[NOOB] Eldar vs heavy armor tier 1

[Hellstar]

hello,

a friend and i recently bought dow2:retribution, and got the elite mod as well. we love it and would like to eventually play multiplayer online (if there are even enough people to find a game) but we have a *LOT* of learning and practice to do first, as we assume the hardcore who are left playing this game are... just that - hardcore (i.e. skilled). we certainly are not.

on to my question. he gravitated towards chaos space marines from the outset, and i went eldar. after briefly scratching the surface of some of the game mechanics a little later (reading stuff online), i noticed that a lot of chaos marine infantry units have heavy armor (i'm talking basic tier 1 bread-and-butter units like chaos marines). apparently the heavy armor absorbs a good chunk of basic ranged firepower, so you'd think the way to attack them would be with melee (say, banshees), however chaos space marines are apparently also good in melee (perhaps not as good as something dedicated, but seemingly good nonetheless, as they apparently get some defensive bonus against melee).

correct me if i am wrong but it looks like it gives all the advantages to his units, and it is up to me to properly deal with them. if i shoot at him, a lot of damage doesn't get through (while all his damage gets through to me). if i am forced to melee him, he takes reduced damage from melee, plus he has dedicated melee units he can deploy as well.

anyway, what's the best way for eldar to deal with heavy armor in tier 1 (i assume later tiers are more evenly matched)? note that i understand that heavy armor means more susceptibility to something like plasma grenades, however i don't think i should expect to be able to just spam grenades at his units and hope to get hits.

by the way, in the elite mod we get a message in-game about upgrading to the latest version of the mod, and it lists a version that we don't have. as far as we know, we downloaded the latest version (at least the latest we could find). is this just some artifact from an earlier mod version, or is their some hidden website we don't know about where the latest mod can be downloaded?

oh, if someone could also point me to a resource on basic eldar strats and builds, that would be nice.

thanks.

[Dalakh]

Guardian heavy weapon platform is your saving grace in T1, use it.

[Hellstar]

Guardian heavy weapon platform is your saving grace in T1, use it.

Sure, I will (and already do). But how is this a specific way to deal with heavy armor, or how is it some kind of [at least soft] counter or mitigation of it? Just seems like a way to attack infantry in general.

[Wise Windu]

Hi, welcome.

There are actually a few beginner groups that you can join and probably find some games, and there are beginner games being hosted in the public lobbies. Join chats, add people and you'll probably be able to find games fairly reliably.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/DoW2_Elite_Beginners
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Warhammer40kunited/
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/dow2elitenoobs
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/DoW2El ... iscussions

And don't be afraid to host your own lobby and name it "Beginners" or something similar.

And a beginner's guide: http://dawnofwar.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=877

Also, check out the Codex if you haven't already. It has most of the unit stats, abilities, and damage multipliers and stuff: http://www.dawnofwar.info/index.php?page=elite/codex

There's a tutorial for it if you want to look at that as well: http://www.dawnofwar.info/index.php?pag ... t_glossary

A lot of Eldar play comes down to micro and positioning. Having overlapping suppression or knowing where to be at certain times is pretty important, and comes with experience playing.

It sort of depends on which hero he usually plays. Sorcerer can be a real pain to play against since he can just teleport onto your setup teams and have pretty good follow up with Raptors and Heretics if you build 2 Shuriken Platforms. And Rangers can also be overrun this way. Chaos Lord is easier to control with Shuriken Platforms, and you can focus him down as he charges in with your Dire Avengers, or have banshees there to defend if he jumps in with raptors, and hopefully have another Shuriken layered behind the first. Plague Champion is annoying as well, but both suppression and Rangers can be used depending on what he does. I prefer suppression teams personally. Although Snipers do 30% more damage to Heavy Infantry: http://www.dawnofwar.info/elite/damaget ... =sniper_hi

But yeah, suppression is important in dealing with them, so get some Shuriken Platforms and try that out. Suppress his squads and don't engage his CSM with your Dire Avengers when you don't have to, or don't have an advantage. It's important as Eldar to pick engagements carefully.

if i am forced to melee him, he takes reduced damage from melee

He actually takes 30% increased damage from Banshees since the Chaos Space Marines have Heavy Infantry armor and Banshees do power melee damage: http://www.dawnofwar.info/elite/damaget ... eapons_pvp

by the way, in the elite mod we get a message in-game about upgrading to the latest version of the mod, and it lists a version that we don't have. as far as we know, we downloaded the latest version (at least the latest we could find). is this just some artifact from an earlier mod version, or is their some hidden website we don't know about where the latest mod can be downloaded?

That's a message telling people to download the latest version of Retribution, not Elite, since Relic (the developer) recently patched the game to migrate the multiplayer servers. As long as you have Elite mod version 2.3.1-H2 installed, you're up to date.

Someone else better than me can probably expand on that or correct me on stuff I forgot or they think I'm wrong about.

