A lil help with eldar strategy [Archive]

Phlaago

27th Dec 10, 7:28 AM

To the op: first of all, you seem to be looking for some strategy to kill bases in tier 1.. its possible on large maps to mass teleport 3 banshee squads behind the guns and take them and/or the base out before the enemy has a chance to get back to defend it, this is however quite cheesy and usually only possible on the large 3v3 maps.. in 1v1 this will cost you the game most likely since the map is small enough for the enemy to return and defend their base and kill alot of your units in the process.

for some solid advice on 1v1 tactics in tier 1 I suggest you decide on what commander you want to use first of all.

for farseer i sometimes go 3x gu against chaos or tyranids.
then i look at what commander the enemy has, if its plague champion or lictor alpha i get a ranger squad ASAP.
and for the farseer i get ghosthelm and doombringer.
this build is capable of interrupting a unit as well as focusfiring it into oblivion and i use this to gank the above mentioned commanders when they pop in to try to do some damage on their own to either my units or my generatorfarm.

If the enemy commander reveals himself early i might go 2gu, 1banshee as suggested earlier... I find this useful against chaos sorcerer and even chaos lord in tier 1 (just be very active with microing your banshees, dont let the chaos lord use his aoe ability on them)

against orks i go 3 or 4 gu if the enemy is warboss, 2gu 1banshee if the enemy is mekboy or 3gu 1ranger if the enemy is kommando. I use ghosthelm wargear in all cases except against the mekboy where i have spiritstones to heal the banshees.

the 4gu build against warboss is tricky though because you delay teching, to compensate i only upgrade the 2 first gu squads and group the other 2 together as a doublesize 3rd squad to make it easier to coordinate.
ghosthelm is essential because you need to mindwar the warboss as soon as he triggers "now im angry!" casting doom on top of it is usually not needed unless he was already quite close to your units to begin with. Altough if you only have 3 gu squads free to shoot at him you will need to cast doom first.
the main thing that sucks with this build is that you become very predictable... but farseer vs warboss doesnt really have a choice because all other t1 units get torn apart by the doped up orks.

against other eldar i almost always go 2gu 1banshee
I delay wargear selection until i see what they get, but i mostly use ghosthelm against warpspider... its diabolically funny to tag the wse with mindwar when he thinks he will get away safely from ganking a few of your units.
forune armor is quite useful in eldar mirrors, i sometimes get gravityblade and runes of reaping if the enemy is warlock or farseer.

27th Dec 10, 11:24 AM

@Phlaago
Thx man that was i 've been looking for but this is only 1/? strategies , i am very interesting about the WSE mass TP so if anyone can tell me with warlock and WSE as well ... :d

Phlaago

27th Dec 10, 2:00 PM

WSE mass teleport is a powerful tool but it does get predictable, If you want to really mess up someone that has a set up a solid defense of a waypoint or a powerfarm then get your starting gu squad, 2 banshee squads and 1 shuriken cannon platform (set it up facing towards your rear) and mass TP behind the enemy. As they retreat your banshees will be in their path ready to chop them up.. throw a plasmagrenade on the retreating units first for good measure (just make sure you dont nail your banshees with it).

Too bad we cant view older replays.. otherwise there are a few examples around where this goes wrong.. cant remember if it was buguba or someone else that sporemined 2 armies that mass TP'ed in during a 2v2 on selenon fissure some months back.

The main deciding factor if this can work or not would probably be how fast the enemy can counter your shuriken platform... if they can instantly use an ability to suppress it or knock it out of position you can find yourself in a bad spot with enemy forces in your retreatpath instead.

I myself rarely play the WSE but I would suggest exerimenting with the phase armor instead.. especially with freezing the enemy and then hitting them with various aoe weapons as the effect expires (such as plasma grenades and singularity.. or the avatars abilities once you have it)
alternatively just phase a part of the army and attack the part not effected with all your forces to cause quick casualties with relatively low risk to your own troops.

Troubleshooter

27th Dec 10, 2:23 PM

Are you playing 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3? Do you play with the same team mates or randoms? Are you just looking for a good build order that includes mass teleport + cheese FTW?

