want to have your fragile

Banshees getting burned as well while in combat with them, so consider that in your purchases and

strategy by perhaps keeping the Banshees by your Guardians, burning the incoming mob on the way

in and then mopping up survivors outside of the immolated area with the Banshees. Another way

your execution will be affected is that if youre trying to eradicate a mob at range you should use it

to aid your Guardians damage output and cut it down in no time. Now, on the surface these just

seem like duh, thats just how you use it surely? and largely it is, but its the focus and clarity of

purpose thats important. Its perfectly possible to use it at the same time as everything else in a way

that seems acceptable, but when your army is focused and works together complimenting each

other in simple ways it becomes that much more effective. You need to think not just whether the

wargear is good on its own, but in what way it works and synergises with your troops for maximum

effect. Once youve found a connection, dont just timidly use it, capitalise on it and exaggerate it,

see how far it goes. If you're really lucky and find yourself in serious imba territory then the

sportsman will probably dial it back a little from there. Abusing the imbas is of course legitimate play

and often benefits the game significantly by highlighting design and balance flaws, but it's not

something I'd positively encourage doing on a regular basis as repeated mass abuse will catch onquick and often just makes the meta-game dull and frustrating.

Another consideration is that of the tech-tree and whether you should wait for a later piece of gear

or go for an early one. However, this is really more of a conflict between two or more of the above

elements rather than a unique factor; wanting the later piece of gear is part of your game plan and

wanting to snap up an early one instead is likely a reaction to the situation at hand or just some

indecision about your strategy. A fourth consideration I would point out though is to look for

combinations of wargear that work well together and you can have a really powerful hero on your

hands. In early patches, the Force Commander was notorious for his Daemonhammer and Iron Halo

combination, affectionately known as the Lolhammer Bubbleboy, who was nigh on indestructibleand could disrupt melee all day while scratching his ass and yawning. The Force Commander is also


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the bane of Eldar with his Teleporter and Power Fist combo, against which vehicles melt like butter.

Another notable combo in days gone past was Fortune and Doom on the Farseer which was great for

watching your Wraithlord or Banshees surprise the heck out of the enemy with the old "Surprise

motherf*cker! I'm invincible and I'm smashing your face in!" gag, especially with Guide piled on top

too. Theres plenty combos out there, and on one level they have a pleasant synergy and just feel

comfortable together which is certainly good, but theres others on another level which add up to a

lot more than the sum of their parts and become real power plays. Im not insisting you go for them

every time, but at least experiment and have a look for them because you might find some real

gems.

This is from a replay of me getting my ass kicked with the fiendish Providence + Witchblade of Kournos combo.

This allows Warlock repeatedly spam those nasty AoE melee attacks while completely invulnerable. Dang.

A big issue with wargear is when to buy your it and how much to spend on it spank your cash too

early on fancy wargear and you risk stunting your growth and teching. On the other hand, maybe it

will give that crucial early game edge. Maybe it wouldve been better spent on more troops rather

than hero specialization though...? Maybe it wouldve been better to wait for the better T2 wargear

rather than knee-jerk reacting to the enemys strategy? Who knows the answer to all these

questions? You do. Or rather, you WILL do. Wargear purchasing is a pretty personal thing and

depends on a great many factors, some factors are stable and predictable like teching rate or your

overall wargear strategy, and some are improvisational and reactive like how the battle is faring and

what youre most in danger from. Unfortunately I cannot give any hard and fast rules as to when and

where to buy wargear other than to say that of course you should only buy wargear if and when you

intend to actually use it. Its all too easy to think ooooh, sweet Ill get the Blade of Holy Righteous

Pummelation and then totally forget to use it thats 115/25 wasted right there. The better you

know and understand your wargear the less chance you have of wasting it. If you really really really

must have some kind of rough guideline because you're a neurotic, OCD type of person then go for

one piece in the middle of each tier: in T1 after a few squads, in T2 after your first vehicle, in T3

whenever, but that in no way is any kind of hard and fast rule to follow as wargear really doesdepend on a whole heap of stuff.


