[DC] Victory Bay (Imperial Guard Stronghold)

[Akranadas]

Victory Bay (Imperial Guard Stronghold)

[Finaldeath]

[Space Marines, hardest difficulty]

This map can be done very quickly in fact, once the initial assaults are repelled.

You start out with a normal base, quickly some Chimera's come in and unload guardsmen. As Space Marines you can easily mop these up with no honour guard, as long as you build quickly.

There are basically three routes to the final objective. The first is, I guess, what you are "Meant to do" (TM). You can head south, attacking 2 bases and the entrenched position outside the bridge area, while being shelled by a lot, I mean a lot of earthshaker rounds. Those hurt. Seriously. There are also mines around the entrenched bridge too.

The objectives are generally, on the south side of the river, to destroy the bases. Airstrikes eventually start happening unless you take care of the base furthest south. The base nearest to you has mainly infantry assaulting you from it.

The Basilisk also really hurt unless you rush to take them out. However; they do not shoot when you occupy an area which was/is a base, or around the start of the bridge. They do shoot their own men if you are anywhere else though

Once you are over the bridge, there is another base to take care of. You then get introduced to the Hellfire cannon. It shoots along the trench - instant death for anything in it. Its got a big enough cooldown to mean you can get across pretty safely however.

Then, you can take out a Commissar to have some guardsmen ally with you until the end of the mission (they don't attack the final base but do send guardsmen near the entrance of it further north). You can also take care of the power generators - watch out for the Leman Russ battletanks near the relic however.

Finally, you asssault the main base. A baneblade is always outside the entrance (usually with Leman Russ tanks too). You can charge in the more heavily defended base, just take care of the final HQ structure to win. Massing forces and charging will usually do.

So, that's the majorly long route.

The second route is directly North-west. You go up and over the river, free from Basilisks. You should take care of the nearest base anyway, and be prepared for a base immediantly over from the river. You can quite easily destroy it with some armour, and then move to the hellfire trench, and now you can move to the baneblade-protected entrance and finish off the HQ. Done.

The final, possibly quicker way, is to do the same steps as above, but at the guard base across the river, you can jump some troops directly into the enemy base. With the Space Marines, prepare some assault squads, landspeeders to jump, and prepare some dreadnaughts, or 4 tatical squads to droppod in. Jump the men over the cannon itself into the base, and drop the men/dreadnaughts in, concentrate on the HQ and it should go down quite quickly to enough fire/melta bombs/rocket launchers/dreadnaughts.

General attacks against you through the game, most come with some form of taunt warning you as normal:

- Guardsmen, group
- Sentinals, few
- Hellhounds, few
- Assassin, single (you get warned about this specifically).

[Hirmetrium]

Normal Difficulty(done with all races except Tau and eldar)
I recommend the following:
-Get forward base and drop 4 turrets at the start. this aids againt attacks throughout, especially on this map.
-Failing that, they will rush you at the start with chimeras and guardsmen inside of them.
-After beating them back, build up you base and send your commander, including some honour guard to smash the 1st Companies infantry base, destroying all the turrets, both infantry commands to disable the spawning, and then the LP2. be sure to capture and defend this point, moving up to the one immediately above it and capturing that too.
-Move back to the base, and prepare an attack force including your commander, all elite troops and healer units; your going to be fighting for a long time.
-Move to the point immediately southwest and capture it, eliminating all surrounding guardsmen.
-Continue moving this direction to the maps edge, following the southern map edge. straying from this leads you into a fortified postion surrounded by mines.
-You will take bassie fire, and attain an objective to destroy the artilery batteries. ignore them for now, hugging the map edge to avoid the fire.
-Your'll reach a defended base, guarded by a baneblade. crush the baneblade, and level the base, capturing and securing the point here.
-Cross the river towards the artilery batteries. you will take MASSIVE amounts of fire, use everything to push forward. this will be worth it
-Crush the batteries and move into the base. crush this and reverse over the bridge, clearing it entirely.
-Now you have approx 4/8th's of the map. You have crushed a few of the main positions attacking your base. this will give you a lot of breathing space.
-Rebuild your army, preparing to cross the cannon path.
-Wait out the movie, then cross with your army while its recharging. You will move into a base guarded by a commisar and a bone'ead squad. killing this squad and commisar will turn the entire base blue, and make it your ally. they will launch attacks on your opponents last base, but most of these will fail. still, its nice to not take some flak.

