I would assume you get a starting base, as it does seem that whenever they attack you in one of those scenarios, it pretty much acts like a normal skirmish mission.
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#101
I would assume you get a starting base, as it does seem that whenever they attack you in one of those scenarios, it pretty much acts like a normal skirmish mission.
yeah, but i think it would be fun to be the defender of the peaks. I get Pavonis being a skirmish, because you have already found six, but the peaks would be awesome fun.
That's another thing. When you take Hyperion Peaks, you have no buildings to start save for an HQ and any structures you've reinforced with due to Forward Base.
Originally Posted by reverandlove
I lost 5 times in a row taking Imperial Guards against Orks on normal difficulty. Then I took this advice, and took the territory and only lost two Sentinels and a Basilisk.
4 tricks, from least important to most important.
1. Set your Tech-Priest on 'Hold Fire' so he doesn't get into combat and only fixes stuff.
2. Pause like crazy, and then use your Kasrkin Grenades and Psyker Strip Soul like mad, keep all squads reinforced, and if a squad is getting hit hard, pull it back so it can regain strength.
3. You only need to destroy the 3 Command Centers, 3 Mek Factories, and 3 Boyz Hutz. After that, a single squad can clear the map given enough time and patience.
4. Use 'Move' (not 'Attack Move'). Have your Baneblades move into each base, destroy the 3 buildings, and then immediately move to the next one. Don't mop up the base before going to the next one, just destroy those three buildings and immediately head to the next base. The rest of your army moves to the middle Critical Location to distract enemy troops while the Baneblades do their work.
If you need it, you can have the Tech Priest repair the Baneblades after the second base troop buildings are gone, and then attack the third base. I'd bet that's necessary on hard mode. I didn't need to do it on normal. But really, 'Move' is all you need to beat the map with Imperial Guard.
SMvOrkz
Painfully easy. Equipped both vet termies w/ assault cannons, plopped them in land raider. Fully reinforced storm bolter armed termies were backup, and assault termies were left behind. Had 2 vets w/ bolters, 2 librarians, HG librarian, FC, One regular squad, and Chappie go counterclockwise while LRs and termies went into the center. All remaining forces went clockwise, and pretty soon i had claimed the territory. Only made one mistake.....(hint, dont ever let grots or whatever the enemy builders are escape from fighting....it gets annoying fast.)
With Tau I've noticed that it's much easier if you go left than right - not only do your units get bogged down less by attacking buildings in the canyon, but you can do the orc bases one by one rather than through a fortified entrance leading to all three.
Edit: Ugh, did it as eldar vs orks, normal difficulty. Was it ever a pain in the posterior... Had to reload several times. Essentially the important part was keeping your avatar alive and a few of the other units. I found that having the walkers on range with brightlances helps a ton. Getting the 3 bases was a nervewracker - after that I just used the FD exarchs to tank the fortifications and the rest of the army - or what remained on it - as helpers. FD exarchs are tough, darn it!
Last edited by 4uk4ata; 21st Mar 08 at 4:19 PM.
Now, I jsut went through this with Chaos, on Normal, strength 7. I only had 5 honor guard, none were vehicles.
Used the possessed squads to destroy buildings, by demon prince to take out any large units (killa kanz, vehicles, nobs, etc.) and the 4 predators to take out infantry - the predators made damn short work of jsut baout any infantry they could throw at me. I used the cultist squads just to tie up incoming units and slow them down.
The main thing to remember as Chaos is to take out the 3 necessary buildings, as previously mentioned by others. This tactic worked great for me. I only lost 1 cultist squad.
Started by heading south and taking out the southern-most crater base. Then moved into the eastern-most, then polished the northern crater area. By then, I only had 6 or so buildings left. Demon prince was basically a tank for when they threw large melee units at me. Kept my possessed champion on ranged to use his flame attack and break squads quickly.
All in all, not as hard as I thought it would be. Thanks for the pointers on getting rid of the unit producing structures first.
I only managed this level twice, both times on Hard:
The first time with Necrons (because they are actually able to produce new units from the Monoliths) and the second time as Orks (because the Tau are easier to deal with).
Whenever I attempted it with another race, I was literally drowned in a green tide, so I just ignored the map altogether from that point on...
On Hard with Chaos:
I had a few honor guard, including the possessed champion and a defiler. About 5 or 7 all together.
Split your non-vehicle HG, your Possessed Squads, your Commanders, and all cultists except 1 into group 1. Split your Preds into group two and split your Defilers into group 3. move (not attack move) group 1 to the southern most base (with the relic) move your preds to the one east of that and your defilers to the north base. When they reach the base, destroy these buildings IN THIS ORDER BEFORE ATTACKING ANYTHING ELSE. First the Mek Shop (To stop Trak and Kan production) Then the HG, then Da Boy's Hut. After that is done, proceed with wiping out the individual bases with each group, focusing on any Kans produced first then moving on to the infantry. There will be a ton of Shootas which will most likely destroy your preds and defilers after they have taken care of the unit producing buildings, but that is all right. Your southern group, particularly your Daemon Prince and your two PSM squads will most likely be the only things that survive the attacks. I had armor, helmet and both melee upgrades for my Chaos Lord and used him to take down the couple of Kans that were built before the Mek shops were destroyed. I lost him as well as the sorcerer in the fighting. After your PSM squads and the Daemon Prince have taken care of the infantry and unit producing buildings in their side, -slowly- use them to mop up the PoG, LPs and Banners, taking care to let your Prince regenerate health if he gets below 2k.
That last Cultist squad that you didn't put in a group? Use it to cap the two points near your starting location and get them LPed (do not upgrade them even if you can. You need your energy for PSM reinforcements). Speaking of which, make sure you keep those guys on overwatch through the whole map.
Since your forces are split in three, if you are bad at multitasking make liberal use of the pause button. You can use Shift to give multiple targets for your units, allowing you to select Mek Shop, HQ, and Hut in a row so you do not have to watch to retarget them as soon as they finish with one.
Hope this helps. This is what I did and had the easiest time of this map that I ever have.
I started my first run of the DC campaign yesterday, and chose Tau. In hindsight that was rather fortunate in this case, as Hyperion is really close by.
I started this out with the regular army and a tiny Honour Guard (one Vespid squad and one FW squad).
To cut it short, I failed the first time, taking too long having to fight wave after wave of Orks on the north ramp. I am not sure how many Squiggoths I faced..
So, as said.. strike hard and fast. My second playthrough I went straight in, took the same ramp (that may not have been my best move), crushed the southern base with a few buildings of the western and eastern base along the way and then it was mopping up. I didn't have much left, three knarlocs really low on health, two kroot, my commander, my FW honour guard and two broadside squads.
But I didn't face a single Squiggoth, I think. Maybe one.
Spess Mehreens against Orks @ Hard
Just did this mission (having recently realized I never played DC with Marines). Territory was at 9 strength, I had 50% of honor guard. Went counter-clockwise with everything, Land Raiders blasted buildings/vehicles and infantry killed Boyz going for the tanks. I tried to keep Termies (durable) or regular Marines (cost req only) in front of the tanks to avoid repairs. On bigger mobs I used the Whirlwinds and Smite.
Result: Win, epic
Casualties: One (1) regular Space Marine guy
Although the Land Raiders also need some paint, but I assume you can get that for 1-2 req. Still, they were at 95% health or so. Other vehicles were untouched since I didn't really use them.
My take: Rush and focus fire, protect tanks, go for bottom base first. I wouldn't split the force, though in truth I had units (like 5 Dreadnoughts) just hanging around, not really seeing action, so you could probably afford that with Marines. I don't know if I had skillz (speed) or luck, but never saw Squiggoths or even LLR tanks this time, just lots of Killa Kans. I think having the First Company Terminators (they can upgrade to assault cannons, while the ones you get for the mission can't) and the Reclusiarch (healing the Terminators) helps the most on this one.
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The previous advice NOT to split your forces on this map should be followed. I got creamed trying to split and attack both clockwise and counterclockwise simultaneously. Don't bother, the other way is much easier.
