The "Lets Help this @!$%'ing Noob get Better" Thread.

[Forestradio]

Focus on improving you play with guardsmen and sentinels, particularly the synergy of the 2 in t1. That's pretty much the basis and key to all good ig 1v1 play.

I dont play 1v1's, Im not good enough.

Guardsmen and Sentinel synergy in T1 is key to all good IG play.
Not just 1v1

[Commissar Vocaloid]

Focus on improving you play with guardsmen and sentinels, particularly the synergy of the 2 in t1. That's pretty much the basis and key to all good ig 1v1 play.

I dont play 1v1's, Im not good enough.

Guardsmen and Sentinel synergy in T1 is key to all good IG play.
Not just 1v1

I don't have too much trouble with sentinels though - I've pulled off double sentinels, and of course I'm still learning - but the micro isn't necessarily my problem with sentis.

[Torpid]

It might not be the micro, but actually your macro. Playing IG in 1v1 is a VERY good way to improve your micro and your macro. They're not an easy race to 1v1 with but they certainly have their niches that you have to figure out and at a high level they are far more complicated than spam AK ST/2x GM + chim

[Commissar Vocaloid]

It might not be the micro, but actually your macro. Playing IG in 1v1 is a VERY good way to improve your micro and your macro. They're not an easy race to 1v1 with but they certainly have their niches that you have to figure out and at a high level they are far more complicated than spam AK ST/2x GM + chim

Yeah, as I was saying on the page before - I'm really bad with macro and figuring out economy. It almost always comes down to a question of my upkeep. I'm really bad with macro.

[KanKrusha]

Try delaying upgrading your catachans. They are a great squad but the leaders add a lot of population

[Torpid]

Problem is without that leader they die in about 2seconds, especially if they have a flamer unit.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

More recent question: what are good ranged counters to Terms as Orks? I was fighting a BroCap and I believe Paladins and they seemed to man handle my Nobs with ease (mostly upgraded save for their Nob leader). I'm trying to think of alternatives as Nobs as they are also are pretty easily countered with suppression and knockback, but I don't really know what the response is with ork. Flash Gitz? I know they have the psychic ranged damage with one of their upgrades but I've never properly used 'em and I'm not sure if that's a proper counter to 'em.

[Torpid]

Weirdboy+tank spam is good against pallies, just negate their teleport with a vomit and then kite with your tank while sluggas hurt the pallies. I wouldn't really go nobs you're just playing into the hands of the GK t3, especially if they get the libby - they will end up wrecking everything in melee.

[Flash]

Without the libby and assuming the bro cap doesn't have the hammer, nobs beat paladins. But lose nobs lose to GK termies. Flashgitz, Commandos, the tank, the bw and any combination of stuns and snares are the right way to go. My experience has been that as gk, orks are usually able to a ton of pressure on gk, especially in t2.

[Torpid]

Yeah, it's true, at least in a 1v1 orks will win the matchup in t2 usually since their shootas at this point massively out-range storms or strikes, not to mention interceptors no longer trololol sluggas, and with the constant deff dreads and all the fantastic wargear on their heroes in t2, they really start to mess up the GK economy.

I'm assuming for that reason that this was a team game Vocaloid, because seriously, it's very hard to get t3 as GK vs orks, the early pressure with their shoota + painboy is too much to handle in 1v1.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

Yeah, it's true, at least in a 1v1 orks will win the matchup in t2 usually since their shootas at this point massively out-range storms or strikes, not to mention interceptors no longer trololol sluggas, and with the constant deff dreads and all the fantastic wargear on their heroes in t2, they really start to mess up the GK economy.

I'm assuming for that reason that this was a team game Vocaloid, because seriously, it's very hard to get t3 as GK vs orks, the early pressure with their shoota + painboy is too much to handle in 1v1.

Yes it was team game of 3v3. I don't believe my lane was against GK, so it was something I had begun to deal with by the later portion of the game.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

IS there a cheap alternative to recording games? I'm trying to find a way to get my games up so people can commentate and tell me where I'm going wrong. My average games for a night are like 90% loses, and I don't know what to do.