You now have two paths. Crushing the power generators and grabbing the relic for an uber unit, or attacking the base.I'll cover both, with the relic part first.
-Move your army down to the relic. you will encounter guardsmen and leman russes. there are mines surrounding the thermo generators.
-blast away at the whole area, and capture the relic. this really isnt very hard, since the blue ally will be taking all the fire.
-Build your uber unit. make sure you have both tier 4 tanks and him, as well as some artilery support.

Time to move on their base! Having the uber unit here helps A LOT, and the cannon will have stopped firing on you too!
-Move up and around the ruined buildings, using your uber unit as a tank, and crush the other baneblade and turrets waiting for you.
-Finally make a push up the hill, taking targets down one at a time, artilery firing on anything up there, and taking the first part of the upward struggle. dont take the points, else you will get hit too much and need to rebuild.
-Keep pushing. The uber unit will take the fire, and your units should be dishing it out on the turrets. killing the bassies here will remove the heavy fire and knockback on your troops, giving you more breathing space again.
-Killing the HQ outright will end the game.

SM ALTERNATIVE:
Its possible to tech up and use your force commanders teleport skill with OB to kill the HQ fairly easily and quickly.

Notes:
This strategy avoids the large extensive IG base going from the northeastern edge to the middle of the map. It is possible to elminate this base too and releave a lot of pressure on your main base, but I find leaving your honour guard with some turrets at the two strategic points can deal with the attacks with the bottle neck river path from this base. once you gain the titan cannon you can also simply march up and destroy the base before tackling the main position without the risk of losing your army. I prefer to skip this however and save time.

Alternatively, you can ignore the southwest and go for the northeastern base, ignore the cannon controls, and go straight for the HQ theres a risk involved however, because the cannon still fires, and you have far less breathing space and money because you only took a few of the points.

[RaaR]

[Necrons, Hard Mode]

First off, for honor guard and war gear i had 2 crypt necron squads and 1 crypt immortals, both ranged and melee weapons and the death mask for detection.
This initial setup should allow you to easily repel beginning attacks while you tech up, build some necrons and 1 or 2 immortals. The artefacts chosen for this fight were phase shifter, phylactery and ressurection orb. The second you finish nightbringer research, use the necron lord to run guerilla attacks or rather outright destroy first company to your north, then secure the position and move south, use a combination of destroyer lords and the necron lord to destroy the southern most base while tomb spyders and the bulk of your forces stay back. besure the use the nightbringer form to bring down the more annoying defenders, HWTs and such.
From the position of the southern base use teleport/nightbringer attacks on the basilisks, just destroy the missile turrets while as nightbringer and finish off the enemy, and when finished with all the basilisks, advance your necron army up to the bridge and secure that position. (for army i had 24/20 squad cap with 3 squads immortals and 6 squads of necron warriors. 3 Tomb Spyders, one light and heavy destroyer and 2 destroyer lords)
Now use the Necron Lord to get zapped by the cannon, rebuild and have him single handedly destroy the 10 generators, simple enough as he can rip through the tanks with the fully upgraded melee and destroy the minefields with the upgraded gauss flayer while seeing them with the mask. at the destruction of the last generator, move your attack force up, construct generator, sweep the map using the orb as necessary.

[BrianGeneral]

[As Crons]
Flayed Ones love Guardsmen. Read on to see why.

If you have a bunch of Honour Guards already (Immortals are preferred) then you won't even need the turrets.
Initially you'll be rushed by Chimera with Guardsmen. They pack Plasma and Grenade Launchers, which are both annoying. Kill them.