30th Dec 10, 8:37 AM

@Troubleshooter
I am playing 3v3 mostly ,2v2 rarely and 1v1 almost never with eldar until my strategy is fully active
random teammates
yes , mass tele is greatly caughting my attention (vast distance +tele of w-guards , as they cannon webway travel :D )

my problems are normaly ,against big stuff heroes as the main thing they do is coming to my allies base and cap the power node ( ex Warboss , CL ,KNob , HT...) i somehow cannot take a very much ammount of firepower with WSE or farseer without the mass heal so i am looking of a strategy for kite with them and 1 to counteratack, if not kill ,with lock , i still dont lose the advantage( on a mass atack ) the wraithswitch so that wraithguards are not getting stunned if their lock has died :D so witchblade

i need strategies only for 3v3 , as then i improve myself alone
still looking for a lock counter atack ( ex Lock vs HT and Lock to win )

Codex

30th Dec 10, 9:09 AM

The thing is, 1v1 is a completely different kettle of fish. Being good at 2v2 and 3v3 is pretty much transferable, but you can be totally abysmal at 1v1 (like I was) while being quite good at the other two modes. This is due to a higher emphasis on capping in 1v1, and choices having more shock value (there's no one to come bail you out if you have no AV against two bloodcrushers).

I'm quite tired right now, so your post makes very little sense to me. If I have something to add when I awake in the morning I'll post some strats.

Arbit

30th Dec 10, 10:31 AM

While I enjoy 3v3 the most, it teaches you bad habits. Play a little 1v1 to hone your capping skills, play more 2v2 to hone your micro, and play 3v3 for fun. 2v2 is quite fun too but 3v3 lets you screw around with units and wargear that are too inefficient/expensive for realistic use in 2v2.

Troubleshooter

30th Dec 10, 11:14 AM

Ok, I think I get some of your issue now. Its hard because your English isn't very good.

Your problem is that you want to be helpful to your allies if they get over run and start to lose their power node. The easiest solution is the WSE + Mass-teleport because you can re-position your army quickly to respond to the threat. You also like that WraithGuard can teleport with your hero and start inflicting great damage on the enemy. The main problem is that heavy-melee heroes like the Force Commander, Hive Tyrant, and Warboss are very good at countering this move, so you want some strategy to either counter them or kite them away from the power nodes.

Is that about right?

Assuming I am somewhere close to the heart of the problem, let me offer this by way of advice. Your best option when you are playing with a random team mate is to only help them when they can benefit from that assistance. This means that if they are over run and retreating from the fight, you should stay out of it as well. Often the best way to counter is to simply go over to the enemy power farm and destroy it. These "trades" compensate for a weak ally or strategic reversal better than stalling a losing battle.

My suggestion then is to focus on slowing the advance of the enemy with shuriken platforms sent to aid your ally in Tier 1 and using WSE teleport with WG and Upgraded banshees in tier 2. Do not ever teleport your WG behind the enemy line... always use your platform or other friendly unit as a target for your teleport... it gives you a safe avenue of retreat for your WG if they need it, and a suppression unit will protect your teleporting army from grenade spikes and such.

Also, try using mass teleport with just the WSE himself to draw the enemy away from the fight... its' a total bluff, but the hope is that they will either retreat or waste special abilities to counter your army which doesn't arrive... instead have your army walk in on the fight just after the WSE appears. Its a risk, but I think it's worth trying once in a while.

Codex

30th Dec 10, 5:52 PM

Sound advice from Trouble.

Better advice: once you get to grips with the game, add some of the better players as friends and learn the game together: when you understand how your teammates play, it makes it infinitely easier to play in a team with them. Playing with randoms can really mask your skill since it might be hard to tell who's making all the mistakes: you might very well be playing as awfully as the others. Playing with better players allows you to tell where it's all gone wrong much more easily.

Snakeb1te

4th Jan 11, 3:53 AM

The post from Phlaago was informative, but it didnt mention how to fight Space Marines, does anyone have any ideas one that? I usually like to play Farseer, but I change my mind from a day to day basis so information on all 3 heroes is most welcome. I'm talking about 1v1 too.

