[DC] The Ariel Highlands

[Akranadas]

The Ariel Highlands

[BrianGeneral]

This is a map that can make people go nuts. The map is really big, enemy bases are distant from each other and your base, and if you decide NOT to rush them the result can be horrible: When I played as Tau in Easy Mode on this map against Space Marines, I thought I'm rushed by AN ENDLESS TIDE of Marines(200+) plus seemed UNLIMITED SUPPLY of Terminators (both type) and DNs at a time. I promptly replayed that stage.

In conclusion, the key is to tech up fast (which shouldn't be too difficult):
[As Tau]
Get 2 Hammerhead and a Sky Ray or 2 plus a team of FWs/Stealthsuits, a Crisis or 2 AND Commander/Vespids and just rush!
[As Crons]
Squads of DSing Flayed Ones+Destroyers will be the best choice. If you don't have Destroyers but have loads of Flayed Ones, use Scarabs as spotters.

Enemy bases are positioned on the 2 pleteau of NW and SW of the map, and gradually they'll expand onto the ground, which is then become hard to be removed. Proceed with killing everything in your way since the HQ is dug-in deep of enemy bases.
The majority of the SPs/Relics/etc aren't necessary if you're able to rush your enemy, especially when you have Honour Guards.

[Kerath]

The enemy is usually pretty heavily entrenched in this map, so I usually only attack it when I have a good core of honour guard and, preferrably, Forward Base and Industrial Production as well. I take a contingent of my honour guard and sweep southward to take out the enemy base to the south first - if the Eldar hold the map, which they frequently do, make sure to have a detector with you in case they've got their webways cloaking everything. Try and be building up your base at the same and teching up. Once one base is down, half your troubles are over. From there, you can either continue the sweep with your honour guard up to the western base and meet up with reinforcements from your own base, or wait, turtle, and tech up fully, then crush the west base with a full rack of your best units. Beef up the three choke points leading to your base with turrets and other defensive units along with spotters for a bit of added insurance.

[gunner69]

Yr iv found it hard.

i am Space and im against eldar and im finding it so hard because they just keep coming iv got the forward base and the extra troops. but still hard.

[Fat Robbi]

Even if I rush the SW base and destroy it, I'm being constantly rushed myself by the enemy. So By the time my honour is back to help, my base is prettymuch under serious assault and it's difficult to recover.:beer:

I'm playing as SM against the Tau. Maybe best strategy is to turtle and tech up.

:confused::confused::(

[popsune]

Hi, any tips for Chaos on hard mode? Seems like I got rushed from the start of this campaign. When I was playing, Eldar is holding the territory.

[CrossOrion]

A strong honorguard unit is essential, as well as foward base. The huge size of the map means that you have to cut down the number of enemies you are facing to 1, and it becomes harder if your enemy has his honor guard units there as well, as you will get rushed.

Sweep your honor guard to the 6'oclock base, the one down at the bottom, take it out without any delays, and if you have foward base, buy turrets instead of building upgrades. A couple of turrets and basic troops would help you weather the rush of the enemy honor guard or the second base.

[EmmaFrost]

After playing all races in easy to learn heir units I started playing in normal diff.

I currently have no honor guard and only 3 lands (production,space port,and 1 honor) since I'm going to be harassed I want to get bulwark to reinforce my lands for cheap.

Yesterday after like 60minutes of hard fight facing an endless army of eldars..6 wraithlords 1 constantly coming avatar like 6 squads of guardians (which look like they have instant reinforce) 4 warp spiders..2 farseeer etc.....
I never used so many OB in my entire dow life and I really used every skill available all the time but....
finally the AI seem to have been bored because it dispatched ..woooh another 2 armies with more squads (pop cap like 50 I'm pretty sure lol) flanking me and destroying my bases = game over

So....yeah advancing cautiously isn't the way in this map I'll try to rush it's bases and post if it goes better since I saved at some point (hope it isn't too late already) I'm going to try to destroy the south base to secure the eastern part of map.

What is scary is when you send a skull probe and see that the AI has a huge army in front of you but just doesn't attack lol

[EmmaFrost]

"Chaos must have warped our minds !"

I'm sad to say I couldn't do it (SMvsELD) with no honor guard and only the production bonus on normal difficulty...it is way too hard I destroyed 2 bases but..it's no use since it takes you way too long (the fact that they can individually target your attached skull probes by miracle is not helping) and the AI will have reconstructed it entirely somewhere else (yeah nm it's impossible in that time..it will do it anyway)

And now the usual ork has taken the highlands and has his honor guard increase by 1 each round without doing anything and when I'm the one actually holding the land which give those particular HGs (cheeeeattttttt) sigh

[Fat Robbi]

Oh come now, this map is not so very hard... Just arrive with a few heavies in your honour guard, buy a bit of the base (turrets!!!) before and then take them out.