General Issue

I don't think I'm screwing up my counters - I know what to generally get (in terms of playing IG). Take for example a game where my enemy rolled out 2 Scout Snipers and 1 force commander - I noticed that it bled me for my gm's, so instead, I opted to push to t2 with 3 gm squads (since I knew that dbl scout snipers + sergeants is a huge power investment) and bought a chimera. It did incredibly well and forced my enemy to buy a Las cannon, power fist on FC and melta bombs on his ASM. Granted he did take it down finally when the lascannon got a good rear hit, but I think for the most part I made him invest a lot of power to take down the chimera, which took out quite a few of his units in unison with cheap plasmagun guardsmen in return. But even so, end game, I just got hit hard. I got double nuked (lost all my gm) by both abyss and orbital - both at the same time, no chance of retreat - and it just went down hill from there.

End game, I got a shit unit score because of that, and I just ended up doing nothing positive even though I had thought I was doing well right up until the end of the game.

Lane Control

In 3v3 games specifically, the game hates me and seems to put my in about 75% of my games as the solo/power lane. Whenever this happens, my team just loses. Period. I can't control points, and I don't know anything about pushing or staying back when needed in these lanes. It's especially bad when I play a game and I'm stuck on a map like one of the 3 gates (leyrus for example - the worst since I can't knock down walls with a senti and am forced into firing lanes by setup teams every time). Even with spotters or a sneaky Inquis with infiltration, I get zero results. I don't play offensively unless I am in the gold, and find myself often losing when I'm playing the defensive back. It's incredibly frustrating.

HWT/Setup Team

How do I use these??? I find myself getting in situations that they're being assaulted as they set up. Can they be used offensively? Because from the repeated mistakes I make with these things, I feel as if it's a result of not having the enemy come to me, into my firing arc. I feel that I'm using these wrong 100% and should only use setup teams defensively, but that seems to be a crutch when your opponent has no reason to push forward if they've already got the upper hand. Is there any tips I can get for HWTs or setup teams in general?

[Lulgrim]

Why aren't you just saving & uploading your replays?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Commissar Vocaloid]

Why aren't you just saving & uploading your replays?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I was given this suggestion on steamchat for the group. I had always assumed people would have preferred it on youtube (quick and easy to access, commentary can be added to give suggestions about what my train of thought was doing something as it happens, etc.) but a good point was made that people have access to view the entire map as it unfolds in a replay, so I will probably start trying it out now.

Also as a general note:

Please note I do read all your suggestions, though I'm bad at responding sometimes as I read 'em over my phone which is... sufficient to say, in need of an upgrade and lags whenever I try to respond to topics. I could always go home and reply on my computer but .. blahblah, excuses! I'm just bad with responding!

But I do highly appreciate all the help you guys have given me over the few months. I do believe that the community is extremely helpful. You sometimes see people complaining about the older community and how "closed" the community is for several reasons (restricted access to games for being new, etc.) but I think that it's been over-exaggerated immensely. Yes, there are times when older players wont a good game, especially because they might be more pressed for time in a week and the few times they are on, are looking for a good challenge, but even I have noticed that they've taken the care to host their games privately as a means of not offending anyone by having to ask them to leave/kick. Nonetheless, I can fully disagree with what is said by the new players (the toxic ones, not all new players fall under this categorization obviously) - the community is extremely helpful and I think threads like this exemplify the helpfulness of the Elite Mods player base.

Thank you again, I am in your care!

(perfect time to use this image :p)

[Asmon]

Recordings are of little help as far as in-depth analysis goes. Replays are required.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

Recordings are of little help as far as in-depth analysis goes. Replays are required.

When you say replays, you mean the replay files when you save a match, correct?

As it stands, I'll be providing those files in the near future as I start making an attempt to play more 1v1s to improve my micro skills.