Then build up your base. Put some turrets around your base as well as making the LPs as 2nd level. Really helps.

Air Command Base: Rushing at that will be hard so you have to be prepared. 3 squads of Warriors and Lord will be enough, better keep some Flayed Ones as reserve. You\ll come under heavy fire of Heavy Bolters and Guardsmen. If you can see them, use your Flayed Ones. They'll break the Guards quick and tear the turrets apart. Watch out for Air Strikes!
Afterwards teleport everything back to base AFTER you captured that point and have some turrets. Put the Flayed Ones back into the Monolith. (Do the same after every attacks with them.)

NW base and Baslisks: I'll go for Baslisks first. At this moment you should be able to take up some Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers. Pack them on 1:1 (so you have 3 DS and 3 HDS). Rush at the Baslisks' post and melt them first (after or when killing off the enemy at bridgehead, so use Warriors+Lord and DS Flayed Ones, easy job). If you see Missile Turrets/Lascannon HWT then use your Destroyers.
Destroy both places with Baslisks and no more artillery. Fortify the bridgehead.
Send the Destroyers and Lord down to kill off the Mechanized base. Kill the Baneblade first and again, use Flayed Ones if needed.

Across the bridge: Mass up Warriors and march them across the bridge. Heavy Destroyers take out armour while the rest kill everything in sight and fortify that bridgehead point. Send your Destroyer fleet to towards the trench but don't go down. Watch the movie.

Disable the Commissars and Titan Cannon: Across the trench after it fires. There'll be large amount of enemies but, again call the Flayed Ones to tear them. Once you kill the Orygns then the base will become your ally. Press on to take out the Generators. Capture the Relic and call up the Monolith.

Final Push: Now it's safe to march your army forward! Warriors at front, and kill off another Baneblade before getting to the main base. Summon NB and Destroyers to kill off everything along with Warriors and Flayed Ones. Mission complete

[optimal_prism]

I must say this is the hardest stronghold yet.


Ok things to remember here

You will get rushed very early with 3 vehicles.
And bunch of troops.
leave your honour guard at your base until that rush is over with.

Then move onto the mini base on the left side of your base. Its pretty heavily defended. You will get shelled by bassies if you move any further left. Also you will get hit with strafing run.

There is a base on the bottom of your base, from there you will be constantly atatcked by leman russes and troops.

Also there are heavy wepaon platoons all over the map in random places.

Watch out for your hero, get helm of lorgar, because the assasin comes to kill you often in the game.

Now you need lots of detector units for this stronghold.
Once you have good enough army, go down to the base and kill it, you will be shelled by bassies constantly. ALso wacth out for baneblade. Go to the left side of the dead base. Now this is where you need detectors, the palce is full of mines, and its heavily defended, and is constantly being shelled.

Once you get through it kill the bassies. And from there, move to the bridge, where there will be couple troops and a base. Now this is where defilers are useful. I always use them as scout units, theyre are more then capable of handling themslves. So just go to the bridge and clear it out with defilers and move on forward.

Now once you see the titan trench, dont move in it with your whole army!!!! DONT!!!

You whole army will be destroyed. Just use a squad.
Once the cutscene is over, go forward and dont kill anything, JUST TARGET THE COMMISSAR!!

He should be attached to an ogryn squad.
once you kill commie, you get a nice little surprise.

Dont even bother with making thermo generators because the titan cannon is useless.

From there just move to the left. You will be shelled by couple bassies.

Also watch out for Baneblades.

There are 2 mroe bases besides the ones i talked about, and theyre right next to each other, right under the titan cannon. Thre just a minor annoyence, dont even bother.

Things to Remember

• Dont stay still!! You will be hit by strafing run if you do.
• Watch for your commander, the assasin will try to kill him.
• The IG use the HQ reveal ability a lot so they can see your infiltrated csm.
• Bassies are a high priority target
• Kill the commissar in the the 5th company base.
• Get detector units!! Helm of Lorgar is a detector upgrade!!
• Honour guard at your base.

