Let's Play: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade

Having retreated to my listening post, I decide to set things up for either a big push or a Control Area victory by building an Infantry Command right at the base of the AI’s ramp. This does two things. First, it gives me a build queue right at the front lines, to help with the AI’s advantage re: force projection. Second, it raises my squad cap to 18 from 12 (each Infantry Command you build grants 6 additional cap). I never make it that high, but I tend to hover around 14-16 for most of the game, so the CP boost is totally worth it.


Meanwhile, back at the listening post, my upgrade is complete, and the AI’s cultists are being turned into chunky tomato sauce. They don’t make it past my forward base.


Here’s something that I don’t think I’ve ever shown in a game before (though I touched on it in my mechanics post a while back). Standing in water grants units Negative Cover, which slows them down and makes them more vulnerable to damage. The blue shield crossed out in red that’s hanging over my units’ heads here is the negative cover indicator. Note that every member of a squad has their own cover status, which encourages players to micromanage their units to better fighting positions.


Ooh, a lightshow! Too bad it’s coming from the Chaos Sorcerer shooting fiery doom at my guardsmen. The AI has built both of its commanders (Chaos Lord and Chaos Sorcerer), and is sending them and its Marine squads at my forward base. Unluckily for them, I’ve been expecting this, and have been spamming Guardsmen. Even in negative cover, fire concentration tends to trump unit quality.


Case in point. After a minute and a half of combat, the Chaos Sorcerer goes down, along with most of the Chaos Marines. The badly wounded Chaos Lord heads back into the AI’s base along with the remains of his assault force.


Because I’m an overconfident jerk who thinks that having 6 Guardsmen squads and a Command Squad should be enough to let me win the game, I follow him in, only to be reacquainted with my old friend the angry listening post. Whatever. I can take an upgraded listening post, right?

Hubris warning: I can, in fact take the listening post. What I can’t take is the Defiler that’s waddling towards me. Guardsmen Squads do exactly diddly to vehicles like the Defiler.


As foreshadowed above, I take down the listening post, but with horrific losses, as the Defiler pounds most of my Command Squad into paste.


As the Defiler waddles off to destroy the listening post to the west, the AI sends a squad of Khorne Berserkers into my base. These guys are pretty scary, especially because they’re made of meat and Guardsmen... aren’t, but quantity has a quality of its own. I throw Guardsmen at them in a human wave, and eventually they go down.


Defiler, Listening Post. Listening Post, Defiler. I think you’ll get along just fine for the 30 seconds before the Defiler rips you open like a cardboard box.

Thankfully, the AI didn’t have an infantry unit to follow up this attack and decap the point.


Meanwhile, I’m back in the AI’s base, killing his Chaos Lord.

It would literally take several minutes of this kind of fire to kill the Defiler. Thankfully, I’m in the middle of upgrading my turret to shoot missiles, which will expedite the process so it might even die before the game ends.


About the time my turret finishes upgrading, the AI teleports Obliterators into my base. If the AI had actually captured a reasonable number of strategic points and had money left after teching up, I’m pretty sure I would’ve lost this game – as it is, only my grotesque cash advantage and overwhelming quantity of Guardsmen are holding these guys off. And of course there’s the victory timer, which will give me the game in 13 seconds.


...Phew.

So, as my late-game experiences suggest, Guardsmen don’t hold up very well against vehicles, or even advanced infantry in the absence of gross numerical superiority. I built a Mechanized Command in my forward base about two minutes before the game ended, but never got around to researching and building Sentinels or Hellhounds because I was so busy holding off the AI’s last-ditch assaults.

I’m sure that a better player than I could’ve overrun the AI with vehicles instead of going for the cheap win, but I’m not very good at balancing my resources (including my attention) while playing Guard – you end up with so many units on the field that unless you’re a master, the best way to keep your squads up to strength is to use Overwatch (which you activate by right-clicking on a build or reinforce button, instead of left-clicking) to automatically reinforce them all to full. Sadly, this drains resources which might be better used elsewhere.

Before this Let’s Play, I knew that the Necrons were bad news. I just didn’t know how awful they actually were.


Builder Scarabs
At first glance, Builder Scarabs aren’t all that impressive, as they’re standard builders that can be reinforced up to a squad cap of 3. That lasts until you realize that they’re the only Necron unit that can capture strategic points (and variants), and that compared to other builder units, they’re tough as nails.

Oh, and did I mention that they’re completely free, aside from their build time? Even reinforcing them costs you nothing.


Necron Warriors
Necron Warriors are slow to build, slow to move, and slow to reinforce. On the other hand, they’re free, they’re accurate even while moving, and they’re hellishly hard to kill. (Hey, it’s almost like that’s a theme for Necron units.) Also, they’re stronger than pretty much any other Tier 1 Heavy Infantry unit, so despite their speed, you can do pretty horrible things with them if you buy the time needed to move them up by rushing your opponent’s base with your Necron Lord.

On the downside, their build time increases significantly the more squads of them you have on the field, so you can't just swarm your opponents with free Necron Warriors. Which is probably for the best.


Wraith
Wraiths are the Necron’s scouts and stealth detectors. They’re also high damage anti-infantry and anti-structure units, and can uncapture (but not capture) strategic points and the like. Oh, and they’re immune to morale damage and can phase shift to make themselves invulnerable (and unable to deal damage) for 10 seconds. They’re pretty handy, especially if you don’t want to waste one of your Necron Lord’s 3 power slots on stealth detection.


Flayed Ones
To quote myself: Flayed Ones are bad news against infantry, because they radiate a fear aura that deals constant morale damage. Oh, and you can teleport/deep strike them onto the field, which makes them great reinforcements and base raiders. Also? Immune to morale damage.

Who knew that robot monsters that wear the skins of their foes could be so handy?


Immortals
I’ve never actually used these guys in combat, so I can’t speak to their strengths from experience, but the tooltips and the Relic wiki inform me that they’re great versus vehicles, and can hold their own in melee. They’re weak against anti-infantry weapons, though, so Space Marines and Fire Warriors can take them out, and unlike Flayed Ones and Wraiths, they actually take Morale damage.