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Global Abilities

Global abilities are those little badgers that sit down there bottom-right just above your resources.

Each commander has four abilities and these are handily assigned to the function keys F2-F5. Space

Marines, however, have five abilities and this is basically due to the fact that one of their T3 units,

Terminators, are always a call-in. Other than that, each commander has two overall race abilities and

two commander-specific abilities, meaning that two are unique to that commander and the other

two are the available to all commanders for that race.

The Kommando Nob's line up here with Call

Da Boyz (F2) and Roks (F5) being the race

abilities and the infiltrate (F3) and

Kommando call-in (F4) being unique to the

Nob.

Global abilities come in several tastyflavours:

Global Buffs

Buffing all relevant units at once is very potent, but even more so in multiplayer. You should pay

particular attention to these spells in multiplayer as they can be real tide-turners. I can't count the

amount of times the techmarine's global repair has saved my bacon (love you Trubs!), or how many

times I've seen several enemy commanders all jump up at once with Larraman's Blessing. Eesh.

Remember to think about your whole team when using these. You might want your own

commander resurrected as soon as possible, but with the other two in the thick of combat you

should probably hold off. Tell them you've got Larraman's ready and that they can feel free to

suicide their commanders, you'll get them up a few seconds later.

Squad Buffs

Again, multiplayer can make these a little bit more interesting than in solo. People are pretty used to

seeing Banshees get the old Distortion Field treatment on the way into combat - yeah, yeah, you're

not some RTS genius, you're just copying some guy that is - but perhaps using them on Space

Marines to make them nigh-on invulnerable would be a more unexpected use of it. Or perhaps the

Kommando's infiltrate ability on the some Banshees would go down a treat. That's not to say they

aren't effective on your own troops - they are - but multiplayer just opens up so more options and

has a lot more surprise value against your opponents, and surprise value counts for a lot. It is more

difficult to not only consider your own position, but to consider your team-mates position in detail

too, so don't kill yourself trying to cast spells on them, it's just something I thought I'd bring up as

not only is it effective but it can really make a good impression on your team-mates if you're playing

with strangers.

Being effective on only one unit is the greatest limitation of these of course, and it's really easy to

forget about them in the heat of the battle as they can seem a bit fiddly. The nukes, call-ins and

global abilities always seem much more appealing as they are much easier to weigh up and execute.

However, squad specific buffs can really make a considerable difference in the fight. I know myself

that the unexpected appearance of a Nob Squad that's just appeared out of infiltration right next to


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my D-Cannon nest is a real shocker and the fight is over before it even started. In all honesty I don't

see the squad specific ones being used a great deal because they're often a tough decision to make

and often not very exciting consisting only of extra damage or durability for just one squad, but what

they do do well is flip the tables on what would usually be predictable result. If you're in a firefight

and have weighed up the two forces, some extra ranged DPS or damage reduction on a key squad

could well swing it your way, and the enemy will stay in the fight longer than usual (allowing you to

do more damage) because they'll be expecting to win and be surprised when they don't. Of course

these abilities have their identifying visual effects, but as I said they often aren't used so much and

so many people won't notice or recognise the effects, or perhaps they are used all the time it's just

that I don't recognise them myself and so miss their use! Anyway, think about these, they are good.

Call-ins & Units

Call-ins are units that are thrown down directly onto the battlefield at any point within your sight.

Note the need for sight, which means call-in units can often be combined with the Eldar Farsight

ability for maximum surprise. Not all units teleport in though, some appear at base and it's

important to know which is which. Some call-ins take the form of standard units that are in fact

cheaper than their regularly built counterpart, most notably the Warp Spiders and Kommandos.