No big problem, but you need to have a decent hnour guard. Weather the initial rush and strike SW first. After that it's over...

:dance::dance::rofl::rofl::dance::dance:
Easy really

:beer:

[Dolmen]

If you can't do this one yet, fight somewhere else to build up your honour guard to the point where you can.

I fought down the campaign map and then across isolating the imperials in their stronghold and chaos in theirs, once you start getting heavy units (dreadnaughts) in your honour guard the whole thing becomes substantially easier :)

I was having a bugger of a time taking the Rhean jungle because I'd just get swarmed, until I took Hyperion for a forward base and the Desert west of it for a dreadnaught HG unit then I just built a full forward base, sent the dreadnaught out witha few tacs while I teched up to tier 2 to give him reinforcements.

After that it was a case of playing whack-a-mole with cultists whilst trying to leave the desecrated stronghold intact long enough for me to build a secondary stronghold.

Since you have the spaceport, try taking eres badlands and the hyperion peaks for forward base, both of those are pretty easy even with a small honour guard.

[Cyberbob]

I had trouble with this map to the point where it was obvious that I wouldn't be able to get to the Eldar SH - I'd left Eldar to last and by this time it was at something like 9 Strength.

IMO, the trick is to get it as early as humanly possible, before it hits double bases.

[Dolmen]

I think in my campaign Eldar have just wrestled this from the Tau, so it's at 3 strength right now, I shall go and whack it immediately :)

Edit; nm, I think I'm thinking of a difference province

ReEdit: It was a strength 6 when I took it on last night, no problem at all, tbh I think I spent more time on the land speeder province next to it because it's exceptionally difficult to blow the crap out of stealthsuits whilst leaving the tau base intact long enough to get a second stronghold up :)

ReReEdit: I think Cyberbob was referring to the Demes Northlands, which is a HUGE map next to the Ariel Highlands and at strength 10 is a complete sod.

[rust]

I just managed to complete this part of the map without rushing, having forward base, and with only one honor gaurd unit (Tau fire warriors) against the Eldar.

But omg it took sooooooo long. Long hours of advance - capture strat points - build LPs - reinforce - advance again... a three pronged attack against constant waves of infantry and tanks. I don't think I could have managed it at this stage of the game if it was anything other than tau v eldar.

On the upside though, I was awarded a get a peice of wargear for 2000 kills!

[Brannigans_Law]

Hi all

I just managed to complete this level for the first time, on my second attempt at the Campaign. It was the reason I stopped playing the Campaign last time!

I remember reading here that the factions gain strength the longer they stay in the game so I resolved to take on the Eldar as soon as possible this time, just to avoid the trouble they caused me before.

I'm playing Chaos. My first attempt at this map (this time around) was a disaster as usual, so I decided to apply what I had learned from these forums, and Raptor rushed the southern base right at the start. I sent in two squads of Raptors + Aspiring Champions and one extra man each, and two Raptor Champ honour guard. A third Raptor squad followed as soon as possible for the second wave. (Raptor Champs seem to work well for me, I always select them over Chosen Champs if I am low on strategic req.) I left the rest of my force at home to defend against the inevitable wave of Eldar.

The rush was successful - we went straight in and took out the Webway Assembly, ignoring all resistance. Unfortunately my economy was in shambles at that point and I couldn't do much to consolidate except build a couple of LPs. I tried to build up my economy through map control to avoid getting cornered.

Then the fun started. The enemy went hard with three fully reinforced Howling Banshee squads, two fully reinforced Warp Spider squads and two Harlequins at a time (not to mention FS, Rangers and Guardians) pushing me off the map and destroying my forward bases. Whenever there were too many enemy CC units around I switched my Chaos Lord and Champ to ranged stance and pulled them back so they would continue to cause damage and stay alive. I was doing OK until the Falcons showed up, four or five at a time. A massive battle took place at the gates of my base, and I was constantly under pressure with not enough power or req to seemingly do anything. The pile of bodies was getting very deep and I must've rebuilt my forward LPs five or six times during lulls.

Missile turrets at the top of each side of my base entrance made a big difference. By doing everything in my power to keep the enemy at the bottom of the "ramp" I managed to hold on long enough to gain the edge.