Necron Lord
Ah, the Necron Lord. One of two micro-management focused units that the Necrons have (the other is the Lord Destroyed), the Necron Lord is one of the best commanders in the game. Not only can he teleport (like the Big Mek) but players can research additional powers for him at the Forbidden Archive as they tech up. The Necron Lord can only learn 3 special abilities (as well as the Essence of the Nightbringer ability), but pretty much all of them are extremely handy. The Lightning Field ability is probably the best, because its damage cap is bugged, allowing it to be charged indefinitely by incoming damage, which makes it theoretically possible for the Necron Lord to kill any unit in the game. That said, the abilities you should research are largely context-dependent – I’ve used Sonar Pulse to good effect in the past, and it’s probably the weakest of the Necron Lord’s powers.


Tomb Spyder
Tomb Spyders are ridiculous, which is why I’m describing them here despite the fact that they’re more of a Tier 2.5 unit than a Tier 2 one. It has relatively low health for a combat vehicle, but it wrecks enemy infantry and structures, can collect nearby corpses to reprocess them into Necron Warriors, Flayed Ones, and Immortals, and can sacrifice 30% of its health to produce Attack Scarabs, which are highly effective (and expensive) anti-vehicle units. If you see a Tomb Spyder coming, there’s a good chance the game’s already over.


Destroyer
The Necron Destroyer is an Immortal’s torso mounted on a floating vehicle platform and armed with anti-infantry gauss cannon. They’re great at range, and highly mobile compared to other Necron units, but can be tied up in melee combat. It’s pretty expensive, but it builds quickly, and only suffers in comparison to the Tomb Spyder, which is pretty hard to compete with.

As is suggested by my preliminary comments and some of the unit descriptions, I did very well when I played as the Necrons. Probably too well, really, given how utterly I thrashed an AI playing Tau on the Harder difficulty. My wins with Space Marines aren’t usually that decisive.

You're underestimating the Necron Lord's potential. One of his abillities lets you res all Necron units in a given area. Even if this would surpass your unit cap. Because that's not an advantage at all, no sir.

Oh, and the Nightbringer is invincible, and I believe it lasts longer the more it kills. Seriously, screw the Necrons.

What, you mean the fact that the guys you res come back at 25% health doesn't balance that ability? I am shocked, sir.

Seriously, though, I agree that the Necron Lord is ridiculous. The problem is that I've only just started playing with Necrons in a serious way, so I don't really know how to maximize that ridiculousness yet.

Oh my my Malefor you have no idea how rediculous the necrons can get... Where the Imperial Guard are great early game and kind of taper off at the higher levels the Necrons are a bit slow early on and quickly get crazy.

Take out nothing but 4-6 full squads of warriors plus a res lord and head towards the nearest base. Once any of your squads start taking casulties start reinforcing them quickly. Once you start taking serious casulties (more then 50% losses) Use the res power of the lord in the middle of everyone and you will end up going over the pop cap and can then reinfoce the squads above the cap.

This gets even more crazy when you get a monolith fully upgraded and can carry your production with you. And a well turtled Necron Base is a pain to break as they can have 3 monoliths cranking out Necrons for no cost...

The Necrons are a slow and ungainly race but since the basic Necron Warriors can rip apart infantry and heavy infantry with ease and take vehicles fairly easily with 2-3 squads focus firing there is often no need to build anything else.

Well, guys, I'm afraid that I don't do anything super-mega-broken in my Necron playthrough here... aside from completely crushing the AI's chances of victory about 5-7 minutes into the game. The thing is, as usual, the most broken stuff you can do with the Necrons requires you to reach Tier 2, at which point most 1v1 games are already over.

Map: Frostbite River
Necrons vs. Tau (Harder)

I’m not sure if this particular map is especially good for the Necrons (though I suspect it is), but I’ve had 100% success at smashing the AI’s economy and production structures with a Necron Lord rush on Frostbite River. Part of that appears to be the fact that there are 4 strategic points inside the perimeter of each starting area, which means that it’s trivially easy to get an 80% production speed bonus by capturing and capping those points with Obelisks.

I’m leaning towards doing my 4-player game as Necrons, given how utterly silly the Necron Lord and co. can be. Though I may do one game as Space Marines and another as Necrons, since I know the upper tier units on Space Marines better.


My build order as Necrons is actually slightly unconventional. I believe that the orthodox build order is Scarab x2, Necron Lord, Necron Warriors x2, with the first two builder scarabs (including the one you start with) building Plasma Generators and the third capping points. I went Builder Scarab, Necron Lord, Builder Scarab, Necron Warriors x2, Builder Scarab, and sent my first scarab to build Plasma Generators while the second capped points.

This approach reduces your early income, but since Necrons don’t need income to build most of their early units, it’s not a big deal. Also, getting the Necron lord out half a minute earlier can be key, as is getting an early 20% boost to your build speed (for units, structures, and upgrades). On the downside, you lose the redundancy of having multiple plasma generators early, which could be deadly against an opponent that rushes you or engages in effective econ harassment. Thankfully, I avoided that problem by stomping on the AI's base.


The Necron Lord, like the Tomb Spyders, actually starts the game as a corpse on the ground next to your monolith. The blue and gold thing in the crater to the right of my monolith is a Tomb Spyder, while the black splotch behind my Necron Lord is the crater which he was lying in just moments before I took this screenshot.


The AI is apparently trying to steal a march on me by harassing/capturing my strategic points. Unfortunately, it sent Vespids to my base, which, um, can’t capture strategic points. And they don’t attack my generators either.

Actually, I’m not entirely sure what the point of this scouting trip was, unless Relic’s AI actually needs to scout. (I’d be surprised if it did.)


Meanwhile, I’ve teleported my Necron Lord most of the way across the map, and am busily harassing the AI by killing its Earth Caste Builders as they attempt to build listening posts. The AI loves to hammer on the listening posts proper, but if you can kill a builder while the listening post is in progress, roughly half of the time the half-finished listening post will explode on the builder’s death. This is a highly efficient way to disrupt your opponent’s economic buildup.