These units only cost requisition and not any power, but they do obviously use up your zeal

equivalent. However, they have the further bonuses of having no build time and also of being

'ported in right where you need them. These are important things to remember, and I can think back

to quite a few occasions where I've built warp spiders the old fashioned way and then smacked my

head when I realised I could've just called them in for cheaper and quicker. Dang. Don't make that

mistake. That's not to say you should always buy them in that way, you might want the zeal for

something else, but it's generally it's a good thing to do. Warp Spider Exarch scooting round with

two really early warp spider squads is very effective. Usually it's pretty easy to afford one regular

warp spider at T2 and then you can get the other by way of zeal, giving you two in no time (bear in

mind it's unlikely you'll have enough zeal for two call-in squads at this point). Other than that they

are identical to their bog-standard counterpart.

The other type of call-in is unique units. These are units that you rarely see on the battlefield, but

when you do you know it's about to kick off and someone's going to get booted in the nuts. The Seer

Council is something to be feared and can really catch you out, thank God these guys only come into

play at their base, but the Venerable Dreadnought will deepstrike in right next and start breaking

some knees straight away. The zeal cost of these units is often horrifically expensive and so it really

is something to weigh up before buying; however, extra units can have much longer lasting effects

than the spells you might otherwise spend it on and so can be a very worthwhile investment. Just

bear in mind that the enemy will likely shit their pants when they see your shiny, new mega-unit and

bring all guns to bear, so often keeping them alive can be frustratingly difficult - you finally got to see

them action only to see them get pummelled to dust by enemy fire. Mint. Plan carefully and guard

them well.

Nukes

Tempting as these are, they're really easy to cock up and will basically wipe out all your zeal. In the

early months of release, you could easily see up to half a dozen nukes in a game because of the

pricing system. The other abilities were much more expensive comparatively and so much poorer


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value. The only real choice was to wait for a nuke and lay the smack down on that cheap, blobbing

son-of-a-bitch. Nowadays it's much better and it's really a choice, though perhaps it's swayed a little

in the favour of non-nukes as you don't see them hardly at all anymore. Whether you want to save

up for a nuke or give yourself an early advantage by whipping some lesser abilities out is a choice

you'll have to make depending on how the game is going. I know that I find the Warlock's Swift

Movement invaluable and so use it very often (much to my team-mates' delight), as well as Farseer's

Farsight, but it really depends on what else is in the arsenal of your commander and what you

personally like using. Call-ins need a fair amount of saving up for too, so don't forget them either.

Just be aware that there's more to globals than just saving up for nukes.

As mentioned, it's very easy to balls them up. If the enemies clocks it early enough then they'll know

to just get out of dodge as soon as possible and you'll quickly find your Roks smashing barren earth.

Oh dear, you suck. Setup weapons are an obvious targeting candidate. Something to think about is

the value of casting globals on units in combat. Units in the thick of a fight will be being watched by

their owner very carefully and so they'll react much quicker than those idling near a point they just

captured. Think about that, but also consider that nuking some units is much more effective when

you have troops close by to capitalise on it. Most of the time though, all you'll get out of a nuke is a

large scale retreat, something which roughly equates to 'time', but this is not quite the case when

you target vehicles, which are actually pretty good to go for if you can nail them.

Specials

These are basically the miscellaneous category and are hard to talk about other than going into

specific details about each and every one. Abilities like Farsight and Stalk, which don't really have

any other directly analogous equivalents, are what I'm talking about here. These you'll just have to

try out and fit into your strategy and style.

Skirmish Tactics & Unit Management

Strength in Numbers

When venturing out onto the battlefield it is wise for your troops to stick together. This might seem

obvious, but in the heat of battle it's very easy for you to get distracted and end up with your troops

separated on the field and arriving to the fight in dribs and drabs. The problem with this is that whileyou may have your economy sorted and have the same amount troops and resources, if your troops

are spilt up and the enemies troops are in a big hunting pack then they will crush your smaller forces

whenever they encounter them and take very few losses in the process. They will remain on the

battlefield while you are forced to retreat and so cap all the points making fall further behind. If,

however, you encounter the enemy with your entire force to hand then you'll stand a much better

chance of doing yourself justice and putting up a decent fight.