[Calax]

for some fun as necron, save two bassies, take em over with Lord Destroyers and 'lo and behold, these bassies are super bassies... they can fire anywhere on the map but can only use the earthshaker rounds. I used these suckers to knock out the power grid before I even got to the Fifth companies base.

[giordan0]

The bassies were annoying - the direct approach north was better coupled with deepstrike.

[konfeta]

This mission is more like the traditional DoW vanilla campaign missions; treat it as such.

Turtle up, tech up, screw around or flood them in troops. Works for any race, really.

[Lupuss]

===
for some fun as necron, save two bassies, take em over with Lord Destroyers and 'lo and behold, these bassies are super bassies... they can fire anywhere on the map but can only use the earthshaker rounds. I used these suckers to knock out the power grid before I even got to the Fifth companies base.
===


Wait a minute, you can only have one Lord Destroyer in your army I think?

[Ifitmovesnukeit]

Nope, hardcapped at 2.

[Avatar of Wotan]

This was my last as Chaos and I had Eliphas Demon (on Normal).

The initial attack almost wiped out my honor guard ( i had a few lucky creatures and Eliphas).

I teched up, constructed 4 CMS, 2 Khorne, 1 Oblitraitor, and PSMs.

I defended the base with Defilers. I use hit and run on the last base.

[PikachuMarine]

I found long-range jump units/teleporters to be very effective here. When playing as Space Marines, spam 10 Land Speeders together, then jump them around to some of the key Guard base positions across the other sides of the river, i.e. Basilisk positions and the power grid. Then deep-strike your commander units and the bulk of your Marines to the power grid and build up there, before final push.

The Necron method of Lord Destroyer possessing Basilisks is hilarious. Just possess em then park em in a secure spot in your base, then spend 5 minutes using Earthshaker rounds across the map. Should take care of most enemies.

[Joe Bob Joe]

bassies are annoying to the 397th power. Ive got 3 marine squads, a hellfire dreadnaught, and 2 elite termies going across bridge, but whenever marines get hit by 1 or more ES rounds, the squad breaks. Termies and hfdred are fine under fire, but running low on health since i basically used those 3 HG units to get up to the bridge. (side advice for any SM player, USE SERVO SKULLS!!!!!!!!)

[Arcinatus]

i loved this mission as orks, defend against rush, tech up, have vehicles and heroes defend, and just send wave after wave of free sluggas and maybe 1 git squad at the enemy postions, (o and 1 tank busta squad). good fun.
i beat this on hard w/ orks using this tactic.

[Joe Bob Joe]

I think on easy it gets a little bit harder to protect commander, he was hit by assassination attempts 3 or 4 times, but once detected the assassin is easy kill. Pred annihilators kill baneblades easily but can only take out infantry if there isnt a lot and they have lots of time.

[nemesis646]

How the hell do I protect my Necron Lord against the assasination?

[Imperial Dane]

Does it matter that greatly ? You can always ressurect him, otherwise i'd say spot the assasin first and kill him before he can do anything.

[Joe Bob Joe]

Do you have any builder scarabs in your HG? if you do they detect infiltrate. If not build turrets near him tada problem solved!

[nemesis646]

That's the problem. I need him to deal with the massed amounts of guardsmen and turrets, so he needs to be up front, and the scarabs are required for building and repairs.

Help. I had my Lord at full strength when a shell hit him face-on and killed him. What did this?

Sorry, I have another problem now. I killed a Commisar with a squad of guardsmen, but the base did not change sides. Is it specifically the one with the Ogryns?

[nige22]

The commisar and his Ogryn bodyguard should be surrounded by white rings marking them as Honour Guard. They're right in front of you as you cross the Hellstorm Cannon trench, so you can't miss them. Also, the turrets and a sizeable chunk of the IG around the relic don't switch sides once he's dead; maybe those were the ones you were talking about.