Back at my base, I’m spamming plasma generators. The Necrons’ first plasma generator is free, and then each generator after that costs (20 * N) power, where N = the # of plasma generators you have completed + however many you’re currently building. There’s a point of diminishing returns on building Plasma Generators, but I generally don’t stop building up my economy until I have 7-8 of them. This may not be optimal, though – I haven’t done the math, so I tend to go with what feels right.


After my Necron Lord takes out the Earth Caste Builder and the listening post he was working on, the AI gets serious and sends a bunch of Kroot and a Tau Commander after me. I teleport my Lord out of the way of the Kroot and have him close to beat the Tau Commander in the face with his staff. Luckily for me, the AI hasn’t bought the Flamer upgrade, and I dispose of him handily.


After some more skirmishing with the AI’s Vespids and Kroot, my Necron Warriors finally make it across the field. My Lord hangs around for a little bit to back them up, and then teleports out of combat, so he can heal for a bit.


Here you see my Necron Warriors under attack from Tau Stealthsuits. The Stealthsuits don’t do that much damage, and I have no way to detect stealth without building Wraiths or buying the Sonar Pulse power from the Forbidden Archive, so I just ignore them and pummel the listening post they're guarding with my Necron Warrior’s gauss flayers.


Once that listening post is down, I move on to the next one. I didn’t notice this at the time, but the AI was actually sniping my Necron Warriors with a Fire Warrior squad at long range. If they’d stayed at extreme range, it’s entirely possible that I would’ve lost most of my guys and had no idea why.


Thankfully, they didn’t. This is actually the second Fire Warrior squad that the AI basically marched into the guns of my Necron Warriors. I’m not really sure why the AI’s stealthsuits couldn’t have spotted for them, but not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I cut them down.

Also, those shields there are cover symbols. Not that being in cover helped those Fire Warriors to any appreciable degree...

Finally, after enduring five minutes of uninterrupted fire from the AI’s stealthsuits, my first Wraith shows up. I don’t actually end up targeting the stealthsuits that you see here for a while, but at least I have the option to do so now.


Rather than go after the steathsuits, I go after a second Tau Commander. This one goes down just like the first, and this time, I don’t even give the AI long enough to buy the Flamer upgrade.


I move on to the Tau Barracks next. Only once it goes up in a puff of blue flames do I turn to exterminating the stealthsuits that have been irritating me for so long.


Watching units explode into gibs has never been this satisfying.


While my Wraith hares off on its own to die an inglorious death under the guns of the southernmost listening post, my Necron Warriors lay waste to the two listening posts in the middle of the AI’s base. Here you see them crushing the second one.


At the same time, my Necron Lord and a squad of Flayed ones are busy trying to keep the AI from finishing a second Tau Barracks. Unfortunately, it’s done before I can kill the Builder that was working on it.


Oh, well. Guess I have to take it out the old-fashioned way.


Once the barracks is down, I turn on the Cadre Headquarters. The stealthsuits on the bottom left are being extremely annoying, but unfortunately, in the absence of a Wraith or Sonar Pulse, there’s nothing I can do about them. And I’m going to kill the Cadre Headquarters long before the Wraith I have queued up can make it across the map.


I included this picture because the Flayed One standing right beneath the Cadre Headquarters was dead in the last screenshot and had just stood up in this one. That kind of thing is surprisingly handy when you’re trying to deliver the finishing blow to a production building.


Sadly, killing the Cadre HQ didn’t immediately win me the game, as the AI had started another Tau Barracks in order to stave off defeat. I killed the Barracks and won the game about one second after I took this screenshot, though.

This is obviously not the subtlest, most skillful, or most broken use of the Necrons ever – I essentially just rushed the AI’s base, harassed their economy and slaughtered their combat units to keep them on the back foot, teleported in reinforcements, killed their primary production structure, and then killed everything else. The thing is, it worked – essentially, after I killed the first barracks, the AI didn’t really have a chance, even after my Wraith wandered off and got itself killed. You could even argue that the game began to slip out of the AI's grasp when I killed off the first Tau Commander, as I’d already destroyed a listening post, a builder, and the majority of a squad of Kroot by then, while sustaining no real losses of my own.

Essentially, Necrons have a Tier 1 commander who is a very effective harassment unit, and have a significant advantage in combat once they’ve teched up to Tier 2-3 and can use the Necron Lord and Tomb Spyders to resurrect dead units. There’s a very narrow window of opportunity in Tiers 1.5 & 2 for other factions to get an edge on the Necrons, and if you can use that to camp on their doorstep, you can keep your boot on their throat for the entire game, but the combination of early harassment and late game power makes the Necrons an extremely dangerous (and probably overpowered) faction to play against.

Apologies for the long lag between this update and the last. We're almost done here.

As the title here suggests, Eldar are really fiddly and micro-management heavy. No, really. Practically every single unit they have gets a special ability or two, and not necessarily the ones you’d think.


Bonesinger
Let’s take their builder. Necron and Ork builders come in hordes. Orks & Guard builders can fight. Chaos builders can be worked to death. Bonesingers can teleport once every two minutes.

That’s right, the Eldar win the war of ‘whose builder is coolest’. Not necessarily ‘whose builder is most useful’ since bonesingers are made of tinfoil and glass as far as health goes, but damn, teleportation? That’s mighty handy if you can multi-task well enough to take advantage of it.


Guardians
The basic Eldar infantry unit has two advantages. One, they can actually hold their own in combat, like Guardsmen Squads and unlike, oh, cultists or scout marines. Two, you can buy a Warlock (squad commander) for them the instant that you produce them, which gives them stealth detection. This is surprisingly handy against Tau, Chaos, and other Eldar players, as well as Space Marine players who decide to make their Scout Marines infiltrated.

Guardians benefit from a billion different upgrades, one of which (Plasma Grenades), keeps them useful even after they’ve become too fragile for frontline combat. Also, if you research the Fleet of Foot ability (which benefits all Eldar infantry) you can make Guardians or any other Eldar infantry unit move faster at the price of accuracy. You have to toggle the ability constantly to get its full benefits, though.