As SM I had started the campaign by moving roughly counterclockwise around the strategy map, as an earlier poster noted--isolating the IG, Crons and Chaos to their home territory or home plus one or two adjacent ones. Took the spaceport fairly early, then went for the territories that yield the HG Dreds. (Gave up trying to retrain the Senior Librarian about five conquests in, because he kept disappearing after every mission. Not worth the 200 req over and over again so I stopped bothering.) By the time I went after the Peaks to get the Forward Base capability, HG was made up of two FC veterans, one vet AM, Hellfire Dred and standard Dred. Orks were up to defense strength 9.
Started the mission with two Whirlwinds, two Land Raiders, two Termie squads, one Assault Termie squad, two Librarians, two tac SM squads, FC, one Servitor, I believe two HF Dreds and two standard Dreds in addition to the HG. Grouped all the vehicles together, and subgrouped each type as well, (all Dreds together). Then grouped the HG infantry units, two FCV and one vet AM, and used them to take a few SP's, though it really wasn't necessary, and the Orks came and took them back almost as soon as my troops moved on. Attached the two Librarians to the Termie squads and the FC to one of the tac SM squads. Reinforced all the infantry squads to full available strength and stashed the Assault Termies in one of the Land Raiders; put the Servitor in the other LR. Sent all the vehicles clockwise around the perimeter knocking off Waagh banners and LP's, supported by the infantry group, until reaching the upper level Relic in the lower right corner of the map. DO NOT let your infantry support get sucked into any big battles with Ork infantry on this phase; they will be swarmed by what seems to be an endless supply of Stormboys and Wartrukks and it's just not worth the losses; you might lose a couple of squads, or else you'll spend too much power reinforcing the Termies, and you'll have plenty of those Boyz to deal with soon enough.
After reaching the upper Relic, took it with the grouped HG infantry. Left them there as rear guard, sort of, intending to get the heck out of there if attacked by an Ork mass, but it never happened so they stayed there until the end of the mission. Once that Relic was captured, sent all the vehicles, with the main infantry group right behind, along the perimeter west toward the other Relic. While destroying the Waagh banners and LP's along the path, masses of Stormboys, other infantry, Wartrukks and Killa Kans came up the ramp just east of the lower Relic, and it took some careful micro to beat them all back--targeting infantry with my infantry, Kans and Trukks with my vehicles. After a big battle, captured the points along the upper level on that edge of the map and took a little time to heal and reinforce infantry and repair a couple of badly damaged Dreds. (Note--I ended with about 290 power, so I could have armed all the standard Dreds with the autocannon upgrade, and still had enough for three full repair jobs on Dreds or Whirlwinds who were almost in red on the HP meter, plus about a dozen or so Termie reinforcements.)
Then sent the vehicles, led by the Land Raiders, down the ramp to go after the Ork HQ complex in the cul-de-sac north of the lower Relic. More Kans, Stormboys and Wartrukks supported by other Ork infantry attacked in fairly large numbers here, but by selective targeting they were not overly difficult to defeat. Left my main infantry group and the Whirlwinds near the entrance to the cul-de-sac, about halfway to the CL in the middle of the lower level, while the rest of the vehicles went in to wipe out the first line of Waagh banners and LP's, then the Mek Shop and Ork HQ. It did not have the Orky Fort upgrade. Had to bring in the Termies to take care of Stormboys jumping in and Slugga Boyz spamming from Da Boyz Hut in this area. Once all the structures were gone, dropped the Assault Termies from their ride and captured the Relic.
From there on it was pretty easy; there were frequent attacks but no more than four or five infantry squads at a time, and I never saw a Squiggie or Looted Leman all the way through. There really wasn't much resistance once that HQ complex by the Relic was gone, except I lost one Dred to a surprise jump by four or five Stormboy squads of about nine or ten units each while taking out a line of Wartrukks spread across the area just north of the CL, but that was the last serious challenge. After all the buildings down below were gone, had to make a circuit of the upper level to find about a half dozen Waagh banners the builders had thrown up while I was busy on the lower level.
I think the biggest variation in strategies previously suggested in this thread may actually come down to one factor that isn't typically as vital to most other specific territory-related strategies.
What factor?
Difficulty level.
On Hard, you have 100% of your health, and the enemy has 100% of theirs. So you're evenly matched, except for the fact that you can't reinforce, while the enemy can, and oh yeah, they have 3 entire bases (and thus, armies).
Whereas on Normal difficulty, your troops and vehicles always have 200% of the standard amount of health. While you're still outnumbered, this difference drastically changes which strategies won't work. A poor strategy that barely works on Normal will not work on Hard mode, because your men will have been slaughtered in half the time.
Thus, I find it important to base all strategies for this map on Hard mode (until this campaign playthrough, I personally had only played on Normal mode).
Note, for reference purposes, I'm going to list the cardinal directions based on the annoying diamond shape that every map in DoW is layed out as. It gets too confusing if you try to mentally tilt the map so it looks like a square instead. Here's how the map looks:
The first thing you'll want to note is that there are 3 enemy bases. One in the Center, one in the far South, and another in the SouthEast. It's also important to note that ALL of the bases each only have a single entry point, all of which are facing the center area where the Critical Location is.
There are two Relics. One, uncaptured, is located in the far East. The other, held from the start of the mission by the Orks (I think, either way, you're not going to just waltz down there with a lone squad of Guardsmen and set up shop), is in the far South.
Now, I'm going to label the bases numerically, 1, 2, and 3. Base#1 is in the Central Crater. Base#2 is in the Far South Crater, the one containing the Relic. Base#3 is in the SouthEastern Crater.
There's a method to this labeling scheme. Base#1 is the most expansive in terms of area, not necessarily structures. Base#2 is the second most expansive, while Base#3 is the smallest in terms of area. This will actually be very important to our strategy.
Depending on how you want to look at it, there are pros and cons to whether or not it's easier to "attack" the larger base (#1), or one of the smaller bases (#2 or #3). I'll explain what I mean by this in a moment, but basically, it's based on micro-related strategies.
Initially, at the start of the battle, your troops are all lined up at the North of the map, situated between 2 Strategic Points. You can capture Strategic Points with your troops during the course of the battle and build Listening Posts on them, and then upgrade those Listening Posts to a Fortified Listening Post which has a Turret, however, it's HIGHLY recommended not to do this. In truth, you should have enough firepower to get by without the meager added support that a Listening Post's Turret will provide. The real reason is that a static position will do you no good in most cases on this map, as having your force sit still can cause you massive problems for the following reason...
You're fighting not only 3 Ork bases, but an arms race as well. Every moment that you're not annihilating a key structure within one of the Ork bases, is time which that structure is spending pumping out troop after troop, tank after tank, Killa-Can after Killa-Can. Sure, you can take your time to set up and organize yourself, get a really awesome formation going with your guys, and then start advancing on your target inch-by-inch. However, then you're going to meet up with some Killa-Cans, or a pair of Looted Leman Russ tanks, and while you're likely going to be able to handle them the first couple of encounters, you'll need to you know, stop and repair periodically. So you destroyed 2 Looted Leman Russ tanks, that's great. Now you have to stop and repair your Relic Unit. While you're repairing your Relic Unit, the Orks just respawned their 2 Tanks. So now you move forward another couple of inches, blow up another pair of Tanks, rinse, repeat. You keep inching forward, destroying, repairing, and the Orks just keep spamming Looted Leman Russ tanks at you. The only problem is, the Orks have 3 bases, and can keep up their production line indefinitely. You however, CANNOT. You WILL eventually run out of Power to repair your vehicles if you take your time on Hard mode and merely inch your army through the map.
Once your Power is gone, it's gone. You can't get anymore on this map.
It's also important to keep in mind every single thing that uses the Power resource within your army. Repairing Vehicles, uses the Power resource. Upgrading your infantry's weapons, uses the Power resource. Upgrading a Listening Post to a Fortified Listening Post which has a Turret, uses the Power resource. THIS is the very reason why upgrading your Listening Posts to Turrets is a very VERY bad strategic decision on this particular map. In most cases, it's not even worth capturing any of the Strategic Points due to the fact that there is usually an Ork faction sweeping through right behind your army at any given moment. Turret or no Turret, the Orks will overrun a lone Strategic Point IN A HEARTBEAT, making it a colossal waste of your extremely limited Power resource.