Oh, and either get the Death Mask wargear for your Lord asap so he can see the assassin, or use wraiths. You get 5 scarabs (6 if you've got the Honour Guard one) so I'm sure you can spare one squad to follow your Lord around.

[Joe Bob Joe]

O and nemesis kill the bassie batts but posses two it makes the job easier just use 2 earthshakers on each generator and use them to pound other spots. A few ES's easily start the breakdown of front defensive line. I just let immortals do the honors, then easy win. (edit) immorts and warriors atking melee should kill the guards/turrets easy.

[nemesis646]

Thanks for your help guys, but when the cannon killed my nightbringer, I was just so annoyed I deleted the file. Thanks for your help anyway. I'm going to retry the campaign with SMs.

[Imperial Dane]

Okay.. well good luck with the Space Marines ! It is better to serve the emperor than live for yourself !

[nemesis646]

Very true, Dane.

[nemesis646]

Erm, I have a problem. The Ogryns & Commissar have not appeared yet. (as SM)

[Gabriel]

They're on the other side of the cannon trench, right in front of the western crossing. Be sure not to destroy the infantry command in that base, since it will continuously spawn guardsmen to help you once Gebbet is dead, and send a skull probe into the trench first, because the first unit(s) to enter die automatically.

[Joe Bob Joe]

ya i messed up first time and sent in vet termie......

[nemesis646]

It's Ok. It turns out I was attacking the wrong base. Anyway, Alexander's dead this time around. Thanks again all of you.

[nemesis646]

Overall summary

Used the forward base asset to get Barracks, Armoury, and a lot of turrets. Managed to repel the heavy resistance surprisingly well, but constant Hellhound and Sentinel raids proved rather annoying, and occasionally left a hole in my defence. These raids caused my Honour Guard Dreadnought to go up in smoke (or flames).

I used the same tactic I used for the Tau stronghold to try and flush Gebbet out. Sadly I attacked the wrong base, and at least ten scout squads died. I managed to kill him later using two Preds. The guardsmen turned of course, but their turrets blew up the rebel Mechanised Command. The enemy Baneblade proved a hassle for them, so I dealt with it.

Dealing with the artillery proved most annoying, as I lost two Predators at least. In due course however, I took them out.

I was so fed up with the constant vehicle raids that I got 5 units of fully reinforced marines, upgraded with various heavy weapons, acting as an "armoured fist". I went and destroyed the Third Company's base, taking light losses, before taking on the Mechanised Company, and coming out on top. I took the strategic points, using a servitor and the immense strength of numbers. I deepstriked my Terminators into the 5th Company's (ally) base, and tried taking over the relic and cannon. Minefields killed many servitors, until my normal Librarian came along and blew them up. From then it was a simple matter of take and hold, as well as keeping Thule alive (Vindicares and stuff).

I had the cannon on my side, so many Kasrkin and Ogryns wound up fried in their armour. There would be be an occasional Hellhound but under immense firepower from the five marine squads they didn't last very long .

The time came when I had to destroy the final base. I got all my units together, but absolutely no rebels came to help. In the following crossfire, Epistolary Anteas and a first company veteran marine were killed, as well as a few normal marines. The IG lost everything, including Vash and Alexander .

Once I'd got the hang of it, this was a really good stronghold to play. Thanks to you lot for help

[Avatar 720]

This was possibly the easiest base I've destroyed. I build an army with missile launchers and las-preds and a whirlwind ect. I just take the shortcut through the river, cut through the titan cannon which has such a small damage radius (a thin line) that I can get my whole army past it before it fires) and then blow the base, easy as.

[nemesis646]

A few funny things I didn't mention- once Alexander blew up his Leman Russ with a strafing run aimed at my marines- I dodged in time though and the Leman Russ payed the price.
My Terminator squad was about to take on the guardsmen in the crater- but the titan cannon fired. Five terminators died, leaving three. They once blew up their own Sentinel!

[Kayara]

I'm playing the campaign, and the Necrons captured Victory bay. Does that mean when I attack it it will be Necs defending instead of IG, or will it be just a normal map (not a stronghold)?
Thanks

[some_guy]

Normal match against Necrons. If I'm not wrong, the map used will be different from the stronghold map.

