[DC] The Hyperion Peaks

[Akranadas]

The Hyperion Peaks

[BrianGeneral]

This can be tricky depending on the army used. You'll have 1+ Relic Units (at least for Tau and Crons) and loads of troops and you'll have to win the round by only just using them, no bases.

Either way, I'll suggest separating the forces into half, with similar amounts of troops. Cap the Strategic Points once you got one (this can be tough for Crons since they can't get Power for reinforcing, but they got 2 Monoliths and that's just enough) and build LPs on them if you have enough resources.
The enemy bases will be in 3 places: Centre Crater has 1, while near the bottom have 2. You have to micro your units well to avoid losses, and send your uber units inside and kill everything you see. Conserve your builder units since they're the only ones who can repair your machines.

Just move carefully and mop up everything in the map and you'll win. As Tau and Crons it can be fairly easy IMO.

[Hirmetrium]

The difficulty of this mission can vary depending on the defending race. possibly the BEST race to hold the peaks when attacking is tau, since they have no turrets built there are even less buildings to destroy, and your men take less damage!

[Finaldeath]

I found this map near impossible using Guardsmen against the standard Orks who usually occupy this area.

You start with a fixed force, one builder who can build only listening posts, and thats it.

Guardsmen get 2 Baneblades, 2-3 Sentinals, 2 Basilisks, and some guardsmen, 2 heavy weapon squads (I think) and some psykers. Notably, there isn't any special abilities available (everything is tier 1) nor hellhounds, which is rather annoying. You also lack major amounts of power.

As Guardsmen you get given some very underequipped squads and no secondary leaders apart from a few psykers. My honour guard made up half my infantry at the start!

I may well go back to it, however the standard Orks, especially if the AI builds some extra defenses there, produce Looted Tanks and Squiggoths quite quickly even if you push on two of the bases pretty quickly, and with only 2 Baneblades and a few sentinels to act as Anti Armour, it is very difficult to destroy them.

I had 2 assassins too, didn't help too much.

If anyone figures out the best way to do this map with Guardsmen please say

[Hirmetrium]

rush one side with your uber units(not possible as chaos) and the other with all your manpower. The uber units will gain the attention, and the other army can push through. once you take out two of the bases it should be fairly easy, simply holding the center and repairing.

[Haisho]

And I quote Troubleshooter on what to do with IG...

Try this. Select all your squads, and Attack-Move the relic to the south

Okay....not an exact quote, but I think it hits the spot. Oddly, it worked for him.

Good chances are that Orks will hold this map for the whole campaign. Depending on who controls it though, difficulty can vary. Most notably, Necrons with their evil, evil Monoliths.

A few pointers though.
- Strike fast, and strike hard. You don't have time to pull elaborate hit and runs unless you are the living incarnation of micro. Time is of the essence, and if you don't strike fast enough, the computer will start producing relic units. Lots and lots of relic units.

- Lead with your tanky units. Anything with a lot of health and good armor will do. Tau do especially well what with the amount of Krootox they have. Others aren't so lucky though....if at all possible, lead with vehicles first. Maybe except with the IG, but that's another dilemma.

- Get to the relics as fast as you can! If there's one thing that's worse than swarms of standard units, it's swarms of standard units AND a relic unit or 2 supporting them. Adjust your targetting priorities according to what they do best, and at all costs, take those relics away from their control!

- Burn it down! Unit production buildings are top priority targets. One less building that produces units means significantly less time spent dealing with them. Anything else that doesn't produce units or isn't a turret, save it for mopping duty.

I'll be frank. There's not a lot of strategies available on this map because your hand is forced to attack right at the start, or suffer the subsequent wrath of your opponent's relic units. However, it is a given that taking down unit-producing buildings will really help.

One can really expect a lot of problems with Orks though. Apart from 2 buildings, all their other buildings are also technically turrets. While they're normally brushed off as insignificant in normal maps with the Destroy HQ objective, it's a vastly different on Hyperion Peaks.

Treat every scratch and injury from turrets as a curse. A squad that is wiped out on Hyperion Peaks means significantly less firepower for you, and that is something you cannot afford if you want to do the job as efficiently as possible.
One should care about their troops carefully, but one mustn't treat them so much that they become idle. Push forward, but push carefully. This applies doubly so for IG since their armored columns serves the mainstay of their army. You cannot afford losing too many tanks, but you also cannot afford losing any squads of GMs either.

[Nic Love]

The orks will have 3 HQ's. Usually only one HQ has the orky fort upgraded. Last two times I played the map the upgraded one was on the bottom left. The key to victory is to attack that base first. The first times I fought the map, I destroyed the other base first, and never got the relic on the (make sure to get that as well, as said before), so after I finished wiping that base, the orks were pumping out squiggoths (actaully had 2 up against me). After much cursing and losing, I changed strat and rushed the bottom base with the orky fort upgrade, and was never really bothered the rest of the map. I held my force in the center of the map (kept other 2 bases under house arrest), and proceeded to get rest of map points outside. It seems that after eliminating the upgraded HQ the orks didn't make as many vehicles and no squiggy's at all.