With little options left, your Strategy should most definitely take into account the following realities:
-The fastest way to level the playing field is by destroying the Ork bases.
-Each Ork base has 3 primary structures that you'll want to target ASAP; The HQ, the Vehicle building, and the Infantry building. It's extremely important to be able to recognize these by sight instantly, as when you're micro-ing your forces in the shitstorm of enemy infantry and bullets, bombs and explosions flying around inside each base, you'll need to make sure that every second they breathe, your army is targeting what matters the most.
-In order, of importance, if I were forced to choose, I would destroy Vehicle, Infantry, then HQ.
********NOTE********
THE CPU WILL NOT REBUILD ANY OF THE ABOVE KEY STRUCTURAL BUILDINGS.
That means, if you blow up either a Vehicle production, Infantry production, or HQ building, and then sit your army on their asses outside the crater for hours while you go catch some sleep, forgetting to pause the game, when you come back, they'll have likely built a bunch of Turrets, but will NOT have replaced whichever primary building(s) you destroyed. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER. IT WILL DEFINE OUR STRATEGY.
The general strategy is simple. Your biggest disadvantage (besides the really obvious one, in that you can't rebuild any lost squads) is that your Power is limited, which again, will eventually result in the permanent destruction of your vehicles. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. Meanwhile, the enemy will relentlessly pump out Killa-Can after Killa-Can, and Looted Leman Russ after Looted Leman Russ, unless you do something about it. You MUST destroy their Vehicle production buildings if you wish to have some certainty of victory (not to mention some breathing room).
Each enemy base seems to operate separately from the others, as if it's entirely it's own entity. This is also important to remember. Once you destroy the production buildings of a base (or perhaps it's the HQ building, not 100% sure), any troops remaining on the battlefield that belong to that base will generally refrain from leaving the protection of their crater, except in the immediate defense of their surrounding area (and any Strategic Points / Waaagh Banners they captured / constructed previously).
Thus, if you are able to hamstring a base, you will reduce the forces constantly pursuing you outside the craters by about A THIRD. If you can eliminate the primary structures in 2 of the bases, you can position your army near the Critical Location in the center of the map, just outside the final base that is still operational, and clean up the other 2 bases at your leisure.
Now, with all that out of the way, there's one final thing to note before we kick off this specific strategy:
Since all the bases operate independently, and one race starts with a Relic in their possession, guess which base is going to be producing Squiggoths as soon as they get a chance? Yeah, you guessed it, Base#2 in the far South. Since you don't have the luxury of being able to insert a small force into the back of their base to take the Relic away from them, you're going to have to do the opposite, which is to take them away from the Relic. And no, I don't mean by some sort of slick trick or crafty scheme. Your immediate (I repeat, IMMEDIATE) priority as soon as the mission begins is to get a force into Base#2, run the gauntlet, and destroy their HQ. That should stop any Squiggoths from ever coming out of that base, which will mean all the difference compared to if you hadn't. Keep in mind, if after this you take your sweet time and one of the other bases eventually captures the Relic in the far East, I assume whichever base captured it would then be able to produce Squiggoths of their own. More than likely, that would be Base#3. You probably don't want that to happen either.
IMPERIAL GUARD ***HARD*** STRATEGY (vs. ORKS)
This strategy was successfully completed against an Ork opponent while the territory was at LEVEL 7. I cannot say at this time exactly how a higher territory rating would effect the battlefield.
Note, this was also accomplished while having Gorgutz himself on the battlefield (he was in an adjacent territory, though I'm not sure how many Honor Guard he had with him). This was the 8th Conquest I'd cleared during this particular campaign, after gaining the Spaceport, then defeating the Space Marines.
WarGear that my Commander had include:
-Master-Crafted Power Claws
-Targeting Optics
-Carapace Pauldrons
-Carapace Chest Plate
-Victory Sash
-Governor's Raiment
Not the perfectly ideal gear for this particular battle, as if I had a choice to equip my Commander specifically for this map, I'd want the 2nd melee upgrade for him as well as the Carapace Greaves to maximize his health as opposed to the useless bonuses (for this map) that the Governor's Raiment and Targeting Optics give. Truthfully, the Targeting Optics ARE kind of useless on this map against Orks. The only stealth unit I've seen them use here are their invisible Grotz (building units), and artillery fire (from the BaneBlade or Basilisks, though the BaneBlade's blast seems to have a wider radius which is much more useful for killing small squads of infantry) will kill them whether they're "invisible" or not. Additionally, the 2 Psykers you start with are detectors as well, so if you can keep them alive, you can still hunt down the Grotz if that's part of your plan, although again, not much reason to until all 3 HQ buildings are destroyed since they'll otherwise just keep making more of the damn things. And once you reach the point where you'd be hunting Grotz, you probably just want to be finishing off the last few Waaagah Banners instead.
As for my Honor Guard, since I seized primarily bonus-giving territories (Industrial Production = start the battle with an additional 1000 Requisition), the only Honor Guard I brought with me were a mere squad of basic Guardsmen, a Commissar (*!*), and a Vindicare Assassin. The Vindicare Assassin, to be honest, is a lot less useful here than he normally is, since without access to an Armoury-type building, you cannot purchase his stealth upgrade, so he's quite exposed and extremely easy to be killed when he's out in front spotting for your army. Tactically, on this map, I'd advise to use him sparingly, usually either to spot for the backside of your army with his wide sight radius to make sure an Ork raiding party isn't shadowing your main force outside the craters, or to quickly run him forward and then immediately retreat, just to get the red blips of the structures in a base to appear on your minimap, so you can better coordinate your troops. While your Vindicare Assassin can technically outrange Waaagh Banners with his sniper rifle (especially combined with the Scope ability), he basically deals scratch damage to them, so you'd have to wait a VERY long time for him to remove even one Waaagh Banner from your path. And again, time is of the essence, every time you're not moving and quickly breaking something, the enemy is creating more and more troops and tanks. Also, the range without the Scope on the sniper rifle is such that you won't (safely) be able to see the other side of the Waaagh Banner, and more than likely a squad of invisi-Grotz will just show up to instantly repair any damage you had done to the Waaagh Banner, making the whole endevour yet another colossal waste of time. Also, if he's moving forward and runs headfirst into a Looted Leman Russ with an itchy trigger finger, there's probably at least a 50% chance that he's going to get instantly splattered if you're not lightning quick with your micro (especially if you have no army supporting him that can immediately risk engagement with a Looted Leman Russ and the mild army of infantry that usually accompanies them). So again, you probably don't want to try to be tricky with your Vindicare Assassin(s) on this map.
If you've brought along a Commissar on this map, kudos, as he could play a very central role in the defense of your massed mobile force. It actually took me until this very map to realize that the Commissar's "Execute" ability does not just increase the rate of fire for the squad he's currently attached to, but it creates an "aura" much like the Space Marine Librarian's "Word Of The Emperor" invincible ability, or possibly more accurately, the Space Marine Commander's "Battlecry" ability (though "Execute" actually has double the radius of the "Battlecry" ability, at 30 vs 15). And yes, I know, I know, I'm teeeeeerrible for not realizing the Commissar's "Execute" ability worked like that before now.
What a single Commissar (best utilized in this case attached to his own Honor Guard squad of Guardsmen) does for your massed army is simple. Keeping him centered, but at the back of a properly layered defensive posture, activating this ability roughly doubles the damage that your measly infantry Guardsmen, as well as your Kasrkin, do during the next 10 seconds. So when you see a big wave of enemy infantry coming, or your back's against the wall and you MUST eliminate an attacking Killa-Can or Looted Leman Russ, turn this ability on. Hell, even if you're low on Guardsmen in the squad that the Commissar is attached to, even if him and his squad are currently acting as your damage sponges against a pressing enemy assault, don't be afraid to kill another Guardsman just to keep his ability active. As long as you can halt the Ork's attack, it's well worth it versus a Game Over screen. Just try to retreat your Commissar with what's left of his squad far behind some other troops in order to regrow the squad.