Important: Note that by sticking together I do not mean staying in one big attack-move blob ready

for a single suppression team to neutralize you in one fell swoop. What I mean by it is that the

troops are close enough to lend their strengths to each other and get the synergies and countersflowing, basically that they are all close enough together to be involved in the same fight, not spread


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all over the battlefield scratching their asses while their mates get hammered by a TS30+ death

march. Still, blobbing up at some point or other is inevitable (and you'll be devastated by a blob or

two as well), but with practice your micro will improve and you can stop being a big blobbing noob.

There are more considerations to this though and these change depending on what game type

you're playing. In 1v1 it's much less practical to cruise around in a big bruiser gang because there's

more ground to cover relative to the amount of players on the field and you'll find yourself getting

out-capped. In 3v3 you often only have to look after your channel or lane, and so forming up into a

pack to meet the enemy head-on is usually much more advisable. How much you bunch will take

some getting used to, it'll take a bit of judgment. If you're looking to ninja-cap some distant points

then yeah, you're going to have to break up your force to some extent. But if half your force has just

retreated and you want to make a push forwards, well it's probably advisable to sit tight until your

hombres return from being patched up back at base. This will allow you to make a proper push

forwards and actually have a chance to gain some ground, otherwise you'll find your partial forces

just crashing against the opposing troops repeatedly as they get increasingly dug-in. In team-games

you will often find that it's advisable to group up with one or both of your team-mates also and chug

round the map in a giant blob of death, a tactic that is both simple and surprisingly effective. You'll

usually completely steamroll any opposition you encounter so effectively that it will counteract the

drawback of leaving a lane unguarded (see Teamwork section). If you play any amount of games

you'll inevitably be on the receiving of this at one time or another and you'll understand how it feels

- a doubled-up (or God forbid tripled-up), late T2 force will vaporize your precious marines quicker

than you can say "Holy shit, I'm getting lolled on!"

Not only will staying a group increase your punching power, it also reduces your micro-management

concerns - having everything in one place makes it easier to keep track of what's going and which

troops are being damage heavily etc. As you get more advanced you'll find more and more instances

where perhaps you don't want to keep your forces together. The more efficient you get at using

them the more potent they become as a fighting force and the more tactical options this present to

you, you'll want to harass the enemy, ninja-cap, use stalling and territory denial tactics as well as

group up with team-mates. So, in the long-term don't take sticking together as a concrete rule, but

in the short-term - while you're still learning - keep the pack together, even if that involves waiting

for some troops to return (see Idling and Keeping Your Troops Alive sections) because doing so will

greatly increase your longevity and battlefield potency.

Focus Fire & Target Selection

Focus fire is when you get all your troops to focus their fire collectively on one target at a time.

Hypothetical situation: Four Tactical Marines face off against four more tactical marines. Each

Marine has four health and does one damage per attack (those are made up in case it wasn't

obvious). Side A uses focus fire, Side B all fire at different units. In the first attack, Side A does four

damage to one Marine and kills it; Side B does one damage to each Marine on Side B. Next attack,

Side A moves on to another marine and kills it, while Side B only does three damage to Side A.

Before the next attack, Side A still has four Marines left in varying states of health while Side B only

has two with full health. Side A continues to kill one Marine from Side B with its four troopers andSide B does just two damage to Side A, which will now have two troopers with one health, one with


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two and one with three. In the end after the fourth attack, there'll be three Marines left on Side A

with less than 100% health and no Marines left on Side B. The moral of the story isfocus your

fire! Mathematically, the four marines won't kill the other any quicker using focus fire if those

marines weren't firing back, but by focusing your fire you'll kill individual units off quicker which

means you reduce the incoming damage and so keep your troops alive longer. This of course then

increases your damage output over time relative to your enemy.