[Acheron]

Just happened in my frist game (which I currently play, so yes I am a noob).
Necros took IG stronghold. Well, they just got squashed by the Orks in turn, so I tried to take the Bay, hoping that it'd be easier than my try right after Necrons had taken it, but no.

It's the same over and over: first couple of minutes quite, then attacks that I manage to repel with liuttle difficulty, but the difficulty is rising fats. Since the Necron are coming from both south and west, I cannot expand, my combined army can deal with one force, but only for a while. Eventually tons of Necrons are in my base, with more coming in and their deads keeping rising, while my fallen sadly do not do this, and I get overhwelmed.

What am I doing wrong???

[D-coy]

Acheron if you're fighting 2 AIs (two bases) on a single map use your Honour Guard to rush one of them asap, wipe them out by destroying their HQ, then get the other base. While you're attacking the first base, build some defences/tech up at 'home'.

Of course you need a big Honour Guard to do this and/or a Hero with a lot of wargear.

Everyone does it this way, since otherwise, you'd get swarmed.

The faster you clear one base, the easier it'll be to defeat both AIs.

Cheers

[Acheron]

Started a new game as Chaos again, and attacked this province while it was still imperial. I played normal, but it felt more like easy. The first wave made me a little worried, but 3 squads of CSM with Heavy Bolters take care of the infantry and since the only attacking vehicles are Chimeras, Hellhounds and Sentinels,. they aren't much of a problem.

But still, I kind aliked it that way, grinding my way through the map, enjoying the cutscenes, checking out what went on storywise, I had fun. In contrats to above post, where Necrons had taken the province and swarmed me in their metal bodies.

[Dan Ball]

I quite enjoyed the fair challenge this stronghold gave me.

For starters I had only 5 of my honor guard units (I was playing Necrons btw), by setting them up in like a line as per usual I found it slightly difficult to fend of the first attack, but I did.

Basilisks at the southern base were tough to get my army too, once their they couldn't attack because my army was too close for them to fire but they had guardsmen for backup (lol).

By this time I decided to ignore the comps warning and ploughed through the bridge and set up a minibase there. From there I took control of the cannon and it was pretty easy from then on, since the computer sent all it's forces in 1 big mob, which was easy to destroy with 1 simple blast of the cannon.

Oh yeah also, I think it's worth mentioning how amazing the Guardsmen play when in their stronghold but how rubbish they are elsewhere (as computers of course).

[Dot]

I let necs take out the IG. Then mowed the necs down with Grey knights vs Pariahs and SM Tac with Plasma with infiltrated plasma scouts for general use.

[Sicheesius]

With chaos it was rather easy went through the northern route with 2 preds w/ Autocannons/HB which broke thru the 2 bases up there easily. brought up 2 defilers and 5 CSM squads infiltrated after as well as several workers to repair the preds. killed commisar, upgraded preds to laspreds, sent whole army after baneblade and then the base and won pretty easily. rushed up to the HQ w/ laspreds and blew it to bits with 5 squads of horrors+preds

[Sarpadeon]

Race: Space Marines
Honor Guard: Senior Librarian, First Company Veteran, First Company Terminator, First Company Assault Veteran
Difficulty: Normal

Here's how I managed to pull it off without any significant losses. I used my commander, first company terminator and veteran to repel the first rush to the base (considering I had the Daemonhammer wargear, that was easy). Capturing nearby strategic points nearby (NOT the one in the river next to the slag heap, as it is, at least in the beginning, indefensible), turtling my way through the tech tree, building a full (and I MEAN full) army and then crushing all the bases and troop concentrations along the way with an all-out assault. During this turtling activity, I got two IG snipers on my tail - thus, you really need detector units.

Along the way, taking out the Basilisk Artillery was a huge help... to my nerves, that is, they were annoying me.