Also, I was wondering what rangers and guardians are good for. Rangers can snipe, but I'm fairly noob so I dont know what role to give them and how to use them. Also I'm a bit concerned that guardians are really quite poor against well anything. They seem to be made of paper against tactical space marines and ork shootas, even behind cover.

Codex

4th Jan 11, 4:35 AM

Against SM banshees pay off well. Guide them for 30% extra weapon damage, get aspect of banshee quickly as they'll req drain you quickly without the extra health. Warshout is also super useful. A build like GU x 2 + Banshees tends to work well. What you need to do is prioritise taking down those shotgun scouts with your guardians. Get mind war if you want to kill off commanders quickly (like the Apoth) or get spirit stones for awesome synergy with banshees.

Guardians have FOF which allows them to dictate where the battle is at. They have grenades which are fucking awesome. Energy shields are massively underused (even by me), but they are incredible in the hands of a good player. They do high damage (same dps as a full tac squad) but are squishy, so battle equipment really helps players who can't keep them protected from harm, as well as granting them ALL of their awesome abilities. With the warlock upgrades as well they become one of the best and well-rounded anti-infantry squads, since the warlock gives passive damage resistance and grants their embolden ability, which gives suppression resistance on demand (not immunity) and extra damage. The warlock has knockback as well, and not bad melee ability, so emboldened meleeing GUs can kill stuff on retreat.

Rangers are snipers, which makes them good against infantry in general, but they also have utility in their pathfinder upgrade, giving them the ability to scout from infiltration, or cloak an area with their holofield. This can even be used in a melee battle, since you cloak your own AND your opponent's forces, cloaked units stop attacking their targets. The advantage is you have rangers there, so you can see them, but they can't see you and even if they could you get part infiltration bonuses and he doesn't. Finally, kinetic shot is a knockback on demand ability, and I'm sure you'll see after a while that knockback on demand is awesome in this game, especially from infiltration. Do note though that the knockback is in an area so can knockback friendlies too.

Phlaago

4th Jan 11, 5:02 AM

Farseer vs space marines I normally go 2x gu, 1x banshee.. first upgrade to get is aspect of banshee, then fortune armor for the FS closely followed by battle equipment for both gu's.. i might also tack on spiritstones on the farseer.
This is more or less the vanilla build for eldar so you may find some SM players are setup to counter it.. in particular you may find your banshees losing in melee against ASM+FC or ASM+Apoth.. or 2xASM, this is where you need spiritstones on your farseer to let your banshees do some damage and then heal them up, if you are fighting a double ASM blob and they are both on your shees consider moving closer with your gus for some plasma grenades. (warshout with shees as you move them away, if they are almost dead retreat them.. if not, move them towards the enemy base instead in the hope of getting some ASM kills as they panic)

Your banshees will do better in T2 with exarch upgrade, keep in mind SM pays 10 power more and a bit more req for their squadleaders.. and they need them too to stay competitive.
If the SM player continues to focus on a big melee presence, get gravity blade and do a levitate+guided banshee gank on their blob for some lulz, really funny if it can bag you a whole squad, or their newly built librarian.
I like the falcon against spacemarines too simply for the ability to reinforce in the field, but my first t2 unit can be either WS, Falcon or Wraithlord.. I never get wraithguard unless I know the SM player has no jumptroops or fast melee (Alacrity FC or Libby).
Your biggest headache will be countering terminators, this is where i really like wraithlord or falcon + farseer + banshees.. if its a fairly even game you should be getting your seer council out to play too. if you jump all that on them they will drop fast.

Snakeb1te

4th Jan 11, 5:07 PM

Well, two great answers so thanks! Actually before reading these posts I had a last quick game for the night against my friend. Eldar vs Space Marines and I did a similar build that you've said (I must be a farseer :P) and it worked great. He went for scouts and two tacs with an FC. I went for immediate banshee squad (no second guardian) and spent the rest of the req on the power node and gens. My first upgrade was the aspect and then Ghosthelm as soon as possible to force suppression to help my bansheees kill or force enemy to retreat. After this I bought a shuriken cannon to guard my flank. He out teched me to t2 (possibly because I only had one guardian squad) whilst I was happy to hold onto the victory points so I was a little unhappy when a dreadnought appeared. I did get a brightlance out in time but really they dont do all that much damage against dreadnoughts.