Which may actually be the key to a successful attack on The Hyperion Peaks when playing as The Imperial Guard. You start with the following troops / vehicles:
-4 squads of crappy Guardsmen with no upgrades available
-2 squads of Kasrkin
-2 Heavy Weapons Teams, who can upgrade their machineguns to LasCannons (but unfortunately, not AutoCannons, making them a decidedly specific feature in your army)
-2 mostly useless Psykers (they only have Strip Soul, they do NOT get Curse Of The Machine Spirit for this battle, making them not much better in use than as a single decoy)
-2 fragile Sentinels
-2 Basilisks, except NO EARTHSHAKERS this time around
-2 godly BaneBlades, which unfortunately after looking at this list, don't look so hot since they seemingly are your only true asset against the entire Green Tide
-Your lone Commander
First thing to remember about your starting lineup is that your crappy GUARDSMEN can be reinforced nearly infinitely, so long as there's a single one left alive from his squad. Why is this? Because Guardsmen, unlike all your other units on this map, require ONLY REQUISITION to reinforce. Kasrkin, any Ogryn Honor Guard you may have brought along, the Priests in your Command squad (who also, do NOT have their invincibility ability available for this battle), and repairing any of your vehicles (from constantly keeping your Sentinels from dying, to "oh crap, my Basilisk only has 20% of it's HP left, when the hell did that happen!!!!???", to the round-the-clock-spit-shine you should be giving your BaneBlade[s]), ALL of this will quickly sap your Power until you're left dry, and at that point, if you can't win with what you've got, you're toast.
Kasrkin cost 10 Power _per man_, Ogryn cost 15, and Priests added to your Command Squad cost *40* _per man_ (as do Commissars and Psykers). You only start the battle with _____ Power, and you won't be getting a drop more. You do the math.
Thus, in the most absurd logic that this level's rulebook consistently brings out, your GUARDSMEN become your army. Yes, your laughable, pathetic, frightened, ignorable Guardsmen will be the mainstay of your defensive stance. How, you might ask? By doing what they do best, to quote General Sturnn. "They die standing."
Normally, your damage sponge in a defensive position is either a meaty melee unit / squad (Command Squad and Ogryn come to mind), or a heavily armored tank (BaneBlade, Leman Russ). This is because they can take a ton of damage normally without dying, even if it means being taken to the brink before being repaired. However, due to the severe constraints on Power mandated by this map, this strategy does not work, or at perhaps more correctly, it will only work UNTIL you run out of Power. At that point, boy, I hope you didn't run out of Power while tanking with your BaneBlade, leaving it hanging with just 200 HP. Guess you can't lead with your primary weapon anymore? That sure hurts your gameplan now, doesn't it?
The solution to this is to utilize your Guardsmen as a wide damage sponge, joining their ranks across the entire exposed side of your main force. Immediately behind them (centered, unless you start running into Looted Leman Russ tanks, which in that case, you should attempt to move each slightly to opposite sides of the line to avoid both being hit simultaneously by it's artillery fire, and thus, eeking that much more life out of your guys), will be your entrenched Heavy Weapons teams. I would recommend moving only one of them at a time (known as bounding), so that at least one of their guns is always available should a wave of Orks begin their attack while your other one is running to his new position. In the same rank/row, again, immediately behind your line of 4 squads of Guardsmen, will be your 2 squads of Kasrkin. Ideally, they should flank (the outside) of your Heavy Weapons Teams. The Kasrkin can be reinforced if they die, while your Heavy Weapon Team, though he can take punishment and tank for a short time against enemy ranged fire IF HE MUST, cannot be brought back to life on this map if he dies. Thus, he stays in the center of your formation in order to guarantee as much as possible that he remains alive throughout the mission.
Your BaneBlade stays even further back, to the point where it can draw it's line of fire a short distance in front of your frontline of Guardsmen. This way, it hopefully remains out of range of Looted Leman Russ tanks. Your fragile sentinels will also remain in the third line back, and only be brought forward (directly behind your Kasrkin) in the event that any Killa-Cans attack. You may consider using them against those WarTrukks and WarTraks the Orks sometimes utilize, but keep in mind that even WarTrukks can do significant damage to a Sentinel if they directly target it. Sentinels are like twigs, so you really want to make sure that nothing at all fires at them. During your final entry into the craters, your main enemy will be Killa-Cans and possibly Looted Leman Russ tanks. This is because the Killa-Cans are mostly leftovers from what were originally produced by the bases you previously blew up. Killa-Cans are tough, kind of like Dreadnoughts which the Imperial Guard typically has few good counters for, especially with just infantry. If your BaneBlade breaks down, or your Heavy Weapons Teams accidentally die, this is going to be all you have left as Killa-Cans slowly advance towards your cowering front line of Guardsmen, and all the red flashlights in the world won't stop a Killa-Can from MASSACRING your men. They move slow enough that a pair of STATIONARY (for the love of The Emperor, please remember to place ALL of your troops on "Double Blue" ranged stances, do NOT allow any of them to screw up the organization of your formation by chasing after the first enemy they see) Sentinels set safely BEHIND your first 2 lines of defense can assist in eliminating them to minimize your front line's casualties, all while staying relatively safe from damage (note, and again, this is the reason that Looted Leman Russ tanks are by far the biggest threat to your formation, a Looted Leman Russ can quickly advance close enough in front of your line to still hit your Sentinels where they stand in their "safe" area, AND by directing their attention on your Sentinel for just a matter of seconds, can completely take it from full HP to dead before you even realize what's happening). Thus, your Sentinels are primarily geared for late-mission Killa-Can clearing. But to be able to use them for this purpose, you need to preserve them throughout the rest of the battle. In my successful attack on the Hyperion Peaks, I was careless in part of my strategy and almost lost both Sentinels during a mass movement from the starting position to the Eastern Relic. One Sentinel ended up with just 30% of it's original HP remaining, while the other one was EVEN WORSE - it had just 6 HP left. Immediately after this, I ran out of Power while repairing my BaneBlade. I had the broken Sentinel hang FAR back for most of the fighting after that (but not in an unsafe location, because an attack from behind could prove just as deadly with it's life hanging by a thread). When the moment was right, and the area was clear, I positioned it once again as directed above, and scored several Killa-Can kills which may not have been possible otherwise.
Lastly, the positioning of your squad of Honor Guardsman (+attached Commissar). Right. Smack. In. The. Middle. Of your Heavy Weapons Teams, that is, immediately behind your front line of Guardsmen. This way, activating the "Execute" ability will allow it to effect your ENTIRE ARMY, roughly doubling your damage for the next 10 seconds.
For a quick text-diagram of the above, here's this:
G = your crappy bullet-catching Guardsmen
H = Honor Guard squad + Commissar
W = Heavy Weapons Team
K = Kasrkin
B = BaneBlade
E = Basilisk (E for EarthShaker, duh)
S = Sentinel
EE
B
S S
KWHWK
G G G G
I don't feel like fiddling with the spacing right now in that diagram, but again, your Guardsmen should be shoulder to shoulder with basically no gaps between them if you can help it (keep the formation tight). Kasrkin and HWTs (and Honor Guard squad) immediately behind them, alternating like shown. The Sentinels ideally won't be on the far outside edges of the third row, you want them closer to the center so they're not suddenly killed should an enemy (i.e. Looted Leman Russ or WarTrak) show up from one of the sides instead of your front. Your Basilisks are kept in the back because they're basically just as fragile as the Sentinels.
Your Vindicare Assassin and Psykers are your floaters. I keep them in places that are out of the way, and that I want to be sure if I'm attacked from, I have a slight warning in order to react to the attack with the rest of my army. Thus, I usually flank my Psykers out to each side of my army. Unless being used to scout ahead, my Vindicare Assassin accomplishes the same task by hanging back behind my Basilisks. This way, no matter where we are positioned around the outside of the craters, I'm always as aware as possible of when an enemy is approaching to attack my main force.