[Gamecat]

Tau Vs Cron:

I split my forces into two groups with equal units (as equal as I could get) then went straight for the two choke points that lead to the crater. If you can take them early enough they don't get to dig in so much.

Once I controled them I took the crater followed by the bases in the corners. If you use your long range weapons to destroy buildings and turrets, keeping your manpower to repel any counter strike made by their manpower it's easy enough.

I admit to losing a few units in the initial rush but found I had more than enough to mop up afterwards.

[Twopairs]

Chaos vs. Orks.

You have no AV units so you need to take out their Mek shops asap! Run straight into the valley take out their HQs and Mek shops in their 3 bases before proceeding to anything else. Some of their banners are upgraded with rocket launchers, so keep your processed squads in the front before moving in with your predators when taking out the rest of their base.

[malairt]

You need a plan or your Orks just die!

I tried a mass rush to the bottom left, a mass rush to the bottom right: worked against the Chaos home country but an utter failure here. OK - how about a slow build up to get all the squads up to full strength? Nah - you only have a thousand energy and you need the Waaagh banners to raise the pop cap and you need to cap 3 or 4 points to get the req flowing. Meh. By the time I had a full strength army, bloody Tau and their bloody invisible tanks and troops everywhere.


The malairt plan FTW
Right: don't hang about as the Tau seem to breed like rabbits. Split your force into two: Warboss, 2 Squigs, 2 shootaz and a slugga squad galloping off to capture the relic on the bottom right. I took the relic unopposed.

The rest charge off to the relic on the bottom left with 2 squads of MANz in front, the tanks and wartraks at the back, goons in the middle. By the time I got there, Tau had captured it, but you have enough to take it back off them. In the mean time your 2 spare squads of sluggas are off capping all the points you bypassed and your single grot squad is planting LP's and a banner on each one.

Right squad then charged in to the base to find nobody home - all gone off to the left (heh heh). Huge melee, orgy of destruction, and a quick clean win. Gorgutz died, as in fact did 1 MANz squad, but the Squiggies were superb, albeit slightly the worse for wear.

Some points to ponder

• Don't start reinforcing your squads too early. You need the req to build LP's,and you need the LP req to build banners so that your pop cap goes up.
• Watch your energy. You only have a thousand and you cant get any more. Don't therefore upgrade your LP's as you need the energy for the banners.
• Go for barracks and mekshops first: Tau can't build anything either.
• Don't repair! You only have one grot squad and you must get the req flowing and the banners built so that your squads can reinforce.
• Get the relics, as somebody said above, and it all falls into place

[Alrik147]

I did it w/ Marines on Easy

I got my honor guard, commander, 2 librarians, 2 Term. Squads, Term. Assault Squad, 2 Land Raiders, 2 Squads, a couple of Dreads and Whirlwinds.

I just attached my chars to the Term Squads, and let them and the Raiders just sweep along one side, the rest following and capturing points. I kept doing this and eventually, it led me back to where I started. Every Ork died, and only one Terminator Died in the entire process, that was it. It took about twenty minutes (I take my sweet time). Easy

[bluto]

With Marines vs the standard Orks (on normal), I had great success (twice--long story) creating 3 battle groups.

Anvil was my terminators (FC with assult, librarians with the ranged), standard dreads, and land raiders. The hammer was the Whirlwinds and the Hell Fire dreads. The standard marines and apothicaries filled the lines when necessary and capped points when not needed to protect the chaplian/servitor (with the healling in lulls these guys were the keys to my victory). Note that I had a nearly full honor guard and they came in very handy. I'd probably go in again without the librarian and perhaps a dread, but I'd definitely want an assult marine, and chaplain.

Hammer went around the north on a long attck move to the critical point in the center, anvil went around the south to the edge of the SW crater. Whirlwinds were held back for the first move on the north lip of the big crater. My HG assault marine capped the relic on the upper rim of the crater. Land raiders went in and knocked over the big mek shop with support from the missle troops, rest of hammer began bowling over the base in the middle (with support from the whirlwinds. Once the strike was complete the LR joined. Don't forget to smite, it greatly reduces the big guys health and toasts the little guys.

Step two was a big move forward Servitors reparing hellfire dreads that took a beating from their nobs and big mek. No repairs were full but took things from red to about half. Chaplain went to the middle of the three groups of termies who rebuilt the few losses they had.

In the other two craters I had the stuff on the hill fire rain down His will with vanilla marines there to provide counter attcks from storm boys and big meks. Land raiders and dreads smashed into both of the other bases with a quick LR repair (from about half to 2/3) and one dread half way through the battle. Once that was complete it was mop up the last few Waaah banners I'd missed or had been rebuilt by the now cloaked grots. Finished with 0 power and one terminator short of full squads.

On the twice, I was running late to appointment after winning the first time and instead of canceling the exit to main menu before saving I exited, so it was the battle so nice, I played it twice.