Eventually I fielded a couple of Defilers and a Sorc with Chains of Torment which let me consolidate (slowly) along the northern edges of the map, while recapturing points along the south side using Raptors and Horrors. For some reason the enemy switched to building nothing but Wraithlords for a while, which was very odd. I got cocky and tried to take some ground in the map centre and got pushed back again.

The Seer Council showed up on my doorstep as part of another massive army and I started to get depressed. Fortunately I had Obliterators by then and I managed to keep them alive the for rest of the game. I maintained a defence using my Sorc, two Preds (one anti-inf one with twin-linked las), Horrors and a squad of infiltrated CSM. I'd equipped them with Plasma but by that stage the enemy was using mostly Guardians, again for some odd reason. At the same time I pushed all the way north west around to her base with my CL, Possesed, Oblits, two Defilers and a squad of Berzerkers. I attacked and ran all my defenders through the centre join in. I needed the Sorc up there to detect the Eldar's infiltrated buildings. I destroyed three Webway Assemblies a couple hundred Eldar in that area and, as fortune would have it, she hadn't built another base at the southern corner so it was finally over.

Luck definately plays a factor in this game. If the enemy hadn't gone with Wraithlords which I could dance around quite effectively I doubt I could have pulled it off. And the reliance on Guardians in Tier 4 made no sense whatsoever. I admit I used the pause button a few times for tactical and strategic purposes (such as targeting those damn Harlies) but against the AI I figure that's a reasonable option - you might feel otherwise.

In restrospect maybe I should have used my Raptors to rush the second base as well, but I suspect they would have encountered a Banshee horde of epic proportions and died too easily. Ultimately it was fun to play it out to the bitter end. Definitely a challenge!

The Demes Northlands is up next.... yikes.

[Christoph2060]

I just got done going this map as SM. The key is to have a decent Honor Guard and to hit them FAST. My honor guard consisted of a Vet, ASM, Librarian, Recluse and both Termies. (also Increased Production, Spaceport and Fury)

As soon as the game starts upgrade both Terms to autocannon, and run the rest of the HG to the SW base. Build a second Servitor. The first serv builds a barracks, the second helps. By the time it's done put the termies in there and start making tac squads. (which, when done, you run to the NW base)

By this time your HG should hit the Eldar right at thier LPs in front of the base. (and it'll probably be the ASM) Librarian smites, Eldar die, run up the ramp, deep strike Termies, wtfpwn Eldar base.

Those termies will chew through Eldar, IG and Orcs like paper, keep them behind your tac squads, if they're busy in CQC, they aren't that big a help.

By then you should have two tac squads in combat by the crit loc, run the Librarian over to them and sent the rest of your Honor Guard to the NW base. The Librarian should be able to smite and get the Eldar off your tac squads, and then run them to the NW base.

You should now have all your forces at the ramp to the NW base and have the Eldar neatly pinned. From that point, just cap and reinforce everything. Along the north edge you'll have Eldar LPs to destroy and maybe a stray Ranger squad or two, but you've effectively ended them....it's all clean up and fortify for defensive fights in the future.

[Joe Bob Joe]

its assault cannon not autocannon. :bonk:

[nemesis646]

Where are their bases located? I have a good HG, but I'm repelling the eldar b*stards like mosquitos.

DAMN. I'm posting about the wrong map, sorry. Turns out I was in the Demes Northlands.

[Retro~Burn]

I tried to take the Ariel Highlands with my Tau Empire in normal mode but I was always overwhelmed. My last attempt in normal mode lasted a little longer, because I captured more resource points near the starting plateau, however the enemy just sent wave after wave and they're much harder to kill in normal mode. Can anyone recommend some tips as how best to start with the Tau against the Eldar in normal mode? Also which is the better option; Mont'Ka or Kauyon command post?

[N'Shen]

As a matter of fact I haven't finished this one yet. But I could've. My mistake is waiting too long after defeating the first Eldar base.

Playing as Tau, (or with any other race, I guess), the advice is just to harass/rush. I had my commander, FW and Vespid honour guard seek out the first Eldar base I could find and they made short work of it. My problem is that I let my momentum slip in my desire to cap the entire map. Yeah, I know.

Even better would've been if I'd made a non-honour guard harass on the other base in the meantime. In this sense as Tau it's great you can get Vespids as honour guard so early. Both for the harass and the detection they provide.

Keep bugging them. Once I let slip soon I was fighting a neverending battle with an enemy trying to expand at the same time (webway gate infiltration, grr!). There is no need to let it come to that. -edit- At least in the case of Tau, as they're close enough that the territory hadn't grown in strength yet.

[Sarpadeon]

Yeah, sorry, just noticed - this may not have been the correct "my way" speech for The Aerial Highlands... sorry about that.