I got some rangers eventually to snipe out those annoying scouts who kept trying to flank my brightlances.

Oh and the levitation ability was useful, just annoying that it doesn't work on retreating units.

One final thing I'd like to ask about Eldar is how to use warp spiders. They're quite expensive, and I was under the impression they'd have a massive damage output (similar to DoW1 WS) but it wasn't all that great even with exarch. They also die shockingly quick (albeit I got cocky and tried to chase down units so they weren't even in cover). The haywire grenades also did little against a dreadnought. In the end I had to get 2 brightlances and fire prism to properly deal with vehicles. This won me the game though because he had no more economy to spend on tacs or asm so I was able to keep the VPs.

Next time I'll try getting a guardian squad along with the banshees at the start to ease my capping and hopefully have a better economy.

Codex

4th Jan 11, 6:07 PM

In 1v1, never, ever get fewer than 2 squads at the beginning. You're not SM, you're not Chaos, and even those races are pushing for their second squad quickly. 1v1 is first and foremost about capping, secondly about gen bashing and fighting. To give you an idea I've had 1v1 games in the fast where I've had 150+ unit score and still lost to VPs and economy denial (on Green Tooth Jungle, man I hate that map). Some players even keep units on capping duty because it's so important. Guardians are great in this role too because with battle equipment they have FOF and have greater durability.

A build more like GU, shees, node, gen, gen, aspect of banshee, gen, wargear is more like it.

Secondly, it's not that BLs don't do much AV damage, it's that dreadnoughts are tough. BLs need support in taking down walkers, but it will tear a razorback to ribbons. Use this in conjunction with WS haywires to take down vehicles. The slow is more important than the damage it does. The damage is useful (good for taking out weakened vehicles), but the snare is what you want. It used to be the case that WS haywire+ BL hard countered every vehicle out there since the haywire used to completely disable vehicles. Then Wraithguard showed up and WS haywire+ WG totally hard countered AND made mince meat of vehicles. So it got changed to a snare instead.

Warp Spiders. Generally not that effective against SM. Try getting double WS against a race like Orks and you can tear them a new one. Just watch out for knockdown units like the Weirdboy. Teleporting around and generally loling while unloading a very impressive dps on them is disheartening for them. I'm guessing you don't understand the mechanics of the game fully yet. The reason why WS are less effective against SM is because they have heavy armour which causes them to take 66% ranged damage and 130% power weapon damage, making banshees especially effective against them and ranged less. (If you're wanting to get serious about the game, I'd recommend learning about the mechanics more in depth, most of which are explained on dow2.info, or members on here are generally helpful!) Double WS will tear up a scout squad (since they are infantry) even on retreat if they're on lowish health (but not even that low!), but WS are not bad per se against SM, they just need a second squad to be effective.

Gen bashing. You can't (or rarely should be) disappointed when someone gets a dreadnought out. They cost 140 power, and T2 is 125 power. If you have map control (and apparently you did for some of the time!), you need to go to their gen farm and deny their power. If they have a weaker military than you, they can't defend their gen farm. If they invest in an army to defend it, it delays the dreadnought. Either way, you need to deal with it before it happens, or else it'll be much harder when he does get the dread out.

Finally, Relic has been trying to remove knockback on retreat, especially on an ability like levitation field, it holds them for so long! It was certainly imba when you could hold retreating units. If you catch them before they retreat though, they can't retreat out of it, making it deadly with banshees vs SM.

