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[Sideways]

WH40K chat!

I'm still so slow to build at this game... I need to find a good strategy before I start looking for online matches.  So far I've played the computer in a standard-difficulty skirmish, once, and whooped them pretty soundly.  I've played a few skirmishes on 'easy' and they're just too damn easy.

[est]

what race do you play as, and what's your current build strategy?

i haven't played this in a while, but i'm sure that some other people will be able to give you better tips if you let them know how you open.

i'm a builder/turtler/skirmisher, so i generally look for the closest/most easily defendable resource points and send scouts out to nab them while i build forces to hold them.

then i'll scout about and look for choke points, choke those off with cannons and infantry, then make forays out into "enemy territory" with stealthed scouts (i research that asap) looking for targets of opportunity.  come to think of it, i rely on stealth scouts a hell of a lot.  i don't build many, but the ones i do build get some heavy use.

another thing that i find very effective is building squads of the light, agile landspeeders and using those to scout/skirmish/harry the enemy.  with their speed, agility and their hoverjump you can rush out and take out an enemy implacement and any surrounding infantry fairly easily (ie: their choke points) and still have the speed to retreat if they roll in some heavy cavalry (which they hardly do, btw).

i've read a few things online that seem to indicate that a lot of people complain about others not using melee units enough, and "being cheap" by concentrating on shooter units.  i say "fuck that" and use what works.  your mileage may vary, but in my experience melee isn't all that good.  the Commander and the Mech units rip through things in melee, so i allow them to do what they want mostly.  however, i hardly ever build the melee-heavy infantry types because mostly due to pathing issues i find them very hard to control.

also, when you get to the Terminators i can't understand why anyone would want to use the melee-only version over the ones with guns.  the melee-only unit's damage is less than the ranged unit, and they move so goddamn slow that they can't viably manouver into battle.  the only use i can see for them is to teleport on top of/at the immediate rear of enemy placements and tangle them up in melee/tank for you while someone else does damage.  in that regard i guess they would be good in pvp battle where shock value translates to an advantage, but vs the pc i could think of far better uses for the resources & population count.

[Switchblade]

I mostly play three races, in this order of preference:

Imperial Guard

Eldar

Space Marines.

The IG are most suited to my play style.  I like to grab nearby strategic points, and then consolidate the hell out of my grip on them - I'm talking heavily fortified positions, boltgun and missile turrets, infantry command bunkers, the works. My force stays on the surface just long enough to completely gear up, then it's into the tunnel network with them, and if something attacks one of my strategic points, then my entire force pops up and sticks it to them. My attacking strategy basically involves consuming the map, bite by bite, resource point by resource point, throwing my entire force at one small point, annihilating it, taking it, fortifying it, rebuilding my losses, moving on. Sentinels especially excel at this: a sentinel squadron with a pair of Hellhounds for backup can completely annihilate the buildings around a strategic point, the hellhounds torch any troops in the area (and you've not SEEN morale damage until a pair of hellhounds roll in)... and then the sentinels un-take the strategic point, and you move in the infantry to take it, then the tech-priest to hold the point and repair the damaged vehicles... repeat.


Eldar also work surprisingly well with this tactic. Webway portals basically let you relocate an entire force to any point on the map that you consider to be your turf, INSTANTLY. They're no less fragile than the IG, but they're harder to break, and can, one for one, put out the damage better. if a unit starts to get slapped, pull them back to a cloaked webway, pull them away to a safe part of the map to regroup and reinforce, and bring in another unit from a different angle to cover their retreat. when that unit starts to falter, bring your now-healed squad back, chuck them into the fray, and get your damaged squad to safety.

Get the avatar, build a load of wraithlords, throw in two of every aspect squad... rampage. When the Eldar decide to throw everything they have at the enemy, there's not much can deal with it.

Space Marines are the least effective at that tactic. their relocation ability is based on the availability of transports, and on the orbital uplink.

SM tactical squads, however, are my personal favourite unit in the game. one sergeant, full upgrades, two heavy bolters, a flamer and a missile launcher. Replace the flamer with a plasma gun if you're facing Chaos. One of those can put up with a HELL of a lot of punishment before going down. two becomes a serious obstacle to any advance. Three become a fortification, infinitely more dangerous than any wall.

Ten, which is the maximum number of tac squads you can field, plus your limit of four apothecaries, your commander and your librarian plus (in Winter Assault) your chaplain... that's a base-breaker, especially if you load them into the orbital uplink. Stealth a skull drone into an enemy base, drop the whole lot into the base... in the ensuing carnage, the odds are that you've just wiped a base off the map. Doubly so if you chuck in a load of dreadnoughts.