[SirNick]

There are two secrets to beating the Hyperion Peaks with the Imperial Guard (based on experience with Hard Difficulty). This assumes that the Orks are in control.

1. Have a Sanctioned Psyker in your Honor Guard when you begin the mission.

2. Baneblades massively outrange Waaagh! Banners with their Lascannons.

The Sanctioned Pysker is absolutely needed because he alone can cast Curse of the Machine Spirits. This will be the secret to helping the Killa Kan spam.

Baneblades will murder Ork buildings if they can get into range with their Lascannons. This requires manually clicking a bit and fiddling with the "A"-Attack moving. Once you figure it out you'll hit a nice pattern.

Rokkit Banners are more problematic but more doable with your infantry, naturally enough.

Inbetween Basilisks and your Heavy Weapons Teams, you can snipe off a significant portion of the buildings and Kans on in the center lower section. Just make sure the HWTs have Lascannons.

The Baneblades will also handle Killa Kans nicely at range and infantry disruption. Just make sure to manually click on the Kans so that the Baneblades use their Lascannons for best effect. Inbetween the two of them they should kill Kans in two or three volleys.

More detailed writeup to follow soon, along with other races.

For Tau, replace "Baneblade" with "Hammerhead" and you win the mission.

[Kalimac]

How I did as Orks vs Tau on normal, with a full honour guard:

1. I paused the game and divided my army into groups using the using the ctrl + number command. (I put the Looted Leman Russes as group 1, for example). Moved the gretchins inside one of the Squiggoths.

2. Unpaused, and rushed with all my troops to the southwest entrance (did't bother capping points). Had my Squiggoths and Killa Kans move in first as meat-shields, and then followed with sluggas and shoota boys. Russes stood in the back of the army as artillery.

3. Took out the southwest base and decaped the relic, moved north and took out that base, and then moved east and exterminated that base. (Always have a detector in the front of your army (I used MANZ) so you can kill all the invisible infantry and vehicles.)

4. By this time Tau only had one building left, and I had to search the entire map to find it (it was a Kroot Barrack that was built on my starting position).

I think the key to this mission is speed (I didn't cap a single strategic point/relic/critical location), and a big honour guard is really handy. I had planned to use the gretchins to repair my vehicles, but I didn't have time for that in the heat of the battle.

I didn't build a single LP or banner, instead I used the requisition to reinforce my shoota boys-squads and the MANZ-squads.

Before I used this method I hade failed two times to conquer the Hyperion Peaks (on my second try Tau only had three buildings left, but the only thing left of my army were a Squiggoth with 1/3 HP. ) but when I rushed I succeded, and only a few orks were killed.


As SM vs Orks, standard:

Did the same thing as with Orks, but this was a cakewalk. Two Landraiders, two Librarians, two terminator squads, one assault terminator squad, lots of dreads and marines + heroes made this really easy.

[CADster]

Chaos (invading) v/s Orks (defending) -

hard. very, very, hard.

you only have one builder (heritic) and he almost always dies too early. I think you need at least 1 flying champion, he comes in handy for this mission. I also had a champion cannon walker to add to my starting armor and he helped a lot.

mass everyone as one huge force (except the heritic and flyer). send this army group down the left side, into the middle, then into the bottom left pocket. the map has a few pockets in the center. take the bottom left pocket first... this stops the heavy Ork beast from being made. do not sit around when the misson starts. start moving ASAP.

During this trek, you will hit the ork main force right in the face. they seem to turn on the big demon but cant stop him from walking, when they do, he does the knock back move and starts walking again. your force spends much of the trek time cutting orks down from the rear as they are all attacking the demon. because your demon guy walks faster, he is in front and he draws most of the ork army traffic, as well as the fire. Use the rest of your army to take out the building as you go.. but do not stop them. once you own the first pocket, hold the choke point untill the horde is dead and if you are lucky, your heritic made it through and he can heal the machines (mine did one time and did not another <shrug>).

after you own the first pocket and are refreshed somewhat, move to the bottom right pocket and clear same as the first (i think you call it rinse and repeat?). you dont need to hold this pocket, the horde never amasses again after the mobile army is cut down and the first pocket falls. the forces are no longer so big that they choke your units and box them in.

once in the 2nd pocket, split a very small force out. your champion flyer and a tank, or whatever is ranged heavy that you can spare. you just need to give the champion some backup in case the orks slip a builder group and a small band behind your lines to start capturing what you destroyed. use the jumper to hit the cleared pocket/areas by jumping. if its reinforced, back him up or jump him out and clear it with his support. if its still cleared, use him to start flagging the points, use his support... to support him... keep it to the rear and out of tower range. by this time the main force in the 2nd pocket is refreshed.

taking out the ork army and first pocket has dropped some major points off the big demon, so i had to rest him for a bit. later, i used the big demon guy and a group of the posessed<sp> melee guys as trouble makers while the machines refreshed. moving these baddies along the edge and into the openings of the other pockets, clearing out the light stuff. then I used the flyer with his support to capture what was cleared (if anything could be captured). the orks will chase the demon guy and if they do let them follow you into the choke point of the pocket where your army is located and crush them.