When I got to the power generators on the upper west side (heh), I proceeded to annihilate the living bajeezus out of the base there. That was a mistake - just kill their commander. They switch to your side, and while not very effective, they can stall attacks while you capture the relic and build thermal plasma generators. I would suggest building a forward base right there, with a Stronghold, a Chapel-Barracks and a Machine Cult; it just makes the rest easier to go down should you get pushed back. After you get control of the cannon, which I am not sure does any good, just go and crush their base.

Minor Note, The Full Army Consists of The Following:

Commander and Honor Guard
1 Terminator Squad
1 Assault Terminator Squad
6-7 Space Marine Squads (fully reinforced, with a commander and 5 heavy weapons)
1 Librarian
4 Apothecaries
2 Predator Annhilators
1 Land Raider (whenever possible)
2 Regular, 1 Hellfire Dreadnaughts

General Tips
-You don't have to go up to T3, not necessarily.
-You can turtle all you want here, as they outnumber you at every turn.
-The only relic is in their hands, so capture it if you want a Land Raider.
-Skull Probes are quite useful in detecting the snipers.
-Do NOT raze the traitor IG base, just kill their commander. Saves you resources.
-DO NOT STAY STILL.
-Take out the Basilisk Artillery as soon as possible once you start branching out.
-The main base of the IG is heavily-defended. You can take out the main buildings just to be rid of the level if you want.

NOTE: However, one thing of mention... I thought as if this was a real war, and laid siege on the Imperial Guard in the meta-map by conquering all the provinces next to their stronghold, one by one, effectively trapping them. This was due to two things: I both sought to lessen his honor guard, and to not allow them a chance of retaliation if I were ever to fail. Plus, makes for a good potential set of defensive victories, and we all know what that means... WARGEAR!

[Robrain]

Just an initial thought (that I didn't try out yet), at least for Space Marines:

When the enemy Commander orders his Assassin out to kill your Commander, just have your Commander hop in a tank until the Assassin is killed.

To be honest, I generally only use my Commander (Space Marines) to guard my base (turtle, lol). When I played through DC the first time, on this level, I did have to rebuild my Commander twice because the Assassin came all the way to my base (while my other troops were pushed out all the way to the other side of the map). I did have my Honor Guard at my base, but aside from a Librarian, I'm not entirely sure what else detects infiltrated units for the SM (turrets? Skull Probes?). The Assassin wasn't exactly sneaky about it either, he was sitting right smack in the middle of my freaking Honor Guard, just a few feet away from my Commander, shooting him. I even saw him doing it, but I just didn't have any way of attacking him. But since my Commander was just standing in my base while my other troops were doing all the attacking, I was just like, whatever, I'll just rebuild him if he dies.

[lomlom]

Eldar, Hard difficulty

The IG rush almost immediately and send in some basic Guardsmen squads (no special weapons) and Chimeras. You don't need a huge honor guard to fend this off but you'll want some kind of AV to kill the Chimeras, either the Fire Dragon Exarchs, Wrathlord or Vyper. You will most likely also have two squads of Honor Guard Rangers from the first two territories the Eldar have to take over to reach anywhere else - these will mop the floor with the Guardsmen. Myself, I had the two Ranger squads, the Fire Dragon Exarchs and the Warp Spider Exarchs. I used the Farseer to tank the Chimera guns.

While I was fighting the rush I built a Guardian squad to cap the nearby strategic points and a Howling Banshee squad to support the Farseer. I also built a webway gate to research Shroud early on because the IG are bad at dealing with cloaked buildings and turrets on this map, even with their HQ's 'Scan' ability (they always seem to use it on your Rangers).

I built a Webway Gate near to each upgraded Listening Post to cloak them and to provide instant reinforcements (a couple of Banshee squads, the Guardian squad and a squad of Fire Dragons should be enough). I built turrets inside the cloak bubble too, some shuriken and some D-cannon.