I had a practice game the night before against Ekul, though he played with a bit of a crutch as he was playing Chaos/PC which isn't an army he mains (he had only done so as I generally have issues against PC in regards to my GMs). Anyway, during the match, dpfarce was observing and able to provide some commentary/recordings of the match, and he was kind enough to post it on youtube (thank you kindly for that dpfarce!), so I will put this up here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06hM72AZjyE

Just as note in advance, I made some really stupid moves with my Inquis, and I'm happy dpfarce pointed the mistakes out. I generally don't make that many mistakes with my commander, but the 1v1 environment made me a bit more anxious and trigger-fingered than usual, doing silly things like investing in an inferno pistol for the extra AV (which wasn't needed considering dbl senti's w/ missiles and AV storms), or using my mandate to speed myself to tie up noise marines with a blastmaster. I suppose that is a good reason why I should play more 1v1s as I'm clearly making bad calls that I wouldn't normally make if it were a 2v2/3v3.

Nonetheless, the commentary provided (and anything else you guys might provide as well) is useful for me, so feel free to bash my terrible 1v1 plays :p!

[Torpid]

Well the first thing you must do in all games, all races, all maps is to capture the power first. You can leave the VPs for pretty damn long as ultimately most games are decided before the VP counter ticks to 0. I often capture the 2 natural reqs and power before I capture my natural VP, especially on calderis.

Secondly the second sentinel choice was meh, it did well in the end, but I would have got catachans myself as they punish the grenade heretics loads with ol reliable (fantastic damage to tics) and IEDs (GL tics means no detection, IEDs wipe gl tics instantly).Also you should get the rosarius in that situation, he had literally no melee units, and GL tics are crap against the inquisitor, so just use the inq to tie up the noise marines, the rosarius would make her so hard for him to kill since he didn't get havocs and it would prevent cacophony from doing anything. rosarius/brazier is a very strong combo in all IG/chaos match-ups since chaos generally struggle vs tanky melee heroes, especially when they don't get havocs.

Come t2 one mistake I noticed was that you purchased plasma guns straight away. Don't do this! You got to t2 first with your power-cheap t1 and two farms, you really should have applied to pressure more, a chimera would be ok and would secure a gen bash, and when followed up by a lascannon HWT+2x missles sents would lead to a very strong defensive composition. That said personally I prefer playing IG very aggressively, and so ogryns would have been a good purchase and I would have got the interrogator's armour on my inquisitor since again he had no detection (infiltrated ogryns, positioned behind a set-up team and charging them in the opposite direction of their retreat path so they have to retreat through speed 8,5 ogryns results in a guaranteed wipe), and it would then make my inquisitor more durable by giving her more energy for her rosarius. Ogryns would tank the damage from the TCSM so you're sents didn't have to worry so much and your guardsmen with plasma guns (which I would get after the chim/ogryns) can kill the marines, while the ogryns/sents kill the dreadnought. Inquisitor would tie up blastmaster and his composition would be thoroughly countered.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

Well the first thing you must do in all games, all races, all maps is to capture the power first. You can leave the VPs for pretty damn long as ultimately most games are decided before the VP counter ticks to 0. I often capture the 2 natural reqs and power before I capture my natural VP, especially on calderis.

Secondly the second sentinel choice was meh, it did well in the end, but I would have got catachans myself as they punish the grenade heretics loads with ol reliable (fantastic damage to tics) and IEDs (GL tics means no detection, IEDs wipe gl tics instantly).Also you should get the rosarius in that situation, he had literally no melee units, and GL tics are crap against the inquisitor, so just use the inq to tie up the noise marines, the rosarius would make her so hard for him to kill since he didn't get havocs and it would prevent cacophony from doing anything. rosarius/brazier is a very strong combo in all IG/chaos match-ups since chaos generally struggle vs tanky melee heroes, especially when they don't get havocs.

Come t2 one mistake I noticed was that you purchased plasma guns straight away. Don't do this! You got to t2 first with your power-cheap t1 and two farms, you really should have applied to pressure more, a chimera would be ok and would secure a gen bash, and when followed up by a lascannon HWT+2x missles sents would lead to a very strong defensive composition. That said personally I prefer playing IG very aggressively, and so ogryns would have been a good purchase and I would have got the interrogator's armour on my inquisitor since again he had no detection (infiltrated ogryns, positioned behind a set-up team and charging them in the opposite direction of their retreat path so they have to retreat through speed 8,5 ogryns results in a guaranteed wipe), and it would then make my inquisitor more durable by giving her more energy for her rosarius. Ogryns would tank the damage from the TCSM so you're sents didn't have to worry so much and your guardsmen with plasma guns (which I would get after the chim/ogryns) can kill the marines, while the ogryns/sents kill the dreadnought. Inquisitor would tie up blastmaster and his composition would be thoroughly countered.