MOVEMENT:
This really deserves it's own section. First off, you're going to be hit primarily by two problems: your large tanks (Relic Units) are going to run into some ridiculous pathing problems here. You're going to tell your BaneBlade/Land Raider/Chaos Predator/ETC to go somewhere, somewhere simple and obvious, and you'll click somewhere else to reinforce someone, or move some other squad, and about 30 seconds to a minute later you'll remember your Tank and click back over to it, only to find it stuck against a rock, a single lone Ork, or sometimes there's just no obvious explanation for exactly WHY your Tank is taking 8 hours and BACKING UP when you're clearly clicking directly IN FRONT of it. Perhaps your drivers all figured they'd die on this suicide mission anyways and decided to get hammered drunk right before they left. But it's going to be your problem, and one you'll have to deal with numerous times if you want to complete this mission.
In fact, this, along with the next advice about movement, is the reason why I completely support re-loading this mission should things not go your way. There are some insanely bad things that happen on this level, moreso than any other in this game, that sometimes, it's just not your fault. You just annihilated the first base on your suicide run with your Land Raider, and you still have 50% health left! Ha! You're actually going to survive! Now to beat a hasty retreat back to your main force!
Oh, wait. A single juiced (invincible) Mad Dok just walked between that Waaagh Banner and the Generator you were about to drive between. Now your Land Raider is stuck. Grrr. Okay, *click* *click* *click*. WTF. Why won't he just drive around the Generator now? What? My Land Raider is stuck????? Okay, uh *frantically now* *click* *click* *click* *click*. TURN AROUND YOU BASTARD. You're down to 30% health now! O_o You can still make it out alive though! *click* *click* *click* *click* FINALLY! You reversed...and now you're driving INTO the Generator. Exactly how retarded are you, Mr. Land Raider driver? Okay, good, you finally turned the steering wheel far enough to clear the Generator. Uh. Why did you suddenly stop? You're being shot at, and your armor plating is being hammered on by more and more Orks. WHY ARE YOU PARKED AND NOT TRYING TO DRIVE???? I SAID DRIVE DAMNIT, FOLLOW YOUR ORDERS!!!!!! I'M WAITING.
*after seemingly an eternity, a squad of Storm Boys descend from the sky, surrounded the Land Raider*
Oh...SERIOUSLY?????!!!!!! FINE, NOW YOU CAN DRIVE. DRIVE! *Land Raider rolls forward another 2 feet, then immediately stops again* WTF LAND RAIDER, WHAT ARE YOU DOING????
*after another long eternity while the rest of the Orks continue beating on the parked Land Raider, another squad of Storm Boys drops out of the sky and surrounds your Land Raider*
Now imagine this happening multiple times while trying to drive out of the base you just decimated, and you'll understand why's it's tantamount to cheating by the CPU.
The game's pathing basically isn't designed to track a moving unit on the ground once a squad's flight path has been set. That means, when the CPU (or a player, even) chooses to jump their jet-pack equipped squad onto a unit, that unit will suddenly freeze in place with no for absolutely no explicable reason until the jet-pack squad touches down surrounding said unit, completing their flight. So from the very moment they fire up their jetpacks, to the moment they land surrounding your super tank, it will be helplessly frozen for no good reason. This causes 2 problems:
1) Your tank keeps getting wailed on and shot by the enemy units that were already surrounding it.
and
2) If you previously had an open escape route, but there were enemy units attempting to head you off and block the route, but you WERE still going to make it there ahead of them, getting frozen in place will give the enemy the time they needed to move their mass of units directly into the area you needed to drive through. Now an entire sea of Ork infantry and slow moving Killa-Cans is swarmed in the place that several seconds ago was completely clear. You're now shit out of luck and are going to die because of this stupid programming flaw.
So yeah, there's not really much of a solution to the above problem. The best thing you can do is either 1) Assume that during the initial assault on the enemy base, you're not going to make it out alive with whatever units you send in. Because you probably won't (on Hard mode). The faster you attack though (as SOON as the mission starts and you can click ANYTHING), the fewer Storm Boys you'll have to face during the initial suicide run. That said, due to the pathing problems involved with large tanks and narrow paths, and these damn Storm Boys, I wouldn't count on a suicide run strategy working after the initial get-go. There's going to be too many infantry and Storm Boys running around like an ant's nest that got kicked up for there to be any guarantee that your Tank will actually even make it past the entrance of the crater without getting stuck and dying.
HOWEVER, here are some small movement techniques that I have to deal with the problem AFTER it occurs.
Problem: You're surrounded by a mess of infantry and while your escape path is clear if you could just get to it, due to the infantry surrounding your vehicle, it simple won't move.
SOLUTION: The way this game's pathing works with large tanks and infantry is that they will slow your FORWARD movement to a crawl (or dead stop) if they are IMMEDIATELY on the sides of your vehicle. However, the game allows for you to relatively freely rotate your vehicle in place. When you're surrounded and attempt to rotate/turn your tank in place, the infantry surrounding it will scatter somewhat, allowing you to move forward. It may take a few tries to get clear, and you still might not make it out alive if you didn't have enough HP left to begin with, but it will work.
Storm Boys landing on your tank WILL still freeze you in place while they're in flight, though you can use the above strategy to immediately scatter them after they've landed so you can continue your attempted escape. So, once more:
PROBLEM: ORKS ARE EVERYWHERE, SURROUNDING MY TANK!
SOLUTION: START CLICKING LIKE MAD TO THE LEFT AND RIGHT SIDES OF YOUR TANK TO SPIN IT IN PLACE AND PUSH THE INFANTRY AWAY FROM IT FAR ENOUGH TO DRIVE FORWARD AGAIN.
Also, while micro'ing your Tank, it will be essential that you master the finer art of turning. I'm serious. Basically, you don't want your Tank to do the thing it usually does (especially near a crowd of Ork infantry) where it stops, turns a little bit, then drives forward, then stops, turns a little bit, drives forward, etc. I'm talking about when it's NOT surrounded by any enemies.
You want to get your Tank to make smooth turns which will allow you to drive around an enemy squad of Orks without getting it tangled up / stopped in it's tracks.
To do this, you need to keep clicking out in FRONT of your Tank, and SLIGHTLY to whichever side you want the Tank to veer towards. When I say slightly, I mean, no more than say, the _width_ of a Land Raider from either side edge of your Tank, and at least the LENGTH of a Land Raider out in front of your tank. It should adjust it's path on the go without losing speed / stopping / freezing if done properly. Keep making slight adjustments to the angle of it's path in order to complete the turn. Here's your text diagram:
B = Bane Blade
____B____
_________
___L_R___
_________
By using the above distances, you can "steer" your large Tank much more effectively and hopefully avoid getting stuck in a mass of infantry that you're not already engulfed within. Again, you'll have to keep adjusting the angle of the turn as your Tank makes it, and DO NOT make a sharp counter-turn after you steer around whatever was in your way, otherwise you'll do exactly what you were trying to avoid in the first place (stopping your tank while it rotates in place).
Final note on enemy types: BEWARE OF MISSILE WAAAGH BANNERS. They will typically be amongst nests of Waaagh Banners. There are probably a couple more that I don't have listed, but there is most definitely one in the group of 3 Waaagh Banners at the NorthEast perimeter outside the Northern Crater. You will want to micro your troops passing through that section if at all possible, to avoid any of your fragile vehicles getting stuck by accident next to the missile turret there (or slow moving vehicles like the Basilisks).
Also, remember that every building the Orks make is armed with small guns that fire back. I assume the damage is similar to that of a squad of Guardsmen or two hiding inside of an Imperial building. On Hard mode, this will make a difference against your pansy Guardsmen if you have them standing next to an Infantry or Vehicle-producing building thinking you're safe, so just BE AWARE OF THIS. Your Guardsmen's LasGuns still suck, but if you move a squad of them forward enough so that just the first 3 or 4 Guardsmen are in range to fire on the Waaagh Banner, you CAN remain out of range of the Waaagh Banner's turret gun (NOT Missile Turrets though) and still destroy it, albeit somewhat more slowly than normal.
Ummm...yeah, you can't put any troops in your BaneBlade. Which means that when you have your army make a mad dash through the enemy (like say, from the initial starting location to the far Eastern Relic), you're just kind of going to have to cross your fingers and hope your Tech Priest makes it. The alternative is to advance slowly and keep him behind your army, destroying everything as you go. Rewind to the very beginning of this entry to see why that is potentially a very very bad idea.