[Hellstar]

Hi, welcome.

thanks for everything - very informative and helpful.

by the way...

He actually takes 30% increased damage from Banshees since the Chaos Space Marines have Heavy Infantry armor and Banshees do power melee damage: http://www.dawnofwar.info/elite/damaget ... eapons_pvp

any retort to this?

"Certain units – generally close-combat squads but also all heroes (even ranged heroes) – have a passive "melee resistance aura" ability that causes the unit to receive reduced (-40%) melee damage. This is important to know in order to predict how a fight involving these units will turn out. Generally these units have high melee damage, and with the melee damage resistance, it is often better to avoid close combat and shoot them down instead – they still take full ranged damage.

A notable exception to melee resistance being limited to melee specialists are Scouts, Tactical Marines and Chaos Space Marines, who have melee resistance, in spite of being primarily ranged units. "

http://dow.wikia.com/wiki/Dawn_of_War_II_combat
(see section titled "melee resistance")

[Vapor]

Banshees do enough damage that CSM will still get rekt though. Getting banshees into melee can be a challenge against chaos but you also have guardian weapon teams and rangers to help damage the heavy armor.

[Wise Windu]

Yeah, they do have melee resist: http://www.dawnofwar.info/index.php?pag ... ce_marines

the dow.wikia site is out of date by the way. Not everything on there will be right. The general stuff is, but lots of unit stats and abilities won't be.

But melee is still very effective against them, especially since their melee skill is 60 compared to the Banshees' 70, which will mean the Banshees will make special attacks on them fairly often, and knock them down, so they won't be dealing damage in that time. Melee is still the best straight up combat method to deal with CSM barring suppression as Eldar in T1, assuming you can catch them out on their own. Just because they have a resistance, doesn't make them good to use in melee against Banshees. They still loses handily.

Plus, Banshees have melee resistance too.

And every model the CSM lose is very expensive to reinforce, so if they lose even one model, it can be a hindrance to their economy in the early game.

Also what Vapor said.

[Hellstar]

thanks - i believe i am understanding more.

by the way, i assume it is good to upgrade the banshees with an exarch, and for anti-heavy armor, the executioner?

what do the mirror swords do? good against normal infantry (a guess)?

[Wise Windu]

by the way, i assume it is good to upgrade the banshees with an exarch, and for anti-heavy armor, the executioner?

The executioner actually has a worse modifier against Heavy Armor, and upgrading the Aspect of Fleetness will actually give you more damage against Heavy Infantry. But the important thing is that the Executioner actually functions as light anti-vehicle.

[Hellstar]

by the way, i assume it is good to upgrade the banshees with an exarch, and for anti-heavy armor, the executioner?

The executioner actually has a worse modifier against Heavy Armor, and upgrading the Aspect of Fleetness will actually give you more damage against Heavy Infantry. But the important thing is that the Executioner actually functions as light anti-vehicle.

thanks. it would be more helpful and intuitive, and require no consulting of codexes, if the mouse-over in game actually stated executioner as being anti-vehicle and mirror swords anti-heavy infantry. instead, it implies the executioner as anti-heavy infantry, and the other one doesn't really have an implication but i thought a good assumption was anti-light infantry.

i guess i know now not to trust in-game mouse-overs. it shouldn't be any kind of priority, but would be nice if the next upgrade to the mod fixed some of these things.

[Wise Windu]

The tooltips are being overhauled next patch, which will hopefully make them more clear.

[Hellstar]

The tooltips are being overhauled next patch, which will hopefully make them more clear.

fantastic!

[egewithin]

CSM is generally good in melee combat. Banshees won't take damage if they fight with GM (Imperial Guard Guardsmen it means) since their melee damage is too low. Your Guardians have very weak melee damage eather. But CSM is not. They have 22 melee damage while your Guardians have only 8. You count it. I even force melee with my CSM to Guardians if there are no Banshees around. Also, melee resistance. Same things are avaible for Tactical Marines of Space Marines but with only 19 melee damage.

Banshees will butcher CSM in melee combat because of power melee damage. But there are other stuff to care about.

1-) If he has Heretics, they are risky for Banshees. They can still win in a 1v1 but they will die while CSM shooting, doomblasting, hero damage, etc. They need support. As solution ; Warhshout to suppress everybody. Kill Heretics first. You can handle CSM later. Use your heroes abilitys. If you have Farseer, you are lucky! Buy Fortune or Spiritstones and combine them with Guide on Banshees. Or buy Ghosthelm to slow them down. Also, focus fire with your Guardians on Heretics to kill them as fast as you can.

2-) In case of 2 CSM, run with Banshee to one of them, tie up in melee combat the other CSM with your hero (Even Warp Spider) So that they can not fire while Banshees fighting.

From now on, you have more problems.

He can bring Havocs to suppress your Banshees or Noise Marines to counter everything you have. Of cource, Raptors for your Weapons Team. :/ Let other players tell you solutions for these. I'm done here! Here I go!..