do this sweep in a counter clockwise motion. hitting the upper most pocket last. this one will be slam full of mechwalkers and killcans. i used both pocessed (yea.. its spelled wrong) melee groups and the deamon guy with all armor as indirect support. keep one power station alive in this pocket.

after all pockets fall, and only one power station remains, start sweeping the whole map and claiming all points... you will still hit a few ork bands.
take the last power staion out last... after you have control of every point on the map.

this may sound like a turtle move, but its not. you cant sit in these pockets for long. you cant stop your army for long. you must push quickly into each pocket, resting only after the pocket is cleared, and resting/healing only the really damanged units.

machine units in the yellow should be set to indirect fire. units in the red should be healed untill they turn yellow, the heritic takes too long to really heal them all or heal them completely (if he is even alive). keep your demon guy and pocessed guys in the front. the demon heals the fastest, so use this to keep his points up by giving him lots of short breaks.

spend ALL your money(energy) replacing the pocessed units. the light units (whatever they are called.. builder looking guys with pea-shooters) are cannon fodder. they dont last very long, so dont waste the very little energy you have on them. dont waste any money on building up any locations. only capture them after you own an area and are moving on tot he next area... dont waste a penny on listening post... unless you own all locations and you have the extra energy at the end of the mission (i did not).

the demon recharges when standing still. use him and his little demon melee groups as a first in/first out attacker. he can be recharging as your armor mops up an area.

the heritic is hard to keep alive. ork bands comb the whole map, so there is no safe place to 'park' him untill you own a pocket. this mission really needs to have 2 or 3 of them. loosing this guy can cost you the whole mission. but you dont relize it until you have battled through 2/3's of the map and cooked an hour on the clock.

when i kept him alive, i only lost one tank. when he died, i finished with only one tank (i played this mission twice to make sure these tactics worked).

hope this helps.

i have all 3 games so i am playing all races, going from top to bottom. i am playing as the chaos first.

[Commander ASOP]

Ok as stated for IG attack move all forces to the relic works well.

Other general tips

1. watch your units pull back and reinforce when you can. Remember if you lose a complete unit it is gone for ever.

2. cap and upgrade a few points as having some income may make all the difference as you try to complete the level. You are usually out of req by this time

Race spacific guide for Necron

Had some trouble at first as the slow speed of the monolith really worked against me. the solution is to move to the right teleport the monoliths to the first crater while troops move to ramp and hold area around the critical.

as your monoliths slowly move towards the critical they eliminate one base easily. From then on it is rinse and repeate just remember to repair along the way.

[spikyface]

Hi

I've tried doing this a couple of times with Chaos on normal difficulty and haven't enjoyed it much, seems too much like hard work

If the Orks control the Hyperion peaks and I take their stronghold, then will the peaks become mine too?

Or will they become neutral when the Orks are eliminated?

Hmmm.. I think I prefer doing this to taking the peaks, I'll give it a go and post a response in a few hours if I'm successful

Later

[spikyface]

Ok tried it, was actually quite a fun (but long) mission and got 2 pieces of wargear for it (2000 kills and 3-1 kill ratio)

Unfortunately, the peaks are still Ork controlled so it looks like I'll have to do this mission anyway since I need that forward base thing

Oh well, at least I don't have to worry about Gorgutz and his honor guard any more and the Orks can no longer attack me either

[Coruskane]

Have been unsuccessful so far with chaos (vs. orcs) but am going to try CADsters nifty sounding battle plan (thanks ).

The problem with chaos is that they get but one relic unit (daemon prince) which, whilst being pretty sweet, compared to 2 monoliths for the necrons is pretty underwhelming and insufficient to say the least.

The only battle troops (i.e. not cultists ^^) chaos get are psms which rapidly drain the power you start with meaning you literally have a fixed number of reinforcements (40 max assuming no tank repairs or LPing). Other races all have at least one unit that requires only req or a small amount of power (psms need 25!!!!!!). One tip I can give for chaos is not to split your force up! I had nearly a full honour gaurd (still needed the sorcerer and a few zerks) and yet, because the honour gaurd are, with the exception of the 1 oblit, all melee they have little chance of survival for long. If you can keep them alive into the orky bases then gg for you as they will tear the buildings apart. You must keep your preds alive. You get a lovely WA-esque 4 of them so enjoy...