At ALL costs, preserve your squads of crappy Guardsmen. Micro, Micro, MICRO! Even if you only save one of them, that's enough to rebuild the whole squad. Remember the reason we're so adamant about this is that a single squad alone CANNOT take the same punishment as a damage sponge that your BaneBlade could. You're going to have to keep swapping them back behind your line and moving over your other Guardsmen squads into the enemy's line of fire so that the depleted squads can be reinforced. Watch out for those Looted Leman Russes especially, because their combination of artillery and machinegun fire is PURE DEATH to your Guardsmen squads, especially when it's not just one, but a pair of the Looted Leman Russes that show up to play. You can quickly lose a squad of Guardsmen due to the fact that the tank's machinegun can quickly slice through multiple Guardsmen so rapidly, followed immediately by an artillery shell landing and scattering the surviving Guardsmen amongst your other Guardsmen squads, so you can't even tell if any of them are alive anymore. The solution to this is to quickly highlight everything on your screen and click through the listed Guardsmen squads to see if you can isolate the squad that just got annihilated. You may be able to find between 1-4 survivors, and if so, isolate them from the rest of the units you highlighted, and immediately have them retreat further back behind your lines. Oh, and do this lightning fast, because if a pair of Looted Leman Russ tanks showed up, you've got a LOT of other micro to do to handle them. And you're probably going to have to repeat the above process again in a couple of seconds for the next Guardsmen squad they cut through, and the next...etc. Be extremely fast with your micro.
Final words of advice. Shit is ALWAYS going to go wrong on this battlefield because it's SO fast paced and you're SO drastically outnumbered. You're going to be so focused on multi-tasking EVERYTHING at the same time, that you're bound to forget something. Just as an example in my last (successful) playthrough:
"Oh...wait...I think I'm missing someone...????...*headcount*...Oh, where's Psyker#2???...Did he die?...*checks all green spots on the right side of the map*...Oh...I accidentally left him 3 Strategic Points back."
"WTF HWT, WHY AREN'T YOU FIRING YOUR GODDAMN LASCANNON, WTF!!!!!!!??????? ARE YOU BROKEN????? This Psyker's taking it in the face for you from a Missile Turret, why are you just aiming but not firing!!!!!! F*** THIS, RETREAT!!!!! *A minute or two later* Oh, he was still set on CeaseFire from earlier...doh."
THE PLAN
There seems to still be some debate as to whether it's best to split up your attack force or keep them in a single mass. I think my strategy at times uses the logic from both thought processes.
Note: I don't pause the game to micro. Ever. I always play my single player campaign battles as if I'm playing a real opponent, and as this is REAL-TIME Strategy game, well, I think that speaks for itself ;P
I think this stage will almost always require a warmup battle for the sole reason that most players (the first time they play the level) will initially not INSTANTLY begin rushing the enemy bases. They'll stare at their allotted troops and vehicles, wonder at the fact that they have multiple Relic units, and then try to figure out just what to do with it all. This of course, on this map, eats up precious clock time so by the time they've mobilized their forces, the enemy has already begun spilling out from their bases all over the map. I think this element may be the main cause for most of the frustration felt. On the surface, it should seem like you should be easily able to win any battle when given multiple multiple Relic units right from the start.
This was my first time playing Hyperion Peaks on Hard mode, and also my first time playing as Imperial Guard (or any other race for that matter) on Hard mode.
As such, I did during my first attempt fall into the lull of trying to assess what I had, and what to do with them. Again, as I stated above, I never pause the game, so that clearly assisted in my initial loss. I reloaded and gave it a fresh start with an idea for a strategy still formulating in my head.
On attempt number 2, I went with the strategy that saw me through several successful attacks on Hyperion Peaks on Normal mode, as both the Space Marines and Chaos. This was to feint with a Relic Unit (Land Raiders) to the right side of the map, while suiciding the other Relic Unit down the left side of the map into Base#2 at the far South on the map, the base which encompasses it's own Relic. The idea of course is to eliminate the ability for the Orks to create Squiggoths. The 3 primary structures in Base#2 as fairly spread out, which is why I like to consider it a suicide mission for which unit attempts it. On normal, with a Land Raider (+Machine Spirit), I could sometimes (usually?) make it back out, though I'd have such low health that I'd immediately either need to repair or suicide into the next base in hopes of taking down it's Vehicle-production building.
Technically, your primary focus is to eliminate the Vehicle-production building in Base#2. However, I'm not sure if this alone will prevent Squiggoth production from happening in other bases. It has been noted that more than likely, Base#2 is the base which will have it's HQ building upgraded. Most of the time, while technically on the same "team", the 3 bases seem to generally act independently of one another. I don't know if Base#2 holding the Relic would be enough for Base#3 to create a Squiggoth, without Base#3 having taken the other (Eastern) Relic itself. However, from what I have personally seen, so long as you destroy the Vehicle-production building and the HQ building in Base#2, there will be no Squiggoths. Of course, don't let Base#1 or #3 then go grab the Eastern Relic, because that will probably let them unleash those monstrosities on your troops.
There are two distinctive areas I want to reference. The first are the ramps that lead from the outer areas (outside the craters) DOWN into the Critical Location in the center. There's a Western Ramp, an Eastern Ramp, as well as a Southern Ramp. From the central area containing the Critical Location, there are 3 entrances to the 3 bases. To the North of the Critical Location, there is an entrance that leads into Base#1. To the SouthWest, the entrance to Base#2, and to the SouthEast, the entrance to Base#3.
You want to drive your decoy BaneBlade all the way down the Eastern side of the map until you reach the Eastern Ramp. There, you can simply let it blast whatever happens to be nearby. There's no key structures in that area without venturing down the Eastern Ramp into the center of the Critical Location area, and then into a base. To do that, you'd also need to flatten at least a couple Waaagh Banners with your decoy BaneBlade, and the whole purpose of the decoy BaneBlade parking above the Eastern Ramp is to guarantee that you can extract it from any conflicts of it's decoy duties and return it to your army at the initial point of origin in North.
So the decoy BaneBlade parks outside the Eastern Ramp and causes a ruckus. Meanwhile,
Keep in mind that for the sake of ultimate speed, as soon as the mission begins, you need to get your BaneBlades moving, and to do that quickly, you need to micro them around the Strategic Point they start out next to. Otherwise the 2nd BaneBlade will keep stutter-stopping, slowly turning, bumping into the one in front of it, etc. The way they're initially positioned throws them into an immediate traffic jam. Take the first BaneBlade, guide it upwards over the Strategic Point, and then down around the right side of it. At the same time, keep the 2nd BaneBlade right behind it. As soon as they clear the bottom of the Strategic Point, take the first one (decoy) and run it to the Eastern Ramp. Take the 2nd BaneBlade and run it down the Western side of the map.
YOU WILL WANT TO MICRO THE 2ND BANEBLADE KEEPING IT ROLLING SMOOTHLY ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE WESTERN RAMP.
(also, once your BaneBlades are rolling you will want to set them BOTH in what I call "Double Blue" mode - aka everything Long Ranged stances)
Keep it as close to the crater as possible without bumping it into the invisible barrier and slowing it down.
If you did your Micro properly, your Attacking BaneBlade should reach the Strategic Point on the Western Ramp before any Ork infantry troops have reach the it, or the Western Ramp. This will be one of the biggest successes to reaching the Southern base with few problems. If you wait too long to reach the Western Ramp, your giant BaneBlade will get hung up on the swarms of Ork infantry troops pouring up it, and you'll lose 50% (or worse) of it's health before it even reaches the *entrance* to Base#2.
Once you've made it down the Western Ramp, you'll likely start getting swamped by Ork infantry right at the entrance to Base#2. Many times, the Ork squads will be hugging the left wall of the entrance as they come out of Base#2 - by making a WIDE, smooth right turn from the bottom of the Western Ramp, into the entrance to Base#2, you can usually avoid at least a couple of the squads before you start getting slowed down.