Logic_Bomb

4th Jan 11, 6:14 PM

Eldar AV is mostly about units in tandem - warpspiders and brightlance (BL) or warpspiders and banshees or even wraithguard and BL against slow walkers or tanks. One brightlance isn't enough against a walker - you'll need the warpspider aspect upgrade to access their haywire grenade and shut the vehicle down first - preferably at max range of the BL. Brightlance is also a good investment vs SM because besides vehicles they also do surprisingly decent damage against terminators and aren't usually a priority target of the terminators (plus their range and relative cheapness helps). As far as using WS for their ranged damage, keep them in cover and jump them to cover - they are expensive and fragile and should be used mostly for hit and run - if you see the enemy try to focus fire them, get them out right away. They melt most light infantry but are not a good investment against heavy infantry - so use them against everything but marines (SM and Chaos) for the most part. Marines, termagants, big shootas, and even guardians with warlocks will all outshoot WS for cost but the WS have the advantage of choosing which fights to engage or not. Against tyranids, orks and to a lesser degree, chaos they are pretty much a no brainer choice.
Aah - ninja'ed by crafty Helena - well some overlap info and some not..

Codex

4th Jan 11, 6:41 PM

I am a ninja, a leaf on the wind...

Ah, glad you got a post in anyway. I reckon between us we've covered almost everything.

Snakeb1te

4th Jan 11, 7:35 PM

I reckon between us we've covered almost everything.

Oh but there are always more questions! :P

Yep thanks for both posts.

A build more like GU, shees, node, gen, gen, aspect of banshee, gen, wargear is more like it.

Thanks for this, its always nice to have a general build in mind.

In 1v1, never, ever get fewer than 2 squads at the beginning.

Yeah I noticed how hard it was to cap and hold, luckily my opponent was SM so the consequence for my mistake was softer. I maintained map control by careful positioning of webways gates, (which he eventually noticed). My other big mistake was not getting battle equipment (and I don't think I've ever used that energy shield, simply because I'm scared that I'll be bullied off of it). Anyway this topic has helped me see the value of guardians a little more so hopefully they'll be more effective for me from now on.

Same goes for Warp Spiders, thanks also to Logic_Bomb for the additional info on them (and the sneaksy tip regarding brightlances).

(If you're wanting to get serious about the game, I'd recommend learning about the mechanics more in depth, most of which are explained on dow2.info, or members on here are generally helpful!)

I'm semi-serious about it, because I have other games like Starcraft 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 on the go too, and I've been splitting my play time between them. The problem is I'm playing these games to escape from uni studies for the moment, so I don't really like the idea of spending too long studying for only a game!

Now I am used to counters and things like that (Sc2 makes it very easy to learn) and I also played Dawn of War Soulstorm for over 2 years and I knew the Player's Guide for that game fairly well for my favourite races, but dow.info is (imo) more confusing and less clear as the old game's player's guide, which had damage outputs and things like that in clear tables. This one is set out differently and is taking me a fair bit longer to learn (yes I have tried). So the reason I've been posting here is because I've learned far more here than I could have just reading those numbers. Besides when I first started out playing online on Soulstorm I was taught by a clanmate how to move from basic campaign player to decent and intermediate online player. I only started looking at the player's guide once I was at an advanced stage. I feel some simple advice could go a lot further for me until I have really entrenched myself in this game.

Plus dow2info is out of date :rolleyes:

The haywire grenade on there still says that it stuns.

Anyway thanks for all the great help ye friendly few! :awesome:

Logic_Bomb

4th Jan 11, 8:05 PM

It's true that there's a lot of "behind the scenes" opaque to the player numbers stuff going on in combat and for your economy in DoW2 - also that the single player doesn't prepare you at all for the MP. We'll have to see how much Retribution changes that. It will hopefully be less intimidating and better designed to get players into MP - the single player at least seems that way so far from the hints and desciptions that've been dropped but we'll have to see if tooltips and an advanced tutorial appear as well to help new players get into MP.

Codex

4th Jan 11, 8:33 PM

Dow2.info is out of date, but it does give you an idea, and being able to use it is a valuable skill since it can clarify things a lot quicker than trying to figure things out through experience.

More questions are fine, but don't forget to search the forums since your questions might have been answered before if there's any specificity about them.

In the end, though, if you want to get better at this game, the best way is a combination of playing and watching replays. You can learn and try to play out tricks you see in replays and analyse where people went wrong, which will really speed up how quickly you learn (but if you're semi-serious you already know this.) Usually the replays on here are pretty good or at least a good laugh, so they're worth your time.

