Dawn of War Codex

Hello everyone! After a good year of taking a break from DoWII I rediscovered goodness that is Elite mod.

I had a question regarding ork T1 - is painboy worth his cost, when do you get him, when do you use heal(is it a good idea to use heal preemptively?) and how do you position during engagements?

The painboy is a tricky unit to fit into your compositions for one reason really. He doesn't help you deal with suppression. Which tends to be the bane of orks T1s.

The painboy's primary role is to support ork melee in T1 with his heal over time and contributory melee damage. A heal on storms is pretty wicked to deal with in T1 and then come T2 with his abilities and the ork boy squads getting their nobs really no melee can face them and expect to win - even genestealers.

So. Firstly, he is amazing in ork mirrors and vs nids. This is because nids themselves don't get proper suppression, in fact the counter the a BSWB IS more melee. 2x slugga, storms and a painboy will run absolutely rampant over the nid t1, especially next patch with the ravener nerfs.

Any foe that decides it is a good idea to spam melee vs you, well, get a painboy and you should win any melee fights you engage in.

Otherwise, if they are going the more typical game of poke away at the orks with ranged fire and suppress their shoota blobs you need to have other plans in mind if you want to use the painboy.

One option is to use the painboy+sluggas to control one portion of the map and threaten a gen-bash. Presumably your foe will then re-locate their suppression to deal with that threat but that means you other army - for example a nice shoota blob and a loota can now dominate the other part of the map now the suppression is gone. Alternatively you could lure their suppression in with the painboy+slugga combo, then you move to intercept them with your hero+stormboyz getting behind them and then move in with the PB+slugga. Basically, unless they have suppression painboy healed orks are very hard to kill in T1. Any melee the PB/sluggas encounter has no chance and ranged squads can't even bleed your sluggas due to the heal over time.

That's the niche of the painboy. But yeah, to make best use of him try him vs nids/orks. He fucks up those MUs hard.

ComboBreaker wrote:is painboy worth his cost,

If you use him well he is 350 req is a sizeable investment in T1, but as a subcommander he doesn't bleed at all, and he can help control your bleed a lot with his heals and support.

ComboBreaker wrote:when do you get him,

Like Torpid mentioned, he is great in the Ork and Nid matchups. In general, he excels at supporting melee units such as sluggas and stormboyz, since they have very high damage but relatively low health, he can allow them to stay in combat and provide damage output for much longer than normal, and win melee fights they would normally lose. He can also be used less aggressively to heal shoota boyz or lootas that are in cover and taking damage, preventing bleed and allowing you to win ranged firefights. he has some usage as counterinitiation against jump squads as well, you will be able to punish ASM or raptors fairly easily if you get lootas and protect them with sluggas/painboy.

in general I get him in several situations:
need more counterinitiation - I get lootas or heavy upgrades on shootas, and leave painboy and sluggas on the backlines as counterinitiation, using my ranged fire as the primary damage dealer. this can be good vs eldar or space marines, since they can heavily punish your melee pushes, but may not be as good at dislodging your ranged units. sluggas with painboy support can go toe-to-toe with ASM or banshees, which is a big deal in T1.

supporting melee compositions - with either double sluggas or sluggas+storms, getting a heal on those units while they are stuck in melee combat can be an engagement winner and allow you to get squad wipes. Torpid elaborated a lot more on this, but you can win most melee fights in T1 when you get a good heal off.

ComboBreaker wrote: when do you use heal(is it a good idea to use heal preemptively?)

His default heal gives back 30 health per model immediately, and then 15 hp/s for 8 seconds (heals 30 initially, and 120 over time, so 150 total). the up front heal is much less than the heal over time, which makes a big difference in how you use it compared to Apo/PC heals. Sluggas have 100 health per model (120 with burnas) and Stormboyz have 180 health per model. Optimally, you will use this heal on those squads when they are at 70% health(sluggas) or 84% health (stormboyz), but it is much more important to use it before you drop any models than if you get the maximum initial heal. so if you suspect that one model has been taking the bulk of the incoming damage, don't be afraid to use it early on.

I generally try to use it on sluggas while they are running in on a suppressed squad (from shoota boy/loota suppression) and have taken a bit of damage but have not lost a model. I tend to use it a bit later on stormboyz since they take less approaching damage when they jump in.

One big thing to keep in mind is damage distribution.

when units are in melee, damage tends to be distributed a lot more equally from the enemy squads since most models are engaged and dealing/taking damage. This means you can use the heal when your squads are at lower health, so that you get the most out of the heal over time. this can also bait your opponent into trying to commit to a squad wipe before you restore a bunch of HP and punish the overcommitment.

when units are being fired on from range (EG sluggas running up to get stuck in), damage tends to be more localized to the leading models. in these cases you will want to pop the heal earlier to prevent model losses. this is a lot more important than trying to optimize the heal over time.
However when healing shootas or lootas that are in green cover, ranged damage is distributed more equally since they tend to not have lead models (shootas more so than lootas). you can be a bit more ballsy when healing your squads in those situations.