I should have probably watched some 1v1s to get that notion of capping power first. What's funny is that I don't do this in 2v2's and 3v3's, but for some reason, I did the exact opposite this match. And I should have rushed power first as well, not the req point.

I hadn't noticed the plasma guns being bought so early, and you are right on perhaps getting something out that was well worth my money for early pressure, considering that it's what... 40 power for 2 squads with plasma guns? I'm alright with getting a chimera but an issue I have with this is knowing just how much harassment and genbashing I should be doing before it's "acceptable" to lose a Chimera. What I mean by that is that it's a pretty hefty investment straight up, and though it provides easy reinforcement and decent enough fire power to infantry as well as moibilty, it is also very easily countered. As such, I'm often pressed to get one as I'm not sure when the trade off can be made for a Chimera (as in, it pays for itself).

I'm very hesitant to use Catachans and Ogyrn lately (especially with the latter, as they can easily bleed the crap out of you and they're expensive to reinforce). But you're right, had I opted to get one or the other, I would have definitely gotten the infiltrate ability for the Inquis as this is a common practice for me whenever I do get these squads out on the field. Though, if I had to choose between getting one or the other, without a doubt, I'd get the ogryns out before I'd lay out some cata's, as the catas are easily susceptible to aoe (which is something I'm confused about when it's considered that catas are great counters to GL Tics. I mean, granted they will destroy them in melee, but they've got quit a bit of distance to travel and the GL tics also have that barrage ability to slow the catas down - and once it's obvious you're trying to get your catas in, they get focused down hard very easily.

[Vapor]

Once your opponent fields enough AV you have to be really careful with your chimera, the reinforce aura is large enough that you can keep it in the back a bit. Also since you're IG you can retreat your ranged blob then execute when they get to the chimera if necessary.

I'm down to play a few 1v1s anytime, not a whole lot of 1v1 players around when I'm online.

[Torpid]

Yeah you're right about catachans not exactly being a hard counter to GL tics alone, in fact one could even argue GL tics soft counter them.

That said, I think if you look at things a bit wider on a grander basis, the inquisitor with her rosarius/brazier is going to be absorbing the majority of the focus fire for you and she can tie up the noise marines (who otherwise kill catachans in seconds) while that's happening your catachans can advance, you should try and get him to blob his GL tics together by showing him your jackie-chans then pulling them back in a certain direction so they blob, at that point ol reliable them as it does fantastic damage to non-ac tics and you can then follow it up with a stomp since the enemy ranged units will be too busy focus firing the JCs to stop the sent, that will effectively force off the gl tics when followed up by sentinel/JC fire.
In the meantime the guardsmen should focus fire the hero as they do the most damage to him (and GL tics would likely be too far back for it to be worth attacking them), then JCs explosive shot the csm and force melee, shouldn't be too mad. It gets much worse if he gets havocs on top of that build, or havocs instead of the noise marines, in which case you DON'T want catachans and you want spotters instead.

Regarding ogryns, it is a common fear to not want ogryns due to bleed, but they only really bleed when your foe already has all the counters to them - suppression, grenades, splash-damage walkers, artillery, anti SHI melee/ranged. Now if he only has one or two of these things you'll be fine, it's only when he gets multiple that ogryns suck. Chaos are notoriously bad against ogryns because their walker doesn't do splash damage and their only scary melee is KCSM and their only scary ranged is TCSM (which happen to be mutually exclusive).