5th Jan 11, 6:07 AM

"A build like GU x 2 + Banshees tends to work well. "
Well, all eldar players begin with this,but first the banshees :P
I only use Guardians for their grenades/shields and in the begining ,cuz when the enemy gets vehicles i must press the retreat button alot,but still always keeping at least 1 Guardian up,for rangers i dont know how to use them,they are not giving me very much damage to use :(
i personaly like the thing that shuriken>ranger

Codex

5th Jan 11, 7:10 AM

Getting banshees first doesn't pay off that well. Farseer might do it better than the other commanders, since FS has guide, but frankly (as Vintage has pointed out elsewhere) banshees require their aspect of banshee upgrade to be effective. They might be able to do damage early on but they're likely to req drain you more than your opponent without the upgrade, plus they want FOF and war shout to be able to dictate the flow of battle. So getting a second GU first allows you to cap more effectively, and is just generally less risky to buy before shees. Then when you get shees you are closer to getting the 25 power required for aspect too.

With regards to shields, I wrote a post addressing it and then I lost it :( So here goes. Shields are great for setting up in certain strategic positions (and I believe they're directional), for example next to someone's gen farm: it makes it much safer to gen bash in future and your opponent has to dedicate time to destroying these shields, and they're tough early game (they can be knocked down by vehicles and the like but they're hard to take down with T1 firepower), and they heal over time and if you get pushed off them you can always come back and assume the same positions.

Honestly, don't underestimate GUs past T1. Their utility in capping and anti-infantry capability remains some of the best for cost effectiveness, and your anti-vehicle utility should come from somewhere else. So when vehicles hit the field just FOF away.

Snakeb1te

5th Jan 11, 10:12 AM

Yeah I went ahead and tried almost everything that was suggested here and (even though its only expert comp and not real people) it worked pretty nicely. The shields are especially valuable, and guardians with fleet of foot are about 5x more useful. I'm not sure about giving them a warlock though, as I didn't really notice their effectiveness going up all that much when I need the money for other stuff in t2, but perhaps I haven't playtested them enough.

Rangers, if nothing else, rock because of their massive range and infiltration.

Malachi

5th Jan 11, 10:26 AM

Back when I played Eldar (pre-CR), GU Warlocks were usually the first thing Eldar players bought in T2. Embolden is great, and remember that it also boosts the damage of Plasma Nades.

Snakeb1te

5th Jan 11, 3:23 PM

Embolden is great, and remember that it also boosts the damage of Plasma Nades.

Embolden or the warlock? Because that sounds nice :D

The Tempest

5th Jan 11, 3:39 PM

embolden. warlock is just an awesome squad leader with decent ranged damage and pretty damn good melee :D (for a ranged squad leader, that is). oh, it also reduces the ranged damage taken by 17.5%, if dow2.info is accurate :)

Codex

5th Jan 11, 5:28 PM

Eldar also has cheap squad leaders: for 65/15 the warlock upgrade is pure awesomesauce. It pays for itself because it improves the durability of the squad (passive damage reduction) and improves the damage output.

6th Jan 11, 9:27 AM

True ,but the eldar have gates-need so the pop-cap is really going on...

The Tempest

6th Jan 11, 9:38 AM

you mean eldar need webway gates, so the population cap is a problem for them?

Codex

6th Jan 11, 8:34 PM

How is the pop cap a problem? It's not that high

The Tempest

7th Jan 11, 12:02 AM

not sure, I just tried to translate it :D

Codex

7th Jan 11, 1:01 AM

I think your translation is correct, hence I was asking Wizenmeh.

Snakeb1te

7th Jan 11, 6:32 PM

Just a quick question about webway gates. I've been using them a bit with Farseer, and as far as my friend tells me, the webways are visible whilst being built (but not attackable) then once they're built they're supposed to go invisible. I have two questions regarding this.

1. How long is the delay until they go invisible?
2. Is it just the Farseer that can make these gates invisible? Because I was playing a WSE vs Kommando 1v1 with my friend and he saw my gates after they were built, (he had no kommando squads) and just to be sure I built one next to my HQ and it didn't go invisible there either, nor did it have the choice of holo-field.