The IG forward base is pretty easy to take out, it just has some heavy bolter turrets and infantry squads. A few Vypers and your Rangers will deal with it easily enough, if you're too impatient to wait for Fire Prisms (I was). Once I'd destroyed the forward base I took the strategic point and built another Webway gate (I built gates next to every point as I went through the map, very useful for reinforcements)

After this I went after the 2nd Company base down in the south corner. I decided on a mechanized force of Fire Prisms and infantry riding in Falcons to cross over the no-mans-land area that the Basilisks are shelling. For infantry I had the Seer Council + Farseer, my Honor Guard Exarchs and a mix of Aspect Warriors, plus a Harlequin to fill up the last 1 pop. Basically you just want a good mix of anti-vehicle and anti-infantry, with the Seer Council as a tanking unit. There's a baneblade in the base, between your Fire Prisms and your AV infantry it should die without you taking many losses. After wiping out this base I hardly saw the IG send a Leman Russ to attack me again.

When that objective is complete, the Basilisk batteries are a short flight to to the west. I took out the mines by the causeway and then blitzed in with my tanks and transports, wiping out both batteries in quick succession. Just north of the second Basilisk battery is an IG base right by an entrance into the gulley made by the Hellstorm Cannon - this base wasn't hard to wipe out either. From here I repaired and reinforced as needed. I didn't bother to clear the other end of the bridge, but it's just turrets and mines if you do want to.

After building a support portal and aspect portal as a forward base on the former site of the IG base I'd just wiped out, I moved across the gulley to kill the Commissar who's tyrannizing the IG's rebellious 5th Company. With him dead the 5th Company rebel, toss on red uniforms and become allied to you. You can't control them but you can take advantage of the attacks they make against the loyal IG (they scout out some areas for you and can make reasonable meatshields).

Right south of the 5th Company base are the generators powering the Titan's Hellstorm Cannon. You might not care about the periodic cannon blasts - I didn't - but the relic at the bottom of this area was worth having. The entire area is riddled with mines and there are two Leman Russ tanks near the relic, it's something of a slog to get through, more annoying than difficult though. Once I had the relic I built the Avatar and reinforced my army.

I decided to ignore the IG base in the centre north, it didn't seem to be building anything nasty and there was no advantage in claiming the area where it was, so I just went for the main IG base in the top corner. It's the best defended of all their bases, and get this - they cheat! I destroyed their Mars Pattern Command and then killed the Baneblade that hangs around out front, but a few minutes later while I was massing my troops for the assault another Baneblade appeared out of thin air where the Mars Pattern Command had been! I guess they must have prayed extra hard to the Emperor for it or something. That was a real WTF moment for me but I got over it and junked the Baneblade before pushing on their HQ with a vengeance. The Eldar don't have any indirect fire artillery so the only way was the hard way, pushing right in and mixing it up with the defenders. They had a couple of Basilisks and Leman Russes plus turrets and infantry, a meaty defence but not too difficult to destroy using all your army.

[Robrain]

Haha, yeah, I noticed the BaneBlade showing up again long after I wasted the Mars Pattern Command on Normal mode as the Space Marines. My typical plan for that area consisted of dropping in some Dreadnoughts to destroy the Mars Pattern Command while my infantry (Librarian + WotE) and Commander tangled with the BaneBlade. Once both were toasted, we pulled back to mass our troops for the final push into the final Imperial Guard stronghold. Surprise surprise, as we all charge North, my screen goes white from the cannon-fire of ANOTHER BaneBlade :P

It can kind of screw your momentum over, and coordination of the attack on the final base if it catches you unaware, which makes the final base seem somewhat harder than it really is.

[Kain]

Playing it with eldar (normal), I had a WL a rippers and WS squad as honor guard. After the IG rush, I took down the fw base and rushed to tech up and build 3 squads of WS. Then (while having basic defence at my base) used teleportation ability multiple times, going straight for the main base. I had to do this 2-3 times so that I could clear the opposition on my way, but finally took down their HQ in an instant with the WS grenades. So I just ignored everything I could in my path and rushed to take down the main HQ. This is the quickest way I have found out for beating this map.