[spikyface]

I finally did it today although honestly I don't think was worth it at the point I am in the game, I had already destroyed the Ork stronghold and have the territories surrounding the peaks anyway

The forward base upgrade you get when you have the peaks allows you to have buy a couple of heretics, a chaos temple and armory when attacking.
I usually rush the enemy with my honor guard and run through 2 bases in the first 10 minutes or so of the game so if I haven't won in that time I'll have a base ready to go anyway

If playing as chaos, I wouldn't bother with this region, I think you only need to capture the race strongholds to win anyway, so just neutralise the Orks, bottle up the region and move on


IF you really want to do it though, here's my method

Chaos strategy: normal difficulty
The way I did it (after reading the veteran players comments) was to group the units into hotkeys, e.g. honor guard raptors are group 4, tanks and defilers are group 3, possessed marines and cultists are group 1 and honor guard raptors are group 2 and keep the heretic close to your tanks so he can heal them, if you leave him anywhere, he'll get cut off from the main group and die
Reinforce both the cultists AND the possesed marines as the money won't be used for anything else anyway and you'll finish with a surplus

At this point I had an honor guard of 11 troops and owned all the map except for the peaks and 1 bezerker champ land in the north where the space marines and Tau keep fighting


First off, send the cultists to grab the closest 3 points going anti-clockwise (i.e. towards the south west), then send the heroes (group 2) down south followed by the tanks (group 3)

Destroy the waagh banners using the possessed marines and tank group (this group should always be set to ranged combat)

The cultists should be finished capturing their points so bring group 1 down with the rest of the army BUT leave the raptor champions where they are, the orks will come around with a small group at some point and try to take these points from you when you are elsewhere

save the game

Then take the honor guard (group 2) and move towards the south west base, if you get attacked from another base at this point stop advancing and fight them off but DON'T let your troops go into their base, after a giving them a bloody nose they'll bugger off home

As you clear areas use whichever hero units are injured to capture strategic points and take them out of any groups they are in while doing so, the rest of the army moves forward

Ignore the machine gun turrets and only destroy the rocket turrets that are shooting at you, your priority is to gut the bases, i.e. destroy the mech hut, the boyz hut and the settlement

save the game

Once the south west base is gutted move on to the central base, same as before, if you are attacked by troops from other bases hold them off till they leave

There is a cluster of waagh banners in the centre base that will distract you,
ignore them and use group 1 (cultists and possessed marines) as well as the daemon prince to destroy the settlement
At the same time have the defilers firing artillery shells at the boyz hut and the tanks sitting in front of them to mow down any orks that attack
Once both are destroyed send group 1 up to destroy the mech shop and use the defilers to destroy the waagh banners to keep them from getting bored
Once this base is gutted move your troops to the space containing the critical location, keeping groups 1 and 2 at the front, followed by the tanks and then the defilers

save the game

Then comes the hard part, when I moved out of this base the Orks attacked from both the high ground and the last base remaining so I was forced to hold up here and fight them off until their green wave of troops became a trickle
AS SOON AS THEIR ATTACK eased up, I pushed into the last base, these guys had
the most troops and the toughest
First attack the destroy the mech shop otherwise the killa kans will eat all your troops, you'll have to keep the troops in front of the tanks to keep them alive as they'll be quite damaged at this point
I was forced to put the defilers up front and lose one in the process in order to fight off the killa kans and mega nobz but once the mech shop is gone, get the possessed marines (the cultists are probably all dead by now) to run in and destroy the boyz hut and the settlement (daemon prince can help too)

save the game

Well done, you've finished the hard part, now it's just a case of killing off any gretchin that are left and destroying the remaining buildings, the possessed marines can do this on their own more or less as long as you keep reinforcing them but it's quicker if you use the other troops too

That's the longest post I've ever done so I hope it helps someone

[Sweedumz]

Power management is key in this mission. You only have a very finite amount, which must be used for both reinforcing more powerful units and repairing vehicles. Eventually, you will run out, and if you're not careful, so will your vehicles and best units. As such, make sure you use "rec only" units as meat shields.

[Grov]

Basically just don't hold back. I always go for the bottom left base first as it seems hardest.

Ive not really had much trouble on the map, as you get decent amount of units.

Tau was the easiest, with 3 Knarloc's and 2 hamerheads. Eldar was probly hardest, though i aint done orcs, or chaos yet.

[A. Val'Navat]

Help, I'm playing Crons and I can't seem to win against the Squiggoth-Ork Commander spam...

I know I attacked from one side of the crater, and I held it well until the LLRs and the Squiggoths came out.

[Grov]

Ok ive had it with this map as Chaos on hard, it's impossible.

How the fuck is this fair, you get 4 preds, all at tier 1, and 1 Daemon prince, who sucks. Other races get 1 sometimes 2 Relic units, bloomin Necrons got 2 monoliths, wtf.

I cannot beat it. I have a full honour guard as well, not that there useful. Ah well, it can stay as orks, bugger it.

[malairt]

Chaos v Orks on Normal

3 times last night I got my head handed to me on a plate. Oceans of Boyz and grots everywhere rebuilding as fast as you destroy. It's really depressing to see your army shrinking like snow in summer and watch the building count go up.

Hard must be absolutely mental.

[Garumsh-Zott]

You basically just have to move really fast (destroying production buildings and vecs over infantry units) and you will never encounter a single squiggy. But I confess that the chaos starting units are not the best compared to others.

[malairt]

Chaos versus (an awful lot of) Orks on Medium

Grouped the Army into #1 group (tanks, walker, troops - the lot) + the heretic on #2.