ComboBreaker wrote:how do you position during engagements?

you dont want to blob too hard, but you want him near whichever squad you want him to be healing. i generally then split him off after popping the heal to tie up another ranged squad to lessen the enemy's damage output. he doesnt provide that much additional damage himself and its rare that you can heal twice in a single engagement, so he's better utilized in that role rather than as an extra slugga model.


One other thing to consider is that he gets exponentially more powerful in T2. He gets a much better heal with his first upgrade (50 initial health plus 30 hp/s for 8 seconds - 50 + 240 over time - 290 total), along with increased energy regen (can use heal more often) and durability (+100 health). However the bigger deal is definitely the Unstable Fuel injection ability. this is very similar to the Rokkitboyz ability that Stormboyz have (slightly more damage, less knockback radius), but it does not affect friendly units, making it absolutely bonkers to use in a melee fight (since you get so many free melee hits while the enemy models have been knocked down). Your sluggas will be able to win just about any fight you can think of when you use this as well as a heal, and it gets even more powerful when you combine with trukk support. It has a fairly low cooldown too so dont be shy about using it

Thanks for the replies!

Crewfinity wrote:One other thing to consider is that he gets exponentially more powerful in T2. He gets a much better heal...

Does it ever make sense to wait until T2 to get him and upgrade him right away or have you missed some kind of ideal timing window by not getting him in T1.

Also, in T1, would you he be the first T1.5 purchase or after lootas/stormz? I guess he could be the first if you are just going to use him on sluggas.

Thanks Torpid and Crewfinity for the great posts.

Tinibombini wrote:

Crewfinity wrote:One other thing to consider is that he gets exponentially more powerful in T2. He gets a much better heal...

Does it ever make sense to wait until T2 to get him and upgrade him right away or have you missed some kind of ideal timing window by not getting him in T1.

Also, in T1, would you he be the first T1.5 purchase or after lootas/stormz? I guess he could be the first if you are just going to use him on sluggas.

Thanks Torpid and Crewfinity for the great posts.

If you go with the painboy plan you need him in t1 to help you win and in T2 you have much more efficient stuff to buy as first purchases, a quick DD or trukk loaded with troops is a sure bash, no point going for him then, however he is a good purchase in late T3 if you intend to go mass nobs and your opponent is overloaded with AV to deal with your T2/T3 vehicles.

I think the painboy is a reactionary purchase. I find that i get him normally when i need my melee to stay in the engagement long and the pain boy does just that. But I don't think he is really apart of a normal t1 build. He might be purchase more in conjunction with stormboyz but that also means you probably didnt have upgraded shootas and you opted for a wargear and burnas on sluggas.

The only time i usually know imma get the painboy is when i'm mekboy. Pu the heal over time onn storms then immediately jump them in and have battery pack close behind.

The thing i like about the painboy is that he can be a safeish purchase in t2. You don't know what your enemy has in store for you so you get a pain boy. Since Ork AV does not require power you have a bit of room. Not to mention the incoming weirdboy. A slugga, 2 shoots, storms, painboy, tankbusters and a weird boy seems quite well rounded. If you throw in a wartruck i think it would be that much harder to deal with. Since the pain boy would negate bleed for a time and when you do drop a model the wartruck just reinforces the model los.

Tinibombini wrote:Does it ever make sense to wait until T2 to get him and upgrade him right away or have you missed some kind of ideal timing window by not getting him in T1.

Also, in T1, would you he be the first T1.5 purchase or after lootas/stormz? I guess he could be the first if you are just going to use him on sluggas.

Thanks Torpid and Crewfinity for the great posts.

I think you would usually prefer to get him in T1 for a couple of reasons. He helps prevent a lot of bleed in T1 which strengthens your economy a lot. He also is mostly a melee support unit, and you generally have other, higher impact supporting options that you would get in T2 (Trukk and Weirdboy). However, if you are seeing a lot of massive melee brawls in T2 he would not be a bad choice.

As far as when to purchase him in T1, I would say that depends a lot on what you and your opponent build. If I decide that I want a painboy, I usually get him as my first power purchase so that he can hit the field as early as possible and prevent bleed. If you were to get lootas or stormboyz first, they could lose models and set you back from having to spend power on them for reinforcement. However I also often purchase him in later T1 as a reactionary purchase to jump units or if I'm feeling overwhelmed by melee (or if I just have the extra resources and feel like getting him). He's actually quite good as a general purchase since he will make his cost back fairly quickly by preventing reinforcement costs, which can be quite high in T1. He can allow your units to do more without requiring upgrades, which can help your timing to get to T2 faster and rush out a vehicle. It's also quite important to not feed a lot of experience to armies like SM, which he is very good at assisting with.

With all of that being said, he does not help at all at dealing with suppression in T1. Like Torpid mentioned, that is often one of the biggest hurdles you will be facing. if you decide to get him first you need to be aware that you will not have an early counter to setup teams, and counter play appropriately by spreading out more, avoiding blobbing up for engagements, and generally being more aware of your positioning to account for that weakness.