Target selection is the next issue. I generally tend to go for the most fragile units, in particular the

glass cannon units (high damage output, but very weak). If I'm facing marines I will go for the Scouts,

the reason being I will kill these off quicker than the marines and so start reducing their damage

output more quickly and start racking up the reinforcement bill too. Another example is that it's very

easy to point everything at the incoming vehicle, even if it's not doing much damage - the vehicle is

big and imposing and has that "oh shizz! Panic!!" factor about it. It may well be the best move to go

for the vehicle, but make sure you scope out the rest of the force too and judge for yourself what

the best target is. Tough to do in the heat battle I will concede, but still do try to do it. Rangers are

another juicy target are easy to decimate once detected, so sometimes it's more important to

consider not which unit is the largest threat, but rather which unit can you hurt the hardest and the

quickest. However, there are of course times when the weaker units will be doing hardly any

damage at all and so it's not worth it (say for example if you have all vehicles and they have Scouts in

with their missile tacs). It's a balance and you'll have to learn more about the units to make better

judgement calls.

Another factor is of course what counters you have. There's no point firing your dedicated, specialist

anti-vehicle weapons at that infantry as you're wasting its potential damage. Make sure you're point

the right weapons at the right targets. Of course this will push you over to the Side B in the previous

focus fire hypothetical situation, the side with spread fire, but your total damage output will be

much greater as a result and the longer it goes on the more it will pay off. It's worth also noting that

some weapons are soft counters and are useful against various things, in which case you'll have to

make a quick decision. Know which counters you have on which troops, and knowing your

opponents race and troop make-up in advance will give you more time to make your choices.

There are times when you will want to fire things at inappropriate targets, the most obvious

situation being one where there is nothing left to fire at of course. These 'rules' are really just

guidelines and suggestions. Follow them for now until you get the hang of them, see how effective

they are and in what situations, and when you get comfortable with doing all that - choosing the

right targets and focus firing - then you can start bending the rules and using them in exceptional

circumstances.


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The marines are focusing all their fire on the power node, and the Eldar are focusing on the Force Commanderto get him to retreat as soon as possible.

Abilities

Your troops have many different and powerful abilities that fill a wide variety of functions. Use them.

You should be familiar with all your units abilities of course and should be able to spot viable targets

for them straight off. For example, if you see some enemy troops in a building then the viable

targets should be programmed so deep that your low-level reptilian brain instantly hisses

"grenadessss". If you think you're still pretty new to all this then don't worry too much about thefeints and fakes mentioned in the grenades section lower down just yet, first you need to get into

the habit of using them regularly before worrying about all that shit. If you see an opportunity to use

an ability then do it, as frequently you'll not get another chance (unit dies, target dies, or target legs

it) or the battle will get hectic enough that there's more important things going on to consider, like

mashing the retreat key. Abilities are powerful, and if you get them in there quick you can often win

the battle before it's really begun. Don't wait until you realise you're deep in a heavy bolter's

suppression territory before wondering if perhaps this would be a good time to use your grenades,

just reach for the pineapple as soon as you clock the Devastator squad's presence, leg it into range

and chuck it before they know what's hit them - bam, job done. Rushing into combat with a few of

da boyz? Use the waaagh on the way, don't tentatively wait to see how it goes, just use the waagh

straight off the bat and crush them. At the early stage of the learning curve don't "umm" and "ahh"

about whether you might need it later, abilities charge up real quick so there's no real issue of

needing it later.

Like I said earlier, at this point you simply need to get into the habit of using abilities frequently as

there's lots of them and they need learning. After a while you'll start to spot which viable targets are

the best to go for, and whether to save your abilities as a response to a suspected secondary attack

where they will be more effective. But for now, don't worry about that, just go out there and use

them!


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Look at all those juicy abilities that make the Farseer so goddam sexy: Guide, Doom, Fortune, Mind War.... Use

them. Or she'll come round your house and kick your puny, nerd ass!

