Dawn of War Codex

So title says it all. My friend and I are relatively new to the mod however from what we've seen chaos is insanely good in the first engagement, whichever commander they take.

Now, by first engagement I mean the typical first fight where the chaos player has a marine squad, his commander and heretics.
The plague champion is by far the worst offender, by default whoever you are it is likely they can out shoot you when they take this commander, ESPECIALLY if they use the heretic heal worship. Now the only way to turn these engagements around is to stop the heretics from healing, however this is extremely difficult especially with ranged restricted armies like Guard. Anyway I'm speaking generally, you WILL be out shot if they have the heretics healing, if you move into melee you have to do it with your whole force, otherwise the unit pushing is gets focused down. Even then, the heretics simply stop worshipping and join the combat and you lose the engagement...

It's just as hard to deal with the lord as if you attempt to out shoot the enemy you'll get the lord and heretics in combat with you for sure, probably followed by the marines. Trying win this engagement with melee is just a waste of time as all the chaos units are good here.

The sorcerer is probably the easiest to deal with but still has the same fundamental issues.

In short, how the fuck are you supposed to win this first engagement??? In the case of the plague champ they'll just out shoot you and if you try to melee you still lose because of the amazing heretic utility. In the case of the chaos melee commanders you just get fucked up in melee as there simply isn't any way to stop multiple units getting into close combat with you that early in the game.

With what faction?
Generally you want to focus fire heretics first, then deal with the hero/csm

Depends on faction you play. My favourite is IG so, senti and GM focus fire on heretics, hero on csm then there is few options - give commi power sword (20 energy) to deal with HI or give senti stomp (15 energy) to stun enemy units or, if you can deal just with 2xgm+sent+hero, and i usually can, just save energy for fast machine gun for example.

In guessing you mean in 2v2 or 3v3?

In that case when I'm playing vs plague as IG I don't even bother fighting him in the first engagement unless they go aggressive most of the time you won't beat a defensive plague champ in green cover with heretic heals sent won't be able to pick off models cause of the heal and the damage over time bolter just bleeds guardsman, I tend to just go for a double on my ally side until I get my t1.5 unit out or some upgrades the plague champ is slow and will take a while to get there if they follow you also he's a lot easier to deal with when he's not turtled up in green cover and heretic worship I do similar thing against Grey Knights due to them being slow and annoying in t1

Kill Heretics with focus fire, try to wipe them out if you can, this will change the score to a 2 - 0. In case of Chaos Lord, take out CSM first and ignore him. When CSM is forced off too, spread your squads. He can't attack all your squads. EG : If he attacks one of your Shootaz, kite them and shoot him with the other Shoota. Also, ignore melee since there is a possibility of Kill the Weak. Plague Champion can't do anything but assasinate low hp heroes. Cut off worship and move on. Sorcerer is annoying. You can shoot down Sorcerer before CSM. But Heretics must be primary.

I take it you mean 1v1.

IG are no means a factions tuck for ranged options, so I'm not sure why you said that. Concerning the first engagement I can understand since GM damage out of the gate is low and Sentinels will do their damage over an extended period of time. You need to look to the Sentinels and hero in this first fight, positioning is important as the Sentinel must absorb damage and be repaired by the GM simultaneously. This is how you tank. If he's clever he'll shoot your GM to stop you repairing, which is sort of good because your hero can approach uncontested.

The hero should tie up CSM whilst your army shoots the heretics. Default heretics can't do much in melee with the heroes except the Lord General, and even then the focus fire on the Heretics should mean they get forced off early. Keep the CSM in melee with your hero and try to ignore the Plague Champion. If he's playing the Chaos Lord then this is a little harder, so use the Sentinel to kite the Chaos Lord as it has greater speed and can fire when walking backwards. Your micro will be stretched, it happens. If you face the Sorceror he's weak but beware worship, his CSM may try early melee on your GM and there could be a second squad of tics, this all not forgetting the doombolts. Again, force off the Heretics, tie up the CSM with your hero and the composition crumbles as your Sentinel kites.

If you don't believe you can win the first engagement, back off, don't fight what you cannot win. Cap around him, hurt his economy, shoot up gens, even if you don't get a generator dedicating a Sentinel to hitting gens will draw him away forcing himself to fight you on his terms. Be wary of an early bilespewer when making this move though, as he can hurt your gens more.

Heretics are the only vanilla squad in the game that start off with 2 powerful abilities. This could have something to do with why you are losing initial encounters.