Dawn of War Codex

Dear Forum,

There has been a recent series of posts that follow a consistent complaint format, "Unit X, by losing Y function, are useless!" and are frequently followed by requests to return the unit to their previous state.

Example 1, "Banshees, by losing their retreat kill potential, are useless!"

Example 2, "Noise Marines, by losing their instant ranged lockdown, are useless!"

I suggest, that these views are too narrow in scope. What you might find more helpful, is asking for help in utilizing these units in light of the new changes.

Example 1. "I am struggling to find a place for banshees now that they don't have their retreat killing potential."

Example 2. "I am struggling to utilize Noise Marines since they no longer instantly lock down ranged units."

And I believe you will find helpful responses from the community on ways to engage your units to their fullest potential.

Example 1. While Banshees no longer are as proficient at retreat killing, consider what they do provide to the eldar army. They make for amazing counter-initiation units, especially against jump troops. By denying jump troops an effective role, you allow your Dire Avengers to pour on the damage, and you have forced your opponent into an economic loss. ASM are 450/50, Banshees are 350. 100/50 is a significant chunk of t1 investment. Against IG, banshees effectively counter Ogryns, which is the standard purchase to deal with your Wraithguard, and your Wraithguard counters every other IG infantry squad. While you will bleed Banshees fighting these squads, you will win fight, and you will have bled your opponent models that cost power to reinforce.

Example 2. While Noise Marines do not instantly shut down ranged damage, they still provide a powerful flame weapon, which is effective at damaging light infantry, and destroying buildings, including turrets, beacons, banners and generators. In addition, they provide on demand control, with their Cacophony ability. The Chaos Lord and the Plague Champion (with his armor upgrade) are immune to Cacophony's knockback. They are ideal for reaping havoc among the enemies army while disabled. This has become especially true now that Genestealers have become more common in the Tyranid line-up. Cacophony to knock units back and land either a Blight Grenade or Immolate (because you are still mobile) and suddenly that's an engagement won for you. Or perhaps you'd like to give your Lightning Claw Terminators a little more time to hug it out with Nobz.

In the end, I sincerely hope that attempting to tackle the issue in this way will help you find new and inventive ways to play this fine game we enjoy. And maybe, will help open your eyes to the hidden capacity of some of your favorite units.

The problem is that those people are not looking for advice. They already think they know it all, when they actually have bad or just plain wrong information, and think what they say is the one and only correct way. While the complete opposite is true. Good thing they are not the majority of this community, sad thing is that those people actually post a ton on the forum :/

Very good post though, and very good points made.

The thing I was afraid is coming true. A civil war at the forum... Beacuse of a video game made of pixels and functions.

Also, I have a solution for Noise marines. Do they have a 1,5 second delay to siliance ranged weapons? Then you better wait 1,5 seconds for that. I mean how hard can it be?

Nice way to say l2p.

Lichtbringer wrote:Nice way to say l2p.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I am saying Learn To Play, I wasn't intending to. My hope was that folks could start to see the full compliment of a units capacity and function, and then be able to utilize that full set of tools to play.

This is true of very new players, who might not realize that units can force melee in order to win fights, such as sending in Tacs or CSM into melee with guardsmen. But this is also true of players with a great deal of experience in the game.

For example, I remember watching a replay where HansMoleman used Dire Avengers in melee combat against Tactical Marines to great effect, because he knew that the Exarch has a leap attack that does knockback. It wasn't much disruption, and it wasn't for long, but it was long enough disruption for him to bring around his banshees around and kill 3 models including the Sergent. (https://youtu.be/EgcxqIQ26sc?t=18m) That type of detailed unit information seems beyond 'L2P', but its still part of the toolkit you get with the purchase of the Exarch. The trouble is, you need to know you have it in order to use it.

If I misunderstood you, and this is all part of what you consider L2P, then I apologize in advance for the confusion.

Ordie wrote:

Lichtbringer wrote:Nice way to say l2p.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I am saying Learn To Play, I wasn't intending to. My hope was that folks could start to see the full compliment of a units capacity and function, and then be able to utilize that full set of tools to play.

This is true of very new players, who might not realize that units can force melee in order to win fights, such as sending in Tacs or CSM into melee with guardsmen. But this is also true of players with a great deal of experience in the game.

For example, I remember watching a replay where HansMoleman used Dire Avengers in melee combat against Tactical Marines to great effect, because he knew that the Exarch has a leap attack that does knockback. It wasn't much disruption, and it wasn't for long, but it was long enough disruption for him to bring around his banshees around and kill 3 models including the Sergent. (https://youtu.be/EgcxqIQ26sc?t=18m) That type of detailed unit information seems beyond 'L2P', but its still part of the toolkit you get with the purchase of the Exarch. The trouble is, you need to know you have it in order to use it.

If I misunderstood you, and this is all part of what you consider L2P, then I apologize in advance for the confusion.

Haha, no worries^^ I am not really serious. I mostly agree with you,
But in the end what you are saying boils down to a nice and sensible way of saying l2p.

I agree that it's probably better for your own happiness to try and get better instead of talking about balance.^^

Oh, and sorry for the rude oneliner. In my head it was funnier