Furthermore ogryns tend to bleed horribly in teams (especially 3v3) because you are just charging a straight-up melee unit with no utility into armies, and your foe will be ready for it. In 1v1 you have far more options. You can flank with your ogryns, or you can send them off to bash gens as they can deal with most units solo and so while the foe fights your oggies you cap the map and create your own defence mid, or you can flank with spotters or your hero to initiate the engagement so that they won't focus fire your ogryns so hard. This is one reason why ogryns alongside the inquisitor with her servo-skull and spotters are very hard to deal with. The main ogryn counters get took out instantly via mortar shells (or even a manticore) from the fog of war and next thing you know infiltrated ogryns are on your ass wiping that suppression team that was shot out of cover by the spotters ( shoot the shell just behind a squad to knock them all forward). Double ogryns is more than viable vs SM/chaos as the Inq.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

Yeah you're right about catachans not exactly being a hard counter to GL tics alone, in fact one could even argue GL tics soft counter them.

That said, I think if you look at things a bit wider on a grander basis, the inquisitor with her rosarius/brazier is going to be absorbing the majority of the focus fire for you and she can tie up the noise marines (who otherwise kill catachans in seconds) while that's happening your catachans can advance, you should try and get him to blob his GL tics together by showing him your jackie-chans then pulling them back in a certain direction so they blob, at that point ol reliable them as it does fantastic damage to non-ac tics and you can then follow it up with a stomp since the enemy ranged units will be too busy focus firing the JCs to stop the sent, that will effectively force off the gl tics when followed up by sentinel/JC fire.
In the meantime the guardsmen should focus fire the hero as they do the most damage to him (and GL tics would likely be too far back for it to be worth attacking them), then JCs explosive shot the csm and force melee, shouldn't be too mad. It gets much worse if he gets havocs on top of that build, or havocs instead of the noise marines, in which case you DON'T want catachans and you want spotters instead.

Regarding ogryns, it is a common fear to not want ogryns due to bleed, but they only really bleed when your foe already has all the counters to them - suppression, grenades, splash-damage walkers, artillery, anti SHI melee/ranged. Now if he only has one or two of these things you'll be fine, it's only when he gets multiple that ogryns suck. Chaos are notoriously bad against ogryns because their walker doesn't do splash damage and their only scary melee is KCSM and their only scary ranged is TCSM (which happen to be mutually exclusive).

Furthermore ogryns tend to bleed horribly in teams (especially 3v3) because you are just charging a straight-up melee unit with no utility into armies, and your foe will be ready for it. In 1v1 you have far more options. You can flank with your ogryns, or you can send them off to bash gens as they can deal with most units solo and so while the foe fights your oggies you cap the map and create your own defence mid, or you can flank with spotters or your hero to initiate the engagement so that they won't focus fire your ogryns so hard. This is one reason why ogryns alongside the inquisitor with her servo-skull and spotters are very hard to deal with. The main ogryn counters get took out instantly via mortar shells (or even a manticore) from the fog of war and next thing you know infiltrated ogryns are on your ass wiping that suppression team that was shot out of cover by the spotters ( shoot the shell just behind a squad to knock them all forward). Double ogryns is more than viable vs SM/chaos as the Inq.

Trying out these catas in 1v1, it's terrible. Honestly the power investment put me behind so far in tech, I don't want to be using them in a 1v1 at all. On top of which they're so easy to focus they just end up bleeding me on maps like the 1v1 version of refinery. Ugh.

[Torpid]

Yeah, 60 power for a unit that dies quicker than guardsmen. Well, their main uses come from ol reliable and IEDs, against an eldar who doesn't get rangers you can pull off some nasty tricks, however any competant eldar would get rangers seeing the jackie-chans and then they don't do much considering they can be insta wiped by kinetic pulse -> grenade easily, or killed in retreat by a single grenade.

Catachans are not necessary in 1v1 at all, they just work on some maps where it's easy to get IED wipes and melee kills on retreat, or you need some anti-garrison. Catachans don't bring any new hard counters to the table, so in theory you never actually need to build them, just like I said, sometimes they can be very powerful at wiping squads in t1, which IG otherwise can't really do. *shrugs*

And people want catachans to bleed power every few seconds. Well to justify that they would have to cost so little it would be silly.

[Commissar Vocaloid]

I've been slow on the updates, but heres that promised thread for replay updates:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=445

Any and all advice welcomed, especially because I was playing 2 races I don't generally play (Chaos and Orks).