Squad Numbering

Just a small note about squad numbering: DOW2 numbers your squads automatically. Don't just

leave them with the numbers they are given. If you do, midway through the game you'll end up with

1. Hero 3. Guardian 5. Platform 6. Banshees 9. Falcon or something similarly ridiculous. This is hugely

cumbersome and time wasting. Change them to your preferred numbering method. Get comfortablewith that method and stick with it so you don't have to think so much about what numbers your

troops are. Use the numbers, do not waste time by clicking on the squad images on the right, keep

your left hand over the numbers on the keyboard. My preferred setup is Hero, GU, GU,

Banshee/Spider, Plat/Ranger, Vehicle, then depends from there on (it also depends on the build I go

for of course) though strangely my D-cannons always end up as number eight - go figure. Re-

consider the numbers when you lose a unit - why have GUs in 3 + 4 when 2 + 3 makes more sense?

Also bear in mind how long they've been running with their current number as that will affect my

decision to re-number, if I've been whacking five for the Spiders of Unholy Justice for the past ten

minutes then changing them to something else could prove costly. Once you get used to using

numbered squads, don't leave any squads withoutnumbers otherwise they will likely just get left

somewhere and unused.

One aspect that you may have never explored is the Company of Heroes style selection method

which requires you turn it on in the options menu outside the battle. With this switched on, when

you have a squad selected you can tab through all the units as a sub-selection and give them

individual orders that won't affect the other units in the group. Pressing tab will eventually cycle

through all the units and bring you back to having all of them selected at once. This allows you to

give much more precise controls without having to unselected yourself from the group at large.

Personally I don't utilise this a great deal, but I do have it switched on and use if it some stuff. It's on

my to-do list of stuff to get used to. This feature wasn't originally part of the game, but players were

slightly baffled as to why it was present in Company of Heroes yet this game uses an iteration of the

same engine but omitted this great feature. It was added at a later date due to popular demand.

Harassment

You dont always need to capture a point for the venture to be worthwhile. Sometimes you just

want to harass the enemy, and thankfully it's not the kind of harassment you'll get arrested for. Early

game this is important when there will often be troops exposed, vulnerable and unsupported (oh

dear, the puns are just flowing now) trying to capture a point in their own territory. If this is the case,


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attack them before they finish capturing the point so they have to stop to fend you off, and then run

off before they do any real damage. Theyll lost interest, stop chasing you and go back to the point

to try to capture it again, at which point you go back and harass them some more so they have to

stop capturing again. You have no real intention of actually capturing the point at this moment, your

goal simply to stop them capturing it. Now, the force you attack with should be as small as

necessary, but large enough to pose an actual threat to their health. This an extreme late game

example but it illustrates the point: a squad of Terminators is not going to stop capping because a

lone squad of Guardians are shooting at them as youre never going to do any real damage to them

in time. So, ideally you trying to make the enemy spend an inordinate amount of time and attention

(because all the time theyre dealing with this squad theyre distracted from other things) trying to

take this one measly point which they hopefully they dont ever mange to capture. All the while the

rest of your troops get up to other monkey business and general hi-jinx in other parts of the field.

The eventual outcome is either that they give up on the point altogether or decide to commit more

forces to take that point, more forces which are now not where they used to be. Just be careful not

to lose your own troops, especially if the enemy cavalry arrives. Use harassment as a tool to slowdown their economy and also to distract and divide their attention allowing you to do other things

elsewhere.

Another key part is in attacking undefended points yourself. Its often much easier than you think to

simply run in, de-cap a point and leg it back out. While it might seem like Big Bad Enemy Territory

where There Be Monsters, they simply cannot be everywhere at once. You dont need to capture

their points necessarily though, as this can be time consuming and leaves you dangerously exposed

and deep in enemy territory, it is often preferable to just quickly de-cap a couple points and move on

without taking them for yourself.

Power generators are another issue. You should weigh up whether you think you can hold the

generator point successfully or whether youre just going to lose it straight back. If so, consider

destroying the generators and just leaving it de-capped. However, you should watch out in the early

game, dont waste a ton of time having weak Tier 1 squads shooting generators as this can be a huge

waste for no real gain due to their often terrible building damage. All this time the enemy is gaining

strength elsewhere. If you have nothing to destroy stuff then consider moving on and harassing their

troops or a requisition point.


