Dawn of War Codex

Hi all,

I was watching Indrid's latest casts, and a question occurred to me: When do I want Catachans over Spotters? I feel like the Spotter's various upgrades would allow it to transition better into late game, but to be 100% honest, I've also actually never had a game where my spotters survived into late game. I generally get them because they are a bit cheaper than Catachans and the idea of calling in artillery is very similar to gameplay in CoH2, which I am familiar with(and thus more comfortable doing).

Thanks in advance.

Catachans = Anti-melee unit, extremely powerful if the foe lacks detection, anti-garrison, soft suppression counter, very strong solo unit (meaning it beats most other units/heroes 1v1, which makes it very good for map control), has AV functionality in T2. Very good at wading off flanking enemies, and controlling the enemy's army.

Spotters = Hard suppression counter, very strong anti-blob potential, less prone to bleed as catachans and lower upkeep courtesy of having upgrades rather than leaders, only gains anti-garrison in T2 (I assume incendiary functions as anti-garrison although right now I'm not even sure). Very good at countering sustained defensive compositions/positions, not very good at dealing with anything fast moving, melee squads or jump squads.

Don't forget - You're allowed to get both if you want to! Don't allow convention to restrict you. Sometimes you want both.

Torpid pretty much said it. Catachans are best for counter initiating melee fights in ig t1. I prefer spotters most of the time. The smoke shell is just too powerful to not love. Remember it works on turrets and vehicles, too.

Osinski wrote:Torpid pretty much said it. Catachans are best for counter initiating melee fights in ig t1. I prefer spotters most of the time. The smoke shell is just too powerful to not love. Remember it works on turrets and vehicles, too.

Yeah, spotters are excellent. The reason I started this thread was because I really prefer spotter gameplay compared to catachans. The idea of calling down artillery just makes sense to me, and I've gotten pretty proficient at leading the mortar strikes.

Plus the smoke basically means I can forgo getting a sniper rifle on my LG which means I can go for the much better(IMO) GL and Melta buffs.

Thanks for all the tips guys!

That Torpid Gamer wrote:Catachans = Anti-melee unit, extremely powerful if the foe lacks detection, anti-garrison, soft suppression counter, very strong solo unit (meaning it beats most other units/heroes 1v1, which makes it very good for map control), has AV functionality in T2. Very good at wading off flanking enemies, and controlling the enemy's army.

Spotters = Hard suppression counter, very strong anti-blob potential, less prone to bleed as catachans and lower upkeep courtesy of having upgrades rather than leaders, only gains anti-garrison in T2 (I assume incendiary functions as anti-garrison although right now I'm not even sure). Very good at countering sustained defensive compositions/positions, not very good at dealing with anything fast moving, melee squads or jump squads.

Don't forget - You're allowed to get both if you want to! Don't allow convention to restrict you. Sometimes you want both.

Essentially this.

Spotters are not as good as they used to be vs garrisons in my opinion because the incendiary is relatively weaker for AoE. Arguably, depending on the garrisoned unit, I would even say that Catachans are better in that their damage is immediate and they can knock a few models off high model squads/low hp squads like GL tics, GMs or even Dires hiding out in a garrison (or at least knock out a large chunk of hp).

Honestly though, I prefer spotters myself but there's no reason why you couldn't go both. I actually prefer going heavy T1 for example if I play say the Inquisitor, going sentinel > gm > spotter > catachan. This depends of course on the MU and the enemy composition (you have to judge whether going for the cata's will serve you well or saving the power for T2). The amount of disruption however from cata + spotters is ridiculous, and you can completely overpower enemy defensive positions.

As for late game, I find the spotters to be much better than Catachans, as cata's suffer against more dedicated melee squads in the late game unless they have the proper support (i.e buffs from Commissar). Spotters are just safe, and always give that added benefit of support and as it has been said, they don't bleed anywhere near as much as Catachans may.

i think catachans do good even against nobs, but ofc, sluggas are actually deadlier than nobs except against vehicles

Against double hormagaunts or double shees or seer council is really not advice to try and melee with catachans

i would get devils as they have so many roles and can counter tons of stuff plus the buffs from lord general and commi are great on them but topid rounded it up nicely