Rangers
Rangers are one of the most annoying and dispiriting units that an Eldar player has at their disposal, so long as you research Ranger Infiltration. I kind of laughed at researching that for Scout Marines, but that’s because you have to buy their sniper rifles separately. Rangers, on the other hand, start with sniper rifles. Essentially, if you’re facing off versus massed infantry and your opponent isn’t playing Chaos, Rangers are essentially required. They shatter morale like no one’s business, and most of the time, your opponent can’t even shoot back.


Howling Banshees
Howling Banshees are a perfect example of why I’m a bad Eldar player. They do a lot more damage than most other Eldar units at their tech level, and all it takes to use them properly is to be able to micro them into melee. The problem is, this requires that you use Fleet of Foot and can watch them closely enough to make sure that they’re attacking the right target and keeping melee units off of your Guardian and Ranger squads, and I suck at that. Expert Eldar players (and the computer) can use Banshees to turn your ranged troops to kibble, though.


Dark Reapers
Dark Reapers are ranged anti-infantry specialists, and I typically lean on them instead of Howling Banshees unless I’m facing off against melee units like Assault Marines or Kroot. If you shield them with Guardian Squads, they can pump out quantities of damage on the order of Tau Fire Warriors. While their weapons go obsolete in the late game, in a 1v1, you should be able to use them to steal an early advantage, given that vehicles don’t even become available until Tier 2.5.

You'll notice that the Dark Reapers are basically the complete opposite of the Howling Banshees. Fictionally, this is the product of Eldar warriors dedicating themselves to a particular totemic Aspect, resulting in their military being both extremely skilled and extremely specialized. Winning as Eldar (in both Dawn or War and Warhammer 40k) is all about using superior mobility to deploy exactly the right forces to exactly the right place to counter your opponent's strategy. If you don't do this, the relative fragility of your units will doom you.


Fire Dragons
Fire Dragons are the Eldar’s anti-vehicle & -structure specialists. Their damage versus infantry, unlike every other flame-based unit in the game, is utterly pathetic – they don’t even do a decent amount of morale damage. I usually only build them in the late game to help me finish off a crippled opponent, though there’s an argument that could be made for building them earlier to kill off listening posts or any vehicles your opponent has put out.


Harlequin
Hey, yet another unit that I can’t use which makes me quake in my boots when I see the AI or another player using it. (You may have noticed that this is a theme.) Harlequins are savage anti-commander units, and can also be used to pin down and disrupt an enemy infantry squad while the rest of your forces clean up. Their Dance of Death ability knocks down and throws opposing infantry around, while the Harlequin’s Kiss deals 4000 damage to the targeted unit and 200 damage to everything around it, friend or foe. Plus they detect stealth. Highly recommended for the micromanagers out there.


Farseer
Farseers are thankfully a little less micro-intensive than Harlequins, despite starting with 3 different abilities – and having 2 more you can research! Psychic Storm deals AoE damage over 10 seconds, Mind War slows the affected squad and deals damage to a squad leader/commander in preference to all other targets, and Guide buffs the DPS of one of your squads. Fortune (research required) reduces damage dealt to nearby units for 15 seconds, while Eldritch Storm (research required) deals massive damage to any units in the affected area.

The Relic Wiki recommends that players not build the Farseer in Tier 1, and I've found that’s usually correct unless you need a tank to soak up melee damage. Still, all of those special abilities can be pretty handy.

Falcon Grav Tank
I’ve been hating on transports for pretty much every other faction. Not this time, though, as the Eldar transport is great, if somewhat pricey. It starts out with a nice balance of anti-infantry and anti-vehicle weapons, some of which it can even fire on the move, and you can upgrade its anti-vehicle Brightlance into a morale-shattering Starcannon.

Oh, and by the way, the Falcon can jump. As in, jump up and down cliffs, over buildings, and the like. This is great on its own, but it’s also a transport, so you can (for example) load it up with a Fire Dragon squad and jump it past your enemy’s defenses into their base, then unload the Fire Dragon squad and use the Falcon to provide cover and fire support while the Fire Dragons burn everything down.


Vyper
Vypers are a slightly cheaper, slightly more fragile and generally more specialized version of the Falcon. If you want to be able to do hit-and-run attacks on your opponent’s listening posts, and flank and take out vehicles, Vypers are great, but if they ever get pinned down by anti-vehicle fire, they won’t last long.

Like Falcons, Vypers can jump, though it’s less exciting because they aren’t a transport. Like most of the Eldar infantry (other than Guardians, Rangers, and the commander units) Vypers have to be unlocked before you can build them, and I don’t usually consider it to be worth the cost and effort.


Wraithlord
Wraithlords, on the other hand, are totally worth it, should the game run long enough. Their flamers deal pretty good morale damage, their starcannon deals decent anti-vehicle and anti-infantry damage, and their melee attack just mauls everything. Also, they have way more health than most other Eldar units, so you can use them to tank for your infantry or your Falcons. When they get damaged and you don’t want to use them in melee any more, you can buy a Brightlance for them to give them a good ranged attack. As shown in the game I lost to the Eldar, multiple Wraithlords can deliver an utterly savage beating to your opponent.

Map: Shrine of Excellion
Eldar versus Imperial Guard (Hard)

I actually chose “Random” as the AI’s faction here, so I didn’t know what side I’d be playing against going in. My build order was Guardian Squad x2, Bonesinger, Guardian Squad, because Shrine of Excellion is a big open map with few natural barriers between its strategic points, and grabbing as many of them as you can as early as you can is the key to victory.

Oh, and as for the 'Craftworld' thing - most Eldar live in huge space arks known as Craftworlds, because the planets which they once occupied were consumed by the Eye of Terror (a huge area of space where the Warp spills into reality) when the decadence of Eldar civilization triggered the creation of the Chaos God Slaanesh. Needless to say, if a Craftworld is destroyed, a significant portion of the remaining Eldar will die with it.


I’ve reinforced all of my Guardian Squads with a Warlock and another Guardian, in case I run into enemy units. The Warlocks are insurance against Tau stealthsuits (since they detect stealth), while the extra guardian is a buffer against the AI preemptively reinforcing their squads. If and when I get into combat, I’ll set the squad to Overwatch so it’ll keep on reinforcing itself until it hits the squad cap.