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This Ravener Alpha knows full well that it won't capture the point itself in this situation, but it can at least force

the Orks to stop capping and get them to chase it, dragging them out of position of slowing down the resource

collection/map control

Idling

Never leave your troops idling. Why arent they doing something? A classic to watch out for is troops

idling by a point after capturing it. Queue up commands by holding the shift key in order to help

prevent this, tell them to capture that point, then the one next to it, and then join you on the

frontline. However, do keep an eye on them because by the time they get round to those later

orders you might want them doing something different or the enemy might have turned up to kick

ass.

Another typical scenario: small skirmish occurs over a point and you win with your hero and a squad

un-retreated. So you stand there and catch your breath while you wait for your troops to come back,

right? Wrong. Push forward because the chances are they dont have any backup and you can take a

point off them and harass them. When watching replays theres been tons of times where this

happens and the opposite side of the battlefield is utterly devoid of troops because theyve all

retreated. I mean, think about how often you yourself end up retreating everyone right? Well,

theres a good chance theyre doing the same, but you wont know unless you push forward into the

fog of war (the bits of the map you cant see). Just be on your guard and be ready to run back if

necessary. Press forward into enemy territory if only to find where they are, but be on your guard

too. Information is vital and the fog of war hides many things.

I once read a book on poker and it had this tip in it: "try playing by only folding or raising, never

equalling the bet or checking, youll be surprised at the results." It sounds pretty damn brazen and

risky, but hubris can really pay off at times. So in DOW2 terms I would suggest you try this: at all

times you should be either attacking or pulling back. Attacking doesnt necessarily just mean

"making an attack", it can mean de-capping unguarded points, re-positioning to where the enemy

isn't so they must up-sticks and follow, or simply adding your surviving forces to your team-mates

force and helping them out as they make a push. Likewise pulling back doesnt just mean mashing

the X button, it includes giving ground, manoeuvring to elsewhere and tactical withdrawals. Now, as


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the poker book also commented, this isnt something you should take as an absolute rule and

adhere to it 100% even to your detriment, but its a good rule of thumb. Be proactive, you can't win

the game standing around, so keep on the offence when possible. You will be indeed be pleasantly

surprised at the results, be don't surprised when you find the rhythm and pace hard to keep up, just

keep at it and you'll develop the stamina and battle-sense for it.

"Can you hear gunshots...?.....naaaah, I'm just imagining things........hey, got any cigs?"

Keeping Your Troops Alive

You should try aiming to not lose any squads at all. Yeah, you might think that sounds ridiculously

obvious, but you're the one reading a strategy guide! As soon as you start focusing on keeping your

squads alive their longevity will increase dramatically and youll be surprised how much longer they

live, and in turn how much resource this saves you and how many more squads you can afford. You

will likely still lose some, especially in the late game as the T3 carnage kicks off, but youll get better

and better and the satisfaction of having your initial three Guardian Squads still running around at

the end all levelled up is to be savoured, not to mention the tactical benefits and how much your

economy will thank you. There's a variety of considerations and techniques where this is concerned.

Reinforcement

Dawn of War 2 differs from Dawn of War in that the cost of squads vs. reinforcements have been

flipped around. In DOW the Imperial Guard were known for their infamous squad tax as most squads

cost less than the sum of their reinforcements, so reinforcing was expensive and not recommended

in the early game. DOW2 switches this around and keeping them squads alive is crucial as replacing

them repeatedly is an expensive and time-consuming business. To this end, no squad is ever a

complete write off, even if you're only going to escape with one member then you should make an

effort to do so, especially if the squad has upgrades purchased for it. Squad leaders are usually really

tough and will often be the last surviving member, they help greatly in increasing squad longevity

and allowing you to reinforce rather than buy new.