Codex

7th Jan 11, 6:35 PM

1. Half a second/a second.
2. Yes.

And webways are attackable whilst being built.

Snakeb1te

7th Jan 11, 6:39 PM

1. Ty
2. ¬¬ (fair enough, WSE would be imba otherwise)

Codex

7th Jan 11, 7:06 PM

2. Farseer holofield is properly imba, especially when lower levels of play have no idea how to counter it.

Snakeb1te

7th Jan 11, 7:09 PM

Farseer holofield is properly imba, especially when lower levels of play have no idea how to counter it.

That's what I've been discovering. The matches were getting quite repetitive so I've been playing SM and Nids as well. SM have the least trouble though, the ones that realise that a mere 210 for a scout squad is worth it when it gets rid of the gates. Having only recently started playing Head to Head there was only one person so far that I've found that actually remakes their scouts after tier 1 though.

Codex

7th Jan 11, 7:15 PM

Well, it's more than just a scout squad... it's 75/25 for the scout sarge to detect as well. But your point stands, scouts have so much utility not rebuilding them is a massive massive error in most cases.

Snakeb1te

7th Jan 11, 7:20 PM

Oh you need a sarge to detect? Ah. NOW I understand why all the other races had a power requirement added to the detectors.

Btw I'm loving this game, thanks to the advice this thread has given I've been able to have some reasonably good games with my friend. I quite like going 3 guardians at the start vs his Orks, and once I get battle equipment for them I like throwing 3 grenades at a mass that I've either levitated or used the anti-grav nade.

Actually whilst I'm on that subject, do grenades stack? i.e. 1 nade = 50 dmg so 3 nades 150?

Oh and Wraithguard are insane. Using 3 guardian squads as meatshields they obliderate everything. How comes no-one mentioned them when I was talking about brightlance av? :P Then again they were easy prey to stormyboyz.

ThunderHost

8th Jan 11, 3:47 AM

Yes, 'nades stack, much to detriment of us multi-limbed and pack oriented races. I'd watch out getting too fond of Wraithguard, even with a modicum of skill they're quite easy to counter and their retreatspeed means almost guaranteed model loss. And you can't put them in falcons and/or webway gates.

Snakeb1te

8th Jan 11, 4:40 AM

Yeah I'm having quite a hard time with assault marines. I seem to be losing the wraith guard constantly now. But even though I've only played 4 games online the automatch is putting me up against rank 50s!

Btw wraithguard seem to have pathetic accuracy against moving targets. Quite annoying when I've just weakened a tac squad and they're retreating and even though they're below half health the wraithguard then decide to miss and all 3/4 get away.

Codex

8th Jan 11, 4:55 AM

Well I mentioned WG as AV in passing when I said WS nade+ WG countered every single vehicle in old patches, they still do against tanks now since they're big targets.

Rank means nothing, only trueskill. If my internets (RAGE AT VIRGIN MEDIA) gets fixed we might be able to have some games when I'm back in Bristol, if you want.

ASM are best dealt with by banshees + bait. Bait includes WG, shuriken plats or Falcons, since Falcon+ GU x 2 + Shees become one of the hardest combos for SM to attack. Wraithguard are amazing with support. Don't see them as own-all units. Banshee support, Shuriken support, Farseer support, etc...

Here's an idea. Get used to the windup of WG, wait till they're about to fire, then suppress instantly with mind war. They'll be sitting ducks and will have to instaretreat after a direct hit. If a squad of ASM is on 3/4 health, guided WG on mind war-ed ASM can wipe the squad.

Grenades are separate entities that do damage in an AOE depending on distance from the epicentre. Double grenades, if placed properly, can wipe a tac squad. Place them in positions, one slightly in front and one behind so that they are likely to run forward or back straight into one. Grenades do extra damage against heavy armor.

Malachi

8th Jan 11, 8:46 AM

But even though I've only played 4 games online the automatch is putting me up against rank 50s!As helena said, Rank means nothing, but you could still be matched against high TS players, for about 10 of your first matches. The matchmaking system does that to determine your actual skill level, so you don't get started at TS 1 and keep bashing complete noobs.