This was the first engagement of the game, with my Guardian Squad turning a Guardsman Squad led by a Commissar into giblets. At this point, each of us controls roughly half the map, though I’m in the middle of capturing the single Critical Location in the map’s center.


Here you see me building a Webway Gate. In the hands of a proper Eldar player, webway gates let you transport your units from one side of the map to the other, allowing rapid responses to your enemy’s moves. You can also upgrade webway gates to make them heal nearby units and cloak nearby structures.

They also increase your command point cap, which is the only thing I use this gate for in the course of the entire game. (I told you I was a bad Eldar player.)


The Guardian Squad that capture the Critical Location got boxed in by a pair of Guardsmen Squads led by Commissars on its way out of the center of the map. It took some hits, but quickly regrouped with another Guardian Squad and an infiltrated group of Rangers.


My massed infantry then returned to the Critical Location (where the AI was scurrilously trying to start a victory countdown) and made short work of both the Guardsman Squad that had been dispatched to capture it and the Imperial General that arrived shortly thereafter to back them up.


This is an object lesson in setting your units to the proper stance. Instead of setting this Guardian Squad to Stand Ground, I left them on Hold Ground, which meant that they chased an enemy unit all the way into the AI’s base, where the combined fire of 3 Techpriest Enginseers, a Heavy Bolter Turret, and a Guardsmen Squad made short work of them.

Ranged units should always be set to Stand Ground (or Burn, if you want them to actively destroy nearby enemy structures). Melee specialists can be left on Hold Ground (which is the default), though Stand Ground will keep them from doing stupid things like charging Bolter Turrets. If you don’t set your units to Stand Ground, you need to micro them like mad, or they will inevitably wander off and do something pointless and self-destructive.

Anyway. Rant over.


Thankfully, the AI was returning the favor on the other side of the map. Here you see it running a pair of Techpriest Enginseers past my massed infantry. It sent wave after wave of doomed Techpriests at me for several minutes, before I got tired of snuffing them and started going after its listening posts.


Of course, killing its listening posts made the AI send even more Techpriests my way. Go figure.


In addition to showing the latest Techpriest to sacrifice himself on the altar of Excellion (seriously, the AI did not stop spamming them and sending them off to die), this screenshot shows the Imperial Guard’s radar scan (that reddish circle on the ground beneath my units). The Guard’s only stealth detectors are Psykers, so to compensate for this, they get an ability on their Command Post which lets them spend 25 power to scan an area of the map for infiltrated units. The fact that I was using Rangers meant that the AI was constantly scanning for them. Interestingly, the scans weren’t always effective, which suggests that the AI was actually trying to guess where my Rangers had set up camp.


After about 3 minutes of killing Enginseers, I decided that I should probably capture the strategic points that the AI so desperately wanted to cap, and dispatched my two Guardian squads to take care of business. You can see my Dark Reapers, Rangers, and Farseer hanging out in the foreground, ready to exterminate any Guardsmen who came their way.

Shortly after capturing those two points, I finished my Soul Shrine (the Eldar upgrade building, and a prerequisite for Tier 2). Here you see me researching Reinforced Armor and Advanced Optics, which should make my fragile units significantly more effective.


Immediately after completing my Soul Shrine, I also started construction on a Support Portal, the Eldar’s vehicle production structure. I, um, didn’t expect the AI to have a Heavy Bolter in range of where I planted it, though, so the entire time my Bonesinger was building the Portal, this turret was hammering away at it. That was a little awkward.


With the strategic points captured, I moved my main force into the AI’s base, taking down their Infantry Command. While this doesn’t cripple a Guard player as badly as most other factions (since they can still build Guardsmen from their HQ), reducing the AI’s build output from 2 queues to 1 pretty much sealed the deal right there.


Unfortunately, as I moved my Eldar deeper into the AI’s base, it became clear that it had spammed a lot of turrets in inconvenient places. It took some micromanagement to get my Farseer into a position where it could attack the Field Command without getting hit by that damn turret.


Despite having a turret hammering on it, the Support Portal gamely churned out two Falcon Grav Tanks, which proceeded to smash the inconveniently placed Heavy Bolter Turret into smithereens.


Back in the AI’s base, I eventually got tired of having to tiptoe around that damn turret and sent all my infantry to rub it out. With that taken care of, my main force returned to the slow and thankless task of wearing down the AI’s Headquarters building, along with any Guardsmen or Techpriests that it pumped out.


While there were several turrets and an upgraded listening post between my Falcons and my main force, I disposed of that obstacle by using the Falcons’ ability to jump over them. Flying tanks are sweet.


With a pair of Falcons backing them up, my main force made short work of the Field Command. I’d researched the ability to build Wraithlords at this point, but there wasn’t any point in making any.


The game hasn’t quite registered that I’ve won yet, so my units are firing on a plasma generator out of, well… spite, really. Nothing like kicking someone when they’re down!

…and we’re done! Whew.

That’s it for the main body of this Let’s Play, though I promised people that I’d play a 4-player free-for-all or two to show off some of the higher tier units. A big “thank you” goes out to all of my readers and those who commented and replied – I know that this wasn’t exactly the most popular Let’s Play out there, or the one with the most opportunities for reader contributions, but I hope it was at least somewhat educational and entertaining for those who stuck with it.

This seems to be the central theme of the game.

Dawn of War is surprisingly light on the micromanagement, actually, especially compared to classics of the genre like Starcraft. Space Marines and Chaos are both more macromanagement/economy-based factions (Space Marines spam + rockets will get you surprisingly far) while Orks are meant to be macro-based but kind of fail to live up to the hype because of their funky specialized resource. Tau are (obviously) somewhat micro-based, but not excessively so, and the Imperial Guard and the Necrons aren't too bad either - in the case of the Guard, you just have to attach commanders to your units, while the Necrons are all about effective use of the Necron Lord and building up your economy.