[Mr Putter]

I pretty much just play Space Marines.  I've dabbled with the other races but they're not so much to my liking.

I'll always build two or three squads of scouts straight off the bat and try to get my "share" of the resource points, then upgrade them all with flamers for morale busting.  

I also rely pretty heavily on tactical squads, but I tend to specialise their heavy weapons rather than spread them out.  Usually I'll use two anti-infantry squads, either with all heavy bolters or all plasma rifles depending on who I'm playing against, and one missile launcher squad for vehicles/buildings.  Adding an apothecary makes them a lot tougher too.

As for melee, I find assualt marines can be pretty useful if you put them in a group with a couple of land-speeders, and their melta bombs come in pretty handy.  I also use a squad of melee terminators, as their stun effect is good for taking down avatars etc.  It's kind of a bitch getting them to the front though.

Vehicles:  Usually i'll put a couple of Dreadnoughts in my anti-infantry group, and a two or three predators with my anti-vehicle group.  Whirlwinds can also be really useful for breaking morale and generally dis-organising the enemy, but a lot of the time I really can't be fucked building them.

[est]

so does the expansion pack upgrade the pop. cap, or are people talking about different approaches in different games?  i know i might be going against the grain here, but i kinda like the low pop cap.  it makes things more tactical, instead of "who can get the largest amount of troops and then throw them at the other side".

[est]

ps: you guys are making me want to buy the expansion.

[Mr Putter]

It stays the same at 20/20 for SM - I haven't played it since my computer died and I can't remember the others.  The army I described would more or less max out the pop so it'd only get used in long games.  I like having a low pop too, cos it means my computer doesn't run real slow...

[McTaggart]

The low popcap is great in most games, especially DoW. The only problem with it is when the game isn't designed for it and you've got some damn porcupine holed up with four layers of stone walls with cannon towers between each one and you just can't build enough units to do anything about it.

I had two main strategies for DoW, one Space Marine and one Chaos.

My Spacie strategy is basically summed up in two words: Assault Marines!
I haven't played in a while I don't think they were bad at anything, they're fast, they own troops, they own buildings and I think they could deal reasonably well with machinery. Maybe back them up with some sniper scouts.

With the Chaos I basically danced around their base with those pink plasma shooting demons. Cultist rushes worked every now and then as well.

[Luke C]

Dawn of War is a top quality RTS game and does 40k much more credit that Firewarrior. *shudders*

[Gryff]

This looks like a sexy game. I agree with those of you who are into the low pop cap thing. One thing that I hate about RTS games is when the focus switches from using strategy to just building more than the other guy.

[Switchblade]

so does the expansion pack upgrade the pop. cap, or are people talking about different approaches in different games?  i know i might be going against the grain here, but i kinda like the low pop cap.  it makes things more tactical, instead of "who can get the largest amount of troops and then throw them at the other side".

More like the expansion tweaks things a bit. The pop caps remain the same way they always were: you get a low pop cap to start with, and have to expand it with research, with the maximum being 20. The IG get to field a shitload of troops underneath that pop cap, however, because their units are dirt cheap.

The changes include a new unit per race (the SM Chaplain is pretty damned awesome, in fact), and some alterations to the tech tree - rather than having to wait for the armoury, SM scouts can now research sniper training at the HQ, allowing you to give them sniper rifles much sooner after creation. plus, the entire squad of four gets to carry rifles, not just two of them. building the elite vehicles like Predators, Baneblades, Land Raiders, Squiggoths and Leman Russ battle tanks requires an expensive research at the vehicle factory,

Tank rushing still isn't a viable option, however, even with the IG. You can have a 10-sentinel rush that will completely own buildings and vehicles, but will get massacred by the infantry, which is why I prefer a combination of sentinels and hellhounds... both of which are so much more effective in the game than on the desktop.

ps: you guys are making me want to buy the expansion.

Good. It improves on the original immeasurably. buy it.

or hope you get it for Christmas.

[Rizzo]

Ok folks, I'm looking to buy this game to relive my 10 year old warhammer games.
My specs are as follows:
AMD Athlon 64 processor 3000+, 1024 ram, Windows XP, Geforce 6200 Turbo Cache integrated Ramdac, Realtek Audio AC97.
Could I run it?

I wanna be Chaos again!! Are there Necrons?

[McTaggart]

Easily. Your machine should handle it nicely.

[Rizzo]

Awesome. Thanks for that. I shall proceed to destroy the imperium under the foaming hoardes of Chaos! Hail Nurgle!

[FaultyGluestick]

I just downloaded the demo and played it...WOW.  I wants it!