Codex

8th Jan 11, 8:59 AM

I should've said this too. Matchmaking will keep pitting you against all sorts of skill levels early on until it has a grasp on your actual skill level. When it has a good estimate it starts being more discriminate about matchmaking.

Snakeb1te

8th Jan 11, 12:47 PM

I see. Yeah I asked about the grenades because at least with those I seem to be having some success, in fact I think that's how I manage to kill most of the tacs I fight. The only way I was able to kill an ASM was by retreating my banshees and farseer, and whilst they were chasing I dropped 2 grenades on the retreat path and his ASM ran straight into it. One survived though, which was enough to become a pain in the ass later.

Here's an idea. Get used to the windup of WG, wait till they're about to fire, then suppress instantly with mind war. They'll be sitting ducks and will have to instaretreat after a direct hit. If a squad of ASM is on 3/4 health, guided WG on mind war-ed ASM can wipe the squad.

I do actually do this, except I always forget about guide (that's how you know I'm a nooblet).

As helena said, Rank means nothing, but you could still be matched against high TS players, for about 10 of your first matches. The matchmaking system does that to determine your actual skill level, so you don't get started at TS 1 and keep bashing complete noobs.

I didn't know that it put you up against different skill levels but now that I know then yeah it makes sense, I had to go through a similar procedure in my Starcraft 2 placement matches.

I just kept getting annoyed thinking (damn this guy is good) then looking at their units and they're all wearing pimp armour.

Rank means nothing, only trueskill. If my internets (RAGE AT VIRGIN MEDIA) gets fixed we might be able to have some games when I'm back in Bristol, if you want.

Yeah that's great, you've been helping me out a fair bit thus far.

9th Jan 11, 12:35 AM

ofc rank means nothing but normaly high rank players leave exactly at the beggining of the match saying is the bad that the others have low rank...

Malachi

9th Jan 11, 12:57 AM

This only proves that you can have high Rank and still be a noob.

Snakeb1te

9th Jan 11, 1:27 AM

ofc rank means nothing but normaly high rank players leave exactly at the beggining of the match saying is the bad that the others have low rank...

I doubt that, perhaps in team games or custom 1v1s, but definitely not automatch head to head.

Malachi

9th Jan 11, 1:44 AM

He definitely meant 3v3/2v2.

2marston

11th Jan 11, 7:35 PM

As Warlock

vs FC / Apo you will want:

Merciless Witch blade
Shees
Shuri
Rangers
(channeling runes is optional)
Aspect on shees
Pathfinder on rangers
Battle equip on gu possibly

Basically he's gonna get ASM most games. If he doesn't you can skip a squad and some wargear/equips, but generally, shuri suppresses, shees defend shuri from ASM, gu focus down scouts and then apo, warlock ties down the tacs.

vs SM Techmarine:

Banshee
2x rangers
MWB

Fairly simple, just use the rangers heavily to pick off tacs. Get pathfinder if necessary. If he chooses to go ASM then shees + MWB will defend you easily. Use MWB ranged stance on techmarine where necessary.

Vs Eldar:

Banshee
1 Node and 1 gen only (this is important to get out your rangers asap)
2x rangers straight up
Aspect on shees
Pathfinder
Weapon upgrade for warlock is optional.

Cause attrition with the rangers as much as possible. Eldar bleed horribly to rangers. Pick off units in this priority. Rangers > Shees > Gu's. If he has rangers, keep yours cloaked where possible so you can kill his rangers without losing first model.

Vs Orks:

Gu > Shee start (leaving you with 2 guardians straight off, and then a banshee)
If warboss, get shuri.
If knob or mek, get rangers.
Get immolator blade
Banshee aspect
Gu battle equipment

Basically it's gonna be a tough match.

Vs Nids:

2 gu 2 shuri works well. Esp vs hive tyrant.
2 gu, ranger, shuri probably best vs LA
Always get immo blade
Guardian battle equips for nade spikes and shield setups.

Good luck with this, if you read it.

Same sort of BO's work for other eldar commanders, but with different wargear obviously.

Edit: Forgot chaos. Probably best to use 2 gu + shee + immo blade and go from there. Rangers for tac massers, shuri for tic massers.