The only faction that requires a truly silly amount of button-pushing and toggling to reach its full potential is the Eldar, as A) you have to research the ability to build most of their units, B) every single one of those units has the potential to have one or more abilities, and C) they have a zillion upgrades to improve their units or unlock said abilities. (The Farseer can have 6 different ability buttons and god only knows how many upgrades applied to her.) I'm sure that a skilled player of C&C 3 or Starcraft would have no problem beating me into a pulp with the Eldar, though, fiddly or not.

(I should note that "Surprisingly light" for an RTS is still fairly fiddly, though. YMMV and all that.)

Just wanted to let you know you did a good job here. I've just been lurking, since I have no experience with this game/universe. Can't wait to see the free-for-all.

So my first attempt at a Free-for-all game crashed and burned because, well, I let the computer randomly determine my opponents' factions.

I was playing Necrons.

The AI player right next to me? Playing Necrons, making the first 10 minutes of the game a complete mirror match.

The AI player who showed up in my base with his entire army just as I was about to stomp the first AI player flat? Also playing Necrons.

I think I'm going to have to be a little more careful about the faction assignments on my next try.

So I have 60+ screenshots to sort through for this one. Since my first big game with Necrons revealed that I have absolutely no idea how to play them beyond Tier 2, I went back to Space Marines and set up the AIs as Tau, Eldar, and Chaos. (I wasn't about to revisit the Necron v. Necron v. Necron debacle of my last attempt.) It actually turned out pretty well, but both the game (41 minutes long) and capturing the screen shots took forever, so I'll probably post the actual description of the battle either tomorrow or on Monday.

Just FYI, I think I'm going to call it quits on the LP after this, as 4 player free-for-all games are a completely different beast than 1v1s, in terms of the effort needed to play, screenshot, and write them up. While I'm curious about what it's like to play as Necrons in the late game, I don't think I'm curious enough to want to commit to the full day it would require to get a good game recorded and write it up properly.

Map: Ariel Highlands
Space Marines vs. Chaos vs. Eldar vs. Tau (Hard AI)

In addition to being larger than 1v1 maps, 4+ player maps also tend to have a lot more strategic points for players to capture. Not only that, but they’re, um, often right next to each other, which makes them A) easier to capture in the early game and B) easier to defend in the late game (since you can upgrade both listening posts and drop additional turrets around them as needed).


As you can see, most of this map’s strategic points are right on top of each other. Also, I went for a Scout Marine x2, Servitor, Tactical Squad, Force Commander build order, because I wanted to have a rapid reaction force that could put pressure on one of my opponents as soon as possible.


This proved to be a wise decision, as my initial scouting foray ran into a squad of Fire Warriors. Which ran away, because as we all know, the AI in Dawn of War is a fricking coward in the early game. (The fact that a reinforced Tactical Squad >> unreinforced Fire Warriors has no bearing on anything.)


Meanwhile, up north, the Eldar and Chaos players are going at it. Here we see a squad of Rangers being butchered by Chaos Space Marines and a squad of Cultists who are serving as stealth detectors and meat shields for the Chosen of the Dark Gods.


I’m honestly uncertain as to why the Eldar player isn’t crushing the Chaos player with the sheer weight of their army of Guardians, but I suppose it’s a question for the ages. That is *some* Guardian spam, btw. The only issue I take with the AI’s approach is the fact that it hasn’t built any plasma generators yet. (We’ll come back to this point later.)


Here we see the AI countering my reconnaissance force with a fully reinforced squad of stealthsuits. Neither my Force Commander nor my Marines can detect stealth, so I retreat to the nearest listening post so I can recruit a Skull Probe that will let me squash these annoying little bastards.


A minute and a half later, I have a Skull Probe and another fully reinforced Tactical Squad, so I head back to engage the Tau once more.


The Tau player appears to have been spamming Kroot. This seems dubious – a combination of Kroot and fire support would be significantly more effective.


Ah, okay. There’s the fire support, in the form of a Tau Commander. Too bad he only showed up after all of his meat shields got pulped.

The Tau AI, like the Imperial Guard AI before it, seems to be obsessed with sending builder units to die under the withering fire of my main force. I don’t spend much time on them, though, as I’m going to need to crush the Tau quickly so I can move on to my other opponents.


After killing the Tau Commander, I move on to the listening posts outside the Tau base, and then into the base itself, which was surprisingly lightly defended.


Oh, I see. The Tau sent their fully reinforced Fire Warriors off to do something other than defend their base from my Blood Angel taskforce. Good plan, AI! I approve heartily.

Anyway, the Fire Warriors dealt a fair amount of damage to my forces (thus the two-man squad firing at them from atop the ramp) before reinforcements showed up behind them and ripped them to shreds.

With the main Tau force out of the way, there wasn’t much left to do in their base besides mopping up.


Moving my main force into the middle of the map, I found that the Eldar had captured pretty much everything. Surprisingly, though, there weren’t any actual Eldar (or Chaos) forces to be seen. As a result, I began razing every Eldar listening post I came across to the ground, starting with the one on this Imperial Relic.


Meanwhile, this? Was the entirety of the Chaos player’s army at the time. The Eldar player, by sheer force of Guardian & Howling Banshee spam, had pushed them all the way back into their base.


Note that the Eldar player still hadn’t built any plasma generators. I’m not sure if this is an AI bug or what, but sometimes the AI doesn’t build plasma generators at all, effectively locking itself at Tier 1.

I’ll give you one guess as to whether that’s what happened here.


Anyway, despite having pushed Chaos all the way back to their base, the fact that the Eldar player couldn’t tech up meant that once Chaos built up its army again, it could only mount a token resistance. These Guardians have no chance at all against the Khorne Berserkers & various commanders that the Chaos player has at his command.


Meanwhile, I’ve skipped straight past Tier 2 & building Dreadnoughts in favor of spamming Predators (hey, shades of C&C 3!). Predators are the second-best vehicle unit available to Space Marines players, and the best is the Land Raider, which requires a stupidly expensive upgrade (which I will eventually buy, in absence of better things to use my money on) and a Relic (which I won’t capture until after I’m maxed my vehicle CP). They’ve got a main gun and two side turrets, and can take a ridiculous amount of punishment.