• Everybody sets off down the West side of the map
• Destroy all Banners as you go - otherwise the Heretic gets shot. Make sure your Possessed are on Overwatch, but not the cultists. Keep the Heretic at the back.
• Head for the Relic. By this time your army is stringing out, so swing the Big Guy, Possessed and the tanks into the teeth of the storm of Boyz piling out of the slope leading to the bottom centre crater. Cultists take the Relic.
• Invade the bottom centre crater and kill everything. Put the machines on Burn stance (kill buildings). Take the points otherwise grots infiltrate and rebuild.
• Bring the remaining cultists in - mine got ambushed in the centre clearing and died. Shame. Orks all died too.
• Sneak in the Heretic and withdraw into the crater.
• Build LP's on the 3 points - I had run out of cash by this time and needed reinforcements. Then heal any machines in the red. Daemon regenerates pretty fast so this lull is useful. Nothing will attack you, so relax.
• Attack the centre clearing and then swing East into the Eastern crater. Kill everything. There's noticeably less Boyz around than before. Possessed on Overwatch, Daemon, 4 Preds and a Defiler - didn't lose a man.
• Attack North crater - awfully easy. "I think we got'em demoralised".
• Kill all the remaining banners scattered around.

This was my 5th attempt and was almost anticlimactically easy compared with before. I noticed that some of the LP's and banners didn't move the counter down when I destroyed them - I would hazard a guess that they were built after the start.

Many thanks to all the excellent posts above for inspiration and ideas.


Edit:@ Kerath
maybe that was it and I just wasn't watching closely enough.

[Kerath]

LPs don't appear to count as buildings, as far as the mission counter is concerned. Banners should, though.

[Grov]

It's gonna seem a hell of a lot easier on normal, when your units have 2x the hitpoints.

4 preds with 8000HP and a DP with 10,000 sounds a hell of a lot better.

I could never do it on hard as Chaos. I took out the 2 bases, and almost all of the last 1, except for the main base, so they keep spamming slugga's, the warboss, and mad dok, and my force is always to small.

[TheHolyDarkness]

I'm IG vs Cron (hard difficulty).

For the most part its actually easier than fighting the orks.

Except, for essence of the nightbringer...That is the one thing that will keep screwing me over.

So what I'm wondering, since its "temporary" and all, is excatly what is responsible for ending it? Is it on a timer??? Is it a manner of completly "refiiling" the NL's health or what? If I understood its weaknesses, what it was that finally made that nightmare end, I could finally get through this thing.

~TheHolyDarkness Out~

[Kerath]

The Nightbringer transformation is timed, so if you can stall long enough (it's a couple minutes or so... I know the exact second value is somwhere in the forums, but I can't remember which thread(s)) it'll swap back to the Necron Lord regardless of how much it's healed. The biggest problem comes from trying to evade it when you're swamped with lots of other Necron units, since dancing and whatnot become a lot trickier. However, take advantage of a few things: first, the NB is huge, which gives it some pathing difficulty, particularly in big unit swarms. Second, the NB is CC-based, which means you can bog it down with cheap, plentiful CC units and keep your more valuable troops out of its reach. Third, the NB gets sync kills fairly often. For many units this is an advantage, as it incurs temporary invulnerability, but the NB already has that, so all sync kills do is slow it down and wear down the transformation timer. Fourth, NB scythe attacks are powerful but slow. It makes a great killer for HQs and T4 relic units, but it really is lousy against swarms of CC.

I always seem to get stuck fighting against Orks in Hyperion Peaks, so I've never squared off against the Nightbringer in that map. The one time I fought the Necrons in Hyperion, they never got the NB out, and I actually had a pretty easy time beating them compared to Orkspam. The above tips are just ones I've found useful for dealing with the NB in general. Hope they help.

On a side note, in my current Ork campaign the Hyperion Peaks are held by the Tau, which is a first for me. I'm looking forward to seeing how that'll change the mission dynamic.

[TheHolyDarkness]

Nice tip. NB kept eating at my Baneblade's. But make the BB run away, attract NB's attention with the Command Squad.

Then...

Get with the groove and dance!

That minimized the NB's influence. And without the NB ripping at my T4's, again, it's actually quite pleasent compared to those damn orks. Thanks for reaffirming that it's on a timer.

I think those damn orks, the key is to not preoccupy yourself with killing the stronghold. First Da Mek Shops, then Da Boyz Huts. Skip the strongholds until every last one of these building inside the crater are destroyed. It's the Squigs and the Flash Gitz that get ya in my experience.

As for Tau...I think they still have "turrets" in a manner of speaking...it's really cheap. But it's been a long time since I first beat the game as ork. So I can't fully recall.

~TheHolyDarkness Out~

[Sholto]

Crons vs. Orks

(it's always been Orks holding this when I've played)

I divided my forces into two groups - Destroyers, Heavy Destroyers and Destroyer Lord in Group 1 and everything else in Group 2. I built as many fully reinforced builder scarabs as I could get, as well.