Now, you're into the entrance to Base#2 with your BaneBlade. Perfect.
Keeping driving STRAIGHT forward into Base#2. You'll have to slalom (weave) a bit to go around the Waaagh Banners situated in the entrance, but keep driving STRAIGHT.
The first key structure that you'll come across (very close to the entrance if you keep driving STRAIGHT) will be the Vehicle-production building, which is your #1 target.
Drive forward (shaking off the Ork infantry with the MOVEMENT tactics I mentioned above) until you're close enough that the BaneBlade can fire ALL of it's guns (BUT NOT TOO CLOSE, otherwise it has a hard time targeting). You want to try to position your BaneBlade so that it's facing your target DEAD ON. This will help keep it from getting distracted and firing at other things, because there are going to be a LOT of potential targets for it's multiple guns to start aiming at.
The BEST way to guarantee that you're facing your target (building) DEAD ON is to get it right the first time. Basically, turning your BaneBlade after it's parked is very unreliable. You simply want to drive straight towards your target without turning. Your BaneBlade should stop and already be facing straight at your target building.
Now, right click frantically multiple times on the Vehicle-production building until all guns are firing, and then a few more times for good measure. You should see it's HP dropping dramatically - the BaneBlade makes short work of Vehicle-production buildings when you have all 11 of it's guns firing on the same target.
Now, while your Attack BaneBlade is busy razing the Vehicle-production building, you're going to want to click back over to your decoy BaneBlade on the Eastern Ramp to check up on it. You should be careful with how close you get it to the Eastern Ramp, to be honest, as there is a Missile Banner there as well. When left unattended while you're micro'ing your Attacking BaneBlade, your decoy can take some pretty good damage. You'll probably be a little surprised because your decoy BaneBlade may already be down to about 60% of it's total HP. I've seen it as badly damaged as almost 30%, though you should note that during my playthrough, Gorgutz was on the battlefield and was rushing Northward up the Eastern side of the map, so he ran smack into my decoy BaneBlade. Also, if you ever see any early vehicles while micro'ing your decoy BaneBlade (most likely a WarTrak near the Eastern Ramp outside the Northern crater), you should definitely click on them to have the decoy BaneBlade engage them BEFORE switching back over to micro your Attacking BaneBlade. Don't RELY on the computer intellgence to make the obvious choice for you - with the luck you receive on this map, your BaneBlade will begin focus-firing on Gorgutz or some of the other numerous infantry crawling out of the central crater area, instead of simply (immediately) annhilating the WarTrak with a couple of shots. Meanwhile, while you're busy micro'ing your Attacking BaneBlade, said WarTrak will be lazily blasting your decoy BaneBlade from point blank range with missiles.
BTW, I'd suggest at this point you should begin retreating your decoy BaneBlade back North to the rest of your waiting army.
That said, back to micro'ing the Attacking BaneBlade. If you click back over and the Vehicle-production building is NOT destroyed yet, again reselect your Attacking BaneBlade and continuously right click on the building until it's dead. As SOON as it's gone, use the MOVEMENT tactics to shake off whatever Ork infantry currently is engulfing your BaneBlade, but don't do anything crazy like spin 360 degrees or the like. Just a little left to right movement should be enough to create the wiggle room you need to drive STRAIGHT FORWARD once again. You should be going deeper into Base#2. The next key building you'll quickly come across will be the HQ building. It's a large, wide building, so as far as the whole "facing it DEAD ON" bit goes, it's like hitting the broad side of a barn. Make sure you're within full weapons range, and then as Steppenwolf once said, "Fire all of your guns at once".
Doublecheck your decoy BaneBlade to make sure that he's still heading back North towards the rest of your army.
Back to your Attacking BaneBlade, you'll likely be getting swamped by more and more Ork infantry at this point. Keep right-clicking on the HQ building to keep your BaneBlade from getting off-task. As soon as it's been destroyed, one more time, shake your BaneBlade around a little bit to back off the Ork infantry and then DRIVE STRAIGHT AHEAD. Deep in the South of Base#2, you'll drive straight towards the final production building in Base#2, which is the Infantry-production building. Face it DEAD ON and blow it away. You're going to be low on health with this BaneBlade by this point - you want to NOT click away until your BaneBlade is dead. Keep right-clicking on the building until it's blown up. If you've got any life left on your BaneBlade at this point, try to maneuver it towards the NorthWester corner of Base#2 and see if you can take out the Missile Banner before your BaneBlade collapses. RIP BaneBlade, you served your purpose well. You shouldn't be seeing any Squiggoths on the battlefield after the successful destruction of Base#2.
At this point, your decoy BaneBlade should have made it back to the Northern mass of all your troops. No enemies should really be attacking you up there just yet, though you may see some roving squads of Ork infantry.
Now, at this point, you NEED to repair your remaining, previously decoy-status BaneBlade. I'd recommend at least back to 50% health, though 75% might be a better idea. While you're waiting for that, you're going to highlight ALL of your troops and set them all to DOUBLE BLUE (RANGED) stances. Also, right click to set "Overwatch" on all your squads so that they all reach their maximum capacity. Buy as many Priests as your Command Squad can hold (mine allowed for 3 Priests, I think due to my WarGear bonus).
PUT YOUR RETARDED TECH PRIEST ON GREEEEEEEEN CEASEFIRE stance so that he doesn't get himself killed by attacking the enemy with his flashlight.
Now, I did this 2 different ways from here:
The first time, I attempted to mount a slow offensive movement down the Eastern side of the map, with my target goal being the Eastern Relic. I used the above formation strategy to move inch by inch, and it was working, except for the fact that unlike the above diagram, my BaneBlade was tanking as the very front. This worked practically the entire way until I reach the Relic, where I realized that I had run out of Power repairing the BaneBlade from the constant assaults by Looted Leman Russes. Also, during the movement down the Eastern side, I stopped about halfway (and North of the Eastern Ramp) where I attempted to use my 2 Basilisks to destroy the Vehicle-production building of Base#1. From the cliff on the Eastern side of the crater Base#1 is located in, you can see where it's Vehicle-production building is located within (on the Eastern side of the base, however, far from the crater walls) by using the massive sight radius from your BaneBlade. However, my artillery must have also been drinking the night before the attack, because the Basilisks regular shells were only hitting at BEST once out of every 12 shots (which is absolutely pathetic). This drew the attention of the invisible Grotz, who began repairing the Vehicle-production building faster than my pair of Basilisks could damage it. After about 10 minutes of this, disgusted, I gave up and continued the slow push down the Eastern side of the map to the Eastern Relic.
Our slow progress had cost us a lot. Every Strategic Point on the Eastern side of the map was fortified by the time we reached it (including the Eastern Relic), and there was a PAIR of Leman Russ tanks awaiting whenever we reached the next Strategic Point. It was THIS that wore down my BaneBlade and completely drained my Power due to constant repairs. However, I hadn't lost a single squad up to the point where I reached the Eastern Relic. It was there, however, that I ran out of Power to repair my vehicles, and 2 Looted Leman Russes showed up from the SOUTHWEST to defend the Relic. We were able to destroy them both, but the 2nd Looted Leman Russ took out my BaneBlade with it's final shot. I also lost one of my Sentinels in the same skirmish, while the other was reduced to less than 40% of it's health (which isn't saying much as it only took a couple of shots from the Looted Lemons, lol)
As I hadn't planned for not having a BaneBlade before finishing off my second of the three bases, I hadn't yet upgraded my Heavy Weapons Teams to LasCannons (the regular machinegun was more effective for infantry-clearing on the push down the Eastern side of the map). But since I had also run out of Power, I could not upgrade to LasCannons. Nor could I buy any more Priests for my Command Squad. I was pretty screwed. I made a final effort to take the Strategic Points SouthWest of the Eastern Relic just to have my men die in glory, and that, they did. 2 more Looted Leman Russ tanks awaited us, backed by a pair of Killa-Cans. My all-infantry army was slaughtered, my Basilisks were useless, and that was the game. My Tech Priest hiding in the Listening Post that I'd built on the Eastern Relic once we captured it, was my last man alive. I attempted to move him to the Critical Location in the center of the map to go down LasGun-a-blazin'. He didn't even make it down the Eastern Ramp.