Also, the strategic points just north of my Machine Cult are heavy fortified, in the expectation that one of the AI players would attack me on that front. They never do, but if they did, this base could put up some good resistance until my main blob of troops showed up.


Because the Eldar were perilously close to winning a Take & Hold victory, I had a Tac Squad recapture the Critical Locations in the center of the map. The Howling Banshees that are running past didn’t even scratch them.

Note that this is the first time that I’ve actually seen an Eldar unit – at the 17 minute mark. The deployment of everyone’s units since my defeat of the Tau (6 minutes earlier) has been a kind of comedy of errors in that regard.


This is what my main force looked like at this point. Note that it no longer really fits on a single screen.


…whereas this is Chaos’s entire army (plus or minus a squad of Chaos Marines).

That comedy of errors I referred to before? It’s about to come to an end.

--

Unfortunately, I have to go to work now, so the rest of this update will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow. Until then, enjoy the first installment!

Sorry about the late update/conclusion – I got horribly, incapacitatingly ill on Monday night, and was laid up all yesterday. But enough about me. Back to the slaughter!


…I wasn’t kidding about the slaughter, by the way. That’s my giant blob of troops moving into contact with the Chaos player’s giant blob of troops. From here on out, it’ll be a miracle if anyone can figure out what’s going on in these screenshots.

You’ll note my Force Commander & his Chaos Lord in the forefront of our respective armies. The AI also has a lot of Horrors deployed, which means that I’ll probably be losing a Predator or two in the course of this fight, though thankfully Horrors are pretty much worthless versus infantry.


Just to make things a little easier to track, here’s a screenshot of the bottom of the gigantic abattoir that my units are busily creating. There’s a bunch of Khorne Berserkers kicking the crap out of what I think is my Force Commander. While I doubt he’ll make it, the Predator on the bottom right should make short work of them, assuming it gets a little help from the horde of marines that’s engaged in the center of the battle.


Here’s the main battle. My force is mostly tactical squads, though you can see some Assault Marines just above the Predator on the left. The AI has its Chaos Lord & Horrors towards the bottom, who are pretty much drowning in Tactical Marines, and more Khorne Berzerkers towards the top. At a guess, I would say that I’m favored to win this fight, but that’s based on the fact that I have the weight of numbers on my side, as well as a tank.


…and just to provide some comic relief from the savage Marine-on-Marine action going on just to the south, the Eldar player is throwing Guardians and Howling Banshees at us.

It literally took me 3 seconds of concentrated fire to reduce this Guardian Squad to paste and gibs.


Unsurprisingly, the Horrors took out my first Predator, though they didn’t last long against the halberds and psychic powers of my Grey Knights. That swirling area of FX at the bottom of the screen would be dealing DoT to enemy units if there were any nearby.


Okay, so a little over a minute and a half into the clusterfuck from Hell (or the alternative nether dimension of your choice), things are starting to clear out enough that you can see who’s winning. The Horrors are all dead, so the fact that I’ve still got an intact Predator and a bunch of Tactical squads left suggests that I’m winning, barring elaborate shenanigans from the AI’s Chaos Sorcerer.


Nope. Still winning.


…and, fashionably late to the bloodbath, we have the Chaos player’s Defiler. It, uh, didn’t last long. I think it was on the order of 10 seconds from the bulk of my force moving into firing range.


Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’ve built a Sacred Artifact and begun buying Commander upgrades and building Apothecaries, because I have nothing better to do with my money – or at least nothing else I’m not already doing (like replacing the Predator the AI destroyed).


I’ve also built up an Orbital Relay, which in addition to granting the Force Commander the Orbital Bombardment ability, provides a second build queue which can only be used to build Tactical Squads, Dreadnoughts, and *pfft* Hellfire Dreadnoughts. Which you can then drop onto the field from orbit.

Given my distaste for transport units and how big this map is, you can bet I’m going to make the most of that.

Speaking of dropping units onto the field from orbit, here’s a Dreadnought, complete with orbital drop pod! The Chaos player has rebuilt both of his commanders, and is hitting me with Horrors and Possessed Chaos Marines, the latter of which are horrible, but the fact that I have the weight of numbers as well as vehicles on my side means he’s pretty much doomed, barring the Eldar player doing something dramatic to distract me from finishing him off.


Here we see one of the more annoying (but hardly unique - Starcraft had the same problem) aspects of Dawn of War. The ramps leading up to the plateaus on which each player starts are really narrow, which interacts poorly with the game’s sub-par infantry pathfinding. As such, instead of being able to funnel my entire army up onto the plateau to lay waste to the AI’s base, I only have a Predator and one squad up there, and predictably, they’re being slaughtered.


On the upside, my army eventually makes it up the hill, and my Force Commander calls down the Emperor’s vengeance on the Traitor Marines in the form of an Orbital Bombardment. It’s a little hard to see, given that your view is being obscured by the Giant Orbital Laser Beam, but the buildings that’s are on fire (or are about to be!) include 3 Heavy bolter turrets and the AI’s Chaos Temple.


Also? Orbital Bombardment? Goes on for-freaking-EVER. No, really, the bombardment lasts for half a minute, and will throw your units (or anyone else’s) across the map if they get too close. It’s pretty effective, too, as it destroyed the Chaos Temple & bolter turrets without any significant assistance from my army.


Well, that should be curtains for Chaos.


…Except, of course, this isn’t a 1v1 map, and Chaos has cleverly expanded its base to several other areas of the map. Here you can see the pair of Machine Pits which spawned the Defiler I encountered earlier.


And here you see the farm of plasma generators that are providing the power necessary to produce said Defilers, as well as the Sacrificial Circle which produces those damned annoying Horrors.


While my main force trundles off towards the Chaos player’s expansion base (spending an inordinately large amount of time on the ramp, as Space Marines jostle each other and get confused as to which direction they’re supposed to be going), let’s see what the Eldar are doing. Hrm. They seem to be spamming Guardians and Howling Banshees again.

Because that plan worked so well for them last time (and, honestly, because I wanted to see what would happen), I dropped a Dreadnought from orbit and set it loose. This experiment did not end well.

…for the Eldar, I mean. The Dreadnought is going to be fine.