Group 1 headed for the NE Relic site, killing everything along the way. Group 1 are very fast.

Group 2 went for the other Relic in the S. Jump both Monoliths in to the base guarding the S Relic along with the NL. Kill the vehicle building first, then any vehicles. The rest of your infantry will make it through the Ork spam in the centre without too many losses, just make sure they don't stop and fight.

Have your builder scarabs constantly healing up the Monoliths. They get taken out, but that's okay, because they're free! Build more.

The Monoliths guard the entrance to the S base, while your infantry and NL take out the rest of the Ork buildings and secure the Relic.

Group 1 stays up the top harassing the Orks. I found these guys drew off many of the attacks that might otherwise have swamped Group 2, and the Orks just kept chasing Group 1 all over the place and Group 1 eventually fried them all. Just make sure the NE Relic site does not get an Ork LP on it.

Once the S Relic is secured Group 2 head East and destroy that base. Vehicle building first, then any vehicles. Now you can wipe out the rest of the Orks with only Group 1 - Group 2 can just sit there and smoke 'em if they got 'em.

I've done this map as Tau, as well. That was easier, even though I let the Orks get Squiggoths - loads and loads of them!

Sholto

[Grov]

I just had Necrons take over the peaks for the first time ever, and they were so much easier than orks, hardly any troops at all, though 3 greater knarlocs and 2 hammerheads, helps.

How in the how can Relic give you that as Tau, and 2 monolith's as Necrons, compared to what you get as chaos.

[NE-Tortoise]

hmm... I can't seem to beat this though...

Tau vs Orks(Defending) on Hard.

Will try the rush bottom left base strategy soon. I have almost all the honor guard units too! *ashamed!*

[Grov]

Tau are easily the best race to attack with on this map.

geesh mate, you get 3 Greater Knarloc's, 2 hammerheads, and some krootox, how can you not win with that?

[Einheriar]

And Eldar are the worse race for this mission (and in fact, they are the weakest race for everything, I just can't have fun with their "strategy"). They don't have firepower, they don't have much usefull units...

Just 2 Scout squads, 1 Warp Spider Squad, 2 Faclon, 2 Fire Prism, 2 Wraithlord and 2 Vypers, the Avatar, plus the entire Honor Guard, and they just screw up everytime I try to take down the opponent (Space Marines control the Hyperion Peaks, just after taking control of the Spaceport!)

That's definitive, I hate playing with Eldars... I wonder how they managed to survive in the WH40K universe with such weakness... If anyone have a strategy with Eldars, I'd be glad to read it.

Cheers

[TheLoneKnight]

I would just like to point out that regardless of your strategy, I've found an effective (if blunt) method of making the map easier is to attack it twice, with full (or the majority) honour guards. Obnoxious, I know.

Still, if you inflict enough damage you ruin that 7 difficulty rating, dragging it down into a far-more-manageable 5 (or at least I did). The second strike will encounter less resistance, less intelligent AI and will generally be much easier to to win with. I also noticed a distinct lack of any Relic Units, but perhaps that's just because I moved quickly.

[Grov]

Eldar weren't to bad, use the Avatar effectively, so your troops don't loose moral. Have him attack the buildings that make units, and the rest of army to nail troops.

Chaos are by far the hardest on this map.

[Kerath]

I'd have to agree with Grov. CSM get royally shafted in Hyperion Peaks. That's not to say that Eldar don't also have a tough time of it (I'd probably rate them as 2nd most difficult), but Chaos definitely has the worst time in this mission.

[Grov]

I just beat Hyperion with orks on Level 7 easily as Eldar, my Avatar had over 10,000HP left, both Prisms were still there. It's pretty easy when you have 3 full Seer Council squads.

[Kerath]

Still, I'd classify Eldar as having a tougher time than the other races, with the obvious exception of Chaos, and the possible exception of Ork (I found it easier with Ork, personally, particularly because you don't have to fight against Orks :P). Reason being:
Space Marine: two land raiders, and I think you get a whirlwind too. 'Nuff said.
Imperial Guard: two baneblades. 'Nuff said.
Necrons: Geez, what mission is hard with these guys? Not to mention, two monoliths is over-the-top ridiculousness.
Tau: Hammerheads + Krootox + Knarloc = gg :P

Eldar might not have a super-difficult time, but compared to the four armies in the list above, they get shafted.

[Galdred]

I tried to beat it on hard with chaos (def 7) vs orks with a semi upgraded Chaos Lord, but I gave up after losing half of my force against the first base. However, once your CL has ascended to Demon Prince, the map gets fairly easy as you have 2 monster tanks to soak up damage (but you don't really need this base anyway if you already have the DP, as he makes every other battle a joke).
I just sent everyone to the southern base, with both DP spearheading. After that, I left my most crippled DP rest, while the heretic was repairing a defiler, and sent everyone else to the second base (the northern one, near the second relic). Once I destroyed it, I paused a little to repair then attacked the last base with everything.
I only lost one defiler and all but one of my cultist squads+ a few of the honor guard champions.