Now, back-tracking, and assessing my obvious flaw: I ran out of Power. I could try the same thing over again and try to pick up the pace (and not stop for 10 minutes to attempt to bombard Base#1's Vehicle-production building with artillery), or I could do step #1 again (BaneBlade + decoy BaneBlade to destroy Base#2), and then have ALL my men immediately make a mad dash for the Eastern Relic as soon as the BaneBlade was repaired to 75%. I'd recommend at least 75% for the mad dash, because it will surely suffer some damage as it heads down the Eastern side of the map through all the Orks, as will practically all your troops.
So on the next attempt, that's what I did. Base#2 got blown up, lost the BaneBlade in the process as expected. Decoy Baneblade got repaired at the original starting point at the North.
Here's the part where my strategy differed this time around. The ability to set up Listening Posts on captured Strategic Points got me thinking...how can I protect my Tech Priest if I can't hide him in a Vehicle?
At first, I was like "Oh, I'll use the tunnels!", except then, duh, I wouldn't be able to get him to the Eastern Relic that way as he'd need to be there to build the Listening Post in the first place.
However, I felt that the same strategy could work to transport my otherwise very exposed (and slow) Heavy Weapons Teams down to the Eastern Relic.
The plan was simple, while the BaneBlade was being repaired to 75%, I had 2 of my Guardsmen squads capture the 2 Strategic Points you start out immediately next to. You can only fit one squad (HWT) per Listening Post. As soon as the repairs were done, I had my Tech Priest quickly build 2 Listening Posts on the points. As soon as that was done, and the HWT's were placed in the tunnels, I highlighted EVERYONE and sent them on a mad rush to the Eastern Relic.
Plan sort of backfired. I knew it was going to be a flip of a coin whether or not the Tech Priest made it to the Eastern Relic alive. Yeah, he didn't. That meant that no connecting tunnel could be built in order to instantly get my HWT's from the top of the map to the Eastern Relic.
To make matters somewhat worse, as soon as we captured the Eastern Relic, a massive swarm of Ork forces swept from the West to the North, annihilating the Western-most Strategic Point I'd captured up there. The Heavy Weapons Team hiding inside was ripped apart. I quickly had my other HWT abandon the Listening Post he was hiding in and flee to the far North corner of the map. I set him on GREEN (Ceasefire), without entrenching him as I hoped the Orks would overlook him during their sweep. I was right, but he was still quite cut off from my main force.
The death of my Tech Priest gave me another problem to solve. I had only repaired my BaneBlade to 75% health before attempting to run the gauntlet to get to the Eastern Relic. My BaneBlade sustained heavy damage as it Tanked for slower units. One Basilisk had just 30% health remaining, the other had been destroyed near the 3 Waaagh Banners in the NorthEast. We had also lost 3 squads of Guardsmen upon reaching the Eastern Relic. Shortly after I realized that my Tech Priest had not made it to the Eastern Relic, the main Ork force caught up with us. To prevent the destruction of my BaneBlade as in the previous attempt, I threw every Guardsman I had at the Looted Leman Russ tanks that showed up. After the smoke cleared, I was left with 2 Sentinels, 1 of which had just 6 HP, the other with about 30% of it's HP remaining. I had a single Guardsmen squad, though my Honor Guard squad of Guardsmen with the Commissar attached had made it through the battles. I had 2 squads of Kasrkin, and the BaneBlade and my Basilisk, as well as the 2 Psykers. Yeah, I totally would have traded one of them for my Tech Priest, given the choice :P
With the Psykers guarding our rear (mostly just to yell "OH SH--!" if the enemy showed up from that direction), we moved all of our troops SouthWest to the Strategic Point below Base#3 on the outside of the Crater. There we were attacked by several Killa-Cans by way of the Southern Ramp. After claiming the Strategic Point, my BaneBlade parked on the cliff next to the Strategic Point and swiftly blew up both the Infantry-production building and HQ of Base#3. This is possible due to the small area that base #3 encompasses compared to the other two larger bases. The key structures are easily reachable from the sides of the crater. From the backside of the crater, the Infantry-production building and HQ are both vulnerable. From the Eastern Ramp, the Vehicle-production building should also be accessible. However, my forces continued their way around the South end of the crater and slowly edged our small force down the Southern Ramp until we reached the center circle where the Critical Location is. We left the Critical Location alone, as capturing it is truly unimportant and we didn't want to risk any further attacks at that time against our meager forces.
Once we reached the bottom of the Southern Ramp, I had my lone HWT hiding in the NorthEast corner of the map make his way down to the Eastern Relic by hugging the perimeter of the map until he reached the Strategic Point nearby. After that it was a matter of using the minimap to maneuver him around the known enemy Turret positions. He safely made it all the way to the Eastern Relic, and then linked up with my force at the Southern Ramp. Here, I used the Power (since I had a ton left that I couldn't use) to upgrade him to a LasCannon. I paired him with a Psyker to take care of Missile Turrets. The Pskyer would act as his meatshield, and he would zap it to death.
After being relatively certain that there were no more enemy troops in Base#3, I had my line advance slightly into the central circle, and allowed my BaneBlade to swing into the crater and finish off the Vehicle-production building, along with all other minor fortifications inside. BaneBlade came back out, and set up behind my line of defense. At this point, the BaneBlade only had about 400 HP remaining, since it couldn't be repaired due to the loss of my Tech Priest.
HWT and Psyker advanced into the crater previously containing Base#2 and cleared it of all minor fortifications. Basilisk attempted to provide supporting artillery fire but was missing EVERYTHING that didn't move. Eventually just had it repeatedly blast the open area between my defensive line and Base#1.
After my HWT rejoined my line, I liked my odds and wanted to guarantee that no more Vehicles would spew forth from Base#1. I hadn't seen any vehicles come out of it's crater since advancing to the Critical Location, but I didn't want to take any chances.
I suicided my BaneBlade into Base#1 at that point, aiming straight for it's Vehicle-production building. It successfully destroyed it, along with the Infantry-production building moments before being destroyed. With just the HQ building left on the map, the output of Ork infantry slowed to a trickle of basic crappy Ork infantry and pairs of Mega Armoured Nobz. Neither type ever made it anywhere close to my defensive line before being killed.
My defensive line advanced quickly into Base#1, blowing up Waaagh Banners as they came across them, and then immediately opening fire and destroying the HQ building. After all Ork infantry in the crater was annihilated, along with all the Grotz (builders) that tried to escape, my remaining men simply cleansed the rest of the map of Waaagh Banners.
Success, even though it didn't look good for a little while there.
Last edited by Robrain; 10th Apr 11 at 8:18 AM.
All I did (IG, Hard) was push to the right along the top of the map with everything. I kept rolling as much as possible but took the time to trash a load of the upper Ork bases' production buildings by shooting down from the upper and central ridgelines, which cut down on the amount of Killa Kans and boyz coming at me. I was able to take out the HQ building of the upper-left base this way too. After that I headed to the upper relic.
From the relic I pushed down the right edge of the map to the other relic, destroying whatever I came across. I used the Baneblades to push in and kill that bottom-most base while my Honor Guard, Command Squad and other units defended the rear (I used my Basilisks to shell the upper bases a bit too). After that it was basically mopping-up duty on the Waaagh banners.
All in all it's pretty straightforwards as long as you don't dawdle. The Orks are building the whole time, the longer you take the more stuff they'll have. The only time you should be stationary is if you're killing unit production buildings and HQs, or fighting a large concentration of enemies. Gretchin are a priority kill too, it stops them constructing new buildings.
Your Baneblades are the meat of the force but since their biggest guns have minimum ranges and the Orks use a lot of melee it's best to support them. In fact it's generally a good idea to keep all your units well-grouped. Tempting as it might be to have the Basilisks hang back, Ork squads can appear from any direction and you don't want your artillery getting ambushed. Obviously the more honor guard you have the easier this mission will be.
I kept my Techpriest on F2 stance and had him securely in the middle of my troops as much as possible. The only times he was needed was when Killa Kans managed to get close to vehicles and damage them.
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