Start Time 28:09


30 seconds in
Here we see our hero, Brother Ignatius, flinging the filthy xenos known as Howling Banshees through the air! You will notice that due to the inherent superiority of Imperial technology, the massed fire and melee weapons wielded by the Eldar have availed them little.


Here we see Brother Ignatius’s signature move, in which he impales an enemy of the Imperium on his power claw, and then activates his flamer, flash-frying them. While roasted Eldar is not recommended for human consumption, grilled Kroot tastes like chicken, and is considered a delicacy among Imperial Guard companies stationed on the Eastern Fringe!

On a more serious note, this move here is a Sync Kill. Sync Kills are essentially highly choreographed animations which play when a particular type of unit kills another type of unit in melee combat. A unit that’s in the middle of a sync kill gains immunity to physical damage, but loses any melee cover bonuses it had previously, and can still become broken due to morale damage. (This last is obviously no problem for Brother Ignatius, because he’s technically a Vehicle, and has no morale total.) The extended periods of invulnerability produced by Sync Kills are a significant reason why Brother Ignatius ends up doing as well as he does.


2 and a half minutes in
…and those smears on the ground are the remnants of all the Eldar that were fighting Brother Ignatius before. And yet they keep on coming.

Oh, well. It’s a good thing Brother Ignatius doesn’t get tired any more, now that he’s permanently sealed into a hybrid casket/battlesuit.


4 minutes in
Dear Emperor, he’s still not dead.

How is he not dead? HOW?


4 and a half minutes in
Okay, the AI finally assembled enough Guardians to start wearing Brother Ignatius down, so he could achieve his lifelong goal of a post-posthumous martyrdom in the name of the Emperor. He didn’t last much longer than this, but he didn’t need to – at this point, I’d already wiped out the Chaos player, and he’d held off the entire Eldar army on his own for five minutes, give or take.

The Imperium salutes you, Brother Ignatius! No Space Marine has ever assembled a larger pile of dead Eldar without assistance!

While Brother Ignatius was carving his legend into history (as well as the bodies of uncountable blasphemous Xenos), my main force was smashing the twin bastions of Chaos remaining on the map. The plasma farm here wasn’t so bad, aside from the Sacrificial Circle, so I focused fire on the turrets and the circle, and once they were down, there was nothing left but mopping up.


Here you can see a Terminator Squad, teleported onto the field from my Chapel-Barracks via Deep Strike. Terminators are vastly superior to ordinary Space Marines, having almost 1000 health each with the Bionics upgrade, and dealing a sickening amount of ranged damage. They also come in two varieties, so if you’d prefer a sickening amount of melee damage, the Assault Terminator is for you! The only real drawbacks of Terminators & Assault Terminators are that you get them very late, you can only have one squad of each, and that they’re extremely slow-moving, even compared to ordinary Marines.


Here you see my forces taking out a pair of listening posts on their way to the final redoubt of Chaos. The single Defiler that the AI could bring against me was more of a speed bump than a credible threat.


…and here we see Chaos’s last two production structures in their natural state, which is to say, on fire.

I won’t bore you with the details. Two AI players down, one to go.

Despite sending wave after wave of their precious warriors to be barbecued on the end of Brother Ignatius’s combat claw, the Eldar player was also cunning enough to come within a few minutes of a Take and Hold Victory. Because losing to the Eldar (and especially *this* Eldar player) would be downright embarrassing, I dispatched a Tactical Squad to recapture Critical Locations so I wouldn’t win every battle and lose the war.


While my main force arrived too late to prevent Brother Ignatius’s second martyrdom, they arrived in sufficient strength that the Eldar never really stood a chance.


Within less than a minute, I’d pushed my force right to their doorstep. And while I wasn’t exactly about to complain about the lack of resistance I was encountering, it was rather puzzling. Usually I’d have expected to see a Wraithlord or two, or possibly even an Avatar of Khaine.


Also, because I had literally nothing else to spend my money on beside upgrades I would never use or that would have bloated my income even farther, I built a Librarian.


This is the “Before” picture for the Eldar base. Notice the complete lack of plasma generators. (Or tech/upgrade structures, which, y’know, cost Power to build…)


This was taken 10 seconds after the “Before” picture.


This was taken 40 seconds after the “Before” picture. Notice how the entire Eldar Army has been smeared across the ground, and how an Orbital Bombardment has set their entire base on fire. This should have been the end of the game.


It wasn’t, of course. For some stupid-ass reason, the game counts Webway Portals as production structures, which means that an Eldar player won’t count as defeated until you destroy the last of said portals, even if they have no units left and can’t create any more.


Time to locate Webway portal: 3 minutes.


Time to blast Webway portal out of existence: 8 seconds.

Feeling of relief at finishing a 40+ minute skirmish game/an 11-game Let's Play: Priceless.

...and that's it. The end. Finis.

Hope you all enjoyed the ride.

That was a rollicking good read. Thanks for doing it.

Great stuff. Don't you just love the computer AI?

Thanks for doing this.

I've been silently lurking this thread. I admit I was skeptical at first (probably because I'm not into RTS games) but it was a good long read. Nicely done, sir!

I wish the AI was a little better, cos I'd finally grab the game and its expansion sets. It always looked exceptionally fun (I like the resource point capturing mechanic, versus the standard gold/mineral + peasant setup).

Anyway, nice job!

Thanks, guys. Glad you enjoyed it.

For those whom this wasn't enough, the most recently posted Tom vs. Bruce is a game of Dawn of War.

Plus, Dawn of War 2 includes Tyranids! Trailer here, Gameplay video here.

I'm really looking forward to playing Dawn of War with the Company of Heroes engine.

My greatest problem with Dawn of War II?

No T'au or Necrons.

They may be broken, but they have awesome back story. Almost as awesome and the Orks. (Red makes them go faster!)

Anyway, good play through. It's interesting to see how other people play games. Though the way you played probably shows why I tend not to fair so well in the scrimmage area. I go to tech up immediately, which means I only have a token defense force in the beginning to mid game. You presented an interesting strategy that I may have to borrow when I pick the game back up.