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Knowing when to run

It is extremely important to know when to stick around and fight it out and when to get the hell out

of Dodge City (as in moving away rather than retreating). This of course ties in greatly with knowing

all the races too. In the early game this consists of knowing individual match-ups: Force Commander

against your Guardian Squad usually means run, for example. As the scale builds you have to judge

combinations of troops against yours in an instant, as well as their positions (are they in cover and

spread out or are they in a big blob). This is a hard skill to acquire and takes lots of playing to learn so

dont get disheartened, just pay attention to what just beat you in the skirmish and how. Try to leave

conflicts before it gets too late and turns into a total rout. Dont let your ranged troops get

swamped, try to move before they reach you as youll be buggered once theyre in amongst you. If

all this fails then...

Retreat

Use the X button, lots if need be. If you dont already know, troops get 80% reduction to rangeddamage when falling back and so this will save you a lot of kills and allow you to reinforce cheaply.

Melee damage is increased by 30%, however, and while you might think "oh so I shouldn't retreat

out of melee" the thing is if youre getting pasted in melee to the point where youre thinking about

retreating already then staying in melee isnt too appealing an option either. Moral of the story is

watch out for melee units, they have big pointy things!

Whaddya reckon? Did they retreat too early?

Cover

Right clicking on a piece of terrain will command the unit to take cover around it (the piece of terrain

should flash). The other signs are the coloured dots on the floor - green for good cover, yellow for ok

cover. If you get your players behind cover they will stay alive for a lot longer. Units in cover will

generally pulverise units that are out of cover, it's really noticeable. Cover also reduces the effect of

suppression, or rather it takes you longer to get suppressed (once you are suppressed though the

effects are the same). It can be hard in the heat of battle to remember to stay in cover, often

because you'll set a unit to attack and as it's out of range it'll run forward leaving the cover in order

to get a shot, but if you manage to get your units in cover all the time you'll really reap the benefits.


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However, it's worth noting that cover does not affect flame weapons and has less effect on

grenades, so watch out for that. Grenades are also useful for dislodging enemies from cover too.

These Guardians are all set. Now all they need is some dumbass enemy to wander into their trap.

Cover is also directional. In the picture below the warp spiders have teleported over the wall and so

are now behind the scouts, on their side of the cover. This eliminates the cover bonus, even though

the scouts are still hugging it. However, if the scouts run around the other side of the wall - they maydo this automatically as part of unit AI - then the cover will take effect again. Remember this when

the shoe is on the other foot too: if the cover isn't between you and the enemy then it isn't going to

do shit.


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Hai guyz!!

Positioning

The picture above the last also demonstrates another important point, that of spreading your troops

out. Each Guardian squad is sitting behind a different piece of cover. Area of effect attacks such as

grenades, ASM knockdowns, barbed strangler suppression and Tankbusta barrages are really nasty if

they catch the bulk of your force. To combat this, spreading your troops out dramatically reduces

their collective vulnerability to these dangerous attacks, and after having used their powerful attackyou can focus fire on the temporarily weaker unit. It also prevents a melee unit running in and tying

up your whole blob (eg Howling Banshees with War Shout) and you are nicely set up to dance the

target squad around while the others pour on the fire. If the melee squad targets another squad

then change your dancing unit and let the others continue to fire. However, this defence doesn't

come without sacrifice: it requires much more intensive micro-management to consistently pull off

and effectively execute and it lowers the damage output of your force sometimes as it's unlikely all

your troops will be fully in range all the time. It does set you up for layered retreats etc. though, but

another drawback is that you have to be careful who you tell them to attack as they will leave cover

and position if their target is out of range. Overall though, try to spread out more, it's for the best.

Dancing

Dancing is a micro-intensive technique you employ to distract enemy troops while wearing them

down with other units. The basic premise is that while the enemy often a lone commander, or a

commander and a squad but it can be anything goes after one of your squads your remaining

squads pelt the enemy while the targeted squad runs away and around, leading the enemy by the

nose on a merry dance while keeping it in range of your other squads. The aim of your dancing

squad is simply to not get caught and to let the other squads do the actual damage. The enemy, if

they are not dumb or distracted elsewhere, will not keep following the same squad forever, they will

change target after a while. At this point you should then switch the roles of your squads; the newly

basic tactical primer

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