[lackofcheese]

I've let my orks get up to Def 10 on Hard. I'm Tau tho, at least.

[Greyscale]

IG attacking Orks, lv 10, on hard
currently have full honour guard and full wargear and still having difficulty. have so far taken down hyp peaks at lv 10 diff with Nec,Tau,Eld and SM but IG is giving me grief.

some general strategy for this map:

Speed is of the essence SO as soon as the map begins PAUSE the game, assign groups and reinforce all your squads. AFAIK you cannot attach leaders but you can do pretty much everything else, although it may not appear until you unpause

capture the lps and build points on them. consider upgrading some of the more frontal ones or leaving a few floating squads to defend.

repair your vehicles. set your builder on ceasefire stance (esp for suicidial techpriests!) and pull damaged vehicles back to the rear for repair. This is crucial! loosing a single vehicle is a big blow.

don't loose squads. retreat and reinforce. keep everything at full strength as much as possible. use "meat shields" to protect your softer units, ie, relic units, commanders.

divide your forces the *smart* way. don't just split them in half, split them by task.

abuse any range advantages you have to the max!

- - specific ig tips (so far!) - -

assuming full honour guard, adjust as necessary
pause and assign groupings:
all sentinels, hellhound, HWT's, 2xGM's, one bassy and TP group #1

CS, Ogryn, Two Kassys, Bassy#2, BB's, Hnr Grd Psyker, Both Assasins Group #2

Everything else Group #3

send group 2 straight to bottom right relic, and cap it.

send group one down the left side, capping and building lp's as you go. repair your sentinels, they are weak but crucial. slowly move down. skip the bottomost lp as it will put you in range of rocket banners. hunker down and don't agrro the main infantry group.

get group three to cap the three points north of the relic, and chase round after and ork decappers.

group two is your main attack force. send them round the bottom of the map, micro intensively espec with CotMS, kassy frags and your CS. watch out for leman's, and use the BB's and bassy's huge range to take out the nearby ork hq.
move round all the way and shell the bottom left base before moving in. assist with group two when you have it under control. send you tech priest to group #3 to build on a few more lps, esp the relic (upgrade lp) then send group three into the middle. head to the bottom right base, group #2 first, then mop up the last crater..

- - -

Can anyone confirm that an unsuccesful but damaging attack will reduce the strength of a territory? the owner has already been taken out > : )


cheers

[Jaimas]

I have tried this map 9 times now as IG. Not one strategy here has worked once.

I've inflicted what, in all seriousness, should be a crippling blow on the Orks. I've cleansed half the damn map, and still gotten killed due to facing 3 or so Squiggoths and a half a dozen or so Looted Tanks at once.

I get back out, surprise surprise, the province is still level 7. :\

Really, this map sucks. I've never taken it as IG and see no way to do so whilst the Orks hold it.

[SirNick]

Do you have the Honor Guard Sanctioned Psyker?

Curse of the Machine Spirits was a major contributor to winning the mission for me.

I just focus-fired the two Baneblades at a time and Basilisk'd what I could in Waaagh! Banners.

For some reason I've only seen maybe two Squiggoths in each of the five times I've done the Hyperion Peaks, though. I don't know why.

[reverendlove]

I've defeated it with Guard, Necron, SM, Chaos and Orks on hard. It's pretty straight forward.


1. Rush the Computer, don't bother capping listenign posts. You can't build crap and the starting resource you have is adequate.
2. Don't split up your force. Your outmanned and outgunned. Focus your firepower.
3. Ensure you have at least 1/2 your possible honor guard. This makes it much easier.

With IG you basically need to have your Baneblades meatshield while your techpriest repairs them. Have your Basalisk disrupt the Ork troops while your shootie squads do the real work. Once you've broken their initial attacks have your highest damage output units kill their Mek Shops. The continual push of Nobs and Gitz are tough but it's the Looted Tank and Kan SPAM that crush you. Once you've taken down their Mek Shop move on to the HQ. Once the HQ is down targe the Boyz Hut. Kill any grotz you see as you don't want them rebuilding. Leave and repeat on the next base. Afterwards it's all clean up.

Necrons were by far the easiest. I simply loaded up my troops and teleported straight into the top most base with both Monoliths. From there it was a Guass rifle cake walk.

[Jaimas]

I have 90% of the Map. Yes, I have the Psykers.

I keep getting backstabbed by MANZ, Squiggoths, and Wartrakks, which conventiently go right for the artillery and Sentinels.

[a1ph4riu5]

Eldar have one advantage on this map, which is that they can immediately teleport/jump their Warp Spiders, Prisms and Falcons into the closest enemy base and destroy all the production buildings (avoiding the troops marching around the outside of the map). You should be able to do that before they've built many troops, then it's just a matter of taking down two armies instead of three (still not easy, but much more manageable).

After that you have to resign yourself to moving forward inch by inch, because the tactic I mentioned only works in the first few minutes.